Ensnared (Sea Dragons of Amber Bay Book 2) Read online

  Skye’s arrival has shaken up the dynamic of our lives more than I’d previously known.

  A part of me wants to run after her. She’s disappeared into the cold night, and I want to follow. But if I go now, I’ll break whatever trust is left between Ty and me.

  I drag my hand under my nose and wipe the blood on my sweatshirt. Then I feel my broken nose with the tips of my fingers. If I don’t set it now, it’ll heal wrong within minutes, and I’ll have a crooked nose for the rest of my life. It’s nothing less than I deserve, but setting it will be just as much of a punishment.

  Sea dragons heal much faster than humans, and being away from emergency care units has always meant we take care of our own scrapes, breaks, and bruises. It’s also impossible for a dragon to go into a human surgery, since a simple blood exam would effectively expose us to the world. But we have a nurse in the village, and in normal circumstances, I’d go to her. I can’t do that now, though, without explaining what happened.

  With a deep breath, I put my palms to either side of my nose and pull down. Cartilage grinds over bone, and I cry out as unbelievable pain shoots up my sinuses and through my head.

  “Fuck!”

  My knees buckle, and I have to lean against the wall to keep from falling over. I expect Ty to smirk at me and tell me it serves me right, but he’s staring at the headboard, his expression thoughtful.

  “Her family,” he mutters suddenly.

  “What?” I ask.

  He turns to me, his face slack with wonder. “She told me her family was traditional. That they didn’t want her working on tech because they thought she should be doing family business. I’d thought they were mobsters or drug lords, but this…” He shakes his head. “It didn’t even cross my mind.”

  I want to take a seat next to him and explain everything. Skye has been cast out for being an unskilled witch, or so her family thought. But if our recent experiments and that thirty-foot-tall column of flames tonight was any indication, she just never tapped her full potential. But it’s not my story to tell. If they want to mend the rift between them, she and Ty will have to work things out on their own.

  For the first time, I see the fear shining in Ty’s eyes. “Will Jack be okay? What she did to him was intense.”

  I consider Jack’s face. His color is a little better, and he’s still breathing evenly.

  “I think so. She was pretty out of it a couple of days ago when she overexerted herself, and she likely somehow pulled some of Jack’s energy from him.” I have no idea how that works, but he seems tired, not hurt. And since she said she didn’t do anything, didn’t cast any spells…

  “By the way, how did it happen?” I ask.

  Ty opens his mouth, then closes it again. Color rises in his cheeks, and I immediately know what they’d been doing. Why did I even ask? Jealousy spears through me, a hot, unpleasant sensation that twists my insides and curls my lips into a sneer.

  “Is that why you two were naked on the beach?” I ask, needing to confirm it.

  He groans and drops his face into his hands. “This is so fucked up.”

  I sink heavily to the floor, lean my back on the wall, and palm my nose. It has stopped bleeding, and with some luck, it’ll be fully healed in a day or so. I’m still bloody, but I don’t have the energy to get up and clean myself off.

  “It’s a mess,” I admit. “And I caused it. I’m sorry for bringing Skye here.”

  His gaze snaps up at that. “Yeah, why did you?”

  I let my head thump back against the wall. The movement sends a wave of fresh pain through my skull, so I do it again. Maybe I can smack some sense into myself.

  “She’s going to put up a protection barrier around the village,” I tell him. “And give us a safe space to use on the internet.”

  At least I hope so. My plans are detailed and elaborate, and if Skye accepts, she’ll be working on them for months, if not years to come. With her powers as unpredictable as they are, it might take her a while to master spells of such complexity. I have no idea how her magic works yet, so everything I just said could be complete bullshit.

  “She is?” Ty purses his lips. “I thought she was a programmer.”

  “That’s it exactly,” I say. “She can do both. I think.”

  He stares at me as though I’ve lost my mind. Which, let’s be honest, I probably have.

  “How did you even find out about her?”

