The Viper’s Nest

Kit Davenport Book 4

TATE JAMES

Copyright © 2017 Katrina Fischer

Cover design © 2017 Covers by Combs

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. If you have obtained this book via piracy, or suspect it has been duplicated illegally, please do the right thing. Advise the author and purchase your own copy. No one likes a pirate, unless he’s Jack Sparrow. 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For the Fox Hole.

You keep me motivated every day, Foxies!

Prologue

Sitting around the kitchen table with my guys, I smiled to myself. It had been such a perfect day. No one was fighting, and more importantly, no one had tried to kidnap or kill me. So, win!

“What are you thinking about, Kitty Kat?” Caleb whispered, taking my hand where it lay on the table between us and smoothing his thumbs over my skin. “You look really content right now.”

“I am,” I replied, not feeling the need to elaborate any further. Around the table, each of my guardians met my gaze, returning all my warm feelings through our bonds. I'd never been so happy in my life as I was in that moment.

“Are you glad we did it?” Cole asked me, tilting his head to the side. His granite eyes held mine, but they were no longer shadowed with the worry and anger, fear and violence. He was just... open.

My smile spread wider. “So much so. I feel”—I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, exploring the incredible feeling of my six completed bonds—“whole. Like this is how I was always meant to be. Are you? Glad?”

A moment’s uncertainty rushed through me, but faded quickly when all six dianoch smiled and nodded their affirmations.

“Good,” I sighed. “I was so worried for so long about what would happen when we were all finally bonded, and now...”

“Now you can't believe we didn't do it sooner?” River finished for me with a quirk of his eyebrow. His golden eyes flashed with a light from within, and I craved seeing his true power once more. “I get that, love. Believe me.”

“Here, have another cookie,” Wesley offered, pushing the plate of freshly baked clove-and-coffee cookies across the table to me. They were my favorite, the coffee flavor not at all masked by chocolate like in so many coffee-cookie recipes.

Taking one, I dunked it in my coffee before taking a bite of the soggy, coffee-flavored treat. Delicious.

“So what's next?” Vali pondered aloud, his ankle brushing mine beneath the table and staying there. “World domination?”

Austin snorted a laugh. “Gods help us all if it is. Can you imagine Christina in charge of the world?” His words were softened by the easy smile on his face and the cheeky wink he threw my way.

“Maybe we could take a holiday?” Caleb suggested, still caressing my hand with his fingers while I nibbled on my cookie. “We sort of deserve it after saving humankind.”

All of the guys chuckled, as did I. We really did deserve a break...

“Where would we go?” I asked Caleb, shifting in my seat to face him. His clear, green-eyed gaze met mine, and I fought back the urge to kiss him. To kiss all of them. Emotions were riding high around the kitchen table, and I was swimming in everyone's.

“Well,” Caleb started, tapping his chin. “I always wanted to visit somewhere tropical...” The rest of what he was saying faded into static as I stared harder at him. Were his eyes bleeding?

“Cal, hun, something's wrong,” I interrupted him, starting to panic as blood filled his eyes and began running down his cheeks like some sort of macabre version of tears. “What's happening?”

I grabbed his arm, but he didn't seem to hear me. He continued speaking, but it was like I was underwater or something, unable to make out his words. Frantically, I looked to the guys for help, but found them all still smiling at me with rivers of blood running down their faces.

“What the fuck?” I screamed, shooting out of my seat. It crashed to the ground behind me as I backed away from the table. “What's going on?”

As I watched, their eyes all burst like squished grapes, sending thick fluid splattered over the table and drenching the cookies. Horrified, I scrambled further away, but my back slammed into a solid form, and I spun around in panic.

“Caleb?” I gasped, “How—” I spun back around to find he had indeed disappeared from the table without me seeing him move.

“You didn't seriously think you'd beaten me, did you?” Caleb spoke, but it wasn't his voice that came from his mouth. “You'll never be rid of me, Foxy Girl. Not ever.”

Words fled my brain as Caleb's skin split open down the middle, peeling back and revealing the blood covered form of Mr. Gray leering back at me. On the verge of a panic attack, I whipped my head back to the guys at the table, only to find them all dead. Every one of them. Throats slashed, chests ripped open, and so much blood.

“No,” I whispered, feeling heavy, wet hands wrap around my throat from behind while I stared transfixed at the corpses of my guardians. “This can't be happening. You're dead. I saw you die. This isn't possible.” My words cut off after that as Gray squeezed, and my fingers clawed frantically at his hands.

I was weak. Why was I so weak?

“Kit,” a soothing voice reached my ears, but I couldn't look away from the grisly scene in front of me. “Kit!” The voice sounded sharper and from closer by. “Fucking hell, this is a bad one tonight.”

Wesley stepped into my line of sight, walking straight through the table, the bloody scene evaporating in his wake. Glancing behind me at the blood covered man trying to strangle me, Wesley snapped his fingers sharply, and the pressure disappeared from my throat instantly.

Sucking in huge gasps, I looked around me but found nothing more than an empty room, which also evaporated until it was just Wesley and I standing in nothingness.

“Wes?” I croaked, rubbing at my still sore neck and feeling tears roll down my face. “Was this...?”

“Another nightmare, sweetheart. That was one of the worst I've seen, though.” He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace, and I shuddered, collapsing into him.

“It seemed really real,” I whispered into his chest as he stroked my hair.

He sighed. “They always do. But I'm here now, so you can rest. I'll keep you safe, I swear.”

With the clarity that it had just been a dream, the horror and panic slowly faded away, leaving me feeling safe and warm. Knowing Wesley was protecting my dreams, night after night, was helping me to heal. Slowly, sure. But I was healing all the same.

1

Warm hands sliding over my belly were what woke me, gently, from the deep sleep I’d been in. With a soft sigh, I snuggled back into the body behind me.

“What time is it?” I whispered in a voice thick with sleep, not bothering to open my eyes.

“Late,” Caleb murmured back, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck. “Or early, depends how you look at it.”

“How early?” I asked, rolling over in his arms and snaking my own around his waist to cuddle in tight. My cheek pressed to his hard chest, and I breathed in his vanilla and cinnamon scent. He smelled like the most delicious cookie sometimes…

“Kitty Kat,” he chuckled. “Did you just lick me?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, nodding slightly. “Your fault. You smell like baking.”

He huffed a little disgruntled sound. “I guess there’re worse things, and if it means you licking me more often...”

It probably wasn’t intended to be funny, but I snorted a laugh nonetheless, cracking my eyes open a scant millimeter and pushing up to peer at him.

“Why so late tonight?” I whispered, inspecting his face and finding worrying dark circles under his eyes. He’d been spending almost every night with this witch who was teaching him to control his powers, and I was getting concerned he might burn out.

Caleb hesitated a moment. “No reason,” he replied, dodging my eye contact.

My lips pursed, and I thought again about pushing him for more information. It wasn’t worth the fight though, as I’d already learned. We’d been on the run from Omega for just over a week, and in that time Caleb and I had already entered into some pretty heated arguments about this mysterious training.

“We need to move again today,” he told me, changing the subject.

Tucking my face back into the crook of his neck, I sighed. “Again?”

“We have to stay ahead of Omega,” he reminded me for what felt like the seven thousandth time. Of course I knew we needed to. Jonathan—my dad, and head of the Omega Group—had tried to kill us all on more than one occasion, and I didn’t care to stick around and wait for him to succeed.

“Why do you think he’s doing this?” I asked again. I’d been asking the same question all damn week, ever since overhearing the damning evidence that my own dad was behind the car bomb and the crash and countless other little accidents over the past month and a half.

“I don’t know, Kitty Kat. But we’re going to find out, right?” Caleb pulled back to peer into my eyes again. His own emerald gaze serious for once as he met mine. “We’re in this together now. All of us.”

His meaning was clear, and I smiled sadly. He meant even though my adoptive dad had apparently been using me for his own gain and had maybe never loved me at all, I didn’t need him. I had more people in my life now who cared for me than I’d ever had before, and I would not let this betrayal break me.

“I know,” I whispered back, sliding my hand up to brush over his cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was rough under my palm. “Do we need to leave soon?”

“Not for another few hours. Vali was organizing the next location when I came in.” His gaze ducked to my lips before returning to my eyes. “You should get some more sleep.”

I gave a tiny shake of my head. “No, I’ve done hardly anything but sleep this past week. I’m ready for some action or something. Maybe I should see if I can help Vali.”

“You know he’ll say no.” Caleb grinned. Vali had been saying nothing other than no to me all week. Some crap about not wanting to involve me in his sordid affairs, but it was starting to sting as a bit of a rejection.

“Oh, don’t give me that face,” Caleb laughed when I pouted at him. “If you really don’t want to sleep, I could suggest another activity...”

This time, it was my gaze that ducked to his lips. “Oh, yeah?” I grinned, anticipation fluttering through me as I became acutely aware of how close our bodies were and just how little we were wearing.

“Yeah,” he replied, a wicked smile on his lips as he lay back on the pillows and tugged me closer until I was flush against his side. “Look.”

He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a small switchblade, which he used to prick his finger. Fascinated and more than a little confused, I watched while he squeezed a sizeable droplet of blood onto his fingertip, then raised his eyebrows at me.

“Ready?” he asked, and I narrowed my eyes. Ready for what? Certainly not what I’d had in mind…

With a sexy sort of chuckle, he flicked his hand up at the ceiling, sending that little droplet of blood soaring through the air. I watched it, transfixed, and when it hit the plaster beside the ugly-ass light fixture, the whole ceiling seemed to just... disappear.

“What...” I breathed out, staring up at the clear night sky above us and the luminescent green light bending and curving in front of the stars.

“We travelled all the way to fucking Harrow, Alaska, and you never got to see the Northern Lights,” Caleb murmured, tugging me to lie back down beside him so we could both look up at the display.

“So you thought...” I trailed off again, totally gobsmacked by what I was seeing. “Is this just an illusion?”

Caleb snickered, and his hand tightened around my waist. “Listen to you becoming an expert in magic. No, Kitty. Not an illusion. More like a window. This is the exact sky over the North Pole right now.”

His teasing about me becoming an expert in magic was in good spirits. Since bonding with Austin, an Ink Mage, my magic had been sort of just bleeding out all over the place. I’d been casting spells I hadn’t intended, and after accidentally turning Cole green one day, Austin had decided I needed more formal training in how to use his magic.

If I’d thought his teaching was painful when learning how to shoot, it was nothing compared to the ogre he was when teaching magic.

“This is so cool,” I whispered, gazing up at the beautiful natural phenomenon above us for a long time. The way the light shifted and moved was mesmerizing, and I soon found myself... calm. Calm in a way that I just hadn’t been able to achieve in longer than I cared to remember.

Between finding out I was a Ban Dia—one of a master race that essentially created all supernatural beings—and being hunted, tortured, and blown up by every man and his damn dog... there just hadn’t been any downtime.

Turning back to Caleb, I pressed a soft kiss to his lips, letting it linger a moment before pulling back. “Thank you,” I murmured, meeting his eyes with sincerity. “This is amazing.”

“Anything for you, Kitty Kat,” he replied, his fingers trailing up my side underneath my baggy sleep shirt. Or rather, Cole’s T-shirt, which I had commandeered to sleep in. Men’s T-shirts were always so damn cosy.

“Couple of hours, you say?” I double-checked, knowing we would need to allow at least one hour to pack up the cars and wipe any trace of ourselves clean.

“Mm-hmm, that I did.” This time, his smirk was as wicked as my own, and heat flushed through me.

“Good.” My fingers traced over the ink on Caleb’s well-muscled abdomen, following the swirl and flow of the lotus blooms down lower until my fingers reached the waistband of his sweatpants. “Then we have time to fully appreciate this amazing view.” And by that, I was not referring to the Aurora Borealis lighting up the room with its shimmering, green glow.

“Kitty Kat...” Caleb scolded, “I was trying to have a nice, relaxing moment with you.”

Humming happily in my throat, I placed another lingering kiss against his lips, taking my time and feeling his body respond.

“Consider me relaxed,” I teased when our kiss ended. “Now I want to thank you for this amazing gift.”

My fingers had hooked into the waistband of his sweats, and there could be no mistaking what I meant by that. Caleb groaned, then threaded his fingers into my hair to pull my lips back to his.

This time when our lips met, there was nothing languid or gentle about it. Caleb teased my lips apart, his tongue delving into my mouth and tangling with mine in a torrent of pent up desire on both of our parts. With everything that had happened recently—Caleb’s magic training, our mission to retrieve my Ban Dia ring, and then all the safe-house hopping—it had really been too damn long since Caleb and I had been intimate with one another.

“Kitty Kat,” he hissed as I freed him from his sweats and wrapped my palm around his length. “This was supposed to be something nice for you.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, but my mouth was busy moving down the line of his neck to his chest.

Caleb sucked in a sharp breath, his hips lifting slightly as my fingers gripped him and stroked. For just a few moments, he let me, and my lips closed over one of his nipples.

“Nope,” he muttered, grabbing me by the waist and sitting me across his waist just long enough to yank my T-shirt off. After tossing it aside, he then flipped us again, and I landed with a puff into the pillows, looking up at the glorious sight of the Northern Lights over Caleb’s half naked frame.

“Mmm,” I grinned. “I think I like this view.”

He smiled back at me, looking like some sort of fallen angel with the twinkling stars and glowing green framing him while he knelt between my spread legs.

“I think I do too,” he agreed, trailing his fingertip over the thin fabric of my underwear and sending warmth curling upward into my belly.

I crooked a finger at him to beckon him closer, and he obliged. Bringing his lips back to mine, he shifted so that his full weight wasn’t flat on top of me, which also gave him access to explore my body with one hand.

“Can’t believe you haven’t got my asshole brother back for this yet,” he whispered, running his rough thumb over the gorgeous fox tattoo on my side, following the inked lines just as I had done to him. I knew what he meant though. Not for giving me a tattoo that strangely encompassed the essence of both me and my six guardians. He was referring to the fact that his twin brother’s name was spelled out in the negative space between butterflies.

Austin had, quite literally, tattooed his name on my body.

“Oh, don’t you worry, I’ll get him back,” I promised. “I just haven’t thought of the appropriate revenge yet.”

Caleb chuckled, taking another kiss from my lips and sliding his fingers under the fabric at my hip. “Good. I have an idea for that... remind me later?”

“Uh huh,” I sighed, flushed with heat and excitement as his long fingers reached my aching groin and slid down to tease at my opening. “Later.”

Grasping his face, I turned his mouth back to mine, crushing a demanding kiss to his lips, silently urging him to quit messing around. My whole body was trembling with arousal, and the anticipation was fucking killing me. In the best possible way.

His own arousal was pressed hard against my inner thigh, just inches away from where I wanted it to be. Needed it to be.

“Caleb,” I gasped, my breath catching as his fingers slipped inside me, stroking at my inner walls then withdrawing to rub at my swollen clit, his fingers wet with my own lube.

“Mmm patience, Kitty Kat,” he teased as his fingers circled, flicked, and dipped, driving me into a damn frenzy.

“Cal, please,” I begged. “Please, I need you in me. Now.” My hips bucked, sliding me just a fraction closer to his naked erection.

Don’t get me wrong; I was all for long, drawn out play sessions and a huge advocate of foreplay. But in that moment, I just needed him.

“Dammit, Kitty Kat,” he muttered. “I can never seem to say no to you...” Withdrawing his fingers from me, he pulled the crotch of my black panties to the side and pressed the tip of his dick to my opening.

“Yes,” I hissed with satisfaction as he pushed inside me, ever so damn slowly. My walls were still tight from the lack of warm up, and he needed to work his way in carefully while my legs wrapped around his waist and pulled him closer.

“Fuck, yes,” I moaned as he gave up his slow entry and simply slammed the rest of the way home with a breathy grunt.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Kitty,” he swore, bracing himself above me. His arms thickly corded with muscle as he held himself in that push-up position with only our lower halves together. He looked down on me with heat in his gaze, and I bit my lip.

“How did I get so stupidly lucky?” he breathed, pulling back out halfway before burying deep back inside me.

“You?” I snickered in disbelief. “I think I’m the lucky one here.” My hands threaded up around his neck, pulling him down on top of me so I could feel him against my body. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

Caleb snorted a laugh, burying his face into the crook of my neck before replying, “Yes, ma’am.”

A grin of satisfaction spread across my face as Caleb obeyed, working my body with a ridiculous intuition of exactly what I wanted—making me just a little suspicious he might be able to read minds. Either way, I wasn’t complaining as he fucked me right up to the edge of an orgasm while the green glow of our borrowed Aurora Borealis lit the room.

Just as I relinquished control, letting myself slip into a toe-curling climax, a light breeze tugged my attention to the open bedroom door.

Heart racing, I forced my eyelids to stay open while my body shuddered and trembled, not once breaking the gaze of our intruder while I came. Hard. With his twin’s cock deep inside me.

Caleb’s own climax followed quickly after my own, while my pussy was still clenching and pulsing in the aftershocks of an incredible orgasm, and he groaned into my neck. My fingernails clasped at his well-muscled back, holding him tight against me as he came, and all the while his brother watched.

“Did you need something?” I panted the question to Austin, locking my ankles behind Caleb and holding him where he was. If Austin thought I would be blushing and grabbing for a sheet to cover up, he was sorely mistaken.

“A great many things, Princess,” the Ink Mage, and my first bonded guardian, responded drily. “But none of which I imagine you’re willing to provide.” What the hell did that mean? “Tyson sensed you were awake and has been practically clawing a hole in the carpet to get in here.”

Ignoring his weird statement, I looked past his sexy, tattooed ass and saw his tiger familiar crouched behind him, peering in at us. Or rather, at me.

Austin’s familiar had manifested when we bonded and was the first known familiar to have appeared to any mage in over a thousand years. He’d named the giant cat Tyson, after Mike Tyson—insert eye roll here—and the big lug had taken a serious liking to me.

“Hey, buddy,” I cooed to the big cat and was rewarded by a head dip that I knew was his way of saying hello. “Give me a few minutes, and we can go for a walk.”

“Make it ten,” Caleb added, shifting his weight onto one shoulder to look at his brother. “Kitty Kat might need a hand in the shower.”

“Make it five,” Austin snapped back, his hand curling into a fist by his side. “Unless you want my six hundred pound tiger joining you.”

Post-sex hormones made me giggle at that mental image, and I bit down on Caleb’s bicep when I sensed he was coiling for an argument with his brother.

“Five minutes then. Thank you, Austin. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” I snickered, my fingernails still digging into Caleb’s skin in warning.

He knew what I was doing. The two of them had been at each other’s throats almost since the second my bonding with Austin had been completed. It wasn’t the fact that Caleb had walked in on us having sex covered in blood while my former abuser lay gutted on the floor; that had been purely a necessity in order for me to heal my many, many injuries.

No, Caleb was pissed as hell that Austin had bonded to me, and Caleb still hadn’t..

“Come on,” I sighed, unlinking my heels from behind him and smacking him on the bare ass. “Let’s clean up before Tyson really does decide to join us.”

Or before I have to break up yet another King twin argument.

* * *

“Wait, run that past me again?” I had been only half listening while scratching Tyson’s massive head where it lay in my lap. The damn tiger was no more than an overgrown house cat with human-like intelligence. “Split up? As in... go to different locations?”

“That is generally what split up means, Princess,” Austin snarked, and I resisted the urge to pull a face at him.

Asshole.

Ever since we’d bonded, the emotional link seemed to be working both ways, and it was seriously messing with my head. Half the time I wasn’t sure whose emotions I was feeling, and half the time, neither did he.

We’d silently agreed to a very healthy arrangement of don’t-ask-don’t-tell, meaning that when I felt the little flare of amusement that I was pretty sure wasn’t mine, I simply ignored it.

Austin was confident we would both learn how to control it, to be able to, essentially, block it out unless we chose otherwise, which I sincerely hoped was true. Until we could master that, though, I wouldn’t risk bonding with any of the others.

A shudder of fear rolled through me at just the thought of having seven conflicting emotions raging within me at the same time. No. Thank you.

Austin frowned at me, having clearly just felt that chill of fear, and I ignored him. We had an arrangement, dammit.

“I’m not saying that’s what we will do,” River replied, standing there looking every bit the leader, the Alpha. He folded his thick arms, causing his crisp white shirt to strain a little, and his golden eyes narrowed as he watched me. “It’s just one possibility we should keep on the table in case we need to create a false trail.”

“Makes sense,” I nodded, burying my hands in the soft fur of Tyson’s neck. “I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Did we have any luck finding somewhere safe for Lucy and Elena to stay?”

My rainbow-haired bestie snorted from the barstool where she perched, eating cereal from a bowl. “Fat fucking chance, sunshine,” she snickered. “I’m sticking to you like glue.”

Rolling my eyes, I let out a long-suffering sigh and looked back to River. Despite the guys having formally resigned from Omega Group, River was and always would be the leader of our little team.

“Okay, so where to this time?” I asked, dropping the whole Lucy-safehouse scenario for another day. I would win that argument sooner or later, even if I did need to appeal to her protective side. Elena—her girlfriend, as well as Cole and Vali’s sister—was nowhere near equipped to handle being on the run from Omega and whoever else was hunting me.

“Toronto,” Vali responded instead of River.

Dragomir Valeriu du Romane, or Vali for short, was a bit of a wild card in our crew. Cole’s estranged older brother, he had been, or still was, the head of a huge crime syndicate set up by their Romanian father.

His intense, granite-gray eyes locked on me, unblinking as he stood in an almost mirror pose to River. Muscular arms, encased in butter-soft black cashmere, folded while he leaned his back against the door frame.

“Cool,” I nodded, not needing to ask inane questions like why there? The location was irrelevant. Staying ahead of my adoptive father, Jonathan, was all that really seemed to matter at this point in time. Hopefully once we’d moved a few more times, we would have confused the trail enough we could go back on the offensive.

The ducking and hiding was grating against me. I needed to know why Jonathan had been using me, but possibly more important than that... I needed to find the creepy doctor who had taken a vial of my blood.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Wesley reassured me, sliding his strong hand over my shoulder and rubbing the tense muscles in my neck. “We’ll track him down sooner or later.”

One the one hand, I loved that Wes was in tune with my thoughts enough to know exactly what I was thinking, but on the other... “Yeah, it’s the ‘later’ that I’m worried about.”

“Toronto might be okay as a base,” River suggested, but didn’t look overly optimistic. “I’d feel more comfortable with somewhere more secluded.”

“I get that, I do,” I nodded, still running my fingers through Tyson’s fur, his throat vibrating against my lap as he purred. “But maybe we can just start looking when we get to Toronto? I don’t know what that dude wanted my blood for, but given he’d made an arrangement with Mr. Gray, it can’t have been anything good.”

A deep shudder rippled through me as I remembered the slimy little man attaching an IV to my vein while I lay immobile, zip-tied to a bed. Then how he had left me there, knowing full well the kind of hell Gray intended to rain down on me... Some people were seriously sick fucks.

“Yes, I think so,” River agreed, his golden eyes pinched with concern as he watched me.

Wesley raked a hand through his floppy blonde hair, then scooted a little closer to me on the couch so that our thighs touched. “I’ve already started doing some background and surveillance on Director Pierre too,” he offered. “So we might have something more concrete to go on once we arrive at the new safe house.”

“Awesome,” I grinned my appreciation, but my stomach twisted like I might throw up. How the fuck had it come to this? That we were running spy-level background checks and surveillance on my own dad?

I guessed it was a small consolation that we’d found out when we did. Jonathan had been acting weird ever since we’d captured and questioned Madam Dupree, months ago. She’d been the one to really open my eyes to what was going on in the shadows of this world—that magic was real and I wasn’t even human.

At least we’d found out before anyone died. Or at least, died permanently.

“So, Toronto again. How are we getting there? Plane, train, or automobile?” I pasted on my best big-girls-don’t-cry smile and looked to Vali once more. River was in charge, yes. There was no doubt about that. But Vali was the one orchestrating our little game of hide and seek with Omega Group, thanks to his extensive directory of underworld contacts and the seemingly bottomless pit of money at his disposal.

“By road... for the most part. Then we will cross Lake Ontario by boat.” He said it so seriously, and he looked so damn sinister in his black, long-sleeve top and dark jeans with his wavy, shoulder-length hair tied back in a tiny ponytail... it forced a grin to crack through my anxious inner turmoil.

“Under the cover of night?” I teased. “Like real criminals?”

Vali’s gray eyes narrowed at me in dangerous amusement. “Yes, dragă. Like real criminals.”

The Romanian endearment sent a flutter through me, and I ducked his intense gaze. Our relationship was still... new? Uncertain? Confusing as all hell? I blamed the circumstances of our meeting for the mess we were in now.

Vali had purchased me in a slave auction after I’d been kidnapped, but the bastard had never told me he was one of the good guys until the ninth hour. So the attraction I’d felt toward him had seemed a bit on the Stockholm Syndrome side of sane.

“Cool,” I murmured, then looked to River once more. “Can I drive?”

Our stoic, British leader snorted a short laugh and generously offered up a tiny half smile.

“Not bloody likely, love.”

Damn. Worth a try, though.

“I’ll let you ride shotgun if you’d like,” he offered, oh so generously, and I sulked a little. River had yet to allow me to drive his Aston Martin Vanquish, despite my never-ending pleading.

“Fine,” I sighed and headed back into the bedroom to grab my small suitcase of clothes. We had left Omega headquarters in a bit of a rush, given we were pretty certain Jonathan would have been calling the cavalry down on us, so I’d had to leave the majority of my stuff behind.

It was for the best though. We were moving around so much, it just wasn’t practical to have more than one bag.

As I threw my few toiletries into my bag, zipping it shut and rolling it out to the cars, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful about this next step. If all went according to plan, this would be the last stop before we could find a more permanent base and start turning the tables.

I was sick of running and hiding. It was time for action.

2

Caleb

The sound of Kit's scream and breaking glass jolted me from sleep sharply, and I leapt to my feet before my eyes had even opened.

“Sorry,” Kit groaned, pushing herself out of bed and trying to gather up pieces of the broken lamp in the dark.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I exclaimed, striding to the light switch and flipping it on. The decorative blown-glass bedside lamp was in pieces beside the bed where Kit must have knocked it during her nightmare.

I'm fine,” she sighed, and I couldn't miss the deep shudder that ran through her. “Just another bad dream. Sorry I woke you.”

“Don't be silly,” I scolded. “You know I don't mind you waking me. I'm always here if you need to talk about them too...?”

“I know,” she muttered, still stacking pieces of broken glass into a pile as I knelt to help. “I'd rather not, though. You know? I'd rather just ignore them and hope they go away. Besides, most nights Wes helps me. I just woke myself up with the whole broken-lamp thing before he got there this time.”

 “Let me,” I coaxed, picking up the stack of big glass shards and dumping them in the trash can under the desk. Just as I was returning to help with the smaller pieces, Kit's sharp intake of breath made me pause. Less than a second later, the spicy-sweet tang of her blood reached my nose, and I automatically inhaled.

Fuck. Caleb, you idiot!

The second that intoxicating scent filled my nostrils, rolling over my tongue like rich, dark chocolate, I knew I was in trouble. My control was still weak; I wasn't ready to be exposed to her blood. Not yet.

“Crap,” Kit swore, holding her hand up to squint at it and wrinkling her nose. “Cut myself. It'll heal in a sec, but I should go wash the blood off.” She stood and stepped closer to me on her way to leave the room, and my whole body froze, wound as tight as a violin string. “You okay, Cal? You seem... tense.”

“Mm-hmm,” I murmured, not trusting myself to open my mouth. The ache in my gums already told me the smell of magic in the air was getting the better of me.

Kit gave me a confused frown but opened the bedroom door anyway. On the other side was my brother with his fist poised to knock. He raised an eyebrow at Kit with her bloody hand and then at me and gave a sharp nod.

“Christina, need help cleaning up?” he suggested, placing a hand on her back and ushering her out of the room. To me, he gave another nod, and I sighed, nicking my thumb on a tooth and flicking out the droplet of blood necessary to create a teleportation rune circle. There was only one person who could help me regain control, and I could only hope she was home.

I stepped into the rune circle as Wesley passed the open door, frowning at me in confusion, but I was gone before he could speak. When the light cleared, I was back in the impeccably maintained yard I had only left a few hours earlier.

“Bridget?” I called out, jogging up the steps and banging on the kitchen door frantically. The lights were still on, so she must be home.

“Bridget, it's Caleb!” It occurred to me she wasn't expecting me and might think I was some sort of crazy. But if I were honest, she could handle herself even if I was.

Through the glass, I tracked the path of the petite redhead walking toward me with her phone to her ear. She was frowning deeply, and her body language said she was pissed as hell at whomever she was speaking with. When she opened the door, she greeted me with a genuine smile.

“Caleb, what's going on?” Her smile faded into worry, and her blue eyes widened. “Are you okay? Is Christina...?”

“She's fine,” I muttered, showing a flash of my sharpened teeth. Gratitude filled me at the understanding washing over Bridget's face.

Putting her phone back to her ear, she snapped tersely. “I need to put you on hold for a second... No, I will not call back; you will hold.” Scowling at her phone, she pressed the hold button, then placed it down on the kitchen counter and ushered me into a seat at her dining table. “I take it she's not badly hurt?” she asked, sitting opposite me and taking my hand in hers, the same way she did in training when she exposed me to varying levels and species of blood. For the most part, it was a safety precaution. Bridget could force the blood lust from me, but she preferred to let me work it out myself.

I shook my head. “Just a cut. But... her blood...”

“I know,” Bridget sighed. “Can you get this under control yourself, or do you need me to step in?”

Lips clamped tight shut, I considered her question before slowly shaking my head. “I think I need you to step in.” It fucking killed me to say. After all the lessons we'd had so far, I’d truly thought I was getting better, but here I was driven to the edge of madness by a small cut on Kit's hand.

“I think you can do it yourself,” my mentor disagreed, giving me an encouraging smile. “You're better at this than you give yourself credit for. Now, deep breath, find your light...”

Shaking with tension, I did as instructed. As I always did.

“Now, take ahold of that wild magic within you and show it who is in control. Magic does not control you, you control it.” Her words were firm but soothing, and I found myself following her directions effortlessly.

When I was sure I'd gotten a handle on things and the sharpness of my teeth had receded, I let out a long sigh of relief. Thank fuck for that.

“See?” Bridget smiled at me. “I knew you could do it.”

“Thanks,” I muttered sheepishly, feeling a bit stupid for having panicked and teleported here in the middle of the night. “I just...”

“Panicked. I get it. Maybe we need to start exposing you to more powerful bloods to build your tolerance up faster.” She hummed while she thought, tapping her chin.

“Sorry, I should have tried to control it before coming here,” I apologized, and my cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment.

Bridget waved a hand at me dismissively. “Don't be silly. I'd much rather you come here than potentially be a risk to Christina. Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot. Excuse me a moment?”

Without waiting for my response, she hopped up and grabbed her phone from the counter and took the caller off hold. “I'm back. Okay, here's what I need you to do. Create a diversion, a convincing diversion. Hire an actress with red hair if you need to, but set it up somewhere well away from Toronto. Los Angeles or something. Then keep an eye on those agents to be sure they take the bait. Report back when it's done.” She listened for a few moments, then hung up and turned back to face me.

“What was that about?” I asked her, alarmed. “It sounded a whole lot like Omega agents are onto us?”

“Sort of,” she shrugged. “I'm taking care of it, though. You have nothing to worry about; I'll do anything I can to keep my daughter safe.”

Nodding, I was a little floored. Bridget had never really struck me as the overly caring type, but I couldn't argue with how helpful she'd been. Especially in this, diverting Omega from tracking us down.    

“Thank you,” I said with sincerity. “It means a lot.”

“Forget it,” she laughed, holding the kitchen door open for me to leave, then cocked her head to the side. “Or, don't so much forget it, but keep it to yourself. Please.”

I shrugged. “I can't do that, sorry. Team rules, and I'm already on probation.”

Bridget hummed a noise, then snapped her fingers in front of my face, startling me into backing up a step. “There. Now the decision is taken away. Off you go, back to my daughter, and be safe in the knowledge that the agents won’t find you in Canada. At least, not anytime soon.”

I scowled at her use of magic without asking my permission, but deep down appreciated the choice being taken from me. As I was already on thin ice for secret-keeping, I'd been careful to be upfront about everything I possibly could be. Not that this was a huge thing, and it would only lead to more questions that I couldn't answer... so yeah, I was sort of okay with her spell to stop me talking.

“See you tomorrow night!” she called after me as I made my way back to the yard to rune-circle my way back to Toronto. Hopefully no one had really noticed my weirdness earlier... I wasn't keeping secrets per se, but I also wasn't ready to tell the guys about my struggles. Austin knew, and I'd tell Kitty Kat soon. That was all that truly mattered at the moment.

3

Kit

The trip to Toronto had been uneventful. Totally and utterly uneventful, and the small—totally insane—part of my brain was actually a tiny bit disappointed when we reached the high-rise apartment building that was our destination.

Not even so much as a light tail that needed to be lost along the way. Maybe Jonathan was losing his touch? Or maybe Alpha Team, my team, really were the best he had.

Either way, I found the lack of violence, death, and kidnapping somewhat... unsettling. If not for the violent nightmare I’d had the night we arrived, I’d have thought we were in some sort of alternate universe or something.

A light tap on my bedroom door jolted me from my thoughts, and I whirled around, gripping the two outfits I had been agonizing over.

“Kit are you...” Wesley trailed off as he poked his head into the room and found me standing there in just my black lace underwear with what was probably a look of sheer terror on my face.

“What’s happened?” he asked, rushing in and cupping my face in his hand. “Are you okay? You feel scared. What’s going on?”

His face was full of concern, and his eyes left mine to dart around the room, looking for danger.

“Nothing,” I admitted a bit sheepishly, mentally kicking myself for not having tried harder at blocking my emotions from the guys. Changing them had given them an all-access pass to what was going on inside me. Only River hadn’t gotten a ticket. Some days, it sucked. “I just...” I stepped back from him and held up the garments in my hands. “I couldn’t work out what to wear. Jeans or a dress?”

Wesley cast another cautious look around my room, like he wasn’t all that convinced I’d told the truth, then finally returned his ice-blue eyes to me.

“Well,” he started, then took a long look at the underwear I had picked out. “Whatever you’re comfortable in.”

“Ugh, Wes!” I made an exasperated noise and glared at him. “That’s not helpful. Just tell me where we’re going, and then I can dress appropriately!”

“But then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” Wesley grinned and took the dress from my left hand to inspect it. “Nah, wear the jeans,” he decided, tossing the little black cocktail dress onto my bed.

“Not that I wouldn’t love to see you in that.” He nodded to the dress and quirked a sandy blonde brow at me. “But for what we’re doing, jeans will be a safer bet.”

“Interesting,” I murmured, my eyes narrowing at him in suspicion. “You know, I thought I was supposed to take you out. It’s your birthday after all...”

“Yes, but I asked you. So, get dressed and let’s go. We don’t have all night,” he reminded me, and I pouted a little. Internally. Pouting was not nearly as sexy on a twenty-one-year-old woman than some would think.

River had been satisfied that we’d effectively shaken Omega from our trail, so in the morning the seven of us—me and my six guardians—would continue on to the next safe house and leave Lucy and Elena behind.

Lucy was beyond furious at me, and I didn’t blame her. I’d pulled my ace in the hole, Elena’s safety. So the two of them would move into the penthouse apartment of this building, which was owned by Vali. Or by one of his many aliases.

“Okay, so somewhere that jeans are more appropriate than a dress...” I mused aloud as I wiggled into the tight denim. Wes watched me dress, not bothering with false modesty, and I didn’t expect him to. Even if I hadn’t been semi-dating all six guys, they’d all seen me in my underwear plenty of times before.

“Bowling?” I asked off the top of my head. Not that Wes really seemed like the bowling type, but I’d really never been on a date date before, so how the hell did I know what was the norm?

“Uh, no.” He gave me a quick grin of amusement, a blush staining his cheeks as I tugged a luxuriously soft, black cashmere sweater over my bra. It was a low-cut V-neck, and the light padding in my bra created some serious cleavage.

Perfect.

“Flats or heels?” I asked, hoping to get another hint out of him, but he just shrugged.

“Whatever you want. Either work.” He blinked at me, the picture of innocence, and I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously.

God damn these secret agent men and their ability to keep secrets.

Fishing around in my suitcase, I pulled out the ankle boots Cole had bought me and held them up. Wesley nodded, so I slipped them on and did them up.

“All right, I’m ready,” I announced. “Let’s go!”

Wesley grinned and placed a hand on my waist, tugging me closer to him and placing a gentle kiss on my lips. In my heels, we were almost the same height, and a thrill of excitement shot through me. Firstly, because I was never going to get used to the feeling of Wesley’s lips on mine, and secondly, because I intended to make good use of this easy access all night. Or for as much of the night as we had.

“Come on, we can grab a taxi from out front.” Wesley took my hand in his and led the way out of my room and toward the front door.

“This is a terrible idea,” Austin snapped again, and Wesley sighed.

“Austin,” I replied in a sickly sweet voice, turning a glare on him that could strip paint, “Go fuck yourself.”

Wes snickered a laugh, and I gave him a nudge to keep moving. This debate was over as far as I was concerned.

“Princess, you’re acting like a spoiled brat. I’m not trying to cockblock Wes... again. I’m trying to keep you and the unsuspecting, innocent public of Toronto safe.” Austin moved from his seat and stepped in front of us, blocking the door. “Your magic lessons have been a fucking disaster. Do you really want to add to the mass hysteria by turning someone into a donkey just by reading a menu?”

My teeth ground together hard, and my jaw clenched. I loved fighting with Austin, no doubt about it, and it was even more fun now with this insane sexual tension that had been clear as fucking day ever since the incident involving Mr. Gray’s death. Or rather, the subsequent healing he’d provided me with.

Fun or not, I appreciated when he didn’t have a damn good point. When he did, it made winning that little bit harder. Not impossible, of course, but more difficult.

“I’m not going to turn anyone into a donkey,” I informed him firmly, but not totally believing myself. It wasn’t like turning Cole green had been intentional…

“Oh no? And how do you plan on stopping yourself?” He folded his muscled arms and gave me a smug smile. Silly man, he thought he’d won.

“I won’t touch anything with ink,” I replied with a sassy brow lift. Don’t ask me what a sassy brow lift looked like; I couldn’t see my own face. But it felt sassy.

Austin’s smile bordered on a laugh, and he shook his head as he stepped out of our path, but not before raking his eyes over my body in a way that hinted he was picturing me naked. Again. He’d been doing that a lot this week…

“Fine, suit yourself. Stubborn bitch. Don’t come crying to me when shit goes haywire and you end up on the national news.” He raised an eyebrow back at me, and I wondered if that was what my sassy look looked like. If so... it was hot. Damn it. That angry, magic-fueled sex had been such a bad idea.

“Good vote of confidence, bro.” Wes clapped Austin on the shoulder, moving past him to open the door. “Where’s Tyson anyway? I expected that overgrown house cat to be here whining at Kit for going out as well.”

“I’m not whining,” Austin growled, sounding decidedly tiger-like himself. “He needed a rest.”

His fingers stroked down his forearm where an intricate new tattoo of a tiger slept among jungle leaves. He’d needed to clear some blank space using magic in order to ink Tyson a place to rest on his skin, but the effect was stunning.

“All right, well I picked up some steak for him. It’s in the fridge when he’s next around,” Wesley said, holding the door open while I shrugged into my cropped leather jacket and wound a light scarf around my neck.

“Have a good night!” I sang, flipping Austin off, and Wes snickered again as he shut the door in the sexy Ink Mage’s pissed-off face.

“You know he only pulls that shit because he’s in love with you right?” Wes grinned, linking his fingers back through mine and pressing the elevator call button.

I snorted so hard it actually hurt my sinuses. “Austin. In love. With me. Hah, yeah sure.” I chuckled and shook my head as the doors dinged open and we stepped inside. “You forget I can feel his emotions now too, so I’d know.”

Wesley turned to me with a wry grin, like he thought I was being adorably obtuse. “Would you, though?”

Frowning, I said nothing. Surely I’d be able to pick up on an emotion as heavy as love. But... maybe not? I mean, it’s not as if I was experienced in examining emotions at all, so how the hell would I know what to look for? So far the only ones I’d been able to pick out with accuracy were anger, worry, frustration, and amusement. Sometimes arousal but even then I had to second-guess if it was coming from me or him. God damn, sexy-ass motherfucker.

Still, the idea of Austin in love with me was laughable. Right?

* * *

“Ice skating?” I squeaked, half excited and half terrified as we got out of the taxi in front of the Harbourfront Ice Rink.

“Yeah, I thought it was a cool kind of date activity.” Wesley shrugged and blushed, like he was suddenly nervous. “They have a café area for food and a bar for drinks... seeing as it is my twenty-first after all.”

Winding my arms around his neck, I pulled him in for a long kiss and then grinned at him.

“I love it. It’s so...”

“Normal?” he finished for me, and I nodded. Exactly that. Normal.

He smiled back at me, the pink flush in his cheeks subsiding. “I thought after all the craziness lately, normal was exactly what we needed tonight. So, food first or skating? Wait, do you know how to skate?”

My teeth worried at my lip as I watched the skaters out on the ice, and I shook my head. “No. Do you?”

Wesley’s grin spread wider, and he pecked a quick kiss on my lips. “Yup, so I can teach you.”

Excitement rushed through me. This really is a normal date!

“Skate first then,” I decided, snaking my arm around his waist and leaning in to him as we headed over to the little cabana of rental skates. Wesley’s arm over my shoulders pulled me in close to his warm body, and I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

“Dragon!” someone screamed, and we both tensed.

My heart racing, I scanned the crowd and relaxed only when I saw some kids come laughing and screaming out from behind a car. One of them wore a plushie dragon head and was chasing the other kids, to their extreme amusement.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered under my breath, willing my pulse to slow the fuck down as I cuddled back into Wesley’s side.

“Yep,” he agreed, running a hand through his blond hair. “Doesn’t look like the dragon hysteria is dying down any time soon.”

Ever since the video footage of Cole and Vali in their dragon forms had been aired all over the international news, the world had been going nuts for dragons—Toronto being the worst for it, seeing as this was where it had all happened.

Street vendors were selling dragon masks and wings and all sorts of merchandise like coffee cups and snow globes. It was insane. If I wasn’t so damn concerned about what would happen if the existence of magic was outed, it’d probably be funny.

“Surely they’ll get sick of it eventually. They’ve already had that guy ‘debunking’ the video. It won’t be long until everyone believes it was a hoax.” I was trying to sound confident, if for no other reason than to convince myself.

Wes shrugged and placed a soft kiss on the side of my neck as we moved forward in the line. “Here’s hoping. Now all those scaly bastards need to do is stay out of sight.”

I groaned. It sounded easy. Just don’t turn into a dragon in public. But both Cole and Vali had confessed to me privately that every day the urge to change was becoming stronger, and we all knew it was only a matter of time before they couldn’t hold it back.

It was why we were in such a hurry to reach a base in the wilderness. Somewhere they could safely change and not worry about ending up dissected for scientific purposes.

“Come on, ignore it,” Wes coaxed as we reached the front of the line and collected our skates. “So long as none of the boys go blowing our cover—”

“Again,” I growled and Wesley smiled.

“—again, then people have no reason to suspect us as anything other than human. Right?” He spoke softly so that no one would overhear, even though the chatter from the hundreds of people around us was enough white noise to drown us out.

“Right,” I murmured back, sitting on a bench beside the ice rink to swap my shoes for skates. “So why does that feel like a famous last words moment?”

“Because that has been par for the course in your life lately and you’re still coming to terms with the fact that you’re not alone in this mess anymore? Because you’re still learning to lean on the six of us rather than shouldering all the guilt and worry and hurt yourself?” Wesley sat up from tying his own skates on and met my startled gaze seriously. “Or something like that.”

“Damn, Wes,” I breathed. “Way to get deep and meaningful on me without warning.”

He grinned, then tucked my shoes next to his under the seat and stood up in his skates. Confidently. He stood really confidently.

“Come on, we’re supposed to be having a normal date remember? No more talk of magic or dragons or... whatever the fuck I am. Agreed?” He held his hands out to me and I took them, standing then almost falling on the thin blades.

“Fucking shit,” I cursed, clutching at his strong forearms as he held me steady. “Agreed. But uh... I’m thinking my healing will come in handy before this night is over. How the hell are you making it look so easy?”

Yes, I was aware we weren’t even on the ice yet. So was Wes apparently, as he snickered.

“You’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he reassured me, releasing one arm to cup my cheek and kiss me gently. “I won’t let you fall. Ever.”

Butterflies erupted in my stomach, and my body washed with a warm tingly feeling that I only ever got around my guys. My guardians.

“I think I rather like being able to feel your emotions.” Wesley grinned, but a delicate pink blush staining his cheeks told me he was still a bit awkward about it all. Not that I blamed him. Most of the time, I was still awkward as hell about the fact that I couldn’t hide what I was feeling, even though there was nothing that needed hiding around Wesley.

That man had me hooked, well and truly, and I didn’t even care if he knew it.

Biting back a goofy smile, I squeezed his hand and nodded to the ice. “You ready to watch me flail around like a baby giraffe on... well, like a baby giraffe on ice?”

He snorted and helped me over to the edge, stepping carefully—confidently, damn him—onto the frozen water, then turning to guide me.

“You couldn’t look anything less than perfect if you tried, sweetheart,” he murmured, and my heart clenched. Damn him. I was falling hard and fast, and I was totally okay with it.

* * *

The night flew past in a blink of an eye, and I would have loved to say I took to ice skating like a duck to water... but I didn’t. My skills on skates were nothing short of horrendous.

Wes was true to his word and never did let me fall, despite my uncoordinated legs best attempts otherwise. It was after about the seventh person I almost mowed down that we decided to call it quits, though.

With cold fingers, I unlaced my skates, exchanging them for my boots once more while I watched Wesley making his way through the crowd back to me. He’d gone to grab us food and drinks, but I was taking full advantage to admire my date.

Not much had changed since we met half a year ago... He still wore loose jeans and a hoody that was at least two sizes too big for him. His blond hair was still surfer shaggy, and he still blushed on cue when anything embarrassed him or made him uncomfortable.

And yet, so much had changed. He held himself with more confidence, didn’t dodge eye contact, and was much quicker to speak his mind. At least, he was with me.

“I got us,” he announced, setting the huge tray down on the table, “nachos with extra cheese, cheesy fries, and hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and cheese. Then to drink... frozen margaritas from one of those slushy machines.”

