“Noah, if you could, I would love some bacon and eggs,” I said quietly as we reached the counter.
I knew he’d heard me, because he paused his stirring while he listened.
“Whatever you want, princess.” He ground the words out and made princess sound like the worst insult he could hurl at me. It didn’t bother me; I’d been called worse by people I cared about more.
“Thank you,” I said as I perched on the stool next to Sebastian.
“I think it’s time for introductions, don’t you?” he asked, smiling down at me. “As you know, I’m Sebastian, and the jerk over there is Noah. This is Logan and Grayson.” He gestured first to the dark-haired brother who had spoken last night, and then to the blond brother. “Gentlemen, this is Ava Martelli.”
“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Grayson said as he winked at me before taking a massive bite of eggs.
“Pleasure,” Logan replied with a small smile.
Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. No, sir.
I tried to hold my questions in, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the hospitality, but they were circling in my head like a tornado. “Why did you save me last night?” It slipped out before I could control it. I immediately regretted it, as all the brothers paused and a strange silence descended while they refused to make eye contact with me.
Finally, Sebastian took pity on me. “Probably best to tackle that on a full stomach. Want some coffee?” He slid off the stool and went over to the fancy coffeemaker in the corner.
“Yes, please. As strong and dark as you can make it would be great.”
Within seconds, a large coffee cup appeared in front of me. The steam rose to meet me as I brought the cup closer to my face, reveling in the sweet earthy scent. I took a hesitant sip and was relieved that I didn’t burn my tongue.
“Where am I?” I asked as I set down my coffee.
“You’re all about the hard questions, huh?” Sebastian said, shaking his head with a smile ghosting around his lips.
“I didn’t think it would be hard.”
“Well, it’s complicated, and it ties into why we rescued you. Let’s just have a nice breakfast, and then we’ll chat, okay?”
“So long as you don’t all sit in silence on my account.” Which was exactly what they had been doing.
They all looked at each other, and Logan shrugged. “Where are you from, Ava?” he asked as he finished off his plate of eggs.
“I’m—” I paused and thanked Noah as he set the fluffiest scrambled eggs I’d ever seen in my life in front of me, along with two rashers of bacon. I cleared my throat and began again. “I’m from all over. My family moved a lot when I was growing up. Most recently, I’ve been in Chicago, which is not where we are anymore, is it?” I asked as I crunched down on the bacon.
“Not exactly, no,” Logan admitted.
“Thought so. The mountains gave it away,” I said as I gestured with the remainder of the bacon to the picture windows on the side of the kitchen. Big blue mountains with snowcapped peaks were visible all around the house, but it seemed to be positioned at least as high, if not higher, than most of them. It made me wonder how they kept it so warm.
“Solar panels on the roof is a good chunk of it,” Noah said, as though he could read my mind.
“Makes sense. Nothing blocking the sun,” I said around a mouthful of eggs.
All the brothers had finished eating except Noah, who cooked for himself last. Sebastian had stayed sitting at the counter with us, scrolling through something on his phone, while Grayson and Logan had sat on the couch by the window.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that Noah wanted to bolt from the room and eat his eggs in private. The glances he kept shooting at me varied between mistrust and interest. I couldn’t deny I felt the same way about the boys. Part of me trusted them on a gut level and wanted to get to know them in more ways than one, while the other part still wasn’t convinced of their good intentions.
Chapter Three
Ava
As I cleared my plate of the yellow clouds the man called eggs, I sighed deeply. The hunger that had been riding me since I’d woken up was gone, and I felt more human than I had since the first time I’d woken up in the hospital.
Noah gathered up my clean plate and the empty coffee mug, depositing both in a sleek stainless-steel dishwasher that looked as if it cost more than my apartment, before joining his brothers.
“Shall we?” Sebastian asked as he stood, holding his arm out like a gentleman of old.
“We shall.” I grinned and took his arm as he guided me to the loveseat. When he sat next to me, I had to resist the urge to snuggle back into him. Snuggling with strangers was definitely on my list of things not to do. “So . . .” I said when no one started talking, “spill.”
“You’re taking the fact that four men took you to their home in the mountains, a location unknown to you, rather well,” Grayson said. His blue-and-brown eyes twinkled with humor.
“Well, I guess I’d rather be here with someone I trust, although who knows why,” I said, sneaking a glance at Sebastian, “than in a hospital where some dudes are trying to kill me.”
“You trust us?” Logan asked, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
“Not all of you, but I do trust Sebastian.”
“Bas, you sly dog, how did you manage that?” Grayson chuckled.
Sebastian made a snorting noise and added, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“So, why did you guys save me?” I asked before the conversation could devolve into brotherly banter.
“Man, you’re a lot more stubborn than the others,” Grayson said under his breath.
“The others? Do you make a habit of rescuing women from thugs?” I wanted to yell at myself as jealousy flared within me. The emotion was ridiculous and had no business showing its ugly head when I barely even knew these guys.
“We try not to, but it does happen now and again.” Sebastian grinned at me.
