But the rogue magic was wild and unchecked. It was hot and bright and—
A gunshot.
I whirled to see that Lachlan was behind me, advancing with his gun.
“Down, Penny, you’re in my shot!” he yelled.
I hit the ground, and the dragon lunged over my prone form to slam into Lachlan.
He cried out, and the gun fell out of his hand, tumbling down over the railing.
I crawled toward him.
Lachlan was thrusting magic at the dragon.
The dragon was hurled backwards, but it didn’t stay there. It beat its wings and rallied and came for him again.
I reached up for him. “Take my hand.”
He seized it.
Magic swelled between us, the hot energy of our blood bond. It whipped through our bodies, and I suddenly felt powerful and alive and unstoppable.
Lachlan hauled me to my feet.
We turned to face the dragon, summoning our whiteflame.
It poured out of us and into the dragon. Its head was caught in the white beam, and it completely turned to ash instantaneously.
“Whoa,” I whispered.
We let go of each other.
The headless corpse of the dragon slammed down onto the walkway.
“It’s dead,” I panted.
He was out of breath too. “You okay?”
I nodded. “It came after me.” I knew that I had said that I couldn’t handle the idea of killing a dragon, but that… together with Lachlan, using our power…
That had been exhilarating.
“Yeah, I saw that,” he said. “Guess it’s not the hotel they’re drawn to after all.”
* * *
It was me. It had to be me. I was the common denominator on all of the dragon attacks. And it was true that the dragons seemed to follow me around personally. Hell, that dragon the other day, the one that had sat on the diving board, hadn’t even tried to hurt me.
There was something going on here, all right. But it didn’t have anything to do with the hotel.
It had to do with me.
I was sitting in front of the condo, waiting for Lachlan, who was doing whatever cop stuff it was that he had to do in the wake of all of this. I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was doing something that called to the dragons and brought them. Maybe it was some kind of magic that I did. Maybe it was because I had taken off the talisman that muted my dragon bond. Maybe that had somehow called them.
I used to wear a talisman that made my attraction to Alastair less. Since we were destined mates, we were very drawn to each other. The talisman had made that feeling of attraction easier to fight. But since he was dead, I didn’t need to wear it anymore.
I’d actually heard of people having bad issues after the death of a mate. Not getting attacked by rogue dragons or anything, but with their magic going wonky. Most people blamed it on the grief, so I hadn’t been worried after Alastair died.
Now, however, I was beginning to wonder if it was related to his death.
“Guess I’m too late this time,” said a voice behind me.
I whirled.
It was Clarke Gannon. She was taking off her quiver and setting it down next to her bow. There was a little alcove next to us, a kind of decorative thing that made a crevice. She tucked her weapons in there and looked around. “Place is crawling with cops, huh?”
“What are you doing here?” I said, even though I could basically guess. What I really meant was, Why are you talking to me? But I couldn’t say that out loud.
“I track rogues,” she said. “I thought this one was unrelated to you. First one in weeks. But then, here you are.”
I studied my hands. “Well, I guess they aren’t attracted to the hotel after all.”
“It’s you,” she said, nodding. “They’re coming after you.”
“Yes, thank you, I’ve figured that out.”
She squinted at me. “Look, I get that you don’t like me, but I’m not really sure why.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I like you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sure.” She turned away from me, surveying the cluster of cop cars and flashing lights on the other side of the parking garage. “Well, anyway, I came by to take care of the dragon, but I saw it hanging off the walkway in there, so I guess you don’t need me.”
“Yeah, the situation is under control,” I said. “You can go.”
She scratched the top of her head. “Yeah, I would go, but the thing is, when I was in transit, I already called my cleanup guys to come, and I can’t get a hold of them to tell them to stand down. Won’t be any use for them either, not if the police are going to bag that body. Anyway, uh, I need to stick around and intercept them before they get to the dragon.”
“They won’t just see all the blue and red lights and head the other way?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. But if I let them walk into a situation like this with no warning, they might decide they aren’t going to play nice with me.”
“Who are these guys again?”
“They’re vampires,” she said. “They’re a sort of traveling vampire clan. They supply half the east coast with dragon parts.”
I shuddered. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah.” She studied the sky. “We did talk about that already.”
I drew in a long breath of air. If she knew I didn’t like her, why was she hanging out here with me again?
As if reading my mind, she said, “Look, I’d go somewhere else, but it looks suspicious, just hanging around a crime scene alone. So, I’m standing here to blend in.”
I sighed. I was stuck with her, then? I shifted on my feet. “Look, Clarke, the truth is that I almost want to like you. I think you’re doing the best that you can in a bad situation, and I know what that’s like. But I just… what you do…”
“Who just killed that dragon up there?” She pointed up. “Was it your boyfriend?”
My shoulders sagged. “We did it together.”
“So, you killed it? But you’re judging me?”
I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Like I said,” I told the floor. “I want to like you.”
She chuckled softly. “Yeah, well thank you for making the effort,” she muttered sarcastically.
We were quiet after that.
Time passed. We watched cars going past on Atlantic Avenue. We watched the light down the street change from green to yellow to red to green.
