12 AURORA
Without Tally and London’s body heat blocking the entrance, the freezing island wind whistles straight through the rusted gaps in the corrugated iron.
Plastic raincoats aren’t big on insulation.
As I shiver, Francois steps close, then wraps his arms around me. I allow it.
Somewhere along this mad journey, I’ve stopped fighting him completely. But I’m not sure I know what that means.
I look up at his face. The discolored purple bruise along his jaw from Tally’s fist is wrong. We need to trust one another, stick together. It’s only as a team that we can bring Sky home.
The idea of having Francois on a team with me, wanting him by my side, just a week ago would have been ludicrous.
True madness.
He’s a different person to the man he was in Quo.
I still don’t really understand why he was there. He says cryptic things about me, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a straightforward, honest explanation.
And it’s about time I did. It’s the only way I’ll be truly able to have faith in him. “What was the real reason you were in Quo, Francois?”
“I told you. To protect you.”
But why?
Why would a twenty-year-old Elite, who I’ve barely ever spoken to, have himself incarcerated for my sake? It doesn’t make sense.
The only thing that would, would be if he…had feelings for me. Which I admit, I think he does, but feelings strong enough to go to Quo on my behalf?
No.
“What else?” I ask, my voice firm. “There’s more to it, there has to be.”
Francois lets out a slow breath, his hand dropping back to his side. “Why? Don’t you believe I’d do anything for you yet? Haven’t I proved it?”
My head swims. He’ll do anything for me?
I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m just…just.
Motherfucker.
“I-I don’t see it, Francois. You’re so cold. Too cold to feel, really feel.”
I think that’s true, but I see my words hit him like a slap.
He recoils, the aristocratic mask slipping entirely, exposing something raw and vulnerable. It makes my breath catch.
After the frozen moment, he moves, knuckles gently tracing the curve of my cheekbone. “I can’t feel?” he breathes. “I’m too cold?”
Then he frames my face in his hands and he pulls me close, capturing my mouth with his. His tongue teases the seam of my lips until I can’t resist the invitation.
And when the kiss deepens, all restraint evaporates into thin air. Francois becomes wild and demanding.
This is nothing like tender kisses I’ve shared with Tally and London. Nothing like that at all.
This is Francois.
My enemy, the snake.
My snake.
My mind and body give over to his control.
I’m being devoured, and I don't want it to stop.
His hand clutches the back of my head, fisting his long fingers into my short hair, then angling my head back to expose the line of my throat.
He trails hot lips all the way down my exposed neck, sucking and nipping.
Every touch is like liquid fire on my skin.
A moan escapes me, and the sound seems to drive him into an even wilder state.
I groan, aching with desire as Francois’s grip on my waist tightens, hauling me flush against him. His rigid length is obvious, hot and hard.
He claims my mouth again—deeper, harder.
Fuck. I feel delirious with need.
Who am I right now?
When he finally pulls back, breathing ragged, he shifts his mouth to my ear. “Does this feel cold to you, Aurora?" he snarls. I shift to look in his dark eyes, they’re burning with a wild, desperate hunger. I feel electricity spark at the base of my spine, as he claims my lips once more.
Want.
Need.
When we finally draw apart, his chest is heaving—as is mine. I stare at him, my lips tingling. Are my pupils blown out the same way?
I’m sure they are.
Then those eyes flicker, turning to slits. Francois throws me to the floor, and I crumple in a heap as the air shimmers a sickly green until his body transforms.
He shifts into a fucking enormous snake, his torso as thick as a tree trunk.
His diamond-shaped head covered in black scales that shimmer with an oily iridescence
When he rises up, he’s looming five feet above me.
Fuck.
My.
Life.
But then he swings around, massive jaws opening.
Not even a blink of an eye later he shoots across the room, launching himself up through the air to the entrance.
There was a man. With a gun.
Francois is wrapped around him, squeezing, crushing. The rifle clatters to the floor, almost bent double by the strength of his coils. I hear the crack of bones, but the man has no air in his lungs to scream.
The snake—Francois—stills, then unwinds himself, leaving the limp, broken body to drop onto the dirt.
Holy fuck.
The massive, triangular head swivels slowly away from the dead guard and towards me. The hairs on my arms stand up as the thick coils of his body slide over the dirt toward me.
The hard, cold stone against my back keeps me trapped in the corner.
Why am I panicking? This is just Francois. He wouldn’t hurt me.
But something about this innate creature feels so far from London’s faun and Tally’s wolf.
The snake doesn’t look at me with the eyes of a man I know. It looks at me with eyes of a predator—completely devoid of any human warmth.
