The man huffs, offended. “You’d deserve it if I did with your apparent lack of trust in me.”
“Very true.” I swallow. “There will be a woman living with me, maybe long term. It’s undecided.”
It would be safer for her and the child to store them in a secret location after the birth, but my dragon refuses that option. We will have young, and he will not be parted from them. The struggle between my logical self and beast has never been so opposite. At one time, a very long time ago, we were one, but as with many immortals who spend time in a human form, a separate sense of self developed.
I suspect that it has more to do with how I locked down my instincts the last time I lost control, but the result is the same. He is an echo of what I was centuries ago, and when not in heat or the presence of a pesky thief, gets more and more distant.
I wonder if the day will come when the beast in me will be a stranger.
I don’t know if that’s a loss to dread or a boon to look forward to. It is difficult to house a fire-breathing beast while surrounded by civility, but to lose him would be to lose myself, and that isn’t something I want no matter how inconvenient the beast is.
“Oh? Are you finally settling down?” Jensen’s tease brings me back to the conversation at hand.
“She’s pregnant.” I press back into the seat cushion and mentally curse how hard this is to talk about, but I trust Jensen and he needs the details to do his job the best he can. “With my child.”
“Oh.” The teasing note leaves Jensen’s voice, but it warms quickly. “Congratulations.”
The expected response to the wish sticks in my throat. He’s the first one to utter such a thing with sincerity instead of focusing on all the ways this complicates things. This is something completely unprecedented and has the power to dredge up long buried memories… but it is miraculous.
I avoid the emotions that rise from that and continue with the logistics.
“You won’t be the one to transport her for now,” I say. It would be best if any time she leaves the estate, she does so with Ben so she can’t be tracked. It will give me time to sort out who we can trust. Security guards, house cleaners, gardeners. Everyone will need to be evaluated for weaknesses.
“You’re keeping the information private while you can.” Jensen nods in understanding. “I’ll protect our pack with my life.”
Our pack.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I say.
Jensen only nods. “You’ll have Maggie caring for her, of course.”
I blink. I hadn’t considered that. Dragons don’t deal with pregnancy in the same way. They don’t have terrible symptoms during gestation or need a healer to check in on them.
“Excellent idea,” I say, not bothering to poke at Jensen for the way his face softens at her name.
I TAP my toe in impatience and get annoyed at the shiny dress shoe. The shoes and the suit go hand in hand with the image I want to project. Cool, controlled, authoritative.
The conference room is another projection of that image. The window shows surrounding skyscrapers, but this one is the best. This building acts as the main hub of my business. There are so many facets of it now that it’s a running joke that it only needs crops growing on the roof to be self-sustaining.
The conference table is large, the surface gleaming, but the other side is empty.
I narrow my eyes, but in the next beat, the Leonids enter.
A moment later would be an insult, and a moment earlier would communicate a subservience they don’t feel. It’s a game that makes me want to roll my eyes.
The men are all bulky in stature, as most shifters are. Usually, the family structures don’t get as large for feline shifters, but this one defies expectation. The three men sit on the other side of the table, not waiting for me to rise and shake their hands, which I wouldn’t have. I can only act so human. I don’t do business as one.
In a way, I’m still lord of the land even though the lands and denizens have changed.
The head of the family nods to me. It’s a surprise that he’s here instead of sending his heir to this meeting. It signals that there is some strategy at work here. Lorenzo Leonid is in his sixties, young enough in shifter circles to still want to cause problems. His body language tries to communicate relaxation, but a drop of sweat gathers at his hairline.
This will be interesting.
His heir, unfortunately named Leo Leonid, sits at his right. The man is in his twenties, and his body vibrates with tension. The black bag that rests on his lap causes a pang of familiarity to travel over my senses. Lorenzo’s brother sits to his left. He’s bigger than Lorenzo in breadth, but lacks the glint of cunning intelligence in the head of the family’s eyes. He’s here to act as bodyguard, even though there is little that he could do if I wanted to destroy the shifters in front of me.
The Council that governs paranormal beings has more to do with me not destroying a fellow territory leader. They require balance, and the Leonid’s territory is too similar to mine in size for me to overpower them with the fact that I am a dragon.
“It’s always good to see you, Kalos. How have you been?” Lorenzo starts.
He wants to talk pleasantries after attempting to waste my time.
“Your tactics are tiring. Tell me why you wanted this meeting.” If I didn’t have this meeting, I’d be focused on Katarina’s presence in my home.
“Of course, we’re only being friendly. As one territory leader to another.”
I raise my brows instead of responding.
“You seem like you’re doing well,” he starts.
“I am.” Surprise pregnancy announcements aside, I wouldn’t give him another answer even if it were untrue.
“We thought with the news of the breakin last week that you may need to cancel this meeting,” Lorenzo says with a shrug.
My shoe stops tapping.
If Ben were here, he’d be able to tell me when the Leonids made this meeting. For a moment, his absence is suddenly like being without a limb. The imbalance is something that could be corrected and accounted for in time, but not what I’d want to adapt to.
It doesn’t matter though if they’d made this appointment before my thief had stolen her way into my hoard or after. These are her employers.
Something that I should have questioned her about earlier, but I had been too distracted by her unbelievable news.
I am not distracted now.
“Why yes,” I start, not denying the event that they wouldn’t have known about unless they orchestrated it. Ben hadn’t even known before the thief had returned. “Having a breakin is startling, but I find it rather invigorating. It’s truly been an age since I’ve gone through my ranks and culled.” My smile is all teeth, and the men in front of me flinch.
Lorenzo clears his throat. “We know how dragons hate to lose any piece of their hoard, so we tracked it down for you, as a favor of goodwill.”