My eyes widened, taking in the cheesy goodness in front of me, and my mouth watered.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “I think I’m in love.” I paused. “With the food,” I clarified, knowing I’d pulled that line a couple of times before to mess with the guys, but this time it had just slipped out. I really did love cheese!

“Uh-huh.” Wesley grinned. “Sure.”

Crap. Maybe I did mean more than the food? He would probably know better than me, given his magical insight into my feelings… Okay, maybe I wasn’t so comfortable having him know me better than I knew myself.

“So um,” I changed the subject while stuffing cheese covered fries in my mouth, “how much time do we have left?”

Wesley checked his chunky black watch and grimaced. “Not enough.”

“Can we be naughty and stay out past curfew?” I pouted, this time giving Wes my very best puppy dog eyes in an attempt to drag him over to the dark side.

He narrowed his eyes at me while fighting back a mischievous grin. “I might have a better idea up my sleeve. Eat up, and I’ll show you.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise. Wesley... up to no good? This I had to see!

“You got it.” I grinned and happily went to town on the cheese shrine in front of me.

For the next little while, we talked and laughed as we ate, just like any normal couple would. When Wes stood to dispose of our trash, I felt a pang of sadness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked me when he came back.

“Just... thinking how shitty it is that this can’t be us all the time.” I shrugged, chewing at my lip but linking my hand into his to make our way out of the ice rink area.

“Because you’re dating my four best friends and kinda got something with Vali too?” Wesley asked, but the cheeky grin on his face told me he was teasing and not upset about our unconventional relationship.

“No... because people are trying to hunt us or kill us or experiment on us... and then there is the whole need to save the world situation.” I scowled, and he pulled me to a stop at the side of the road.

“So?” he challenged, sliding one cold hand into the hair at the base of my neck. “That just means we need to fight harder for these normal moments and make them count.” He kissed me then, and my heart melted into a puddle of goo at my feet. Fuck, for such an introverted guy, he seriously knew the right thing to say.

“Besides,” he continued when we separated, both our breathing a little escalated and our cheeks pink, “what is normal anyway, right?”

Just as I smiled at him, my lips parting to say something mushy and emotional, there was a screech of breaks and a loud thump behind me, followed by a scream.

“Shit,” Wes cursed, his eyes widening, and I spun to see.

A taxi sat in the middle of the road with its engine still running, and the driver leaped out while we watched, running to the front of his car and the person crumbled on the ground there.

Acting on instinct, I started toward them but Wes grabbed my arm in an iron grip and held me back.

“Wes, what the hell? Let me go so I can help!” I snapped at him, frowning. What the fuck is he playing at?

“Kit, stop. Look around.” He held tighter to my arm, knowing perfectly fucking well I wouldn’t use my strength against him. “Look at how many people are watching right now. If you heal her, you’re outing yourself to the entire world.”

Reluctantly, I glanced around. He was right, of course. There were already some thirty-odd spectators gathered, several with their phones out to record. Fucking vultures.

“Look at her, she’s okay,” Wesley continued, nodding to the girl on the pavement.

She wasn’t okay exactly, but she was howling in pain and clutching her knee, which meant it probably wasn’t a life threatening injury. She was one of the kids from earlier that we’d seen running around and screaming about dragons.

But knowing she didn’t need my help didn’t affect the magic in me. It wanted to heal her and didn’t understand the concept of secrecy. I’d noticed this happening back at Omega with all the “accidents” that kept happening. Each time someone was injured, it was like I acted on sheer instinct. The magic wanted to restore all supernaturals to their rightful place in the world, and it seized every opportunity it could.

“Wes,” I said from behind clenched teeth. “I can’t not heal her. You need to get me out of here.”

He didn’t need telling twice, and certainly didn’t need to question me. Instead, he adjusted his grip down to my hand, then pulled me firmly along behind him through the gathering crowds and away from the injured girl.

It wasn’t until we’d made it at least three blocks away that the compulsion to heal her faded and I could relax my shoulders once more. My fingers tightened on Wesley’s, and I tugged him to a stop.

“I’m okay now,” I assured him. “Thank you. That desire seems to be getting stronger. I don’t know how long it’ll be before I just go crazy and heal everyone regardless of whether they’re injured.” A shudder wracked through me, and Wes wrapped me in his arms.

“It’ll be okay, sweetheart. You have us, and we will protect you against anything,” he murmured, and I tucked my face into the crook of his neck, cuddling tighter.

“Even myself?” I asked in a small voice, and he chuckled.

“Yes, even yourself.”

We stayed like that for a little longer before I sighed and let him go. “I guess I ruined whatever you had planned, then?”

Wes tilted his head and smiled. “Why do you say that?”

“Uh, near magical disaster? Won’t you want to report back to River?” I frowned, knowing full well what protocol demanded in a situation like this.

“Near being the key word, sweetheart. I say it can wait... don’t you?” His cheeky smile was back, and I was brimming with curiosity.

“Breaking River’s rules? Hell yeah, count me in! Where to?” I grinned and snaked my fingers around his waist to tuck into his belt loop as we began walking again.

“Actually, not far from here,” he said, wrapping an arm over my shoulders and pulling me close. “You’ll see.”

4

The where that Wes led me to was actually the lobby of a fancy hotel. We bypassed check in and went straight to the elevators. He was still being tight-lipped and secretive, so I said nothing and followed when he stepped inside and pressed the button for the fifty-eighth floor.

We stood there in nervous anticipation while the little box carried us all the way to the top of the hotel. Okay fine, I was in nervous anticipation. Wes just looked excited... but a little nervous too, come to think of it.

Then again, that was sort of Wesley’s norm.

Our fingers linked, he guided me down the long hallway to the impressive double doors at the end where he pressed the little doorbell and waited with a small grin on his face.

For my part, I had my eyes narrowed with suspicion. But I trusted him implicitly, so it was just more curiosity than anything. Who were we here to see?

The doors flew open, and my jaw dropped in surprise and confusion.

“Caleb?” I frowned, “What...?”

“Shhh, I’m not here, you never saw me,” he smirked, tossing a magnetic hotel key to Wesley, then grabbing my face for a firm but very thorough kiss that left me a bit breathless and weak at the knees.

“You have no idea how badly I want to stay right now,” he murmured, his lips still close enough to mine that they brushed when he spoke. “But it’s the Crow’s birthday, so I’ll be nice and leave you alone. See you in the morning, Kitty Kat.”

Caleb smacked another kiss onto my lips, then clapped Wesley on the shoulder and took off down the corridor toward the elevators.

“Ahhh,” I was a little lost for words, but Wesley just smiled and tugged me inside so he could close the door.

“You rented us a hotel room?” I asked, looking around the beautiful suite, which was lit by countless flickering candles.

“Not just any hotel room,” Wesley corrected me with an insanely proud grin on his face. “Look.” He lead me through the suite to the double doors of the bathroom, and I gasped when I looked inside.

The huge Jacuzzi tub sat in front of a massive picture window that looked out over the city of Toronto and all its twinkling lights. The tub itself was full to overflowing with jasmine-scented bubbles, and there were even more candles lighting the room. Caleb had been really busy, unless he’d used magic.

“I kinda thought... this is sort of our thing?” Wesley murmured, his cheeks stained pink and his free hand running through his hair nervously. “But is this too presumptuous? I just thought—”

“Wes,” I cut him off. “It’s perfect. I’m just surprised is all. I kind of thought maybe you were...”

I trailed off, feeling like a bit of an ass for making assumptions. “It’s just you have been taking things slowly, so I thought...” Yeah okay, it sounded a bit stupid out loud. Just because he didn’t immediately try to nail me the second he had a chance, I’d assumed he was a virgin?

“I just wanted to make it special.” He shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean I expect anything. If you don’t want to—”

“I do!” I blurted, cutting him off again and this time sounding rather eager. Fuck it, I was eager, and given he could feel what I was feeling, there was no point pretending otherwise. “And you’re totally right. This is perfect.”

The grin spreading across Wesley’s face was easily the highlight of my night. Well... so far.

He closed the distance between us, kissing me gently as his hands slid my jacket from my shoulders and dropped it to the floor. Just as he slipped his warm palms under my sweater, the doorbell chimed, and he pulled back.

“Two seconds,” he whispered. “Get in while it’s still warm, and I’ll be right back.”

Perching my ass on the edge of the bath, I took a long moment to admire Wesley’s rear end as he left the bathroom, then tugged off my awesome boots and set them aside to strip the rest of the way down.

I was just sinking under the floral-scented bubbles when Wes came back in holding an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He placed them down on the ledge beside the tub and handed me a little folded card with a grin.

“Read that,” he laughed, kicking off his own shoes and stripping out of his own clothing to join me. I very politely looked at the card and did not eye up his junk as he stepped into the bath and sank beneath the bubbles opposite me.

Hah, yeah right! Totally looked, totally turned the fuck on now.

Once he was safely out of sight beneath fluffy white bubbles, I turned my attention back to the little card while clenching my thighs together.

“Happy birthday, you lucky-ass motherfucker - C,” I read aloud and laughed. “Caleb. No way in hell is Cole sending champagne up here for us to drink in the tub together.”

“Caleb indeed,” Wesley confirmed, gliding through the water to kneel beside me and pour us both a glass. “He was the only one I told about this plan because, despite everyone seeming to be okay with the whole sharing-Kit situation, we seem to get interrupted a lot.”

“Ah yeah, we do. But that’s almost always Austin,” I agreed, taking a sip of the bubbly wine and letting the buttery taste roll over my tongue.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded. “And you still think he’s not in love with you?”

He was teasing, but I still splashed him with some water anyway.

“Wait, so not even River?” I asked, surprised he hadn’t cleared it with Alpha. Wesley, out of all the guys, respected River’s authority as team leader above all else, so for him to break a directive…

“I cleared us to be out until morning; I just didn’t tell him where we would be.” He shifted so his back was in the corner of the tub and sipped his wine.

Humming my understanding, I nodded, then moved from my position to straddle him in the water. “Well then, I guess we should make the most of our free time?”

Now that I was seated across his legs, My upper body was out of the water and just barely covered by the bubbles clinging to my skin. Wesley didn’t fail to notice either, with his eyes darting down to my chest before he swallowed visibly.

I took one more sip of my wine before placing the glass back on the ledge, and Wesley followed suit. Hands free, I brought his face to mine and slid my body in closer until I could feel his hard length between us and my erect nipples brushed his chest.

“Shit,” he hissed, sliding wet hands up my back, then cupping my breasts in each hand. “Um, I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but ah, the anticipation of this has kind of been killing me all night, so...”

With my hands in his hair I pulled his lips to mine and kissed him deeply while my hips pushed closer to his, grinding my already swollen clit against his shaft.

“So,” I finished for him as I pulled back, panting, “can we cut the foreplay short and get on with it?”

“Um,” he blushed, but his fingers were confident as they rolled my nipples and made me moan. “Pretty much. If that’s okay?”

“More than okay,” I agreed, biting my lip as his mouth closed over the skin of my neck and sucked. Bracing my hands on his shoulders, I raised myself up a little, giving him space to position the tip of his cock against my opening before sinking down onto him ever so slowly.

As turned on as I already was, combined with the bathwater, it wasn’t necessary to take as much time letting my pussy adjust, and soon he was fully sheathed inside me.

My face fell forward when our hips met once more, and my forehead rested on his shoulder, enjoying the full feeling of him in me for a moment.

“Fucking hell,” he murmured in a breathy voice, nipping lightly at the skin of my neck while his hands roamed over my back, then settled on my ass. “This is... way better than I’d imagined it.”

“Oh yeah?” I gasped, adjusting my knees in order to start moving. “You’ve imagined this then?”

He groaned as I rose and fell slowly, even as I knew full well I’d imagined it too.

“Yeah,” he panted. “So many fucking times.”

His palms grasped at my ass cheeks, encouraging me to move faster, and his hips bucked up to meet me. Biting back a grin, I kissed him again while letting him set the pace for a little while, loving that he wasn’t afraid to show me how he wanted it.

“Was this how you imagined it then?” I asked, breaking free of his lush lips and kissing a line down his neck.

“Umm,” he hummed. “Not quite.”

“Oh?” I pulled back a little way to look at him with a curious, stupidly aroused grin. “How did you imagine it?”

He chewed at the corner of his lip for a moment, but his hips were still bucking to meet mine and his cheeks were flushed with color that wasn’t at all embarrassment.

“You’re cool with heights, right?” he asked, and I cocked my head to the side, frowning a little at the change of subject.

“Um, yeah. Why?” I squinted at him as he grinned, his eyes flaring with heat.

“Turn around,” he ordered me, not in the least bit nervous anymore. “Lean your elbows on that ledge.”

Fascinated, excited, and frankly, willing to do anything he fucking wanted when he spoke in that tone, I did as he said and quickly saw why the question about heights was relevant.

The ledge he was talking about faced the window which overlooked the whole of Toronto from fifty-eight floors up. For someone afraid of heights, it’d be a definite no-no, but for me it was just an added excitement.

“Hell yeah,” I breathed, leaning my elbows on the bath ledge and looking all the way down. The familiar feeling of exhilaration flooded through me so much that I almost came just from the feeling of Wesley’s hands on my ass as he knelt behind me.

“Yeah?” he replied, and I was too far gone for words so just moaned my approval and pushed back onto him, encouraging him to enter me. “Cool, this is what I’d been imagining.” His voice was breathy and tense with excitement, which turned me on even more.

With one hand, he positioned his hard dick against my throbbing cunt, then pushed in with a hand guiding my hips back onto him while I groaned my approval.

“Um, you don’t mind it a little... rough, do you, sweetheart?” His tone already said he knew I didn’t mind it rough. After all, he was well acquainted with his teammates’ proclivities in the bedroom. No secrets in the team and all that.

“Do it,” I gasped, waggling my ass and begging him to move. I was already so damn close to orgasming it wasn’t exactly going to take much.

“Awesome,” he murmured, tangling the fingers of one hand in my hair while his other hand gripped hard on my hip bone. Dammit, fingerprints there were starting to become a bit of a habit. Still, it was a habit I was happy to keep.

Using my hair, Wesley pulled my head back, arching my back deeply as he fucked me exactly as he’d promised he would. Rough.

The combination of Wesley’s dominant grip on my body, his thick shaft pounding into me, and the exhilaration of being so damn high up made me come so hard I was screaming his name in seconds.

“Fucking shit, sweetheart,” he gasped, burying his cock deep inside me as my pussy clenched and fluttered around him with my intense climax. “Dammit, I can’t last when you’re like this.”

“So don’t,” I groaned, still shuddering with the aftershocks. “We have all night, right?”

That was all the encouragement he needed, and with just a few more hard thrusts, he, too, reached his explosive climax.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered as we both collapsed back into the somewhat cooler bath water.

“Agreed,” I sighed, snagging my glass of champagne to cure my dried-out mouth.

For a long moment, we just soaked in the tub with my head on Wesley’s shoulder, sipping wine and looking out at the glittering city.

“Hotel was a good idea,” I murmured sleepily after some time.

Wesley chuckled. “You can say that again. Are you sleepy?”

A long yawn stretched my jaw open before I shook my head. “No,” I lied.

“Uh-huh,” he grinned, standing up and grabbing a towel to wrap around his slim waist before holding one up to me. “Well in that case, you want to check out the bedroom?”

My eyebrows shot up. Hell freaking yes! But also, super impressed at his turn around time.

“To sleep,” he clarified, but I grinned wickedly. We’d see about that...

5

Another heavy yawn creaked my jaw, and I rubbed my eyes while I stood in the lobby with Lucy, waiting for our SUV to arrive.

The heavenly smell of coffee reached my nostrils, and my mouth watered when I saw the massive takeaway cup being waved in front of my face.

“Thank the glorious caffeine gods,” I moaned, taking the cup from Caleb and smelling it. “Thank you, you beautiful human.”

“Don’t encourage her, Cal,” Lucy snapped, making as if to grab my coffee but retracting her hand when I snarled at her. “Maybe if little miss thing here had actually slept last night instead of drinking and fucking with Wes, she wouldn’t be such an ogre right now.”

Caleb fought back a laugh at my rainbow-haired bestie scolding me, but I didn’t bother. Taking a long sip of my coffee, I grinned at her.

“No regrets, Luce. None.” Except for the sandpaper feeling inside my eyelids from too much tequila and not enough sleep. Wes and I had quickly found the suite was only stocked with alcohol but, seeing as we were both newly twenty-one, decided shots were appropriate. Naked shots. Between... other activities.

Come to think of it... my eyelids weren’t the only thing feeling a bit raw this morning.

Damn selective healing. I made a mental note to get better control over that magic. Love bites and fingerprints I didn’t mind keeping for the normal, human length of time to heal, but the uncomfortable ache between my thighs I could probably do without.

“No regrets about what?” Wes asked, coming up to us holding two coffees, then frowning when he saw the one already in my hand. “Oh, I got you a coffee, but I guess Cal beat me to it.”

Caleb smirked, and Lucy held out her hand to take the extra one from Wes.

“Don’t you mean, ‘Hey Luce, I got you a coffee too’?” she prompted sarcastically, and Wesley snorted.

“Uh yep, exactly what I meant,” he nodded, then turned his light blue eyes back to me. “So what are we having no regrets about?”

“All the fucking you two did last night,” Lucy replied with all the tact of a freight train. “And the drinking.” She narrowed her eyes at me, but she was just salty because she was now the youngest.

“Um.” Wesley flicked an uncertain look to me and then back to Lucy. “But it was my birthday?”

His answer surprised me and made me snort coffee, but Lucy was less than impressed. I was pretty sure she was mostly sulking that we were leaving her behind here in Toronto with Elena. But leaving Elena alone wasn’t an option, and they couldn’t both come with us. Hiding out with just the seven of us was going to be hard enough, let alone trying to sneak nine people into a small town without being noticed.

As it was, River, Vali, and Austin had left in the early hours of the morning to go and sort out access keys and things for our new home, while the rest of us were just following now at about mid-morning. Our destination was a cottage somewhere in the Ontario wilderness that, according to Vali, he’d won in a poker game some years past.

Being a totally black market deal, there was no paper trail connecting him—and by association, us—to the cottage so—touch wood—we should be safe there for a while. At least until we could get a handle on our magic and the guardian bonds and work out what to do with everything we now knew.

Outside the glass doors of the lobby where we stood, a shiny red Nissan Armada pulled up, and Cole hopped out of the front.

“Cole’s here,” I told the boys, handing Caleb my bag to load into the car while I said goodbye to Lucy.

“Promise me you’ll keep safe, Luce?” I asked her seriously, and she rolled her eyes at me.

“Seriously, Kit?” she asked in a dry voice. “You’re telling me to keep safe? Never thought I’d see the day. Don’t worry, girl, we’ll be fine. Finn is going to come and stay with us too, if that makes you feel better?”

It seriously did not. “Oh good, wait until the second we’re leaving to spring it on me that you and Elena’s mentally unstable boyfriend of undisclosed supernatural origins is coming to stay.” I pursed my lips, knowing I had no leg to stand on, given the men I’d chosen for my own guardians. “Just...”

“I know, Kit. Be safe. The same goes for you, you know. Wes and I have made sure all your phones are totally secure now, so don’t go losing it or breaking it.” She tried to look tough, and I smiled, wrapping her in a one-armed hug without spilling either of our coffees.

“Love you, Lucifer,” I told her.

“Love you too, Christina,” she replied, and I joined my boys in the stupidly large SUV, leaving her in the lobby.

Why these cars needed to be so damn massive, I had never understood. But considering my new entourage of lovers, I was beginning to see the appeal. A quick glance in the back confirmed there was eight seats too.

“Vixen,” Cole murmured, pressing the little button to close the SUV’s back door and coming around to open the passenger door for me, “you’re up front with me today. Those two assholes have been stealing too much of your time lately.”

“Aw, I missed you too, Cutie,” I replied, leaning up on my tiptoes to kiss him before clambering up into the passenger side seat.

Cole rumbled something under his breath too low for me to hear, then closed my door and jogged back around to the driver’s side.

“You boys ready to roll?” he asked, glancing in the rearview mirror and then chuckling. Curious about what was so funny, I looked over into the back seat and found Caleb with a marker drawing a careful moustache on a deeply sleeping Wesley.

“What?” Caleb asked me with a shrug. “It’s been too damn long since we had some fun... and he deserves it for keeping you out all night.”

I snickered a laugh and sat back in my seat. “I sense the start of a war.” I glanced at Cole, and he snorted.

“Oh, Vix babe, you have no idea.” He shook his head, turning out onto the street and following the signs north. “The last time this started...” He clicked his tongue, and I heard a chuckle from the backseat.

“Something tells me I’m going to find out when Wes wakes up?” I asked, and this time I needed no reply. Living in the middle of nowhere with my guys was going to be fun; there was no question about that.

* * *

It was a decent drive from where we’d been staying in Toronto to our new home, and Wesley was predictably pissed when he discovered his inked on moustache. Even more pissed when he found it was permanent marker and that he’d been chatting with us for over an hour while we held back giggles. It hadn’t been until we stopped at a gas station for fuel and snacks that he’d caught sight of himself in the reflection of a fridge door.

Foolishly, Caleb then fell asleep against the door not long afterwards, so Wes went to town with the permanent marker, giving him a monobrow, a goatee, and a monocle.

“How much farther is it, do you know?” I asked Cole, stretching my neck and rubbing at my lower back. Sitting in cars for too long always made me feel all sorts of kinked up.

Cole scratched at his chin for a moment before replying. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and fuck, it was sexy on him. He and River pulled off three-day stubble like no men I’d ever met.

“Shouldn’t be too much further. Maybe another hour or so?” He glanced over at me and nodded to the glove compartment. “There’s a map in there with the exact location marked.”

“A map?” I chuckled. “How very old school.”

“Not old school, Vixen,” Cole corrected as I flicked open the latch to the glove compartment and pulled out the folded paper map. “Secretive. According to Vali, this house isn’t listed anywhere online, and he didn’t want to go plugging coordinates into Google only to have Omega intercept them somehow. Paper is much safer.”

Sounded sensible, so I nodded and unfolded the paper to inspect it. Sure enough, there was a little dot inked on the paper with a red circle around it.

“Okay, so we are just passing...” I looked out the window, checking for a location on the shop names of the little town we were passing through. “Bravenherst. I think.”

I inspected my map again, located the town of Bravenherst, and absentmindedly circled it with the marker I’d stolen from Wes and Caleb to prevent any more facial features being added to either of them.

“And we need to get to here...” Using the tip of my pen, I tapped the dot that marked the house. “Ugh, that still looks like a ways to go. I wish we could just magic ourselves there.”

Now, one might have assumed that I’d have been more careful about the words I used and the intent behind them... especially when handling ink... but in my defense, I was still really new to the whole magic thing and I was really tired, dammit!

There was no warning or time to react. One minute we were driving sixty to seventy miles an hour down a deserted road on our way out of Bravenherst, and the next we were about to drive straight into the side of a gorgeously extravagant log cabin.

“Shit!” Cole yelled, slamming his foot on the brakes and skidding to a halt some inches from the side of the house. “Vixen!”

“That wasn’t me!” I screamed back, even though I was at least sixty-eight percent sure it was me.

“Well, it wasn’t fucking me,” Caleb snickered from the backseat. “My rune circles can only take, like, one extra person, not an entire SUV and four people with luggage.”

“Uh-oh,” Wes muttered, and I whipped around to look at him.

“Uh-oh, what? What now?” I demanded, starting to panic a bit that I’d done something like... give myself a unicorn horn. As discreetly as I could, I ran a hand over my forehead just in case.

“That.” Wesley nodded out his window to the furious faces of Austin and River as they stormed across the grass.

“Crap,” I groaned. “Cal, uh, any chance you know how to make me invisible?” I tried pleading with my eyes at him, but couldn’t take him seriously with an inked-on monobrow and eyeglass.

“You’re on your own, Kitty Kat,” he smirked. “Don’t think I don’t see you trying not to giggle.”

“Dammit,” I hissed as Austin and River reached our SUV and Austin came around to my side.

Ripping the door open, his scowling face got all up in my business as he yelled. “Christina! I know this was your doing! What in the ever-loving fuck were you thinking? What if people had seen you pop out of thin fucking air here? What if you’d fucked it up and only half the car made the jump? What if you’d all ended up splattered through the fucking car like ketchup? What if—”

“What if you stop yelling at me and consider it was a goddamn fucking accident?” I screamed back at him, unclipping my seat belt and pushing him out of the way so I could exit the car.

Best defense was a good offense, right? Besides, I was not the kind of girl to sit back and be scolded like a damn two-year-old for an accident!

“Do not walk away from me, Christina!” Austin bellowed from behind me, but I didn’t bother stopping or looking back. Instead, I flipped him off and brushed past River to get to the front door of the house.

Fuck. Him.

My anger was burning way hotter than the situation really called for, and part of me knew it was Austin’s anger that was clawing at my throat and making it hard to breathe. I needed to... I didn’t even know. Run? Hit something? Something!

A commotion was going on with the guys still by the car, and Austin was yelling something about reckless use of magic and could have killed us all, but I blocked them out. My only concern was to find a way to calm the hell down before I accidentally blew something up or teleported the entire house somewhere. Hell, I didn’t know what was possible, but I did know that my temper was not going to be good for controlling magic.

“dragă,” Vali’s voice sounded from nearby as I paused in the foyer to the jaw-dropping house.

“Wilderness cabin?” I narrowed my eyes at him standing in the open doorway to the kitchen looking beyond sexy in a tight gray T-shirt and blue jeans. “Vali, this is a fucking mansion.”

The foyer where I stood opened into a huge sunken living area with floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over a lake. A lake that I probably would have known was there had we arrived via road and not popped out of thin air in the driveway…

Vali shrugged. “Language barrier. Come, I’ll show you your room.”

I snorted a laugh at his language barrier excuse. Damn Romanian spoke better English than I did. Still, it was better than standing in the foyer fuming with anger and clenching my fists.

“Sure,” I huffed. “Find me somewhere to hide until I lose the urge to rip Austin’s fucking head off.”

“Mmm, his head? Or his clothes?” Vali arched a brow at me then flashed a devilish grin and led the way up the grand wooden staircase.

Muttering weak denials under my breath, I followed him and raised my eyebrows when we entered a bedroom that must have been directly above the living area below. The huge bay windows showed the same view of the lake, and an enormous California king bed took up barely half of the tastefully decorated bedroom.

“This is my bedroom, huh?” I asked. Having expected a pretty basic kind of fishing cabin or something, the shock of this opulence was taking some of the burn out of my anger. Austin was still furious though, and it was keeping my own temper stoked.

“It’s the master suite, yes,” Vali nodded. “Seeing as you’re the master in this little crew of misfits, I thought it appropriate.”

“That’s... really sweet of you, but it’s your house. I don’t mind taking one of the other rooms.” I frowned, trying to rein in my foul mood and be polite but really struggling.

“Regina mea,” Vali chuckled. “You don’t need to mind your manners with me. I can feel your fury and frustration. Sit, talk to me.”

“Regina mea?” I repeated, but did as I was told and flopped down backward onto the impressive bed.

“It means ‘my Queen’ in Romanian,” Vali explained, climbing onto the bed and leaning his back on the headboard. He was already barefoot, and for some reason I found that incredibly hot.

“Austin is always calling you Princess, but you’re not. You’re a queen. Our queen.” He wrapped one of his huge hands around my upper arm and pulled me up the bed till my head was in his lap and he could run his fingers through my hair.

“Hmm.” I pursed my lips. “I like it... which is weird because I hate Austin calling me Princess.”

Vali huffed a small laugh. “No, you don’t. Just like you’re not as mad at him right now as you think you are. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“You didn’t see?” I asked, tilting my head back to look up at him.

“No, Regina, or I wouldn’t be asking, now would I?” He softened his words with a small smile as his gentle fingers brushed through my hair. How odd to think this was the same man who’d shot one of his guards point blank in front of me when we first met.

“Uh, I accidentally somehow magicked us here from Bravenherst, and Austin is losing his shit that it was reckless and stupid, but it was a fucking accident. I didn’t mean to do... whatever the hell I did. It just happened.” I scowled, but Vali’s fingers in my hair were slowly but surely melting the anger out of me.

“It just happened?” he repeated, using a finger to tilt my head back to look at him. “Really? That’s the defense you want to stick with?”

“It did,” I muttered, indignant. He arched a brow at me over those sexy, granite-gray eyes of his.

“Were you handling any ink at the time?” he asked me sternly, and my cheeks heated. “I take that as a yes. I have no idea how this ink magic works, but I would probably say that handling any sort of ink until you get a better grasp of control might be considered reckless and stupid, don’t you?”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re supposed to be on my side, Vali.”

“Why?” he challenged me. “Because I want to fuck you? That’s no reason to always agree when you’re clearly in the wrong.”

Indignation flared inside me, and I sat up to glare at him. “What the hell? I am not clearly in the wrong here! It was an accident!”

“Yes, but it was an accident that could have been prevented had you not been handling ink. Correct?” Damn man didn’t even have the grace to look anything but calm, but I really had nothing to say back to that, seeing as he was one hundred percent correct. Instead, I changed the subject.

“You want to fuck me, huh?” Sweeping my dishevelled hair off my face where it had flopped when I sat up so quickly, I tried really had to wipe the scowl from my face.

Vali barked a laugh, then stroked his thumb over my cheek. “Nice deflection. And yes, you know I do. It’s practically all I’ve been able to think of since seeing you on that stage at the Onyx Auction.”

“Huh, I would have thought it’s been since you caught me masturbating in your bath tub.” I gave him a cheeky smile and received the heated stare I was aiming for in return. His fingers on my face warmed with dragon magic until they were just this side of uncomfortable, and I shifted until I was sitting closer to him on the bed.

“That certainly didn’t help,” he murmured, his blazing eyes fixated on my mouth while I silently begged him to kiss me.

“So, what’s stopping you now?” I whispered back, leaning forward until our faces were only inches apart. We’d only kissed once, but the memory of his lips on mine was still fresh in my mind.

Vali let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Only your five other boyfriends, and the fact that one of them is my estranged little brother who I suspect wants to kill me in my sleep some days?”

“Ah,” I nodded. “Cole.”

“Yeah, Cole,” he agreed, and I sat back a bit. “I hope you understand. I want to make things right with him before...”

Chewing my lip, I nodded again. “Before sleeping with his girlfriend? Got it. Actually, really admirable, and I can’t even be a little mad about it.” I paused, running a hand through my slightly tangled waves. “Frustrated and horny as hell, but not mad.”

Vali smiled and pressed a lingering kiss to my cheek. “Thank you for being understanding; it means a lot to me that I have this chance to mend things with Cole. This is why you’re Regina mea.”

“Uh-huh, that’s me... super understanding.” I huffed another frustrated sigh. “At least I’m in less of a violent rage now.”

“Amazing what talking can do, hmm?” Vali smirked like a shithead. “Has Austin cooled down too? You know he was only scared for you.”

“Bullshit,” I snorted, but when I took the time to inspect his feelings swirling inside my chest, they weren’t totally all outraged anger like I’d thought. Yeah, there was a heavy dose of that, but there was also concern, panic, and fear.

Crap, maybe he wasn’t such an asshole after all.

“Austin... I don’t know him as well as you do, but I maybe have a different perspective? He has not had very good experiences with love, and he is still learning to deal with how he feels for you.” I snorted, but Vali laid a finger over my lips to silence me. “Sooner or later, you two will need to stop lying to yourselves and each other. Until then, this anger and fighting seems to be the only way he can deal with things. I think, despite everything you have gone through, that you’re stronger. Emotionally. So maybe cut him some slack and examine those feelings you are privy to before automatically snapping back at him.”

My lips tightened, and I met Vali’s serious gaze for a long moment while I turned this over in my head.

“Fine,” I murmured eventually. “But only if you do something for me.”

“What’s that?” He smiled indulgently.

“Fix shit with Cole. Fast. Being near you like this and not acting on what my body wants is going to drive me insane.” I rolled my eyes dramatically, but I was telling the truth.

Vali grinned and swiped his thumb gently over my cheek once more. “Deal. Now, are you ready to be yelled at by River? I just bet he has some words for you, too.”

I groaned. Dammit, he was right.

Time to face the music, Kit. Just... keep your trap shut and take the telling-off like a man. Woman. Ugh, whatever.

6

Turned out the scolding from River wasn’t as bad as anticipated. I managed to get through it with a few carefully timed “yes, sir”s, which never failed to derail River’s train of thought.

“Um, guys,” Caleb called from the kitchen when River was wrapping up with a final warning not to play with markers—like I was a freaking toddler.

“What?” Austin yelled back, still sitting on one of the leather ottomans with his arms folded while he glared at me. Tyson was back, and the big cat sat at my feet with his head in my lap demanding face scratches.

“I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but we’re badly in need of some groceries for this house. Coffee, especially, if we don’t want Kit to go all hulk smash on us.” Caleb gave me a toothy grin, and I flipped him off. He wasn’t wrong though.

“There is a little grocery store in town, I think,” Wesley offered. “This handy info packet has details on all the local conveniences.”

He held up a series of laminated pages that were bound together down one side, like the type that would be left in holiday homes. It was surprisingly useful since we’d all agreed to keep our Googling to a minimum. Just in case.

“I don’t mind going, seeing as I do lots of the cooking anyway.” Wesley shrugged, standing up to grab the car keys from the table. “Kit, you want to come?”

“Shit, yes,” I eagerly accepted, jumping up from my seat and stuffing my feet back into my Cons. I’d gone for flat sneakers today because we’d been travelling and I was a firm believer in comfortable travel attire.

“Kitten,” River started, but Cole stood as well.

“I’ll come too, keep Vixen’s hands off anything remotely inky.” He gave me a tiny flicker of a grin, and I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out. That, same as pouting, was not a sexy look on a grown woman.

“Idiots,” Austin muttered, throwing his hands up and stalking out of the room.

“Oh good, Austin approves. Let’s go!” I snarked, slapping Cole on the ass then running like hell out of the house before he could retaliate.

Once strapped into the car, Wes turned to me from the steering wheel with a very serious look on his face.

“Sweetheat, can you do me a favor?” he asked, and I automatically nodded.

“Of course.”

“Don’t magic us anywhere? I doubt I could have stopped the car as quickly as Cole did earlier.” His request was sensible, of course, but the quirk to the corners of his mouth said he was teasing, and I wrinkled my nose at him.

“You still have a moustache,” I pointed out, and Cole snorted a laugh from the back seat.

Wes arched a brow as he put the car in reverse and directed us out of the driveway and onto the dusty road. “Good. I think I look distinguished.”

* * *

The drive into town was quick, and we pulled up in front of a little store under the curious gazes of several people who I assumed to be locals. A small town like this probably didn’t get terribly many visitors, even with all the cottages and lake houses that must be rented out during the summer.

“Afternoon.” The old guy behind the counter nodded to us as we entered the store.

“Hello,” Wes murmured back while Cole and I nodded politely at him.

Cole grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it to me. “Here, you can push this to keep your hands off anything with ink.”

I rolled my eyes but took the shopping cart from him anyway. As I pushed it slowly down the first aisle, following Wes, Cole placed his hands on either side of mine so he was sort of hugging me while we walked.

“Vixen,” he said quietly in my ear, his voice vibrating against my skin and making me shiver, “when we get back to the house...”

“Mm-hmm?” I replied, snuggling back into his broad chest and liking where this suggestion was going.

“Wes and I are going to cook dinner, and you...” he whispered, “are going to start your magic lessons with Austin.”

Not what I had expected he would say, so I pulled up short. “Uh, what?”

“You heard me. Magic lessons with Austin tonight.” His tone was serious, and I spun to look at him.

“I’ve been taking magic lessons with Austin. He’s just a shitty teacher.” Okay... so maybe I was a shitty student as well, but that was so beside the point.

“He’s not, and you know it. Neither of you have been taking it seriously, but that ends now. You’re clearly too powerful to be left unchecked, and the aim of the game right now is to stay hidden. Right?” He released the cart to cup my face in his hands. “You’re too damn important to me to risk losing you in a magical whoopsie.”

A small grin pulled at my lips, despite how annoyed I was at him seeming to take Austin’s side.

“Did you just say ‘whoopsie,’ Cutie?” I teased, but he didn’t take the bait, so I rolled my eyes. “Fine, magic lessons with Austin tonight. But I want to place a bet on it.”

Cole smiled this time. “Whatever it takes. What’s the bet?”

“If Austin loses his shit at me and storms off at any point during tonight’s lesson, you have to spend all of tomorrow with Vali.” I folded my arms over my chest and tilted my chin up stubbornly.

“Doing what?” he frowned.

“I don’t care what, but you two have to spend the entire day together doing something and try to work on your relationship.” I held his gaze while his jaw clenched and his eyes tightened. He knew it was a fair request from me though. Just like I’d been avoiding my magic lessons with Austin, he’d been avoiding spending any real time with his brother.

“Fine,” he said again, this time with gritted teeth. “But if you’re the one to lose your shit, you are no longer allowed to complain when I rip your underwear off.”

Desire heated my belly, tingling through me, and my breath caught. I had this won, though. It was for much more than just group cohesion that I wanted the two dragons to make up.

“Deal,” I stuck out my hand for him to shake, but he leaned forward and kissed me instead.

Taken off guard, I gasped, letting him invade my mouth and turn the kiss from something quick to something seriously hot right there in the aisle of the little grocery store.

Wes cleared his throat nearby, and Cole released me reluctantly.

“Sorry, bro,” Cole smirked, looking anything but. “Just had to seal a bet.”

“Shit,” Wes muttered under his breath, “is that why I’ve been losing bets to Cal for so long? I always just shook on it.”

Trying really hard not to picture Wes and Cal kissing, I bit my lip and turned back to my job of pushing the cart while the guys grabbed things from the shelves and tossed them in.

When we got back to the front of the store to check out, the shop clerk was watching the news on an old-school tube TV.

“You see this crazy shit?” he asked us, groaning as he got up from his chair, and ambling over to scan our items.

“What’s that?” I asked, craning my head to see what was being reported on. “Oh. The dragon thing?” The news was replaying the footage of Vali and Cole in all their scaly glory shooting up into the sky.

“Yep.” The old man made a noise in his throat. “Load of crap if you ask me.”

A nervous laugh escaped me, and my hand tightened around Cole’s. “Yep, total hoax,” I agreed.

“Nah, girl. That ain’t a hoax; those are real dragons no doubt. It’s just a load of crap that they keep playing it over and over. You’d think if dragons wanted the world knowing about them, then we would. But we don’t. So ain’t no good gonna come from hunting them down.” The man shook his head and tsked as he rung up our items and bagged them.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Cole rumbled, and I bit back a laugh, “Leave them alone. Safer for everyone.”

The man glanced sharply at Cole, and his eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before clearing to a normal polite expression.

“Cash or card?” he asked, and I felt Wesley kick Cole behind me before sorting out our payment.

Loading all our bags into the back of the SUV, I turned to the boys curiously. “What was that about? The clerk gave you a weird look, Cole, then Wes kicked you.”

Cole shrugged and said nothing, opening his door and hopping inside, so I raised a brow at Wesley instead.

“His eyes started going a bit dragon,” Wesley informed me as we both climbed into our seats and buckled up. “Looks like I’m the safest option for your next bond after all.”

A growl echoed through the car from the backseat, and I grinned. Wes still didn’t know what he was, so I was sure he was joking. But he raised a good point. Who would I bond to next after I got this ink magic under control?

7

Dirt exploded in a little puffball from the toe of my shoe as I kicked another hole in the ground and tried my very hardest not to lose my temper. Nope, I wanted to win that bet with Cole, so I would not be the one storming out of this training session in a rage.

“I don’t get it,” I repeated for the zillionth time. “Shouldn’t I be learning to control ink magic? That’s the only time things seem to go screwy.”

Austin had me out on the grass practicing what he called elementary magic with runes and symbols and magic words. I wasn’t even joking, but I wished I was. Honest to goodness, magic words. Like... in another language.

“You’re not ready.” Was the same stupid answer he’d been giving me all evening.

My temper flared, and I knew he felt it as his jaw clenched tight.

“Maybe you’re just shitty at teaching? You are fully aware there is no way in hell you can cram like... ten years of knowledge into my head in one night? You do know that right? So what the hell are we even doing here?” I was flying off the handle a little, but being around Austin seemed to do that to me all the freaking time. Maybe it was the insane sexual tension, or maybe he really was that much of a dickhead. Whatever the reason, I could not seem to keep my cool.

“You’re right, Princess. What the fuck are we even doing here?” he snapped back at me, giving me a long, weighted stare that said I was totally missing a double meaning, before throwing his hands up and stalking back into the house.

Instead of feeling pleased with myself for having won Cole’s bet, I watched Austin’s broad back and hunched shoulders disappear into the house with a pang of regret and disappointment. Vali was right. We needed to sort our shit out because what I was feeling from Austin wasn’t anger. Not even close. It was despair.

“Shit,” I swore quietly, then felt the warm breath of Tyson on my hand a moment before he nuzzled at my hip. “Hey buddy, can you help me out? I keep fucking things up with your... uh... master?” The tiger curled his lip up in disgust, and I quickly corrected, “I mean, your Mage?”

Tyson huffed a breath that I knew to be approval, and I buried my hand in the scruff of his neck fur.

“It’d be cool if you could talk or something. Still... we understand each other pretty well, don’t we?” Somehow, talking to Austin’s tiger was the only thing holding back the tears that were threatening as Austin’s emotions mixed with mine and made me want to cry.

God damn him.

Tyson head-butted me with his agreement, and I laughed. The overgrown house cat seemed to like getting that reaction out of me, so he head-butted me again, this time knocking me to my ass and then covering my face with tiger slobber as he licked me all over.

“Stop it!” I screamed, rolling on the ground with laughter while the magical cat continued to lick my face and tickle me with his whiskers. Bastard.

“You okay under there, or do you need help?” Caleb chuckled, his head appearing above the fluffy orange-and-black face demanding my attention.

“Help!” I laughed. “Tyson won’t stop licking me!”

The big cat huffed as if offended that I didn’t appreciate his kisses, but sat back and let Caleb help me to my feet with a strong pull on my hand.

“Bit weird, don’t you think?” I asked the friendlier King twin as I dusted off my jeans. “That Austin’s familiar is so affectionate when he’s like a fricking ice cube?”

Caleb snorted, tucking an arm around my waist and tugging me close as we wandered back to the house. “Uh, something like that. You know familiars are still part of their Mage? Like, they’re a physical manifestation of our magic, so they are essentially just an extension of us.”

“Except Tyson and Austin are the opposite sides of a coin?” I raised my eyebrows skeptically, and Caleb just shrugged. “Hey, that reminds me. Will you get a familiar too, when we bond?”

“When?” he repeated, stopping just short of the steps to the balcony. “You still want to bond with me, even though I’m failing with my magic?”

“Cal,” I scolded, turning his chin so I could meet his emerald-green eyes. “Despite the fact that you tell me nothing about your lessons, I can pretty safely say you’re not failing.”

“How can you be so sure?” he whispered, and the sadness underscoring his words almost broke my heart.

Chewing my lip, I held his gaze firm. “Because I know you, and you’re not the type to just give up. Clearly it’s taking a bit of work, but you’ll get there. You haven’t snapped and killed anyone yet, right?”

He hesitated and frowned. “Uh, no...”

“See?” I beamed. “Not failing! But... it’d be nice if maybe you’d talk to me about it a bit more? I know you said there’s a confidentiality thing, but surely you can just keep me updated on how it’s going? Like, blink once for good and twice for bad? That kind of thing?”

Admittedly, I was still stinging from the twins holding onto such a massive secret for so long, but they’d both apologized and there was little to do about it now. Caleb trusting me a bit more with what was going on would kind of go a long way to repairing that though.

He took a long moment before replying, thinking over what I’d said before nodding slowly.

“Yeah, I can do that. Or I can try. As much as the magical NDA lets me.” He looked sheepish, but I already knew he’d been kicking himself for agreeing to the spell in the first place. He must have been in a seriously bad place that night, and I could only put it down to that bloody mess he’d seen at the gala.

“So?” I prompted, and he looked confused. “Familiar? Do you get a viper?”

“Oh.” He scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck and dodged eye contact with me. “I kind of hope not.”

That surprised me. “No? Why not?”

A faint blush rose up in his cheeks, and he scrubbed a hand over his face before replying. “Uh... I’m scared of snakes.” An embarrassed smile pulled at his lips, and my jaw dropped.

“Shut the front door,” I gasped, trying not to laugh. “But... your codename is Viper and you have a viper tattooed on your leg... how can you be scared of snakes?”

He shrugged and started up the steps to the house. “Maybe because they’re scaly and slimy and venomous and have no arms or legs or ears! Kitty Kat... they have no ears!” He gave a dramatic shudder. “Nope, if I didn’t get a familiar I would be just fine. They only go to, like, the most insanely powerful Mages ever created, so the odds of both Austin and I getting a familiar after no one else in the past thousand years has... not likely. Right?”

It actually seemed really likely, given the pattern of everything else right now, but he was looking at me so hopefully that I found myself agreeing.

“Yup, totally not likely,” I reassured him. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be at your magic lesson right now?”

Caleb checked his watch and swore. “You’re right. I’ll... see you when I get back?”

“And tell me how it went? Even if it’s just something boring?” I reiterated, and he nodded. “Cool, then I’ll see you when you get back.”

He grabbed me around the waist and kissed me quickly, before Tyson got jealous and growled, then jogged back down the steps to the grass where he disappeared into a circle of mage runes.

“Such a cool trick,” I breathed, as I watched the glittering symbols twinkle under the early evening moonlight, then fade out of existence.

“Amazing what you could do with a little magic mastery, huh Kitten?” River’s voice made me jump, and I whirled around to face him. Tyson growled a little, so I buried my hand in the scruff of his neck to soothe the temperamental cat.

“I get it, Alpha.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m trying, okay? I took the lesson with Austin. He’s the one that stormed off in a huff.”

“You provoked him, and you know it.” River folded him arms, and I took a moment to admire his strong forearms, thanks to his shirt sleeves being rolled up. “Love, do I really need to stress the importance of this to you? You’re a bloody smart woman; you know what’s at stake here.”

Like, the fate of the world, mankind, and our lives? Okay, maybe they all had a point. I hadn’t been taking this anywhere near seriously enough.

“Yeah, I know,” I muttered, inspecting my toes.

