by Ella Summers
“I knew that dubious sandwich would find its way into this tale.”
“You should really give it a try. You might actually like it,” she told him. “I bet Trove’s chef could fix you up a nice, pretentious peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“What is a pretentious peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they can add some garnish on the side.”
“I believe I’ll pass.”
“Your loss.” Shrugging, she took a bite of steak. “Anyway, the stupid centaurs and vampires are the reason I didn’t get to buy something nice to wear.”
“You’re wearing something nice.”
Kai’s brilliant blue eyes stared at her over the top of his wine glass. There was something very deep—very primal—about the look in them.
“The bouncer let me in at least.” She smiled at him. The effect was only slightly diminished by her dropping her fork.
Kai caught it before it hit the counter. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Being nervous around me.”
Sera didn’t have anything to say to that, so she turned her attention to her steak instead. They sat in silence for the next few minutes while she ate and he watched her eat.
“Do you want the rest?” she finally asked. The only thing more uncomfortable than those tight pants was her full stomach pressing against those tight pants.
Kai reached for the plate as she was pulling away, and their hands brushed together. His magic flared up, gliding past hers. Its whispers were as soft as rose petals, its touch as smooth as honey.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling his magic back in. “My magic has been unruly tonight.”
She folded her hands together and tried not to think too hard about the fact that he’d apologized to her. Kai Drachenburg didn’t apologize. He commanded.
“You’re unsettled,” he said.
“Nope.”
“You are.” He slid off his stool, then extended his hand toward her. “Dance with me.”
“But we have work to do.”
“Dancing first. You need to relax.”
Without waiting for her response, he snatched her hand and led her to the dance floor. Raw and heavy, the bass buzzed against her skin. It rippled across her body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Kai’s hands dropped to her hips, the heat of his fingers dissolving through the thin fabric of her pants, flushing through her body. Biting back a shudder, Sera set her hands on his shoulders and concentrated on matching the sway of his body.
He started off slow, his eyes watching her cautiously, as though he thought she might flee at any second. The music sped up, its melody mixing with the bass. Kai’s steps grew faster. Harder. He pulled her close, his hands pouring down her back, burning her with languid heat. His cheek brushed across hers, his breath trailing her jaw.
“You look amazing,” he whispered into her ear. His words melted against her skin, dissolving like steaming snowflakes.
“I wasn’t sure they would let me in at…” He kissed her cheek, and her words crumbled. Every inch of her tingled with magic. His magic. “You’re doing it again.”
“As I told you before, I’m having trouble keeping my magic in check.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
His lips buzzed against her cheek as he spoke. His magic poured across her body like a river of fire, sliding down every curve, climbing every peak. Sera shuddered.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, pulling back just far enough to meet her eyes.
Her body protested his absence. Her magic tugged at his, trying to draw him closer. “No.”
His blue eyes looked down at her, shining like mirrored glass. He dipped his head and kissed her. It was a light kiss, over almost as soon as it had begun. Even after his lips had left hers, his magic lingered, its teasing touch nuzzling at her restraint.
“Still ok?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Not running away?”
“Not a chance.”
“Good.”
This time when he kissed her, it wasn’t light or soft. And there wasn’t much restraint left in either of them. His lips kneaded against hers, hard and urgent, sizzling with magic. That magic dissolved into her, saturating her every pore with fire. She opened her mouth to gasp, and he slipped his tongue past her lips. His hand slid over her butt, tugging her closer. She wanted him so badly that she could hardly think straight.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he whispered into her ear.
“Yes.” She gasped as his teeth nuzzled against her neck. “But don’t we have a job to do first?”
“About that.” He traced his finger down her side. “I might have misled you a tad.”
“There’s no job?”
“Not really,” he admitted. “I asked you here so we could spend some time together.”
“So this is a date?”
“It is if you want it to be,” he said, watching for her reaction. At this very moment, he looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen him. More vulnerable than he’d looked when Finn had been draining his magic with the Priming Bangles.
“I think…” She cleared her throat. “I think I do want it to be.”
Relief spread across his face, trailed by a smile. It wasn’t his typical hard and feral smile; it was a genuinely happy one. He kissed her once more, then took her hand, leading her off the floor. They’d only made it a few steps when he stopped abruptly.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
He pulled his buzzing phone out of his pocket, frowning down at it. “Of all the times… Sorry, this will only take a moment.” His eyes panned across the screen, his frown deepening. “It appears we have to work tonight after all.”
“Oh?” she said, trying not to sound disappointed. Kai didn’t look like he was in the mood for fun anymore anyway.
“Here.” He handed her his phone.
The message was only three words long, but those three words chilled her to her core. “Finn has escaped,” she read.
9
Team Muscle and Magic
They hurried back to the hotel. Kai managed to summon a taxi, for which Sera’s feet were eternally grateful. This was the last time in this lifetime that she wore four-inch heels.
