by Eva Chase
“Fine.” I wasn’t sure what his neighbors would make of it if I did suddenly turn into a gigantic mythical creature, but I was still finding that possibility hard to believe in the first place.
Kylie sprang to her feet. “I’m not missing this!”
Marco swept through the room. We all tramped out back after him.
The second I stepped into the yard, I understood why he wasn’t worried about privacy. The small grassy lawn was framed on all sides by tall pines.
I walked a little farther into the middle of the clearing. The guys spread out in a row to watch, Kylie bobbing on her feet beside them.
“Close your eyes,” Aaron said. “Reach inside yourself. Try to feel the essence running through you. The core of your nature. Then grasp hold of it and pull it free. It’ll want to come. It’ll help you.”
West had snorted in the middle of that set of instructions, but as mumbo-jumbo-y as they’d sounded, I thought I knew what Aaron meant. I had felt the essence running through me before—the flexing of those internal claws.
Like some kind of beast waiting to get out. But a dragon? Really?
I guessed I was going to find out. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes like he’d said. There it was, waiting for me. That sharp tingle scraping over my ribs. It did want out. I focused my attention on the sensation. Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.
A quiver tickled through my muscles. They flexed as if trying to open themselves up. My skin felt suddenly tight. The tingling inside swelled, as if to burst free—
And contracted, away from my encouragement. I frowned, squeezing my eyes tighter shut. Come on. I know you want this.
A full-out tremor rippled down my spine. I tried to grasp onto that stirring in my core the way Aaron had suggested, but it slipped right through my fingers.
My shoulders sagged. I wavered on my feet, exhaustion rolling over me. I rubbed my eyes before I opened them. How long had I worked at that for? It hadn’t seemed like more than a few minutes, but I felt as if I’d just run a marathon.
The guys were still studying me, West with his usual cynical expression, Aaron looking puzzled, Marco considering, Nate concerned. “Are you all right, Ren?” the bear shifter said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.” But my legs were shaky when I took a step back toward them. Kylie dashed to my side. “I don’t get it. I felt it, but it was like it didn’t want to come...”
The furrow on Aaron’s brow deepened. “Your mother may have suppressed not just your memories, but your powers as well. To make it less likely they’d emerge unexpectedly. But I can’t believe she’d have done anything permanent. She must have left you a way of accessing them again.”
“You haven’t heard from her at all in those seven years?” West said. “Not even a message?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I don’t even know where she was going. All she gave me was the locket.” I opened it up and looked at the flame-like symbol inside. “Does this mean anything to you?”
I held out the locket to show them. The other three took a quick glance and then looked toward Aaron, who I guessed they deferred to on topics requiring much in the way of research. He peered at the etching, but the confusion on his face didn’t lift.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“She wouldn’t have put that symbol in the necklace if it wasn’t important, would she?” Nate said. “It must be meant to tell us something.”
“It could be something she’d hoped the last alphas would have told us.” Marco’s smile was more like a grimace this time.
“Maybe that’s something I can help with,” Kylie piped up. “I could take a picture and show it around. Out of all the people I know, there might be someone who recognizes it.”
All of the guys looked skeptical at that suggestion, but they didn’t know Kylie yet. “Sure,” I said. “We might as well try.”
I tilted the locket’s interior to catch the sunlight so she could snap a picture with her phone. She tucked the phone back in her pocket and raked her fingers into her rumpled neon pink hair. “If I’m going to make the rounds, that means I have to go. Do you want to come with? You know you don’t have to stay here with these guys if you’re not sure about all this yet.”
I wasn’t sure about much, but the one thing I did know was that none of these four guys—shifters—however I was supposed to think about them—wanted to hurt me. And suddenly I wasn’t so sure about the world beyond this house.
Why had Mom been so afraid? What had she been hiding us from?
