“Thank you!” She squealed and lunged across the couch to hug me.
I squeezed her back and pulled her onto my lap. When she let go, she turned to face the others, and her ass pressed right up against my hard-on. I had to suppress a groan as she wiggled about, getting comfortable. When her head fell back against my collarbone, a quick glance down told me that I needed to keep my eyes front and center. The position she’d put herself in gave me a clear shot right down the front of her T-shirt to her luscious breasts.
Noah reappeared from somewhere with the burner phone we had bought for her. “Here you are, my lady. A phone, as requested.”
I chuckled. He was such a weirdo with the “my lady” stuff. He was the oldest of us, and one would think that would make him the hungriest for the throne, but it was the opposite. I half suspected he was better at fighting than he let on so he could stay away from being front and center at court and follow his passion of healing.
“Thank you!” Ava squealed again and bounced up to give Noah a quick hug before settling back down on my lap again.
She wiggled against me, and I started to suspect she was well aware of my current situation and was enjoying tormenting me.
“It’s okay if I text on this, right?”
“You can do whatever you want,” I whispered in her ear. I was rewarded with a shiver going down her spine and a little sigh escaping her lips.
“Seriously, though, I don’t want to bring any undue attention to you guys. It’s not as if the world at large knows dragons exist.”
“Oh, baby girl.” Sebastian chuckled. “There is so much more out there than just us, and people are much more likely to find out about that first. Either way, the phone doesn’t have any kind of GPS on it, and it’s protected against tracking, so you can use it however you want.”
I could see Ava’s jaw drop in my peripheral vision, which made me laugh, which in turn jiggled her around on my lap.
She swiped her elegant finger across the screen, and the thing came to life at her touch, just like I had. Quickly, she found the texting app and typed in a number before including a quick message. A blue bubble containing her message popped up on the screen.
Less than a minute later, before we had even broken apart after our discussion, the phone rang. I looked down over Ava’s shoulder and saw the name Scarlett pop up on the screen. My eyes betrayed me and stole a glance at her perfect breasts, and just like that, I was rock hard again.
“Can I answer?” she asked quietly, and it broke my heart.
“Of course,” I whispered, and kissed the shell of her ear.
She swiped across the screen, and before she’d even finished saying the word hello, there was another female voice yelling about where she’d been and why she had disappeared. A blush stained Ava’s cheeks, and it was one of the sexiest things I had seen in a while.
“I’m going to take this to my room.”
I nodded and let her slide off my lap before crossing my legs to try to hide my erection from my brothers. Her pert, round behind swayed away from me in those skintight leggings, and I could curse Sebastian for buying them. We should have stuck with oversized sweaters and baggy sweatpants. My eyes darted from brother to brother, and I saw that they were suffering the same as I was. Well, I guess at least I wasn’t alone. I desperately wanted to know what Ava and Scarlett were talking about, to make sure her friend was being nice to her, but I knew that would be invading her privacy, even though my dragon hearing could have picked up their conversation.
Chapter Twelve
Ava
“For the hundredth time, I’m sorry. I didn’t really have a choice.” I sighed. I was perched on the edge of the bed as I tried to calm Scarlett down. When she was upset, I could never relax.
“I just don’t understand how you could disappear like that.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears.
“Look, Frankie sent some guys to the hospital. I was lucky to get away before they caught me. Now I’m staying in a place where they can’t get to me. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, probably until I figure out what I’m doing with the rest of my life and how to get back on my feet.”
“I’m sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you like that. I was just so damn worried about you.”
“I know, and if I had found a phone sooner, then I would have called. Promise.”
“Pinky promise with a twist?” she asked quietly.
“With a twist and a shake,” I said, repeating the phrase we had said to each other since we had been in middle school together. Back then, it came with a dance too. We were adorable, and the memory was enough to bring all my pent-up emotions to the forefront. I’d been working so hard at pushing everything not immediately important away, that when it caught up with me, it was all too much.
Silent tears streamed down my face as I tried to hide the sound of my crying from my best friend. The last thing I wanted to do was make her worry even more.
“You ready to go back to uni?” I asked, trying to sound bright and carefree.
She saw, or heard, through my ruse in a second. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar, I can see your nose growing from here,” she said, a smile in her voice as she referenced her favorite kid’s movie, Pinocchio.
“No, you can’t.”
“There it goes again. It’ll reach the moon before long.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her. We were both weird in our own ways. Hers happened to be a love of kid’s movies, especially animated ones with songs. I would swear that she knew all the words to every song out there so long as it was in a kid’s movie.
“I’m still just a little overwhelmed with everything, that’s all,” I told her. It was the truth. I hadn’t even had a spare minute to try to figure out who to contact about my renter’s insurance and everything to do with the fire. Let alone the medical bills from being in the coma. It all made my head hurt. At least the boys were going to help with Frankie. I was sure that they’d be able to convince him to work out a better payment plan with me. I needed something, anything, so long as it would take some of the pressure off.
“Oh sweetness, I wish I could help.”
