Moon Sworn

Epilogue

The wind meandered through the treetops, filling the dusk with the whisper of leaves. The mountain air was cool, fresh with the recent rain and rich with the humus of the forest.

I walked through the trees, my bare feet sinking into the grass and leaving a trail of wet prints behind me.

In a couple of hours, the full moon would rise and I would become a wolf.

But before then, before the sun had fully set, there was the time of promises.

Soon Quinn would become mine, and I would become his.

It was all I could do not race up the remainder of this hill, to where he and Rhoan and Liander waited, to say the words that would bind us as one forever.

The only thing that could have made this night more perfect would have been for Rhoan and Liander to perform the ceremony alongside us. But Rhoan was still refusing, and Liander wouldn’t push. He understood Rhoan’s reasons. We all did, even if we didn’t agree with them.

But I wasn’t about to spoil this night by dwelling on such matters.

Not when I was about to commit to the man of my dreams.

My pulse was racing and my heart was light, and every now and again the sheer force of it all had my feet breaking into a happy little dance.

High above the treetops, the sky was a blaze of color, and though the moon had yet to crest the horizon, the heat of her was in the air. Her music sang through my veins—a richness that was sweet and intoxicating. The change would come with darkness, but before it did, our promises would be made.

I walked up the rest of the hill. The last of the day’s sunlight broke through the trees as I did, warming the clearing ahead and spotlighting the three men who waited there.

Rhoan and Liander stood to one side, their arms entwined and grins as silly as my own on their faces. Quinn stood in the middle, as naked as I was despite what he’d said earlier. And oh, he was beautiful. Simply beautiful.

He smiled as I stopped in front of him, and briefly reached out to caress my cheek. I pressed into his touch and silently said, Do you know all the words?

They have been very firmly drummed into my brain by your brother and his lover, he replied. They made sure no mistakes would be made.

They’d made sure I would make no mistakes, as well, hammering the words into my still somewhat faulty memory banks. Despite Quinn’s best efforts, not all the past had been recovered. Some of it would remain forever gone. But the past no longer mattered. The here, the now, and the future did.

Good, I replied softly. I did threaten to cook for them for the next year if things went awry.

His laughter was like quicksilver through my thoughts, bright and shiny. Then he dropped his hand and bowed formally.

I watched him, struggling to contain my joy, struggling to reach the seriousness this ceremony required.

“Does my lover know what night this is?” I said softly.

His eyes shone like black jewels in the dusk, filled with such warmth and love that it threatened to steal my breath and words away.

“It is the night of the full moon,” he returned solemnly. “The night of promises.”

I stepped forward, pressing my body against his. Feeling in the no-longer-slow beat of his heart an echo of my excitement. Feeling in the rigid heat of his erection the equal of my desire. “The night of destiny.”

The air stirred around us, running with slivers of energy that raised the hairs at the nape of my neck.

“You are my heart, my soul,” he said, his arms going around my waist and holding me tightly.

“As you are mine,” I repeated. The magic in the air got stronger, thrumming through the forest, matching the rhythm of our breathing, matching the beating of our hearts.

“Dance with me, this night and for the rest of our nights,” he said. “For as long as the moon shines in the sky and for as long as we live underneath her.”

I shifted my stance slightly, readying myself for the more intimate requirements of the ceremony. “In her name, I offer you my body.”

Desire and something else—something more ethereal and powerful—swirled around us, warming my heart, tugging at my soul. The heat of him slid inside of me, so deeply that it felt like he was claiming every single inch of me. And lord, it felt good.

“In her power,” he said, as he slowly began to rock inside of me, “I offer you my heart.”

The energy in the air was becoming fiercer, burning across my skin, making all the little hairs stand up on end.

“In her shadow, I offer you my soul.” My words were breathless, almost inaudible, lost to the pleasurable assault on my senses and the thrumming in the air. It didn’t matter. The magic in the night heard and acknowledged it.

His hands slid down to my rear, gripping my butt fiercely, holding my body tightly against his as his movements became more urgent.

“Do you accept the gift of my seed?” he growled.

His thrusting was deep and hard and urgent, and the world was spinning, burning, with power, until it felt like there was no separation between any of us, that our flesh, the magic, the moon, and the night were all one being.

“Yes,” I gasped. “Do you accept the binding of the moon and the promises we have made on the night?”

“Yes,” he cried. “Yes!”

