Fire Brand (City of Dragons Book 6)

by Val St. Crowe

  “You don’t understand,” said Paloma.

  “Paloma,” warned Donovan. “Anything you say, they’ll use against you.”

  She pressed her lips together as if she was trying to seal them tight.

  Lachlan stopped pacing. “No, I think I do understand. This—you and Donovan—is some kind of star-crossed secret, right? That’s what makes it exciting? Sleeping with the enemy?”

  Donovan clenched his jaw, glaring at Lachlan.

  “But I bet your uncle didn’t think it was so romantic when he found out about it, did he?”

  Paloma sputtered.

  Donovan grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t.”

  She turned to him, eyes wide. “But, he—”

  “Shh!” he said.

  “What did he threaten to do? Tell your family? Fire you as his assistant? Cut you out of his will? All of the above? That’s why you had to kill him, isn’t it?”

  Paloma yanked her hand out of Donovan’s and got to her feet. “That’s insane.”

  “Oh, is it?” said Lachlan.

  Donovan stood up too. “Paloma, please.”

  She shook her head. “No, he’s saying absolutely wrong things. They aren’t true.”

  “He’s trying to rile you up,” said Donovan.

  “He’s an idiot,” said Paloma, fluffing her wings and glaring at Lachlan.

  Lachlan polished his fingernails on his suit jacket. “That’s not the way it went down? I’m thinking that maybe you got sloppy at the hospital. Maybe Donovan came by to see you when you were visiting your uncle. Maybe you thought your uncle was asleep, but then he woke up, and he saw the two of you together. Maybe he told you what he thought of you and threatened you.”

  “No,” said Paloma.

  Lachlan was on a roll, though. He wasn’t about to stop. “You were terrified. He’d put your whole world at risk. You had no way out. You were ruined. And then you saw the storage closet. You perused the names on the labels of the drugs. A quick search on your cell phone would have told you which one to inject.”

  “No, no, no,” said Paloma. “Just stop.”

  “I’ve got it wrong?” said Lachlan. “Maybe you planned it out a little more. Maybe you took some time trying to find the right way to kill him and eventually settled on injecting him with Periklur.”

  “I didn’t kill my uncle,” said Paloma.

  “You keep trying to sell that, but I’m not buying it,” said Lachlan.

  “He never found out about Donovan and me. Never. And thank goodness, because it would have destroyed him, like you’re saying. I don’t think he would have cut me off or anything, but he would never have understood. My uncle was a great man, but he had old wounds, and he wasn’t ever going to accept that a Gilbert could be a good man.”

  “If he didn’t find out,” said Lachlan evenly, “then how—”

  “No one found out,” said Paloma. “Not until you two wouldn’t stop poking your noses into everything.” She whirled to face Donovan. “Actually, it’s your fault. Giving me that god damned handkerchief.”

  “My fault?” Donovan was incredulous. “You were crying. You lost your uncle and you were beside yourself. And I’m not supposed to give you a handkerchief?”

  “Who even uses handkerchiefs anymore?” she demanded of him. “What century are you living in?”

  Donovan huffed.

  “Hold on a second,” said Lachlan. “He never found out?”

  “No,” said Paloma. “This whole time, I’ve been trying to keep you—keep everyone—from finding out about Donovan. That’s all. I didn’t kill my uncle. I loved my uncle.”

  “But why?” I said, stepping forward. I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not. “Why not just come clean? Tell us about the relationship. You had to realize that all the secrecy only made us more suspicious of you.”

  “Because no one could know,” said Paloma. “My family wouldn’t understand, and Donovan’s father… well, he would…”

  “He’d kill us all,” said Donovan. “He’s old and bitter and used up. He’s lived a very long time, and I’m not the only son he’s ever had. Maybe he used to love his children, a long time ago, but whatever was in him that was caring or compassionate has long since withered and died. The man is… well, I don’t have any admiration for him, let’s put it that way.”