  I could collect my laptop from my office downstairs and show him. I’d saved the video of Skye’s arrest, the cringe-worthy dog rescue complete with her shooting sparks from her fingers. But I want to give her a chance to share that with him—and Jack—on her own terms.

  “It’s a long story.” He glares at me, so I add, “I promise I’ll tell you, or Skye will, but we need to clean up the broken glass and get it out of your feet.”

  He glances down at himself as though he only just now realized that he’s got blood all over him. “I’m not talking to her.”

  Fuck, there it is. Exactly what I’d been afraid of. If he and Jack turn away from Skye, she might not want to stay. And I need her to. For the clan, not for myself. I need her to create what I’ve been trying to implement for more than a year. I have no idea how to get someone else—another witch—here to put up the protection for us, not without exposing us to danger.

  “Does she know?” he asks finally.

  I don’t need him to clarify what he means. “No.”

  And she won’t find out if I can help it. Nothing good can come from a witch knowing about sea dragons, not even a nice one like Skye. We’ll keep the secret from her for however long it takes.

  With a groan, I get up and steady myself on the wall until the pounding in my head steadies into a low, dull throb. I want to shift to my dragon form, but gods know what would happen to my half-healed nose then. Better to wait until morning.

  “I’ll get that broom,” I mutter.

  I leave Ty watching over Jack, and when I return minutes later with the broom and dustpan, the door to Jack’s room is closed. I get the hint. Ty wants nothing to do with me right now, and I don’t blame him.

  But I can’t escape myself.

  Three

  Skye

  A loud pounding shakes my door, and I jerk up from sleep. Light filters in through a gap in the curtains, barely enough to see by.

  “Yeah,” I croak. “Coming.”

  I push out of bed and wobble over to the front door. Aiden stands on the other side, his face a marbled map of bruises. They radiate from his nose so his left eye is bloodshot and almost swollen shut, and there’s a nasty swelling to the nose that can only mean one thing.

  I cover my mouth with my hand. “Did Ty break your nose?”

  He rolls his eyes and pushes past me into the living space. “It’s no big deal.”

  “What? Of course it’s a big deal. Did you set it properly?” I close the door so the cold morning air doesn’t seep in and follow him. “Do you have a doctor in the village?”

  My sleepy brain slowly remembers the events of last night. Hot embarrassment flushes through me, then the cold realization that he has come to take me away. This is it, my last morning in Amber Bay.

  He stops so abruptly that I bump into his back.

  “What’s this?” he barks.

  I peer around him and see he’s focused on my suitcases. He glances toward the kitchen table where neat stacks of my new winter gear are ready for whoever will take them back to the shop in Anchorage, and his frown deepens.

  “Uh, I packed,” I say. “I wanted to be ready. And how is Jack?”

  “Better.” He turns to me. “Ready for what?”

  “For my trip to Anchorage?”

  I say it as a question because I don’t understand why he’s frowning. Ty was so hurt last night, he wouldn’t stand for me remaining here. And I’d nearly killed Jack. My stomach twists at the memory of his naked body lying on the beach, and I’m glad I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday.

>   Aiden’s scowl doesn’t budge. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “You have work to do, and you can’t do it remotely. So you’re staying.” With that, he sits on the couch and produces a folded sheaf of papers from inside his jacket. “This is what you’ll be working on next. And your new contract. The NDA you signed is still in force, of course.”

  I walk over to him on unsteady feet. He’s not sending me away? I don’t know how I feel about that. I get to stay here, which is what I thought I wanted all along. But that means I’ll be living in the same village as Ty, who now hates me, and Jack, who might not wake up from whatever magical hell I’ve sent him to. I don’t know how I can face them after they’ve trusted me.

  I lied to them about who I am and let them get close to me.

  Shame floods me, threatening to pull me under. It’s a familiar emotion, but I still don’t know how to cope with it. Aiden is watching me closely. He puts the contract on the cushion next to him and waits for me to speak.

  “I don’t know how…” My voice gets stuck in my throat, so I swallow and try again. “How is Jack? Has he woken up yet?”

