“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m great.”
“My God, what happened.”
“No sooner were we on our way here than Garrett got a tip-off that the Black Talons were planning an attack. He brought his brothers to help us.”
“He couldn’t have just called and warned us?”
“He said he couldn’t get through, but I believe he just wanted to end this and planned on getting here first. He almost made it.”
“Almost,” she groaned.
“Well, if nothing else, it worked. I think we are done with all this.”
“I sure hope so. I don’t want to have to worry about being under attack after the baby is born.”
“I’m more worried about finding him or her hanging upside down in their closet at night when I go in to read them a story,” Dane quipped.
“Very funny.”
“I feel a lot of jokes about you being batshit crazy are forthcoming.”
“I feel like you’re going to wake up one night with a panther standing on your chest.”
“Well, I do love your—” he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!”
Dane laughed and pulled her into a kiss. They lingered there for a moment before he went to get dressed, returning to assess the damage to the house.
“Looks like it’s time for a new house.”
“It’s just a hole. You could repair it.”
“Nah. I think I’ll go bigger and better. I’m tired of the city. Perhaps we can just build a big house here, big enough for us, the baby, and however many dozen more you have.”
“Dozen more? Shut your mouth.”
“I thought bats had like four at a time.”
“Don’t make me give you rabies.”
Dane laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Let me get out here and shut this hole back up before too many people notice it.”
“That reminds me. How did the Black Talons know about the tunnels? They seem to have come right to it.”
“I’m not sure, but when I first came back here, before the fire, there was a hole in the roof of the workshop. Though the doors were hidden beneath the floor, there was a panel you could open to get to them. I think they found that and came in that way. The doors were locked with a chain and padlock, and when I went to open them after the fire to see how things were down there, the lock wouldn’t open. I thought it just got damaged in the fire, but I think now that they might have changed it out.”
“That would explain why the light and map were missing off the wall in there. I felt for them after they turned up but came up empty-handed.”
“Sounds plausible,” he said.
“Is it something we need to worry about?’ she asked.
“Probably so, but not today. I’ll figure out how to deal with that before we rebuild, though. The last thing we need are dragons sneaking up on us from below.”
“You’ve got that right. They certainly are a hateful bunch.”
“That’s an understatement.”
The sound of his phone ringing on the kitchen counter startled them both. Dane answered it, responding in single syllables as he listened to the person on the other end before hanging up.
“That was Crosby. They got them all, and he’s already had a talk with the Alpha of the Black Talons. They were a rogue faction, and the rest of the clan wants nothing to do with all this. It’s over.”
“Thank goodness,” she sighed, leaning against him in relief. Those guys were driving me batty.”
Dane looked at her with a straight face until she gave in and started laughing. He joined her for a moment before they gathered up their things and left the disaster of a house around them to go back to the city while they regrouped.CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURDane
It had been almost two months since the clash with the Black Talons. Dane and Adriana were still living in the penthouse, but only while they built their new house on his family property and sold her house, which was nice, but not really ideal for raising a family.
Today, they stood on the roof with only a handful of friends around them. Adriana looked stunning in the beautiful white, flowing gown she had picked out for their wedding day. It was hardly a society wedding that the papers would expect from a man of his stature, but they had decided they didn’t need all that. Dane looked down at his beautiful bride and her rounded belly with pride.
“Do you, Dane Johnathan Jensen, take Adriana to be your lawfully wedding wife . . .” the officiant was saying, but Dane barely heard the words. He was completely lost in how lovely his bride looked with her hair swept up in soft curls and the flowing white dress that fit her rounded breasts and fanned out around her growing belly. When the officiant paused, it shook Dane out of his thoughts long enough to say “I do” instinctively at the right moment.