Chapter 11
A scream ripped from me as I hurtled through the darkness toward the thrashing waves and sharp rocks.
The wind snatched the sound and pulled at my clothes as if trying to stop my fall.
Air rushed past, the roar of it deafening.
It almost sounded like someone calling my name.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable.
I should have been more careful. I should have—
A warm gust of air slowed my fall, then something smooth and hard appeared beneath me.
Forcing my eyes open, I took in the expanse of black between my legs.
Unlike the ocean’s surface, which was rough and frothy, the creature under me was hard and smooth, with shining obsidian scales that looked like someone had trapped the night sky in them and then polished them to perfection.
My breath hitched in my chest. I was on a dragon, a real live dragon, sitting behind
the curve of its shoulders and straddling the base of its neck.
And from the way my magic hummed contentedly, it was no random dragon. It was Riley. He snaked his head around and appraised me with one large amber eye.
My mouth fell open.
Riley was a dragon shifter.
He winked, then faced forward again, his wings beating gently on either side of me.
Riley had saved me, which was no surprise. He was always saving me with his words, his playful gestures, his unshakeable confidence, but how had I missed that he was a shifter?
Looking back, there were so many clues: his flame magic, the thermal scales for my costume, his tendency to hoard random things like pen caps.
Even the fact that he’d told me he was drawn to my magic should’ve given it away, but I hadn’t realized it affected shifters the same way it affected animals.
The truth had been right in front of me.
I braced myself by planting both palms on the smooth, slippery scales and sucked in a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart. Even though I should’ve been freaking out, it was hard to feel anything but relief with Riley here. He’d come for me.
His large, leathery wings beat rhythmically on either side of me, a lulling, comforting sound that belied the power stored in his body.
We skimmed across the top of the water, close enough to the ocean that the spray misted against my face.
The wind tangled my hair and clothes, so I leaned closer, soaking in the warmth that emanated from Riley and breathing in his smokey, coffee scent.
Riley’s presence wrapped around me like a protective amulet, and my racing pulse slowed.
I slipped my arms around his neck, soaking in his warmth, then glanced over my shoulder at the ridges running down his spine and his sinuous tail that flicked behind us. It was the same shape as that tattoo I’d seen on his arm. Another clue I’d missed.
Riley was as long as the small delivery truck that brought our supplies for the bakery, and his movements as a dragon were as smooth and confident as when he was a human.
Seconds later, we were back at the beach, but at an isolated section around a bend from the bonfire bash. Riley landed on a stretch of sand surrounded by dunes and twisted driftwood, the gusts from his wings flattening the surrounding beach grass.
His claws gouged giant marks in the sand, and some of the grains hit my skin, reminding me that this was real.
Someone had just tried to kill me, but I was alive. And Riley was a dragon shifter.
I slid off his back and staggered on the uneven sand, my legs shaky.
Moments later, Riley was in front of me in nothing but a pair of pants. His eyes flared with gold as if a fire burned in them. He grabbed my shoulders, his grip tight. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I-I’m fine.” My teeth chattered as if to contradict me.
His hands slid down my arms, his touch frantic, like my words alone weren’t enough to calm his racing heart and he had to do everything in his power to prove I was okay. He crushed me against him, the warmth of his bare chest enveloping me. “I promised not to let anything happen to you.”
“You didn’t.” I shook my head, and though I should’ve pushed away to look Riley in the face, I couldn't make myself leave the security of his arms.
“You almost died!”
My breath caught again as the horror of the moment threatened to swallow me.
Someone had tried to kill me.
“I know,” I mumbled against his chest.
Riley pulled back, and for a moment I was adrift. But then his lips crashed against mine, as demanding as the tide.
One of his hands trailed down my side before wrapping around my middle, pulling me closer. The other tangled itself in my hair, which was wild and loose from my fall.
I melted against him, soaking in his warmth, his scent, the taste of coffee on his lips.
His kiss was a wild collision of longing and worry that had been bottled up too long and exploded at the slightest touch of his lips on mine.
It was a silent plea, begging me not to go anywhere he couldn’t follow.
When we pulled apart, Riley leaned his forehead against mine. I exhaled shakily and curled my fingers against his warm back.
“I’ve been wanting to do that again since the moment we were interrupted at the party,” he said in a rough voice.
His words brought me back to reality, and I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would stop the way my chest tightened.
How many times would I have to remind myself that this wasn’t real?
But his words had stripped away the last of my pretenses until I could no longer unsee the second truth that had also been in front of me—one I’d refused to acknowledge.
Despite myself, I was falling in love with Riley.
I liked his sometimes baseless confidence and how he was unabashedly himself.
I liked his weird obsession with hoarding pen caps.
But most of all, I liked how he’d never once tried to tell me what to do.
He always listened and supported me, and he was always exactly what I needed—someone to help me grow and let me make my own mistakes but be there to catch me when I fell. Literally.
And now there was no unfeeling what I felt, no unknowing what I knew. Which meant that once the potion wore off, I’d have to get Riley to love me for real. But first, it was only fair to remind him of the truth, even if he didn’t want to listen.
I pulled away, putting my back to Riley while I gathered my courage. It would be so easy to soak in this moment instead of facing reality. “None of this is real.”
“You falling off that cliff felt pretty real to me.”
I whirled to face him, swallowing past the tightness in my throat. “Not that. This”—I waved a hand between us—“isn’t real. Your feelings for me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I must have lost my touch with kissing, because that’s definitely not what I was trying to convey just now.”
“You’re only saying and doing these things because of that love potion,” I said. “You don’t actually like me, but maybe you could if you gave me a shot. I’m nothing like Lizzy, but I—”
Riley laughed, which, all things considered, was a little insulting.
