Free Dragon's Fire [PUP Squad Alpha 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Abby Blake Page A

feeling even more confused now than ever.
    Brody seemed to realize then that she had no idea what they were talking about. “Sorry, sweetheart. The Ruling Body has a way of blocking my mother’s ability to sense her progeny. She won’t know where I am, and she won’t be able to locate any of her children or grandchildren.”
    Nathan filled in the rest. “The paranormal ancestor—your new identity is part fire demon by the way—is a way of explaining how you could be pregnant to Brody without telling them about your unusual skills. A human becoming pregnant to a dragon-shifter is not something we can explain without putting you and the baby in danger again.”
    She wanted to ask more, but Alex called to Brody as he approached them. “We’ve found a young female dragon at the edge of the clearing. She’s doesn’t even seem old enough to shift, so she wasn’t involved in the fighting, but she’s broken and bleeding. We think they brought her to watch, but she fell out of the tree when she tried to climb down.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “She says she’s your niece, Keira.”
    “Shit, Keira is only fourteen years old. Even in human terms she’s just a child.”
    “That’s what we thought,” Alex said as he led them over to where a young woman was lying on the ground as someone with a first-aid kit checked her over. Brody moved Ava into Nathan’s arms, gave him a look that she interpreted as “keep her here,” and knelt beside the young woman. He spoke quietly to both the young girl and the medic attending her before returning to Ava and Nathan.
    “She’s too young to shift, so she won’t be able to heal that way. Jason used his magic to assess her injuries and says most aren’t serious—broken leg, broken wrist, and lots of bruising, but no internal injuries. He wants to take her to the nearest hospital for paranormals so they can monitor her recovery.”
    Nathan must have felt her curiosity because he added, “They’re in a different dimension. The only way in is by jump, slip, or bounce travel.”
    “Bounce?” She’d heard them use the term before but had never realized it was actually a form of travel.
    “Favored by warlocks, less nauseating for humans, but the landing can be very painful,” Nathan quickly explained.
    Brody smiled, and leaned over to press a kiss to her mouth. “Jump vortex is most comfortable for dragons. I’ll be back in a few moments.”

Chapter Seven
     
    Nathan stood back and admired his handiwork. It wasn’t perfect, but the old veranda on the home Ronan had assigned them in Sugarvale had rotted with age so Nathan had taken the opportunity to build a far larger deck. He’d finished it much faster than he’d originally planned, but he still hadn’t been able to shake the adrenaline reaction to the attack two nights ago.
    Angus had been able to quickly bring the fires under control—ice demons were quite handy that way—and they’d managed to salvage most of the safe house and its contents. Almost all of the damage had been to the front and back verandas—in other words, both exits. Brody’s family had obviously been very determined to kill Ava, despite knowing she was well protected. Unfortunately, their reckless, poorly planned, and badly executed attack raised more questions in his mind than he could answer. Hell, a fourth grader would have known that the risk outweighed the reward, so why had the dragons attacked at all? Were they so fanatical that they’d risked almost certain capture just to kill a human and her half-dragon child?
    Unfortunately, that sort of thinking took him full circle, and he found himself wondering about the original reason for meeting Ava. So many things had happened in such a short time it was almost easy to forget that it had been a pixie’s assassination attempt that had brought them together in the first place.
    “It looks great,” Ava said as she stepped through the back door and held out a tall glass of