“The surge started things. The people finished it.” Beck’s gaze found Rosemary across the room—talking to Narla, her auburn hair catching the light, her smile softer than Delos had ever seen it. “Turns out supernatural creatures are just as capable of getting over themselves as regular people. We just needed the right motivation.”
Delos thought about Aero’s long years of isolation. About the storm witch who’d crashed his walls like they were made of paper, demanding that he feel things whether he wanted to or not.
“Speaking of motivation.” He nodded toward the front of the bar, where Elder Sue Tidewell held court in a throne-like chair someone had definitely conjured for the occasion. “What’s the deal with her?”
Sue was ancient, insufferably smug, and currently watching someone new. Her gaze kept drifting to the door, sharp and calculating, as if she were waiting for a specific entrance.
“She’s been insufferable since you dragons arrived. Keeps muttering about “completing the set” and “unprecedented synchronicity” and other cryptic nonsense that makes no sense until suddenly there’s another mating announcement.”
“You think she’s actually causing this? The surge, the matches?—”
“I think she knows more than she’s telling. Which is true of literally every supernatural elder.” Beck shrugged. “She orchestrated Avine and Theo, or claims she did. Takes credit for Junie and Leo. Definitely had something to do with Dahlia and Cal, though no one can prove it. And now you two.”
“She didn’t cause Aero’s mate recognition. That’s biological.”
“No. But she assigned Cassia as his research assistant.” Beck raised an eyebrow. “Convenient timing, don’t you think?”
Delos opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Because it had been convenient. Suspiciously so. Almost as if someone had known exactly what would happen when an eight-century-old storm dragon encountered a surge-amplified weather witch with control issues.
“Huh.”
“Yeah.” Beck took a long drink. “Anyway. I’m pretty sure she’s got her sights set on someone new.”
“Did you hear about Nerissa?” Beck asked, his tone dropping. “Deepwater Courts sent word last week. Sentenced to a century of isolation in the lower depths. No magic, no contact. The courts don’t forgive attacks on neutral territory.”
Delos absorbed that. “Good,” he said finally. “She doesn’t get to walk away from what she did.”
“No.” Beck’s jaw tightened. “She doesn’t.” He was quiet for a moment. “The Courts’ investigation turned up something else, too. Evidence of deliberate weather manipulation along this coastline going back over thirty years. Not just the tsunami—sustained interference. Small storms made worse, currents redirected, fog patterns altered.” His voice dropped further. “Long enough to have touched lives people never knew she’d touched.”
Delos thought of Cassia. Of what Aero had quietly told him, weeks ago, about her mother. About a storm that hadn’t behaved the way storms should. About guilt Cassia had carried for years that might never have been hers to carry at all.
“Fits,” he said at last. It was all he could manage.
“Looks like Haven Shores isn’t done with supernatural romance yet.”
“It never is.” Beck raised his glass toward Aero and Cassia. “To the mating surge. May it continue to ruin our lives in the best possible way.”
“To the surge,” Delos agreed.
He excused himself from Beck’s booth, making his way through the crowd toward where Aero and Cassia sat. They barely noticed his approach—too busy being disgustingly in love, their heads bent close, lightning flickering occasionally between their fingertips where their hands were intertwined.
“Excuse me.” Delos dropped into the seat across from them with deliberate obnoxiousness. “Could you two stop beingnauseating for five minutes? Some of us are trying to drink without losing our appetites.”
“Jealous?” Cassia laughed, not bothering to move away from Aero’s side.
“Horrified. I’ve endured years working for the emotional equivalent of a glacier, and now he’s gazing at you like you invented weather. It’s disturbing.”
“I don’t gaze,” Aero said, which was a blatant lie.
“You literally haven’t looked away from her face in the last hour. I timed it.”
“Research. I’m documenting post-mating behavioral changes.”
“That’s the worst excuse you’ve come up with yet.” Cassia snorted.
“It’s not an excuse. It’s—” Aero paused, his jaw tightening in that way that meant he was fighting a lifetime of emotional repression. “It’s… I like looking at you.”
The confession came out stilted, awkward, clearly painful to admit. Cassia’s expression softened.
