Mercy Burns

by Keri Arthur

  To say he’d been unhappy would be the understatement of the century. And if I’d thought his tormenting had been bad up until then, afterward it became ten times worse.

  Damon’s finger was moving again, tracing a line down my back. He reached the junction of my legs and my breath hitched. For a moment, neither of us moved. My awareness of that finger—and of him—was so acute that every little hair on my body felt like it was standing on end, and my heart was going a million miles an hour. Wanting, needing—and yet fearing it at the same time.

  How many times had I been in a situation like this, wanting someone I shouldn’t?

  And how many more times did I need to get hurt before I learned my lesson? Before I stopped hoping that not all dragons were tarred with the same brutal brush? That there was one out there who could accept me?

  That man wasn’t Damon. He was a hit man for the council, for God’s sake, and a man who believed draman shouldn’t exist.

  I should be running as far and as fast as I could.

  And yet here I stood. Hoping. Needing.

  “What about the scar that cuts across the middle of your stain?” he said softly, his touch shifting. Up to the snakelike skin that twined around my spine. Not downward. Not to where it ached.

  Disappointment mingled with relief, but both were quickly washed away as his caress slid across my hip.

  “The result of fighting off yet another would-be suitor who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “And this?” he said softly, his fingers tracing the jagged scar that cut across my shoulder blades, slicing into the tip of my stain.

  I shivered, as much from his caress as the memories. “A gift from a flight lesson gone wrong.”

  His hand slid around my waist, and suddenly there was no space between us. All I could feel was the heat of him pressed up against me. The hardness of his erection nestled against my butt. The warmth of his breath flowed past my ear as he said, “Draman can fly?”

  I could barely breathe, let alone think, but somehow managed to say, “Most can.”

  “Can you?”

  His lips brushed my ear as he spoke. I shivered, the memories of past hurt crowding present pleasure, the need for caution warring with the simple desire to feel and enjoy the touch of another. “I’ve never been able to fly.”

  It was the truth in more ways than one.

  “Then perhaps that is something we should fix when we have a little more time.”

  His lips brushed the junction of my neck and shoulders, and for a moment it felt like he were branding me.

  Then he stepped back and cold air washed between us, cooling my skin but not my reaction. I ached, and there was no simple remedy for something like that. Not here, and not now, anyway.

  “Raise your arms so I can spray you down,” he said, his tone calm and unperturbed. Which was annoying, to say the least. Death could at least have the decency to sound a little hot and bothered.

  I raised my arms as ordered, and moisture hit my skin, its scent slightly acidic but not unpleasant. He sprayed my back, arms, and legs, then ordered me to turn around. I did, and he repeated the process, all in a very cool, calm, and collected way.

  Highly annoying indeed.

  When he’d finished, I reached for my clothes again, but he’d already grabbed them and tossed them into the trunk. “They’ve seen that outfit. You’ll need something else.”

  While he scavenged through his trunk, I reached for my flames and used them to cover my nakedness. They lapped across my body gently—a fiery blanket that neither burned nor smoked, and one that had the bonus of keeping the chill from my skin. I just had to hope that no one came out of the elevator—although standing there naked was as likely to catch as much attention as standing there on fire.

  Not that Damon seemed to notice either way, despite the powerful erection I’d felt only moments before. My gaze slipped downward. It was still there, and that made me feel a little better. At least Death wasn’t in control of absolutely everything.

  “I thought you didn’t carry female clothing around with you?”

  “I don’t, and we can’t risk going out to buy more, so this time you’ll have to make do with male.”

  “Oh. Great.” Just what I needed when in the company of a dynamic and sexy man—to look like a kid dressing up in her daddy’s clothes. “It’s going to look ridiculous. And certainly not very manlike.”

  He glanced up from the confines of the trunk, the glimmer of amusement evident in his eyes. “At least you have rather small breasts, so they’re not going to be a problem.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with small breasts,” I said, a little defensively.

  “I didn’t say there was.”

  “You didn’t say there wasn’t, either.”

  He began pulling clothes out of a bag. “Your breasts are perfect, just like the rest of you.”

  “It’d be more believable if you didn’t say it in such a sardonic tone,” I said drily.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t believe I meant it no matter what tone I used.”

  He had a point. I wouldn’t. I had a good figure, a reasonable face, brown hair, and brown eyes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would make anyone look twice. But in a clique where the shimmering golds and fiery reds of a sunset dominated, being born a boring brown had meant I’d stood out in an altogether unwelcome way.

  At least it had taught me to fight.

  Damon tossed me a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and the scent of smoke and musky male teased my nostrils. It wasn’t his scent, though.

  “They’re a friend’s brother’s,” he said, obviously noting my expression, “He’s smaller than me, so they should fit you.”