The words were barely said when he came, his body going rigid against mine, the force of his release tearing my name from his throat. Heat and power and magic exploded around us, through us, and my climax came in that moment, stealing all thought and plunging me into an abyss that was sheer and unadulterated bliss.

I rested my forehead against his, desperately trying to catch my breath, desperately trying to ignore the rising heat of the oncoming night. I would change soon, but there were still words to be said.

So I took a deep breath and raised my head, staring into the beautiful dark pools that were his eyes. “May the moon bless this union and grant us a long life together.”

He smiled and gently brushed the sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead. “And what the moon has bound, let no man or woman sunder.”

He leaned forward and kissed me. Gently, sweetly. Then he bent and gathered a small, silk-wrapped package by his feet. “And now, for the human part of the ceremony.” He opened the silk, revealing two identical, black onyx rings. He plucked the smaller of the two free and slid it onto my finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

I smiled and repeated the process. Then I flung myself into his arms and said, “You can’t get away from me now, vampire. You’re mine until eternity ends.”

“And a better place to live and die I couldn’t think of.”

“Run with us tonight.”

“Oh, I intend to. No bride of mine is spending her wedding night with her brother and his lover.”

I laughed and kissed him, with all the fierce joy in my heart.

From behind us came a whoop of delight, then suddenly Rhoan and Liander were all over us, hugging and kissing and crying.

It was the perfect way to start our new lives together. As a family, as a pack.

But as the call of the moon got fiercer and fiercer, and the thrum of the change began to tingle across our skins, Liander made the night just that little bit more perfect.

“Here,” he said, and handed me a small photo.

I took it and looked at it, but wasn’t really able to make sense of the odd black-and-white image. “What is it?” I asked, looking up.

“Those,” he said with a grin that lit up his entire face, “are our babies. Riley Jenson, you and I are having twins.”

At long last, Keri Arthur’s riveting

Myth and Magic series

continues with

Mercy Burns

Coming in Spring 2011

This stand-alone novel expands on the mysterious world of sea and air dragons as one young woman’s quest to right a wrong leads her into more danger than she ever anticipated.

Read on for a special preview …

Mercy Burns

On sale Spring 2011

W e’ll have you out in a minute, ma’am. Just keep still a while longer.”

The voice rolled across the gray mist enshrouding my mind—a soothing sound that brought no comfort, only confusion. Why would he say I shouldn’t move?

And why was he saying it just to me? Why wasn’t he saying anything to Rainey, who’d been driving the car?

Ignoring the advice, I shifted, trying to get more comfortable, trying to feel. Pain shot through my side, spreading out in heated waves across my body and reverberating through my brain. The sensation was oddly comforting even as it tore a scream from my throat.

If I could feel, then I wasn’t dead.

Should I be?

Yes, something inside me whispered. Yes.

I swallowed heavily, trying to ease the dryness in my throat. What the hell had happened to us? And why did it suddenly feel like I was missing hours of my life?

The thing that was digging into my side felt jagged and fat, like a serrated knife with a thicker, heavier edge, yet there were no knives in the car. People like me and Rainey didn’t need knives or guns or any other sort of human weapon, because we were born with our own. And it was just as dangerous, just as accurate, as any gun or knife.

So why did it feel like I had a knife in my side?

I tried to open my eyes, suddenly desperate to see where I was, to find Rainey, to understand what was going on. But I couldn’t force them open and I had no idea why.

Alarm snaked through the haze, fueling my growing sense that something was very wrong.

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep calm, trying to keep still as the stranger had advised. The air was cool, yet sunshine ran through it, hinting that dawn had passed and that the day was already here. But that couldn’t be right. Rainey and I had been driving through sunset, not sunrise, enjoying the last rays before the night stole the heat from us.

Moisture rolled down the side of my cheek. Not a tear; it was too warm to be a tear.

Blood.

There was blood on my face, blood running through my hair. My stomach clenched and the fear surged to new heights, making it difficult to breathe. What the hell had happened? And where the hell was Rainey?

Had we been in some sort of accident?

No, came the answer from the foggy depths of my mind. This was no accident.

Memories surged at the thought, though the resulting images were little more than fractured flashes mixed with snatches of sound, as if there were bits my memory couldn’t—or wouldn’t—recall. There was the deep, oddly familiar voice on the phone who’d given us our first decent clue in weeks. And Rainey’s excitement over the possible lead—our chance to discover not only what had happened to her sister, but also to everyone else who had once lived in the town of Stillwater. Our mad, off-key singing as we’d sped through the mountains, heading back to San Francisco and our meeting with the man who just might hold some answers.

