by C. I. Black
She couldn’t be in Court. She had to find Ryan. Maybe if she used her earth magic she could make it right, make him love her.
Her stomach churned at the thought. He didn’t love her. Accept it. Just accept it and move on. She would deal with Tobias and Court politics. Then she’d wipe Ryan’s memory to save him, and hide from everything until it stopped hurting.
And to do that, she needed to trust Grey to find him and keep him safe while she dealt with Tobias. It wouldn’t help either of them if she was executed for treason.
Except there was no guarantee Tobias would allow her to leave Court once she’d talked to him. There was also no guarantee that Tobias wasn’t involved in the attack at her house.
But if that was true, then Tobias was somehow involved with the mages. Which was impossible. Tobias was loyal to Regis. He wouldn’t be involved with Zenobia and her coup.
Of course, she’d never believed that there would be mages in Nero’s house, either, and without a doubt those kids had been mages. Grey and Anaea had been there as well, which meant…
She had no idea what it meant. She didn’t think they were involved with Boyd and his group of mages, but did that mean there was more than one group of mages out there? And what the hell was Grey doing, involved with that and at Nero’s house?
None of this made sense. Nero was a Traditionalist and Regis’s favorite doyen. An association with Hunter, even if it was through Grey, was unheard of. Hunter was Regis’s least favorite drake. If Hunter didn’t possess the last free medallion and have a sorcerer at his side, Regis would have sent every wannabe assassin after him. But Nero didn’t just have a casual association with Hunter. If Anaea had been in his house, free to wander around, he had a direct link.
The Lesser Promenade widened. She passed a pair of patrolling guards, and while they glanced at her, they didn’t stop her, which meant there wasn’t a warrant for her arrest—or they’d yet to check in and learn about her. She was getting closer to the stairs up to the Greater Promenade and the Chamberlain’s office. Grey had said Tobias was furious that she’d been investigating something she hadn’t been assigned. She’d known that might happen when Hiro had called her to her office. At least she had a solid lead with Howard Pimm—thanks to Gig finding that video. But she couldn’t explain Ryan. And if Tobias was angry about him, that meant that reporter had aired Capri’s slip-up at that lawyers’ office.
She could fix this. Mother of All, she would fix this. Tobias would understand. She just needed to spin this as done in the best interest of the Royal Coterie. She’d suspected Ryan had known something and needed to keep him close until she’d discovered the truth. Yes, she should have informed Tobias right away, but she hadn’t wanted to jump to conclusions.
Oh, yeah, Tobias wasn’t going to believe any of that. He’d call her headstrong and stupid.
All of which right now was completely true.
She reached the massive staircase curling up to the Greater Promenade and took the stairs two at a time. There was no good way out of this and maybe she deserved it for what she’d done to Ryan.
Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. She’d hurt her inamorator, broken his mind. She deserved whatever punishment Tobias gave her.
She hit the second to last step and almost rammed into Katar, Barna’s Second.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Yes, I have a meeting with the Chamberlain.”
“No, you have a meeting with me,” Regis said from the top of the staircase. He flashed a hint of teeth, challenging her to argue with him… or was that sexual invitation? With Regis it was hard to tell since this kind of situation turned the bastard on. His gaggle of sycophants drew a step closer and nodded their agreement.
But Capri couldn’t muster even a hint of teeth in response. She didn’t want to fight. She wanted to cry. No, she wanted to fix the situation with Ryan. “Of course, my Prince.” She dropped her gaze to his feet in submission. “What would you like to discuss?”
“I think it has something to do with a particular human,” Katar said, his voice low. Satisfaction gleamed in his dark eyes.
“A human?” Rage and fear exploded through the grief. She fought to keep her gaze down. Regis hadn’t told the guard yet because he wanted to torment her himself first. If they hurt Ryan—
“Don’t play coy,” Regis growled. “You’ve been digging your nose into dragon matters with a human and without permission.”
If anything happened to Ryan, she’d rip out Regis’s throat. But threatening Regis would just draw attention to Ryan. “It’s just a human who potentially has some good information. I intend to wipe his mind the moment he’s no longer useful.”
Katar eased down to her step and leaned close. “You still don’t have permission. You’re still breaking the law, little drake.”
“I might be small, but I still bite like a drake.” She met his gaze in direct challenge. Mother of All, she wanted to grab the slimy drake and beat him senseless.
Katar sneered. “Too many drakes have taken liberty of your generous graces, Your Highness. They think you’re weak.”
“I don’t think you’re weak,” she forced out. She thought he was crazy and far too powerful, but definitely not weak.
“Her actions say otherwise. Obviously Zenobia’s public lesson wasn’t enough for some drakes.” Katar shot her an evil grin. “She’s supposedly sworn allegiance to your coterie, but disobeys your laws. She lives in the human realm and has relations with humans.”
“My lord Prince—” She didn’t have time for this. She needed to deal with Tobias then get back to Ryan.
“She’s disgraced you,” Katar said. “Other drakes will think it’s all right to disobey you because members of your coterie already are.”
