Dragon's Flame

by Jory Strong

  He would find out who and incinerate them—after they’d told him where to find Saffron.

  Taine bolted from the room, charged up the stairs and into the library. Maksim and the others were debating, arguing the merits of which name to give the astrologist.

  One look at him and they stood. Through the window, he glimpsed the black van coming down the driveway and suspicion was born and became certainty.

  Anders had no reason for leaving IRE headquarters. Anders had twice tried to take possession of Shanna’s charm. Anders had claimed that the man found dead in Cleveland National Forest at around the same time Elon Moates seemingly came into his power, the man who happened to be renting the ground zero house at the time, wasn’t a sorcerer.

  Instinct demanded that Taine rush downstairs and intercept Anders, wrest answers from him with great prejudice. But too much was at stake and gnomes weren’t defenseless.

  Smoke streamed from Taine’s nostrils. Crew asked, “Where’s your mate?”

  “Gone. And she isn’t answering my calls. Anders is returning in the van. He’s in league with the sorcerer.”

  The only thing that kept him from lighting the library on fire was the evidence, so far, that Elon Moates didn’t want murder on his conscience.

  “That’s a serious charge,” Maksim said. “You risk sanctions making that accusation.”

  “I’m making it and I demand to face the accused immediately, as is my right, with Crew and Gaige serving as witnesses.”

  Maksim expression was grim. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I’m refusing to believe my mate would willingly leave me or abandon her city.

  “I do,” Taine said and led the way to the evidence room downstairs.

  Maksim touched a palm to the door and the wards that kept everyone else out fell.

  They entered the room and Anders whirled at his desk. He frowned and said to Maksim, “They’re not authorized to be in here.”

  “We’re looking for Saffron. Have you seen her?” Maksim asked in a mild voice, as if he had no intention of repeating Taine’s accusation.

  “Yes. She was crying at Taine’s workstation.” The gnome’s thin lips disappeared in a show of disapproval and distaste. “She asked if I’d drive her to a friend’s house. She didn’t want to take her car because she didn’t want him to use law enforcement resources to find her.”

  “Liar,” Taine snarled, and Maksim’s arm shot out, prevented him from lunging forward and pulverizing the gnome.

  “That’s a serious charge and I’ll have justice,“ Anders said, disdain in his voice but a glitter in his eyes. “He defiled her and she fled. She put her cellphone in her car to keep from being tracked. See for yourself.”

  No! Taine refused to believe it. His mate hadn’t run away from him or her duty.

  He moved to get around Maksim.

  Gaige and Crew grabbed him, preventing him from getting to the gnome.

  With a snarl, he struggled to free himself. Was a heartbeat from shifting to his dragon form when a glint of gold under Anders’s desk caught his attention.

  Saffron’s charm.

  He stopped struggling, asked in a voice holding the promise of death, “How do you explain my mate’s necklace being in this room?”

  The gnome’s eyes gave him away, fear flowing into nastiness. “You’re about to find out how wrong it is to mate with a mortal. She’s with Elon and you won’t get to him in time to stop the spell-working.”

  A surge forward and Taine was free of Gaige and Crew. But before he could reach Anders it was already too late to find out where the sorcerer was holding Saffron.

  The gnome had turned to stone. Literally.

  Chapter 15

  Anders’s essence had retreated, shrinking his physical body as it did. The form he’d worn in this world became nothing more than a three-foot hardened shell.

  Truth in myth, Taine had told Saffron. This was the origin of the statues the humans seemed so fond of for their yards.

  Raging, Taine picked up the gnome, would have turned him into dust and a thousand tiny particles by hurtling him against the wall if Crew hadn’t stopped him by saying, “Do you want to be stuck putting him back together after this current sorcerer-created crisis is over? Or would you rather be with your mate?”

  Taine dropped the gnome onto the desk then dropped to his knees and retrieved Saffron’s necklace. His heart swelled with love and pride. Against the odds, she’d managed to leave the charm for him as a message.

  Anders must have taken her in the bullpen. That would explain the destroyed erotic treasure.

  It would have been easy for Anders to immobilize her magically. There were plenty of items in the evidence vault or the enforcement locker that could be used to render her helpless.

  No. Not helpless. His resourceful, beautiful mate had not been rendered helpless.

  “If the sorcerer has the charm, we’ve lost all chance of getting through his wards and stopping him,” Crew said.

  Taine stood, fisted the necklace and prayed to the First Ancestor that his mate’s charm was meant to carry more than one message.

  He ripped the top drawer of Anders’s desk open, shoved its contents onto the floor. Then did the same to a second drawer, a third.

  In the fourth he found a wadded lab coat. He pulled it out and it fell open, revealing where strips of material had been cut away.

  The charm given the sorcerer’s sister fell to the floor, but that victory didn’t prevent Taine from exhaling fire as he imagined his mate bound and made helpless.

  The lab coat went up in flames.

  “Understandable, given the situation,” Gaige said, waving a hand and drenching the coat.

  “Definitely a forgivable loss of control,” Crew directed at Maksim.

  Maksim nodded. “Saffron has done her part. Now we need to do ours.”