Then the truck lights that had appeared out of nowhere and raced toward us. The realization that the driver wasn’t keeping to his own side of the road, that he was heading directly for us. Rainey’s desperate, useless attempts to avoid him. The screeching, crumpling sound of metal as the truck smashed into us, sending us spinning. The screaming of tires as Rainey stomped on the brakes, trying to stop us from being shunted through the guard rail. The roar of the truck’s engine being gunned and a second, more crushing, sideways blow that buckled the doors and forced us through the very railing we’d been so desperate to avoid. The fear and the panic and the realization that we couldn’t get out, couldn’t get free, as the car dropped over the ledge and smashed into the rocks below, rolling over, and over, and over…

The sound of sobbing shattered the reeling images—deep, sobbing gasps that spoke of pain and fear. Mine. I sought desperately to gain some control, to quiet the sobs and suck down some air. Hysteria wouldn’t help. Hysteria never helped.

Something pricked my arm. A needle. I wanted to tell them that whatever they were giving me probably wouldn’t work because human medicine almost never did on us, but the words stuck somewhere in my throat. Not because I couldn’t speak, but because I’d learned the hard way never to say anything that might hint to the humans that they were not alone in this world.

And yet, despite my certainty that the drug wouldn’t work, my awareness seemed to strengthen. I became conscious of the hiss of air and of the screech and groan of metal being forced apart. Close by, someone breathed heavily; I could smell his sweat and fear. Further away was the murmur of conversation, the rattle of chains, and the forlorn sighing of the wind. It had an echo, making it sound as if we were on the edge of a precipice.

What was absent was Rainey’s sweet, summery scent. I should have been able to smell her. In the little hatchback there wasn’t much distance between the passenger seat and the driver’s, yet I had no sense of her.

Fear surged anew and I raised a hand, ignoring the sharp, angry stabbing in my side as I swiped at my eyes. Something flaked away and a crack of warm light penetrated. I swiped again, then a hand grabbed mine, the fingers cool and strong. I struggled against the grip but couldn’t break free, and that scared me even more. He was human, and I wasn’t. Not entirely. There was no way on this earth he should have been able to restrain me so easily.

“Don’t,” he said, gravelly voice calm and soothing, showing no trace of the fear I could smell on him. “There’s a cut above your eye and you’ll only make the bleeding worse.”

It couldn’t get worse, I wanted to say. And I meant the situation, not the wound. Yet that little voice inside me whispered that the pain wasn’t over yet, that there was a whole lot more to come.

I clenched my fingers against the stranger’s, suddenly needing the security of his touch. At least it was something real in a world that had seemingly gone mad.

The screeching of metal stopped, and the thick silence was almost as frightening. Yet welcome. If only the pounding in my head would stop…

“Almost there, ma’am. Just keep calm a little longer.”

“Where …” My voice came out little more than a harsh whisper and my throat burned in protest. I swallowed heavily and tried again. “Where is Rainey?”

He hesitated. “Your friend?”

“Yes.”

His hesitation lasted longer. “Let’s just concentrate on getting you out and safe.”

There was something in his voice that had alarm bells ringing. An edge that spoke of sorrow and death and all those things I didn’t want to contemplate or believe.

“Where is she?” I said, almost desperately. “I need to know she’s okay.”

“She’s being taken care of by someone else,” he said, and I sensed the lie in his words.

No, I thought. No!

Rainey had to be alive. Had to be. She wasn’t just my friend, she was my strength, my courage, and my confidante. She’d hauled me out of more scrapes than I could remember. She couldn’t be gone.

Fear and disbelief surged. I tore my hand from his and scrubbed urgently at my eyes. Warmth began to flow anew, but I was finally able to see.

And what I saw was the crumpled steering wheel, the smashed remains of the window, the smears of blood on the jagged, twisted front end of the car.

No, no, NO!

She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. I’d survived, and she was stronger—tougher—than me. How could she die?

How could that be possible?

And then I saw something else.

Bright sunlight.

Dawn had well and truly passed.

That’s why my rescuer had been so vague about Rainey. They couldn’t find her. And no matter how much they looked, they never would. The flesh of a dead dragon incinerated at the first touch of sunrise.

