Mercy Burns

Chapter Eight

Damon moved so quickly he was little more than a blur. He hit me low and fast, dragging me facedown onto the wraparound couch while he knelt beside me on the floor.

“They shot him!” I said, voice half muffled by the leather and more than a little shaky. “Why the hell would they shoot him?”

“Maybe they’ve figured he’s outlasted his usefulness.” His attention was on the window above us rather than me, and his body hummed with an energy that seemed dangerously ready to explode. “Keep your head down until we know if they’re still out there.”

The warning made my heart race even harder, and I hadn’t thought that was possible. “But why would they risk shooting him with so many people around?”

“With rifles these days, you don’t have to be anywhere near your target to be certain of a kill.”

“It just seems wrong for dragons to be using weapons,” I muttered, and looked up at the middle of the three windows that lined the side of the boat. The thick glass was shattered, the pebblelike shards littering the top of the couch, glittering like diamonds in the cabin’s bright light.

“A gun is anonymous,” Damon said, his face so close to mine that his breath washed across my cheek. “Dragon fire isn’t.”

“It’s still wrong,” I said, wishing he weren’t so close, that he didn’t smell so good. Wishing I could just snuggle up a little closer to all his heat and strength and confidence.

“It’s not the weapon,” he refuted. “Weapons have their place in the world. It’s the reasoning of the man behind it that’s wrong.”

I shifted to stare at him. “Says the man who kills for a living.”

“What I do, and what these people do, are two different things.”

“Both of you have reasons and both of you think they’re good ones. But that doesn’t make either of you right.”

On the floor, Angus made a whispery noise.

“Shit, he’s alive,” I said, and scrambled toward him, away from Damon’s grasp. I grabbed the sea dragon’s hand and stared into the blue of his eyes. His flesh was like ice against mine. I tried not to see the blood soaking into the carpet behind his head, and tried to ignore the sensation of death gathering close. “Angus? We’re here. We’ll get help. Just hang on.”

His mouth opened, and although no words came out, he struggled on, trying to speak. I glanced up at Damon. “We need to get a doctor here.”

“It won’t do any good, Mercy.”

“But we just can’t sit here and watch him die!” Although I didn’t raise my voice, the desperate need to do something—anything—to help this man filled it with a hard edge.

“There’s no dragon medic close by, and we can’t risk human intervention. That could lead to complications with the council neither of us would enjoy.” His voice was as stony as his face. “But even if we did bring in human help, they wouldn’t be able to save him. Look at him. Half his head is gone.”

“But—”

“I’m not arguing about this. We’ll wait to see if the shooter comes to investigate his kill, and then we leave.”

“But someone has to stay here until dawn.” Disbelief and anger ran through me. “Someone needs to be here to guide his soul on. You can’t just leave—”

“We can, and we must.”

It was said so coldly that I could only shake my head. “God, you’re an unfeeling bastard.”

“Death often is.” He said it almost gently, like he was speaking to a child.

“But you’re not death,” I snapped back. “It’s just your job. It’s not what you are.”

“Then you see things that no one else does.” Humor touched his tone, but it held an edge that was lightly mocking. “Including me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I simply glanced back down at Angus. His face was etched with pain and the knowledge of death, but when his gaze met mine, the blue depths were aware and desperate.

“Coral,” he said, his words slurred and voice hoarse. “You must—”

“Shhh,” I said, squeezing his fingers. “Just rest. We’ll help her. I promise.”

“Go to her now. Save her. They’ll kill her.”

“If they haven’t already,” Damon murmured.

“No, she lives. I’d know.” Angus gulped down air and his fingers clenched against mine, squeezing them hard enough to hurt. “Moraga Drive. Blue house—”

His voice faded, and a heartbeat later his eyes rolled back into his head and his grip against my hand suddenly loosened.

He was dead.

I blinked back tears as I leaned forward and closed his eyes. This man might have betrayed both Rainey and me, but he didn’t deserve this sort of death, didn’t deserve to be alone when his soul moved on.

“Damon—”

“We are not staying here to pray for his soul, Mercy.”

“If you’d just shut up and let me finish a sentence,” I snapped back, “you’d learn that I was about to ask how quickly we can get to Santa Rosa.”

Because if we could get Coral free soon enough, then Angus would not be alone come dawn.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re not actually going to attempt this rescue?”

“I promised—”

“That’s neither here nor there. By the time we get there, the woman will be dead. They’re obviously getting rid of all possible complications. It’s your own safety you should be worried about.”

“Except that Santa Rosa is the last place they’d expect me to go, so it’s probably the safest place to be. Besides, she might know something that could help us, and that alone makes it worth trying.” I stared at him mutinously. “I’ll do this alone if I have to.”

