Mercy Burns

Chapter Two

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.

Sunset wasn’t only the time where day met night, it was the time when the dead could mingle more freely with those who lived. Some of those ghosts would be dragons who died without someone to pray for them, destined to roam this earth forever—insubstantial beings 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 fall of the final 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 place. It wasn’t anywhere 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 rail and old-style stools reminded me of something out of the Old West—although the décor of the rest of the place was more ship-related 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 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 indeterminate 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 thickset 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 burr. “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 was 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 calling 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 the 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 wasn’t, 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 among 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 the 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 or sea, or were 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, they’d left the clique well before Rainey and I had.

“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 unawares 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 change 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 god-awful 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 anyone 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 dancing 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.”

His voice was little more than a husky whisper and, for a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “How can there be bodies? After death, a dragon’s flesh is incinerated by the touch of the day’s first rays.”

His smile was grim. “The sun has to touch the flesh to incinerate it. If the body is underground by then, no amount of sunshine will burn it.”

As a dragon—or half-dragon—I was horrified at the thought of flesh being left underground to rot. It wasn’t only a sign of disrespect, but utter and total disregard. “Why would anyone do that? Hell, if nothing else, it’s leaving evidence behind for others to find.”

“Aye, but when a dragon dies and is gifted the sun’s caress one last time, is not the passing of his or her soul felt by those close to them?”

I nodded. It was the only reason that Rainey had realized something had happened to her sister, and one of the major reasons behind my desperation to find Rainey’s killer. She’d only had the one sibling and, unlike me, wasn’t close to her mother. In fact, she hadn’t seen her since she was five. This wasn’t rare in our clique, as children tended to be raised in crèches rather than family settings, but my mom had made the effort to be involved in both my and Trae’s upbringing, so we knew not only her but her relatives—although I doubted they actually realized we were half dragon. But most other mothers—whether human or dragon—didn’t bother with their children. For Rainey, this meant that there was no one who cared enough to find out what had happened or to try and save her soul.

Only me.

“Then why,” Angus continued, “would the people behind these slaughters risk the sun setting the souls of their victims free and thereby notifying their kin that something had happened?”

“I guess they wouldn’t.” But it meant something had gone wrong when it came to Rainey’s sister, because Rainey had definitely felt her passing.

“Exactly. So the remains are there to find. It’s just that no one has been left alive to tell the tale.”

It also meant that the men behind these slaughters were experts at covering their tracks. We’d certainly seen nothing that had looked like graves—or even freshly dug earth—at either Stillwater or Desert Springs.

But was that so surprising? If the people behind this were clever enough to make the population of two small towns disappear without anyone getting suspicious, then they were clever enough to disguise the graves.

I took a drink. The remaining ice clinked merrily against the sides of the glass—a sound at odds with the somber feel of the bar. “So you really did survive one of the cleansings?”

“Aye, I did.”

“Then why have you never come forward to tell your story before now?”

He snorted softly and leaned back in his chair. “Who was I going to come forward to? The council? They wouldn’t have given a damn. Outcasts are outcasts because the cliques don’t want them. And I could hardly go to the human authorities, now, could I?” He took a long drink of beer then added, “Besides, I was only fifteen when it happened.”

“Fifteen? But that means it had to have happened years ago.” And if that were the case, then there wasn’t likely to be much in the way of evidence left.

“Thirty-one years ago, to be precise.”

“But—” I stopped. We might have been operating on the assumption that the two destroyed towns we’d seen were the only ones involved, but there was no logical reason why this couldn’t have happened before. After all, dragons had a long history of not wanting too many draman around. “So why agree to this meeting now?”

“Because I heard whispers that the killings had started again, and it needs to be stopped.” His expression was an odd mix of guilt and anger, but the glint in his blue eyes was something else entirely.

Cold determination.

It sent another chill down my spine—though again, I wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Meaning you’re trying to stop them yourself?”

