CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“Good,” Severin says, “because unless you’ve become a weather witch, Skye, we need a dragon.”
“Nope. No weather.” Just books… and in-book Luke looking like he wants to eat me up. I shiver. We’re supposed to have another dance lesson and the promised dinner date soon. What’s going to happen? How soon is the book going to get spicy?
Luke’s deep voice snaps me back to the here and now. “Explain the parameters of the problem.”
“Black ice.” Hannah gestures down the old highway. “Patches of it all along the road. The driver says they almost crashed.”
“Can you burn it off?” Severin asks. “It’s several miles before it gets better.”
“I can, but not in this form.” Luke tips his head toward the length of road ahead. “And the town’s protection spell doesn’t extend far enough to hide me as a dragon.”
The shadow fae gestures toward the school bus. “It’s all right. I already have a glamour in place. The kids won’t see anything.”
“What about anyone else who might be nearby?” Hannah asks. “He’s going to be noticeable in the sky for miles around.”
“I can fly behind Luke and cast a continuous invisibility glamour over him.”
“Fine.” Luke fists the front of his shirt. With a pulse of magic, the fabric splits into sections and peels from his torso, like a starfish releasing from a rock. When he catches me ogling his chest, he smirks.
Snickerdoodle! Heat flushes my cheeks. I have not had enough caffeine yet to hide my expressions.
It immediately gets worse—or better, depending on how you look at it—and hoo, boy, do I look at it.
Luke turns and walks several yards away, his wings spreading as he tears his pants off. There’s a flash of his absolutely gorgeous muscular ass. Then an explosion of magic blasts through the air, and where Luke stood, there’s now a dragon.
A massive, oh-god-is-this-a-movie-special-effect, for-real dragon. The wings and tail look similar to his weredragon form, and the scales covering the rest of his body are the same red. He even has two black horns spiraling up from his head.
But he’s the size of a house, standing on four legs as wide as tree trunks, with fangs and claws as big as my arm. Magic rolls off him like heat from a forge—hot and dangerous and powerful.
“Luke?” His name squeaks from my tight throat, a tiny sound.
“Who else would it be?” His voice booms, but it’s familiar, still a bit arrogant and a lot grumpy.
And wonderfully his.
“Yep. You’re right,” I babble, nodding too much. “Just checking.”
He grunts and vaults into the air with another deep throb of magical power, his wings snapping wide as soon as he clears the treetops. Their first downbeat creates a wind that blasts over us, rippling everyone’s hair and clothes.
“That’s my cue.” Shadow wings emerge from Severin’s back, and he leaps skyward, being careful to stay behind the dragon.
Because Luke opens those fearsome jaws and shoots fire. Seeing him blast his hand with flame the other day had been surprising.
This is world altering.
Flames roar from him, a three-foot wide column of roiling heat and power. With perfect aim, he bathes the pavement of the highway, without a single spark drifting anywhere near any of the trees.
I gasp, and without realizing I’ve moved, I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with Hannah, my hands clasped in hers. My whole body shivers and shakes as I feel Luke’s incredible power thrumming through my chest.
I’m shook. Utterly and totally shook, a mix of semi-terrified awe and knee-trembling arousal.
With slow strokes of his wings, he flies forward, keeping up a steady stream of fire.
I can’t tear my eyes away, completely riveted. Even when they fly from view, continuing on down the highway out of sight, I stand mesmerized, watching the spot where Luke disappeared.
No. I’ll call him Lukendevener when he’s like this. I see now why dragons have such long names—they’re too big for short ones.
“Hey.” Hannah’s hands tighten on mine, and she shuffles around until she stands in front of me. “You okay?”
“Yes? No? Maybe?” I shake my head, trying to restart my brain. “Did you know he was actually”—my hand flaps toward where Lukendevener disappeared—“that?”
“Kind of? I saw dragons in their natural form when I went to Faerie for Naomi’s wedding, but they were teenagers.
Luke’s easily three times their size.” She grins and leans close, even though there’s no one near to hear us.
“I wonder how big he is and if he has two in this form.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“Stop!” I clap my hands to my blazing cheeks. “I can’t right now.”
“Oh, come on.” She laughs and points at my face. “You know you were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t, but I sure the fudge am now. And I need to not be, because when he gets back, I’m going to have to fly in his arms the whole way back to the castle.
” I fling a hand wide. “In his arms, Hannah! Do you know how hard that is under normal circumstances? I won’t survive it if I’m thinking about his two dicks. ”
“I don’t know. Doing it while flying can be a lot of fun.”
“Argh! You’re not helping!” I root around in first one pocket, then the next, finally pulling out a pack of cinnamon heart candies.
Hannah waves away my offer, so I pop a few into my mouth, hoping a little blood sugar will help me get myself together.
The spicy sweetness rolls across my tongue, comforting and familiar.
But it also reminds me of Luke, of the way he now carries the little red candies, offering them to me as we work side by side in the library, the way our fingers meet and linger when we reach for those bits of spice at the same time, the way his smoky sandalwood scent now carries a touch of cinnamon as if we’re already a couple.
A moving dot appears on the horizon, rapidly growing in size as Lukendevener soars back into range. He makes one lazy loop overhead before spiraling toward the ground.
Hannah and I tip our heads back to watch as his massive body glides overhead, so large he blocks out the sun.
“Damn. No dragon dicks hanging out for us to see,” Hannah mutters, squinting extra hard. “What’s up with that?”
“Probably a cock-pocket situation,” I whisper-hiss. “Or a hemipeen inversion.”
She whistles and gives me a surprised look of approval, which makes me shrug. “I read a lot.” And let’s just say that several of my recent smutty reads have featured dragons.
The wind of his wings blows over us as he lands, followed immediately by another powerful blast of magic. Luke stands in his weredragon form, stark naked.
And any doubts I had about whether he actually has two peens disappear like ice hit by dragon fire.
“Whoa,” Hannah says. “Naomi was right.”
I stand frozen, my mouth opening and closing in shock. I squint, wishing my eyes were better, wishing he were closer, wanting to trap this sight of him and hold it in my memory forever. Two. He really has two.
Then a curtain of shadows drops between us, and Severin lands on the ground and growls, “Clothe yourself in front of my wife, dragon.”
A grunt comes from behind the wall of shadows, and Luke walks through them, already dressed.
I bite back a sigh of disappointment. Seems I’m not going to get that closer look after all.
When Severin releases the glamour around the school bus, Hannah goes to tell the kids the good news. They’re still cheering as the bus edges past us, smiling little faces pressed tight to the windows so they can wave with all the amazing bubbly joy small children have.
Luke’s face goes soft as he watches them until they roll out of sight, that little curl lifting the left corner of his mouth. There’s a wistfulness in his expression that makes my heart pinch.
My heart skips with an idea. Fae hearing is way too good, so I whip out my phone and text Hannah.
She looks up from her screen to give me a nod.
I grin at her and barely stop myself from bouncing on my toes as I shoot another text to Naomi.
Happiness warms my chest at the thought of doing something special for Luke.
A million ideas race through my mind for how to make it the best surprise ever, and I wear my own little secret smile the entire way back to the castle.