by Eva Chase
Lillian might have agreed to let me come along to California, but I didn’t trust her and her blacksuit colleagues to actually keep me in the loop when it came to all their plans. So after my classes the next day, I holed up in the library grabbing all the books I could on illusionary techniques.
At the Nightwood home, Declan had cast a spell on me that made me difficult to see even when I was moving around on open ground. If I could manage to pull something like that off on myself, I might be able to overhear a whole lot more than the blacksuits would want me to know.
When I found a volume of practical magical strategies that explained the concept in simple terms, it used pretty much the same phrasing Declan had—the idea was to reflect aspects of your surroundings onto your body so you blended in with them. It was easier to avoid detection if you stood still or only moved slowly, and if your environment didn’t include too many distinctive details. I’d just have to hope for plain hotel decor wherever we ended up staying.
My first couple attempts at casting the spell didn’t get me very far, but as I refined my focus, I was able to create a strong enough illusion on my arm that it blended into the bookshelves I waved it in front of—with some rippling, sure, because a library was hardly an ideal setting for the illusion, but effective enough that I had to smile.
I was just turning back to the book to see if it’d mention any other techniques I might find useful when my phone rang. I dug it out of my purse before the sound could disturb the other library-goers any more than it already had.
It was Lillian. My heart skipped a beat as I brought the phone to my ear. She wasn’t going to back out of our agreement, was she?
“Hey,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What’s the news?”
“We’re set to fly out tomorrow,” she said. “The tickets and hotel rooms are all arranged—I’ll come by myself to pick you up for the drive to the airport at nine in the morning. Unless you’ve changed your mind about joining us?”
“No,” I said quickly with a rush of relief. “I still want to be as much a part of the operation as I can be.”
“Your presence will definitely make the final locating spells easier, as you suggested. We’ll see how you can fit into the rest.” She let out a breath. “Can you pass on the pick-up time to your colleague Mr. Nightwood as well?”
I froze. “Mr. Nightwood?”
“Yes, it doesn’t make any sense to force him to make the trip separately. Oh, and we shouldn’t be there for more than a few days, so no need to pack very much. I’ll see you then.”
She hung up before I could ask her why the hell Malcolm would be making the trip at all. I stared at my phone for a second, my jaw tensing. I’d just have to ask “Mr. Nightwood” myself. Although I could make a pretty good guess.
We need to talk, I texted him. Where are you right now?
It took a few minutes before he answered, during which I tried and failed to go back to concentrating on my research books. Finally, my phone pinged with an alert.
Just finishing up an evening run. We’ll be back at A. Hall in a few minutes, if this is so urgent.
I left my books and headed out of Ashgrave Hall so I could meet him—and whoever he was with—right away. Coming around the building, I spotted Malcolm and Connar walking briskly across the field on their way up from the lake. They weren’t running anymore, but the damp patches on their uncharacteristically casual T-shirts showed they’d had a decent workout before this cool down.
The definition of their well-muscled chests—Connar’s a little broader, but Malcolm’s very fine in its own right—showed even in the fading evening light. They were certainly easy on the eyes. I’d have been able to appreciate the sight more if I hadn’t been so irritated with Malcolm, a feeling that only sharpened when he shot his usual cocky grin my way.
I strode over to meet them partway across the field, not really wanting to have this conversation in earshot of the dorms. As I came up on them, Malcolm’s familiar bounded across the grass to join us. The wolf bowed his head down with a swish of his tail and an eager gleam in his eyes, asking if I was going to play too.
“Maybe later,” I told Shadow, but irritated or not, I couldn’t resist bending down to give his ears a scratch.
“What’s the emergency, Glinda?” Malcolm asked, but his tone was only lightly teasing, not mocking the way it would have been a couple months ago.
Connar watched the two of us a little cautiously, but he didn’t continue on toward the hall. Maybe he thought I might still need a little protection from his friend. I didn’t mind him hearing this argument.
I gave Malcolm a pointed look. “What made you think inviting yourself along on my mother’s rescue operation was a good idea?”
He chuckled. “The blacksuits spilled the beans, did they? After the last stunt they pulled, I’d have thought you’d appreciate a little backup surrounded by a bunch of them.”
Maybe I would have—but Malcolm wouldn’t have been my first choice for that backup. And that wasn’t the point.
“I get that you’re trying to make up for what an asshole you were before,” I said, “but you really have to get over the whole impulse to treat me like a damsel in distress. I’ve got no problem asking for help if I think I need it. I don’t need a volunteer bodyguard stepping in at every slight hint of danger. I’m supposed to be holding my own as a scion, remember?”
The cockiness in his expression faltered. “Rory, that wasn’t really—” He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Okay, I can see how springing it on you like that wasn’t the best idea. And I think you’ll be better off with someone who’ll have your back right there with you, if you need it. But honestly, I mostly wanted to go for my own peace of mind. After what my dad already put you through, it’d drive me crazy knowing you’re off there in a situation like that and I have no idea whether you’re okay.”
