Dragon Awakened (24 page)

Nichol Huffman for giving the book an early read and your great feedback.

My fabulous street team, the Rushkies, for your support and book love.

To the folks at Grand Central Publishing for helping me to make this book the best and prettiest it can be, including:

• editor Alex Logan 
  
• editorial direction Amy Pierpont 
  
• art director Christine Foltzer 
  
• publicists Jessica Bromberg and Marissa Sangiacomo 
  

T
he scream tore through the cypress trees and gripped Violet Castanega's heart like a strangler fig's roots. She dropped the amethyst and silver necklace on her worktable and ran out the open doorway of her workshop. Chumley, her tan hound, ran up beside her, her brow wrinkled as she stared in the direction from which the sound came.

Not good when a man screamed like that. Not horseplay or a foot being run over by a swamp buggy, but the sound of life being torn from a body. Her brothers and cousins flashed through her mind as she ran across the muddy ground, barefoot. She'd spent thirty years roaming the acres of her family's land, most of them without shoes. Rocks and roots dug in, but she knew instinctively how to shift her weight to soften the impact. Chumley ran beside her, his paws slapping the ground.

Another sound, lower and more guttural, squeezed her heart and damn it, she was already having a hard time breathing. She thought it came from the southern edge of the Castanega land. The stitch she usually felt when running pinched her side.

She emerged from the thicket of pine trees into the more open palm farm, running between the low rows of bushy sago palms and through the outer edge of thicker areca palms. Her pace slowed as she searched for whoever had screamed. She heard shouting. Others coming, too. She tried to pick out the identity of the voices that were filled with the same fear she felt, but they were too far away.

Her foot hit something. Grabbing on to the feathery palm frond didn't stop her momentum. She pitched forward, her hands sinking into the soft ground. Before she'd even scrambled to her feet, she found him, bloody and motionless on the muddy ground. God, not mud—blood. It soaked the ground around the naked body with a gash in the chest.

Even through the blood, she recognized Arlo's square face. “No, no, no.” She dropped down beside him, clamping her hands on his cheeks. “Arlo!”

He was warm. Not cold, not stiff. He didn't respond. She searched for a pulse point at his throat, but her finger slid in his blood. His clothing lay shredded nearby. That meant he'd Catalyzed, turning Dragon so quickly, he didn't have time to disrobe. Which meant he'd been attacked. Her Dragon tingled with awareness, rolling through her cells like a wave of energy.

Two people ran closer, smashing through palm fronds. She opened her mouth to call for help but stopped. Maybe those footsteps belonged to her family and maybe not.

“I thought I heard Vee,” a man said.

“But that scream…it wasn't her.”

“I'm here!” she called, hearing her voice falter.

Her brothers burst into view, their wide-eyed gazes taking her in as they rushed toward her.

Illian and Jessup took in the blood, Arlo, and both went into defense mode, spinning around, their bodies rigid and ready to fight off an attacker.

“Are you all right, Vee?” Jessup asked, sliding his wary gaze toward her.

“I…yes. But Arlo…”

“Keep watch,” Jessup told Illian, dropping down beside her. He assessed her with light green eyes that usually sparkled with mischief or flared with ire. Crescent Dragons had flames in their eyes, visible only to other Crescents, and Jessup's blazed with anger and shock. “What happened?”

“I…don't know. I heard the scream and came running, probably like you did. He was already…dead.”

Jessup felt for his pulse, too, with a hand much steadier than hers. He spit out an expletive, his mouth tightening. His voice was a growl as he again surveyed their surroundings. “Someone came onto our land and killed him. Ambushed him, no doubt. How the hell did they sneak up on Arlo?”

He was the oldest of her siblings and had seen the most action during the centuries-old feuds between the Dragon clans.

“He was drinking,” she said. “I smell booze on him.”

He'd struggled with alcohol and drugs the last few decades, a dangerous combination when you were a Crescent. You couldn't afford to be out of control when your DNA held the essence of an ancient god, especially when you were a Crescent Dragon. The Dragon part took advantage of weakness, eager to manifest and play. Or kill. Arlo's very human addictions gave control to a magick beast that lived by its baser instincts.

Jessup lifted Arlo's body slightly. “Someone killed him for his power.”

