by Kailin Gow
“No. You’re beautiful as you are.”
Al right, so Briony had changed out of her waitress’
uniform, but she was stil only in a dark sweater, jeans, and comfortable shoes. Beautiful probably wasn’t the word she would have chosen to describe it.
“You are, Briony,” Kevin assured her, obviously spotting the uncertainty on her face. “You’re beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.” He smiled. “Besides, our reservation is in ten minutes, so there isn’t time.”
He drove, and as he did so, Briony realized that they were heading to the lake. She might have guessed at a picnic or something similar, if Kevin hadn’t already mentioned a reservation. He stopped the pick up at the start of one of the piers, where a smal seafood restaurant sat, and got out. Briony joined him.
“What do you think?” Kevin asked.
The restaurant certainly looked nice, though it was for the casual dining. Inside, it was delicately decorated and comfortable, and Briony found herself liking it from the moment she set foot through the doors.
Part of that was because, although there were certainly couples there, it wasn’t as much of an obviously romantic choice as the place Kevin had picked out the first time they had gone for a meal together. Whatever he had planned, he was obviously being careful not to come on too strong. Briony appreciated that, even if it was possible that Kevin might simply be starting out slowly before pushing things along later. At least he’d made sure that she wouldn’t feel pressured from the start.
In fact, Kevin went out of his way to keep things as light and simple as possible. The evening could so easily have been fil ed with talk of vampires, or missing relatives, or the problems of Fal on stil being around, but Kevin careful y steered around those subjects, bringing it back to the kind of smal talk any couple would have managed on a date like that. It was like he knew what Briony needed most right now was something that wasn’t about anything supernatural.
Or perhaps Kevin simply wanted any evening that was just about the two of them. Briony could imagine that too. After al , Kevin was probably almost as eager for something that wasn’t about the werewolves, or the vampires, or his brother, but was just about them as a couple. Maybe the evening was intended to be a bit more romantic than Briony had thought.
When their waiter came over, Briony ordered salmon, while Kevin opted for scal ops. While they ate, Kevin seemed to find so many excuses to catch her eye, or brush her hand with his, or simply compliment her. In a lot of ways, it made for a great evening. Briony soon found herself looking forward to the next time Kevin’s fingers would twine with hers, and watching every movement he made with an intensity that let her catch every shift of muscles under that shirt of his.
At the same time though, Briony couldn’t help a growing sense of unease. The evening was building up to something. She could feel it. She found herself proved right towards the end of the evening, when Kevin reached into the pocket of his shirt and pul ed out something that gleamed in the restaurant’s lights. A ring.
“Kevin, what are you doing?”
“You must know how I feel about you, Briony.”
Briony nodded, but she couldn’t stop a sense of creeping horror at the speed things were moving. “I do, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
Kevin looked puzzled for a moment. “Can’t what?”
“I can’t marry you. I’m far too young.”
“Marry me?” Kevin laughed. “Oh, Briony, this isn’t an engagement ring. It’s a promise ring. It doesn’t symbolize anything other than the fact that we’re going out with one another exclusively. I thought you wouldn’t mind, now that Fal on is out of the picture.”
Briony didn’t know what to say to that. It was so unexpected. Yet it was true. She was done with Fal on.
He’d made his position on that more than clear earlier. And she did care about Kevin. A lot. There was a kind of electricity between them every time they were close. Briony suspected that it was one reason why she hadn’t been able to commit ful y to Fal on.
She nodded. “Which finger do I put it on?”
“Any,” Kevin said, moving round the table to kiss her.
“What matters is that you’l wear it. That you’l be mine.”
Briony caught the back of his head, pul ing him down into a longer kiss before slipping the ring onto the third finger of her right hand. “I think I can manage that.”
“Good.” Kevin took her hand, placing a delicate touch of lips to the knuckle where the ring sat. “Now that I’ve persuaded you to do that though, I’ve got one more piece of persuading to do.”
Oh. Here it came.
Kevin grinned. “Help me to move my stuff in?”
Chapter 16
Briony fel asleep on one of the lounge sofas again that night, but it was a lot more comfortable than the one before. She drifted off while she and Kevin were watching television, closing her eyes during a particularly good bit in the movie they were watching together, only to open them to find that the morning sun was streaming in through the windows.
The scent of cooking hit her nostrils, and Briony knew even before she looked that Kevin was making breakfast. She ambled sleepily into the kitchen.
“Is any of that for me?” she asked.
“I’m sure we could think of some way for you to persuade me to hand some of it over,” Kevin replied.
Briony stood on tiptoe to kiss him. His hand folded over hers, brushing against the ring she now wore.
“I think that might do it.”
“Do I have time to shower before it’s ready?”
Kevin nodded. “But you’l have to hurry. You don’t want to be late for school on only your second day back.”
Briony checked her watch, realized just how late it was, and looked back at Kevin. “You could have woken me up.”
“But you looked so cute, curled up like that.”
“Cute? I’m meant to be a big, tough vampire hunter.
I’m not meant to be cute.”