He gave me a smile that was part sadness, part grief, and a whole lot of anger. And again, I got that odd feeling of something deeper going on here. Something I just wasn’t catching.

“No. I’m afraid sea dragons generally aren’t the brave-soldier type. We leave that up to our fiery cousins.”

But Leith was a sea dragon, and he could fight with the best of them. “Then you’re not actually offering to help hunt down these people?”

“No.” He shrugged—a casual motion that seemed at odds with the tension still riding him—and added, “But if telling you what I know helps bring these bastards down, then that’s a small price to pay for the nightmares remembering brings. Just be careful, that’s all I ask. I don’t want another death on my conscience.”

I leaned back in my chair and wondered if he meant Rainey or someone else entirely. While I believed he was telling the truth as far as it went, I also believed there was a whole lot more that he wasn’t saying.

And that intrigued me—even as all the senses honed by years of watching my back and recognizing trouble before it hit were warning that this man was just that. Trouble.

It was a damn shame they couldn’t actually tell me whether he was a major instigator or merely a foot soldier.

“The problem is, you’re not telling your story for free, are you?”

His sudden smile was grim. “Nothing is free nowadays, lass. And the money will come in handy for the booze it’ll take to drown the memories again.”

“How much do you want?”

He pulled at his beard for a moment, as if considering the question, although we both knew he’d had a figure in mind from the moment he’d walked in the door.

“A thousand will do.”

A grand wasn’t a whole lot in the scheme of things—not if it led me to the answers I needed.

“I’ll give you two thousand,” I said slowly, and watched his eyes light. “Five hundred for telling me your story now, and the rest if you lead me to where the bodies are.”

“I don’t know—”

“You asked me to prove myself,” I cut in. “And I’m offering you a lot of money. It’s only fair that you prove the truth behind your words.”

“My scars are my proof.”

“Your scars could have been caused by anything. You’re the one who said you know where the bodies lie. I want you to show me.”

He picked up his beer and drained the glass in one gulp. He wiped the froth from his beard with the back of his hand, then said, “I just have to show you? I don’t have to do any more than that?”

“No more. I just want proof.” What I’d do with it once I had it, I wasn’t entirely sure.

Nor was I sure how finding bodies from a cleansing that had happened over thirty years ago would help my quest or find Rainey’s sister, but I had to try. Hell, merely having some evidence might just get the council to take me more seriously. Reporting the empty, gutted towns had caused little more than uninterested disdain.

Angus studied me, blue eyes still holding that cold determination. “Why do you want proof? It’s not like you can go to the cops, and if you think the council will care, you’re not exactly living in reality. And you’re not going to threaten these people, especially considering you’re just one lone draman.”

“I never said I was alone.” Although to all intents and purposes, I was. Leith was ready, willing, and able to help, but I’d already lost one good friend to this quest. I had no intention of losing another. “I just want to stop what is going on. Finding the bodies is one more step along that road.”

“But why? That’s what I don’t get. Especially after what they tried to do to you.” He studied me for a moment then added, “Was someone you loved killed in one of the cleansings?”

“No.” I hesitated, then added, “But Rainey lost a sister in one.”

“That wasn’t mentioned when we arranged the original meet.”

“No,” I said, and wondered why the hell he even thought it should have been. It wasn’t something you mentioned on a phone to a complete stranger.

I gulped down the rest of the Coke and wished it were something stronger. I’d never been one for alcohol, but a little something to help push the memories back into their box would have been handy right now.

Angus—who was watching me like a hawk—said, “You want another drink? Perhaps something with a little bite?”

I grimaced. “Not at this hour. But another Coke would be good. Thanks.”

He snapped his fingers at the bartender, who gave a nod. Obviously, Angus was pretty well known here. I couldn’t imagine the gruff-looking bartender playing waiter for any old stranger.

Angus looked at me and said, “Okay, it’s a deal.”

I took my wallet from my pocket and dragged out the cash, but I didn’t hand it over yet. “Tell me how a sea dragon came to be in a town of outcast draman.”

