by Ella Summers
All she knew right now was that Riley was late the same night Kai was back in town. She hoped they hadn’t had a fight. It was unlikely Dal was tailing his boss 24/7 with a canister of compressed magic strapped to his back.
The doorbell rang. Sera’s first thought was that Riley had finally arrived. Her second thought was the realization that Riley wouldn’t have rung the doorbell. As she headed for the front door, she felt it. Him. His magic was simmering like a steaming teapot, rippling the air with subtle vibrations. It actually felt kind of nice—or at least it would have if she hadn’t been too busy looking for her knives to enjoy it.
“I could have sworn they were…” she muttered, tossing a boot aside. “Oh, that’s right. I put them in here.” She dug two knives out of the potted plant in the entryway, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“What have you done to Riley?” she blurted out before he could say anything.
Kai gave her knives a bored look. “May I come in?”
“Answer the question, and I might not stab you.”
“To do that, you would have to abandon your position in front of the door. At which point, I would breach your defenses.”
Oh, he was challenging her, was he? A cool smile slid across her lips. “Not if I threw the knives at you.”
He shook his head. “I’m too fast. In fact, I’m too strong for you to have any chance of drawing blood, let alone stabbing me. Why don’t you just put those silly sticks away and talk to me like any reasonable person would?”
“I’m reasonable.”
“You answered the door bearing weapons,” he pointed out. “Albeit pitiful ones.”
She crossed her arms against her chest, careful not to stab herself. That would have sure looked menacing. “You still haven’t told me where Riley is.”
He expelled a martyred sigh. “He got tied up.”
Sera narrowed her eyes at him. “When you say ‘tied up’…”
“No, I don’t mean literally. Jeez, Sera! What kind of monster do you think I am? Riley told me he’ll be late.”
“You talked to him?”
“Yes.”
Her body relaxed a bit. “In civil tones?”
“No, we snarled at each other like a pair of rapid dogs.” His eyes hardened into blue diamonds. “Of course we spoke in civil tones. He invited me to come over for dinner. He said he’d be running late and asked me to pick up the pizza.” Kai held up a stack of pizza boxes.
“Oh.”
She hadn’t even noticed the pizza boxes. That just went to show that rage was blind. Or was that love? Her heart thumped in her chest. She told it to be quiet, then tried to come up with something witty to cover the dull silence.
“Is Riley busy working late in his lab?” she asked. Ok, apparently witty wasn’t on the menu today. She was too hungry for witty right now.
“No, he’s busy flirting with a girl,” Kai said, amusement flashing in his eyes.
Well, if they were talking about girls, then maybe they’d made up after all. What had they been fighting about anyway? She had a sinking feeling it had to do with her.
“Now may I come in?” he asked her.
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“You said if I answered your question, you’d let me in.”
“No, I said if you answered my question, I might not stab you. Big difference.”
“Sera,” he growled.
She chuckled.
“Your pizza is getting cold.”
She lowered her knives and scrambled out of his path.
“Thank you,” Kai said cooly as he passed, magic crackling off his lips. He walked over to the dining room table and set the boxes down. Then he turned and gave her an expectant look.
Oh, right. Manners. “How have you been?” she asked.
“Busy. I’ve spent the last week in Magic Council meetings, and it’s made me downright cranky.”
“Really?” She grinned. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Cute, Sera. Real cute. But might I remind you that you’re the one who answered the door armed.”
“I knew it was you.”
“I see.” Kai leaned his arms back against the table, and didn’t say anything more. He must have been waiting for her to clarify her stupid comment.
“You just left. I… I don’t know what I thought. And then you didn’t call me.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. She was not that girl. “Whatever. Just forget it.” She looked away.
“Sera.”
She busied herself brushing down a wrinkle in her pants.
“Look at me.”
She glanced up at him through lowered lashes.
“I have been doing nothing but sitting in meetings and sleeping—though there was precious little of that—for the past week while the Council hit their heads over the table trying to figure out what to do about Alden. A lot of ideas were thrown around but nothing workable. We would still be sitting there right now, going in circles. Do you know why we aren’t?”
“Because you got fed up and killed them all in a fit of rage?”
“No.” He licked his dry lips. “Though I did fantasize about doing just that once or twice during the week. The only reason we’re not still sitting in that room is because I told them this was all pointless until we had more intelligence. Which we’d already sent our spies off to collect before the end of the first day. And then I got up and left. Others followed.”
“I bet they were glad to be going home.”
“I was glad to be going home.” He took her hands, his thumbs tracing small circles across the insides of her wrists. “To see you.”
She smirked over the furious pounding of her own heart. “You’re addicted to my sarcasm, I tell you.”
“I’m addicted to you.” His fingers caressed her cheek. “Do you even know what you’ve done to me?”
