The Viper's Nest

by Tate James

  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.r />
  “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.