Natalie wanted to crank the heat in her apartment up again, but she had a feeling the group of shifters and wizards in here would complain that it was too warm already. She knew they were right—a quick glance at the temperature indicator on her thermostat told her that. But she still felt chilled to the bone. She had done her best to prepare, but her chilly dragon-top ride had left her feeling frozen nonetheless.

Kurt was in her living room, drinking a beer and talking in low tones with Wyatt. Kurt seemed completely fine, despite the fact that he’d been up in the air just as long as she had today. Natalie sneezed.

Damn dragons, she thought. But she couldn’t keep her mouth from turning up in a smile at the sight of him. It had been so good to see him again, and now, they had managed to find the Dark Warriors’ Chicago headquarters. At least, she was pretty sure they had. There was no way to know for certain other than to storm the place, which she had a feeling Wyatt would be doing very soon.

Tonight, though, they celebrated. The whole resistance, all twelve of them, had crammed into Natalie’s apartment. They had ordered pizza, and almost everyone had brought a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine with them. Technically, this wasn’t a party. It was a meeting to discuss Natalie’s and Kurt’s findings from today. But the mood felt festive nonetheless. After months with no breakthroughs, this was huge.

“Natalie, now that everyone is finally here, can you recap everything from today?” Wyatt asked, his voice rising above the din. He gave a pointed look to two wizards who had arrived only minutes before, nearly an hour after everyone else.

“Sorry, Wyatt,” one of them said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “The Red Line was delayed. I can’t control what happens with the subway.”

“Then you’re not a very good wizard,” one of the shifters teased.

The wizard rolled his eyes. “There’s no magic spell strong enough to make Chicago Transit run on schedule.”

Everyone laughed as Natalie moved toward the front of the living room to stand by her television. She had rigged her laptop to the TV screen so that the pictures she was displaying were large enough for everyone to see.

“I won’t go over everything in great detail again, since most of you already heard the whole story. But, basically, there’s a high amount of magical energy coming from the building that I circled in red in the photo.”

For good measure, Natalie pointed to the building, even though it was easy to see on the large screen, circled in bright red. She had taken enough pictures that she had managed to get one where there was a gap in the swirling snow right above the building in question.

“You’re sure of this?” one of the wizards who had arrived late asked.

Natalie nodded. “I performed the spell several times to double check. There’s definitely a high concentration of magic there. Nothing else in the city came even close. I’d say there must be somewhere between fifty and seventy-five wizards in that building. At least.”

The wizard whistled. “Damn. That’s a lot.”

“Agreed,” Wyatt said. “But that’s almost certainly not all of the Dark Warriors in the city. For one thing, the magic detecting spell won’t detect shifters, and we know there are a lot of evil shifters here. For another thing, odds are good that at any given time, there are quite a few dark wizards out roaming the streets. There weren’t any magical disturbances today, thankfully. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t out there.”

“So what’s the plan?” the same wizard asked.

“The plan is to attack their headquarters as soon as possible,” Wyatt answered. “We don’t want to be foolhardy, though. We can’t expect the twelve of us to waltz into that place and be able to take it down completely. Even with a dragon on our side, we’re outnumbered. And it’s almost certain that there are some very strong protective spells around that place. So before we make any attempt to attack, we’re asking around for help. Kurt is going to ask Torch Lake if they can send some more dragons out, as well as some highly-skilled wizards. They have some wizards there skilled in ancient magic, which is really rare. We’re also reaching out to Falcon Cross to see if they can spare some wizards and shifters. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a big enough group together to storm the building that Natalie found.”

“I’m confident the Torch Lake High Council will send some dragons and wizards,” Kurt piped in. “They’re very interested in ending the disturbances here in Chicago, and they’re also going to be interested in seeing what’s inside these headquarters. The groups of Dark Warriors are all spread out without any central leadership, as far as we can tell. But we’re hoping that we’ll find at least a little bit of information in there about where other factions of the Dark Warriors might be hiding.”

The discussion of the Dark Warriors continued on, but Natalie wasn’t needed anymore. She really hadn’t been needed for the first part of the presentation, but she knew Wyatt was trying to recognize her hard work by letting her present the picture of the building. She didn’t care that much about honor or recognition, though. All she cared about was being able to walk around in Chicago without worrying that she was being followed by another wizard or a shifter. She wanted to live as a human.

Would she ever have that life again, though? This whole group knew she was a wizard now. They were going to want to keep in touch, even if the threat of the Dark Warriors ended. Natalie sighed. Would she ever be able to live a truly normal life? No matter how hard she tried, she could never hide who she was.

Natalie went to the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge. She shouldn’t worry about all of that now. Today was not a day to be sad and fret about the future. Today was a day to celebrate. The crew here had taken a big step forward toward ridding Chicago of evil. That in itself was something to be happy about. Besides, Natalie had to admit that it did feel good to have friends who understood her. The last few years had been rather lonely. She’d made a few friends at work, but it was hard to get close to someone when you were always worried about accidentally revealing that you were a wizard.

