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Nearly being the key word. He still needed my help to finish them off.
“Alright, I’ll be upstairs if you need anything. I’m Dawn, by the way,” she said, holding out a hand and revealing a ring of residual white dragon scales wrapping around her wrist like a watch. A subtle reminder of the immense amount of power that simmered just under the surface of this room.
“Caleb,” I replied, returning her handshake and friendly smile. At least the entirety of the Blackthorne family wasn’t quick to attack.
Dawn disappeared behind Maddox, Warrick excusing himself next, throwing a warning glare at his brother before he left the two of us in the living room. I took a few steps back, not knowing if this guy was waiting for the moment we were finally alone to end things. Dragons weren’t known to attack humans unprovoked, but this asshole clearly worked with a different set of rules than the rest of us, so I didn’t want to get too comfortable.
“How did you find me?” Maddox asked, arms crossed so that his biceps bulged.
“You mean, how did I find the famous dragons responsible for stopping the dragon fall who live on a castle perched at the top of the Malibu hills?” I decided to be sarcastic now that I wasn’t a flick of a wrist away from bleeding out. “Wasn’t too difficult.”
Maddox narrowed his eyes. He looked pissed. Good.
“Okay, then why did you find me? What is it that you want?” His eyes dropped to my hands before they came back up to my face. “You’re not with the Crimson Ring, are you?”
The question was enough to nearly knock me over. I shook my head. “Absolutely-the-fuck-not. Are you?” I shot back at him, accusation in my tone.
“Yeah, I’m their first dragon member. I even earned this gold star tattoo on my ass.” He turned his back to me and motioned dropping his pants. He tugged them down just enough for me to see the top of his ass, big and round and sans any gold star tattoos.
I tried not to focus on how I wouldn’t mind seeing more.
Just to verify he was joking, of course.
“It’ll be hard explaining how I killed two of my own cultist siblings,” Maddox said, turning back to me with a half grin on his face.
“I’ll have to explain killing one too.”
He cocked his head to the left. He ran a big hand through his hair, cut short on the sides with enough left on the top to style. He looked like one of those impossibly handsome men on the ads down in the snake-way. Like he was wrapping up a career in wrestling by becoming the lead of a blockbuster action franchise, ready to survive a wild car chase and celebrate with fucking the co-star on a jet ski. “You killed one? What happened after I left?”
“Well, maybe not killed. She was still breathing when I left but her head probably really hurt.”
I gave him the short version of my fight with the surviving fae cultist. He rubbed his forehead and then surprised me with what he said next. “Shit… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that.”
It took a quick moment for the words to really settle in. “Sorry? You’re sorry for leaving but not for threatening to cut my throat open?”
“Well, yeah, that too. Thought my sorry was an all-encompassing one.”
“You literally gave a reason why you said it. You one hundred percent compassed that apology.”
“Okay, fine, I’m sorry for trying to protect my family and thinking you were here to finish whatever you started in that attic. There. Better?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, that’s fine.” I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more sincere from him, so I decided to cut the bullshit and just accept it. There were bigger fish to defrost here. “What were you doing in that attic?”
“I was looking for something.”
“The Moriarty painting?” I asked, cutting straight to the heart of it.
“Yes.” He looked down at me. Fuck, he was tall. Built like a tank too… just my type. Crap. “Is that what you were after?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying hard not to get dick-stracted. I wasn’t about to give him all the information he asked for, but now that the ice blades were put away, I felt myself trusting the blue-eyed dragon a little more. “I’m looking for the three of them. Do you happen to know where any of them are?”
Maddox’s eyes bounced between mine. He searched for something, though I couldn’t quite tell what. I waited for him to answer. Shit, did he know where the paintings were? Even the location of one would help me immensely. It would allow me to deposit at least a portion of the huge sum of money my client had held in escrow. Of course, finding all three would be ideal, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
