“What I wouldn’t do for a bit of your familiar’s shadow magic right now,” he grumbled, our hands loosely entwined again, gravitating toward each other like they had a mind of their own. Like they belonged together.
“I’d settle for any magic, honestly.” It was all there, swirling deep inside me, pent-up and frustrated and thrumming with my coven’s legacy—just out of reach.
Lips pursed, Fintan leaned back to survey the stretch of gravel between the greenhouse and the main prison building, and then returned to me with a huff. Another pointed glance toward the fence hinted at an internal debate—that for once he wasn’t just rushing into something, driven by instinct and personal gain.
“Fine.” He steered us deeper into the greenhouse’s shadow, our backs to the glass wall. “Let’s go find your mate.”
My heart soared—because at some point he had figured it out. Elijah didn’t strike me as the type to discuss our personal relationship, not even with Rafe, but Fintan had just admitted to it: he knew I was fated to a dragon shifter.
But he still held my hand, still looked at me with that otherworldly gaze like he wanted to devour me whole.
He knew—and it didn’t matter.
“Let’s get our dragon and our vampire,” I clarified, so many words unsaid suddenly dangling between us. “And my familiar.”
“I mean, if we’ve got the space in the escape pods, I suppose his royal highness can tag along.”
I trailed after him to the edge of the building, Xargi Penitentiary soaring before us, and I did my best impression of a nonchalant Fintan-shrug. “If Tully even wants to leave this Shangri-La, of course.”
“Of course.”
Fintan then grinned, acceptance and affection glinting amongst the mischief in his eyes, and we broke off into a sprint toward Xargi—hand in hand, off to rescue a dragon, a vampire, and a cat.