Briony rushed upstairs to get ready. By eating only a hurried breakfast and then driving slightly faster than she should have, she managed to arrive at school just before the start of classes. Maisy had saved her a seat in their first class, English, and raised an inquiring eyebrow as she spotted the ring on Briony’s finger.
“I’l explain later,” Briony whispered.
Of course, that only held Maisy off until the end of the period, and Briony soon found herself cornered by the other girl between classes.
“So what’s this?” Maisy asked. “Have you final y chosen one of them?”
“It’s just a promise ring,” Briony said. “It’s not like I’m getting engaged or anything.”
“That’s stil pretty serious. I mean, you’re saying that you want one of them exclusively, right?” Maisy paused.
“Which one? Only I have this bet with Steve…”
“Maisy!”
“I’m kidding. So is it the tal dark and furry brother, or the pale and brooding one?”
“It’s Kevin,” Briony said. “He gave me the ring when he moved in last night.”
Maisy’s eyebrows rose even further. Briony wouldn’t have thought it possible. “What’s your Aunt Sophie going to say about that?”
“We have to get her back before she can disapprove of anything,” Briony pointed out. “Besides, Kevin’s just there to keep an eye on me.”
Maisy looked like she wanted to say something else, but obviously thought better of it, because she chose that moment to change the subject. “How is the search for this dragon of yours going?”
“He’s not my dragon. And it’s not going at al at the moment. I mean, how do you start looking for a dragon?”
“Short of chaining you to a rock somewhere and waiting for it to show up like they do in stories?” Maisy shrugged. “I think we just have to keep our eyes open. After al , how hard can a guy who looks like that be to spot around here?”
“So far,” Briony pointed out, “he’s
not proving very easy to spot at al .”
They had to get to their next class, so there wasn’t time to work out what they were going to do about finding the dragon. Maybe they would just have to search Wicked a piece at a time. Assuming that the dragon shifter lived there, and didn’t have a place in the woods the way the werewolves did and Pietre had.
That was another important thing to think about.
Pietre had moved his lair to somewhere else, and Briony would feel at least a little safer if she knew where the new one was. As it was, he knew exactly where Briony would be, but she couldn’t say the same thing about him.
Her next lesson was Geography. Briony stil had a lot of catching up to do in this one, and she found herself trying to keep her head down during the class so that she wouldn’t be asked any questions she wouldn’t know the answers to. If she just got through it, it would be lunch, and Briony could turn her mind to more relaxing things, like the final stages of rehearsals for the play.
The lesson seemed to last forever, but final y, it was done. Briony hurried across towards the theater, knowing that she couldn’t afford to be late. So, when Pepper Freeman chose that moment to step out in front of her, alone except for Tracy, the brunette girl who was one of Briony’s few friends in the popular crowd, Briony groaned inwardly. She did not need trouble from the pretty blonde cheerleading captain right now.
“What do you want, Pepper?”
“Me? I just wanted to thank you, Briony. You’re hardly ever here, but you stil seem to have did me a favor.”
“Thank me?” Briony asked cautiously. “What for?”
“For pushing Fal on straight to me, of course.”
Briony reeled for a moment. “You and Fal on…”
Pepper smiled in that way she had when she knew that she had managed to upset someone. “Oh yes. What?
You didn’t think he’d wait for you when there were better offers on the table, did you? He’s a great kisser, isn’t he?”
Briony froze, stopping herself from wiping the smile from Pepper’s face with a wel -aimed punch only through an effort of wil . “I don’t believe you. Fal on would never kiss you.”
“I thought you would say that. It’s why Claire is here.
After al , you’l believe her, won’t you?”
Briony looked to Claire. Pepper was right. Claire wouldn’t lie to her. So if Pepper had brought Claire with her for this, it meant…
“Fal on real y kissed her?”
Claire looked uncomfortable, glanced to Pepper for a moment, and then nodded. “But-”
“Just tel her, Claire,” Pepper interrupted. “Did Fal on and I kiss, or not?”
“Yes.” The word came out very smal .
Pepper smiled once more. “We’l be seeing you around, Briony. Come on, Claire.”
The two cheerleaders headed off together, leaving Briony to her thoughts as they did so. Fal on had kissed Pepper? Briony knew that she shouldn’t feel anything. That she didn’t have any right to feel anything when the two of them had broken up, and when she had gone back and forth between both Fal on and Kevin, but why her?
Probably because it was the one person who would hurt her most, Briony decided. Wel , she wouldn’t let it. She would go on as though things were normal. She would… be incredibly late for rehearsals if she didn’t hurry.
That thought had her running down the corridors to the school theater, getting inside to find that the rehearsals had not begun yet. That was because the stage was currently occupied, by a figure playing the school’s old piano.
Briony stopped. The music was entrancing, almost al uringly sad. The young man at the piano was lost in the music, and Briony found herself being transported with the haunting melody into thoughts of another world, a beautiful realm ful of soft golden light and flowers of every shade.
Notes spil ed from the piano in waves, combining feeling with the kind of virtuosity that spoke of years at the piano.
