Page 30 of Hungry Like A Dragon
“What do you mean?” Petra asked.
“I mean, I was in the kitchen making Halloween treats for the school when Gabe and Talia started talking about that charge at Nola Kids. And when Gabe read your responding texts out loud, I remembered that we hadn’t used protection and the timeline seemed to fit, and when he said he hadn’t heard much from you in about three months, I literally dropped what I was doing and ran out the back door. I shifted and flew here. My only communication with him since I left was a text telling him I had a family emergency and I’d be in touch as soon as I could.”
Petra’s eyes widened. “You lied to him?”
He frowned. “No. It was a family emergency. You—well, Sadie’s family. And the fact that I didn’t know she existed until yesterday constitutes an emergency in my mind.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor as she extracted Sadie from her breast and lifted the child to her shoulder to burp her.
“Here,” he said, reaching for the baby. “I’ll take her. I can eat one-handed. I’m not so sure you can. That sandwich is huge.”
There was reluctance in her actions as she handed Sadie to him. “I’m not used to this. Having someone else help take care of her. Well, I mean, Pacey and Rebecca have been amazing, but that’s different.”
It sure as hell was.
After propping the baby in one arm, he resumed eating and said, “I just want to be part of my daughter’s life. That’s it.”
Yep, that’s it. Keep telling yourself that, Noah.
“That’s it?” she repeated dubiously.
“Well, I’d like to continue having sex with you, too. I’m not gonna lie, that’s a pretty fantastic bonus to this whole unexpected fatherhood gig.”
She rolled her eyes while her lips twitched, until she finally admitted, “Yeah, that’s definitely a perk. But that’s it,” she added, suddenly serious again. “Nothing else.”
“No homemade breakfasts? I’m thinking about training myself to cook beignets. I’m going to need someone to practice on.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He waved his spoon at the sandwich she hadn’t yet started. “Eat. And let’s go through this again to make sure we aren’t missing anything. We know Gabe’s mother cursed our colony. And the theory is, she felt jilted by his father.”
Petra took a bite and after she swallowed, said, “Gabe’s parents pretty much did exactly what we did when we conceived Sadie.”
“Had amazing, albeit unprotected, sex up against a tree out in the woods?” He stole one of the chips from her plate and popped it into his mouth while she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.
“Okay, I don’t know quite that much detail, but, yes, they apparently had unprotected sex, which resulted in Gabe. Problem was, back then, there was no curse, and Gabe’s dad met his fated mate and called it quits with Gabe’s mom, not knowing she was pregnant at the time.”
She paused to take another bite from her sandwich.
What if they ultimately were successful with this assignment? What if they figured out a way to lift the curse? And what if the same thing happened—Petra returned to the colony and met her fated mate?
“When Dahlia figured out she was pregnant, she went to Gabe’s dad and told him, but he blew her off since he was in love with someone else. Then she had the baby and showed up on his doorstep again, figuring he’d take her in since she had birthed his child. But he still blew her off. Apparently, the whole fated mates gig is a pretty powerful connection.”
“It is,” Noah said. The curse had already been enacted by the time Noah was born, but his parents had often talked of how wonderful it had been to be fated mates. And then his dad had been so devastated when his mom died, had been unable to figure out how to function, how to love again. And that waswiththe curse; Noah couldn’t imagine what the man would have done if he’d been burning with that sort of passion for Mom at the time of her death.
“So she apparently gave the baby—Gabe—to his father and his mate, and left the colony, but not before swearing to get revenge for him screwing her over. Four years later, she cursed the entire colony.”
“I’ve never heard of a dragon being able to use magic other than shifting.”
She frowned. “Yeah, that’s an interesting aspect to all of this. Although the fact that it took four years for her to do it probably explains that. She obviously used that time to learn how to do it.”
“You know what else is interesting? Those little figurines. The way all those young dragons were buying them up, like they were actually worth something.”
“I agree that was weird.” She polished off her sandwich and glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s after twelve. Let’s go back and see if Delilah’s there. I’d really like to know how the hell she managed to curse an entire colony of dragons.”
***
Noah clutched the handle of the stroller and watched from the sidewalk as a steady stream of people entered and exited the antique shop he and Petra suspected Gabe’s mother owned. Most were dragons. The majority of those were young, upper teens and early to mid-twenties, although older ones were sprinkled in there, too.
