Chapter Six
2015 Words
KENJI
My blood's doing something f****d up.
Ever since Mina sank her teeth into me at Lysander's party, my fire burns wrong. Not bad wrong. Evolution wrong. Like my DNA decided to rewrite itself without sending a memo.
We're crashed in Sasha's suite—all dark wood and daddy issues. The bonds between us pulse like living things. Adrian keeps touching his bite mark. Lysander's documenting our impossible existence in some pretentious leather journal. Sasha sits at his piano, hands hovering over keys he won't play.
And Mina's on the floor looking like she wants to disappear into the Persian rug.
"We need to talk about what happened."
Sasha's voice cuts through the weird energy crackling between us.
"Which part? The impossible pack bonds? Or how her bite shattered military-grade tech?"
Adrian turns from the mirror where he's been cataloging his new mark like it's fine art.
"Both. Neither." Mina's words come out small. "I need to tell you something."
My blood heats. Not just want—though that's there too. Something deeper. Like recognition at a molecular level.
"You're not a cat."
She looks at me, and the fear in her eyes makes my chest tight. Not fear of us. Fear of us leaving.
"No."
"So what—"
"I'm a snake."
The silence hits like a punch.
Snake shifters exist. Barely. They're the bedtime stories other supernaturals tell to remind kids that trust kills. Too much baggage. Too many cautionary tales.
"What kind?"
Leave it to Lysander to go full taxonomy while the rest of us process.
Mina stands. Centers herself in the room like she's about to perform an execution. Her own.
"Easier if I show you."
"You don't have to—"
"Yes. I do. You bound yourselves to me. You deserve the truth."
She closes her eyes. Changes.
No bones breaking. No violence. Just water becoming something else. One second she's a girl in yesterday's party dress. The next, twenty-three feet of pure predator owns the room.
Fuck. Me.
She's devastating. Black scales shot through with green that shifts when she moves. Muscle coiled in patterns that make my brain skip. Her head rises, watching us with eyes that are still absolutely Mina.
"Jesus."
Adrian steps closer because vampires have no self-preservation instinct.
"You're magnificent."
A sound ripples through her—amusement maybe, if snakes could laugh.
"Anaconda." The word tastes like revelation. "That's why you smell like rain. Why the cold doesn't touch you. Why you can take damage that would drop wolves."
She shifts back smooth as silk. Stands there shaking, looking smaller than anything with that much power should.
"My mother was from Brazil. Snake shifter from a long line of them. She was studying Otherkind integration when she met my father at some legal conference. Federal prosecutor, specialized in supernatural crime. They shouldn't have worked—snake and human. But they fell hard. Had me. Tried to raise me between worlds."
"Your father was human?"
Sasha watches her like she might bolt. Smart. She's got that ready-to-run energy.
"I always believed so. Never showed signs of being anything else. Just a guy who put bad things in prison and loved my mom like breathing." Her voice cracks. "They died when I was fifteen. Came home from school to find them in the living room. Someone had cut out their hearts. Precisely. Like surgery. And my father..."
"What?"
"They took his head too." She hugs herself. "Never understood why. If you want someone dead, why the extra step? Why take trophies?"
My blood burns hotter. But the rage feels ancient. Like something coded in DNA just woke up.
"Both hearts?" Adrian's gone statue-still. "That's ritual work. Specific."
"Cops said it was a message. Dad was investigating trafficking rings. Mom's research supported his cases—documenting exploitation patterns, abuse networks. They died reaching for each other." She laughs but it sounds like breaking. "At least they had that."
I move without thinking. Pull her against me. She's cold even through fabric, but my heat doesn't bother her. She melts into it like she's been freezing her whole life.
"That's why you came here. Following their work."
She nods against my chest. "The patterns led to Blood Moon. Missing omegas, underground networks, someone big pulling strings. Thought if I found their killer..."
"You'd get justice."
"Or revenge. Stopped caring about the difference around the one-year mark."
Sasha joins us. The pack bond thrums with his proximity. Should feel weird, sharing. Instead it feels inevitable.
"We'll help. The pack—"
"There's something else." She pulls back, meets each of our eyes. "I don't know if my mom even knew what my father was. She never talked about his family. Just said he gave up everything to be with us."
"Gave up?" Lysander perks up at the phrasing.
"Her exact words. That he surrendered his birthright for love. I figured she meant money. Rich family, wrong bride. But now..."
"Now you wonder." I finish.
"That collar shouldn't have shattered. And when I bit you all, something happened. Felt like venom moving through me, but anacondas don't have venom."
My blood sings remembering. That cold burn spreading through my system like liquid starlight finding home.
"We could check. I know people who do heritage mapping."
Lysander already pulling out his phone.
"Or we could scry."
Everyone turns to Adrian.
"Blood magic?" Sasha says it like Adrian suggested arson. Which from vampires, might be worse.
"Desperate times." Adrian shrugs elegant shoulders. "Her blood carries his essence. With the right ritual..."
"You could see what he was." I finish. Feel certainty in my bones. "Do it."
"I don't know..."
"I do. You need answers. We need answers. These bonds changed us—"
"You think I'm dangerous."
"I think you're ours." The words come out hard. "And I protect what's mine. But I can't protect you from shadows."
She searches our faces. Finds whatever she needs.
"Okay. Tell me what to do."
Adrian's already moving. Pulling salt, candles, a silver bowl from Sasha's shelves. Rich boys and their occult collections.
"Lysander, moonwater. Sasha, pack blood. Kenji—"
"Fire. Got it."
