Page 31 of Red Dragon’s Heart

“Never mind,” he said gruffly. “I’ll get the boxes so we can get going. We don’t have all day.”

Chapter 15

Maddie wondered what Zak had been about to say. She couldn’t imagine him with a baby, but then, nothing about shifters—or him—was anything like what she’d thought it was.

Whatever memory he’d been about to share, though, it made him sad—which made him act all grumpy. He was about to stomp out of the trailer to get the boxes when there was a knock at the door.

Zak turned on the intruder with a growl.

It was Mrs. Tannenbaum, her landlady, who lived a couple of doors down. The sight of a giant, glowering man in the doorway obviously threw her, but only for a second.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Zak glared at her. “Zakerek, of the Clan Al-Maddeiri.”

Maddie sighed. Way to be under the radar and not-weird, shifter guy. It was astounding that shifters had kept themselves a secret for thousands of years, if Zak—Zakerek—was anything to go by.

But Mrs. Tannenbaum had lived in the trailer park for twenty years, and had seen way stranger and possibly even scarier things than Zak. She folded her arms and looked him up and down. “Is that like Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod?”

Mrs. Tannenbaum was a big fan of Highlander, that old TV show where the hot guys kept cutting each other’s heads off and going into orgasms as they sucked in the magic lightning so they would live forever.

Zak didn’t miss a beat. “Kind of,” he said. “I had to kill him, though.” In a deep voice, he intoned the show’s tag line: “‘In the end, there can be only one’.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Another fantasy fan. What was wrong with facts? “It’s okay,” she said to Mrs. Tannenbaum. “He’s a… friend.”

“I’m her boss, actually,” Zak said. “She’s starting a new job. She’ll be coming with me.”

Her landlady immediately looked suspicious. As well she should—Zak had managed to make it sound sketchy as hell. Mrs. Tannenbaum asked, “And what exactly is this new job?”

“Chemistry,” Zak said. “It’s a live-in job. Very lucrative.”

Mrs. Tannenbaum craned her neck to see beyond Zak. “Chrystal?”

Maddie heaved a sigh. “It’s okay, Mrs. Tannenbaum.”

“Hmph.” Her landlady rattled the doorknob. “If he’s so okay, why did he break the lock?”

“Sorry,” Maddie said. “It was an accident.”

“Well, someone’s going to have to pay for it.” She looked pointedly at Zak.

Zakerek sighed audibly and fished in his pocket, pulling out a money clip. He peeled off a couple of hundreds—hundreds!—and handed them to Mrs. Tannenbaum.

She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, but she stuffed the bills into her jeans pocket.

Better change the subject. Maddie said, “Were you the one who fed the kittens last night?”

“Well, I couldn’t let them go on crying, could I?” Mrs. Tannenbaum huffed, pretending she wasn’t a sucker for little furry things. She added gruffly, “You shouldn’t leave them alone like that.”

“Something—happened,” Maddie said. “An emergency. I really appreciate it.”

“Well, I don’t mind once in a while, but if you’re going to have pets here you have to take care of them.”

“She’s not going to have them anymore,” Zak said. “You’ll have to keep them.”

What? “Oh, no,” Maddie said. “They’re coming with me.”

Zak growled again.