“You’re crazy enough to do it, too,” he muttered, and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, we’ll rescue this woman. But if she doesn’t have any information, we start doing things my way.”

“I don’t like your way. It involves killing people.”

“If I kill them, I can’t get information out of them,” he snapped back. “If we want to get there quickly, the best way to do so is to fly.”

My heart began to race. Not from excitement but rather from fear. Flying and me weren’t exactly compatible. And I had the scars to prove it.

“We can’t—”

“We can take the boat out to sea and fly from there. It’s going to be a cloudy night, so the chances of being seen are low. Especially given we’re black and brown respectively.”

“That’s not the problem.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then what is? Are you afraid of the sea?”

“No. But as I told you before, I can’t fly. I’m a draman without wings.”

Confusion touched his expression. “But you have every other dragon skill imaginable.”

“Well, as you keep noting, I’m strange. And I didn’t get the wings.”

“I said you’re crazy, not strange. Totally different things.” He made a frustrated sound. “And this makes things more difficult.”

“You could carry me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s easy.”

“Well, isn’t it? There’d hardly be all those myths of dragons carrying off virginal women if it wasn’t possible.”

Humor brightened his eyes. “Ah, but virgins have always held a special place in a dragon’s heart. Something to do with the meat tasting sweeter.”

And he wasn’t talking about actually eating them, if that smile was anything to go by. I slapped his leg. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

“Okay, serious question. How much do you weigh and are you a virgin?”

I raised my eyebrow. “That’s two questions, and why would you need to know the second one?”

“Because I make a point of not seducing virgins.”

Meaning he had every intention of seducing me if I wasn’t? My pulse rate danced joyously at the thought.

“Then you’d be the first dragon in history to do so.” I shifted back from Angus and sat on my heels. “Or is it a muerte thing? The bringer of death not taking innocence, or something like that?”

“It’s a personal thing.” He glanced up at the window, and frowned. “I don’t want to seduce anyone who might expect more than just a good time, and virgins tend to get a little clingy with their first lover.”

“Speaking from experience, are we?”

My voice was dry, and he looked back at me briefly. “No. Just consider it a warning.”

I snorted softly. “As if any draman actually needs a warning when it comes to dragons, sex, and emotion.” Hell, we learned all too quickly that the latter just didn’t come into the picture when you were a half-breed. “And you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. The whole respect thing I was mentioning before has to be addressed before the whole seduction thing even comes into play.”

He didn’t answer, and something in the way he was holding himself—a mix of intentness and alert readiness—had tension crawling down my spine. I lowered my voice a little as I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Footsteps, coming this way.”

“Could it be the guy Angus referred to when I first stepped onto the boat?”

He was shaking his head before I’d finished. “There’s at least two men, and their steps are cautious.” He glanced back at me again. “Slip down the stairs to the lower deck. Don’t come up until I say its okay.”

“Damon, I can help—”

“This is what I do,” he said coldly. “Please let me do it without having to worry about you.”

Annoyance flared, but I held it in check, scooting across the floor to the stairs before heading downward. There were four bedrooms here, as well as a large storage area toward the stern. I opened several doors, looking for something I could use as a weapon and finding nothing but wetsuits, flippers, and life jackets. But in the final locker there were several air tanks and a large tool kit. I opened that up, grabbed a heavy-looking wrench, then walked across to the door that led out to a small platform at the back of the boat. I tested the door handle to ensure it was locked, then stepped back into the confines of another locker and waited.

For too long, nothing happened. But the awareness that someone was close began to grow, sending goose bumps crawling across my flesh. The dragon within stirred, her flame surging through my muscles and causing little sparks to leap across my fingertips. I toned it down, trying not to let whoever was outside know that I was here—although if they were full dragon, they’d probably already know. It was only us draman who couldn’t always sense these things.

After a few more minutes, the door handle moved. My heart caught in my throat and my breath came in hitches. The handle inched downward then stopped, and the door rattled softly. It was locked, but I had to wonder if that would stop whomever was on the other side.

A second later I had my answer, with the sound of something jiggling around in the lock. I flexed my fingers then wrapped them tighter around my improvised weapon and waited.

The door began to move, pushed by fingers that were long, brown, and oddly elegant. When the door was fully open, they withdrew. The silence stretched, tearing at my nerves. My heart was beating a million miles an hour and sweat trickled down my spine. I licked my lips and tried to ignore the fact that my hands were shaking.

The nose of a gun appeared. My breath caught again and I briefly closed my eyes, fighting the desire to lash out. It was too soon. I needed to see him, not just the weapon.

Upstairs, there was a thump, and then a curse, the voice dark and dangerous. A stranger’s voice, not Damon’s.