Violet sucked in a breath. The blue Dragon tattoo sprawled across his chest was gone. “He's been Breathed.” Her Sapphire Dragon, wrapped all the way around her like a belt, vibrated in fear and anger.

Every adult Dragon wore their Dragon's essence on their body, a magnificent image that manifested during their Awakening ceremony when they turned thirteen. The fact that it moved and kept watch over its person was hidden from Mundane humans, who only saw a regular tattoo. When one Dragon Breathed in the power of another, their Dragon disappeared. Without their god essence, so entwined in their bodies and souls, Crescents died.

Illian stepped closer, still watching but taking in his brother's still form. “It's got to be one of the Fringe clans.”

The Fringe consisted of the marshy land along the fringe of Florida City and Homestead, where several Dragon clans settled.

Violet came slowly to her feet. “It doesn't make sense. We haven't had any clashes or encroachments lately.”

“The Murphys started an alligator farm, damned copycats. That's an encroachment. And the Augusts copied our tourist show.”

“Both were years ago. And
they
copied
us
, so why would they come onto our land and attack?”

The fire in her brothers' eyes scared her. There had been relative peace—okay, more like the Cold War kind—for the last ten years. Nothing more than a few broken bones and torn flesh, disagreements settled at Ernie's. She craved that peace, being able to wander their land without fear of being attacked.

Jessup laid Arlo back down. “We need to kill someone.” Heat radiated off him as his Dragon pushed to Catalyze.

“We don't even know who did it,” she said. “Let me do some snooping, find out who's behind this.”

Illian shook his head. “No, I think we need to kill someone.”

“Stop.” Her own impulsive nature, along with her Dragon, pushed hard to join in. “Give me some time to figure out who did this. If someone's got a vendetta against us, I can find out who it is. No doubt, he's been talking, bragging or bitching down at Ernie's.”

Jessup's eyes flared in his bossy, big brother way. “You're not going to Ernie's by yourself. I—”

She pressed her finger to his collarbone. “You are not coming with me.” She shifted her gaze to Illian. “You'll both barge in, banging heads together. And then you'll end up in the Conference Room, and it won't even be with Arlo's murderer. I can take care of myself. Haven't I had the best teachers?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Let me approach this logically. Once I get a lead, I'll let you know. Then—”

“We kill someone,” Jessup said.

“Yes, we kill them.” Violet met Illian's gaze. “We'll scrape out his or her eyeballs, cut them up, and feed them to the gators.” The old Violet reared her head and bared her fangs. The one who jumped into a fight without thinking, who'd attacked an officer of the Hidden to defend Arlo, even when he was in the wrong. The Violet who'd become as hotheaded as the rest of her family. She took a breath. “But if you go off half-cocked and kill the wrong person, it'll start a war again. Dad died because of this damned feud business. So did Grandpa and Great Uncle Hank and…the list goes on. I don't want to lose you two. I'll find out who's behind this. I promise.”

Illian looked at Jessup. “She is good at ferreting out information. She figured out which of the cousins was stealing our oranges. And the idjits who were digging up the royal palms at the nursery.”

Jessup was still taking in the desperation in her eyes. She let him see all the hurt, just for a second. Any longer and he'd chide her for it. Castanegas didn't cry; they got revenge. That was their motto. But that motto would get them killed.

Jessup made a grunting sound. “All right, cupcake. You've got a day.”

“Give me two.”

He shook his head but said, “Then we start digging around ourselves.”

Violet knew exactly what kind of digging he meant.

The sign on the roof of the ramshackle building read
THE FRINGE
. Couldn't get clearer than that who belonged, at least to the Crescent community. Ernie couldn't hang a
MUNDANES NOT WELCOME
sign, because regular humans didn't know they were called Mundanes by Crescents. They didn't even know there
were
Crescents, or a facet of their world called the Hidden that contained people who turned to Dragons, sorcerers called Deuces, and descendants of fallen angels called Caidos. Not to mention demons, Elementals, and other creatures from which nightmares were made.

The bar sat on the outer edge of Florida City, tucked back from the road in a grove of oaks dripping with Spanish moss. She parked beneath one of the old trees in the gravel lot and stepped out beneath its shadow. Only four other vehicles filled the lot, as she'd expect midday.

