Page 49 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

“I had to buy my own generator, though. To make them work.”

“Cry me a river, sniveler.” Mayah mockingly rubbed her fists against her eyes and sniffled.

Emon turned to Tristan, bottle cap between his fingers, a questioning look on his face. “Challenge?”

“Name it, sucker.” Tristan took a beer and opened it by grabbing the bottle top between his molars and twisting.

Emon raised his bottle cap and aimed at the door. “Doorknob.”

Tristan snorted. “I’m sure you meant ‘doorknob from a ricochet off the ceiling’, and not a straight doorknob shot a five-year-old could make.”

Emon smirked. “Whatever, Loser Wolf.”

Tristan put his bottle cap between his fingers, shaking his head. “One, two, three!” They both snapped their fingers, shooting the bottle caps across the room, bouncing them off the stone ceiling and down towards the door. One of them skimmed the side of the doorknob, and the other hit the base where it was screwed into the door.

“Tie,” Tristan said.

“In your dreams, Loser Wolf. I hit the knob part, I win.”

“Fuck you, Draken Prince.” They leaned across and bumped fists.

Male bonding at its finest.

“Not so fast,” Trish said. She grabbed a bottle and held it out. “Open.” Emon, after a hard green glance her way, used his ring to open it.

Trish aimed carefully, then snapped her fingers and let the bottle top fly. It did a double ricochet, bouncing off the wall, off the ceiling, and then down to hit the doorknob with a satisfying plink.

“Woohoo!” She punched the air.

Emon’s hands went up like a ref signaling a touchdown. “She shoots! She scores!” He bumped fists with Trish. “I can see you have many talents, Nightmare Wolf.”

“I have talents you can only dream of,” she informed him. She heard him suck in his breath. Yeah.

He wrapped his arm around her and snuggled her close, and they settled in to watch the movie.

Chapter 24

Trish tried to pay attention to the movie, but halfway through her wolf started to get restless. Don’t do this now, she begged. Didn’t you cause enough trouble last night?

Free, She-Wolf muttered. Night. Kill.

Emon glanced at her, then reached over and took her hand. She-Wolf quieted, but she wasn’t happy about it.

Anxiety crept into Trish’s stomach. If She-Wolf stopped listening to Emon, or even worse, started to resent him, this would never work.

Finally, the movie was over. Emon immediately got to his feet. “Come on, Nightmare Wolf,” he said, putting the popcorn bowl aside. “We’re going for a walk.”

He turned to his sister. “And Mayah’s going back to her room to get some sleep.”

“Since when are you in charge of me?”

“I’m the Crown Prince—and you’re not. And you’re tired. Very, very tired. Plus, you need alone time. Extremely alone. No wolves.”

Trish thought it was cute the way he was trying to keep Mayah away from Tristan. Though she had the feeling that was a losing battle.

Mayah got off the couch, though. “Bully. I’m doing it because I want to, not because you tell me to.” She stuck her tongue out at her brother.

As she passed Tristan, though, she put her hand on his shoulder. He got a strange look on his face, and then a pair of boxer briefs appeared in Mayah’s hand. “There, tough guy,” she said, tossing them in Tristan’s lap. “Commando. Careful of chafing.”