Natalie vowed to enjoy the evening, and worry about the future when the future came. She drank beer and ate pizza, but declined the ice-cream when one of the shifters ventured out to get some. She still felt much too cold for that sort of dessert. Besides, she was stuffed from all the other food. It was after eleven by the time the group started saying goodbye. Even though Natalie had to work the next day, she still wished everyone had stayed later. She was having such a great time, and, if she was honest with herself, she was dreading the thought of Kurt leaving. She’d barely had a chance to talk to him today, and that was making her unreasonably grumpy. Sure, she’d talked to him about the Dark Warriors’ possible headquarters. And she’d made small talk with him here and there over the course of the night. But she didn’t feel like she’d had much one-on-one time with him, and she was craving that.

She told herself that spending time alone with him was going to have to wait. He was probably exhausted, like her. They both should be focusing on getting some sleep. Who knew what challenges the days ahead would bring? The first challenge Natalie would be facing was getting through the workday tomorrow. She knew she was probably going to feel like a zombie, but she didn’t want to call in sick. She already felt guilty for calling in sick today, even though it had been for a good cause. It’s not like she could explain her little white lie to her boss, though. She giggled as she imagined herself trying.

Sorry, Boss. I had to call in because there’s a group of wizards doing dark magic and trying to destroy the city. I know a magic spell that helps find them, so I rode around on a dragon’s back to search.

“What’s so funny?”

Natalie looked up to find Kurt looking at her like she was slightly crazy. She shrugged. “Not much, I was just thinking how freaked out my boss would be if I told him what I’d actually been doing today.”

Kurt laughed, and shook his head. “That’s one thing I don’t miss about living among humans. You could never quite tell the truth.”

Kurt’s words were said in a lighthearted, joking manner, but they cut to Natalie’s heart anyway. Was this how her life was destined to be? Always lying, always hiding? She was a good person, and hated lies. But these lies were necessary if she wanted to live among humans. And she did want to live among humans. She had seen enough of clan life to believe that the only thing worse than having to hide who you were was having to obey a misguided High Council. That was definitely not the sort of life Natalie wanted.

This was too much to explain to Kurt right now, though. Everyone was happy and feeling optimistic after the productive day they’d had. Natalie didn’t want to ruin that by moaning about High Councils or the difficulty of living among humans. She waved away all the offers of help cleaning up.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said, shooing them away from her messy kitchen. She wanted them to leave feeling happy and relaxed, and letting them all clean up right before leaving didn’t seem like the best way of accomplishing that. Besides, the mess wasn’t that bad. She just needed to take a bunch of pizza boxes and beer bottles down to her condo building’s recycling bin.

The group reluctantly left, with Natalie saying her goodbyes one by one. She was relieved to see that Kurt hung back a little. If he left a few minutes after everyone else, then she could say a more private goodbye to him. He was hanging out for more than just goodbyes, though.

“I’m helping you with this, and you’re not saying no,” he declared as he went into her kitchen and started stacking the pizza boxes together.

“Kurt, really—”

“Nope,” he interrupted, wagging his finger at her. “I said no protesting. You’ve done quite enough today. Not only did you host this whole get together, but you also were the one who found the Dark Warriors’ building. You deserve a break. Go sit on the couch.”

“It’s only allegedly the Dark Warriors’ building. We won’t know for sure until we attack it. And besides, you helped find it, too. You were the one actually flying all day. I was just riding.”

“Riding on my back in the freezing cold, searching for the Dark Warriors. Yours was the much harder task. Now go. Sit.”

Reluctantly, Natalie went to sit on the couch. She had to admit that it felt good to sit down. She hadn’t even realized that she’d spent most of the night on her feet. The seating in her apartment was so limited that she’d stood so all her guests could sit down. But her long day in the cold, combined with hours on her feet, was catching up with her. She still felt cold, but at least the couch was warm. She sank into it and pulled a throw blanket around herself. It felt so good to relax, truly relax. She closed her eyes—just for a moment. She listened to the clinking of beer bottles as Kurt gathered them up, and his voice humming as he worked. It all sounded so domestic. She snuggled deeper into the throw blanket, closing her eyes tighter so she could concentrate on the sound of Kurt in her kitchen.

I could get used to this, she thought, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. It feels so much like home.

It had been a long, long time since Natalie had truly felt at home somewhere. The last time she remembered feeling at home was in Falcon Cross. She realized with a deep feeling of unexpected sadness that Kurt was the common denominator. Was it him that made her feel like she belonged?

She squeezed her eyes tighter. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t depend on him to feel this way, because she already knew, despite how attractive he was and how much she cared for him, that nothing would ever work out between them. He was going back to Torch Lake when all of this was over, and she was staying here. And that meant that she couldn’t possibly have anything more than a passing fling with him.

Didn’t it?