The "they" part of his sentence piqued her curiosity.
Asher opened the door and Honoria walked in. She promptly blinked at who sat behind a long table.
While she'd never met either of the dragon-shifters in person, the dark-haired, blue-eyed form of Bram Moore-Llewellyn and the blond-haired, brown-eyed form of Finlay Stewart were well known to her—and to most anyone in the UK, truth be told—from pictures and interviews.
It looked like the clan leaders of Stonefire and Lochguard had come to question them.
Bram spoke first and motioned toward the empty chairs opposite him. "Take a seat. I promise I won't bite, but I can't make any promises about Finn here."
Finn grinned. "If I'm going to bite, you won't see it coming."
Bram sighed. "I thought we talked about toning it down a fraction?"
"Aye, but I never agreed to it, if you remember."
Bram grunted. "Then why did you nod at the time?"
"Oh, that? Aye, well, I was remembering a tune I sang to my daughter. You just mistook it for agreement."
Bram let out an even bigger sigh, and muttered, "You promised Ara you'd behave."
The Stonefire leader referred to Finn's dragon-shifter mate, Arabella MacLeod. By all accounts, she was the center of Finn's world, along with his three children.
As Honoria slid into one of the seats, she couldn't help but smile. "What they say about you two is true, then."
Bram raised a dark eyebrow. "I'm almost afraid to ask what's true." He motioned toward the other leader and drawled, "Being connected to anything which involves Finn is asking for trouble."
A laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. "That you two act more like brothers than anything else."
Bram shook his head as Finn winked. The blond Scottish leader spoke first. "Thank you, lass. You just made my day. Bram hates it when people say that, and anything that irritates him only improves my mood."
Honoria looked over at Asher, who sat quietly watching the pair. He finally jumped in. "I suspect this is an act to put us at ease before you pounce?"
Bram raised his brows. "I wish I could say yes, but this Scottish bastard is determined to ruin our images."
Finn waved a hand in dismissal. "If we're to maybe work with this pair in the future, they should know what they're getting into, aye?"
Honoria spoke up again. "So you're not against a co-leader team?"
Finn shook his head. "No. It's a clever idea, truth be told. Not that I'd want to share it with anyone, mind you. My family likes to meddle, and no doubt several of them would want to jump in and help. Which is all fine, until it turns into some kind of wee disaster."
Bram smirked. "And I'll make sure to mention that to your mate when I talk with her next. She is your family, too, after all."
Asher spoke before Finn could reply. "Then if you're not against a male-female team wanting to lead, then why are you here?"
Finn's eyes turned assessing, and Honoria nearly did a double-take at how quickly his carefree demeanor turned into one of shrewd intelligence. Finn said, "To judge your characters. Marcus King was a bastard who hurt a lot of people. Lochguard may be hundreds of miles north of here, but Marcus's actions affected us, too. And I'm not about to allow another arsehole to take over and possibly harm my clan again."
All eyes turned to Asher, and Honoria waited to see what he'd do. She suspected there was a motive behind everything, but she wasn't attuned enough yet to figure it out.
Which bloody irritated her, but all she could do was wait and see.
~~~
Some would be distracted by the Stonefire and Lochguard leaders' charm, but Asher wasn't going to fall for it. After all, at one time, his uncle had been charming. Until he hadn't been and instead had decided fear would work better to control the clan.
His dragon spoke up. Given what we learned, I doubt these two will use fear.
Maybe, maybe not. They haven't earned my trust yet.