“Perhaps.”
The rest of the drive goes in silence, each to our own thoughts and once back at the mansion, followed by the other car, we all pile out.
“This is your house?” Sebastian says to me in wonder.
“Yes,” I say shortly as everyone seems to follow me inside. “Erm, don’t you have your own houses to go to?” I ask them. Certainly, some of them. CK lives on one side of me and I assume Sebastian is going there with him and I procured the house on the other side for Lincoln. It wasn’t up for sale, but I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse (in a monetary sense, not in a “horse’s head in the bed kind of way,” just to be clear) and moved Lincoln in, to his delight. Still close but his own space to roam and do his own thing at the full moon. Contrary to the curse that Lance placed on him, he doesn’t need to Shift three nights of the month as is legend. He doesn’t need to Shift at all but that first month, when he didn’t want to, was a bit of a disaster. He gets moody and aggressive if he doesn’t and on the night of the full moon, it ended in tears, mine due to the state I was in over everything. So now he goes and runs it off and all is well. Which reminds me of the “will you” he wanted to ask me. I have an idea what he wants to ask but will have to remember to ask him about it.
“I will go later. I want to make sure everything is good,” Lincoln says with a subtle glance at Jess. Bless him. I could rip her head off without a second thought, but he still feels this need to protect me from the unknown – and, well – the known as well.
“I am not going back to that house,” CK says, adjusting his cuffs. “I will stay here. With you,” he adds pointedly, and I shake my head.
“No, CK. Go home and take Sebastian with you. We are not all shacking up here. Too much Supernatural vibe. We will all end up trying to kill each other.” He opens his mouth to protest but I continue, “Lincoln, if you don’t mind housing Xane for a few days, that would be great and Scott, you may go pick out a room here. Not the one next to Devon’s. That is for Jess,” I say and her face falls that she has been told she gets her own room and is not sharing with Devon.
“I have my own place,” Scott starts but I silence him with a look. I want him here. All of us close by. I have this dreadful, awful feeling that something bad is going to happen and I don’t want anyone out of sight just yet. I am unsure what this danger is and even less so what I will do when I have to leave Scott here on his own, but that is tomorrow’s problem. Right now, everyone seems to be agreeing to my plan and I smile, happy. I turn a triple pirouette on the marble floor of my foyer and sigh. “Home, sweet, home,” I say to Cole.
“Thank fuck,” he says.
“I want to swim,” Devon declares to which everyone else agrees is a good idea. I think it is especially a good idea to get Jess outside, but first, I click my fingers and give her a glass of blood. She takes it gratefully and I mutter to Devon that he needs to go check our reserve supply in the kitchens, where I have been magickly pulling on for her to drink. It is probably running fairly low at this point.
Scott overhears me and says, “I will do it and will also get someone for you.”
I smile gratefully at him, but as ever CK has to barge into the conversation with his over protectiveness, “I will sort out someone for you.”
“Fine. Thank you,” I say.
“Pool, then?” Sebastian says and saunters off in the direction of the den and outside. “Fuck, this place is awesome,” he says in wonder. Which makes me wonder, does he not have his own mansion to call home? I don’t really know anything about his personal life except that he can apparently drop everything to follow CK across the country.
“I will be out in a minute. I want to see the new window,” I say, making my way to the office.
“It’s awesome, Lizzie,” Devon says. “I love it.”
I push open the door to my office and see it. “It is beautiful,” Cole says.
“Wow,” Xane adds. “Your office is like mine! That though, is something else. It’s you?”
I nod at him. “As best I know. I only have eyewitness accounts to go on.”
After CK smashed the previous stained-glass window with a chair, that incidentally got recovered near the front wall, a good quarter mile from the house, I knew what I wanted but wanted to wait until I was sure it would be accurate. They did a fantastic job of capturing me in my Dragon form against the backdrop of the skyline from the Dragon Realms. Turns out, I am a smaller version of Tiamat. A black crystal Dragon. The highest-ranking Dragon of the Realms. Which makes sense, seeing as I am Her daughter. Between my description of the skyline and Cole, Devon, and Lincoln’s description of me in the few moments they saw me before I flew off, the window is perfect.
I look shyly at CK. He is staring at it with a faraway look in his eye. “You like?” I murmur.
He brings his eyes back to mine. “I do. A definite improvement over the last one,” he says, to which Cole and Devon wholeheartedly agree.
“What was here before?” Xane asks.
“Something that should have been smashed to pieces long before it was,” CK says and leaves it at that.
“Pool time, then,” I say and change into a teeny black bikini before pulling Cole from the room and outside, leaving everyone else to follow.
Everyone goes and gets themselves sorted and we all meet at the pool, free for a time of worry and problems and issues to deal with. I still have this dark shadow lurking over me, but I push it aside and join in the fun. I find it most amusing that Lincoln in his gorgeous, wet state has caught the attention of Jess, who is staring open-mouthed at him as he climbs out of the pool, the water dripping down his eight-pack abs. I know that I’m practically drooling at the sight of him, so I don’t blame the girl for looking. What I do find interesting, though, is that it hasn’t gone unnoticed by Devon and in a fit of…something, he stalks over to her and pulls her into a kiss. Albeit a light, chaste one on her forehead, but it has the desired effect and she only has eyes for him for the rest of the night. She relaxes a tiny bit which eases her nerves and her bloodlust. I sigh; as much as I dislike this, I am at least relieved that Devon heard what CK said on the jet and is trying harder. Things would be so much worse if he didn’t.
CK catches my eye and I smile at him. “I was of half a mind not to bother changing,” he says quietly, sidling over to me.
“Why is that then?” I ask.
“I was kind of hoping you would throw me fully clothed into the pool and have your wicked way with me. So much bigger than the bathtub.”
I chuckle with delight. “That can be arranged,” I say seductively and his eyes light up.