  I shook my head. “But then how would this ever work out between the two of you? You can’t have a secret relationship forever.”

  “You think we don’t know that?” said Paloma.

  “On more than one occasion, we’ve sworn to stay away from each other,” said Donovan. “It works for a while, but then…”

  “We’re not strong enough to stay away,” said Paloma, turning to gaze into his eyes. “We need each other.”

  “Yes,” said Donovan, looking back at her tenderly. “We do.”

  Lachlan tapped his chin thoughtfully.

  I knitted my brows together.

  Were they telling the truth?

  * * *

  I awoke to the feeling of weight settling on the bed.

  Lachlan?

  I rolled over.

  He was sitting down on the opposite side of the bed, taking off his shoes.

  I smiled at him in the darkness.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “What did you decide to do with them?”

  “Donovan and Paloma?” He sighed, tugging his shirt over his head. “I cut them loose.”

  I wriggled a hand out of the covers and ran it appreciatively over his now bare chest. “Mmm. You think they’re innocent?”

  He leaned over and kissed me quickly. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” He stood up and unbuttoned his jeans. Now only in his boxers, he climbed under the covers with me.

  I scooted close. “But it could have gone down like you said. Beckett could have found out.”

  “Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around me. “But Beckett and Paloma seemed to have a pretty healthy relationship. Even if he thought she was doing something he didn’t approve of, I don’t think he would have threatened to take away her livelihood. Doesn’t seem like he was that kind of a guy.”

  “No,” I agreed, enjoying the way it felt to be in the circle of his arms. “He seemed like a really good guy. It’s terrible that someone killed him. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “He didn’t.” Lachlan kissed me again, letting his lips linger on mine.

  “Mmm,” I said again, smiling at him.

  His fingers went down to my thigh, to the hem of my nightgown. He pushed the fabric up, bunching it in his hand. “You probably want to go back to sleep, don’t you?”

  I pressed closer. “Oh, I don’t know. I might be wide, wide awake and in need of a bit of… exercise to get tired again.”

  He chuckled low in his throat. “I might be able to help you out with that.”

  I laughed softly, skimming my fingers over the muscles in his arms.

  He kissed me again, and this kiss was slow and thorough, his tongue claiming me. He rolled his body on top of mine.

  I wrapped my legs around him, wriggling my hips against him.

  His lips left my mouth, wandered down to my jaw, and then to my neck. I felt the slick smoothness of his teeth and then a tiny prick of pain, and then…

  Bliss.

  My eyes rolled back in my head. I loved the way it felt when he drank my blood. I was connected to him, and there were no boundaries between the two of us. There were no boundaries between us and anything. We melted into the bed, into the air. We seeped out cracks in the windows, out into the night sky and soared over the dark, glittering waves of the ocean.

  And then his mouth was on mine again, and I was slamming back into my body to find that he had shoved my nightgown out of the way, baring my body to him, and his fingers were busy against the most sensitive parts of me.

  I wanted to moan, but I only gasped.

  Too loud and we’d w
ake the baby.

  I arched my back, closed my eyes, surrendered to him. And I was lost in a whirlwind of pleasure, his lips, his teeth, his hands…

  And then finally, our bodies joined, his inside mine, his teeth back in my skin, my blood in his mouth, and everything was sublime. We were barreling down a fleshy corridor of goodness until we burst together, panting and sighing.

  Then we were still.

  He buried his face in the crook of my shoulder. “I’m crushing you, aren’t I?” His voice was muffled.

  “No,” I said. “I’m huge and sturdy now with all the extra weight I’m carrying around. I can take it.”

  He rolled off me, and pulled me close. “Yes, you are extremely huge.”

  I picked up a pillow and whacked him with it. “I am not.”

  He laughed, lifting his head. “No, you’re not. You’re perfect and beautiful and curvy and the mother of my child, so I will only permit people to say complimentary things about you, and that includes you saying things about yourself.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good luck with that.”

