He was right. I groaned again and bashed my head—lightly—on the table a couple of times before Cole put his hand between my forehead and the wood.
“Okay. So... what do we do?” I looked hopefully around at my guys. Surely they already had a genius plan in mind?
“About him?” River shrugged, “Nothing. He only managed to make off with one small vial of your blood, right?” I nodded. “Well then, hopefully it simply runs out soon. It sounds like this serum he made only lasts a few days, so I think we just let it run its course.”
“There’s something else,” Wesley informed me, and I sighed.
“Of course there is,” I lamented. “Hit me with it.”
His hand ran through his blond hair nervously, and he chewed the corner of his lip. “Director Pierre made contact with us. He wants to meet.”
“Huh?” I blurted, and Austin snickered.
“Very eloquent, Princess,” he mocked me, and I flipped him off before turning back to Wes.
“How?” I asked, sucking a breath in and collecting my thoughts before trying again. “I mean, how did he contact you? I thought we were totally secure on our network?”
“We are,” Wes assured me. “But he knew we would be digging around, so he’d left a message in one of the files I hacked. He wants to sit down and explain things to you before you ‘wind up in over your head.’ His words, not mine.”
The sound of my fingers drumming on the wooden tabletop was the only sound in the room for a moment while I thought this over. Jonathan wanted to meet? Of course he did. Probably to try and finish the job and blow us all up again. My gut reaction was to tell him to fuck right off, but what if there was more to it?
Caleb placed my giant Kit’s Kup down in front of me, full of fresh coffee, and I stared into it like maybe it held the answers I was looking for.
Jonathan had always been good to me. He’d rescued me from Suzette and Gray, he’d taken me into his own home despite how much red tape he’d needed to circumvent, and he’d given me everything I ever wanted. But now I was questioning his motives. Acts I had assumed were driven by love for me, or at very least affection, now seemed nefarious.
The what-ifs could drive me insane, and there was really only one way to know for sure.
“Set it up,” I told them. “I want to hear what he has to say, what could possibly justify trying to kill us. Twice.”
“Are you sure, Kitten?” River checked, spearing me with his stern, golden gaze.
Was I sure? No, not really. But it seemed like the best course of action for my own sanity and peace of mind. I couldn’t live with the unknowns around my last six years as Jonathan’s “daughter.” If he really was the two-faced piece of shit he was looking like, then I’d rather know definitively.
“Yeah. Set it up, but for next week or something? I want to bond Cole and Vali first and get a handle on the dragon magic. We don’t even know if I will end up shifting or whatever, so better to get that sorted while we’re out here away from people, right?” I glanced over at the two dragons in question. Cole looked a bit stunned, and Vali just looked... happy. It struck a chord inside me that I was able to produce such an expression of contentment and relief on such a hard man.
“All right, we’ll get it done, love,” River accepted, still watching me with sharp eyes. “I take it you and Austin have finished magic training now?”
“Uh...” My eyes flew wide and darted to Austin. Was that what they thought we’d been doing all afternoon? Magic training?
“Not likely,” Austin snorted, not being struck by the same deer-in-headlights situation that I was experiencing. “Christina keeps fucking around. But we can be done by tomorrow, I think.”
I scowled at him, not missing the emphasis he’d placed on fucking. “I do not,” I growled, not wanting River to think I wasn’t taking this seriously. I was. But what had transpired between Austin and I had needed to happen, for both our sanity.
“Uh-huh, sure, Princess.” Austin rolled his eyes, just like he’d done a million times before, but the difference now was that he wasn’t hiding his amusement. And arousal. The long fingers of his hand slid across onto my thigh—under the table—and I squeaked.
“You okay, Vixen?” Cole asked, narrowing his granite eyes at me suspiciously.
Biting my lip to keep a moan inside when Austin’s fingers traced the seam of my pants right over my crotch, I nodded frantically.
“Yup, super,” I replied, swatting Austin’s hand away and pushing back from the table. “We should go, um, keep going. With magic, I mean.” From the burst of amusement Austin shocked me with, I expected him to be bent over crying with laughter, but when I speared him with a death glare, his face was as stony and scowling as usual. The only hint that I wasn’t getting my wires crossed was the gleam in his emerald-green eyes.
Fuck, he’s good.
“Austin?” I prompted, letting myself fall back into old habits of being snarky as fuck toward him. “You coming or are you going to keep fucking around out here?”
A smirk cracked through his serious expression, and I realized too damn late what I’d just said.
“Oh, I’m coming,” he teased, pushing back from the table himself and snagging a couple of coffee cookies before sauntering toward me.
“Oh, Kitten?” River called out just before I left the kitchen. Spinning to face him, I froze when I saw the fabric dangling from his fingers. “You left these on top of the stove.”
Totally at a loss for words, I rushed back over and snatched my green lace panties from his hand, but he held tight and met my eyes. My shoulders tensed, and I braced for... I don’t even know what. Judgement? Disappointment?
“Enjoy the rest of magic training.” Was all he said after a long, pregnant pause. “I have no doubt Cole and Vali are looking forward to becoming your new teachers.”
Embarrassment heated my face to the point I was positive I’d turned into a tomato, but I just nodded sharply in lieu of a response. A quick glance around the table told me that the rest of the guys were definitely in on the joke and all supremely amused.
Well shit. Amused was better than angry or jealous, right?
Not sure I wanted to discuss it any further, I hurried after Austin, back to his bedroom where I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it with a groan.
“It’s not funny!” I snapped, seeing the Ink Mage grinning broadly as he hunted in a drawer and pulled out some pens and paper. “Oh, we’re actually doing magic.”
“Princess,” he chuckled, dropping the materials onto his bed and advancing toward me with a predatory look in his eye. “It’s very funny. They were going to find out anyway. Cal and I are on extreme probation with Alpha, so I would have needed to fess up sooner or later. That is, if they hadn’t already heard us this afternoon.”
His muscular body pinned me to the door, his hand cupping my chin tightly and his hard length pressing against my belly. In his eyes I found raw hunger, desire, and passion. From our magical link I was flooded with love, and my body tightened with excitement.
“Besides, better they know now. I intend to make you scream tonight.” My whole body shook with a shiver as his lips claimed mine in a kiss so savage it could cause bruising.
I fucking loved it.
18
As it turned out, there was very little left for me to learn in my magic training. Austin grudgingly admitted around lunchtime the next day that I was almost as skilled as he was, and that was really the extent of what he could teach me. As far as he could assess, my magical aptitude was only a percentage of his, but it was a healthy percentage.
“Fuck,” he muttered, watching me with, dare I say it, admiration? His hand was buried in Tyson’s fur, and he was scratching his belly where the big cat lay between us on the floor.