“This better be important,” I growled, brushing past him into the spacious living room. Hell, I was tired. It had been a long night. Through the enormous windows, the moon hung low over the ocean, tempting me to leave the room and head outside, if only to get away from Wes. If I walked out to the veranda, I’d have a great view of white cliffs, sky and, eighty feet below, the pounding surf. The house was built halfway into the cliffs, and the wide, open veranda was a great launching point for those nights that I didn’t want to take my bike on the road. Not bad, for a house that wasn’t ours. The real owners were in Europe for the summer and had needed someone to house-sit their big empty mansion. Lucky us. With a little online finagling, Wes had made certain they hired him: a responsible, middle-aged accountant with a wife and no kids or pets who wanted to rent a house for the summer. No one would suspect the truth. Or at least, no one would come nosing around, wondering why two college-age guys were squatting in a multimillion-dollar beach house.
Wes followed me into the living room. “Another one of our nests went dark,” he said gravely.
My fury spiked. I spun on him, narrowing my eyes. “Which one?”
“Austin.” The human raised a hand in a helpless gesture. “Their signal went down this afternoon, and no one is answering. I haven’t been able to contact them at all.”
“Goddammit!” Spinning, I slapped an expensive vase from an end table, sending a few thousand dollars’ worth of porcelain flying into the wall. Wes flinched. Heat flared across my lungs and I breathed deep, controlling the urge to Shift and blast something to cinders. “I just came from there!” I snarled. “I spent all last month setting that safe house up. Dammit! What the hell is going on?”
Wes didn’t shoot me his normal irritated look, which told me how shaken he was. “I don’t know, mate, but it’s gone now,” he said, and I shoved my hands through my hair, trying to think. Austin. There had been only one dragon in that safe house, a hatchling I’d gotten out just last year. He’d trusted me to protect him; I’d promised I would keep him safe.
Dammit all to hell.
“We should move,” Wes added, shoving off the counter. “Let the other nests know we’ve been compromised. If we leave tonight—”
I lowered my arms. “No,” I muttered, and he looked back at me in surprise. Anger and resolve settled around me like a cold fist. The Austin nest was lost, but that just meant I had to succeed here. “Not without the girl,” I said firmly, turning around. “I’m close, Wes. She’s coming around. I can feel it. Give me another week or two, and she’ll be so fed up with Talon she’ll be begging me to take her away.”
“Right.” Wes crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “Like the time you swore it would take a week, tops, to convince that Owen chap to join us, and what did he do? We had to spend a month in Chile after he ratted us out to Talon.”
“Yeah, but look on the bright side. You finally got a suntan.” He glowered at me, and I smirked, remembering his constantly red skin and face as we’d moved from jungle to village to jungle, always on the run. Wes did not like the great outdoors, and the feeling was mutual. “It was a risk,” I admitted, “but we both knew that. This is different.”
“Why, exactly?”
“Because I say it is.”
Wes sighed. “You know that survival instinct that’s kept us alive all this time? The one that tells us to move out when bloody St. George or Talon is closing in on us? You’re very bad for it.”
I smirked and went to my room, knowing we wouldn’t be going anywhere just yet. Tossing my jacket to a chair, I flopped back on the satin sheets of the king-size bed and contemplated this newest problem.
Damn. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to calm the lingering rage and frustration. Another nest gone. That was the second nest I’d lost in as many months, just vanished off the face of the earth. When the first had gone dark, I’d dropped everything and ridden down to Phoenix, searching for the two hatchlings I’d left there, trying to find answers. Nothing. The house I’d set up for them months earlier was an abandoned shell, deserted and empty. No one could tell me what had happened to the building or the residents. Overnight, they’d just...disappeared.