  His mouth twists to one side in a grimace. “Not yet. But he’s just sleeping at this point, I think. He’ll be fine.”

  I gape at him. “How can you say that? I nearly killed him with my magic!”

  “He’s stronger than you,” he retorts, “and your magic didn’t kill you.”

  He doesn’t meet my gaze as he says it, so he’s probably embellishing the truth. Why? I sink onto the couch and put my hands between my knees, my silver bracelets digging into my skin.

  “I still don’t know what happened. It’s never… I mean, I wasn’t wearing these, but I’ve had…”

  I don’t want to say the words out loud. I have no idea why, but talking about my past sexual experiences with Aiden is weird.

  “You’ve had sex without your bracelets on?” he supplies anyway.

  My cheeks heat, but I force myself to look up at him. “Yeah. That.”

  “With a human?” he asks.

  I think back to the few boyfriends I’d had. Come to think of it, I’d never had sex with Cameron without wearing these, because he didn’t like me being without them. I cringe at the thought. He was a grade-A asshole, and I should have figured it out sooner. But other than him, all my boyfriends had been human. I’d dated them in college, at MIT, away from home and my family’s rules for the first time in my life.

  I vividly remember one particular evening. My then-boyfriend took me on a picnic in the park and we got busy behind some bushes. It’s what you do when you’re twenty-one and a horny mess of hormones. But we’d been far away from all gadgets and devices that usually come with cities, so I’d taken off my bracelets.

  Still, I did not create a fireball as we fucked, nor did the guy pass out from it.

  I chew on this. “The guy was human, yeah. No flames, not even sparks went off that time.”

  His expression goes carefully blank. “Did you climax?”

  I glare at him in outrage, and he lifts his shoulders.

  “It might be important,” he adds.

  I think back on the event. It wasn’t memorable, but by then I’d become familiar enough with my body that I could bring myself to an orgasm most of the time, even if the guy was incompetent.

  “Pretty sure I did,” I mumble. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  None of the sex I’d had prior to Amber Bay compares to what I’ve discovered here, though. Whether it was Ty, Jack, or both together, I’ve experienced more pleasure in the past month than I have in my life. Even the thought of what we did on the beach—before the eruption of my soul-sucking flames—has me growing hot under the collar. I still feel the phantom touch of Ty’s hands on my body, and the memory of Jack inside me is too fresh to ignore.

  I cross my legs in an effort to control myself.

  Aiden’s nostrils flare, and his gaze goes down to my lap. I swear his eyes glitter for a moment, almost like he sparkled last night. I blink, and his expression is neutral again, though he’s squeezing his fists so much, his veins pop up on the backs of his hands.

  It’s sexy. I want to lick those veins and bite him.

  Mortified, I turn away from him. I swear, my sex drive has gone crazy here, and I’m starting to wonder whether it’s something they put in the water, because I absolutely shouldn’t be aroused right now. Not with Jack still unconscious and Ty so angry at me, he couldn’t wait to have me gone.

  That thought is enough to sober me.

  “Ty won’t want me to stay. No matter why the accident happened.” I lift my chin in the direction of the Lodge. “You saw it last night.”

  “What he wants is immaterial. I hired you, and you have work to do.”

  I gape at him. “You can’t be that insensitive! What about Jack? Do you think he’ll want to be around a witch who nearly murdered him by fucking his brains out?”

  His ears go red, and he stares at the ceiling. “That’s a picture I didn’t need.”

  “Oh, come on,” I scoff. “You’re the one who keeps asking me all the personal questions.”

  He sighs, picks up the contract, and places it on my knees. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  There’s a finality to his words that sends a shiver down my spine. “You mean I’m not going anywhere until I finish the work?”

  He cocks his head to the side. “Something like that.”

  “And if I want to leave?”

  With that infuriating calm of his, he replies, “Can you fly a plane?”

