Dark Embers

by Tessa Adams

  But he didn’t give her a choice, and eventually her body betrayed her. With a flick of his finger he sent her soaring, and as she convulsed around him, she felt him stiffen. Felt him pour himself inside her as the pleasure went on and on.

  When it was over, he pulled out almost instantly and rolled away from her with a groan. He was asleep within moments, but she spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, tears leaking slowly down her face for all that they had found . . . and lost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When she finally climbed out of bed the next morning, Phoebe was stiff, uncoordinated. Her body felt used, and not in a good way. She turned on the shower and then stared at herself in the mirror—at the marks Dylan had made on her last night, with his passion and his rage.

  There was a large bruise on her right shoulder from where he’d bitten her, a scratch on her right hip from where the dragon had gotten away from him. Bruises ringed her wrists from where he’d kept her hands pinned against the bed, and her lower lip was swollen, bruised from his bites.

  She closed her eyes, barely able to look at the destruction—of her body and their relationship. Any other night, the signs of his passion would have thrilled her, would have made her feel sexy and desirable and oh, so beautiful. After all, the only other times he’d marked her had been when he’d been driven out of his mind with need and desire. She liked knowing she could do that to him.

  But last night hadn’t been about desire or need or love or even hate. It had been about rage, about a fury so deep, the only way he could express it was physically. He had taken her, dominated her and destroyed her all in the same act.

  She wanted to weep.

  The shower was hot and soothing, but she didn’t stay in it long. Standing there with the spray pulsing over her just gave her more time to think, something that, for the first time in her life, she didn’t want.

  After shutting off the shower, she toweled off quickly, then slipped into the bedroom for some clothes. She was sore, her muscles aching from exertion, but she ignored the pain. She slipped into a pair of black pants and an emerald green blouse, gathered up her notebook and turned to go.

  Dylan was still sleeping, his glorious body spread out across the bed in repose. The sheets were tangled around him, covering only the most basic parts, and a part of her—silly, self-destructive—wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted to run a hand down his face to cup his strong, stubborn jaw. Wanted to trace the triple band of his tattoo, which had been shifting and changing a little bit more with each day she’d known him.

  She’d meant to ask him about it a number of times, her scientific nature beyond curious at the magic implicit in such a thing. But she’d always forgotten; when he was naked, his tattoo was very often the last thing on her mind.

  Now she’d never get the chance. Because much as she cared about Dylan, much as she loved him—she nearly choked at the word—she couldn’t stay with a man who despised her. A man she couldn’t trust.

  He’d sliced her heart wide open last night, then had rolled off her and fallen asleep like she was nothing more to him than a one-night stand. She couldn’t live like that.

  Murmuring a soft good-bye, she gave in to folly and brushed her lips across Dylan’s forehead. Despite the bruises, he hadn’t hurt her body last night, but he had all but killed her soul. The fact that he’d done it with mind-shattering pleasure only made the destruction all the worse.

  She made her way out of the cave slowly—without Dylan beside her, it was dark and just a little frightening. But she made it to the mouth of the cavern with no mishaps, and stood blinking in the sunlight like an owl.

  “You look like a woman on a mission.” She jumped, startled, at Quinn’s voice so close to her ear.

  “And you look like a man who finally got some sleep.”

  His smile was almost nonexistent. “Don’t think I won’t pay you back for that.”

  “Of course.” She glanced across the desert, unable to look him in the face when she said, “I’m sorry, Quinn. Sorry I didn’t tell you, sorry about Liam, sorry—”

  “Stop it. I would have done the same thing.”

  “What?” This time she did look him in the face, afraid she’d finally lost her mind.

  “That’s a mighty big accusation you leveled last night. Biological warfare, murder, assassination of the clan’s royal family. Yeah, I would definitely have kept my mouth shut until I had some kind of proof.

  “There’s no blame here, Phoebe, unless you lay it at the door of the fucking Wyvernmoons. That’s who I’m blaming, and believe me, I’ll get my pound of flesh. Or ton of it, as the case may be.” The look he flashed her was all teeth and feral eyes and pissed-off dragon.

  He dug in his pockets, pulled out a cigarette and lit it from flames dancing along his fingertips. It was the first time she’d seen him smoke.

  He noted her look and grimaced. “Spare me the lecture,” he said. “I’m burying my brother tomorrow. I don’t think a few days with an old crutch is too much to ask.” He took a long drag, then asked, “Where are you going so early?”

  “The lab. Having a sample of the actual mutations should make finding a cure a million times easier. I want to get started.”

  “You can’t go alone.”

  “Excuse me?” she asked frostily.

  He rolled his eyes. “Dylan’s got the whole clan on lockdown, which means no one by himself and serious protection for you and other persons of interest.”

  “But how am I supposed to work—”

  “Give me a minute. I’ll get Shawn or Logan up here and then I’ll take you.”

  “And you count as serious protection?” She arched a brow.

  “You have no idea.”

  But she did, she realized, remembering the moment she’d seen Quinn reach through layers of skin to rip out his enemy’s internal organs. None of the other dragons could do that, not even Dylan, though he certainly had other powers to compensate. Maybe it was the dark side of his healing gift. Mend or tear asunder, the choice was his. A little shiver worked its way down her back at the thought.