  “Anders was always consistent in where he directed his hate,” Gaige said. “Of all the names on our list, only one kingdom is ruled by Sidhe.”

  “Reason enough to aid the sorcerer though he was probably promised he’d be lord of the gnomes in that kingdom.” Maksim turned his attention to Taine. “You’re the one who has the most to lose if we guess wrong. Do we have the astrologist find where the Sidhe kingdom will touch this realm?”

  “Yes.”

  Taine touched his mate’s charm to his lips. The prospect of his own death wasn’t nearly as horrible as the thought of not finding Saffron, of not being with her in the final moments of her life if the sorcerer’s spell went wrong.

  * * * *

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Elon said from his crouched position, dipping the pen into the inkwell.

  With the gag in her mouth, Saffron couldn’t respond with anything other than a condemning glare. Not that he bothered looking in her direction.

  Guilt maybe? It was there in the hunch of his shoulders and she was reminded that he’d expended some of his magic to make sure no one was killed when he brought the phoenix egg into this world.

  She was inclined to believe that the forest fire wasn’t intentional and that he felt remorse over the destruction and loss of lives, even if they weren’t human lives. She could use that, if she could get the gag off.

  She rubbed the back of her head against the tree. The gag bit into the corners of her mouth and made her lips bleed again, but it gave, just a little.

  She turned her head, rubbed her cheek against the trunk. The bark scraped and scratched her skin.

  The gag gave a little more.

  She pushed at it with her tongue. Felt blood beading on her face.

  Alternating between rubbing the back of her head against the tree and the side of her face, the gag finally, finally dropped away.

  “I’m thinking that you’re a park ranger, a guy who supposedly loves the great outdoors, but because of you, the forest burned.”

  Elon’s fingers whitened against the black pen. “I can fix the forest. It’ll be better,
stronger once I have endless magic at my disposal.”

  “That won’t matter to the trees and animals, the reptiles and birds who died.”

  “The egg flared!” he said, his voice catching. “There was an error in the original calculations.”

  “There was an error, so that makes it not your fault?”

  “Shut up.”

  Her pulse fluttered a warning. Without the charm she wasn’t protected from a spell. But hell, tied up she was defenseless anyway.

  “Shut up because you don’t want to hear the truth? That you might end up killing hundreds of thousands of people if something goes wrong and San Diego burns? That along with the people, you’ll kill hundreds of thousands of pets along with plenty of wildlife?”

  “It won’t happen. I am not incompetent!” He sounded like an eight-year-old boy, and given what Shanna had told her, it was easy to imagine Elon’s father standing over him, growing colder and more condemning with each failed attempt to work magic.

  She felt pity for that boy. And she could see goodness in the man, because he cared enough to make an effort not to hurt anyone, because he felt guilty for what’d happened at the national forest.

  She dug in, hoped something she said would make a difference. “So your great plan is to put a spell on a queen and become a king?”

  “She’ll marry me then abdicate, making me the ruler and her the consort. I’ll be the most powerful sorcerer who’s ever existed.”

  “Except it won’t actually be your power will it?” And guessing, going with her gut she added, “It’ll be like Nelson Arrington all over again, on a bigger scale. Did you kill him, cause him to have a heart attack?”

  Elon’s head jerked up, in surprise she’d figured it out, or maybe at the accusation. “I didn’t kill him! I found him. He was already dead.”

  “And you took advantage of it.”

  He went back to concentrating on his work.

  “You stole his magic.”

  “Any other sorcerer would have done the same.”

  Saffron looked at the writing on the floor that extended as far as she could see. “So this is a love spell?”

  “Yes.”

  It made sense that it required more to capture a magical being than a human. That it would be extensive if it was going to be powered by a phoenix emerging from its shell.

  A glance at the egg and her heart trebled its beat. The fuzz of flames on the egg’s surface was more dense and the gray, rock-like appearance had taken on a sheen of red.

  “Won’t it bother you to know your wife’s feelings aren’t genuine? That it’s all pretend because she doesn’t have the free will to choose you?”

  Elon shrugged. “I can live with that. Power is all that matters.”

  “Based on what Shanna said, that sounds like your father talking.”

  He flinched. Stiffened and set the pen down.

  “I am not my father.” He stood and walked toward her.

  She met his eyes, her heart thumping hard. “Prove it. Do the right thing. Return the egg to the djinn realm you took it from. Don’t risk killing hundreds of thousands of people and their pets. Don’t risk destroying wildlife and burning this city to the ground so you can steal someone else’s freewill and power.”

  “Shut up,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Shut. Up. I know what I’m doing. I’ve spent twelve years finding pieces of missing spells and studying.”

  “And still the trees burned in the forest you were sworn to protect. The birds and animals and reptiles died!”

  “Shut up!”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  She was surprised he didn’t clamp his hands over his ears.

  He reached her, jerked the gag upward. She felt a small tremble in his hands as he spoke words she guessed were a spell that’d prevent her from removing the gag.

  Elon returned to where he’d left the pen and well of ink. She rubbed the gag against the tree but it might as well have been glued in place.