As soon as they were inside Kai’s suite, he grabbed his computer and sat down on the sofa. A cloud of agitated magic, invisible but potent, rolled out of him, burning the soft fragrant scent in the air. Inside the tall clear vases in the room, flower petals wrinkled and wilted before her eyes. Sera sneezed.
He looked up from his computer, staring across the room at her. “Come here.”
She hesitated. “Only if you promise to put your magic away. You’re burning the air.” She pointed at the vase beside the sofa. “And those nice petals.”
“I’m trying to put out half a dozen fires at the moment, Sera. I don’t have time to worry about flower petals.” He pulled in his magic anyway.
“It looks like you started a few fires of your own,” Dal’s voice said from the computer speakers.
Sera kicked off her shoes and hurried over to the sofa. As she sat down next to Kai, she waved at the three men staring out from the computer screen. Dal, Callum, and Tony, the guys she’d lovingly dubbed Kai’s ‘commandos’, were as tough as nails and as cool as cats. They weren’t just Kai’s employees; they were his friends. They’d helped her and Kai take down Finn’s revolution. They hadn’t survived the ordeal without a scratch, however. Kai had commanded them to take some time off. And yet here they were.
“Hi, guys,” she greeted Team Muscle and Magic. “Aren’t you supposed to be sitting on a tropical beach somewhere, working on your tans?”
“Nah, we had to give up on that idea. Callum burns horribly in the sun,” said Tony, grinning.
“That wasn’t sunburn. It was a fire spell,” Callum protested, also grinning.
“Sure thing, burning man.”
/> “Sera,” Dal said. “How are you doing? How’s your training coming along? Is Kai going easy on you?”
“Kai Drachenburg doesn’t go easy on anyone,” she said, smiling.
The three commandos chuckled.
“I wouldn’t be doing her any favors by going easy on her,” Kai said.
“Funny. He’s always saying the same thing to us,” Tony told Sera.
“Right before he blasts us with a tornado,” added Dal.
Callum nodded. “Or shifts into a dragon and spits fire at us.”
Kai gave them all a cold glare, and the snickers died down. “Tell me what happened at Atlantis.”
Tony’s soldier mode clicked on. “The prison’s security footage shows a gang of hooded mages popping up in one of the unused storage rooms near Finn’s cell, opening the cell with a keycard, then returning to the storage room with him. And then they all just vanished.”
“A portal?” Sera asked.
“We think so,” said Dal. “But there’s no residual magic left.”
“How long ago did Finn escape?”
“This morning,” Tony told her.
“That’s still recent enough, even if they hid the portal.” Sera turned to Kai. “You need to get me into that prison. I can break the magic hiding the portal and figure out where they went. We can still catch them.”
“You have other things to worry about,” he said. “Like the Magic Games. They start tomorrow. You don’t have time to go to Atlantis, and you certainly don’t have time to hunt down Finn.” He looked at the commandos. “Go. Check out the prison. Look for a hidden portal and report back your findings.”
“This is foolish,” she said as he closed his computer. “You need me there, finding that portal—not here, sitting on my hands.”
“You won’t be sitting on your hands. You will be fighting in the Magic Games. Once that’s done, if you’d like to come work for me, we can discuss my terms.”
“Your…terms?” she choked out the words. What was he playing at? “Like what?”
“You’ll start by explaining how a first tier mage managed to hide her magic from the entire supernatural community for over twenty years.”
She crossed her arms against her chest and frowned at him. “Not everyone.”
“And then you’ll tell me why,” he said.
So he hadn’t given up on trying to unearth her secret after all. Maybe that’s why he was helping her; maybe he thought that by getting close to her, she’d spill the beans. Nope. Not happening.
“I have no interest in working for you,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t like secrets.”
“Neither does your Magic Council,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. They want to crack my mind open like an egg. The question is why you’re helping me. Why not just let them break me? Then you’d know everything you ever wanted to know about me.”
He leaned forward as his lips slid back to show his teeth. He looked positively primal. “I don’t want to crack your mind, Sera.”
“Then put away the dragon fangs. You can’t just go around intimidating people into doing what you want. It’s not nice.”
“But it is efficient.” His face went neutral. “I wasn’t trying to intimidate you. I was annoyed that you still don’t trust me. I meant what I said. I don’t want to crack your mind. I want you to just tell me. I know you’re not a threat to the Magic Council—well, except maybe that smart mouth of yours—and I don’t want them hurting you to figure out what you’re hiding. Whatever it is, they don’t need to know. But I do.”
“Why?”
“People who work for me don’t get to keep secrets from me. Not big ones like this.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ve already established that I won’t be working for you,” she shot back.
Kai frowned at her. Seriously, though, what did he expect her to say to a dumb comment like that? He opened his mouth, as though he wanted to say something, but he just shook his head instead.
“Can we just get back to the crisis at hand?” she said.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’m not sending you to Atlantis. Callum, Tony, and Dal can handle the hunt for Finn.”
“They can’t sense magic like I can. No one can.”