  Quinn was true to his word: within three minutes, a sleepy Logan was at the gate, looking rumpled and unshaven and entirely too good for the morning after an all-nighter. Lucky, lucky dragon women.

  He nodded to her, brushed a soft hand down her arm in support, and she felt tears prick her eyes for the first time in many, many years. How could these men understand her choices when Dylan couldn’t? How could they each offer their support when all Dylan could do was rage?

  She dropped a quick kiss on Logan’s cheek before starting through the desert after Quinn. Dylan had built a garage for their cars about a mile and a half away, and she was almost used to the hike. Almost.

  “You know, the fastest way is to fly.” Quinn eyed her speculatively, unconsciously echoing the same words Logan had used the night before.

  “I know. Just do it quickly before I change my mind.”

  He was shifting before she had finished speaking, and when he was done, she was almost as awestruck as she had been when she’d seen Dylan for the first time. Where Dylan’s dragon was black and sapphire and silver, Quinn’s was the same startling emerald as his eyes.

  When he lowered his neck for her to get on, she didn’t hesitate. And when they took flight, she marveled at the differences between him and Dylan. Dylan was a fast flier, all speed and strength and power. Quinn was different—he was graceful, elegant, enduring. It was like riding on a cloud versus a roller coaster, and she enjoyed the change of pace.

  They got to the lab too soon, and as Quinn unlocked the place and turned off the security system, she realized she’d never seen it empty before. When she said as much to Quinn, he merely nodded. “I told you: lockdown. I wasn’t joking.”

  Phoebe shivered as she walked down the dark hall—if she was staying, she would have to do something about the lights in all these places. She didn’t have the dragons’ keen vision, and she was
sick of tripping over her own feet.

  She was at her desk before the import of her thoughts hit her. She would never have the chance to do something about the lights, because she wasn’t staying. She would finish up this week, do her best to break down the disease, and then she would leave. There was no place for her here, and she’d been stupid to think, even for a moment, that there was.

  But sitting here moping sure as hell wasn’t going to get the job done. Pushing away thoughts of Dylan and death and dragons, she crossed to where she’d stored the sample the night before and got to work.

  She’d been working steadily for about three hours when she heard a crash from the next room. “Quinn? Are you okay?” Her only answer was another crash.

  “Quinn?” She headed for the door between them at a run, whipping her gloves off as she went.

  “Phoebe, run!” Quinn yelled as yet another crash echoed through the building. “Get out of here.”

  Her blood ran cold at the fury and the desperation in his voice. She looked around wildly for a weapon, and her eyes fell on the case of scalpels on the lab counter. It was weak protection against a dragon who could shoot lightning bolts out of his fingertips, but it was better than nothing.

  She grabbed two—one for each hand—and then hit the other lab running. What she saw there, however, nearly made her knees go out from under her. Quinn was under attack by four large men, and they almost had him cornered.

  At the last moment, he jumped on the lab table and shot one of the men with a fireball, right between the eyes. He fell to the ground instantly. On the floor beside him were two others. Quinn could obviously put up one hell of a fight, but even he could only do so much when it was four on one.

  Then one of the remaining dragons blasted him with a bolt of lightning that had his limbs jerking in every direction. And unlike the other men, who only shot bolts of electricity, this one was capable of sustaining the electrical attack.

  Terrified for Quinn, Phoebe gripped the scalpels as tightly as she could, then ran across the lab straight at the back of the bastard who was doing his damnedest to kill Quinn. Not giving herself time to think, she brought them up and plunged them down hard, right in the middle of his back. Even after they’d gone in, she kept pressing with all of her strength, hoping that somehow, some way, she would reach his heart.

  He howled, and his attack on Quinn ceased as he turned to confront his newest attacker. Bellowing in rage, he shot a pulse of energy at her that caused her to fly across the lab and slam into the wall so hard that she saw stars. But her aim must have been true; he stumbled to his knees and fell facefirst onto the cold, hard tiles.

  He was her first kill, and she had a damn hard time regretting it.

  Quinn somehow pulled himself to his feet. She wanted to call out to him to stop, to stay down. He’d been electrocuted, for God’s sake. But her brain was addled, the stars giving way rapidly to darkness. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought—

  The world turned black.

  Goddamnit, Dylan, wake up! I’m in trouble here!

  Dylan?

  Dylan! They’ve got Phoebe.

  Dylan woke slowly, unsure of what had interrupted his sleep. His hand reached across the bed for Phoebe, and when he came up empty, an inexplicable panic assailed him. Something was wrong, something—

  Dylan, did you hear me? They have Phoebe!

  Quinn’s cry came across their personal mental path, and Dylan sprang out of bed with a roar. Who? Where are you? Quinn?

  But the healer was gone.

  Panic was a living thing within him as he threw on a pair of jeans and hit the hall at a dead run. Quinn? Fuck you, Quinn! Answer me! But he was met with silence.

  Logan, Shawn, Riley. Gabe. He put a call out to his best sentries, then nearly plowed straight into Logan as he hit the opening of the cave.