“I have not disobeyed you.” Her hands burned with the need to shoot the asshole. But he was with Regis, which meant he was somehow in the Prince’s favor, and shooting a favored drake was never a good idea—even if she’d had a gun handy, which she didn’t.
“Tobias has summoned her. Obviously she’s disobeyed you.”
Regis narrowed his eyes, his anger burning red across his cheeks. His sycophants inched back. They stood too still, as if hoping Regis—a stronger predator—wouldn’t turn his attention on them.
“Will you stand for that?” Katar asked. “Will you let her make you look weak among your own coterie?”
Capri’s frustration froze to fear. She had to calm Regis down, make him see reason before Katar goaded him into doing something terrible. “My Prince—”
Movement behind the half-dozen courtiers caught her attention. A shaggy head of black hair peered around the shoulder of the farthest drake. Gig. His wide eyes were locked on her.
“Disobeying the Chamberlain means disobeying me,” Regis hissed, his fury sweeping across his forehead and down his neck.
“I haven’t disobeyed the Chamberlain.” Please just let it go.
“Doesn’t look like that to me,” Katar said, showing all his teeth in dark satisfaction. “She must think she can get away with it. She thinks you don’t deserve her respect. That you’re weak.”
“I’m not weak,” Regis screamed. “Seize her.”
No. She couldn’t be taken. She had to get to Ryan. Had to—
Katar grabbed Capri’s arm. She wrenched free, but he shoved her against the railing, then grabbed the front of her coat and tossed her up the remaining stairs to the Greater Promenade at Regis’s feet. Two of his guards leapt on her, pinning her to the floor.
Gig tensed. She captured his gaze, willing him to stay still. She couldn’t stand it if she put him in danger, too. He trembled but didn’t move.
Regis bent over her. “Tobias would complain too much if I killed you, but I will not tolerate insolence.” He kicked her in the face.
Her head snapped back and pain sliced through her, making her headache pound anew.
“I’m loyal,” she gasped. Black specks danced across her visio
n. The pain from the blow should have faded by now. She was a faster healer than this.
“You will be when Odyne is done with you.”
She jerked against the guards’ grip. Not Odyne. She couldn’t get locked up, not when Ryan needed her… but he didn’t need her. He didn’t want her. “Please. I haven’t broken the law. I’m still yours to command.” Her words sounded weak even to her.
“You’ll not make me look weak or a fool. Tell Odyne I need her whole, but contrite.” A wicked gleam darkened Regis’s eyes. “Very contrite.” He strode away, a guard and the half-dozen sycophants following him, while Gig was nowhere to be seen.
Her throat tightened again. Ryan didn’t want her.
The two guards holding Capri hauled her to her feet. Katar slammed his fist into her face. Pain exploded through her head again and her knees buckled.
“It’s a shame I have business elsewhere,” Katar said. “I love watching Odyne work. The things that drake can do with a touch.”
CHAPTER 34
Ryan woke in the guest bed in Trisha’s house, clutching the photo of Capri and his great-uncle, still in the filthy winter coat and the jeans he’d worn when he’d run from Capri’s burning house. He had no idea how he’d gotten to his room. He couldn’t remember anything past recognizing Capri in the photo.
Capri, the dragon. Blue drake, actually.
He jerked up, his heart pounding. Dragons were real. Magic was real. The guest room shimmered around him. A gunshot exploded behind him, the security door opened, and Capri rushed out, blood staining her side. He could see it now, the ferocious glint in her eye, that vivaciousness he couldn’t explain. It was because she wasn’t human.
Now he knew it didn’t matter if she’d been shot. Her soul magic could heal her body. It made her eternal. She really had been the woman in the photograph. And all that eternal, ferocious passion was his. She’d chosen. He knew from the knowledge she’d flooded into his mind that a dragon only mated once and for life. If he rejected her, she’d never love another. When he died, she’d spend the rest of her eternity alone.
Just the thought made him hurt. Core deep. She didn’t deserve that, but he couldn’t protect her from it, and staying away wouldn’t solve the problem. Her spirit had made its choice.
And so had his.
He could deny it all he wanted, but whatever had compelled her dragon soul to bond with his also compelled him. If he’d known what being inamorated was all about, he would have recognized his irresistible attraction to her for what it really was. True love.
It was crazy. He barely knew her, and he certainly didn’t believe in true love. Of course, he hadn’t believed in magic, either, even though he could see the future. Yeah, he was willing to agree that not believing, even with what he could do, was ridiculous, but sometimes people didn’t make sense.
The future flash Capri growled and raced down the hall into darkness. More gunfire and a scream.
He fought back his panic. The vision was almost over and now he knew the bullets couldn’t kill her. She was a blue drake. Her element was water. Only fire could hurt her. That and decapitation. The only sure way to kill a dragon was decapitation… which explained why Capri was so interested in the murders. If one of the victims had been a dragon, dragon-kind was likely very nervous about these murders.
