Embers (The Slayer Chronicles Book 2)

by Val St. Crowe

  Because…

  Because I wasn’t sure if it was the same kind of love. Or the right kind of love. I didn’t know. My feelings for Logan were achingly powerful. But they were tangled up, and I didn’t know how to unravel them.

  “Logan,” I whispered. “You—”

  And my door opened. “I couldn’t find any hazelnut-flavored creamer, so I got an assortment of other kinds,” came Naelen’s voice.

  I whipped around to face him, my heart in my throat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Naelen took me in. My towel. My wet hair. He took in Logan, who was smirking at the dragon, arms folded over his chest.

  I stepped away from Logan.

  Naelen got the pinched expression on his face that he got sometimes.

  And I felt oddly similar to the way that I used to feel when I was a little girl and my mother would find me having done something naughty, like coloring on the wall with crayons or something. I was flooded with guilt.

  Which was stupid, because I had nothing going with Naelen. I didn’t owe him anything. I lifted my chin, trying to be defiant about it. “I’m going to get dressed.” I fled to my bedroom and closed the door.

  Once inside, I tried to take deep breaths and calm my beating heart. I didn’t need to feel guilty. I didn’t need to feel anything.

  Ah, hell.

  This was all Logan’s fault. Things were difficult enough before. Trying to deal with my attraction to Naelen was one thing. But now, with this possibility of a longterm relationship with Logan on the table, I was even more confused.

  How would it work? Would we stay on the road indefinitely?

  What if we wanted to have kids someday?

  I mean, maybe that was crazy. There weren’t a lot of half-human, half-gargoyle kids running around, so maybe it would be horrible to do that to a child.

  But, I mean, with Naelen, there was no possibility of any of that. Ever.

  I mean, for one thing, he was a dragon, and that meant he had a really long lifespan. He would live for nearly three hundred years. I, on the other hand, would grow old and die, and—

  “You’re simply manipulating her,” interrupted Naelen’s voice, which was elevated and loud.

  Logan answered, but in a lower voice. I couldn’t make out what he said.

  Great. So, those two were arguing. Excellent. I shrugged into a shirt and jeans as quickly as I could and ran a comb through my wet hair. Then I picked up an armful of clothes off my floor and shoved them into my bag. That would have to do for packing.

  Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I went back out of my bedroom.

  Naelen, who hadn’t left the kitchen area of my apartment, yelled, “You come into her life and confuse her. You treat her like crap, and she thinks she owes you just because you’re a psycho killer. Frankly, I don’t think you have any right to be here.”

  “Naelen,” I said.

  Logan looked at me, eyes wide. “Psycho killer? You told him about Max?”

  I cringed. “I… he told me stuff about his past, and I… you know what? That is not only your secret. It’s mine too.”

  Logan’s nostrils flared. He turned back to Naelen. “You don’t understand anything.”

  “I understand that you make her sad,” said Naelen.

  “Naelen, please,” I said.

  He turned to me. “No, don’t. You don’t have the guts to stand up to him, and you let him come in here and get you all confused, and take advantage of you, and—”

  “Take advantage of her?” said Logan.

  “If you can’t stand up for yourself, I’m going to do it for you,” Naelen said to me.

  “I don’t need you to do that,” I said.

  “I don’t take advantage of her,” said Logan. “I care about her. You want to use her.”

  Naelen snorted. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. I’m the one who’s making sure she’s okay. She could barely make ends meet before I met her—”

  “Naelen!” My voice was sharp. “I don’t need your damned money, and you know it.”

  Naelen shoved his hands into his pockets. His face was turning red.

  Logan’s wings were trembling, which they did when he was angry or upset. “Why does he think that I take advantage of you?” he said to me. “What are you saying to him about me?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “I wish you’d say it to me instead,” said Logan.

  “We don’t actually talk about you that often,” I said. “Naelen has decided that he knows what’s going on with us, but he doesn’t.” I turned to glare at Naelen.

  Naelen narrowed his eyes. “You don’t owe him anything, you know that, Clarke? Did you ask him to kill someone for your sister?”

  “Actually, she did,” said Logan.

  “I did not,” I said.

  Logan’s jaw dropped. He gaped at me. “You’re denying that?”

  “I didn’t ask you to do anything.”

  “Well, but you said you wanted him dead, though.”

  “It was a figure of speech,” I said. “Let’s not talk about this. We don’t talk about this. Especially not… in front of people.” My throat felt like it was closing off.

  “Maybe you should talk about it,” said Naelen.

  “Maybe you should shut the hell up,” said Logan.

  Naelen started to protest.

  But I held up a hand. “He’s right. This isn’t your business, Naelen.”

  Naelen made a disgusted noise.

  I turned to him. “Can you wait in the hall, please?”

  “I’m not moving a muscle,” said Naelen.

  “Fine,” I said. “Logan, will you come talk to me in the hall?”

  Naelen squared his shoulders.

  Logan and I inched past him and went into the hallway. I shut the door behind us.

  Logan started to pace. “I can’t believe you told him about Max.”

