10. Zuri
ZURI
Jalen starts out stacking papers one pile at a time. Then he picks up speed, and I quit keeping up. He crosses the room in flickers, and the paper drifts disappear a lane at a time. The floor ends up clean.
I watch the whole show from his bed. There’s a lot of arm happening over there. His shoulders fill out his clean shirt to the last stitch. Between the arms and the chest of him, I forget I’m a hostage.
He turns around smiling.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“If you need me for anything,” he says.
Oh God. He can smell it when I get worked up.
I put my face in my hands and regret it immediately, hissing at the bruise.
I stand up off the bed and consider making a run for it.
Then Jalen’s pointed ears twitch. He cocks his head toward the door and breaks into a smile.
“My—“ He catches himself. “Our sisters are home.”
He flashes across the room so fast I gasp, and he grabs my hand.
“Come on. Come meet the clan.” He pulls me out of the room mid-word.
“They’re back from shopping.” He tows me down the hall. “The women of this clan shop about every other day. Brandy’s redesigning her craft room, and Jules is building a nursery.”
By the time we hit the bottom of the stairs, the house is loud.
Shopping bags cover the entry bench with tissue paper sticking out of the tops.
Keys land in a dish. Two women are talking over each other somewhere under the archway.
It’s a family coming home, and it’s so far from my silent apartment that I stop on the last step.
Malachi is already pulling a woman into his arms. She’s tall, deep brown skin under a crown of short coils, in a camel coat with gold at her ears, throat, and nails done to match. She kisses him hello with one hand flat on his chest, and she runs even the kiss. That must be Brandy, the Luna.
Behind them, a mountain of a dragon sets down an armload of bags without a sound.
He’s the biggest of the three by half, thick through the arms in a rolled-sleeve flannel.
He has a shaved head, a short black beard, and the warmest brown eyes in the room.
Big as he is, he moves like he’s worried about the furniture.
He bows his head to me the same as Jalen did earlier, and he doesn’t say a word.
All three brothers share the pointed ears and the sharp teeth. Everything else came out different, the builds, the coloring. Malachi’s eyes are a burnished copper, Dorian’s a soft brown, and the green-eyed one is still holding my hand.
And then there’s the pregnant one. She’s small, glowing brown skin and long locs gathered over one shoulder, in a flowy dress with paint flecks dried on her knuckles. That’s nursery paint, I’d bet. She spots me, and her whole face opens up. She crosses the room with her arms already out.
She pulls me into a hug, her belly bumping mine. She smells like shea butter and fresh paint.
“Hi,” she says into my ear. “Welcome to the clan, sister.”
Then she pulls back and lays a light palm along my sore cheek. “Oh no. What happened to her?” She frowns up at Jalen.
“I was attacked,” I say. “Jalen and your Alpha saved me.”
“Brother,” Malachi says. “Zuri, you’re family here.”
I suck in a breath and decide not to argue with a dragon.
Brandy keeps hold of Malachi’s hand. “Does she have clothes?”
“I was hoping you could help with that,” Jalen says.
Brandy lets go of her mate and squeezes my hands.
I smile at her. These women are seriously put together.
Brandy holds me out at arm’s length and runs her eyes down me. “She looks about my size.” She takes my hand. “Follow me.” Then she throws a wink at Jalen. “Don’t worry. I’ll return her to you in better shape than you brought her.”
Jalen frowns at that, and I giggle.
Jules waddles after us with a hand under her belly. “Wait for me.”
Brandy leads us past the staircase to a set of brushed metal doors set into the rock. I stand there. “Wait. You have an elevator?”
“The clan had it installed for us.” Jules beams and rubs her bump. “No one is climbing all those stairs heavily pregnant.”
The doors open, and Brandy and Jules pull me in between them.
“This is a lot,” I say.
Jules giggles and looks to Brandy.
“We know,” Brandy says. “It was overwhelming for both of us at first. But I promise you, you’ll get used to it.”
The doors slide shut, and Brandy presses the button for the third floor.
Brandy leads the way down to the end of the hall and pushes open a set of double doors twice the size of mine. I gasp, and there’s no playing it cool about it.
The doors open on a sitting room with its own fireplace and couches, and the ceiling rises into carved arches strung with soft modern light.
Tall windows frame the valley going gold with the afternoon.
An archway on the left shows a bedroom with a bed up on a platform, and an open door on the right shows the craft room mid-redesign, half-wrapped in fresh wallpaper, with tables of fabric and ribbon standing in the middle.
It looks like the period dramas I fall asleep to, if someone gave the castle Wi-Fi.
Brandy cuts straight through the finery without slowing down and heads for another set of doors. “Closet’s this way.”
She waits out the last of my gawking with her arms crossed, easy about it. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your own wing soon. Jules has one too.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
Jules giggles and settles a hip against the sofa arm. “Wait until you see the safe. You can go swimming in all the gold and money we have.”
I turn to check whether she’s joking. She isn’t.
Brandy takes my arm and pulls me through the far doors. The closet is its own room, with racks down both walls and an island of drawers in the middle. The wall of shoes at the back has its own lighting.
“Let’s get you some clothes,” she says, already flicking through hangers. “I’ve got a ton of brand-new pieces I haven’t even gotten around to wearing.”
I turn a circle in the middle of it all with my head tipped back. There’s silk, denim, and cashmere, with tags still hanging off half of it. This morning I was running Whitney’s coffee in criminal heels and praying my rent check cleared. Now I’m standing in a queen’s closet getting fitted.
“I’ll get the vanity ready,” Jules calls from the doorway. “Let’s make her look pretty for our brother.”
I scratch my head and find no comeback anywhere in it.
Brandy builds a pile across my arms one hanger at a time, silk shirts, soft sweaters, a wrap dress I’d never have pulled off a rack for myself.
Every time I open my mouth to say it’s too much, she adds another piece and dares me with her eyebrows.
I quit arguing and hold my arms out for whatever comes next.
The vanity in the corner has bulbs all the way around the mirror. Jules sits me on the padded bench and goes to work soft around my bruise, tutting at it while she blends.
When she reaches for the pins in my bun, I barely close my fingers around her wrist.
“I keep it up,” I say.
Jules doesn’t push. They trade a look in the mirror and drop it. Brandy reaches into a drawer and hands me a silk scarf edged in gold instead. It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever held.
Somewhere between the blush and the lip gloss, it occurs to me that no dragon in this mountain can smell a thing on me with the door shut. No dragon can catch a tell in here. My shoulders come down a full inch.
“So,” Brandy says, folding the pile I picked. “Did Jay feed you?”
“He made pancakes,” I tell her. “Eggs and sausage too.”
Brandy’s hands stop on the sweater. In the mirror, Jules quits mid-dab and turns around to stare at her.
“What?” I ask. “Is that bad?”
“Jalen doesn’t cook.” Jules comes back to my cheek with a hum. “Dorian feeds this whole family. Jay has never so much as flipped an egg for company.”
So the dragon who never cooks made me a whole breakfast. I keep my face neutral for the mirror, and the warmth stays anyway.
“You know how I found out Malachi owned my building?” Brandy says.
“My rent checks started coming back. Every month, returned, no note. I marched into the leasing office ready to fight someone, and the manager just pointed at the new name on the deed.” She shakes out a blouse.
“I made him give that building to the town when we mated.” She points a hanger at me in the mirror.
“These Carter dragons don’t do small, sister. Best you know that now.”
And under all the silk and the fuss, I miss Jalen. He’s one floor down. I’ve known this dragon a day, and I’m already listening for him.
I don’t understand it. Downstairs, a door opens and closes, and I listen harder.