  I slipped on the gray sweatshirt and wished it smelled more of him than of a stranger—though I guess a stranger’s scent made more sense if dragons did have such keen senses. The sleeves covered my hands and the shoulders slid halfway down my arms, and it was even bulky enough to hide the fact that I had breasts. The jeans had similar problems in length and were a little tight in the butt, but otherwise they fit okay.

  I began rolling up the sleeves as he pulled out a small backpack and transferred the netbook and the other bits and pieces from the red handbag to it before handing it to me. He dumped the now-empty handbag into the trunk and slammed down the lid.

  “Why are you carrying his clothes around?” I asked.

  “Because I didn’t have a chance to return his effects to his parents before I was kidnapped.” He walked around and opened the passenger side door for me.

  “So this friend’s brother—he’s the victim you mentioned before?”

  “Yes.” His answer was controlled, but I felt the anger in him regardless.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “So will they be, trust me.” He handed me a multicolored woolen cap. “Tuck your hair up in that.”

  Once I’d done it, he brushed my back lightly, guiding me into the car. I was still so attuned to him that I couldn’t help a tremor of delight.

  But the casualness of his threat against those men seemed to hang in the air, sending another shiver through my soul. And while half of me questioned the wisdom of hanging around such a man, the other half—undoubtedly the insane part that was so attracted to him—knew he was still my best chance of getting the answers I so desperately needed.

  I waited until he climbed into the driver’s seat and had reversed out of the parking bay before asking, “So, did they kill him because he was too close to finding answers?”

  “No, he was a victim of one of the cleansings.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “He was draman? I thought you didn’t like draman.”

  “I never said that,” he replied, his voice holding an edge. “What I said was that draman cause us a lot of problems.”

  “Well, your tone certainly didn’t imply affection, so what else am I to think? And you never did bother to explain how we cause you problems.”

  The lo
ok he gave me was wintry, to say the least. “Most draman are stronger and faster than ordinary humans, and there are many who seem to delight in using this advantage.”

  “History is full of the strong taking advantage of the weak. It’s not just a draman trait.” And I had the scars to prove it.

  “True. But it is the draman who seem to most delight in risking exposure to us all.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I wonder why that might be? Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with the treatment dished out to most draman?”

  “Not all cliques treat draman the way Jamieson does.” The winter hadn’t lifted from his eyes. In fact, it had probably gotten deeper. “And my friend was not draman. He was merely having a liaison with one.”

  Was that liaison Chaylee? Rainey had told me that her sister had met someone, but surely if she’d known that someone was full dragon, she would have mentioned it. “In the draman town of Stillwater?”

  He flicked me a glance. “Yes. And before you ask your next question, I neither approved or disapproved of the relationship. It was not my place to do either.”

  That didn’t stop him from having an opinion about it—though it was one he obviously wasn’t going to share with me. “How do you know for sure that your friend is dead when no bodies have been found?”

  “Because his kin felt his passing. His brother—who had a broken wing and couldn’t fly out himself—phoned me and asked me to investigate what had happened.”

  Though his voice was flat, his anger seared the air, rolling across my senses as sharply as an axe and making it difficult to breathe. “Damon,” I panted, “control it.”

  He glanced at me sharply, surprise in his eyes. Then the anger disappeared as if sucked away into a vacuum, and suddenly I was able to breathe again.

  “You didn’t say you were sensitive to emotion.”

  “You didn’t ask.” I tucked a sweaty strand of hair behind my ear and thought about admitting that I didn’t often get so attuned to the emotion of others that it affected me physically. That, in fact, I didn’t usually get a whole lot from him, either. But that might lead to him controlling himself even more, and I actually liked feeling the occasional flashes from him. So I simply said, “You flew straight out?”

  “Yeah.” He was silent for a minute, and though the force of it was muted, his anger and guilt still touched the air. Those were emotions I was all too familiar with.

  And the only thing that would help either of us feel better would be stopping the bastards behind this destruction. And in my case, saving my friend from an eternity stuck in between worlds, never able to move on and be reborn, but never able to participate again in this one.

  He added, “I did get there in time to stop the fires from destroying every building. His belongings were in one of the remaining ones.”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath that did little to shake the residual pain, and said, “So if you were there in time to stop the fires from destroying the town, do you know what happened to the inhabitants?”

  “No. The place was empty and there were no remains. I suspect they were all taken elsewhere to be killed and buried.”

  “But how would that be possible? I mean, you must have gotten there quickly if the place was still ablaze. Surely they couldn’t have gotten rid of that many bodies so fast?”

  “If the attackers were dragons or draman with full powers, and the majority of the town were draman without dragon powers, then it would be very easy to herd them into trucks and ship them somewhere else to kill them.”

  “But your friend’s brother was a full dragon, and Rainey’s sister had full dragon powers.” And if they’d fought and somehow escaped—only to be caught and killed near dawn—then that would explain how both Rainey and his friend had felt their kin’s passing.

  Damon looked at me, his expression grim. “Two against God knows how many? That’s not good odds in anyone’s book.”

  “Meaning you think dragons are behind these attacks?”