The hand that held the gun appeared. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t about to be rushed by whatever was happening upstairs.

I waited, still not daring to breathe, hoping he had as little sense of me as I was getting of him. An arm appeared. My fingers twitched, my palms sweating against the steel of the wrench. He stepped forward, began to turn around, and I knew I’d run out of time, that at any second he’d realize I was hiding there in the shadows.

I swung the wrench upward rather than down, smashing it into the underside of his wrist, the force of the blow sending the weapon and his arm flying backward. I followed through even as he moved to face me more fully, smacking the wrench into his face. Bone crunched and blood splattered across the walls and my hands. Bile rose but I swallowed hard and swung again, this time hitting him under the chin. His legs collapsed from under him, and he fell face-first onto the floor. I stood back, keeping out of grabbing range even though he was obviously unconscious. My breathing was harsh and tension rippled through me as I waited to see if someone else would come through the door.

No one did, but that didn’t make it any better. I had no idea what was going on above me—or whether there was someone else waiting outside to pounce.

So I continued to stand there, my breathing rapid and my fingers bloody, the knuckles almost white with the force of my grip on the wrench.

No one came. After a few more minutes, my skin began to crawl with awareness, and although I’d heard no sound and could see no one coming down the teak-lined hallway, I knew Damon was near.

“Mercy?”

His voice sounded so close that I jumped. “Where the hell are you?”

“On the platform outside the door. I’m coming in. Don’t hit me.”

“Okay.” But I didn’t relax, keeping the wrench at the ready until he was through the door and it was obvious he was alone. Only then did I lower my weapon. “You okay?”

He half smiled. “There were only three of them, and they were draman rather than dragon. You?”

“Just the one, thank God.” I looked down at the man at my feet. “Should we tie him or something?”

“I’ll need to question them, so yeah. But if they are draman who can flame, then we’ll need to find something a little harder to burn than rope.”

He stepped over the man and walked across to the storage lockers. I dropped my weapon and pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. His pulse was a little rapid, but it was strong enough, and his nose had already stopped bleeding. If there was one good thing about being draman, it was having a dragon’s healing capabilities.

I wiped his blood off my hands, using the ends of his shirt as a towel, then rose and stepped away from him again. Damon came back with what looked like a fishing reel.

“That’s not fireproof,” I commented.

“No.” He raised the man’s hands so that they were behind his head, then tied them together with the fishing line. Then he looped more around the man’s neck and tied it back to his hands. which meant if the stranger struggled in any way, or tried to slip the line, he’d probably end up garroting himself. “You’ll have to keep an eye on our captives until we get out of the harbor.”

“You know how to drive a boat this size?”

“I’ve got one,” he said, and grabbed the man under the shoulders, hauling him as easily as a sack of grain up and over his shoulders. “The sea is a vast place, and sometimes it’s the only way you can get peaceful flying time.”

I followed him up the stairs. He dumped the man he was carrying on the sofa then tied up the other three, all of whom looked a whole lot less bloody than the man I’d confronted. But then, if Death didn’t know how to drop someone without effort, who would?

He turned and faced me. “Stay next to the stairs. Don’t go near any of them. If they start flaming in any way, call me.”

I nodded. “Can we get the boat out of the harbor without someone coming after us?”

“We’ll find out soon.” His voice was grim. Then he smiled and touched my cheek lightly. “I doubt there are any more henchmen out there right now. Four men to check a dead sea dragon could be considered overkill as it is.”

I resisted the urge to lean into his caress, and stared into his dark eyes instead. It wasn’t hard to find strength in those black depths. “What happens if someone realizes we’re stealing the boat?”

“We deal with it when it happens.” He glanced at his watch. “The moon doesn’t actually rise for another half hour, so it’s not going to be light enough for anyone to see who’s in the boat.”

Unless it was the owner himself. But I held the words in check and nodded. I wanted to keep my promise to rescue Coral, and this seemed to be the best way to achieve that.

He disappeared up to the bridge and I sat down on the stairs to watch the men. A deep rumble soon filled the silence, then lights flared across the stern and we began backing out of the slipway.

Tension slithered through me, and I half held my breath, expecting at any moment to hear someone shouting at us to stop. But we continued to back out, turning as we did, then the boat was moving forward slowly.

No one shouted. No one stopped us. And all too soon we were motoring under the Golden Gate Bridge and heading for open water.

I blew out a relieved breath and glanced at the four men. They were still and silent, yet heat was beginning to caress the air, meaning one of them was surreptitiously attempting to use his flames.

I rose and walked a little closer. Slow waves of heat lapped at my skin, and they were coming off the man lying on the curved end of the couch. Though his eyes were closed and his jaw slack, it was obviously an act. A draman—or a dragon, for that matter—couldn’t flame when unconscious.