I’d thought of them on the long drive back, churning with anger and regret. I’d promised to protect them when they left Talon, I’d sworn to keep them safe, and I had failed them. Where were they now? What had happened to them? Of the two possibilities I could think of, I hoped it was Talon who had discovered their wayward dragons and had whisked them back to the fold. The kids I lured from the organization were often young, gullible, inexperienced hatchlings. If Talon had found the nest, the hatchlings had probably been taken back for “retraining.” And as much as I hated the thought of losing them to the organization again, at least they’d be alive. The alternative, the other reason for a nest and the hatchlings to disappear, was far, far worse.
The alternative was St. George.
Closing my eyes, I let my arms thump to the mattress. Wes was right to be freaked out. Not that he needed much reason, but staying here when something was creeping closer to our location was a bad idea. We’d survived this long by staying on the move and knowing when to run if things got too dangerous. We’d already had to leave the area once. For all I knew, Talon was still looking for us. The longer we stayed, the more dangerous it would become for us both. But I couldn’t leave without her.
I had to give it to Wes. He was sullen, pessimistic and drank enough Red Bull to power a freaking blimp, but having an elite, ex-Talon hacker around was extremely useful. He was the one who could track down Talon’s hatchlings, discover where and when they were being planted, usually with plenty of time for us to move in and be ready when they arrived. That was the reason we’d come here, to Crescent Beach. Because Wes had discovered Talon was about to send another brand-spanking-new dragon into the world. A hatchling, by the name of Ember Hill.
I’d expected to find what I always did: a green young dragon itching for a taste of freedom, excited, naive and gullible. Easy prey. Show them a mysterious stranger, give them a taste of real freedom, and many were all too eager to jump ship. Of course, the life of a rogue dragon wasn’t all bright lights and glory, but the most important thing was getting them out. The technicalities of keeping them hidden and safe came later.
I hadn’t expected to find a fierce, opinionated hatchling who challenged me, pushed back and who wasn’t afraid of me...or of anything. Who defied not only an older, more experienced dragon, but Talon, her guardians, even her brother—a twin, wasn’t that interesting—to do what she wanted. From the time we’d met, spoken, I’d known I couldn’t let her stay with the organization. There was something about her, something that made me determined to get her out, get her away from Talon. Maybe she reminded me of myself at that age, a fiery free spirit, before Talon had systematically broken any hints of independence and original thought. I’d recovered, of course, but I knew what the organization did to their hatchlings. I was damned sure I couldn’t let that happen to her.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. It had nothing to do with the way my own dragon responded to her, nearly surging out of my skin whenever the girl was around. I’d never wanted to Shift into my true form as much as I had tonight, and from the way Ember had looked at me when we danced, I knew she’d felt the same. Though for both our sakes, I’d hidden it well. Ember was decades younger, inexperienced in everything, and she was far too human for her own good. Case in point, she’d nearly let a human kiss her tonight.
A different sort of rage heated my lungs, and I growled, remembering the brat she was dancing with tonight. Mortal teenagers were normally a pretty useless bunch—cocky and immature, thinking they knew everything about the world. Easy to manipulate, but not good for much else. But that kid...something about him was different, though I wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was the disgust talking, the need to rescue m
y little Firebrand from the tediousness of human emotion. Or maybe it was my sudden, irrational urge to bite his head off.
I groaned. No good would come from going down that path. I had to stay focused. Concentrate on what I’d come to do. Ember was starting to come around. My little spitfire wouldn’t be content to sit back and let Talon order her around. She would start questioning the organization, if she hadn’t already, and when she couldn’t get answers from them, she’d come to me. And I’d show her what Talon was really like.
“Riley.” Wes poked his head through the frame. “The Austin nest, mate. What do we do about it?”
I sighed, sitting up on the mattress. “Keep monitoring the safe house, but don’t try to contact them anymore,” I told him. “If whatever caused the nest to go dark is still out there, we don’t want to alert it to our presence. After I convince Ember to join us, I’ll head to Austin myself and see what’s going on. Until then, we sit tight.”
“And if Talon or St. George shows up on our bloody doorstep?”
“Well, then I’m going out the back window. I don’t know what you’ll end up doing.”