“Just talking to you helps.” I sighed, feeling more like myself than I had in days. “There are a couple things, though,” I said as I thought about trying to get ahold of people for the insurance and everything else.
As we wrapped up the call, she promised to text me with contact numbers for everyone I needed to talk to. I told her to give George a hug from me, and we hung up. Her current boyfriend was about as interesting as watching paint dry, but I was sure there was something in him that she found attractive. I just didn’t get it, even less so now that I was faced with the dragon princes and all their gloriousness.
I sat in what I’d come to think of as my room and thought about everything I’d learned. Every fact, every tidbit of information all floated in my brain like some kind of weird flamekeeper soup. Did I want to tie myself to men I had only just met for the rest of my life? Did I want to risk my life trying to help them save their people? And most importantly, did I want to give myself the opportunity to fall in love with them?
Part of me wanted to scream. There was no logical reason for me to do this. I had no combat experience, I was more of a wallflower than a leader or pillar of the community, and I definitely was not a fan of fire right now since it had just destroyed my life. And what about school? Could I go back if I was the flamekeeper? I needed answers, but I didn’t want them. The other part of me was more than happy to float along with the princes and stay in their amazing penthouse. That was the part getting bigger by the minute.
I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes for a moment, just to rest. There was just too much in my head. When I opened my eyes again, a bright white light filled the room, and the woman was there, singing.
“Flamekeeper.” She looked over at me from the window and smiled. “You have a long road ahead of you,
but I am excited to meet you eventually.” She went back to arranging some flowers and singing to herself.
“Who are you?”
She turned to face me, her hands still raised as though she hadn’t quite let go of the flowers. “That is not for you to know yet. Right now, I merely want to ask that you take on the role. You can handle it, and you will make an excellent addition to the clan if you so choose.”
When she turned back to the flowers, everything faded to black. My body felt heavy as I lay against the bed, as if I’d been hit by a truck. I rolled over to go back to sleep and found a blanket covering me. The idea of one of the guys checking on me and covering me with a blanket made my heart ache in the best way possible. Instead of going back to sleep, though, I found myself getting up and heading back to the kitchen and living-room area.
The place was quiet, just the wind whistling around the corners of the penthouse, or around the mountain itself—I wasn’t sure which. A noise drew me, and after venturing down the hall where I guessed all the guys’ rooms were, I heard music playing softly. It wasn’t quite classical, and it definitely wasn’t jazz, but it wasn’t pop music, either.
My knuckles grazed the door, tentatively at first and gaining a little confidence as I went. All I was hoping was that it wasn’t Grayson’s room. Listening to music with Logan or Noah sounded nice. I knew if it was Sebastian’s room, there would be no listening since the two of us couldn’t keep our hands off each other in private.
When the door opened and I saw sandy-blond hair, I wanted to apologize and leave, but the longing in Grayson’s blue-and-brown eyes had my feet stuck in place. He had been surprised at first, but once he saw me, it was as if watching someone on a diet look at a slice of pizza or cake.
“Sorry, I heard the music and thought . . . I can go if you want?”
He didn’t say anything, just opened the door wider and stepped aside. I entered, and the room was nothing as I’d imagined. Records covered one wall floor to ceiling, with a fancy record player just in the corner. Once my eyes got over the shock, I realized the room was at least twice the size of mine. It had a full-on sitting area, and then the bed was screened off by material that hung from the ceiling, giving it an almost otherworldly feel.
“Drink?”
“Water? I’m parched.”
He chuckled. “Sure thing.” When he turned around, he handed me a crystal glass filled with sparkling water, while his own was shorter, and though the liquid was clear, I could tell just from the consistency that it wasn’t water.
I sipped my water, and an awkward silence descended while the record player continued to croon behind me. “I feel like we need to clear the air somehow?”
“I have nothing against you, Ava,” he said. His eyes were filled with pain, creasing the inner corners as if he were wincing.
“Sure. I guess I just wanted to say I get why you’ve been distant, and I’m not asking you for anything. If I decide to do this, we can take our time. I won’t rush you into anything; that’s just not who I am. I’m sorry for whoever it was you lost, and if you ever want to talk about it with someone impartial, then I’m always an ear for you.”
He studied me closely. His sandy-blond hair that was normally combed and styled just so was disheveled and almost covered his blue eye, and his gray T-shirt was rumpled and had pulled up slightly when he’d sat. I could see a large scar across his lower stomach, along with a tantalizing line of blond hair disappearing into his jeans. I desperately wanted to ask him what had happened, but I didn’t want to make him self-conscious.
“I don’t want you to die, and I don’t think it’s fair to put our clan’s survival on a young girl’s shoulders. You have the rest of your life in front of you. Do you really want to give it up for us? For this?” He gestured around him, but I knew he meant everything outside his room as well.
