Teeth raked teasingly over my flesh, and I arched against him, my hands working their way into his wild hair as our lips met in a frenzied kiss. My desire for him spiked—the need burning fiercely inside, racing through my veins and pooling between my thighs. A soft moan slipped free before I could stop it, and Darius deepened the kiss with a growl, his tongue plundering my mouth, the act both possessive and desperate. Possessive before all others, marking me physically—the thought of which no longer frightened me. Desperate for closeness, our absence only thickened the invisible bond between us. Just the sight of him sparked a need in my very marrow, and from the way we touched one another, the way we kissed, it didn’t take a genius to guess the one thing that might scratch this throbbing itch.
A pointed throat clearing behind me sucked some of the intensity out of the moment. Darius and I slowly untangled from one another’s grasp. Smoothing my hair down, my cheeks flushed a telling crimson as I turned around. The fae behind me gave a half-hearted wave, his eyes dropping to the hand Darius still had resting on my hip.
“Galen?”
“Hi,” my former second-in-command managed, clearing his throat before nodding back to the militia—which had swelled in size since I last looked. My blush worsened. How long had we been kissing?
“I didn’t know you were traveling with us,” I said, forcing the words out in an effort to break the awkward moment. To his credit, Darius appeared totally nonplussed that we were just sucking face in front of everyone. In fact, he looked, quite frankly, annoyed that we had had to stop.
“We haven’t had a chance to say our hellos yet,” he told me. “I’m just a regular soldier this time around, but I thought it might be prudent to, er, press pause on your reunion. Most of us have arrived.”
“Bring them in through the hall,” Darius instructed gruffly. “There is a door at the far back that will take you into the mountain. There will be someone to meet you when you arrive.”
Galen nodded, then zipped back to the loitering supernaturals like the hounds of hell were at his heels. I smoothed my hands over my rumpled clothing, then tried to salvage my hair; Darius always brought out the wild creature within it. As we stepped to the side, nodding at a few supernaturals as they headed for the alpha’s hall, I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders—but found that I couldn’t shake my unquenched need for Darius. While I had always been interested in sleeping with him, touching him, kissing him, it was the physical attraction and emotional connection that encouraged my wanton thoughts. Now, as our fingers snaked around one another and I cuddled into his chest, I realized what I felt was rawer, more animalistic in nature.
Nature. That’s what it was: the shifter part of me connected to him more firmly now, and the she-beast did not approve of this pause. The desire needed to be satiated, and soon if I wanted to form coherent thoughts, but I knew there were more pressing matters. Jasmine. Another war. The artifact. Fucking Aden.
Right. Back to business, I guess.
Take him, Kaye, my inner voice protested, but I rolled my eyes and ignored her.
“So…” I motioned in the direction of the village. “Care to tell me what’s going on here? I thought you had all left from the way everything looks down there.”
“That was intentional,” Darius assured me, his thumb stroking the top of my hand in slow, even sweeps. When I glanced up, he appeared to be looking over the supernaturals entering his hall. There was more scrutiny in his eyes than the last time he had involved himself with the militia, but why wouldn’t there be? This time, he was responsible for all the shifters in his clan. The weight of their lives rested heavily on his shoulders, and I found myself wanting to relieve him of some of the burden.
“To throw Jasmine off?”
“Quinn and Catriona were the first to spot her scouts,” he said, scowling. “They were doing a sweep of the area with a patrol group and realized she had sent her uncle’s old minions to spy on us.”
“Did anyone get hurt?” Just thinking of Catriona being involved in all this made my heart hurt. My best friend had proven herself in battle and times of intense stress repeatedly in the past, but she wasn’t meant for war. She was a delicate, graceful fae who had fallen for a dragon; they ought to be tucked away somewhere, exploring each other and falling deeper and deeper in love. That was all I wanted for her. Not this. “Catriona?”
