Page 13

Chapter

Thirteen

“I warned you that there was something off about her interest in the demons!” Kayden yelled.

“There’s nothing off about her interest. We’re just as interested as her, she’s just more willing to act than us,” Trey argued.

“You put her at risk,” Kayden growled.

“I protected her,” Trey growled back.

“Why are they after her? Does it have to do with the pull we feel, too?” Mason asked softly.

Pull they felt? What was he talking about?

Someone’s phone rang.

“It’s Caleb,” Kayden muttered.

“Answer it, idiot. He likely saw news footage of the attack,” Trey said.

My phone pinged with a text and all three growled.

“Why is that elf prince messaging her?” Mason grumbled.

I was laying down, most likely on a couch, on my back. Rolling onto my side, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What’s going on? What happened?”

All three sat on the couch opposite me.

“Here,” Kayden said and held out his phone.

“Hello?” I answered as I took it.

“Why did you approach the portal?” Caleb asked.

“Uh, about that. I was trying to see if the creatures might be non-hostile and communicate with us. No one has really tried to communicate with them before. I figured it was worth a try.”

He sighed so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

“I’m uninjured,” I said, “so no need to worry. I’ll call you later. Love you, bye.” I hung up and tossed the phone back to Kayden. “Where’s my phone? Did anyone else try to call?”

“No one important,” Mason muttered, but held out my phone.

“So, what’s next on our date?” I asked Trey with a wide smile.

“Swimming,” he answered.

Mason and Kayden gaped at him. I was also surprised by his agreeing to change the topic so quickly and not ask me the million questions likely on their minds.

“I don’t have a bathing suit. You didn’t warn me in advance.”

He smiled. “Shifted swimming.”

My eyes widened and I gasped. “Really?”

“You’re just going to continue your date and not ask the questions we need to ask?” Kayden demanded. “Not try to figure out what’s going on?”

Trey grabbed a duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “You can ask her whatever questions you want on your date. I’m not wasting my time.”

I blew Kayden a kiss and skipped after Trey, humming loudly because Kayden hated humming.

He gave me my wanted growl, making me smile wider.

“You’ve always angered him on purpose and I’ve always enjoyed it,” Trey said as we walked out the back door and down a concrete path lined with small solar lights that gave off just enough light to keep you on the path.

“How have you been?” I asked Trey. “Is traveling and hunting demons all it’s cracked up to be?”

“There have been rough days,” he said with a nod. “Most of the time, it’s just been one fight after another, simplistic and fun. There were a few times when one of them got injured enough to worry me, but they pulled through.”

“I heard your mom set you up on blind dates.”

He stopped so abruptly I almost ran into him. Turning around, he looked down at me with a scowl. “Who told you?”

“Does it matter?”

He growled and resumed walking until we got to a large lake. The manmade lake was constantly stocked with fish and was always warm thanks to a spell by the former Mage King, Johann, Grandpa Nico’s father. The lake bordered the Den and Trey’s property.

“Yes, I went on a few dates that my mother set up,” he finally answered as we took our shoes off at the lake’s shore.

One great thing about our shifting abilities was that it somehow interacted with our clothing, too. So, I could shift and then when I returned to human form, I would have my clothes back on. Shifting into a warrior form so I could have scales all over my body, but still be able to talk, I jumped into the water and sighed in relief. “Seems like none of them worked out? Why not?”

He swam out to me in warrior form with scales covering his body as well. His bluish scales reflected the moonlight, casting beautiful colors atop the water around him.

“Because they weren’t you,” he answered.

The truthful, sudden statement made me stop treading water for a moment, my head going beneath the surface before I spluttered and kicked my legs to get above the water and breath again. My heart pounded in my chest and my mouth hung open.

Trey swam in a circle around me. “I missed you more than I thought it was possible to miss someone who is alive. We would walk through a city and I could swear I smelled you, but when I turned … you weren’t there. I wanted to call you so many times, but you blocked us. I considered changing my number so I could call you, but I also wanted to respect your wishes. I tried to figure out why you blocked us, what could have possibly happened to upset you so much. There were several times I was about to hop on a jet to fly to you, but the investigator I hired claimed you were dating Luca.”

