She felt the perspiration sliding down the center of her back, felt the dampness gather between her thighs. Her heartbeat accelerated. Her breath came more quickly and her temples were damp. Sweat moistened her palms and gathered on her upper lip.
All Alex could think of was Donovan. Donovan naked; Donovan tanned and strong; Donovan touching her with those fabulous hands; Donovan easing a fingertip over her nipple; Donovan fanning the flames of her desire.
Donovan shifted on his seat and the shadow in his jeans revealed they were thinking exactly the same thing.
“That’s far enough.” Donovan’s low words reminded Alex of what he was and what he could do, and a part of her was afraid. He was dangerous, a relentless killing machine. He was a dragon, a whole lot like the dragons who had killed Mark so viciously.
The other part of her lusted for him with a frightening intensity, to the exclusion of everything else. Had he been a normal man, she would have indulged in a one-nighter, then forgotten him.
But Donovan wasn’t a normal man.
He pointed back to the bedroom she’d left. Alex hesitated. It wasn’t like her to back down, but she wasn’t going to get past him to the other bedroom. She certainly wasn’t going to manage to run, not with his attention so firmly fixed on her.
She tore her gaze away from Donovan’s with an effort and immediately felt that she’d surrendered something precious. She fled back into the bedroom, pulling the door behind herself so it closed with a resolute click.
Alex leaned back against the door, still simmering, and stared at the ceiling. She knew when she’d reached an impasse—it happened all the time in her research. A dead end meant retracking, formulating a new hypothesis, and seeking a new solution. Escaping Donovan tonight wasn’t going to happen.
Her moment would come—she just had to be vigilant.
Time for Plan B.
She frowned in the darkness and knew she couldn’t just run. No, she’d have to disguise herself. She recalled her earlier thought of releasing her inner biker chick and liked it.
When Sara took her shopping in the morning, Alex would buy things she’d never usually buy. No one who knew Alex Madison would be looking for her in spiked boots and leather. It wouldn’t be a disguise that would work for long, but it might work long enough.
All she had to do was retrieve two different sets of backups and get to her refuge without being caught.
By dragons.
Deep in the forest, the Wyvern stretched her body across the snow. She laid her ear to the earth and listened to anguish.
She understood that Gaia fought for her own survival with the four elements at her disposal. Earthquakes gathered force deep underground, their fissures working toward the surface. Tsunamis roiled in the midst of the oceans, mustering toward coastlines. Tropical storms swirled into the intensity of hurricanes, then headed for islands. Fires raged over hillsides and rolled down toward sleeping towns.
The Wyvern knew that she had waited too long to intervene in human affairs. She could have ensured that the Pyr bred with greater haste, that they had made better choices. She tasted failure, a failure more imminent due to her own choices, and knew that the time for standing aside was past.
She put herself in tune with the earth, listening to the planet’s moans, then tried to influence events. She eased the landfall of a tsunami farther along the shore, so that it missed a large town. She blew a fire back into the mountains, away from the homes of humans. She eased the tension along a fault line, diminishing the force of an earthquake in a populous region. She coaxed a tropical storm back out over the water, so that its might fell upon the breadth of the sea instead of on shore.
It was exhausting work and a losing battle. Each disaster she averted was replaced by half a dozen new potential disasters. Gaia would find her balance again, regardless of the human cost.
Unless the Pyr helped.
Sophie felt the bedrock of Donovan’s resistance to his own firestorm and feared the worst. Her optimism faltered, then took a fatal hit when she sensed again the black void of the Slayers’ secret academy.
It drew her thoughts closer, as if it would suck her into its vortex. It snared her, summoning her thoughts like a dark magnet. Sophie knew it had found her because she had intervened. Those in the dark academy also tried to use Gaia’s power for their own ends and they resented any interference.
They would destroy humans. They were Slayers.
What was the nature of their academy? Sophie was tempted to explore, but she knew the temptation was treachery. They would snare her own power and turn it to their dark purpose. They would destroy her forever, Sophie knew.
