The Viper's Nest (Kit Davenport #4)(51)

“I love you, Vixen,” he murmured in my ear. “Thank you.”

He didn’t need to say anymore as I knew what he meant. His relationship with Vali had only just begun to heal, so the last thing I wanted was to become any more of a wedge between them than I already was.

“Any time, Cutie,” I whispered back, but he was already asleep, his warm breath slow and even against the back of my neck.

Sleep did not come easily to me that night. Instead, I lay there in Cole’s embrace for hours, simply watching my hand in fascination as scales rippled back and forth across my skin. First red and gold, then blue and green, and finally—just before sunrise—it settled into a metallic purple. A perfect blend of both my dragons’ colors.





19





COLE





Sweat ran down my spine, soaking into the thin fabric of my T-shirt and making me glad for my perpetually dark wardrobe. It wasn’t like I didn’t like colors; it was just much easier to hide the blood on black.

“Vamanos.” The pockmarked man in front of us nodded, holding the mesh gate open and allowing Vali and I to enter the corridor. “This way, se?ores.”

I cast an uncertain glance at my brother, but he gave me a tiny nod of reassurance. Why I was so jumpy about this, I had no idea. I’d done far more dangerous jobs under the Omega banner, but something about being so far from Kit was making my skin crawl.

Not bothering to waste breath on unnecessary words, we kept our mouths shut and followed the sweaty Mexican man down the dimly lit corridor and toward the sound of a raucous crowd.

We stopped just outside our destination, and another moustached man stepped in front of us, blocking our path.

“Quinientos,” he demanded, holding out his greedy hand for Vali to place five hundred American dollars into. “Bueno.” Flicking the notes with his thumb as though counting them, he stepped aside and allowed Vali and I to follow our guide into the following room.

Raul, the man we followed, led us through the roaring crowds of people until we were directly in front of the octagonal cage set in the center of the room with two bloodied and bruised men duking it out with bare knuckles.

“Just here, se?ores,” he told us politely, indicating to two vacant folding chairs in the front row. “Let me know if you need anything, sí?”

My attention had already left him and zoned in on the fight currently going on in the cage, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Vali slip the man some bills before taking his seat beside me.

“What do you think?” he asked me quietly, and I grunted a vexed noise.

We’d come all the way down to Mexico City on the rumor that this fight ring had an ace in the hole that was making them mega-bucks in the black-market cage-fight scene. Supposedly, they had hombres lobo.

Werewolves.

The coincidence seemed too great, given the recent influx of magical creatures and all the various factions vying to come out on top, so Vali and I had volunteered to check it out and see if there was any substance to the rumor. If they were having werewolves fight and not making any attempt to hide their inhuman origins, then the widespread exposure of magic was likely much closer than we’d been counting on.

“I think this could have been a waste of time,” I muttered back, turning my gaze from the half-dead bare-knuckle fighters and casting my gaze over the crowd. “They’re clearly both human, and shitty fighters at that. I don’t sense any other shifters in the room... do you?”

Vali shook his head, his sharp gaze trailing over the crowd just as mine had. We’d used his connections to get into the underground club, and I knew there were a lot of shady characters in attendance. Just on my first pass of the people I could see, I spotted at least three men currently being targeted by Omega Group for various reasons.

“Let me get our friend back and squeeze him for more info,” Vali suggested, meeting Raul’s eyes from across the room and giving a head jerk to bring him back to us.

“This tip had better pan out,” I growled. “It doesn’t feel right being away from Vixen.”

Vali quirked a half smile at me. “Like your skin is crawling? Yeah, I know the feeling. Don’t worry, as soon as we work out what’s going on here we can head straight back. Not that the boys aren’t taking good care of her right now.”

I huffed, but couldn’t argue. We’d left Kit on the couch watching trashy comedy movies with Wes and Caleb. Those two had been all too happy to have her for the night, seeing as Vali and I had demanded just about every waking moment from her this week for dragon training.

Just thinking about Vixen’s dragon magic made me cringe. The accelerated learning spell was doing little to help her master our magic, and she was growing increasingly frustrated by both her lack of control and frequent night terrors. Until Wes had lost his ability to manage her dreams, I hadn’t realized just how bad they were… which explained Wesley’s off mood. If it were me, I’d be way worse. Hell, just knowing there was nothing I could do was making me want to breathe fire.

We must have talked her through the process over a million times in the past few days, but unlike Austin’s Ink Magic, there was no clear symbol, word, or spell she could watch then replicate. Shifting, and the magic that came with it, was pure instinct and not something that we could really teach her.