His legs had been tied as securely as his arms, so I stopped next to him and touched two fingers to his shoulders. Waves of heat rose, flushing through my fingers and running up my arm, waking my inner dragon and making her hungry.

“Keep flaming,” I said softly, “and I will suck up every ounce of heat you have.”

For a moment he didn’t respond, then carefully he turned his head and looked at me. His neck was red from the tautness of the fishing wire, but wasn’t yet bloody, and his blue eyes were bright with anger.

“You’re draman. I can smell it. Only fucking dragons can do that sort of shit.”

I smiled mirthlessly. “No, some of us draman can, too. Now stop flaming, or I will steal your heat.”

“You’re lying, bitch.”

I raised an eyebrow, then let the dragon loose. She surged forward—an invisible being that was all fire and hunger, twining through my muscles and down into my fingertips, then into him. He jerked when her energy hit him, and his eyes widened in horror as she began to wrap around his inner dragon. But as much as I wanted to revel in the intensity of his flames and draw them back into my body, I didn’t.

“Last warning,” I said softly.

“Okay, okay, I won’t flame.” He said it almost desperately, and I let my fingers drop away. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. Then he muttered. “Fucking bitch.”

“Don’t try it again,” I said, and turned away from him, to find Damon standing on the bottom of the steps, staring at me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately. “And who’s driving the boat?”

“I jammed the steering into place.” He stepped off the stairs and walked toward me, a creature of darkness. The instinctive need to retreat hit, and I actually stepped back a little before I stopped myself. I might not want to be afraid of this man, but he sure could be intimidating at times.

“That’s dangerous—”

“So was your being down here alone.” He stopped in front of me and crossed his arms, his otherwise stony expression touched with the slightest hint of amusement. “However, I didn’t actually realize it would be dangerous for them rather than you.”

“I keep telling you I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, but those scars tend to say otherwise.”

“Hey, I’m alive, and that takes a whole lot of skill in my clique, believe me.” I could almost taste his disbelief, and I wasn’t really surprised. If he didn’t have much to do with draman, then he really wouldn’t have any idea just how badly some of us were treated. “Hadn’t you better go back up and steer the boat before we plow into something? Or someone?”

“I will. But it’s odd that you can do everything a dragon can do except fly. Even your fire control is stronger than that of most dragons I know.”

I shrugged. “I guess I just lucked out on the good stuff.”

He frowned, suggesting again that he didn’t really believe me, but all he did was turn and head back up the stairs. I walked to the small galley, making myself some coffee while keeping my senses tuned for the caress of energy that would indicate one of our captives was again trying to escape. Thankfully, they restrained themselves.

With the coffee made, I headed back to my perch on the stairs and contemplated the sanity of making a promise to a man who had basically betrayed both me and my best friend. Yet I couldn’t regret it. These men had taken too many lives already, and while Angus might not be lily-white himself, his mate didn’t deserve to die for his sins.

Besides, she just might hold some much needed answers. I didn’t think our captives would end up being very useful in the information game. Dragons tend not to tell draman the greater details of whatever operation they are involved in. We are only the grunts—fine for the dirty work and highly expendable, but never deemed suitable for anything more. Of course, that could be my personal bias speaking—I really had as little to do with other cliques as Damon had with draman.

The boat surged on through the night. I finished my coffee, then rummaged through the cupboards for something to eat. I ended up munching on some health bars while three of the four men on the couch glared at me balefully. All three had bloody slashes around their necks—testament to the fact that they’d tried escaping their bonds. None of them had tried to flame and escape, though. Maybe the other two hadn’t been as unconscious as I’d presumed.

Eventually, the boat stopped and the engines fell silent. Chains clinked softly and the boat began to rise and fall gently with the waves. I glanced up, then shifted, as Damon began to make his way down the stairs.

“Where are we?”

“Far enough away from civilization that swimming would be unwise.” He touched my shoulder lightly as he passed, and gave me a look that was all warning. Don’t interfere, it said. Or else.

I swallowed heavily but nodded, and watched as he walked toward the man who’d tried to flame earlier. With little effort, Damon dragged him upright and bunny-hopped him toward the door. After opening it, he forced the man out onto the aft deck. I took a step forward, then stopped. We needed to know what information these men held, and we needed to know it fast if we were to be of any use to Coral. And Damon couldn’t actually get those answers if he killed them first.

But if he killed one, the others might just open up.

I shoved the thought away and hoped like hell it was wrong. I hoped that somewhere within that deep, dark, and dangerous interior there was a person who wasn’t just a killer.

Damon hopped his prisoner to the railing, then switched his grip, holding on to his hands while leaning him out over the sea. In that position, the fishing line had to be cutting into the draman’s neck, and although I couldn’t see any blood from where I stood, the tang of it touched the air.