  Hope died. She’d gotten to him, but it hadn’t made a difference.

  She studied him as he worked, could understand where he was coming from, and that surprised her. He wasn’t a monster, wasn’t an evil megalomaniac, he was flawed on the inside but not unattractive on the outside.

  He was ordinary, but then, most people were born that way. It was love, and what was on the inside that made most people special and beautiful, not having hit the jackpot when it came to genetics or some kind of otherworldly magic.

  It was easy to imagine Elon being ignored by girls when he got old enough to care. Throw in pimples and a voice change, cliques and the sheer misery that could be high school…

  Been there, done that. Wouldn’t have become part of the homecoming court if she’d suddenly come into enough magic to make it happen, but she got his choice, his need for recognition and adoration, even if it wasn’t real.

  It was easy to imagine Elon laboring under his father’s disappointment. She’d been lucky in that regard. Her father had never withheld his approval or his love. But if he had, once she’d gotten clear of her teen years, it would have been on her to let go of the past, to stop using old pain as an excuse…

  The way she’d been doing when it came to relationships since her father, and then brother, had died.

  But not anymore.

  Only maybe she’d come to that realization too late.

  Glancing at the egg, her pulse spiked. There was no gray pigment left in the shell.

  The egg was now a glowing red.

  Trying to keep from alerting Elon and risking that he’d cast another spell and lock the bindings at her wrists in place, she intensified her efforts to get free. There’d be time for one act, throwing herself on the egg and praying she had enough sorcerer’s blood to be a portal.

  Regret made her chest ache. She wished there’d been a chance to tell Taine that she loved him but she sent it silently. I love you, she said, blood running over her hands in her desperation to get free.

  * * * *

  Taine froze at one end of the library when Maksim’s cellphone rang. His human skin iced while inside, the fiery need to get to his mate raged.

  He thrust his hands into his pockets, gripping the ring he’d bought for Saffron and both charms. This would be Kellen, telling them if they’d been right or wrong. This was it, their last viable lead to finding the sorcerer before the phoenix emerged from its egg.

  Taine pivoted away from the window and the sight of Saffron’s car. He steeled himself as Maksim reached toward the cellphone on the table. Closed his eyes and pledged to cast the most precious of his gems into the sea as a tribute to his ancestors if some of that ancient magic would lead him to his mate.

  “Balboa Park,” Kellen said through the phone’s speaker. “The Botanical Building.”

  Taine’s eyes snapped open and he charged from the library.

  He would get to her! He would save his mate from harm!

  He pounded down the stairs. Down the hallway. The others behind him.

  At the front door, Crew caught up and said, “The Lamborghini. I’ll drive.”

  Taine nodded agreement and blasted from the house.

  He got to the dark silver car first. Held his fire at Crew’s dropping into the driver’s seat a second slower than he’d dropped into the passenger seat.

  Go!

  The engine roared to life.

  With a squeal of tires and the burn of rubber, Crew raced toward the road, hugging the edges of the curving driveway, exhaust pouring from the four massive tailpipes.

  Gaige chased them in a red Maserati. And behind him, Maksim in his Hummer, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  They reached the street, turned with another burn of rubber.

  Go! Go! Go!

  A block whizzed by.

  The next was a blur of color.

  They made a sharp turn, accelerated faster.

  In front of them a car pulled out of a driveway in a sphincter-tighteni
ng demonstration of human inattention.

  Crew jerked the steering wheel to the right. The Lamborghini jumped over a curb. Plowed through the offender’s yard, churning grass and leaving a trail.

  They dropped back onto the street without having slowed, but the detour allowed the Maserati to catch them.

  Gaige pulled even, shot a challenging glance at Crew then pulled ahead.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Crew said.

  Scenery flew past, like images in a video game.

  The car’s momentum held Taine to the seat but it still felt as if they were going too slow, as if they’d never get to his mate.

  He jammed his hand into his pocket, clenched the ring so tightly that the diamonds and sapphires dug into his palm. He swore that as soon as he took possession of his mate, he was going to carry her into the dragon realm.

  She’d never be in danger again. She’d never make him feel this powerless, this afraid again.

  He swore it, even knowing that despite the intensity of his desire to keep her safe, to know she was safe always, his heart would never allow him to do anything that was against her will.

  Go! Go!

  Crew pulled ahead of Gaige and still it felt as if an eternity passed before Taine saw the distinctive Botanical Building.

  Police were already on scene, lights flashing.

  Maksim must have called ahead. An evacuation of the park was underway.

  They were waved through rather than stopped.

  Grabbing Taine’s arm with leashed, dragon strength, Crew said, “Wait long enough to be part of the plan.”

  “I will.” Somehow he’d manage that much. They both knew that nothing would stop him from attempting to breach what protections the sorcerer had in place.

  Crew released him then braked.

  The red Maserati slid to a stop next to them, burning rubber.

  Kristof was already there, as were Kellen and a dozen or so grim-faced agents. The Hummer arrived.

  Maksim got out and glanced at Kristof. “Status?”

  “Too close to call. The phoenix is about to emerge. Moates probably believes he’s got it contained but clearly he doesn’t.”