Dragon King of Treoir

  Smart mouth. "No, but I'm not putting you at further risk. This is our fight, not yours. It was wrong of me to press you for that agreement. You were right in the cemetery when you said my head was up my ass."

  Her lips parted.

  Well, damn. He'd managed to render her speechless. He'd bet that didn't happen often.

  She started shaking her head slowly at first then adamantly. "No. We made a deal. I'm sticking to my part."

  "I appreciate your honoring our original agreement, but I'd rather you stayed out of this."

  "What about that Daegan guy? He sounds like your boss. What's he going to say?"

  "It doesn't matter. This our battle, not yours."

  She looked so torn you'd think she had a stake in this. After silently deliberating on something, she released a long breath. "Why is this so important to you, Quinn? What are you going to do with that woman's body?"

  His hair lifted at the censure in her voice.

  Who the hell did she think she was? "What I do with that body is none of your business."

  "See, that's where I'm going to disagree."

  "You need to get going before I change my mind," he warned.

  "Not until I find out what you plan for that body."

  He drilled a look at her that had made warriors cringe. Damn little pistol just stood there defying him. "You didn't know anything about this body until you stumbled into the battle this morning, right?"

  "Right."

  If she hadn't blinked and glanced away, he might have believed her. His suspicions jumped up ready to pursue the truth, so he fed her rope to see if she'd hang herself. "If that's so, why would you care about a body to which you have no tie?"

  Her passive expression remained, but her eyes gave her away. Fire blazed in them. What drove that passion?

  She said, "I have an issue with a body being used by preternaturals. I'm not leaving until I know it's safe."

  Quinn couldn't decide whether to shout at her that she had some nerve dictating morality to him or thank her for not being yet another preternatural looking to take advantage of the body.

  But, that still left the question of her interest unanswered.

  In the end, he held his ear as if he were receiving a telepathic call, which had not happened. In truth, it was still a few minutes too soon. He stared off, nodding as if he was agreeing to something he heard.

  After a moment, he lowered his hand and said, "I will ease your conscience. The Beladors down inside that buzzing fog are there to rescue the tomb and bring that body back. We are keeping it from beings who would use necromancy on Kizira. As for me, I have a personal stake in protecting that body. We now have enough people in place that your expertise is no longer needed. The sooner you get going, the sooner my people can move on this. Thank you for your offer of help. It will be remembered should you ever need aid from the Beladors."

  "I don't believe anyone just contacted you. Why are you lying to me? And before you try to yank my chain again, keep in mind that you have not seen all my powers."

  Chapter 31

  Reese hated to admit the truth, so she wouldn't.

  At least not out loud where one of Yaahl's snooping crows might hear, but she'd realized she was mentally defective.

  There was no other reason for her failure to take the medallion and leave. All she had to do was find a place nearby to watch the battle, wait for one side to disrupt the energy canopy, then she'd slide in through the battle lines and find the tomb.

  That wouldn't help Quinn, but she wasn't convinced that the Beladors had honorable reasons for getting the tomb back. From what she'd heard, Macha had been kicked out of their gang and a guy named Daegan had inserted himself.

  What did that say about the Beladors?

  They had once been known as the most honorable of preternaturals. Now some of them even used demons for dark reasons. So who knew?

  She had the medallion and no intention of throwing herself to demons like fresh meat to piranhas, but she was not leaving Kizira's body at risk, even if she had to kill someone.

  Yaahl was a roaring pain in her backside, but he was considered a benevolent being who would do no harm. If it came down to a safe place for Kizira's body, Yaahl topped the list at the moment.

  Quinn's normally calm demeanor went through a pissed-off overhaul. "Are you threatening me?"

  "Not specifically. I only warned you not to lie to me again because you don't know what else I'm capable of, should I take offense to your lies." That sounded reasonable to her.

  He stepped forward, bringing all that powerful male up close and personal. She had the crazy desire to feel him right up against her, but that took her from being mentally defective right into just plain stupid.

  Men are bad, remember?

  Okay, got it.

  Her body, however, had the memory of a toadstool when it came to the opposite sex.

  "What the hell is it going to take to get you out of here?" Quinn growled.

  Underneath all that anger was a layer of concern that permeated every breath he drew. Concern and pain. She'd seen both today. She was walking a tightrope through her conscience right now and needed to decide one way or the other if she was going to get involved.

  "The truth."

  He lost his homicidal look. "Come again?"

  "Tell me the truth if you want me to leave." She wasn't saying she would leave, but a man this aggravating would assume it meant the same.

  "About what?"

  "Why do you feel so responsible for Kizira's body?" This would tell her if he had a nefarious reason for possessing it. Nefarious was a good word to use with this snob. She should have worked that into a comment. "Come on, Quinn. Put up or shut up. I'm tired of you feeding me crap."

  A muscle in his neck stood out, but in the next second his shoulders lost their tightness. He said, "Her death was my fault."

  Hmm. Reese wasn't sure what to do with that. "Did you kill Kizira?"

  His mouth dropped open, appalled. "No, I didn't kill her."

  "Did you pay someone to do it or make someone kill her?"

  "Hell, no."