“Made you tell off stuck-up Magic Council members and recklessly storm out of meeting rooms?” She leaned into him, sliding her hands down the rigid muscles of his stomach. “Clearly I’m a fantastic influence.”
His mouth brushed her cheek. “I’m not sure my colleagues on the Magic Council would agree,” he growled into her ear. His hands traced burning rivers down her back.
“Screw the Council,” she breathed, melting under his touch.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said, his lips caressing hers.
“Oh?” Desire scorched her body, piercing and pulsing through her. One word was all she could manage.
“Actually, you wanted to talk to me.” His kisses slowed. “About yourself.”
“Oh.”
A memory tore through her. Kai’s face was contorted with disgust as he spat insults at her. Abomination. Vile creature. She shook off Alden’s illusion—his trick—but she couldn’t shake the pain. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was right. Kai had grown up believing that the Dragon Born were sin incarnated. Every supernatural had. To them, she was an abomination. And abominations were slaughtered.
Her body went limp, fear chasing out desire. “Well, I…”
“You’ve changed your mind.” There was no emotion in his face. A blank slate. Or a slab of granite.
“I’m not ready.” And might never be.
Magic swirled in his eyes, but his aura remained serene. “Take your time.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m not going anywhere. And I have something to show you.” He reached down, amusement tugging his brows when her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, but you do have a dirty mind, don’t you?” Chuckling, he waved his phone in front of her face.
Sera gathered up the pieces of her shattered dignity and glanced at the phone. On the screen, there was an official-looking mail from Duncan Blackbrooke.
“It’s your results from the Magic Games,” Kai told her.
Odd, considering that she was the one who had survived the Games and she definitely hadn’t gotten this mail.
“Results are sent to the coaches,�
� he said, guessing her thought. Or maybe her eyes just screamed ‘kill Duncan Blackbrooke!’. “It’s antiquated, I know. But so are most traditions we have.”
“Like wearing a suit?”
“I did away with that one many years ago. Except when I can’t avoid it.”
“Magic Council meetings?” she asked.
“No, I wear whatever the hell I want to those, and if anyone has a problem with me, we can take it outside. Or inside. I’m not particular.”
She chuckled.
“It’s not as though any of them could complain about my attire. The vampires wear two-hundred-year-old cloaks. And the fairies…well, they claim what they’re wearing are dresses, but I think they’ve confused ‘dress’ with ‘lingerie’.”
“Kind of like your man Edwards and the fighting pit lingerie he bought me.”
“Oh, no. Edwards’s choices were downright modest compared to those fairies’ dresses.”
“Hmm. Maybe I should come with you next time you have a Magic Council meeting. You know, just to keep those naughty fairies in line.” She draped her hands over his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him. “I can bring my sword. It will be fun. Like a field trip.”
He snorted. “Do you want to see your results?”
“I guess.” Sighing, she dropped her arms. “I’m going to find out eventually anyway. I need to show them to Simmons so he’ll clear me for work again.”
“Try not to sound too excited.”
“I’m never excited to be called in to Simmons’s office. Hey, maybe I’ll send you instead. He likes you.”
“Of course. I’ll help you. We can go together.”
“I was joking, Kai,” she said. “But, um, thanks for offering.”
“Bring him a muffin.”
“Sorry?”
“A muffin,” he repeated. “Simmons likes muffins. His favorite flavor is apple cinnamon.”
Her mouth hung open in shock. “How do you know the head of Mayhem’s favorite muffin flavor?”
He shrugged. “Research. Never go into battle unprepared.”
“I wasn’t aware you had ever battled Simmons.”
“The battle of negotiation. Back when I wanted to hire you the first time.”
“You mean, when you pretended to be Riley’s friend so that you could spy on me to see what kind of weird funky magic I had?”
He sighed. “We’ve been over this, Sera. Riley and I already knew each other. That he was the brother of the mercenary I wanted to hire was just a lucky coincidence,” he said. “But back to Simmons. I wanted to hire you, but I knew he’d try to push one of his top-tier mercenaries on me. I needed to soften him up first. So I had my guys research his weaknesses, and they came up with muffins.”
“Did the muffin work?”
“Somewhat. He still tried to sway me toward some of his ‘shooting stars’, as he called them.”
“Of course he did. He can charge more for mercenaries with high magic ratings. But none of them have my stellar sense of humor.”
“Or your magic,” Kai said, pointing at his phone screen.
“First tier mage,” she read.
“No surprise there,” Kai commented.
“First tier mage: Magic Breaker, Sniffer, Elemental. World rankings: Elemental #12, Magic Breaker…#1. Wow.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. No one can break magic like you can.”
Alex could, but Sera didn’t mention that. She did not want her sister dragged through Blackbrooke’s Games. “Sniffer: #1. Hey, I beat you in that one!”
Kai laughed. Or was that a grunt? A grunt-laugh?
