Chapter 13 #2
He waved his hand over the leather cover, tilting his head as he sensed for the magick, she guessed. “Is he dead?”
She nodded, still having trouble saying that he was. She’d hardly had time to mourn the loss of him.
Kade shook his head. “When a Deuce creates illusions, they die with him. It doesn’t always work with demons that are summoned, unfortunately, or tulpas.”
“Tulpas? What are those?”
“Later,” Cyn said, picking up both books. “Time to go.”
“Later. Always later.” She looked back at Kade. “They’re not good, are they?”
“She’s newly minted,” Cyn said at Kade’s confused look. Apparently, she should know all this. “Don’t ask. It’s a long story.”
“In other words, later,” she said to Kade.
Kade chuckled, but his expression quickly grew serious. “Sounds like you’re in dangerous territory.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ruby and Cyn said at the same time. He shook his head and headed to the door. “Have you felt any change in the Deus Vis lately?”
“Yeah, the solar storm flares are kicking in. It’ll get worse once the winds hit, Crescents getting irritable, others getting weak. Nothing we can’t handle.”
Cyn didn’t contradict that last statement. He clasped Kade’s hand. “Thanks, I appreciate the help. And the confidentiality.”
“This isn’t going to put me in a position to lie to my superiors or give you away, is it?” Kade asked, following them out the door. “You know what I went through. I can’t do that.”
“No one should connect you to me.”
Kade put a hand on Cyn’s shoulder just before he would follow Ruby onto the deck. “You ever going to tell me why you quit so suddenly?”
She paused at his low voice, wanting to hear the answer, too.
“All I can say is, trust your gut above all else. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Kade didn’t look any happier with that non-answer than Ruby was. “Be careful,” he called out as they left.
She waited until they neared Cyn’s car before reaching for his forearm. “You had the same tattoo Kade has. V for Vega, I presume.”
He watched her trace the lines. “Yes, they use magick ink, inscribed by a Deuce with that particular skill.”
“But yours is faded.”
“They use magick to take it away, too, when you leave.”
She saw the shadows in his eyes. “Come on, tell me. Why did you quit?” When his expression hardened, she said, “Oh, wait. I know. Later.”
That actually got a smile out of him.
* * *
Cyn’s body was plastered to her backside.
It wasn’t an altogether bad feeling.
Okay, it shot heat through her, little electrical sparks down to areas that hadn’t felt anything like that before meeting Cyn. And her Dragon was writhing in pleasure, which felt weirder than anything else.
They were in his workout room, and she was supposed to be learning how to fight with the walking stick. His arms were around her as he showed her how to position her hands on the stick.
“Hold it firmly, hands roughly shoulder width apart,” he was saying just above her ear.
She didn’t mean to, but she leaned slightly into him, her eyes closing for a second.
Something about his body enveloping hers, the strength of him, made her feel safe.
She’d never needed to feel safe before, never had a guy act protectively on her behalf.
She was too tough to need a guy’s help. Until now.
And somehow Cyn and his protector role aroused her, too. Get hold of yourself.
She focused on their hands, side by side on the carved wood. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” The word rumbled next to her ear. “You have excellent posture, shoulders even and up, body straight.”
She swore her Dragon purred in response. She was kind of getting used to it. Something else had changed, too, in the way she moved. Subtle, but definitely different. Since she’d Awakened, she had gained an awareness of her body.
And with sexy-as-sin Cyn around and half naked, another part of her body had awakened, too. Because for an old man, he totally rocked.
Twenty One Pilots was playing on his sound system, now streaming Routines in the Night.
Her Dragon sighed.
“Okay, Ruby, pretend I’m an assailant who’s come up behind you.
If you’re not expecting it, you’d have the stick down like this.
” He guided the stick so the tip hit the floor, molding her hand over the smooth knob at the top with his.
“The instant my arms go around you, bring the stick up and hit me in the neck. The element of surprise only lasts a second or two, so capitalize on those seconds.” He clamped his arms over her shoulders.
The problem was that it felt so good that she didn’t want to make him move away.
“Ruby? Attacking you, remember? Don’t worry about hurting me. I’m tough.” He was real tough, not her bluff tough, she realized.
She needed to get real tough, too.