While Fringers weren't welcomed by Crescents, or even Mundane humans, the tables were turned here at the place they knew as Ernie's. Ernie had owned it for a hundred and eighty years. He belonged to none of the Fringe clans, which made him neutral—a status he held on to with calloused hands.

Her boots crunched on peanut shells as she walked into the gloomy interior. The main room was large, but divided up into separate areas to accommodate clutches of clan groups. Ernie demanded civility in the public space, banishing bar fights and those who participated.

“Violet, a surprise to see you in here.” Ernie, with a face that looked as though he'd been crunched in a vise from top to bottom, set a bowl of peanuts on the bar as she approached. “None of your people are here.”

She'd had to drag home a drunk brother and even her father a time or two. Sometimes they needed assistance, not because they'd had too much to drink but due to the activities in the Conference Room, where disagreements were settled in a way that required no civility. The door to it blended into the far wall, though every Fringer knew where it was. To any outsider, say, a health inspector, it was a pit where one could ride the mechanical bull surrounded by cheering crowds. Most of the time the bull was pulled aside and two Dragons, in full scale and fury, fought to the delight—and bets—of onlookers. All of her brothers had fought in there at one time or another, coming out broken and bloody. And that's when they won.

She glanced at the four men playing darts over in the corner and fought not to roll her eyes. Augusts. She clenched her fists at the sight of Bren, who was already giving her a cruel smile. As he always did, he made a V with his fingers and waggled his tongue suggestively in the crotch.

She stuffed her disgust, refusing to give him the satisfaction, and turned back to Ernie. “I'm here to see you.”

His wiry eyebrows bobbed in surprise. “You know you're a bit too young for me.”

“You're hundreds of years too old for me. So stop flirting and give me an AmberBock draft.”

“You break my heart, you do.” But he wore a smile as he pulled the draft into a mug.

Because of their deity essence, Crescents lived longer than Mundanes—and aged very slowly. Ernie looked to be in his sixties. At thirty-four, she was a mere babe in Crescent terms, and only looked to be about twenty-two. She idly cracked a shell and lined up the peanuts side by side on the bar.

He set the frosty mug on the shellacked bar top. “What're you after then, if not my buff, brawny body or rapier wit?”

So not in the mood for humor, such as it was, she swallowed back the grief that wanted to bubble out at the mere thought of saying the words, “Arlo's been murdered.”

Ernie digested that, his wide mouth flattening even more. “Damn. What happened?”

She told him the scant details.

“Breathed.” He shook his head but didn't look shocked.

“There's been talk, hasn't there? If something's going on, it usually starts here. This place is the hub of the Fringe.” Finesse him, feed his ego. “Nothing gets past you.”

He soaked it in, his shoulders widening. “I pick up tidbits here and there.” Then he got onto her, the proud expression hardening. “But I stay out of it. Switzerland and all.” No, he just collected on the bets.

“Ernie, I'm not asking you to take sides. Simply pass on what people have been talking about lately.”

His gaze shifted to the men, who were glancing their way more than at the dartboard. “Fringers have been edgy lately. Restless and downright crotchety, breaking out in scuffles despite my rules. I heard there's a big solar storm erupting, and we're already getting the effects of the flares.”

“It's not that and you know it. We've felt the effects of solar storms before, and it didn't make people kill.”

He shrugged. “Supposed to be a strong one.”

“Share.” She crooked her fingers, ignoring her blunt, unpolished nails. At least they were clean.

He hesitated, then relented. “There's been murmurings, but not about your clan.”

She took a draw of her ice-cold beer, feeling it tingle across her tongue and down her throat. Damn. Clan problems again. “What about then?”

“Defensive, not offensive.” He leaned across the bar, as casual as could be, and flicked the peanuts off the bar. “Arlo's not the first Fringer to be whacked lately.”

This was getting worse. “Who?”

Ernie held out his squat fist and flipped out one finger. This was not going to be good. “Liam Peregrine, killed a week or so ago. Breathed.” Another finger straightened. “They found something at the scene that pointed to the Wolfrums. So no surprise that Peter Wolfrum was Breathed two days later.”