  “Well, it can hardly be humans. While most draman haven’t got dragon powers, they are, as I mentioned, stronger and faster. There’s no way humans could have wiped out a whole town so quickly and efficiently. And why would they bother? They’re more likely to want to stick us in a lab and study us.”

  He had a point, but I couldn’t help adding, “Humans have a history of killing things they don’t understand, and even draman can’t outrun bullets.”

  “But there were no shots fired at Stillwater. I would have found evidence of it.”

  “Which doesn’t mean they weren’t shot somewhere else.”

  “No.”

  I closed my eyes against the images that arose. I didn’t need to think about all those other people. I had the chance to save Rainey’s soul, but it wasn’t within my power to save anyone else who’d been in that town. Not even Rainey’s sister.

  “Would the council have ordered the cleansings?” The urbane man who’d talked to Angus in the van had claimed that it hadn’t, but he’d also mentioned that muerte didn’t move without orders from one of the kings.

  “No. If they had, the muerte would have been informed. We were not.”

  I guess that was something. “So if not the council, then who? Could this be the result of several kings plotting?”

  “It’s possible, though I don’t see what it would achieve.”

  “Maybe they wanted nothing more than a reduction in draman numbers.” But if that was the case, why would they go to such lengths to keep their secrets?

  There had to be more than that behind all of it. There had to be.

  “So tell me,” I said, my voice suddenly holding a slight edge, “if a full-blooded dragon hadn’t been killed in these cleansings, would you have been investigating them?”

  He pulled out into the traffic then glanced at me, his expression still cool. “He wasn’t just a full-blood. He was a king’s son.”

  “And of course, his life was far more important than all the draman who have perished.” The bitterness was more evident this time. “After all, if draman aren’t doing the dirty work around the cliques or providing sexual services, what earthly use are they?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s a common thread in dragon thinking.” I shifted a little to study him better. “If it was a king’s son that was killed, why isn’t the council investigating?”

  “Because the king prefers to keep the investigation private. This sort of news would spread wildly through the cliques, and might just drive the culprits underground.”

  “And that was a lie.” Or rather, a fudging of the truth. While it might very well be a consideration for not getting the council involved, that wasn’t the major reason.

  He glanced at me sharply. “And why would you say that?”

  “Because I can taste it.” I paused, then added, “So what’s the real reason?”

  He considered the question for several minutes, and eventually said, “Julio has heard whispers of a plot against the kings. He fears his son’s death might be the start of it, but he does not want to raise the alarm until he has something concrete.”

  That raised my eyebrows. “Surely warning the council should be his first priority?” After all, the council was made up of the thirteen kings themselves.

  Damon glanced at me sideways. “His son was killed in a draman town. How do you think the council might react?”

  “Badly.” Meaning draman blood would be shed. Especially given they already considered us a major cause of their problems. It was surprising that a dragon king actually seemed concerned about shedding draman blood unnecessarily, but maybe they weren’t all tarred with the same brush. “I see your point.”

  “Finally.”

  I ignored the barb. “Well, our kidnappers appear to know that your actions are a result of someone’s orders. They kept you alive to try and find out who.”

  “At least that explains their refusal to do the sensible thing and get
rid of me when they had the chance.” His smile was grim. “Hopefully, it’ll be a mistake they’ll live to regret.”

  That was my hope, too. We continued in silence, and eventually he drove into the parking garage near Pier 39, once again finding a dark and gloomy spot in one of the corners. I slipped my arms into the backpack, settling it across my back before following him to the elevator. Once we were at street level, we joined the dwindling crowds of tourists looking at the stores and enjoying the carnival atmosphere. Eventually we made our way toward the marina and leaned against the railing to look at the small group of sea lions.

  Damon glanced at his watch. “It’s twenty past six. What time was this guy supposed to be at the boat?”

  “Seven.”

  “We’ll stay here for another thirty minutes, then move across.”

  I nodded and crossed my arms on the old wooden rail, watching the snoozing sea lions. The setting sun began to streak the sky with red and gold—bright banners that heralded the onset of night. The air burned with energy, the music of it so sweet and strong that I felt like singing right along with it. I raised my face to the flag-covered sky and drew in a deep breath. The energy of it flowed through me, renewing and revitalizing.

  “You’re practically humming with pleasure,” Damon said softly.

  “I’m a dragon,” I said without opening my eyes. “I’m just not as much dragon as you.”

  “You’re draman. You shouldn’t be able to feel the energy raised by the dusk, let alone thrive on it.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Can I ask you a question?”

  A somewhat sardonic smile touched his lips. “You’ve been asking me nothing but questions. Why stop now?”

  “Why did you kiss me last night?”

  He blinked. “Your thought processes really don’t follow any logical path, do they?”

  “No. Are you going to answer the question?”

  He leaned forward and crossed his arms on the railing. He was so close that my skin tingled with awareness. “I kissed you because I wanted to.”