Page 50 of The Flame Game

“That is not my idea of a good time, either, but I’ve learned where you go, trouble follows—and ambrosia is serious trouble.”

That it was. “I could go for some napalm, though.”

“When can’t you go for some napalm?”

I took my time thinking about that, nibbling on a piece of bacon. “Whenever you take your shirt off?”

“Why is that a question?”

“Why did you ask me such a hard question? It’s napalm! Napalm is so much better than ambrosia.”

“You get hungover, Bailey.”

“But before the hangover, napalm is life.” I devoured the rest of my bacon before demolishing my pancakes. “Okay. I’m ready to work.”

Quinn stared at my empty plate. “You’re not still hungry, are you? Are the twins already rising up to turn my beautiful cindercorn into a ravenous beast?”

“The twins have not been around long enough for that yet. I’m not even at the weird smells or morning sickness phase yet. That nonsense starts in a week or two, and then you can spend the rest of this pregnancy convincing me they aren’t trying to kill me.”

“They’re not trying to kill you, Bailey.”

“But are you sure?”

He regarded my stomach with interest. “I know people we could ask.”

“The archangel, your uncle, or other?”

“All of the above,” he admitted. “But my uncle seems to be the one obsessed with unicorns, so I’ll start with him.”

“Do you think it’ll be safe for our puppies and our most vicious huntress to come with us?”

“Sunny will be fine, and we’ll be careful with Blizzard and Avalanche. I’d really rather Sunny come with us, and I’d rather not separate her from Blizzard—and Avalanche whines if Blizzard leaves her.”

“But what about our babies? They’re with our babies.”

“Beauty and Sylvester will understand. They’re already unusual. Gorgon whelps usually aren’t allowed to have any pets until they’re at least twelve. It’s too much of a risk to the animals. I’ll just tell them the pets need to be trained. Gorgon whelps understand training, so they won’t think twice about it. Training our pets isn’t punishing them, and they know this.”

“They’re so different from human children, aren’t they?”

“In a way, but it’s necessary. Don’t feel badly about it, Bailey. We’re protecting our children this way.”

I scowled but nodded. “We are. And this whole rabies thing has hurt our family enough.”

“That’s right. And if we can sink Morrison with his involvement in the rabies outbreak, we’ll nail him on multiple murder charges.”

“If Morrison runs from bail, do you think they’ll tell us?” I asked, allowing my insecurities to come out, so I wouldn’t bottle it up and have it explode out later.

Time—and Quinn—had changed me.

For the most part, I loved the woman I’d become since tumbling into his life.

“Probably not,” he admitted. “With my heritage and tendencies, they—mostly meaning Commissioner Dowry—will believe I’ll do anything necessary to protect you, which is correct. I will. You’ve already demonstrated you’ll do whatever is necessary to protect me. By neglecting to tell us, they stop us from pursuing the matter personally.”

“Except we are. Pursuing the matter personally, that is.”

“We are, but we are doing so in a questionably acceptable fashion. We are using only resources publicly available or already have in our possession. We’ll have to avoid looking at the facial recognition results to make that stick, but since it hadn’t processed when we last looked at it, we can get away with a technicality on that score. The CDC rabies resources will look innocent enough. I mean, there’s no reason to think Audrey was involved with that.”

“Was she rabid?”