The Billionaire Dragon Shifter Meets His Match: BBW Paranormal Romance (Gray's Hollow Dragon Shifters Book 6) Read Online Free Page A

brothers, before they were all mated and settled.
    Jane’s hand was still in his, and she pressed warmly against his side. There was another little silence—long enough for Laurence to notice that odd distant knocking sensation again—before Jane said, “William. Out loud, please.”
    William looked up with a startled, owlish blink, his gaze flicking back and forth from Laurence to Jane, and Laurence realized that he’d been trying to use dragon speech.
    Jane must have tried, before. But mate or not, she couldn’t get past that black glass wall he’d long since learned to keep in place.
    She couldn’t now, anyway. If she—if they—
    Laurence closed his eyes and focused on the wall in his mind, seamless and smooth and cold. When he opened his eyes again, William was watching him and said only, “So, you’re new in town?”
     
    ***
     
    Jane waited, unable to help projecting silent encouragement in dragon speech even though it all bounced uselessly back at her.
    After a moment, Laurence said, “I travel a lot. I’ve visited Chicago before, but—yes, on this trip I arrived... this morning, I think, if it’s still the same night.”
    “You were out for about three hours,” Jane supplied, touching her fingers to the healed wound on Laurence’s left arm. That would be another scar, which it shouldn’t have been. But Laurence had suffered the constant presence of dragonglass, weakening his defenses to it. Even the best healing supplies Jane had had been insufficient to make the wound disappear without a trace.
    “This morning, then,” Laurence repeated softly.
    “And you traveled here from...?” William prompted.
    “I flew in from New York,” Laurence said, a hint of cold smooth finality in his voice. “On United, not under my own power.”
    William nodded, entering the subject’s response on his laptop whether it was useful or not. “And originally, you’re from...?”
    “Neither here nor there.” Laurence’s voice was sharp enough to abandon any pretense that he was cooperating with this line of questioning.
    Jane watched William cycle through possible responses, torn between her own training and a fierce determination to protect Laurence from being manipulated or pressured. If William made a casual remark about how Laurence’s refusal to name where he came from made it obvious that he was protecting someone who still lived there—
    William glanced toward her and murmured in dragon speech, Give me a little credit, Curlew. I don’t know which one of you would bite my head off faster, but the city treaties would be a hell of a mess afterward.
    Jane frowned a little. No back channel chatter, Kolodziej. I’m not on your side here.
    William cleared his throat and focused on Laurence again, sitting back behind the laptop and giving a wide, disarming smile. “Okay, well, wherever you grew up I’m guessing you missed your dragon-specific Social Studies class, so let’s do a little remedial lesson, huh?”
    Laurence’s posture stiffened, but he looked interested as well as wary. “Is that where good little dragon children learn to respect the Georgian Corps?”
    William’s smile widened. “I wouldn’t know, man, I was a terror of a dragon child. Jane, you were a good kid, weren’t you?”
    “As far as my mom knew,” Jane agreed, although in truth she had been mostly a good kid, all earnest and eager to take her place in the Corps once she proved herself. “Dad was harder to fool, actually, but he had a soft spot for me. Mom’s human,” Jane added to Laurence, when he turned his attention to her. She just barely caught his tiny flinch at the words before she added, “Dad’s the dragon. Georges in mixed marriages like that are the reason there are so many Georges like me and William now, descended from dragons and hunters both.”
    “Are they...?” Laurence’s gaze searched hers with a strange anxiety, but he didn’t finish the question.
    “They retired down to Arizona a few years