Page 15

Exhausted and in a bad temper, Tiber finally made it back home. As he approached the illusion over his front door, he scented different individuals. Mia, Octavia and Ilmari.

And someone who had never been here before.

His dragon pushed to the surface, waiting for the order to unleash. Though at this point, Tiber wasn’t certain he could control his beast if something had happened to Mia.

Moving on silent feet, he eased his front door open and was greeted by laughter.

Mia’s.

Just like that his dragon receded back into slumber even as he soaked in the sound of her joy.

When he stepped into his living area, he froze.

Octavia was standing next to the fireplace in an elegant ballgown similar in style to the one Mia had worn the other night, her long dark hair down around her face and body in soft waves. Normally she wore it in a tight braid and coil so no one could use her hair in battle against her.

“What happened to you?” he demanded, unable to stop staring. She looked so different.

Octavia blinked but he realized his mistake the moment he saw the hurt in her face.

“Oh my god!” Mia exclaimed and before he realized it, she’d launched a projectile at his face.

He didn’t bother to swat the soft pillow out of the way since it missed him by two meters.

“She looks stunning,” Mia continued.

“I knew this was a mistake,” Octavia murmured, already starting to tug at the straps of the dress as if she was about to rip them off.

“No, no, no. Not a mistake,” Mia growled as she stalked over to him.

Before he could respond, her handsome friend, the sculptor, stepped out of the kitchen, a drink in one hand, Neptune curled up in his other arm. He simply looked at Tiber and shook his head.

Neptune meowed at Jonothon, then jumped from his arms and skittered away and underneath a pile of pillows.

Tiber briefly wondered where Ilmari was, then figured the dragonling was sleeping up in the net. The young ones tended to sleep a lot when they were growing.

Tiber’s dragon flashed in his eyes as a warning to the sculptor—Jonothon—before he looked back at Mia. Then Octavia. “You… look lovely.”

Octavia narrowed her eyes at him. “You sound so believable.”

“You simply looked vastly different than you normally do. That is all. I wasn’t insulting you. The dress is… lovely.”

“Lovely? Our girl is stunning.” Jonothon stepped further into the room, slid his arm around Mia’s shoulders as they faced Octavia, who looked massively uncomfortable.

“You are going to make tongues fall out of their mouths when everyone sees you. People will offer you the greatest treasure just to bask in your glow.”

“You’re going to make this guy forget his own name,” Mia added.

“Do I look stupid? Tell me now,” she growled at Tiber, ignoring the other two.

“No. It was simply a surprise to see you out of your warrior gear, that is all. You look—”

“If you say lovely again, I’ll stab you in the thigh.”

“Whoever you’re trying to get the attention of will be putty in your hands,” he finally said. Because yes, he’d been about to say lovely again. “Though if he only pays attention to this version of you, then he is a fool,” he added.

Octavia gave him a real smile.

And so did Mia and the male he wanted to punch.

They both beamed at him now. Sweet goddess above, he still wasn’t certain what he’d walked into but there were clothes everywhere.

All over his cushions, some in his kitchen.

And what he could only assume were hair products or maybe perfumes given the array of scents filling the air.

“That’s so sweet. Sorry for throwing the pillow at you,” Mia said.

“Your aim is atrocious.”

Mia sighed and turned back to Octavia. “Thank you for such a fun day.”

His friend smiled at her. “I should be thanking you. Today has been… enlightening.”

Tiber couldn’t read Octavia’s tone, but she smiled as she started picking up some of the dresses.

“Oh, just leave them. I’ve still got to figure out what to wear anyway. And I don’t want you getting rumpled.” Mia waved a hand at Octavia, shooing her away from the mess.

Tiber had to actively stop himself from picking up all the dresses and other things. In all his years of living here, his place had never looked so… Messy seemed too tame a word.

Chaotic.

Even the nights when his people came over for drinks and mission planning, it never looked like this.

No, his people were of a similar nature to his. Things had homes and belonged there. Not this chaos.

“Someone should clean this place up,” he muttered, glaring at Jonothon.

