“Good girl,” Declan murmured when she got close. The words surprised her so much that she seemed to trip over nothing at all, and she landed right in his lap. The dragon let out a tiny growl as he looked at her.
Oh yeah.
He liked her.
A lot.
Chapter 5
He knew that he should lift her up and move her. She had been planning to sit beside him, after all, but that wasn’t what Declan wanted. What he did want was for the human to stay right where she was, nestled properly on his lap. He liked this a lot. Oh, he liked it much more than he should have. He loved having her here with him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Should I move?”
It was a question. She didn’t want to move. She was asking him whether or not she should leave because she wanted permission to stay.
How interesting.
Wasn’t that just the littlest bit wonderful? They’d only been together for a few hours, and already the little human was quite charming. Already, she was the kind of person who could make Declan feel warm and fuzzy inside.
“No,” Declan said, stroking her cheek. “You shouldn’t move.” He grabbed her and tugged her closer to him. Her shoulder was pressed against his chest, and his arms were wrapped around her protectively. His brothers wouldn’t do anything to harm her, but she didn’t know that yet. She didn’t know anything about any of them except that Declan had stolen her away.
He’d kidnapped her from the kidnapper.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Perhaps he should have thought twice about stealing her away. What if he had been wrong? What if he hadn’t been rescuing her, but actually kidnapping her again? That would have been horrible. He knew, logically, that wasn’t really what had happened. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if he was, on some level, a sort of villain in her eyes.
“Well then,” Christopher chuckled and strode across the room. He sat down on the opposite couch and crossed one leg over the other. Then he leaned back and looked at Declan and Zoa. “This just got interesting.”
“I think she likes you,” Brian agreed, walking over. He sat beside Christopher and looked at Declan and Zoa. Brian eyed them both carefully, looking them over. He was the one in charge of their company. Oh, they all shared the organization, but it wasn’t a secret that Brian was the big man who took control. When there was a problem, he was the one who handled it. When the company had dramatic things to deal with, Brian was the one who softened everything. That was just his nature.
He was guarded.
Now, he looked over Declan and Zoa. Declan knew what his brother was doing. He was trying to figure them out. He was trying to decide whether this was a pairing that would work, and perhaps most importantly, he was trying to decide if Zoa was good enough for Declan. Oh, she was. She was definitely good enough.
“Be polite.” Declan’s voice came out like a growl, but he didn’t mean for it to. He just didn’t want his goofball brothers to scare her. They were professionals, yeah, but they were still a little rough around the edges. He didn’t want his brothers to make Zoa feel uncomfortable. She was a guest in the treehouse, after all.
“We’ll be the politest dragons you’ve ever seen,” Christopher winked. Declan could scent Zoa, and he could tell that she was calming down. She was relaxing. Whatever charm Christopher and Brian were working on her, it was effective.
“You seem polite,” Zoa whispered.
“We are,” Brian agreed.
“Okay,” Christopher rubbed his hands together. “As much as I really, really love flying out into the wilderness to hang out with my brother, he called us here for a reason.”
“You’re in trouble,” Brian said, as though Zoa didn’t know. To her credit, Zoa didn’t visibly cower or react to the news. She just nodded slightly.
“They’re going to help us,” Declan explained carefully. He didn’t want Zoa to feel like she was being ambushed or like her life was out of her hands, but he needed this to be clear for her. The dragons were going to get rid of Kellen. He was a threat to other shi
fters, but he was also a threat to other humans. He didn’t get to decide that he would just capture a human and keep her as a pet. That wasn’t the way the world worked.
Kellen might think that since he was a shifter he was somehow “above” the laws of man, but he wasn’t. No matter what your species was, abducting someone against their will was wrong. Capturing someone was wrong. Taking a human being away from where she lived and holding her hostage was wrong.
Zoa looked at each of the men in turn. She seemed to be doing more than just casually glancing at them. Declan almost felt like she was checking their souls. Were they good men? Bad men? She seemed to want to know. He wished there was a way for him to show her just how much he wanted to save her, to help her. He supposed his word was going to have to be good enough.