Noah's Boy-eARC by Sarah A. Hoyt

the end, Tom had to help Rafiel dress—in jogging pants and a shirt, and had to more carry him to the van than help him walk, though Bea noticed Tom was careful to preserve the appearance that he was only assisting.
    They strapped Rafiel in the back, in the seat next to hers, though there was a space in between. He looked groggy, half awake, except when that bright right eye turned in her direction. It should have discomfited her, given what a wreck he looked, but it didn’t. There was humor in his glance, and he smiled a little.
    “So, why is Bea along?”
    Tom explained.
    “Ah, I sensed we had a lot in common. You died. I almost died.”
    “More importantly,” Kyrie said gravely, “it brings us to ask—where are you two going to go? You might not be safe in town, either of you.”
    “Go?” Bea asked.
    “Well,” Kyrie said. “Someone might try to kill you again, Bea—particularly if the Great Sky Dragon knows you have no intention of obeying, and as for Rafiel…he can’t heal like this in public. You have to see that. Too many explanations. We heal really fast. People will wonder. He can’t hide his face.”
    Rafiel seemed immersed in thought for a long time. “My parents’ cabin,” he said at last. “I left my car out in Riverside. If you take me there, I will drive us out.” He took a deep breath. “My parents have a cabin in the mountains, south of here. Middle of nowhere. I have the keys in my car. I can go there while I recover and while we find out how to keep Miss Ryu safe.”
    Bea should have been offended at his presumption or perhaps suspicious of this plan to throw her into a cabin all alone with a guy she barely knew. Instead, she felt perfectly safe and oddly relaxed about it.
    True, she hardly knew Rafiel, and yet she felt that she’d known him for a long, long time. It wasn’t so much that she liked him, but she felt she belonged around him—like they’d known each other such a long time she needn’t worry about what impression she was making or how he felt. He just was and she just was. If it weren’t such a comfortable feeling, it would be downright scary.
    * * *
    “You know,” Tom said. “If you’d told me I would send a young and innocent girl off with Rafiel like that, just a day ago, I’d have told you that you were insane.”
    “We have no proof that she’s innocent,” Kyrie said.
    Tom smiled at her. “Probably too innocent for love-them-and-leave-them Rafiel.”
    “Who by his own admission is more leave them and less love them. I’m more worried about Rafiel than her,” Kyrie said. They were driving back from Riverside, starting to hit the heavy traffic on Fairfax. “Notice she already made sure she got to drive, not him.”
    “Um,” Tom said, as he avoided a large heating-and-plumbing service truck hell bent on changing lanes on top of him. “Considering for now at least Rafiel has only one working eye, I’m glad she did. Sensible of her.”
    A sly, sideways look from Kyrie, and she said, “You like her.”
    “Oh yes. Unless she’s a very carefully contrived plant, that girl has—what did they use to call it? Moxie. Almost as much as you.” He reached and squeezed her hand. “And you must admit this whole thing has to be fairly bewildering for someone like her, born and raised American—you know…”
    “Yeah, unlike Conan Lung whose parents more or less told him he now belonged to the Great Sky Dragon the very first time he shifted and whose parents at least have the full expectation of belonging to someone in a feudal sense, Bea grew up thinking of herself as free,” Kyrie said. “So knowing a many-times ancestor has decided her marriage had to come as a shock. And speaking of Conan—”
    “For all you shift into a panther, you’re rather like a bulldog, aren’t you? Once you get hold of something, you just won’t let go.”
    “Well…Tom, what if it damages the reputation of the diner? What if people stop coming?”
    “No one will be