Chapter 7
Quinn
Torrent didn’t join us for dinner. Not that the frozen pizza made for a particularly inspiring meal, but he’d vanished into the shadows every time the rest of us had sat down to eat. I’d gathered that none of the shadowkind needed food to sustain themselves, but Crag and Lance seemed to enjoy it as some sort of indulgence.
The empty chair at the head of the table across from me gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe it was too uncomfortable for him to keep his physical form simply to eat and join a companionable conversation around the table. We weren’t talking about anything all that vital, but it still seemed awkward to exclude him.
Or maybe I was just projecting my own general dissatisfaction onto him. It’d been a whole day, and we didn’t seem to be any closer to getting me back home where I belonged.
I watched Lance carve a slice in half with his claws, severing crust, cheese, and pepperoni with equal ease. He gulped the piece down in one go, managing to look just as gorgeous as ever while he did.
Crag ate more politely, holding the rather limp slices gingerly in his huge hands. It was hard to tell how much experience either of them had with this particular delicacy.
More curiosity itched at me. Torrent had indicated that shadowkind moved around my world—the “mortal realm,” as the shadowkind called it—pretty extensively, but for beings like Crag and Lance, their ability to participate in what I’d consider regular life must have been limited. Even in their mostly human forms, they couldn’t have walked into a restaurant or wandered through the streets with that jaw or those claws.
“What do shadowkind like you normally do here?” I asked them. “In the mortal realm. When you’re not saving random humans from other shadowkind, I guess. You just hang out and enjoy the atmosphere?”
“We keep busy,” Lance said breezily. “Always lots going on around here. Much more interesting than the shadow realm.”
Crag shot him a baleful look and attempted to answer my question more directly. “Some shadowkind mingle with humans. That’s harder for us.” He rubbed his rocky jaw. “But it’s still good exploring different terrain. Watching from afar.”
“Or in your case, from above,” I suggested, thinking of his wings.
He grunted, his voice coming out with a growl. “I can’t let mortals see me flying around.”
My nerves jumped at the brusqueness of his voice, but only for an instant. A second later, his jaw twitched with a hint of a grimace. I was starting to get the impression that he didn’t mean to be as gruff as he sometimes came across. It was just his default state, nothing specifically to do with anything I did or said.
For all his grumbling while he’d been walking me through shadowkind fighting techniques, he’d actually been very patient. And helpful, even if I couldn’t pull off many of the moves he’d suggested all that effectively against an attacking monster. And that moment when all that brawn had loomed over me on the floor, his arm wrapped around me to protect me from the fall…
Okay, I really shouldn’t be remembering all the possibilities that closeness had stirred up in my head. It hadn’t been that long since I’d last gotten laid.
But when had I ever gotten laid by a guy so physically impressive? It wasn’t weird for me to be curious about that, right? At this point, I probably knew him better than most of the random dudes who’d caught my eye and been up for a quick roll in the sack, even if that wasn’t very much. There’d never seemed like much point in aiming for anything more, when I couldn’t exactly offer much in terms of commitment given my short expiration date.
None of them had made me wish for a longer commitment. The guys I ran into all seemed to be too cautious to embrace the thrills I liked to chase or too aimless in their recklessness to understand what it meant to have a sense of purpose too. They hadn’t cared about me, only about getting off. Which didn’t really matter as long as I got off too.
They had at least been human, though.
I jerked my mind back to the present, tuning out the heat that had unfurled in my abdomen as well as I could. “Okay, so you can’t do a ton of urban sightseeing from the air. It still must be pretty amazing flying at all.” The memories of my flights in his arms were exhilarating even when tempered by my worries.
Crag paused and then inclined his head. “I do enjoy it when I can. It is… freeing. I can be weightless even at my size.”
I wondered if it felt similar to the rush I got when I climbed to the top of a high rise, defying gravity in my own way.
“Also makes for easier hunting,” Lance piped up. “The gargoyle likes to pounce. Makes Torrent sad for the animals, though, so we mostly stick to human-made.” He dropped another piece of pizza into his mouth.
