here to cook.”
“Oh.” Feeling unsure, I moved out of his way in the small kitchen and sat on the chair. “Then why did you ask me here?”
“To talk,” Ezra replied simply, pulling out the ingredients for sandwiches. His movements were hesitant like he wasn’t familiar with the kitchen. I bit down on my cheeks to stop myself from smiling.
Ezra was incredibly out of his element, and it was kind of cute.
“What did you want to talk about?”
Ezra turned around to give me a look that said, really? I snorted.
“Right, there’s a lot.” I laughed nervously, twisting my fingers in my lap. “Um, how’s Leo?”
I’d never once regretted running away from here, but drugging Ezra’s father to do so hadn’t felt great. He was an innocent bystander that had ended up as a casualty in my war.
“He’s fine. Proud of you.”
The sound of the knife hitting the counter as Ezra casually sliced cheese punctuated the silence in the kitchen. If he wasn’t such a straitlaced, serious male, I’d think he was playing with me.
“Proud of me, for drugging him so efficiently? Or perhaps for leaving immediately afterwards and just hoping he’d be fine?” I deadpanned.
“For your ingenious escape plan. You played on him underestimating you, and our unwillingness to tell anyone outside the flight about our issues. It was very clever.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a compliment.”
“Because it is. Out of all of us, perhaps Seff would have used his brain to get himself out of a difficult situation — though red dragons usually struggle to keep themselves calm if they feel trapped — the rest of us would have relied on brute strength.”
“I don’t have brute strength,” I pointed out wryly, deflecting to distract myself from the fluttery feeling in my stomach.
“You didn’t,” Ezra corrected. “Now, you can shift. Your dragon is smaller than ours, but you could do enough damage to the den to break out of here if you ever needed to.”
“Will I ever need to?” The question came out quieter than I intended because I was afraid of the answer.
“If you ever want to leave, you can walk right out the front door, Shira,” Ezra replied, putting the knife down and turning to look at me. His face was somber and entirely honest. “Do you believe me?”
It’s not like secrecy was Ezra’s problem. He’d always been very upfront about his intentions, even when he knew they’d make me mad.
“I believe you. And now I’m going to help you because you are terrible at making sandwiches.”
✽✽✽
By the time we sat down at the dinner table, we had a decent array of sandwiches and some cut vegetables, though I doubted it was going to be a hearty enough meal for five enormous male dragons and me. The roster idea had merit, but they weren’t all on Seff’s level in the kitchen.
“So, you have food, as requested. Are we going to discuss lifetimes now?” Levi asked, a mischievous glint in his eye. I huffed a laugh as I piled food onto my plate.
“I don’t know if I can make that kind of promise, given everything that’s going on, but I guess, for now, I'll stay and we'll see how things go?” Levi gave me a satisfied nod as Ezra watched on, paying rapt attention. It wasn’t a declaration of forever, but I guessed it was progress.
“There’s a Council meeting tomorrow. It’ll be the first time Flight Milain’s absence will be noted,” Seff said. “Is there anything we need to do to safeguard Shira before then?”
“I really don’t want you to get any more involved in this than you already are,” I muttered, running my fingers through my hair, missing the way I could use it to hide behind when it was long.
“We’re your mates,” Ezra stressed, looking at me from the other end of the table with his eyebrows raised. “If you feel the need to go on a murderous rampage, it’s our job to clean up after you. That’s how this works, Shira.”
I stared at him, stunned into silence at his casual mention of murderous rampages.
“No one used any magic,” Levi said, shrugging one shoulder. “Does anyone know except The Alchemist and your brother?”
“The fae I was staying with, Quillan Edan, seemed to suspect what I had in mind. He gave me the dagger.”
Seff snorted. “Quillan Edan, dealer of luxury goods? I doubt he’ll want any kind of attention on him. He has a knack for... acquiring goods he shouldn’t. Interesting friends you’ve got, gorgeous,” he added with a wink.
My