I began to scream then, and there was nothing anyone could do to make me stop. Because they didn’t understand what a dragon dying unaccompanied at dawn meant.

I did. And it tore me apart.

Though in the end, I did stop—but only because the pain of being wrenched free of the twisted, broken wreck finally swept me into unconsciousness.

I left the hospital as soon as I was physically able.

The staff had tried to make me stay. They’d tried to convince me that one day after an operation to remove a six-inch piece of steel from my side, I should be flat on my back and recovering, not strolling around like there was nothing wrong with me.

But they didn’t understand what I was. I couldn’t have stayed there even if I’d wanted to, and not just because they would have noticed how fast I healed and started asking questions.

No, the real reason was Rainey.

Her soul still had a chance to move on.

The souls of dragons who died without someone to pray for them at sunrise were destined to roam this earth forever—ghosts who could never move on, never feel, and never experience life again. But those who had died before their time had one small lifeline. If I caught and killed those responsible for Rainey’s demise within seven days of her death, I could then pray for her soul on the rise of the eighth day and she would be able to move on.

I had five of those seven days left, and there was no way on this Earth I was going to waste them lying in a hospital bed. No matter how much it still hurt to walk around.

Which was why I was sitting here, in this dark and dingy bar, waiting for the man we’d arranged to meet before that truck had barreled into us.

I reached for my Coke and did a quick scan of the bar. It wasn’t a place I would have chosen, though I could see the appeal to a sea dragon. Situated in the Marina district of San Francisco, the bar was dark and smoky, and the air thick with the scent of beer, sweaty men, and secrets. Tables hid in dim corners, those sitting at them barely visible in the nebulous light.

There was no one human in those shadows.

A long wooden bar dominated one side of the venue, and the gleaming brass foot railing and old-style stools reminded me of something out of the old West—although the decor of the rest of the place was more shiprelated than Western-themed, with old rope ladders, furled sails, and a ship’s wheel taking pride of place on the various walls.

I’d attracted plenty of attention when I’d first walked in, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was due to the fact that I was the only female in the place, or the rather prominent scar on my forehead. Most of the men had quickly lost interest once I’d sent a few scowls their way, but the bartender—a big, swarthy man of indiscriminate age—seemed to be keeping an eye on me. While some part of me figured he simply didn’t want trouble, something about it bothered me nonetheless.

Then the door to my right opened, briefly silhouetting the figure of a man. He was thick-set but tall, and his hair was a wild mix of black, blue, and green, as if some artist had spilled a palette of sea-colored paints over his head.

When my gaze met his, he nodded once, then stepped into the room.

I took another sip of Coke and waited. He weaved his way through the mess of tables and chairs, his movements deft and sure, exhibiting a fluid grace so rare in most people.

Of course, he wasn’t most people. He was one of the other ones. One of the monsters.

“Angus Dougall, at your service,” he said, his deep, somewhat gruff voice holding only the barest hint of a Scottish brogue. “Sorry I was so late, but there were protestors up on Mission Street and the traffic was hell. You want another drink?”

“Not at the moment, thanks. And why meet here if it was so far out of your way?”

“Because I know these parts well enough.”

Implying that he felt safer here than anywhere else, I guessed. He took off a blue woolen peacoat that had seen better years and tossed it over the back of the chair opposite, then walked to the bar. He was, I thought with amusement, very much the image of a sea captain of old, complete with jaunty cap and a pipe shoved in his back pocket. His multicolored hair was wild and scraggly, his skin burned nut-brown by the sun, and his beard as unkempt as his hair. All that was missing was the parrot on his shoulder. And the wrinkles—because despite looking like an old-style sea captain, he couldn’t have been any older than his mid-forties.

Only I doubt he’d ever been near a boat in his life. Sea dragons had no need for that mode of transport. Not according to Leith—a friend who was currently running a background check on Dougall. And he should know, because he was a sea dragon himself.

Angus came back with a beer in his hand and sat down. His gaze swept my face, lingering on the half-healed wound that snuck out from my hair to create a jagged line across half my forehead. Once it was fully healed, it would be barely visible, but right now it was fucking ugly.

Which was a small price to pay, considering the other option. Tears touched my eyes and I blinked them away rapidly. Now was not the time to grieve. I had far too much to do before I could give in to the pain and hurt and loss.

Angus took a sip of his beer then said, “I wasn’t actually expecting you to make it today. I thought you’d been in an accident?”