“It’s so nice to know you care.”
I kicked the door shut. Knowing Wes, he would be up the rest of the night, staring at his laptop screen and drinking obscene amounts of Red Bull. I was tired, cranky and sickened at the news of my safe houses. Annoying human roommates be damned, I needed sleep.
And very soon, I was going to show a certain red-haired hatchling the true face of Talon, and convince her that she belonged with us.
With me.
Ember
It was after 2:00 a.m. when I returned home. Garret dropped me off at the corner without a word, and I crept silently down the road, across the yard and up to the front door of the house. All the windows were dark, which was a relief. Still, my heart was pounding as I unlocked the door and eased inside, being careful not to make a sound. I half expected a light to flip on, revealing a pair of angry guardians, or worse, Scary Talon Lady herself, waiting for me. When nothing happened and the room remained dark, I relaxed. Maybe Dante had come through for me, after all. Scurrying up the stairs, I tiptoed to my room, slipped inside and closed the door with a sigh of relief.
“Where have you been?”
I bit my tongue to keep from screeching. “Dammit, Dante!” I whispered, flipping on the light. He leaned against the opposite wall with his arms crossed, looking coldly unamused. “Stop doing that! It’s not funny anymore.”
“Do you see me laughing?” My twin narrowed his eyes to green slits, and my stomach twisted. “Where were you?” he demanded again. “Why’d you take off like that? I had to lie my ass off to convince the guardians that you were sleeping at Lexi’s and had forgotten to tell them. What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” I growled, feeling sullen and defensive. “It’s none of your business, Dante. Why do you care, anyway?”
“I care that you’re going to get yourself sent back to Talon!” Dante snapped. “I care that you keep breaking the rules and don’t think about the consequences. I care that there was a rogue dragon at that party, and you two seemed very friendly with each other.” His glare hardened, accusing and almost hurt. “You knew he was still hanging around, didn’t you? You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“Why? So you could rat him out to Talon again?”
Dante blinked, taken aback, and I sneered. “Yeah, I know it was you. Don’t expect me to be forthcoming when you’ve been keeping secrets, Dante. You didn’t have to do that. Riley isn’t hurting anyone.”
“Riley? You know his name?”
I winced. Dante stared at me, aghast, then shook his head. “Dammit, Ember, you don’t get it, do you? Rogues are dangerous. They’ve rejected everything Talon stands for and they’ll try to get you to do the same. If you keep talking to this rogue, Talon might see you as a coconspirator, and then the Vipers will come after you both. Is that what you want?”
I shivered at the mention of the Vipers. Dante noticed my hesitation and pushed himself off the wall, coming to stand in front of me.
“I know you’re curious,” he said in a low voice, “but you’re playing with fire, sis. If you keep this up, Talon might label you a traitor. The Vipers will take you away for good, and I can’t lose you like that. Promise me you won’t talk to him again. Please.”
I met his gaze. “If I do, will you promise me you won’t inform Talon?”
He stiffened and drew back. “It’s our responsibility to inform the organization about any and all possible threats,” he said. “Rogues put the survival of our race in jeopardy. The rules are clear. I have to tell them.”
“Fine.” I set my jaw. “Go ahead and tell Talon. But you might be turning your own sister in, as well, so I hope you’re okay with that. If the Vipers come for me, it’ll be your fault.”
He raked both hands through his hair, a very human gesture of frustration. “Ember, please,” he groaned. “Don’t be like this. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” I retorted. “I just need you to be on my side for once.” He started to protest, but I opened the door, an indication for him to leave. “Choose, Dante. Me or Talon? The organization, or your own blood?”
He stared at me blankly, as if he didn’t recognize me anymore. Then he walked across the room and out the door without looking back. I swallowed the lump in my throat and flipped off the light, letting the door swing shut behind him.
Garret
I was fieldstripping my Glock when Tristan came home.
