Mercy Burns

by Keri Arthur

  So I ignored the simmering desire, and simply said, “If I eat anything else, I’ll burst.”

  “What about some more red?”

  I shook my head and watched him pour wine into his glass, then said, “Tell me, why do you see yourself as little more than a killer?”

  “Because that’s what I do and that’s all I am.”

  “But it’s not.” There was a slight tic in the muscles along his jawline. This man really didn’t like talking about himself. Was it was part of his training or did it go far deeper? “You like to keep people at arm’s length, don’t you?”

  His expression closed over once again. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because any normal person would be terrified by the statement.”

  “You weren’t.”

  “We’ve already established that I’m far from normal.” My voice was dry, and amusement briefly tugged the corners of his mouth. “Besides, the situation we were in was far from normal. I needed to get out of that place and if I had to use a killer to do that, then I damn well would.”

  “That still doesn’t make your statement about me true.”

  “Of course it does. You’re too at ease with calling yourself that, so you’ve done it more than once. Add to that the fact that you’ve already said you have no intention of ever getting emotionally involved, and your emotionally barren little world remains nice and secure.”

  “You really do like making snap judgments about people you barely know, don’t you?”

  “It’s not a snap judgment. And besides, after last night and this afternoon, you can’t exactly say we’re strangers anymore.”

  “It makes us intimate strangers, Mercy, nothing more.”

  My smile felt tight. “You do realize your strategy is doomed to failure, don’t you?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And why would you think that?”

  “Because you are neither cold nor unfeeling, Damon, and sooner or later someone will break through that wall you’ve raised around your heart.”

  “I come from a long line of muerte who lost their heads, not their hearts. I expect to be no different.”

  “Then you’re selling yourself short. You are not your forefathers.”

  “And you,” he said gently, “are reading entirely too much into my actions. I will not fall, Mercy, no matter how great the attraction between us.”

  I snorted derisively. “Oh, never fear, I have no illusions when it comes to you and me. You’ve expressed your views well enough when it comes to draman and their usefulness.”

  “It’s not because you’re draman.” He reached out and wrapped his hands around mine, squeezing lightly. “I don’t see you as draman. I don’t think I ever have, which is why I was so surprised when you told me you were.”

  “That’s not the point—”

  “But it is. I won’t have you believing something that isn’t true.”

  “Then what is your great truth?” I muttered, suddenly wishing I hadn’t gotten into this whole subject. It didn’t really matter which of us was right, because there was one truth that wasn’t going to change. The magic we’d felt every time we came together—the intimacy and the possibilities—would not be explored once this case was solved. No matter what, he would walk away, and it would probably hurt a whole lot more then than the thought did now.

  Because no matter what he said, there was something between us. Something that was worth exploring.

  “You were afraid today when you saw that car, weren’t you?”

  I frowned. “Of course, but—”

  “Well,” he continued relentlessly, “imagine living with that sort of fear daily. Imagine living with me and not knowing at the end of each day whether I’d walk in the door at the end of it.”

  “If you love someone, you love the whole of them. And that includes what they are and what they do.”

  “It’s easy to say that when you’re not living the situation day in, day out.”

  “People do.”

  “Yes, and lots of marriages break up over it, too. That’s a statistical fact.”

  “The difference between your statistics and what we’re discussing here is two simple words—soul mate. When you meet her, Damon, your dragon will not let her go.”

  When it came to dragons, that was the truth—and yet not the whole truth. A dragon male might meet his soul mate, but that didn’t necessarily mean he had to settle down and make a commitment to her. My clique’s king was living proof of that. He kept his queen by his side but he refused to commit to her, and continued to breed with other women whenever the whim took him. I couldn’t actually complain about that, because if not for our king’s philandering ways, my brother would not exist. And Trae was the one thing in my life that I couldn’t do without. He wasn’t only my brother, but my savior. I wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t saved me all those years ago when one of his idiot half-brothers had decided I’d needed to learn to fly. Which is how I’d gotten one of those damn scars—Trae had misjudged his claw position as he’d swooped from the sky to grab me, inches from the rocks.

  “How do you know I haven’t already met my soul mate?” Damon asked gently. “How do you know I haven’t already walked away from her?”

  Because you wouldn’t be responding to me the way you are if you’d already met your soul mate. But I kept the words inside, and simply said, “If you have, then you are a fool. And I don’t believe you are.”

  His smile was wry. “That’s another of your snap judgments.”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Only partially.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re admitting to being a fool?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you admitting?”

  He glanced at me, his face like granite. It’d be easier to read a rock than try to catch this man’s thoughts and emotions. “Right now?” he said. “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, believing that,” I muttered.

  “Let’s just enjoy what we have, Mercy, and be grateful for it.”

  Grateful could take a long, flying leap off the nearest cliff, I thought, but I was saved from actually having to say anything by the ringing of my phone.