River sighed and muttered some very British sounding curse under his breath before sweeping me up against his chest, with his arms around my waist.

“We scold because we care,” he reminded me softly. “Dinner is ready, by the way. Then perhaps I could interest you in a shower...?”

“Why, Alpha. Are you implying I’m a dirty girl or simply trying to sneak alone time in this house full of men?” I acted offended, but the sly smile pulling at my mouth no doubt gave him the resounding yes he was looking for.

A low hum from his throat was all the response I really needed before pressing my lips to his in a long kiss, until we were interrupted again by Tyson growling.

“Damn, Ty,” I sighed as River placed me back down on the ground. “You got to learn how to share! What are you going to be like when Caleb’s snake turns up? Hey.” I turned back to River. “Who would be more scared of whom, tiger or snake?”

My scruffy, sexy Alpha grimaced. “I hadn’t thought about Cal’s viper. Gross. Snakes are gross.”

A grin spread over my face. Am I the only one not scared of snakes? This will be too much fun.

Because despite the reassurance I’d given Caleb, I’d be seriously shocked if he didn’t get a familiar after our bonding. They were given to the most powerful Mages, and the Blood and Ink Mages were supposed to be of equal power. So... it stood to reason that if Austin had one…

“Maybe he can give it a cute name and like a bowtie or something to make him less scary?” I suggested as I followed River back into the house, and he looked at me like I was on acid.

“Just a suggestion,” I muttered, but River probably wasn’t the right one to appreciate my jokes.

Damn, where was Lucy when I needed her?

8

Austin

The sound of Christina's laughter filtered up to me as she rolled on the lawn with Tyson licking her face. Fucking hell, why did I let her get to me so much? Ever since the gala, she'd been deliberately driving me nuts. Or I assumed it was deliberate.

It had to be.

No one could honestly be that oblivious. She hadn't once mentioned the fact that we'd had sex, twice, nor had she acknowledged the crazy levels of sexual tension between us since then. I knew she could feel my emotions right now, just as I could hers, so how could she not know what she was doing to me?

Unless mine were coming across as mixed up and confused as hers were... but surely not. The only reason hers were such a mess was because she was sleeping with five other dudes. Right? Or, four really. But Vali was only a matter of time. I'd seen the way he looked at her.

Idiot. Tyson’s message translated across to me loud and clear. We couldn't communicate in words as such, just more in ideas and emotions. Great, more emotions. I almost missed the days when I'd been alone in my own head.

Almost, but not quite. As much as I hated the mental anguish and confusion, I badly didn't want to lose my insight into Christina's feelings. So much so that I was waiting as long as possible before teaching her how to turn it off.

“Hey, Aus.” Wesley's voice startled me, and I wrenched my gaze away from the gorgeous woman currently being mauled by my familiar.

“What's up?” I replied, very deliberately turning my back on the window and stepping away from it. Watching Christina when she wasn't aware had become an unhealthy obsession that I seriously needed to kick before I turned into Wesley. That guy was using his crow sight far more than he was letting on, I was sure.

“Uh, I was wondering if Cal has said anything to you about his training?” Wes shifted his feet and ran an anxious hand through his hair. “Not that I'm asking you to betray his confidence—”

“It's fine,” I cut him off. “I'm not keeping any more secrets from the team. I learned my lesson.” Yeah, that was a bit sour, but I was still stinging from the reprimand River had dished out on the matter of Cal and I keeping our knowledge of magic quiet.

“So...” Wes prompted, and I shook my head.

“Nothing. He hasn't said anything. Why?” I narrowed my eyes at Wes. He had on his something-was-bugging-him face.

His lips tightened, then he shrugged. “No real reason. I'm just trying to work through these nightmares for Kit, and the way he reacted the other night just bothered me.”

“Ah.” I grimaced, remembering the blind panic on my brother's face and the sharpening of his teeth before he’d portaled out. “That wasn't about her nightmare, it was about the blood.”

Wes frowned, looking confused. “Blood? What blood?”

“When Christina knocked the lamp over, she cut herself on it. The power in her blood is still doing wacky things to Cal, so he took off because he didn't trust himself.” I tried to explain it as briefly as possible. It wasn't my place to talk about Caleb's magic and his struggles with the pull of powerful blood. The last thing I wanted was the guys feeling uncomfortable around him, like he was a vampire or something, just biding his time to suck their blood.

The image of my twin as Count Dracula made me snort a laugh that then needed a wave off when Wesley's curious-eyebrow rose.

“Don't worry about it. I think he's working pretty hard on getting it under control, and it was nothing related to Christina's nightmares.” I frowned then. The idea that she was still being plagued by night terrors made me sick. From what Wes had told me, the bloody scene at the gala featured heavily. “How are those going, anyway?”

“Better, I think. They're not coming as frequently, but when they do, they're pretty brutal. Kind of just a relief being able to help her with them, you know?” He gave me a shy smile, and I knew full well he was loving being able to keep an eye on her while she slept. Paranoid bastard. He was totally convinced something bad was going to happen soon, which was a little bit funny given just how much bad had happened since Christina had crashed into our lives.

Still wouldn't change it for anything though.

Dammit. If I didn't know myself any better, I'd think I had fallen in love with her...

“How's research going?” I changed the subject to something that was always going to engage Wesley.

“Oh, uh, good!” He nodded, following me out of the room. “Or maybe not good... We found some odd things about Director Pierre, but I sort of want to authenticate the information before telling Kit, you know?”

“Don't want to hurt her if it turns out to be a false lead?” I understood; I didn't envy the position Wesley was in. Or River, for that matter, as it was ultimately his call when to share info. “Just don't keep it from her any longer than necessary, not even if it’s for her own good. She's had enough secrets from all of us.” Mainly from me.

“Got it,” Wesley agreed. “I just want to get my facts straight in case it's nothing.”

Giving him a tight nod, I wandered into the kitchen where I could see Christina talking to River just outside. It was a coincidence, if anyone asked, but the amusement rolling off Tyson said he knew full well what I was doing even if I was in denial myself.

9

Kit

The next morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find when I came down for breakfast that Cole and Vali had already left for their day together.

“Seriously?” I asked, still half asleep as I took my coffee from Wes, then perched on Caleb’s lap when he tugged at my waist. “I know I won that bet, but I thought the stubborn fuckers would have to be forced out the door.”

“We all take paying off bets very seriously, love,” River murmured, pulling up a chair at the table and pushing a plate of pancakes towards me.

“Also,” Wesley added, “Vali seemed really keen to go out with Cole.”

Lifting my coffee to my face, I covered a smug smile. I just bet he was keen.

“So what are they doing with their day?” I asked, both curious and a little sad I wouldn’t get to keep an eye on them... bonding.

“Dragon stuff,” Caleb answered me, stealing a pancake from my plate and cramming half of it in his mouth before I could snatch it back. Could have been worse though; at least he wasn’t stealing my coffee.

“Dragon stuff?” I repeated, washing down my own mouthful with sweet, glorious caffeine.

“Uh-huh,” Caleb murmured, trying to take my mug from my fingers and earning a bite on the hand from me.

“Caleb, I made you your own,” Wesley snapped at him. “Quit stealing Kit’s.”

River clicked his tongue to shut them both up and effectively gained my attention again as he watched me like a predator with gorgeous, golden eyes.

“By ‘dragon stuff,’” he explained, “Caleb means they’ve gone out into the woods to work on their shifting and their magic. If anyone can help either of them practice and master their new abilities, it’s each other. That was a smart choice of a bet reward, love.”

“Thanks.” I beamed, finally having done something right. It felt like everything I was doing was wrong lately. “So, what’s in the cards for us today?”

“You have more magic training with Austin—and Caleb, if he feels like helping out. Wesley and I are going to have a chat about this situation with Director Pierre and what to do about it.” River placed his teacup back down on his saucer and—wait, what?

“Are you... drinking tea right now?” I asked, both fascinated and amused at the stereotypical British thing to do.

River just rolled his eyes and stood from the table. “When you’re done with breakfast, Austin is in the den waiting for you. He’s in a mood too, so probably best you get down there.” He threw me a wink that either said good luck or just kidding or, hell, it could have even been nice rack because I hadn’t bothered with a bra before coming to breakfast and my nipples were hard as ice cubes through my thin tank top. Either way, I was still too sleepy and not yet caffeinated enough to probe further into it.

Caleb had slipped into my bed when he got back from magic lessons smelling like smoke and herbs and had been surprisingly forthcoming about his night. No details on the lesson or his teacher, but at least he’d opened up about how he was feeling with his progress. Despite the late hour, I hadn’t wanted to stop him, but now I was tired as hell and about to face another gruelling day with Teacher-Austin.

“Guess that’s my cue, too,” Wes murmured, packing up his dishes and smacking a quick kiss on my cheek. “Good luck; don’t kill anyone.”

From Caleb, that would have earned a snarky remark back, but from Wes it seemed more like a genuine concern.

“I won’t kill anyone,” I muttered a bit sullenly while Wes dropped his dishes into the kitchen sink then followed River out of the room, leaving Caleb and I alone.

“Seriously?” I demanded as I reached for my coffee and found it gone from where I’d left it. “You have your own!”

Caleb grinned a cheeky grin and licked his lips, taking another sip from my cup. “Yeah, but yours tastes so much better. Besides, you didn’t even notice I’d personalized your mug for you.”

Now that he pointed it out, it was a much larger mug than the rest of the guys had been drinking from, and there was something printed on it…

“Move your hand so I can see, dope,” I prompted, and he obediently handed the cup back to me.

On one side, Kit’s Koffee Kup, and on the other, Zero Fox Given, except with a little cartoon fox instead of the word.

“Cal, I love it! It’s like that first one you got me... but better.” I placed it carefully down on the table and snaked my arms around his neck to kiss him. Given I was already in his lap, it was an easy task.

“You’re welcome, Kitty Kat,” he murmured when I eventually released his lips. “And I magicked this one so it won’t break if you pitch a fit with it.”

“So thoughtful,” I snickered, but secretly, I thought the extra work to make it break-free was almost as awesome as the cup itself. Caleb was being seriously awesome lately. “So does that mean you’ll come and help in magic class? Austin is less likely to shank me if you’re there as a witness.”

Caleb pursed his lips, like he was thinking about it, then nodded. “Sure. I can come keep you safe from shanking, you weirdo.”

“Excellent!” I finished the last of my coffee and hopped out of his lap to pull him up too. “If you think of any cool blood spells that will help me learn faster, that would also be super appreciated!”

Caleb snorted, following me through to the den where Austin was supposedly waiting for us. “It doesn’t really work like that, Kitty Kat. I can’t just...” he trailed off, and I looked back at him sharply.

“What?” I prompted.

“Uh, nothing. I just had an idea. I’ll ask Austin about it.” He nodded thoughtfully, then slapped me on my yoga-pants-covered ass. “Keep moving, slow poke. He’s not getting any sweeter for waiting.”

Grumbling under my breath about Austin not knowing sweet if it bit him on the ass, I dragged my heels into the den and found him sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire, staring intently into Tyson’s feline eyes.

“Hope we’re not interrupting?” I teased, and my words seemed to break whatever was going on between Mage and familiar because they both snapped their eyes to me simultaneously. The similarity ended there, though, as Austin rolled his emerald-green eyes and Tyson bounded toward me like he hadn’t seen me in weeks.

“Oh, hey buddy,” I greeted him as his dinner plate–sized paws pushed me backward onto a couch, then he tried to climb his entire six-hundred-and-something-pound frame into my lap. “Come on, man,” I groaned, pushing him back to the floor firmly. “We’ve been over this. You’re not as small as you think you are.”

Tyson looked up at me with a sad-as-hell look on his face, so I sighed and slid off the couch to sit on the floor beside him.

“See, now we’re both on the floor. Happy?” I could hardly believe the one-sided conversations I had with that cat sometimes, but he genuinely did seem happier as he rolled on his back beside me, demanding a belly rub.

As I obliged, I realised the twins were having a whispered debate on the other side of the room, which cut off abruptly when they noticed me staring.

“Uh, something you want to share?” I prompted.

Caleb looked to his brother, who just threw up his hands and muttered something about your fucking funeral.

“I had an idea,” Cal informed me. Again.

Giving him my very best “uh-huh, no shit, Sherlock” expression, or what I hoped was, I nodded. “So you already said, but go on...”

“When you said just before about a blood spell to help you learn faster, and I said it didn’t work like that? Well, technically it could.” He looked so excited he was practically bouncing on his toes. “If Austin were to tattoo you with blood-ink, then you could—in theory—retain every lesson the first time it’s taught. I mean, it’d still mean Austin running through all the same stuff, but it’d be just once. Not, like... however many hundreds of times he is making you practice this stuff at the moment.”

“Uh...” I glanced at Austin, who just wore the same vaguely annoyed look on his face. “Well, that sounds freaking amazing. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

Caleb shrugged in a way that told me he wasn’t totally sure he was up for it, but I also sensed that my faith in his abilities would go a really long way in his confidence about magic.

“Austin?” I asked, and he met my eyes for a long moment. We didn’t really need to exchange any more words than that, seeing as in a calm environment like this, our emotions were just right there on a silver platter for the other to examine.

In that moment, he was worried and tense and annoyed? Maybe that he hadn’t thought of it? I wasn’t sure. Just because I could feel his moods didn’t mean I got any reasons behind them.

Regardless, his main emotion was hope, and that was enough for me.

“Let’s do it,” I agreed.

Austin’s mouth turned down, but his overwhelming emotion was now concern, and concern I could handle. He was just being... protective. Or that’s what I was running with. Caleb, on the other hand, looked elated, and that in itself made the risks worthwhile.

“I’ll grab my stuff,” Austin muttered, giving me a sharp look that clearly said I hope you know what you’re doing before leaving the room.

“What are the risks in this?” I asked Caleb when we were alone once more, but he just shrugged.

“Nothing really for you. If it doesn’t work, then you’ll just have another non-magic tattoo. Which, really isn’t the worst thing when it’s Austin’s work.” He paced in front of the fireplace, probably not even noticing he was doing it. For all his forced casualness, I could see the lines of tension in his face.

“What about for you?” I prompted, not missing his phrasing that there was no risk for me.

Caleb scrubbed a hand over his face, but it was Austin who replied for him, coming back into the den with his tattoo equipment in a small black case.

“There’s no real risk for him either,” Aus informed me. “He’s just being a little bitch because it’s going to mean explaining more about his magic to you.”

“Oh.” I frowned at Caleb and tried really hard not to be offended. “So... you don’t want to tell me more about it? That’s...” I trailed off, not really sure what the hell to say. Considering I shared everything with the guys these days and I was still stinging from the twins hiding their knowledge of magic from me... well, it sucked.

“Yep,” Austin said under his breath as he unpacked his tools onto the coffee table. “I’d feel like that too. Even I’ve been open with you since Yoshi’s shop.”

“Fuck off,” I chastised him. “Quit trying to interpret my feelings. We have an arrangement to ignore those, remember?”

Actually on second thought, we had never discussed the arrangement. It was more... assumed.

Austin gave me a funny look, and a small spike of amusement shocked through me. “Do we? I guess that explains some things then.”

“Kitty Kat,” Caleb groaned, coming to perch on the edge of the couch and biting at his lip. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything. It’s just...”

“It’s just what?” I pushed, trying not to sound defensive and hurt but probably failing miserably. “You don’t think I’ll understand? What happens when we bond, Cal? Isn’t this all information I should really have in advance?”

Caleb stared back at me for a long moment, his mouth downturned and a deep furrow between his dark brows.

“Moot point now, Princess,” Austin offered. “Come on, bro. I’m ready for you. Let’s get this spell done so we can accelerate these lessons. Ideally it’d be good if Christina can complete a few more bonds before we need to abandon this location.”

Caleb nodded sharply and leaned forward to slide a blade out of an ankle sheath. He met my gaze briefly, then turned his down while he sliced a deep cut across the palm of his hand. Carefully, he then tipped his hand up and let the blood drip freely into each one of Austin’s open ink pots.

As the blood hit the surfaces of each color, a flare of light glowed and dimmed on each one. I was so entranced watching the effect that Caleb’s blood was having on the inks that I didn’t notice the change in him until he was finished, withdrawing his bleeding hand from above the table, and curling his fist closed.

“Cal,” I gasped, seeing exactly why he’d been so sure he’d need to explain things. No way in hell was I letting this one slide.

“I know,” he growled in a husky voice, thick with emotion.

“Give him a sec to get it under control,” Austin advised me quietly, placing a hand lightly on top of mine where it rested in Tyson’s neck fur.

I didn’t dare blink. Instead, I watched with fascination while Caleb’s pupils slowly returned from reptilian slits to normal, circular, human pupils, and his elongated canine teeth shrank back up once more. Once the changes seemed to be reversed, he shut his eyes tightly for a moment and took a few long breaths before opening them again and looking at me.

His gaze was so full of fear and self-loathing I could almost feel my heart breaking for him. He hated what he was, and I was the only one to blame for it. Well... me and Jonathan, seeing as he had orchestrated the car crash that had damn near killed Caleb and Wes.

“Give me your hand,” I demanded in a harsh whisper, noticing that he still held it clenched tight. As far as I knew, Mages didn’t have the natural healing ability that the dragons did.

Caleb did as I instructed, opening his palm out and letting me take it to heal the gash, then he wiped the excess blood off on a cloth his brother handed him.

“Hit me,” Caleb said, eventually. “I’ll answer anything the NDA will allow me to.”

Nodding slowly, I stared at him. Where did I even begin?

“So... fangs, huh?” Okay, so not the most intelligent question I’d ever phrased in my life. Austin snorted a laugh while I mentally cringed, and I smacked him in the arm. He was sitting on the floor beside me, finishing off whatever the fuck he was doing with the freshly blooded inks, so he was in easy reach for a swat.

“Uh.” Caleb quirked a tiny smile. “Yeah. Fangs. I take it you saw the eye thing too?” I nodded, and he sighed. “Yeah. So, as a Blood Mage, I can create magic with blood. But it’s more than that. Blood is literally a source of power for me, so when I see or smell a lot of it, the uh, fangs happen.”

Austin took my wrist in his hands and turned it over so that it was face up on the table in front of him. I spared him a quick glance, but was more interested in Caleb’s story. Besides, I actually did trust Austin not to tattoo a dick on me, so he could do whatever he wanted to get the spell done.

“So, you’re a vampire?” I asked, feeling like that chick from those books. The one where the vampires sparkled in the sun, which, by the way, would be a pretty cool trick.

Caleb gave me a tiny smile. “No. Not really. Sort of.”

“Oh, that was as clear as mud.” I quirked an eyebrow at him as I felt the buzz of Austin’s needle on the inside of my wrist. “Care to elaborate?”

“Blood Mages are technically where the legend of vampires came about. In the past there have been Mages who lost control of their desire for power and went a bit nuts. Publicly. Like Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, who were two separate guys by the way. Once they’d let their desires for power take over, they lost their minds and a whole bunch of people got slaughtered before they were taken out by the Ink Mage of the time.” Caleb ran a hand over his face once more, then wrinkled his nose. “Do you mind if I just go wash my hands quickly? I can still smell it...” I nodded, and he flashed me a quick smile before ducking out to the powder room.

“Why haven’t you told me any of this?” I asked Austin in a quiet voice while he worked on my new tattoo.

“Because it’s not my place to tell you. It’s his. Just because we’re twins doesn’t mean we’re not entitled to our own secrets.” His words were soft but chastising, and he was absolutely right. That was rude of me to expect he’d spill his brother’s secrets, but it had been a gut reaction. “Does it change how you feel for him?”

I huffed a small snort. “You already know it doesn’t. I’m just getting really tired of everyone keeping secrets from me when you all demand I keep none from you. It’s a double standard, and it’s beginning to wear thin.”

Austin paused, removing his needle from my skin as he met my gaze steadily. “I get it. We can’t change the past, but at least you know it won’t happen in the future. I couldn’t keep secrets from you now even if I wanted to.”

“You couldn’t?” I repeated with a frown. That was news to me.

“Honestly”—Austin clicked his tongue as he returned to his work—“you need to pay closer attention to your own magic.”

Caleb reentered the room then, still wiping his damp hands off on a little pink hand towel before sitting back on the sofa and looking at me expectantly.

“Okay, so what you’re saying is that vampires aren’t real?” I asked him, returning to our conversation and letting Austin’s odd statement slide. For now.

Caleb shook his head slightly. “No, well, sort of. Vampires as you know them from stories were almost always a Blood Mage gone bad. There is a species of demon who feeds on blood and can turn humans, I think, but that’s about all I know. And that might have been made up for all I know. The source is known for spinning bullshit sometimes.”

Austin chuckled, his warm breath tickling my skin as he worked. No prizes for guessing who the source of that one was. Apparently Austin was a bit of a shit stirrer as a kid.

“So what else do you want to know?” Caleb prompted and I stared at the ceiling while I thought for a moment.

“Are you getting better control of it now? I guess that makes sense now why Austin made you leave the room after Gray’s demise. But is this what you were so worried about?” I tilted my head as I looked back to him for an answer, and he blushed slightly.

“Uh, yeah. Pretty much. All blood carries a certain level of magic from the owner of it... That room was bathed in your blood, and Kitty Kat, your blood is like nothing I have ever smelled before. It’s pure fucking magic, and you kind of get hurt a lot. So yeah, I’m getting better control with these lessons, but I’m still scared I’ll slip up and rip your throat out or something.” His voice was pitched low and drowning in raw emotion. I had no doubt that this was not something he’d discussed with any of the other guys... even Austin, if the surprise and concern I was picking up from him was any indication.

“Well, then in that case, I am glad whatever you’re doing is helping But, I want to help too, if there is any way I can. Like... do you need to build an immunity to my blood in small doses or something like how Cleopatra did with snake venom?” I paused, realising what I’d just said and trying not to smile. Now is not the time for jokes, Kit.

“Ha ha, funny.” Caleb rolled his eyes. “Because I’m the Viper? Ironic, isn’t it? That I hate snakes and yet...” He bared his teeth, comically indicating the fang situation, and I snorted a laugh.

“Uh yeah, seeing as we are all sharing and shit”—I smiled apologetically—“I am pretty confident you will get a familiar. So... maybe work on the fear of snakes thing?”

“I second that,” Austin contributed, wiping my wrist off with a cloth and placing his gun down on the table. “You’re all done, Princess. Shall we test it out?”

My jaw dropped in surprise. “Just like that?” I raised my wrist to look at what he’d drawn for the spell. “No need for, like... chanting or runes or anything?”

“Kitty Kat”—Caleb shook his head at me—“we’re the strongest Mages in existence. Chanting and runes on a little spell are for mages... lower case m. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.”

I gave him a vague nod of acknowledgement but was still staring at my new tattoo, inspecting the delicate and intricate lines Austin had inked into my skin. It was a flower, a lily... I think. But it was mostly in shades of gray and black with the only color coming from the petals, which were shaded with a myriad of watercolor oranges and whites. Small spots of black crept out from the center, giving it an almost striped appearance.

“Do you like it?” Austin asked quietly, and I jumped from my quiet focus on the design.

“I love it,” I replied honestly, meeting his clear, green-eyed gaze. “What sort of flower is it?”

“A lily,” he told me while he packed up his tools, confirming what I had guessed. I was no flower connoisseur, so really lily, rose, and sunflower were probably the extent of my guesses. “I’ll just go put this all away, and then we can test out the spell. It’ll be clear pretty soon if it’s working or not, given how crap you’ve been with these lessons this far.”

I rolled my eyes as he left the room, but he was right. Caleb took my hand in his to look at the lily and made a small noise in his throat.

“Pretty, huh?” I smiled, and he nodded.

“Very,” he agreed. “Aus always did love tiger lilies.”

Wait, what?

“Tiger lily,” I repeated in a dry voice, narrowing my eyes at Austin when he walked back into the room. “Of course it’s a tiger lily.”

For his part, Austin just shrugged unapologetically, and I got the distinct feeling of satisfaction from him as he stretched out a hand to help me up from the floor. That did remind me though, I still needed to get payback for my first tattoo. Caleb had already given me a great idea of how to do it too.

“All right, I made the spell a temporary one, just in case there are any weird side effects. It’ll only last a month, and then we need to re-ink a new, stronger one if you want it to be a permanent thing.” Austin looked to both Caleb and I, and we both nodded our understanding. “I’ll teach you a new kiddie spell, and you can repeat it. If you get it right the first time, the spell is clearly working. Got it?”

“Got it,” I confirmed, then watched closely as he drew a symbol in the air and carefully enunciated some words in their mage language. Or was it Mage, with capital M? Compared to the last few lessons we’d had together, this time his actions and words seemed almost easy to follow, so it was no surprise when I was able to flawlessly execute the same spell seconds later.

“Yay!” I screamed when the piece of paper lifted from the table and floated for a few seconds in front of us. “It worked!”

“Thank the fucking gods,” Austin groaned. “This just made our lives a whole hell of a lot easier. Caleb, you want to stay for the lesson or take a time out?”

His twin hesitated a moment. “Are you just going to be going over the basics one at a time?” Austin nodded. “I’m out then. That shit is boring as hell. I’ll bring you guys lunch later.”

Smacking a quick kiss on my lips, he took off out of the den and left me to my magic lesson. This time, though, I was excited. Sure, it was probably going to be boring and monotonous, but without Austin losing his shit at me for being a slow learner or me losing my shit at him for being a shitty teacher... dare I hope this could even be enjoyable?

Okay, that was probably taking it a bit far. But the future was looking just a little brighter for the surly Ink Mage and myself.

“I bet you can’t teach me everything I need to know in a week,” I blurted out without really thinking about what I was saying. Austin’s brows raised in surprise, though, and I wasn’t going to take it back. He’d told me it took Yoshi close to eight years to teach him everything he knew now, so by saying a week, I was pretty damn confident he wouldn’t take the bet.

“You’re on,” he smirked. “If you lose, you have to be my slave for a week.”

My eyes widened, but I nodded. “Fine, but if you lose... I get to tattoo you with whatever I want.”

Austin barked a sharp laugh and shook his head at me. “Done. But no sabotage, or I’ll know.” He tapped his temple, and I rolled my eyes at him. We really needed to work on blocking our damn emotions from each other too.

“Let’s begin.”

10

VALI

Cole and I shifted back to human form again the second we hit the ground, a skill we’d been working on a lot. Half our battle, as dragons, was going to be in not being seen. We didn’t have it easy like the damn wolf shifters. If someone saw one of them out in the forest, they wouldn’t think anything of it. Just a wild animal, right?

Yeah. Not so much if they stumbled across a twenty-foot-tall dragon. Our loss of control during the gala had already pulled far too much media interest, even if it did get us out of a shitty situation.

“How far is it from here?” Cole asked me, pulling out a pair of pants and a shirt from the bag he’d carried in his claws. He tossed the first set to me, then dressed himself in the second.

“Only about a mile,” I replied quietly. “If my GPS tracker didn’t shit itself on the way here.”

Pulling the dark gray T-shirt over my head, I picked up the little digital display I’d carried in dragon form and checked it. “Seems fine.”

We’d chosen this area to land in as there were no humans within the mile or so it would take to get to our destination. It was nearing midnight, and the only light came from the stars, meaning we had a much better chance of making it to the ground without been seen, just in case anyone was hiking or some shit.

“Let’s get this done quick then,” my brother snapped, tossing me the bag with my shoes in it, and I quickly tied them. Much as I would have preferred to just take the bare essentials, we needed to maintain a certain level of normalcy to avoid arousing any undue suspicion. Which meant pants, shirt, and shoes.

Not wasting words, I nodded sharply and led the way through the thick forest until we hit the fire trail which would lead us to the Washington State Women’s Correctional.

The two of us walked in silence the whole way, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Despite the rocky start we’d had to working on our relationship, I really felt like I was finally getting through to my bullheaded little brother. Whether he liked it or not, I was here to stay.

He was trying his best to make me want to leave. I wasn’t stupid; of course I knew what he was doing. But he seriously underestimated how invested I was in this... thing. This magical connection that Kit had built between us. I’d practically fallen in love with the minx the second she stepped out on that stage at Onyx Auction. I’d known instantly that she was who had broken the years of silence from my brother.

When she’d challenged me, refused to be cowed by fear or even common sense, and then repeatedly tried to escape me, I’d fallen even harder. She had spirit and an inner strength unlike anyone I’d ever met. Certainly far exceeding anyone in my life as a crime lord.

But what Cole hadn’t worked out yet was that this was about more than my relationship with Kit. If it were, I’d have pursued her hard from day one and not given a shit about anyone else. She’d given me a gift in turning me, in choosing me, and it wasn’t one I could handle carelessly.

She’d given me back my brother.

So whether Cole liked it or not, I was here to stay. For her and for him.

“You sure about this?” my brother asked quietly as we approached the barbed wire fence of the penitentiary.

“Have you forgotten who I am, brother?” I quirked a brow at him so he knew I was teasing. We weren’t big on smiling, Cole and I. The only times I’d seen my little brother smile had been in these past few weeks, and only ever at Kit.

“Uh-huh, sure. Let’s see Românul at work then.” Cole levelled an unimpressed glare at me, but he wasn’t wrong. Being Românul came with certain privileges that the common man would never get.

Approaching the guard at the gate, I didn’t even need to exchange words with the man before he hit the buzzer to allow us entry. My men had already greased the right hands so that this should be a smooth process from start to finish.

Cole and I walked across the grounds and were met by another guard at the door to the main building. He gave me a sharp, respectful head nod and eyed Cole curiously before leading us silently down the linoleum hallway.

“You have ten minutes,” the guard said quietly when we stopped outside an interview room. “That is the best we could do.”

“That will be more than enough,” I assured him while he unlocked the door and held it open for us.

The prison was dark and silent, as expected in the middle of the night, and this visit was so far outside the confines of the law it was laughable. But what the fuck did I care? I considered this one of my last acts as Românul, flouting the law, but deep down I knew I’d always do what was needed to protect my family. Because that was what I had now... with Kit and Cole... and all the other guys. We were a family now, whether they knew it or not. And I would do anything to keep them safe.

“No.” The haggard-looking woman inside the room gasped as we entered, and the guard shut the door behind us. He would leave. I had arranged for total privacy on this visit, including all cameras being turned off.

“Suzette.” Cole glowered at the pathetic creature before us. “I told you I would be back.”

The woman began babbling, but I tuned her out. Her words were meaningless now.

“This is her?” I asked my brother in disgust. “This is the woman who hurt Regina mea so much as a child? This is the sack of shit that sold her out to Gray?”

The bedraggled worm before me paled to the point that she was gray herself, and babbled harder. Stupid bitch. Her words had all the effect of a marshmallow thrown at a brick wall. Nothing would save her now.

“This is her,” Cole confirmed, and that was all I needed to hear.

My fingers cracked, aching as they shifted into wickedly sharp dragon claws, and I cocked my head at the perverted bitch who had hurt my girl so much.

“Do you have anything of substance to tell us that might spare your sorry life?” I offered her the one small lifeline with no intention of following through. This woman would not leave this room alive.

She babbled, but none of it made sense. I quirked an eyebrow at Cole to double-check in case my partial shift was causing me to hear things in gibberish, but he shook his head. No. She had nothing to offer.

Two steps closed the distance between myself and Suzette, and just one swipe with my fully extended claws severed her head almost entirely from her body. Blood showered me, but I didn’t flinch. It was nothing new to me, and I wanted to ensure the job was done.

The prisoner’s lifeless body sagged to the floor, her head barely attached by some sinew and tissues. My claws had gone right through the bone of her spinal cord and all.

Impressive.

“We’re done here,” I murmured, shifting back to full human and wiping some of the blood from my eyes. Cole said nothing, but his eyes approved as he opened the door and stalked out into the hallway. The guard hadn’t locked it behind himself; why would he? The prisoner had never stood a chance of escape.

As we approached the front door again, the same guard met us with wide eyes and a pale face. Clever man knew not to say a fucking word, though, and simply let us out into the night, as did the guard at the front gate.

From there, we jogged quickly back into the forest to shift. It was a long flight back to our lake house, and we didn’t want Kit to have noticed us missing. This trip had been about payback. That woman had been responsible for so many horrific acts and had been instrumental in the torture Kit had undergone at the hands of Gray. She didn’t deserve to breathe.

Just before we shifted, Cole clapped a huge hand on my shoulder.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his lips tight. “That needed to happen.”

I nodded to him and shifted into dragon form. It absolutely fucking did need to happen, but I knew he would have rather done it himself. So far, though, he hadn’t mastered a half shift, and we couldn’t have risked him going full dragon inside the prison.

More than that, I knew how much my brother hated killing. He was good at it, sure; it was what he’d been raised to do. But it made him hate himself, and that was the last thing I ever wanted.

No, much better I dirty my own hands. After all, they were already so stained I doubted they’d ever be free of blood.

11

KIT

The next few days passed in a blur of runes and sparkles, chants and words of power, but to my genuine surprise, by the end of day six in our training, Austin was already letting me work with ink.

“Can we stop for the day?” I yawned, rubbing at my tired eyes and stretching my neck. “I’m starting to feel like an old lady from sitting at this damn table all day.”

“A little longer,” he pressed, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Austin. I’m not working all night to help you win our bet. We already worked through dinner, and I am done. Unless you want bitchy Kit to come back out to play, I suggest we call it for the night.” It was not an idle threat. Despite my accelerated learning and knowledge retention, I still got just as cranky and tired as before, and we’d already almost come to blows a few times when he’d pushed our lessons into the evening.

“Fine,” he growled. “But you’d better be willing to haul ass tomorrow. There is no fucking way I am letting you tattoo me. You don’t even know how.”

I smiled at him, feeling evil. “Well, you’ll just have to teach me. Right now, I’m going to go join the boys in the hot tub.” Pushing back from the table, I groaned as I stood up, feeling my tight muscles from being in a chair for so long. “Go sleep or something, Aus. You look like shit.”

Austin muttered something in response, but it was too quiet for me to hear as I staggered my aching ass through the house to the outdoor hot tub.

It had been a particularly cold day, so Wes and Caleb had made a beeline for the hot tub as soon as they’d finished, and I could hear them horsing around as I drew close.

“Kitty Kat!” Caleb greeted me as I stepped outside and closed the glass sliding door behind me. “Austin finally let you free?”

“Uh-huh,” I yawned again, wrapping my woollen cardigan around me tighter and shivering. “It’s way colder out here than I thought. Maybe the hot tub is not for me tonight.”

“Not in here, it’s not,” Wesley grinned, submerged up to his shoulders in the steaming water. Admittedly, both of them had a pink flush to their cheeks, and I could feel the heat from where I stood.

“Fine... I’ll go change and be back in a sec then.” I shivered again and looked back to the house.

“Why?” Caleb challenged. “There are no neighbors for miles, so no one other than Wes and I would see if you just came in nude.”

He had a point... and it wasn’t like either of them hadn’t seen me naked before.

“Where is everyone else?” I asked as I quickly stripped out of my clothes and slipped into the water before I could feel the cold too much.

“Cole and Vali went to go do dragon things,” Wes told me, grabbing my hand under the water and tugging me over to sit beside him on the little bench seat.

“Huh.” I was impressed. “Good for them. They really seem to be working well together now.”

Caleb snickered. “If you mean neither of them has hit the other in a couple of days, then yeah, they’re getting along great!”

“I suspect they’re hoping you’ll bond one of them next, so they’ve been busting their scaly butts mastering their new forms in preparation,” Wes said quietly, slipping an arm around my waist and pulling me closer into his side. They hadn’t been lying to me; the water was so hot it was almost too hot, but it was the perfect contrast to the cold weather. Almost like a Scandinavian health spa or something.

“Smart boys,” I murmured, sinking down deeper in the water and letting it relax my tight muscles. “How about Alpha?”

“Went into town a while ago to restock the coffee and get some food.” Caleb seated himself across the tub from us and grabbed one of my feet under the water, rubbing it with strong fingers.

“Excellent. More coffee.” I hummed happily, resting my head on the edge of the tub and letting my eyelids shut.

Both boys were in their swim shorts, but I didn’t feel awkward being naked at all. Caleb was totally right that there were no neighbors, and I highly doubted Austin would be creeping around watching from his room. He’d been so wrecked, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was already asleep.

The three of us soaked in silence for a while, the only sounds coming from the bubble of the jets and little moans from me as Caleb worked up my calves from my feet. Wesley had his head resting on the lip of the tub beside mine, but we were both so relaxed we were almost asleep.

Or I was anyway.

“Those noises are driving me crazy, sweetheart,” Wes whispered after a really long time. My lids cracked open, and I turned my face a fraction to look at him with a sultry smile.

“Sorry?” I teased, and he rolled his eyes.

“No you’re not,” he told me, and I winked.

“I’m actually kind of overheating, but I know if I get out I’ll be cold again and want back in.” I rubbed my eyes and pressed my cheek to the cool edge of the tub as Caleb released the leg he’d been rubbing.

“Just sit up on the edge for a few minutes to cool down,” Caleb suggested. “That’s what we have been doing.” He demonstrated by standing up and perching on the edge of the tub, leaning his back against one of the pillars it was positioned between on the veranda.

“Oh, good thinking,” I enthused, seeing another convenient pillar behind the corner Wesley was sitting in. “Wes, move.”

Switching places, I hauled my steaming body out of the water and perched on the flat ledge, leaving my legs in the hot water to keep from getting too cold.

“Oh wow,” I groaned. “That is actually amazing.” As I watched, steam rose from my scorching hot skin and misted into the cold night air.

Neither guy responded, and when I looked over, I found them both watching me with lust and longing clear in their faces.

“Maybe you should have grabbed a swimsuit after all,” Caleb muttered, adjusting his shorts and shifting uncomfortably on his perch opposite me.

I gave him a flirtatious smile. Or what I hoped was a flirtatious smile. I still couldn’t see my own face when I did these things so was really only guessing how it would be perceived.

“Would you like me to go inside and cover up?” I teased with absolutely zero intention of doing so. It was Wes who replied though.

“Shit no,” he exclaimed, still submerged in the tub up to his shoulders. “Er, I mean... unless you want to, that is.” His face was flushed and probably not just from the hot water, which made me snicker. He was so confident when we were alone together that he must have forgotten Caleb was with us.

“Nope, I’m pretty comfortable just like this.” I met his eyes and ran my tongue over my teeth as I grinned. I’d only ever shared with River and Cole before, but I knew Caleb was open to the idea... Was Wes? Even just a little bit?

Caleb was clearly on the same wavelength as me because he nudged Wes with his toe to get his attention. “You look like you have something on your mind, bro. What’s up?”

“Me?” Wes darted his gaze between Caleb and me, then down my naked body and back to Caleb. “Nothing.”

“Want me to leave you guys alone?” Caleb offered, despite the clear hard-on straining at his swim shorts.

Wesley looked undecided and darted his gaze back to me once more. I met his conflicted eyes and just shrugged, telling him silently that it was his choice. The two of them would be able to feel my enthusiasm, even if I couldn’t feel theirs.

“No, you’re good,” Wesley responded to Caleb eventually, having made up his mind, and I didn’t even bother trying to hold back the surge of excitement that ran through me at his words. Once he’d decided, it was almost like he shook off that lingering bit of awkward Wesley, and the confident man I had grown used to in private was back.

“So?” I prompted, watching him with hungry eyes as he glided through the steam toward me. No further words were needed though, as he reached me and nudged my legs apart so he could kneel on the step between them.

Meeting my curious, excited eyes, he trailed a wet hand up the inside of my thigh until he reached my naked center. His fingertips brushed gently over my sex while his other hand pushed me to lean back on the pillar once more.

Doing as he had silently instructed, I leaned back, arching my hips forward a tiny bit to allow him better access. Across the tub, my gaze met Caleb’s. He held mine steadily, leaning back against his own pillar even as his hand reached into his shorts to free his rock-hard shaft.

The first touch of Wesley’s lips to my throbbing pussy made me want to cry out, but I muffled it with a groan instead. The last thing we needed to do was have Austin yelling at us to keep it down. Not that I would have minded him watching... Ugh, actually that thought just turned me on even more.

Wesley’s hands gripped my thighs while his tongue danced a strong beat over my swollen clit, dragging soft moans and gasps from me. Desperate for more, I hooked one leg up and over his shoulder, pulling him in closer as my breathing picked up to match my building orgasm.

Across the hot tub, but still clearly visible through the steam, Caleb stroked himself while his heavy-lidded eyes watched Wesley licking, sucking, biting at my pussy. The added visual of watching him pleasure himself was driving me wild, and I knew I was going to need more.

Something had triggered in my sexual appetite since meeting these guys. It was like I was just constantly in heat, whether I needed the magical recharge or not. I’d been working so hard the past week on my magic with Austin that I’d barely had any alone time with the guys.

But I intended to make up for it.

“Shit, yes,” I gasped as Wesley slipped two long fingers inside me, pumping into me almost in unison with the strokes of Caleb’s hand on his own cock. “More.”

Wesley, I was quickly finding, was an exceptionally attentive lover. He was so in tune with what my body wanted during sex that it was almost like he was inside my head. He wasn’t, of course; I’d already asked him about it. He was just really perceptive to my body’s signals, so when I asked for more, I had barely even finished the word before he’d added a third finger.

“Christ,” I moaned, feeling all my nerves lighting up, and I slipped my hands into his hair to grip his head tight against me. I couldn’t have stopped the orgasm if I’d tried. It swept me up and crashed over me with an intensity that really did make me cry out loud this time.

Spots danced across my vision as pleasure exploded up through my body, leaving me panting and light-headed in its wake. The moisture on my skin was freezing, thanks to the cold night air, and my nipples were hard as rocks and so sensitive they almost hurt.

Caleb was still working himself over with his hand, but I could tell he wasn’t far from coming himself, so I unwrapped my legs from around Wesley’s face where they’d ended up and slid back into the water.

“Switch,” I ordered him, jerking my head to the ledge I had just abandoned.

Wes said nothing, but licked his lips and did what I asked, sitting up on the edge of the hot tub and allowing me to free his erection from his wet swim shorts with hurried hands.

“I think someone is watching,” he murmured quietly as I took him into my mouth, sucking and swirling while my hand gripped his base. He didn’t sound uncomfortable about it though, so I just shrugged.

“Let them,” I panted, pulling back long enough to look up at him while my hand slid up and down his rigid shaft. “If you’re cool with that?”

“Uh-huh,” Wes gasped, tipping his head back and letting me do my thing as my mouth closed over him once more.

“Smart move,” Caleb commented, his own voice tight with impending climax himself.

It wasn’t long before I heard him finishing behind me and only a few short moments more before Wesley’s breathing sped up and his shaft twitched.

“Sweetheart, I’m close,” he panted, making as if to pull back, but I held him tight, sucking hard and feeling his ejaculation hit the back of my throat as he came. My tongue ran circles around him, keeping him in my mouth while he shuddered through his orgasm before I finally released him.

“Holy crap,” he gasped, looking wide-eyed at me, then past me to Caleb.

“Yup,” Caleb snickered, and I felt him slide back into the water with me. His cool hands slipped around my waist, and he spun me to face him. “That was seriously hot, Kitty Kat.”

Without even a second’s hesitation, Caleb took my mouth with his own, kissing me until I felt like I might collapse in his arms.

Even though it had been far from the most explicit act I’d ever engaged in, I was alight with excitement. While I was crazy into each of my guys individually, together was a whole other ball game. One I intended to play... a lot.

12

RIVER

Coming in from the garage, I used my elbow to flick the kitchen lights on as my hands were full with grocery bags. Cole followed close behind me carrying the rest of them though, which saved me having to make two more trips at least.

The brothers had been walking back up the driveway when I’d pulled in with the groceries, and Vali had gone upstairs to shower. He was dripping wet and muddied and neither him nor Cole had looked particularly happy, so my guess was that their dragon session had ended in an argument of some sort.

“So what happened, mate?” I asked Cole as we placed the bags on the counter and began unpacking them. “You push him in a muddy lake or something?”

Cole just grunted, but a small smile pulled at his mouth. “Something like that.”

My mouth tightened, and I considered whether to laugh or chastise him. If it had been warranted, I would have been all for the little scuffles he and Vali had been getting into while Kit wasn’t watching, but that was the problem. They weren’t warranted. Vali, for all his faults, really seemed to be trying, and Cole was having a bloody hard time accepting his brother back into his life.

“You’re going to have to give it up sooner or later, Drake.” I folded my arms and stared him down. “Like it or not, he’s been chosen by Kit as a dianoch. If he accepts the bonding, which we both know he will, then you two are going to be around each other for a very long time to come.”

“He might not accept,” Cole muttered, his face like a thunderstorm and his voice like gravel.

“Don’t be bloody stupid, mate. He’s in love with her just the same as the rest of us. Are you really so blinded by your old hatred that you can’t see that?” I resisted the urge to whack him around the head, but sometimes I swore he was being deliberately obtuse.

“He might not be,” my friend stubbornly replied. “He hasn’t made any attempts to make a move on her romantically.”

“Fuck, you’re dumb sometimes,” I told him with a glare. “I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d hazard a guess that he’s holding out until the two of you are okay again.”

Turning away from my bullheaded team member, I took the commercial-sized bag of coffee over to the machine and paused when I saw what was going on outside.

Bleeding Christ.

At twenty-six years old, I was no blushing virgin, but I couldn’t remember ever being so quick to arousal as I had been since meeting Kit. I was hard in a matter of seconds, watching her perched on the edge of the hot tub with Wesley’s blond head buried between her thighs.

“Fuck,” Cole swore, seeing exactly what I was seeing. “Lucky fucker.”

I snorted a laugh, adjusting myself so I wasn’t standing there with a damn tent in my slacks, then winked at Cole when he needed to do the same.

For a long moment, neither one of us spoke.

Kit was seated on the corner of the hot tub, her back leaning on a pillar so she was facing us directly. Not that she’d noticed though, as her eyes were firmly fixed on Caleb, who was in the opposite corner with his own dick in hand.

Fuck.

Arousal surged hotter inside me, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from going out there and joining in. Shit, if it had been Cole or even Cal with his fingers inside my Kitten’s cunt, his lips on her clit, I wouldn’t have spared a second’s indecision. But it was Wes, and he had never participated in a threesome... to my knowledge. Let alone any more than a threesome.

So instead, we stood inside the kitchen and watched like hungry wolves.

When she came, screaming her release with her taut breasts heaving and glistening, it was only with my carefully practiced control that I was able to maintain my dignity.

“Fuck this,” Cole muttered. “This is torture far worse than anything I’ve done in the past. I’m going to bed to beat one out. See you in the morning, Alpha.”

