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If he was an incubus, that would’ve been a delicious snack. Instead, magic was edging him mercilessly.

CHAPTER16

Noah wasn’t sure why he lied for Silas…or Pan, or whatever else he called himself. And even though his lips were tingling from the kiss, he wasn’t entirely sure why he allowed it. It wasn’t as though he went round kissing every man he found attractive. And he’d be lying if he said Silas wasn’t attractive—in a smug ‘I know I’m hot’ kind of way.

And while Noah had never met a sex demon, he was willing to bet they didn’t kiss as well as Silas. That kiss had made him never want to surface. He’d wanted to drown, and he was sure that if it had continued, he’d have come. He’d have also forgotten his name and how to breathe. He was still half hard as they once again sat in the kitchen and stared at the maps.

Pan, a god, had worshippedhim.

Askedhimfor a favor.

No one had ever spoken to him that way, and it had been weird at first. If Pan hadn’t been holding his face, he’d have squirmed away. But then, something had changed, and he’d glimpsed the power and the possibilities. Was that the magic Pan craved?

Did having magic make him a god?

“Noah?” Aunt Meredith said as though she’d been trying to catch his attention.

He’d been too busy thinking about the kiss and magic to pay attention to the maps, which now had more marks on them.

Meredith was unimpressed by the find the missing dragon plan. Though she was quite happy that they had maps of Beita and were able to line them up. She was also unimpressed that he had kissed or been kissed by Pan and that Pan was the point of contact for the mythological people.

The vampire palace that was now part of her mother’s pub was another point of contention. Meredith looked like she was done with everything, but then she had been working long hours since the collapse.

“I need to help with the dragon finding because I am the only one who can speak Dragon unless you have come across the city’s knight,” Pan said. “Locating the knight and the Strega will be very helpful for my people.”

“You need to come and see them for yourself. There are only a few there who speak English, who can act as translators, which makes interviewing them very slow.”

Pan tilted his head.

Noah frowned. “How do they know English?”

“They said they were taught by someone who appeared in their world about six months ago.” Meredith glanced at Pan. “Do you know anything about that?”

Pan wrinkled his nose. “There were odd things arriving in our world. People, buildings, and other bits. We didn’t know what was causing it. Magic was also behaving strangely. Is the human who taught them there?”

“No. They said he was from Calla.” She touched the arrow on the map, which now also had Calla written in human letters. “I can take a guess where Calla is…which means I can put word out. Do they also have dragons?”

“Most city-states do.”

Meredith sighed. “Great. Is there anything else I need to know immediately? My boss will also want to talk to you.”

Pan grimaced. “The vampires are going to need blood, or at least the blooded vampires need blood. The children won’t; they’ll need food. Also, any vampires in town may be in hiding because the lack of magic has left them, well, for lack of a better word, hideous.”

“There are half a dozen werewolves who look like they stepped out of a horror movie. I doubt vampires are going to be any more terrifying,” Meredith said. “I’ll report that there are bodies to be removed. Mum, are you okay with feeding the vampires in the spire?”

Linda nodded. “I can feed them for a bit.”

Noah watched his aunt as she made a face that meant she was running through a dozen different options and not liking any of them. “We don’t have the personnel to go searching for a dragon. How did you lose something as big as a bus?”

“We didn’t deliberately lose a dragon. We didn’t choose to have our world ripped apart.” There was an edge in Pan’s voice Noah hadn’t heard before. “But I owe the dragon this favor, and where I am from, keeping your word matters.” Pan rolled up the map the vampire had given him. “Now I can find where the dragons lived.”

“You can.” Meredith agreed. “Noah, can you step outside with me?”

Noah glanced at Pan. If he sensed there was a problem, it didn’t show. Noah knew from experience that this was where he got a dressing down and told to behave better.

They didn’t go out the back where the dragon waited but stood on the footpath, far too close to where Pan had kissed him.

“I appreciate that you want to help, and I’m sure David could do with an extra pair of hands at the school. It will be safer than chasing after dragons.”