“Start talking,” Damon said softly, his voice devoid of anything but ice, “or we’ll see just how long a man whose hands and feet are tied can remain afloat.”

The man made a few odd noises that seemed little more than expressions of pain. Damon eased up on his grip a little, meaning the wire wasn’t so tight.

“What?” he said.

“I don’t know nothing!” the man said, the words so rushed they practically ran together. “He just phones me, gives me the job, and I do it.”

“Who phones you?”

“I don’t know his real name.”

“What do you call him, then?”

“Sir!”

Damon pushed him out over the railing again. “Really?”

“Really. For fuck’s sake, I’ve no reason to lie!”

“Then how are you paid?”

“Something called Frederick Enterprises pays it directly into my account.”

Damon glanced at me. “What do you think?”

“He’s not lying.” He was too scared to lie.

So was I. My heart seemed to be pounding somewhere in my throat and my fingers were twitchy. Although in my case, it wasn’t so much fear of the man but fear of what he might do.

Damon raised an eyebrow, but pulled the man back from the edge again. “What clique do you come from?”

“Jamieson. Jesus, man, I was just hired for the hit, you know?” Blood was staining the collar of his pale shirt.

Then his answer sank in and my stomach lurched. These men were from my clique? I’d never seen them before, but I guess that didn’t mean anything. Not only did Jamieson have a huge population of draman, but many of them left well before adulthood, either to escape the abuse or to find something better. And this man looked several years older than me, so he would have been in a different crèche.

“So you’ve worked for these people before?” Damon asked.

“Shit, yeah. Been getting work off and on for two months now.”

Two months. The first cleansing had happened about two months ago. Coincidence? I suspected not.

“Doing what?”

The man shrugged, then winced as the movement forced the wire deeper into his already bleeding neck. “Whatever they wanted. Shooting, burning, whatever.”

I closed my eyes. So he was involved.

And the truth was, he probably did deserve whatever Damon decided to dish out to him. And yet I knew if he decided to drop the man into the ocean, I’d try to rescue him. Not because he deserved to be saved, but simply because, if he was offering no threat, killing him was nothing more than murder. And that still wasn’t something I wanted on my conscience, no matter how right the reason.

Did that make me weak in Damon’s eyes? More than likely.

“How do you make contact once the job is done?” Damon asked.

“There’s a card in my wallet. Take it.”

With his free hand, Damon pulled the wallet out of the man’s back pocket and tossed it to me. I caught then opened it. There were tons of business cards inside. This guy obviously had a moneymaking business. “Which one?”

“Black one. Red writing. Jesus, ease up on the wire! I’m being honest here.”

“If you were an honest man,” Damon said, “you wouldn’t have been involved in mass slaughters.”

Our captive didn’t say anything. But then, the dangerous edge in Damon’s voice would have scared even the strongest soul.

I flicked through the cards until I found a black one with red writing. “It says—in somewhat pretentious gothic print, I might add—Deca Dent. Under that is a number.” I looked up at him. “What the hell is Deca Dent? A name or a place? And how is that related to the guy who pays you?”

Damon gave his captive a shake, and he stammered, “Deca Dent is a bar. I have no idea how the bar and the man are related to the money or my jobs. I get paid, and that’s all that matters.”

I shoved the card in my pocket and resisted the urge to ask about all his victims, and whether they’d mattered. It was obvious that they hadn’t.

Which made me study Damon and wonder if there was anything that mattered to him. Or whether I was looking at two sides of the same coin. One light, one dark, and both intent on doing the job and caring for little else.

“Is the man at the bar draman or dragon?” Damon asked.

“Dragon.”

“And is he the man in charge of the whole operation?”

“I told you, I don’t know. He just gives me my orders and I report to him when I’m done. I swear, that’s it.”

“And has he got an elegant-sounding voice?” I asked.

Damon glanced at me, then shook the man when he didn’t immediately answer. “Not really. It’s more gruff than elegant. Please, the wire is fucking hurting.”

“You can thank my lovely assistant for the fact that that’s all it’s doing,” Damon said, and frog-hopped him back to the lounge.

He repeated the process with the other three men, but none of them had anything else to add. The first man was obviously the brains of this outfit. Or at least, the one who made contact.

“What are we going to do with them?” I said as Damon pushed the last man back into place.

“We stop them from escaping.”

I frowned. “The minute we leave, they’re going to flame themselves loose.”

“Not if they haven’t got any flame to begin with,” he answered, and then touched the last man lightly on his forehead.

Damon closed his eyes and power began to crawl through the air. It was dark, that power—as dark and as dangerous as the man wielding it.

