Dragon Fate (6 page)

“Well, it’s more that we just don’t die.” He scowled. “But we can be killed. By the petralys, for example. By six-inch heels through the heart.” He narrowed his eyes at her meaningfully. “And by asshole warlocks, of course.”

“Piper and I called him the ash-hole,” she murmured, “even before all this.”

Torch grunted. “That’s what we’ll make him: a hole of ash. His very own grave.”

Anjali clutched the bottle, the fire opal ring on her finger clicking nervously on the glass. “Not before we get Esme free of his influence. If he dies while she’s under his command, or if he even realizes we’re going after him…”

Piper had said the same thing. And Rave, as her mate, was backing her. But Torch wondered if it was even possible to save the wasting waif. And if the risk of waiting was worth it.

Still, they
were
in Las Vegas, so what was a little risk among friends?

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” he told her. “But you can be sure I don’t want to lose to Ashcraft, not anything.”

After a moment, she nodded. “He’s already figured out he’s not getting the ichor he wanted. Before your cousin Rave brought down Ashcraft’s jet, the pilot radioed ahead to say we’d lost.”

“Considering Rave left the jet a slagged, smoking wreck, the ash-hole can’t be sure who went down in the crash and what we know about him.” Torch set his empty beer bottle down on the table and gave it a spin. “We have a little time to mastermind our counterattack.”

The bottle came to a stop, pointing at her.

Damn, he was good.

He pushed to his feet. “Let’s go.”

She eyed him warily. “What now?”

“For you, nothing. It’s late, and I need to talk to Rave about our next steps.”

She rose. “Next steps? Don’t you mean next flight?”

“Not when I’m in this form.” He cast a sidelong glance at her as he dumped the compostable takeout containers and put the bottles in the adjacent recycle bin; creatures that lived for centuries preferred to not live in a landfill. “I know what I am. No matter what I look like.”

She pursed her lips and didn’t reply.

Why did he want her to? He didn’t need her approval or acknowledgment. He didn’t even blame her for hating dragons considering what she’d lost without knowing it.

So he was surprised to realize his dragon had set its course back to his aerie and not to the empty room where he’d stashed her originally.

She apparently hadn’t realized it either, distracted by her own thoughts. She glanced around when he opened the door, her gaze dropping to the boutique bags that had been delivered, then she glanced quickly at him. “Are we just getting my things?”

Yes, he thought, that was probably best. “No,” he said. “You’ll stay here.”

She raised her chin. “The Keep is a big place. There’s must be another room.”

“Probably, but those are expensive.”

With her hands on her hips, she faced him. “Seriously?”

“Like, a thousand a night, some of them.” He blinked at her insouciantly. “Or more.”

“Is the money all that matters?”

“You’re talking to a dragon.”

Her snort was definitely dragon worthy.

“I could put you up in the Amber Suite with your friends,” he offered. “Piper said Esme sleeps most of the day but only screams at night.”

Though he hadn’t meant to be cruel, Anjali’s expression tightened as if he’d slapped her. “No. I’d rather sleep on the stones here.” She drifted past him into the room.

Was that what had bothered her? He strode forward and slapped his hand against the wall. A recessed bed descended, revealing the wrought iron headboard behind it with rope lights strong along the curved edges.

“I never use it,” he said. “I prefer to sleep au natural.” He flashed a mocking grin at her. “Meaning my dragon shape, of course.”

Her gaze skittered away, and the faint glow of the rope lights highlighted the ruddy shine in her cheeks.

The dragon inhaled the rush of her blood and rumbled with hunger.

Torch backed away. “The wet bar and bath are around the corner. I don’t really use those either so let me know if anything’s missing. I’ll find you in the morning and let you know what’s next.”

He headed for the door against the dragon’s wishes. It didn’t want to leave her alone, not when it knew how she was feeling, alone and facing dangers so much bigger than she was. At least he’d always had his dragon backing him up. Now it wanted to be there for her.

“Torch?”

He swiveled on his heel, head cocked.

“Do you really think you can take Ashcraft?”

He’d already told her the dragonkin had never faced a warlock, that they didn’t know what Ashcraft wanted or was capable of.