  “Figure I’ll just keep agreeing with you until you stop it.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  He rolled onto his back.

  I started to get out of bed. And then I turned back to Lachlan. “Rowan Lynch? Didn’t she say that she worked at Beckett’s bank?”

  “Um, maybe.” He propped himself up on one elbow.

  “I don’t know why I just thought of that,” I mused, getting up and padding across the room.

  I went to the bathroom and came back.

  Lachlan was lying on his back with his arms cradling his neck. “Were you thinking about the case while we were making love?”

  “No,” I said, crawling back into bed.

  “Be honest,” he said. “Did you really have an orgasm, because we’ve been together a long time, and there’s got to be a point in which we don’t have regular simultaneous climaxes, right? So, are you faking those?”

  I hit him with a pillow again. “No, I’m not faking it. Where is all this coming from?”

  “Nowhere.” He shifted, rolling onto his side. “Sorry.”

  I lay down next to him, rolling onto my side so that I was facing him. “I think we’re just good at having sex with each other.”

  He kissed me. “I would agree with that.” He put his arm around me.

  I snuggled against him, resting one hand on his chest.

  “So,” he said. “Why did you say that thing about the bank?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking that if she worked at his bank, she would have access to his accounts. She’d know how much money he had.”

  “Huh,” said Lachlan. “Well, that doesn’t sound great for her, does it?”

  “She’s the only suspect we have left,” I said.

  “Yeah, hopefully, it’s her and we can prove it,” said Lachlan. “Otherwise, back to the drawing board, right?”

  I sighed. “With our luck, it actually is Samuel Jacobs.”

  “Or Dashiell,” said Lachlan.

  “Or Sierra,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Can I help you?” A gargoyle man in a pair of holey jeans and nothing else had just answered the door to Rowan’s house. The gargoyle guy looked older, middle aged. It was just after sundown, so he’d obviously just woken up. He rubbed one of his eyes.

  Lachlan looked as confused as I felt. “We’re looking for Rowan Lynch. She lives here, right?”

  What if she didn’t live here? Maybe she’d simply sneaked into the house before, loaded the dishes into the dishwasher nonchalantly, pretending to live here. If this was a gargoyle house, then maybe no one would notice if a woman came in during the day time. Of course, her son had been here…

  “Oh, she’s still at work,” said the man. “She’ll probably be home soon, though. If you don’t mind a little mess, you can come in and wait.”

  “Thanks,” said Lachlan.

  The man moved away from the door and we stepped inside. The living room was a little messy. There were some toys scattering the floor, a tangle of cords strewn out to a video game system, and some dirty dishes on an end table. But it mostly just looked lived in, not messy.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but can we inquire who you are, sir?”

  “Oh, I’m Rowan’s boyfriend,” said the man. “Name’s Kevin.”

  Huh. Rowan had a boyfriend. A gargoyle boyfriend. Guess she had a type. I had to admit, there was something appealing about gargoyles. They were all chiseled and solid, if you were into that kind of thing. I was head over heels for Lachlan, though, myself.

  “And who are you two?” said Kevin.

  “I’m Lachlan Flint,” said Lachlan. “This is my associate Penny Caspian. We’re with the SCPD.”

  “You’re police?” said Kevin, looking startled. “Of course. You look like… and you’re at the door… Man. I just woke up. Look, I’m not really Rowan’s boyfriend. I mean, I’m her boyfriend, but we’ve only been together a real short time. And, uh, I don’t, um, live here or anything.”

  Wow, he’d gotten pretty freaked out, hadn’t he? Maybe he was a criminal or something. Or maybe Rowan had told him to say certain things, and now he was trying to get them out so that he got the story straight. Whatever was going on, he was nervous.

  Lachlan cocked his head to one side. “How long have you been together?”

  “Uh, a year? No, no, just months. Maybe, uh, nine. Yeah, nine months.”

