Mist waited for me at the end of the hall, staking out a dark corner near the bathroom. Her face was somber as I came up, and the look she gave me was a mix of annoyance and resignation. As if she would rather be anywhere else. For some reason, that bothered me and I frowned, crossing my arms as I glared down at her.
“So, what’s this about, Mist? Are you disappointed?” I nodded to one of the bedrooms down the hall and smirked. “You finally saw my underground, and you didn’t even have to torture me to get to it. Is it not what you were expecting?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Actually, it’s pretty much what I thought it would be,” she answered coolly. “A group of rebels and runaway hatchlings. Not particularly dangerous or inspiring. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” She drew in a deep breath, a hint of uncertainty crossing her face, as if she wasn’t sure what to do now. “My employer contacted me,” she went on, frowning slightly. “It seems I am to stay with you and aid you however I can, until he deems otherwise.”
“Huh.” I gave her a scrutinizing look. “So, what you’re saying is, after our escape from Talon, your employer doesn’t want you anywhere near him, in case the organization sees you together and figures out he’s the mastermind behind it all.”
“More or less.” Mist sighed. “I certainly can’t go back to Talon. They would kill me on sight. And I can’t risk exposing my employer. There’s nowhere for me to go that will be safe.” She bit her lip, and for just a moment, she wasn’t a Basilisk, but a scared young woman whose future was uncertain. She looked lost, strangely vulnerable, and my heart went out to her. Then she made a face and glanced back at me. “So, it appears I’m a rogue now,” she said, annoyance and defiance coloring her voice. “Just like you wanted, Cobalt. You must be proud.”
“Not really,” I said. Apprehension stirred. Mist was a Basilisk, I reminded myself. Not only that, mysterious employer or not, she had worked for Talon. “I do have a few questions for you,” I went on, narrowing my eyes. “If you’re going to be hanging around, I need to know a few things. You’ve seen my underground—that means I can’t take any chances. If I suspect that you’re a danger to everyone, or that you’re going to sell us out to Talon, I will kill you, Mist. You understand that, right?”
She gazed at me steadily. “Yes.”
“All right.” I nodded. “Then here’s the most important question. Who’s this mysterious employer who ordered you to help us escape?”
Her expression shut down instantly. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if he discovers I told anyone, he will kill me.” The girl’s voice was flat and completely serious. “I simply wouldn’t wake up one morning. And don’t think he wouldn’t find out, or that he wouldn’t be able to get to me—he has eyes and ears everywhere. Gathering information is his specialty, it’s literally all he does.”
“He wouldn’t be able to get to you here,” I insisted. “I don’t care who he is, no one is going to find you when you’re with me.” I narrowed my eyes, the hint of a growl creeping into my voice. “But this is my underground we’re talking about. I need to know you’re not a threat, Mist. I need to know I can trust you. So tell me who your employer is.”
“No,” Mist said calmly.
I glared at her. “You’re going to make this hard, aren’t you?”
“You could always interrogate me, if you want,” Mist replied, the hint of a dark smile on her face. “You went through the same training I did. Though I will warn you, I’m just as resistant to pain as you are. Without drugs or some kind of truth serum, it might take a while.”
“As if I’d ever do that,” I said, my lip curling at the thought. “I’m not Luther. I don’t interrogate people for shits and giggles.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.”
I exhaled. “All right,” I growled. She wasn’t going to tell me, and I wasn’t going to “interrogate her” to get her to talk. “But answer me this—who were you working for that night in Vegas? When you were trying to get me to reveal the locations of my safe houses?”
“That night?” Mist furrowed her brow slightly, remembering. “I was working for Talon.”
“So, you understand why I’m a little confused. Who are you loyal to, Mist? Your employer, or the organization?”
Mist glanced away, staring down the hall, as if gathering her thoughts and weighing how much she wanted to reveal. “My employer is part of Talon,” she finally said. “He has his own agents, his eyes and ears within the organization, though no one knows of them. Not even I know the identities of his other informants. Officially, we all work for Talon. We do our jobs and follow orders per normal, unless our employer tells us differently.
“That night in Vegas,” Mist went on, “I was following Talon’s orders. My mission was to separate you from your friends, discover the locations of your safe houses and then kill you. It was business. I was just doing what the organization required.”
“And your employer was okay with it?”
“Yes.” Mist nodded. “Back then, we didn’t know Talon was going to use the vessels against the Order. We didn’t know about the Night of Fang and Fire, or what the Elder Wyrm was truly planning.”
“Did you know about the clones?”
“I didn’t,” Mist said. “But I suspect he did. After I...failed the mission in Vegas, I expected to be punished, or at least reassigned somewhere horrible. But he pulled some strings and was able to reassign me to the lab, where you ended up.” Her expression shifted to a faint look of awe as she shook her head. “I think he knew, somehow, that our paths would cross. That he could use you to get the information he wanted.”
“Why help us escape, though?” I asked. “You could have easily left us there, after you got what you needed. The easier plan would have been to abandon us or turn us in, instead of having Luther see you with us and blow your cover.”