And then Lachlan came down to find me. “Hey,” he said. “I’m done now. We can go.”
“Oh, good,” I said.
“Hi, Clarke,” said Lachlan.
She bobbed her head at him. “Lachlan.”
“How you doing?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“We can’t leave,” I said. “We have to stay here with Clarke so she doesn’t look suspicious.”
“Don’t put yourself out,” said Clarke.
“She’s waiting for her butchers to come.”
“Butchers?” said Lachlan.
Clarke rolled her eyes. “They’re a vampire gang. Or family. Or something. I don’t know what you’d call them. They just call themselves the Bryant clan.”
Lachlan’s eyes widened. “Wait, the who?”
“Hawk Turner!” came a voice. “That you?”
Lachlan’s face turned white. He slowly turned in the direction of the voice.
We turned too.
Three men were coming across the pavement. They were all bearded. All dark skinned with dark features. One wore a battered black leather hat. Another a bandanna tied over his forehead. Strands of his long dark hair fell outside of it. The third wore a paisley purple button-up shirt.
Leather Hat stepped forward, grinning. “I knew that was you. I knew you weren’t dead. Everyone kept saying—”
“Alive and well,” said Lachlan, dropping his shocked expression and striding over to meet Leather Hat, a big grin on his face.
The two men
met in the middle of the parking garage. They seized each other’s hands, shook once, and then Leather Hat pulled Lachlan into a hug.
“Jackal Bryant,” said Lachlan. “Hell of a thing to see you here.”
What? What was this? Lachlan knew these guys? Who the hell were they?
Clarke gave me a confused look.
I shrugged at her.
Leather Hat—Jackal—whatever his name was—released Lachlan. “So, you gotta tell me, buddy, what the hell happened?”
Lachlan shrugged. “Well, we caught a lot of heat that day. They took me in.”
“They?” said Bandanna, who was standing with Paisley Shirt behind Jackal. Both of them had their arms crossed over their chests.
“The heat, man,” said Lachlan, whose Texas accent was now thick as hell. “Yeah, they shook me down. Locked me up and asked me a lot of questions. But they didn’t get nothing from me, so they had to cut me loose.”
“Right,” said Bandanna, in a voice that said that he didn’t believe a word Lachlan was saying.
Lachlan pretended not to notice. “Afterward, I was pretty sure they were watching me, though. So, I didn’t want to go back, lead ‘em right to you. I headed north. Been here ever since. Man, this is where the action is.”
Jackal shook his head at him. “You dog. You never even sent us word.”
“Sorry,” said Lachlan, shrugging. “I, uh, I ain’t proud of it, man, but I was a little scared. By the time I got over it, y’all were long gone, I was up here…” He spread his palms. “Seemed weird to get in touch after so long.”
What the hell was he talking about? I put my hands on my hips and started to approach them.
Lachlan saw me and turned, grinning widely at me. He gave his head just the barest of shakes.
I stopped moving.
Clarke, however, stalked over to them. “This is touching, this reunion or whatever it is, but the whole thing’s a bust. The cops are here. They’ve got the dragon. There’s nothing for you guys here. Sorry. I tried to call you.”
Paisley Shirt parted his lips, annoyed. “You gotta be kidding me, Clarke.”
“I strike you as a big kidder?” said Clarke.
Paisley Shirt didn’t answer.
Jackal dug his phone out of his pocket. “Well, look at that. Five missed calls. I must have turned the ringer off again. I do that on accident a lot. There’s this button that gets hit in my jeans, and—”
“We came out here for nothing?” said Bandanna.
“Sorry,” said Clarke.
“Obviously it was fate,” said Jackal. “Because we found Hawk here.”
Lachlan smiled. “Yeah, here I am.”
“What exactly is it that you’re doing here?” said Paisley Shirt.
“Uh, I’m in the, uh, slaying business,” said Lachlan. “Clarke here and I are colleagues.” He turned to Clarke. “Ain’t that right?”
Clarke licked her lips. “Sure. But I wouldn’t call us colleagues. I outclass you, and you know it.”
Lachlan laughed easily. “That is the truth. She’s the best.” He grinned his thanks at her.
She didn’t react.
So… from what I was gathering here, these guys were the Bryant clan, the gang of vampires that Clarke dealt with to clean the bodies. And they knew Lachlan for some reason that I couldn’t understand, but they didn’t seem to really know him. They had given him the wrong name, and he had lied to them about what he was doing for a living. I wasn’t sure why, but I figured it was best to play along.
Now that Lachlan was close to me, I could still feel a sort of lingering flush from our blood bond. I felt in sync with him.
I closed the distance between myself and the group and pressed close to Lachlan. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s not bad.” I grinned at the vampires. “You should see him shoot a bow. Damned sexy if I do say so myself.” Without realizing it, I had also adopted some kind of southern-y type accent. I wasn’t sure if it was on-the-nose Texan, however. I was fairly sure I sounded a little too Scarlett O’Hara.
“You bring your girl out to kill dragons, Hawk?” said Paisley Shirt.
“Dragons just keep finding me,” I said.
“What?” said Jackal, furrowing his brow. “What’s that?”
