by Keri Arthur
“Hard to get revenge on folk when you never saw their faces,” he said.
And that was his first complete lie. I could taste it, could practically feel the air curling away from the poisonous words. Trae, my half brother, might have the dragon knack of stealing, but I’d inherited something far more useful—the ability to sense falsehoods.
Of course, it wasn’t infallible, as the scars on my back and side would attest, but it had saved my life more often than not, and I wasn’t about to doubt it now.
“You said they wore ski masks. If you were close enough to see that, then you were close enough to notice other things.”
He studied me for a moment, his eyes suddenly as flat as his expression. “Like what?”
“Were they human or dragon kind, for a start?”
He snorted softly. “Humans would have been neither fast enough nor strong enough to overpower a whole town of draman.”
That was true, but the question still had to be asked. Not all draman inherited dragon powers. Some fell on the human side when it came to capabilities. “What about plate numbers? Or voices?”
“I never heard or saw any cars. And I would have, if they’d driven.”
If they’d flown, they must have landed away from the town, so as not to alert the townsfolk of their approach. The rush of wind past a dragon’s wing wasn’t exactly quiet.
He finished the dregs of his beer then shoved back the chair and stood. “What time do you want to rendezvous tomorrow?”
I hesitated, wondering if I would need backup. I might be able to defend myself, but something about this dragon made me wary, and it wasn’t just the lies and half-truths I was sensing. “How about eleven?”
I could ring Leith when I got back home to see if he would accompany me. And if not, maybe he could lend me one of his investigators. I’d feel better if my back was covered. Hell, if I knew where my brother was, I’d ring him, but he was off somewhere again.
“Eleven would be good. And don’t forget to bring the rest of the money.” Angus gave me a nod, then turned and walked out of the bar.
I drained my Coke, then stood. The room spun for a moment, and I grabbed at the tabletop to steady myself. Sweat broke out across my brow and I swiped at it irritably. Lord, I didn’t think it was that hot in here.
Or maybe it wasn’t the heat. The doctors had warned me something like this was likely to happen after the blood loss I’d suffered in the accident, which meant I needed to go home and rest, just like they’d ordered.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, then gave the bartender a nod and walked out. I could feel his gaze in the middle of my back, like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch, and again unease washed through me.
It was a relief to hit the street again, although the brightness of the dying day had me blinking after the dark of the bar. I raised my face to the sunshine, feeling the power of the oncoming dusk beginning to rise and letting it slither through me to stir the fires in my soul. Yet neither that energy nor the accompanying breeze did much to clear my spinning head.
I flicked a droplet of sweat from my nose, then turned and headed up the street. Once I got home, I could grab a shower. That would cool me down.
But my legs felt shaky and the footpath seemed to be swaying and my stomach was roaring up my throat. I swallowed back bile and grabbed at the nearby wall, trying to steady myself. Lord, maybe I should have stayed in the hospital after all. Or maybe the drugs they’d given me were finally beginning to take effect.
Drugs …
No, I thought, suddenly remembering the forced half smile the bartender had given me when he’d brought over the drinks. It couldn’t be.
Why in the hell would the bartender want to drug me? And why would he even bother? It made no sense.
Unless …
Unless he was a part of this whole deal. Unless he was one of those who had helped kill Rainey.
I shoved a shaking hand into the pocket of my jacket, dragged out my cell phone, and flipped it open. The little number pad blurred and danced before my eyes. I swore and swiped at a button, trying to get the phone book up. The screen went white and tiny little icons jigged about happily.
Again bile burned the back of my throat. I swallowed heavily and hit a button. Another screen flashed up, but I couldn’t read it. The characters were just a blur.
Then my fingers lost their strength and the phone hit the ground. Before I could grab it, a passerby kicked it away. It skidded off the pavement and into the path of a car. The wheels squashed it flat.
Fuck.
I needed help and I needed it fast. I tried to grab at someone as they passed, but it felt like my limbs were trapped in treacle, and I was unable to complete the motion. The movement unbalanced me and I went down hard while the person strode on, oblivious. Pain radiated from both my knee and my barely healed side—red-hot pokers that did little to clear the fog.
“Are you all right, lass?” someone said Angus.
“What?” It came out croaky, and I licked dry lips. “What have you done?”
“What I had to do,” he said, and I swear there was a note of sorrow in his voice. “Give me your hand.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
He sighed and grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet. I reached down, deep into the part of me that was dragon, and called to the fire. But for the first time in my life, she didn’t answer. She was as drugged and confused as the rest of me, and even the flames in my soul seemed dimmer.
Fear swept through me. God, what had he done?
I tried to hit him, but my fist swished through thin air and unbalanced me even more. And then unconsciousness claimed me once again.
Chapter Three
Voices invaded the darkness.
Voices that were gruff one moment, and oddly urbane the next. One was far stronger than the other, but together they formed a chorus that made no actual sense. What they were saying remained tantalizingly beyond my reach, swimming in a thick soup of incomprehensibility.