Sera scrolled down, looking for more, but it was just a bunch of standard text about how her official results would be mailed to her…yada yada…more random bits. She got to the bottom. There was no reference to Dragon Born. In fact, there was no mention of anything weird whatsoever.
“You look relieved,” Kai said.
She turned a smile on him. “Relieved that it’s finally over. Well, that crisis anyway. We still have to deal with Alden.”
“And we will,” he told her.
“Did the Council send a team to his underground hideout in New York?”
“Yes, but by the time they got there, Alden and his followers were gone.”
Figured. “I saw the news,” she told him. “There’s a lot of speculation about the nameless mage who stumbled into Alden’s lair and then escaped. Thanks for keeping me out of the headlines.”
“I did that for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to have to fight hundreds of reporters for your attention.”
The look in his eyes scorched her from the inside out. She looked away, fussing with the bottom rim of her top.
“I missed you, Sera. Every moment I was there, in those stupid meetings, I was thinking about you.”
She snickered. “I thought you were fantasizing about killing them all in a fit of rage.”
“I can do both. And I’m not kidding,” he told her, his voice as hard as granite. “I was thinking about you. Your lips. Your body.” His hands slid down her sides, igniting her senses. “Our night together. How I want to have many more like it.” He caught her hand as it scuttled to her hemline. “You’ve been trying to take off your clothes since I got here.”
“That’s not true.” Her blush burned deeper—lower—as his hand brushed across her top.
Kai’s phone chose that spectacular moment to ring. He answered it with one hand, keeping the other on her but sliding it lower, across her stomach, down to her hip.
“Ok,” he spoke into the phone, even as his fingers traced the inside of her thigh.
Sera bit back a moan.
“Sounds good,” Kai said, then hung up. His eyes met hers, wicked as sin. “Riley says hi.”
“I can’t believe you were touching me like that while talking to my brother!” She punched him in the arm. “Have you no shame?”
“Of course I have no shame. Don’t you know that by now? Besides,” he added, giving her a smoldering look. “I can’t help myself around you. But I will.” He smoothed down her top. “Riley will be back in a few minutes. I don’t want to leave any evidence of my transgression.”
“Oh? Am I finally going to hear about the fight you and Riley had?”
“I wouldn’t call it a fight.”
“What would you call it?”
He thought about that for a moment. “An understanding. He found out that we spent the night together.”
“And he…understood?”
“No, he was pissed as hell.”
“But I thought he wanted us to get together,” she said.
“Not about the sex. He was pissed that I didn’t tell him. Since we’re friends and all.”
“And I’m his sister. Are you supposed to tell your friend that you slept with his sister?”
“He thought I didn’t trust him enough to tell him.”
“Hmm.” She nibbled on her thumb. “What else did Riley say? Did Dal have to use the compressed magic?”
“No, but you look like you wish he had.”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“Riley told me that if I hurt you, he’d come up with a magical explosive that worked against dragons. And use it. I said I understood. That was the ‘understanding’ part.”
“Wow.”
“Precisely.”
“I think it’s easier to make jokes about your friend getting together with your sister when it hasn’t happened yet,” she said. “Once it happens…well, then you realize your friend is banging your sister.”
His lips quirked. “The word ‘banging’ was not mentioned in the course of this conversation.”
“Of course not.” She grinned. “Because that would just be crude.”
Kai looked at her, his hands clasped together behind his back, but his eyes burning. He cleared his throat.
“We should get the pizza ready,” he said and swooped it off the table, carrying it to the coffee table in front of the televisio
n.
Sera followed him, her pulse still pounding. “Kai, what are we going to do about Alden?” she asked him as they sat down on the sofa.
“I don’t know,” he said, wrapping his arm around her in a protective embrace. “But we will find a way to end him. And this time, it will be permanent.”
Author’s Note
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Check out Magic Edge, the first book of Dragon Born Alexandria. It follows the adventures of Sera’s sister Alex. Magic Nights, the third book of Dragon Born Serafina, continues Sera’s story.
Learn more about all the books in the Dragon Born series here.
Books by Ella Summers
Dragon Born
Mercenary Magic
Magic Edge
Magic Games
Magic Nights
Blood Magic
Magic Kingdom
Fairy Magic
Rival Magic
Shadow World
Spirit Magic
Magic Immortal
Shadow Magic
Legion of Angels
Vampire’s Kiss
Witch’s Cauldron
Siren’s Song
Dragon’s Storm
Shifter’s Shadow
Psychic’s Spell
Fairy’s Touch
Angel’s Flight
Ghost’s Whisper
Phoenix’s Refrain
Book 11 [coming soon]
Immortal Legacy
Angel Fire
Angel Fury
Angel Fever
Sorcery & Science
Sorcery & Science (Prequel)
Vampires & Vigilantes
Book 2 [2021]
And more books coming soon…