Caleb let out a yelp. He let go of Lachlan for a second. “That hurt,” he said through clenched teeth.
Lachlan reached back for the door, trying to use magic on the catch again. It wouldn’t budge. “Penny!” he yelled.
I tried it too. But my magic just hit the bars and sparked them up again. The bars glowed orange.
Caleb laughed again. “Once magic hits the bars, it charges them up. That’s how they get the jolts.” He shoved Lachlan back into the bars.
The bars came to life again, sparking and glowing.
Lachlan screamed as his body convulsed against them.
“Stop it!” I cried. “Stop it, don’t hurt him!”
“I want out,” said Caleb over Lachlan’s yells. “If you want to know what happened to Alastair Cooper, you will get me out of this cell.”
I pulled air into my lungs, gathering up my fire magic. I breathed out a wall of fire, sending it straight for the bars, but when it hit them, it only seemed to strengthen the magic in them. They glowed bright red, and Lachlan writhed and shrieked and sparks flew.
And then Lachlan stopped making noise.
His body was still jerking against the bars, but he was unconscious, and he wasn’t aware of what was happening.
“Help!” I yelled, but Sid was gone, he’d left us all alone, and now it was up to me.
I ran to the bars, reached through them to touch Lachlan.
But the bars touched my arm, and a jolt of horrid pain went through me.
I jerked back, my hand going to my stomach. The baby!
Caleb grinned at me. “Let me out.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” I said. “I can’t open the cell.”
He shrugged. “You could figure out something, I suppose.”
I turned and looked around at my surroundings. Could I use magic to pick something up, something huge, and throw it at the bars at full speed? Then I could knock in the bars and free Lachlan. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let Caleb go free, though. I would wring his neck.
Lachlan was still jerking against the bars.
“Let him off them!” I said. “I’m not doing anything until you let him off.”
Caleb gingerly reached forward, but the minute he touched Lachlan, a jolt went through him. He stepped back, shrugging. “Sorry.”
I let out a cry—mingled rage and fear. “Is he okay?”
Caleb shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’ve never been jolted for that long before.”
Oh, God, oh, God. There had to be something that I could do.
I looked around again, but all I could see was the empty cell that used to contain Alastair. I waved my hand at that door, and the catch opened, the cell door swinging inward. The bars on his cell glowed and sparked as well. Using magic did charge them up somehow.
I pointed at the bed inside Alastair’s cell, tried to make it float through the air. Maybe I could use it to break down the bars.
The bed didn’t move. Right. Magic didn’t work inside the cells. I could go and try to drag the bed out…
But no. I could see that it was bolted to the floor.
I let out a mangled sob.
I went running out of the room, back to Sid’s station. I threw myself behind the desk and began turning knobs and flicking switches.
“Penny?” said a voice.
I looked up. Darla was in the doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I told you to stay away from Caleb, didn’t I?” said Darla, as she rushed past me.
I came out from behind the desk and went after her. “We had to know if he had information. Lachlan said it was too important to let it go.”
She came to a halt in front of the cell. “Oh, dear.”
“Lachlan opened the door with magic, but then the bars seemed to get charged with magic and—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” she sighed. “Listen, Lachlan, you’re best to just get down now. Stop trying to stay up. If you get up, it means you want more.”
“He can’t get up!” I said. “He’s unconscious.” And why had she said that? That was word for word something that Alastair always said to me when he was beating the shit out of me.
“Unconscious?” said Darla. “Oh, dear.”
“Can you help him?” I said. Tears were starting to stream down my face.
She turned on me. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
Caleb started to laugh.
Darla pointed at him. “You. Shut your mouth.”
“Going to make me, Darla?” said Caleb.
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” And then she marched forward and put her hands on the bars. She stiffened, gritting her teeth. The magic made her hair stand up on end. But she seemed to be absorbing it somehow. She was powerful enough to take it into herself. Or maybe it was because that was what the Order did. Absorb magic. I didn’t know. But after a few moments, the bars stopped sparking, and Lachlan slid down to the floor of the cell.
Darla yanked a pair of handcuffs out of her back pocket. “Caleb. Come forward. Hands through the bars.”
Caleb’s face twisted. “What if I say no? What if I say that I’ll—”
“Forward,” said Darla, “or I will make you regret that you were ever born.”
Caleb’s face flickered in defiance, then fear. The fear won out. He stepped forward and stuck his hands out, one on either side of the bar.
Darla handcuffed him. The bar between his hands meant that the chain between the cuffs would catch if he tried to go anywhere. Caleb was stuck in place.
Then Darla undid the catch on the lock of the cell door and went inside.
I followed her, running to Lachlan. I brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Lachlan?” I whispered.
He was clammy, his body cold.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I thrust my bleeding wrist at Lachlan’s mouth. “Drink,” I muttered. “Drink.”
We were in Darla’s office. He was lying on a couch, and I was kneeling over him.
She hovered over me. “You shouldn’t have gone near Caleb. I warned you how dangerous he is.”