Lachlan shot me an annoyed look. He must not have wanted me to give that away. But when he turned to Jackal, he was all ease and casualness. “Yeah, these rogues, they’re following her around. This is, what? Five? In the past two weeks?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Damndest thing,” said Lachlan.
“Sounds like bad shit,” said Bandanna.
“It’s not Christmas and sleigh bells,” I said. “But Hawk here, he’s taking care of me.” I massaged his bicep with two hands.
Lachlan glared at me again.
What? Was I messing everything up or something?
“Five rogue dragons in two weeks?” said Paisley Shirt. “That’s not something to joke about.”
“Handy though,” said Jackal, rubbing his beard. “You got ‘em coming to you. Don’t even have to track ‘em.”
“Yeah, but when they wake you up from a sound sleep, it’s not exactly convenient,” said Lachlan.
“You want to stop it, then?” said Jackal. “You know who might be able to do that? Olsen Hunter.”
“The mage?” said Lachlan. “One that makes talismans for you?”
“He’s pretty powerful,” said Jackal. “If anyone could do it, I think it would be him.”
“Well,” said Lachlan, “no one knows where he is, though. Except you.”
Jackal laughed. “I might be able to help you out with that, man.”
“No way,” said Paisley Shirt. “He ain’t one of us anymore, Jackal. You keep your mouth shut.”
“Come on, it’s Hawk,” said Jackal.
Paisley shirt shook his head.
Jackal sighed. “Sorry, man.”
“It’s all right,” said Lachlan.
“You ain’t interested in coming back with us, are you?” said Jackal.
“Pretty settled here,” said Lachlan.
“Yeah,” said Paisley Shirt, eyeing me coldly.
“Hell of thing to see you here.” Jackal was grinning. “I knew you weren’t dead. I knew it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lachlan poured himself a shot of whiskey. “I was undercover. Narcotics, magical drugs division. Before, when I had a family, I always kept far away from undercover jobs, but after Hallie… well, I didn’t have any reason to say no.”
“So, you worked with these guys to do what?” I said. “To figure out where they were selling their drugs?”
“We were interested in their suppliers mostly,” he said. “The idea was to cut off their sources, and then we thought they’d shrivel up and die. But… it seems they just traveled somewhere else. No more dragon parts in Texas, so they headed north.”
I leaned against the counter in my kitchen. “Undercover. That’s crazy. I had no idea you’d done that. What was it like?”
He downed the whiskey, and he didn’t answer for a few moments. “Honestly?” He looked up at me. “In some ways, it was exactly what I wanted at that point in my life. It was a way to not be myself. To escape from all the pain. It was good to have a distraction.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.” I nodded. I had done my own share of escaping from pain in my time, after all. “But was it scary? Were you afraid you’d slip up and they’d figure out you weren’t who you said you were?”
“Sure,” he said. He surveyed his now-empty glass. “But I guess I didn’t really let that bother me after a while. Because you have to… I don’t know… immerse yourself deeply enough in that world that some part of you actually does belong there. And then you aren’t putting on an act. Some part of you is really genuine.”
“That sounds…”
“Yeah, not healthy,” he said with a laugh. “It was probably the least therapeutic thing I could have done to myself. I was so dee
p in that world…” He stared off into the distance, and he got an almost wistful look on his face.
I understood. I thought there was something exciting and romantic about the idea of being undercover. Like spies. Today, we’d had a tiny taste of it, pretending to be buyers at the auction, and it had been exhilarating. Or, well, it would have been if the rogue hadn’t shown up. It would sure be nice if we could stop these dragons from following me around. “What that Jackal guy was saying about that mage?”
“Yeah?” Lachlan’s head snapped back to me.
“Well, it kind of makes sense that maybe a mage could fix it, or that magic could fix it. I’m thinking it might have something to do with the fact that Alastair died. I’ve heard of dragons having magical side effects after the loss of a mate.”
“But Alastair’s been dead for months,” said Lachlan. “Why now?”
“Well, I guess I just recently really accepted it. I mean, right after I found out, we were busy clearing our names, and I haven’t had a chance to take a breath until now.”
“Huh,” said Lachlan.
“What I’m saying is that maybe we should see that mage guy. That Olsen person.”
“Well, we can’t, though,” said Lachlan. “Because you heard Jackal. Unless I’m back on the crew, he’s not going to do me favors.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, no big deal. We can find another mage, like Ophelia or something.”
“No, you don’t understand who Olsen Hunter is. He’s crazy, crazy powerful. He makes talismans that people pay through the nose for. They last for hundreds of years and they’re imbued with incredibly strong magic.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, why can’t we find him ourselves?”
“He’s a recluse. His location is hidden. He used to deal with maybe four or five different gangs, but he got sick of the rivalry and crap, and so now he exclusively funnels his stuff through the Bryant clan. And he won’t talk to anyone in the Bryant clan except Jackal. He doesn’t trust anyone else. He’s paranoid. Real secretive guy.”
“So, if we want his help, we have to go through Jackal?”
“Basically.”
“Well, maybe you should go back on the crew then,” I said.
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