“Yes,” he said. And walked out.

Chapter 6

He hadn’t lied to her.

So Torch told himself as he descended through the Keep to Rave’s underground laboratory.

He did think they could stop Ashcraft’s assault on their centuries of secrecy.

He
thought
it. Whether they pulled it off or not…

“What the hell were you thinking?” Rave growled when he strode into the lab.

Torch grunted. “You’re talking to the dragon right now.”

That brought Rave upright from where he’d been hunched over his little glass vials and pipettes and other delicate things that tended to shatter when Torch was around them too long.

Rave huffed out a sound that might have been a laugh. “I told you to leave her alone. When I said that, it wasn’t for her benefit but for yours.”

Torch clenched his jaw. “Anjali has answers.”

“Since when are you a questions guy?”

Okay, he had to give his cousin that one. “Since a warlock started stalking us.”

Rave had to give him that one, and he did, with a nod. But any possible smugness was short-lived.

“Anjali is too close to Ashcraft,” Rave said. “She’s a witch in her own right, even if untested. She can’t be trusted.”

“I’m not trusting her,” Torch shot back. “I’m using her.” His dragon coiled and uncoiled uneasily inside him. “And so what if she’s a witch.”

Rave leaned his hip against the work bench, arms crossed over his chest. His thick, brown hair was almost as rough as Torch’s own, as if he’d been spiking his hands through it in frustration. He’d been working for centuries to find a cure for the petralys, and now he had this new threat at the same time he’d finally found his true mate. No wonder he was freaking out.

When Torch was supposed to be the enforcer for the Nox Incendi.

A queasy brew of understanding and annoyance lurched in his gut. Being the clan’s muscle was all he’d been good for, but now it was deadly serious, and he knew his cousin and his liege doubted him almost as much as they doubted Anjali.

Was he truly up to this task?

He gave himself a shake, from the inside out.

“Witch or whatever,” he told his cousin. “I’m on it.”

Rave snorted. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“
It
,” Torch protested. “Not
her
. Finding your solarys has given you sex on the brain.”

Arching one eyebrow, Rave asked, “And what’s your excuse?”

Torch opened his mouth to fire back some snarky comment, as Rave was clearly expecting.

Instead, his dragon growled.

He snapped his jaw shut so hard a spark shot from his lips, making Rave jump back a step.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Get that under control.” Rave’s voice was low. Not a threat, almost soothing.

Torch’s dragon was not chilled. It curled up through him like smoke, dark and hard to grab.
And where there’s smoke…

“I got this,” he repeated, once he felt sure he wasn’t going to accidentally on purpose incinerate his cousin.

Rave dragged a hand through his hair again. “She’s getting to
you
. Whatever alchemical magic Ashcraft commands has tainted her.”

“No.” The dragon’s denial was fierce and wordless; the best Torch could do was keep it monosyllabic civil.

Rave sighed. “Piper is pure of spirit. Esme is…just pure. But Anjali is not.”

“Neither are we.”

“The dragon wants its pure gold, clear gems, pristine wilderness.”

“And we don’t always get those,” Torch reminded him. “We’re surviving on greenbacks and credit in Sin City, so don’t spout that purity bullshit at me.”

“We’re also dying of the stone blight,” Rave reminded him. “I fear that our sacrifices to survive may have only delayed the inevitable.”

Torch eyed him sourly. “Not for you. You found your solarys.”

Piper Ramirez was Rave’s soul mate and salvation, her shining spirit reigniting the failing ichor that would’ve meant Rave’s demise.

She was also sweet and hot as fuck. Rave had scored with a solarys who was an angel in the streets and a devil in the sheets.

But Torch would never say that aloud since he liked his head sitting on his shoulders, not flying through the air from an off-side kick by Rave’s irate dragon.

“Not everybody is as lucky a bastard as you.” Torch slouched across the room to stare at the line of vials holding samples of ichor from the older dragonkin. The essence that had burst from him like a killer rainbow lay in sullen, blackened lumps. Embers burning too low.

If Rave couldn’t find a cure with the help of his new solarys and her organic chemistry background, the Nox Incendi wouldn’t have any viable ichor left to tempt a warlock.

