Page 25 of Taloned Heart

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Lore replied with a soft smile. “Just watching you work.”

Now it was his turn for his cheeks to burn a bright red as he set everything in front of them. “Come on, you two. Surely you have better things to do.”

Beauty pillowed her chin on her fist and shook her head. “Not really. It’s nice to see a man working around here again.”

He snorted and tried his very best to ignore what she was saying. “Don’t you have questions for us? Where we’ve been? What’s been happening? You could tell us everything that happened here as well, you know. Instead of staring at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He bared his teeth. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, woman.”

Both of them reared back and glared at him. Lore was the first to break saying, “Did you just ‘woman’ her?”

He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and took a deep, steadying breath. “Maybe I will join your father outside. He seemed like he was better company.”

They both burst into bright laughter, and he tried his best to smile along with them. But the truth was, he felt horribly out of place. Abraxas was more used to being the bodyguard, the protector, not the man who had two women smiling at him and devouring his body with their eyes. Enough was enough.

Grumbling under his breath, he got to work opening the jar and getting plates out for the two incessantly annoying women. “Are you both done yet?”

“We’re done,” Lore said with a wheeze. “I promise, we’re done.”

After that, they all settled into a much more companionable silence. He sat down across from them and watched as they ate the food he’d prepared, his hands itching to do more than what he’d already done. He wanted to help them. To do whatever it took to make their lives easier and better. After all, what good was he if he couldn’t do that?

But they didn’t need him right now. They needed to connect with each other again, through laughter and bubbling noises that filled the root cellar with a happiness these walls had likely not seen in ages.

And for a few moments, it felt like nothing had happened. Like there wasn’t a war outside, and nobody hunted them. They were just three friends who hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, finally getting to catch up and talk.

He watched them both with a smile that only wilted when Beauty asked about those they’d left behind.

“And Draven?” Beauty sipped at a cup of water. He’d gotten them both when their voices started getting scratchy. “He left with you, didn’t he? No one knew where he went, but I was there when Margaret got angry about it. She was certain he’d gone with you.”

“I’m sure she thought he was under her thumb, considering he’s also an elf.” Lore rolled her eyes. “Of course he went with me. I couldn’t shake the man.”

Abraxas let out a grumble. “I still don’t like him.”

“Yes, I imagine you have more reason than ever not to like him,” Lore replied, waggling her eyebrows. “He’s got his sights set on a little one who is very near and dear to your heart.”

“She’s your daughter, too,” he muttered.

Lore shrugged. “And I did foolish things in my youth. I’m not going to tell her what she can and cannot do.”

Beauty’s eyes watched them both, widening ever further with each word. “But she’s just a baby.”

They talked over each other immediately.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell Lore.”

“Dragons age differently. She looks our age.”

Silence stretched between them as they both glared at each other while Beauty tried to soak in that knowledge. It wasn’t exactly well known, and he didn’t want just anyone realizing how easy it was for his children to be taken advantage of. They looked like adults, and that would help protect them in most situations.

Other than Draven’s situation, that was. The elf had better be keeping his hands to himself, or so help him—

“Well, that’s something else.” Beauty sipped her water again, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have guessed that turn of events.”

“None of us did,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair with his fists curled at his sides. He wanted to punch something at the thought.

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