She wrenched her thoughts away from the dark vortex with an effort. There was one who could probe its secrets and emerge unscathed—but she didn’t know who it was.
She knew only who it wasn’t.
Sophie closed her eyes against the obstacles before her. She felt the anguish of the humans she hadn’t been able to help on this night. She was burdened by the knowledge she possessed and terrified of the extent of her ignorance.
The Pyr were losing this last battle, unaware of the evils against them. Along with the Pyr, humans would be lost. The mission of the Wyvern and her kind would fail, and fail beyond redemption.
And she was partly to blame.
Futility cast a shadow on her heart. In the quiet of the forest, the Wyvern wept.
Much later, Sophie rolled to her back and opened her eyes. Countless stars glistened overhead, their beauty a reminder of the power and compassion of the Great Wyvern. She tasted the spark of human optimism and felt hope.
All was not lost. It could not be. It was said that no one was granted a burden she could not carry. Sophie stared at the starry sky and reviewed what tools she had at her disposal. She wondered how best she could muster her own forces.
Then she knew.
It was against tradition to interfere directly with the Pyr, but the rules were being shattered by the Slayers. Sophie saw no reason not to break a few of her own.
The price of failure was too great to do otherwise.
Sophie closed her eyes and prayed for the Great Wyvern’s aid. She didn’t wait for an approval that might not come. It was time to act. Instead, she conjured a fistful of dreams and cast them into the night, directing them to those who had need of them.
First, the Seer.
Sara dreamed of furrows in the earth.
She was buried in the soil, one of a long line of seeds. The seeds looked like pearls against the rich loam, or like drops of moonlight. As Sara watched, the seeds on each side of her sprouted, but they didn’t grow roots and leaves and shoots.
They grew arms and legs, fingers and toes. They turned into men as she watched, men as strong and fierce as Quinn. They sprang from the soil, fully formed and ready to fight.
Sara’s hand curved protectively over her belly. She knew that she dreamed of Quinn’s seed taking root in her womb. She knew there were lots of seeds in her dream because she’d have many sons with Quinn.
But Sara was wrong about her dream’s meaning.
In the darkness of a Minneapolis hotel room, Erik entered a meditative state, close to sleep but not quite the same. He dispatched his thoughts in the direction of the shadow he had sensed time and again. It was a place he could locate only by feel, a place he did not want to find.
He found its aura of evil and guided his thoughts stealthily to the portal. It was open, but filled with a brooding darkness. He was both drawn to it and repelled by it. He feared his own fate if he entered, but feared more for the Pyr if he did not enter.
It was his role to lead, after all, and lead without regard to his own survival. Ignorance did them no service.
Erik drew ever closer, eased to the threshold, and braced himself to enter its foul darkness. . . .
The portal suddenly disappeared, as surely as if a door had been slammed and barred against him.
“Not you,” the Wyvern whispered in o
ld-speak, and Erik was honest enough to acknowledge his relief.
Not him. His eyes flew open in the darkness.
Then who?
Sloane bent over his book in Erik’s bedroom. Despite having solved similar riddles dozens of times, the key to this ancient script eluded him. He was tired and impatient but couldn’t let down his fellow Pyr. He had to solve this.
Sloane felt Erik stir, and cast a glance at the leader of the Pyr. Erik was awake but lost in thought, frowning at the ceiling.
Sloane turned back to his work, unwilling to disturb Erik with his doubts. The letters of the transcription shimmered before his eyes, as if a magnifying glass had been passed across them. He blinked, fearing that he was too tired to work, then stared.
He could read the text. It had transformed itself. Sloane read greedily, devouring the information presented in the first two sentences; then that glimmer passed over the work again.
The text had returned to its original state.
But Sloane had had a glimpse of its deciphered truth.
He quickly wrote down what he had seen. With the first two sentences decoded, he could find the key. He set to work with new enthusiasm, knowing that he’d learn the hidden truth soon.
