His hand slid up to gently cup the back of my neck, and his lips touched mine. His kiss was so light, so soft, it was like he was barely touching me at all, and it was the worst kind of torture. A small sound of frustration worked its way out of me, and I moved my head a fraction closer, deepening the kiss into something more satisfying.
Austin met my demands, his lips caressing mine in an unhurried dance of emotions, like he was trying to tell me something that I just wasn’t getting. Maybe I was taking too many knocks to the head or something, or maybe I just didn’t want to read into it too much for fear that it wasn’t what I hoped for. Either way, his kiss was helping. Everywhere our skin touched I could feel the magic tingling between us, soaking back into my skin and boosting my energy enough that I no longer needed to vomit.
“This isn’t enough, is it?” he asked, pulling back from my lips and looking me in the eye.
“Not really,” I murmured back in a weak voice. “But that’s okay; so long as I have enough to function, I can probably recharge in my sleep or some shit.”
Austin stared back at me for a long moment, his eyes searching mine for... I didn’t even know what.
“Fuck, Princess, you’re a mess,” he muttered, tightening his grip on my face and pulling me back to him. His lips slammed into mine with a ferocity that matched his personality much better than the gentle kiss he had just given me. Our teeth clashed and he forced my lips apart, thrusting his tongue into my mouth and meeting mine in a battle of wills.
With a sexy, frustrated groan, Austin moved over me, pressing me into the floor and pinning me with his hips. His hardened length crushed between us, and I gasped against his mouth, wrapping my legs up and around his waist to pull him tighter against me.
Needing more, I slid my hands underneath his soaking, blood-covered T-shirt and grabbed onto his muscular sides while my lips engaged his in some sort of wild tango.
“Fucking Christ,” he swore, breaking free from my lips and kissing down the side of my neck, then sucking and biting at my pulse point until I was shaking with ecstasy.
“What the fuck?” Caleb’s voice dumped over the two of us like a bucket of ice water, and Austin shot up like someone had just lit a stick of dynamite under him.
“Are you two okay? What the hell happened?” Caleb demanded, staring wide-eyed at his twin—soaked from neck to knee in blood—at the overturned chair amidst purple runes and puddles of blood, and then me, lying on my back in the middle of it all, panting like I’d just run a marathon, and doubtlessly covered in just as much blood as Austin. Now that I thought about it, I could feel it crusting in my hair.
“Yoshi took matters into his own hands.” Austin’s voice was clipped and angry, and I had no doubt he was relieved his brother had shown up when he did. “Christina healed me, but Yoshi probably didn’t need to do quite such a thorough job on the killing blow. It took a lot of magic. Oh, and what the fuck had you so distracted that you didn’t notice Yoshi call Christina ‘Kit’ on the phone?”
“So you two were...” Caleb raised an eyebrow at the two of us and gave me a knowing look. Even in the state I was in, I noticed he’d ignored Austin’s question about being distracted.
Fuck him; this is so not the time for teasing.
“She was practically comatose, so yeah. Recharge. But you’re here now, bro, so I can go clean up. Shower’s all yours, I’ll use the bathroom downstairs.” He didn’t wait for a response from either of us before slamming out of the apartment, leaving me more than a little speechless.
Obviously, I knew I wasn’t his favorite person on the planet, but did he seriously need to act like I was some sort of fucking leper? He quite literally could not have taken off faster if he had tried, and more to the point, I was not some piece of meat that he could just hand off to his brother to finish up.
Fuck. Him.
Caleb held a hand out to me to help me up from the floor, but I batted it aside and pushed myself up.
“Don’t even,” I hissed at him. “You think I didn’t notice the smoking ring of fucking Mage runes that you just appeared in?” I pointed to the evidence near the front door, where it was quickly fading but still visible. “I am beyond furious at you right now, Caleb King.”
“Kitty Kat,” he sighed. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it’s not? So you didn’t know all along that you were a Mage just in need of healing or that supernaturals existed or even what I fucking am?” I got up in his face, spitting mad and glaring daggers.
“I didn’t know what you are. I swear. If I had, I would have told you. We just thought you were a shifter of some sort and maybe Blood Moon had done some weird testing on you when you were a kid.” He reached out and took my shoulders in his hands, peering into my eyes. “I promise you, Kitty Kat. Yoshi taught us about moon phases and runic writing and alchemy—things that we didn't have the power to do anything with and I assumed we never would. I had no idea what was happening with the six of us until Victor explained it. I really never even listened when Yoshi taught us shit anyway, so it was all just a bit of a vague memory.”
“Why didn’t you say anything after the crash? You knew that you’d changed, that you were a Mage now. Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. His secrets fucking hurt. Why had he not felt like he could confide in me?
He heaved a sigh, dropping my gaze. “Honestly, I don’t know. I never truly believed the hype about Aus and I being these fucking destined ones in the Mage world. No new Mages have been born or created or whatever in, like, half a millennia, so it all just seemed a bit... far-fetched. You know? But then you healed me, and I knew. So I went to get help, to learn how to get some control in case I ended up hurting someone.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me?” I yelled, slapping him in the chest out of frustration. “I get that this is not ideal. It’s not what you guys wanted and I didn’t ask you to become my guardians, and I am sorry for that. I didn’t know how it worked until it was all too late. So, whatever, I get it. But you should have told me what was going on or at least told River. We’re supposed to be a team, remember?”
“I know; I should have... can you please let me help you now?” He gave me a crooked smile and peeled a piece of blood-crusted hair from my cheek. “You could really go with a shower, and you know how good I am at soaping.”
“I think I’ll be fine alone.” I pursed my lips, frowning at him. “You still lied to me. You’ve known about the existence of supernaturals from day one, and you never said a fucking word.” I glanced around the small apartment and spotted the bathroom. “I’ll take a shower and then sleep on the way back to Seattle.”
“Kitty Kat,” he groaned as I made my way into the bathroom with shaking knees. “Come on, you need the magic boost.”
“No, fuck you!” I snapped back, like the really mature twenty-one-year-old I was. God, that was something to get used to, suddenly jumping from nineteen to twenty-one in the space of days.