I scoffed.

“Yes, I should have hired a better investigator, obviously. It was when I heard you were dating him that I agreed to the dates my mother set up.” He smiled, showing off dragon’s teeth in his mostly human face. “I figured if you were doing it then so should I. I had hoped it would ease some of my pain, but all it did was intensify it. You are like a fire and I’m a moth.” He swam closer to me until he was treading water just in front of me. “I would gladly burn if it meant you accepted me as a mate.”

Toads on a stool. He was serious. One hundred percent honest.

“And what if I stepped through a demon portal?” I asked.

He put an arm around me beneath the water and I wrapped my legs around his waist, letting him keep us both afloat. Knowing he would keep me safe, even if it meant drowning himself. “I would follow you through the deepest, darkest depths of the demon world. Life is only bearable with you in it. I know you’re courting the others and I know you deserve the best, and I may not be it, but I can promise you that I will love you with my entire being this lifetime and the next, and you are the only woman for me. You’ve been the only woman for me since we made that promise as kids.”

Shifting into my fully human form, not caring that my dress was now wet, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. His scales disappeared as he hugged me tighter and kissed me back. Swimming towards the shallower area so he could stand, he slid his hands up my back beneath my dress, stroking my skin as we kissed. Heat built within me, my core throbbed with need, and I had to resist grinding against him. He must have sensed it because he reached between us, pushed my underwear to the side, and slid a finger into me.

We both groaned. I rested my forehead against his shoulder as he pumped his finger in and out of me, stroking the fire within me. My stomach coiled tighter and tighter.

“I want to see your face, Princess, when I make you come,” he said and wiggled his shoulder beneath my forehead.

Leaning back, I stared into his bright eyes, mesmerized by the bit of darkness in his aura that was swirling maniacally now.

He withdrew his finger and before I could complain, he slid two fingers back into me, pumping faster and harder.

My fingers dug into his shoulder as I panted.

Leaning forward, he kissed, licked, and nipped at my throat, making an almost purring sound. “Come for me, beautiful. I promise this is just the first of many pleasurable encounters.” Moving his other hand where it had been pressed against my back, he slid it around to cup my breast, squeezing and massaging.

“Yes,” I gasped and threw my head back, grinding against his hand as he continued to finger me.

When he moved his thumb up to rub at my clit while he fingered me, my grinding increased. Had this been Liam or one of the men I hadn’t known, I might have been embarrassed, but not with Trey. This was a long time coming … pun totally intended.

He bit down on my neck, though not hard enough to break skin or mark me, it was just the push I needed to send me over the edge.

I screamed his name as I came, but he didn’t stop pumping his fingers in and out of me until I had fully stopped with the aftershocks. I pressed my lips to his and he kissed me back.

He pulled back first and said, “I’ve dreamt of kissing you again a million times, Lily, of doing a lot of things to you, what happened just now included, but none of those fantasies involved us being in a lake.”

Laughing, I pushed away from him and shifted into my full snake form, swimming out into the depths with a joyous feeling that had grown since Kayden had kissed me, then Mason, and now Trey.

Was this … love? Or was it just the lust talking?

As I looked back at Trey, I saw the darkness in his aura had expanded more than I had noticed before. It was similar to Mason’s, but not as strong yet.

Was it me? Was I … infecting them?

Was the spell spreading to them somehow?

A large, red dragon swooped out of the sky, talons extended, and tried to grab me out of the lake.

I dove down beneath the water, avoiding their grab, and swam back towards Trey, keeping beneath the water.

Surfacing, I heard him shouting at someone and heard a feminine voice responding.

Turning, I sighed at the sight of Norma, one of my nemeses from high school. She had always hated that the trio spent most of their time around me and because of that, her and her posse had tried to bully me.

Things hadn’t gone the way she had expected since I wasn’t one to be bullied.

“Fucking Norma,” I whispered before smiling and waving. “Oh, hey! Norma! It’s been so long since I saw you. What’s new?”

She was in her human form, standing on the shore with an innocent expression on her face. At my voice, her face hardened and she turned to give me the most ridiculous attempt at a smile I had ever seen.