Quinn dreamed of his forge.
He was back in his studio, hammering the scales that should have repaired the armor of Sloane and Niall. He watched the flames leap, felt their healing power. He welcomed the weight of the hammer in his hand, knew the grip of the tongs on each scale in turn was sure. He felt the power of the Smith surge through him as he hammered each scale into its true shape.
He tasted the bitterness of failure when each refused to adhere. He was the Smith. His role was to heal his kind. How could that be impossible?
“Not impossible,” whispered a woman in old-speak, and Quinn knew he was not alone. He turned to face the Wyvern, who had silently entered both his dream and his shop.
He stared into the magnificent turquoise of her eyes and felt a communion with something older and wiser than himself. Quinn’s heart skipped when he saw his father in the Wyvern’s eyes, the clear blue of his father’s eyes so much like Quinn’s own.
His father, the father Quinn had known for only five short years, smiled; then he shared his knowledge. Quinn could hear his father’s wisdom, echoing in his thoughts like old-speak, as long as he held the Wyvern’s unblinking gaze.
She let him look. She opened a portal to the past for Quinn.
His father’s knowledge flowed to him, like heat moving along a length of steel, illuminating the metal as it progressed. Quinn could heal his fellows. Rafferty was right: it had to happen during the firestorm. But the key to success was the willingness of the human mate to participate.
Quinn had to learn to wait. He had to learn to identify the best moment.
But he could do it.
The lost knowledge of Thierry de Béziers that Quinn found in Sophie’s eyes told him how.
Rafferty dreamed of the past. He dreamed in the rich hues of medieval manuscripts; he dreamed of blood and glory and triumph. He dreamed of old stories of valor.
He found himself at a familiar hearth, smelling the peat fire he had known as a child. He saw his grandfather, sitting by the fire with his long legs crossed at the ankle. Rafferty’s grandfather had never been old and feeble. His eyes had flashed with frequent fire and even when he slept, there had been a glimmer of watchfulness between his lids.
He had taught Rafferty everything Rafferty knew.
Rafferty was back at that fireside, rapt at his grandfather’s feet as the flames leapt high on the hearth. His grandfather leaned down, eyes gleaming with ancient fire, and confided a prophecy Rafferty had never heard before.
It made perfect sense, as prophecies seldom do.
Rafferty awakened abruptly, startled to find himself in the chill of a hotel room instead of beside that fire. His grandfather’s words resonated in his thoughts.
Rafferty studied Donovan, who dozed opposite him. He knew that any change in Donovan was Alex’s to make.
Rafferty would wait for his moment.
Donovan dreamed of his own past. He was on the streets of Dublin, begging for pennies and scrounging food, as he had done for years. He was lean and young and hungry. He turned a corner and almost collided with a younger version of himself.
He stared in shock at Delaney, and Delaney stared in shock at him. There was an instant connection between them, some recognition of their similarity. It was beyond a physical resemblance, and he remembered the compelling force of that recognition.
They were both Pyr, although neither of them knew the name of their nature at the time. It would be weeks before they confided their secret in each other, but from that moment of meeting, they were inseparable. They were a team.
Donovan called them cousins as a joke. Neither had had any family, but they had each other. Why not be cousins?
In his dream, he raised a hand to Delaney as he had on that long-ago day, and Delaney lifted his hand, too.
But in the dream, as Delaney’s fingertips approached Donovan’s own, a clear barrier descended between them. The wall of glass turned all beyond it to darkness. The light in Delaney’s eyes died when contact was obstructed, and recognition disappeared.
Shard of my talon. Keir’s last taunt echoed in Donovan’s thoughts and carried the resonance of truth. Donovan had promised to protect Delaney. He’d promised to take care of him.
He’d failed. Delaney had been killed by Slayers, and worse, his body had been claimed by them. Donovan stirred in his sleep, not liking the reminder of his failure.
