“I know,” Minnie says gently, handing me a serviette. “We all would have done the same.”
“Nuh-uh,” Stacey says. “Lia has those big dragon ovaries now. None of us havethattype of courage. I mean, naked too? Come the fuckon. People will be talking about this with their grandkids.”
“Hopefully, for the right reasons,” I say darkly.
Once my stomach is full, I feel capable of leaving the underground cavern and facing the light of day. We wave goodbye to the boat bopping on the canal waters and make our way up the spiral staircase and through the painting into the anima dorms. Beak has been trying to get into the cavern, but the girls refused to let him through. He, Marduk and Yeti had been on the phone with Rufus to manage a couple of things with Scythe’s investments, and they are worried about another council raid.
No less than thirty armed guards had scoured the place, half of them serpents. They could scent me, but with so many other hormonal animas around, and Christine the gargoyle hurling profanity at them, they’d left with empty hands. Marduk had managed to convince them I’d gone off-grid with helicopter-related injuries, but we don’t know how long that excuse will hold up.
There is one thing of importance on my mind, and I wait until the last rays of the sun disappear under the horizon before I call for my fifth mate.
Chapter 21
Ghoul
Iused to have the urge to destroy the academy whenever I’d creep up on it. Execute everyone inside and send the walls crumbling. I’d wonder how much power it would take to turn it to ash. How strong were the dragons that made this place?
But then one night, when Aurelia was newly enrolled at the academy, I was pretending to patrol outside the anima dorm when the gargoyle above the door spoke to me. “Hello, sir basilisk,” she said in a squeaky sort of voice. “My name is Christine.” I said nothing back, smoking a joint and wondering if she spoke for the place at large. “Lovely night,” she cooed. “Here to see the B—uh, the wee little lady inside? Long black hair? Blue eyes that light up your heart?” I’d put out my joint. “Sorry, can’t let you in tonight.”
Finally, I spoke and she jolted in her stone. “Are you…protecting her?”
“Of course!”
“Why?”
She squinted at me like it was obvious. Sticks for legs swinging straight out. “Uh, she’s the most powerful creature here. Only the most powerful can be guardian of the house.”
“So you’re protecting her because she needs to protect you?”
“Got it right between the eyes, sir,” she chuckled at her own joke.
“And why doyouneed protecting?”
She shut her mouth, twisting her lips as if she’d almost let something out. Christine waved her finger at me as if I were the idiot. “Why, there’s books inside, my good lord! Important books.”
Lying through her stony teeth. So I decided I wouldn’t destroy the place after all.
Tonight, as I approach the academy, the cicadas stop chirping as they sense me, and all the little birdies in their nests huddle closer to one another. A lone brown snake slithers deeper into the bushes at the base of the tall academy walls, and the guards—a dingo and three wolves—send telepathic waves between themselves. The bald eagle who likes to hover around Aurelia, and one of his subordinates, a rare black cockatoo, patrol the cloudless night sky.
None of them notice me slithering through the air, my shadows a moving inkblot against the dark. Even if the sharp eyes of the avians do note a strange shift in the air, within a single blink, I’m already a part of the dark, invisible to everyone. Even toher,I’ve been unnoticeable this entire time.
I don’t know when she started feeling my presence. Maybe she began to notice the rising of the little hairs on the back of her neck, or a cold feeling of dread coiling inside her stomach. Tonight, she’s opened her window for me. And a girl who opens her window for monsters at night is my kind of girl. I catch a glimpse of her from a distance.
Wait, do I thinkI’mthe baddest creature of the night? There she is, stark naked, with her hands on those delicious hips, pretty eyes narrowed like a predator as she waits for me. I know it when she sees me. Her eyes lock in and her edible lips partbecause I’m sure she wants to kiss me. There’s a hint of fang under the moonlight, andnowI’m hard as fuck.
Soundless, I slip through the window, around her perfect body, and assume my human form right behind her, the shadows bubbling outward into the shape of the man version of me. My beautiful monster does not flinch as I inhale the scent of her neck, and I don’t fail to notice every goosebump that spreads across her skin, in the same way I don’t fail to notice anything else about her. She smells like violence and dragon smoke, yet her heartbeat remained steady until now.
“Is there something you desire from me, snakelet?” I murmur against her ear, my shadows reaching around her waist to hover just over her skin. “You seem to be doing quite fine by all reports, but your text message was quite…insssssistent.”
She raises a hand, fingers curiously brushing against a lick of shadow. “They’re soft, and yet…strong.” Her voice is gentle, unlike her scent, and the way it slides down my spine is like something out of this world. “Do you have control over them, or do they have a mind of their own?”
Dying to touch her, I caress a gloved finger down the length of silken black hair lying against her spine. “They can be wild,” I admit. “It’s like taming a wild serpent. You think you have control over them, and then a second later…” Two licks of shadow slide around her throat.
The snakelet sucks in a breath, and the movement presses her back against me. I let my fingers hang down, trailing them against the soft skin of her bare thighs. Her arousal sweetens the air.
“If I touch you now, will you be wet for me?” I murmur in her other ear. “If I taste you between your legs, will your pussy be sweeter than your venom?” My fingers trail higher as her breath quickens, brushing into the soft skin above her curls of pubic hair.
“Touch me,” she whispers, rubbing a thumb over the band of shadow at her throat.