He smiled. Again, it was a bitter thing. “It was bad timing, nothing more. My parents and I were swimming to Australia to spend the winter, but a bad storm caught us. I was small for my age, so Mom decided to make for shore.” He hesitated, and the ghosts of the past seemed to crowd the room for just a moment. I shivered and rubbed my arms. “The little seaside town seemed ideal.”

“Seaside?” That surprised me. Both Stillwater and Desert Springs were situated in the semiarid wastes of Nevada. There were rogue towns outside Nevada, of course, but as far as I was aware, none of those had been hit as yet.

Of course, I couldn’t actually be one hundred percent certain, because no one really knew just how many rogue draman towns there were. As Angus had said—and I’d discovered—the council didn’t give two hoots about them. Their main concern was keeping the thirteen main cliques in line.

The bartender arrived with our drinks and a strange, forced smile. Obviously, he wasn’t that happy about being treated like a waiter. Angus paid the man, then waited until he’d gone before saying, “Aye, and a pretty spot it is, too.”

“You’ve been back there, then?”

Again, sadness briefly clouded his eyes. “I lost my parents in that town. I go back there every year, on the anniversary of their deaths.”

“So is the town still vacant? Or has civilization encroached?”

“Only ghosts reside there, even now.” He shrugged. “I’m told the kin of the people who owned the land are keeping it as some sort of memorial.”

“So is the land draman-owned?”

“Dragon-owned. At least it is now.”

“Who by?”

He smiled, but there was nothing warm about it. “Jamieson.”

My clique. Great.

And while that didn’t mean they were in on this whole cleansing business, I wouldn’t put it past them. The bastard we called king certainly wouldn’t be above a little outlawed cleansing if it suited his purposes—and if he thought he could get away with it.

“But you’ve never seen anyone else there?”

“No.” He shrugged again. “I just lay my flowers and leave, lass. That’s enough for me.”

It would probably be enough for anyone. I dragged the Coke toward me and took a sip. The chill of it sent a shiver down my spine. “Has this town got a name?”

He hesitated. “Whale Point.”

I took another drink of Coke, then said, “Never heard of the place.”

“Well, yeah, because the town and the road into it are all but destroyed.”

It was a reasonable-sounding statement, and yet there was an edge to his voice. My gaze flickered to his arms. If not for those scars—which fit every scrap of information I knew about the destruction of the draman towns—I might have been tempted to believe that this was some odd con. “Meaning the town isn’t on the Cabrillo Highway?”

“No. The highway bypasses Whale Point and most of the surrounding area is state park. The track running into the town has been left to ruin, and it’s easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for.”

His voice held a tiredness that made me want to believe him. And yet, part of me didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was my long history of distrusting the motives of just about everyone, or whether it was simply disbelief that answers might finally be at hand after months of Rainey and I finding nothing but ruins and dead ends.

And now I had only five days to find my answers and solve this crime.

Panic swirled, briefly making it hard to breathe. I pushed it away fiercely. I could do this.

I had to do this.

He took a long swig of beer, then added, “Whale Point’s down by Limekiln Beach State Park, a good two and a half hours’ drive from here. When do you want to go?”

I glanced at my watch. It was nearing four now, and I didn’t fancy walking around an abandoned town at dusk, let alone at night. I might not be bereft of fire come darkness—an oddity no one could explain given most dragons and draman were—but I still wasn’t about to be caught at night in a place I didn’t know and with a man I didn’t trust.

“Given the time, perhaps it would be better to start tomorrow.”

He nodded. “You got a truck or a car?”

“Car. Why?”

“Because as I said, the track was in pretty bad shape last year, and it has probably degenerated since. You’ll need a four-wheel drive.”

“Then I’ll meet you at the beginning of the road into Whale Point, and you can drive from there.”

There was no way I was getting caught out in the middle of nowhere without transport, either. Not when I couldn’t fly. He wasn’t to know that, of course, and that’s just the way I intended to keep it. The more he thought I was one of those draman who’d inherited full skills, the less chance there’d be of him pulling something funny when we were out there alone.