“Oh, Lily. It is you. I was just telling Prince Trey that I thought you were a real snake and was trying to protect the children by grabbing you.”

“Really?” I asked and frowned. “Since when do you care about children?”

She opened her mouth and closed it, her brows furrowed.

“Get out of here, Norma,” Trey ordered her.

“This lake is for all dragons to use,” she countered and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“And yet all I see is a pretentious mouse,” I said with a wide smile.

She growled and walked towards me. “Say that again, snake .”

“Do you need hearing aids on top of an attitude adjustment?” I asked pleasantly, then lowering my voice said, “All I see is a pretentious mouse. If you think you’ve got the guts, fight me, bitch. We know how that ended for you last time.” With her head in a trash bin.

“You’ve always thought you were tough with the trio at your back, but alone, you’re nothing!” she spat.

“Trey, I order you to stand back and allow me to fight this asshole,” I snarled.

Trey sighed, sat down cross-legged, and waved his hand towards us like a bored king waving at a jester to continue. “Proceed.”

Cracking my knuckles, I smiled viciously as I approached her. “This is going to feel so good.” Loosening my hold on the anger, I let it out to swirl around me, breathing a sigh of relief as it filled me. My hair glowed brighter and brighter, the closer I got to her and the more I let the anger out.

Dark electricity whipped around me, sizzling and hissing. My face shifted, turning partially snake-like, including scales, fangs, and a forked tongue.

She shifted into her full dragon form and spewed flames at me.

Jumping and rolling to the right, I avoided the flames. I flung my hand towards her, which sent electric tentacles out to slash her across the face and across the wings.

She screeched in pain and stumbled backwards.

With me, she would find no quarter. No leniency.

I leapt onto her back and tore into her, breaking the bone and tearing one of the wings from her back.

She screamed and I realized it was a human scream as she had shifted back to human form. She lay bleeding and crying, but it wasn’t enough.

The torment she had inflicted upon me and, more importantly, others, was not so simply ignored. The anger within me wanted more blood. More pain.

Trey stood before me, the darkness in his aura swirling higher. “Lily?” he whispered.

“Blood,” I whispered back. “There’s not … enough.”

“You’re a monster,” Norma cried.

“You tormented me. Forced your posse to come after me. You tried to pluck me from the lake while I was reuniting with a friend and on a courting date. You are a monster. You are a piece of trash that should be burned away from this planet!”

She cowered and backed away from us, crawling on her hands.

Mason ran out to us with Kayden right on his heels.

“Lily?” Mason asked. “Can you shove it down?”

Looking at the three of them, I realized they all had the darkness.

Maybe … maybe Norma was right about me being a monster.

“The darkness … it’s infected you three.”

“What are you talking about?” Trey asked.

I waved my hand at them. “You’ve got darkness in your aura. Darkness that you’ve gained. Darkness like mine. Did … did I infect you?”

Mason’s eyes widened. “You can see auras, too?”

“‘Too?’” I asked back.

“She tore my wing from my back!” Norma screeched at Trey behind us.

I spun, but Mason and Kayden each grabbed an arm to keep me from approaching her. “I know what you did to Estelle!”

Norma flinched. “Wh-What?”

Estelle was a chicken shifter, an extremely rare form that had earned her a lot of ridicule. “You plucked her feathers, every single one of them. Then, you told every guy who showed interest in her that she had a disease and that’s why her feathers had fallen out.”

“I-I didn’t.”

“She almost killed herself, Norma!” I screamed. “I stopped her, barely. That is not an easily forgiven incident. You are a piece of trash! Trash should burn!”

I tried to rush her again, but Trey grabbed me by the face and kissed me, distracting me from my fury.

“Take Lily to the house,” Trey whispered. “I’ll deal with … her.”

Kayden led the way while Mason walked behind me, forcing me to walk down the path back towards their house.

Collapsing on the couch, a warm blanket was set on me and I closed my eyes, feeling the pull of sleep.

“We’re here, Lil’. Go to sleep,” Kayden whispered.

“Blood,” I whispered.

“Tomorrow,” Mason promised. “We will hunt tomorrow.”

I nodded and pulled the blanket up to my chin. “Tomorrow.”