“Getting to try different types of provisions is another benefit of the mortal realm,” Crag said. He studied his second slice as if he wasn’t totally sure he approved of this type.
“There’s much better pizza out there,” I assured him. “You’ve got to get it from a restaurant instead of a grocery store.” I paused. “I guess that’d be difficult.”
Lance chuckled. “Slink through the shadows, nab one off the counter, chow down someplace else. No problem. Too far to bring one like that here, though. It’d be ruined.”
“So you steal on a regular basis?” I said. Should that surprise me? They were monsters. Maybe it was ridiculous to expect them to have any consideration for human laws.
I was anticipating a typically playful remark from Lance, but it was Crag who answered. “Humans steal all the time from each other.”
Well, I couldn’t argue against that. “I don’t steal,” I felt the need to say.
“Lucky you that you can get yourself a lovely pizza pie without having to,” Lance said, tilting back his chair just a smidge shy of toppling over onto his back. Although he was so agile he’d probably have managed to land on his feet even if it had toppled. “We don’t spend all day doing that. That’d be boring too. There’s roaming and playing and our duties when we have them and?—”
My mind homed in on that one word. “Duties? What kind of duties?” I hadn’t gotten the impression before that these guys answered to anyone other than themselves—that any shadowkind did.
Before either of the men could answer, Torrent wavered into being at the far end of the table. He must have been hanging out in the shadows while we’d talked—under the chair? Getting a great view of our feet while he had to follow the conversation mutely? There weren’t any ideal shadowy vantage points in the room that I could see, not where he’d be near us.
He stayed standing, his tentacles braced at either side of his body, and nodded to my plate. “Are you just about done? Now that you’ve had a break, maybe you should get in some more combat practice. Especially if we’re hoping to leave the cabin soon.”
The thought of leaving gave me a jolt of energy. I looked down at the half-eaten slice still on my plate, both greasy and overly chewy, and nudged the plate aside. “Sure. But I still—Lance mentioned duties. Do you all have jobs or something?”
Torrent frowned as if annoyed that I hadn’t dropped the subject. Was that why he’d popped up all of a sudden—as a way of distracting me?
But Lance just shrugged, still rocking his chair precariously on its back legs. “I only meant our duties to ourselves, to enjoy the best possible life.” He flashed a grin at me.
His comment hadn’t sounded like that, but he obviously didn’t want to tell me whatever he had meant.
I exhaled in a huff, giving up for the moment, and glanced at Crag, expecting him to direct my second sparring session. But it was Lance who leapt up. He flipped both himself and the chair, whirling in mid-air to land on his feet as I’d imagined. With a flick of his hand, he caught the chair and set it down easily next to him.
“I wouldn’t mind stretching my combat skills,” he said. “And you should mix it up. Too much time with Crag, and you’ll start lumbering too.”
The stony giant let out a brief sound of consternation but pushed away from the table without complaint. “I should patrol again.”
When I glanced back at Torrent in case he objected, the tentacled man had already vanished. It was just me and the ferally handsome, fearsomely clawed shadowkind who already had my pulse thrumming faster with that grin of his. He waggled his talons, and a shiver crawled up my spine that really should have been all fear… but a significant part of it was excitement.
I wanted to squeeze every thrill I could out of my probably short life, hadn’t I? How many people could say they’d faced off against a gorgeous monster?
I just wouldn’t think about all the other things parts of me were contemplating doing with that monster. Between him and Crag, I might need a cold shower—or several.
“Where should I try to hit you when you’re in shadowkind form?” I asked him. I’d only seen him as a blur of scales and limbs before. I was even less sure what he looked like as a monster than I was with Crag.
Lance’s grin widened. “Telling you would be cheating, wouldn’t it? With any other beasties, you’d have to figure it out for yourself. But I’ll shift so you know what you’re dealing with. It’ll be more fun that way.”
He’d only just finished speaking when his body started to morph. One second, he was standing there all human-like with his dark, curly hair, golden-brown skin, and crooked smile. The next, he was stretching out on all fours.
