The Viper's Nest (Kit Davenport #4)(47)

Caleb snickered. “I said, are you cool waiting till I get back from my lesson tonight before you bond with the lizards?”

Automatically, I whacked him in the arm. Both he and Aus kept calling Cole and Vali lizards, which was definitely going to end in a fight sooner or later. They’d already entered into a couple of small scuffles over meaningless things, but the dragons shrugged it off as their natural aversion to cats. They weren’t fooling anyone though; it was much more likely just from being so isolated out here when they were used to the action and adventure of being spies, or a crime lord in Vali’s case.

“Of course. Just try not to be too late? I get a bit cranky without enough sleep,” I suggested, and both twins cackled with laughter.

“We’re well aware, Princess.” Austin snorted. “You’re a straight up bitch when you’re tired.”

I narrowed my eyes and flipped him off before Caleb pressed a kiss to my temple and got up to leave.

“I’ll be back as early as possible. Good luck with the blocking!” He smacked his brother on the back of his head and gave him a stern look. “Play nice. Just ’cause you’re fucking doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be a dick.”

Austin rolled his eyes and turned back to me after Cal had left the room. “Pretty sure I was already a dick?”

“Yep,” I agreed, “no sense in changing that now. All right, what do we need to do?”

Austin flickered a small smile, then his face returned to the scowl I knew—and loved—on him. “Here’s what I’m thinking...”

For the rest of the afternoon, we worked on our mental powers, which largely consisted of sitting on the floor with our eyes shut. As boring as it sounded, it was actually exhausting, but when several hours later one of our ideas seemed to work, the sense of satisfaction was staggering.

“It worked!” I exclaimed, exploring my mind for any traces of Austin and finding none. “Wait, can you still feel me?” He quirked a brow at me, and I rolled my eyes, well aware that I was sitting on the floor facing him, my legs draped loosely around his waist. It wasn’t intentional, it was just comfortable.

“Your emotions? Yes. So quit thinking about me naked and focus.” He slapped me lightly on the leg, and I spluttered.

“I was not!” Except now I was. Damn him. “Ugh, okay, hang on.” I shut my eyes tight to block out his distracting-as-hell smirk and replicated what we’d been playing around with. It was a simple concept, one we’d actually come up with thanks to Wesley’s suggestion earlier in the day. As it turned out, he read a lot of urban fantasy novels and suggested we try building a wall around our minds.

So far, we had tried visualising the wall in various ways, but Austin’s latest attempt had clearly worked, so I replicated exactly what he’d done.

“Any good?” I asked. One of my eyes cracked open and I found him watching me with the intensity of... well... of a tiger.

“Yeah.” His mouth was twisted in his usually scowling frown, only this time I couldn’t feel what was going on behind what I’d come to realize was a mask for him.

Crap. Maybe I did like that magical insight after all.

“Totally gone. Good work, Princess, you’re all ready for more bonds.” Even without feeling his emotions, I could hear the sadness soaking his words, and I reached out to cup the back of his neck.

“Aus?” I whispered, “Are you jealous?” I couldn’t help it... I grinned. Of course, I could never have anticipated him being my first bonded dianoch, so the prospect of Austin “Asshole” King being jealous where I was concerned just really hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Bitch,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at me and making me grin even wider. I loved our snark; it was too much fun to just up and drop suddenly because we were in love with each other.

Shuffling myself closer to him, I pressed my lips to his, and for a rare moment we simply kissed. There was no combativeness to it, no frenzied rush of emotions from the other person to confuse things. It was just us. And it was perfect.

“I’m wrecked,” I admitted when we eventually separated. “Can we nap until Cal gets home?”

Austin groaned. “I thought you’d never ask.” He hauled himself up from the floor, then helped me up. “You’ll need all of your energy for later, too. Who knows what might happen when you bond with two supposedly extinct magical creatures.”

Cracking my neck, I stretched and yawned. “Wait, they’re extinct? Like, I just figured they’re magical, which is why no one knew about them.”

“Nope.” Austin shook his head as he followed me upstairs to my room. Apparently he was napping with me. “Even within the magical community they’re considered extinct. Otherwise I would have suggested they meet up with other dragons to learn from them.”

“Huh,” I mused. “Sometimes I forget you’re the new Big Bad of magic. What about Wes? Any ideas?”

“About what he is?” Austin kicked off his shoes beside my bed, then stripped down to his boxers. “None, and I have done some asking around too. We’ll work it out though. It’s sort of my job now. Well, mine and Cal’s.”

Another wide yawn creaked my jaw, and I got comfy in my giant bed just before Tyson padded into the room and jumped up to snuggle into the dead center of the mattress. We’d left him asleep on the floor of the den, but he clearly wasn’t satisfied being left alone.