The man he was touching screamed—a short, sharp sound that was filled with pain and fear. I swallowed heavily, my gaze jumping between the two men, wondering what the hell Damon was actually doing. The man was alive—I could see him breathing—but he looked as if someone had ripped his heart out.

What the hell was Damon doing to him?

He moved on to the next man. I frowned and stepped forward, touching the first man lightly on the shoulder. His flesh was icy, even through the thickness of his shirt. But it was more than just the chill of stolen fire, and my stomach did an odd flip-flop.

No, I thought, he couldn’t have. I reached down inside myself and unleashed the dragon, letting her energy swirl into the stranger. But instead of fire, she found nothing. Not even the broken, scattered ashes where once the soul of a dragon had lived.

He hadn’t just stolen his heat, as I’d threatened to do. He’d completely erased it.

“How is that possible?” I murmured as I glanced at Damon, feeling sick. “How can you extinguish someone’s very essence?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Any fire can be put out, Mercy. You just have to know how.”

I swallowed heavily, but it didn’t ease the dryness in my throat. “Can you do that to full dragons as well?”

“It’s harder, but yes.” He dropped his fingers from the last man and looked at me. “It beats killing them, doesn’t it?”

“But—”

“They’re alive, Mercy. They just can’t flame.”

“For now, or forever?”

He hesitated. “Draman do not need flames or wings.”

“Of course not. After all, what right have we got to be able to protect ourselves against you lot?” I snorted softly. “You really have no understanding of what goes on in cliques, do you?”

“And you have no idea just how close the cliques are to being exposed,” he snapped, then made a visible effort to control himself before adding, “Let’s not get into this argument again. If you want to rescue this woman, we need to get moving.”

He went back out onto the deck without waiting for me. I grabbed the backpack, checked that the netbook was still in one piece, then followed. It was a large space, but there wasn’t enough room for a dragon to stand, let alone unfurl his wings.

“You can’t shift shape here,” I commented.

“I know.” His voice was almost absent as he studied the darkness off to our left. The breeze ruffled his dark hair and a half smile touched his lips. “The wind is strong tonight. It’ll help me lift you.”

“Just promise not to drop me.”

I couldn’t help the edge of fear in my voice and he looked at me, his smile growing, once again lending his otherwise arrogant features a delicious warmth. “There may be a lot of things I want to do to you, but dropping you isn’t one of them.”

His gaze burned with sudden desire, and warmth crept into my cheeks even as part of me basked in the heat of that look. “Oh, I’ve seen some looks thrown my way that suggest you’d love to do that very thing. Drop me from a height, that is.”

“Only when you’re being so frustratingly stubborn.”

I smiled. “Which is a lot, according to you.”

“That’s true.” He gripped the railing of the ladder leading up to the steering deck. “Once I take off, climb to the nose of the boat. I’ll swoop down and grab you.”

“Just you watch where you put those claws,” I said, crossing my arms and trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong. “I do not need any more scars, thank you very much.”

“If I pierce you with one of my claws, you’ll be dead.” He grabbed the rail and climbed up to the next level.

I moved to the back of the boat, leaning my butt against the railing in hopes I could see what was happening above. The roof made that impossible, but the burn of energy across my skin told me he was shifting shape. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation while trying to ignore the longing that welled up from within. I might have learned long ago that I would never experience the freedom of shifting shape and skimming the wide-open skies, but that never eased the desire for it.

There was a whoosh of air as wings unfurled and began to sweep across the night. A second later, an inky shape appeared in the starlit sky.

And oh, he was so beautiful.

The moonlight glinted off his dark scales, making it seem as if his sleek, powerful body was covered in a million stars. His wings were black gossamer, almost invisible against the sky except for the shimmer that ran down the edges with every stroke as he powered upward. And he was big for a dragon—a big, powerful beast who looked as deadly as the man.

I sighed—a sound that was part admiration and part frustration at not being able to join him in flight—then walked to the ladder and began to climb.

After moving as far forward as I could and ensuring I was clear of anything that would obstruct his wings, I closed my eyes and waited. While part of me wanted to watch Damon swoop in, part of me feared it, too. I’d seen the damage claws could do to a human body and I doubted I could force myself to stand still while such a large dragon swept down toward me.

The air began to stir, softly at first, barely even teasing my hair. But the nearer he got, the more tumultuous it became, until I felt like there was a maelstrom swirling around me.

Then, as gently as a first-time kiss, his claws wrapped around me, encasing me securely as his wings swept us upward again.

At first I was too frozen by fear to even open my eyes. Any minute now he’s going to drop me. Any minute now, I was going to crash down on the rocks like before. And while there might not actually be rocks below us, the ocean gained the consistency of concrete when you plunged into it from any great height.

