But the fact that Dad was now dying suggested any containment had well and truly gone. Which only made the guilt I felt for leaving him that much sharper.
Surprise flitted across Trae’s face. “I know a lot of human diseases and medicines can be deadly for us, but I didn’t realize diabetes was one of them.”
“We were lucky, because we found a dragon-born doctor who knew a lot of traditional herbal medicines. It helped for years.”
“My mom’s into the herbal stuff. You wouldn’t believe the concoctions she used to give us as kids.”
My ears pricked up. “Us?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Me and my sister, Mercy.”
“So she’s a draman, like you?”
“Yes, but not kin to Egan. Her father is one of the lesser males.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Lesser males?”
He nodded. “Air dragons have a hierarchy system that’s based on both color and bloodline. The strong color lines—like blacks, reds, and golds—tend to raise more kings than the browns and the blues.” He shrugged. “There are some bloodlines that have never raised a king, and are considered ‘lesser’ families.”
“Much like British royalty.” I paused, and opened up a packet of chips. “What about the ring? You said it’s the king’s ring, but I get the feeling that it’s more than a bit of fancy jewelry.”
“It’s basically the succession ring. Without it, a new leader cannot be chosen.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be a problem. I mean, assholes like your father generally don’t want to lose the top job.”
His smile was grim. “Perhaps not. But without the power of the ring behind him, my father has become weaker and weaker, and will eventually die.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugged, yet the glimmer in his eyes hinted at malicious pleasure. The thief was enjoying his father’s predicament. “Apparently, the life of the king dragon is tied into the stone. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know.”
“So by taking the ring, Egan found a way to kill your dad without actually getting his hands bloody?”
“Egan would never have won a fight with my father. Not only is our father older and cannier when it comes to fighting but, thanks to the ring, he’s all but invincible.”
“The ring is magic?”
“Only in the hands of the rightful king.”
How cool. And it also explained why the thing always felt cold and icy—certain magics could never hold warmth or life, according to my dad. Though how he got that knowledge, I don’t know. “So do all king dragons have the aid of such a ring?”
“As far as I know, yes.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m gathering sea dragons don’t?”
“Not that I know of. We don’t even live in groups like you lot do.”
“That’s probably a good thing, trust me.” He hesitated. “So where precisely is this research center? Loch Ness is a fairly big place from what I recall.”
Obviously, he was through talking about his family, hence the sudden change of topic. “Where else would it be? Drumnadrochit.”
He blinked. “Where?”
“Drumnadrochit. The home of Nessie and the Loch Ness Monster industry.”
He smiled. “So there really is a Loch Ness Monster?”
“Hell, yeah. Only she’s generations of sexy, slinky sea dragons, not that god-awful dinosaur-looking thing you see in so many pictures.”
The laptop beeped as he started it up. He glanced down at it, quickly typed something in, then looked up again. “So why do you think that Marsten’s mother will have these plans?”
“Because the mother supports the son.”
“Ah. The supplier of money.”
“Yes. We learned a few months ago that Marsten’s mother was a major investor, and that Marsten often uses her house as an office when he’s here in the States. We figured that maybe he’d have a set of backup plans there.” I shrugged. “We thought it might be safer coming here than to try and get into his quarters in Scotland.”
Trae considered me for a moment, then said, “So you went to San Lucas, a place they supposedly didn’t know about, and yet they were waiting. And then they found us today.”
I met his gaze steadily. Saw the wariness sharpening into suspicion. “What are you implying?”
But even as I asked the question, I knew. It was the only logical explanation for them constantly finding us.
“You probably have a bug in you somewhere,” he said, saying aloud what was going through my brain. “Do you have any odd scars on your body? Scars you have no memory of getting?”
“Everywhere. They used to knock us out and take little—or not so little—samples.”
“Bastards.” He shook his head, and anger swirled around me, heating my skin as sharply as flame. “Is there any particular scar that strikes you as odd?”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know—slightly darker, more raised than others.” He shrugged. “Anything like that could be a clue to location.”
“I haven’t noticed anything, but then, we’ve pretty much been on the run since we escaped. There hasn’t been much time to scratch, let alone notice, strange scars.” I ate some chips, then said, “Trackers are a reasonable size, aren’t they? Why wouldn’t I be feeling one if I have it in my body?”
He grinned. “Micro- and nanotechnology are now the in-thing. It could be something the size of a pin-head, and you’d never guess it was there.”
“Then how are we going to find it?”
“Simple. We look.” He hesitated, and the grin that split his lips went way beyond sexy. “Which means, of course, that you have to strip.”
“I’m only wearing a T-shirt, so that’s hardly a hassle.” I grabbed the thing and pulled it over my head. My shoulder twinged, a sharp reminder that it wasn’t as healed as I thought it was. “Now what?”