We work like we've done this before. The bonds make everything fluid, Adrian's knowledge bleeding through our connection. My hands know where to put the candles, how to layer the salt.
Mina sits center circle, tense but determined. Adrian pricks her finger with something that makes my teeth ache just looking at it.
"Father's blood calls to father's source. Reveal what was hidden. Show what was lost."
Latin. Because vampires can't just say s**t normal.
Her blood hits moonwater. Reality explodes.
Power slams through the room like a tsunami. Ancient. Furious. I taste impossible depths, feel scales that never existed, wings that shouldn't be real. My blood screams recognition even as my brain screams what the f**k.
The building shakes. Books cascade. The piano plays a chord that sounds like drowning.
Then a voice tears through us. Not heard. Felt. Bone deep and absolute.
NO.
Everything stops. We're gasping on the floor, circle shattered, bowl cracked clean through.
"That." Lysander sounds wrecked. "Was not human opposition."
"Not anything I've seen." Adrian's bleeding from his nose. Vampires don't bleed easy. "That was old. Before old. That was—"
"Dragon."
The word rips out of me. My blood knows even if my brain doesn't.
Everyone freezes.
"Dragons are extinct."
Sasha says it careful, like words might break reality more.
"No. Hidden. Different thing."
"How could you know—"
"I just do."
Don't know how. Just know it's true like I know fire burns.
Mina's shaking. I pull her back against me. The others close in, pack instinct screaming protect.
"My father wasn't human."
"Definitely not." Lysander agrees.
"But what was he? Why protect his identity even dead?"
"Better question." Adrian wipes blood away. "Who has power to bind that protection? And why?"
We sit in magical wreckage, questions multiplying. But one thing's clear—someone powerful wants Mina's heritage buried.
"We should sleep. Process this tomorrow."
Trust Sasha to be practical while reality's still smoking.
"Together?" Mina asks, then flushes. "The bonds pull when you're too far."
"Like fishhooks." I agree. "Under the skin."
"Bed's big enough." Sasha says it casual. Like piling five people in his bed is standard Monday night.
We relocate to his room—massive space, California king, everything designer but lived in. Books stacked messy. Pill bottles in the bathroom I pretend not to clock.
"This is weird." Mina hovers at the foot of the bed.
"Everything about us is weird." Adrian's already claimed the left side. "Embrace it."
We arrange ourselves like puzzle pieces. Sasha against headboard because control issues. Adrian beside him. Mina in the middle where we can all reach her. Me on her other side. Lysander at the edge because fae need exit strategies.
"Never slept with anyone before." Mina tells the ceiling. "Like, actual sleeping."
"Same." Lysander sounds amused. "Even Adrian probably."
"Vampires don't do vulnerable." Adrian confirms.
But here we are. Five predators in one bed, bonds humming contentment. Mina releases tension incrementally as our heat—my heat especially—warms her cold-blooded system.
"Thank you." She whispers. "For not running when I showed you."
"Snakes are badass. Plus you're stuck with us now."
"I know. Permanent. Irreversible." She turns to face me. "You sorry?"
I think about my changed fire. How right this feels despite the impossibility.
"No. You?"
"Ask me tomorrow."
But then she props up on one elbow, looks at me with something raw in her eyes.
"Actually. There's something else I need to—can I—"
"Whatever you need."
She leans in. Kisses me.
Not soft. Not tentative. Like she's trying to crawl inside my skin through my mouth. I taste rainforest and promises and that cold burn that makes my blood sing. My hands find her hair, her waist, pulling her closer while the bonds flare like struck matches.
She breaks away gasping. Turns to Sasha before anyone can speak.
"Fair's fair."
Kisses him like she's declaring war. He makes a sound I've never heard from him—raw, needy, all that control cracking. The bond between them pulses so bright I feel it secondhand.
Adrian next. He laughs against her mouth, delighted, then kisses her back like he's got centuries of practice. Which he does. The vampire knows exactly how to take her apart with lips and teeth and careful pressure.
Lysander she approaches different. Careful. He meets her halfway, and their kiss is strange—reality bends around them, makes the air taste purple. Fae kissing snake, both of them something that shouldn't exist.
Then she's back to me. Pressing close, all that cool skin against my heat.
"Had to be fair."
"f**k fair."
I kiss her like the world's ending. Maybe it is. Everything I thought I knew is shifting, changing, evolving into something new. She makes these sounds—soft, desperate, perfect. I want to record them. Want to cause them forever.
"Okay." She pulls back, breathing hard. "Okay. That's—yeah."
"Yeah?" Sasha's voice comes out wrecked.
"Yeah."
We settle again. But now there's this energy between us. Not just the bonds. Something electric and alive and hungry.
"Still weird?" Adrian asks.
"Different weird." She burrows into the space between me and Sasha. "Good weird."
"The best weird." Lysander agrees.
She falls asleep first. Trust hitting hard and sudden. The others follow—even Sasha without his usual pharmaceutical assistance.
I stay awake. Thinking about dragon magic and murdered parents. About venom I can feel changing my blood into something new. About a girl who turns into twenty-three feet of predator and still looks vulnerable.
My fire burns different now. Controlled. Purposeful. Like someone taught chaos how to build instead of break.
We're going to need it. Whatever killed her parents, whatever's hunting omegas, whatever that dragon magic was protecting—it's all connected. All leading here.
But we're connected too now. Pack plus. Bonded by bite and blood and whatever the f**k is happening in our DNA.
- Writer