He clapped me on the shoulder as he left the kitchen, but I couldn’t tear my attention away from the scene in the hot tub. I always had been a bit of a voyeur, so this was nothing new for me. My only twinge of guilt was that Wesley might object to me watching, but as he and Kit switched positions, he clearly saw me.

I tensed—preparing to leave—but after a moment, his head dropped back against the pillar in ecstasy while his erect dick disappeared into Kit’s perfect mouth.

Bloody hell, that’s hot.

Why I did this to myself, I had no idea. I was constantly testing the limits of my own control, always pushing the line to reaffirm my grip.

Contrary to what I suspected Kit thought, I truly had no idea what I would become after she changed me. But I knew it was something wild, ferocious, and above all, fucking straight-up dangerous. It had always been with me in the back of my mind for as long as I could remember.

As a child, my control had been weak, and I’d let it guide my actions, which had landed me in military school in the first place. A blessing in disguise, as that was where I’d met Cole, but also where I’d perfected the mental cage that I kept it captive inside.

Control was my only constant. It was my salvation from myself, and I was terrified to consider what might happen if—when—Kit finally broke that cage apart.

So there I stood torturing myself in the most exquisite way, forcing myself to hold control while I watched my girl suck my teammate’s cock, working him into a frenzy then swallowing his load.

Shit.

The creature in my mind threw itself at its bars over and over, demanding to be let out, as it had been doing more and more often lately. I knew I couldn’t hold him forever, but I could appease him—and me—for a little while.

Turning away from the scene in the hot tub, I meticulously unpacked the rest of the groceries and prepped the coffee machine for the morning. Through the house, I heard the sounds of Kit, Wesley, and Caleb coming in from the hot tub, laughing and joking with one another as they made their way to their separate bedrooms to dry off and change.

The one good thing about this mansion that we were hiding in was that there were plenty of bedrooms, so no need to try and coordinate who would be sharing Kit’s bed every night. On the downside, it meant there was no convenient excuse to sleep in her bed.

“River.” Her sensual, husky voice pulled my attention to the door frame where she stood in nothing but a small towel. I bloody loved her voice. It was pitched low, not like the breathy, girly voices of so many women I’d been with before. She was confident, intelligent, and downright the sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

“Kitten,” I replied, leaning my butt against the counter and folding my arms over my chest while I took her in. The scrap of towel just barely covered both her breasts and cunt, and I couldn’t wait to tear it off her.

“I figured it was probably you in here.” She smirked at me with hungry eyes, and I mentally thanked whatever higher power there was that she’d chosen me. She was my equal in every way imaginable. My perfect match.

“Cole was too, but it all got a bit much for him,” I told her in the interest of full disclosure. One thing I was very firm about with my team, and even more so now that Kit was sexually involved, we didn’t keep secrets. The twins infraction, keeping their knowledge of magic hidden, had been a serious one, and they both understood the thin ground they walked now.

“Hmm,” she murmured, padding closer to me on wet feet. “So, what do you want to do now... sir?”

It took everything in me not to grin. Fuck, I was in love with this woman. She knew perfectly well what it did to me, hearing her call me sir. She did it often, too, teasingly. But tonight she was playing with fire...

Narrowing my eyes, I mentally cursed myself for not wearing a tie today. I’d spent a long time undercover in a Fortune 500 company prior to Alpha Team being assembled and fallen in love with suits, however, a tie was a bit much when we were literally in the middle of nowhere.

“Go to my room and get on the bed,” I ordered her in a quiet, no-nonsense tone. “Face up, legs spread.” My face was carefully held in a blank expression born of years of practice, but inside, my gut was flaring hot with excitement and anticipation.

She barely hesitated a split second before nodding. “Yes, sir,” she replied, dropping her towel right there on the floor and sauntering stark, bloody naked through the house to my room.

Bugger. She really was going to test me. So much more than I’d ever tested myself.

The bedroom I’d claimed for myself was on the ground floor, right next door to Cole’s, and I chuckled to myself knowing he’d be hearing Kit’s moans of pleasure very soon. It was a little cruel, yes, but also pretty funny.

Guess his hand is getting a solid workout tonight.

I’d sent her to my room for two reasons. One, to maintain the balance of power. She was in my domain, and I was in charge. But two, for the slatted headboard of my bed.

Taking my time, I poured a small glass of scotch and sipped it while I looked out at the full moon shining over the still lake. Kit needed to sweat for a bit, let the anticipation drive her nuts, and in the meantime I needed to shore up my defenses against my mental beast.

Sex with Kit always tested me, and this was no time to slip.

Downing the last sip of my whiskey, I placed the crystal glass into the sink and made my way slowly through to my bedroom. Anticipation was riding me so hard I could practically taste it, so when I paused in the open doorway to my bedroom and found my Kitten exactly as I’d told her to be, my breath caught.

My teeth grabbed hold of the inside of my lip, biting down hard to regain composure before speaking. She didn’t move a muscle while she waited, even though she knew I was there watching her.

“Good girl,” I finally praised her, stepping farther into the room, kicking the door shut behind me, and pausing beside the bed to look down at her. As directed, she was on her back with her legs spread wide, offering me an unobstructed view of her cunt. Her hands rested on her naked belly, and she looked up at me with eyes alight with excitement.

Dirty bird really is my perfect match. I haven’t even tied her down, and she’s already so turned on she could probably come without me even touching her. Maybe something to try another day.

Giving her a look that told her quite clearly not to move, I opened my bedside drawer and pulled out the handful of black silk scarves I’d stashed there for this very reason.

“Give my your wrist,” I commanded, and she complied. As I tied her wrist to the slatted headboard using a basic column tie, she shivered. Her nipples tightened to sharp points, and the skin of her breasts puckered with light gooseflesh. It wasn’t cold in my room at all, so it could only have been from excitement—or fear. But Kit’s gaze was heavy with desire, and I knew there wasn’t a single drop of fear in her when she was with any of us... even Austin.

Not speaking, I moved around the bed and repeated the tie on her other wrist, then leaned over her and kissed her lightly on the lips before tying another scarf over her eyes.

“But—” she began to protest as I obliterated her view, but I clicked my tongue at her in warning.

“Hush, Kitten,” I murmured. “Just relax.” A sigh gusted from her perfect lips, and I allowed myself a grin now that she couldn’t see me. “And don’t speak unless I ask you a question. Understood?”

Her lips tightened, and I saw her fight back her natural reaction to tell me to go screw myself. Instead, she uttered two perfect words. “Yes, sir.”

My dick got even harder, if that was even possible, and I took a moment to control my breathing once more. Stepping back around to the foot of the bed, I admired the view before me. I’d not bothered tying her ankles because I was about damn ready to explode if I didn’t have her soon.

There was plenty of time to build her into this sort of game anyway. After all, once she did change me, we would have eternity together.

My fingers worked the buttons of my shirt loose, one at a time, then I folded the garment and laid it over a chair. Next was my belt, and I watched as Kit’s pussy clenched at the sound of my buckle.

Shit. Hurry the hell up, you bleeding fool. You’re about to blow it in your trousers like a gawky thirteen-year-old.

Hastened by my sage thoughts, I finished stripping and placed my knees on the foot of the bed, watching Kit’s breath catch as she felt my weight on the mattress.

Sweet gods, this woman is perfect.

I dipped my head low to kiss up the inside of her thigh, inhaling the sweet scent of her arousal as I went. My breath feathered across her waiting pussy before I moved further up the bed to rub my hard length against her scorching groin.

She gasped in the most delicious way as my tip pressed against her wet heat, and I palmed one of her perfect tits. Half of this game I was playing tonight was about the anticipation, but even I could admit when I was in over my head.

And I was. Way over my head.

13

KIT

River’s warm hand cupped my breast, rolling my nipple between his fingers while his rock hard shaft sat poised at my opening, teasing me but not proceeding any further. He was fucking killing me, and the bastard knew it too.

If it were any of the other guys, I’d be bucking my hips and thrashing, demanding they give me more.

But this was River. Alpha. Sir.

Any attempts to control this situation would not pan out well for me, and I was well and truly turned on enough to let him do whatever he wanted, so long as he did it soon.

I bit my lip—hard—just to try and keep my pleas silent. He’d told me not to speak, and I wasn’t in the mood for any more drawn-out foreplay. I’d had enough of that in the hot tub and just now while I’d waited for him. Just lying there on his bed, naked and exposed, had gotten me so aroused I was an aching ball of need when he finally joined me.

Now, after having him tie my wrists and blindfold me, I thought I might go insane from wanting him. It took everything in me not to press him faster, but I was so well rewarded for my composure.

Hot lips closed over my nipple, sucking for a second before his teeth bit down, making me gasp and jump. At the same moment, he thrust his cock up into me, and I fell to fucking pieces. My orgasm hit so hard I probably woke the entire house up with my scream, but he was only just getting started.

“You like that, Kitten?” he asked, but I could hear the tension in his voice betraying his own tenuous hold on composure.

Good. I love when I push him to the edge.

“Shit,” I swore. “Yes, sir,” I added, remembering my role. I can honestly say I’d never thought I’d be into this style of relationship, but something about River brought it out in me. He clearly had so much more he wanted to do, and I couldn’t wait for the day we were no longer on the run and he could unleash the beast... so to speak.

He growled a wild sound, and I felt him shift on top of me. He was losing control, and I loved it.

My wrists bound and my sight obscured, I found myself hyper aware of my body. Every touch, every breath, every long, hard thrust of River’s cock inside me had me gasping and moaning.

Oh yeah, we’re doing this one again for sure.

I found myself trying to guess where his hands were going next or where is lips would land and couldn’t help but wonder what this would be like with more than one set of hands...

“Fuck!” I exclaimed, when he pinched my nipple just a fraction sharper than I’d anticipated, and he groaned as my walls tightened around him.

“You spoke out of turn, Kitten,” he panted, and a spike of both anticipation and dread shot through me.

Please do not tell me he’s going to do something insane like deny me another orgasm. That was only in shitty BDSM movies... wasn’t it?

“Fuck it,” he growled. “I’ll punish you tomorrow.”

Grabbing one of my legs under the thigh, he lifted it up until my ankle rested on his shoulder. The new angle had him hitting me deeper, and I moaned my approval as he began to move, pounding into me with a punishing rhythm. His fingers rubbed at my tender, well-worked clit while he fucked me, and within moments we came together. Hard.

“Holy shit, River,” I panted when the stars stopped exploding in my brain from my third insane orgasm of the evening. It really did pay to be a supernatural creature sometimes...

River chuckled a low laugh, tugging the scarf from my eyes and releasing my wrists before he collapsed beside me. The way he was post-sex, he was like a totally different person.

Relaxed and content.

Alpha was sexy as hell, but this River was who I was in love with.

“Holy shit is about right,” he replied with a lazy smile, kissing along my collarbone as I draped my jelly-like arms around his neck. “I think watching you three in the hot tub got me a bit more worked up than I really cared to admit.”

“Awesome,” I breathed. “I’ll be sure to put on a show like that more often then.”

“I don’t even know if that’s a good thing or not. Kitten, I swear, you’re like a drug that I just can’t seem to get enough of.” He lifted his head to look at me with serious, golden eyes. “Words can’t express how in love with you I am.”

I smiled at him a bit sadly because I understood what he was saying. But if he would let me change him, he wouldn’t need to hear it from me; he’d feel it.

“Why wouldn’t you let me heal you?” I blurted out rather than the reciprocal “me too” I had been intending to reply with. River’s body went rigid against me, and I could feel him pulling away from me again. “Never mind, I didn’t mean to ask that. Forget it.”

“Kit...” he sighed, pushing himself to sitting and rubbing at his forehead. The lack of nickname made my heart clench painfully, and I desperately wished I could take my words back. As much as I wished the guys would be open with me, as I had been with them, I never wanted to force the issue.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. You’ll tell me when you want to. Just... forget I said anything? Please?” I tugged on his wrist, trying to get him to come back to me. To maybe leave his walls down for just a little while longer while it was just us.

“I can’t, Kitten,” he replied, looking down at me for a long moment before standing up and pulling the covers down, indicating for me to wiggle underneath them. “You deserve full disclosure, same as I require of you.”

A little stunned, and not wanting to change his mind again, I kept my trap shut as he slid back into the bed with me and pulled me into his warm embrace.

“I don’t know anything for sure, but I’ll tell you my concerns. If that will help?” His voice was a little hesitant, and I simply nodded against his chest where my cheek was pressed to his ink. “Right, then. It’s to do with this... thing. This beast I keep caged in my mind...”

River proceeded to tell me of his struggles to keep this thing inside him caged, and suddenly his controlling nature began making a lot more sense. As did his reluctance to let me change him, and I couldn’t blame him. If I had lived with what he had for so many years, I’d be afraid of what might happen too.

“Do you think less of me?” he asked in a husky voice when he finished, and I pushed myself up to look at him in the eye.

“Totally the opposite,” I whispered, my throat tight with emotion as I considered all he’d learned to cope with as a child neglected by his parents. “I love you, River. Knowing you better only serves to make me love you more. But... you know it will happen eventually, right?”

To say I was nervous about what his reaction might be to this was an understatement. None of the other guys had really had any choice in being changed. It was either change or die for all of them. River wasn’t in that position, so what I really meant by this was that if he was to be my dianoch, then it would need to happen. Because to bond, he couldn’t remain human.

My fear, though, was that he was afraid enough of the beast inside him that he might walk away from this. From me.

“I know.” He gave me a small, sad smile. “And I know that when that time comes, you and the boys will be strong enough to handle whatever comes out. Fair?”

Relief rushed over me in a dizzying wave.

“Absolutely.” I kissed him then, trying to convey all my crazy, overwhelming, and conflicting feelings. Whether he understood them all, I had no idea, but he kissed me back just as hard.

* * *

The next morning I was tired and cranky again, but for the best possible reason. It didn’t take me long to cheer up when first Cole cornered me in the hallway to chastise me for keeping him up half the night—oops—and then let me apologise with a quick makeout against the wall. My mood only improved further when I found fresh coffee already prepared for me when I came into the kitchen for breakfast.

Sadly, my mood plummeted again when Austin stomped in with a face like a thundercloud.

“Lesson was due to start ten minutes ago, Christina,” he snapped in a caustic sort of voice. “If you fuck around any more, I’ll have to consider it sabotage on our bet, and you’ll forfeit.”

“Like hell,” I muttered, topping up my cup again quickly and hurrying to catch up with him as he stalked through to the den, which had become our magic center for the past week. “Teach me, sensei; I am ready to learn.”

Austin simply leveled a glare at me, and I felt nothing but anger and irritation from him. Tyson huffed a big kitty laugh though, and I rewarded him with a scratch behind the ears. At least someone thought I was funny.

“Sit down, Christina. We have a lot to get through today.” Austin’s voice was scornful and thick with... disgust?

“Hold the fuck up.” I frowned at him. “What the hell is going on? Have I done something to offend you in the past twelve hours? Because if so, I’d love to know what it was so I can rub it in your face. When I piss you off, I prefer it to be deliberate.”

His sexy green eyes just narrowed at me, and his lip curled in a slight sneer.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Princess. I just didn’t sleep well.” He turned away quickly, but not before I caught the hints of jealousy radiating from him.

Oh, he was good. We still hadn’t worked out how to block each other’s feelings, so he was literally smothering his true emotions in what I expected to feel from him.

But I’d seen it. Austin was jealous.

Suppose that explains why he didn’t sleep well then.

For once in my life, I made the mature decision and didn’t rub it in. Instead, I sat my tired ass down in my seat and set up the ink and paper as Austin had shown me the day before.

“Let’s do this then,” I announced. “Day seven.”

For the next ten hours solid, Austin drilled information into me at a punishing pace, but come dinnertime, even he had to concede defeat. I was actually a little surprised that he didn’t try to cut any corners and pretend we were done, but Austin was as meticulous with magical training as he had been with target practice. Maybe even more so.

“Say it again,” I teased as he flopped backward onto the couch with his hands over his face.

“No,” he growled back, and I poked him in the leg with my marker pen.

“Do it! Say it again,” I ordered. “Once more and I’ll leave it alone. For now.”

He glared at me from between his fingers before muttering in a sullen voice, “You win, Princess.”

“Hell yeah, I do,” I nodded, grinning at him and doing a little victory dance in my seat.

Austin muttered something under his breath, then pushed up off the couch once more. “Whatever, you gracious winner. You can’t tattoo me until after you finish magic training and then I teach you how to use the equipment properly. Maybe in the meantime you should Google some pictures you can trace to make it easier.”

I snorted. “Not necessary, but thanks for the tip.”

I already knew exactly what I was going to tattoo on him and where. Oh, revenge definitely was a dish best served cold after all.

We both headed back out to join the rest of the guys, me with a grin plastered to my face that left no room for doubt as to who had won our bet.

“Oh, bro,” Caleb laughed when he saw us. “She beat you at your own game. Shit...”

“Shut the fuck up, Cal,” Austin muttered, but it lacked any real heat. My link to his emotions told me he was ticked off at best, but really not too concerned. Maybe because he already had so many tatts that he figured mine would just be lost? Silly man. Always underestimating me.

“Vali,” I greeted the dark and dangerous Romanian as I slid into my seat at the table opposite him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you all week. How is dragoning going?”

His granite eyes flicked to Cole and then settled back on me before he smiled.

“Very well, Regina mea,” he dipped his head with a small smirk. “Cole and I have come a long way, I think.”

Surprised, I glanced at Cole, who just gave a small shrug and turned back to his food.

“That’s really great to hear,” I said carefully, not totally sure if Vali meant that he and Cole had come a long way or if their dragon magic had. Maybe I’d need to get one of them alone later to ask.

“Actually, we wanted to discuss something with you after dinner, if that would be okay?” Vali continued, polite as ever, and I narrowed my eyes at him. Despite his insistence that he couldn’t read my mind, his intuition hit dangerously close to mind reading sometimes.

“Sure thing,” I replied, spearing Cole with another suspicious look, but he just avoided my gaze and cut into his steak. Rare, of course. God forbid a dragon be a vegan or something.

“Will you be finished with Kit’s magic instruction tomorrow, Austin?” River asked, and my surly magic teacher nodded sharply.

“Tomorrow or the day after,” he agreed.

“Good. Wesley and I have made some progress with our research into Omega and Director Pierre, so we’ll have more concrete info to share in a couple of days. Then we can look at forming a plan of where to go from here.” River delivered this as a statement, but there was a small question in his eyes as he met my gaze down the table, like he was making sure I was on board with this. I supposed I did have a small history of going a bit rogue, so I gave him a small nod of acceptance, and the tension around his eyes seemed to ease.

“Shit,” Caleb swore, glancing at his watch. “I need to go, or I’ll be late.” He shoveled the last of his food into his mouth and hurried to drop his dirty dishes into the kitchen. “I’ll catch you later, Kitty Kat,” he whispered, kissing me quickly, then disappearing inside a rune circle a few feet away from the dinner table.

“He is getting really good at that,” Wesley commented as we all watched the runes glittering on the floor before fading to nothing.

“Good,” Austin snapped. “Maybe he can stop seeing this mystery teacher who demands so much secrecy from him.”

For once, I agreed with him.

“Any luck on breaking the spell?” River asked Austin, who shook his head.

“Nothing that is worth trying, yet. I’ll work it out though.” His mouth was set with stubborn confidence, and I one hundred percent believed him. If anyone could help Caleb break this magical NDA, it was his twin.

14

Following my dragons out into the forest surrounding the lake house after dinner had my stomach all knotted up with anticipation. What was it that they both needed to discuss with me in private, all the way out here? It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen their dragon forms before, so they couldn’t be going to show me that...

“Stop it, Vixen,” Cole said quietly, taking my hand in his to help me over a fallen log. “I can feel your mind working a million miles an hour. We’re not taking you out here to kill you.”

“Uh.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “The thought hadn’t actually crossed my mind, but now that you mention it...”

I was joking, of course. Despite the two of them being ruthless killers, I didn’t feel even the slightest bit afraid of them. Either of them. My dianoch made me feel safe, even as they incinerated people and tore heads off.

“We just wanted to spend some time with you, Regina,” Vali told me, turning his head to look back at me. He was leading the way, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t checking out his ass while he walked. Totally not my fault though; that man had a seriously firm ass.

“Can’t argue with you on that,” I smiled back at him. “But why all the way out here? Are we doing dragon stuff?”

Cole snorted a little laugh, just as we came into a wide clearing that looked rather freshly made. “Dragon stuff,” he repeated. “Yes. We are.”

“We wondered if perhaps you’d like to go for a ride?” Vali asked, turning to face me as he stopped in the center of the clearing and lifted the hem of his t-shirt, dragging it over his head to expose his cut body decorated with a red and gold dragon in an almost mirror position to Cole’s.

“Um.” I licked my lips, my eyes wide as his hands went to the waistband of his jeans, and Cole began stripping down as well. And then it hit me. “Oh, a ride. Like... on your dragon form. Flying. That’s what you mean.”

Wow, I was glad for the dark hiding my burning cheeks. Talk about my mind in the gutter.

“Yes, why? What did you think we meant?” Vali asked, and for once I let myself believe the language barrier kept him from realizing what I’d really thought.

Cole snickered though. He knew perfectly well, that bastard.

Whacking Cole in the chiselled stomach, I cleared my throat and turned back to Vali who was pulling his jeans off. “Absolutely, I’d love to go for a flight. Who’s taking me?”

Vali grunted, his brows drawn down in a frown as he replied, “Cole is.”

Cole gave me a rare grin, looking very satisfied as he held my eyes and stripped naked in front of me. “It was a bet. I won. You ready?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded, biting my lip and trying so hard not to check him out. Ah, fuck it, who was I kidding? I was drinking him in like a fine wine.

Behind me there was a rush of air and rustling of leaves as Vali took his reptile form, quickly followed by Cole. Within seconds I stood in the middle of a clearing flanked by two enormous mythical creatures. One red and gold, pure fire. The other green and blue, my ice dragon.

“So cool,” I sighed, running a hand over each of their scaled snouts. “But I don’t suppose you could have told me how to get onto you before you changed?” I arched a brow at Cole, and he huffed a little dragon laugh. “Wow, is it just me, or is everything sounding dirty tonight? Okay, so... crouch down or something.”

Cole complied, folding his front legs so that his chest was against the ground, and I tentatively placed a foot on his bent shoulder, using it as a step to get up onto his back. While I scouted around for a handhold to pull myself up with, Vali huffed warm air into my hair, then used his snout under my ass to boost me up.

Cheeky dragon.

“Yeah, okay. That’s one way to do it,” I agreed, settling myself onto the space between Cole’s wings, my legs on either side of his neck. “I suppose I just, um…” I looked around, then finally decided on two large spikes on his neck as my hand holds. “Okay, I’m good. Giddyup!”

Cole’s head turned slightly to look back at me at this, and Vali’s scaly head shook back and forth with little sparks flickering from his nostrils.

“Nope?” I corrected. “Not giddyup? I’ll keep my mouth shut, shall I?”

The dragons didn’t wait for me to babble anymore, just spread their wings and beat them several times, carrying us up into the air.

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed, grabbing tighter to Cole’s neck-spike things and feeling my stomach plummet back to the ground below us. I loved heights, don’t get me wrong. But the reason I loved them was for the exhilarating feeling that I could fall at any second. Never had I felt it as much as I did on the back of my ice dragon as he carried us sharply up into the sky with only a few massive flaps of his wings. In moments, we were above the cloud cover, and all I could see for miles was stars.

Once we were obscured from the sight of anyone on land, Vali and Cole’s speed slowed to a lazy glide, and I was able to release the death grip I had on Cole’s scales.

“This is incredible,” I whispered in awe, sitting up a little more and marvelling at the cool air tugging and ruffling my hair. Words failed me, and instead I just... enjoyed the ride.

Some time later, after the three of us had glided for what felt like a thousand miles, the cold had officially soaked in, and I was shivering. The guys must have noticed, too, because they both banked in unison, turning us back the way we had come—I assumed, as I had no idea—and Vali sent huffs of warm breath across at me while they flew.

Soon we were touching back down in the clearing near the house, and I slid from Cole’s back in a boneless heap. Not from the cold, even though I was chilled right through, but from sheer amazement at the experience they’d just shared with me.

“No wonder you guys have been doing so much dragon stuff this week,” I gasped, sitting up and rubbing at my arms while they shifted once more.

“Ah yeah,” Cole agreed, tugging on his pants but not bothering to do them up before wrapping his huge arms around me. “Sorry, Vixen. We didn’t even think about how cold it must be up that high.”

“Who cares?” I scoffed, “That was amazing!” Excitement and wonder burned bright inside me, even as my teeth chattered from the cold.

“Give her here,” Vali said quietly, tapping his brother on the shoulder. “I can get her warm again.”

Cole’s arms tightened around me for a fraction of a second before he reluctantly released me to his brother’s embrace.

True to his fire dragon nature, Vali’s skin was scalding hot, almost too hot to touch, but after a moment I cuddled into his bare chest with a sigh.

“Thank you for this,” I murmured with my face pressed into his pecs. “You two are a force to be reckoned with. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you getting along.”

Cole made a noise in his throat, and I pulled back from Vali’s warm embrace long enough to give him a look. “Quit the act, Cole. You love your brother as much as he loves you.”

He held my gaze with his steely gray one, the exact mirror image of Vali’s, and stepped closer to us. “Maybe,” he admitted, tilting my face toward him even as Vali’s arms tightened around me. “Or maybe I just love you, Vixen.”

My heart raced, and it felt like there was a hummingbird trapped inside me, but still I wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily.

“I love you too, Cutie,” I whispered back to him, my lips so close to his that they brushed when I spoke. “But you also love Vali. Admit it.”

The tension in Vali’s body was palpable as his arms clenched around me. His fingers were digging so hard into my waist that they’d leave marks, but still he said nothing. He simply waited, and I knew for sure he was bracing for rejection.

Cole made a gruff noise of frustration, turning his face to look at his brother, just inches away. “I don’t hate him anymore,” he growled, then kissed me quickly, fiercely, before stalking off into the trees and leaving us alone.

“Are you okay?” I raised my hand to Vali’s cheek and brought his face to mine. I may not have been able to read their emotions like they could mine, but I rated myself pretty well at reading people.

“Ah Regina. I am more than just okay. You have no idea how long I have wanted for my brother to not hate me. These things take time, but for now, I couldn’t be happier. Thank you.” His granite eyes were alight with relief and joy, and it made my heart clench painfully for him.

“Thank me? For what? You did that on your own.” Acting on pure instinct, I raised up on my toes and pressed my lips to his. My only excuse could be that I was riding high on the adrenaline of the flight through the clouds and my almost staggering happiness to see him and Cole mending bridges. But still...

“Shit, I’m sorry. You wanted to wait, and I said I was cool with that.” I pulled back, breaking our kiss.

Vali chuckled, slipping his hand into the hair at the back of my neck. “I said I wanted to wait until things were better between Cole and I. Things... are better.”

He dipped his head back to meet mine, claiming my lips in a kiss so hot it was practically on fire. Moaning, I parted my lips, allowing him to caress my tongue with his own as we released weeks of pent up desire into that one kiss.

It was no great shock when we finally pulled apart, breathless and lightheaded, to see the burned patch of grass under our feet.

“There was something else we meant to discuss with you, dragă,” Vali said as he pulled his T-shirt back on, then took my hand in his to walk back to the house.

“Oh?” I prompted, curious.

“Yes, Cole and I have discussed the bonding.” He flicked a look at me from under his dark brows, sweeping a hand through his scruffy hair to move it from his face. “We wondered, if you were open to the idea, if you might bond us both at the same time.”

“Oh. Um, why?” I was a bit stunned and confused, but not against the idea.

“Well, we just thought our magic is essentially the same thing—we shift into dragons. From the work we have done this week, it seems that the way we access and control our fire or ice is identical also. So, if you were to bond us both, it’s really only one learning curve when you take on our abilities.” He paused, scratching at his eyebrow a bit awkwardly. “Did I explain that right? This is why I wanted Cole to talk about it.”

“Oh stop, don’t you give me that language barrier shit again.” I laughed at him. “Yes, I think you explained that well enough. And you’re probably right...” I chewed my lip as I mulled it over. “My only concern is dealing with all the feelings from you both at once. But Austin seems really sure we can get a lid on it before I bond anyone else so... yeah, in theory I’m down with this idea.”

“Excellent. So now you just need to work on blocking?” Vali smiled at me a little apprehensively, like he had just realized I’d said yes and this could actually happen soon. “If it helps, I truly don’t think you will have many feelings to manage from Cole. Before meeting you, I could have sworn he had the emotional depth of a cucumber.”

I snorted a laugh at this visual and hip-checked him playfully.

To everyone else, Cole might seem to have the emotional scope of a cucumber, but I knew better. My Cutie just had a great poker face, I was pretty sure.

Either way, he was my cucumber and I loved him.

15

WESLEY

Cole was the first to return from the dense trees behind the house, stalking like he was pissed off at something, but as he came closer, there was an oddly calm, almost happy look on his face. Complicated bastard.

“Good flight?” I asked him as he let himself in through the sliding door to the back yard. I’d been working on my computer at the table, and it was pure coincidence that I was facing the trees that Kit had disappeared into with the Romanians some hours earlier.

Okay, fine. I was waiting for them.

“The best,” Cole responded, never one to mince words. “Heading to bed. You should too; it’s late.”

“Ah yeah, just got a few more things to do,” I hedged, running a hand through my hair even as I glanced at my blank screen. I hadn’t done any work in at least half an hour, since I’d started worrying that they’d been gone a really long time.

Cole narrowed his eyes at me, and a tiny smile curved the edge of his lips. “You couldn’t spy, huh?”

My traitorous cheeks flamed with heat, but I still denied it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just doing some background research that River asked for.”

“Hah, sure. You’re pissed because Vali and I scared all the crows away from the area, and you have no eyes or ears to keep an eye on Vixen.” Cole patted me on the shoulder. “Go to bed, Wes. They could still be a while yet, and she is perfectly safe with him.”

At a loss for words because he was fucking spot-on correct, I huffed and closed the lid of my laptop, pushing back from the table and standing up.

“Not fair, dude,” I grumbled, following him out of the room and heading for the stairs to reach my room. “I have no surveillance set up out here. You couldn’t have left the crows alone?”

Cole barked a harsh laugh but didn’t reply as he disappeared toward his own room and closed the door. Sighing, I pushed my glasses up my nose again and made my way upstairs. My contacts had been getting a bit gritty, so I’d swapped back to glasses to give my eyes a break.

Once inside my room, I got changed for bed but stayed up a little longer, fucking around on my phone near the window until I saw Kit and Vali emerge from the trees. They were holding hands, and Kit was laughing at something the Romanian dragon had just said.

Relieved to see she was okay, I could finally go to bed. Something had been nagging at me, telling me something bad was coming, but I just didn’t know what. Until I could work it out, I would be nervous and paranoid anytime Kit was out of sight.

Flicking my light off, I climbed into bed and braced myself for whatever my dreams would hold this time.

“Hello?” I called into the mist, looking around me cautiously. This was a new one, that was for sure. Often my dreams allowed me to pop into other people’s dreams. For the most part, they never knew I was there, but sometimes they did... like with Kit. The dreams we shared were my favorite reason to sleep.

It almost felt naughty when we met in our dreams, especially when I knew she was sleeping in the arms of one of my friends. But it was all the more exciting for that fact.

This dream was different though; I could tell instantly. Something about the way the mist clung to my skin like it was a sentient being.

“Hello?” I called out again. One thing that remained constant in all of my dreams—I was never alone. Even when the dreamer couldn’t hear or see me, they were still present. So the question now was whose head I’d ended up inside.

“Wesley,” a voice said from close behind me, and I startled, spinning to face... my brother?

“Grant?” I puzzled, confused as all hell. How did I end up in my little brother’s dream?

“Not exactly.” My little brother’s form melted into a blur of mist, reforming into my mother. “Is this better?” I gaped, not totally sure what the hell was going on. “Ah, I see it’s not. How about this?” My mother faded into mist and reformed as Kit.

“Stop it,” I demanded. “Show me your real form. Stop hiding behind the faces of my loved ones.”

“Ah, no. I don’t think so. But perhaps this is a more comfortable form for you.” The creature faded and reformed once more, this time wearing the face of the old shop clerk in town.

“It’ll do,” I conceded, still on high alert. Whoever this was, they couldn’t be good. Why else would they refuse to show their form to me?

“Oh, don’t look at me with such suspicion, Wesley,” the old man scoffed, flapping a hand and creating a worn looking armchair out of the mist to sit in. “Sit down, young man. We have much to discuss.”

Glancing behind me, I found an identical chair had just formed behind me, so I cautiously sat.

“Who are you?” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at the old man, who I doubted was an old man at all. With everything going on, with Kit’s magic and all the people wanting to use and abuse her, no one could be trusted outside our team.

“Who? That’s for me to know and you to not. The ‘who’ does not make my knowledge any more or less valuable to you.” He blinked his eyes at me, and I noticed they were an unnatural shade of rust-red, rather than the blue the shopkeeper’s had been.

“Fine,” I gritted from behind clenched teeth. “What should I call you?”

The man grinned, and I saw a hint of razor sharp teeth within his borrowed mouth. “Ah, you’re not as clueless as you look. You may call me Gaelin.”

“Gaelin,” I repeated. I really wasn’t as clueless as I looked. I’d played plenty of Dungeons and Dragons in my time and had enough of a grasp on the theoreticals of magic to bluff way way through. Whatever the case, I sincerely doubted Gaelin was this creature’s real name.

“Why am I here, Gaelin?” I asked, looking around us and finding nothing but more mist. Experimenting, I tried to create a table from the mist the same way I’d been able to manipulate the scene whenever Kit and I met. Nothing happened.

“Oh, well here is your first lesson, child. I brought you into my dreamscape. You can’t influence anything here unless I let you. Same as if you had brought me into your dreamscape, you’d have been the one in charge.” Gaelin clicked his tongue and folded his legs.

“So you’re... what? Here to teach me?” I frowned. This guy—at least I was going to assume guy for now—didn’t look particularly interested in helping me.

“Apparently.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re the first of our kind to surface in the human realm for a very long time. The higher-ups are worried you’ll make a mess of things, and I drew the short straw. So here I am.”

“Our kind?” I exclaimed. “Wait, what the hell is our kind? What am I?”

Excitement, anticipation, fear, and frustration battled for supremacy within me, and I struggled not to reach out and throttle this weird man. I needed something from him, though, and my mother had always taught me it was easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Reluctantly, my death grip on the arms of the chair eased, and I forced my face neutral.

Gaelin snorted, watching me with mocking eyes. “Well, I’m not telling you that. Where’s the fun in just handing you all the answers on a plate? No, Wesley. You’re going to bumble around in the dark for a bit longer to make up for me getting stuck with this bullshit assignment.”

I took a few slow breaths, calming myself so I didn’t wring his wrinkly old neck before speaking again. “Well, Gaelin. Thank you but no thank you. If you’re just here to be an annoyance, I can work this all out on my own.”

“Hah, like you have a choice, foolish child.” His rust-red eyes hardened, turning mean. “I have no choice in this, so neither do you. I will bring you here every time you try to dreamwalk until I am relieved of my assignment. That means no more chasing away the boogeyman for your girlfriend at night. Is that clear?” He didn’t wait for me to respond before sneering. “I don’t care if it’s clear or not. It’s what is happening. Enjoy the rest of her dream tonight, child. It’s the last you’ll be seeing for a very long time.”

Gaelin snapped his fingers, and the familiar pull of the evaporating dreamscape deposited me back into normal sleep.

16

KIT

The morning after my flight with Cole and Vali, I found Austin still in a foul mood, and it was seriously wearing thin on my patience. Vali’s words of advice kept me from punching him clean in the teeth, as did my own insight into his conflicting emotions, but a girl can only take so much surly behaviour before she’s going to crack.

“Okay, I’m done,” I announced around lunchtime when Austin had been giving me all but the silent treatment for going on five hours.

“Excuse me?” he snapped, and I couldn’t help myself, I flicked him in the forehead.

“You’re being an asshole. Like, way more than usual. Our bet is over, and there is no pressing need for me to learn this all today, so I’m done. We can pick up again tomorrow when you’ll hopefully be in a better mood.” I beat a hasty retreat out of the den while Aus sat there with a stunned look on his face, like he could hardly believe I just done that. I guessed he didn’t get flicked overly often, but it seemed to have the desired effect of shutting him up.

“Hey sweetheart,” Wesley greeted me with a tired smile as I entered the kitchen. “You done already?”

“Um, yeah. Sort of. What are you up to?” I nodded to the car keys in his hand.

“Just on my way out to grab a part for something I’m working on. Or... hoping I can grab a part. There was a little computer shop in town, but I have no idea how well it’s stocked.” He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “Want to come with?”

I considered it for a moment, then shook my head. “Nah, I’m thinking I might bake something. For some reason I’m super in the mood for sugary baked treats today, and there’s nothing in the pantry.”

“Okay...” Wesley frowned slightly, looking concerned. “Do you know how to bake?”

I gasped dramatically, pressing a hand to my chest as though clutching at invisible pearls. “Wes, how dare you imply I can’t bake!” I grinned as I said it because, admittedly, I might be a little rusty on my kitchen skills. It wasn’t my fault though; I had six guys in the house who seemed perfectly happy handling all of the cooking!

“Okay, sorry, sweetheart. I should never doubt you. Um, the rest of the guys are still home, so you’ll be okay for an hour or two... right?” He frowned again, this time looking more nervous than my questionable baking skills really warranted.

“I’ll be fine, Wes. I promise not to burn the kitchen down.” I pulled him close using the pockets of his hoody and kissed him. “Go have fun in the tech store. I’ll have awesome cookies ready when you get back.”

He still looked worried, but nodded and left all the same, leaving me to make the cookies that I knew he’d love as much as I would. I wanted to cheer him up a bit. After what he’d told us about his dream visitor, I could tell he was getting down on himself for not being able to chase away my nightmares. As amazing as it was having him do that for me, it wasn’t necessary. I’d survived them my whole life.

I could do it again.

Pulling out my phone, I quickly brought up a recipe I knew I’d made successfully before and hunted through the pantry and fridge for everything it might need. Luckily we had everything already stocked, so that was the first hurdle tackled successfully. I had in the past made substitutes for ingredients that I didn’t have, and the results varied from passable to downright awful.

Just as I was measuring all the dry ingredients into a big mixing bowl, the door to the kitchen slammed open and Austin stormed in.

“You flicked me!” he exclaimed, coming to a stop right beside me at the island counter.

“Ah yeah,” I agreed, continuing with my flour measurements. “Like fifteen minutes ago. Don’t tell me that was your off switch and it took you this long to reboot?”

“Christina,” he growled, and I could feel his anger coursing hot, stoking my own back up once more.

“Kit,” I corrected him with narrowed eyes.

“We aren’t done with your lessons.” He spoke with a jaw clenched stubbornly and his brows drawn into a tight line.

“Yes, we are. You’re being a petty, snarky little child, and I have had enough of it. I put up with your little mood all fucking day yesterday, and I have had it. So, fuck off. Sort yourself out, go punch a tree or whatever, just get your mixed-up, crazy-pants emotions away from me right now. You’ll taint my cookies.” I dismissed him, continuing on with my recipe.

“No.” The stubborn asshole dug his heels in, folding his arms over his chest and blocking me from getting to the fridge to retrieve the butter. “No, that’s not how this works. You don’t get to stand there all high and mighty and tell me that my emotions are tainting your cookies. Not after you keep me awake all fucking night with your screaming orgasms with practically everyone in this house other than me. I have every damn right to be pissed off at you, and you are not allowed to just wave me off.”

“Oh, so you’re calling me a slut now?” I yelled back at him, pushing him out of the way to grab the butter out of the fridge and bring it back to the island.

“No, you dense bitch! I am not.” He slapped the stick of butter out of my hand, and I gasped as it hit the floor. Without really thinking about what I was doing—something I was doing a lot of lately—I reacted on instinct. And slapped him across the face.

In my defense, it wasn’t a hard slap. It could have been a hell of a lot harder if I’d wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t. I just wanted him to shut the hell up, and he did.

For a second, we both stared at each other in shock. Austin’s cheek was rapidly turning pink in the shape of my hand, which clued me in to the fact I had probably hit him a smidgen too hard. But whatever, it was done now.

“You...” He recovered quicker than me, raising a hand to the cheek I’d slapped, then glaring at me with a look that said he wanted to rip my damn head off... or my clothes. Like I’d already pointed out, I wasn’t the best at reading his emotions.

The answer became pretty clear, though, when his hand shot out faster than a whip. Instead of the reciprocal slap I’d braced for—because I totally deserved it—his fingers closed around my wrist, yanking me into his chest, and he slammed his lips onto mine.

For a heavy, weighted moment, we both froze.

For once since we’d bonded, I actually paid a little more attention to what Austin was feeling, and what I found there left me with only one clear option. My lips parted under his, and my hands grasped hold of his head, returning his kiss with equal force.

How it happened I wasn’t altogether sure, but one moment we were standing there, kissing like our fucking lives depended on it, and the next Austin had lifted me onto the island. My bowl of flour and sugar went flying, but who gave a shit about flour?

We separated just long enough to yank each other’s shirts off, and then we were straight back on one another like we were starving. In some ways, I suppose we were...

“How dare you,” he panted after some time when he pulled back with swollen lips and lust-filled eyes, “get angry at me for my emotions when you know better than anyone how I feel about you?”

My breath caught in my throat, and I swallowed painfully. That moment... it had me more terrified than I could ever remember being in my life. Fuck torture and near death. Waiting to hear someone put voice to their feelings was unbearable.

“Say it then,” I whispered in a husky voice, thick with desire and panic. “Tell me out loud because I promise you, you’re as easy to read as a fucking hieroglyphic.”

His emerald-green eyes trailed over my face, catching on my lips as I licked them nervously and then returning to my eyes with so much... frustration...

“I’m in love with you, Princess.”

Floored. I was totally floored. That was not what I’d been expecting. I mean, sure, I was expecting something along those lines but more like, I don’t know, “I really like you.” That would have sufficiently stunned me, but he just jumped in there with both feet.

“This is the part where you say it back, baby girl,” he teased, but there was a tightness around his eyes that matched the spike of panic running through him.

“Sorry,” I blurted. “I wasn’t... I didn’t think you were going to say... that. Holy shit, Austin.”

“Seriously?” he scowled, pulling back from me a little farther. “Unbelievable.”

“Oh, crap! Fuck, that’s not what I meant. You just really took me off guard. Jesus fuck, yes, you infuriating piece of shit, I’m in love with you too.” I reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck, slamming my lips against his and reigniting the fire that had just seen the downfall of my baking attempt.

“Thank fuck,” he groaned, his hands in a frenzy as he pushed me back onto the counter and climbed up on top of me. Dimly, I heard the glass measuring cup smash as it got knocked off, but my main focus was on getting Austin’s damn fly undone. Why was it being so hard to undo?

“What the fuck is this made of? Barbed wire?” I muttered, feeling my finger snag on the metal teeth.

“Oh my God, it’s not that hard,” Austin snickered, flicking my bra clasp open with a deft snap of his fingers and then throwing the flimsy garment across the kitchen. “Here.” He sat up a little, smacking his head on the low-hanging pots, and ending up ripping the button completely off his fly.

“Well, that works too.” I nodded, taking over from him once more as his hands returned to my body. I yanked his zipper the rest of the way down and greedily reached for his hard cock straining against the thin fabric of his boxers.

He moaned a low and sexy sound when my hand met his bare flesh, rolling my finger over the silky skin and tugging on his piercing. Breathing heavily, he claimed my lips in another bruising kiss while his hands worked some sort of magic that saw my yoga pants and lace panties end up on the floor.

Austin’s ink-covered hand cupped my cheek, and he pulled back for a moment as his pierced shaft met my naked cunt, rubbing down the length of me and making me shiver with delight.

“Say it again,” he demanded in a raw and sexy voice.

Meeting his eyes, I dropped the act, letting him feel the full scope of my emotions as I spoke what felt like the first truly honest words I’d ever given him.

“I love you, Austin.”

A deep shudder ran through him, and he groaned, dipping his head to kiss me again, and this time the rush of pure, undiluted, and burning hot love that crashed into me was his. There was not a single question left in my mind as to how he really felt.

Reaching between us, I grabbed his cock with sure hands, guiding him to my opening and pushing my hips up in encouragement. We didn’t need any more words between us; instead, we let our bond guide us as we fucked hard and fast on the kitchen counter.

Austin’s teeth nipped at my neck while my nails raked lines down his back. My legs locked around his waist, pulling him closer to me, and I gasped with ecstasy as his piercing scraped my g-spot with unwavering precision.

“Fucking hell, you drive me insane,” he moaned, trying to slow his rhythm, but my legs held him tight against me, allowing me some control of the speed with my own hip movements.

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” I replied, then employed a touch of my own speed and strength to flip our positions without sending us crashing to the floor. “Much better.”

Looking down at him flat on his back, I grinned. I hated the asshole, but I really did love him too. This was going to be fun.

“I’m okay with this,” he murmured, licking his lips and cupping my breasts in each hand as I rode his cock with determination. Within moments I was coming, grinding down on him hard and throwing my head back.

“Shit, baby girl. You’re the devil,” Austin moaned, grabbing onto my hips and following my climax within seconds as my cunt clenched and pulsed around him, dragging the orgasm out of him whether he was ready or not.

“Oh yeah,” he panted as I sat there on his still twitching dick, trying to catch my breath, “I could get used to this.”

A small, euphoric laugh bubbled out of me, and I looked around at the mess we’d made of the kitchen. The responsible thing to do would be to clean it up...

“Want to check out my room?” Austin offered up a much more attractive option. “Tyson is sleeping, so there won’t be any furry interruptions.”

Grinning, I stroked a finger down the tattoo on his arm that was his familiar’s resting place. “Hell yeah. Then later you can show me how to use your tattoo gun so you can pay up on our bet.”

Austin groaned painfully, but I silenced him with a long kiss.

“Fine,” he finally growled. “But you better not draw a cartoon dick, or there will be hell to pay.”

17

My foot tapped the floor impatiently while Austin explained to me again how his tattoo equipment worked.

“I get it, Aus.” I rolled my eyes and held up my wrist with the tiger lily tattoo. “Magical learning spell still active, remember?”

His lips pursed, and I was torn between wanting to flick him in the forehead again and wanting to kiss him. Damn, this new development was going to be confusing.

