Page 52 of Edge of Darkness

Again, they were so very breakable.

And now he had a breakable human as his mate. And it made him want to roar in fear. Actually, it made him want to pour his and Hudson’s blood down Kit’s throat.

That’d probably go over like a lead balloon.

Funny how he always thought his generation was so much more modern and hipper than the older generations, when in actuality, they were probably just as barbaric.

It was the main reason he needed to acclimate to Kit’s scent—he wasn’t sure he could stop his dragon from carting his mate off. Hudson would be the only one who’d be able to reason with Connie during such a situation, and he didnotwant a thousand-year-old royal dragon pissed at him. No thank you.

None of them needed the dramathatwould start.

Connie pulled his cell phone out and sent a quick text message to Beckett, even though Beckett was speaking to Hudson at the moment.

Beckett hoarded books—that was his thing. All sorts of books, but especially rare ones. He also had just about everything ever written about dragons and their courts.

Maybe Beckett would be willing to do some research and see if there was anything about how dragons handled being mated to a human. Couldn’t hurt, right?

Once Hudson hung up with Beckett, Connie shoved all thoughts about humans and mates out of his head. “Okay, first on your schedule is a nine o’clock conference call. Then you have lunch with the mayor of San DeLain at noon.”

“Okay. Also? I need you to find out who owns the apartment building Kit lives in. I want to buy it, and I won’t take no for an answer. If our mate is going to live there for any amount of time, I need to make sure it’s secure. Find out if there are empty apartments near him too.”

Connie opened the notes app on his phone and started typing. “Got it. Why do you want to know about empty apartments?”

“Because some of my dragons are going to temporarily live as close to Kit as possible. At least until we can talk Kit into moving here.”

“I haven’t thought about that.” Connie frowned. “How long do you think that will take?”

“Hopefully not long, but Kit is human. They… they don’t move as fast as paranormals do when it concerns a mate.”

“So this could drag on for months?” Connie asked, horrified.

“It could, yes. Which would be extremely difficult for you and I, but we’re not going to rush Kit. Doing so could blow up in our face. Understand?”

“I understand, but that doesn’t mean I like it.” He hated it, in fact. He wanted Kit somewhere close so he could keep an eye on him. And wasn’t that just slightly stalkerish? “Oh. I also noticed an email from King Hereward Tywyll.”

“An email from Ward? What in the world is the gargoyle king emailing me for?”

“He didn’t say, but I responded, letting him know that I’d seen it and would tell you.”

“Okay.” Hudson checked his watch. “That’ll have to be done tonight since Ward’s currently a chunk of stone.”

“Yeah. The sun isn’t kind to the vampires or gargoyles. I can’t imagine being out of commission during the day.”

“Every paranormal species has its pros and cons, you know? The sun won’t kill a vampire, although it will certainly fry them to a crisp, and that takes them a long time, and massive amounts of blood, to heal from,” Hudson said, sitting down at his desk.

“But they can wipe a human’s memory, so that’s a nice pro,” Connie said. “Gargoyles revert to stone during the day, so that’s definitely a con. What would you say is a pro for them?”

“They can harden their skin while in human form. It’s nearly impenetrable. Bullets, swords, knives, and so on really aren’t a threat to them,” Hudson said.

“And us?” Connie asked. “What would you say our con is?”

“You mean as a dragon in general or as red dragons?”

“Both, I guess?”

“Hmmm.” Hudson leaned back in his chair, lips pursed. “Dragons are possessive. When we want something, we tend to take it, and damn the consequences.”

“Which can cause problems,” Connie added.

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