“Oh.” I hesitated, trying to decide how to respond to that. After all the ups and downs with Malcolm, it was still a little hard to wrap my head around the idea that he cared that much about what happened to me. “All right. As long as you’re not planning on leaping to my defense before there’s anything really to defend me from. You could have talked to me about it.”
He shrugged with a sheepish smile. “I had a feeling it’d be better to ask forgiveness rather than permission.”
Connar glanced at Malcolm with a frown. “Is your dad going to be pissed off all over again about you going with Rory?”
Malcolm grimaced. “I got his permission first. Spun a story about how I could keep an eye out and report back to him anything I thought he’d want to know. He doesn’t really trust anyone, so he was happy to have eyes there other than his blacksuit lackeys.”
“Well, the main blacksuit lackey is picking us up tomorrow morning at nine,” I told him. “She wanted me to pass the message on.”
“Got it.” He snapped his fingers for his familiar to trot over and rubbed the wolf’s chin. “I’d better take Shadow on a longer walk then—get in as much familiar time as possible before the separation. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I hadn’t even thought about the discomfort of leaving his familiar behind—but of course he could hardly bring a wolf on a plane. He must have thought that discomfort wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as what he’d feel staying here while I was across the country.
“You’re going already,” Connar said as the Nightwood scion headed off. He didn’t look all that comfortable with the idea either. “I didn’t realize they’d move that fast.”
“I think the blacksuit who was friends with my mother feels pretty guilty about assuming she was dead all this time. She wants to make up for that ASAP.”
“That makes sense.” He shifted toward me and then wavered for a moment. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”
I shook my head. “Other than packing, which shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, not really. What did you have in mind?”
He ducked his head to
give me a quick kiss. “Wait here while I get showered off, and I’ll show you.”
Summer hadn’t left completely. The evening breeze carried a lingering warmth and the smell of the freshly mown grass to me as I waited. Connar loped around Ashgrave Hall less than ten minutes later, his chestnut-brown hair still damp from a hasty shower and his impressive physique back in the standard dress shirt and slacks. He was carrying a bag that he hefted as he approached me.
“I’m guessing you haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
No, I’d been too absorbed in my library research to think about that. Now, with the delicious savory yet buttery scent that drifted from the bag, my stomach grumbled loud enough that he must have heard it too.
“I got a little distracted,” I said.
“It’s a good thing I have enough for two, then.”
He took my hand and headed for the forest at the far side of the field. It didn’t take long for me to figure out his planned destination. We passed the primary ward for the campus Shifting Grounds, which he activated with a couple of intoned words, and then wandered on to the clearing where he’d shown me his dragon form… Had that really been less than two months ago?
We hunkered down on the grass, the trees sheltering us from all but a hint of the breeze and crickets chirping as if to welcome the stars starting to gleam overhead. Connar drew a couple of small chicken pies and forks from the bag and offered me one of each. We leaned against neighboring pines as we dug into our dinner.
“It’ll be a pretty big change, having your mother back,” the Stormhurst scion remarked between bites. A shadow of concern passed over his face when he looked at me. “You’ve never really known her.”
“No. So I guess we’ll just have to see how that goes.” I jabbed at a piece of chicken coated in creamy sauce. “Given what I’ve seen of the baron families so far, I’m going to proceed with caution.”
“That… seems like a good idea.” He paused. “At least she’ll have to be more careful with you than if she had another heir.”
I nearly choked on a startled laugh at all the awful implications that came with that comment. “Small mercies?” Considering how his parents had treated him and his brother, I could see why his mind would go there.
He met my gaze again, his light blue eyes utterly serious. “I just want you to know that if anything goes wrong with her, if you’re not sure how to handle her expectations or anything like that, you can turn to me. To any of us scions, I’d imagine. We all know what it’s like, but you’ve never had to deal with those kinds of pressures before.”
“Well, I’ve dealt with all of your parents, so at least I can hope she won’t be significantly worse than that,” I said wryly.
He gave me a half-smile. “There is that. But it’s different when it’s coming from within your own family.”
Of course it was. As delicious as the meal he’d brought me was, it was settling heavy in my stomach with this conversation.
Some of that uneasiness must have shown in my expression, because Connar’s immediately turned regretful.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to stress you out before you even have her back. It’s amazing the blacksuits were able to locate her at all.” His smile turned sweeter. “I like what we have now, the way we all relate to each other. Maybe it’s partly selfish, but I’m not looking forward to seeing how that might be thrown off.”
“Neither am I,” I admitted. “And it does help, knowing I have you and the other guys for support. At the moment, it’s hard for me to think much past getting her out of the joymancers’ hands. I have no idea what state she’ll be in or how she’ll handle the return.” Hell, she might not even be fit to resume her role as baron, depending on how badly the joymancers had treated her. They’d kept her locked up for some reason, and presumably it wasn’t anything joyful.
“Let’s not think about it at all for the rest of the night, then,” Connar suggested.
I set aside the nearly empty pie dish and tipped my head back against the tree trunk. “I like this spot, but isn’t it kind of abusing your Shifting Grounds privileges to use them for things other than shifting?”