  Can I fly a plane? I’ve spent my entire life in San Diego, where everything—and I mean everything—I needed was just a short car ride away. The high school I was eventually allowed to attend was so close to my family’s home, I either walked each morning or took my bike. Then I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, another urban sprawl that gave me all the opportunities and more.

  Aiden knows perfectly well I could no more fly a plane than turn into a bird.

  I stare at him, aghast. “So, what? You’re keeping me prisoner?”

  “Don’t be dramatic.”

  “Dramatic? You can’t force me to do the work.” I take the sheaf of paper in my lap and slap it against his chest. “Your threats are useless. If I want to leave, I’ll find another way out.”

  I have no idea what he’s playing at, but I’ve had enough of this conversation. I stand and stride into the kitchen for a glass of water to calm down. Maybe he’ll take the hint and leave.

  He doesn’t, of course.

  “Ty, Jack, and I are the only pilots in the village. Well, there’s Stuart, but his eyesight is now so bad he lost his license seven years ago.”

  I whirl around to find him standing just inches from me. He’s too fucking stealthy, and I can’t help but back away a step. He follows and gets right into my personal space. It’s not threatening, exactly. His expression is still calm, almost disinterested, but I feel the heat of him against me, and my breath hitches in my throat.

  “I-I’ll walk,” I stutter. “Or take a boat.”

  “Please don’t,” he says mildly. “I don’t want to have to inform your family that you died of exposure or got washed away to the ocean.”

  He’s serious. He’s really fucking serious. I’m trapped here until he says so.

  I narrow my eyes at him, thinking. Maybe Ty would take me. He’d be glad to have me gone, and—

  “Whatever you’re planning, don’t,” he says. “Neither Ty nor Jack will oppose my orders, so you’re wasting your time. If you want to leave Amber Bay, this is your ticket out.”

  He hands me the now wrinkled papers.

  Shit. I take the contract and sit heavily on one of the kitchen chairs. Aiden takes the other, folding his tall frame down with such elegance, I want to kick him in the shin from spite. I’m disheveled, I missed enough sleep that my eyes feel gritty and painful, and there’s a pit in my stomach tellin
g me I’m in big, big trouble. Yet he’s completely unruffled. He folds his arms across his chest and waits silently for me to wrap my head around this new situation.

  I can’t hold his gaze anymore, so I drop it to the papers I’m clutching. There’s a detailed description of the work he wants me to complete, as well as a—

  “Oh my gods,” I gasp.

  I look up at Aiden, but he simply raises one eyebrow.

  “You want to pay me…” I glance down to double-check. “Half a million dollars for this?”

  He shrugs. “Any human company who came to deliver this sort of work would charge us that much or more.”

  “Yeah.” I put both palms on the table, pressing my fingers down to stop them from shaking. “Because this is a job for an entire team of people. You’d need a startup and programmers who know what they’re doing. I’m just…”

  I want to say that I’m just a single person with comparatively little work experience. But half a million dollars would set me up for years: I’d have a good nest egg so I wouldn’t have to take underpaying jobs anymore, and I could live wherever I wanted. There’s no guarantee I could ever land a project this big, especially not flying solo.

  I purse my lips, then ask what’s been bothering me. “Why did you really bring me here? The website alone was a rookie job, and there’s nothing here that couldn’t be done by a human.”

  He lets out a deep sigh. “Of course not. I can’t very well write into our business plan that I want a witch to put an enchanted barrier around our village.”

  I stare at him. Again, he doesn’t look like he’s joking.

  “You’re insane. Did you not see what happened when my magic was unleashed?” I fling an arm out in the direction of the Lodge. “And I can barely destroy a flashlight without passing out myself.”

  “I think it’s a matter of training. Your magic, combined with your programming skills, presents a unique solution for us.” He leans forward, his elbows on the table. “I want you to connect the village to satellite internet like the contract says. I want you to create a safe way for our people to interact among themselves online. And I want you to perform the repellent spell your sister did at her home, only I want it geared toward all strangers, not just a single person.”