Dragon Fate (16 page)

“Wait.” Anjali held out her flattened palm, hazel eyes widening. “You gave him one of your magic puffball mushrooms and he transmutated it into a diamond engagement ring to mind-control Esme? Those spores are coming out of the flaws in the crystal?”

“Not a true diamond.” Herne sniffed. “His kind have tried for centuries, but he still can’t make gold.” His gaze slid to Torch. “Unlike some others.”

The dragon lashed its tail, and Torch’s belly tightened with swallowed fire.

Maybe she sensed the rising beast, because Anjali said hurriedly, “That’s…amazing. Ashcraft couldn’t have come this far without you. But now we don’t need him anymore.”

Herne studied her. “How did you come to command a dragon?”

Command? When Anjali darted a glance at him, Torch tried to look commanded.

“The black smoke trap,” she said. “It froze him. It…hurt him. Long enough for me to get…command.”

Herne peered at him suspiciously. “The effect wears off. The toxin couldn’t be permanent or we’d damage the product.”

Torch swallowed back another growl. He was willing to be commanded by Anjali, but he would
never
let the dragonkin become product.

“I might need another dose,” Anjali admitted after another darting look in his direction. “Like, right now. But what is the formula for counteracting the toxin?”

Pursing his lips, Herne said, “It was something your mother told me. She said dragons are creatures of darkness and flame, that they are the essence of both the shadows and the light. There is a rare cactus flower, highly valued for the perfect purity of its scent and because it blooms only once a year. Though the cactus flourishes in deadly heat and sun, the blossom unfurls only at night. It is gone by morning. I discovered that when added to the paralytic smoke, the essence of the cereus blossom prevents the toxin from being fatal.”

A desert flower? Torch almost cursed aloud. The survival of dragons depended on some pretty perfume?

“I need the toxin,” Anjali said, “and the cereus. Do you have it here?”

Herne shook his head. “As I said, it is rare. Ashcraft took all I had and all I could find.”

“There must be more. Somewhere.”

The edge of desperation in her voice made Herne frown. “There will be more. Next year when the flowers bloom again.”

So their only option was to confront the warlock in his secret stronghold.

Chapter 15

Anjali’s palms stung where she was driving her nails into her flesh. But it was that or strangle her uncle.

Everything he’d done was selfish and evil, yet he seemed unrepentant. Worse, he seemed unaware that his pursuit of power had made him more of a monster than the dragons he claimed were demons.

She straightened, letting her fists fall to her sides. For too long—even before Ashcraft—she’d let herself be blackmailed by her need to belong to someone. It was time she accepted she was truly an orphan and had no one except herself.

The thought was freeing.

In a falling-into-the-abyss sort of way.

But she’d take what she could get, just like everyone else around her.

“Where is Ashcraft?” She kept her voice steady even though her throat ached with the urge to sob.

Her uncle peered sidelong at Torch. “Give me my phone and I can call him—”

“No.” She held her hand out to Torch and he laid the cell across her palm. “I’ll call. His number is in here?”

Gwain’s jaw jutted. “He came to me for the dragon. I refined the black smoke and the mushroom crystal. The power should be—”

“Mine now,” she said. “Since the dragon is mine.”

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Torch go still. As if he’d turned to stone. Well, she didn’t have time to check in with him about who was on top at the moment.

She continued, “I assume Ashcraft found the burned-out hulk of his jet. And I’m betting his men never returned.” When her uncle nodded reluctantly, she snorted. “I’m the only one left, so he has to deal with me.”

With a sly look in his eyes, he said, “You weren’t able to handle the warlock before. You won’t get the best of him this time either, or the power. Unless I help you.”

She took a furious stride toward him before she caught herself. “As you helped Mami?”

“Stopped her from making herself the demon’s whore,” he mumbled as he edged back a step, keeping the counter between them.

Her pulse slammed in her ears. “You stole her power. As you intended to steal mine. You kept me from knowing about my past until I started making the rings, and then you summoned me home to what? Sell me to a warlock as dragon bait?”

“Rent only,” he countered with a sneer. “Since you followed your mother’s whorish ways.”

At her outraged gasp, he whirled, so fast she almost thought he was falling, knocked out by his own cruelty.

