by Tate James
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
