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“We need a larger water heater.”

I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear the witch standing just outside the door to the communications center. A shame, too, since I wanted nothing more than to ignore her presence and the fact that she existed at all.

I knew exactly who it was, too. The one member of the Blood Moon Coven who’d been the most vocal when it came to how unhappy she was to be sharing our cave. I’d thought it would be her fellow priestess Iris, who had always struck me as someone looking for a fight.

But it was Hecate who seemed determined to get under my skin. Just the sight of her made my head ache.

When she didn’t say another word—but didn’t leave, either—I swiveled about in my chair. There she was, standing in the doorway, arms folded. Glaring at me with those unnerving blue eyes of hers, like her mother’s and sister’s. All of the witches had strangely penetrating eyes, including Keira. Eyes that seemed to see much more than what was on the surface.

“Forgive me, but what is it you wish for me to do?” I asked, reminding myself how important it was to remain civil. If I had it my way, we’d be locked in battle by this point, no doubt about it. Every time our paths crossed, she had something new to complain about.

She blinked as if I’d lapsed into a foreign language. “What do you think? See to it that a larger heater is installed.”

“Oh, aye, because it’s that simple,” I muttered. “I realize this is beyond your comprehension, but it’s not a matter of dialing up the local distributor and asking them to install a larger model. I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“Why isn’t it that simple?”

“Are you daft, or are you simply doing your best to be as irritating as possible?” I couldn’t help myself. She was deliberately misunderstanding me just to start an argument. Perhaps it was time for her mother to have a talk with her.

A funny thing, wanting a grown woman’s mother to put her in her place. To say nothing of the fact that these witches or priestesses or whatever they liked to call themselves were much older than they appeared. Like us, they aged slowly—just not as slowly as a dragon.

She was far past the age of needing a mother to tell her how to behave, yet here we were. There she was, her jaw set in a hard line, glaring at me while I simply tried to do my job.

“There is never enough hot water to shower with,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “It makes bathing very unpleasant.”

I bit the side of my tongue, since laughing in her face would most likely be considered poor form. “You do realize that prior to our numbers dwindling, a great many more dragons made their home in his cave? The only reason Alan was able to offer protection to your coven was because we lost so many and now have the available space. Yet never, not once, did we have trouble with the hot water supply.”

She merely lifted her brows in silent challenge.

“Perhaps you ought to talk to your coven and discuss bathing in a more efficient fashion,” I surmised. “Knowing we don’t have an endless supply of hot water ought to inspire you lot to change your habits. Or you might be helpful and, I don’t know, magic us up a larger heater than we already use.”

She scowled. “That’s not how our magic works.”

“How did you manage it in your old home, then?”

“We had our ways. We weren’t bound by these human appliances. And…” She bit down on her lip as though there was more about to come out, but she felt the need to stop it.

I didn’t care to press. I didn’t care much one way or another what she thought, felt, was about to say. It meant nothing to me. So long as Alan believed this arrangement was for the best, I was on board.

I didn’t have to like it, though. And I most certainly did not.

It seemed Hecate knew it, too, which was why she’d chosen me to needle at every possible opportunity. As though I were the weak link in the chain, so I was the one she would test. To what purpose? I couldn’t say, nor did I wish to give it more thought than was absolutely necessary.

The less I thought about her and her coven, the better I slept at night.

“Is there anything else?” I asked, nodding my head toward the bank of monitors before me. “If not, I’d like to get back to monitoring our safety. Unless you believe that, too, needs your expert opinion. We’ve been doing pretty well here since the incident.”

She knew what I meant. The incident which had led to so much death. The helicopters, the guns. Being rounded up like cattle, forced to look upon those who had fought to protect us.

Even a dragon was no match for an assault rifle.

Hecate’s full lips curved into a snide smile. “But still, the incident occurred.”

That was it. My breaking point. For a split second the image of a full-grown dragon springing forth from my human body and filling the room flashed across my consciousness. Broken monitors, wrecked equipment. I was that close to losing control.

It was Alan’s voice that broke through and brought me back. “There wasn’t much we could do about that,” he informed Hecate as he reached her side. Whether he’d overheard our argument and joined us to offer support or just happened to be walking past was unknown. I was simply glad to see him. He was a reminder of what living with the coven meant. How crucial it was to repair our relationship with them.

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