Letting out a slow breath, Torch swiveled to face his cousin. “Anjali told me a little more about Ashcraft.” He repeated the relevant parts of how Ashcraft had blackmailed her. “I’m wondering about his connection with her uncle. Everything I’ve found on the Ashcraft family and Ashcraft Amalgamated the last few days indicates they’ve been in the Salt Lake area for generations. Young Lars spun off his own company—Ashcraft Antiquities—a few years ago, but where did he get the knowledge of bayou magic to entice Anjali’s uncle?”

As he’d known would happen, Rave was distracted by the puzzle.

Why Torch’s dragon was bristling over Anjali was a puzzle too, but not one he wanted to share.

Torch had his contacts working on Ashcraft’s background, but he wasn’t sure whether that was going to prove as important as what the warlock wanted now.

“Anjali told Piper that stealing poisoned ichor and handing it over to Ashcraft would kill him. Do you think that’s so?”

His storm-blue eyes moody, Rave swept one hand toward the vials. “The contamination is too obvious. If Ashcraft knows enough to want ichor, he’ll recognize that ours is adulterated.”

“So could we use mine to…” Torch shrugged. “Trick him somehow. Or,” he mused, “we could just set his whole world on fire.”

Rave coughed. “Why does that idea not surprise me? But if we’re hoping to not reveal all our secrets, maybe trickery was the better thought.”

Torch gazed around the mad-scientist laboratory. He’d never liked it down here. It felt too confining. And a little creepy. When he’d been young and stupid, he’d pitied Rave for being stuck down here. When he was young and less stupid, he realized his cousin didn’t have a choice. And somewhere, a warlock probably had a similar creepy basement lab. “Ashcraft seems to know more about our secrets than we do.”

Rave studied him like he was one of those samples in the crystal vials. “You’ll find his weakness. And hopefully by then I’ll have a way to exploit it and we’ll strip him bare.”

After Rave had caught him up on Esme’s status—she was dying, just like it looked, her strength siphoned away by the warlock’s hold on her—Torch checked in with the security crew for the Keep. Because he still had his day-and-night job in addition to probing Ashcraft. His crew was a mix of dragonkin and humans, all good at their jobs.

He could only hope he held up his end of the bargain.

Entering his office that overlooked the banks of security CCTVs, he closed the door and went to his desk. He pinged his web of contacts again, some of whom were making queries in Salt Lake and some in New Orleans. Some were poking into darker corners of places without names.

Black magic
.

He grumbled to himself. Dragons were large, rage-y, and pretty fucking hard to miss, what with breathing fire and all. Black magic was an art of subtlety.

He was not subtle.

This was bound to get ugly.

He got up to pace, his muscles twitching as if the night’s flight through the storm had been a month ago instead of an hour. The beast wouldn’t let him rest. Which was fine, since his peaceful, empty aerie was otherwise occupied at the moment…

The dragon froze, and he closed his eyes, letting it rise in him.

He had no magic, he wasn’t interested in subtle undertones, but he was an animal at heart, and he lived by instinct.

Something was wrong.

***

She twisted, caught.

He had her and he wasn’t letting go. Long, elegant fingers gripped her and spread a chill over her naked skin. Ice crystals spread from his hands to coat her body, turning the warm, dusky hues to deathly gray.

She drew in a breath to scream, but shards of frozen water knifed into her lungs, stabbing her from the inside out. She looked down, hoping the shards would emerge from her flesh and slice at his grip, force him to release her.

But she was melting, the luscious curves she flaunted in her boho skirts flaking away into ash and sleet.

Cold blue eyes bored into her like ice picks, chipping off more of her.

‘You failed me. I warned you what would happen if you failed me.’

The freeze wormed toward her heart, and somehow she knew if the chill got that far, she’d be dead.

She had to break free, had to get away.

She ripped at his hand. The opal on her ring gleamed with brilliant flecks—fire against ice.

If she broke his grasp, she would fall.

“Anjali?”

If she fell, she would die.

“Anjali.”

The opal flared, guttered, flared again, fighting. But it wasn’t going to be strong enough. She wasn’t strong enough.

“Anjali! Wake up!”

Fierce words, shouted in her ear.