The Viper's Nest (Kit Davenport #4)(65)

Austin raised his brows at me in surprise, glancing at the bracelet in his hand. “You don’t trust your mentor?”

I grimaced. “Not exactly. I just... want to be sure.”

“Okay, I get that. I wouldn’t be super comfortable giving this to her without checking it out either...” He trailed off as he considered the little amulet. “Let’s do a diagnostic spell on it. It won’t tell us exactly what the spell is, but it’ll give us a rough idea whether it will cause her any harm.”

A long sigh gusted out of me, and my shoulder relaxed a fraction. “Thanks bro, I really appreciate it.”

“No problems, bro. Let me just put on some pants, and we can get started.”





23





KIT





My walk with Vali really did help me cool the hell down. My temper had me flying off the handle while just trying to watch a movie with the guys. But I still maintained that it was a stupid damn movie that would have pushed anyone to the brink of throwing fireballs.

“You okay from here?” Vali asked as the elevator dinged on our floor.

“For sure,” I promised him. “Thank you. That... that was needed. Try not to get caught, okay?”

He grinned and brushed a light kiss across my lips, sending electric bolts shooting through me at the contact. “I won’t, Regina mea. I’ll be quick too, but Austin is still in the room and Caleb surely won’t be too much longer.”

Nodding, I stepped from the elevator and let the doors close behind me. Vali was heading up to the roof to stretch his wings. He’d promised me he wouldn’t try flying anywhere, seeing as we were in the middle of a damn city so a dragon taking off from the Four Seasons rooftop would bound to be noticed. He just said he needed to shift and shake them out a bit.

Not that I’d understand, given that I hadn’t shifted at all yet. The best I had managed was some scales on my skin. That was it.

“I’m back!” I called out, as I let myself into the suite and closed the door behind me.

“Hey,” Caleb popped up from freaking nowhere and almost made me scream with fright.

“Dude,” I snapped.”You almost gave me a heart attack! What gives? And how come you’re back so early?”

Caleb shifted awkwardly, and I took note of his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. “Uh, I think I’m done with lessons.”

This made me pause as I was moving past him and into the sitting area.

“Seriously?” I spun to face him with a grin on my face. He nodded, and I threw my arms around his neck in excitement. “Caleb, that’s fantastic! I am so proud of you!”

“Um, yeah,” he replied, not looking anywhere near as elated as I thought he would have. “So, I had a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about.”

He nodded to me to take a seat on the couch where Austin was already reclining with his tiger familiar. Sitting on the other end of the couch, I leaned over and scratched Tyson behind the ears where I knew he liked it.

“Hey Princess,” Austin snarked. “Got that temper under wraps or do I need to break out the fire extinguisher again?”

Flipping him off, I also shot a small, harmless little flame at him, singeing his arm hairs and making him glare at me. Good. Asshole was making fun of my temper tantrum earlier, so he’d be lucky if I didn’t singe more than just his arm hair.

“Kit, my mentor gave me something for you,” Caleb started, perching on the edge of the coffee table facing us and running a gold chain between his fingers.

“Cool, but why?” I glanced between the twins, feeling like I was missing something. Austin was relaxed, but Caleb was strung tighter than a harp string.

Caleb held the gold chain up to show me the little fox charm hanging from it. “It’s an amulet. A spell. Supposed to help bring you clarity to help with all the chaos of the bonded magic.”

“That sounds... kind of amazing. Why do we all look worried? Do we think it’s a trap?” I glanced from Caleb to Austin again, but he just shrugged.

“Cal, obviously, can’t say much on the topic. But I get the sense he doesn’t totally trust his mentor’s motives, so we have been running a diagnostic spell on the amulet to check that it is what it’s claimed to be.” Austin yawned heavily and stretched his arms over his head. He was shirtless, and as he moved, his muscles rippled and danced under his ink. Maybe he might let me tattoo him again some time... It was kind of a turn on to know my ink was still on his skin.

“Okay...” I forced my horny brain back to the discussion at hand. “And what have you found?”

“It’s impossible to ascertain the exact spell compound, but we were able to eliminate what it’s not,” Caleb explained, continuing to run the chain between his fingers. “So far, it’s not anything that would kill, track, maim, harm, or enslave you. We figured those were the important ones to check for first.”

A shocked sort of laugh bubbled out of me, and I choked on it. “Uh, okay. Yep, those are important,” I agreed, coughing a bit to clear my throat. “Anything more than that?”

“We narrowed it down to the general subcategory,” Austin informed me. “And as far as we can tell it is designed to help you control your magic. But... that’s about as much as we know.”