“Can you let me do it now?” I prompted, and he sighed heavily.

“Fine. I guess if you really fuck it up I can just erase it with magic.” His confidence in me was staggering. “All right, where is it going?”

I beamed. Silly, silly man. He had been so confident this far because he was already so covered in ink that one more little design would just get lost. But I had a better idea.

“Lie down,” I ordered, patting his bed, which we were sitting on the edge of. “On your front.”

Austin gave me a suspicious look but did as I asked, stretching out on the bed with his arms propped under his head, probably thinking I was putting it on his back.

Hopping up from where I had been sitting, I resituated myself to straddle the backs of his legs, then slipped my fingers under the waistband on his boxers to slide them down, exposing his totally uninked backside.

“Princess,” he growled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Shush,” I replied, leaning over to his bedside table to grab the tattoo gun we had already prepared with black ink. “You lost our bet fair and square. Now just lie there and take it like a man.”

Finally I began to feel a bit of concern from him, and I snickered as I began the design I’d already mapped out in my head. We’d already established that I was no van Gogh, so Austin had used a washable marker to ink a small talent spell into my right hand which would give me enough artistic ability to pull off a half-decent tattoo.

Not that this needed Rembrandt-level artistry.

“Hey, Austin. Have you seen”—Caleb cut off as he opened the door and saw me straddling his half-naked brother and brandishing a tattoo gun—“Kit. Huh, guess it’s payback time, is it?”

“It sure is.” I grinned at him and winked. This had been his idea after all.

A wicked smile curved his lips as he sat against the headboard to watch.

“That’s a nice T-shirt you’re wearing, Kitty Kat,” the observant bastard commented, and I looked down at the vintage Guns N’ Roses concert T-shirt I had stolen from Austin’s drawer. It was long enough that it wasn’t totally obvious I had nothing else on. Not even underwear.

When I said he had done something magical to get them off me, he really had. Or maybe we just hadn’t looked hard enough before disappearing up here.

“Thanks,” I smirked back. “I think it really brings out my eyes.” I batted my lashes at him, and he gave me a knowing wink.

“Cal,” Austin muttered, “tell me what she’s drawing on my ass.”

Caleb leaned forward to peer at my half-completed design and snorted. “Nice one.”

“I thought so,” I preened, but neither one of us responded to Austin.

“Guys...” he groaned, and I slapped his other bare cheek.

“Just shut up so I can finish. We should probably go and clean up the kitchen too,” I pondered aloud while I continued on the tattoo. That magical learning spell was seriously coming in handy because my first attempt at a tattoo was turning out pretty damn great.

“All right, done,” I announced, wiping it off with a cloth and replacing the gun onto the bedside table.

Austin craned his neck to see, then slapped me on the leg so he could get up and look in the mirror. Caleb and I exchanged grins as Austin stood in front of his ensuite bathroom mirror for a really long time.

“Babe?” I called out in a sickly sweet and very sarcastic voice. “Do you love it?”

There were a few moments more of silence before he stalked back out of the bathroom to glare at the two of us, his underwear still pulled down under his seriously tight butt cheek.

“You were in on this too, huh?” he asked his twin, and Caleb snorted a laugh.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re on your own, Kitty Kat,” he chuckled, racing out of the room again and slamming the door behind him.

Austin levelled a glare on me, but I could already sense he wasn’t anywhere near as annoyed as I had aimed to make him.

“Property of Princess Kit?” he asked me, repeating the words now tattooed onto his ass. “With a little fox wearing a crown?”

“You wrote Austin in between my butterflies and didn’t think I noticed,” I retorted, and his eyebrows shot up with surprise. “I’d say we’re even now. Besides”—I smirked, grabbing him by the elastic waistband and pulling him down to me on the bed—“you are property of Princess Kit.”

Austin braced himself against the bed, his hands either side of me as he leaned in close enough to kiss. “I am no one’s property, baby girl. You’ll learn.”

He kissed me then, but I laughed against his mouth. If anyone would be learning... it’d be him.

* * *

When we eventually surfaced out from Austin’s room, I found the kitchen already cleaned up and a plate of fresh cinnamon-coffee cookies sitting on the table in front of the guys.

“Kitten, there you are,” River commented, looking up from where he’d been leaning over Wesley’s laptop screen. “Sit, please. We have something to discuss.”

“Uh, that doesn’t sound so good,” I muttered under my breath, pulling up a chair and tucking my leg up underneath me. Before coming into the kitchen, I’d ducked upstairs and dressed in my own clothes again, seeing as all of mine from earlier were still MIA.

“It’s... well, you’ll see.” River rolled his neck like he’d been craning over Wesley’s shoulder for too long already. “Go ahead, Wes.”

Glancing around the table, none of the other guys seemed remotely curious, other than Austin who clearly had as little clue what was going on as I did. Which made sense, as we’d been occupying each other all afternoon.

“Okay, so River and I have been doing a lot of reading and research and stuff into Omega Group and your dad,” he started, pushing his glasses up as they slipped forward. I smiled seeing him wearing them again. As much as I knew contacts were easier when we were constantly on the run or getting blown up or, well, making out, his glasses reminded me of when we’d first met.

“Yup, I know this.” I nodded my understanding.

“Right, well, one of my keyword searches of government databases brought up something that concerns you.” Wesley spun the computer around and pushed it across to me to read. A light frown pulled at my brows as I took the laptop and scanned the document in front of me.

“Oh,” I said when I finished and officially felt like my stomach was lodged in my throat. “I knew that doctor was up to no good.”

I pushed the computer away from me and dropped my face into my hands with a groan. Anxiety pooled in my belly like cold blood, and I was pretty sure I was getting a migraine... if that was even possible for Ban Dia.

“So, what I gather from that is that the psychotic little worm who took my blood then left me for dead at Gray’s hands is now conducting experiments on people using a serum made from my blood.” I waved a hand at the document on Wesley’s screen. No one spoke, but Wesley nodded. “So this is Dupree and the Blood Moon labs all over again?”

“Except,” Caleb pointed out as he munched on a coffee cookie. “This guy sounds like he’s succeeding. At least temporarily.”

He was right. I groaned again and bashed my head—lightly—on the table a couple of times before Cole put his hand between my forehead and the wood.

“Okay. So... what do we do?” I looked hopefully around at my guys. Surely they already had a genius plan in mind?

“About him?” River shrugged, “Nothing. He only managed to make off with one small vial of your blood, right?” I nodded. “Well then, hopefully it simply runs out soon. It sounds like this serum he made only lasts a few days, so I think we just let it run its course.”

“There’s something else,” Wesley informed me, and I sighed.

“Of course there is,” I lamented. “Hit me with it.”

His hand ran through his blond hair nervously, and he chewed the corner of his lip. “Director Pierre made contact with us. He wants to meet.”

“Huh?” I blurted, and Austin snickered.

“Very eloquent, Princess,” he mocked me, and I flipped him off before turning back to Wes.

“How?” I asked, sucking a breath in and collecting my thoughts before trying again. “I mean, how did he contact you? I thought we were totally secure on our network?”

“We are,” Wes assured me. “But he knew we would be digging around, so he’d left a message in one of the files I hacked. He wants to sit down and explain things to you before you ‘wind up in over your head.’ His words, not mine.”

The sound of my fingers drumming on the wooden tabletop was the only sound in the room for a moment while I thought this over. Jonathan wanted to meet? Of course he did. Probably to try and finish the job and blow us all up again. My gut reaction was to tell him to fuck right off, but what if there was more to it?

Caleb placed my giant Kit’s Kup down in front of me, full of fresh coffee, and I stared into it like maybe it held the answers I was looking for.

Jonathan had always been good to me. He’d rescued me from Suzette and Gray, he’d taken me into his own home despite how much red tape he’d needed to circumvent, and he’d given me everything I ever wanted. But now I was questioning his motives. Acts I had assumed were driven by love for me, or at very least affection, now seemed nefarious.

The what-ifs could drive me insane, and there was really only one way to know for sure.

“Set it up,” I told them. “I want to hear what he has to say, what could possibly justify trying to kill us. Twice.”

“Are you sure, Kitten?” River checked, spearing me with his stern, golden gaze.

Was I sure? No, not really. But it seemed like the best course of action for my own sanity and peace of mind. I couldn’t live with the unknowns around my last six years as Jonathan’s “daughter.” If he really was the two-faced piece of shit he was looking like, then I’d rather know definitively.

“Yeah. Set it up, but for next week or something? I want to bond Cole and Vali first and get a handle on the dragon magic. We don’t even know if I will end up shifting or whatever, so better to get that sorted while we’re out here away from people, right?” I glanced over at the two dragons in question. Cole looked a bit stunned, and Vali just looked... happy. It struck a chord inside me that I was able to produce such an expression of contentment and relief on such a hard man.

“All right, we’ll get it done, love,” River accepted, still watching me with sharp eyes. “I take it you and Austin have finished magic training now?”

“Uh...” My eyes flew wide and darted to Austin. Was that what they thought we’d been doing all afternoon? Magic training?

“Not likely,” Austin snorted, not being struck by the same deer-in-headlights situation that I was experiencing. “Christina keeps fucking around. But we can be done by tomorrow, I think.”

I scowled at him, not missing the emphasis he’d placed on fucking. “I do not,” I growled, not wanting River to think I wasn’t taking this seriously. I was. But what had transpired between Austin and I had needed to happen, for both our sanity.

“Uh-huh, sure, Princess.” Austin rolled his eyes, just like he’d done a million times before, but the difference now was that he wasn’t hiding his amusement. And arousal. The long fingers of his hand slid across onto my thigh—under the table—and I squeaked.

“You okay, Vixen?” Cole asked, narrowing his granite eyes at me suspiciously.

Biting my lip to keep a moan inside when Austin’s fingers traced the seam of my pants right over my crotch, I nodded frantically.

“Yup, super,” I replied, swatting Austin’s hand away and pushing back from the table. “We should go, um, keep going. With magic, I mean.” From the burst of amusement Austin shocked me with, I expected him to be bent over crying with laughter, but when I speared him with a death glare, his face was as stony and scowling as usual. The only hint that I wasn’t getting my wires crossed was the gleam in his emerald-green eyes.

Fuck, he’s good.

“Austin?” I prompted, letting myself fall back into old habits of being snarky as fuck toward him. “You coming or are you going to keep fucking around out here?”

A smirk cracked through his serious expression, and I realized too damn late what I’d just said.

“Oh, I’m coming,” he teased, pushing back from the table himself and snagging a couple of coffee cookies before sauntering toward me.

“Oh, Kitten?” River called out just before I left the kitchen. Spinning to face him, I froze when I saw the fabric dangling from his fingers. “You left these on top of the stove.”

Totally at a loss for words, I rushed back over and snatched my green lace panties from his hand, but he held tight and met my eyes. My shoulders tensed, and I braced for... I don’t even know what. Judgement? Disappointment?

“Enjoy the rest of magic training.” Was all he said after a long, pregnant pause. “I have no doubt Cole and Vali are looking forward to becoming your new teachers.”

Embarrassment heated my face to the point I was positive I’d turned into a tomato, but I just nodded sharply in lieu of a response. A quick glance around the table told me that the rest of the guys were definitely in on the joke and all supremely amused.

Well shit. Amused was better than angry or jealous, right?

Not sure I wanted to discuss it any further, I hurried after Austin, back to his bedroom where I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it with a groan.

“It’s not funny!” I snapped, seeing the Ink Mage grinning broadly as he hunted in a drawer and pulled out some pens and paper. “Oh, we’re actually doing magic.”

“Princess,” he chuckled, dropping the materials onto his bed and advancing toward me with a predatory look in his eye. “It’s very funny. They were going to find out anyway. Cal and I are on extreme probation with Alpha, so I would have needed to fess up sooner or later. That is, if they hadn’t already heard us this afternoon.”

His muscular body pinned me to the door, his hand cupping my chin tightly and his hard length pressing against my belly. In his eyes I found raw hunger, desire, and passion. From our magical link I was flooded with love, and my body tightened with excitement.

“Besides, better they know now. I intend to make you scream tonight.” My whole body shook with a shiver as his lips claimed mine in a kiss so savage it could cause bruising.

I fucking loved it.

18

As it turned out, there was very little left for me to learn in my magic training. Austin grudgingly admitted around lunchtime the next day that I was almost as skilled as he was, and that was really the extent of what he could teach me. As far as he could assess, my magical aptitude was only a percentage of his, but it was a healthy percentage.

“Fuck,” he muttered, watching me with, dare I say it, admiration? His hand was buried in Tyson’s fur, and he was scratching his belly where the big cat lay between us on the floor.

“What?” I asked, confused. We’d just been sitting there on the den floor recapping the core fundamentals of magic but had finished that some minutes ago and been sitting in comfortable silence.

“I can’t wait to see you once you master everyone’s powers.” Austin gazed at me as he murmured these words, and I felt nothing but admiration from him. Which kind of made me squirm uncomfortably. This rapid shift in our relationship was making my head spin, and I was having a hard time dealing with all these softer emotions from him all of a sudden.

Or I guessed not all of a sudden, seeing as this was clearly how he’d felt for a while. But he was suddenly allowing me to feel them without the smokescreen of anger and irritation, and it was stressing me the hell out.

Yeah, I was in love with them... all of them... and yeah, I understood that by bonding we would literally be together for eternity, but something about the cold reality of feeling exactly what your lover is feeling at any given moment was freaking me out.

“Let’s work on this mental blocking,” he announced, changing the subject and standing up to stretch his back out. As he did so, his T-shirt rose up and showed of his seriously impressive lower abs, stirring arousal in me again.

“Yup, we definitely need to work on blocking,” he muttered, giving me an amused frown. “Your mood changes are giving me whiplash, and I swear if I feel you fucking one of the other guys now, I’ll lose my damn mind.”

Blushing, I raked a hand through my long hair and nodded my agreement. As hard as it was for me dealing with his moods, I could only imagine what it was like for the guys when I was with someone else.

Yup, I was officially an asshole.

“I’ll grab us fresh coffee, and we can get it sorted out before you bond with the lizards this afternoon.” Austin took our empty mugs and sauntered his firm ass out of the den.

While he was gone, I took over scratching Tyson’s belly and was rewarded by a lazy snore from the huge, magical cat. I snickered at him and ran my hands through his silky fur, tracing the pads of his dinner plate–sized paws and tickling them.

“Playing with fire, Kitty Kat,” Caleb warned, appearing from a different entrance and flopping down on the couch I was leaning against. “Don’t they say you should let sleeping cats lie?”

“That’s dogs, Cal.” I rolled my eyes, running my finger down one of Tyson’s deadly sharp claws. “Ty would never hurt me anyway; he’s just a big pussy cat.”

Okay so clearly he wasn’t all that far asleep because when I called him a pussy cat—which he hated—his paw flexed and nicked the tip of my finger with his claw.

“Ouch! Ty, that was rude!” I scolded, pulling my hand back and inspecting the injury. Sure enough, he’d sliced through the pad of my finger, and blood was already welling to the surface. It wasn’t a bad cut though, so I just put my finger into my mouth, knowing it would be closed over and healed in a matter of moments.

The big cat raised his head slightly and cracked one eye open in a clear “don’t call me a pussy, and I won’t scratch you” kind of way.

“Pussy,” I muttered, nudging Tyson with my knee and sucking on my bloody finger. “So, whats up?” I turned to Caleb to find him frowning at me.

“Uh,” he hesitated, looking distracted, then the expression wiped from his face, and he smiled. “I wanted to let you know I’m doing better with my lessons. I don’t think I’ll need to keep going there for too much longer, I hope.”

“Cal, that’s great!” I beamed, scrambling up from the floor to kneel on the couch beside him. “I’m really proud of you. I know there is something shady going on, and it’s killing me that you can’t tell me... but maybe if you can finish, then the whole magical NDA thing won’t matter anymore?”

He shrugged a little uncomfortably. “Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping. But I worry it won’t be that easy. I have a theory though...”

“Yeah?” I prompted, shifting on my knees until I could take his hand in mine.

“It’s just a theory, but I wonder if it’ll break when we bond? I know it is possible if the magic thrown at it is in major excess of the original caster. At first I thought it’d be easy because Zelda cast it and Aus and I far outclass her, but it seems like because she cast it on behalf of someone else...” His mouth twisted, and he winced.

“Gotcha,” I nodded, not needing him to push the boundaries any further. I hated seeing him in pain, just for my own curiosity. “It’s a good theory, and you know I’m game! You just tell me when you’re ready.”

Yeah, I know it was reckless of me to even consider bonding Cal when he was clearly struggling so much with his control around blood... Ah crap, my finger. Glancing down, I checked it carefully to make sure there was no blood left on my skin, and let out a sigh of relief when I saw it clean.

“I will,” he sighed, “the second I have it mastered, if you’re cool with that. It kills me that you’re bonded to Aus and not me.” He whispered this last bit, and I suspected he didn’t really mean to say it out loud.

My hand cupped his cheek, turning his face toward me so I could meet his eyes. “I know it does,” I whispered back. “I’m sorry.”

The smile he gave me was a sad one, full of self-loathing. “Nothing to be sorry for, Kitty Kat. It’s my own fault for not taking Yoshi seriously when we were kids.”

Rather than responding to him with hollow words of sympathy, I pressed my lips to his, hoping that my kiss could convey what my heart felt. Caleb had been my first choice, my first crush out of Alpha team. Had we been just two normal people meeting in school, I had no doubt we would have ended up dating the old-fashioned way. But I had no regrets for the way things had turned out, seeing as I was equally in love with all of my dianoch.

Sometimes, though, I caught Cal watching me with a sad look to his eyes, and I suspected he was wondering what life would have been like if I hadn’t been The Fox. If I hadn’t turned out to be the magical catalyst who could make or break the future of the world.

“Cal,” I sighed against his mouth, but said no more as his lips parted underneath mine. His hands gripping to my hair, he pulled me close, his tongue meeting mine in a wild frenzy, and what I’d started as a tender, loving kiss turned fierce.

“Fuck,” he swore, tearing his lips from mine and leaving me wide-eyed and panting in his lap. Caleb’s eyes were screwed shut, and his mouth was pinched in a tight line while his hand rubbed at his forehead.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, confused as all hell and unable to prevent the cold, sinking feeling in my gut that he was rejecting me. Because I was sleeping with his brother? Oh fuck, I should have known they wouldn’t all be just fine with me dating five other guys.

“Stop,” Caleb ordered me in a husky whisper, “Stop that, it’s not you.” His eyes flickered open, and I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise when I saw his snake-like pupils.

“Oh,” I gasped, then groaned and dropped my forehead to rest on his shoulder. “I’m an idiot.”

Caleb chuckled slightly, and I felt a tiny bit of tension drop from his body as his hands rested lightly on my waist. “Ah, yeah. So am I. Just... give me a moment.”

I bit my lip—lightly, so as not to fill my mouth with any more blood—and waited while Caleb took a couple of long breaths. When his body relaxed underneath me, I raised my head back up to look at him guiltily.

“Blood was still in my mouth, wasn’t it?” I checked, and he nodded sheepishly. “What did it do to you?” His brows shot up, and I rephrased quickly, “I mean, what did it make you want to do to me? Like...” I trailed off, and his mouth quirked a smile, showing his normal, human canine teeth.

“Like, did I want to tear your throat out and go all vampire on you?” he finished for me, and I shrugged. That was pretty much what I was asking. “Uh, sort of. Not like that I wanted to kill you or anything; I’d never want that. But that small taste of your blood made me go a bit, ah, wild. I wanted more, and I swear my dick has never gotten so hard so fast in my life. It actually hurt.”

A genuine smile pulled at my lips, and he answered it with one of his own. “So, I should probably get off your lap, huh?”

“Unless you want to see me lose control and fuck you right here while drinking your blood? Um, yeah. Probably best.” I was pretty sure he was only half joking, and the reckless adrenaline junkie in me almost wanted to push him further.

“Hey bro,” Austin said, coming back into the den with our coffees and finding me straddling his twin on the couch.

Awkwardly, I shifted off Caleb to sit on the couch and hide my blushing face behind the mug Austin handed me. Now that I was active with both twins, any time they were in the same room with me I could not stop thinking about Caleb’s “twin sandwich” jokes.

What would it be like, I wondered, to have them both in bed with me... I’d had threesomes with Cole and River already, but I was pretty positive by sandwich they meant a different... ah... layout.

“Kitty Kat?” Caleb poked me in the arm, and I realized I’d gone into my head and was ignoring whatever had been said.

“Huh?” I responded, not even trying to hide the fact I hadn’t heard them. Why bother? They could both feel my emotions so probably knew full well my mind had taken a little detour into the gutter.

Caleb snickered. “I said, are you cool waiting till I get back from my lesson tonight before you bond with the lizards?”

Automatically, I whacked him in the arm. Both he and Aus kept calling Cole and Vali lizards, which was definitely going to end in a fight sooner or later. They’d already entered into a couple of small scuffles over meaningless things, but the dragons shrugged it off as their natural aversion to cats. They weren’t fooling anyone though; it was much more likely just from being so isolated out here when they were used to the action and adventure of being spies, or a crime lord in Vali’s case.

“Of course. Just try not to be too late? I get a bit cranky without enough sleep,” I suggested, and both twins cackled with laughter.

“We’re well aware, Princess.” Austin snorted. “You’re a straight up bitch when you’re tired.”

I narrowed my eyes and flipped him off before Caleb pressed a kiss to my temple and got up to leave.

“I’ll be back as early as possible. Good luck with the blocking!” He smacked his brother on the back of his head and gave him a stern look. “Play nice. Just ’cause you’re fucking doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be a dick.”

Austin rolled his eyes and turned back to me after Cal had left the room. “Pretty sure I was already a dick?”

“Yep,” I agreed, “no sense in changing that now. All right, what do we need to do?”

Austin flickered a small smile, then his face returned to the scowl I knew—and loved—on him. “Here’s what I’m thinking...”

For the rest of the afternoon, we worked on our mental powers, which largely consisted of sitting on the floor with our eyes shut. As boring as it sounded, it was actually exhausting, but when several hours later one of our ideas seemed to work, the sense of satisfaction was staggering.

“It worked!” I exclaimed, exploring my mind for any traces of Austin and finding none. “Wait, can you still feel me?” He quirked a brow at me, and I rolled my eyes, well aware that I was sitting on the floor facing him, my legs draped loosely around his waist. It wasn’t intentional, it was just comfortable.

“Your emotions? Yes. So quit thinking about me naked and focus.” He slapped me lightly on the leg, and I spluttered.

“I was not!” Except now I was. Damn him. “Ugh, okay, hang on.” I shut my eyes tight to block out his distracting-as-hell smirk and replicated what we’d been playing around with. It was a simple concept, one we’d actually come up with thanks to Wesley’s suggestion earlier in the day. As it turned out, he read a lot of urban fantasy novels and suggested we try building a wall around our minds.

So far, we had tried visualising the wall in various ways, but Austin’s latest attempt had clearly worked, so I replicated exactly what he’d done.

“Any good?” I asked. One of my eyes cracked open and I found him watching me with the intensity of... well... of a tiger.

“Yeah.” His mouth was twisted in his usually scowling frown, only this time I couldn’t feel what was going on behind what I’d come to realize was a mask for him.

Crap. Maybe I did like that magical insight after all.

“Totally gone. Good work, Princess, you’re all ready for more bonds.” Even without feeling his emotions, I could hear the sadness soaking his words, and I reached out to cup the back of his neck.

“Aus?” I whispered, “Are you jealous?” I couldn’t help it... I grinned. Of course, I could never have anticipated him being my first bonded dianoch, so the prospect of Austin “Asshole” King being jealous where I was concerned just really hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Bitch,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at me and making me grin even wider. I loved our snark; it was too much fun to just up and drop suddenly because we were in love with each other.

Shuffling myself closer to him, I pressed my lips to his, and for a rare moment we simply kissed. There was no combativeness to it, no frenzied rush of emotions from the other person to confuse things. It was just us. And it was perfect.

“I’m wrecked,” I admitted when we eventually separated. “Can we nap until Cal gets home?”

Austin groaned. “I thought you’d never ask.” He hauled himself up from the floor, then helped me up. “You’ll need all of your energy for later, too. Who knows what might happen when you bond with two supposedly extinct magical creatures.”

Cracking my neck, I stretched and yawned. “Wait, they’re extinct? Like, I just figured they’re magical, which is why no one knew about them.”

“Nope.” Austin shook his head as he followed me upstairs to my room. Apparently he was napping with me. “Even within the magical community they’re considered extinct. Otherwise I would have suggested they meet up with other dragons to learn from them.”

“Huh,” I mused. “Sometimes I forget you’re the new Big Bad of magic. What about Wes? Any ideas?”

“About what he is?” Austin kicked off his shoes beside my bed, then stripped down to his boxers. “None, and I have done some asking around too. We’ll work it out though. It’s sort of my job now. Well, mine and Cal’s.”

Another wide yawn creaked my jaw, and I got comfy in my giant bed just before Tyson padded into the room and jumped up to snuggle into the dead center of the mattress. We’d left him asleep on the floor of the den, but he clearly wasn’t satisfied being left alone.

“Move it, bud,” Austin told his tiger familiar. “On the edge.” He snapped his fingers at Tyson and gave him a no-bullshit glare. Reluctantly, Tyson huffed, then stood back up and climbed over me to snuggle my other side, allowing Austin to take his spot.

Flanked on either side by my two favorite Bengals, I was asleep in seconds.

* * *

When I woke, it was pitch black in my room, and Tyson’s warm weight had been replaced by someone considerably less furry. Austin was asleep on his back with his legs still tangled in mine and the blankets pushed down to his waist.

“Time to get up?” I asked Caleb in a soft whisper, not wanting him to hear the tremble in my voice. The images of my dream had fled upon waking, but the cold sweat on my back and the sick panic in my gut said I’d woken from yet another nightmare.

Caleb burrowed his cold hands under my T-shirt and pulled me tight against him, kissing my neck. “Yeah, pretty much. I just wanted to slide in for a cuddle first, if that’s cool?”

“Mm, always,” I murmured sleepily, enjoying how the brush of his fingers across my rib cage and the soft caress of his lips on my shoulder chased away the ghosts of my imagination. “Good session tonight?”

“Very,” he replied with a note of pride that saw me rolling to face him. “I told my teacher about that incident we had earlier...” He raised his eyebrows, and I gave a small nod, remembering our incident clearly. Also remembering how damn tempted I’d been to push him further. “Well, she was really impressed that I’d managed to walk away and said I had come a really long way.”

My eyes widened, and I bit my lip from pressing him any further, but inside my head I was screaming. Her?

That was the closest he’d ever come to mentioning this secretive teacher of his and certainly the first time he’d confirmed it was a woman teaching him. A sick feeling pooled in my belly. Who the hell was this bitch? Call me paranoid and possessive, but my automatic reaction was jealousy. Why else would she need such secrecy? Surely if her motives were pure, she’d have no issues with me knowing her.

“Kitty Kat.” Caleb frowned, rubbing a thumb over my cheek. “You look like you’re freaking out about something, but I can’t feel anything from you. I take it the blocking worked out?”

“Um.” I cleared my throat, pushing my jealousy and paranoia down. “Yeah. Yeah it did.”

He smiled a little sadly. “I miss it.”

Trailing my gaze over his face, I forced myself not to push. Not to demand more information that I knew full well would cause him pain to try and tell me. He would try too, I already knew from experience. He wouldn’t just clam up and say nothing like how Vic had done under Bridget’s geas; Caleb genuinely tried to answer every question I asked and paid the price for it.

“I can turn it on and off, I think,” I whispered back. “Or I should be able to when I get better at it. But for now, it’ll save my sanity when I have all six of you bonded to me.”

Cal smiled and pecked a short kiss to my lips. “I can’t wait for that to happen.”

He meant for his own bonding, I knew full well. The flutter of butterflies in my belly confirmed that I, too, was excited for it. For all of my bonds... including whatever River was so damn scared of.

Closing the gap between us once more, I kissed him back just as I felt Austin stirring behind me. The butterflies inside me seemed to morph into hummingbirds when Cal made no move to stop kissing me, even though he must have known his twin was awake.

No words were spoken between the three of us, but when Austin’s hard body pressed the length of my back, I hissed a gasp against Caleb’s mouth. Austin’s mouth pressed to the bend of my neck in an echo of where Caleb had kissed me only moments earlier, and his erection ground against my butt.

“Kitty...” Caleb groaned, releasing my lips even as Austin’s hands gripped my breasts through my shirt. “We don’t have time for this; the others are already waiting downstairs.”

Despite his words, his hands gripped my thighs and pulled me closer to him, grinding his own hard length to my front, and I almost came right then and there... sandwiched between the King twins.

“Cal’s right,” Austin rumbled against my neck, then grabbed my earlobe between his teeth and nipped me sharply enough that I moaned. “This would require we not be rushed.”

I shuddered as my mind went wild on what this was going to be. It wasn’t hard to guess.

Caleb sighed and threw back the blankets. “Come on, let’s go get you bonded to some lizards; otherwise they’ll be busting down the door any moment.”

Snorting a laugh because he was totally right, I wiggled out of Austin’s way too tempting embrace and perched on the edge of my bed to rub at my eyes and assess my clothing options.

“Uh, should I like... dress up for the occasion or something?” I asked the twins and was met with baffled expressions.

Caleb picked up my black, ripped jeans from the floor and tossed them to me. “Kitty Kat, you could go down there in nothing but a thong and no one would complain. Actually... come to think of it, give those jeans back.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” I grinned as I tugged the jeans on and then hunted for a bra. I wasn’t exactly the tidiest woman alive, so my suitcase looked a little bit like a grenade had gone off in it. A couple of times Wes had offered to unpack for me, but I’d shrugged him off. Why unpack when we might need to haul ass at a second’s notice?

Once I’d located a simple red bra, I threw one of River’s shirts over the top and rolled up the sleeves. My wardrobe was almost half full of men’s clothing these days, as apparently they all had a fetish for seeing me in their shirts. Not that I was complaining; men’s shirts were comfy as hell.

“All right, let’s do it. Do we have coffee?” I asked Caleb hopefully as the three of us made our way downstairs to where my other four guardians waited in the den.

“All over it,” Wesley offered, holding a steaming mug out to me, and I beamed. My guys were actually just the most amazing, thoughtful people. “It’s Irish... seeing as it’s the middle of the night.”

My eyebrows shot up, and I took an experimental sip of my coffee, which was indeed laced with whiskey. The rich blend of smoke and honey mixed with my coffee rolled across my tongue, and I moaned my approval. Yep, Irish coffee was a win in my books.

“You ready to do this, Kitten?” River asked me seriously, his golden eyes flickering over his shirt on my body and pausing at my chest, where I hadn’t bothered buttoning the fabric over my bra.

Giving him a reassuring smile, I nodded. “Absolutely. Are you guys?” I turned to Cole and Vali, who were standing awkwardly in the middle of the den with their arms folded and mirror frowns creasing their brows. “You guys look... really worried. You don’t have to go through with this, you know? You can say no.”

“Not happening, Vixen,” Cole rumbled in his gravelly voice. “I just want you to be sure. We can’t...” He sucked in a breath, his jaw set tightly. “We can’t feel whether you’re sure or not.”

“Huh.” I cocked my head and flicked a glance at the twins. “Who’d have thought you’d all get so used to it in such a short time. I would gladly take the wall down, but I don’t know how successfully I can put it back up again and think it’s best to keep it in place for now.”

Vali gave me a small smile. “That’s understandable, Regina mea. We just worry. But if you’re sure...”

“I am.” I said it as firmly as I possibly could. All this “Are you sure?” was giving me a headache. It wasn’t like I was the kind of girl to be pressured into anything I didn’t want to do, after all. “Come on, step up. Who’s first?”

There was already a large area already cleared in the middle of the den, so I walked over to it and parked my ass down. “Uh, wait. Do either of you still have the spell thing?” I looked to Caleb and Austin—because clearly there was no way in hell I could remember it from weeks earlier when Austin and I had bonded.

“Got it.” Caleb pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. Unfolding it, I scanned the unfamiliar words again and found them a little less daunting, thanks to Austin’s merciless magic lessons involving their language.

Cole and Vali both joined me on the floor, and when I raised my eyebrow at each of them, Vali smirked and Cole glowered. “Let me guess, Vali first?”

The response I received was just a broader grin from the Romanian, and I nodded. Clearly they’d sorted this out in advance, and Cole was still sulking about losing whatever the bet had been. Fair was fair though, as he’d won the one to take me flying.

“Nervous?” Vali asked me quietly as I handed him the spell and my hand trembled.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “And excited.” Our gazes met, and I could clearly see he was feeling the same way.

“Let’s get it done, then,” he coaxed, breaking eye contact to read the spell as Wesley handed him a small knife. Hesitating, I remembered the part where he needed to drop blood into my bloodstone ring, which was what bound us together, and I glanced up at Caleb sitting on one of the sofas.

“I’ll be fine,” Caleb reassured me. “Promise. If not, Austin can take me.”

Satisfied that he knew what he was doing, I indicated for Vali to begin.

Meeting my gaze with a nervous-looking smile, Vali sounded out the foreign words carefully, then waited while I recited my part before stabbing his thumb.

Same as it had the last time, my ring absorbed the droplet of blood and the rune circle flared to life around us. Vali’s wild, hot dragon magic flooded through me with the force of a tsunami, heating every facet of my being and then building higher, like gasoline on a bonfire.

As the burning inside me reached the point of excruciating pain, Vali’s lips pressed to mine. His mouth opened, and his tongue slipped in to meet and dance with my own., Vali’s kiss acted as an outlet for the overwhelming sensation that I was being burned from the inside, until eventually the heat subsided to a small fire, warming me but no longer burning.

“Holy shit,” I choked out when the magic finally settled to a bearable level and I pulled back from Vali’s scorching kiss. “Was that what it was like for you? When you first changed?”

He gave a small shrug, his eyes full of regret and apology. “I don’t know what it is that you felt, only that you were in pain and I knew what I needed to do. But, if it’s anything like what I went through, then I cannot apologize enough.”

“It’s fine.” I shook my head. “It was fine once you kissed me.” I glanced to Austin, and he gave a tiny head nod to confirm it was the same for him—that he’d just known what to do to soothe my pain.

Rubbing a shaking hand over my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath and gusted it out again before moving out of Vali’s lap. Somehow, I’d ended up straddling him while we’d kissed, but I also didn’t feel at all uncomfortable for having done so in front of my other five lovers.

“Ready?” I turned to Cole with a weak smile, and he scowled at me. His granite eyes sparked like a lightning storm, and I could see indecision written all over him, plain as day.

“Maybe we should wait a bit; that looked like it took a lot out of you, Vixen.” His words were sensible, but I could see how desperately he wanted to complete the bond. Cole was too damn thoughtful and considerate sometimes.

“No, now. If I’m going to start learning dragon magic, I want it to be with both of you.” I nodded firmly, shuffling on my knees across to him so that we were face to face. My reasoning was weak; I knew that. But I didn’t care. It sounded more plausible than telling him I suspected being bonded to Vali and not him might just destroy the progress they’d made on their relationship this far. As much as my guys were all technically okay with sharing me, they were all—even Wesley—dominant in their own ways. Sharing didn’t come naturally to them, and it was to be expected that there would be some jealousy and in-fighting.

All I could do was make it as easy on them as possible. Part of that was not bonding Vali without Cole. Seeing what it was doing to Caleb, who had a great relationship with his brother, was enough to imagine how hard it’d be on the Romanians, who had barely gotten into the not-hate stage of their relationship.

No, this was happening now. I could sleep and recharge later.

“Let’s do it,” I encouraged Cole and handed him the spell to read out, along with the knife. “I trust you, Cutie. You’re not going to let anything bad happen to me.”

These last words were whispered for his ears only, and I saw the indecision fade from his face. Cole had appointed himself my unofficial bodyguard way back when we’d first met, ever since Simon had shown up at lunch that day and gotten all weird and threatening. Protecting me was his thing, and I just needed to remind him of that.

Sucking in a breath, he looked down to the paper and began reciting the foreign words carefully, as though afraid a mispronunciation would change the outcome. Actually, that was a fairly valid concern, knowing what I now knew of magic.

Once Cole’s thumb was pricked and his blood absorbed by my ring, the spell was complete. The rune circle flared to life around us, overlapping the still fading outline of Vali’s circle. Almost instantly my body stiffened like I’d been dropped into the Arctic, and pain racked my form as Cole’s magic swept through me, clashing with the existing magic already within me. My fingers ached, and an anguished cry ripped from my throat only a split second before Cole’s lips met mine.

His kiss warmed me like a thermal blanket in a blizzard, wrapping around me and hugging tight until I could feel my skin again, until my joints unlocked and relaxed and the biting cold died down to a pleasant shiver deep in my core.

“Is it just me,” Wesley started quietly when Cole released my mouth and I rested against him while panting like I’d run a marathon, “or is that becoming more intense each time you bond?”

“The pain?” I asked, not bothering to open my eyes. My whole body felt like it had been turned to custard, and I was positive my legs wouldn’t hold me if I tried to stand. “Yeah, it is. I don’t know why... Maybe because there’s more magic in me that it needs to compete with? That’s what it feels like. Like it’s finding a balance.”

“Hmm,” Wesley pondered aloud. “That sort of makes sense.”

“Kitten, are you okay?” River asked me, crouching on the carpet and stroking a hand down my back.

Why does River always ask me the hard questions? Was I okay? My body was electric, sparking with four different types of magic all swirling and flickering inside me, making me feel wired and hyper. At the same time, I was pretty positive I couldn’t move if I even tried. So in response, I just mumbled an incomprehensible noise.

“Okay, I think maybe sleep is the way to go, don’t you love?” River chuckled. “Cole, can you carry her?”

“Of course,” he rumbled, wrapping his arms around me where I was already halfway collapsed against his chest, and standing smoothly.

Before leaving the room, he paused, and Vali leaned in to place a soft kiss on my hair.

“Sleep well, Regina mea,” he whispered.

Again, I mumbled a noise in lieu of words, and Cole swept me out of the room, returning to my giant bed in the master suite.

“I’m fine, Cutie,” I whispered as he lay me gently down on the rumpled covers I had just climbed out of not long ago. “I promise. I’m just...”

“Exhausted?” he finished for me, and I gave him a weak smile.

“But not, at the same time. I don’t feel weak—totally the opposite. My muscles just don’t want to play ball anymore.” I blinked a few times, trying to wake myself up while Cole unbuttoned my jeans and tugged them down off my legs for me.

“Just sleep, Vixen. It’s three in the morning, anyway.” He pressed a light kiss to my belly, where River’s shirt had ridden up. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“Always,” I replied, shuffling over slightly and tucking a pillow under my head while Cole stripped down to join me. He rolled me onto my side and tucked me tight against his huge body, making me feel warm and safe.

“I love you, Vixen,” he murmured in my ear. “Thank you.”

He didn’t need to say anymore as I knew what he meant. His relationship with Vali had only just begun to heal, so the last thing I wanted was to become any more of a wedge between them than I already was.

“Any time, Cutie,” I whispered back, but he was already asleep, his warm breath slow and even against the back of my neck.

Sleep did not come easily to me that night. Instead, I lay there in Cole’s embrace for hours, simply watching my hand in fascination as scales rippled back and forth across my skin. First red and gold, then blue and green, and finally—just before sunrise—it settled into a metallic purple. A perfect blend of both my dragons’ colors.

19

COLE

Sweat ran down my spine, soaking into the thin fabric of my T-shirt and making me glad for my perpetually dark wardrobe. It wasn’t like I didn’t like colors; it was just much easier to hide the blood on black.

“Vamanos.” The pockmarked man in front of us nodded, holding the mesh gate open and allowing Vali and I to enter the corridor. “This way, señores.”

I cast an uncertain glance at my brother, but he gave me a tiny nod of reassurance. Why I was so jumpy about this, I had no idea. I’d done far more dangerous jobs under the Omega banner, but something about being so far from Kit was making my skin crawl.

Not bothering to waste breath on unnecessary words, we kept our mouths shut and followed the sweaty Mexican man down the dimly lit corridor and toward the sound of a raucous crowd.

We stopped just outside our destination, and another moustached man stepped in front of us, blocking our path.

“Quinientos,” he demanded, holding out his greedy hand for Vali to place five hundred American dollars into. “Bueno.” Flicking the notes with his thumb as though counting them, he stepped aside and allowed Vali and I to follow our guide into the following room.

Raul, the man we followed, led us through the roaring crowds of people until we were directly in front of the octagonal cage set in the center of the room with two bloodied and bruised men duking it out with bare knuckles.

“Just here, señores,” he told us politely, indicating to two vacant folding chairs in the front row. “Let me know if you need anything, sí?”

My attention had already left him and zoned in on the fight currently going on in the cage, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Vali slip the man some bills before taking his seat beside me.

“What do you think?” he asked me quietly, and I grunted a vexed noise.

We’d come all the way down to Mexico City on the rumor that this fight ring had an ace in the hole that was making them mega-bucks in the black-market cage-fight scene. Supposedly, they had hombres lobo.

Werewolves.

The coincidence seemed too great, given the recent influx of magical creatures and all the various factions vying to come out on top, so Vali and I had volunteered to check it out and see if there was any substance to the rumor. If they were having werewolves fight and not making any attempt to hide their inhuman origins, then the widespread exposure of magic was likely much closer than we’d been counting on.

“I think this could have been a waste of time,” I muttered back, turning my gaze from the half-dead bare-knuckle fighters and casting my gaze over the crowd. “They’re clearly both human, and shitty fighters at that. I don’t sense any other shifters in the room... do you?”

Vali shook his head, his sharp gaze trailing over the crowd just as mine had. We’d used his connections to get into the underground club, and I knew there were a lot of shady characters in attendance. Just on my first pass of the people I could see, I spotted at least three men currently being targeted by Omega Group for various reasons.

“Let me get our friend back and squeeze him for more info,” Vali suggested, meeting Raul’s eyes from across the room and giving a head jerk to bring him back to us.

“This tip had better pan out,” I growled. “It doesn’t feel right being away from Vixen.”

Vali quirked a half smile at me. “Like your skin is crawling? Yeah, I know the feeling. Don’t worry, as soon as we work out what’s going on here we can head straight back. Not that the boys aren’t taking good care of her right now.”

I huffed, but couldn’t argue. We’d left Kit on the couch watching trashy comedy movies with Wes and Caleb. Those two had been all too happy to have her for the night, seeing as Vali and I had demanded just about every waking moment from her this week for dragon training.

Just thinking about Vixen’s dragon magic made me cringe. The accelerated learning spell was doing little to help her master our magic, and she was growing increasingly frustrated by both her lack of control and frequent night terrors. Until Wes had lost his ability to manage her dreams, I hadn’t realized just how bad they were… which explained Wesley’s off mood. If it were me, I’d be way worse. Hell, just knowing there was nothing I could do was making me want to breathe fire.

We must have talked her through the process over a million times in the past few days, but unlike Austin’s Ink Magic, there was no clear symbol, word, or spell she could watch then replicate. Shifting, and the magic that came with it, was pure instinct and not something that we could really teach her.

“Sí, señor. ¿Cómo puedo ayudarlo?” Raul bobbed his head eagerly as he reached us once more, and I rolled my eyes. Vali must have over-tipped again.

“These fighters are shit,” Vali snapped to the man with all the arrogance expected of Românul. “We were told you had something better. Unique.”

Raul’s eyes widened and flickered past us to someone else, telling me we had hit the mark. There was something more to this seemingly uninteresting cage-fighting ring after all. Whether it was werewolves, though... well, that remained to be seen.

“Ah, si. Pero, they are not fighting tonight. Lo siento, señor.” He spread his hands as if to say there was nothing more he could do, but I wasn’t willing to let it go so easily. He was cagey as fuck, and that meant there was more he could tell us.

“Are they here tonight?” I asked him, not bothering to sugarcoat my tone like my brother had done. Fuck it. I was a killer, and these assholes might as well know who they were dealing with.

Raul froze like a deer in headlights, then flicked his gaze to that same person behind us. Turning, I tried to see who he might be looking at, but there were just too many people in the crowded room.

“What my brother means,” Vali corrected in his greasy smooth voice, “is that he himself is a fighter and would like to meet your best in order to see if this little setup is worth his time entering.”

“Little operation?” Raul spluttered, turning a bit red in the face. “This here—”

“Shut up,” I snapped, not caring for his boasting. I’d seen many, many cage fight setups in my time, and this was a little operation. But it was also one with possible supernatural creatures on the cards. “Introduce me to your unique fighters. I guarantee they won’t be worth my time, but Românul here seems to think they’re something special.”

My words dripped with contempt, but it was just the motivation Raul needed. These small time criminals were all the same. Prideful. I’d just insulted the organization he worked for, and now he’d have to prove me wrong.

“This way, señores,” he sneered, his beady eyes narrowing at me before he spun on his heel and stalked around the ring.

Vali gave me a look of warning but said nothing as we followed the greasy little man past the cage where one of the bloodied fighters was being tapped out, then through the crowd to another room where several men sat playing poker.

“How clichéd,” I muttered, taking in the tough-looking men with tattoos on their knuckles, smoking cigars and drinking scotch while scantily clad women fawned over them.

How the hell do I keep ending up in company like this?

“Raul!” one of the men shouted, seeing us enter and pushing back from his seat. “What is the meaning of this?” He took just two steps closer to us, and I could instantly tell he was a shifter.

It wasn’t that I could smell him or anything; it was more just a sense of familiarity sparking within my magic. Like calling to like. The bald-headed man who had been advancing toward us paused mid-step, his nostrils flaring and his eyes wide.

“What...” he started, and as he stared at us, his eyes bled to a wolf-like yellow-gold, not totally unlike the color of River’s eyes.

“None of your concern,” Vali smoothly responded to the man’s unfinished question. “But we have questions. Clear the room of humans, please.”

One of the men still at the table chortled. “¿Güey, qué pedo?” His friends all snickered, but I sure as shit wasn’t in the mood for funny business.

Vali and I needed no words passed between us; we both simply unleashed a little dragon magic. Not enough to shift fully, but enough to affect our eyes and fill the room with power to the point where not a single supernatural could mistake the threat we posed.

“Clear the fucking room,” I rumbled in a voice like thunder, and everyone seemed to burst into action all at once. Within seconds, the room was clear of everyone save four terrified-looking shifters.

“What is it that you want?” Baldy, the one who’d first spoken, demanded. His voice shook with fear, but I had to admire him for trying.

