CHAPTER ONE-KIT

KIT WAS standing in the kitchen of his apartment, arguing with the sink faucet.

Literally.

He was doing this while dressed in a pair of booger green boxers. The underwear had a pouch where his cock rested—which made his poor dick look like a booger green elephant trunk.

But that wasn't the weird part. Oh no. The faucet was arguing back. Only instead of using words, the fucker was spitting streams of water at Kit.

And lookie there, the damn thing suddenly morphed into a spigot, like the kind that was outside on a house. And instead of pointing down, like a normal one would, this asshole was rearing up to spit water at Kit.

"Dammit, you're flooding the apartment. You gotta stay off!"

For his trouble, Kit got blasted in the face with another stream of icy cold water. Spluttering, he shoved his wet hair off his face. In retaliation, he smacked the spigot with the huge ass wrench he was holding.

Apparently, he woke up and chose violence this morning. The wrench was as tall as he was and weighed so much, he could barely lift it, but he still swung it like a champ.

"Shit!" Kit ducked as flames shot past his head. The damn spigot was shooting flames along with water at him. And he wasn't any more worried about the fire than he was about the water.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was dreaming. Since when was anyone not afraid of flames coming right at their head? Who wanted their face melted off, right?

Ridiculous. This was simply ridiculous. Plus, he also didn't own any wrenches, much less any that were as tall as him. He wasn't even going to touch on the subject of a spigot being inside his apartment, in his kitchen, shooting water and fire at him.

He wasn't at his apartment right now—he was staying with Hudson at his compound.

And the hideous underwear? That was truly the most terrifying thing about the dream. He wouldn't be caught dead in what he was wearing in this life or the next.

"This is stupid," Kit informed the spigot. "And what the hell is up with the fire? Water comes out of you. Not fire. What the fuck, dude?"

Although fire had been on his mind a lot recently, thanks to two dragons.

"And why am I talking to an inanimate object like it can understand me?" Kit demanded of no one in particular. "And put my damn curtains out! You set them on fire, not me!"

Yup, this had to be a dream, and a stupid one at that, because he wasn't even remotely worried about his curtains being on fire, and he'd spent a pretty penny on those.

"Human dreams have always interested me, and this one is definitely more interesting than most."

The voice came from everywhere and yet nowhere. The tonal quality of it made Kit's hair stand on end. It was like a male and female voice had been forcibly mixed together into a horror that made his skin crawl and his blood freeze.

It was what whispered to you from under your bed or from deep within a closet during the darkest part of the night. The voice was otherworldly. Inhuman. Goose bumps exploded over his skin, and his heart rate shot through the ceiling as his flight or fight kicked in.

Something was behind him.

A buzzing started in his brain as his instincts screamed for him to run. Run! To get out of there. Gasping for air, he watched as his kitchen blurred, fog obscuring his vision. Smoky gray ribbons surrounded him, then slowly trailed away.

What he was left staring at was definitely not his kitchen, not unless his kitchen was inside a humongous cave. He was entirely too close to the entrance of it, but the view of the rocky, mountainous landscape below him and white fluffy clouds floating by was amazing.

A cool breeze ruffled his hair—his suddenly dry hair. Remembering what he had been wearing in his dream, he gulped, then glanced down his body. Air whooshed out of him when he saw he was dressed in his favorite red suit.

Which, of course, begged the question of how he was in his favorite red suit on top of a damn mountain. Wherever this mountain was. He snapped his head up when he heard something roar in the distance. Something that sounded rather large.

"You're safe, human."

Funny, he didn't feel safe, because what the fuck was talking to him? On the verge of hyperventilating because he dreaded what he was going to find, Kit turned ever so slowly toward that creepy voice.

A few feet from him stood… something. Someone? Kit blinked several times, but the vision before him didn't change. His brain was now shrieking at him to haul ass. Stupid brain. Where'd it think he was going to haul ass to? Or how? He was on a damn mountain.

"Holy shit," Kit whispered, eyeing the, ah, person in front of him. Oh yes, he'd seen that grayish-white membrane-looking skin before. Yup. Recently too, in fact, thanks to Hudson partially transforming in front of him.

This dragon—and Kit was pretty sure this was a dragon—had the pointy ears and horns which spiraled up from their upper forehead region just like Hudson. But that was where the similarities ended.

For one thing, this dragon towered over Kit. They even had several feet on Hudson—at least what Kit could remember from the last time he'd seen Hudson in this form.

Whoever this was, they were damn tall. Big time.

They had a humanoid shape, but there wasn't anything humanoid about them. Whereas Hudson had rope-like strands that were supposed to pass as hair in this form, this being had waves of… well, flames.