“Yes, it would,” Mist agreed. “But that’s not what my employer desired. He wanted me to help you escape, so I did. Don’t ask me why—I’m not in the habit of questioning his orders. And lately...” She paused again, a brief frown crossing her face as if she were annoyed that she was revealing something else. “He’s been at odds with the Elder Wyrm for a long time. Perhaps he realized that you would be more useful alive and free. That you and your little resistance will be instrumental in stopping the Elder Wyrm’s plan to destroy the Order.” She shrugged. “Or maybe he just wanted another way to twist the knife. You’ve certainly been a thorn in Talon’s side. Maybe that’s why he chose to help you.
“In any case,” she continued, giving me a defiant look. “That’s all I’m willing to reveal right now. Have I sufficiently answered your questions, Cobalt? Are you satisfied that I am not going to run off and betray you to Talon at the first opportunity?”
I crossed my arms. “For now.”
“Well.” Mist gave me that faint smile. “Do let me know if anything changes.”
Downstairs, the front door opened and closed softly.
We both froze. To my knowledge, all the hatchlings were asleep and accounted for. Ember and the soldier had left a few hours ago, but I’d received a text from Ember earlier tonight, letting me know she was fine, that she was on her way back and that there was something we had to discuss. That was ominous, but it wasn’t like her to quietly sneak into a room, and I’d heard only one pair of footsteps come in instead of two. I wouldn’t put it past a couple of my hatchlings to sneak out of the house and wander off alone, and a Viper certainly wouldn’t use the front door, but right now, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I drew my gun and, immediately, Mist did the same, pulling a pistol from the small of her back and slipping around behind me. She made no sound as she did, moving like the trained operative she was. I jerked my head toward the staircase, and together we crept down the
hall, guns held before us, careful not to make a sound.
At the top of the stairs, I gazed down into the living room. Everything was dark and shadowy, only a faint bit of moonlight coming in through the curtained windows. Carefully, I eased down the steps, keeping my pistol trained on the room, ready to shoot anything that popped out of the darkness and lunged at me. I could feel Mist behind me, doing the same, and weirdly enough, I was glad she was there to back me up.
At the back of the couch, a ripple of movement caught my attention, a shadow moving across the room. Quickly, I pointed the muzzle of my gun at it, feeling Mist do the same. “Hold it right there,” I growled, and the shadow instantly stopped moving. Its features were blurred by shadow, but I was positive this wasn’t a hatchling, trying to sneak back to their room. And it wasn’t Ember or the soldier, so... “You have exactly three seconds to tell me who you are,” I warned in a steely voice. “So if you don’t want a bunch of lead between the eyes, I would start talking now.”
“Barbaric and paranoid as usual, I see,” said a soft, instantly familiar voice, and a lamp clicked on, illuminating the room. I relaxed, exhaling in both surprise and relief as a slender Asian woman met my gaze across the floor. “I am relieved that some things never change.”
“Dammit, Jade.” I sighed, lowering the gun. The Eastern dragon regarded me calmly. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you even find us?”
She blinked. “I received a message earlier from the soldier,” was the cool reply. “He told me where you were and implied that you might need my help very soon. As I had already returned to the States, I came here as quickly as I could.”
I holstered the pistol, never so happy to see another dragon, even this dragon. Prejudice toward our Eastern cousins aside, Jade was a powerful Adult dragon who could more than take out her share of enemies if pressed. The trick was getting her to agree to fight; she would still rather meditate on a problem than blast it to cinders with flame.
“Did St. George tell you what happened?” I asked, and Jade nodded.
“He explained the...oh, what is the word? The gist of it. That you had been captured by Talon but managed to escape. That the organization has created an army of mindless clone dragons. That they are getting ready to...sic?...them on the rest of the world.” Jade’s voice grew even more grave. “It seemed a good idea to return and offer assistance before Talon wipes us all off the map.”
“What about your council? That seemed important, enough for you to drop everything and go back to China. What happened?”
Her smile became tight. “That is a story for another time, I’m afraid.” At my annoyed look, she raised a hand. “I will explain everything soon. It is a tale that needs telling. But now is not the time. There are other issues to discuss.”
“I take it you two know each other,” Mist said, and I couldn’t be certain, but there might’ve been the faintest thread of awe in her voice as she stared at the Eastern dragon.
“Yeah,” I answered, stepping aside a little. “Mist, this is Jade. She’s a friend of the soldier.”
Mist offered the Eastern dragon a respectful bow, shocking me, and Jade inclined her head in return. “Speaking of which, where is the soldier?” she asked, sweeping her gaze up the stairs behind me, as if hoping to find him on the steps. “Last I heard from him, he was impatient that we speak again.”
“He’s gone,” I said, and she looked back sharply, eyes narrowing. “But he should be back anytime now. He and Ember left this afternoon to attend a meeting with the Order.”