Fear prickled my spine. I took a drink to ease the sudden dryness in my throat and wondered if he’d been behind the wheel of that truck. Wondered just how safe I was in this bar, even with the dozen or so strangers around us.

“I was.”

“You look okay.”

“I am.” My fingers tightened around the glass. “Who told you about the accident?”

Certainly I hadn’t mentioned it when I’d finally received my possessions from the mangled car and had given him another call. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone— although that hadn’t stopped Leith from ringing the hospital frantically to see if I was all right. But then, he had other methods of finding these things out.

Angus shrugged. “I saw it mentioned in the Chronicle.”

If the Chronicle had run an article on the accident, why hadn’t they contacted me? I was, after all, one of their reporters. But I could sense no lie in his words or in his expression, and reading a newspaper had been the last thing on my mind when I’d awoken in hospital. For all I knew, he was telling the truth. Yet there was a strange tension emanating from him, and that made me uneasy. I eased my grip a little on the glass and took a sip.

“I was also told you’re draman,” he continued.

Meaning someone had been checking up on me. And given the accident, that couldn’t be a good thing—

especially considering I wasn’t exactly popular at home. I knew for a fact that many in my clique hoarded a grudge as avidly as they collected all things shiny—which was the reason behind my original move to San Francisco.

It was entirely possible that one of those long-hoarded grudges was the reason behind Rainey’s death. After all, someone had given that deep-voiced man my cell phone number, and Mom still lived within the clique’s compound. She was extraordinarily trusting when it came to the dragons that she lived with and loved.

And just because I was presuming it was linked to our quest to discover the reason behind the death of Rainey’s sister didn’t mean that it actually was.

And if I was wrong, then Rainey would pay.

But I wasn’t wrong. I felt that with every inch of my being.

“What does it matter to you what I am?” I asked, wondering if he, like many full dragons, held a grudge against those of us who weren’t.

It was a sad fact that most full-bloods considered us a blight on the dragon name. In times past, it had been common practice amongst the dragon cliques to regularly cull the draman ranks. These days, such practices were outlawed by the dragon council, but I very much doubted it was done to protect us. The fact was, humans were encroaching on dragon land more and more, and mass cleansings—as they were called—were bound to attract notice sooner or later. It said something about the council’s desperation to avoid human notice that they were allowing our numbers to increase.

But if Angus was one of those dragons, then I wasn’t entirely sure what my next step would be. I desperately needed the information he apparently had, but he was a sea dragon and a man besides. He had me bested in both strength and skill.

He took a sip of beer, his face giving little away. White froth briefly decorated his wiry beard before he wiped it away. “You’re a member of the Jamieson clique, aren’t you?”

Again that sliver of fear ran down my spine. Maybe I’d stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire—and this wasn’t the sort of heat I could control. Not if things went wrong. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m not stupid enough to meet anyone without checking up on them first.”

“And if you’re inferring that I am, then you’re mistaken.” Although he wasn’t. Not entirely.

A smile briefly touched his mouth before disappearing. “Jamieson’s one of the oldest ones, isn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “They’re all old, simply because there are no new cliques. There haven’t been, for hundreds of years.”

The rogue towns certainly didn’t count. Not yet, anyway—although I had no doubt that the council would move on them sooner or later. They seemed to think the only way to stop the humans from discovering us was to rule us all with the iron fist of fear and retribution.

Which is why Rainey and I had thought that the council might be behind the cleansings of both Stillwater and Desert Springs. But the clues weren’t really adding any support to that.

Angus took another sip of beer, then leaned forward, blue eyes wary as he said, “Prove you are who you say.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I need to be sure it’s not a trap.”

“Why would you agree to meet me if you think it’s a trap?” And why would he even think I was trying to trap him?

Hell, even Rainey wouldn’t have tried something like that, and she’d had the full spectrum of dragon powers. But she’d also had a lot more respect for full-bloods, despite what we’d gone through growing up.

Angus’s smile had a bitter edge. “You ask that, two days after a serious accident that landed you in hospital and left your best friend dead?” He shook his head. “You’d be better off walking away right now, little draman.”

He was probably right. I knew that, even if I had no intention of ever doing it. “I can’t.”

“Even knowing you could be risking your life? These people aren’t the type to let anyone off easily. We both bear the scars to prove that.”

“What they’ve done has only strengthened my determination to track them down.” Tears welled and I blinked them away quickly, internally repeating the mantra that had become a theme for me this last day and a bit. Don’t think, don’t feel. Not until it was all over, one way or another. “And if you’ve got scars, where the hell are they?”

