Page 67 of Earth-Bound

“Gertrudedied?”

His voice rang with shock and disbelief. Ah, shit.

“Uh, yeah. I just read her obituary this morning. I wanted to… give you my condolences.”

This was not going to plan. Not going to plan at all.

Randall stared up at me. “Are you sure it was her?”

From behind me, Dee called, “Yep, it was definitely her.”

Dum confirmed it. “Definitely. We don’t make mistakes.”

Dee then hit Dum, who hit her back, and they proceeded to have a slap fight. Until Arram stepped between them and said with much more patience than I’d have had, “I’ve told you before not to strike my mate.”

“She started it,” muttered Dum.

Arram nodded. “She did.”

Dee said, “Hey, you’re meant to be onmyside.”

“Iamon your side. But I cannot lie. Youdidstrike him first.”

Dee snuggled up to her partner, looking up into their beautiful face. Even I could understand how she was so besotted.

“Your whole truth-kink is really sexy, you know that?”

“Yes,” said Arram.

I would have sniggered if I wasn’t keeping half an eye on Randall the whole time. He looked a bit peaky. The poor manhad just found out his grandma had died. And the dragons… already knew?

Sure enough, he turned to them. “How did you two know?”

“Uuuuuuh,” said Dee.

“Mmmmmm,” said Dum.

Arram opened their mouth to speak and Dee clapped her hand across it. “You don’t need to answer that question, Arram. Trust me.”

Matty was glancing at his brother as he answered. “The obituary said she died of a heart attack.”

“Yes!” said Dee.

“Right,” said Dum.

I got the impression they’d just managed to get one over on the rest of us somehow.

Arram frowned. “She didn’t die of—”

Matty glared so fiercely that Arram faltered. He hissed, “You mention the word ‘disembowelling’ in front of my brother and I’ll send pigeons to nest in your hair.”

Anthony couldn’t hear the fierce little whisper but Cuthbert could, and he glanced at his boyfriend to check he was ok. Matty really was protective of his brother. He also had read Mrs. Winters’ obituary that morning and not mentioned it until now.

I processed that until I thought I understood.

One look at Terrund confirmed that he had come to the same conclusion I had. He was clutching my hand hard and hiseyes followed the two dragons carefully. Somehow, before, I’d not considered the fact thatactualdragons meantactualclaws and disembowelling.

It was doubly weird because I’d known Mrs. Winters. She wasn’t a nice person but… I hadn’t wished her dead.

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