“Tell her. She trusts you.” Grayson’s voice dripped with sarcasm. I had expected that kind of attitude from Noah, not Grayson, but apparently the idea that I trusted Sebastian more than I trusted him made him a little touchy.
Sebastian sighed and stood, pacing over to the window with his hands behind his back. “Maybe we should just go up to the roof now.”
“No, it’s freezing out,” Grayson protested.
“It’s always freezing out.” This came from Logan, whose lips were quirked at the ends in what was almost a smile.
“Ava, we . . .” Sebastian started. After seeming to gather his thoughts, he tried again. “My brothers and I are not what you think. We have certain abilities, shall we say, that make us exceptional. We rescued you because we think you may have complementary abilities.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Me? Have abilities? Hell, I couldn’t even run a 5K, let alone do anything exceptional, to use Sebastian’s word.
For the first time, all the humor was gone from Sebastian’s face. “I’m serious. We aren’t human, and we don’t think you are, either.”
“What . . .” I breathed, suddenly realizing that I had been rescued by a bunch of crazies.
“We are shifters. We can change shape, but our line is dying out, and we think you might be able to help us save it.”
My heart pounded in my ears. “Woah, now just hold on a minute there, buddy. You want me to be your broodmare? Think you can just get me to pop out kids for you so you can brainwash them with your personal brand of crazy? I don’t think so. I’m leaving.” I stood and began to walk out of the room.
“You don’t even know how to get out of the house, let alone how to get down the mountain,” Noah called out. “Besides, we can prove it.”
I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned to face them. He was right about one thing—I had no idea where I was going. If we were as high up as I thought we were, then I wouldn’t be able to get down the mountain without help. I sighed, resigning myself to heari
ng them out before I stole some keys and found a car that would get me the hell out of there. It should be good, though. These giant handsome men claimed they would turn into what? A wolf? A bear? A house cat? I couldn’t wait to see that fail, and then they would have no choice but to take me home. Right?
“Come on, let’s go up to the roof.”
“Why the roof?” I wondered aloud before I could stop myself.
“If one of us shifts in the house, we will destroy it. And I for one happen to like this house,” Logan said calmly, as though it were the most logical thing in the world.
I snorted, thinking he was joking, but he just watched me with steady hazel eyes. I looked at him more closely, trying to see a crack in the crazy that all these men were wrapped up in. His eyes were no doubt beautiful, a pale forest green with a ring of brown around the pupil. They weren’t as dark as Sebastian’s, but his hair was. The thick ebony locks were long enough that he could run his fingers through them, but short enough that all it took was a little gel to keep them in place. He was slickly styled when compared with Noah, whose hair was lighter and messier than either Logan or Sebastian. Noah didn’t have the hazel or deep-brown eyes, either. His were a light pale-brown that looked as though it would be more at home on a beach than in the woods.
The three of them moved through the house with me behind them as they made their way to the roof. Grayson brought up the rear, maybe making sure I didn’t decide to make a run for it or something. I knew part of me should be scared that these guys were crazy and we were going up to a roof on a mountaintop. I knew they could easily push me off and I would be dead and out of their hair. Plus, I was fairly sure from what I had seen from the outside that a cougar or something similar would clean up my remains. The gruesome thought made me shudder. The problem was that I still trusted Sebastian and didn’t believe he would intentionally hurt me.
“You okay?” Grayson asked quietly.
I nodded. “This just all sounds a little crazy.”
“I know, but it will make sense soon.” He smiled at me, but it was small and tense. His eyes were by far the most fascinating, the blue and brown seeming to fight for dominance in each eye. On his left, the brown had won out, but on his right, the icy blue was the prevailing color. Combine that with his sandy-blond hair and perfectly pouty lips, and the man was drool worthy. I turned away before I actually had to wipe my chin and found the guys heading up a flight of stairs. The modern log-cabin theme of the bathroom I had noticed earlier appeared to extend through at least some of the house, including the stairway we were now using to climb up to the roof.
The heavy wooden door at the top wasn’t something I thought I could open by myself even if I made my way back up there. It was at least a foot thick and solid wood. I looked at Logan again with reassessing eyes. The man didn’t look strong enough to move something of that size, yet he opened it. I had the sneaking suspicion that there was more to these boys than I had first thought, including the fact that they were bananas.
The roof opened out in front of us like the top of a wide tower that looked as if one side of it were carved into the mountaintop. An Olympic-sized swimming pool could easily fit into the space, with plenty of room around it for spectators as well. I had never been so high and in such an open space. It almost felt as if I could float away.
“Who wants to go first?” Grayson called to his brothers. The other three men just stared at him. “Bas? After all, she trusts you.”
Why did Grayson have such a stick up his ass about me trusting Sebastian? It wasn’t as if I’d even had a full conversation with the guy until that morning, and the night before, he didn’t even speak to me. At least Sebastian had the courtesy to have a conversation with me before he had to defend me from Frankie’s guys. I almost wanted to laugh when I thought about Frankie trying to find me on a mountaintop. The man never left his scummy little basement unless he had to. That should have been my first red flag with him.