Jade blinked. “I’m sorry, what?” she said serenely. “Did you just say he and the girl left to attend a meeting with St. George?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because the Order needs our help,” Ember said. We all jerked around to find her standing in the doorway, her eyes shining with a subtle green light as she gazed at us. “Because the Night of Fang and Fire is going to hit any night now, and I promised Garret I would return to St. George and help him fight Talon. With or without you.”
GARRET
I’m home.
Angrily, I shoved that thought from my mind as the jeep pulled through the gates of the Western chapterhouse, the guard saluting briskly as we went by. The Order was not home to me any longer, I reminded myself, feeling an ache of recognition as the familiar rows of buildings came into view over the sand. The chapel, the barracks, the mess hall. Places I knew by heart, where I had sat with my brothers and talked about killing dragons.
They aren’t your brothers, and this isn’t your place. You don’t belong here anymore.
No, I did not. But I would still fight to defend it. Regardless of the enmity between us, the fact that I was a traitor to my Order and my former brothers despised me, I would still stand with them against the slaughter I knew was coming. Because Talon could not win. Because if they truly shattered the Order of St. George, there would be no one left to stop the Elder Wyrm and Talon from sweeping over the rest of the world.
And because, despite everything, the Order still had good people within it. Tristan, Gabriel Martin, a few others I had trained with and fought beside. They were misguided—they had been indoctrinated like every other soldier—but they were not evil. They were just like I had been, before I’d met a fiery red dragon in Crescent Beach. If I could change, if I could see dragons for what they really were, surely there were others who would do the same. They just needed to be shown the truth.
The sun was a faint red smear on the horizon, the chapterhouse quiet and dark, as Martin pulled up to the assembly hall and killed the engine. He paused, hands on the steering wheel, then turned to fix me with a somber glare.
“I’ve called ahead and told my officers to gather the soldiers,” he stated. “They’re waiting in the assembly hall now. Are you ready for this, Sebastian?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what they’re going to say to you, how they’re going to react. No one will shoot you on my watch, but it’s not going to be pretty. Everyone in St. George knows you’ve sided with the dragons, but you are from this chapterhouse, and these are the men you’ve personally betrayed. Think about what that means, Sebastian.”
“I know, sir. And I don’t expect any understanding or sympathy, but this has to be done.”
He nodded briskly and stepped out of the jeep. I followed him around the building to the assembly hall, thankful when we stepped through a side door instead of through the main entrance. A soldier I recognized, one of the squad leaders by the name of Williams, waited for Martin beside the door to the main hall.
“Sir.” He saluted sharply, and Martin returned it. “Welcome back. The soldiers are...”
He trailed off, seeing me for the first time, and his eyes went wide. “Sebastian,” he whispered, his voice laced with shock. There was a single heartbeat of silence, and then his mouth curled in a snarl. “You son of a—”
“Williams!” Martin snapped, stopping him midlunge. Williams froze, still glaring at me with darkest hate, one hand halfway to his sidearm. “Stand down, soldier,” Martin ordered in a low, firm voice. “I brought him here. Sebastian is with me.”
“Sir.” Williams turned to Martin, aghast. His mouth opened, probably to snap at his superior officer, before he seemed to remember himself and straightened. “Permission to speak freely, sir.”
“If you must.”
“Sir, why is the dragonlover here?”
Martin gave a wry curl of his lip. “That’s more of a question, soldier. Are you questioning me?”
“No, sir! But—”
“Sebastian is here for a reason. That’s all you need to know right now.” Martin’s dark gaze remained fixed on the other soldier. “I will not have a riot in these halls, nor will I have Sebastian come to harm while he is here. You will keep yourself under co
ntrol, and you will trust that your superior officer knows what he is doing. Is that understood, soldier?”
“I...” Williams shot one last, murderous glare at me, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Martin turned from the soldier, dismissing him, and glanced at me. “Let’s go, Sebastian.”
We left Williams glowering in the hall and entered the assembly room through the back door, stepping onto the stage. As Martin and I walked to the front of the platform, I looked over the floor and saw the surprised faces of my former brothers turn to outrage as they recognized me. Furtively, I scanned the room, taking stock of who was there, looking for someone in particular. It took me only a moment to spot him. On the far side of the room, leaning with his back to the wall, Tristan St. Anthony raised his head and met my gaze, dark eyes narrowing to slits.
“You all know who this is.” Martin’s voice wasn’t a question, carrying into the tense silence.
“The fucking dragonlover!” someone in the back shouted.
“Yes,” Martin agreed, though his eyes narrowed in the direction of the shout. “We all know our former brother, Garret Xavier Sebastian. And we all know what he has done. However...” His voice dropped, becoming low and commanding. “I brought Sebastian here—he is under my protection and the protection of this chapterhouse. Which means,” he went on, his expression hardening, “no one under my command will do him any harm whatsoever. Sebastian is not a prisoner. He will be allowed to move about the base freely, and he will not be treated any differently than anyone else. If I hear of anyone throwing so much as a spitball in his direction, they’ll be spending the rest of the day in a cell. I hope I have made myself perfectly clear on this.”