Flames that danced in a swirl of oranges, reds, and yellows that cascaded to their shoulders and seemed to blend in with the fucking huge ass flaming wings that sprouted from their back.

Yeah, Hudson certainly didn't have any of that.

Their eyes were a kaleidoscope of color that matched their flaming hair and wings. Instead of a mouth, they had a muzzle. They had two arms and two legs, but the legs were thick and muscular with oversize clawed feet—they had digitigrade legs.

Kit honestly couldn't tell if the dragon before him was male or female because there were two mounds on their chest which reminded him of breasts, but there was a distinct bulge under the loincloth they wore. They also had a ridiculously long tail that lay quietly next to their oddly shaped, clawed feet.

They wore thick gold bands around their forearms, throat, and ankles. Jeweled earrings hung from their ears. Rings graced their fingers. There was even a piercing in their scaly eyebrow. They were horrifyingly beautiful and completely terrifying.

"I am Gaura, the fire dragon deity. Hello, Kit. Please be at ease. I mean you no harm. You are safe with me, dear one."

Favorite red suit or not, Kit sat his ass down before he fell down. What the hell was going on here? He'd been having some sort of stupid dream, and now he was having… whatever this was.

But hey, at least he didn't feel like he was on the verge of passing out any longer.

Maybe.

Gaura. He'd heard Hudson and Connie both mention Gaura. They'd said that was their dragon god. News flash. Apparently, neither one of them had ever seen a drawing of Gaura, because their deity seemed to be neither male nor female, but instead was a combination of both sexes.

"Holy fucking shit." Horrified at his language, Kit slapped his hand over his mouth.

He wasn't sure what the protocol for greeting a deity was, but cussing at them probably wasn't the way to go. "F-forgive my language, please! I, ah, I'm a l-little lost here and a whoooole lot freaked out." Understatement of the year right there, but what else was new? "Am I d-dreaming? What's going on? Why is whatever this is going on? Where am I?"

"You are still asleep, and your body is still in the guest room at Hudson's compound. I invaded your dream and brought your consciousness to another realm. My realm."

Kit opened his mouth and closed it. He didn't know what to do with that information or how to respond. In fact, he couldn't wrap his mind around such. His consciousness was out of his body? And wasn't that just downright terrifying? And invasive. Wasn't there, like, a name for that?

Who told this being this was okay? Because he was not okay with this! He wanted to be back in his body that was back in his realm—and what the ever-loving fuck was up with that?—arguing with the damn faucet in his dream.

Kit clamped his mouth shut so he didn't demand just what the hell this being thought they were doing, which was probably an extraordinarily bad idea, since this was the red dragon's fire god and everything.

Pissing this creature off wasn't in his best interest, but fuck, he was tired of being ambushed by paranormal beings. He was going to have a heart attack if things kept going like this. Or be in therapy for the rest of his damn life.

Be nice to the fire god. Be nice to the fire god. Be nice to the fire god."I, ah… why? Can I ask that? I kinda need to ask that."

"Ah. Why? There's a question, for sure." Gaura held out their hand to Kit.

Kit couldn't stop his instinctual reaction to such a creature looming over him. Kit cringed. It didn't help that their hand was clawed.

"Oh. I frighten you, don't I? Of course I do. You're not used to what I am. You've only seen Hudson partially transformed. Oh, but I do believe you've seen Connie in his natural form, right?"

Kit's mouth dropped open. How did they know that? Holy hell, was their deity spying on them? Could they see everything? Yep, Kit was never getting hard again, and Hudson and Connie could kiss sexy fun times goodbye.

Gaura smirked at him, as if they knew what he was thinking. Surely… surely not.

A whirlwind of fire suddenly engulfed Gaura—because fire—a fire Kit was close to as well. Except… there was no heat to melt the skin off his bones. Yay for him. Crispy was not a good look for him.

When the flames dissipated, the being who stood there was much more human looking, thank fuck. Still, Kit's hand rested against his heart.

Gaura was breathtakingly gorgeous now, but still abnormally tall. Kit had seen humans of this height, at least. Or maybe they just seemed tall since Kit was still sitting on the ground staring up at them.

The eyes were the same as before, but their hair was actual hair now. It was a deep auburn like Hudson's and fell clear to the ground. No more fire wings either, or legs that bent the wrong way, and no more muzzle.

There were still scales in place of their eyebrows and patches of those same red scales wherever skin showed on their body—a body that was now clothed in an expensive-looking suit.

But their features were still very androgynous, and since Kit still couldn't tell their sex, he was sticking with the pronoun of "they." The last thing he wanted was to offend a freaking deity.

