Page 47 of Hungry Like A Dragon
Delilah’s mother canted her head and studied Gabe. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”
Gabe shook his head. “Gabriel Wilde. Reeve of the Detroit dragon colony.”
Delilah narrowed her eyes and focused all of her attention on Gabe. “Why do I know that name?”
“Well, we’ve already established that you cursed my entire colony,” Gabe supplied. “Oh, and you’re my mother.”
“My grandson,” the older woman exclaimed, pressing her fingers to her lips and blinking rapidly. Petra half expected her to rush over and envelope him in a hug, grown man who she’d never met before and who was more than a foot taller than her notwithstanding.
And, yes, now that she was looking for it, she could see a strong family resemblance.
“Your mother? You’re—you’re Everest’s son?” Delilah eyed him from head to toe. “Yes, I suppose I can see myself in you. In fact, I don’t see anything of your father in your features.”
The woman who’d abandoned her kid as an infant and then cursed his entire colony because his father wouldn’t choose her over his fated mate sounded proud that Gabe resembled her.
“How is my asshole ex and his oh-so-wonderful mate, by the way?” Delilah asked, her tone mocking.
Gabe shrugged. “They abandoned me, too, shortly after you cursed our colony.”
“Oh wow,” Delilah said. “That’s too bad. That wasn’t my goal, by the way. Although I suppose it was for the better. You said you’re the reeve? You’d never have won that position if Everest had raised you.”
Gabe grimaced and massaged his temples. Clearly, her words were giving him a migraine. “What, exactly, was your goal when you cursed an entire colony to not be able to find their fated mates?”
“To punish your father, of course. He chose some other woman over me, and at the time, I foolishly believed I was in love with his sorry ass.”
“So you cursedeveryone?”
She offered up a sheepish smile. “Well, to be honest, I’d only been working on my witchcraft skills for a couple of years at the time, and I might have gone a bit overboard when I realized I could even enact that curse in the first place. It’s very difficult to learn, even for a full-blooded witch.”
“Some of us didn’t have a problem,” Delilah’s mother piped up. “In fact, if I hadn’t been so good at it, you never would have been able to pick it up.”
Petra glanced at Gabe while pointing at the older lady. “She seems far more reasonable than Dahlia or Delilah or whatever her name is. Maybe she can break it.”
“I named her Dahlia,” the old witch reminded them. “But she hated it, so she changed it to Delilah.”
“That’s, like, barely different,” Gabe said.
“Different enough,” Delilah said with a shrug. “So you came all the way down here to convince me to lift the curse on your colony?”
“Yes,” Gabe replied.
Rahu piped up, “Well, we also figured out that you’re a drug lord, so we’re here to stop that, too.”
Petra slapped her hand to her forehead. He didnotjust say that, did he?
Apparently so, judging by the way Delilah’s face morphed into a very angry-looking, er, drug lord.
“Uh-oh,” the old lady said, backing away with her hands covering Sadie’s head. “Any threat to that stupid drug business always sends my daughter over the edge.” She stepped behind Argyle and then turned and fled.
With Petra’s baby.
Every instinct told her to go after her child, but the shimmer of magic and the dragon’s roar caused her to fling around to check on her friends. The old woman did not appear to be a threat, but the crazy half-witch, half-dragon certainly was.
Rahu was lying on the ground—hopefully, only unconscious—and Ketu was wrestling with one of the gargoyles near Rahu’s head. Talia and Gabe were nowhere to be found, so Petra presumed they were in the sky, along with two of the gargoyles. That left one more gargoyle and Noah.
Petra twisted her head to and fro until she spotted Noah, who appeared to be doing the same thing—probably looking for her and the baby. That’s when Petra noticed the fifth gargoyle, sneaking up on Noah, his arms outstretched for Noah’s neck. He’d probably rip his head from his body, if the size of those muscles were any indication.
“Noah!” she screamed, and burst into a run, charging at the bulky man threatening her, er, baby daddy. She jumped onto the stone man’s back, wrapped her arms around his neck, and scrabbled at his face, trying to divert his attention.
