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Kelly pushed him into a chair, grinning at Lachelle with triumph. She sank down beside him and had the nerve to begin filling a plate with food for him. Lachelle didn’t move.
“Lachelle,” Janessa called.
Her legs refused to respond. How could they when her brain shut down? She’d cared about partners in the past, but lately she began to think she loved Gerard even more than she had her former fiancé. Gerard, who had been devoted to her like she was the air he breathed or some crazy romantic crap. Now this. It didn’t make sense.
“Lachelle!” Her sister appeared in front of her and squeezed her arm. She lowered her voice. “Are you okay? We can go anytime you want to. This mess is too much even for me. I fe
el like punching that woman in the face. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“That woman can probably hear you.”
“And what?”
Lachelle looked beyond her sister to the table where Gerard continued to allow the bold and pushy Kelly to care for him. Of course if she was honest she would admit that Gerard was in as much shock as she was. He sat in silence, not even responding as Kelly spoke to him.
Kelly chattered away, grinning at Gerard one minute and flirting with Declan’s men the next. She didn’t appear to pay Lachelle and Janessa’s conversation any mind at all. That was how low they ranked on her measure of importance, she supposed.
“I’m not leaving,” Lachelle said. “I want to hear what she has to say about where she’s been. I mean how many of them are going to show up out of nowhere after everyone thought they were dead? Are they immortal?”
“For real, right?” Her sister shook her head and linked arms with Lachelle. “Come on. Eat something. It will help.”
“I don’t know how.”
“It will keep your hands busy so you won’t try to disprove the immortality theory.”
Lachelle snorted.
They headed over to the table, and just because she was feeling spiteful, Lachelle started to take a seat farther away from Gerard. Her sister nipped into it, blocking her path, so she was forced to take the last remaining seat next to her supposed boyfriend.
After everyone was served, Kelly spoke up. “I suppose you’re all wondering about my story.”
Lachelle rolled her eyes and pushed a bite of salad around on her plate.
“After the fighting started, Gerard and I hung in there, doing out best to protect our family,” Kelly explained. “We were still so young, and the royals didn’t believe in violence or in exposing ourselves to the humans.”
Declan nodded. “The original conflict for the war.”
“Yes, and I’m not sure where I stood at the time. All I was worried about was becoming Gerard’s bonded mate.”
Lachelle stabbed a piece of meat, and her fork scraped the plate. Several people glanced at her, but she ignored them. Everything was mate with these dragons. She just wanted to love and be loved, to have a family and be a police officer. Heck, she didn’t even need Gerard to kiss the ground she walked on. Was that too much to ask?
“When things turned really ugly, and Declan and Gerard’s parents were killed, Gerard said it was time to go.”
Gerard looked over at his brother, and the siblings exchanged a moment of grief. The older of the two commented. “We were separated, an explosion.”
Declan gritted his teeth. “A fire breather set off propane canisters. Many were killed.”
This information confused Lachelle. “Both of you are fire breathers, right? Why should fire hurt you if it exists inside you?”
Declan smiled. “I don’t have fire rolling around in my belly. If I did, it would burn away my food as I eat it.”
“Feels like it anyway,” another of the men joked as he stuffed a huge forkful of meat into his mouth and chewed. Lachelle noted the guy hadn’t taken any salad. Why waste stomach room for the less desirable, she assumed.
Declan chuckled. “Yeah, the dragon is a hungry beast who is never satisfied—on many accounts.”
Janessa rolled her eyes. “Keep to the subject.”
“Magic.”