Sebastian growled next to me, sneering at his brother before he turned to face me. “I want you to feel around me, make sure I’m not hiding anything so that when you see what you’re about to see, you believe it.” He stepped closer to me and held his arms out as if I were a TSA agent about to pat him down, which I guess was what he expected me to do.
“Really?” I laughed as I looked up at him.
“Really.” He looked down at me with those dark pools he called eyes, and all I wanted to do was fall into them. The seriousness that he exuded, the calm, caring manner he had expressed the entire time he was around me, and the smile I saw when he was laughing with his brothers, it all made him irresistible. He leaned down, and his warm breath tickled my ear as he whispered, “Touch me, Ava.”
My heart began a frantic gallop in my chest, and when he leaned back up, a corner of his mouth had ticked up in a way that told me he knew exactly what he was doing when he said that. I took a deep breath and placed my hands on his shoulders, moving them down the corded muscles of his arms to the wide expanse of his chest and the taut planes of his abs. I glanced up at him, and he nodded his encouragement to keep going, so I moved my hands over his hips and down his thick thighs to his muscular calves. When I stood back up, I knew that my face had gone bright red.
Sebastian chuckled and stepped away. “Nothing up my sleeves, right?” He was unexpectedly playful as he showed me his sleeves like a magician. I nodded with a smile, biting my lip at how badly this was going to go wrong. What was I going to say when nothing happened?
He stepped away into the center of the tower, and his brothers all clustered around me. Suddenly, it felt as if the energy shifted, as if they were ready for a fight. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and goosebumps erupted down my arms.
Sebastian whipped his shirt over his head and toed off his boots. My eyes couldn’t help but hungrily fixate on the structure of his body while my mind filled with images of the two of us. Just the thought of what he would feel like on top of me was enough to make my panties damp. When his hand went to his belt buckle and he began to pull down his jeans, I wanted to do the right thing and look away, to give him his privacy, but it was like watching a car accident—I just couldn’t tear my eyes off him. Navy boxer briefs hugged muscular thighs, and my eyes locked onto the surprise inside. Although, judging from the outline, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise. My mouth watered at the sight of him.
The last thing I had expected was for his skin to go pale and flake away from him like dust in the wind. What emerged from underneath was nothing I’d ever seen before. Not only was his skin gone, replaced by scales, but his form grew exponentially until the beast in front of me took up most of the surface of the roof.
All the blood drained from me. A cold chill swept through my body and left me trembling on weak knees. Before I knew it, Logan was behind me, wrapping a leather jacket around my shoulders. It smelled of smoke and spice and made me want to cuddle further into it.
Logan’s arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me snugly to him. The instinct to rest my head on his shoulder and weave my fingers through his was almost overwhelming. I couldn’t understand why I was having such a reaction to all of them. Even Noah and his moody eyes heated my blood. I knew I had been going through a dry spell, but nothing like this had ever happened before. Then again, I hadn’t been in a coma, either.
Sebastian’s form coalesced into a giant reptile of some sort. When he spread two leathery wings out behind him, I gasped. What I was seeing couldn’t be real. There was just no way. People would know if creatures like that existed in the world. They had to. I wanted to open my eyes from whatever dream I was having. Maybe I was still in the coma?
Part of me knew that wasn’t true, though, just as it knew what Sebastian was.
A dragon.
Blood-red scales covered his body, while small, at least in comparison to the rest of him, horns protruded from the top of his skull. The scales on his chest were bigger than the rest, making them look like armor plating.
Four strong legs supported his weight, and his wings flared behind him. Slowly, he dipped his head down to my level. I found myself looking not only at his snout but at the flame-colored eyes that watched me. They mesmerized me. They looked like the most expensive jewels on the planet, and they were focused on me.
I hadn’t even realized that I had been moving toward him until I was right there, pressing my hand against the smooth scales between his nostrils. I had never felt so small yet important. His scales were like silk under my hand, with just the smallest ridge between each one.
Something stirred within me when I touched him, a possessiveness that I had never experienced before. Everything in me whispered that he was mine, just as I was his. The sensation was more than a little unnerving. It felt as if he were talking to me even though his long jaw and scaly lips couldn’t possibly form human words.
I let my whole body curve over his snout until I was resting my weight on him and could feel him breathing in my scent. He would be able to find me no matter where I went or how much trouble I got myself into so long as he knew my scent. The words weren’t spoken aloud, but I knew them as though he were speaking directly to my heart.
“Okay, that’s enough, big guy. She probably wants to see the rest of us too,” Grayson called out from behind me.
I had completely forgotten about the other guys, and as he spoke, I realized that they were all dragons as well. The thought floored me. How could people not know dragons existed?
Sebastian didn’t shift back, though. Instead, he took off, launching himself off the roof of the house and into the clear mountain air. He soared through the few wisps of cloud scattered in the sky and put on a show of diving and twirling like a hawk going after its prey.
“Show off,” someone muttered behind me, but I couldn’t tell which brother had said it.
“Bas, come down and let the rest of us show off, too, would you?” Grayson yelled toward the sky.
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