There was a soundless explosion of light that blinded her, and then a strong hand closed around her arm, pulling her forward. She kept her grip on Lucas, towing him in their wake.
The gate ricocheted with agonized, chaotic power, and every hair Aria possessed stood on end as Nikolai took them through.
* * *
Lucas blinked, his eyes struggling to deal with the wild flashes of light . As things swam into focus, he realized they were in a garden.
Grass tickled his bare toes.
His relief at being whole and standing among flowers almost overwhelmed him. It had worked. He couldn’t believe it.
A warm breeze drifted up inside his cloak, reminding him he’d better do something about just how naked he was beneath it. He released Aria’s hand, and as she and Nikolai gazed around them, Lucas concentrated. He needed, at the very least, something on his feet and a disguise for the basics. The scales took a while to form this time; he was dangerously close to the end of his reserves. But he managed a pair of shorts and ankle boots.
With that accomplished, he looked around. By the angle of the sun, and the freshness to the air, it was early morning here. Bushes were blooming. Bees danced through the foliage, and as something whizzed by his face, he realized they weren’t all insects.
Winged, yes, but attached to a very humanoid form—a fairy. Where the hell were they?
Aria’s hand was still up beneath Nikolai’s shirt. Which either meant she enjoyed copping a feel of the big guy, or she wasn’t sure if they were about to have another earth-killing event.
Neither possibility gave him the warm and fuzzies.
“Welcome to my garden.”
Nikolai stood rigid as a board ahead of them, focused on the speaker. Lucas walked a cautious arc around him.
A tiny woman sat on a bench. With her long white braids and merry blue eyes, there was no mistaking Cara.
“Nikolai,” Aria said somewhat breathlessly. “Meet Cara, the Watcher we mentioned.”
Nikolai didn’t respond, but merely continued to stare. Small wisps of black fog swirled off his skin, and in that instant, Lucas caught a glimpse of something terrifying within the big guy—a seething cauldron of blackness, lit with flashes of red lightning.
The sensations were there, and gone, like a snapshot in time. His heart hammered, and if Lucas had ever doubted the Liberi was dangerous, those doubts were decimated now.
“Nice to finally meet you, Nikolai. I knew your mother.” Cara seemed unperturbed by the simmering volcano standing before her.
The tiniest of spasms passed through the big man. “She told my dad to keep me away from you.”
One frosted brow twitched. “Did she now. How—interesting.”
Aria moved forward, placing her hand on Nikolai’s arm. “Are you going to put him in a cage?”
Oh, man.Lucas stiffened. Dragons had zero ability for diplomacy. Nikolai was a keg of dynamite ready to go off, and Aria willingly shortened the fuse.
But Cara merely tilted her head. “No. I wish to offer my services. To train Nikolai.”
Inky blackness drifted across Nikolai’s eyes, but the fog around him diminished just a little. “And if I don’t want to be trained?”
Cara waved her fingers in the air. “You can walk away from here. But you must ask yourself—can you control what has been unleashed within you? Because it won’t be you paying the ultimate price.”
Nikolai had grown very still, frozen like a statue. “I have no intention of unleashing anything. I want to return to my life, and live it, without ever tapping into this power again.”
The Watcher’s eyes narrowed. “You may not find it so easy to put it back in the box.” She rose, and Nikolai flinched, as though he expected an attack. Immediately, the black fog intensified. The sunlight disappeared, and Lucas looked up into roiling black clouds.
Cara’s brows twitched. “I cannot stop you from leaving. But I will be here if you need me.”
Lucas caught another terrifying glimpse of what seethed within Nikolai. He swallowed as he met the swirling eyes. “Perhaps you should take her up on her offer.”
Aria shot him a glare before looking back to Cara. “The other Watchers would let you train him? They wouldn’t try to lock him up?”
