20. Danger

20

"Have I ever told you about the time Griff embarrassed himself?" Hex asked Quinlan gleefully.

"Hex!" Griff growled at his butler. How could Hex do this? Griff didn't want Hex to undermine all the progress he'd made with Quinlan.

Hex shrugged innocently in the driver's seat. "I'm just providing your consort with all the information he needs to know."

"Don't tell him the story about the third leg!"

Next to Griff in the backseat, Quinlan perked up. "What third leg?"

Griff groaned and hid his face in his hands. "No, you can't know about it!"

"Once upon a time, teenage-Griff was trying to sew a suit for a fellow teenager he wanted to court," Hex said, his voice rising with sheer enjoyment.

"Hex," Griff roared. "You said you wouldn't tell!"

Annie babbled and kicked in the child seat.

"Please?" Quinlan gave Griff his puppy eyes, and Griff's resolve weakened.

"The third leg story goes like this: Griff had promised to make his beau a suit for a prestigious ball. He was so eager to get it perfect, he had multiple pant legs ready to sew together."

Quinlan frowned. "Multiple?"

"About five, I think. Some to use as spares."

Griff made a strangled sound and hid his face in Annie's belly.

"So Griff's beau came walking up to the front door because Griff had told him his suit was going to be a surprise—he'd only see it right before the ball began. They would both get dressed and head there together."

"No," Griff said.

Hex continued, "When the young man showed up, Griff presented him with his newly-finished suit. The man went into a guestroom to change. And he stepped out with a howl of outrage."

"Why?" Quinlan gasped.

"Because Griff had sewed a whole third pant leg between his two pant legs." Hex cackled. "The fabric dangled between his legs like an elephant's trunk. It was definitely too big for his actual third leg, if you get what I mean. Griff tried to remedy the situation by telling him the third leg was unintentional, and that he didn't think his beau's... assets were that big."

Quinlan looked shocked, horrified, and fascinated all at once.

Griff reached around the front seat to strangle Hex, except Hex wriggled out of his grip to focus on driving the SUV down the bumpy forest path.

"Don't deprive your consort, Dragon Master," Hex crowed. "Quinlan deserves to know who he's shacking up with. Anyway, that wasn't the worst part."

"It wasn't?" Quinlan's eyes were so wide.

"No. Griff pummeled his beau to the ground and ripped the pants off him, only to wear them himself and put his own third leg into that third pant leg... And he shook his hips so hard that the pant leg flopped around, and smacked his beau in the face. That poor young man fainted from indignation."

"He didn't like that I was bigger than him," Griff grumbled. "But it's not like my cock is the size of a leg! I was just showing him how a third pant leg could be useful. He didn't have any imagination."

Quinlan had started giggling. Griff didn't know if he wanted to be proud of himself for making Quinlan laugh, or be mortified by his failure.

"Quit talking about third legs when there's a baby around," Quinlan chided, but there was such a bright, fond smile playing on his lips.

Quinlan was so beautiful.

Despite his embarrassment, Griff wanted to know if Quinlan would walk his family's Circle with him, to seal their fates as official mates. It was something he'd been thinking about increasingly often.

"Fireheart," Griff began. "Will you—"

Hex cursed, suddenly. He jerked the steering wheel to the side, sending them crashing into each other in the backseat.

A small projectile landed in the forest trail where the car had been, exploding into a cloud of green gas.

Griff was immediately on alert, stretching out his hearing as far as it would go.

There was a helicopter nearby. Possibly right above them.

Damn it! Why didn't I buy armored vehicles?

"Hex," he barked.

"On it." Hex floored the gas.

The SUV lurched forward. It accelerated along the trail, each bump so violent that the seatbelts barely held them down.

Another shell landed next to them. Too close for comfort. Especially when it could so easily pierce the roof and kill them all

"I'm heading out." Griff unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Griff!" Quinlan turned wide eyes on him.

"Stay and protect Annie," Griff growled. On impulse, he cupped Quinlan's cheek and trailed his thumb over Quinlan's lips.

Then he flung open the back door and leaped straight into the air.