“You really don’t have a modesty problem, do you?” he said, his grin stretching as his gaze skated down my body.
“No, because we were all kept naked at the foundation, and modesty tends to die after a while.” I raised an eyebrow, amusement teasing my lips. “Is the lack of it a problem for you?”
“I don’t think it could be a problem for any man with hormones and common sense.” He turned on the kitchen light. “Come over here, where I can see better.”
I grabbed a few more chips, then walked across to the kitchen counter. Trae took my left arm, moving it into the light as his fingers gently probed and caressed my flesh. My skin tingled in response, and heat flushed through my body. If he noticed my reaction, he didn’t respond, his gaze narrowed and concentration almost fierce. He dropped my left arm, then grabbed my right and repeated the process. I closed my eyes, delighting in the soft sensation of his touch, enjoying his closeness and the warm spicy scent emanating from him.
“Nothing there,” he said, after a while. “Turn around and I’ll check your back.”
I did, and he did, his soft caress inching over my shoulders then down my spine, the warmth of his fingers searing past the leathery skin of my dragon stain and sending little waves of pleasure racing through the rest of me. This, I decided, was nothing short of torture. I mean, it was one thing to have a delicious man run his warm fingertips all over my flesh, but to have it go no further than that? To have him concentrating on finding something other than the ultimate pleasure for us both? Torture of the highest degree.
“Still nothing,” he said, his voice sounding completely normal. Like he was watching some totally boring TV program rather than standing in front of the naked woman he professed to desire.
Either the man had abnormal control over his hormones, or he was all talk and no action.
“Lift a foot, so I can check it.”
“My feet?” I held up one hoof for inspection. “Wouldn’t I feel something imbedded in my feet?”
“Not if it’s tiny.” His fingers began to probe my heel and arch. “Man, yo
u were right about the thickness of your feet. I gather they didn’t give you shoes, either.”
“It was all part of their keeping us cold and uncomfortable philosophy.”
His fingers had stopped roaming, and he was pinching a small section of flesh in the center of my arch.
I twisted around to look at him. His face was a picture of concentration, and part of me was disappointed. I mean, the man could at least look a little distracted, for heaven’s sake. “You found something?”
“I think so.” He released my foot for a moment and reached into his pocket to retrieve his Swiss Army knife. “Tell me about the kids to distract yourself.”
Yeah, like that was going to work when he was sticking a bit of metal into my flesh. Now, had it been flesh sliding into flesh . . . I gave a mental sigh, and tried to remember what his question had been.
“There were six of them, as I said. Carli was the youngest, and she’s the sweetest little girl you could ever meet.”
“Sounds like you cared for her a lot.”
“It wasn’t hard. I think Egan and I became surrogate parents for them all.”
“Which would have made leaving them there even harder.”
I flinched slightly as the knife pressed into my skin, but it didn’t really hurt as much as I’d expected it to.
“Yeah.” I tried not to remember Carli’s tears or the fear in the other little ones’ faces when we’d finally told them what we planned. “Sanat is eight, Tate and Marco are nine, Cooper is thirteen, and Jace is fifteen.”
“And how long have they all been in there?”
“Carli’s been there the longest—four years.”
He grunted. “Did you ever see your mother?”
I shook my head. “They kept us separated at all times.”
The knife dug deeper. I winced and clenched my fist against the need to jerk my foot away.
“Then how did you know your mother was a captive like you?”
“Because I could feel her. And she was able to contact me twice.”
“If sea dragons share kin telepathy—”
“And they do.”
“Then why weren’t you able to contact her more than that?”
The knife twisted in my flesh. “Ow!” I said, then added, “I tried, trust me. Whether it was the drugs that stopped me for so long, or something else entirely, I don’t know.”
“But she was the one who warned you about your dad, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. But that was the first contact we’d had for years.” And her mind had been a jumbled mess of confusion and distance. Only her fear for Dad had been sharp and true.
“Got it,” Trae said, and held out his hand for inspection.
Sitting in the middle of his palm was a small disk little bigger than a freckle. Only it was metallic and shiny looking.
“You sure that’s it?”
There was doubt in my voice and he smiled. “Well, unless it’s part of your unique body makeup to have circuitry in your flesh, then yeah, I’m sure.”
I studied it dubiously. “So what are we going to do with it?”
“This.” He dropped it on the floor and smashed it with his heel. “Hopefully, that’ll end the problem.”
I frowned at the metal bits on the floor. “Not necessarily. They might be on their way here right now, for all we know.”
“Which is why I’ve set up perimeter alarms. We’ll have plenty of time to sneak away should they come.”
“Air dragons can fly over alarms.”
“But the scientists can’t, and any attempt to disconnect them will set them off anyway.” He reached out and caressed my cheek with his thumb, his touch so soft, so warm and somehow so caring, as if he were touching something very precious.
