Chapter Twelve
Emily hummed while she cooked in the kitchen. Naomi still hadn’t returned the next morning. Having developed an aversion to eggs, she used a store-bought box of pancake mix. Gently, she rocked back and forth to keep the baby against her belly content.
“Never thought I’d see you bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
Emily dropped her spatula and squealed. “Jacques!”
Quickly he moved around the kitchen island for the impact of her hug. She wrapped her arms around him, and then shoved back. “You picked me up and dropped me back here!” She reached back and clocked his jaw with her fist. Jacques stumbled back as Sigurd came into the kitchen.
Emily shook her hand. That hurt!
“Now that’s a way to start off the morning.” Sigurd sauntered up to Emily, took her smarting hand, and blew his frigid breath across her knuckles. She glared over at Jacques, rubbing his jaw. His eyes flashed and dilated revealing his dragon nature.
“And this is what I get for coming back. I should have stayed in America with Margaret.”
Emily put on a smile for Sigurd. “Thank you. Pancakes are almost ready.” She went back to flipping pancakes. “I figured you went back.” She eyed Sigurd reaching for a cup near the coffee maker. “You know, home.”
“No need for code words here. Jacques, old buddy, old pal, told us everything. It’s Harghita, right? Home?” Sigurd pulled out the coffee pot and frowned. He showed her the empty glass decanter. “You don’t drink coffee?”
“Sorry Sig, I’ve always been a tea drinker.” Emily placed three pancakes on a plate and poured three more on the hot plate. It felt natural standing in the kitchen, talking with Sigurd as they did back in day when she’d ran away on tour with their band, Lure.
She glanced over at Jacques, spotting the green tint of his skin and purple bruise along his cheek bone and dark shadows under his eyes. She glanced at her knuckles on her hand, numb thanks to Sigurd then back at Jacques. She walked over to him, took his face in her hands inspecting his bruises. “Did I do that?”
Sigurd snorted, “Got himself beat up by a female.”
He opened a canister of coffee, filling the kitchen with wafting smells of grilling pancakes, fresh sliced oranges, and the horrible dark brewed beans. Emily scrunched her nose. Her sense of smell had heightened in the past few days. She could even smell Blake coming in the back door. She recognized his cedar citrus fragrance and as the door opened the raw scent of the ocean salted over the smells of Sigurd’s percolating coffee.
Jacques crossed his arms and looked down his nose at her. “Don’t get yourself all worked up about it.”
“Who did this?” She reached up, pulling his face down closer to hers.
“Margaret didn’t appreciate having to tell her buyer we flubbed the deal. She told Drake and Alin I needed a lesson to ensure it didn’t happen again.”
“Buyer?”
“You didn’t actually think Mommy dearest was going to leave the egg at the hatchery, did you? Not one like that.” He pointed to her rounded mid-section.
“We protect the eggs, not…” Margaret? Aunt Margaret?
“That’s what she wants you to think.” Emily saw in his eyes, and knew from their bond at childhood, he wouldn’t lie.
“There has to be a reason.”
“It’s called money, power, and good ole greed,” Sigurd said.
“It’s why your mum left you run away and your father never went after you. They didn’t want to see you involved in any of this,” Jacques said.
“They knew? You knew?” She clenched her fist from socking him again.
“Your mum tried to stop it.”
She would. Her mother cared too much about keeping the dragons’ secrets safe and paying back their family debt. A debt, Emily now saw they would never become released from.
“And you tried to shield me from it.” Out of habit, she kissed the bruise on Jacques cheek.
A possessive arm came around her, pulling her back against Blake as a low growl vibrated from his throat.
Rather than be annoyed, she felt touched by his protective hold on her.
Jacques stepped away from her.
Sigurd bent, watching the dark liquid drip, by drip into the decanter. “The coffee’s got a real punch this morning.”
“Might help wash down the burnt pancakes.” Bogdan flipped back his long blond hair and tied it with piece of leather. They both looked like they’d come from a jog along the coastline, rather than taking an early morning flight to meet the sun.
“Oh, no!” Emily tried to twist in Blake’s embrace but he didn’t let go. His eyes bored into Jacques.
“I got it.” Bogdan tossed up the spatula and caught it.
They stood around the kitchen island, with Bogdan flipping pancakes onto their plates and Sigurd pouring all of them coffee, except for Emily. She sucked on an orange wedge; her appetite like everything else had increased in the last few days. If she didn’t know better, her body thought it was really pregnant. This would also confirm why her breast had gone from tender to swollen.
Blake helped her sit on a stool near Jacques. “You have to finish telling me what happened. Does my father know?”
“He suspects. Got rather upset when Margaret told him you fell madly in love with the lord of the manor and eloped. It’s why I’m here. Your father sent me. Not that I wasn’t coming back for you.” He added, “You knew I would.”
“Saved his sorry ass, Edmund did. Found him all buggered up.” Sigurd took a giant gulp of his coffee like it was soda.
Bogdan shook his head. “Garth picked him up so Edmund could stay on the hunt.”
Emily shoved down onto her feet. She stabbed her finger in Blake’s direction. “You knew he came for me.”
Jacques put his hand on her shoulder. “They could have killed me.”
The same feeling she’d been trying to ignore since Blake discovered her in his bed chamber, resurfaced. If she had any doubt before she loved him, it vanished by having Jacques standing there as testimony to her dragon husband’s mercy. She sniffled, tears prickling the back of her eyes. She never felt this emotion, like she could cry at the drop of a hat. “Thank you.”
“There’s more you need to know.” Blake took her hand, entwining it with his.
“Where is my father?” It was the first thing on her mind.
“He’s where he always is. It isn’t safe for him to go anywhere else.” Jacques rocked back on his heels. “Margaret threatened him.”
“Looks like Olaus isn’t the only threat around here,” Bogdan muttered.
Sigurd turned away, clearing their empty dishes.
“Threatened?” Dear Lord, she had really messed things up for all of them. “Why in the world would Aunt Margaret threaten Father?”
Jacques put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward. “Someone else had it arranged for us to come here. You know… to take the egg. They offered Margaret a dragon’s treasure for us to deliver it.”
“Aunt Margaret intended all along for us to steal it.”
Jacques shrugged, “A dragon’s treasure is a dragon’s treasure.”
Blake’s blood boiled, Emily pulled away from him, the heat radiating from his skin causing her to flush. He clenched his fist. She reached for him, afraid to touch him with the fire burning through his veins. His eyes had turned golden. “Olaus.”
“And now he’s headed to the isles of the dragon counsel.” Bogdan pounded his fist on the island top. “And I let him go.”
Their biggest problem had just gotten bigger. The only thing going for her right now was the fact she still had the egg and it hadn’t hatched. Yet.
And then there was her father—who she’d gotten caught in this mess.
Aunt Margaret. Of all people!
She couldn’t imagine Aunt Margaret harming her father, but neither could she imagine having two of her wards beat her son. She owed the debt as did all the keepers and their families. Surely, Aunt Margaret had a good explanation for what seemed like her turning her back on their duty.
Jacques recognized the concern on Emily’s face, she never hid her feelings from him. Raised together, he took an invisible role of the brother her parents never had. “Let him. I’d rather face a few seventh century wing beaters in your situation than good old, dearest, Margaret.”