He stared at the dragons for a moment longer, his gaze moving from one to the next, skimming over their wings, their mighty heads, their glistening scales in the bright moonlight.
Incredibly jealous, he thought, and chuckled. Something he didn’t do with his pack. Apparently shifters thought tough guys—and gals—didn’t laugh. Which was ridiculous, since elder vampires smirked and laughed all the time. It usually meant they were planning something terrible for you.
“Fine, whatever.” He turned away, toward an open seat on the patio, next to Penny. “Keep them out of sight of humans.”
“Breaking the rules, I like it.” I gave a thumbs-up to Archion. “You heard that, right? Go hunt if you want. If you don’t have enough, let me know and we can buy a bunch of cows or something.”
Where do we sleep? Archion asked as Coppelia took off into the sky.
Wherever you want. Choose a place in the trees. Just don’t break too many, or Roger will get mad. He spread his wings before I thought to add, Oh, and I forgot to tell you, don’t eat predators. Like a gray wolf. Roger turns into a wolf. Don’t eat him.
We have a very acute sense of smell, you realize. His thought sounded very haughty. Hello, mood swing. We can sense magical beings and identify their magic. We will know it is him. As for predators… We are the top of the food chain. We are the predators of predators.
I used to think that was vampires. I stood corrected.
Hey, whoa. I put up my hands. What’s with the attitude? Eat something. Take a nap.
He huffed out smoke and took to the skies. He was hangry, clearly.
Saphira waited a moment, and Penny swayed toward her, nodded, and slouched back.
She’s worried about me, Penny thought, and I wasn’t sure if she even realized she was thinking rather than speaking. She thinks I shouldn’t be left alone.
“Is she right?” I asked seriously. The dragon waited.
“No. Emery has apparently been in my state of mind before, soon after he went on the run. He says I just need to wallow in it for a while until the unicorn blood wears off, eat and sleep for a long time, and it’ll eventually pass. He doesn’t think I’ll turn into him.”
Penny and Emery had been given two doses of unicorn blood each, one after crossing the fire field, and another just after we hit the Realm and needed to stall until the sun went down. They hadn’t felt the cravings, but lusty urges were another story. And moods. At least for Penny.
“Turn into him, hmm… And what is he again…good at survival?” I asked, wandering closer. “Great in a bind? Fast thinking and acting? Is he just trying to keep you down, then…since, you know, those are actually good traits? Who needs independence—let the man do all the work…” It was hard not to smile.
“Keep it up, rat butt. Just keep it up.” She picked up her stress reliever, the bottle of bubbles, and pulled the lollipop-yellow plastic wand from the purple container.
The man of the hour, Emery, was the last through the door, falling into a chair opposite Penny, the heavy cast iron squealing against the concrete. “What?”
“Nothing. She just sucks,” Penny muttered, then blew through the plastic wand. Bubbles jetted out before lazily hovering in the tranquil breeze, fresh and sweet. I needed to create something like this in the Underworld.
I needed to stop thinking about the Underworld.
“So…” Roger put his elbows on the table.
Penny stopped blowing her bubbles for a moment, glanced at him, and then swiveled her upper body toward him. She dipped the wick twice and then blew again. The bubbles cascaded around Roger, settling into his hair or popping with a soundless splat on his meaty shoulders. He fluttered his eyes closed as they brushed across his face.
“What are you doing?” Emery asked her.
“Seeing if he’ll give in to his baser instincts and try to catch all the bubbles. My dogs growing up freaking loved bubbles. They’d go wild for them. It’s got to be in the genetics, right?”
A shocked silence filled the area as Penny blew another stream.
“This is what my life has become,” Roger finally said, and the rest of us barked out laughter, letting the stresses of the last few weeks uncoil.
It had been a hard journey, even when I was being pampered. It had been painful, both physically with the elves, and mentally in terms of dealing with my grief for my mom and keeping up a dangerous game with my dad. Penny had been through the wringer, Emery had relived his nightmare time on the run, Darius had navigated the treacherous underbelly of the Underworld while wondering if he’d ever see his love again, and Roger had shouldered the burden of all his people. Cahal…well, Cahal had been my rock in the storm even as he waded through dark waters of his own. If it killed me, I’d help him find his mate. I’d go to the gods or angels or dickheads to do it. And those might all be the same person, according to my father.