But when he completed his spin, he pulled a gun from under the back counter.

She’d never seen the black pistol, but it loomed unnaturally large in her vision now as the hollow maw came to bear—not on Torch, but on her.

Before her lungs had half filled, Torch snatched her uncle’s wrist and yanked him across the counter like he was nothing more than an empty shirt being rung up. Torch slammed his wrist down on the edge of the counter, knocking the pistol free, and caught it before it hit the ground. His other fist pinned Gwain to the counter by the back of the neck.

“Let go.” Gwain writhed. “I won’t—”

Torch thunked his head on the glass, cracking the pane and knocking over the pipes arranged underneath with a discordant chime. “You won’t anything.” His growl made the tumbled pipes vibrate. “She commands me. You do not.”

Anjali let out the half-drawn breath with a huff. “Give me the gun.”

Torch handed it over with only a cocked eyebrow.

She checked the gun. Safety was off. A round was chambered. Her uncle would have shot her for her dragon.

Aiming for a deep stack of CDs and with a mental apology to Bob Marley, she cupped her hand around the muzzle and pulled the trigger.

At the sharp retort and the shattering explosion of plastic, her uncle yelped. She almost did the same from the blaze of pain across her palm.

Torch just watched her, the dark violet of his eyes fractured by lightning.

With her bloody hand, she ripped the scarf out of her hair. She clenched the silvery fabric tight as she stared into Gwain’s blanched face.

“You are not my blood,” she told him. Half-forgotten memories welled slower and darker than the crimson from the wound: her mother invoking the deadliest magics. “You have no tie to me or mine. If I ever see you again, I will do worse than renounce you.” She tucked the gun into her pocket, then held out the stained scarf. “Burn it.”

“The shop and this man in it?” Torch shook Gwain like a magician’s rabbit.

She let the question hang for a moment. “Just this.” She flung the blood-sworn scarf away from her.

Before it fluttered to the ground, Torch breathed out a tongue of flame, scarlet and gold. The scarf flared up with sparkles of white, and gray ash drifted down.

Gwain cowered under Torch’s fist. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks to you,” she said bitterly. “I guess I’ll just make it up as I go.”

She took one last look around the shop, with its clichés and its secrets, then spun on her heel, putting it all behind her.

In the Corvette, she busied herself with the stolen phone while Torch peeled out.

Reluctantly, she looked up. “You didn’t…”

“No. Did you want me to?”

“No.” She let out a slow breath. “Even now…no.” She tucked back a dreadlock that fell across her shoulder. “At least he can’t call the cops, considering the product he has in there.”

Torch nodded at the phone. “That going to get us what we want?”

What did she want now? She looked at the flat black screen. “Let’s see.” She scrolled through recent calls. Only one was unlisted. She put it on speaker and waited for the call to connect.

“Herne.” The masculine voice was as smooth and cultured as a pearl. And she could hear the grit and irritation at its core. “I told you I’d deal with you—”

“Actually you’re dealing with me now,” she said.

Only the briefest pause, and she could almost picture Lars refocusing, changeable—and poisonous—as quicksilver. “Anji,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“Trying not to be eaten by dragons,” she said. “No thanks to your men who abandoned me after the crash.”

“Where is Esme?”

Was that a note of actual concern in his voice? She didn’t believe it. “Dead,” she said flatly. “Her heart couldn’t take the strain.”

Another pause, longer this time. “I thought that might be the case when I couldn’t summon her through the ring. You always were stronger.”

“Too bad I couldn’t be your bait,” she said. “Since you fucked me.”

“No matter. You hadn’t been pure for a very long time before I met you.”

How had she not seen his cruelty? “I’m surprised you bothered then.”

He laughed with genuine amusement. “I wasn’t lying about finding a place for you in a gallery somewhere. I appreciate the flaws in the beauty.”

“Well, then you must be totally in love with your attempt to catch a dragon,” she drawled. “What with its flaws and all.”

Did seething have a sound? She thought it might. “I’ve spent the last few days dealing with the evidence of the crash outside Vegas,” he said tightly. “But I’m not done.”

“Oh, good. Because I have a dragon on my hands.”