Then the barrier was abruptly lit, turning from glass to a mirror. Donovan saw Keir’s reflection beside him. He might have turned to fight his father, but Keir’s image was superimposed on Delaney’s face. Donovan’s own reflection—and his shock—was alongside. The similarities were striking.
“Not cousins,” whispered the Wyvern in old-speak.
No.
Brothers.
Shards of Keir’s talon, both cast out by their mother when their Pyr nature made itself known. His father had come back, unbeknownst to Donovan, and slept with his mother again.
It must have been before she knew what Donovan was, before she had called him devil’s spawn. Or maybe the realization had been concurrent with her discovery that she was pregnant again.
Donovan’s eyes flew open and he stared unseeingly at the hotel room as his heart pounded. Delaney was about a dozen years younger than he was. Donovan had been cast out of his mother’s home at twelve, at puberty. They had different surnames, but Donovan’s mother had been capable of telling a lie.
Brothers.
Donovan had let Delaney down when it mattered most. Was he truly his father’s son? Was he as selfish as Keir?
Or could he choose to be different?
Chapter 6
The next morning, Donovan and Quinn loitered outside a women’s clothing store, standing guard over a pile of packages while Sara and Alex shopped. It didn’t fit Donovan’s idea of hoard, but no one was asking for his input. Quinn stared into the store, keeping a vigilant eye on his mate.
“You’re going to spook someone,” Donovan advised. “Some woman will decide you’re a creep and set the mall cops on us.”
Quinn folded his arms across his chest but otherwise didn’t move. “Sara will defend me.”
“Being one woman’s personal peeper isn’t much better.”
Quinn didn’t move.
“And you can sense her fear without watching her, anyway.”
“She might not see the threat first.” Quinn gave Donovan a stern look. “Slayers are hunting your mate. I’m not going to let Sara get caught in the cross fire.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Donovan scowled. “I hate malls.”
“Don’t tell me it makes you long for the old days.” Quinn moved a step closer to the store and narrowed his eyes. “They’ve gone into the fitting rooms.”
“There??
?s no way a Slayer could sneak in there.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Silence stretched between them. There were a lot of women in the mall, most of them pushing fancy strollers and sipping fancy coffees. Seniors in the midst of their power walks ducked around the women, relentless in their pursuit of a quicker speed. A group of half a dozen young children with their mothers passed by, noisily negotiating their visit to the aquarium.
Donovan was impatient with all of it. “What if it does make me think of the old days?” He pushed himself to his feet. “You have to remember how stupendous a woman could look. Brocade shoes and lace collars, velvet doublets and corsets.”
“Fuss,” Quinn said.
“Yes, fuss. I love fuss.” Donovan pushed the image of Olivia out of his thoughts. “Stockings and garters and acres of petticoats. Undressing a woman was an adventure and a half. It could take all night.” His voice dropped low. “There’d be lace everywhere. Great Wyvern, but I love the look of white lace against a woman’s skin.”
He scowled at the floor, convinced that Alex would make practical purchases. She’d reappear in Dockers and a polo shirt, with a sensible sports bra underneath it all. She’d wear walking shoes and would dress in taupe and olive, or navy and white. While he could appreciate a cleanly athletic look, there were times when a little feminine flourish was welcome.
Maybe her practical clothing choices were a kind of gift, a chance for him to keep from consummating his firestorm.
Was Erik misleading him about the Pyr needing to complete these three firestorms to survive? Erik always wanted the Pyr to breed—if nothing else, Erik knew exactly how to get to him. He knew that Donovan would play for the team.
Donovan wasn’t going to imagine Alex in lace. The sight of her breasts beneath his own T-shirt was branded on his brain. He didn’t want to even begin to envision her tanned curves accented with lace, but his imagination did it anyway.
The firestorm didn’t fight fair.
Meanwhile, Quinn smiled at his comments. “You can take the dragon out of the Renaissance,” he drawled, and Donovan laughed.