Or was that just my suspicious nature rearing its ugly head again?

“It’d be easier if I simply drove all the way there, but we’ll play it your way. You’re the gal with the money, after all.”

It was pointedly said, so I pushed the money across the table. He scooped it up quickly, then reached into his coat pocket and drew out a pen and a business card. He scrawled several lines on the back, then slid it across the table. “Driving directions.”

I picked up the card and had a look. As directions went, they were pretty detailed, but I guess if this place had been easy to find, more people would have known about it. I flicked the card over. The Captain’s Bay Cruises, it said, in big bold letters. I’ll be damned. He was a sea captain.

I shoved it in my pocket and took another drink. The ice was melting fast—an indication of just how hot this bar was becoming. I blew out a breath, lifting the damp hair from my forehead, then said, “How did you manage to survive the destruction when no else did?”

“Blind luck.” Once again, the memory of the past seemed to crowd close. “I’d been out of the water too long and my skin was itchy, so I headed down to the beach.”

I nodded. According to Leith, sea dragons needed water as much as air dragons needed the sun to fuel their flames. Only for the sea-born, it was a daily necessity, whereas air dragons could survive days on end without being out in the sun.

“And that’s where you were attacked?”

He nodded. “I heard screaming and had started to run back, but was confronted by several men with long blades.”

“Blades?”

“Blades,” he confirmed grimly. “Big brave men that they were, they felt the need to attack a lone teenager in a pack.” He shook his head. “It was lucky that I was still close to the water. I went under and stayed there.”

“So you didn’t actually see the destruction?”

He hesitated. “Some. I poked my head up occasionally, but it was all flame and death. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. There were just too many of them.”

“But the town was right next to the sea—you could have flooded the place and washed them away.”

“The sea rarely answers the call of one so young.” He grimaced. “Which didn’t stop me from trying, believe me.”

“So why didn’t your parents—”

“My parents,” he interrupted, voice terse, “must have been among the first to die. Otherwise, they would have.”

And he felt guilty about their deaths. Or rather, he felt guilty about surviving when everyone else had not. It was all there to be seen in the shadowed depths of his eyes.

“Did you see any of them at all?”

“Not really.” He drained his glass. “They wore masks, all of them. Ski masks.”

“Why would they hide their faces if they intended to destroy the whole town? That makes no sense at all.”

He shrugged. “Maybe they simply wanted to ensure that if someone did escape, they wouldn’t be able to identify them.”

Who in the hell would they identify them to? As Angus had already pointed out, neither the human cops nor the dragon council were likely prospects, no matter how many people had died. And the cliques weren’t any different. The ones who had died were the unwanted.

Then again, maybe this was the council’s way of taking care of the draman problem. Anything was possible.

I drank some more Coke, then asked, “Have you ever tried to find any of the men involved?”

He hesitated, and emotion flashed in his eyes. Anger, regret, and something else I couldn’t really name, but which stirred a response in me nevertheless. I licked my lips and ignored muscles twitching with the need to be gone. Now. I could defend myself. I’d proven that time and again. And one lone sea dragon didn’t pose half the threat that my clique had over the years.

“Hard to get revenge on folk when you never saw their faces,” he said.

And that was his first complete lie. I could taste it, could practically feel the air curling away from the poisonous words. Trae, my half brother, might have the dragon knack of stealing, but I’d inherited something far more useful—the ability to sense falsehoods.

Of course, it wasn’t infallible, as the scars on my back and side would attest, but it had saved my life more often than not, and I wasn’t about to doubt it now.

“You said they wore ski masks. If you were close enough to see that, then you were close enough to notice other things.”

He studied me for a moment, his eyes suddenly as flat as his expression. “Like what?”

“Were they human or dragon kind, for a start?”

He snorted softly. “Humans would have been neither fast enough nor strong enough to overpower a whole town of draman.”