I didn’t look away from Lachlan. “I didn’t want to do it. Lachlan was adamant that we had to try, though.”
“And where was Sid?” said Darla.
“H-he wasn’t there when we got there,” I said. “I don’t know where he was.”
Darla sighed. “I left strict instructions that you were not to be let back in there.”
I dribbled blood onto Lachlan’s lips.
No response from him.
“What did Caleb say to you?” said Darla.
“Nothing,” I said. “He said he wanted to be let out before he’d tell us anything.”
“Ah,” said Darla. “You see? He was toying with you.”
“I don’t care about that right now,” I said. “Lachlan might be— He’s not—” I shut my eyes and more tears spilled out. No, this couldn’t be happening. I wouldn’t lose him. Not now.
“I feel as if you’ve taken advantage of my hospitality toward you, I’m afraid,” said Darla.
I used my other hand, the one that wasn’t bleeding, to open Lachlan’s mouth. Then I held my bleeding wrist over his mouth, dropping droplets of blood onto his tongue.
Nothing happened.
“I let you run rampant on this place,” said Darla. “And why? All because there is something about you, Penny…” She knelt down next to me. “I can’t get you out of my head.”
Was she serious? I glared at her. “My lover is unresponsive, and you’re picking now to declare your affection for me?”
“I don’t have affection for you.” She sniffed, standing back up. “It’s not… romantic. I prefer men.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Whatever. You don’t have to hide it. It’s the twenty-first century.” I gave Lachlan’s shoulder a gentle nudge. “Wake up,” I whispered. “Wake up, please.”
“I simply find you fascinating, that’s all,” she sai
d. “But it’s obviously inappropriate. From now on, I really must insist that if you come to the Order, you only move about with an escort, such as myself. I really wish we could help you find out what happened to Alastair Cooper, but he escaped, as I mentioned—”
“How did he escape?” I stood up, facing her. “How did it happen? Didn’t you drain all of his magic?”
“I don’t know how it happened,” she said.
“Aren’t you concerned about that? You can’t have your prisoners running around out in the open. What if they all escape?”
“Alastair was…” She shook her head. “Very powerful. Very, very powerful.”
I put my hands on my hips. “When you take magic from the prisoners, do you take anything else?”
“What?” She wrinkled up her nose. “What are you talking about?”
“Like… memories?” I said. “Or little personal catch phrases?”
“Catch phrases?” she said.
Lachlan coughed.
I turned back around, falling to my knees next to him. “Lachlan!”
His eyes fluttered.
I grabbed his hand between both of mine. “Lachlan, you’re okay.” And then I was seized by a wave of fresh sobs.
He grunted. “Penny?”
“Oh, Jesus.” I buried my face in his stomach and cried in relief.
* * *
“I just need some blood and some rest,” Lachlan muttered, even though it was taking my magic to keep him standing upright. He was hobbling into my apartment.
“I thought you were dead,” I said. “You were cold.”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “Whatever is in those bars hurt like hell. And it’s like it took all my magic trying to heal myself. I just need a little blood. Help me get to the refrigerator—”
“Bed,” I said. “You’re going to bed. You either walk there or I float you there.”
He looked like he wanted to argue. But he was clearly in no shape for it. He was pale—his lips colorless and pasty. His eyes were bloodshot. “Just get the blood out of the refrigerator, then,” he said, heading down the hallway.
He made it two steps before he collapsed into the wall. He braced himself against it to stay upright.
I was next to him in moments. I used my magic to hold him up and help him walk. He would want to walk, I knew that.
When we got to the bedroom, I pointed to the covers, and they fell open for him. I helped him sit down on the bed and take off his shoes.
Then he crawled under the covers. “Penny, the blood,” he said, looking like death warmed over.
I crawled in next to him, putting my wrist near his mouth.
“No,” he said softly. “I might need a lot.”
“You need good, strong dragon blood, Lachlan, not some cold pig’s blood from the fridge. Now drink.”
He swallowed. He hesitated. But then he opened his mouth, and his fangs were extended. He pulled my wrist down to his mouth.
There was a sharp twinge of pain.
And then we were falling into each other, joined the way we were when he drank my blood.
We were luminous—part of each other, part of the universe, part of everything.
I sighed, snuggling into him, feeling him from the inside out, feeling the parts of him that were torn and tired and broken. I pushed the magic from my blood into those parts. I helped to heal him.
And then I became aware of something else.
The baby.
A tiny spark of consciousness within me, reaching out to both of us, his tiny fingers entwining with ours, holding on tightly, so tightly. He was pure and small and perfect. And ours.
Lachlan broke away from my wrist. His eyes were glistening. “Did you feel him?”
I nodded. I pushed my wrist back at him. “More.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t take more. I’m pushing the limit.”
I nodded. He knew that better than me, I supposed. I could have probably sensed it as well, but I had been too focused on trying to heal him and on the bright spark of our tiny child growing within me. “Okay,” I said softly. “Should I get you the blood from the fridge now?”
