“You spent years killing supernatural beasts, using no magic whatsoever,” he told her.
“That’s not true. Sometimes I cheated.” She gave him a half-smile. “When no one was looking.”
“Very well. Using minimal magic and only when no one was there to see it,” he said. “How often did that even happen?”
“How often did I use my magic? Almost never,” she admitted. The monsters she’d faced in battle were nothing next to the beasts that sat on the Magic Council—those mages, vampires, fairies, and ghosts who had labeled her kind abominations and sentenced them to extinction.
“Your magic is beautiful,” Kai said.
He rubbed two of his fingers together, sampling the magic in the air. Her magic. And his. They’d become entwined, just as they always did whenever he was within ten feet of her. She could tell her hands not to touch Kai, but ever since that incident in the burning tower—no, basically ever since she’d met Kai—she’d had no luck whatsoever reining in her duplicitous magic. It had decided that it liked his magic. Like really liked it. Right now it was purring like a winged cat in heat.
Get a grip, she told it. So now she was talking to the voice in her head and to her magic. If that wasn’t crazy, she didn’t know what was.
“Would you like to take a break from training? I’m sensing that you’re…” Kai’s gaze slid up her body. “…distracted.”
“Keep your shirt on. I’m fine.”
He looked at her, clearly perplexed. “My shirt?”
“It’s an expression,” she told him. And apparently one that German dragons didn’t know. Or he was just being coy.
“So it has nothing to do with actual articles of clothing?” His puzzlement melted to amusement. “Or the removal thereof?” He stepped closer.
She backed up, matching him stride for stride, trying to maintain a safe minimal distance. Whatever that distance was. Jupiter might be far enough away.
“No,” she croaked out. “No clothing.”
His grin widened. Shit.
“Uh, I mean it has nothing to do with clothing,” she spluttered. “It means stay calm.”
“You’re not calm,” he said, gliding to a smooth stop. “You’re nervous.” His smile waned.
“Of course I’m nervous. A dragon is looking at me like he wants to eat me for dinner.”
He frowned. “You shouldn’t be nervous around me.”
“Then maybe you should stop trying to make me nervous.”
“I’m not…” He stopped, looking up. Like he was actually chewing that over. A few moments later, his gaze returned to her. “Am I?”
“Yes, you get a kick out of intimidating people,” she said, then, realizing she was being unfair, added, “Maybe it’s so engrained that you don’t realize you’re doing it.”
The dark glint in his eyes told her she’d said the wrong thing. Usually, she didn’t trip over her tongue like this. It was those damn Games. The stress of them was throwing her off her game—and they hadn’t even started. What would she do when she entered the fighting pit? When the Magic Council threw every weapon in their mind-frying arsenal at her? Her pitiful twenty-four years was nothing compared to their centuries of research and experience. They’d been breaking mages for centuries.
“I’m sorry,” she told Kai. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
He looked at her, his expression guarded. “It was never my intention to intimidate you.”
“What was your intention?” she asked.
Smooth. Real smooth, the voice taunted.
Shut up, she told it. But it was right. She was mangling everything.
“I think I’ve made my intentions clear, Sera,” Kai said.
Heat flooded her as she remembered the kisses they’d shared. They had made out on his desk, and they’d have done a whole lot more than that if his secretary hadn’t walked in on them. Sera pushed thoughts of Kai’s hands sliding down her body—of his magic caressing hers—out of her head. She turned away from him. It was hard not thinking about those things when he was right in front of her.
“Wait,” he said, taking her hand.
She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t trust herself. Just the feel of his hand against hers was scrambling her thoughts enough already as it was.
“You’re tense,” he said and let go of her hand.
She cleared her throat. “We should keep training.”
He lifted his hand to her face, brushing away a few strands that had come loose from her ponytail. His fingers lingered on her cheek, feather-soft, teasing.
“Kai.”
He stepped back, his face serious once more. “You’re right. The Magic Games start tomorrow. It’s time I gave you a real challenge.”
“A real challenge? Then what would you call the grueling fights these past three weeks?” she demanded.
“Merely a warmup.”
Magic rumbled in his chest, deep and primal. The air grew heavy with the scent of burning wood. It flooded her nose and singed her tongue. Uh-oh.
Kai exploded in a burst of magic and fire. Before Sera could blink, a dragon stood in his place. Way over twenty feet tall, he was as black as a starless night, but when the light caught his body at just the right angle, his scales and wings shone with an inky blue-green sheen. Just like in his human form, his eyes were electric blue. He was beautiful.