She pulled up the stick, stopping when it touched his neck. Then she twisted out of his grip and swung it toward the side of his head, like a baseball batter.
He didn’t even flinch or try to stop the movement. “Good job. Do it again.”
They worked for another hour, and she was glad he’d made her fortify herself with eggs and toast when they’d returned to his house.
He taught her some general moves, for those times when she couldn’t Catalyze and now, when she didn’t have the stick.
They moved past the Twenty One Pilots back to the music Cyn had in his music system, and now Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant belted out about needing a whole lotta love.
Which she really did not need to hear with Cyn periodically pressing some part of his body against hers.
She faced him, blocking his attempts to grab her. “Is this what you would have been doing if Mon had brought me to you when I was thirteen?”
“Yes. At the dojo though, in a class.”
She knocked his hand back, hearing their flesh collide with a loud smack.
Her eyes met his. “And now I get private lessons.”
He merely grunted in response, then lunged forward to grab her. Remembering the move he’d just taught her, she grabbed him back. Which, unfortunately, knocked them both off balance. He tried to right them, she overcorrected, and down to the wood floor they went, her on the bottom.
He braced himself with his hands to keep from falling on top of her, which left him hovering over her. “It would not be effective to have the demon land on top of you.”
He didn’t get up, even though she could see the strain of his arm muscles as he poised over her like he was going to do a push-up.
She could feel his heat, and more so, the heat in his gaze as his eyes locked onto hers.
He lowered his mouth, so subtly she might have imagined it.
Her body strained to meet him halfway. God, her Dragon was going nuts.
He suddenly stood, reaching down to help her to her feet. He’d been about to kiss her. So why hadn’t he? She had to get a handle on her disappointment, and the fact that her disappointment meant she wanted it, too.
He released her hand the moment she’d gained her footing. “Now we do some Dragon work. I don’t know how much time we’re going to have here, or if we’ll get back to the dojo. Still need candles?”
Oh, yeah, a challenge. She saw it in the glint of his eyes. “Yes.” She had to stop letting him manipulate her.
He had a lazy sway to his gait as he walked over and lit the candles. She hit the light switch, plunging the room into a den of candlelight.
“You’re going to have to grow up and get over the candles,” he said as he returned.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I am grown up.” She pulled off her shirt and tossed it to the floor, her gaze on him.
He paused, embers flickering in his eyes. “Ruby, don’t do that.”
“Do what?” She pushed down her pants and kicked them off.
“Play the seductress. This is not the time nor the place for it.”
She laughed, more of a sputter. “Me, a seductress? You’re kidding, right?” Like she could seduce a man like him.
He did not seem to share her amusement. Or her disbelief. “Look at yourself.”
She found her reflection, taking in the cant of her hips and the swell of her breasts because of the way she stood straight and confident. The soft, undulating light played over her skin. She could only stare for a moment. “I’m…”
“Beautiful.”
She met his gaze in the mirror, her heart thudding at the way he’d said the word, the way he’d meant it. “I was going to say different. I feel different since you Awakened me.”
“It’s the Dragon. They’re sensual creatures, and now that sensuality flows through your veins.”
Yes, it does.
“So that’s why I threw myself at you?”
“The only reason.”
“Then why did you kiss me back?”
He shrugged. “Caught up in the moment. Let’s get to work.”
She Catalyzed, still overtaken by the transformation.
He shucked his pants and became Dragon, too.
She charged him, eager to release some of her pent-up energy.
If she battered him a bit, all the better, since he was the source of it.
She rammed into his shoulder, bouncing back because he didn’t budge.
“Give me what you got, Ruby.”
Sheesh, even in Dragon speak, he could say her name like that. She faced off with him, figuring out her next angle of attack. He lunged beneath her, lifting his head and sending her rolling down his back. She landed off balance but bounded up quickly.
“Good recover,” he said as he swung his head around and pinned her against his shoulder. “As Dragon, your throat is your most vulnerable area. There’s a kill spot just beneath your chin where the scales are thinner. Our enemies know this. Never let anyone near your neck.”
Ruby knocked him back, freeing herself. She swung her tail at him, and he blocked it. The firelight shone and danced on his scales, making him as gorgeous as Dragon as he was as human.
“Do Dragons have sex?” she asked. “I mean, they seem…”
“Horny?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”