It was the million-dollar question. I wasn’t anything special in school. My Master of Fine Arts with a concentration in English probably wasn’t going to get me an awesome job, and unless I got my shit together and joined a PhD program, I was going to be stuck teaching high schoolers for the rest of my life. It wouldn’t be a bad life—I knew that instinctively—but I had to wonder if it was the best I could do, especially when presented with an opportunity like the one in front of me. If I tried to become their flamekeeper, I could genuinely help people. I could help their clan grow and mature, and I could be loved by four amazing men and help them take care of their kingdom.
“I am. So long as I can finish my masters and keep in touch with my best friend and parents. Other than that, everything I’ve experienced with you guys, even your mom scaring the crap out of me, it’s all been like a dream. And it might not be fair, you’re right, but my apartment building burning down wasn’t fair, either. My parents being gone for ten months out of the year, every year since I was five, isn’t fair. Nothing is fair, and I want to help you and your brothers and the rest of your people. I couldn’t stand it if something happened just because I was a coward.”
“Choosing a life for yourself doesn’t make you a coward,” he said quietly.
“No, but this is my choice. I just hadn’t realized it until now. If you don’t want me, though, if you think you could never, ever love me, then I will step aside, and you guys can look for another flamekeeper.”
He sighed and ran his hands through the long strands of hair on the top of his head. It flipped and covered his brown eye. “It’s not that I don’t think I could love you. It’s that I don’t want to fall in love with you just to watch you die.”
“Okay, so we take it slow. Grayson, you’re handsome, kind, and smart, not to mention you’re a gorgeous man, and your dragon is just as handsome. Any woman or dragon lady would be lucky to have you. I know I would consider myself lucky if I had you.”
He chuckled a little at dragon lady, but I didn’t know what the correct term was, and I didn’t want to offend. Then the silence descended once more, and before it could get any more awkward, I stood and began to make my way to the door, leaving the glass on the small coffee table in the sitting area.
Just as I wrapped my fingers around the door handle, a warm hand slid into mine. He spun me around and pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug. He smelled almost like tea, the Earl Gray my mother liked to drink. Bergamot and woods and fire all filled my nose as I rested my head against his chest.
When he released me and pulled away, I expected him to say goodnight and let me go, but his intense eyes stared down at me, and as I looked back, his face closed the distance between us until his lips brushed mine.
Fire speared through my body, connecting with where his hands sat on my waist and then pooling lower. There was no hungry, desperate passion to the kiss as there was with the others. Grayson’s kiss was tender and sweet, pulling at my heartstrings as his mouth moved over mine. When he pulled away, I opened my eyes to find him watching me with a fire blazing in his own.
He leaned down and gave me one last, almost sensual peck before he said, “Goodnight, Ava.”
I started to stumble as he released me, but I caught myself at the last second and left his room in a daze. I didn’t remember anything past the door closing behind me with a quiet snick.
Chapter Thirteen
Ava
The morning sun was bright as it streamed in through the window. The previous night flooded my mind, and my hand raised to my lips as though I could still feel Grayson’s mouth on my own. He had surprised me, that was for sure.
I sighed as I got up, unsure what the day held. Maybe Sebastian or Logan would start training me for the combat trial? Instinctively I checked my phone, a habit I hated but couldn’t seem to break. A series of texts from Scarlett had my heart beating faster. She and George had been attacked on their way home from the movie they went to see, and he had run away, leaving her to deal with everything alone.
Without a second thought, I was up and dressed and ready to go. I just needed to find a dra
gon who would be willing to take me. As I left my room, I all but smacked into Sebastian.
“I was just coming to wake you.” He smiled down at me, but apparently my face clued him in to the fact that everything was not okay.
“My best friend was attacked last night. I need to go see her.”
“I’m sure the police can handle it,” he said, trying to soothe me.
“No, you don’t understand. I need to go to her. For all intents and purposes, she’s my sister. When my parents were off traveling for work every year, her mom was my nanny, and we became best friends. We grew up together. If someone attacked Logan, are you telling me you wouldn’t go to his side?” I could feel myself getting worked up for a fight. I’d go toe-to-toe with a dragon if I had to so I could get to Scarlett.
“Okay, I see your point. Let’s see who can go.” He let out a loud whistle, and I heard movement all around the penthouse as they began to gather in the kitchen. We all arrived at about the same time, concerned looks covering the brothers’ faces.
“What’s wrong?” Logan growled out.
“Ava’s best friend has been attacked. Understandably, she wants to go to her friend’s side. I have to be at a meeting with Mother in ten minutes. Otherwise, I would gladly take her. Can one of you do the honors?”
“Have you considered that this is a trap?” Noah asked quietly.
“Trap?” I squeaked. “Scarlett wouldn’t . . .”
“I’m not saying Scarlett did anything wrong, but maybe she was attacked because she’s your friend. The other clans may be trying to lure you out. It’s what I would do in their position.”
“The difference being you’d never hurt a flamekeeper,” Grayson said with an edge of danger in his voice.
“True enough.” Noah nodded.
“I honestly don’t care if it’s a trap or not. I need to go to her,” I said, my patience running thin.
“I’ll take you,” Grayson said.
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