I eyed his hands warily. “No offense, but hitching rides with you doesn’t leave me in fighting form.”
He laughed. “It never does for beginners. The trick is to fix your mind on the best sex you’ve ever had and forget about what’s really happening.”
“That should be easy,” Chayton said, then hooked an arm around my waist and planted another kiss on me. This time, he was slow and thorough and owned my mouth for several seconds with his very capable lips and tongue. By the time he finished, my knees had turned to jelly and my skin tingled from the brush of his goatee.
When I regained my senses, Llyr was smiling at us both and nodding. “That spike of endorphins is the antidote to drift-sickness. Just remember it.”
“Trust me, I will never forget it,” I murmured and reached for his hand.
No sooner had he gripped me when the world upended, but the trip was over as soon as it had begun. I landed on my feet without a trace of vertigo and immediately sent molten magic surging through my limbs. Unlike before, I had no doubt it would come out the way I intended.
Beside me, Chayton shifted, his body morphing into a huge black bear as he fell to all fours. He let out a roar, then charged through the shallow water at the creature. The enormous fireball I let loose lit the way, its reflection making it look like he was ablaze when he rose up on hind legs and raked both foreclaws down the front of the monster’s chest.
My fireball hit it squarely in the chest at the juncture of all those writhing necks. Mentally, I willed the flame to spread and was only a little surprised that it obeyed, spreading between all the heads and flaring brighter as if they’d been doused in gasoline. The fire lit up the sky, reflecting off the wings of not just my three dragon mates. A fourth dragon had joined them, his scales a shining gold, and beside him, an enormous falcon with lightning crackling around it repeatedly dove at the beast.
The creature staggered back beneath the barrage of attacks, a hundred mouths bellowing in pain and whipping back and forth through the air to try to shake the combination of elements. It was retreating to the deeper water.
“No you fucking don’t,” I yelled. “I just got here, you bastard. You can eat another before you leave.” The fire surged forth inside me again, and I let another flaming orb loose from my hands. It smacked against one of the heads and split into a hundred smaller fireballs that ricocheted between them all. Each and every one took a scorching mouthful of fire until their bellowing roars turned to pitiful wails before it sank beneath the water.
A chorus of cheers rose up from around me, but my attention was fixed on the lone figure that had appeared at the water’s edge just a few feet in front of me where no one had stood a moment ago. Chayton was still in the water, sloshing toward the shore on all fours, but he shifted back to his human form as he came up behind the new arrival, who I thought was a man, but after all I’d seen lately, I didn’t quite trust my first impressions anymore.
Chayton’s murderous scowl certainly didn’t bode well for this person being friendly, in any case. When my other five mates closed in around us with similar expressions, I had a pretty comfortable suspicion who this person was.
I stepped toward him and stuck out my hand. I’d just kicked his lap dog’s ass, so the least I could do was be civil now.
“Chaos, I presume?”
32
April
The wild, whirling darkness above us cleared to reveal blue sky and puffy white clouds, but the extra light only made the new arrival seem all the stranger in appearance within the suddenly calm spring day. He wore a perfectly tailored, pinstripe suit with french cuffs on the dress shirt. Around his neck was a silk necktie with an abstract pattern that seemed to shift like a kaleidoscope when I looked at it. The oddest thing about him was his face, which at first impression was attractive, but the more I looked, the more asymmetrical his features seemed to be, making it difficult to look him in the eye. And to top it off, I was sure he wore chocolate-scented cologne.
He smiled a lopsided smile and took my hand, his eyes brightening as if I’d just said I was the Queen of England. Conspicuously missing was any shred of accountability for the cluster fuck we’d just narrowly survived.
“It is my honor, Miss Vincent. Or is it St. George? You may call me Chase. I’ve longed to meet you for some time now. I have a proposition for you.”
“The fuck you do,” Tate snapped, stepping up beside me and pressing a big palm to Chase’s shoulder, pushing him back a step.
Chase released my hand but kept smiling that weirdly unnerving smile, then made a small motion with his fingers. The earth beneath us tilted, and cries of alarm rose up from the crowd around us. Tate released Chase to grab me around the waist, steadying me while the world righted itself again.
“You know that shit doesn’t work on ursa.”
Chase pouted a little. “I know, but you caught her before I could see how she reacted. I’ve seen her command over fire today but not over earth. How will I know she’s a true Chimera without a demonstration of her abilities?”
“Whether or not she’s a Chimera shouldn’t be any of your damn business!” shot Stuart, slipping an arm around me from the other side. “She’s ours, and as you’ve already seen, we will fight for her.”
“Damn straight,” Murdoc said, his sentiment echoed by my other mates.
Chase’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes glinted with inner power, and the pattern on his tie grew less a pattern and more just a crazy mix of color. He raised a hand, and the sky began to darken again. Behind him, the water churned, and my stomach twisted in knots over the prospect of his pet awakening for another round.
In a deep voice that grated my nerves like twisting steel, Chase said, “You know I have but to snap my fingers and render all of you back down to your component parts. Then we’ll see if your magic is strong enough to put you back together again. I will have my Chimera…”
“Chase, for fuck’s sake, stop it!” a female voice yelled from behind, cutting him off before he could say more.
Chase blinked and assumed a mask of faux innocence, his gaze shifting beyond us to whoever had just spoken—someone he evidently hadn’t expected to see but who had the authority to shut him up.
My mates and I all turned to see a lovely dark-skinned, black-haired woman striding down the slope with a take-no-prisoners look on her face. We stepped aside for her to march up to him and stab a finger into the center of his chest.
“You are out of line with this ridiculous hunt for someone like me. The Bloodline are under my protection, so if you want April, you’ll have to go through me to get her, got it?”
My expression couldn’t have been any less stunned than Chase’s. He finally recovered and gave her a slanted smile that just missed the mark of appeasing. “Deva, you know how Fate abhors imbalance. I was only trying to even things out. Fate has you, so…”
“I am the balance,” Deva said, glowering at him. “Contrary to your perception, Fate does not have me. Both of you are equal pains in my ass, and it ends here. Remember the deal we made last year? I found you your mate. You do not get to horn in on my territory again! Leave the Bloodline alone!”