“Have no idea. We didn’t stick around to find out.”
Arms laden with the books, she extended an elbow to Mai. The little shrew scampered up her arm, but waved her nose at the wet hair. Apparently, she didn’t care for damp neck perches.
Aria laughed. It was a light, airy sound, and Lucas’s heart accelerated. “I’ll make a nice comfy sleep spot on the bed for you,” she told the shrew.
Still smiling, she advanced toward Lucas. The bounce and quiver beneath the scales set his body on fire. He backed up the tunnel with enough alacrity that her brows rose. “Going for a shower,” he spun and called back over his shoulder.
“Oh, okay. Good night, Lucas.”
There was a note in her voice—he almost turned back to her, but even with the cloak’s disguising qualities, he was afraid his expression would give him away. Especially his traitorous eyes.
So instead, he waved over his shoulder as he disappeared into the bathroom. “Good night, Aria.”
She hadn’t drained all the hot water, but he kept it cold anyway. Not that it helped much. No matter how agile his fingers, his body would be ready to go another round in no time.
He couldn’t fight genetics.
The beds were comfortable, and he was tired enough that he should sleep, even with Aria only a few feet away. There were no further images from Nikolai, but the Liberi’s presence was as real as if he stood out there in the hall.
Any chance Lucas had with Aria was in limbo until they resolved the Nikolai issue. And if they resolved it, chances were good that Aria and the Liberi would be together.
Where did that leave him? Until he met Dani and her Dragon shifters, Lucas hadn’t realized triads happened for anyone other than Sabres. Could he form a bond with both Aria and Nikolai?
His gut twisted. Tyrez had seemed so protective of Ash, as though there was a deep, interconnected bond between him and the other Dragon shifter. How deep did that bond go? There was something going on between him and the big guy, for Nikolai to be able to project things to Lucas. Or was it only because of what had happened when he removed the Morph’s collar?
But he’d removed Aria’s too. And she’d given no indication that she was receiving anything from Nikolai.
Maybe the attraction between Lucas and her was due to pheromones, and nothing more. If so, it should abate once she takes enough of those herbs.
He took a deep breath, and tried to clear his mind. Exhaustion pulled at him, but his thoughts continued to swirl unhelpfully in circles for another hour before the welcome darkness claimed him.
But it seemed there was no escape, even when he dreamed.
Something crunched underfoot. Lucas looked down, to the dead, dry foliage beneath his bare feet.
Two things became immediately apparent—that everything around him was desiccated, as though the life had been sucked clear from it. And that he was naked.
The naked thing was a bit mystifying—why dream of being without clothes? Was it a sign of his vulnerability? Lucas concentrated and grew scaled shorts. He was mildly surprised to see them emerge a shining gold, rather than Aria’s red-gold covering.
Ash’s scales.
He considered growing them into footwear as well. The dead foliage was bristly underfoot, but if he stayed on the grassier bits, the dried blades were walkable.
Death was everywhere he looked. Lucas swallowed. This wasn’t the rest period dictated by fall, where the plants pulled back their resources to survive the winter. This was pure death. And it hadn’t just affected the plants. There were dead animals lying among the crackling branches.
He entered a forest of twisted, dry trunks, the brown leaves hanging from the branches. A dirt path wound between them, and he followed it.
Lucas had a pretty good idea of where this would take him. Or rather, to whom. He wasn’t surprised when it fed out into a meadow as brown and fried as everything else. Yet the clarity of his surroundings, the scents and sounds, didn’t seem like a dream.
In the center of it, knelt Nikolai.
It was bad enough that the Liberi invaded his mind during the day. Now he was being forced to dream of him, too.
Nikolai’s hair resembled a steel-gray curtain, the shining strands hanging forward around his bowed head. Lucas had only ever seen it braided and pulled back; unbound, it shimmered almost purple, moving in an invisible breeze as though it had a life all its own. It traced the outline of the Liberi’s powerful body and trailed off onto the ground around him like a gleaming cape.
Lucas paused, but although the Nikolai he’d known would have been aware of him, the Liberi did not move or speak. So he walked in an arc to end up facing him, staying about ten feet away.
As if any distance would save him. If the Perditor lost control, Lucas would die like the meadow he stood within. The ground beneath his feet was littered with death. Leaves, branches, and a few stray acorns dropped from the scorched branches overhead.