A hint of mischief came into Connar’s eyes. “We could add shifting to the program if you’d like. There’s actually…” He looked down at his hands and then back at me. “I can think of something that might really take your mind off tomorrow and everything after.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve learned how to shift into something even more amazing than a dragon.”
He laughed. “No, I think one mythological form is enough for me. But while I’m a dragon… I think you could fly with me. I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough to carry you.”
My breath caught a little just at the thought. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to accidentally hurt you.”
“If I feel there’s any danger of that, I’ll stop,” he said. “Do you want to give it a try?”
He looked so adorably and shyly enthusiastic that it’d have been difficult for me to say no even if the idea hadn’t given me a huge thrill. I stood up. “Sure. Why not? I’ll definitely have trouble thinking about anything else in the middle of that.”
Connar beamed at me with the smile that had first made me fall for him. He got up too, reaching for the buttons on his shirt so he could strip it off. He’d told me before that he found it easiest to shift while naked, although last time he’d felt awkward enough about that to leave his boxers on.
He did the same this time, but he walked into the middle of the clearing without any sign of hesitation. When he bent down toward the grass, my pulse sped up in anticipation.
The shift came over him gradually and then so quickly it seemed over in an instant. His back hunched, his skin darkened with a rippling of scales, his jaw stretched, and suddenly his form was expanding and reshaping itself at the same time, limbs and muscles aligning in their new order, wings sprouting from his now-massive back and a tail lashing behind him.
He didn’t exactly match the dragons of my childhood books, but he probably couldn’t have. The being in front of me looked much more real, an amalgamation of lizard and dinosaur and something almost equine, eyes the same pale blue blinking at me from within their frame of glossy scales.
Connar bent his new expanded form as low to the ground as it would go, which left the dragon’s back at about my chin height. He tucked his wings close. As I walked up to him, he shifted one of his forelegs back so I could use it as a sort of stepladder.
“You’re sure?” I said again.
He nodded, watching me avidly. I clambered up as carefully as I could, awe washing through me at the warmth that emanated through those smooth scales. It took me a minute to settle myself by his shoulder blades in a position that felt secure. I lowered myself against his neck, wrapping my arms around as far as they would go, my knees tensed against his sides.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
The muscles in his back shifted against my thighs. He stood and took a few swift steps, testing my balance. When I stayed in place, he sprang up with an unfurling of his wings.
I completely lost my breath in that first moment. The wind rushed past me and the ground fell away beneath us, and nothing existed except the deepening night and me and the dragon that was both Connar and not. The expansive wings on either side of me flapped, carrying us higher.
Before, he’d only skimmed the ground within the clearing. He must have decided it was safe to soar a little above the treetops in the dusk. The dark green shapes slipped by beneath us in a blur. I clung to him even more tightly, the musky smoky smell that always lingered on Connar’s skin filling my nose.
Going very far or staying up there very long would have been too much of a risk, I knew. I relished every second as he circled over the edge of the lake and then veered back toward the clearing. A twinge of disappointment rippled through me as he came back to earth. Of course, who knew how much carrying me had tired him out on top of holding the shift.
&nb
sp; I scrambled off him without much grace and nearly fell on my ass. Connar shifted back into his human form so quickly he grasped my hand before I’d quite finished catching my balance. He grinned at me, and I grinned right back at him, still giddy from the flight.
“That was amazing,” I said. “You’re okay?”
“Wonderful,” he said. “I’ve never— You’re the first person I’ve ever tried that with.”
I’d gotten the impression that might be true from the way he’d offered, but his acknowledgment sent a flush of happiness through me. “It was an honor.”
“For me as much as you. You have no idea how much it means to me that I can share every part of who I am with you, Rory.” He tugged me closer into a tight embrace and kissed my cheek. His voice dipped. “I love you. I don’t want you leaving tomorrow without knowing that.”
My heart fluttered. I squeezed him back with all my strength, emotion swelling in my throat. “I love you too,” I said. “Every part of you.”
He sucked in a breath, and then he was kissing me on the mouth, so hard I lost my breath all over again. My hands roamed over his nearly naked body, so solid and so hot even in the cooling night air.
We ended up sinking onto the grass, me straddling his lap. A gasp slipped out of me at the sensation of that even harder and hotter part of him pressing between my legs through the layers of fabric. But Connar didn’t rush things. He let his kisses turn slow and tender, stretching out each one until they left me quivering. At the same time, he rested his hand on my hip and gently rocked me against him. It didn’t take long before I was burning with the need for more.
“There’s one part of you I’d especially like to experience right now,” I mumbled against his lips, and he chuckled, sounding breathless himself. He eased up my dress, and I pushed myself higher so he could help me out of my panties. With a murmur, I repeated the spell Declan had taught me. Then I delved inside his boxers to free Connar’s rigid cock. Just the feel of it in my hand brought a hungry sound into my throat.
I kissed him again, with all the tenderness he’d offered me, and sank down onto him.