His head elongated alongside his torso, his clothes rippling away into emerald-green scales. Along his gleaming lips, his teeth curved into fangs. Spikes jutted from the back of his neck all down his back to the tip of his tapered tail, which was nearly as long as the rest of his body.
I gaped. He was… a dragon. That was the only word that fit. A sleek, sinewy, wingless dragon, about the size of a tiger, all vibrant gemstone colors.
The only concrete aspects that fit his human-like form were the ever-present claws and the violet eyes, now set beneath scaled ridges on his reptilian forehead. But the creature in front of me still felt like Lance in other intangible ways: the sinewy grace to its movements as it prowled around me in the living room, the feral air that reminded me a creature could be both pretty and incredibly dangerous.
I reeled in my slackened jaw and shook the shock from my limbs. I needed to concentrate. If a beast like this came at me wanting to hurt me, what spots was it most likely to be vulnerable?
Like Crag had said before, the eyes were an obvious target on just about any creature, and Lance was no exception there. I wasn’t sure his snout would be all that sensitive, especially with the many sharp teeth it contained. More jewel-like plates covered his throat and belly, which didn’t look like a good bet for a punch.
Maybe his feet would still be vulnerable? As long as I could stomp on them without skewering my own feet on his claws.
Lance apparently decided that I’d had enough time to contemplate my strategy. He sprang at me without warning, leaping through the air as if he could fly even without wings.
I threw myself to the floor and rolled out of the way. He swiveled as he landed, his tongue flicking over his fangs in an expression that looked like a dragon version of his usual smirk. In an instant, he was bounding off the walls, whirling around me, with the same nimble speed I’d seen from him in his human-like form.
I ducked and spun and jabbed, my breath already turning ragged. He didn’t actually attack me, didn’t touch me other than the slightest graze of his smooth scales against my arm here, my back there, but he was showing me how easily he could have. Each time I swung my arm or slammed out my foot, he was someplace else before my strike could land.
At least I could be glad this particular monster was on my side?
“You know, Crag let me ease into the fight,” I said between gulps of air, doing my best to keep pivoting to face him. “I’m not some kind of shadowkind-fighting powerhouse already.”
Lance snorted as if the thought of cutting me any slack was absurd—or maybe he figured he was already cutting me enough slack by not eviscerating me a hundred times over. I’d swear I saw a glimmer of flame flare from his mouth along with the sound, but it vanished a second later.
Well, dragon, fire-breathing—it went with the territory, didn’t it? That was how he’d sealed up the wound on my arm.
“You have to at least be careful of my chest,” I insisted. “You don’t want to bash it and send my heart onto the fritz, or it won’t be those ‘beasties’ that kill me.”
I couldn’t tell whether Lance understood how serious I was. He twined closer, and I heaved my shoulder into his scaled side, managing to dodge around him at the last second. His tail smacked my ankles. I wobbled and leapt over it, and rammed my elbow toward one of his flared nostrils in case his nose was sensitive after all.
My arm glanced off the side of his cheek instead. He whipped around and pushed me against the wall. His scales and fangs fell away, and suddenly it was Lance the man looming over me, his hands pinning my wrists to the wood paneling, amusement dancing like fire in his violet eyes.
“Too slow,” he said in a singsong voice.
I was panting for breath, my entire body tingling with the exertion of the fight—as much as it’d even been a fight rather than me simply flailing. The awareness of the dragon shifter’s body so close to mine sent a flood of heat through me that only amplified the tingles.
I licked my lips instinctively, and Lance tracked the movement. He leaned closer, his head dipping as if to inhale the scent of my skin.
My heart skipped a beat. All at once, I wanted—wanted something I couldn’t put into words, with a sharp, heated craving that pulsed low in my belly. Like the flings with the guys who’d stirred up the exhilaration I was longing for once or twice until I’d realized they weren’t enough. They weren’t what I needed.
I’d never found what I really needed. I wasn’t sure it even existed. But right now, a whole lot of me wanted to find out if it could be the monstrous man in front of me.
“Like what you see, baby girl?” Lance said in a languid voice that held a hint of mockery. The teasing note jerked me back to reality.
