by Natalie Grey
“What was she like?” Nyx asked Talon, going back to the main point before he could sink into memory.
Talon searched for the word. “Demure.”
A chorus of snorts said what the Dragons thought of that.
“And I thought the same,” Talon agreed. “But there’s something about her…” Something about the way she moved, soft as water but with bone-crunching force in her hands and feet. Something about the way she looked at him, assessing him even while he assessed her. Perhaps, and only perhaps, the fact that her talk of honor seemed troublingly familiar, like an echo of words he had whispered to himself in the night when he was alone.
“Sir?” It was Nyx.
“She…” Talon looked down at the floor and forced a smile. “Let’s just say, if she’d wanted to be a Dragon, I would have considered her.”
Silence. They couldn’t deny her fighting force—indeed, her very short demonstration had been more impressive to them than a drawn-out fight would have been—but none of them were willing to trust her.
“In any case, her lineage—or, I suppose, upbringing—is the thing that’s most important, I think. If the Warlord is trying to get her back … we’ve got leverage. So you all put your minds to work on that. Search for anything and everything you can. If he or anyone close to him adopted children, I want to know about it. If there are records of people in his employ, find them. I want to know where she was trained. I want to know how she was trained.” What he wanted to ask, really, was what sort of person would raise a child to be an assassin.
But he already knew the answer to that question.
“Where are you going, sir?” Loki, with his watchful eyes.
“I’m going back to finish our conversation. If she really wants to help, she’ll tell me where the bastard is hiding. And I’m going to get more out of her about her defection.” He nodded to them and left, steps slowing as soon as he was out of their sight.
He should have told them all of it. He should have told them the flash of genuine incomprehension in her eyes when he spoke the name Warlord.
But she had to have known the truth.
Didn’t she?
I hope you enjoyed this preview of Dragon’s Revenge! Click the image below to grab your copy!
Happy reading!
-Nat
Afterword
Thank you for picking up this book! This series has been an absolute blast to write, and I am enjoying it more and more as time goes on.
The next book coming up has something I think we’ve all been waiting for: Aleksandr Soras finally gets what’s coming to him. The only problem, of course, is that there’s one person who still doesn’t realize who and what he is: Tera.
There’s so much I can’t wait to share with you, and I hope KGU fans are also aware of the Barnabas series that’s coming out right now. Barnabas is kicking ass and taking names, with Shinigami as an exceedingly bloodthirsty sidekick.
A big thank you, as always, to Bryce, to Michael Anderle, and to my beta readers. Sam, Jim, Sandy, Kim, and Keelia - thank you so much. You make these books so much better!
Thank you also to my readers. You make all of this possible, and I can’t thank you enough.
Happy reading!
-Nat