Free EVREN: Enter the Dragonette by Marian Tee Page B

maintain my weight.  Although Dyvian told me Evren didn’t gain weight the way humans did, I wasn’t taking any chances.
    “Shoot,” Dyvian garbled out while munching on a strip of bacon.  Once again, half of his face was hidden behind a pile of food.  The mouthwatering feast tempted me to ignore my weight goals.
    Turning away from the invitation to sin, I doggedly bit my way through my toast—whole wheat, bland, but utterly safe.  “Lucian told everyone I’m from Australia.  But I don’t sound Australian, do I?  What if people start noticing?”
    Dyvian’s twirled his fork around.  “That is a bit of a problem.”
    I glanced at Lucian, expecting him to have a solution.  He always did.  He was reading the business papers—again—but I had no doubt he was listening to our conversation at the same time.
    “Well?”  I pulled his Financial Times down so I could see his face and enjoy the beauty of his forest green eyes.
    Not that I’d ever tell him his eyes are beautiful.   Teasing Lucian about crushing on me was one thing, but having him know about my crush on him was another, and one of the X-Files-Don’t-Ever-Speak-Of-It variety.
    A small smile played on Lucian’s lips then.  It made him so much cuter.  The smile widened.  I frowned.  What in the world could be in Financial Times that would make him smile like that?  Curiosity temporarily wiped out the niggling issue of my so-called-Australian identity.  “What are you smiling about?”
    The smile vanished and Lucian coughed.  “Nothing.”
    My eyes met Dyvian’s in mutual suspicion.  “Oh, wait.  I think I know what it is.”  When Lucian glanced at me in wary astonishment, I became convinced of the accuracy of my hunch.
    Lucian took a drink of his coffee.  “What is it then?”
    “You hit the jackpot with your stock investments.”  I flashed a triumphant smile.  “Didn’t you?”
    Lucian’s lovely eyes blinked, stared, and gleamed.  “You could say that I’ve hit the jackpot, I guess.”  Another smile started tugging at his lips, and I decided he was laughing at himself for being silly enough to think he could keep something like that from me.
    Dyvian and I gave each other hi-fives.  “Told you I knew.”
    “He doesn’t usually keep things like that a secret though,” Dyvian remarked.
    I had figured the answer to that, too, and I answered before Lucian could.  “Because he still doesn’t want to give us any reason to celebrate in Vegas.”  I rolled my eyes and turned to Lucian.  “Right?”  I had been pestering Lucian to let me go to Vegas—what was the point of being in Nevada if you could never go to Sin City?—and Dyvian had been supporting my side just to annoy his brother.
    Lucian, who had opened his mouth to speak earlier on, closed it and simply nodded.  The gleam in his eyes had turned into a full-fledged twinkle, and by now, his gorgeousness had reached the eye-popping level.
    My breath hitched but I quickly willed it back to a normal pace.  Drat.  I had to stop hyperventilating every time Lucian did something more than blink.  With Evren hearing so good, I was sure one of these days, either Lucian or Dyvian would notice how my breathing tended to race when Lucian was around—add one and one, and come up with a hugely embarrassing two.
    The thought was enough to make me shudder.
    “Are you all right, Deli?  You’re breathing rather fast.”  Lucian’s perusing gaze landed on me with razor-like precision.
    I choked on the toast and reached for my milk.  I tilted the glass all the way up to cover my face and used all my power to stop my cheeks from reddening.
    The last drop of milk vanished, and I lost my excuse for avoiding Lucian’s gaze.  “I-I’m okay.  Just—worried about the Australian thing.”
    Dyvian settled his elbows on the table and clasped his fingers under his chin, his eyes narrowing.  That wasn’t good.  Of all the times for Dyvian to pay attention to something