His eyes opened. “Except your sister.”
Sera said nothing, afraid to clue him in on the fact that she and Alex were Dragon Born. He was already dangerously close to the truth.
“Alex is your twin,” he said. “So she must have powerful magic too. The only reason she’s not being called to test in the Games is because Gaelyn is protecting her. He still holds sway over the Magic Council.”
“Is he really as old as people say?” Sera said, deflecting.
The hard look Kai gave her told her he wasn’t fooled. Not for a second.
“Send me to Atlantis. I’ll just take a quick peek at the portal, then come right back.” She wiggled her pinkie at him. “I promise.”
He ignored her wiggling pinkie. “There’s no time for that, and you know it. The Magic Games start in sixteen hours, and we need every second we have to prepare you. Let’s start with getting you some sleep. Tired mages make for sloppy fighters.”
Sera sighed, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. Exhausted and not the least bit ready for the Games. Maybe she should have let people fight their own supernatural battles for a change today. She just couldn’t seem to keep her nose out of other peoples’ messes.
“Get some sleep, Sera,” he said. “I’ll come by at seven tomorrow so we can train.”
“Oh, letting me sleep in?” She tried to smile, but her face was too tired. So she just stood and headed for the door.
“Sera.”
She stopped in front of the door, looking back at him.
“You are getting better,” he said. That was high praise from Kai Drachenburg.
“Maybe. But will it be good enough?”
She opened the door and headed down the hall to the elevator. By the time she stepped into the suite she shared with Riley and Naomi, she felt like a zombie—except maybe a bit more dead. She dropped her purse onto her bed and changed out of her silly club clothes before hitting the bathroom.
When she returned to the bedroom, her phone was buzzing on her bed. She picked it up—and nearly dropped it again. There on her screen was a picture of her and Kai dancing at Trove, taken just a few hours ago. Below the picture were the words, “Look forward to seeing you again soon, Sera. Love, Finn.”
10
Wake the Dead
Sera didn’t sleep well that night. Visions of Alcatraz plagued her dreams. Finn stalked the shadows. Globs of semi-solid magic oozed off of him like molten lava, sizzling the ground with tears of malice. As his faceless minions pushed Kai to his knees, Finn stepped into the firelight. With a wicked smirk, he slapped the Priming Bangles over Kai’s wrists. The magic chomped at Kai’s flesh, and he roared out in pain.
Sera jolted awake, his tormented scream still ringing in her ears. She fumbled for her phone and brought up Finn’s message from last night. He was just trying to get into her head, to unnerve her.
He’d succeeded.
She set her phone back on her nightstand, then buried her head under her pillow, drowning out the thump on her door. Was it seven o’clock already? That meant she’d slept for nearly nine hours. It felt more like two. She wasn’t getting up. Kai would just have to find another victim this morning.
The knock thumped on her door again, louder this time. Sera clutched her pillow to her ears. The door shook with the force of explosives—or maybe that was just a really big dragon claw. Kai was so going to pay for this. She was going to pop the wheels off his tank—wait, no, she was going to paint the tank pink. With bright yellow flowers. And hearts. That would teach him.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!”
That wasn’t Kai. It was
Riley. And he didn’t have anything Sera could paint pink. Grumbling, she tossed one of the spare pillows at the door. Hopefully, he’d get the message.
“That’s nice,” he said. “But I suggest you save your energy for the fight. You’ll need it when Kai’s throwing you across the fighting pit.”
Someone snickered. It sounded like Kai. Sera threw a second pillow at the door, just for him.
“You wanted to have a look at the fighting pit before the Games,” Kai said. “Well, here’s your chance. We leave in half an hour—whether or not you’ve had breakfast.”
His words echoed in her empty stomach. She groaned a final protest, then dragged her body out of bed. She put on the first sports outfit she could find, not even caring if it was torn or dirty. After a few minutes in the pit with Kai, it would be ruined anyway. She was running out of things to wear, and her attempt at shopping hadn’t ended well.
Sera met up with Naomi on her way to the tiny kitchen corner in their suite. Her friend was still wearing pajamas, but she looked more awake than Sera felt.
“Did they pound on your door too?”
“No, but the pounding on your door was loud enough to wake the dead.” Naomi wrapped her arm around Sera’s shoulder. “How do you feel?”
“Like one of the dead.”
“I’ll bet.” Her mouth kicked up into a smirk. “You look like one too.”
“Thanks.”
“A good breakfast will perk you right up. Your boyfriend brought over some granola for you.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Uh-huh, sure.”
Sera looked toward the suite’s kitchen corner—or rather, away from the knowing sparkle in Naomi’s eyes. “What kind of granola?”
“Strawberry vanilla.”
“That’s my favorite,” Sera said.
“And Kai Drachenburg knows it.”
Naomi didn’t say anything more. They’d reached the kitchen corner. Riley and Kai were already eating breakfast. Her brother’s was a bowl of cereal, and the dragon’s was a roll stacked full of salami.