“The only ones harmed were the spies,” Darius stated, his tone curt. When he glanced down at me, his expression softened, and he kissed my temple. “Catriona is perfectly fine. She’s waiting below. I moved everyone, including your father, brother, sister, and the Brisbane warriors, inside after we boarded up the village. There are many caverns and halls below ground that can be used in times of conflict. I’d hoped I would never need to fill them during my reign as alpha, but alas, here we are.”
“Because of me.” It slipped out before I could stop it, and when Darius’s brow knitted in confusion, I cleared my throat and shrugged. “Jasmine wants to punish me, and she’s doing that by targeting you. I killed her uncle. To her, I’m the abomination, more so than any whole shifter could be. The clan is in danger… because of me.”
“Kaye, you know that isn’t true.”
I chuckled weakly. “It is. All of this is because of—”
“No.” He tightened his hold on my hand and tugged me away from the hall. I noticed a few of the supernaturals watching us go, and just as I was about to argue that now wasn’t the time to debate this, he silenced me with a swift kiss that stole my breath away. When he pulled back, he sighed softly and cupped my cheek. “Kaye, this would have happened with or without you. People like Jasmine… They just need a trigger. Any trigger. Yes, she could very well be focusing her wrath on me because of you, but don’t forget… I actually dated that cretin. This could easily be a bit of post-relationship bullshit over some slight wrong that I don’t even remember.”
“I wouldn’t put it passed her to do something like that,” I muttered after considering it for a moment. Jasmine was petty enough to hold a grudge for this long. Darius grinned.
“See? It doesn’t do anyone any good by placing blame. All we can do is prepare for what’s to come. All we can do is react,” he shook his head, “and survive.”
Giving his hand a squeeze, I cocked my head to the side and appraised him. “When did you get so calm, cool, and collected?”
“When I suddenly had a whole village to take care of,” he said with a chuckle. “If I lose my shit, they lose their shit. I don’t think I’ve ever been this level-headed in my life.”
“I knew you’d do it,” I told him. “You know… Totally kill it as alpha. You’ve always had it in you.”
“Well, we can’t know that until Jasmine is dealt with,” Darius muttered darkly, his gaze drifting back to the band of supernatural fighters filtering into his hall. “Any idea where she is?”
“Unless Zayne knows and hasn’t told me, no.” I bit my lip as I searched my brother out, then sighed. “I should try to track her down. Aden and the artifact… All of it traces back to me.”
“Kaye, we’ve been over this.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I need to find her,” I argued, but something in his eyes, a perfect mirror of the heavy, humid clouds overhead, told me he wasn’t about to back down. “Darius, I owe the clan—”
“We’ll find her together,” he told me. Together, or not at all. He didn’t have to say it for the words to rattle around my skull. Of course, he would use that against me. Clever bastard.
“You can’t leave the clan now.”
“We’re as safe as we’ll ever be,” Darius insisted. “Catriona has placed wards within the mountain itself. If Jasmine thinks we’ve left, then she won’t come here. You and I can locate her within a few hours.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh really? And how do you plan to do that? She could be literally anywhere… in any realm.”
“Ravena.”
I made a face at the mention of D
arius’s witch ex-girlfriend, the one who had stolen his wings with a vengeful curse—but then assisted us in tracking down my gargoyle assailants back when this whole journey began. It seemed like so long ago, like a full year had passed, when, really, I had stumbled upon a certain dragon shifter in a cave at the start of the summer. The hot weather was now drawing to a close, and fall was on the horizon. The season of the witch.
“Darius, I don’t—”
“Ravena can use her mirror to locate just about anyone,” he reasoned. “Look, I know she’s not your favorite person, and you can damn well bet, she isn’t mine, but if she can help, why not ask?”
“Because it could be a waste of time.”
“It’s our best hope at finding Jasmine. You know that.”
I pursed my lips. He was right, after all. Even if she wasn’t the warmest person around, Ravena had magical gifts the rest of us could only hope to learn after a lifetime of study.
