“It’s about Dune,” said Lachlan. “It’s not about the past.”
“Go away,” said Iona, narrowing her eyes.
“Just want to ask you a few questions is all,” said Lachlan.
“No. You killed my grandpa.”
“He made me do that,” said Lachlan. “He issued a challenge. What was I supposed to do? Run away like a coward?”
“Yes,” she said, her nostrils flaring.
Lachlan rolled his eyes. “Where’d you meet Dune?”
Iona turned to look at me. “Maybe I’ll talk to you, but not if she’s around.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, hands on my hips.
“She stays,” said Lachlan. “We work together. We’re a team. That’s how this works.”
“Work?” she said. “This is work? What kind of job you doing? I thought you were a dragon slayer.”
Lachlan’s jaw twitched.
“Just a figure of speech,” I threw in. “This isn’t pleasant for us either. But if you help us out, then we’ll get out of your hair.”
“No, you won’t,” she said. “Dune already told me that you were harassing him. You think he’s working with the drakes. You’re just fishing for something to nail him with. It’s like you don’t want me to be happy, Hawk. Why you gotta take everything from me, huh? Dune’s all I got.”
“Well, if he’s using you,” said Lachlan, “then you don’t have him anyway.”
“He’s not using me. He’s through-and-through loyal and good. He loves me.”
Lachlan started to say something else.
I jumped in. “Listen, if Dune’s really innocent, then just tell us what you know, and I’m sure we’ll come to the same conclusion that you have. But the more that you refuse to answer any of our questions, the more it seems like you’re hiding something. Are you hiding something?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not hiding anything!” She opened the screen door and came out, letting it slam behind her. “Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
“Where did you meet Dune?” said Lachlan.
“At a bar.”
“What bar?”
“I don’t remember. We were up north someplace. Maine, I think.”
“You go that far north?”
“We used to be pretty settled in the Texas area, but then you showed up and everything went sideways.”
“You can’t blame me for that,” said Lachlan. Of course, it was his fault. He’d turned them over to the authorities and everything.
“That’s what everyone else says, but I don’t know…” She cocked her head, sizing him up. “Something about you just ain’t right.”
“Sorry you feel that way,” said Lachlan. “So, um, you met him at a bar. Is he from Maine?”
“Well… no,” she said. “I think he’s actually from around here. He was only traveling in Maine, like I was.”
“Traveling for what reason?”
“He was running something,” she said. “Some kind of drugs or magic or something. We didn’t much talk about it.”
“So, he worked for another gang before he joined this one?”
“No, he was freelance. He picked stuff up and dropped it off. He didn’t have any connections to the people he worked for. Said it was safer that way, because he didn’t have any information that rival gangs or the cops might want.”
“Huh,” said Lachlan.
“I’m just telling you what he said,” she said. “But trust me, he didn’t have any love for drakes. He would never be dealing with drakes. He hated drakes. Didn’t like magical creatures at all, really. I was the first vampire he’d ever known. I changed his mind, opened his eyes to the way things were.”
“So, he was human when you met him?” said Lachlan. “Turned to become part of the clan?”
“That’s right,” said Iona. “Listen, I am positive that he would never turn against me or the clan. We gave him the gift of immortality, you know? That’s not something you take lightly.”
* * *
“So, what do you think?” I said. “You think he’s hiding the fact that he’s working with the drakes?” We were walking back across the campground towards our trailer. It was late afternoon, and the shadows loomed long against the grass.
“I don’t know,” said Lachlan. “Could be, but there’s no evidence either way.”
“Well, this isn’t a murder investigation,” I said. “We’re not going to find the murder weapon or the body or anything like that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I still want more before we start interrogating this guy.”
“I hear you,” I said.
“We should explore some other options too,” he said. “Anyone else that might have been working with the drakes. We need to ask around, see what other people around here think.”
“Yeah, I can see how that would make sense.”
Lachlan glanced up at the sky, and then he furrowed his brow. He put his hand up to shield it from the sun, and then he pointed at a speck in the sky. “What’s that?”
“A bird?” I said. But even as I said it, I realized the speck was getting larger at alarming rate, like something was hurtling out of the sky, straight for us.
“That’s not a bird,” said Lachlan.
Now, there were two specks—except they weren’t specks anymore. They were huge, getting huger with every passing second.
“Rogues,” I whispered.
A red dragon and a green dragon. Two at once. They let out roars, breathing fire as they dove for us.
I reached out with my magic, trying to halt them both.
But they were going so fast that I miscalculated. I only managed to slow them a bit.
They breathed more fire.
Lachlan and I jumped out of the way, barely avoiding getting singed.
I lost my hold on my magic.
And the dragons pulled out of their dives and landed, one on either side of us.
Lachlan and I each faced one, wary.
The dragons began to circle us. They bared their teeth, letting out low growls.
