“Give us some direction and we’ll get the rest of these up for you.”
As it seemed to constantly do, Aiden’s husky baritone sent excited shivers along her skin. “You don’t have—” She caught the stubborn set of Aiden’s jaw and gritted her teeth. Oh screw it. “The next painting in the crate goes on the hook by the door.” While Aiden carted the canvas in the direction of the entrance, she snapped her fingers at Jace and pointed to the wall behind him. “You can put the gothic fairy there.”
Jace cocked his eyebrows. “I do believe you’re starting to enjoy dishing out the orders.”
She plastered on a sweet smile. “You know what they say—if you can’t beat ’em, make ’em sweat their balls off doing grunt work.” Tucking her hands in the pockets of her lightweight wool trousers, she watched Jace align the canvas on the hook. If she wasn’t careful, she could get used to having Aiden and Jace around to carry out her bidding. She instantly sobered at the thought. If she chose to remain in this odd triangle, she’d be the one doing the obeying, not the other way around.
Aiden returned to her side and grasped the next canvas in the lineup. A nerve twitched in his jaw when he noticed which painting he held. Almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he stroked his thumb over the image of her tied to the apple tree. Muttering a soft curse, he yanked his finger away. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. She’s not as fragile as she looks.”
His gaze whipped her way and she gestured to the canvas. “I mean the painting.” God knows he wouldn’t believe her if she told him the model wasn’t exactly a fragile flower either. “You can bring it over here.” She walked toward the adjacent wall, leaving him to follow. “I wasn’t planning to showcase The Sacrifice at the gallery but my other dragon paintings really took a hit from the asshole with the spray can. Other than this one, the canvas hanging over the table, and a few others I fortunately took to the Ren fair, I’m pretty much wiped out.” Planting her hands on her hips, she inspected the hook hanging eyelevel in front of her. “Okay, I think this spot will be perfect for it. What do you think?”
No answer came from Aiden. Swiveling, she discovered him standing stock-still in the center of the gallery. She returned his stare with a perplexed look. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re the missing puzzle pieces.”
“Pardon?”
“The paintings.” Aiden stalked to the hook protruding from the wall and situated the painting before turning to survey the rest of the gallery. “Your vandal only destroyed the paintings that depicted dragons.”
Rubbing her chin, she ping-ponged her attention between the two crates across from her and the partially vacant walls. “Wow, you’re right. Good catch.”
Jace left his station by the wall and joined them. “What’s up?”
“Aiden just pointed out that the creep only damaged the paintings of dragons. Interesting coincidence, huh?”
When neither brother answered, she cocked her head to find them looking at each other. She gave a frustrated exhale. “Enough with the psychic twin routine. Whatever you’re thinking, share with the rest of the class.”
Aiden peered toward the front desk, where Tony was making inventory tags for the new paintings. “Maybe we should go into your office.”
She took one glance at Aiden’s guarded expression and swept her arm in the direction of the rear hallway. “After you.”
Once in her office, she settled her butt on the edge of her desk and gestured impatiently. “Obviously you both see some connection with the paintings, so spill it.”
“A Drakoni isn’t responsible for the vandalism.” Aiden scruffed his fingers over the nape of his neck, ruffling the ends of his hair. “If there’s one common trait all dragons possess, it’s pride.”
“What exactly does pride have to do with vandalism?”
Jace coughed into his hand before grinning sheepishly. “In simple terms, it means we dragons are too vain to deliberately destroy pictures of ourselves.”
She swung her stare to Aiden and he nodded. A snort escaped her. “And here I thought Calvin was stuck on himself. All right, so it wasn’t a Drakoni. That should help narrow the list of suspects.” Resting her elbow on her knee, she plunked her chin in her hand and contemplated Aiden and Jace. “Speaking of Calvin, he seems a likely culprit. Maybe we should have a little chat with him.”
Aiden’s face hardened. “Much as I’d love the opportunity to chat with your stalker ex, I don’t think he’s the one behind this.”
“Are you kidding? Calvin is not only a certified psycho, he has a major axe to grind, what with me dumping him.”
“I’m not going to argue against your ex being a psycho, but there’s a problem with your theory.”
She narrowed her eyes at Aiden’s matter-of-fact tone. Clearly dragons weren’t only vain and arrogant, they were also big know-it-alls. “Such as?”
“Whoever destroyed those paintings has a bigger axe to grind against dragons than anything they have against you.”
Her mouth swinging open, she jumped from her perch on the desk. Obviously intuiting that she was two seconds away from going ape shit at his clearly dumbass assumption, Aiden rubbed his hand soothingly along her arm. “Let me explain. The graffiti is terrible—and something I fully intend to snap the perpetrator’s neck for—but the paintings were slashed. Brutally. It takes an awful lot of bottled-up hate to display that kind of violence toward an inanimate object.”
Her memory flashed back to the damaged canvases, each one looking like it’d been given the Freddy Krueger slash ’n’ trash special. Good God. He was right. Someone had one hell of a grudge against dragons. “You guys must have racked up some major enemies over the years.”
Aiden grimaced. “Several centuries of pillaging and burning villages tends to bring the hunters out of the woodwork.”
“Hunters?”
Wariness blanketed Aiden’s face. “Some of our enemies have made it their life mission to hunt us down and eradicate our kind.”
It took a moment to fully digest what he was saying. Once she did, she sputtered on a cough. “You mean there are actual dragon slayers walking the earth?” When both Aiden and Jace merely shrugged, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “It might have been nice telling me about that sooner, you know.”
“Actually, we did. Outside La Luna, on the day you first met us.”
She stared blankly at Jace until a vague recollection started to take shape. “Wait a minute. Did the conversation in question include snare nets and assault rifles?”
Aiden’s mouth twisted in wry amusement. “More than likely.”
“God, and I thought you were just being weird.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, sweetness.”
Ignoring Jace’s quip, she paced in front of the desk, shaking her head. “If you’re right about the vandalism being targeted more at you than me, that’d mean someone out there actually knows what the two of you are.”
“Yes.”
She met the resignation in Aiden’s eyes and frowned. “But how? It’s not like anyone can tell by looking at you.”
“More than likely the hunters are keeping a database of suspected Drakoni.” Aiden grunted before sliding a glance toward his brother. “It’d certainly make it easier for them to keep track of us.”
“Goddamn pains-in-the-ass,” Jace said with a growl. “They need to get a life.”
She stared at Aiden and Jace, her mind whirling. It’d never occurred to her that they were walking targets just because of their DNA. Now that she knew, it made her oddly scared for them. She couldn’t imagine going through life constantly on the lookout for some moron potentially putting a bullet in her.