Angus shoved an arm across the table and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. His leathery skin was crisscrossed with a myriad of thickly healed wounds. “My whole body bears the evidence of their attack. They’re not going to get a second shot.”

My gaze jumped from the scars to his eyes, and I saw the glint of determination and fury there. And suddenly, I knew why he’d chosen this bar. Not because it was a refuge for would-be sea dogs, but because it was close to the sea. Which was his to call, like fire was for dragons. He’d drown everyone if he thought I was in any way here to trap him.

I blew out a breath, then said, “What do you want me to do?”

“If you are who you say you are, show me your stain and prove it.”

The stain was a leathery, luminescent strip of skin that swirled around the spines of all dragons, whether they were of the air, sea, or a half-breed like myself. The colors varied depending on clique and parentage, but usually involved a myriad of iridescent colors. I’d never been able to shift shape and attain dragon form so, unlike most stains, mine was just a boring brown.

But there were only a few people who could know that—past lovers, my mom, and my brother.

Neither my mom nor my brother would give out personal information like that, so that left past lovers. And while I could name a couple of those who’d delight in not only telling all but in getting back at me in any way possible, both of them had left the clique a couple of years before Rainey and I had and, as far as I knew, had disappeared.

“I’m not stripping in public just to prove who I am.” Especially not in a bar filled with shadowy men who maybe weren’t less-than-savory types, but who were still unknowns all the same.

And you never trusted an unknown. It was a motto that had saved my skin many a time growing up, and I wasn’t about to abandon it now, no matter how badly I wanted information.

Angus studied me for a moment, then said, voice still flat, “Then dance fire across your fingertips. I’m told you have extraordinary control.”

I frowned. I didn’t like using dragon skills in public—in fact, not using them anywhere humans were likely to see them had been hammered into my brain since birth. There might be no humans currently in this bar, but there was nothing stopping them from walking in at the wrong moment. “Why is this so important to you?”

“It’s important because I’ve been caught unaware before and have paid the price for it.” Bleakness flared in his eyes, and his somewhat fierce expression was touched fleetingly with sadness. A sadness that tore at my heart, and made the reporter in me want to ask what was wrong. But I very much doubted he’d answer that question when he didn’t even trust me with the information I was going to pay him for.

Then the sadness was gone and he took another sip of beer before adding, in a voice that was edgy and sharp,

“And I’ve discovered the hard way that lies and entrapments fall from the prettiest tongue as easily as the ugliest.”

“Well, I hope I fall into the former group rather than the latter,” I said, a little alarmed by the sudden fierceness in his tone. Something was very off, but I wasn’t sure what. Then my gaze flicked to his arm. Maybe his fierceness was understandable. With scars like those, survival must have been touch and go, even for a dragon who could heal far better than any human.

“Do it,” he said, “or I walk out of here now and you’ll never get your answers.”

I looked around the room, seeing no one looking our way or showing any undue interest. That might change given what I was about to do, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. Not if I wanted my answers.

If this guy could provide answers and wasn’t just yanking my chain.

I mean, the voice on the phone that had given us this lead had been oddly familiar, and that alone had raised questions. But Rainey had convinced me that we needed to take the chance if we were ever to get some answers. And now Rainey was dead and I was here talking to a stranger who might not only be connected to her death, but who might well be here to trap me—the one who had escaped from their little “accident.”

And while Leith and his people were doing the background check on Angus, I simply didn’t have the time to sit back and wait for the answers. Hence the reason I was here, taking this godawful chance.

I had no other choice if I wanted to save Rainey.

I pushed the Coke back then held up a hand, keeping it close to my chest so that there was less likelihood of everyone else noticing.

Then I reached deep down into that place in my soul where the dragon resided. She came roaring forward in answer, heating my skin and making it tingle. But she was all flame and no substance, as usual. I focused on the energy burning through my body, controlling and restricting it, until it was little more than flickers of fire that danced joyfully across my fingertips.

Few dragons could do that with their fire. Most had full flame or nothing.

I met Angus’s gaze. “Satisfied?”

He nodded, but oddly he didn’t seem to relax. In fact, the tension that was knotting his shoulders and arms seemed worse than ever.

“So tell me,” I added, “what you know about the cleansings.”

He laced his fingers together, then leaned forward. “I know where the bodies are.”