Dragonfyre

by Donna Grant

  As for friends, he had business partners, but he wouldn't call them friends.

  In short, he had no one who cared-other than his father-and maybe that was for the best, Adam thought. Relationships could only lead to complications that he could not risk.

  "No friends, no girl, no plans," he responded, more curtly than he wanted.

  Salvatore arched a brow and his mouth quirked into a sad smile.

  "Seriously, Adam. I understand, but don't you think it's time-"

  Adam slashed his hand through the air, leaving behind a shimmering trail of light as anger ate into his restraint. Glancing around to make sure no one had seen, he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from repeating his error.

  "You can't understand, Dad. You can't for a moment imagine what it's like to be me," he said, his voice low and filled with anguish.

  His father surprised him yet again by laying his hand on Adam's shoulder. "I can try, son. I hate seeing you alone and maybe, just maybe, there's a girl out there for you."

  Adam snorted. "Really? You think there's someone-"

  "There's a young CIA agent I know. Beautiful and smart. Trustworthy,"

  his father said, surprising Adam yet again.

  "Seems like you've been giving this a lot of thought. More thought than I have," he teased, although recently there had been a sense of discontent growing in Adam. He had attributed it to the ever more insistent call of the power, but maybe it was about something much more human than that.

  Maybe it was just about companionship and his lack thereof.

  "I married when I was about your age. It didn't work out, but at first…it was worth it." The smile on his father's face confirmed just how fondly he recalled those early years with his ex-wife.

  "I have been feeling a little different lately," he confessed. After all, if he couldn't be honest with his father, who could he confide in?

  "It's time you weren't so alone, Adam. Maybe you should start thinking about a wife. I'd even like some grandkids."

  "Seriously, Dad," Adam rebuked, but his father just smiled and teased with a dip of his head, "You are getting up in years. Maybe I can introduce you to her."

  "I'll think about it," he said with a chuckle and heartily clapped his dad on the shoulder, appreciating the heart-to-heart.

  His father motioned toward the door of the breezeway with his hand and said, "I need to get back to work. How about I come by later tonight to firm things up?"

  In his father's line of employment, long hours weren't unusual. In fact, it was almost weird to have him near and available, since normally his undercover work took him far from home, often for months at a shot.

  "How are things at work?" Adam asked as he walked with his father across the breezeway connecting the SolTerra office building to the warehouse and laboratory facilities.

  "Fascinating, but also depressing."

  The admission shocked Adam. Although he and Salvatore were close, his CIA father rarely discussed the details of his cases. In all the time that Adam could remember, his father had never provided information about an assignment, much less shown any emotion about one. Which made Adam wonder why this case was so different.

  "Depressing?" he speculated aloud, hoping to elicit more information.

  A tired shrug barely lifted the fabric of the ill-fitting suit over his father's shoulders and was chased by a heavy, heartfelt sigh. "We lost another one."

  Another death, Adam thought. As someone who lived with the specter of death every day...

  "I'm sorry. Death is never easy, is it?" He gently grasped Salvatore's shoulder and squeezed it in condolence. As before, the hum of power beneath his hand as he touched his father tainted the heartfelt gesture.

  "No, it isn't. I've got to run," Salvatore replied, growing uneasy. After another hesitant embrace, his father hurried from the SolTerra offices, leaving Adam in the gleaming granite and steel lobby of the building.

  Alone except for the trio of security guards at the semicircular reception desk.

  Alone being a state with which Adam was well familiar.

  As he strolled to the elevators to return to his penthouse office, he wondered about his father's latest mission and why he was so emotionally involved with it. Maybe over a birthday dinner later in the week he could pry more information from his dad and discover what was affecting him so profoundly.

  Adam headed to the elevator bank and up to his office.

  When he passed by the assorted cubicles filled with people at work, pride filled him, but couldn't eliminate the emptiness within him. Much as he had confessed to Salvatore, he felt different. There was a hole in his center that seemed to expand each day, much as the summons of the energy surrounding him grew harder to ignore.

  At the door to his office, he forced a smile for his assistant. "Good morning, Sandy. I'm not to be disturbed," he advised and entered his office.

  Striding to his desk, he plopped into the state-of-the-art ergonomic chair and waved his hand over a button built into a panel underneath the stainless steel surface. Without physically touching the button, he sent a gentle surge of power to trip the switch, lowering the shades built into the exterior windows together with those along the interior glass wall of his office, closing him off from the world.

  A world in which he really didn't belong.

  With the natural daylight dimmed by the shades, the lights in his office automatically adjusted. Once again he sent a scintilla of his energy along the wires to power down the lights.

  Steepling his hands on the arms of the chair, he brought them up to his mouth while he sat in the darkness, considering the exchange with his father. Salvatore had meant well, he knew. No father liked to see his child alone and Salvatore wasn't much different, even if Adam wasn't his flesh-and-blood son. But Adam couldn't envision getting involved with anyone, much less having a family. Not with the way he was. Not even with a beautiful, smart, trustworthy CIA agent his father felt might be right for him.

  Within him the power grew heavy again in response to the emotion troubling him. If he didn't get the energy under control, its weight would continue to grow, creating that vicious static in his head. The first buzz of that noise was already setting up shop in his brain, and there was only one way to tire the beast so that he could contain it.

  Raising his hands, he outstretched them and focused.

  Between them a pinpoint of light blossomed, and as Adam centered himself on that dot, it grew in size. Tendrils of energy slipped from his hands and danced around his wrists before they swam through the air toward that solitary point of light.

  Solitary as he was, but not for long, Adam thought.

  Under his direction, the wisps of energy tangled and weaved together, nurturing that pinpoint until it formed a silver-blue orb about the size of a golf ball. Its light gleamed brightly and reflected off the polished surface of his desk, creating a halo of light.

  Inside him the burden of the power lessened, providing a calming release. He pushed yet more power from inside him into the orb, experiencing a growing lightness of being as he discharged the energy he had gathered earlier.

  The orb slowly blossomed in size from golf ball to softball. Adam imagined tossing it up and down and the ball bounced in the air accordingly.

  Although he was capable of absorbing energy and creating these balls, it was little more than an amusement. He had no clue what he was supposed to do with such abilities. Until he understood that, what he could do was no better than a cheap parlor trick.

  Frustrated, he ripped his hands away and the ball stretched flat as the energy clung to him, feeling almost tacky and elastic before something snapped. With a firework shower of light that dissipated some of the energy, the remaining power surged back into him.

  The weight of it filled him, less than before, since he had expended some energy with his sideshow display, but still demanding. It was almost as if the power needed something from him. Something more than he could provide on his own.


  If he had been a woman, he might have said it was some biological clock ticking, warning him that time was fleeting. But at twenty-five, almost twenty-six, his life had barely begun. Maybe, as his father had hinted, it was time for him to do more than just work, he thought. Maybe that was what was pulling at him so. Not the energy within and around him, but something easily explicable and certainly more human: loneliness.

  With another zap, he flipped the switch and the shades along the exterior windows rose, allowing the bright spring sun to enter. Spring always contained the promise of so many new beginnings.

  Hell, even the squirrels knew that spring was the time to mate and procreate. Adam smiled and thought, Maybe it's time.

  THE LOST

  by Caridad Pineiro

  Available July 26, 2011

  ISBN 978-0446584616

  GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING

  The first book in the exciting new

  SIN HUNTERS paranormal romance series

  For more information on Caridad, please visit www.caridad.com