Page 81 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

She smacked his face, hard. “What did you do to Noah, you bastard? If you killed him, I swear to god I’ll rip your fucking throat out. Wake up and talk, you motherfucker!”

Before Emon could go over there and dig the information painfully out of his brain, Brock put his hand on Mina’s arm. “It’s okay, Mommy. I listened with my mind. Noah Gray Woof isn’t dead.”

Mina closed her eyes, clenching her fist tightly. “Are you sure?”

“Uh huh. I can feel him. He’s in the basement. Very down deep.”

“The dungeon, probably,” Emon said. “We’ll get him.”

Brock looked down at Grange, growling, his little-boy face as hard and angry as Emon had ever seen it. “I always knew you were a bad man. Now you made me so mad my woof needs to kill a rabbit.”

Emon said, “You knew he was bad? You might have told us that.”

“I thought he might decide to be good,” Brock said. “Sometimes people do. But he stayed bad.” He gave another growl, and then said, “Come on, Mommy. Let’s get Daddy.”

Mayah said, “I’ll take them to the dungeon, while you deal with this mess. If someone will please get this goddamn collar off me.”

It took Emon a minute to figure out how the magic lock worked, but finally he had it off her. Mayah threw the collar on the floor and stomped on it. Then she said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

Tristan went with them, still looking a bit pale from all the mind magic he’d done.

Trish had Changed back to human, and Emon conjured some clothes for her so she didn’t have to walk around naked. Then he looked around at the surviving Gen-X soldiers, lying bound in one corner of the room, their critical wounds tended.

With a sigh, Emon said, “We’re going to have to figure out what to do with these guys until we can hand them over to Silverlake.”

Trish said dubiously, “They don’t really fall under Council jurisdiction; they’re human. Except for Grange.”

Emon said, “They made war on shifters. That’s Council business. And you really don’t want me deciding what should ultimately be done with them. Because I’m still in a very bad mood.”

His dragon said,

Don’t tempt me.

“Well, there’s always the dungeon, once we get Noah out,” Trish said. “That should hold them.”

But Emon noticed she was looking at the three red dragons, all human now, lounging in a corner. “You really should go talk to them,” she said. “They did save Mayah’s life.”

Emon was in no mood for Zakerek, but Trish was right. He owed the Wild Dragons big. He sighed. “I guess I should.”

He started to get up, but she put her hand on his arm. “You know, all they really want is somewhere to belong. And I think you need people to belong to you.”

Oh, no. He was not going where he thought this was going. “I have you.”

“I know. And I get that I’ll always be your favorite, because of the sexytimes.” She winked at him. “But like it or not, you’re a king. And you enjoy running your country. Not to mention that you’re good at it. Couldn’t you use some more dragony help?”

Emon snorted. “These guys?”

“Well, obviously it’s up to you. I’m not going to try to talk you into anything you don’t feel is right for your domain. But I do think that maybe you need this. You need a purpose in life, people to take care of.”

No, he didn’t. Did he?

“You really think I should form a clan?”

“I think you should think about it.”

He sighed again.

Mikah and Cazbek shook his hand and accepted his thanks. Zakerek just stood with his arms folded, glowering.