“Well, that’s never a good sign,” he said, placing two full grocery bags on the kitchen counter. I didn’t answer. Closing my eyes, I reassembled the pistol again, feeling the comforting metal slide between my fingers. Slide, barrel, spring, receiver. I slid the magazine into place with a satisfying snap and opened my eyes to find Tristan watching me.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Something bothering you, partner?”
“No.” Placing the assembled pistol on the coffee table, I leaned back and prepared to take it apart again, trying to focus this strange, restless energy and calm my mind. Ever since I’d kissed Ember on the beach two days ago, she was all I could think about. I couldn’t concentrate on work, training had no appeal and even tasks that had become second nature had grown tedious. I was stumbling through this mission in a fog, and I needed to refocus my mind. It didn’t help that tonight loomed over me like a thundercloud, making me nervous and edgy, unable to calm down.
Tonight, I would see her again. I was taking her on a date, as strange as that was for me. At Tristan’s repeated prodding, I’d called her last night to ask her out, and she’d accepted instantly, though she had asked me to pick her up at the Smoothie Hut instead of her house.
“I can do that,” I’d told her, frowning. Getting inside the Hill residence was one of our main priorities, but Ember had been reluctant to have me close to the villa ever since we met. “But don’t you want me to pick you up at home?”
“Um, yes,” she stammered, and I could sense she was holding something back. “But...well, it’s my brother. He’s my twin, and he’s a little overprotective. Actually, make that über-overprotective. Overprotective to the nth degree. After I got home from the party, he was pretty pissed. If you show up at the house, he’s going to be neurotic and ask questions, and I don’t want to deal with that right now.” She sounded defensive and a little sad at the same time. “I plan to tell him about us, but after he cools down a bit. Until then, it’s just easier for him not to know.”
Tristan shook his head, moving the groceries from their bags to the counter. “It’s nearly four o’ clock, Garret. Don’t you have a date tonight?” he asked pointedly.
“I haven’t forgotten.” It had been on my mind the second I woke up this morning. Tristan didn’t need to remind
me. I was acutely aware of every minute that dragged by. “I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
“Oh, yeah. Here.” He broke away from the counter and tossed me something tiny and black. I caught it, letting it rest in my palm as I looked down. A tiny, thin square of plastic and metal, lying inconspicuously against my skin. I blinked and glanced back at Tristan. “A bug?”
“Stick that in her cell phone if you have the chance,” he said, continuing to put groceries away. “It should go in right behind the battery. Once that’s done, we should know in a few days whether or not she’s our sleeper.”
I stared at the bug a moment longer, strangely hesitant, before slipping it into my pocket. This is a mission, I reminded myself, standing to return my Glock to its holster. I certainly couldn’t take it with me tonight. It’s nothing personal.
“By the by,” Tristan went on, pausing to grin at me over a Doritos bag. “I’m curious. Where are you two crazy kids going, anyway?”
“Movies, I suppose. Isn’t that the normal practice?”
“Yes.” Tristan nodded. “If you want to be completely boring and unoriginal. You’re not going to get her to talk much by staring at a screen for two hours.”
Irritation flared, which was odd for me. “What would you suggest, then, O Guru of the First Date?”
Tristan laughed. “Wow, you are nervous. Relax, partner. It’s not like this is real. Besides,” he added, grinning as he shut the cabinet door and turned to me, enjoying my discomfort far too much, “I have the perfect spot.”
Ember
The soldiers were on to me.
I’d already been gunned down twice this morning. My scales were spattered with red, and a trickle of paint kept oozing into my eye, making my third lid constantly slide up to protect it. It was getting harder and harder to ambush the sneaky bastards; they were wise to my method of assault now, and ready to defend a sudden attack from above. Still, I’d managed to take several down before being shot to death with paintballs. Tearing away the strip of red cloth at their waist now equaled a successful “kill,” and I’d racked up quite the body count. I thought I was doing pretty well, for someone who had to get in close to people with freaking guns. Still, it never satisfied her.