“So that’s how you could send your thoughts to me? What sort of supernatural would that make you?” I chewed at my lip, running through my sparse knowledge of all the different magical creatures in my mind. Quickly it became apparent that I’d need to brush up on my supernatural knowledge.
“I think I was able to communicate like that because you were in and out of consciousness, like how we shared that dream. But... I don’t know. More testing will be needed. As for what that makes me? I haven’t a clue.” He reached out and grabbed my hand, tugging me toward him and turning me so I sat between his legs, my back to his chest and his fingers twined with mine in the water. “But I guess we can find out together?”
“Absolutely!” I enthused, and a happy warmth fluttered in my belly. “I’m sorry I caused all of this, but is it selfish of me to say I’m not sorry you’re changed? If it means you’re harder to kill?”
“Not selfish at all, sweetheart,” he chuckled, kissing the back of my neck. “It just shows you care. Now, I wanted to ask you something else.”
“Mmm,” I hummed, leaning back into him and feeling his hard length resting between us.
“Not that,” he laughed. “But when we get back to Seattle, if you’re still up for celebrating my birthday, I wanted to know if you’d like to go out for dinner or something? Just us, I mean.”
“A date?” I asked, spinning to face him, kneeling in the deep bath between his legs.
“Yeah. I sort of thought, now that I’m your boyfriend”—he grinned—“we might go out like a normal couple? Just, in between people trying to kidnap or kill you.”
“Wes, that’s...” I trailed off, leaning forward and kissing him tenderly. “Yes, I’d love to go on a proper date with you. Tomorrow night? After we get back?”
“Sounds perfect,” he whispered, cupping my cheek in a warm, wet hand and bringing my mouth back to his for another kiss. “We better get out before one of the dragons bursts in here with their fire blazing. Fuck knows they’ve done enough of that tonight.”
“What?” I frowned, climbing out of the floral-scented water and wrapping myself in a towel.
“You’ll see. Come on, I’ll let them explain it.” Wesley sighed, like he’d caught the kids drawing on the walls or something, and held out a fluffy robe for me to put on. “I’ll brush your hair out while they tell you what went down tonight.”
My eyes narrowed, I looked around at my guardians suspiciously. They definitely hadn’t told me the full story.
“Okay, so far that sounds totally reasonable,” I said slowly. “Gray managed to separate you all, tranq you, and then keep you locked in a bunker underneath the garden. I’m not seeing any reason for these long faces, and yet you all look like you’re expecting me to be super pissed off. So what gives?”
“Don’t ask me.” Austin shrugged. “I realized you were in trouble almost straightaway. It just took me a while to figure out where they were keeping you.”
“Fucking brownnoser,” Caleb muttered under his breath while rubbing soothing circles on the palm of my hand with his thumbs. I was a damn sucker for hand and foot massages; it was half the reason I got mani-pedis sometimes.
“Okay, I’ve had a really fucking long night, and I need to go and take about sixteen more showers to feel clean again after having that slimeball’s hands on me, so can someone please just spit it out.” Now that we were sitting still, the events of the evening were catching up with me, and my mind was threatening to shatter into a million pieces.
“That’s not a nice thing to call Austin,” Caleb murmured, trying to bite back a naughty grin and failing miserably.
“Caleb,” I groaned, jerking my hand from his and whacking him with a pillow. “Literally cannot believe you just made a joke at a time like this.”
“They do say laughter is the best medicine.” He winked. “So hopefully you’re going to find this funny...”
Caleb raised his eyebrows at River, who looked like he might be almost mad... which was crazy-worrying in itself, given how in control he always was.
River said nothing, instead flicked on the hotel TV with the remote he’d been gripping since Wes and I had stepped out of the bathroom. Burning with curiosity, I looked to the screen to see what could be so important that he needed to—
“What the fuck?” I swore, my jaw dropping in disbelief as the news replayed a looped iPhone video of what looked suspiciously like two huge ass freaking dragons bursting out of a topiary garden and rocketing into the sky where they disappeared from view.
The headline banners running across the screen debated if it was a hoax or CGI or if dragons were real, and my stomach clenched painfully. My eyes were glued to the footage as the news station played it over again and again until finally River shut the screen off and folded his arms.
“One of you two overgrown lizards better start talking, and fast ,before I lose my fucking shit over here,” I warned them, feeling a tremble set into my hands. Not totally sure if it was from anger, shock, fatigue or just sheer overwhelming I-faced-my-demon-and-won relief, but either way, I tucked them under my armpits to hide them from sight.
“So, there’s not really much to tell,” Vali began, a bit hesitantly. He and Cole had both been dodging eye contact with me for the entire time River and Caleb had been “explaining,” and I was beginning to see why.
“The video footage of two flesh-and-blood fucking dragons all over the news begs to differ, Vali!” I screamed, giving over a bit into outraged, angry shock. It was a new mix of emotions I was trying out, and it suited this situation to a fucking tee. Cole and Vali had been caught on camera… as dragons. If we thought things were difficult before, I could only begin to imagine the circus that the world’s media might start after this.
“Look, it just... happened.” Vali ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark hair like he was frustrated.
“Vixen,” Cole said in a quiet voice, looking up to meet my gaze finally. “We could feel what was happening to you. We could feel your fear and your anger and your pain.” The raw emotion in Cole’s eyes made my skin break out in gooseflesh and my trembling increase. How had it totally slipped my notice that they would have been feeling everything I’d gone though? Jesus fucking Christ, I really was a selfish bitch.
“We couldn’t keep the dragon under control, and after we shifted, we didn’t want to accidently barbecue River and Caleb so...” Vali shrugged his broad shoulders, and I noticed he was in one of Cole’s black T-shirts.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of my nose with my eyes tightly shut. “So what happened after you, ah”—I waved my hand at the TV—“took off?”
“We knew we had to get out of sight, so we got as high as possible before heading back here. We landed on the next building over, just in case anyone saw us, but it was still pitch black out, and there has been nothing on the news other than that one short clip.” Vali filled in the missing information while Cole’s eyes burned holes into me.