“I had my doubts, Sia.” Chase swung at my face with a sharp right hook.
I ducked his arm and drove my shoulder into his chest. The charge sent him back a few inches. Not much, but it was something. I grunted at the impact. “I didn’t.”
He chuckled and rubbed the spot where I’d hit him. “No, you didn’t. I like that about you. You’re determined.”
I shoved a strand of hair out of my eyes. My ponytail was coming loose again. If I was going to be doing a lot more fighting, maybe a pixie cut was in my future.
“Come at me again. Harder this time.” Chase put his hands up in a boxer’s stance and furrowed his brow. “This time, I really want to feel it.”
I grinned and charged.
It was a week since the last attack on McKinnett’s. Kitty recovered, just like Galen had promised. She wasn’t thrilled when I told her I’d be spending a few days with the guys, but at least she knew I was in good hands. Aric’s crew had set the bar back to rights before she even woke up, so they’d gone up in her estimation from ‘fucking tourists’ to ‘useful members of society.’
My mornings were spent going over some of the finer points of draconic history and society with Cassidy. My afternoons were spent alternately trying to shift, and trying not to die while sparring in the backyard with Chase.
Galen spent his days at the pub, since he was the one Kitty trusted the most. Aric spent his days being Aric, and his nights running surveillance on the pub to make sure the cult wasn’t trying anything funny while we weren’t there. The presence of the dragons seemed to be working. At least, there hadn’t been another attack. Chase said they could just be biding their time until I came back. It was a wrench, not being able to be with the McKinnett’s crew. They were my home, my family. Being away hurt.
The dragons kept me busy, though.
I ducked Chase’s arm a second too late this time around. His fist glanced across my chin, more caress than concussion. It would have been distracting if I wasn’t so pissed off at myself. “Too slow. You’d be on the ground if I’d meant that shot.”
“Dammit.” I’d been in my share of fights as a kid. I was the new girl in school more often than I could count, and the new kid in the house to boot. But there was a world of difference between kids scrapping over an insult and the madness that had taken over the pub last week. With my life potentially on the line, I wanted to get this right and get it right fast.
“You got this, Sia. I know you do. There’s a dragon in there aching to come out.” He raised his fists and did a come-here motion with his fingertips. His steel-blue eyes glinted in the sunlight. I wanted to go to him, but punching him was suddenly the last thing on my mind.
“Hey, you two! Quit fighting and make up!” Missi’s voice rang out across the grounds.
I gasped and whirled, abandoning Chase to tear across the grass and nearly bowl her over with a huge hug. “Ohmigod, woman! What… how…?”
Galen stood behind her, watching and smiling. “We knew you missed your crew. Also, your best friend needs to be caught up on what’s been going on for the past week or, she has informed me, she will gut me like a fish.”
“No lie. I’ll do it.” Missi gave me a serious look. “Seriously, Sia. Going incommunicado for a whole week? Kitty won’t tell me shit, and this guy is no better. You, me, lots of talking, now.”
I looked back at Chase. He was wiping his face and neck with a towel. His gray t-shirt clung to his martial artist’s body in enticing ways. I could smell him on me, musk and the spice of whatever deodorant he wore. Watching him toweling off gave me twinges in several of the right places. I shook myself. Galen was standing Right There, and here I was ogling his friend.
I turned to face Galen. He beamed down at me, blissfully unaware of my indiscretion. “Thank you. We should probably also… do what you did to Kitty. For her. Just in case.”
“What did he do to Kitty?” Missi dropped her voice to a whisper in my ear. “And how many times can he do it to me? Rowr.” I elbowed her in the stomach. She snorted in my ear and stepped back.
“Don’t worry, Cass is at the pub until close. I didn’t leave things undefended.” Galen read my mind. “I’ll leave you ladies to it,” he said with a smirk, then turned and walked into the house.
Chase came up to us. “Ma’am.” He nodded at Missi formally, then followed Galen. He paused in the doorway and turned back to me. “Great work out there, Sia. We’ll work on it more later.”
Missi’s eyes followed him as he left. “Daaamn, girl. What do I gotta do to become a dragon? Are they all this fine, or are you just the luckiest girl in the world?”
“I’ve only met the few of them, so I don’t know.” I planted myself in a wrought iron chair on the patio and grabbed my water bottle from the marble-topped table. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Later, girl. I want details and I want them now.” Missi sat down across from me and rested her hands on the table. “Spill. What’s been going on?”
“Long form or short?”
“Sia…”
I sighed. “A bunch of shapeshifting wizards and snake-men tried to take over the pub and kidnap me. The guys took care of them, but seeing it all… did something to Kitty. Sent her catatonic.”
“Shit.” Missi frowned. “She seems okay now, though. A little distracted, but okay.”