The future flash trembled around him, pulling at him, but he yanked against it. He was sick and tired of it controlling him. He would be in control for once, damn it. Capri wasn’t in danger. He didn’t need to rescue her. When the flash came to pass she’d be fine, he’d be fine, and they could figure out how they were going to defy dragon law and be together.
The rightness of that thought swelled through him.
The future flash jerked at him, the world twisting around him.
He fought back. He and Capri were meant to be.
And he’d run out on her when she’d revealed the truth.
The rightness churned, suddenly foul. He had to get back to her. Explain he’d been surprised, but that he understood everything now.
He shrugged out of the coat, dragged on a clean T-shirt, and opened the bedroom door. He had no idea where she’d taken them last night. It had been in an old warehouse, in a terrible part of town, but there was more than one terrible part of town in Newgate. This wasn’t Elmsville with only one wrong side of the tracks.
“Shit.”
“What did you forget now?” Trisha asked. She stood in her bedroom, holding a full basket of crumpled laundry. Bright sunlight streamed through the door behind her. That was important, but he couldn’t remember why.
Trisha narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t usually sleep so late. And what happened to your face? Were you in a fight?”
The light. Her room faced west. Which meant it was past noon. Capri had been waiting for him all morning. No, Capri wouldn’t wait. She’d assumed he didn’t care for her the way she cared for him. Or she thought he’d lost his mind and was soul sick or both, and—
“Crap. Melissa.” He was supposed to have met her at midnight. She’d probably run her damning story about him and Capri that morning.
“What about Melissa?”
“I have to go.” He rushed to the stairs. They twisted and wavered, and he shoved back at the future flash.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later. Just—” A new horrible thought flooded him. He had no idea who’d blown up Capri’s house. If Melissa had run her story connecting him to Capri, whoever had targeted her could target Trisha and Jess. “Take Jess and go to—”
He had no idea where to send her. Mom wasn’t in town, but a connection to him and Trisha was also a connection to their mother. The only person he could trust was Capri… and Hiro.
“Take Jess, go to the Medical Examiner’s office, and ask for Doctor Hiro Yoshida.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“It’s all right. Just a precaution.” The flash tugged, stronger. The security door banged open.
“A precaution against what?”
He squeezed his attention to Trisha. “I don’t have time. Just do it. Now. Please.”
Trisha held his gaze for a too-long heartbeat. Then she dropped the laundry and shoved past him to the top of the stairs. “Jess, get your coat. We need to visit a friend of Uncle Ryan’s.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“And I will. I promise.” He rushed down the stairs, and grabbed a coat and his extra car keys.
Except his Camaro wasn’t in the driveway and Capri’s SUV still sat at the curb. Right. His car was at her place—or what was left of her place.
Oh, man, she was going to hate him.
He wrapped his coat around his arm, smashed the back window on the passenger’s side of the SUV, and unlocked the doors. If there’d been time, he would have been more subtle. But there wasn’t time. He needed to find her. The compulsion to find her was overwhelming.
He slid into the driver’s seat, yanked out the wires under the driveshaft, and hot-wired the vehicle. With only a vague idea of where that apartment had been, his best bet wasn’t to drive aimlessly around town. He needed to find someone who knew how to get in touch with her; there’d been at least two people who’d recognized her at Raven Mitchelle’s residence, and one of them had been the friend who’d set them up with the apartment.
Trisha and Jess rushed out of the house and got into Trisha’s car. Thank goodness his sister was actually listening to him for once. He didn’t know if she was in danger, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
He paused at the stop sign at the end of the street, found Hiro’s number in the SUV’s call directory—thank you, technology—and dialed.
“Hello?”
“I have a strange favor to ask.” Please say yes.
“Ryan? Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know. Someone blew up Capri’s house—” The se
curity door banged open again.
“That was her house on the news? Oh, my God. And you were there? Are you guys all right? Do you know who’s responsible? Wait, what were you doing at Capri’s house?”
“It’s a long story.” He squinted past the future flash and turned a corner too fast. The SUV’s rear started to slide out. He corrected, the wheels caught, but he didn’t slow. “My sister and niece are going to come visit your office. Could you keep an eye on them until I’ve cleared this up?”
“Absolutely,” she said without hesitation.
“Thank you.”
“And Ryan, things with Capri could be dangerous.”
He snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Just keep your head.”
“I intend to.” He hung up. Keeping one’s head had a terrible and literal meaning in the dragon world. Hiro couldn’t possibly know how accurate that statement really was.
CHAPTER 35
Ten minutes later, Ryan pounded on the door to Raven Mitchelle’s residence.
Please let Raven know how to find Capri. In the very least, she had to know how to contact Capri’s friend, the one who looked like a Viking.
The future flash whipped around him, the security door banging open again and again. The impossible information Capri had shoved in his head still whirled, threatening his already shaky grasp on reality.
He clenched his teeth. He was not crazy. He would not be crazy.
A gunshot exploded.
Why wouldn’t the damned flash just disappear?
Capri would be fine. He just needed—no, he had to tell her he hadn’t meant to run out on her, that he was drawn to her the way she was drawn to him. It didn’t make any sense, but he knew, soul-deep, it was true.