“Wolves, we presume?” Vali checked, and the man jerked his head in confirmation. “Why is it that I’m hearing rumors of werewolves in an underground Mexican fighting ring? You four are making no attempt to hide your species from the world. Why?”

The wolves exchanged nervous glances before another cocky little piece of shit spoke up. “Why should we? We’re the superior race. Humans aught to know that. Besides, a guy’s gotta earn a living, right?”

My knuckles cracked loudly in the now quiet room as I tightened my fist and tapped it into my other palm in a threatening manner. It was a move so overdone it was almost comical, but I really did want to pound this punk’s fucking face in.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Vali sneered at the stupid asshole before turning back to baldy, who seemed to be in charge. “What do you know of the Ban Dia?”

Baldy frowned. “They’re myth. Nothing more than bedtime stories for children. Why?”

Vali glanced at me, and I nodded. This was good; they didn’t seem to be lying. Hell, they didn’t seem smart enough for that. Which meant this may not have anything to do with my Vixen after all.

“Why are you suddenly showing yourselves to the world?” Vali demanded, changing tact and ignoring baldy’s question.

The man’s mouth twisted, and I saw him consider a stupid nothing answer like his buddy had given about needing to make a living. But we both knew that wasn’t the real reason, and baldy seemed just a fraction smarter than his friend.

“We were ordered to,” he finally ground out from behind gritted teeth. The other three wolves burst out of their seats in outrage, yelling at him to shut the fuck up, but he held up a hand to silence them. “Can it!” he yelled at them. “Use your fucking noses. These two assholes are ten times stronger than our Alpha. You really wanna fuck around here? I don’t!”

Turning back to Vali and I, he eyed us warily. “Orders came down from up top to start making humans aware of us. Start breeding some fear. Apparently someone has been meeting with all the higher ups, convincing them that a war is coming and it’s in our best interest to come out of hiding.” He shrugged, scratching his face. “That’s all we know.”

Fury clawed at my throat, and the room shifted into sharp focus as my eyes shifted to dragon. “Who?” I demanded, my voice threaded with the snarl of my dragon, and I watched the wolves pale with terror. “Who is behind this?”

Baldy held his hands up as if in surrender. “We don’t know, man. I swear. We’re just lower pack members doing what we’re told. I do know that a lot of the packs told him to screw off, ’cause only a few have been stirring up shit with the humans.”

Vali and I exchanged a glance, and I saw he too was on the edge of losing his shit. Since we’d changed, our tempers had become significantly more volatile. Something Vixen was now needing to deal with, too.

We needed to get out before the shift took hold completely.

“Take this,” Vali held out a wad of money to Baldy. “Disappear. Stop exposing your kind to humans; it will not end well.” The threat in his tone was clear, and the four wolves nodded their understanding frantically.

Allowing myself one last threatening growl at the wolves, I followed my brother out of the dingy poker room, through the fight crowd, and out into the night.

“What do you think?” he asked me once we were totally clear of the building that housed the fight club. “Omega?”

Fucking Omega. I flexed and clenched my fists again, wishing those stupid wolves had started a fight so I could have worked out my aggression.

“Possible. Could also be something to do with this doctor who took Vixen’s blood.” Either option wasn’t good though. “They want magic outed. Why?”

Vali sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face, not answering my question. “This is going to devastate Kit if it is her father doing this. It’s not looking good for him so far...”

Something about his tone made me pause and glance over at him. His brow was furrowed, and his shoulders were set with tension. The change in him since he’d joined us was noticeable. Where before, as Românul, he had always been impeccably dressed in suits and coats—much like River’s wardrobe choices, except with a much more deadly air about him—now he seemed almost... relaxed? Not right in this moment. But in general. He carried less tension in his face and had adopted the casual jeans and T-shirt look that I so often wore myself. Bastard really was my brother.

“You actually care about her, don’t you?” I asked grudgingly. I’d avoided asking anything about how he felt for Kit, not wanting to hear the answer. But I couldn’t stick my head in the sand forever.

Vali huffed a half-dragon noise, giving me a look like I was the most dense dipshit on the planet. “I’m fucking in love with her, asshole.”

My step faltered, and I sucked in a sharp breath. That answer was exactly what I’d been afraid of, but at the same time, exactly what I’d hoped to hear.

Fuck, I was a messed up piece of shit.

“But we have forever. No need to rush things, right?” My older brother shrugged, but the look in his eyes just seconds before he turned full dragon told me everything. He was holding back with Kit because of me.

Shit.

Kicking the dirt in anger, I stripped down and stuffed my clothes into the little bag we carried before turning dragon myself. It was a long-ass flight back to Ontario, and I had a lot to think about now.

Mostly... whether my brother and I had healed enough to handle sharing the woman we both loved.

20

KIT

A little chuckle vibrated through me as I peered out of the car window, passing the fancy Beverly Hills gallery where I’d stolen that god-awful ring which had led the guys to me. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago, but was little more than six months...

“What’s funny?” Caleb asked me, yawning and snuggling into my side. He’d returned home late again the night before, and we had needed to leave early to make our way down to Los Angeles for the meeting with Jonathan. He’d slept most of the way and was now tucked into the backseat of the seven-seat Audi that had been waiting for us at the private airfield.

His head rested on my shoulder, and one arm draped around my waist. On my other side, Austin’s hard thigh was pressed tight to mine, and I was practically hyperventilating just from being sandwiched between the two inhumanly handsome Mages.

Good thing I’ve learned to block my emotions, or this car ride would be a lot more awkward right now.

“Um, nothing,” I replied finally, shaking my head. “Just reminiscing on the last time I was here.”

Wesley, sharp as he was, turned in his seat to raise his eyebrows at me. He knew what I meant. The last time I was here was what ultimately had brought us all together.

“We’re here,” Cole announced, pulling in to the valet area of the The London Hotel in West Hollywood.

Vali groaned and cracked his neck. “Thank fucking goodness. I am about to claw someone for a shower.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He and Cole had gone out two nights prior to follow up on some lead Vali had found through his connections, and they’d gotten back yesterday looking exhausted. They’d picked up some useful info about shifters actively trying to expose magic though, so it had been a worthwhile trip for them. Even if they looked like they’d flown halfway to Europe and back.

“What time are we meeting him?” I asked for maybe the twentieth time, but the guys indulged me. Not even Austin snapped at me to stop asking the same question.

“Seven tonight,” River responded. “You have some time before we need to go.”

It had already been decided that all my guys wouldn’t be coming with me. We had demanded Jonathan not come with any more than two agents, and he required the same of me, so Cole and River were my escorts. With Wesley on comms too, of course. Weary or not…

Chewing my lip, I nodded and waited for Austin to get out so I could follow. Cole tossed the keys to the valet, and I watched the bellboy unloading our bags from the trunk.

“You okay, Kitty Kat?” Caleb asked me while yawning and stretching as he, too, got out of the car.

I nodded. “Yeah, I think I might just spend a bit of time meditating or some shit until I need to get ready for dinner.” Wesley held out a magnetic key card to me, having just returned from the check-in desk where he’d collected them all.

Cole wrapped me in a tight hug, lifting my feet from the ground. “Call us if you need help, Vixen.”

“Of course.” I smiled tightly and kissed him quickly before he set me back on my feet. According to the little cardboard wallet my key was tucked into, my room was 612, so I waved it at him to see. “Six-twelve,” I told him. “But I’ll be fine. We’ll get there.”

Or I sure hoped I would.

My meditating was the newest idea we’d come up with in an effort for me to control the conflicting and sometimes seriously overwhelming magic swirling inside me. My temper had been running seriously hot, and while I had full control of my Ink Magic, the dragon magic was like trying to handle electricity or something.

The theory was, thanks to Wesley’s intuition, that the various brands of magic were just dueling it out at the moment, fighting for dominance within my core. Meditating did seem to help with my temper, which in turn helped with my control. But to say I wasn’t freaking halfway out over it would be a lie.

Waving my hand to the rest of the guys, telling them that I was fine, I made my way inside and up to my room, leaving them to sort out bags and all that crap.

Once inside, I kicked off my shoes and settled cross-legged in the middle of the king-sized bed. The room was lovely, but it wouldn’t have mattered to me if we’d stayed in a Motel 6. We were here for one thing only. Meet with Jonathan and hear what possible reason he might have for trying to kill us all on more than one occasion.

My lids dropped shut, and I took some long, even breaths to find my center. There was no mistaking it when I did find it, and it was becoming easier every day to tap into that burning ball of power there. Except now it wasn’t the colorless light it had been when I’d first located it.

Now it swirled with threads of light from each of my bonded guardians–Austin, Cole, and Vali. They made up only a fraction of my own light, but there was enough to cause friction.

Time passed, I didn’t know how much, while I stayed there inside my own consciousness trying to unravel the threads of the guys’ magics, trying to separate them from each other and prevent the flare-ups that seemed to happen anytime those threads crossed one another.

I had no idea if it was the right thing to do. Maybe I should have been trying to squish them all together? There wasn’t exactly an instruction manual on how to handle your dianoch’s borrowed magic, For Ban Dia Dummies.

The sound of my door opening was what jolted me from my meditation, and I reacted on instinct, hurling a ball of fire at whoever was coming through the door.

“Good session, then?” Vali asked me in a dry tone as he deftly caught my fireball and extinguished it before I could burn the whole damn hotel down.

A huge, pent-up breath gusted out of me, and I dropped my face into my hands, cringing.

What if that had been housekeeping or something? Fucking hell, Kit, get a damn grip! You could have killed someone!

“I’m sorry,” I groaned, looking up as Vali perched on the edge of my bed and placed a box between us. “I am trying. You just gave me a fright, and I...”

“Reacted,” he finished for me, nodding. “No need to apologize to me, Regina mea. I know all too well how hard this must be for you. Also, we forgot to mention we had an extra key to your room. Paranoia, you know?”

Chewing my lip I nodded. “What time is it?”

“Six,” he replied, and my eyebrows shot up. I’d been meditating for over two hours! No wonder my back was so stiff. “I bought you something.” He pushed the box toward me, and I eyed it curiously.

“Why?” I inquired, running my fingertip over the expensive-looking silk bow tied around the box.

He shrugged, but looked sly. “We all missed your birthday and Christmas. While I know they were a while ago, I have been meaning to get you something anyway. When I went out for a walk earlier, I saw the perfect thing and had to buy it.”

Curious, I tugged the bow undone and carefully unstuck the Scotch tape on the white wrapping paper. It was a weird thing of mine that I hated tearing wrapping paper. Once the paper was removed, it wasn’t hard to recognize the familiar red box with white writing on it.

“Vali,” I gasped, looking up at him with a grin. “You bought me Louboutins?”

“I did,” he confirmed. “You seem to have a liking for them, and when I saw these, I knew you had to have them.”

Opening the box, I saw what he meant. They were perfect.

Black leather with a peep toe and signature red sole, these pumps also had a gold zipper running down the back of the four-inch heel. They were without a doubt sexy as hell and the perfect present from Vali.

“I flove them,” I gushed, then realized I’d mashed my words together. “I mean, I fucking love them. Thank you.”

Moving them to the side, I scooted closer to Vali and kissed him gently. To my surprise, he didn’t try to push the kiss any further than the thank you I’d started it with and quickly pulled back with a tight smile.

“You’re most welcome Regina mea. But you’d better get dressed, as River and Cole will be getting anxious. The twins have already been to the restaurant ahead of time and scouted it, so you’re all set.” His thumb stroked across my cheekbone, and he made no attempt to hide the scorching hot lust in his eyes, which was reassuring. For a split second, when he hadn’t engaged in that kiss, I’d worried he’d lost interest.

“Still working on Cole, huh?” I murmured, not bothering to ignore the elephant in the room.

Vali sighed, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. “We are making progress, I think.”

My lips pursed, but I didn’t say any more. It was up to them to sort their shit out, and my interference was not going to help, no matter how badly I wanted to move things along with this sexy-as-sin Romanian.

He stood from my bed and dropped a chaste kiss against my hair. “Stay safe tonight, my queen.”

I watched him leave the room, then stroked a loving finger over my new shoes again. They were the perfect thing to wear with tonight’s outfit too.

Hopping off my bed, I stretched, unkinking my spine and rolling my stiff shoulders before hurrying to get ready. While we wanted Jonathan to get there first, it wouldn’t do to be too late and make him think we’d changed our minds.

Despite the gnawing anxiety in my belly about what tonight might bring, I really did want to hear him out. Foolishly, I supposed, I was clinging to the thread of hope that there was a good reason for everything he’d done. That he hadn’t tried to kill us, and that he wasn’t using me like a fucking weapon to further his own agenda.

Slim chance, I know. But a chance, nonetheless.

21

The restaurant we had arranged to meet at was really only a five minute drive from our hotel, but we took a roundabout route to get there, as one can never be too careful when dealing with spies and magic. By the time we arrived, we were almost half an hour late already, and my palms were sweating like crazy.

“Deep breath, Kitten,” River advised me, placing a comforting hand on my knee as we pulled into the valet in front of the restaurant. He’d hired a swanky black Maserati and was dressed in his usual impeccable suit. He was unbelievably sexy, but I was too far gone inside my head with worry to fully appreciate the view.

Cole had arrived separately on a motorcycle so that we would have two options for a getaway vehicle if we needed it. I could already see him waiting for us near the entrance, decked out in his faded black jeans, motorcycle boots, and dark gray T-shirt with a leather jacket over the top. Seeing him dressed like that broke me from my anxiety briefly. It was such a fuck you to the ritzy restaurant, and it was so Cole.

“You good, love?” River asked, tipping my face gently toward him with a fingertip under my chin. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m fine,” I reassured him. “Just... nervous, I guess. Let’s just get in there and rip the Band-Aid off.”

River held my gaze with his steady golden eyes for a moment longer before nodding tightly and getting out of the car. I took the extra moment as he came around to open my door to suck in another deep breath.

You can do this, Kit. You’re tougher than this. Just listen, keep your cool, and don’t blow anything up. You can do this.

My door clicked open, and I swung my legs out, taking River’s warm hand with my own to stand from the low car seat. My dress and stiletto heels didn’t make it an easy task to get out of a Maserati, but I was no novice.

“Vixen,” Cole greeted me when we reached him under the ivy-covered entrance way. “You look fucking unbelievable.”

A laugh cracked through my panic, and I gave him a grin. “Thanks, Cutie. You look hot yourself. You both do.” For a brief moment I ran my gaze over the two of them appreciatively and considered what I might do with them both later as a reward for this shit show with my adoptive dad.

“Shall we?” River prompted, trailing a light hand down my back and making me shiver as I took the lead and stepped inside the restaurant. The dress I was wearing was one of my favorites, and as I’d dressed at the hotel, I’d realized how much I missed getting dressed up for Fox missions.

The soft black fabric with intricate geometric panels of sheer black mesh that made up my cocktail dress felt like armor. It hugged my curves beautifully all the way to the knee, with a tasteful split at the back making it possible to move. The neckline was plunging, and before we’d gotten into River’s borrowed car, he had given me a black velvet choker necklace that matched the whole outfit perfectly.

A gift, he’d told me, for missing my birthday. Evidently Vali’s little trip into the Louboutin store had not gone unnoticed. The choker was exquisite too, encrusted with black diamonds and weighing heavily enough that when I moved it felt like a firm hand around my neck.

“There he is,” I breathed, spotting my adopted father across the room instantly. He was alone at the table, but I easily picked his two agents out as they hovered nearby like vultures waiting to feast on a carcass. They weren’t anyone I recognized from Omega Headquarters, but I knew full well how massive the organization was, so that didn’t shock me.

What did shock me was how awful Jonathan looked.

He’d always been a distinguished gentleman, with salt-and-pepper hair and immaculate grooming, but now he looked old. Like he’d just aged ten years in the past three weeks since River and I had overheard his damning phone call.

“Jonathan,” I greeted him in a cool voice as we reached the table he sat at. He stood politely but made no move to hug me or anything. Not that we’d had that sort of relationship to begin with, but the air between us crackled with tension until I took my seat.

Both Cole and River joined us at the table, and Jonathan gave them a pointed look.

“They’re staying,” I snapped, already pissed the hell off that he expected them to wait with his agents. “What you did concerns them just as much as it does me.”

Jonathan gave me a defeated look and sighed heavily. “Fine.” He waved a hand to the waiter to bring more settings, as the table was only set for two.

“Would you like to order?” he offered, indicating to the menu in front of me, and my stomach lurched. I doubted I could keep food down if I tried.

“We’ll just get drinks for now,” River answered for me, “until we see if this is worth sticking around for.”

My dad’s mouth tightened and his nostrils flared, and I waited for him to put River in his place. But he must have already realized his status as Director Pierre, owner and founder of the Omega Group, meant nothing here. We were not subject to his authority, so to try and assert it would be nothing but a waste of breath.

Or... that’s what I hoped he had realized as he made a clear decision to keep quiet and let my Alpha order us a bottle of wine.

No one spoke while the waiter hurried away and then returned with the bottle River had selected. He opened it, then poured a small drop for River to taste, but my British lover simply waved a hand to say it was fine.

After what felt like the slowest pour of wine I had ever seen in my life, the waiter left the bottle with us and disappeared once more.

“Kit—” Jonathan started, but I cut him off.

“Jonathan, I am about two seconds away from snapping and telling you to go burn in hell,” I told him, my throat tight with tension. “So think really fucking carefully before you lie to me.”

“Kit,” he sighed, his shoulders drooping. “I wouldn’t lie to you.” I snorted, and he corrected, “I mean, I wouldn’t lie to you now. Clearly I have already done so in the past.”

“Clearly,” Cole muttered, and Jonathan speared him with a withering glare.

“Let me start,” Jonathan continued, turning his wrinkled eyes back to me, “by saying that it is not what it must seem like from where you’re standing. I made some mistakes in hiding my agenda from you, Kit, and for that I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”

“You’re sorry you got caught?” I frowned. “This is not a great start, J-dog. I have to be honest. I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I tried to have you all killed. Twice.’”

“I didn’t try to have you all killed,” he retorted, his mouth tight with frustration. “I knew you needed a little bit more motivation to figure out your healing powers, and after seeing it work on Dragomir, it was clear what was required to have you choose and change your guardians.”

“Right,” I snapped, taking a sip of my wine with a shaking hand. “So you’re admitting to being behind the car bomb and the crash in Seattle?”

“You already asked this, Kit, and I already admitted it.” Jonathan sighed, giving me that look that parents give their kids when they’re being facetious. That look made me furious.

“And Vali?” I asked. “You deliberately fucked around and didn’t fetch help, just on the hope that I’d work out how to heal someone?” He gave a short, sharp nod, and I needed to put my wine glass down before it broke under my clenching fingers. “What if I hadn’t been able to do it? No other Ban Dia in four hundred years has been able to heal others. What made you so sure I could?”

Jonathan shrugged a bit helplessly. “You’re different.”

My jaw dropped at his watery reasoning. “If you’d been wrong, Vali would have died.”

“I wasn’t wrong.” He met my furious glare without remorse. “Don’t look at me like that, Kit. Like I’m some sort of psychopath. What I am doing is for your own good. For everyone’s good. You need to be a little less selfish, my girl, and think about the bigger picture in all of this.”

If it were even possible, my jaw dropped further.

Selfish? Is he fucking kidding me right now?

Sucking in a breath, I opened my mouth to launch a screaming tirade on him and the sheer audacity he had to sit there and call me selfish. After everything he’d done. But my words were swallowed when Wesley’s voice sounded in my earpiece.

“Kit, get the hell out of there. Now.” His warning was heard by River and Cole too, on their own earpieces, and I shot a panicked look at them both.

“Excuse us,” River said smoothly to Jonathan, standing and taking me by the elbow. “We just need to discuss something in private.”

My dad frowned and started to object, but River and Cole were already hustling me through the crowded restaurant and toward the kitchen.

“You have maybe two minutes,” Wesley warned. “There are five or six cars converging on your location.”

Fury burned hot in my blood, and I wanted nothing more than to stand and fight. Show these fuckers what I was really made of. But the restaurant was full of humans, and we were in the middle of a busy tourist location. We couldn’t take that risk unless there were no other options.

“Why would he do this?” I choked out, jogging in my high heels to keep up with the guys as they tugged me through the busy kitchen, ignoring the outraged yells of chefs, and out the back door into an alleyway where Cole had parked his motorcycle. “Why would Jonathan set me up? We agreed this was an amicable meeting.”

“He’s desperate,” Cole growled back. “But that won’t save him if I get my hands on him now.”

“Doesn’t matter, get on the bike and go,” River ordered. “Don’t let them catch you, love. No matter what it takes.”

Cole threw a leg over his bike and kicked the engine over as River gripped me by the waist and lifted me onto the seat behind Cole. I’d chosen this dress specifically for the split, allowing for a little more freedom of movement, but even so, it rode up high, leaving my legs exposed as they wrapped around Cole’s denim-clad thighs.

“No matter what,” River repeated, kissing me quickly even as Cole gunned the bike and we tore out of the alleyway. River would be getting his car from the valet now and hopefully leading at least a few of our enemies off our trail.

“Shit,” Wesley’s voice sounded in both our earpieces as Cole pulled us out into the traffic of Sunset Boulevard. “There were more that I didn’t catch on my cameras. You’ve got some on your tail already, but River should be able to confuse the ones arriving now.”

“Got it,” I replied, and Cole gave a small nod to show me he’d heard also. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, and sure enough, two motorcycles carrying black-clad riders had pulled out into the street from the alley opposite the restaurant.

Hands gripping tight to Cole’s waist, I held on as he gunned the engine of his bike, weaving expertly between slow-moving traffic and far exceeding the speed limit. Who the hell cared for speed limits during a car chase, though? Or... bike chase as was the case here.

“I have two SUVs on me,” River advised over our earpieces.

“We have two bikes,” I replied in a tight voice. The sting of betrayal from Jonathan again was sitting in my throat like a stone.

“And an SUV,” Cole added, and I saw what he had just seen. A blacked-out SUV had just pulled out from a side street, and we’d narrowly missed clipping them as we passed. Had we not been already in a high-speed chase, it could have been a coincidence, but the blank licence plates were a dead giveaway. As was the fact that they quickly sped up to match our pace as we got clear of the traffic and onto a highway.

My long hair whipped around me as we flew through the night, and I cursed myself for not thinking to braid it back or something. As I lifted a hand to push it out of my eyes, I caught sight of one of our pursuers pulling closer to us.

It was one of the bikes, and in his hand, he held a sleek black pistol.

“Shit,” I swore, reaching around Cole’s waist a little more and withdrawing his own gun from the holster under his arm.

“Fucking seriously?” he yelled back to me, sounding as shocked as I was feeling.

“It sure as shit doesn’t look like a tranq gun from here,” I shouted back to him, shifting in my seat to try and get a better look at the gun which the black-clad man was trying to level at us while also controlling his speeding bike.

A shot fired, missing us completely, but it confirmed my suspicion. “Tranq darts are usually a whole lot quieter than that.”

“Fuck!” Cole roared, gunning his bike faster.

“They’re shooting at you, Kit?” Wesley’s panicked voice came down the earpiece. “That doesn’t make sense! They need you alive, don’t they?”

“Apparently not,” I snarled, leaning with Cole as we took a corner sharply, the pavement scant inches from the bare skin of my leg before we righted again. Another shot cracked through the night, but missed us again as we wove around some slow-moving cars.

Cole was being smart, taking us out of the city and reducing the risk of bystanders getting caught in the cross fire, but there were still a lot of innocent people out on these roads that I’d really rather not get shot by bullets intended for me.

“Maybe they’re something else?” Wesley was thinking out loud, so I didn’t bother replying as I flicked the safety off Cole’s gun one-handed and turned in my seat to return fire. “Like, a new kind of paralyzing bullet or something? Ones that can be used in a normal hand gun? I can’t fathom Director Pierre trying to actually kill you!”

“Sure seems like that’s happening,” I growled, shutting down all the hurt and pain of my dad setting me up. Using the same technique for locking my emotions from the guys, I locked them from myself too. There was a time and a place for having a breakdown, and on the back of a speeding motorcycle while being shot at wasn’t it.

“Don’t take any chances,” River’s voice advised over the earpiece.

Exactly my thoughts.

There was no way I was taking any chances. Tranq darts or paralyzing bullets would actually be worse than real bullets—family betrayal aside—because they would allow Cole and I to be taken. That could never happen. Not again. My kidnapping days were done.

Another shot rang out, and this time we weren’t quick enough to avoid it.

“Yep,” I coughed, gritting my teeth against the cold shock of pain where the bullet had gouged a deep furrow in my arm. “Definitely bullets.”

Twisting in my seat, I fired back. Both bikes were now close on our heels, and I had a lucky score when one of my bullets found its mark in the chest of one biker. He careened out of control, crashing into the concrete wall running alongside the highway we were on.

When his bike hit, he flew clear over the handlebars and disappeared from view.

“One down,” I gritted, and Cole glanced over his shoulder at me.

“You doing okay, Vixen?” he asked, his voice thick with concern.

Clasping his gun tightly so as not to drop it, I closed my eyes briefly and let my magic heal the wound on my upper arm. I’d need to be careful, though, how much magic I was using now. Just in case I would need more later.

“Yup, peachy,” I replied. “One bike and one car left.” As I said this, another round of shots cracked through the night, and one lodged itself in my side.

Fuck. That hurt like a bitch.

Some things, I was sure, were impossible to get used to. Getting shot was one of those things for me.

Grinding my teeth together so hard I could have sworn they were about to break, I kept myself from making any noise. Telling Cole, or really any of the guys, wasn’t going to help us right now. It’d only distract them, which was unnecessary. I couldn’t be killed by normal bullets, only weakened.

When I tried to twist to return fire again, I found two things. One, I couldn’t twist thanks to the new wound in my side. Two, I was out of ammo.

“Fuck,” I snarled. I knew Cole probably had spare ammo on him, but that was going to require more hands than I currently had available. Reaching around him, I tucked the now useless gun back into his holster and summoned my magic instead.

Whatever it takes. No one is taking me tonight.

Forming a ball of blue ice-flame, the fire specific to Cole’s dragon, I hurled it back at the SUV following us, hoping it would disable the vehicle.

Shit. Missed.

“Vixen,” Cole yelled to me, grabbing my attention, “give me your hand.” He took one hand from his handle bars and snatched my opposite hand from across his body.

“I’m pulling you through,” he warned, then used a combination of dragon strength and some seriously impressive driving to haul me around his body so that I sat straddling the bike in front of him, my legs draped over his thighs.

Better still, now I could see my targets.

“Fuck them up, Vixen,” he rumbled, replacing his hands on the handlebars and keeping his eyes on the road. His job was to keep us alive and get us free of our tails. Mine was to deter, delay, or destroy them. Whatever it took to ensure our freedom.

“My pleasure.” I grinned, gripping him tightly with my legs while forming another ball of flame and lobbing it at the SUV speeding behind us. We were on the road heading up to the Hollywood Hills, and there were thankfully no other cars around to see what happened when that burning ball of ice-flame hit the hood of the black Escalade.

Blue flame spread across the front of the car like wildfire, clinging to it in the way only magical fire ever could. Within seconds it had penetrated the engine, and the whole front of the SUV exploded. Shards of ice-covered machinery rained down, but we were already gone, speeding up the inclining road which would take us into the hills.

A stinging itch alerted me to my body pushing the bullet out of my side, but I could still feel blood flowing freely from the wound. It would heal over in a few more minutes; I wasn’t concerned about that. But I could feel a slight weakening from the combination of healing and magical grenades.

“One left,” I told Cole, watching as the remaining biker followed at a safer distance than what I’d nailed his buddies at.

Waiting, I formed another ball of flame. This one was made of Vali’s dragon fire and burned a blinding orange-red in my palm. Creating and throwing fireballs had been one of the first—and only—dragon skills I had mastered since we’d bonded, and it was seriously coming in handy.

The biker sped up, getting closer and aiming his gun at us, so I threw my fire at him. It missed, but so did he. His shot smacked into a tree by the side of the road, sending a shower of wood chips flying out as we sped past it at breakneck speed. Frustration clenched my jaw tight, but I forced myself to remain calm.

Patience, Kit. Deep breaths. Try again.

Holding my palm out and slightly behind Cole—so as not to blind him—I formed another fireball and bided my time. Waiting. My magic was not limitless, so it wasn’t in my best interest to be lobbing magic off left, right, and center and burning out before dealing with this fuckwit following us.

Rounding a corner, he came close once more, and I threw my fire, missing him again.

This guy had the reflexes of, well, of a dragon.

Deep breath. Try again. My fire reformed, and my side ached.

This time when the biker came close, I waited just a little longer. He was aiming his gun at us, but I wanted him closer to ensure I’d hit him this time.

The man squeezed off a shot right at the same moment that my fireball hit him, engulfing him in flames and incinerating him before his bike skidded to a stop against a tree beside the road.

Unfortunately, he had pretty good aim, and his shot burrowed a deep gash in my outer thigh where it was wrapped around Cole’s waist.

“Shit,” I hissed, feeling the burning pain and tensing up.

“Damn it, Vixen,” Cole growled, glancing down and seeing the bright red of my blood against the pale white of my skin.

“It wasn’t intentional,” I sulked, wrapping my arms around him to hold on, seeing as our pursuers were handled.

“Let me get a little further into the hills before we stop,” Cole told me, pressing a quick kiss to my neck, “just in case there was anyone else following.”

“Got it,” I nodded, clinging to his front like a spider monkey. Sitting on the front of a bike was far from comfortable, but given I was halfway into Cole’s lap, it wasn’t the worst place in the world to be. “It was just a flesh wound, anyway. I’ll be healed by the time we stop.”

“Just a flesh wound,” Cole snorted, not easing off his speed at all as we tore through the dark and winding roads which would carry us further into the hills and away from innocent bystanders.

We continued for a few minutes more before Cole finally slowed and then pulled into a little lookout. There was one other car parked in there, but as we turned off the road, they were just leaving, which meant we had total privacy.

Cole parked the bike overlooking the twinkling city lights and killed the engine before seizing my face between his huge hands and kissing me like I was oxygen and he was drowning.

“That was too close, Vixen,” he rumbled when he eventually freed me, and I leaned my forehead against his. Panting, I licked my lips and tried to make my brain focus on his words.

“Wasn’t close at all, Cutie,” I teased. “I had that totally under control.”

Liar, liar pants on fire, Kit.

My heart rate was thundering a million miles an hour, and I was lightheaded—from the magic used or from the adrenaline of the chase, I wasn’t totally sure. What I did know was that the magic zapping between Cole and I wherever our skin touched was pure ecstasy.

“Vixen,” he warned, as my hands trailed under his leather jacket and pushed it down off his shoulders. “We don’t know for sure how safe it is out here. We should get back to the rendezvous point before—”

“Can’t,” I sighed, teasing my hands under his dark gray T-shirt and pulling it off him without any resistance. “I used too much magic just now. I can’t relocate us until I refuel.”

The plan, worked out with the guys in advance, was that if something like this happened and we ended up separated, then I would use the same Ink Magic spell I’d accidentally performed on our way to the lake house in order to relocate us to a meeting point. Trouble was, as I’d learned in practice with Austin, relocating two people and a motorbike took a whole lot of juice. Juice I just didn’t have enough of left.

“How many times did you get shot?” Cole scowled at me, and I shrugged.

“Three. I think. But the one in my back was pretty deep, so it took a bit out of me.” I blinked up at him with my most innocent expression. “So I just need a tiny bit of a recharge before we can relocate.”

Cole cast a glance around us, checking that we were, indeed, alone, before cursing under his breath. “You, Vixen, are going to be the death of me, you know that?”

I snorted a laugh. “Except you’re immortal now.”

“Still,” he murmured running his broad hands down my sides until he reached the skirt of my dress, bunched up around my waist. “I might die of stress.”

Chuckling at his melodrama, I tugged his lips back to mine. Our mouths slanted together, and he kissed me deeply, his tongue caressing and tangling with mine in such a possessive way that it sent ripples of pleasure shooting through me.

Cole’s hands pushed my dress up further, exposing my black lace thong and trailing his fingers over the thin fabric. It wasn’t worth breaking our kiss to tell him not to tear my panties again; he was going to do it regardless. Instead, I just hitched a gasp as the fabric tore from my body, then moaned as his rough fingers met my heated flesh.

“Shit yes,” I groaned, arching my hips forward to meet his hand as he circled my clit with his thumb and sank two fingers deep inside me.

We were both still straddling the bike, but with my legs wrapped around Cole’s waist, it was no hard task to unbuckle his belt and free his rock-hard erection from his jeans, palming it and stroking firmly.

“Quick recharge, right Vixen?” he murmured in my ear, his smoky voice low enough to set my toes curling. His lips tugged at my earlobe, and I whimpered my agreement.

He pushed me back slightly, then hauled my ass closer so that I was half reclining against the handlebars with my naked, throbbing core pressed flush against his rigid cock.

Not needing any further encouragement from me, Cole grasped his shaft in one hand, guiding it to my opening, then pushing with a savage thrust. My walls were tight, meaning he only made it halfway in before needing to pull back out and go again, this time sheathing himself to the hilt and sending shockwaves of pleasure zapping through me where we were joined.

Moaning and thrashing, my fingernails clawed at Cole’s strong forearms as he gripped me by the ass and held me spread across the front of his motorbike while he fucked me hard and fast. Exactly how I wanted it.

The adrenaline from the chase had already left me lightheaded, my heart racing, and the exquisite feeling of being stretched had my toes curling in my sexy new Louboutin’s, which had somehow managed to stay on my feet throughout that high-speed chase.

“Uh yes. Fuck me, Cutie,” I groaned, and he cracked a genuine grin.

“Really, Vixen? Still with the nickname?” His breathing was elevated as he gripped my ass in his huge hands, pulling and pushing with his own thrusts that were fast sending me into a damn frenzy.

“Shh.” I silenced him by reaching up and clinging to his strong neck, sealing my lips to his in a kiss hard enough to rival the motion of his cock in my cunt.

Our tongues met in a battle for dominance, and my hand slipped down between us to rub at my swollen, sensitive clit.

Within moments, I was coming.

My head tilted back, and I cried out with my climax, feeling Cole’s mouth latch onto my neck as he increased his pace then joined me in orgasm. His teeth bit down on the bend of my neck below River’s black diamond choker, and it seemed to almost prolong my unravelling.

By the time the stars had cleared from my vision and my breathing lowered to a more manageable pant, I’d completely lost track of the time.

Grabbing Cole’s thick wrist, I turned his watch toward me then cursed.

“Shit, it’s really late. The others are going to be worried.” I groaned, sliding off the bike and balancing like a baby deer in stilettos while I tugged my dress back down and regained strength in my legs. There wasn’t much to be done about cleaning up, thanks to Cole destroying yet another pair of panties.

“Uh,” he grunted, tucking himself back into his jeans, then locating his shirt. “I think they know.” He tapped at his earpiece, and I paused.

Crap. I totally forgot we were wearing comms.

“Yep,” Wesley’s voice sounded embarrassed even through the little piece of tech, and I jumped. “See you back here soon, sweetheart. Let me know if you run into any trouble, okay?”

“Will do,” I replied in a strangled sort of tone, pressing my hands to my cheeks and feeling how flushed they were.

“Sorry,” Cole murmured, tugging me close and wrapping his arms around me. “I thought you remembered and just didn’t care.”

I let him hug me for a moment, pressing my face to his warm chest and inhaling his campfire smell before pulling back and wrinkling my nose. “Nope, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s get moving before anyone finds us here and connects us to the debris on the road.”

Cole nodded his agreement, lifting me back onto his bike and then swinging a leg over himself. “Here.” He passed me the folded map from his jacket pocket, along with a gold marker pen. I’d noticed Austin had a fondness for gold ink, but when I’d questioned him on it, he’d just shrugged and said it looked more magical than black or blue.

Strange man.

“Thanks,” I murmured, unfolding the map against Cole’s back and locating our destination. “Ready when you are.”

Cole revved the bike’s engine, turning the bike back to the road as I yanked the pen cap off with my teeth. He pulled out onto the road at a moderate pace, which meant that when I used the gold marker to ink a dot onto our destination and imbue it with the magic of my will, then we were still going a moderate pace when we popped out in the quiet back alley behind our new hotel.

It had been discussed and decided on earlier that if anything went wrong, then we were expected to get the hell out of dodge, thereby making our new hotel the last place anyone would be looking for us.

The Four Seasons Beverley Hills was only mere streets away from the restaurant we’d met Jonathan at. Caleb, Austin, and Vali had moved all our stuff over while the rest of us had been busy meeting my snake-in-the-grass adoptive father and getting shot at.

“Made it,” Cole announced over our earpiece. “Pulling into the parking garage now.”

“Copy that,” Wesley replied.

“River, did you make it okay?” I asked, suddenly realizing I hadn’t heard an update from him since we’d left the restaurant.

“Fine and dandy, love. Come on up to the room, and we can debrief.” River’s velvet-smooth British accent soothed me, and I let out a sigh of relief. Those assholes hadn’t been dicking around, and River was still human.

Cole pulled our bike into a parking spot in the underground garage, then lifted me off with strong hands around my waist.

“You did well tonight, Vixen,” he told me, taking my hand in his as we made our way to the elevators. “I don’t know what the hell Pierre was playing at, but it didn’t work for him. You’re still safe, and that is the only thing that matters.”

His words were fierce as we stepped into the elevator box and he turned to face me, cupping my cheek in his palm.

“It’s not the only thing, Cutie,” I corrected him with a small smile. “But you did good too. Thanks for not crashing us into anything.”

He snorted a small laugh, then kissed me gently. “I love you, Vixen. But people have got to stop trying to kill you, or my dragon will lose his shit soon. He’s a moody bastard, you know?”

A wide grin split my lips. “Uh-huh. Your dragon is.”

Cole growled low in his throat and kissed me again, this time slower, more indulgently, and when the elevator dinged that we’d reached our floor, I was breathless and shaking.

We were silent as we walked hand in hand down the long hallway, and I found myself musing on why Jonathan had tried to have me killed. Something didn’t add up, and I intended to figure out what it was.

22

CALEB

My stomach lurched with the familiar sensation of teleportation as my feet hit the grass of Bridget’s backyard. She had enough runes around the house itself that I couldn’t port myself inside, and this was the only place the neighbors wouldn’t see me appearing from thin air.

Why she’d chosen to rent a cookie-cutter, upper middle-class house in the middle of surburbia, I had no idea. She didn’t tend to answer my questions unless they were specifically related to my lessons. Bit of a hypocrite, really, given how many questions she had for me.

“You’re late.” The petite redhead scowled at me as I entered her house via the sliding door to the kitchen. “You were due an hour ago, Caleb. Do you not take these lessons seriously?”

Trying really damn hard not to roll my eyes, I gave her a tight, forced smile of apology. “Sorry, Bridget. I was helping Kit with some things.” I left it vague. She didn’t need to know the specifics of what was going on in her daughter’s life. She’d lost that right when she abandoned Kit as a seven-year-old with no memories. Sure, she’d helped lately, and I was grateful and all, but… She seemed to have an uncanny ability to spot a lie, so I was careful to always tell the truth. Just... a brief and vague truth.

“Helping her with what?” Bridget demanded, her light Irish accent thickening with her frustration. “If you would just tell me what is going on that has you constantly late for these lessons, then maybe I could help. I am her mother, after all.”

I must have been more tired than I thought, because I snorted in disgust. Usually I was careful to keep my contempt for Bridget under wraps. After all, I did need her help. Or... I had needed it. My control over the blood lust had come a really long way, and I was starting to think I’d be okay without her. Being free of lying to Kit by omission would be an added bonus too.

“What? You doubt that I am her mother?” Bridget snapped, her eyes widening with fury, and I scrubbed a tired hand over my face.

“No,” I sighed. “I have no doubt that you’re her biological mother. That is pretty damn obvious.” The resemblance between them was striking. When we’d first met, I would have said they were identical, but having spent the better part of a month training with Bridget on a nightly basis, I could see the differences.

Bridget was shorter than Kit and more slight. Her eyes were several shades darker than my Kitty Kat’s ice-blue, and her hair was more auburn than the copper-red of my girl. Most of all, Bridget’s eyes were hard and cruel.

“I see,” she sniffed in anger. “You’re judging me for the actions I took in giving Christina up for adoption.”

My brows shot up. This was the closest we’d ever come to actually discussing her choice to abandon her daughter. Most of the time our lessons were strictly magical, with the occasional prying question about Kit’s powers, her dianoch, our relationships... all things I’d deftly avoided answering with any substance.

It was bad enough that I was meeting Bridget behind Kit’s back; I’d be damned if I gave away any personal information to her as well.

“Uh, I’m not judging.” I shrugged, even though I already had judged her for it. “Just pointing out the facts. You might have given birth to her, but you are not her mother. No mother would have left her daughter on the streets with no memories. Did you care at all what would happen to her after that? Did you even give a shit that she was tortured and abused for years thanks to your selfish decision?”

Okay, so I was getting worked up and probably giving her far too much information. But her indignation that I had scoffed at her being Kit’s mother was pushing all my buttons.

“I...” Bridget started to respond, but seemed at a loss for words. It was only temporary though, as her cheeks heated with anger, and she scowled at me. “I will have you know, Caleb, that what I did was for her own good!”

“Her own good?” I snorted. “Sure. You keep telling yourself that. I think maybe we’re done with these lessons.” I made as if to leave the room, but she stopped me.

“Wait!” she yelled, and I paused. “Let me explain my side of things. If you still want to be done, then that’s your choice, but at least hear me out so that Christina might understand I’m not such a bad person.”

Suspicion rode heavy in my gaze as I turned slowly back to her. As much as I wanted to tell her to shove off and then never step foot in this house again, I also wanted to hear what possible explanation she had for dropping her daughter onto the streets and never looking back.

“You have five minutes.” I decided. “Make it good.”

“Thank you,” she gushed, flipping her dark red hair over her shoulder. “Sit, please. I had just made us some tea.”

“No.” I waved off her offer of tea but took the seat offered. “Just say what you need to.”

Bridget’s lips pursed tightly, but she said nothing more as she poured her own cup of tea and took the wicker armchair opposite me. My time spent here learning from her had taught me how much she was a stickler for hospitality, and me refusing her tea must have pushed some buttons.

“As you know, I departed Christina’s life when she was just seven years old. Until then, I had raised her myself, as any loving mother would do.” I curled my lip in disgust, and her glare sharpened on me. “I don’t know how much you fully understand about Ban Dia, but we can only procreate after we turn three hundred years old. Well, my dianoch and I were all very much in love, and when Christina was born, we were overjoyed. She was so perfect, even though she showed no signs of being my true descendant. Ban Dia can only ever produce one Ban Dia offspring, you see. All other children are simply other types of normal supernaturals, depending on their father’s lineage.”

This was not new information for me, as Vic had touched on it briefly already. He’d had a bit of a different spin on it... but what Bridget was saying made sense so far.

“Well, as I am sure you have encountered yourself, there are plenty of people who would love to get their hands on a full-blooded Ban Dia for their own selfish means. A lot of groups are convinced that the Ban Dia race will bring the salvation of the supernatural kinds, especially those that are dying out. They didn’t believe that we too were affected by the plague and lack the magic necessary to heal those who were magically castrated.” Her lips twisted in hurt and anger, and I understood there was a long history with some of these groups she spoke of. She had been a resident at Blood Moon labs for over a hundred years, after all.

“Most of my kind have gone into hiding for their own safety, as had I. My guardians and I had escaped a horrific place and moved to Victor’s hometown in Alaska, but even there we weren’t safe. We went back on the run, and then I found out I was pregnant. I was simply terrified that my sweet baby would be targeted by these fanatics, and I did just everything I could to keep her safe, but eventually it just wasn’t enough.” She broke off with a sob, and I hesitated.

The tears pooling in her eyes seemed genuine, and her hands were shaking as she dabbed at them with a fabric napkin pulled from her sleeve. Could she really be telling the truth? That she’d given Kit up... to protect her?

“I can’t go into the details,” she sniffed. “It’s too painful. But after that night... I’d already almost lost one of my loves, Victor, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they got my little girl. I needed to separate from her, for her own good. It took some planning, but I eventually arranged for a trusted friend to take Christina in and raise her as a human. She had displayed none of the typical magic of a Ban Dia—nor of any other species—so we decided it was in her best interests to be brought up human.”

She paused to blow her nose delicately into her handkerchief, and I took a moment to run this new information over in my head. It was kind of understandable... I guessed. I’d witnessed first-hand how ruthless Kit’s enemies were and could hardly comprehend how hard it’d be to raise and protect a child amidst all of this. Especially if that child were human. Wouldn’t it be better not to expose them to this world? If the choice was there...

“So, what happened?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes at Bridget, “You say your trusted friend took Kit in, then how did she come to be found on the streets and then placed in foster care?”

Bridget covered her face for a moment, sobbing into her hands before pulling it together. “I didn’t know any of that until recently, when I tried to track her down. My friend fell ill, terminal with cancer, and got mixed up with mages and blood demons.”

My eyes widened with shock. “Vampires?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “She was hoping the demons would turn her so she didn’t have to die. She offered Christina as payment, thinking she was just a human child that they could put in their stables. Before the demons could shed her blood, a kind-hearted mage smuggled her out of the coven, wiped her memories of anything magical, and left her outside a police station to be found.”

My head felt like it was exploding with this new information, and my heart broke for little Kit. That poor girl had suffered enough in her life; it was probably a blessing that those memories had been erased.

“Why give her a different age?” I asked, trying to process Bridget’s story and test it for truth. “When she was found, she just knew her name and her age, thinking she was five. But she was seven, and apparently Christina wasn’t her name?”

Bridget shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I assume because the mage didn’t know her age? He would have just guessed. Christina was the name I gave her to start her new human life.”

“This is...” I gusted out a heavy sigh. “This is a lot to take in, and I still don’t know if I trust you to be telling the truth.”

“I know; I understand,” she accepted my answer with a forlorn nod and another fat tear rolled down her face. “But I just wanted you to understand. I can see how much you love my daughter, and I know you’ll be good to her. Maybe one day I can reconnect with her?”

She seemed so hopeful that I found myself nodding. “Maybe.”

“Will you tell me something now?” she suggested with a tentative smile. “Nothing that will break her trust; I know you’re too honorable for that. The confidentiality spell I required of you was a mistake on my part, and I can see how much you regret it.”

“That depends.” I frowned. “What do you want to know?”

