Chapter 19
“I’m starting to recognize that face.”
Gunter looked down at the grinning mage walking beside him and quirked one eyebrow in question.
“That is your grumpy face. I bet your dragon wants to set something on fire.”
“My dragon always wants to set something on fire. And Ravi would argue that my grumpy face, as you call it, is my normal face. Or what he refers to as resting dragon face.”
Nikki cackled and slipped their arm through his. Just the sound of Nikki’s laughter worked miracles, washing away some of his anger and frustration.
They made a dismissive noise and waved their hand. “Nah. The face you make when Ravi is around is your irritated, ‘I want to strangle him’ face. The grumpy face comes out whenever someone pulls you out of the library before you’re ready.”
Gunter stopped in the middle of the long hallway leading to Alric’s office and frowned at his companion. “I don’t look at you like that when you pull me out for meals, do I?”
Wrapping their arms around his waist, Nikki pressed a tiny kiss to the center of his chest. “No, you just look very confused about this idea of eating and that we should be doing it three times a day.”
Okay, that was a little better. He wasn’t really confused by the concept of eating meals.
It was just the idea that enough time had passed since his last one to require yet another.
When he was working, it felt like he’d just sat down and gotten settled in his book when Nikki would begin nudging him to grab lunch or stop for dinner.
A sigh slipped past Gunter’s parted lips.
“We had just sat down in the library when Hoheit called.” Great skies above, did he just whine?
But to be fair to himself, Nikki had been straddling his lap, their head resting on his shoulder, while he flipped through a book he’d been reading for some research.
A deep sense of peace and rightness fell over him when Nikki was in his arms. It was where the mage belonged.
Having their cuddling cut short was not putting him in the right mood for a meeting with the kings.
“Well, after this meeting, we’ll have to sneak off somewhere they can’t find us,” Nikki suggested. “The library is a horrible hiding place. That’s the first place anyone will look for us. We need to go somewhere else. That way we can’t be called to any more meetings.”
A slow grin spread across Gunter’s face. “You want to sneak away?”
“For a little while. I know we can’t for long. The Jaeggi need to be found and stopped. We’re the only ones who can save the other mages in the world.”
Gunter took Nikki’s hand in his and started walking again. “What would we do when we found a good hiding place?”
Nikki hummed like they were thinking about it, but the blush starting to stain their pale cheeks argued Nikki knew exactly what they wanted to do. “I’m thinking you need to kiss me again. Like you did when you were drinking with Alric. You know, so we are sure it wasn’t a fluke or anything.”
“A fluke?” Gunter gasped, outraged at just the idea.
At least, until he realized Nikki was teasing him.
And he wanted to pay back that teasing tenfold, but…
. With Nikki’s hand held tight in his, he quickly scanned the hallway.
They weren’t far from Alric’s office, and he could already hear the voices of the other kings echoing down the corridor. But that door was perfect.
Gunter pulled Nikki along and stopped at the door in question.
He jerked it open and stuck his head inside, checking to make sure the room was indeed empty.
While decent sized, it was filled with boxes of office supplies and some random cleaning products.
Not exactly romantic, but it would serve his purpose.
After closing the door behind them and dropping his tablet on top of a box, Gunter deftly lifted his mage up and pinned their back against the door, while Nikki naturally wrapped their legs around his waist. Their face remained flushed, but now there was a wonderful sparkle of surprise and maybe even mischief in their wide eyes.
“What are you doing?” Nikki gasped.
“I thought it would be quite obvious. I’m proving to you my kisses are never a fluke.”
Nikki breathed a soft “Oh” before he captured those perfect lips in a deep kiss.
Gunter’s tongue slid inside and tangled with Nikki’s.
Fingers bit into his shoulders and their legs squeezed his hips, trying to pull him in tighter.
Perfect. Everything about Nikki was so damn perfect.
He could get lost in their kisses and the adorable little whimpering noises escaping their throat.
Gunter wanted to explore every inch of Nikki with his tongue. He’d simply peel away each piece of clothing, licking bits of flesh and nibbling on the truly interesting areas until Nikki was writhing and panting beneath him.
But they couldn’t. The meeting. The Jaeggi. They were expected.
Reluctantly, Gunter broke off the kiss, but he couldn’t completely pull away. He trailed lighter kisses across their jaw and then licked across Nikki’s Adam’s apple. Gunter moaned hotly against the damp skin. “You even taste like candy.”