But as my thoughts traveled slowly toward consciousness, the rhythm of speech and the words became things I could grasp and understand.
The stronger of the voices belonged to Angus. The other one—although almost tinny in its tones—was vaguely familiar. A ghost from the past I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
And whoever he was, he had no smell. The only person who seemed to be here—wherever the hell here was—besides me was Angus, which meant he was probably talking on the phone.
“For the third and final time, yes, I’m sure it’s her.”
There was a distinct edge riding through Angus’s gruff tones and it had confusion swirling. It spoke of anger and hate, but that made no sense if Angus was working for the men behind all this.
He continued. “And no, I didn’t see her stain, because she refused to show it. But it’s her. Aside from the scar from the accident your man botched, she matched the picture you sent me perfectly.”
Oh God, the other man had arranged the truck accident. Which meant that I was close to finding out who he was. If I survived whatever they currently had planned for me, that is.
But if they were going to kill me, why drug me first? They’d certainly shown no compunction about trying to kill me before, so why hesitate now? Or was that what waited for me once these men finished talking?
Fear rose, then drifted away. And suddenly, being drugged seemed like a good thing.
“She won’t be restrained by darkness. The bitch never could be.” The familiar voice held a hint of sophistication that came with money and a cultured upbringing, which was odd because I really didn’t know anyone who matched either of those criteria.
Yet there was something about the voice that chilled me.
It was a voice that held no sense of life, no sense of compassion. Just a cold determination to do what had to be done. Once upon a time I’d known a man like that. It was he who’d given me my scars, and he’d made my teenage years hell.
&n
bsp; Of course, there were some who said I’d deserved it. I’d struck back and disfigured him—something few half-breeds ever had the skill or the gumption to do.
But this couldn’t be him. Aside from the fact that Seth had apparently died in an accident, there’d never been anything cultured about his manner or his tone.
Although it still sounded like him.
“The drug will keep her out for twenty-four hours. At least.” Was I imagining it, or was the edge I sensed in Angus’s voice filled with bitterness? He sure didn’t sound like a willing henchman, but maybe the fact that my mind seemed to be drifting a layer or two below true wakefulness was affecting my perceptions. Especially given the sense of wrongness I’d been getting about Angus in the bar.
“Trust me, the bitch can never be relied on to do the expected. Throw her in the box with the muerte. If he can’t get out, no one can.” He hesitated, and a hint of cold amusement came into his voice. “And it’ll have the side benefit of bringing back some very delicious memories for her.”
Confusion rolled through me. The man I was remembering hadn’t known me in that way. Oh, he’d wanted to, hence his scars and, subsequently, mine. So why would he imply otherwise?
Angus merely grunted. It wasn’t a happy sound.
“Evan will warn us if anybody comes looking for her, won’t he?” the urbane man added.
Evan? Not a name I knew, but one I could file away for later.
If there was a later.
“That’s what we pay him for.” Again, that bitterness. It just didn’t jell with a man who was only doing his job.
“Good,” the urbane man continued. “Tell Albert and Jay I’ll be there tomorrow night.”
“Will do.”
“And tell them to keep an eye on that fucking muerte. Just because he’s flamed out doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
“If he’s such a problem, then why don’t you just kill the bastard?”
“Because we need to know who set him on to us. The order didn’t come from the council as a whole, but someone on the council must suspect. Muerte rarely move without orders.”
Angus grunted. A second later there was a soft beep, then a clunk, as if something light had hit a seat. The phone, probably.
God, I’d have to find some way to escape before his planned rendezvous tomorrow night. Whoever he might have been in my past, this was the man who’d ordered the hit on Rainey, and I had no doubt he planned to do the same to me. I might need to kill him to free Rainey’s soul, but even in my confused state, I had little hope that he’d face me alone. One full dragon I could cope with. Two was out of my league.
And I needed to survive the encounter to perform the ceremony that would free Rainey.
The throaty roar of an engine invaded the brief silence and the metal flooring underneath me began to vibrate. I was in a van, obviously, but the knowledge did me little good. I remained as I was, caught between consciousness and oblivion, struggling against the odd lethargy that held my body so still. I wished I could do something, anything, to fight these men, but my body remained frozen and unresponsive. Sound was my only ally, and even that was distant, the rumble of the van consuming all other noises. Angus might be at the wheel, but he was as quiet as death.
I’m not sure how long we drove but, in my disconnected state, it seemed to be for only a few minutes. The rumble and vibration of the van stopped and sweet silence filled the void. Then a door slammed, another opened, and hands were grabbing me, hauling me roughly along the metal flooring until I was flung like a sack over the shoulder of someone who smelled like sea and smoke.
The urge to fight, to kick and scream and run, swept through me again. But as hard as I tried to make my muscles respond, they wouldn’t. Just like the dragon deep within.
What the hell had they given me?
It was a thought I pondered as more doors slammed open and closed, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps on wooden flooring.
“Albert, Jay, get your lazy asses down here immediately.” Angus’s voice was sharp and loud, echoing through the molasses of my thoughts.