  The other man was instantly at attention. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s Phoebe?”

  “She’s with Quinn at the lab. She wanted to work.”

  “Something’s wrong—I just got a hell of a wake-up call from Quinn. He told me they had Phoebe and then he just disappeared.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “I’m quicker.” Shawn was behind him, looking as rumpled and out of it as Dylan felt. But when the sentry grabbed onto his and Logan’s arms, Dylan had never felt more grateful. They flashed into the laboratory’s parking lot, then went running for the front doors. They were locked—and he didn’t have a key on him.

  With the dragon screaming inside him, Dylan threw himself at the doors. If he couldn’t open them, he’d damn well knock them down. Beside him, he was vaguely aware of Logan and Shawn lending themselves to the task, the three of them hitting the doors with the power of the strongest battering ram.

  It gave way, ripped completely free of its hinges and fell inward. They ran right over it.

  “Phoebe!” he screamed as he careered down the hall, fear eating him from the inside. “Damn it, Phoebe, answer me!”

  But there was no answering shout, no movement at all as they whipped through the door of Phoebe’s lab. Dylan vaulted over the three lab tables in the middle of the room on his way to Quinn’s section of the lab, but stopped dead as soon as he hit the door.

  The room looked like a bomb had gone off. The walls were scorched where electricity and firebombs had hit. Two of the big lab tables had been ripped out of the floor and were lying against the back entrance.

  “Where’s Phoebe?” He looked around the room frantically.

  “Where’s Quinn?” countered Shawn, who had been right behind him in his headlong flight to the lab.

  “Over here.” Logan had picked his way through the debris to one of the fallen lab tables. He lifted the thing up and tossed it across the room like it weighed no more than a beach ball. But Dylan wasn’t watching that; he was focused on Quinn, who was lying pale and still on the tile floor.

  “Is he alive?” he asked, deadly quiet.

  Logan didn’t answer as he checked for a pulse.

  “Is. He. Alive?” Dylan’s voice shook the roof, but he didn’t give a shit. He was sick of death, sick of losing people he loved—

  “He’s got a pulse.”

  “Thank God.”

  “We’ve got to get him to the clinic, Dylan. He’s fading fast.”

  “So do it.”

  Shawn picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. Dylan prayed he wasn’t causing any more damage, but time was of the essence. And then Shawn was running for the front door, for the open air of the parking lot, so that he could flash them both to the clinic.

  “Are we meeting him there?” Logan asked as he prowled around the room, looking for some kind of sign of what they were up against.

  Dylan walked through the ruined room, trying to figure out how the hell they had gotten in. He’d protected his clan with the most powerful protection charm out there, and the idea that these guys had gotten through it—twice—didn’t sit well with him. Especially since he’d reinforced it after the last attack.

  Again, the idea of a traitor whispered through his brain. He wanted to deny it—God, did he want to deny it—but it was the only thing that made sense. How else could the Wyvernmoons know so much? How else could they get close enough to infect his people, not just now, but for the past few decades?

  With ice skating down his spine and betrayal burning hot in his brain, Dylan worked his way through the clinic until he found where the kidnappers had entered. The back door had been wrenched open. In the air around it was the unexpected stench he’d expected to find, of dragons that had indeed pushed their way through his protection spell.

  Goddamnit.

  “No. We’re going after Phoebe,” he finally answered Logan as he fought down the fire inside him. Now wasn’t the time to lose his head.

  Logan scrambled to keep up. “We don’t even know where she is.”

  “Sure we do. South Dakota. Silus has her.” He headed for the door at a
dead run, Logan hot on his heels.

  “At least let’s plan this out,” the sentry called to him.

  “I have a plan.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Kill every motherfucker that gets between Phoebe and me.” And then he launched himself straight into the sky, shifting as he went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Phoebe woke up flat on her back on a filthy bed in a dirty room. Disoriented, she looked around for a moment, tried to get her bearings. But the room was dimly lit and she couldn’t see well. She swore if she ever got out of this, she would never go anywhere where there wasn’t light again.

  She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Something was holding her in place. She struggled against it for a moment before she realized they had tied her down. Had spread-eagled her across the bed, each hand and foot tied to a different bedpost.

  The bastards.

  Anger sustained her for a few minutes as she yanked and pulled against the ropes, again and again. But when they didn’t loosen, didn’t budge by so much as a centimeter, panic started to set in. She struggled harder, until she could feel blood running down her arms and pooling beneath her ankles.

  For a few minutes she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but give in to the purely animalistic urge to be free. She was back in her mother’s kitchen, her stepfather laboring above her as he ripped into her skin with his razor-sharp nails. She couldn’t go through that again. Couldn’t bear to have it happen again.

  The urge to scream welled up in her throat, but she bit her tongue until it bled. No way was she going to let her attackers know she was awake; no way did she want to draw their attention. At least not yet, when she was bound and helpless and pathetic.

  Heart racing, breathing shallow, fingers clenched into fists, she bucked so hard against her bonds that she actually moved the bed. But nothing worked, not even when she pulled against the ropes so furiously that they gouged huge, bloody grooves in her skin.