I threw out some magic, knocking one over onto its side.
It kicked its legs into the air and eyed me.
I gazed into its black, black eyes, into the depths of nothingness within it. I was chilled to the core. What were these things? Why were they following me around?
Lachlan let out a yell.
I turned to see that the other dragon had tackled him. It was standing on his chest, jaws gaping wide.
Lachlan pushed magic into the dragon, throwing it backwards into the air.
The dragon flapped its wings and recovered, roaring.
I helped Lachlan to his feet. And once we were touching, we were keyed in to our power. We let it flow through us, wild and reckless like lightning in a hot summer thunderstorm. The white-hot energy burst out of us.
At first, we missed the dragons completely. The whiteflame just shot off into the sky, blowing holes in the clouds above us.
Then we turned, concentrating, trying to aim… It was so hard.
But we hit the red dragon right in the neck. Its neck turned to dark ash where the whiteflame hit. The dragon fell to the ground in pieces, instantly dead.
The green dragon took to the air. It rose above us, breathing tongues of fire.
With great effort, we made the whiteflame veer up, and it cut into the dragon’s midsection, dissolving a hunk of its stomach and taking two of its legs with it as well.
The green dragon fell to the ground as well.
We let go of each other’s hands, panting.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was running my hand through my hair over and over again. I felt… sort of juiced up. Alive like I’d never quite been before, ready to conquer anything.
Lachlan and I were talking to Ossian, explaining about the dragons as the men cleaned up the bodies, and we kept brushing our hands against each other.
Just brief little touches, but they sent jolts of swe
et electricity through me. I felt warm in all the wrong places.
God, I wished this conversation could be over.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything Lachlan or Ossian were even saying. All I could think about was getting back into that trailer and peeling off every single article of Lachlan’s clothing, putting my lips on his stomach, on his pecks, on his—
“And that’s it, really,” said Lachlan. “So, I think we’ll just be heading back to our, uh, camper.”
“Have you given any thought to whether you’ll be sticking around now that we’ve lost Jackal?” said Ossian.
Lachlan had already seized my hand and was dragging me away. “Uh, yeah, probably,” he threw over his shoulder.
“We’ll be having a memorial service,” called Ossian.
“Great,” said Lachlan, picking up the pace. “Talk to you later, Ossian.”
We hurried down the rows of RVs, Lachlan’s hand hot against my palm. It seemed as if they stretched on forever. But eventually, we were back to our camper.
Lachlan opened the door and dragged me inside.
I tugged the door closed after us, and then I kissed him.
His mouth and tongue worked hungrily against mine. His hands were under my shirt, pushing the cups of my bra aside.
I pushed at his shirt, trying to get it off him.
He put one hand behind his back, grabbed it behind the collar and yanked it off.
I ran my hands over him, every hard inch of his chest and stomach.
“I can still feel it,” he murmured into my eyebrow. “The power. It’s in us. It’s making everything so…”
“Yeah,” I said, unbuttoning his pants. I yanked them down to his thighs and collapsed onto my knees.
“What are you—?” And then he only moaned.
* * *
We did it more than once. In different positions. On different surfaces. And every time, I was sure that I couldn’t take more, that it was the most intense, most pleasurable thing I’d ever felt. And then a bit later, I’d suddenly feel it burning within me again, demanding to be sated, and it would be washing us both away in ecstasy.
I’d never felt anything like it before.
And I used to have a mating bond that made me crazy horny for Alastair. That had always been intense and imperative, but this—what I had with Lachlan—this was eighty times more so than anything I’d ever experienced.
The fact that my pregnant body was so sensitive seemed to only heighten the entire thing.
We were in the kitchen, both naked, both gasping for breath.
Lachlan was on the other side of the room, holding up one finger. “Stay over there, okay?”
I laughed, pushing sweaty hair away from my face. “You too, buddy.”
“I mean it. I cannot… I need a break.”
I was still laughing.
He rested the back of his head against the cabinets and looked at the ceiling. “What the hell is this?”
“You should get dressed if you don’t want me all over you,” I said.
“You too,” he said. “In fact, you go do that right now. Put clothes on immediately. I’ll wait here.”
I looked down at my body, which looked sort of puffy and rounded to me, not the least bit attractive. “I look like a blimp. You, however, are sex made flesh.”
“Penny, you’re pregnant with my baby,” he growled. “It’s pretty much the sexiest thing on earth. Now put on clothes or I’m bending you over the sink again.”
Part of me wanted to be bent over the sink again. Part of me was sore. I let out a long, slow breath and then nodded. “Okay, okay. I’ll get dressed.”
“And I’ll get dressed when you’re done,” he said. “But we can’t both be in that bedroom at the same time. It’s too small.”
I giggled. I went past him into the bedroom.
I started getting dressed.