  “Well, I went ten years without telling anyone, okay? It was bound to come out at some point,” I said. “But having you two at each other’s throats—”

  “He started it,” said Logan.

  I gave him a look.

  Logan’s shoulders slumped. “All right, all right. I’m sorry. I tried to stay calm, but he lit into me.”

  “I heard it,” I said. “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “A talk? What?”

  “Yes, while he and I are working this job—”

  “You’re still going on that job with him?”

  “People are dying, Logan.”

  He started to say something. Then he stopped. He stopped moving entirely. He stood there, looking defeated. “You know, I came here to take you somewhere to get something to eat. I imagined this going so much differently than it’s going.”

  “I know,” I said. “And maybe it will go that way when I get back. But for now, I need you to go.”

  He shut his eyes.

  “Please,” I said. “I will call you when I’m home. Okay?”

  “That’s what you want?”

  “That’s what I want.”

  He nodded and heaved a huge sigh. “All right, then.” He closed the distance between us and kissed me briefly, our lips barely brushing. Then he turned and headed down the hallway, away from me.

  I watched him go. And then I opened the door to find Naelen standing in the same spot he’d been, his face extraordinarily pinched.

  “You bewilder me, Clarke Gannon,” he said. “I’m bewildered.”

  * * *

  “Why would you do that?” said Naelen, who was fidgeting next to the bar on the jet. The plane had just taken off, and I could tell he wanted a drink. But it was poor form to get drunk on the way to a job. No, we needed to be sharp when we arrived. So, Naelen wasn’t drinking, but instead staring at the liquor bottles. “After all you go on and on about only wanting to have sex when you’re in a relationship, I come in and find you with him.”

  “Wait, what?” I was sitting in one of the leather swivel chairs, peering
out the window as the ground dropped out below us. “I didn’t have sex with him.”

  “I know that you didn’t make me any promises,” he said, glaring down at the bottles, “but considering that I have made it plain to you that I haven’t been with any other women since meeting you—”

  “Shouldn’t you be strapped in right now?” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be strapped in during lift off?”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “And anyway, that’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?”

  “You slept with that redhead in Highpoint after you met me.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “All right, I suppose. But no one else since her.”

  I shrugged.

  “Listen, it’s only that it’s rather infuriating is all. You made it out as if you could resist having sex for ages upon ages, and yet all that gargoyle has to do is crook his little stone finger at you—”

  “I didn’t sleep with him,” I said.

  “You were in a towel,” he said. “You were kissing him.”

  “He showed up while I was in the shower,” I said. “I didn’t have sex with him.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me about it. Like I said, you didn’t make me any promises. If I assumed we were both going through the agonies of abstinence together, then that’s on me.”

  “I promise you, Naelen, I did not have sex with Logan.”

  “It boggles my mind is all. I suppose the saying they have about all women only being attracted to assholes is correct after all.”

  “What?” I was incredulous. “Naelen, you’re the asshole.”

  “Me?” He pointed at himself. “I’ve been nothing but good to you.”

  “Logan wants to commit to me,” I said. “He says he loves me. You, by your own admission, are never going to fall in love.”

  “I want to commit to you,” said Naelen. “I ask you out on dates all the time. I’ve given up other women. I follow you around like a damned pet or something.”

  “You do not,” I said.

  “I’m pathetic,” said Naelen. “I used to have self-respect. Now I’m the laughingstock of the entire dragon community.”

  I drew back. “What?”

  “Not that I care what they think,” he said, but he sounded sulky. “The things I have given up. And for what? For the vaguest hint of an idea that maybe someday you’ll possibly, maybe, let me see what’s under your clothes? I don’t even know what’s happened to me.”

  “It’s always about sex with you,” I said.

  “Listen, I have explained to you why I am not going to fall in love,” said Naelen.

  “Yes, but that’s all wrapped up in your parents,” I said. “And they were neglectful of you, true, but it wasn’t because they were in love.”

  “It was,” he said. “It was because of that damned dragon bond.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be bonded to me.”

  “So, what? You want me to say that I love you? Fine. I love you, Clarke Gannon. I must, considering the way you make me behave.”

  My stomach flipped over. “You don’t mean that,” I said in a funny voice.

  He looked at me sharply.

  “It wouldn’t work,” I said. “We come from different worlds. And you can’t promise me forever. You’ll outlive me by hundreds of years. You can’t love me, not really. You’re saying it because you want to shag me.”

  “I’m groveling to you, you insane woman,” he shouted. “And this is mere moments after watching you post-coital with another man.”

  “I didn’t have sex with him!” I nearly screamed.

  “You know what it is?” he said. “You don’t know what you want. Even if I gave you what you want, it wouldn’t be enough. You’d find some reason to put me off.”

  I swallowed. “That’s not true.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe not. Maybe you do know exactly what you want. Stone cock. I suppose it’s that, right?”

  “Shut up. Don’t be vulgar.”

  “If you want him, just tell me you want him,” said Naelen. “Tell me and put me out of my misery.”

  “Maybe I do want him,” I said.