It made me feel good, and yet in some ways, it scared me. I didn’t need another reason to be afraid, and those damn scientists had already snatched away too many people I’d cared about.
“How’s the shoulder?” he said softly.
“Fine, for the moment.” I deliberately stepped away from his touch and moved back to the other side of the counter, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I grabbed some more chips, then waved my free hand toward the laptop. “Are you going to use that thing, or did you just bring it in for show?”
“Nothing I own is merely for show, sweetheart.”
“Will you stop calling me that?”
Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Why should I, when it’s nothing but the truth?”
That was a loaded gun I wasn’t about to touch.
He continued, “Why do you think Marsten’s mom holds copies of all the plans and security codes for the research center in Scotland?”
“Because it makes sense to have backups.” I leaned across the bench and watched as he Googled Marsten’s name. “And because he did a lot of groundwork here in the States before he ever shifted operations to Loch Ness, and he was working out of his mom’s house for a long while.”
Hell, he and his family might still have facilities here in the States. Just because we never heard them mentioned didn’t mean they couldn’t exist.
“How big is the research center in Drumnadrochit?”
“Huge.” I hesitated. “Though the center is actually between Drumnadrochit and Abriachan.”
“Oh, I know the area intimately.”
His voice was dry and I smiled. “It’s a very pretty area.”
“And your birthplace?”
I nodded. “Marsten is using my mother’s ancestral lands as his base.”
“He couldn’t have just walked in and claimed it.”
“He didn’t. He caught Mom first, and threatened me.”
He looked at me. “Which is why your dad ran?”
I nodded, rubbing my arms. “Mom gave him no real choice. She made him swear at my birth that if anything should ever happen to her, he’d take me far away.”
“Sounds like she had a premonition.”
“She might have. She was canny like that.”
“Maybe it’s a mom thing. Mine’s like that, too.” He pressed a finger to the screen and added, “Look, there’s an article on Marsten’s old lady in Oregon Home magazine.”
“I don’t suppose it comes complete with pics?”
“Let’s have a look and see, shall we?” He clicked the link. “When did your mother disappear?”
I hesitated. Memories rose, ghosts of a past part of me didn’t want to remember. Not because it was unhappy—it wasn’t, even when we’d left Mom far behind to come to America—but because darkness had overshadowed it. My life after childhood had been very dark indeed.
“I was only five or six when I came here.”
“Explains why there’s only the barest trace of an accent.”
I nodded. “My dad’s American.”
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “So how did you get caught if you were basically raised here?”
“I hit eighteen and decided that Mom needed rescuing.” I grimaced. “What a bad move that turned out to be.”
“Because the scientists grabbed you?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“Because I am a sea dragon, and female, and they consider us extremely rare.” Which we weren’t, but thankfully, they didn’t seem to know that. I pointed at the screen. “Nice interior shots, but is there anything that can help us get in?”
“One or two shots are useful.” He grabbed some chips and munched on a couple meditatively before asking, “So if your dad knew she was alive, why didn’t he call in her kin to protect you while he tried to free her? I have to say, if it had been my mate who was captured, I’d have battled hell itself to get her out.”
“Mom’s kin disappeared about the same time she was captured.”
“Why didn’t they try and get her out?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want to get caught themselves.”
“And she never tried to free herself?” r />
“She might have. They kept us well separated, so I couldn’t physically talk to her, and the telepathy thing was a wash, as I said.”
Trae clicked one of the photos, enlarging it, then pointed to the ceiling area above the ornately curtained French doors in the picture. “See that disk mounted onto the ceiling?” I nodded, and he continued, “It’s an infrared motion detector. Probably has a glass-break detector installed, too, seeing as it’s positioned near the French doors.”
“Well, breaking in through a window wouldn’t have been advisable anyway. I really don’t want them knowing we were there, if we can help it.”
“Which means you can’t actually steal the plans and codes.”
“No.” I hesitated, and yawned. “Sorry. Egan was going to buy a digital camera and photograph them.”
Trae glanced at me, concern suddenly bright in his eyes. “You look tired. Why don’t you go get some rest? I’ll search the Net and see what else I can find about our Mrs. Marsten.”
I nodded, grabbed my T-shirt, then headed for the living room and the sofa in which I’d woken. I was sleepier than I thought, because I could barely even remember my head hitting the padded arm rest.
When I finally woke, wisps of moonlight were filtering in through the windows, not only washing the room with its pale light, but highlighting the footprints in the dust-covered floorboards. Trae had been in here more than once to check on me.
I smiled and pushed upright. Like before, waking on the plastic-covered sofa was painful, only this time my whole body was itchy. Infuriately so. I scratched at my side, my legs, my arms, then got up with a semi-growl. Moving didn’t help any. In fact, it only seemed to make the itching worse.