“In a minute,” he said, tightening his arms around me. “Just… I want you close now.”
I clung to him. “Don’t ever do anything like that again. I can’t lose you, do you understand that?”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I thought I could handle it,” he said.
“And maybe you could,” I said. “But I need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Penny.”
“You better not,” I said.
“I won’t be an idiot anymore, I promise,” he said. “I have a second chance now, with you, with our little man in there.” His fingers brushed my belly. “It’s… it’s more than I ever hoped for.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. I kissed him.
* * *
When I woke up, I was alone in bed, but not alone in my apartment.
I could hear the sound of someone out in the kitchen, and I just knew it wasn’t Lachlan.
Shocks of fear went through me, and my entire body hummed with adrenaline. Where was Lachlan? I reached for my phone, which I usually kept on my bedside table when I went to sleep, but it wasn’t there.
Swallowing hard, I pushed the covers aside. I was wearing my robe, nothing underneath it. The same robe I’d been wearing the night that Alastair abducted me. I thought I’d gotten rid of this thing. How had it gotten back on me?
The fear thrummed through me even stronger. It forced movement through my limbs, drawing me up out of bed and to the door of the bedroom.
I had to go into the kitchen. I had to see who was there.
My heart stammered in my rib cage, but my legs seemed to be moving of their own volition. I was propelled forward, out of the door, into the hallway.
The hallway seemed longer than usual. It seemed to stretch in front of me, looming large and long. Each step I made seemed to carry me nowhere, as the hallway stretched and stretched. My heart beat double time.
I wanted to stop. I wanted to go back to my bedroom and hide under the covers. I wanted to turn around and open that door and see Lachlan in bed, where he was supposed to be, right next to me.
But I kept moving up that endless hallway, each step churning my stomach with dread, as I got closer and closer to the end. To the kitchen.
And then, finally, there I was.
And there he was.
Alastair.
He was leaning against the counter, twirling my keys in one hand. He was only wearing a pair of silk boxers, and his skin was covered in a sheen of sweat.
He looked good.
I wanted him.
I always wanted him.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want you. Not anymore.”
“Hey, baby,” he said, crossing the kitchen to untie my robe.
I shoved him. “Stop. Go away. You’re dead.”
He laughed. “Did you see my dead body?”
“I did,” I said. “I saw you. You were in dragon form, and you were lying on a slab—”
“You sure it was me?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Yes,” I hissed.
“Well, it wasn’t.” He parted my robe, pushing it over my shoulders to bare my breasts. “I’m alive.”
“No,” I said. “No, you can’t be.”
“I’m never going to leave you alone, baby,” he said, reaching out to tweak my nipples painfully. “You’re mine. You know that.”
“I’m not yours,” I said. “I’m not.”
“You think you belong to that vampire?” said Alastair, smirking. “I already got rid of him.” He pointed to the corner of the kitchen.
There was Lachlan, in a heap, jerking and twitching as sparks went through his body. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and he was drooling bloody drool.
“Don’t get up, Lachlan,” said Alastair in a nasty voice. “If you get up, it means you want more.”
I t
ried to run to Lachlan, but Alastair caught me by the waist and tugged me against him. “This is how it’s going to be, Penny, love. You and me, and little Alastair Junior are going to—”
“Alastair Junior?” I spat in Alastair’s face. “The baby is Lachlan’s.”
Alastair laughed. “Whoever heard of a vampire daddy?”
“You didn’t even have sex with me,” I said. “Admit it. You saw that I was unconscious, and you stopped. Didn’t you?”
Alastair made a face. “No fun if you can’t scream, darling.”
I flailed out with my arms and my legs, trying to connect with him, to hit him as hard as I could.
And then I remembered that I had magic, that I was a dragon, and that I could breathe fire.
But Alastair was pushing me against the refrigerator, and he was sealing his lips around mine and his hands were roaming all over my body, and I couldn’t breathe, and my pulse was racing, and—
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I sat up in bed, gasping.
A dream. A bad dream. God, I hadn’t had one in a while. Most of my dreams recently had been vivid but benign. I was panting, sweating. My heart was still beating fast.
But Lachlan was still in bed with me. He stirred, pushing himself up on his elbows. “What?”
“Bad dream,” I whispered.
“Like being chased by a big hammer bad dream or Alastair bad dream?” said Lachlan.
I let out a shaky breath. “Alastair,” I breathed.
Lachlan wrapped his arms around me. “Shh,” he whispered. “He’s dead.”
“I know,” I said, burrowing my face in his chest. “But it was so awful. It seemed so real, and you were dying again, and I didn’t have any magic, and—” I broke off, pushing away from him. “He said something in the dream. And it was weird, because Darla said it earlier.”
“What?” said Lachlan. “What are you talking about?”
“She said for you not to get up. That if you got up, it meant you wanted more. That’s what Alastair used to say to me when he was hitting me. Why would she say that?” I hugged myself.
Lachlan rubbed his forehead. “She said something that Alastair always said?”
“I guess it’s just a coincidence, but it really got to me.”
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