Page 33 of Dragon Rivals of New York (Dragons of New York #3)

Chapter 33

Kyro

“ W e need to sneak into the temple.” Sora hops up on the kitchen counter, looking so comfortable in Jethro’s house that my heart aches. After tomorrow, she might not remember this place at all.

“There are too many of them.” With my hip against the counter next to her, I place my hand on her knee, needing the reminder that she’s still here.

Jethro goes to the cupboard and pulls out a bag of coffee grinds, my favorite roast from my favorite coffee shop. I wonder how he knew, or is it also his favorite?

We slept late, but I still feel exhausted. Coffee is just what I need.

Jethro hip-checks me, shoving me aside enough that he can get into the drawer where I was leaning and pull out a coffee liner. I’m grateful the bag he’s got in his hand is already ground, because I don’t think I can handle any loud noises this morning. There’s still a tinny ringing in my head, and even though I can hear now, everything sounds muffled, like my ears are stuffed with cotton.

“We can’t let Midas and Adrianna attack again. What if—” Sora’s voice chokes off, and she shakes her head. “We just can’t. But… I’m not ready to give up on this.” She waves a hand between us. “We have to find another way.”

I slide my hand up her thigh, giving it a squeeze that I hope is reassuring, but my whole body feels heavy with uncertainty. Every scenario I run through ends with people dying and her forgetting us.

“I might have an idea.” Jethro keeps his gaze on the coffee as he pours measured scoops into a little dish on a kitchen scale. Of course the man makes fancy coffee. I usually just throw some ground beans in the coffeemaker and forget about it.

“What is it?” Sora asks him.

He stops what he’s doing and looks at me. “You won’t like it.”

I cross my arms over my chest and repeat Sora’s question. “What is it?”

He flips the switch on an electric kettle, keeping his face turned away from us. “We swim. ”

My blood chills. “Swim?”

Dragons are creatures of fire. We don’t like being submerged under water. We can go without oxygen for long periods of time in order to fly high into the atmosphere—so breathing isn’t the problem. It’s the water, the lack of heat, the trapped feeling that comes with all that weight crushing our wings.

“What about Sora?” I ask. “She won’t be able to hold her breath the way we can.”

Jethro shrugs. “Scuba diving gear.”

Our mate wrinkles her forehead and scrunches her nose. “Don’t you have to be trained to do that?”

“We won’t go deep,” Jethro says. “I’ve got a friend who’s an instructor. I’m sure she’ll help us and teach you everything you need to know.”

I silently shake my head, thinking about all that could go wrong with this plan.

Jethro places a hand on my shoulder. “They won’t expect us to come from below.”

My gaze slowly lifts to his. I take a deep breath and blow it out. “Okay.”

“You aren’t going to argue with me?” His mouth hangs open .

“No.”

“You’re not going to point out how ridiculous this plan is?” He steps close enough for our toes to touch. I can smell the mint on his breath from his toothpaste.

“Is it ridiculous?” I ask.

“It’s risky.”

“I know.” I look down at his hand still on my shoulder and place mine over his. “And I’m with you.”

“So am I.” Sora touches his arm, a warm look in her eyes. “But… it’ll work better if there’s a distraction.”

Jethro nods, frowning. He returns his attention to the coffee, focusing on whatever the hell he’s doing to get it just right. Sora draws me between her legs, with my back to her, and her arms around me, head resting on my shoulder as we both watch Jethro work.

Once the scent of coffee fills the kitchen, he sighs. “We could wait and plan it at the same time as—”

“No,” I cut him off. “If we wait for the hordes to attack, people could get hurt. I don’t want members of my horde to die because of me.”

We came too close to that last night.

Whatever happens, we’ll go down fighting to protect the connection we have with each other. But this is our fight, and I can’t let anyone else get hurt.

“We’ll think of something,” Sora says. “There’s got to be some way to distract them.”

“Hmm, you know what’s distracting me?” Jethro trails a finger up Sora’s arm that’s wrapped around my neck. “Maybe we need a little exercise to get the ideas flowing.”

“Can you go one minute without thinking about shooting your load off?” I love how insatiable he is, but we need to stay focused if we’re going to solve this.

Jethro’s eyebrows shoot up, and he gets a grin that’s like a teenager who was just told he could take the car out on his own for the first time—completely incongruent with the conversation we’re having. “I have an idea for a distraction.”