Tyson reached down and hauled me into his arms. “I think shower and bed for you, babe. I volunteer to be a shower and bed buddy.”
I snorted. “Missed … you … Ty.” I was all slurring and shit, but he understood.
Braxton and Jacob were waiting in my room. I assumed Louis was still in the kitchen, but he might have taken off, giving me time with my boys. Braxton had the shower already running, steam filling the room. Tyson set me down, steadying my movements so I didn’t face-plant. I managed to wave them away, before undressing myself and stepping into the water. I slid closed the glass partition.
“I’m leaving this door open, Jess.” Braxton said. “Call out if you need me.” His husky tones trailed off as he walked away.
Holy shit, he could have phrased that differently, because I was coming to see with more than a little clarity that I needed him. Goddamn, I needed him.
I forced myself to focus on the simple task of washing away the filth and keeping my legs steady beneath me. My body felt so sensitive as I ran a cloth slowly over my skin. I forced myself to be quick. I needed sleep, but the low ache deep in my stomach was my first warning that I also needed to get laid. I needed sex … and I had an important decision to make.
I hadn’t forgotten what had happened in Faerie. The question of the hour: should I burst the friend-bubble Braxton and I were precariously living in? Dive into all the deliciousness that was my dragon. Or was the risk too great? If I was smart I’d be investigating what sort of nightlife was in this sanctuary and heading out to find myself an available shifter. Play it safe. But that thought just wasn’t as appealing as it should have been.
I shut off the water and pushed the door open, letting the cool air wash over my wet skin. I shivered a little; the exhaustion had my metabolism off kilter. Someone had placed some of my clothes on the sink. I pulled on underwear and a mid-drift tank. I liked to sleep naked, but this was probably safer since I knew some of the quads would be with me and we didn’t sleep naked together. Most of the time anyway.
I brushed my teeth, and ran a comb through the damp strands of black hair. Hanging up the towel, I padded silently from the bathroom, and almost tripped over my own feet when I saw what was happening in my room. The Compasses had pushed the two big beds together, forming one large sleep surface. All four of them were standing around it, dressed just in shorts, their well-defined chests bare, expanses of tawny skin filling the room. Sometimes they were so alike, it was a little scary.
It had been a very long time since we’d all slept in the same bed. My heart swelled, I had thought that I’d never have this chance again.
I stumbled across and crawled into the middle of the beds. I was always in the center, which meant that I had to sleep on the crack between the two beds, but I didn’t care. Jacob slid against the wall, then Braxton, me, Maximus on the other side, and Tyson last. We generally changed around places so everyone had a chance at bonding. The brothers all slept with space between them, but every single one of them crowded into me.
My eyes fluttered shut. I was unable to keep them open any longer. I felt Maximus turn to me, before his fingers linked with my own.
“Your mate is going to kill you,” I said.
He chuckled, and his brothers quickly joined in. “She’ll be fine, she has no choice but to understand.”
“Besides,” I heard Tyson quip, “she bagged a Compass, she has nothing to complain about.”
“You are ridiculous,” I mumbled. “Conceited ass.”
The last sensation I had before drifting off was the scent of vampire and dragon wrapping around me as they both turned toward me. I was warm, safe, and I couldn’t imagine anything in the world could top this moment.
Chapter 10
I hadn’t expected to dream that night. An exhausted brain should be blank, right? Well, apparently that was wrong, very wrong. Apparently an exhausted brain torments you with dreams. Firstly, that ugly one, with Mischa and the other two women. Where the dragons tore into me as I tried to escape across the field. I knew it was a pretty effed up scenario, but I still didn’t understand my overwhelming fear.
I was starting to get the feeling that the women were placeholders for the real life twins and that whatever path Mischa was on right now was the one which was going to bring this dream to fruition. I had a semi-conscious thought that I needed to find my sister and soon, she needed to be brought back to the right path.
Warm hands rubbed my back, clearing that dream from my thoughts. I snuggled in closer to that warmth before drifting back into the land of snooze. The next dream hit me hard.
I was in a cave, long and winding, the air so cold I could see puffs of my breath. I marched along at a rapid rate. I knew where I was going, taking turns left and right and left again. Finally I could see an end, a wall, with some circular pattern right in the center of it. As I stepped closer, the image became clearer and I tried to understand what I was seeing. It was like … a compass, or something with four points. But the writing on there was not in English.
Shit, damn. Was this the tomb of the dragon king?
I seemed to know what I was doing, stepping closer until I could reach out a hand and place it against the frigid stone. Each of the four points had a divot at the end, the perfect size for a hand, and then lines ran down from each one. A thumping, dragging noise had me spinning, and now I was facing the way I’d come, my back to the stone. The sound reminded me of the way a dragon’s tail dragged when it was bouncing along behind. I braced myself, hands and back flat against the stone as I waited. Shadows entered the curve first, and then a snout followed around. It was definitely a dragon, but in shades of color unlike any I’d seen before. Red and orange, like a sunset.