I didn’t think I wanted to find out on my own. And besides, between my short, drugged sleep last night, all the crazy news that had been heaped on me in the last hour, and my failed attempts at shifting, the only place I wanted to go right now was to a bed.
“I’ll be okay here,” I said. “There’s obviously a lot more I need to learn—and I don’t think anyone can help me with that except these guys. Text me if you find anything out.” I turned to Marco. “I assume you’ve got my phone around here somewhere.”
He snapped his fingers. “I knew I’d forgotten something. I thought it was better if we talked before I handed that over, considering the circumstances.”
“Is that what you want to do now?” Nate asked. “To talk more with us? There is a lot more we can tell you.”
A pressure was starting to build at the back of my skull. I rubbed my neck. “Actually, I think I’d like a little time to myself, if that’s okay. To process everything I’ve already heard. And maybe to take a nap. Having your world tipped over is kind of exhausting.”
“That room upstairs is yours for as long as you want it,” Marco said. “I’ll get Leonard to grab your phone for you.”
As he ducked inside, Kylie enveloped me in a hug. “Promise me you’re okay with this,” she murmured by my ear.
I smiled tightly. I wasn’t exactly okay, but that wasn’t the fault of anyone here. “I just found out I have super powers,” I said. “What’s not to like?”
She laughed and gave me one last squeeze. “I’ll check in with you soon, whether I’ve got news or not.”
She slipped past the trees around the side of the house. The guys followed me back inside. West drew Aaron aside, muttering something to him I assumed was some new complaint about me. Nate came with me up the staircase. I skimmed my hand over the polished wood of the curving banister. Apparently being a shifter also meant being rich, at least for some people. Or maybe that came with being the “alpha.”
“Do you have a place like this?” I asked the bear shifter.
Nate grinned. “Marco and I have pretty different senses of style. And our homes belong more to our position as alpha than to us. But I do have a few nice properties I’ll be looking forward to showing you.”
Upstairs, it took me a few tries before I found the bedroom I’d started this adventure in. I paused by the doorway, my awareness of Nate seeping into my skin. The memory rose up of just how much of himself he’d already shown me, and the warmth turned into heat.
Nate reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair back from my cheek. My heart thumped at his touch. “You’ll be all right on your own?” he said.
What exactly was he going to propose if I said no? And did I want him to propose it? For a second, my body blared its answer: absolutely yes.
But I was more than just a body, and my mind was too full to be making any clear decisions right now.
“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”
He teased his fingers deeper into my hair and tipped my head toward him as he bowed his own. His lips grazed my forehead, and my breath caught. He stepped back, leaving me more flushed than I’d ever been before. I swallowed hard.
“Take whatever time you need,” Nate said. He dipped his head. Marco came up from behind him, holding my phone.
“As promised,” Marco said. He handed it to me as Nate ambled to the staircase. “Is there any other way your situation here is lacking?”
“I don’t
think so,” I said. I walked into the room to give it a once-over, and Marco followed me. Well, why shouldn’t he? It was his house, and he thought I might have something else to ask for. But his closeness beside me made my breath stutter all over again. Heat licked through my veins.
Dear lord, how could I be this horny—and for four guys all at once? Did shifters always provoke that response in other people? Kylie hadn’t seemed anywhere near as affected. Maybe it was just between shifters.
If I was going to just accept that I definitely was one.
“No complaints?” Marco said.
“No,” I said honestly. “This is the most gorgeous house I’ve ever seen.”
I turned toward him at the same time, which maybe was a mistake. He smiled his slightly wicked smile, gazing back at me with the hunger I’d noticed earlier. An answering desire unfurled in my gut and tingled lower in my belly.
He raised his hand and traced his lithe fingers along the line of my jaw, tipping my face toward his. His languid voice dropped to a murmur. “And you have the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen. So brilliant they’re more amber than brown. Like fire. A person could fall right into them.”
“Falling into fire?” I joked in a half-hearted attempt to diffuse the electricity between us. “That sounds pretty dangerous. You’d want to climb back out fast.”