I put a hand on my hip. “What?”
“Why are you bringing up Lizzy?”
“Because you always bring her up,” I said, holding his gaze. “I thought you liked her.” I had until I talked to Lizzy, anyway.
“What are you talking about?”
I crossed my arms. “You constantly mention her when we’re together, like at the party when you asked if she was coming.”
“I wanted to make sure she didn’t get a jump on me for the story.”
“Oh.” I blinked at him. “And what about all the other times? When you called me Lizzy’s sister, compared our organizational skills, and brought up our shared caffeine intolerance?”
He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “When you put it that way, I might have overdone it a bit.”
“But why bring her up at all?”
“Because Lizzy isn’t just a coworker; she’s a friend. I knew going in that if I flirted with her little sister, it couldn’t be casual. It was going to have to be all or nothing.”
“This doesn’t feel like nothing now.” My voice shook to match my pounding heart.
“That's because it's not.” He took my hand. “I’m all in."
I dropped my gaze to the sand. Another wave crashed against the shore, reaching so far up that it almost touched us. “This is just the potion speaking. You won’t feel this way once it wears off.”
“Kitty, I thought this was obvious when I willingly ate those cookies, but I guess it wasn’t.” He put a finger under my chin and tilted my face up until I had to look him in the eye. “Love potions don’t work on dragon shifters.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Most witch magic doesn’t work on us.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”
“I thought you knew. I figured Lizzy might have told you I was a shifter, and that’s why you’d drawn a dragon on your jack-o’-lantern the other night.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “And I just assumed you knew that your magic didn’t affect me since you seem to know everything else about potions.”
“I don’t know everything, especially about shifters.”
“Then allow me to teach you.” He flashed me that charming smile again, but I refused to be derailed.
“If you were unaffected by my magic, then what on earth were you trying to prove by eating those cookies? It wouldn’t have killed you either way.”
“Of course it would have. Just because the spells don’t affect me doesn’t mean I’m immune to whatever deadly reaction you thought you concocted. But I trust my instincts, and they were telling me your cookies were safe.”
“But if the love potion didn’t work on you, that means…”
His thumb caressed my jaw. “That everything I’ve been saying and doing the last few days was because I wanted to?” He took another step forward and slid an arm around my waist. “Nice of you to notice finally.”
I bit my lip, my heart pounding a mile a minute.
He leaned close so his words were feather-light touches against my lips. “Considering there was never any question of you being influenced by a love potion and you still kissed me—twice now, I might add—does that mean that I can kiss you again and we’ll both be clear on what it means?”
I smiled and pushed up on my tiptoes, wrapping an arm around his neck to hold him close so I could whisper against his lips, “And what exactly does it mean?”
He pulled back a little and kissed my forehead. “That.” My left cheek. “I.” My right cheek. “Can’t get.” My nose. “Enough of.” My forehead. “You.” Then his mouth was on mine again.
Without the desperate edge, his lips were soft and slow. It was as comforting as a well-formulated spell and as warm as a loaf fresh from the oven. His hands trailed down to the small of my back, and he tugged me closer.
A sigh slipped out of me as he pulled away, and he grinned. “That good, huh?”
“So good.” I nuzzled against his chest.
He wrapped his warm fingers around my cold ones. “I always knew we’d make a good match. You need someone to warm up those icicle fingers of yours.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought it was because I’d finally found someone who wouldn’t tell me what to do.”
He cocked his head, then shook it with a grin. “Nah, it’s definitely the body temperature thing. Plus, I enjoy being around your magic.”
“My magic?” I quirked an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Dragon-shifter magic can sometimes be unstable and wild. It takes more effort to control, but your magic calmed it. From the very first time I saw you, I felt your magic helping to balance mine. I need you in my life.”
I bit my lip, remembering the first time I’d met Riley and how he’d saved me from the books. “Maybe I needed you too. Or at least my magic must’ve thought you’d help balance me. It was why I was reaching for that book that toppled over, and the whole reason we met.”
He kissed my forehead. “Yet another reason to love your magic.”
I sighed again. “This was totally worth falling off a cliff.”
His jaw tightened. “Speaking of cliffs, what were you doing up there?”
“I was just talking to Jaxon and—”
“I knew he was bad news,” he said darkly, even though the two of them had gotten along surprisingly well.
I shook my head. “I don’t think it was Jaxon who pushed me. We finished talking a few minutes ago, and he had a phone call and walked back toward the party.”
“Someone pushed you?” His voice was a low growl, and his eyes flashed amber. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes, fighting off the memory. “I heard rustling behind me, then someone shoved me from behind.”
His arms grew stiff. “They tried to kill you.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard. “Did you see anyone coming back from the cliff?”
“I think I saw someone in an orange jacket, but then I saw you falling and didn’t pay attention to anything else. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed you fall if I hadn’t already been making my way toward you on the beach.”
“You didn’t hear me screaming?”
He shook his head. “The music and the waves covered the sound, at least until I shifted, and then I could hear you easily.”
The bonfire’s flickering flames in the distance reminded me that not that far away, people were partying, completely unaware that I’d almost died. They probably hadn’t even seen Riley shift since the black dragon blended into the night sky.
“Maybe they thought you were getting too close to the answer.” Riley studied me intently. “Are you close to the answer?”
I chewed my lip. “Well, I ruled out Jaxon as a suspect; we’d already ruled out Eve, and we haven’t found anything about the mystery girl, so that only leaves…”
Riley’s eyes flashed. “Caleb.”