“We’ll see if there are any witches in the militia first,” I said stiffly. Perhaps one of them could cast an equally powerful location spell. I didn’t want to appear bitter about Ravena. After all, jealousy over Darius’s exes was kind of pointless: Ravena stole his wings, and Jasmine was a homicidal manic. Nothing to be jealous about. Still, I would have preferred not to fall back on the witch as often as we did.
And twice was too often in my books.
“If they can’t do it, we’ll go to Ravena tomorrow morning,” he told me. “No delays. No searching for an alternative.”
“Deal.” We shifted our clasped hands so that they formed a perfectly civilized handshake. When Darius gripped tighter, I responded in kind, and soon we had devolved into some silly thumb war like we were six. Zayne’s voice, clear and crisp as he called out for me, broke the rare moment—the only one we’d probably get—and we eased apart.
“I should talk to him,” Darius said, pressing a quick peck to my cheek before marching over to greet my half-brother. I watched him go, my head tilted slightly, and noted that in our time apart, he had changed the way he walked. He stood taller now, held his head higher, marched briskly and assuredly—confident. The Darius I had first met lacked confidence in many areas of his life, despite all his snarky bravado. But here, as he strode forth to greet Zayne, he moved with all the grace and poise of a true alpha.
I smiled to myself. A genuine dragon king.
Chapter 12
“This is a most unexpected, and dare I say, unwelcome visit.” Ravena stood in the threshold of her front door of the same run-down, backwoods mansion Darius had first brought me to when we needed her help. Decked out in black and purple lace, she stared down her thin nose at us. Much to my surprise, her mousey brown-blonde hair had been dyed since our last visit—to a startling shade of red. Almost the same shade as mine, actually. I glanced at Darius, wondering if that little detail had escaped him. Her eyes appeared even closer to emeralds than I remembered, and a nasty little voice at the back of my mind suggested she’d had them altered in Alfheim—so they would sparkle better than mine.
Which was absurd, and a touch paranoid on my part, but given how long the witch had pinned after my dragon, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d made a few alterations.
“Ravena, you know we wouldn’t be here unless we really needed your help,” Darius insisted, and I braced myself, knowing full-well that that was the absolute worst way to address a scorned ex. Her expression darkened, her lips momentarily pinched, so I took the opportunity to try to smooth things over before she slammed the door in our faces.
“You’re the only one powerful enough to help,” I clarified. “Please. We’ve been working with other witches, but none of them compare to you.”
Her features brightened, swallowing the obvious flattery—flattery that wasn’t an outright lie. Just as Darius had promised, we did work with the witches in the supernatural militia. Even Catriona and I had banded together—after a tearful reunion and a hug that lasted the better part of an hour, of course—to attempt a location spell together. After all, our combined knowledge of Jasmine beat out the others, who had tried magically tracking her based on wordplay and vague, all-encompassing spells. Catriona and I could actually visualize her properly. Together, we knew every detail of that horrible fae, right down to the way she always wore her nails—polished, long, ornate and pretentious.
The other witches had managed to locate Aden, working off his trench coat that he’d left me wrapped in after poisoning me. Apparently, he was sitting on his ass in a Brooklyn dive bar, looking rough and haggard. None of the witches were able to confirm or deny if he had the artifact on him, but he wasn’t with Jasmine. At the time, I couldn’t decide how that made me feel, but it didn’t change my opinion of him. After we all agreed to let the djinn be for now, we refocused our efforts on Jasmine as a collective whole…
But we’d all failed. Not wanting to waste more time, I had conceded to Darius’s plan to rely on Ravena and her black mirror which was enchanted to peer into the future and locate missing objects, among other things I was sure. We had spent the night portal hopping, then flew the rest of the way above the cloud cover. So, in that moment, not only was I sore from straddling Darius’s enormous, spiky back for a few hours that morning, but I was also sleep-deprived and cranky. Not exactly the right mindset to go up and ask my man’s ex-girlfriend for help, but I knew how to play this game better than Darius.