The assailants were ready for him. The moment Griff began to shift, pain burst through his leg.

He roared and finished the transformation, his clothes ripping, his wings pumping. As he flew higher, Griff aimed a stream of his hottest blue flames at the helicopter, melting its belly and shattering its glass. He charred the helicopter's occupants.

Except the helicopter began to swerve, toward the fleeing SUV.

"Incoming," Hex said from the car.

Griff caught the sound of another helicopter in the distance, coming in fast from behind. He barely had time to shoulder the burning helicopter out of the way, sending it crashing into the trees.

When he turned back, he found several silver-skinned men sliding down a rope from the second helicopter, like silver droplets of liquid dripping down.

Except they began to run.

Toward the SUV.

Griff cursed, flying toward them as he breathed another plume of blue fire at the attackers.

The helicopter pulled away from the foot soldiers. Griff couldn't aim his fire in two directions at once; the enemies were too spread out. But the helicopter was faster. It thundered toward the car, and Griff switched his focus to burning it to a crisp.

The silver-skinned men began to fling each other down the trail, gaining on the SUV.

More silver-skinned men ran out of the forest—this time, into the path ahead of the car.

Hex, Quinlan, and Annie were surrounded.

Griff's stomach clenched as he roared, breathing fire on the silver men he could reach.

With a loud rumble, the SUV accelerated, mowing down the silver men. They melted into a puddle of silver—except they re-formed into their original shapes once the car had passed.

The silver men pulled out guns and began firing at the car.

Two tires blew out. Griff's horror grew as the car skidded, and the silver men raced toward it.

"Hex, seatbelts off," Griff said.

He swooped down next to the car, breathing fire so hot that the silver men screamed and melted. Without looking down, Griff sank his claws into the metal and ripped the car roof clean off.

The flames, at least, kept the men from seeing them.

He clambered onto the car and grabbed Quinlan. Quinlan had Annie clutched in his arms. With his other paw, he grabbed Hex.

Still breathing fire, and running out of breath, Griff took off into the sky, praying like hell there wouldn't be any stray bullets.

"Griff," Quinlan gasped.

"It's not safe here," Griff growled as he stopped the stream of fire. "There might be more in the forest that I haven't seen."

He couldn't fly into town; they couldn't risk a dragon sighting on the news. They couldn't keep flying over the forest without any idea what was under the canopy, either, except they were surrounded by trees.

But there was one place where he knew Quinlan would be safe.

He flew higher into the sky, beating his wings frantically to get them to the lake further east. It was a good lake, large and fairly deep.

Griff caught a flash of silver under the canopy, twisting his body to the right just as a gunshot went off.

It barely missed them. This was far too dangerous.

"Ready, fireheart?"

"Ready," Quinlan said.

Griff swooped down, dropping Quinlan and Annie into the lake like he'd done the first time. He flew toward the shore and dropped Hex on the bank. "Protect them."

"Quinlan called for reinforcements," Hex said.

"Good."

Griff took off. Hex shrank to shed his clothes, before shifting into a rhinoceros the next moment, pawing at the ground.

From the corner of his eye, Griff watched as Quinlan and Annie brought their pink tails into existence. They dove deep into the lake; Griff couldn't see much else anymore.

He circled the lake and kept changing directions so he'd be harder to hit.

More kidnappers rushed out from between the trees. This time, they were regular men—at least, men who weren't silver-skinned. They were wearing wet suits and flippers.

They'd somehow found out that Quinlan was a merman, and they were going after him.

Griff's stomach dropped.

Just that they came from several different directions at once. Griff flew down to breathe fire at a group, only to have other groups of men dive into the lake.

"Surrender now," someone said through a megaphone. "Or we will take the merchild to help convince you."

Rage filled Griff's body and turned his flames hotter.

Hex yelled, "Do I go in after them?"

"Stop more from entering," Griff roared. "The fewer Quinlan has to deal with, the better."

"On it."

Then a monster stumbled out of the trees with several limbs stitched onto its body, smelling like it had dug its way out of a swamp, and Griff couldn't afford to spend any more attention on the lake.