The Viper's Nest (Kit Davenport #4)(3)

With a sexy sort of chuckle, he flicked his hand up at the ceiling, sending that little droplet of blood soaring through the air. I watched it, transfixed, and when it hit the plaster beside the ugly-ass light fixture, the whole ceiling seemed to just... disappear.

“What...” I breathed out, staring up at the clear night sky above us and the luminescent green light bending and curving in front of the stars.

“We travelled all the way to fucking Harrow, Alaska, and you never got to see the Northern Lights,” Caleb murmured, tugging me to lie back down beside him so we could both look up at the display.

“So you thought...” I trailed off again, totally gobsmacked by what I was seeing. “Is this just an illusion?”

Caleb snickered, and his hand tightened around my waist. “Listen to you becoming an expert in magic. No, Kitty. Not an illusion. More like a window. This is the exact sky over the North Pole right now.”

His teasing about me becoming an expert in magic was in good spirits. Since bonding with Austin, an Ink Mage, my magic had been sort of just bleeding out all over the place. I’d been casting spells I hadn’t intended, and after accidentally turning Cole green one day, Austin had decided I needed more formal training in how to use his magic.

If I’d thought his teaching was painful when learning how to shoot, it was nothing compared to the ogre he was when teaching magic.

“This is so cool,” I whispered, gazing up at the beautiful natural phenomenon above us for a long time. The way the light shifted and moved was mesmerizing, and I soon found myself... calm. Calm in a way that I just hadn’t been able to achieve in longer than I cared to remember.

Between finding out I was a Ban Dia—one of a master race that essentially created all supernatural beings—and being hunted, tortured, and blown up by every man and his damn dog... there just hadn’t been any downtime.

Turning back to Caleb, I pressed a soft kiss to his lips, letting it linger a moment before pulling back. “Thank you,” I murmured, meeting his eyes with sincerity. “This is amazing.”

“Anything for you, Kitty Kat,” he replied, his fingers trailing up my side underneath my baggy sleep shirt. Or rather, Cole’s T-shirt, which I had commandeered to sleep in. Men’s T-shirts were always so damn cosy.

“Couple of hours, you say?” I double-checked, knowing we would need to allow at least one hour to pack up the cars and wipe any trace of ourselves clean.

“Mm-hmm, that I did.” This time, his smirk was as wicked as my own, and heat flushed through me.

“Good.” My fingers traced over the ink on Caleb’s well-muscled abdomen, following the swirl and flow of the lotus blooms down lower until my fingers reached the waistband of his sweatpants. “Then we have time to fully appreciate this amazing view.” And by that, I was not referring to the Aurora Borealis lighting up the room with its shimmering, green glow.

“Kitty Kat...” Caleb scolded, “I was trying to have a nice, relaxing moment with you.”

Humming happily in my throat, I placed another lingering kiss against his lips, taking my time and feeling his body respond.

“Consider me relaxed,” I teased when our kiss ended. “Now I want to thank you for this amazing gift.”

My fingers had hooked into the waistband of his sweats, and there could be no mistaking what I meant by that. Caleb groaned, then threaded his fingers into my hair to pull my lips back to his.

This time when our lips met, there was nothing languid or gentle about it. Caleb teased my lips apart, his tongue delving into my mouth and tangling with mine in a torrent of pent up desire on both of our parts. With everything that had happened recently—Caleb’s magic training, our mission to retrieve my Ban Dia ring, and then all the safehouse hopping—it had really been too damn long since Caleb and I had been intimate with one another.

“Kitty Kat,” he hissed as I freed him from his sweats and wrapped my palm around his length. “This was supposed to be something nice for you.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, but my mouth was busy moving down the line of his neck to his chest.

Caleb sucked in a sharp breath, his hips lifting slightly as my fingers gripped him and stroked. For just a few moments, he let me, and my lips closed over one of his nipples.

“Nope,” he muttered, grabbing me by the waist and sitting me across his waist just long enough to yank my T-shirt off. After tossing it aside, he then flipped us again, and I landed with a puff into the pillows, looking up at the glorious sight of the Northern Lights over Caleb’s half naked frame.

“Mmm,” I grinned. “I think I like this view.”

He smiled back at me, looking like some sort of fallen angel with the twinkling stars and glowing green framing him while he knelt between my spread legs.

“I think I do too,” he agreed, trailing his fingertip over the thin fabric of my underwear and sending warmth curling upward into my belly.

I crooked a finger at him to beckon him closer, and he obliged. Bringing his lips back to mine, he shifted so that his full weight wasn’t flat on top of me, which also gave him access to explore my body with one hand.

“Can’t believe you haven’t got my asshole brother back for this yet,” he whispered, running his rough thumb over the gorgeous fox tattoo on my side, following the inked lines just as I had done to him. I knew what he meant though. Not for giving me a tattoo that strangely encompassed the essence of both me and my six guardians. He was referring to the fact that his twin brother’s name was spelled out in the negative space between butterflies.