There was a metallic click and Angus stopped abruptly. A soft, close voice said, “I’ve been watching you for the last two minutes. I could have shot you anytime I desired, sea dragon.”
He said sea dragon like it was an insult. Obviously not a man who had any idea just how dangerous sea dragons could be.
Angus’s snort was derisive, but I could feel the tension in him. “And that would have made the boss real happy, now wouldn’t it?”
“I ain’t afraid of the boss,” the silky voice replied.
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. He’d kill his own fucking brother if he thought it would benefit him.” He shifted my weight a little. “We’ve got another one for you to look after. The boss will be back tomorrow night to interview her.”
A hand grabbed my hair and I heard an intake of breath, as if he were sniffing it. Then he yanked my head up. Suddenly I was glad my muscles weren’t responding, because my instinctive reaction would have been to spit in his face—and I had a bad feeling that would not have been a good idea.
“Even with that scar, she’s a pretty one.”
“And she’ll remain that way,” Angus said sharply. “The boss wants her uncut and untouched until he gets here.”
“The delay will only make her eventual interrogation that much sweeter,” the other man said, and there was something in the way he said it that had chills skating down my spine. He let my head drop. “What has she done?”
“She’s a reporter asking too many questions.”
“Doing a story on the towns or the disappearances?”
“Both.”
The other man grunted. “You’d think no one would be interested in ghosts these days. We locking her in darkness?”
“She’s dragon, so it’s best to.” Footsteps echoed as we began to move again. “How’s the muerte?”
“After more than a week of darkness, the fire has all but gone out of him.”
Angus snorted again. “Thought those boys were tougher than that.”
We seemed to be moving downward now, and the bright sense of light faded into darkness and shadows. The realization gave me hope. If I was beginning to recognize light and shadow from behind closed eyelids, then maybe whatever drug they’d given me was starting to wear off.
Angus stopped and somewhere ahead a door creaked open. The shadows became true blackness and the air became stale, smelling faintly of mold. I was slung onto something hard and cold, my head hitting with enough force that stars danced behind my closed eyelids. Footsteps retreated, a door slammed, and thick, cold silence swirled all around me.
At least I wasn’t alone.
The muerte was here. Even if those men hadn’t said as much, I still would have known. The odd, tingling sort of awareness running through the part of me that wasn’t human suggested as much. But it was an awareness that had been hit-and-miss most of my life—sometimes accurate, sometimes not—and it was a lottery that had caused me a lot of grief over the years.
Of course, I had no idea what a muerte actually was—aside from the fact that muerte meant “death” in Spanish.
That they were locking him away in darkness meant he was at least a dragon, because dragons—and most draman—needed the warmth of the sun to fuel their shape-shifting and fires. Locking them away from sunlight for any length of time robbed them of two dangerous weapons—which was a good thing in this case, because it meant he posed no immediate threat.
Not that the darkness presented any real problem to me, but that was a secret I kept closely guarded. I’d been shoved in more than one dark box over the years, and the terror I’d shown on release had been due to the length of my stay rather than the darkness itself. I’d never been sure if they’d release me or forget me.
If the voice on the phone had been someone from my past, maybe that’s what they’d been referring to, rather than anything sexual.
I swallowed, and centered my thoughts back on the man in the room with me. Angus had said he’d been over a week without sunlight. It was a long time for anyone, so why had Angus expected more from the muerte?
It was a question I pondered in the darkness, though no answers were ever likely to come to mind. My clique hadn’t exactly exerted themselves to educate us half-breeds. Not when it came to dragon lore, anyway.
I have no idea how long I lay there before I realized I could move my fingers. It could have been hours, and it could have been minutes. There was no point of reference in this utter darkness, and my mind was still oddly disconnected. I tapped my fingers against the cool steel of my bed, strangely reassured by the movement. Gradually, the rest of my body began responding, and suddenly the dragon came roaring to the surface, until my whole body burned with the heat of her. The glow chased the chill from the blackness.
My gaze was drawn immediately to the man on the other side of the room. Like me, he lay on a bed that was little more than a slab of polished steel. Unlike me, he’d evidently put up quite a fight before capture. What remained of his clothes were bloody and torn, and the strong body visible beneath the many rents and tears was cut and bruised. There were several more recent wounds, some of them still bleeding, some of them barely beginning to bruise.
His face was as battered as his body, and his hair—which was as black as the darkness had been before my flames had returned—was matted with sweat and blood. His eyes were closed, his breathing even, and he showed no awareness of my being in the cell with him. I wondered if the cause was drugs or the beating he’d received.
My gaze lingered a little on the strong, straight length of his nose and the lushness of the lips underneath, before moving on to canvass the room. At which point, my stomach dropped.
I had been locked in a place like this once before. I’d barely been ten at the time, but even at that age I had gained a high degree of control over my flames. It was the only thing that had saved me when Seth and his friends had locked me into one of the clique’s main freezers and left me there. Rainey had rescued me before I’d actually become a popsicle, but it had been a close thing.