“Maybe not,” Marco said. “I suspect it would be a very pleasant burning.”
As if drawn up by his words, a rush of heat seared through me. Marco leaned his head a little closer. Before I caught control of myself, I’d pressed my lips to his.
He kissed me back with an encouraging growl. His mouth slid against mine, hot and teasing, coaxing my lips apart. His hand slipped back to tangle in the hair at the base of my neck. Everywhere he touched me, I felt as if I had caught on fire.
I gripped his shoulders as if I could pull our mouths even closer together. His tongue caressed mine, and I groaned into him. My hips arched toward his. His other hand trailed down my side, drawing a path of flames through my clothes.
I wanted those clothes off. I wanted him on the bed, over me, inside me. I wanted—
What the hell was I doing?
I wrenched myself away from Marco. My body protested so sharply it felt as if I’d literally torn us apart. Marco let his hand drop to his side. He watched me with heavy-lidded eyes, no judgment or accusation in them.
He was a stranger. I’d met him just a few hours ago. After he’d pretty much had me kidnapped. Obviously all this supernatural talk had addled my brain.
And I was the one who’d kissed him.
My face flushed again, with embarrassment this time. And maybe some lingering desire. It wasn’t as if I’d stopped wanting him just because common sense had kicked in.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice rough. “I didn’t mean to— I don’t know if this is normal for shifters, but it’s not normal for me.”
“You draw the lines, Princess of Flames,” he said. “I’m happy to take whatever you feel ready to give, but when you say stop, we stop.” He tilted his head toward the bed. “Why don’t you get that rest I’m sure you’ll need? We’ve still got a long way to go.”
CHAPTER 7
Ren
WE WERE STANDING in a private cabin on a train—my mother and me. The floor hitched under my feet, and the window was rattling. We were racing far, far away. Far from the bad thing that still had my chest twisted tight, even as I tried not to think about it.
My mother knelt down to my eye level and cupped my cheek. Her eyes were wild as a stormy sky.
“Listen to me, Serenity,” she said in a choked voice. “Somewhere deep down, where no one else can touch it, you need to remember you’re a dragon. Always remember.”
I blinked at her with a childish confusion. “Of course I’ll remember, Mama. I can’t not be a dragon.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “Oh, darling. For a little while, I need you to forget. At least on the surface. But you’re right. You’ll never not be.”
She raised her hands and pressed her palms to my temples. Darkness swirled into my head. The scene pivoted.
I was running with my mother through a forest, her hand clasped tight around mine. So tight it hurt. My breath stung in my throat. My lungs ached. I tripped on a root, and she heaved me up in an instant. We ran and ran and—
I was crouched behind the big vase in the front hall, listening for girlish laughter. My heart thumped giddily. This time I’d be the last one found. This time I’d be the queen of hide-and-seek. They might be older than me, but I—
I was sitting in the grass, sweet clover scent filling my nose, laughter in my throat. A shape streaked by through the clear blue sky above me. Brilliant bronze scales, like her eyes. The flap of massive wings sending a comforting breeze over me. I clapped my hands together.
“Mama!”
My eyes popped open, back in the present. I stared at the wall across from me for a second as the dream faded and the real world came back into focus. Gold flowers winding through mint-green wallpaper. A velvet bedspread tucked under my chin. A sinfully soft mattress cradling my body.
Memories rushed in. Marco’s house. The four shifters. Nate transforming into a bear. West’s snarking. Aaron’s careful explanations. All the things they’d told me. My failed attempt at shifting.
Nate’s lips brushing my forehead. Marco’s pressed hard against mine.
I sat up in the bed, heat washing over me. Yep, that had all been real. And I was still here.
My gaze shot to the window. The daylight was even paler than it had been in the morning, but it was streaming in at the same angle. As if it were morning again.
God, had I slept through half a day and then the entire night? All those dreams spinning me around...
