“What?” I asked, confused. We’d just been sitting there on the den floor recapping the core fundamentals of magic but had finished that some minutes ago and been sitting in comfortable silence.
“I can’t wait to see you once you master everyone’s powers.” Austin gazed at me as he murmured these words, and I felt nothing but admiration from him. Which kind of made me squirm uncomfortably. This rapid shift in our relationship was making my head spin, and I was having a hard time dealing with all these softer emotions from him all of a sudden.
Or I guessed not all of a sudden, seeing as this was clearly how he’d felt for a while. But he was suddenly allowing me to feel them without the smokescreen of anger and irritation, and it was stressing me the hell out.
Yeah, I was in love with them... all of them... and yeah, I understood that by bonding we would literally be together for eternity, but something about the cold reality of feeling exactly what your lover is feeling at any given moment was freaking me out.
“Let’s work on this mental blocking,” he announced, changing the subject and standing up to stretch his back out. As he did so, his T-shirt rose up and showed of his seriously impressive lower abs, stirring arousal in me again.
“Yup, we definitely need to work on blocking,” he muttered, giving me an amused frown. “Your mood changes are giving me whiplash, and I swear if I feel you fucking one of the other guys now, I’ll lose my damn mind.”
Blushing, I raked a hand through my long hair and nodded my agreement. As hard as it was for me dealing with his moods, I could only imagine what it was like for the guys when I was with someone else.
Yup, I was officially an asshole.
“I’ll grab us fresh coffee, and we can get it sorted out before you bond with the lizards this afternoon.” Austin took our empty mugs and sauntered his firm ass out of the den.
While he was gone, I took over scratching Tyson’s belly and was rewarded by a lazy snore from the huge, magical cat. I snickered at him and ran my hands through his silky fur, tracing the pads of his dinner plate–sized paws and tickling them.
“Playing with fire, Kitty Kat,” Caleb warned, appearing from a different entrance and flopping down on the couch I was leaning against. “Don’t they say you should let sleeping cats lie?”
“That’s dogs, Cal.” I rolled my eyes, running my finger down one of Tyson’s deadly sharp claws. “Ty would never hurt me anyway; he’s just a big pussy cat.”
Okay so clearly he wasn’t all that far asleep because when I called him a pussy cat—which he hated—his paw flexed and nicked the tip of my finger with his claw.
“Ouch! Ty, that was rude!” I scolded, pulling my hand back and inspecting the injury. Sure enough, he’d sliced through the pad of my finger, and blood was already welling to the surface. It wasn’t a bad cut though, so I just put my finger into my mouth, knowing it would be closed over and healed in a matter of moments.
The big cat raised his head slightly and cracked one eye open in a clear “don’t call me a pussy, and I won’t scratch you” kind of way.
“Pussy,” I muttered, nudging Tyson with my knee and sucking on my bloody finger. “So, whats up?” I turned to Caleb to find him frowning at me.
“Uh,” he hesitated, looking distracted, then the expression wiped from his face, and he smiled. “I wanted to let you know I’m doing better with my lessons. I don’t think I’ll need to keep going there for too much longer, I hope.”
“Cal, that’s great!” I beamed, scrambling up from the floor to kneel on the couch beside him. “I’m really proud of you. I know there is something shady going on, and it’s killing me that you can’t tell me... but maybe if you can finish, then the whole magical NDA thing won’t matter anymore?”
He shrugged a little uncomfortably. “Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping. But I worry it won’t be that easy. I have a theory though...”
“Yeah?” I prompted, shifting on my knees until I could take his hand in mine.
“It’s just a theory, but I wonder if it’ll break when we bond? I know it is possible if the magic thrown at it is in major excess of the original caster. At first I thought it’d be easy because Zelda cast it and Aus and I far outclass her, but it seems like because she cast it on behalf of someone else...” His mouth twisted, and he winced.
“Gotcha,” I nodded, not needing him to push the boundaries any further. I hated seeing him in pain, just for my own curiosity. “It’s a good theory, and you know I’m game! You just tell me when you’re ready.”
Yeah, I know it was reckless of me to even consider bonding Cal when he was clearly struggling so much with his control around blood... Ah crap, my finger. Glancing down, I checked it carefully to make sure there was no blood left on my skin, and let out a sigh of relief when I saw it clean.
“I will,” he sighed, “the second I have it mastered, if you’re cool with that. It kills me that you’re bonded to Aus and not me.” He whispered this last bit, and I suspected he didn’t really mean to say it out loud.
My hand cupped his cheek, turning his face toward me so I could meet his eyes. “I know it does,” I whispered back. “I’m sorry.”
The smile he gave me was a sad one, full of self-loathing. “Nothing to be sorry for, Kitty Kat. It’s my own fault for not taking Yoshi seriously when we were kids.”
Rather than responding to him with hollow words of sympathy, I pressed my lips to his, hoping that my kiss could convey what my heart felt. Caleb had been my first choice, my first crush out of Alpha team. Had we been just two normal people meeting in school, I had no doubt we would have ended up dating the old-fashioned way. But I had no regrets for the way things had turned out, seeing as I was equally in love with all of my dianoch.
Sometimes, though, I caught Cal watching me with a sad look to his eyes, and I suspected he was wondering what life would have been like if I hadn’t been The Fox. If I hadn’t turned out to be the magical catalyst who could make or break the future of the world.
“Cal,” I sighed against his mouth, but said no more as his lips parted underneath mine. His hands gripping to my hair, he pulled me close, his tongue meeting mine in a wild frenzy, and what I’d started as a tender, loving kiss turned fierce.
“Fuck,” he swore, tearing his lips from mine and leaving me wide-eyed and panting in his lap. Caleb’s eyes were screwed shut, and his mouth was pinched in a tight line while his hand rubbed at his forehead.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, confused as all hell and unable to prevent the cold, sinking feeling in my gut that he was rejecting me. Because I was sleeping with his brother? Oh fuck, I should have known they wouldn’t all be just fine with me dating five other guys.
“Stop,” Caleb ordered me in a husky whisper, “Stop that, it’s not you.” His eyes flickered open, and I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise when I saw his snake-like pupils.
“Oh,” I gasped, then groaned and dropped my forehead to rest on his shoulder. “I’m an idiot.”
Caleb chuckled slightly, and I felt a tiny bit of tension drop from his body as his hands rested lightly on my waist. “Ah, yeah. So am I. Just... give me a moment.”
I bit my lip—lightly, so as not to fill my mouth with any more blood—and waited while Caleb took a couple of long breaths. When his body relaxed underneath me, I raised my head back up to look at him guiltily.
“Blood was still in my mouth, wasn’t it?” I checked, and he nodded sheepishly. “What did it do to you?” His brows shot up, and I rephrased quickly, “I mean, what did it make you want to do to me? Like...” I trailed off, and his mouth quirked a smile, showing his normal, human canine teeth.