  “Well, I found the owner of Deca Dent for you,” Leith said, the minute I hit the receive button. I didn’t bother putting it on speaker—Damon had already proven that he could hear the other side of a phone conversation. “And it’s owned by Hannish Valorn. I’ve e-mailed you some pics and the file with the information, but there’s not a lot.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because dragons are notoriously closed-mouthed when it comes to talking about their own. I can tell you he only got back into the country a few months ago, and took over ownership of the club almost immediately.”

  “So he owns it legally?”

  “Yep. I had one of the boys track down the paperwork. The club itself is a known haunt for lowlifes, which makes it a rather odd acquisition for the only son of a dragon king. I tried to find out more about Hannish,” Leith said, “but the grapevine is amazingly quiet. We’re doing an overseas search to see if we can find anything there, but it’s probably going to take time.”

  Everything about this case seemed to. “But there’s nothing you can uncover to suggest he’s involved in anything nefarious?”

  “No. But that also means there’s nothing to say he’s not, as well.” He paused, and tapped some keys, meaning he was still at the office, because he generally refused to work at home. “The club isn’t run by Hannish, though. It appears he has a manager—a fellow by the name of Franco Harkin, a draman from your clique. There’s also a Jake Whilde working there. I can’t find a picture or very much information about Harkin, but both men appear to have come into the country with Hannish.”

  “If they came into the country with Hannish, then they have to have passports.”

  “Obviously, but they’re either overseas ones or they have them under other names.”

  “Is
that even possible in this day and age?”

  “Anything is possible if you know the right people, Mercy.”

  I guess so.

  Leith continued, “About the only bit of gossip I could gather was the fact that Hannish and his dad had a serious falling-out about ten years ago, and they haven’t seen each other since. Oh, and one guy commented that Hannish was out to get his dad.”

  “ ‘Get’ as in kill?”

  “I’m not sure. When I asked him to clarify, he just shrugged. I think he was too scared to admit anything more.”

  “Well, if Hannish is behind the cleansings, then he had a right to be wary.” I shivered as the memories of the truck hitting us rose again, but shoved them aside and said, “Is that all?”

  “Yes. But I’m digging into the council’s records to see if I can find anything there.”

  Surprise rippled across Damon’s features. “How are you accessing the council’s records? The security around them is supposedly watertight.”

  “Nothing is watertight where a sea dragon is concerned.” Leith’s voice was amused. “Especially when the security involved is over a year old. Your council needs a serious update.”

  “I’ll tell them.” Damon’s voice was grim.

  “Please do,” Leith commented cheerfully. “And if you want a recommendation, I can give you several names.”

  “No doubt friends of yours who can be pressured for passwords.”

  “I don’t need passwords, my friend.”

  Damon snorted softly, but it was an amused sound. “You think you’re good enough to find, and then get into, Hannish’s bank accounts?”

  “Yes. Although it might take a little while unless you can give me the bank and account number.”

  “If I start asking for that sort of information, I might just stir up interest in the wrong places. I’d rather not warn anyone we’re suspicious at the moment.”

  “Why do you want to investigate his bank records?” I asked, a little confused by the sudden request.

  “Because,” Damon said, “Marcus cut his son off financially when they argued ten years ago, and Hannish was left with little more than the clothes on his back and a few thousand dollars in the bank. It’ll be interesting to see where he got the money to buy Deca Dent.”

  “Maybe he has investment partners,” I said.

  “He owns the club directly,” Leith commented. “And if his dad did cut him off, then tracking down the source of his wealth just might expose a clue or two.”

  I frowned. “Dragons are notorious thieves, so sudden influxes of wealth come with the territory.”

  Damon was shaking his head even before I’d finished. “Most dragons are very judicious with their thieving these days. They have to be—not only because human security techniques are getting better, but because stealing too much in their own territory could bring the wrong sort of attention.”

  Meaning the council as well as the humans. “Yeah, but Hannish has been overseas, and I doubt he would give a crap about his clique anyway.” And anyone involved in the slaughter of two whole towns wasn’t ever likely to care about that sort of stuff. “And it still doesn’t explain the destruction of the draman towns.”

  “Maybe the draman were in the way,” Leith said.

  “How?” I asked. “The towns weren’t on dragon land and were in the middle of goddamn nowhere. How on earth could they be a threat to whomever is behind the destruction?”

  “Maybe they weren’t a threat,” Damon said slowly. “Maybe they were simply, as Leith said, in the way.”

  “What?” I said, frowning at him. Why did it suddenly feel that these two men had gone to a whole other place from me? “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, aside from the town that was destroyed when Angus was young, the two towns were in the same state, and both were close to the borders of the Nevada clique.”

  “And it would be interesting,” Leith mused, “to see what happened to the land those towns were sitting on, wouldn’t it?”

  “Most definitely,” Damon agreed. “And it might also be worth checking whether the land between the clique and the towns has recently been sold—and to whom. You think you can get that information without setting off any alarms?”