“So, this is the blood bond, isn’t it? This is some weird blood bond side effect,” he called in to me. “It’s not exactly unpleasant, but it’s… worrying if you think too hard about it.”
I poked my head out of the door. “It’s not the blood bond. It’s only that we’re in love.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You think?”
“I…” I pulled back into the room. I didn’t want it to be from the blood bond. Because I had been in a relationship with a man who I’d been magically bonded to before. And I wanted what I had with Lachlan to be my choice, not some weird magical, fated thing.
“I don’t know, it happened right after we used the whiteflame,” he said. “And it felt… like I could still feel that power coursing through me, and it made me want you—”
Dressed now, I opened the door. “Maybe the power made us feel a little excited or something, but it didn’t make us attracted to each other.”
“You sure about that?” He pushed past me into the bedroom. “Think about it. We didn’t even kiss until after I drank your blood that first time, and we had all that crazy power, even then.”
“Well… I was attracted to you before that,” I said in a small voice. Hadn’t he been attracted to me?
“Yeah, I was attracted to you the first time I saw you. Maybe it’s not…” He opened the bedroom door. “What if it’s like the mating bond? What if it’s like we saw each other and—”
“It’s not like the mating bond,” I said. “We did not jump each other’s bones the second we were in each other’s presence.”
He just looked at me.
I looked back at him.
“You know what?” he said. “I don’t care. I don’t care why it’s happening, because I would be with you no matter what. Even if we never had sex that explosive ever again, I would still be with you. I don’t need… that. So, maybe we should just stop talking about that.”
“Or even thinking about it,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. He swallowed.
I started to pace the kitchen.
“Hey, you’re the one who said not to think about it,” he said.
“I can’t just turn it off,” I said. “I need a distraction. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Uh… okay. I was thinking something else.”
“About whether Dune is the traitor?”
“No, about the rogues,” he said. “Have any of the rogue dragons ever tried to hurt you?”
“Of course they have,” I said. “I mean, that’s why we’re out here doing this. To protect me and the baby from the rogues.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “Maybe they’ve just tried to hurt other people that were around you.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are you saying?”
“I only notice how they always go for me, not you. And I was remembering that one on the diving board. How it just watched you. It reminded me of the one today. You knocked it on its side, and it lay there and stared at you. Didn’t try to attack.”
“So… what are you saying? They aren’t a danger to me?”
He came back out of the kitchen, fully dressed. “No, nothing like that. It’s just a puzzle is all.”
“Maybe,” I said.
We were quiet.
He looked at me. “You’re thinking about it.”
“No, I’m not,” I said.
He pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry.”
“I chose you,” I said, holding tightly to him. “It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t anything like that. I picked you.”
“I know,” he said. “And I chose you.” He kissed the top of my head. “That’s all that’s important. You, me, and the baby.”
“Everything else can go to hell,” I whispered.
“Straight to hell,” he replied.
* * *
My cell phone was ringing. It was the middle of the night, and we were leaving in the morning to go to a different campground about an hour away, and I had only been keeping my cell phone charged in case I needed the contact numbers of anyone back home. Everyone knew not to contact me. Who
was calling?
I rolled out of bed, groaning, and began digging through my stuff to get to my phone.
Lachlan made a noise from the bed, something unintelligible and annoyed.
Finally, I found the phone. I looked at the caller. Felicity.
I picked up. “Felicity?” My voice was thick. Why the hell was she calling me? “This better be good.”
“Hello to you too,” she said in a dry voice.
I didn’t respond. I just waited. She wasn’t getting a “hello” at three in the morning or whatever it was.
“You there?” said Felicity. “Penny?”
“I’m waiting,” I said.
“You need to come back home,” she said.
“That’s impossible,” I said.
“Make it possible,” she said.
“What’s going on there?” I said. “Are you in danger? Is someone hurt?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Good,” I said. Because I would have felt really bad if I couldn’t be there to protect them. They were my family. But Felicity and Connor were grownups. They could take care of themselves. “Then, I need to get back to sleep.”
“Do you not even care why I’m calling?”
I sighed. “Why are you calling?”
“It’s Connor.”
“You said no one was hurt or in danger.”
“Well, not a physical kind of danger, anyway, but it’s his family.”
“His family?” I was confused. Connor’s gargoyle clan had disowned him when they found out he was gay. Gargoyles had a matriarchal cultural structure and they didn’t think much of men, anyway, but a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t father children was completely worthless.
“They’re all here at the hotel,” she said. “I mean, maybe it’s not all of them, but it’s a lot of them. They’re intent on taking Connor away and enrolling him in one of those weird programs that are supposed to reprogram people’s brains and make them straight.”
“Well, Connor’s never going to do that,” I said.
“Yeah, but they aren’t giving up easily. They’re everywhere. They’re bothering the guests at the hotel. They’re loud and obnoxious, and they won’t go away. So, you have to come back and get rid of them.”
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