The air howled past my ears—a sound that should have been all-encompassing but wasn’t. I could hear the ocean far below, feel the chill wash of moonlight across my skin, smell the leathery, musky aroma of dragon—sounds and scents that sang to my soul and made me want to smile.

As the minutes ticked by and his grip didn’t loosen—and I didn’t drop—the fear eased enough to open my eyes.

Far below us, the ocean raced for the shore, thin strips of white foam breaking across a blacker expanse. On the fast-approaching land, multicolored lights twinkled like stars in the night. The howl of the air became a sound that was sweeter than any I could have imagined, and the sweep of wings filled my soul.

And suddenly it wasn’t scary anymore. It was beautiful and exhilarating and I spread my arms wide, imagining that I was a dragon, that it was me flying on gauzy, glittering wings, sweeping through the night so swiftly and so elegantly.

It was a glorious sensation. A dream fulfilled—even if it wasn’t my wings or my shape. Laughter rose, bubbling through my body—a sound that was as free and as happy as I felt.

But it ended far too soon. We were barely even over land when we were sweeping downward again. The starlight twinkle of lights separated and grew, becoming long sweeps of roads along which the occasional car traveled. Rooftops and trees became visible, along with brightly lit shopping malls and office districts.

Damon banked and headed to the right. Ahead was a vast blot of darkness. As we drew closer, I realized it was a golf course. The perfect spot for a dragon to land unseen.

As the ground grew closer, our speed dropped until it almost felt like we were hovering. Damon released me, and I dropped the last two feet. I hit the ground running and kept going, getting out of his way.

He landed with unusual grace for such a large dragon, quickly furling his wings as the blue shape-shifting fire began to crawl across his body, giving his black scales an unearthly glow until it encased him completely. Not only did it hide his form, it hid the transformation from dragon body to fully clothed human.

Then the blue fire began to fade and I walked toward him. He turned around, his gaze sweeping my body before returning to meet mine. A small smile teased the corners of his mouth and creased the corners of his dark eyes.

“It sounded like you enjoyed that.”

I stopped in front of him, drawing in the delightful musk of man and dragon that lingered on the air, then leaned forward and dropped a kiss on a cheek still slightly chilled by our flight. “I did. And thank you.”

I would have stepped back, but he lightly cupped the back of my neck with his hand and stopped me. “For what?”

“For not dropping me.” His fingers were barely touching my skin, but it was a weight I felt all the way down to my toes. The heat of his body caressed mine, chasing the last remnants of ice from my flesh. I might not like this man’s attitude to my kind, but that wasn’t stopping my reaction to his closeness.

“Oh, I can think of better ways to thank me than a mere peck on the cheek,” he said, his tone as teasing as his expression.

I raised an eyebrow, even as excitement began to thrum through me. “Can you?”

“Yes,” he murmured, not appearing to move and yet somehow close enough that his body pressed against mine, heating me in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe.

I licked suddenly dry lips, torn between the desire to seize the moment and the knowledge that it just wasn’t the right time. And that this man wasn’t the type of dragon I should ever play with. Even if Janelle hadn’t already given me that warning, every sense screamed with the knowledge that he was dangerous in more ways than I could imagine. And his lack of respect for my kind wasn’t even the worst of it.

But it didn’t seem to matter. I wanted him. Wanted to kiss him, to feel his lips against mine again, to explore and taste and enjoy.

And the hunger in his dark eyes suggested that he wanted the same thing.

“Damon, we really need to get moving.”

The words came out breathy and barely audible, and my gaze was drawn to his lips as another smile curved them so deliciously.

“Yes, we do,” he agreed.

Then those delicious lips met mine, and there was no more time for thought, no more time for words. No more time for anything but this kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing him closer, tasting him fully even as he tasted and explored me. And though it began as something very sweet, it quickly evolved into something that was raw and powerful and so very erotic.

For too many minutes there was nothing but the hunger of this kiss and the passion that rose between us. Then reality intruded in the form of a gruff voice.

“Hey, you two. This ain’t no lovers’ lane.”

Damon released me and stepped away. Just for a moment, everything around me spun, the abrupt ending to our kiss like a splash of cold water.

I ran a tongue across kiss-bruised lips, drawing in a final taste of him, then turned toward the owner of the voice. He was little more than a gruff-sounding shadow within the confines of a golf cart.

“Sorry,” Damon said, voice as cool and calm as ever. As if he hadn’t just experienced a mind-blowing kiss. “I was just showing my girlfriend where I scored the hole-in-one the other day.”

The other man snorted, and it was a sound filled with disbelief. “There’s a hotel up the road better suited to your purposes. And besides, the course closed several hours ago.”