Mother of all, how did these things happen to him?

"There. Is that better?"

How in the world did he answer that? Yes, Gaura was less overwhelming in this form, but Kit was still out of his body in another realm with a damn deity whose voice made his eyelid twitch. No, this was not freaking better, but he absolutely would not admit that either.

"Yes, your…." Shit. How did he address them? He didn't know if they were a king or a queen or what. "Your Majesty?"

"Gaura is fine, dear."

That didn't seem respectful enough, but he wasn't arguing.

Gaura held out their hand. "Come on. Up you go. We have places to be."

The only place Kit wanted to go was back to his bed, but he took the offered hand—that was blessedly absent of claws—and let Gaura pull him to his feet.

Gaura waved their hand, and a circle of fire exploded up from the ground, encircling them. Kit barely had time to scream before everything went black.

"HOLY MOTHER. Holy mother of fucking all," Kit yelled, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees. Or tried to, but it was kinda hard since he was currently also gasping for air.

When the fire had engulfed them, he was sure he was done for. He was human, not a dragon. Fire wasn't kind to human skin. His last thought before everything had gone dark was that burning alive didn't seem a very enjoyable way to go.

Or maybe he'd passed out briefly.

He had no idea. All he knew was that instead of burning, the ring of fire disappeared back into the ground, and he was blessedly unburned. And pissed.

Woo wee, was he pissed. That had been terrifying, and he was shaking like a leaf. Don't cuss out the fire dragon deity. Don't cuss out the fire dragon deity. He straightened and ran a trembling hand through his hair. He and Gaura were now standing in a wooded area beside a fast-flowing stream while he not so quietly freaked out.

Gaura patted Kit on the back. "I'm really making a mess of this, aren't I? I didn't mean to terrify you, dear. That's just how I travel. I apologize, though. But in my defense, I'm unused to dealing with humans."

Yeah, well, Kit wasn't used to dealing with dragon deities, yet here they were. And only one of them was traumatized, and it wasn't Gaura. "I'm okay. I think. Maybe. Jesus."

No doubt about it. He was going to be in therapy for the rest of his damn life.

Kit looked around. The area was beautiful and obviously undisturbed by civilization. He took a deep breath, and the air that filled his lungs was clean and crisp, plus free of smog. The water nearby was crystal clear. But Kit had never seen trees like this.

Their limbs grew out instead of up. Plus, they were massive. The ground was also kind of sandy and rocky. Kit couldn't explain why, but the place had a primitive feel to it.

"May I ask where we are? And why we're here?"

"Chania. Well, we're close to what will be present-day Chania."

That really didn't answer Kit's question because the name didn't sound familiar, although he could've sworn he'd heard that place mentioned recently. But he didn't remember why.

"Greece, dear," Gaura said. "We're in Greece."

Greece. They were in fucking Greece. "Oh my God."

Now he knew why that name sounded familiar, but it really meant nothing to him as far as location went. "Chania. That's where Kage was born, right?"

"Yes, indeed. This is where it all started."

Gaura was right. This was where it had all started hundreds of years ago. Kage's father had taken a mistress, and impregnated her with twins, hoping to have more daemon sons, then abandoned her and his children when neither presented as daemons.

One of the children, Nox, had been a mimic—a paranormal who was apparently so feared they were often killed as soon as it became obvious what they were.

This half-brother of Kage's had attacked Kage's mate, Austin, at Kit's bookstore. Nox had mimicked Kit and lured Austin to the bookstore and tried to kill him. Nox was able to impersonate someone by taking their blood, thus Kit's aversion to all things related to fangs now.

Oh, and Nox had run a huge company that funded super-secret experiments in which they either used volunteers, or kidnapped humans, then turned them into paranormal hybrids. This company also funded the hunters who were targeting paranormals in San DeLain.

Only certain paranormals could be used in these experiments, though.

Daemons, dragons, and gargoyles couldn't change a human into what they were, so they were useless to Nox. Since they couldn't be used, anyone in those groups was often exterminated.

Nox had been killed, and everyone thought that was the end of not only Nox, but the hunter problem.

Then Kit had been attacked, again, at a club by someone who looked amazingly a lot like Nox. That was when they'd found out that the problem hadn't been resolved, and that Kage actually had two half-brothers, not just one.

The other one was named Lennox and had been stalking Kit, which was why Kit was now living at Hudson's compound. Only no one could figure out why Lennox was targeting Kit.

"But why am I here? I have nothing to do with any of this!" The urge to scream was there again. "I don't understand. I'm not involved with Kage or his daemons. I'm friends with Austin, but that's it."

"Oh, you are very much involved. You just don't know it."