The other dragon shot him a surprised look, then grinned as he flopped down on some of the cushions. “We should have a pre-party here, invite some of the others over before heading to the festivities.” His gaze was challenging as he stared at Tiber. “Get really wild.”

“Hush.” Now Mia threw a pillow at her friend and then stepped toward Tiber, blocking his line of sight from the obnoxious male. “I know we were a bit messy today. I promise to clean up. And I’m sorry I took over your space like this.”

He lifted a shoulder, his gaze straying to her mouth.

“I don’t mind. Are you hungry? Would you like me to prepare you something before we leave?

” They still had a few hours before they would need to leave for yet another of the week’s festivities.

He was already over it but couldn’t allow Mia to go alone.

“I’m starving,” Jonothon said from behind Mia.

“It’s like you want to lose your head.” This was from Octavia, currently ignoring Mia and picking up all the dresses.

“You don’t need to prepare anything. I can just eat later.”

He grunted, not liking that response, and headed to the kitchen. He wanted to tell her what he’d discovered today, but he wasn’t certain what she’d told her friend Jonothon. They seemed close, but he also knew the dragon had hooked up with at least two of the visiting vampires.

“So what are you cooking, big guy?” Jonothon sat at the island as Mia helped Octavia in the connected room.

“How about your heart?” He kept his voice pitched low enough that only the male and Octavia could hear him.

To his surprise, the other dragon laughed. “No thanks. So, you want to hear what I know about her ex, or are you going to keep being sulky? Or maybe it’s grumpy.” He tapped his chin with his finger.

“She told you about him?”

“Just today when I had to hunt her down. So what’s the plan? Are we going to destroy this asshole or what?”

He was certain that their ideas of destroying someone were different, but he approved of the attitude. “What is this ‘we’ you speak of?” He started chopping up vegetables, imagined how good it would feel to use this very blade on Charles.

“I was just messing with you earlier,” Jonothon said. “And from what I hear, this Charles is still hung up on Mia.”

Tiber simply nodded, hating it. No male could ever walk away from Mia without still wanting her. But this male who had gone after her family, her friends, was a real threat.

“From the little gossip I gleaned, he’s here to win her back. Has big plans to offer her gems, a mansion, the works.”

“That male doesn’t know her,” he murmured.

“And you do?”

“Enough to know she won’t be won over by shiny things.”

“You are not as dumb as you look.”

“And you are dumber than you look.” He flicked a glance at Jonothon, let the ancient part of him that he rarely unleashed push to the surface, warning him to back off.

Fear flickered in the male’s gaze and for an instant Tiber felt like the monster he’d been called before. But just as quickly, Jonothon narrowed his gaze at him. “You wouldn’t hurt her friend,” he murmured.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and find out.”

To his surprise, Jonothon grinned. Goddess, the pretty dragon really was dumb. “So what are you going to do about this vampire?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself about.” He paused.

“But can you keep an ear to the ground with your vampire contacts? Try to learn as much as you can about his age, his power level, anything important related to his lineage.” He had the basics from the file Valentina had given him access to, but it was light.

Far too light. And there was no way that the vampires had revealed everything about themselves.

That simply wasn’t done among supernaturals.

He planned to end this vampire problem, but he had never underestimated his opponents. And just because the vampire was a pretty face didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

“I’ll find out everything I can.” Jonothon watched with interest as Tiber pulled more food out from the cooler. “Ooh, yum.”

As he continued chopping and dicing, he was very aware of Ilmari swooping down from the net above, preparing to sneak attack Jonothon.

Dragonlings at this age were still training their stealth and Tiber had been working with Ilmari to sneak up on others.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Octavia putting a finger up to her mouth so Mia wouldn’t say anything to her friend.

Tiber just kept preparing the food as Ilmari got closer, closer—he chirped loudly the second before he tackled the startled Jonothon.

Mia and Octavia fell back onto the cushions with laughter even as Jonothon sputtered about the “indignity.” Tiber turned away so the others wouldn’t see his broad smile.

It wouldn’t do for Mia to see him laughing at her dumb friend.