My temper flared, and I knew he felt it as his jaw clenched tight.
“Maybe you’re just shitty at teaching? You are fully aware there is no way in hell you can cram like... ten years of knowledge into my head in one night? You do know that right? So what the hell are we even doing here?” I was flying off the handle a little, but being around Austin seemed to do that to me all the freaking time. Maybe it was the insane sexual tension, or maybe he really was that much of a dickhead. Whatever the reason, I could not seem to keep my cool.
“You’re right, Princess. What the fuck are we even doing here?” he snapped back at me, giving me a long, weighted stare that said I was totally missing a double meaning, before throwing his hands up and stalking back into the house.
Instead of feeling pleased with myself for having won Cole’s bet, I watched Austin’s broad back and hunched shoulders disappear into the house with a pang of regret and disappointment. Vali was right. We needed to sort our shit out because what I was feeling from Austin wasn’t anger. Not even close. It was despair.
“Shit,” I swore quietly, then felt the warm breath of Tyson on my hand a moment before he nuzzled at my hip. “Hey buddy, can you help me out? I keep fucking things up with your... uh... master?” The tiger curled his lip up in disgust, and I quickly corrected, “I mean, your Mage?”
Tyson huffed a breath that I knew to be approval, and I buried my hand in the scruff of his neck fur.
“It’d be cool if you could talk or something. Still... we understand each other pretty well, don’t we?” Somehow, talking to Austin’s tiger was the only thing holding back the tears that were threatening as Austin’s emotions mixed with mine and made me want to cry.
God damn him.
Tyson head-butted me with his agreement, and I laughed. The overgrown house cat seemed to like getting that reaction out of me, so he head-butted me again, this time knocking me to my ass and then covering my face with tiger slobber as he licked me all over.
“Stop it!” I screamed, rolling on the ground with laughter while the magical cat continued to lick my face and tickle me with his whiskers. Bastard.
“You okay under there, or do you need help?” Caleb chuckled, his head appearing above the fluffy orange-and-black face demanding my attention.
“Help!” I laughed. “Tyson won’t stop licking me!”
The big cat huffed as if offended that I didn’t appreciate his kisses, but sat back and let Caleb help me to my feet with a strong pull on my hand.
“Bit weird, don’t you think?” I asked the friendlier King twin as I dusted off my jeans. “That Austin’s familiar is so affectionate when he’s like a fricking ice cube?”
Caleb snorted, tucking an arm around my waist and tugging me close as we wandered back to the house. “Uh, something like that. You know familiars are still part of their Mage? Like, they’re a physical manifestation of our magic, so they are essentially just an extension of us.”
“Except Tyson and Austin are the opposite sides of a coin?” I raised my eyebrows skeptically, and Caleb just shrugged. “Hey, that reminds me. Will you get a familiar too, when we bond?”
“When?” he repeated, stopping just short of the steps to the balcony. “You still want to bond with me, even though I’m failing with my magic?”
“Cal,” I scolded, turning his chin so I could meet his emerald-green eyes. “Despite the fact that you tell me nothing about your lessons, I can pretty safely say you’re not failing.”
“How can you be so sure?” he whispered, and the sadness underscoring his words almost broke my heart.
Chewing my lip, I held his gaze firm. “Because I know you, and you’re not the type to just give up. Clearly it’s taking a bit of work, but you’ll get there. You haven’t snapped and killed anyone yet, right?”
He hesitated and frowned. “Uh, no...”
“See?” I beamed. “Not failing! But... it’d be nice if maybe you’d talk to me about it a bit more? I know you said there’s a confidentiality thing, but surely you can just keep me updated on how it’s going? Like, blink once for good and twice for bad? That kind of thing?”
Admittedly, I was still stinging from the twins holding onto such a massive secret for so long, but they’d both apologized and there was little to do about it now. Caleb trusting me a bit more with what was going on would kind of go a long way to repairing that though.
He took a long moment before replying, thinking over what I’d said before nodding slowly.
“Yeah, I can do that. Or I can try. As much as the magical NDA lets me.” He looked sheepish, but I already knew he’d been kicking himself for agreeing to the spell in the first place. He must have been in a seriously bad place that night, and I could only put it down to that bloody mess he’d seen at the gala.
“So?” I prompted, and he looked confused. “Familiar? Do you get a viper?”
“Oh.” He scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck and dodged eye contact with me. “I kind of hope not.”
That surprised me. “No? Why not?”
A faint blush rose up in his cheeks, and he scrubbed a hand over his face before replying. “Uh... I’m scared of snakes.” An embarrassed smile pulled at his lips, and my jaw dropped.
“Shut the front door,” I gasped, trying not to laugh. “But... your codename is Viper and you have a viper tattooed on your leg... how can you be scared of snakes?”
He shrugged and started up the steps to the house. “Maybe because they’re scaly and slimy and venomous and have no arms or legs or ears! Kitty Kat... they have no ears!” He gave a dramatic shudder. “Nope, if I didn’t get a familiar I would be just fine. They only go to, like, the most insanely powerful Mages ever created, so the odds of both Austin and I getting a familiar after no one else in the past thousand years has... not likely. Right?”
It actually seemed really likely, given the pattern of everything else right now, but he was looking at me so hopefully that I found myself agreeing.
“Yup, totally not likely,” I reassured him. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be at your magic lesson right now?”
Caleb checked his watch and swore. “You’re right. I’ll... see you when I get back?”
“And tell me how it went? Even if it’s just something boring?” I reiterated, and he nodded. “Cool, then I’ll see you when you get back.”
He grabbed me around the waist and kissed me quickly, before Tyson got jealous and growled, then jogged back down the steps to the grass where he disappeared into a circle of mage runes.
“Such a cool trick,” I breathed, as I watched the glittering symbols twinkle under the early evening moonlight, then fade out of existence.
“Amazing what you could do with a little magic mastery, huh Kitten?” River’s voice made me jump, and I whirled around to face him. Tyson growled a little, so I buried my hand in the scruff of his neck to soothe the temperamental cat.
“I get it, Alpha.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m trying, okay? I took the lesson with Austin. He’s the one that stormed off in a huff.”
“You provoked him, and you know it.” River folded him arms, and I took a moment to admire his strong forearms, thanks to his shirt sleeves being rolled up. “Love, do I really need to stress the importance of this to you? You’re a bloody smart woman; you know what’s at stake here.”
Like, the fate of the world, mankind, and our lives? Okay, maybe they all had a point. I hadn’t been taking this anywhere near seriously enough.
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered, inspecting my toes.
River sighed and muttered some very British sounding curse under his breath before sweeping me up against his chest, with his arms around my waist.
“We scold because we care,” he reminded me softly. “Dinner is ready, by the way. Then perhaps I could interest you in a shower...?”