“I’ll listen to your needs,” Ravena remarked, the rush of irate color fading from her cheeks as she surveyed us, “and consider lending my assistance.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking a step up toward the huge doorway, following Darius’s lead when Ravena inched aside. However, as soon as Darius was through the door, she held up a hand, blocking me.
“Darius can explain it without you, I’m sure,” she insisted, then closed the door so fast that it actually hit the end of my nose. I staggered backwards down the steps, scowling. So much for getting us back on her good side. Petty witch. When I tried to listen in on the conversation inside, magnifying my hearing for the first time in a while, I was greeted by nothing more than a static buzz that made me dizzy. A low growl of discontentment and distrust rumbled in my mind. It seemed my inner dragon was certainly unhappy with this development.
Clearly, she had learned and adapted from our last visit. No hiding in the bushes and listening in on private conversations this time. I exhaled sharply, annoyed. Something magical kept me out, enhanced senses and all, so I settled on the edge of the front steps, arms crossed and eyes heavy, and waited.
If I didn’t dislike her as much as I did, I might have asked what, exactly, she used to muzzle my abilities. It could certainly be useful in the fight against Jasmine if we could fully protect shifter communities to outside supernatural prying. Wards concealed and contained all that was inside from intruders, but many could still penetrate them with a skilled ear. It took a lot of talent to block all the senses.
Ten minutes—that felt like an eternity—later, I heard the front door unlocking. Sighing, I stood and found myself greeted by Darius, his expression a strange mix of frustration and relief.
Classic Ravena.
“She’ll help us,” he told me as he ushered me inside. I didn’t bother to wipe the dust and dirt and dead leaves off my boots, but rather tracked them inside—because the inside of Ravena’s mansion was the same as the outside, and both were in desperate need of a cleaning.
“She will? Why?”
“Apparently, she’s a staunch supporter of your brother,” he remarked. “She’s stayed out of the fight so far, but wants to contribute to the effort.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Well, color me surprised.”
“That’s how I feel too.”
I wasn’t surprised, however, that she hadn’t offered her abilities to the war efforts in a bigger way. Ravena struck me as a homebody—dare I say a hermit, even. I didn’t judge her for it; all that mattered now was that she was going to help us.
“I�
�ll need a drop of blood,” Ravena insisted as she strode back into the foyer, her black mirror in hand. I bristled at the potent pulse of iron, which made up the mirror’s handle—something else that I didn’t recall from our last visit. Emerald green eyes fixed on me. “I’ll take it from you this time, hybrid.”
Trying very hard not to roll my eyes, I extended a hand and let her prick the tip of my finger with a silver dagger hanging off her utility belt. She seemed to stab a little harder than necessary, but I refused to flinch under her scrutiny, and schooled my features before turning my hand over and letting three droplets of blood drip onto the black mirror’s face. As soon as the last droplet landed, the mirror’s surface changed, swirling in on itself like a whirlpool, and the three of us gathered around it, our reflections quickly distorted before disappearing completely.
Smoke wafted across the mirror’s surface in soft, billowing curls. I tried not to inhale it, my experience with djinn tricks causing my heart to hammer, but it wasn’t there for long. The mirror absorbed it, swallowed it back down, and suddenly the blackness disappeared—in its place, a woman.
“Jasmine!” I cried out, stunned that it had worked so quickly. The mirror focused in on her eyes, bright blue and cold, then panned out to the rest of her face. The sight of it, of her, made my stomach roil, and I glanced briefly at Darius, who wore his contempt in the clench of his jaw and the steeliness of his eyes. Smoke hugged the edges of the vision, never bringing it into full focus, but I recognized the setting—to an extent. Jasmine stood over a table, into which the chalk outlines of both Alfheim and the US were drawn. She leaned on the table, her hands curled around its edges, and scowled. Stars littered both maps, and I gasped softly when I realized what they were: shifter communities.
Aden hadn’t lied about that. She was targeting them again. She had picked up her uncle’s fallen banner and planned to succeed where he had failed.
Magic Blaze: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 3) Page 11