  “Mmm hmm,” said Lachlan. “So when did the relationship start, then?”

  “Uh…” Kevin swallowed hard. He paused for a long time, thinking hard. “February. We, uh, we started dating in February.”

  “And where do you live, if you don’t live here?” said Lachlan.

  Kevin looked flustered. “Uh… Selbyville.”

  “Oh,” said Lachlan, smiling. “You like it there?”

  “Yeah, it’s great. It’s, um, just a short drive, you know. Well, right now, it’s short. You can make it there in no time. In, uh, the summer, it can take a while with the traffic.”

  “Yeah, it gums up down here all right,” said Lachlan. “How come you turn to stone here if you don’t live here?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you haven’t had the time to drive all the way here from Selbyville since the sun went down, so I assume you woke up here. Any reason you didn’t go home yesterday morning?”

  “Sometimes I stay here is all,” said Kevin.

  “Right,” said Lachlan.

  “Look, I think that I should, uh… find a shirt,” said Kevin. “You two can just sit down and wait for Rowan, and she’ll answer all your questions, okay?”

  “Is Harlem here?” said Lachlan.

  “He’s still sleeping,” said Kevin. “Gonna get him up for school in a bit. What do you want with Harlem?”

  “Nothing,” said Lachlan, narrowing his eyes. He rubbed his chin. “You go on and finish getting dressed.”

  Kevin left the room. He peered back over his shoulder, muttered to himself, and disappeared.

  Lachlan turned to me. “So, you remember how Harlem didn’t know his dad was dead?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “And you remember how he was confused about why we’d need to go somewhere to check on his father?”

  “Um…” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “When we were here before,” said Lachlan, “we had a conversation with the kid, and he said that maybe he should check on his dad, but that his father was stone. And I said we couldn’t go to find his dad, and he seemed confused about that.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I do. What’s up with that?”

  Kevin reappeared in the doorway, now wearing a shirt. “You know, I’ve thought about it, and I think you two should go. Rowan can call you when she’s ready to see you. When she gets home from work, she might not be ready to talk to the police anyway, so—”


  “Were you in on it?” said Lachlan.

  “Are you listening to me?” said Kevin. “I think you should go.”

  Lachlan took a step toward Kevin. “You guys pull this scheme off together?”

  “I don’t know what scheme you’re talking about. I don’t even know who I would be pulling anything off together with.”

  “You and Rowan,” said Lachlan. “Did you help her kill Beckett Stanley?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kevin backed away from us. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy, man. Rowan didn’t do anything like that. And I never would have ever, ever—”

  “Harlem is your son,” said Lachlan. “You live here, and you and Rowan have been together a long time. Long enough to have a child together, so at least ten years, probably more. Everything out of your mouth has been a lie since I walked through this door.”

  Kevin’s wings trembled. “Hey, come on. Not so loud. You’ll wake up Harlem.”

  Lachlan snorted. “Right. Got to protect the kid.”

  Kevin looked down on his feet. “He’s got nothing to do with this. He doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “But you do,” said Lachlan.

  Kevin didn’t say anything.

  “Did she actually ever have an affair with Beckett?” said Lachlan. “One night stand, whatever? Is that even true?”

  Kevin squared his shoulders, looking Lachlan in the eye.

  “Oh,” said Lachlan. “It is true. That threatened you, didn’t it? Is that why you told her to do it, then?”

  “I never told her anything.”

  “No?” said Lachlan. “She didn’t come home from her job at the bank and tell you that she’d run into Beckett Stanley and he was loaded?”

  Kevin ran a hand through his hair. “How do you even know this stuff?” His voice shook. He looked around and then collapsed into a nearby chair. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.

  Lachlan crossed the room to him and knelt down next to him, lowering his voice. “You were out of your mind with jealousy, right? I mean, not only did she cheat on you with him, but he’s got money. And I’m guessing you don’t.”