  She didn't get this at all. "Then how was her death your fault?"

  Misery flooded his eyes. A deep misery unlike anything she'd ever seen in a man.

  Reese regretted bringing that to the surface.

  Quinn looked into the distance. "During a battle between the Medb and Beladors, Kizira stepped in front of me when a gryphon attacked. He gutted her and she'd been compelled not to heal herself by that bitch Flaevynn, who birthed her."

  Reese reeled from the shock. From that little bit he'd shared, she figured out Kizira had cared for Quinn, maybe loved him, to have made such a selfless sacrifice.

  But Kizira's death wasn't Quinn's fault.

  Reese wanted to smooth that pain from his face. "Who controlled the gryphons?"

  "The Medb did at the time. The gryphons are now with us, the Beladors. What's your point?"

  Reese had no idea why she wanted to help Quinn through his grief, when no one had eased the pain she'd suffered over losing her child.

  That was it. No one had been there for her.

  How could she have explained losing a baby because of a preternatural energy that lived inside her? She couldn't. Just as Quinn had to feel isolated in his guilt over an enemy who obviously cared for him.

  Had he cared for Kizira?

  What had gone down between those two for him to put his life on the line to protect her body?

  It didn't matter. Reese understood that part, if there had been some relationship between the two.

  She'd lay her life down to protect the body of the baby she'd lost if it was under threat from preternatural predators.

  Her tone was unusually gentle when she said, "You feel guilty because Kizira chose to save you. That doesn't make her death your fault, Quinn. She made a decision, knowing she couldn't heal. Why are you beating yourself up over it?"

  "There are things you don't know,
and that I can't tell you."

  Reese tamped down on her exasperation. "Tell me one thing and I'll let it go."

  Quinn said nothing, looking like he might toss her over the edge if she didn't drop this topic soon.

  She asked the same question as earlier, but this time without condemnation. "What do you plan to do with her body if you get it back? There must be a reason you didn't cremate her, spread the ashes and so forth, which would have prevented all this."

  Quinn took a while to answer and in that moment he seemed to be pulled inside out. "I shouldn't have put her in that tomb, but I ... had a valid reason, or so it seemed to me at the time. Now I see that my thinking was unrealistic for the world in which we live. If I get her back, I'm going to make sure no one can ever touch her body and use it for dark majik, but I'm running out of time."

  Reese still didn't know everything, but she figured out something in listening to his voice as much as his words.

  Quinn had cared for Kizira. He'd had some type of relationship with Kizira. No man, especially not a Belador, would put his life at risk to save the body of a dead Medb.

  She suffered a moment of jealousy that Kizira had earned the dedication of such a man. Reese hadn't believed it possible. She'd never seen that level of caring before.

  Who was this man? He'd given back her medallion, no strings attached.

  She still had to face Yaahl. How had everything gotten so turned around?

  She needed to know more about the Tribunal. "You've got a meeting tonight. I heard you mention it. Does that involve her body?"

  He nodded. "I'm expected to deliver her body to a Tribunal just over an hour from now. If I don't, the Medb can come after me and the body without repercussion."

  Crap. Now he tells me this?

  Quinn rubbed his forehead. "Just go, Reese. Whatever interest you have in this is not going to supersede mine."

  She mentally stuttered at that.

  Had Quinn figured out she did have a personal stake in finding Kizira's body?

  She did.

  If she showed up empty-handed, Yaahl would never return her power. He wouldn't perform necromancy, which seemed to make this all better, but not really.

  She needed her powers now that jotnar demons had found her.

  Quinn crossed his arms. "Get moving, Reese."

  "How do you intend to disrupt the energy field without me?"

  "You mean without dragging you in there like a sacrificial lamb?" he snapped.

  "Yeah, that's about right, but you need me to kill demons, too."

  He replied in a droll voice. "I've killed a few demons in my time. The ones today will wish they'd met me on other battlefields. I'm not in a merciful mood. I'm done. Go now and stay out trouble. I know that's a difficult task for you--"

  "Was that a joke?"

  Quinn sighed hard and lifted his phone. It must have vibrated. She hadn't heard it.

  He confirmed, "I'm ready." Pause. "No. I told Daegan everything. He trusts us to get this done. If you're still not reaching the others telepathically or through their mobile phones, you may not get through to me either once I go in there. I'm watching a fog below me that's buzzing and--"

  Quinn listened with a stern expression. "Tell Storm to wait." Another pause. "No, that resource didn't work out. Tell him I'm working on another way to breach the energy field."

  Reese had heard enough.

  This medallion had only so much juice left.

  She should take Quinn's advice and leave, but stay close enough to come in once the tomb was revealed.

  That would be the wise thing to do in her situation.

  Only an idiot would think about anyone but herself right now.

  She turned to look down the side of the ravine and jumped, dropping as quickly as her IQ obviously had. The medallion had felt weaker each time she'd drawn on it. She clutched the disk tightly, hoping it wouldn't fade on her before she had to return to Yaahl.

  Chapter 32

  Quinn watched Reese disappear over the edge of the drop-off.

  That woman was insane.

