Free The Queen's Flight (Emerging Queens) by Jamie K. Schmidt Page B

collected it. Giddy from her new purchases, she slid into the passenger seat. She buckled up, plugged her cell phone into the car charger, and continued knitting.
    “Happy?” Sergei asked in a tone that suggested he couldn’t care less.
    “Thank you for coming and getting me, and thanks for the yarn.”
    “I’m not paying for it.”
    “I didn’t ask you to. If you hate me so much, why didn’t they send Carolyn to pick me up?”
    “Queens don’t go anywhere unescorted, and she and Reed are in Mexico talking to Queen Esmeralda.”
    “Wow,” Viola breathed. “I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico.”
    “I wouldn’t get my heart set on travelling until you’ve established your Protector and consort.” Sergei accelerated and passed every car on the road.
    “Can it be the same person?” Viola angled her head back to see if they were being followed.
    “In your case, I’d go for two. The more people you have protecting you, the better.”
    “Protecting me from what?” Viola sat back and tightened her seatbelt.
    “From little incidents like last night. What happened anyway?” Sergei’s voice was gruff.
    Her cell phone rang, playing Fun’s “Some Nights.”
    “I should get that.” She groaned when she recognized the number. “Oh shit.”
    “What?” Sergei said.
    Viola held up a finger. With Sergei’s dragon hearing, he’d be able to hear both sides of the conversation. “Hi Mark, long time no talk.”
    “Viola, don’t be like that,” her ex-husband said in that calm, rational voice that always made her want to throw things at his head. “I called because I’m worried about you. I saw you on the eight o’clock news.”
    Was she wearing pants? Oh God, please let her not have been flashing her vajayjay on prime time.
    “I called your mother, but she told me she no longer had a daughter and hung up on me. What did you do now?” he asked. She could almost see his lips twisting in derision.
    Viola’s heart thumped in pain. “What do you want, Mark?”
    “I can’t believe that you’re one of the new dragon Queens,” he said with such false cheer that Viola’s teeth ached.
    “What makes you say that?” she hedged.
    “Why else would dragon thugs be forcing you into a car?”
    “It wasn’t like that.” Viola glossed over the incident. “It was a big misunderstanding.”
    “I wanted to let you know that if you needed a place to stay, Barbie and I would love to have you.” He sounded sincere, and if she didn’t know what a social-climbing boor he was, she might have fallen for it.
    “Her name seriously isn’t Barbie, is it?” Sergei asked.
    Viola nodded and rolled her eyes.
    “Who’s that?” Mark snapped.
    “Let me guess, money’s a little tight and you think you can cash in to the tabloids for selling dragon pictures. I hear they’re paying a grand a pop.”
    “How did you know that?” Sergei asked.
    “Everyone knows that,” she said, covering the microphone.
    “That’s an outrageous assumption,” Mark said.
    “What? That you’d use me for money and then leave when you got what you wanted? Ooh, let me see. Can’t think of a time that happened before.”
    He started to sputter, and she hung up on him.
    “Bitch,” she said.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Not you. Him. Although, I guarantee he said it, too.”
    Her phone rang.
    “I’ll get it,” Sergei said, reaching for it.
    “It’s not him. He doesn’t like confrontation. Oh, it’s old-home week,” Viola said when she saw the number. She should let this one go to voice mail.
    “What?” Sergei noticed her discomfort.
    Might as well get this out of the way, too. Viola blew out a breath. “Hi, Turk.”
    “Oh honestly, now you’re fucking with me,” Sergei said.
    Viola shook her head.
    “Hey sweetcakes,” Turk’s voice used to cause her to shiver with reaction because he sounded so dangerous.
    “Sweetcakes?” Sergei said.
    Now, there was a dangerous man worth shivering over.
    “I missed you, Mama,” Turk