  He looked stricken. He turned to the bar and picked up a bottle of liquor. He glared at it. Then he set it down.

  “Logan pointed out to me that the reason things didn’t work out between us was that he was always on the road, and that I was always in Sea City to take care of my sister. But Gina’s doing better now, and I’m always on the road with you. So, there’s no reason I couldn’t go on the road with him. He and I could be together.”

  Naelen turned to me. “Well, then why aren’t you with him now?”

  “Because you called about this job,” I said.

  “Oh?” Naelen was quiet, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he met my gaze with an insouciant grin. “You’re not with him, because you want me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, Jesus, Naelen.”

  He grinned, looking self-assured and happy. His regular, annoying self. He crossed the plane and settled in the chair opposite me. “Maybe if he’d come to you months ago, before you met me, you’d have lived happily ever after with him. But now you simply can’t, because deep down, you know that you can’t stop thinking about me.”

  I glared at him. “You don’t even want me. Not really. You won’t want me long term. You won’t really commit.”

  He sighed. “Oh, Clarke, no one knows the future. No one can promise forever.”

  “People do. All the time.”

  “I want you now. I know that’s true. You want me too. The fact we’re doing nothing about that is positively criminal.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “So glad you’re here, Mr. Spencer,” said Doyle Robinson, shaking Naelen’s hand vigorously.

  We were standing on a platform outside a large circular door cut right into the mountain. There was snow everywhere, and the air was nippy. Though the road had been clear on the way up here, the ground was snow covered. Everywhere I looked, it was white.

  “Well, we just hope we can be of service and take care of this problem quickly,” said Naelen. He turned to me. “This is Clarke Gannon. She’s somewhat of a specialist in rogue dragons. If anyone can take care of the problem, it’s her.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” said Doyle, taking my hand and firmly shaking it as well. “So glad to have you aboard, Ms. Gannon.”

  “Call me Clarke,” I said.

  Doyle bobbed his head. “Excellent. I love informalities. Call me Doyle.” He turned and began punching in numbers on a panel next to the door. “You two got here just in time. It’s going to dump another several feet on us tonight apparently. Roads will be completely unnavigable for days.” The door slid open, like something out of a sci-fi movie.

  “So, we’re stuck here?” I said. “For days?” We entered and the door slid shut behind us.

  We emerged into a long, cylindrical hallway.

  “We’re always stuck here,” said Doyle. “There are a couple snowmobiles, of course.” He gestured to an alcove. There were two snowmobiles sitting there. “But trying to drive one of those in a storm like what we’re going to get is not an easy thing.”

  “There’s another entrance?” I said.

  “Nope,” said Doyle cheerily.

  Great. I hugged myself, feeling a tad bit claustrophobic.

  At the end of the hallway was another circular door. Doyle typed in another sequence of numbers and the door opened again.

  I wondered if I should be paying attention to those numbers.

  “You shouldn’t worry, of course,” Doyle was saying. “We’re in a state-of-the-art facility with the best of everything. No reason not to be snug here. And two of our scientists are trained as medical doctors as well, so if anything goes wrong, we can take care of what ails you.”

  “Except if you get burned to death by a dragon,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” said Doyle, leading us inside the facility.

 
; “Nothing,” I muttered.

  Naelen raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Where are the escaped dragons?” I said. “Maybe I’ll just get right on that. If we work quickly, maybe we can get out of here before the storm.”

  Doyle shook his head. “I doubt that. It’s on its way.”

  Yeah, besides, I needed to convince them to terminate all the rogue dragons in the entire facility. That wasn’t going to happen in a couple of hours.

  “Anyway,” said Doyle, “we don’t know where the escaped dragons are. They did escape, after all.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “They’re hiding,” said Doyle.

  “It’s a rather large facility,” said Naelen. “This is the bottom level, here. It houses the dragons. There’s a large pool for them to shift in—”

  “Except they can’t shift,” I said.

  “Yes, well, I didn’t know that when I had it built,” said Naelen. “Above this, next level up are the laboratories proper, for experimentation and chemical mixing and study of tissue. Then the level above that—”

  “How many levels are there?”

  “Four,” said Doyle. “Above the labs, we have a rec room and gyms and the dining area. Up on top are the dormitories and the control room. We’ve seen the dragons occasionally, of course, but we’ve been unable to recapture them. They killed Ezra when they got out, of course, and there’s been another casualty as well. One of the student interns.”

  “Wait,” I said. “There are students here?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Doyle. “Best and brightest, handpicked by Ezra to work here at the facility. They’re all in the undergraduate program at Kensington University. They’re earning credit for working here for us.”

  “So, how many people are in this lab?” I said.

  “Well, since we lost Ezra and James, I guess, eighteen. But you two would fill those numbers in. So, twenty.”

  I whistled low under my breath.

  “What?” said Naelen.

  “That’s a lot of potential victims with no way out,” I said. “You don’t have any idea where the dragons are?”

  “I could show you the place they escaped from,” said Doyle. “Come with me.”

  I didn’t much see the point of where they escaped from, but he was already walking. We had no choice but to follow him.