“I do?” Nikki asked brokenly.
Gunter hummed again. “You smell like spun sugar and taste like cotton candy.”
“Then we should just stay in here forever. No one will find us. You can lick me all over.”
A ragged laugh escaped Gunter and he forced himself to finally lift his head. It couldn’t be a good sign when he and Nikki were thinking the same thing.
“We have to go. The kings are waiting for us.”
Nikki groaned and unwrapped their legs from around Gunter’s waist. Gunter kept ahold of Nikki until he was completely sure they were steady on their feet.
His eyes swept over their mussed hair, puffy lips, flushed cheeks, and even a bit of beard burn along their throat. They looked as if they’d been mauled.
“Do I look like I’ve been kissed?”
“Thoroughly kissed,” Gunter replied without thinking.
To his shock, Nikki puffed up and grinned wickedly before extending his hand to Gunter. “Good. I bet I even smell like you now. Let’s go to the meeting.”
Oh fuck. Nikki really had no idea what that did to Gunter—the knowledge of Nikki happy to be marked and claimed by him and wanting everyone to know it.
He nearly said fuck it and tossed the meeting out the window.
It took a second for him to reel back the impulse.
Taking Nikki now—roughly—was not how he wanted their first time together to go.
Taking their hand and picturing unsexy thoughts, Gunter pulled himself together by painful degrees.
He was lucky his brain worked well enough to remember to grab his tablet.
Gunter opened the door and stuck his head out, glancing up and down the hall.
Yes, it looked like he and Nikki had been making out, but he really didn’t want to be caught creeping out of the storage closet.
“Hey, Gunter!” Baldewin called out with a knowing grin on his face before Gunter could jerk his head inside again. “You coming to the meeting? Nikki with you?”
He couldn’t think fast enough. It also didn’t help that Nikki slipped through the narrow opening and smiled up at the other dragon as they waved. “Hey! We’ll be there in a second.”
Baldewin’s low chuckle followed him into Alric’s office, where he was undoubtedly telling everyone who would listen that he’d just caught Gunter coming out of the closet with Nikki. Lovely. Yes, he wanted everyone to know Nikki was his, but there had to be a more dignified way of doing it.
Though, dignified had flown out the window with that stupid drunk video. He needed to pay back Cassie for taking the damn thing.
But all that was forgotten when Nikki smiled up at him. “Ready?”
“Yes, I am.”
Gunter took Nikki’s hand, and they walked into Alric’s office together.
Instead of the informal setting of the last gathering in this room, everyone was already finding seats around the long table.
It felt like all eyes were on them, grinning, but Gunter’s embarrassment was immediately replaced with concern as Nikki’s hand tightened around his.
They were making great progress when it came to being more comfortable around other mages and dragons, but this meeting of kings was still an overwhelming experience.
“My apologies for our tardiness. I held Nikki up,” Gunter said. A choking laugh escaped Nikki, and Gunter smirked at them. Maybe that was a little too on-the-nose, but the others didn’t need to know.
“You’re not late. We’re still getting settled,” Cameron said as he pulled out the chair on Alric’s right. On Alric’s other side sat Dieter and Lisette, while Baldewin had settled next to Cameron.
Nikki led the way to the table and actually stopped next to the open chair beside Lisette. “Are these seats taken?” they politely asked, the tiniest waver in their voice, but they still met Lisette’s thrilled gaze.
“No, you and Gunter can definitely sit there.”
“Thank you,” Nikki replied as they slipped into the seat.
Gunter naturally took the one beside Nikki. He leaned over and brushed a tender kiss across Nikki’s temple. He was so proud of the mage, he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he’d thought to try.
The rest of the seats were filled out by the other dragon kings—Chalo, Roca, and Rodrigo—as well as Dimitri. It seemed the Ice Dragon King’s right-hand warrior was determined to take a very personal approach to stopping the Jaeggi.
“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” Alric opened.
“Well, with the information Cameron sent around, how could we not?” Roca chuckled, holding both of his hands out open in front of him.
“These are some excellent leads,” Chalo agreed. “We will get them at last.”
Gunter looked down the table at the silent king of the Ice Dragons. Rodrigo was not the type to remain silent for long, and right now he was wearing a very skeptical expression.
“You don’t think we’ll find the Jaeggi Clan at these locations,” Gunter said to Rodrigo.