“I’m sorry, Byrd,” Noah whispered to him and drifted in his guilt. He had been so caught up in studying the moment that he hadn’t considered how Byrd would handle it. “Forgive me?”
Noah could feel the dragon’s energy floating around him. There was a touch of resentment there, but after a few minutes of Kara’s soft fingers rubbing over his scales, Noah got his answer.
“Yes.” There was a wave of warning that went with the word.
Noah swallowed. “We will have to remember this moment,” he warned.
Byrd’s energy swirled with grief. “We knows.” Pulling away, Byrd’s energy curled up in a ball at the back of Noah’s mind, leaving Noah to deal with the pain and exhaustion the episode had caused.
Noah savored it as his punishment and vowed to not put Byrd through that misery again unless it became necessary.
The rest of the ride to Noah’s house was spent in quiet with Kara’s fingers rubbing the tension from Noah’s neck. For a while, he thought about punishing himself more by moving out of her reach, but her touch soothed Byrd, so he stayed where he was but tried not to enjoy her caress.
Finally, when she pulled into his drive and shut off the car, he sat up. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
Kara turned and glared at him. “As you should be,” she snapped. “Your dragon is a sweet and sensitive creature and doesn’t deserve to be abused like that. And if you’re too much of a knucklehead to see that, I’ll—”
“I’m sorry,” Noah said a little louder, cutting her off. “It won’t happen again.”
Kara glared at him for minute longer. “See that it doesn’t.” Yanking on the handle of her door, she popped it open, got out, and slammed it before Noah could get up.
“She’s mad at me,” he said to Byrd.
Amusement rolled up from the dragon.
“Laugh it up, fuzzball,” Noah snarked. “Her being mad at me is going to get in the way of your mating plans.”
Byrd growled at him. The door opened up on the tail end of the rumble.
“What?” Kara asked, looking in at him and surprised by the noise.
Noah got out of the car and stretched. “I’m having an argument with myself,” he explained.
Byrd rumbled at him again.
“Someone doesn’t like me very much right now.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Kara snapped and slammed the car door shut.
The growl from Byrd grew louder.
Noah let out a sigh. What was done was done, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Putting the moment of stupidity out of his mind, he turned to look at his home. It looked just the same as it had when he’d left.
Byrd stopped growling at him and glanced around the yard, his curiosity piqued.
“Let’s go see what we can find.” Noah made his way up to his porch with Kara close behind.
“And how do you expect to get in?” Kara sassed at him.
Noah turned to see her. She had stopped on the steps with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Magic,” he chirped, giving her a playful wink.
The surprise on her face delighted Byrd.
Turning back to his front door, Noah studied it for a second. Nothing seemed amiss. The glass storm door was closed tightly, and the door beyond looked secure.
“But you can’t do magic in this form,” Kara said as she got closer.
Noah tilted his head so he could see her out of one eye. “I don’t have to.” Going up to the bare wall next to his door, he stood on his hind legs and grabbed at something unseen. With a quick flick of his head he came down with a string clasped tightly in his teeth. He turned to show off the spare house key he’d hidden in plain sight.
Kara gasped at him. “How?” she asked as he brought the key to her.
“A simple illusion spell,” Noah answered. “There’s a hook up there with a gem holding the spell. Unless you know exactly where it is, you will never see the key hanging there.”
Kara looked at the key. “But what if someone bumps into it?”
“Misdirection.” He looked up at the wall where the key had been. “If you bumped into it, you might feel something akin to spiderwebs on your hand or shoulder.” He looked back at Kara. “Since most people don’t like spiders, they will tend to pull away from that feeling and avoid the place they ran into it.”
“You are a clever man.” Kara held up the key. “But this was entirely unnecessary.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out his regular keys.
Noah’s mouth dropped open as he stared at his keys. “Where did you get those?” He distinctly remembered his keys being tucked in the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket—a coat that should still be at Raven’s.
“Laurence dropped them off at my office.” Kara pulled open the screen door and fitted the key to the lock.
Noah stood there, processing that thought. What was Laurence doing with my keys? He thought over the large dragon. Laurence was one of the few people Noah trusted. Noah had even told the man about the trick with his spare key in case Noah blew himself up and didn’t make it to work. Again.
Putting together several possibilities, Noah came up with the most likely scenario. Since Daniel had obviously come for him at Raven’s maybe they had gone after his things, too, and then brought them to Kara’s office so he would have them. But something in that didn’t sit right with Noah.
Laurence wouldn’t just drop his keys off without making sure Noah got them. He knew Noah had some delicate things in his basement—spells he’d been working on that were either really dangerous or very fragile. Something about the whole idea made his teeth hurt and put him on edge.
“Kara!” Noah cried out as she turned the knob to open the door. “Wait!”
Kara stopped with the unlatched door in her hand, not yet fully open. “What?”
Noah’s heart raced as he threw himself into the wood, knocking the handle out of her hand. The door banged into the wall as he leaped in, ready to take down some unknown danger. He scanned his living room and found… nothing.
Kara caught the door before it could swing shut. “Noah?” she called in tentatively. “Are you all right?”
Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Noah relaxed, feeling the fool. “Yeah. I just…” He let his words trail off, not knowing how to explain the overwhelming sensation that someone was lurking in his home, ready to hurt them. He shook his head, driving the irrational fear away. “It’s nothing.” For a heartbeat, he wished he could use his magic to check the place out. His aura-finding spell would clearly have told him if anyone were hiding inside. He pushed the wish away and turned to Kara. “Just being paranoid.”
Coming inside, Kara shut the door behind her. Her eyes swept across his living room. “This is… nice.”
Noah looked around, trying to see it as she did. His home wasn’t that fancy. It was a simple one-story, brick home in an older neighborhood. The lot it sat on was only three quarters of an acre, but it did have some lovely trees and plenty of outdoor space to work if he needed it. The main reason he’d bought the house was the basement. Uncommon for the area, his basement gave him the room he needed to practice his craft away from the prying eyes of others. It was his safe haven and escape when things got to be too much for him. He shook that thought away and concentrated on his living room.
It was horrible. The carpet was ugly brown shag, and the walls—yellow with age—were in desperate need of repainting. The furniture wasn’t much better. A brown couch with the most offensive flower pattern ever created graced the far end of the room with two matching chairs. A china cabinet filled with knickknacks huddled against one wall, while some sort of flowered picture clung to the other. It wasn’t a room he was proud of, but he never used it anyway.