Briony had been absorbed in the music, that it took her a moment to realize who was playing it.
The dragon shifter’s clothes were more suitable for the environment now; jeans and a white hooded top that matched his sneakers, yet even from where she was, Briony could make out the almost white paleness of his hair, the golden tint of his skin. He turned his head as though he knew Briony was there, without missing a note, and looked straight at her with those deep, amber-gold eyes.
Briony took a step forward, just as Miss Smith came into the theater.
“What’s al this? We’re supposed to be having a rehearsal in here, not a recital.”
The dragon shifter brought things to a halt. His voice stil held those strange echoes when it came, but no one other than Briony seemed to notice them. “Sorry, am I in the way?”
The choice of words seemed to amuse him, and he kept his eyes on Briony as he said them. He obviously knew what she wanted from him.
Miss Smith caught the look. “Do you two know one another, Briony?”
“Um… sort of, Miss Smith. Could I maybe have a word with him?”
“There wil be plenty of time for that afterwards. Right now, we have a production to practice.”
Briony thought about rushing forward to talk to the dragon shifter anyway, but he had already slipped down from the stage, and was making his way through the incoming crowd of students. In just seconds, he was gone.
For a second, Briony even considered abandoning the rehearsal to look for him, but one look at Miss Smith told her that would not be a good idea.
Besides, Briony knew two things now. She knew that the dragon shifter was spending time around the school in some capacity, and she knew he knew she was looking for him. That had to make it easier to find it again later. Briony decided to concentrate on the rehearsal for the moment.
Between the shifter and the news about Fal on, Briony’s performance wasn’t the best it could have been, yet it was stil more than enough to satisfy Miss Smith, who seemed to be happy to get her star back. The rehearsals went wel , overal , and it wasn’t long before Briony was out in the hal s, ready to resume her search for the mythical beast that was wandering them somewhere.
She didn’t get a chance though, because Fal on was waiting for her. He started to say something, stopped, and looked down at Briony’s hand.
“Is that what I think it is?” Fal on asked.
Briony wasn’t in the mood to be nice about it.
“Kevin’s ring. Yes.”
“Wel , at least you’re protected now.” His voice was very restrained. He was obviously fighting hard not to say the wrong thing. “Though I thought I was doing a pretty good job of protecting you.”
“Up until you broke up with me, stormed off, and kissed Pepper Freeman.” Briony hadn’t realized quite how angry she was about it until she said it.
Fal on looked away. “I’m sorry we fought,” he said.
“I’m sorry I brought up what I wanted. I thought I was being honest. I thought you wanted the same thing. And now I see that you just wanted Kevin.”
“The way you want Pepper?”
“Pepper…” Fal on hesitated. “She kissed me, Briony. I think she did it mostly because she knew how much trouble it would cause. And I didn’t dare push her away. I figured that since her parents are important in Wicked, they might have some connection to Pietre.”
Briony thought about the way Claire had hesitated.
The way Pepper had stopped her from tel ing the whole truth. It made sense. Even so…
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
Fal on shook his head. “It just made me think about how much I want you.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “And now you don’t want me anymore.”
Briony couldn’t stop herself. She moved forward, putting her arms around Fal on’s neck. “Fal on, there’s a part of me that wil always love you. After everything we’ve been through together…”
She didn’t finish that, because Fal on kissed her.
Briony knew that she s
hould pul away, but she didn’t. She suspected that a large part of her had been hoping for this moment. She kissed Fal on back eagerly.
“Give me another chance,” Fal on whispered to her.
“Don’t say it’s over.”
Briony remembered herself just in time. “Fal on, there isn’t time for us to talk about this. When I came out here, I was looking for the dragon. He’s in the school somewhere.”
Fal on kissed her again, lightly this time. “Then I’l help you find him. Just tel me that we’re okay. Please.”
Briony nodded, just barely, and Fal on moved back from her.
“I’l find him, Briony. I swear I wil .”
Chapter 17
Chapter 17
The next couple of days passed without incident, except for the usual run of the mil kind. A piece of the set fel down at rehearsals, and everyone had to help put it back in place when they should have been practicing their lines. A couple of customers at the diner didn’t quite get what they ordered. They were the kind of things that might have ruined many people’s days, but to Briony, that they were the biggest problems to show up meant that things were going very smoothly indeed.
There was no further sign of Pietre, perhaps because of Kevin’s presence at the inn, or perhaps simply because the master vampire had said everything that he had needed to. Either way, Briony was stil glad to have Kevin in her home. The more time she spent around the werewolf, the more she realized what he meant to her. They would do simple, ordinary things, like watching TV together, or cooking in the inn’s big kitchen, and just having Kevin around would seem to make them special.
Not that it was entirely without problems, of course.
Spending so much time in close proximity to Kevin, Briony could feel the desire they had felt for one another back at his cabin rising in the background. More than once, such as when Briony was making her way from the shower to her room wrapped in a towel on the second day and Kevin happened to spot her, or when they were kissing on one of the couches in the lounge and Briony found her hands drifting under Kevin’s shirt, it threatened to spil over into something more.