Scratching an itch, getting a quick jolt of physical satisfaction was one thing. Being curious about my unusual protectors, fine. But to seriously be considering making out with a literal monster? Even a stunning one? That… That couldn’t be a good idea, right?
I told myself it wasn’t, but somehow the craving didn’t subside. What was wrong with me? A chill washed through me, the intensity of my desire scaring me enough to dull the heat. I jerked to the side, away from Lance, and he let me go.
“I think—I think that’s enough sparring for today,” I said, wiping at my sweat-damp forehead as I tried to gather my scattered thoughts.
Lance considered me with his head cocked as if he was trying to figure out what was going on inside my mind. Since I wasn’t even sure of that, he probably didn’t get far. He shot me another smile. “Whatever you want.” Then he was flickering away into the shadows, leaving me alone.
Adrenaline was still racing through my veins. I dragged in one breath and then another, but the jitteriness didn’t subside.
This was all just… too much. Too crazy. And I had no idea what to do with any of it. How to react to my supposed saviors. How to make it safe for me to leave. What to say to my parents or the professors who’d be wondering about my absence soon.
Fuck.
I rubbed my forehead, swallowing the lump that’d risen in my throat. A different sort of longing hit me—for Torrent to appear in his usual chair and talk to me, distract me from the chaos inside me.
I wasn’t sure he actually liked me all that much, but his measured responses made for easier conversation than Crag’s gruff answers or Lance’s unpredictable teasing.
Why would he want to show up just to chat, though? My gaze fell on his usual armchair—identical to the other three, identically wrong for his monstrous body. It wasn’t really fair of me to expect him to put himself in pain just so I’d feel better. Too many people had already sacrificed too much so that I could be here at all.
A twinge of an earlier impulse rippled through me. My fingers curled toward my palms as if to hold it off. I hesitated.
Oh, why the hell not? It’d give me something to do, and it’d make life a little better for Torrent, at least. I’d be giving back a tiny bit in exchange for not getting slaughtered. If he didn’t like it, he had three other chairs to squeeze his tentacles into.
I strode over to the chair and patted my hands along the arms. As I’d expected, the hard bits were around the edges—the middle section held only padding beneath the fabric. That was simple enough to adapt.
I didn’t think my pocketknife would do the best job, so I went to the kitchen and found the sharpest blade there, a carving knife about the length of my hand. Then I knelt by the armchair and dug it into the fabric.
It took some sawing, angling carefully so I didn’t go too badly against the grain of the cloth, but after several minutes I’d cut out a chunk about a foot wide and half as high. I trimmed down the foam padding to smooth it out and then sliced through the layer of fabric on the inside of the arm.
The chair looked a little weird with that gaping hole in the side, but if I could find some glue or a needle and thread—heck, even a stapler—I could attach the spare fabric over the edges of the padding to make it more cohesive again.
For starters, I’d balance it out. I moved to the other side of the chair and wielded the knife again.
I was carving the third side of the rectangular opening when Torrent appeared behind the chair. He peered down at me, his brow furrowed beneath the fall of his rumpled red hair. “What are you doing?”
I paused and glanced up at him, a little concerned that it wasn’t obvious. “I noticed the chairs don’t… fit you very well. This seemed like an easy adjustment to make. And it’s not like I’ve got anything else all that useful to do.”
He stared at me for a moment before he spoke again, his expression and his tone coolly impassive. “Is this something you do a lot? Fixing random things for people?”
A blush crept over my cheeks. “Well, kind of. I’ve spent a lot of time studying how things are constructed—mostly buildings, but engineering knowledge is useful for figuring out how smaller-scale objects are designed as well—and if I see where I could make a quick improvement… Is it okay? Were you particularly attached to the chair the way it was?” It wasn’t super modern but not old enough to pass for an antique. And why would a monster care about human historical value anyway?
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s all right. Very considerate of you. Thank you. I’ll let you finish.”
He didn’t sound all that grateful, but then, I hadn’t done it for a pat on the back. Still, he vanished back into the shadows so swiftly I couldn’t help wondering if I’d made some horrible faux pas after all.