Torch reached over to take her clenched left fist. The gunpowder scorching on her palm ached.

“What?” Ashcraft sputtered. “How—?”

She interrupted, “I’m sure my ex-uncle explained my mother’s way with the beast.”

“Ex—? Never mind. Yes, he did.” A short pause. “Perhaps the virginity angle was overrated.”

Torch made a faint rumbling sound and lifted her hand to his mouth, the ardent silver in his eyes still glittering.

She frowned at him repressively. “You think?”

Ashcraft’s smooth tones returned. “So why did you ex your uncle to contact me if you have the dragon?”

Torch kissed her knuckles and gently eased apart her fingers.

“I’m having some…trouble controlling it,” she admitted. Torch snaked his tongue into the hollow of her palm, and she strangled a gasp at the sting.

“That sounds bad,” Ashcraft said.

No, it was so, so good as a soothing coolness radiated from his laving tongue. “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “Very, very bad.”

“Kill it before it throws off the black smoke trap,” Ashcraft advised.

She grabbed Torch’s tongue. “It’s not that easy.”

He waggled his head up and down as far as her grip would allow: yes, he was that easy. She rolled her eyes and let him go.

“I need another dose of the black smoke,” she said. “And the antidote. Then you and I can negotiate how we’ll divvy up the spoils.”

“Negotiations? Why, Anji,” he chided. “I thought you were a glamorous artist, not a boring businesswoman.”

“Quit blowing smoke up my ass,” she snapped. “I was a starving student when you met me, and I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.”

“So you want riches,” he said. “Give me the dragon and you keep the gold.”

“And power,” she countered. “Same as you.”

“Oh, I want more than that,” he murmured darkly.

“Whatever. You’re not going to fuck me again, because I know what I’m missing now. Give me the toxin and the antidote so I can keep the dragon enthralled until we come to a mutually satisfying arrangement, or all you’ll get is a nice video of
its
ass as we watch it fly away forever.”

In the rumble of passing cars, she met Torch’s gaze and widened her eyes in wordless question. What more could she do? He shook his head, the dirty blond locks of his hair rippled by the motion.

“All right,” Ashcraft said. “I’ll text a location to your ex-uncle’s phone. Meet me there—by yourself—in an hour. And, Anji?”

She remained stubbornly silent.

“Don’t let it go.” His tone was half order, half entreaty and rang through the wireless connection with more clarity than was possible. “This is our only chance.”

“I know,” she murmured, not loud enough for anyone to hear.

The call disconnected, and an address popped up in its place. She clicked over to the map. “That can’t be right.”

Torch made a whimsical whistling noise. “This whole crazy existence you mean? So. True.”

She showed him the phone. “Apparently Ashcraft wants me to meet him in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.”

Zoomed in, the empty blue screen of death seemed strangely intimidating. She’d lived in Salt Lake City for most of her life and hiked around the lake more than once, but she didn’t remember ever seeing a road out into the middle, much less a likely rendezvous spot.

“Us,” Torch said.

She switched to a satellite terrain view of the area and repeated distractedly, “Us what?”

“He’s going to meet us.”

She glanced at Torch. “He said only me.”

“He also wanted you to kill a dragon, and he didn’t get that either.”

With a grimace, she lowered the phone to her lap. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Well, I lived, so I guess I should let it go.” His jaw cranked to one side: a glimpse of the dragon inside him chowing down on an enemy. “But if I’m going to keep
you
alive, I’m not letting you go alone.”

“The ash-hole won’t hurt me,” she said. “At least not until he has you. I don’t think he really plans to share you.”

“And do you?”

She felt like she was three steps behind in his whole cryptic conversation. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that she’d do the talking. “Do I what?”

“Plan to share me.”

She squinted at him, unsure of his intent. “Did I sound too convincing? Do you think I’m going to betray you to Ashcraft?” Her stomach twisted. “Esme is as safe as she can be with your cousin, and now that I know the truth about my mother, I refuse to care what happens to Uncle Gwain. Ashcraft has nothing left to hold over my head. I’m done.”

Torch’s cheek flexed, and his dark eyes glinted with ire as if bottle rockets were going off between his gritted teeth. “And what about after?”