  “If the council hasn’t caught me yet, I doubt the real estate people will,” Leith said, voice dry. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I find anything. In the meantime, play it safe, you two.”

  He hung up. I pushed up from the chair and walked across to the bench, grabbing my bag and dragging out the netbook. “Maybe I’m a little thick, but why would the land the towns are sitting on be so important that they’d kill for it?”

  “It’s not just land, its territory. Unclaimed territory, technically.”

  I frowned as the computer fired up. “But it’s not. As you said yourself, Nevada belongs to Hannish’s dad.”

  “As a territory, yes. But the clique itself owns only a few thousand acres.”

  “So you think Hannish might be buying up the land around his dad’s clique? To what end?”

  Damon shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he wants nothing more than to piss his father off.”

  I glanced at him as the computer began downloading e-mail. “But you don’t believe that.”

  “No.” He rose from the chair and walked over, stopping just behind me. His scent filled every breath, warm and delicious, making me tingle inside and out. “If they were only after land, they could have gone anywhere. There’s more to this than we’re seeing.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Like what?”

  He shrugged and raised a hand, lightly running his fingers through my hair—which we’d dyed red when we first arrived at the apartment. I rather liked it, but Damon seemed to prefer my natural color. He was a man of strange taste.

  “Think about it,” he said softly. “Julio hears rumors of a plot against the kings. Shortly after, his son—whom he named as his heir—is killed, and two large draman towns near clique grounds are wiped off the map. Now there’s news of Hannish Valorn suddenly returning.”

  “We have no proof of a connection between Hannish’s return and the possible landgrab.”

  “No, but it is logical, especially if Hannish is behind it all.”

  “I’m still not understanding why.”

  “Nevada is the smallest clique, landwise, and as such, has less say in the council.”

  He said it patiently, like he were talking to a child, and it rankled. But I guess he had no idea just how little I knew about the inner workings of the dragon world. “I thought all kings were created equal?”

  He snorted. “They might present a united front but, trust me, the council is ruled by territory. Why do you think the head of the council is usually from Montana, Wyoming, or North or South Dakota?”

  Because they were the biggest cliques, obviously. “But Hannish has been cut off by his dad, so how would buying the land help the Nevada clique?”

  “He might have been disowned, but officially he is still listed as the heir. So if something happened to Marcus, Hannish can step right into his shoes.”

  I twisted around to stare at him. “Surely he wouldn’t kill his own dad?”

  His smile touched his dark eyes and made them sparkle like diamonds. My heart did an odd little dance and desire stirred low down in my body. “Dragons have a long history of brothers killing brothers to claim the throne. In this case, Hannish’s only competition is the dad who disowned him. I don’t think he’ll have many qualms.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty cold.” I clicked Leith’s e-mail as it came in, then added, “But what about the council?”

  “If it’s done right, the council will have no choice but to accept the situation.”

  “I still can’t see the twelve other cliques standing by and allowing someone like Hannish to make a landgrab and take over the council. Especially if they suspect Hannish took out his dad to get to the throne.”

  “There is precedent for it. How else do you think Monta
na became one of the largest cliques?”

  I shook my head in disbelief. But then, why I was surprised when I knew from experience just how cold and bloody-minded some dragons could be, I have no idea.

  The pictures attached to Leith’s e-mail opened up. The first man appeared a few years older than me, and had dark red hair and a somewhat angular face. His blue eyes had a look that I’d seen a hundred times before—cold, inhuman, impassionate. A dragon who considered himself well above the rest of us.

  I didn’t know him, but I knew the look. I’d seen it a thousand times in Seth’s eyes.

  The other man had small brown eyes and a pinched, gaunt face. Recognition stirred, and so too did the ghost of fear. I might not recognize the name, but his face—although changed by time, weather, and what looked like repeated beatings—was certainly familiar.

  “That one,” Damon said softly, pointing to the red-haired man, “is Hannish. I’m not sure about the other man.”

  “His name when I knew him was Leon, not Jake.” I glanced over my shoulder and met his gaze. “And his best friend and lover was Seth.”

  “From the fear I can taste, I take it Seth and Leon were the dragons who made your life so unpleasant?”

  “Yes. And if Leon is involved, then Seth will be. The two are inseparable.” He might even be this Franco no one had a photo of.

  Damon linked his fingers together and stretched them forward, cracking his knuckles. “It will be my very great pleasure to meet them both.”

  I glanced at him. “And why would you want to punish someone for once beating up a current—and unimportant—bed partner?”

  “Because dragons that size should know better than to pick on a woman of any size. Even if they do think they can protect themselves.”

  I smiled at this light barb, then downsized the pics and opened the folder. Leith had been right. There wasn’t much more information in there than he’d already mentioned.

  I sighed in frustration, then glanced out the window. There still wasn’t any life in or around the building, although—according to the neighbors—it opened at five, which was only a few minutes away. I would have thought someone would have had to come in earlier to set things up.