  He jammed the phone in his pocket and backed up two steps, then took a running start. He leaped into a dive then flipped in the air and shoved his kinetic power down before the last twenty feet, slowing his fall to land on the ground at the bottom of the incline.

  Just in time.

  Reese came barreling down the mudslide, all legs and arms. Fifteen feet up from him, her foot caught.

  She pitched forward off the hill.

  Quinn caught her arms, pulling her to him. He wheeled around to keep her momentum from carrying them both to the ground.

  She clung to him for all of a second, then fought against his hold. "Let me go, dammit."

  Don't bite her head off. He refused her order and shook her. "What do you think you're doing? I tell you to leave and you jump off a ledge?"

  "I had it under control."

  "It didn't look like you were using your power just now. What was the point in giving that medallion back to you if you're not going to use it? If you want to kill yourself, do it somewhere else."

  Her face lost its spark. "I was not trying to kill myself. Don't you dare accuse me of that."

  Why did she look hurt?

  He said, "You're joking, right? I give you the chance to walk away and you're down here? Listen closely. I don't want you here. Stay out of this." He calmed his voice and gave her the truth. "I can't live with your death on my conscience too."

  She did a quick maneuver of pushing her arms inside his and breaking his hold, then backed up. "You listen to me, Mr. Know It All. I understand your pain. Someone died on my watch, too. I've spent ten years torturing myself with guilt. I've finally realized that ... I was no more at fault than you were with Kizira. I understand grief and that you have to do it in your own way and in your own time, but you have to ask yourself if you're doing this for her or for your guilt."

  His chest ached with a physical pain every time he relived Kizira's death, but Reese had just ripped open a wound he'd never heal. "I owe it to her to protect her secrets from those who would steal them."

  Reese took another step back, looking at him as if she finally understood why this mattered so much. "Okay, I understand."

  What did she think she understood?

  Swiping wet hair off her face, she said, "I'll make you a deal. I'll help you get to her tomb, but if you want to do right by Kizira, you have to live. Cremate her body and send the ashes where no one can ever abuse her death. I plan to survive this too. The dead do not want us wasting our lives."

  He was done with this conversation. "We can talk later--"

  "No, we can't. You're not listening to me." She sounded anxious. "You want to get to that tomb? This medallion is getting drained every time I use it. This is the only time I'm helping. If you keep holding me up, I might just change my mind. Whether you believe me or not, I'm the only one who can help you right now. Kizira cared for you and you're wasting the gift of life she gave you by allowing this to end yours."

  That knocked him back a step and squeezed his lungs tight.

  Reese wasn't done. "I've been told for years by an irritating advisor that everything happens for a reason. I'm supposedly still alive today for a reason. If that is true, then I've wasted years not caring whether I lived or died. I could have been figuring out my purpose. No more. I've learned you should let go of guilt over something that was out of your control. If you do that, you just might discover why you're standing here today and she isn't. Why Kizira needed you to live."

  Quinn knew why. His heart twisted and flipped around.

  Phoedra.

  Kizira depended on him to find their daughter and protect her. How was he going to do that if he ended up locked away by the Tribunal or handed over to Queen Maeve?

  Reese was right.

  He was entitled to mourn Kizira, but he had a giant responsibility that she'd entrusted to him and spending his life like an angry walking dead was not getti
ng it done.

  Kizira would never have agreed to be buried in a tomb where preternaturals could get their hands on her. She sure as hell wouldn't have supported putting his future and life at risk to protect a cold corpse when he should be hunting for their daughter.

  I've been such a fool.

  Reese stared up into his eyes with an understanding that amazed him. Real understanding from the real person inside her.

  Who had she lost?

  He wanted to know her story. To find out what made this outrageous woman tick, but now wasn't the time.

  Her eyes flared wide. She jerked around. "I feel them. We need to find your people and get closer to the tomb before we let the demons near me."

  "Reese."

  She held up a hand. "I'm going after the tomb with or without you. Are you ready to do this or not?"

  He was done arguing and he couldn't leave Reese here knowing she would interfere no matter what.

  Looking around to get his bearings, he said, "I have no idea where anyone is so let's run through the center from this end to the other. That should put us close enough for me to hear or see something."

  Her gaze jumped around. "We need to go. Now!"

  "Got it." He turned to run down one of the chewed up paths, intending to keep his Belador speed down so that she could stay with him. The buzzing was stronger down here, and the canopy held off the thunderstorm.

  He could feel the energy brush over his skin like tiny bugs climbing on him.

  His speed slowed to that of a human.

  "Keep going," she urged, running past him.

  He got moving again, but ... where was his preternatural speed? On a thought, he flicked a hand at a branch.

  His kinetics should have slapped the branch hard.

  The leaves didn't even move.

  Shit.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, not slowing a step.

  He must have cursed out loud. "My powers aren't working in here. That's why no one has been able to raise Evalle and Tristan via telepathy. That also means I'm going to be limited in my ability to keep demons away from you."

  She nodded.

  This was going to end badly, but he'd failed to shove her away. That left figuring out how to keep Reese alive.

  He now sensed the demonic energy rushing toward them.

  The buzzing canopy changed vibration, going from loud to quieter then back to loud again.