“Sorry, no harm meant.” Damon touched my elbow, then headed down a small gravel path.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to think about the man beside me, the way the occasional brush of his arm against mine sent little tingles of desire racing across my skin.

“I have no idea,” he said, his gaze on the night ahead. “But I noticed a couple of large buildings in this general direction when we swooped in, so we’re probably headed the right way.”

“I guess he’d come after us if we weren’t.” I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder to see just what, exactly, the man was doing, and added, “So how are we going to get to Moraga Drive?”

“Simple. We steal a car with navigation.”

I raised an eyebrow. “As grand plans go, that’s pretty lame.”

“You got a better idea?”

Yeah, kiss me senseless again. I pushed the thought away and shrugged lightly. “Death stealing a car just seems wrong.”

“Why? It’s practically a national pastime.”

I smiled wryly. “So my brother says.”

“Your brother sounds like a very sensible man.”

“Yeah, my brother inherited all the sensible in our family.” Not, I added silently, with a wry smile. “And when we get there?”

He shrugged. “It depends on what we find.”

I glanced at him again. “You don’t expect her to be alive, do you?”

“Honestly? I think we’ll be extremely lucky to find her breathing, but you never know—they might wait to get confirmation of Angus’s death before they move on Coral.”

And if we weren’t lucky, then she was dead and both she and Angus were destined to join Rainey in roaming the endless plains between this world and the next. And with all the souls lost in the two towns, it had to be getting pretty crowded.

We walked on in silence. He didn’t mention the kiss and neither did I, but I knew what we’d started would not end here. The genie was out of the bottle and—respect or not, dangerous or not—I wasn’t about to try and push him back.

Ahead, lights began to twinkle through the darkness, and the mellow tones of music rode the air. I frowned. “I didn’t think the clubhouse would be open at this hour.”

“Usually they’re not, but given the chatter I can hear underneath the music, it’s probably hosting some sort of function. Hence the guard. Which means there could be good pickings when it comes to stealing a vehicle.”

His guess turned out to be correct. The clubhouse was a massive two-story Tuscan-style building with white walls and a pale green roof. We followed a path around the side of the building and headed toward the parking lot. It was huge, but not entirely well lit, brightness pooling in puddles and leaving many areas locked in shadow—which made it almost perfect for thieves, except that there were static security cameras on at least one light pole in each row.

Damon didn’t hesitate, moving with certainty toward an older-looking gray Ford parked in one of the more shadowy areas. He touched my back and motioned me toward the passenger side, then said softly, “Keep your back to the camera.”

I did as he said, and watched while he moved around to the driver’s side. Three seconds, and he was in. He leaned across and opened the door, then reached back and grabbed the street directory from the backseat.

“Not a navigation system, but almost as good,” he said, handing it to me once I was in.

I opened the directory and searched street names, looking for Moraga Drive and keeping my head down as he started the car and drove off smoothly. I found it, traced a route back to the golf club, then began issuing directions as we left. Moraga Drive was, naturally enough, on the other side of Santa Rosa, but traffic was scarce and we got there in pretty good time.

Luckily, there was only one blue house on the street, and even in the dark it was obvious that the place was a “major fixer-upper.”

Damon pulled to a halt down the street from the darkened house and turned off the lights. The run-down old house was barely visible through the brick-and-iron fencing, not to mention all the trees, but yellow light peeked softly through torn curtains.

“So what’s the plan?” I whispered.

“Angus mentioned a boundary alarm, so the first thing I need to do is find and disconnect that.” He glanced at me, his expression fierce. Death was clearly gearing up for another fight. “Our friends on the boat said they were only using draman to mind her, but I’ll go in hard and fast, just in case they lied.”

“What do you want me to do?” I didn’t want to sit here and wait. But, by the same token, I wasn’t trained for this sort of stuff, and I might only get in his way.

“Come around to the driver’s side and keep the engine running. We may need to make a fast getaway.”

I nodded and climbed out of the car. The crisp wind spun around me, holding a hint of age and decay. I hoped it wasn’t an omen, hoped that the run-down old house held something more than the chill of true death.

Damon had climbed out of the car and was standing beside the door, holding it open for me.

“Be careful in there,” I said, pausing beside him.

He smiled and touched my cheek. “I have an unfinished kiss to get back to, so rest assured that I will.”

I raised an eyebrow and said, somewhat sardonically, “There you go again—presuming I’ll just fall in with your plans.”

“There’s no presumption about it. You know it, and I know it.” He gave me a devilish grin that just about melted my insides. “It’s just a matter of when, not if.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but just as I did, a soft sound similar to a car backfiring came from the direction of the house.

It had barely even registered as a gunshot before Damon hit me, pushing me down and covering my body with his as the car window above us shattered into a million tiny pieces.