I paused, my fingers curling into the bedspread. No, those hadn’t been just dreams, had they? I felt the truth of them like an ache in the base of my throat. Those had been as real as those room. Real memories, from when I was a little girl. From before Mom and I had come to the city.
From when I’d known I was a dragon. When I’d seen her, soaring above me, like she was meant to.
The four alphas had been telling the truth. Mom had locked away my memories. She’d practically admitted to me she was going to do it before she had.
I was a dragon. I was a dragon.
I looked down at my hands, as if they might have sprouted scales and talons. Nope, those still looked like perfectly normal human fingers.
Had I ever shifted myself? I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t dredge up any fragments of my past other than the ones that had floated into my dreams. Aaron had suggested it’d have been more difficult when I was younger, and I’d only been five when Mom had locked those parts of me away.
Why had she done that? Why couldn’t she have trusted me? At least before she’d wandered off wherever she’d gone...
Anger hit me, biting into my chest. But another ache closed around it. I missed her. So goddamn much. Not just the Mom I remembered clearly, either. The one I’d glimpsed, wild and powerful and more than human.
Was I ever going to get her back?
That question felt too big to sit with on my own. Especially when I’d apparently wasted half a day recovering from yesterday’s revelations. I crawled out of the bed, stretched, and looked down at myself. I’d been wearing this tee and jeans for almost two days now. They were getting a little grimy feeling.
Marco had commented that he had lots of spare clothes around. I eased open the drawers of the dresser and found one full of lady-type clothing, although fancier than the stuff I’d normally have put on. I settled on a silky violet blouse and decided my jeans could hold up to another wearing as long as I got the rest of myself clean.
I’d seen a bathroom while searching for this bedroom yesterday. I crept down the hall and ducked inside. To my relief, there was a lock on the inside knob.
Tension seeped out of me as the shower streamed into my hair and down
my back. I rubbed my hands over my body, letting the hot water carry away two days of sweat and uncertainty.
I was a dragon shifter. I still didn’t totally understand what that entailed, but there were four guys waiting here in the house to help me figure it out. I was ready.
I dried myself with a towel so fluffy I was tempted to bury myself in it and never come out. The silk shirt clung to my figure a little more than I liked, but at least the scooped neckline showed minimal cleavage. I was having enough trouble keeping my hands off of Marco—and, let’s be real, Nate too—without wearing clothes that screamed Do me.
Combing my fingers through my still-damp hair, I padded down the staircase to the first floor. A buttery smell was wafting from what I assumed was the direction of the kitchen.
Hunger twanged through my stomach. My last meal of sausage and eggs might as well have been a year ago. My feet pushed me faster of their own accord. I dashed around the bend in the staircase and careened over the edge of the next step.
Anyone looking on would have thought I’d slipped and fallen. I guessed I sort of had. But the tumble gave me a jolt of excitement, not fear. I opened my arms as if to embrace the sensation—and brought them down to help me catch my landing at the base of the stairs. My knee jarred against the floor with a thump, but I hardly felt the impact. My spirit was still soaring.
Like the dragon in my memory. The dragon who’d been my mother.
Was that why I got off so much on jumps and falls? I’d always thought it was some random daredevil impulse, but maybe I simply missed the feeling of flight. Some part of me deep down had never completely forgotten it.
A figure appeared in the hall. Stocky, muscular, with a golden shine in his pale hair—Aaron. He was wearing a linen tunic with a slit neck that gave a glimpse of his impressive tanned chest. His expression relaxed when he saw me straightening up.
“I heard a thud,” he said. “Did you fall down?”
I shrugged, smiling at him. I hadn’t talked one-on-one with Aaron yet, but I appreciated the thoughtful approach he’d taken to my situation. Out of the four alphas who’d come to find me, he was the only one who didn’t seem to have any specific expectations of who I’d be or what I’d do. He preferred to observe who I actually was.