Wump-ppp.
Thoughts race. He’s going to kill me. I was wrong. Idiot for trusting. Kissing. Fuck.
NO!
Taking a breath, I hold out a hand. Get a fucking grip, Aurora.
The massive body lowers, his forked tongue darting out, the wet tip brushing my palm.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I tell him. I’m sure he already knows that.
Wump-ppp.
Slowly, his smooth body slides alongside me.
Is it my imagination or is he shrinking?
Definitely shrinking.
Now Francois is ‘only’ six feet long and the girth of my thigh. A low, vibration-heavy rumble passing through his scales as he slithers onto my lap.
Huh. I guess snakes can purr.
So, as if he were a cat, I pet him. Leaning back on the wall, trying to ignore the crushed flesh-sack of bones at the entrance, I run my hand along his smooth scales.
Is Francois going to eat the man he killed?
And if so, why am I not freaked out by that?
Shit. Aurora Drakeward is certainly not who she used to be.
But there again, none of us are.
Especially Francois. He definitely gets the award for most improved team-mate.
The air around his scales suddenly shimmers and the black coils melt away, forming back into a human shape.
Then Francois is kneeling on the dirt floor, eyes still glued to mine.
“Aurora, I am a monster, but I would never hurt you. You have to believe that.” I look at the dead guard on the floor, then back to Francois’s worried eyes.
“I-I trust you.” I reach out and pull him closer. “Even though you’re a fucking massive snake, I really believe you won’t hurt me!” As I watch the tension leak out of him, I can’t resist prodding him with my finger. “But a giant-size-changing snake? What the fuck?”
“A basilisk, ma petite. King of the serpents.”
Well, of course, Francois wouldn’t be anything less. “What’s the French word for Basilisk?"
“Basilic,” he replies, pronouncing it bas ee leek.
“Francois de Vaux, basilic. Roi des serpents. It has a certain ring about it.”
He pulls me into his arms until I’m basically sitting in his lap. “I forget you have some of my language, petite. It will make our time in Paris even more enjoyable.”
I snuggle into his body as I give him a reminder.
“I’m not going to Paris with you, Francois.
But if you decide to take up your room in my currently totally-imaginary house, we can still speak French from time to time, d'accord? You can even be in charge of the house coffee situation. La situation concernant le café.”
A rumble comes from deep inside his chest. “You offer me a chambre in your fantasy home, but I would only be content to sleep wrapped around your body. I think your other housemates may dissent.”
I find myself wriggling even closer against the King of the Serpents, my cheek resting against the worn fabric of his blue sweatshirt. “Let’s not worry about the future just yet,” I murmur. “Freeing Sky, and all of us getting out of this mess unharmed and uncaptured is enough to be going on with.”
“Whatever you command, Aurora. I am at your disposal. Though I may have to crush a few more enemies any moment, but that will be pas de problème.” He grins.
It’s the first time I’ve seen an expression like that on Francois de Vaux’s face. “You should smile more, I like it.”
Francois’s gaze softens further, and it ruins me.
The first time I met Francois de Vaux, I’d erected an impenetrable wall between me and him. And now it crumbles to dust.
I’m still fucking confused, especially that I have feelings for three men at the same time, but I know that the words he’s confessed to me are real.
As real as my reaction to his touch.
His kisses.
The metal shed groans as a blast of icy wind hits it. The noise makes me zoom back to reality.
We’re on a sex-traffickers secret island, while being fugitives on the run from the law.
Relationship dilemmas and newly awakened sexual feelings have to go on the back burner.
Burner.
I eye the row of red gas cans London had pointed out. We really should burn it all down.
But first we need to know where Sky is.
“Shouldn’t we have heard from Tally by now? How long do we wait until we go find them?”
“Trust the wolf,” Francois answers me. “He knows what he’s doing.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’ve changed your mind about Tally then? I thought you hated him.” I watch him carefully, interested in his response.
He shrugs. “I have never hated him. I’ve been jealous, yes. Felt superior, obviously. But not hate. It’s apparent that he is competent—and dedicated to you. That sits well with me.”
“Wow, look at you being all grown-up and explaining your feelings!”
He scowls, but unseriously. “Careful, chipie. I am still a de Vaux, and we detest being psychoanalyzed.”
Ha. I file that nugget of information away to torment him with at a later date. “What about…”
A screech of static explodes from Francois’s waistband. The walkie-talkie.
Tally’s voice distorts through the tiny plastic speaker. “Rory? Frank? Do you copy? Head towards the forest edge, by a row of garages. Go now. We have a window of opportunity, but we have to move. Now, guys, now!”