Her eyes lit up, and I found myself disliking her a little less. If her story was the truth, then she’d been through some pretty hard times herself and maybe just needed a little bit of understanding and patience. To have given up her child at such a young age... I couldn’t fathom how hard it must have been for her.

“I just want to know what it is that she’s been struggling with lately. You’ve mentioned a couple of times that she’s having a hard patch, and if it’s to do with her magic, then perhaps there is something I can do to help?” Her eye contact with me was steady, open, and full of concern for her estranged child.

“Uh...” I chewed my lip. I believed her, against my better judgement, but my loyalty lay with Kit and it always would. Then again, if there really was something she could do to help Kit with the struggle she was having to keep all her different magics from consuming her...

“She is just having a bit of a rough time adjusting to the magic from her already established bonds,” I said carefully. “But I’m sure it’s just an adjustment period. She’ll work it out; she always does.”

Bridget’s mouth tightened, and her eyes flashed with something I couldn’t catch before it was gone again. “It’s unheard of for a Ban Dia to bond more than three dianoch. In fact, some would say it’s impossible. How many of you boys has she bonded now?”

“That’s not relevant,” I replied tersely. I’d been carrying enough stress and worry that what Bridget was saying was true. What if Kit couldn’t bond all six of us. We’d just assumed she could based on Victor’s advice... but what if he was wrong?

Bridget nodded smoothly, then smiled once more. “I think I can help. I myself experienced a similar issue when I found my own guardians, but unfortunately at the time I was under lock and key at the Blood Moon labs and had no one to help me. When we got free, I worked on an amulet that, should my powers ever become that... chaotic again, would help give me clarity.” She stood from her seat and brushed nonexistent lint from her skirt. “Maybe I could give it to you? That way if it ever gets so bad that she needs help, then you’ll already have it there. What do you think?”

Frowning, I hesitated again before nodding. Surely there was no harm in taking the amulet as a backup plan, just in case things got worse for Kit after her next bond? Something told me I might live to regret it if I didn’t take the amulet and we ended up needing it.

“Sure,” I nodded slowly, and Bridget beamed.

“Great! Wait here; I’ll grab it.” She disappeared out of the room, and I could hear her little feet running up the stairs. A sick feeling clawed at my belly, and I sincerely hoped this wasn’t going to bite me in the ass.

But I was a Blood Mage. I was The Blood Mage. Despite my issues with control around power-filled blood, I was still one of the two most powerful Mages in the universe. I’d be sure to check the amulet out thoroughly before ever giving it to Kit. Maybe even get Austin to check it out too...

“Here it is!” Bridget announced, rushing back into the room with a delicate chain of gold hanging from her clenched fist. She held it out to me, and I cautiously took it from her.

“It’s a bracelet,” she explained, as though that wasn’t clear by the length of chain. Hanging from the center was a little gold fox, which must have been the amulet she was referring to.

Holding it up, I inspected it carefully with both my eyes and my other sight. The one that kicked in when my eyes went all weird and snake-like. It allowed me to see the essence of magic, and sure enough, the little fox charm and part of the chain were thick with Bridget’s signature.

“Thanks,” I muttered, pocketing the bracelet and giving Bridget an awkward smile. Yes, she had opened up to me, and yes, I believed her story... but that didn’t make me trust her. “I’ll check it out with my brother, obviously, and I can’t guarantee I’ll ever give it to Kit...”

“Of course,” she gushed, “I just want you to have it, just in case. Anything I can do to help, and you know you can come back here to seek my help any time you want... right?”

Frowning, I nodded tightly. Her personality shift from the stern, authoritarian teacher of the past month to this... simpering little woman, had me off guard. Which was the real her? Was the hard-ass bitch routine just a mask she’d developed after so many hundreds of years alive?

“Right, well, thanks again.” I gave her a small smile, then headed toward the door in order to make my exit from the backyard once more. Regardless of Bridget’s explanations, I really did feel like I’d learned enough from her. Kit had cut herself while attempting to cook dinner a few nights ago, and my fangs hadn’t even dropped.

Admittedly, I’d clenched my fists so tightly my short nails had cut crescent moons into my palms, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I was getting a handle on things.

A rustling of movement near the hedges caught my attention, and I let my other sight click in so I could see clearer. As well as letting me see magical essence, it also let me see better in the dark. In this case, both were useful.

“Hey!” I called out to the fox, who was most definitely a shifter if the magic surrounding him was any indication. He’d already taken off though, his white-tipped tail disappearing through the dense branches of the hedge. I couldn’t help thinking it was the same fox who’d been lurking around Kit back at CFA.

Bridget made a small noise behind me, pulling my attention, and I glanced around to find her looking... shocked?

“What is it?” I asked her, suspicion riding high in my voice. “Who was that?”

“Hmm?” She raised her brows at me, like she’d suddenly remembered I was still there. “No one. Safe travels.” She slammed the sliding door shut, flicked the lock, and dropped the blind in one smooth move.

Weird, creepy bitch.

I started toward the lawn to portal out back to Kitty Kat, but froze when I heard Bridget’s voice from inside. My other sight was still engaged, and it tended to sharpen my hearing more than the average person’s.

“No, I don’t know!” Bridget was whisper-shouting to someone, presumably on the phone. “You told me he was sniffing around to break the geas, but you didn’t tell me Victor had found my damn location already!”

Shit. The fox was Vic... and if Vic was Kit’s biological father... would he feel a duty to tell Kit he’d seen me here? With her?

Fuck. I needed to get back and break this damn NDA fast. If Kit found out about Bridget from someone else... someone not me... Shit, this is not good.

Casting faster than the eye could see, I portaled myself back to the luxurious hotel suite we had set up our new base in, thanks to Vali’s never-ending supply of bribes and fake ID’s.

“Kitty Kat?” I called out, trying really hard not to let worry cloud my voice. The only way I could think of to break Bridget’s confidentiality clause was to bond with Kit. Maybe I wasn’t totally ready, but there was no time left. I had to be the one to tell her. It had to come from me.

“Hey bro.” Austin yawned, coming out of one of the bedrooms wearing nothing but a towel and looking exhausted. “What’s up?”

“Is Kit in there?” I asked. “I need to ask her something really important.”

“She stupidly went out with Vali to get some air. The magic shit was messing with her head again, and she was starting to throw fireballs at me.” Austin shrugged. “God forbid she remember that people are trying to kidnap and kill her, but apparently the dragon is good enough protection.” He wasn’t as concerned about Kit’s increasing temper as everyone else seemed to be. Maybe because he liked her angry and unstable? Made her more like him, I guessed.

“When are they due back, do you know?” I demanded, clenching my fists at my sides to stop them shaking. The threat of Vic getting to her first was making me freak all the way out, even though I knew he had a long way to travel from Washington down to where we were in LA... Just how fast could foxes run? Or would he shift back into human and drive? Or fly?

Oh, God. I was going to get a stomach ulcer.

“No idea.” My twin shrugged, running a hand through his dark hair and flicking water droplets everywhere. “What’s the big panic anyway?”

“Just... I need to talk to her.” I chewed the inside of my cheek while I debated my next move. Kit was safe with Vali, I knew this. But they could be gone for hours yet...

“Hey, can you take a look at an amulet for me?” I asked Austin, remembering the bracelet in my pocket. He’d said Kit’s magic was driving her nuts again, and bonding me would only make it worse, so I wanted to have a safe option available for her.

Austin nodded, and I tossed the piece of jewelry over to him. He raised an eyebrow at me, then snapped his fingers to bring Tyson into existence. He didn’t have the cool ability to switch to other sight himself; he relied on Tyson to do it for him.

The big tiger materialized beside his master in a flash of light, then yawned his massive jaws in an echo of Austin’s own exhaustion.

Austin said nothing, just held the bracelet up to Tyson to look at and sniff. They were doubtlessly communicating via Mage bond... something I was supremely jealous of, even though I desperately hoped not to get my own familiar.

It was a cool trick. Not exactly like telepathy, more just that Tyson’s knowledge automatically appeared in Austin’s mind. And vise versa.

“It’s spelled,” Austin pointed out the obvious, and I rolled my eyes.

“No shit, asshole.” I flopped down onto the couch and rubbed my forehead. “My mentor gave it to me for Kit. It’s supposed to help her control the conflicting magics from her bonds, but I wanted us to double-check that is what the spell is first.”

Austin raised his brows at me in surprise, glancing at the bracelet in his hand. “You don’t trust your mentor?”

I grimaced. “Not exactly. I just... want to be sure.”

“Okay, I get that. I wouldn’t be super comfortable giving this to her without checking it out either...” He trailed off as he considered the little amulet. “Let’s do a diagnostic spell on it. It won’t tell us exactly what the spell is, but it’ll give us a rough idea whether it will cause her any harm.”

A long sigh gusted out of me, and my shoulder relaxed a fraction. “Thanks bro, I really appreciate it.”

“No problems, bro. Let me just put on some pants, and we can get started.”

23

KIT

My walk with Vali really did help me cool the hell down. My temper had me flying off the handle while just trying to watch a movie with the guys. But I still maintained that it was a stupid damn movie that would have pushed anyone to the brink of throwing fireballs.

“You okay from here?” Vali asked as the elevator dinged on our floor.

“For sure,” I promised him. “Thank you. That... that was needed. Try not to get caught, okay?”

He grinned and brushed a light kiss across my lips, sending electric bolts shooting through me at the contact. “I won’t, Regina mea. I’ll be quick too, but Austin is still in the room and Caleb surely won’t be too much longer.”

Nodding, I stepped from the elevator and let the doors close behind me. Vali was heading up to the roof to stretch his wings. He’d promised me he wouldn’t try flying anywhere, seeing as we were in the middle of a damn city so a dragon taking off from the Four Seasons rooftop would bound to be noticed. He just said he needed to shift and shake them out a bit.

Not that I’d understand, given that I hadn’t shifted at all yet. The best I had managed was some scales on my skin. That was it.

“I’m back!” I called out, as I let myself into the suite and closed the door behind me.

“Hey,” Caleb popped up from freaking nowhere and almost made me scream with fright.

“Dude,” I snapped.”You almost gave me a heart attack! What gives? And how come you’re back so early?”

Caleb shifted awkwardly, and I took note of his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. “Uh, I think I’m done with lessons.”

This made me pause as I was moving past him and into the sitting area.

“Seriously?” I spun to face him with a grin on my face. He nodded, and I threw my arms around his neck in excitement. “Caleb, that’s fantastic! I am so proud of you!”

“Um, yeah,” he replied, not looking anywhere near as elated as I thought he would have. “So, I had a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about.”

He nodded to me to take a seat on the couch where Austin was already reclining with his tiger familiar. Sitting on the other end of the couch, I leaned over and scratched Tyson behind the ears where I knew he liked it.

“Hey Princess,” Austin snarked. “Got that temper under wraps or do I need to break out the fire extinguisher again?”

Flipping him off, I also shot a small, harmless little flame at him, singeing his arm hairs and making him glare at me. Good. Asshole was making fun of my temper tantrum earlier, so he’d be lucky if I didn’t singe more than just his arm hair.

“Kit, my mentor gave me something for you,” Caleb started, perching on the edge of the coffee table facing us and running a gold chain between his fingers.

“Cool, but why?” I glanced between the twins, feeling like I was missing something. Austin was relaxed, but Caleb was strung tighter than a harp string.

Caleb held the gold chain up to show me the little fox charm hanging from it. “It’s an amulet. A spell. Supposed to help bring you clarity to help with all the chaos of the bonded magic.”

“That sounds... kind of amazing. Why do we all look worried? Do we think it’s a trap?” I glanced from Caleb to Austin again, but he just shrugged.

“Cal, obviously, can’t say much on the topic. But I get the sense he doesn’t totally trust his mentor’s motives, so we have been running a diagnostic spell on the amulet to check that it is what it’s claimed to be.” Austin yawned heavily and stretched his arms over his head. He was shirtless, and as he moved, his muscles rippled and danced under his ink. Maybe he might let me tattoo him again some time... It was kind of a turn on to know my ink was still on his skin.

“Okay...” I forced my horny brain back to the discussion at hand. “And what have you found?”

“It’s impossible to ascertain the exact spell compound, but we were able to eliminate what it’s not,” Caleb explained, continuing to run the chain between his fingers. “So far, it’s not anything that would kill, track, maim, harm, or enslave you. We figured those were the important ones to check for first.”

A shocked sort of laugh bubbled out of me, and I choked on it. “Uh, okay. Yep, those are important,” I agreed, coughing a bit to clear my throat. “Anything more than that?”

“We narrowed it down to the general subcategory,” Austin informed me. “And as far as we can tell it is designed to help you control your magic. But... that’s about as much as we know.”

“So... Caleb’s mentor was probably telling the truth then?” I translated from the information they were hitting me with. It was too late and my brain was too tired to solve puzzles.

Both twins sort of shrugged. “Probably?” Caleb agreed. “But we would feel more comfortable not giving it to you unless it’s a last resort... if you’re cool with that? It’s your choice, of course, but... that’s where we’re at on it.”

“What do you think, Princess?” Austin asked quietly. “Are you happy to hold off and work it out like you’ve been doing? Or do you just want it straight up? If it is what it’s meant to be, it’d be a huge help to you. We just worry about the possibility that it’s... something else.”

Sucking in a deep breath, I considered this. What they said made a world of sense, and surely, I was wise enough now to think before I acted?

“You’re right. I’m okay for now, so just... hold onto it until I need it. Worst case scenario, if it starts going screwy I can just take it off again, right?” I decided, and they both nodded their agreement. Caleb pocketed the chain, then smiled at me with tension obvious in his eyes.

“Okay, so there was something else I wanted to ask you, Kitty Kat,” he started with a nervous quiver in his voice. “I wanted to ask if, now that I’m finished with my lessons, you’d be okay with bonding me?”

He asked so tentatively that I just wanted to hug him, the adorable dork. A grin spread over my face as I took in the flush to his cheeks and the tightly clenched hands in his lap. Of all the guys, I hadn’t expected Cal to be nervous asking me to bond.

“Of course, silly. I said to tell me whenever you were ready, didn’t I?” I wrinkled my nose as I looked at him, not totally sure where all this nervousness was coming from. “When did you want to do it?”

“Um.” He dodged my eyes and looked toward the carpet. “Now? Maybe? I have something important I really need to tell you but can’t because—” His words cut off, and he hissed sharply, clutching at his head.

“Got it,” I confirmed, understanding that whatever he needed to say was directly related to the confidentiality clause. A clause that he was confident would break when he bonded to me.

“Like right now?” I asked, seeking clarity, and he nodded. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I don’t see why not.”

“I do,” Austin contributed from his seat along the couch from me. “Maybe the fact that you’re barely holding it together with three bonded guardians, and now you’re going to add a fourth to the mix? With a fucking volatile magic too.”

He was right. Of course, he was right. I was worried about the same thing myself, but I also knew how much this meant to Caleb, and how crushed he’d be if I said no. At the end of the day, I was confident I could handle the magic, in time. So keeping my promise to Caleb meant more.

“Let’s do it,” I announced and ignored Austin’s muttered curse. “I already have the spell memorized thanks to this guy.” I waved my wrist tattoo, which was still working. “If you know it too?”

Caleb’s shoulders sagged with viable relief, and he jumped up to move the coffee table out of the way to give us space. “I do. Okay, amazing. Kitty Kat, thank you.”

“Save thanking me until after you need to teach me your ways, sensei,” I joked, waving my hand at him and shuffling on my knees to the center of the floor. “All right. Shall we?”

“Stupid, fucking stubborn woman,” Austin was muttering, but I ignored him as Caleb joined me on the floor and flicked open his fancy switchblade.

Excitement battled with my nerves as Caleb met my eyes and recited his part of the spell in a voice that sounded like he was reciting his wedding vows. Hell, he pretty much was. This spell bound us for eternity. Screw the wedding with the big poofy dress, this was much more permanent.

With my stomach in knots, I recited my own verse from memory, then watched with my heart in my throat as Caleb stabbed a small cut into his thumb. Time seemed to slow as he held his injured finger over my ring. The blood welled up into a droplet, then descended the short gap and hit the surface of my bloodstone with a noticeable jolt like I’d just stuck my finger in a live socket.

The runes burst into life around us, but I barely noticed them as Caleb’s magic slammed into me with all the force of a Mack truck, quite literally knocking me flat on my back.

My joints all seized up, and I was powerless to move while Caleb’s wild, coppery magic rushed through me, touching every corner of my mind and lashing out at the other three magics already residing alongside my own.

Wesley had commented, last time, that it seemed to be worse each time, and right in the moment when Caleb’s magic reached such a crescendo that I thought my skin would split apart, it felt like a massive understatement.

Caleb’s cool lips met mine like an ice pack to a sprained ankle, soothing the magic and taking back the excess from me that was causing me so much pain. Just like the other guys, when he kissed me, the pain faded, but unlike them, it didn’t disappear altogether.

“Kitty Kat?” Caleb murmured, pulling back and frowning at me in concern. “What’s happening?”

My whole body was being racked with waves of trembles, and as I tried to speak, my teeth began chattering. The pain was less, for sure, and I could tell that the correct amount of magic was left in me after the rest had returned to its owner... but I still felt like I was being electrocuted... or stretched on some medieval torture device or something.

“God damn, stupid, stubborn woman,” Austin snapped, also crouching to look at me when I lay on the carpet and shook.

“C-c-can I t-t-try...” I started to say, but my chattering teeth made me stutter almost uncontrollably. Giving up, I dropped my wall between Austin and I and let him have a whack at sensing what I was trying to get across. Obviously he couldn’t read my mind, but I hoped that a solid mixture of my emotions plus common sense plus those few words would lead him in the right direction.

“The amulet.” Austin held his hand out to Caleb. “She wants to try the spelled amulet.”

“Yeah, of course.” Caleb fumbled in his pockets and handed the gold chain to his brother, “Are you sure?” This question was directed at me, but I was so far beyond being able to nod. Hell, I was barely keeping conscious, let alone sane and coherent.

“She’s sure,” Austin translated for me and deftly clipped the chain around my wrist. “Worst case, she can take it off when her mind is a bit clearer. Right?”

“Right,” Caleb agreed and watched me with concerned, guilt-filled eyes.

Almost instantly after Austin closed the latch on the bracelet, my trembling stopped. The pain and conflict within my body drained out like someone had just pulled the plug on a bath, and I sighed with relief.

“Thank fucking magic,” I groaned, lifting my heavy hands and running them through my hair before sitting up with the twins’ help. “So, I’m pretty sure this amulet is exactly what your mentor said it was.”

“Yeah?” Caleb gusted out a heavy breath that he’d been holding. “You’re... okay?”

Closing my eyes briefly, I took a moment to assess my magic... It was all still there, but this time the four additional flavors were sitting quietly and not fighting one another. It was a shock, for sure, but a good one.

“I’m good,” I confirmed. “Really good. I promise. The second anything starts to feel weird, I will take it straight off, but I have to be honest, it was a damn good thing she gave it to you. That bonding was rough.”

“Fuck, Kitty Kat, I am so so sorry,” Caleb apologized. “I never should have pushed for it so soon; I knew you were having a rough time. I should have waited.”

“It’s fine, Cal. I’m fine. But did it work? Did the NDA break?” I let Austin lift me from the ground and settle me on the couch, even though I really did feel totally fine.

“Let’s see.” Caleb took a deep breath, clearly preparing to say something in direct violation of his confidentiality agreement.

Before any words could come out of his mouth though, there was a sharp knock at the suite door before it burst open, and a huge, cloaked man strode into the room while throwing back his hood.

“Vic?” I exclaimed, seeing the huge, scarred man standing there and glaring death straight at... Caleb? What the hell am I missing here?

“Christina,” he nodded to me. “Came to tell you not to bond with that one.” He stabbed a finger in Caleb’s direction, and I saw my newest bonded guardian drain of color.

“Ah, you’re a bit late to the party, old man,” I scoffed a bit sarcastically. “But maybe you want to explain what in the fuck you’re doing here? Last I saw of you was in Alaska when you shooed me off with your little spell, not even admitting that you’re probably my biological father. Guess you must have just forgotten that part, huh?”

Vic’s jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed on me. “Explanations can wait. Your chosen guardian has been meeting with your Ma, Bride, in secret for weeks.”

I’d always considered the saying “knock me over with a feather” to be stupid, but right then, in that very moment when Vic’s words filtered through to my brain... well, quite simply, if I had been standing, I could have been knocked over with a damn feather.

“What?” I finally exclaimed to a room silent enough to hear a pin drop, “No, that’s... insane. Right?” I turned to the twins, noticing first Austin’s stunned expression and then Caleb’s pale, sick-looking face. “No, surely not. You can’t have been.”

Suddenly all the pieces clicked into place in my brain like some sort of crazy elaborate, mechanical puzzle. The magical NDA, the fact that Caleb’s mentor was stronger than the ruling Mages, the fact that she’d known exactly what to spell the fucking amulet with to help me in a very specific Ban Dia problem.

Holy fucking shit. How dumb can I seriously be?

“Caleb?” I squeaked, desperately praying that he’d tell me it wasn’t true. That he hadn’t been meeting my fucking mother behind my back for going on a month now.

“Kitty Kat,” he started, but the thick layer of guilt in his voice told me everything I needed to know. I sucked in a sharp breath, swallowing past the shock and betrayal.

“I need some air,” I mumbled, pushing myself up from the couch and stumbling toward the door.

“Kitty Kat,” Caleb yelled from behind me, “stay and let me explain! This is what I wanted to tell you myself; this is why I needed to break the clause!”

“Christina,” Austin barked. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” I replied to Aus and totally ignored his brother. “I need air. Space. Just... don’t follow me.”

Grabbing my leather jacket from near the door, I rushed out of the suite and slammed the door behind me. I was no idiot; of course one of them would follow me, but I just hoped they’d be smart enough to stay out of sight until I calmed down. If I ever calmed down.

Bile rose in my throat as I paced the small box of the elevator, waiting for it to descend and deposit me onto the ground floor. Where I was going, I had no idea. I just needed... space.

Jesus Kit, you sound like the most stupid blonde in every horror movie ever. Throwing a tantrum and leaving all safety behind...

My conscious rattled away at me, but I was turning numb. Fuck it. Who cared if this was a stupid fucking move? I was quickly becoming the most badass bitch on this planet; surely I could handle myself. I was sick to damn death of needing to be rescued by my guardians. My powers far outweighed theirs; I just needed to learn how to control them on my own. But how was I ever going to do that if they kept saving me? If I kept letting them save me?

* * *

“Where to, miss?” the taxi driver asked as I opened the door and climbed into the back seat. It hadn’t taken me long to flag him down outside the hotel, but it was more than long enough to have me anxious to be gone from there. I was still being hunted, so standing on the side of the road hailing a taxi wasn’t my smartest decision.

“I have no idea,” I admitted, meeting his weathered eyes in the mirror. “Can you take me to a bar? Any bar, I don’t care.”

The driver gave me a look like he was questioning if I was likely to stiff him. But he must have decided I was good for it, as he pulled out from the curb and into the traffic.

“You got it, miss,” he agreed, then thankfully seemed happy not to make small talk for the rest of the short ride. He pulled over in front of an unassuming-looking bar with saloon style doors, then turned in his seat to look at me sternly.

“It ain’t the fanciest club in town, but the music is good and the bartenders will keep an eye out to make sure your drink ain’t spiked. That’ll be eight dollars.” His serious expression didn’t shift as I handed over the money and thanked him.

Luckily my wallet had been in the pocket of my jacket, or I really would have been screwed. It was nice of him to bring me somewhere that I was less likely to get drugged, though.

After showing my very fake ID to the security guard at the door, I pushed through the saloon doors and into the bar. My ID was fake not for my age, as I was twenty-one now, but for my name. After all, we were on the run from fuck knew how many different organizations.

Uh, right. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.

The idea of going back to the hotel, facing Caleb and Vic and the secrets... Nope. I’d rather take my chances in the bottom of a margarita glass. Mature decision, I was aware. But sometimes I just needed to do stupid shit to let off steam.

“What’ll it be?” the enthusiastic bartender chick asked me as I approached the busy bar, and I frowned at her curiously. She could have been Lucy, at a glance, except a much darker, tanned version of Lucy with turquoise-green dreadlocks.

“Ah... I don’t know. Whatever you recommend, I guess?” I shrugged helpfully, and the girl raised her pierced eyebrows at me.

“You here alone?” She squinted at me, with a slight frown.

“Sure am,” I sighed, not even attempting a fake smile. “So something strong, if possible, please?”

The bartender looked a bit worried but nodded to me and started making me a drink. While I waited, I slumped against the bar with my elbows the only things really holding me up. It felt like I’d been put through a clothes washer, I was so strung out on emotions.

First the bonding with Caleb, then the pain, Vic showing up, the news that Caleb—my Caleb—had been meeting my mom in secret... What I wouldn’t do for a memory erase spell of this whole evening. Alcohol would need to do instead.

“Here.” The green-haired bartender dropped a tall glass down in front of me. “Long island iced tea. Guaranteed to fuck you up but not taste like shit in the process.”

This, I cracked a smile at. “Doubtful. Iced tea?” Call me crazy, but I despised iced tea.

The girl laughed. “It’s not actually tea, dummy. It’s a mix of tequila, gin, rum, vodka, and Cointreau, then lime juice, sugar, and a splash of Coke. Trust me, you’ll love it by the time you finish that one.”

“Sounds perfect,” I sighed, fishing out my wallet. “How much?”

The girl threw me a wink. “It’s on me. You look like you’re having a rough night.”

I snickered a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.” I picked up my enormous drink and gave her a nod. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it; just try and have a better night from here on out, yeah?” The girl gave me a grin, then turned away to serve another customer.

Her random act of kindness had cut through the negativity and sting of betrayal that I’d been wallowing in, and my shoulders were just a fraction less heavy as I made my way through the crowd to find a place to sit.

It was late on a Saturday night, so the bar was packed with people. But it didn’t take long for me to locate a small table available, tucked away in the back and away from both the dance floor and the mechanical bull that a drunken girl wearing no bra was thrashing around on.

As I sat, I felt my pocket vibrate. Dammit, my phone must have been in this jacket too.

Placing my drink down on the table, I fished the little device out and ignored the call. As with the next one, and the next one. Right as I was about to lose my shit and turn the damn thing off, a text message came through from River.

Sent Vali after you but told him to keep his distance when he gets there. Understand your need for space, and we are here for you when you’re ready to come home.

Running my thumb over the screen, I reread the message a couple of times before powering off my phone to end another call from Caleb that had started ringing through.

Home. When I’m ready to come home. Seemed like such a strange concept to consider the hotel suite home, but I knew that wasn’t what River meant. Home was wherever my guys were, regardless of if that was a hotel suite in Los Angeles or a mountain cabin in Washington.

Tucking the phone back into my pocket, I yawned and took a sip of my long island iced tea. The first mouthful was a shock, sour and acidic and very strong. But a few more sips had me loving it. That bartender really knew her shit.

“Hey, sweet thing.” A greasy-looking guy sauntered up to my table with a smarmy look on his face. “You here all alone? Maybe I should keep you company?” He punctuated this suggestion with a lewd cupping of his genitals through his pants. Just in case I missed the implication.

My eyes narrowed at him. “Maybe you should back the hell off, buddy. I’m not looking to score, so trot on back to your friends. This one is a strikeout.”

The man’s expression twisted into something nasty, and he sneered at me. “You look like a frigid bitch anyway; I was just trying to do you a favor. Loosen up that stick in your ass.”

I heaved a sigh. “I’ll tell you one more time. Fuck. Right. Off. Clear?”

The guy curled his lip at me in disgust but, thankfully, retreated back to his table of friends who were howling with laughter across the room. Getting hit on by creepy dudes who reeked of bourbon from ten feet away was not my idea of a good night out, even if I had been here for a “good time.”

“Excuse me, miss?” Another male voice intruded on my thoughts, and a finger tapped on my shoulder. Groaning, I turned in my seat to tell this guy where to shove his propositions, but the words froze in my throat.

“Mr. Gregoric?” I squeaked in surprise. “What—”

“Nicholai,” he corrected me with a smile. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Ah, sure.” I blinked at him in confusion but waited while he dragged a chair from another table and sat opposite me.

“‘Mr. Gregoric’ never really sat right with me, you know? I doubt I’ll ever try my hand at teaching again. High school students are psychotic; don’t you agree?” He smiled at me like we had actually arranged to meet for a drink and small talk. “Then again, it’s been a great many years since I myself was a teenager, so perhaps I have just forgotten.”

“What,” I tried again, “the fuck are you doing here, Nicholai? The last time we saw you was in Harrow after Gray and his men tried to kidnap all the shifter babies.”

He grimaced and took a sip of his own drink that he’d brought to the table with him. “Nasty business, that. I understand Richard has since been dealt with, though?”

Richard. I bit my tongue to suppress a shiver of revulsion and fear. Richard Liath was Gray’s real name, and just the mention of him made me want to empty my stomach onto the table. His face still haunted my dreams, so Wesley had been helping me by giving me other dreams instead. Safe, boring dreams with butterflies and puppies—the kind of sugar-coated, candy normality my real life had never possessed. I loved them.

Until recently, that was. His issues with the other dream-walker had really thrown a wrench into the works with that plan. Now I was finding myself waking in a cold sweat, feeling the phantom pain of my toenails being torn from my flesh or the crack of my ribs under Gray’s heavy fists.

“He’s been dealt with, yes,” I choked out, taking a long sip of my drink to try and clear the sour taste from my mouth. Denial and avoidance were my friends, and so long as I could avoid the subject of my abuser, I was good.

“Well, that’s good to hear. Granny Winter will be pleased.” Nicholai smiled at me again, and I frowned in return. What the hell was going on?

“Are you going to answer my question?” I prompted him. “What the fuck are you doing here? How did you even find me in this random bar in the middle of LA?”

He pursed his lips and stared back at me for a long moment. He was a good-looking guy, no doubt about that, but there was something... shady about him. Like he was constantly playing both sides to the point where he himself had no idea where his allegiance lay.

“I have someone who wants to meet you,” he announced finally, and my eyebrows shot up. That wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I didn’t know what I’d expected.

“Oh? And you decided to track me down... here... to tell me this? I’m sure you can appreciate, Nicholai, something smells like shit.” I gave him a shrewd glare. “So out with it. I have had e-fucking-nough of riddles and half-truths to last me a lifetime.”

Snatching my drink from the table, I leaned back in my seat and took a long sip on my straw. Disappointingly, my glass was almost empty already, and I frowned at the naked ice cubes.

“I already ordered you another.” The sketchy fox-shifter grinned, just as a waitress appeared, placing a full long island iced tea on the table in front of me.

I pursed my lips and eyed the drink skeptically, but when I glanced over to the bar, my friendly, green dreadlocked bartender gave me a nod of assurance.

“Thanks,” I said slowly, still suspicious as all hell. “So who is this person who wants to meet me? And why are you here instead?”

“I thought perhaps a familiar face might be more comforting for an introduction.” The reply came not from shady Nicholai Gregoric, but from a woman with a soft Irish accent who was, not even kidding, wearing my face. “Hello, daughter.”

There she stood beside Nicholai’s chair, looking for all purposes like a carbon copy of me and having the goddamn nerve to call me her daughter. My chair legs scraped loudly on the wooden bar floor as I rose to my feet, my eyes glued to the mother who had left me to be tortured and abused in a foster home for years of my childhood.

“Darling,” she smiled at me like some sort of fucking red-haired angel. She didn’t manage to get any more words out before my fist launched itself, almost totally of its own accord, straight into her perfect fucking nose.

Cartilage crunched under my knuckles and blood burst from Bridget’s face as my fist connected, and she screamed. Good, I hoped it hurt like a bitch.

Around us, a few people gasped and stared in shock, but I paid them no attention, jabbing an accusatory finger in Bridget’s face as she clutched her nose and moaned.

“How fucking dare you?” I hissed at her, my fury so palpable that I could taste it. “How dare you show up here and call me daughter like all would be forgiven. For what? Because you forced my guardian into a binding spell which ensured he would betray me and meet with you in secret. You have a lot of fucking nerve, Bridget. A lot of fucking nerve.”

Movement alerted me to the security guards making their way over to us from their stations near the door, but I decided to save them the bother of throwing us out.

Throwing Nicholai a disgusted look, I shoved past him and through the gaping bystanders to exit the bar. A strong hand gripped onto the back of my arm as I cleared the swinging saloon doors, and that goddamn fox shifter yanked me around the side of the building to where the valet parking lot was located.

“Christina,” he snapped, giving me a stern look like I was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum in the supermarket or something. “Use your damn brain. Bridget is your only form of contact with your kind right now. Are you honestly going to let your hurt feelings get in the way of learning who you are? Who you could be?”

What he was saying made sense in the perfectly logical, unemotional world. But who was he fucking kidding? That was my biological mother! The woman who’d abandoned me on the streets with my memories wiped, and never looked back once.

“Take your damn hand off me, Nicholai,” I warned him in a low voice. “Or I swear I will do more than just break your nose as well.”

He sighed but did as instructed, removing his hand from my arm and placing his hands on his hips. “Look, I understand we don’t know each other well—” My snort cut him off and he glared at me to shut me up. “But you’re acting like a child right now. You are supposed to be the salvation of supernatural kind? Right now, all I see is a little girl who is angry at the world and lashing out. You don’t know the reasons why Bridget left you, do you?”

Lips tight, I jerked my head to acknowledge that I did not.

“Right. Well, then there is every possibility she had good reasons, isn’t there?” He raised his brows at me in a way that said he knew full well he was making sense. It was just up to my stubborn ass to accept the logic in his words.

Grinding my teeth, I held his steady gaze for a long moment. Sure, I still wanted to beat the ever-loving crap out of my egg-donor who looked so much like me it was scary... but I also badly wanted to understand what I was. The opportunity to speak with another Ban Dia, to ask questions and to learn... Nicholai was right that I’d be an idiot to pass that up in favor of my temper.

All of a sudden, my fury deflated like a popped balloon, and I sagged against the wall. “What do you even want? From what I’ve heard, Bridget has been meeting with one of my dianoch in secret for a month. Surely she could have asked him anything she needed to know?”

“I’ll let her explain. If you’ll just give her a few minutes?” he coaxed, holding his hands up defensively. “Just a few minutes and then I swear we will leave. Sound fair?”

I chewed my lip while I thought about it. What harm would a few minutes of my time do? As far as I could tell, they weren’t planning on kidnapping or killing me, and even if they were I had no doubts in my mind that I could take them. Just in case though, I reached into my pocket and held down the button that would ping my location to Wesley.

“Sure. A few minutes. But when I’m done, I’m done. I walk away, and you leave me the fuck alone. Understood?” I narrowed my eyes at him threateningly, and he nodded.

“Understood. I’ll tell her to come out.” He didn’t move from the spot where he stood in front of me. Instead, he just cocked his head to the side, and his eyes unfocused from mine for the briefest second before refocusing. “She’s on her way.”

“Uh.” Curiosity made me pause. “Did you just like... mind-speak or something?”

Nicholai frowned at me. “You can’t do that? With your bonded guardians, I mean.”

“No...” I shook my head and considered it. “I mean, I didn’t even know it was possible, so we have never tried.”

The sly shifter just smiled at me and shrugged. “Seems to me you have already benefited from giving us a few minutes. Don’t you think?”

Pursing my lips, I said nothing in response. Smug bastard. He had a point though. What else could I or my guardians do that we just had no idea was even a possibility?

The sound of high heels scraping on concrete alerted me to Bridget’s arrival moments before she rounded the corner to where Nicholai and I waited. Neither of us spoke, but instead just stared at one another.

She clearly possessed the ability to heal herself, as her nose looked totally back to normal. Hell, even her makeup was perfect once more, which suggested she’d been doing a touch up while Nicholai had been detaining me and begging me to give her a chance.

“Christina,” she greeted me eventually and took two steps closer to me. Under a slightly less emotional light, I could see the subtle differences that made us not so identical, after all.

She was shorter than me by a good few inches and much slimmer through the breasts and hips. Had it not been for the ugly-as-sin, tweed skirt suit she wore, along with pantyhose and boring pumps, I’d have said she looked like a teenager. But no self-respecting girl would be caught dead in that granny getup.

Then again, she was over three hundred years old... I dreaded to think how fashions might change for me in three hundred years’ time.

“Bridget,” I replied, trying not to spit her name like it was a curse, but that was how it ended up coming out anyway. Oh well. “You’ve got like... two minutes. So get on with it.”

Propping my foot against the wall behind me, I leaned casually and folded my arms. She needed to understand that I was under no obligation to so much as piss on her if she were on fire, let alone hear her out.

Bridget’s mouth puckered in what seemed to be anger, but she quickly recovered from it and smoothed her features into a gentle smile instead.

“Of course. Did you want to go back inside where we can sit?” she offered, and I scowled at her.

“No.” I felt like her question didn’t really need any more of a response than that.

She heaved a sigh. “Very well. I wanted to come and meet you in person to, first of all, introduce myself. I am aware you have no memories of your life before age seven, so you wouldn’t remember all of the amazing times we had together. For that, my heart breaks because I cherish those memories dearly.” She paused and pressed a hand to her chest like she was remembering those fond memories, and I frowned in confusion.

Who is she fucking kidding right now?

Glancing at Nicholai, I found a similarly confused frown on his face, too, but Bridget was continuing with her story regardless.

“But I also wanted to take this chance to offer my help. I felt my spells on your Mage break, so doubtless he has already told you of my identity. This seemed like a time sensitive matter to make myself known and perhaps tell you my side of the events. I just can’t stand the thought that you’re out there somewhere fumbling blind through your powers and hating me for only trying to keep you safe.” She paused, looking at me with an intensity that made me almost uncomfortable. “Does that make sense, dear?”

“First of all”—I cleared my throat—“don’t call me ‘dear.’ I’m not your dear. Secondly, what do you mean spells? I thought there was just the one, the magical NDA, that needed to be broken?”

“Hmm?” She cocked her head at me with a vacant expression. “I apologize, slip of the tongue. Spell. Singular. The magic involved in a binding surpasses anything any one magic user can create, and if Caleb forced enough will into breaking that agreement, then it stood no chance.”

“Right,” I murmured. I didn’t believe her... she was clearly hiding a whole lot of something, but my logical brain had gained enough control that I was willing to see how this all panned out. She wanted something, that was clear enough. But what?

“So, you figured Caleb had outed his dirty little secret, and you wanted to get ahead and leave your spin on things?” I tried so hard not to curl my lip in disgust, but it was a huge effort.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Or, not in the way it sounds. Look, I figure if your temper is anything like mine, you probably stormed out of there without so much as letting him defend himself. Right?”

My eyes narrowed with anger. “Defend himself? There is no defending something like this. He has been meeting with you. My damn biological mother, the only other Ban Dia we have ever heard of, who could potentially help us, despite being an abhorrent sack of shit who left her seven-year-old for dead. No, Mom, there is no defense for that decision.”

Bridget sighed in the same way Nicholai had done moments before. Like I was being stupid. I hated that feeling.

“There is plenty to defend that decision, Christina. When Zelda first reached out to me saying the new Blood Mage had come to her seeking help with his magic and his cravings, I had no idea it was Caleb. I had no idea he was one of your dianoch, I swear to you.” She spread her hands helplessly. “It wasn’t until Zelda told me more about him that I was able to put two and two together from the information Nicky had provided on you. Clearly if I had just shown up, the first thing he would have done would be to tell you. You would have told him implicitly not to accept my help, and then you’d have had an out of control Blood Mage on your hands. Have you ever seen a power-mad Blood Mage before? No, of course you haven’t.” She shook her head dismissively and shuddered.

Glancing to Nicholai, he just shrugged. Clearly he, too, had never seen a power-mad Blood Mage.

“So, what? You tricked him into a confidentiality agreement for his own good?” I scoffed at this weak and frankly predictable line of reasoning, and Bridget’s dark blue eyes narrowed back at me. I was testing her patience, that much was clear. It made me curious to see who the real Bridget was when her control got snapped.

“Yes. I did.” She tipped her chin up defiantly. “It was for his own good. And yours. That boy needed all the help he could get, and I don’t regret the way I had to go about it.”

“Why you?” I demanded. “Why could you help where no one else could?”

She smiled faintly at me, and I saw a small spark of softness in her eyes as she replied, “One of my mother’s dianoch was a Blood Mage. Before that pathetic heap of shit, Jackson, who was Master Yoshi’s counterpart. I grew up around the Blood magics, so I understand it in a way that very few others can.”

“Okay,” I mused. That made sense, I supposed. “So that explains why you tricked Caleb into the NDA to start with, but not why he kept returning to meet with you. If it were just the confidentiality agreement, I could forgive him. But he made a conscious decision to keep seeing you behind my back. He should have just... I don’t know... found someone else.”

“Like who?” Bridget challenged me. “Jackson made it clear he would offer no assistance. Would you really have wanted Caleb to deal with his cravings alone? Especially with your blood constantly tempting him? Do you think that would have been fair to him?”

My jaw dropped in shock. Was she seriously calling me self-centered for feeling betrayed right now? He’d kept a huge fucking secret from me! One that directly affected me! How was I not allowed to be pissed right off?

“Besides,” Bridget continued, evading my eye contact, “I may have been slipping a little something into his tea to ensure he’d return each night.”

This time when I gasped, it was Nicholai that spoke.

“Bride,” he groaned. “You didn’t. That is low, even for you...”

His choice of words for a woman he was supposedly bonded to for eternity made me do a double take. Even for her?

“I had no choice, Nicky,” she hissed at him defensively. “If he didn’t learn to get control of his magic and not let it control him, then Christina could very well be dead now. And you damn well know it.”

“Ah,” I interrupted. “News flash, Mommy Dearest. I can’t die. Believe me, people have tried.”

Bridget’s glare was withering as she considered me. “Don’t be dense, girl. Everything can die if the right weapon is used. For us, it’s our dianoch. They’re the only things on this planet that can end our lives, just as we can extend theirs.”

Holy shit.

“Wait, so even though we weren’t bonded...” I trailed off, and Bridget rolled her eyes.

“Your heart had chosen him, so even without the bond, he would have had the power to kill you. If he’d gotten a whiff of your magic-soaked blood and not been able to control the magic, he’d have torn you into confetti then licked up the remains.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, but I could feel my face had drained of color.

Until then, I really hadn’t realized how much I was taking my immortality for granted. The idea that my Achilles’ heel had been by my side the entire time was eye-opening.

Not that any of my guys would try to kill me. Even Caleb. I had faith that he could well have learned control on his own, but... Bridget was probably right. Training with her made the whole process a hell of a lot faster and easier for him, and I really would have fucked it up for him had I known.

Shit, maybe I was being a selfish bitch.

“Okay...” I rubbed at my forehead, expecting a headache to hit me from all this truth bomb going on. Except, I couldn’t get headaches. “I think I need some time to process all of this so far.”

“But I’m not nearly finished,” Bridget protested before Nicholai placed a hand on her arm.

“What Bride means, Kit, is that is totally understandable. This has been a lot of new information. For all of us.” The look he shot his Ban Dia said that he wasn’t pleased by some of what he’d heard, either.

“Of course.” Bridget plastered on a fake-as-fuck smile and scrambled around in her purse. “This is where we are staying. I’d love if you might call me when you’ve had time to think this all through. I really want to help you with your magic. When I first bonded my guardians...” She shuddered dramatically. “It’s a rough transition. Isn’t it?”

She glanced at my wrist as I held out my hand to take the card from her, and she made a small sound of surprise.

“Oh, you’re wearing my amulet!” She stared at the little gold chain, and I pulled my hand back to squint at it.

“Uh, yeah.” Frowning, I inspected the bracelet I’d totally forgotten I was wearing, It was certainly helping, which I guessed was its purpose. My magic hadn’t gone screwy once since putting it on, and I’d certainly been worked up enough for it.

Bridget smiled, tucking her bag back over her arm. “I’m glad. I hope it’s helping.” She glanced between Nicholai and I, but when neither of us made any move to leave, she gave another tight smile. “I’ll just... call a cab, shall I?”

“That’d be great.” Her guardian nodded, then watched her walk away before he turned back to me with a stern look on his face.

“Jesus, what fucking now?” I groaned. My head was spinning, and I just wanted to go back inside for another drink before heading back and facing the guys. I’d judged Caleb too harshly, and I knew he deserved an apology. But... later.

“Look,” he sighed, scratching at his chin and staring after Bridget, who was waiting at the taxi rank further down the street. “Some of the stuff she said was a shock to me, and some of it didn’t quite ring true.” My brows shot up, but he was quick to reassure me. “Not about Caleb; I truly believe she was magic doping him to keep him compliant. That’s one of the things that has me most concerned. It’s a huge violation of magic to do that without someone’s knowledge...”

When he trailed off, thinking, I prodded him in the arm. “So, what’s your point here?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But just watch yourself. Don’t trust anyone outside your dianoch. Not even me.”

“But trust my dianoch? Despite everything with Caleb...?” I was exhausted. The idea that my newest bonded guardian was untrustworthy had felt like a hot poker right through my stomach.

“All of them. Including Caleb. He’d never, ever have kept this from you if magic weren’t at play. Believe that.” Nicholai patted me on the shoulder in a decidedly parental way, and I wrinkled my nose. “Stay alert; keep your eyes and ears open. Got it?”

“Got it.” I nodded slowly, then watched as he jogged to catch up to Bridget as a taxi pulled in to the rank where she waited. The two of them got in, and I stared after the retreating vehicle for a long time before sliding down the wall and resting my head on my knees.

I’d just taken on a whole insane amount of information, and it felt a bit like my head was about to explode. Everything with a grain of salt, of course, but one thing remained clear no matter which way I looked at it.

Caleb. He hadn’t betrayed me. He’d made a stupid mistake by accepting the confidentiality spell in the first place, and it had just snowballed from there. Sure, I could be mad at that first action, but he’d been driven there out of desperation and out of love for me. He wanted so badly not to be a danger to me that he’d blindly accepted the help, no matter where it had come from.

Those weren’t the actions of a betrayal. If anything... it was the opposite. He’d taken a huge risk, first in accepting a mentor he knew nothing about, then in risking my ire when I found out. But he wasn’t doing it for selfish or nefarious reasons. He was doing it to protect me and the guys.

Yep. I officially jumped the gun on storming out earlier.

Groaning, I hugged my knees and tucked my face down low. I probably looked like a drunk or a bum, but I just needed a few moments to gather myself.

24

The familiar smell of a bonfire and the warm stroke of a hand down my back was what finally pulled me from my mental hurdles.

