Tucking my face back into the crook of his neck, I sighed. “Again?”
“We have to stay ahead of Omega,” he reminded me for what felt like the seven thousandth time. Of course I knew we needed to. Jonathan—my dad, and head of the Omega Group—had tried to kill us all on more than one occasion, and I didn’t care to stick around and wait for him to succeed.
“Why do you think he’s doing this?” I asked again. I’d been asking the same question all damn week, ever since overhearing the damning evidence that my own dad was behind the car bomb and the crash and countless other little accidents over the past month and a half.
“I don’t know, Kitty Kat. But we’re going to find out, right?” Caleb pulled back to peer into my eyes again. His own emerald gaze serious for once as he met mine. “We’re in this together now. All of us.”
His meaning was clear, and I smiled sadly. He meant even though my adoptive dad had apparently been using me for his own gain and had maybe never loved me at all, I didn’t need him. I had more people in my life now who cared for me than I’d ever had before, and I would not let this betrayal break me.
“I know,” I whispered back, sliding my hand up to brush over his cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was rough under my palm. “Do we need to leave soon?”
“Not for another few hours. Vali was organizing the next location when I came in.” His gaze ducked to my lips before returning to my eyes. “You should get some more sleep.”
I gave a tiny shake of my head. “No, I’ve done hardly anything but sleep this past week. I’m ready for some action or something. Maybe I should see if I can help Vali.”
“You know he’ll say no.” Caleb grinned. Vali had been saying nothing other than no to me all week. Some crap about not wanting to involve me in his sordid affairs, but it was starting to sting as a bit of a rejection.
“Oh, don’t give me that face,” Caleb laughed when I pouted at him. “If you really don’t want to sleep, I could suggest another activity...”
This time, it was my gaze that ducked to his lips. “Oh, yeah?” I grinned, anticipation fluttering through me as I became acutely aware of how close our bodies were and just how little we were wearing.
“Yeah,” he replied, a wicked smile on his lips as he lay back on the pillows and tugged me closer until I was flush against his side. “Look.”
He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a small switchblade, which he used to prick his finger. Fascinated and more than a little confused, I watched while he squeezed a sizeable droplet of blood onto his fingertip, then raised his eyebrows at me.
“Ready?” he asked, and I narrowed my eyes. Ready for what? Certainly not what I’d had in mind…
With a sexy sort of chuckle, he flicked his hand up at the ceiling, sending that little droplet of blood soaring through the air. I watched it, transfixed, and when it hit the plaster beside the ugly-ass light fixture, the whole ceiling seemed to just... disappear.
“What...” I breathed out, staring up at the clear night sky above us and the luminescent green light bending and curving in front of the stars.
“We travelled all the way to fucking Harrow, Alaska, and you never got to see the Northern Lights,” Caleb murmured, tugging me to lie back down beside him so we could both look up at the display.
“So you thought...” I trailed off again, totally gobsmacked by what I was seeing. “Is this just an illusion?”
Caleb snickered, and his hand tightened around my waist. “Listen to you becoming an expert in magic. No, Kitty. Not an illusion. More like a window. This is the exact sky over the North Pole right now.”
His teasing about me becoming an expert in magic was in good spirits. Since bonding with Austin, an Ink Mage, my magic had been sort of just bleeding out all over the place. I’d been casting spells I hadn’t intended, and after accidentally turning Cole green one day, Austin had decided I needed more formal training in how to use his magic.
If I’d thought his teaching was painful when learning how to shoot, it was nothing compared to the ogre he was when teaching magic.
“This is so cool,” I whispered, gazing up at the beautiful natural phenomenon above us for a long time. The way the light shifted and moved was mesmerizing, and I soon found myself... calm. Calm in a way that I just hadn’t been able to achieve in longer than I cared to remember.
Between finding out I was a Ban Dia—one of a master race that essentially created all supernatural beings—and being hunted, tortured, and blown up by every man and his damn dog... there just hadn’t been any downtime.
Turning back to Caleb, I pressed a soft kiss to his lips, letting it linger a moment before pulling back. “Thank you,” I murmured, meeting his eyes with sincerity. “This is amazing.”
“Anything for you, Kitty Kat,” he replied, his fingers trailing up my side underneath my baggy sleep shirt. Or rather, Cole’s T-shirt, which I had commandeered to sleep in. Men’s T-shirts were always so damn cosy.
“Couple of hours, you say?” I double-checked, knowing we would need to allow at least one hour to pack up the cars and wipe any trace of ourselves clean.
“Mm-hmm, that I did.” This time, his smirk was as wicked as my own, and heat flushed through me.
“Good.” My fingers traced over the ink on Caleb’s well-muscled abdomen, following the swirl and flow of the lotus blooms down lower until my fingers reached the waistband of his sweatpants. “Then we have time to fully appreciate this amazing view.” And by that, I was not referring to the Aurora Borealis lighting up the room with its shimmering, green glow.
“Kitty Kat...” Caleb scolded, “I was trying to have a nice, relaxing moment with you.”
Humming happily in my throat, I placed another lingering kiss against his lips, taking my time and feeling his body respond.
“Consider me relaxed,” I teased when our kiss ended. “Now I want to thank you for this amazing gift.”
My fingers had hooked into the waistband of his sweats, and there could be no mistaking what I meant by that. Caleb groaned, then threaded his fingers into my hair to pull my lips back to his.
This time when our lips met, there was nothing languid or gentle about it. Caleb teased my lips apart, his tongue delving into my mouth and tangling with mine in a torrent of pent up desire on both of our parts. With everything that had happened recently—Caleb’s magic training, our mission to retrieve my Ban Dia ring, and then all the safehouse hopping—it had really been too damn long since Caleb and I had been intimate with one another.
“Kitty Kat,” he hissed as I freed him from his sweats and wrapped my palm around his length. “This was supposed to be something nice for you.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, but my mouth was busy moving down the line of his neck to his chest.
Caleb sucked in a sharp breath, his hips lifting slightly as my fingers gripped him and stroked. For just a few moments, he let me, and my lips closed over one of his nipples.
“Nope,” he muttered, grabbing me by the waist and sitting me across his waist just long enough to yank my T-shirt off. After tossing it aside, he then flipped us again, and I landed with a puff into the pillows, looking up at the glorious sight of the Northern Lights over Caleb’s half naked frame.
“Mmm,” I grinned. “I think I like this view.”
He smiled back at me, looking like some sort of fallen angel with the twinkling stars and glowing green framing him while he knelt between my spread legs.
“I think I do too,” he agreed, trailing his fingertip over the thin fabric of my underwear and sending warmth curling upward into my belly.