I bowed my head, weighed down by guilt. “Galen did some dragon magic and healed her. She sleapt the worst of it off.” I raised my head and looked her in the eye. “That’s what I was talking about. I don’t want that happening to you if… if something happens.”
“Whoa, wait. You want that handsome man to lay hands on me?” She flashed me her wickedest of grins. “Send him in!”
Jealousy knotted my stomach. Missi radiated light the way I hid in shadows. She was a people person, through and through. If she wanted Galen, she could probably take him from me in a heartbeat.
Her hand rested over mine. “Shit. Sorry. I… wow, you’ve got it bad for him, don’t you?” She studied my dismal poker face. “What else aren’t you telling dear old Missi?”
“I… we…”
Her eyes grew saucer-wide. “Don’t tell me you two…”
“I kissed him.” Hello, blushing, my old friend.
I’m amazed the windows didn’t crack from the squeal she emitted.
“Wha… you? Kissed him?” You could see her smile from space. “You pounced a man?”
“I wouldn’t say pounced. I… just kissed him. Because he’d just helped Kitty.”
“And because he is H-A-W-T hot hot hot!”
I laughed. “That too.”
“So are you dating? When’s the wedding? I’m wearing something colorful, so don’t go for pastels for the bridesmaids.”
“Easy, cowgirl.” I snickered. “We…” I frowned. We hadn’t gotten to spend a lot of time together since the kiss, at least not alone. “I don’t know what we are. Where we are. If we are. He’s been over at McKinnett’s keeping an eye out for cultists, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” She frowned. “Crap. I swear, Kitty’s not cockblocking you on purpose.”
I snorted into my water bottle. “I sent him there, remember?”
“So you’re cockblocking yourself?” She steepled her fingers under her chin and gazed at me analytically.
“Yes. No. What?!” I stammered.
“There are four guys here, right? The hottie you were boxing with, and two others you haven’t shown me yet because you’re hogging them all to yourself.”
“You can have Aric. He’s a tool.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“A sexy tool.”
“Better.” She laughed. “Keep him. You might need him later.”
“Ugh.”
“Back to Galen, though. He’s here. Right now. I should fuck off and let you two bone.” Missi pulled her chair back.
“Augh! Seriously, Missi!” Horror mingled with curiosity. “I don’t even know… I mean, you know… I’ve never…” I growled a little at myself. “That was my first kiss.”
Missi pulled her chair in. “Wait, what?”
I snorted. “You knew that. You had to know that. You’ve known me since I was fifteen. I’d have told you if anything interesting happened to me.”
“Yeah, well. I just never realized.” She leaned in. “You really ARE making up for lost time. You gonna kiss any of the others? Just to see?”
I thought about Chase’s eyes, challenging me to take him on. I thought about Cass’s shy smile in the library. I even thought about Aric’s haughty look of disdain that I wanted to slap off his face. There was so much chemistry there, something drawing me to each of them, something powerful. Had I gone completely hormone mad? Had kissing Galen sparked off something primal? No, I felt this even before I kissed him. There was something about these men that made me want to be part of a writhing, sensual pile with the lot of them.
I shook myself back to awareness. Missi was watching me with an amused expression.
“They’re all friends. Or colleagues, at least. I don’t want to cause a lot of trouble.” There was that knot in my stomach again. “They worked so hard to find me. The last thing I want to do is to make them all hate each other. Or hate me.”
Missi gave my hand a light slap. “No one is going to hate you. And yeah, there might be some competitive male bullshit.” She grinned. “That could be kinda hot, actually.”
I slunk down in my seat. The knot tightened. “I’m not really the kind of girl that gets fought over.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “You should be. You should see yourself the way we see you, girl. You’re something special. Hell, you’re a dragon queen!” Her grin broadened. “It is their duty to please your booty.”
“Oh dear god.” My head sank into my hands. “One, you’re incorrigible.”
“Thank you.”
“Two,” I continued, “what if that’s it? What if they’re just around me because of orders? Because of duty?”
Missi shook her head. “I saw how Galen was looking at you. Chase, too.”
“Chase? Really?” I tried to keep the hope out of my voice.
“Mmmm-hmm.” She nodded sagely. “He was watching you the whole time you were running across the lawn. Watching every little bounce like he was a wolf and you were a tasty little bunny.”
The knot flipped over a few times. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Missi ticked off two fingers, then tapped a third. “And we both saw how the redhead was watching you at the bar last week, so yeah, he’s hot for you.” A fourth. “And from what you say about this Aric tool, he’s probably stuck in middle school and just poking at you for the reactions.”
“I doubt he went to anything as plebeian as a middle school,” I sniffed in imitation of Aric.
“Oh god, he’s that bad?” Missi gave a shudder. “Okay, three hot guys and an ass. You do anything with Aric, we’ll have words.”
I laughed. “Deal.”
“Now let’s get on with this laying on of hands stuff.” Missi grinned at my warning look. “I’ll give him right back, I promise.”