“Hey,” I smiled softly, looking up at Vali where he crouched beside me. “I figured it wouldn’t be long until you found me. Are the guys mad?”

He smiled back at me, his gray eyes soft and full of concern as his hand stroked soothing lines up and down my back. “No, they’re fine. You did the right thing, pinging your location and keeping your phone on you. After all, you’re not our prisoner. You have every right to leave the hotel alone if you so choose.”

“This is true,” I agreed. “But still... you know how they get.”

Vali chuckled, tucking a loose piece of my hair behind my ear. “I do. Such worry-toads. Don’t they realize you’re stronger than all of us?”

This made me laugh. “You mean worrywarts and exactly! Thank you! Finally, someone understands that I’m not some damsel in distress waiting to be rescued all the time.”

“If it helps,” he offered, “I think they do it because they love you, not because they think you helpless. I know that’s why I try to protect you.”

His words made me pause, but before I could push any further for clarification on what I thought he’d just said, he was standing up and holding out a hand to me.

“Come on, let’s go inside and get a drink. You look like you could do with a little fun before we head back.” When I took his outstretched hand, he tugged me up to my feet and politely brushed some of the dirt and crap off the back of my jeans for me.

The little ass squeeze might have been my imagination... or might not have been. It was so quick it wasn’t clear. Either way, I wasn’t complaining as Vali threaded his fingers back through mine and led the way back into the bar and straight to my green-haired friend.

“Back again?” she asked me when she finished serving her customer and came over to us. “I saw you deck your sister earlier. She the reason your night was so shitty?”

“Yup.” I nodded. “She sure fucking was.” There was no sense in correcting her to say that was my mother not my sister.

“Well, your night certainly looks like it’s taken a turn for the better.” The bartender batted her eyelashes at Vali and twirled her bottle opener on her finger. “Hot damn you are one sexy piece of ass. What are you, like six-four? Six-five?”

Vali smirked but ignored her aggressive flirtation as he ordered. “Could I get a whiskey sour? And for you...?” He looked at me, but the bartender was already bobbing her head in acknowledgement.

“On it, same again, Red?” She grinned at me, and I found myself smiling back.

“Please.” I watched her for a while as she mixed and shook the ingredients, before turning back to my companion. His fingers were still threaded through mine, our palms hot as they pressed together, but I wasn’t complaining.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked him, curiously. “I’d thought you would have dragged my ass straight back to the hotel... but here we are having cocktails. What gives?”

My big, scary, Romanian crime lord threw his head back and laughed, then needed to pay for our drinks before he could respond. After leaving a heavy tip, he dropped my hand—sadly—and took one drink in each hand.

“Find us somewhere to sit,” he suggested, and I looked around the room, spotting a booth that was in the process of being vacated by several girls in mini-dresses.

Pointing it out, I led the way through the crowds and arrived just in time to slide in before another group of girls got to it.

“Long island, huh?” Vali mused, watching me as I stirred the Coke through the sour, alcoholic part, then took a long sip. “I pictured you more as a vodka cranberry kind of girl.”

“Um,” I pondered aloud. “Is that a compliment or an insult? I can’t tell. But besides that, I only just recently found out I was twenty-one, remember?”

Vali gave me a wicked smirk. “Oh yes? And you never consumed alcohol when you were underage? How silly of me to think you might have.” I choked a little on the sip I’d just taken and had to cough in a seriously unsexy way to clear the alcohol from my windpipe.

“Don’t do that,” I growled at him when I was finally able to speak again. No doubt my face was bright red, too. So hot.

“Don’t do what?” he asked, sipping his own drink and shuffling a little closer to me in the booth so that when he draped his arm over the backrest, his fingers were brushing my shoulder.

A shiver ran through me at the light touch of his fingers, and I tried to focus. “Don’t say funny things when I’m not expecting them. I could have drowned on that mouthful of iced tea, and then where would we be, hmm?”

“You don’t expect me to be funny?” He looked genuinely hurt, and I cocked my head to the side, considering him.

“Mmm,” I mused. “It’s not that you’re not funny. It just shocks me sometimes. Like, you’re this big, bad, scary, powerful criminal dude, who is almost always serious, and then you whip out these sarcastic lines... It just throws me for a loop sometimes.”

“Huh.” He frowned. “Well then, I should make more effort to be less serious.”

“How is the whole family empire thing going anyway? You’ve been around a lot more lately.” I hadn’t wanted to ask about it for a while since he’d been so incredibly adamant about keeping me out of his nefarious business dealings. But I was curious to know him better.

He smiled again, and I found my breath catching. He and Cole both had the most amazing smiles, and neither of them used it enough. “Really good, Regina mea. I have put in place a very pliable and respectable figurehead, backed by two geniuses to really run things from behind the scenes. Within a few weeks, I’d say I can be officially retired.”

“A figurehead?” I puzzled. “Why use a figurehead and not your two geniuses... Oh.” It just clicked. “Really? Lucy and Elena are running your crime syndicate now?”

“No,” he shook his head, then finished the last of his drink. “They’re running my entirely legal corporation of investments in property and stocks. I promised you I was cleaning the organization up, dragă, and I meant it.”

Speechless, I finished off my own drink and then placed the empty glass back on the table. “So... Lucy and Elena, huh? Bet your men would love that if they ever found out.”

“Exactly,” he chuckled, trailing his fingertips across my back. “Hence the figurehead. Another?” He nodded to our empty glasses, and when I accepted, slid out of the booth to order them for us.

While he was gone, I considered this new development and found I was really happy for Lucy. She got bored so damn quickly, and without me needing her help on Fox jobs anymore, she was going a little bit crazy. This was actually just the perfect task for her, and I was really impressed that Vali had thought of it.

“So,” I said as Vali returned with fresh drinks. “Do you dance?”

“Dance?” he repeated, settling back into the booth beside me, close enough that our thighs were pressed together. “Like that?” He nodded to the dance floor where sweaty, half-naked girls writhed and rubbed up against equally sweaty guys.

“Yeah, I suppose. Why not?” I wasn’t really a big one for dancing either, but the combination of an information and emotion overload, three long island iced teas, and Vali’s intoxicating nearness was making me want to grind up on him too.

Damn dragon must have been tapping his gypsy powers because he seemed to read my mind as he leaned in close. “You don’t need the excuse of a dance floor to grope me, you know.” As he spoke, his lips brushed my ear, and I needed to stifle a moan.

Under any normal circumstances, I might have been concerned at how fast my mood had shifted from hurt to angry to exhausted and finally settled on turned all the way on. But these were far from normal circumstances, and I had six boyfriends. Could anyone really blame me for wanting to jump Vali right then and there?

“I thought we were taking things slow?” I murmured a little breathlessly as his arm slipped down from the backrest to tuck around my waist and pull me closer.

“We were,” he agreed, his granite eyes tracing the lines of my face and settling on my mouth. “But now we’re not.”

“Totally fine by me,” I groaned, closing the short distance between us and plastering my lips to his in a frenzy of pent-up sexual desire. To my intense relief, he responded with the same level of urgency, forcing my already willing lips to part and claiming my tongue with his own.

While we kissed, my hands gripped tight to his broad shoulders, trying to pull him closer, even as his own huge palms circled my waist and tugged me onto his lap to straddle him. If I had any doubts in my mind about whether he was into me or not, the steel bar crushing against the denim of my crotch eliminated them.

“We should get out of here,” Vali suggested, pulling back from my mouth just long enough to kiss and suck his way down my neck. My brain was floating solidly on cloud nine though, and all I could muster as a response was a breathy moan. Vali chuckled, his laugh vibrating the soft skin of my neck and sending lightning bolts of pleasure through me.

“Come on,” he urged, lifting me off him and then standing. He took my hand in his, and I hurried behind him as he tugged me through the crowded bar and out into the street. “I borrowed River’s Maserati for the night.” He winked at me as we rounded the corner and passed the spot where my mother had dropped about sixteen thousand bombshells on me only maybe half an hour ago.

“What?” I exclaimed, my arousal being tempered by offense. “He let you take one of his cars and not me?”

“Let me.” Vali snickered another evil-sounding laugh. “I didn’t ask.”

Oh, he really is the devil. I love it.

If it was even possible, the fact that he’d taken one of River’s cars without asking—even though this was a rental and not actually River’s car—made me even more aroused.

River’s careful control was a wild turn-on for me, but so was Vali’s blatant disregard for River’s rules. Fuck, it was one sexy conundrum. If I hadn’t already been pretty positive Vali wasn’t the sharing kind of guy, I’d kill to get them both in bed at the same time.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I jogged a little to keep up with Vali’s long strides. I was still wearing my chunky-heeled boots from earlier in the day when Vali and I had gone for a walk to calm my magic down. Damn, that felt like a lifetime ago.

We’d almost reached the back of the valet parking lot, which was why I’d asked, as it was pretty dark away from the main lights of the street and the bar.

“Oh, never mind, I see,” I answered my own question when I saw River’s sleek black Maserati tucked into the last space of the row, almost totally hidden by an enormous GMC Yukon with something like nine seats. Who the hell needed nine seats, unless... Okay, sure, I had six lovers, so who was I to judge?

Vali wasted no words, spinning me to face him, then lifting and pinning me to the hood of the hundred-and-something-thousand-dollar car. His hot lips descended to mine, kissing me without restraint, like I was the last damn woman on earth.

“Regina,” he growled as my hands slipped beneath his shirt and my knees spread to let him in closer to me. “I don’t think I can survive the drive back to our hotel.”

“So don’t,” I offered, then demonstrated my meaning by dragging his T-shirt up and over his head. That was all the encouragement he needed as he dove back in to claim my lips in a bruising kiss. His hands pushed my jacket off my shoulders, then returned the favor by yanking my dove-gray T-shirt off and leaving me in just my black bra, jeans, and boots.

“You sure?” he checked as his hands went to the waistband of my tight blue jeans and flicked the button from its loop. “We are very public right now.”

That was actually part of what made this such a turn-on. We could get caught any damn second, and I loved it. “Hell yes, could not be more sure if I tried.”

Vali dragged my zipper down, and I lifted my ass so he could step back and drag the thick fabric from my body. Somehow—I have no idea how but made a mental note to ask later—he managed to get my jeans totally off me without getting them tangled on my boots.

Magical creatures seriously have the best tricks.

“Huh,” Vali muttered, grabbing one of my legs in a strong hold and pulling me tight against him while my upper body sprawled on the hood of the luxury car. “I see why my little brother keeps destroying your underwear.”

“Don’t—” Before I could even finish the damn word, let alone the warning, a little fire ball had incinerated my black silk thong. “Seriously? Ugh, you two are as bad as each other!”

Vali grinned his wicked dragon grin at me and stroked a sure finger down the length of my pussy, dipping inside me briefly then lifting that finger to his mouth.

“Mmm,” he hummed, rolling his tongue over his wet finger and holding my eye contact. “Seriously addictive.”

Arousal swept through me in another heady wave, and I moaned as my nipples tightened even more in the cool night air. “Vali, seriously? Shut up and fuck me.”

“Your wish is my command, Regina mea,” he chuckled, making quick work of his own belt and fly and freeing his jaw-dropping equipment. It actually gave me a moment’s pause as I stared in fascination.

I mean, I’d caught a glimpse here and there as he’d changed back and forth from dragon form, but that had just nothing on seeing him in all his erect glory. It was, simply put, shocking—in a really good way—but also sent a shiver of anticipation through me... Was it going to hurt?

“Sorry.” He shrugged a guilty-looking shrug. “I usually keep lube handy, but I didn’t come here expecting to fuck you on the hood of River’s car.” I just blinked at him a couple of times, still at a loss for words, and he smirked. “Don’t stress, dragă. I know what I’m doing.”

Using a solid dose of his dragon strength, Vali lifted me by the back of my thighs, bringing my cunt to his mouth and leaving only my shoulders resting on the car while he sucked and licked at my already throbbing pussy.

His lips and tongue worked me over in what seemed like no time at all, and right as I felt like I was about to come, he dropped me back down and pushed the tip of his monster cock inside my slick opening.

“Holy fucking shit,” I moaned, writhing against the car as he pushed in another half inch and my walls tightened, relaxed, then adjusted to allow him more progress. By the time he had made it in as far as he was probably ever going to, I was a panting mess.

“You okay, dragă?” Vali checked, and I was pleased to hear his own voice tight with tension and need.

“I’m amazing, but I think I might actually die if you don’t start fucking me now, Vali,” I confessed in a rush of words, and he snickered.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Regina mea,” he replied. “But if you’re sure you’re okay...”

In response, I hitched my legs up around his waist and pulled him in tighter, feeling him slip a little deeper. Guess I’d been wrong, after all.

My words slurred into a jumble of noises as he began to move inside me, slowly at first as he coated himself in my lube, then faster until I was practically sobbing with the intensity of the orgasm clawing its way out of me.

“Christ, Vali, I’m about to come,” I moaned, then seconds later felt like my entire body was shattering into a million pieces, with the epicenter at my pussy. The climax rippled through me over and over while Vali thrust his rigid shaft into me, and I heard myself screaming my way through a second and then a third orgasm in quick succession.

When my quivering finally began to die down, I licked my lips and peered up at Vali with hooded eyes. “That was...”

“Fucking intense,” he finished for me, grinning wickedly and still pumping slowly into me. “Also, not the quietest... I think we might have company soon.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder but seemed really in no rush to move.

“Well, we better hurry things up a bit then.” I smirked back at him, removing his cock from inside me then scrambling up from the smooth car hood, now slick with my sweat, and sinking to my knees in front of him.

His breath sucked in with a sharp hiss as my hand wrapped around his thick erection, my fingertips not even touching together. Looking up at him, I slowly and deliberately licked around the head of his cock while he held my gaze, until his fists bunched in his hair and he groaned.

“I thought you said we were hurrying?” he reminded me in a teasing tone, and I grinned.

“Oops, good point. Time for playing later, right?” I threw him a wink but didn’t wait for a response before wrapping my lips over the head of his dick and sucking him in.

My tongue swirled around him while my hand made up the difference in length that I just couldn’t take into my throat. It made me think I needed to have River work on my gag reflex a little more.

“Fuck, dragă,” he gasped, his hands gripping my hair and encouraging a faster pace while his hips thrust gently, testing the limits and begging for more. “I can hear someone coming.”

Not willing to stop before he was done, I pumped him harder with my fist, sucking him deeper still until seconds later his hot come was filling my throat and he let out a decidedly dragon-like roar.

“Well, if they hadn’t heard me, they couldn’t have missed you,” I snickered, releasing him and wiping off my mouth.

“Shit,” he swore, grabbing our discarded clothes from the ground and bundling them in his arms. “Quick, hop in the car before they see you out here in all your glorious nakedness.”

With all the chivalry of a well-mannered man, he helped me up from my knees and brushed the small pieces of gravel from my flesh before holding the passenger side door open, then closing it behind me.

“River’s car is going to smell like sex tomorrow,” I commented as he got in the driver’s side, still shirtless, and started the engine. He’d tossed our pile of clothes in before me, so I yanked my T-shirt over my bra, just in case anyone could see through the tinted glass, then went to work on figuring out how in the hell he’d gotten my jeans past my boots.

“Look,” Vali pointed up to a large tree overhanging the parking lot as we pulled out. It wasn’t far from where we’d been fucking, and sitting on a branch staring at us was a very intelligent-looking crow.

25

The sight that greeted us when we entered the hotel suite was confusing at best. Cole was on his hands and knees peering under the couch and speaking in a low and soothing tone while Caleb sat on the kitchen counter with his knees pulled up to his chest.

Austin leaned casually against the counter, watching Cole with an amused look on his face, while Wesley was ignoring them all and tapping away on his laptop at the table.

“Hey,” I greeted them as we stood there for a second, frowning in confusion. “Uh, Cal, can we talk? Privately?”

Whatever weirdness was going on with the guys could probably wait. I owed Caleb an apology for my rash overreaction, and if I didn’t do it now, then I was either going to chicken out or the anxiety was going to give me a stomach ulcer.

Could I even get stomach ulcers? It sure felt like I could...

“Uh...” Caleb looked at me with an uncertain expression, darting his eyes back to whatever the hell Cole was doing and then giving me a cautious nod. “Yeah, of course. Let’s go... um... outside?”

He did an awkward sort of shuffle along the countertop, pushing Austin out of his way while he went and ignoring his twin’s snort of laughter. Once Caleb was right to the end of the counter, he slid off and quickly dashed the distance between kitchen and balcony.

“Coming?” he asked me, standing just outside and holding the sliding door partly closed as if scared something might chase him out there. Weird behavior.

“Yeah, I’m coming, you-you oddball,” I replied, trying not to laugh at how strange he was being. Austin, meanwhile, seemed to be fighting laughter of his own, and Cole flicked an annoyed glance at the Ink Mage.

“What’s going on?” I frowned, joining Caleb on the balcony and watching as he closed the sliding door firmly and took a seat as far from the door as possible.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “Tell you later. What did you want to talk about? You were pretty mad when you left...”

“Ah yeah.” I blushed with embarrassment and took the seat beside him. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. Actually, where’s Vic?” I twisted in my seat, looking inside again in case I’d missed him lurking somewhere. Wes hadn’t moved, Austin seemed to be offering Cole advice on whatever he was doing, and I could see River and Vali speaking near the door. No Vic, though.

“He left,” Caleb informed me. “Or... got thrown out. Same difference, right? No doubt he will be back, though. He said he’s been working on breaking the geas that... er.... Bridget put on him.”

As he said my mother’s name, he cringed. Whether it was because he didn’t want me to fly off the handle at him again or because he was anticipating pain from the secrecy spell, I wasn’t sure. But it solidified how harsh I’d been with him earlier.

“Okay, so, Bridget.” I heaved a deep breath and smiled at him tentatively. “I owe you an apology. I totally overreacted earlier, and that wasn’t fair to you.”

Caleb started to say something, so I held my hand up to silence him.

“Just... let me explain. Or rather, not explain because it’s pretty cut and dry. You didn’t do anything that deserved that sort of reaction from me. It was just... a lot. All at once. First the pain from the bonding, then Vic showing up and dropping that truth bomb... I let my anger and fear drive my actions, and for that I apologize.”

“Kitty Kat,” he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. “You have nothing to apologize for. You really didn’t react that badly, unless you count storming out into Los Angeles in the middle of the night when you know bad guys want to string you up and drain your blood. Other than that, it was kind of understandable.”

“Uh, so I’m also apologizing for all the things I thought but didn’t say. So... sorry!” I gave him an awkward sort of smile, and he chuckled.

“I’m sorry too, babe. I never ever should have accepted that stupid spell in the first place. If I’d have been in my right mind, I would have known it couldn’t end well.” He leaned forward in his seat and took my hand in his, tracing a pattern across my skin. “It’s been eating me up inside this whole time, not being able to tell you and knowing how mad you were going to be.”

“You won’t believe this”—I laughed a humorless laugh—“or maybe you will, seeing as you know her better than I do, but Bridget found me tonight. After I left here, I went to a random bar, and she showed up with Mr. Gregoric.”

“What?” Caleb exclaimed. “What did she want? I was always so careful not to give her any info on you, Kitty, I swear.”

“No, I know. I do trust you.” I linked my fingers with his and gave him a squeeze of reassurance. “A lot of what she said smacked of bullshit, but she did make it pretty clear you weren’t to be blamed for the whole situation. Did you know she was drugging your tea to make you keep going back there?”

Caleb’s jaw dropped slightly, and his brows shot up. “What the fuck?”

“Ah yeah, so... I really can’t blame you for seeing her behind my back. You didn’t actually have any free will to refuse.” I shrugged and gave him an apologetic smile. “But on the upside to all of this, the amulet she gave you really does seem to be working.”

“Yeah?” He ran his fingers over the gold chain and then gave me a half smile. “I’m glad. I didn’t have any reason to think she was lying about this, but then I also didn’t think she was magically drugging my tea.”

I snorted a laugh. “I know, my mother seems like a real piece of work.”

“You really scared me earlier, Kitty Kat,” Caleb murmured in a serious voice. “The way you reacted after our bond... I thought I’d broken you or something. All I could think was that I hadn’t been ready after all. That my magic was going to cause you even more shit, all because I was so desperate to break the NDA and tell you about Bridget before Vic could get here.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered back, cupping his cheek in my hand. “The bonds were already getting worse each time, but I still want them all. It’s only temporary, the pain I mean, and I have no doubt it’ll be worth it in the end. Maybe it was just because you’re my fourth and three was supposed to be the limit?”

He nodded, looking thoughtful. “That’s true. So it could have happened with one of the others too?”

“Exactly,” I confirmed. “I should have said this earlier instead of throwing a tantrum. Thank you for everything you’ve done to control your magic. I know you never wanted this life and I sort of forced it on you. But I am really happy to be bonded to you now.”

He gave me a slow smile. “Me too, Kitty Kat. You know I’ve been head over heels for you ever since that night with the thunderstorm?”

“That long?” I gaped at him. “Damn, Cal, I was still in the he’s pretty hot and kind of growing on me stage then.”

He laughed. “Yep, that night when I held you and you told me why you’re scared of thunder, I thought to myself... I am totally in love with this girl already. How can I keep her forever?”

A broad grin spread over my face, and I gazed into his emerald-green eyes. My walls were still locked hard in place against the guys’ emotions, so I knew without a doubt that the warm, fuzzy feeling of love rushing through me like bubbles through champagne was all mine.

“I’m in love with you too, Caleb,” I whispered, and he kissed me gently but with so much raw emotion that I worried my eyes might start leaking.

“Now.” I cleared my throat as we separated. “What in the hell is going on inside?”

Caleb cringed and sat back in his seat, shooting an angry, almost fearful, glance inside.

“Uh, so in all the confusion after we bonded, with your magic trying to tear you to pieces and then Vic showing up, we sort of didn’t notice my familiar had shown up.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You got your familiar? How the hell did we miss that? And why is it under the couch?” I assumed that was what Cole was trying to coax out with his soft words. “And why is Cole trying to get it out and not you?”

A light blush stained Caleb’s cheeks as he met my eyes. “Because it’s a snake... and I am so sure I already told you, but snakes scare the shit out of me.”

Biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, I stared back at him for a long moment, not totally sure what to say. Clearly any jokes were not going to be received well and we had just kissed and made up, so I should probably refrain from being a dick so soon.

“You think I’m being a pussy, don’t you?” he deadpanned, and I had to fight even harder not to laugh.

“No, hon, not at all.” I glanced inside, then back to Caleb. “I think Austin is a pussy, but that’s a whole other thing. You know, because... tiger...” I grinned, and he just glared back at me. “Okay, not the time. Uh, well, I still don’t understand why your viper—if I assume correctly—is under the couch.”

Caleb huffed a sigh. “Well, there was all the noise and people and everything when he first showed up, and it turns out that because I’m scared of him... well, he’s scared of me too. Or all humans.”

This time I really couldn’t bite my cheek any harder, and a few little chuckles bubbled out before I could rein them in. “Ah, how do you know that?”

He looked seriously unimpressed as he replied to that question. “Because we can communicate telepathically. When anyone gets close, he’s all curses and threats about biting. He’s a real fucking asshole, Kitty Kat; I have to be honest.”

Oh, God. This keeps getting better.

“So, um,” I chuckled, not trying to stop myself anymore. “Why is Cole trying? He’s not the friendliest human we have.”

Caleb rolled his eyes like the answer should have been obvious. “No, but he’s a reptile. Surely they can, like, recognize their own kind or something?”

“Of course,” I snickered. “How silly of me. Do you want me to try? I actually like snakes. They’re cool creatures.”

Caleb looked aghast. “Kitty Kat... they have no ears!”

“Well, it’s a good thing you can talk telepathically then, isn’t it?” I grinned, standing and sliding the door open to head back inside. “Come on; let’s get your familiar out so he can meet everyone. You two still need to sort out his home, don’t you?”

My big bad Blood Mage cringed but nodded. He knew as well as I did, or better, that a familiar was a huge honor for a Mage to receive, and its sole purpose was to increase his magic. He needed to work through his fear of snakes and make it work; there were no other options on the table.

* * *

An hour of unsuccessful coaxing later, I pushed up from the floor and glared at Caleb, who had made progress in that he was now in a chair rather than on top of the kitchen counter, but still had his feet up off the floor.

“Cal,” I snapped. “You need to do this. He’s not going to come out for any of us. Cole even tried making his hand all scaly, and it didn’t work.”

Caleb huffed and scowled. “What am I supposed to do? He’s legitimately threatening to bite me if I stick my hand in there to grab him.”

“Do not even look at me,” Austin grinned. “Snakes and cats are definitely not friends. On that note, Wes is probably out too, right bro?” Wesley glanced up from his computer and nodded. That one I could understand; didn’t snakes eat crows?

“Have you tried talking to him?” I suggested to Caleb. “Like... using your telepathic thing? Seeing as he doesn’t have ears?” This last part was a joke, seeing as the damn thing could clearly hear us speaking if the curses Caleb had been translating were any indication.

“And ask him what? Why he’s being such a fucking ass?” Caleb grumbled, then rolled his eyes. “Fine, I will try.”

“Try starting with his name, if he has one,” Cole suggested. “He seems pretty sentient, so calling him snakey probably isn’t helping his mood. Failing that, I say we just lift the couch and trap him with a box.”

I glared at the big man. “Not the point, Cutie. But good suggestion to ask his name. If he doesn’t have one, you should really give him one, Cal.”

Caleb closed his eyes briefly, then snorted and sighed. “He’s trying to tell me his name is Rumplesnakeskin.”

Frowning, I glanced back under the sofa at the enormous diamond-backed viper, and he flicked his tongue at me in an almost amused sort of way. Wow, he really was a weird-ass snake.

“Maybe that is his name?” I suggested, but Caleb shook his head.

“No, because he laughed and is now telling me it’s Monty.” He paused, and I failed to see what was funny about Monty. “Monty the Python. Which it’s clearly not because you’re not a python, you dick!”

This last bit, Caleb leaned down to yell at the magical creature under the couch, and his familiar hissed back at him.

“Ahhh hilarious, you turd. It’s not William Snakespeare either, thank you. If you don’t give me a serious answer, I’m just going to name you myself,” Caleb snapped in response to what must have been another name suggestion from his familiar.

If I was being honest, the snake was kind of hilarious.

“Um, is he just fucking with you because he doesn’t have a name or because he just wants to fuck with you?” Wesley piped up and asked a very valid question.

Caleb wrinkled his nose and considered this. “Fair point. Listen, you slimy psycho, if you don’t give me a serious name, then I am going to call you... Cuddles. Or Fluffy.”

Still lying on the floor as I was, I could see his familiar’s less-than-excited reaction to those names, as he hissed and snapped his powerful jaws in Caleb’s vague direction.

“I don’t think he was into those suggestions, Cal,” I muttered, and Caleb huffed as he listened to the snake again.

“Seriously?” he finally asked, reluctantly getting off his chair and kneeling on the floor to peer at his familiar. “You’re not messing with me this time? That’s really your name?”

Curiosity was burning at me, and I poked him in the shoulder. “What is it?”

“Sam,” Caleb replied with a frown. “Except he says it like Sssssssssam, and I’m not totally sure if that’s just because he’s a snake—” He cut off and rolled his eyes. “Nope, he says that is the correct pronunciation. Sssssssssam.”

There was a long pause as he met my eyes with an expression that screamed why me, and I fought back laughter.

“Here’s the deal, scales. I’m not calling you Sssssssssam, and I can promise you that neither will the dragons. God forbid you try getting Alpha to call you Sssssssssam, either. So it’s Sam or Cuddles. Your choice.” He paused again. “Excellent choice. Now are you coming out from under there to meet our bonded Ban Dia, or are you going to be a little bitch? Sorry, I meant mouse.”

At this insult, Sam the snake darted forward and struck Caleb in the hand with his fangs before curling his way up Caleb’s arm to rest across his shoulders and eye me up suspiciously.

“What the fuck?” Caleb roared, holding his bleeding hand up to his mouth and then rolling his eyes for what seemed like the twentieth time since starting this chat with Sam. “Oh, there was no venom in that bite? Oh well, that makes it all okay then, you psycho.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm as he sucked the wound, and his familiar flicked out his tongue in what seemed to be a laugh.

“Here.” I held my hand out to take his and heal the wound, but he shook his head.

“It’s fine; it was only a scratch. See?” He held his hand up to show the bite had already stopped bleeding. “Apparently once Sam and I get to know each other better, we can choose what types of poison he will carry in his venom, which is kind of cool... I guess.”

“That’s actually really cool,” I murmured, eyeing up his familiar now that he was out in the light. Caleb was coiled tighter than, well, than an angry snake. But he hadn’t thrown Sam off him in revulsion, so that surely must be progress for them? “Hi, Sam. I’m Kit.”

Sam flickered his tongue at me, and Caleb translated. “He said, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’” He grimaced and gave me a pained look. “Sorry, my familiar is kind of a dick.”

“Fitting,” Austin snickered from across the room, and Caleb flipped him off.

“Okay, I think that’s just about enough for one night,” I announced before the twins could start bickering. “I’m fucking wrecked, and Caleb should spend some time with Sam. River?” I looked over to my sexy British lover, who was watching the whole snake interaction with fascination. “Can we just quickly run through our next steps? I need sleep, but don’t think I can until my mind finds some order.”

“Of course, love.” He snapped his fingers in front of Wesley’s screen to break his concentration, then glanced around to ensure everyone was listening.

“All right, so we were unable to confirm those agents who shot at you were Omega; however, given the coincidental timing with our meeting Director Pierre, it does seem like the obvious answer. For now. Wesley has been gathering more information about the doctor who has been conducting experiments using your blood and has suggested we may need to keep closer tabs on him as a precaution. That’s not an urgent matter though. Now, as far as I am concerned, our top priorities need to be helping you stabilize your bonds, which I believe you have some help with already?” River arched a brow at me, and I nodded, holding up the wrist with my fox amulet.

“Good,” he continued. “Then the next thing is helping Wesley with his magic. We’ve been doing some extensive research and think we have located someone who might be able to help. He’s located in a town called Glenganen in Ireland.”

My brows shot up, and I looked to Wesley, who really did look like shit. He had huge dark shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken. The lack of sleep was surely going to kill him soon. It seemed like for every night he was permitted a decent sleep, there were two or three that his mentor would torment him.

“Amazing,” I enthused. “When do we leave?”

“Well, that was the next thing. This gentleman has agreed to meet with Wesley and one other only. We can’t all go with him.” River’s eyes tightened, and I could tell he was as pleased with this as I was.

“That’s...” I shook my head. “That’s fucking stupid, but if that’s what it takes to get this creepy dream-stalker out of Wes’s head, then so be it. I’ve never been to Ireland before.” I gave Wesley an encouraging smile, and his face flooded with relief.

River’s controlled expression cracked for a second, and he looked at me with surprise. “You’d go without us, love?”

This gave me pause. When he’d said Wesley could only take one person, I’d just assumed it would be me. But then that meant leaving my other five guardians behind to keep dealing with the shitstorm that was my adopted father and mad scientists trying to replicate my magic and my unhinged mother who looked like my twin.

Could I really do that? Leave my dianoch behind and travel halfway around the world while every man and his dog were still out to get me?

When I met Wesley’s eyes, the answer was clear.

“Yeah, I think I have to. Wesley needs to figure out what he is, what I made him, and if there is anything I can do to help him with that... then that’s what I need to do.” I glanced at River, catching his golden eyes, which were swirling with so much raw emotion I couldn’t catch what was what. But I was firm in this decision. “I’d do the same for you, if you’d let me.”

River held my gaze a long, tense moment before giving a terse nod. Protests rose from all four of my other guardians, and River held his hand up to silence them.

“This is Kit’s choice,” he snapped at them in a voice like steel. “Wesley isn’t due to leave for another week yet, so perhaps she might change her mind. But it will always be Kit’s choice. She is our Ban Dia; we must support her in every decision.” Under his breath, quiet enough that I only heard it by how close I stood, he added, “Even if those decisions suck.”

Reaching for his waist, I tugged him close and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

“Thank you, sir,” I whispered the words in his ear. “I meant it. I will do the same for you.”

He didn’t reply, simply gave my waist a quick squeeze, then headed to the door and grabbed his jacket. “I’m heading out to sort some things. You know how to reach me.” He gave me one final, heated look before leaving, and I knew he was not happy. He was, however, understanding.

The other guys grumbled various complaints, but all started filtering out as well—even Caleb, carrying Sam like he was a scarf made of acid. Poor thing.

“All right, I’m going to get Caleb’s familiar tattoo sorted,” Austin told me as he made to follow his twin. “Gives him a chance to rest Sam before they literally murder each other.” He paused as he was about to leave the room, and turned to look back at me. “I think it’s a fucking dumb move to separate right now. So don’t think we won’t try to change your mind in the next week. Both of you.”

With that ominous warning, I found myself alone with Wesley.

“Well, what the hell do you think that meant?” I asked him, pulling out a chair at the table opposite him and propping my head on my hands.

“Uh, pretty sure it means a totally different thing for me than it does for you, sweetheart.” He smirked, then took off his glasses to rub at his bloodshot eyes. “But for me... unless they can find a bona fide dreamweaver here in the states, I don’t have another choice. Even waiting a week to meet this guy is going to be hard enough.”

“I know,” I said softly, reaching across the table to take his hand in mine. “Would it help if I slept with you tonight?”

He gave me a watery smile. “It won’t save me while I sleep, but it’ll make me feel a whole hell of a lot better about going to sleep.”

My lips curved into a grin, and I held his gaze. “So, we’re going to Ireland.”

“We are going to Ireland,” he agreed.

A nauseous feeling pooled in my stomach, but I pushed it aside. Wesley needed me, and I’d stop at nothing to be there for him in any way I could.

Epilogue

As it turned out, my guardian’s idea of changing my mind included a whole lot of nudity and alone time. A few days into the week, when my resolve had started cracking, I realized I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was—not against all of them.

From there on out, I made a damn good point of staying busy to the point where they each had minimal amounts of time of persuade me to stay stateside with them.

The day for Wesley and me to leave had arrived though, and they’d had no further luck in tracking down anyone else to help. Not knowing what Wesley was didn’t help matters. Hell, we didn’t even know if this guy in Ireland could help, but he was the only person in the known supernatural community with any affinity to dreams.

We’d yet to find anyone at all with Wesley’s ability to borrow the eyes and ears of crows, so for now the focus was on the dreams.

Our flight wasn’t due to leave for a while yet, so the guys were all out doing fuck knew what, chasing down leads on Native American shamans that were supposed to have the dreamweaving magic.

As for Wes and myself, we were packing up our things. We had no indication of how long this trip would be or whether it’d be a dead end or turn into an extended stay, but the guys wouldn’t be staying on in Los Angeles anyway, so we were packing up everything.

The chime of my mobile phone echoed through the room, and Wesley tossed it across the bed to me so I could answer.

“Hey,” I said, upon picking up the call. Wesley continued to haphazardly throw clothes into his suitcase. No wonder he was always so rumpled. I’d asked him to fold a shirt earlier, and he’d looked at me like I’d grown antlers.

“Dead end,” Caleb grumbled down the phone at me. “Just some fraud in a made-in-China teepee in his backyard.”

“Well, I could have told you that,” I teased him, heading into the living area and tucking my legs up under me. “Will you be back before we leave for the airport? Vali and River said they’re driving us when they get back from sorting out your next safe house.”

“Yup, for sure. You don’t leave for another couple of hours, right?” Caleb double-checked, and I heard Austin murmur something in the background.

“Yeah, like just over three hours from now,” I confirmed, and Caleb made a noise of acknowledgement.

“Austin says we can be back in two if I let him drive. Cole called me a second ago and said he’ll be back around the same time.” Caleb sounded annoyed, and I smiled.

“Guess his lead was a dead end too, then?” I teased. “Don’t worry, Cal. We will probably get to Ireland and find this is a dead end as well and end up back here in two days.”

A knock sounded at the suite door, and I uncurled from my seat to stand up. “Cal, I have to go. Our room service just arrived. I’ll see you soon, though.”

A long sigh came down the phone. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon. Love you, Kitty Kat.”

“Love you too, Caleb,” I whispered back to him, “and your asshole brother who is probably listening right now. I’ll see you both soon.”

Hanging up the call, I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and went to answer the door. We’d both been too lazy to try and make ourselves lunch, so we’d ordered in. It was one of the perks to staying in a hotel, wasn’t it?

“Hi,” I greeted the smartly uniformed hotel worker who stood at the door behind a room service cart, “Just through here would be great. Wes! Food’s here!”

The man dipped his head and pushed the cart into our suite, parking it beside the dining table and offloading the tray carrying my pasta and bread and Wesley’s Thai beef salad. The smell of cheese sauce was already reaching my nose and making my mouth water. Ugh, yum. Carb goodness.

While he did this, I waited by the door, holding it open for him. Call me crazy, but it felt creepy to close the door with a waiter inside the room. Maybe that was just my own insecurities making me paranoid.

“Is that everything, miss?” he asked when everything was set on the table. “Just sign here.” He held out the leather bill folder with the room charge docket, and I scrawled a signature onto it. Not my signature, obviously, just a signature. I wasn’t that dumb.

“That’s everything.” I smiled, holding the door while he pushed his cart out into the hall and then closing it behind him. “Oh yes, cheesy pasta. Come to mama.” I groaned aloud as I rushed over to the table to dig in. I’d skipped breakfast, thanks to a wake-up call of a different sort courtesy of Cole and River—a valid reason to skip meals if there ever was one. But now I was starved.

“Did I just hear you dirty-talking your food?” Wes snickered, coming to join me at the table and giving me an amused smile.

“That was sweet-talking, not dirty-talking, and hell yeah, you did.”

On the side of the tray was a white access key that the room service dude must have left behind. I’d take it down to reception later; surely he could wait until after I ate.

Setting it aside, I raised a forkful of pasta to my mouth right as a knock sounded on the suite door again.

Dammit. He must have noticed and come back for it. Saved me a trip down to reception though, so I sighed and placed my fork back down to pick up the card and answer the door.

“I’ll get it; you keep whispering sweet nothings to your pasta,” Wes teased, taking the key card from me and heading over to the door.

“Hey man, you forgot your key—” he started to say as he opened the door, but his words were cut short when the door burst open thanks to a heavy-booted kick, and several heavily armed men seized hold of Wesley. A gun was pressed tight against his temple and another aimed at him by a different guy before I could even stand from my seat.

It was the person who entered the room next that froze me to the spot.

“Simon?” I gasped, not totally believing my eyes. Despite my shock, I still sized up his reenforcements to find the best way to free Wesley.

My childhood friend stood there in the door to the suite looking like death. Which I guessed was damn appropriate, given I had seen him die in an avalanche!

“Hey Foxy Girl,” he sneered at me. “Bet you never thought you’d see me again.”

Stunned, I said nothing, just flicked my gaze between him and his goon squad, who were fastening a pair of handcuffs on Wesley. Worse than that, they were handcuffs like I’d never seen before… meaning I had no idea how to get him out of them.

Simon was dressed in the same clothes he’d worn that night in Alaska—I knew because the image of him being obliterated by a wall of snow and ice was imprinted on my brain like it was etched in stone—but his backup was all business. Head-to-toe black with not an inch of skin showing anywhere. They even wore heavily tinted helmets, hiding their faces from view.

“Si, this isn’t possible,” I started, and he chuckled an odd, hacking sound. His skin held an unnatural blueish tint, and his eyes were so bloodshot they almost looked to be bleeding.

“Why, Foxy? Because I’m dead?” He curled his lip at me in disgust and jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “And whose fault was that?”

“Simon, you died in an avalanche. That had nothing to do with me, but I would have killed you myself if I could have. You fucking shot me!” My wits were slowly coming back to me along with my anger. This was the boy who’d been my devoted best friend though so many horrific years of abuse, the same man who had tried to have me tortured and broken. Yeah, I should have killed him myself. “What the hell are you doing here? What do you want?”

Simon shrugged, ignoring my questions, and the foul odor of decay wafted across my nose. “Well, should have, would have, could have. Your fucking abominations and their fireballs caused that avalanche, but luckily someone was watching. Someone who knows how much I fucking hate you.”

He jabbed me in the chest, and I smacked his hand away, trying to ignore the ice-cold, waxy feeling of his skin.

“You think you’re so safe, Ban Dia. You think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you? Mr. Gray is dead, so it’s only your dad out to get you now, right?” He leered at me with a superior look on his sallow face. “Wrong, Foxy Girl. You have a lot more enemies than you know, and some of them are closer than you might think.”

With this ominous threat, he pulled his fist back and punched me clean in the side of the face, making my head snap to the side and my breath escape in a sharp gasp. While it hurt, sure, I’d experienced worse. Even being an undead... whatever he was, Simon was no stronger than a normal human male.

Raising my hand to my face, I wiped the blood from my mouth and glared murder at my former best friend, now turned enemy.

“Oh, Simon,” I mocked with an evil grin, “you’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

My fists curled, and the familiar surge of adrenaline poured through me as I visualized everything I wanted to do to this pathetic excuse for a human. Not even, anymore. Fuck only knew what he was now, but it didn’t matter.

“I’d think really carefully before making your next move, Kit,” Simon sneered at me, jerking his head toward my guardian, still held captive and now gagged.

“What the fuck do you want from me, Simon?” I snarled again, meeting Wesley’s panicked eyes.

What the hell do I do now? I can’t take on all of these dudes before one of them shoots Wesley… and I can’t take that risk. I won’t.

Simon snickered a sick, evil-sounding laugh as he watched me with beady eyes. “You know, it always was your most predicatable weakness, Foxy. Always throwing yourself in front of buses to save others. Has that changed?” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “No, I think not. After all, your friend here doesn’t even know what species he is… let alone whether he can heal from a bullet to the head. My intel says you’re not bonded either, which means he’s not immortal.”

He paused then, letting that information sink in, and I felt sick. How the fuck did he know so much? “So, you have a choice to make. Fight, try and kill me again, and get your boyfriend shot. Or play nice and let the special ops men cuff you.”

My gaze met Wesley’s once more, and I knew what he would say. He was just as bad as me. The clear message in his eyes was “Hell yes, fight!”

But I couldn’t do it. Simon was right. Wes and I hadn’t bonded, so there was no evidence to suggest he’d survive a bullet to the brain. Certainly not enough to even risk it.

Wesley’s eyes pleaded with me not to give in as I gave him a slow, sad headshake.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him, even though he was across the room. “I can’t lose you.”

Simon made a noise like he was dry retching, then indicated to two more black-armored men to come over and detain me, just as they had Wesley.

Shuddering, I forced myself to stay still as the two towering men crowded me, roughly grabbing my wrists and placing the unusual cuffs around them. When they closed, there was a flare of light, and the seam where they met disappeared, leaving a cool, blue glow in the metal.

“What the hell are these?” I demanded, panic overtaking my body as a quick barrage of grusome images flickered through my mind, all scenes from my nightmares and my life, sometimes both. I’d never dealt well with being restrained… unless it was River on the other end.

“Oh, you’ve never seen these before?” Simon acted innocent, and a wicked smile curved over his blue-gray face. “Try using your magic. Go on, anything. Tell you what, we’ll even take the gun away from your friend’s head.” He snapped his fingers and one of Wesley’s guards lowered his weapon.

Clearly he was taunting me—I wasn’t stupid enough not to know that was what he was doing—but at the same time, I needed to know.

Reaching inside myself, I stretched my mental fingers out for the glowing ball of my own magic and passed straight through it like it was little more than an illusion. Or I was a ghost. Frantically I reached for it again and again, to the same effect. It was there, but I couldn’t access it.

“Uh-oh,” Simon mocked me with a snicker. “Did someone lose all her magic? What a shame... I wonder if that means you can die now? Guess we’ll soon find out, where you’re going.”

“What have you done?” I gasped out, feeling frightened tears pricking at my eyes. The only thing keeping me sane was the feeling of Wesley’s reassuring gaze on me. We’d gotten out of worse before, right? We’d do it again.

“You didn’t think we would capture supernaturals without some way of neutering their magic, did you? Fuck, Kit. We’re evil, not stupid.” Simon snorted and stepped out of the way, allowing my guards to drag me out of the hotel suite.

On instinct I struggled, wrenching my arm from one of the men’s gloved grip and throwing an elbow into the other’s gut. But the sickening crunch of something hard slamming into Wesley’s head made me freeze.

I turned to look back at him, just in time to see his unconscious form crumple between his guards, a line of blood running down his forehead where they’d just slammed him into the wall.

“That’s it, Foxy Girl,” Simon purred. “Always so pliable when there is an innocent to save.”

The fight drained from my limbs, and my vision spotted as I allowed myself to be dragged into the service elevator, all the while praying an employee might see us. Instead, all I heard was the maniacal laughter of the boy I’d once considered family.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my darling husband for finally coming around to the idea of his wife as an author. Your support now means the world to me when others have dropped theirs. And to our chubby cheeked ball of giggles, Alaric… you’re hilarious kid. Keep being awesome.

To Goldfish and the ASS. Thanks for making me write words in order to actually finish books!

Thank you—as always—to Becca, Penguino, Hot Property and KK for reading as I wrote and helping me when I got stuck. Sometimes all I need is your emojied response to keep going.

Finally, my editors Heather and Jax. Seriously… don’t leave me. I’m not joking. You’re mine for life now! *evil laugh*

About the Author

Hello! I’m Tate, or TJ, or Goldie 2. I write books about people who do things, meet other people, things happen and stuff gets said. I am a wine and coffee addict who swears too much and thinks of sarcasm as the highest form of wit.

For more rambling, contact me directly via my website!

www.tatejamesauthor.com

Or join my readers group on Facebook!

www.facebook.com/groups/tatejames.thefoxhole

Ps. Thank you so much for buying/reading The Viper’s Nest. If you made it this far, it’d mean the world if you left a review on amazon!

Also by Tate James

Kit Davenport Series

#1 The Vixen’s Lead

#2 The Dragon’s Wing

#3 The Tiger’s Ambush

#4 The Viper’s Nest

#5 The Crow’s Murder (2018)

#6 The Alpha’s Pack (2018)

Contemporary Reverse Harem

Slopes of Sin

Co-Authored by Tate James and CM Stunich

Hijinks Harem

#1 Elements of Mischief

#2 Elements of Ruin

#3 Elements of Desire

The Wild Hunt Motorcycle Club

#1 Dark Glitter

#2 Cruel Glamour (April 1st 2018)

Foxfire Burning

#1 The Nine (April 18th 2018)