They were at the den. Felix had made it this far. The dust bunny hopped away and ran off into the night. Had she just introduced an invasive species? Oh well, really not her biggest problem right now.
When Kai moved his large talons away, the sight before Avery took her breath away. It was a gigantic mansion. Green ivy clawed up the pale stone walls, which were dotted with floor-to-ceiling windows. Warm lights spilled out from them, illuminating perfectly manicured hedges and autumnal garden beds teeming with life. Large stone walls surrounded the building, with ornate gates in the middle. Beyond the gates was a dense forest of oaks and pines, completely secluding the house from the outside world.
“Thank you,” Avery said to him.
“Don’t thank me yet, witch.”
Slightly ominous. Thanks, dickhead. Why did no one ever say what they meant?
But he was right to warn her.
Another dragon touched down next to Kai, shaking the ground. It was a wonder they didn’t set off earthquakes every minute.
This dragon’s scales were a glistening opal, and the warm lights from the mansion made them look almost golden. The two dragon heads moved like they were talking, which they likely were, but it wasn’t a conversation Avery was to be privy to.
Were all dragons so rude?
The new dragon transformed in front of her eyes, scales retracted into skin, wings folding into their shoulder blades. A giant beast becoming, well, a giant man.
Man was putting it lightly. He was as tall as Felix, if not taller. Everything about him seemed absolutely lethal. Even his jawlinelooked sharp enough to cut. Long white hair flowed down to his waist, and poking through the sides were the tips of pointed ears. Atop his head were twisting white horns with gold jewelry pierced in them, while golden tattoos shaped like fire covered the rest of him, like the very flames licked at his skin.
And he was stalking toward them, anger written into every feature.Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.That was not a nice-looking lizard.
Avery took a step back as the man crossed the lawn in four strides. “What did you do to him, you fuckingwitch?”
“Don’t…” Felix’s voice cut through the tension, weary and pained. “Don’t talk about my mate,” he said through choked gasps. She hadn’t realized he had woken up. Or how much it must have taken him to speak at all, given the way his face went even paler after he’d finished.
The man’s head snaked like a serpent to Felix. “Mate?” he hissed.
“Let her explain…please, brother,” he said.
Brother? Like biological or like bro? Didn’t matter.
“Help him first,” Avery pleaded.
The dragon scowled at her, his lip moving so she could see the long fangs he was sporting.
The man put his fingers in his mouth. Was she about to be turned to ash? She always did want to be cremated.
Instead, what came out was a whistle, so loud that she instinctively put her hands up to her ears to cover them.
One second, the lawn was empty except for the four of them; the next, it was full of shifters, emerging from the shadows, dropping from trees, and some materializing out of thin air.
Goose bumps ran up her arms as she took in the surroundings, her whole body going on high alert. So many shifters. Some were in their animal forms, others looked vaguely human. By vaguely, she meant horns of all shapes and sizesadorned a few of their heads, a basilisk shifter was partially covered in scales, and the largest wolf she had ever seen was glaring at her with yellow eyes. One shifter had antlers that branched up like a crown, another had feathers where hair should have been. The variety was staggering, and every single one of them was looking at her with varying degrees of murder in their eyes. Avery gulped and took a step back, trying her best not to disappear into mist and let the goddamn wind take her where it wanted.
A smaller—still taller than Avery—cat shifter, in her human form, ran up to them, planting herself right next to the dragon shifter who had whistled.
“Oh my god, Felix,” she said, worried, before the lines of her face etched with anger. “What did you do to him, witch?”
Avery’s nose wrinkled as she said the wordwitch.Such a terrible insult, at least call her a cockwomble or something creative.
“I would never hurt him,” Avery said plainly, dropping to her knees and grabbing his hand.
“Get away from my brother!” she shrieked before the dragon pale-haired shifter held her back. She snapped her head up to him. “What are you doing, Ciro? Why are you protecting her?”
“They are bonded,” Ciro said. “Felix called her his mate.”
The cat shifter’s eyes widened, flitting between them as if she could find evidence of it on the surface. “It’s not possible.”