That was true, but the question still had to be asked. Not all draman inherited dragon powers. Some fell on the human side when it came to capabilities. “What about plate numbers? Or voices?”

“I never heard or saw any cars. And I would have, if they’d driven.”

If they’d flown, they must have landed away from the town, so as not to alert the townsfolk of their approach. The rush of wind past a dragon’s wing wasn’t exactly quiet.

He finished the dregs of his beer then shoved back the chair and stood. “What time do you want to rendezvous tomorrow?”

I hesitated, wondering if I would need backup. I might be able to defend myself, but something about this dragon made me wary, and it wasn’t just the lies and half-truths I was sensing. “How about eleven?”

I could ring Leith when I got back home to see if he would accompany me. And if not, maybe he could lend me one of his investigators. I’d feel better if my back was covered. Hell, if I knew where my brother was, I’d ring him, but he was off somewhere again.

“Eleven would be good. And don’t forget to bring the rest of the money.” Angus gave me a nod, then turned and walked out of the bar.

I drained my Coke, then stood. The room spun for a moment, and I grabbed at the tabletop to steady myself. Sweat broke out across my brow and I swiped at it irritably. Lord, I didn’t think it was that hot in here.

Or maybe it wasn’t the heat. The doctors had warned me something like this was likely to happen after the blood loss I’d suffered in the accident, which meant I needed to go home and rest, just like they’d ordered.

I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, then gave the bartender a nod and walked out. I could feel his gaze in the middle of my back, like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch, and again unease washed through me.

It was a relief to hit the street again, although the brightness of the dying day had me blinking after the dark of the bar. I raised my face to the sunshine, feeling the power of the oncoming dusk beginning to rise and letting it slither through me to stir the fires in my soul. Yet neither that energy nor the accompanying breeze did much to clear my spinning head.

I flicked a droplet of sweat from my nose, then turned and headed up the street. Once I got home, I could grab a shower. That would cool me down.

But my legs felt shaky and the footpath seemed to be swaying and my stomach was roaring up my throat. I swallowed back bile and grabbed at the nearby wall, trying to steady myself. Lord, maybe I should have stayed in the hospital after all. Or maybe the drugs they’d given me were finally beginning to take effect.

Drugs …

No, I thought, suddenly remembering the forced half smile the bartender had given me when he’d brought over the drinks. It couldn’t be.

Why in the hell would the bartender want to drug me? And why would he even bother? It made no sense.

Unless …

Unless he was a part of this whole deal. Unless he was one of those who had helped kill Rainey.

I shoved a shaking hand into the pocket of my jacket, dragged out my cell phone, and flipped it open. The little number pad blurred and danced before my eyes. I swore and swiped at a button, trying to get the phone book up. The screen went white and tiny little icons jigged about happily.

Again bile burned the back of my throat. I swallowed heavily and hit a button. Another screen flashed up, but I couldn’t read it. The characters were just a blur.

Then my fingers lost their strength and the phone hit the ground. Before I could grab it, a passerby kicked it away. It skidded off the pavement and into the path of a car. The wheels squashed it flat.

Fuck.

I needed help and I needed it fast. I tried to grab at someone as they passed, but it felt like my limbs were trapped in treacle, and I was unable to complete the motion. The movement unbalanced me and I went down hard while the person strode on, oblivious. Pain radiated from both my knee and my barely healed side—red-hot pokers that did little to clear the fog.

“Are you all right, lass?” someone said Angus.

“What?” It came out croaky, and I licked dry lips. “What have you done?”

“What I had to do,” he said, and I swear there was a note of sorrow in his voice. “Give me your hand.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He sighed and grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet. I reached down, deep into the part of me that was dragon, and called to the fire. But for the first time in my life, she didn’t answer. She was as drugged and confused as the rest of me, and even the flames in my soul seemed dimmer.

Fear swept through me. God, what had he done?

I tried to hit him, but my fist swished through thin air and unbalanced me even more. And then unconsciousness claimed me once again.