“I’ll bring wine,” Sloane promised.
“No, I have to get to work right afterward.” Sam’s smile turned mischievous. “Just be naked and don’t be late.”
* * *
Sam was feeling both serene and excited. She and Sloane had made love slowly and thoroughly, and it had been wonderful. She didn’t want to leave him, but she did want to get this antidote into production. She knew what she had to do.
The CDC was sending a helicopter to pick her up at the airport, a condition she’d made to keep Sloane’s location hidden. She didn’t think her cover story about finding the cure was very compelling, because she was a lousy liar, but Isaac was so relieved to have progress that he wasn’t asking many questions. They’d almost certainly come later. She was packing antidote, samples and serums with care in HazMat containers in Sloane’s lab. She’d have to make a case and her results would have to be replicated before the testing could begin, but she was optimistic.
The Pyr had made the solution possible, which meant that there were good dragons and bad dragons.
Sam had a definite favorite in the herd.
She could hear Sloane talking to Ronnie, although she couldn’t discern his words. Drake had gone to pick up Timmy, and Sam halfway wished she could witness the happy reunion between mother and son.
It would be better, though, to head out and save more sons sooner.
She thought of all the obstacles facing Sloane and his kind and knew she wasn’t the only one who felt the odds were too long. What if she could do something to help ensure the survival of the Pyr?
The Magician created new realities.
The Magician changed the world.
Could she save Sloane? She sure wanted to do whatever she could.
Sam’s gaze slid to the last refrigerator in the lab. It was one at the end with a stainless door and a lock. There was a key on a shelf at the opposite end of the lab and since nothing else had a lock, Sam had guessed which lock it opened.
It was easy to recall Sloane’s confession. The Slayers were being replicated or even cloned and he had one of them here in the lab. What determined that a dragon shifter was Slayer? It had a physiological manifestation in that black corrosive blood.
The Dracontias was perched on the bench.
Sam wondered just how much it could cure.
It was an impulsive, impetuous, intuitive thought, but once she had it, Sam acted upon it. She trusted her instinct in this, as she never had before.
“Sloane!” she called as she picked up the stone. “Sloane! I have an idea. Come quickly!” Too impatient to wait, Sam marched down the lab to get the key.
“What is it?” he called. He was up in the house, but his voice carried to her from the distance.
She shouted again, to make sure he heard from the other side of the airlock, but couldn’t wait. This idea was too exciting. Sam opened the fridge, then stepped back in shock, even though she’d anticipated its contents.
Sloane had said that the Slayer wasn’t dead, but this man clearly was. Maybe he’d died in the fridge. He had fair hair and was dressed conservatively in a jacket and trousers, although he wore no necktie. There were icicles hanging from his nose, chin and earlobes, and his skin was faintly blue from the cold. There was dried blood on his shirt and it looked as if the fabric had stuck in a wound across his chest.
It was a deep gash, like the kind Sam imagined would be made by a dragon’s talon. It hadn’t healed, which hinted that the Elixir hadn’t been able to repair this injury.
Did the Pyr and Slayers solve all disputes with violence? She couldn’t reconcile that with Sloane’s nature. Did the Pyr have courts or a justice system? Sam was suddenly aware of how little she knew about Sloane and his kind.
The warmer air of the lab was wafting into the fridge, but this corpse wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sam leaned forward to look more closely, curious.
Sloane must have been with Drake and Ronnie, because it was taking him ages to get to the lab. She reached to tug the fabric away from the Slayer’s wound, wanting to see the injury.
Sam gasped when the Slayer’s eyes opened. They were a clear blue. She might have thought it just a delayed physical reaction of some kind—like corpses having erections—but he blinked, then smiled. His eyes lit and he snatched for her. He shimmered blue as his thumb became a dragon talon of brilliant gold.
That was when Sam screamed.
* * *
Sloane raged out of the greenhouse when Sam screamed, shifting shape en route. He crashed through the airlocks to the lab and leapt toward the Slayer emerging from the fridge. This version of Boris Vassily snarled as his body warmed and he shimmered blue around his perimeter. In a heartbeat, he’d shift shape completely.
Sloane rammed him into the wall first, pummeling him hard to keep him from changing shape. In dragon form, the clone wouldn’t fit in the fridge. He slashed at Boris, giving him enough new injuries to keep the Elixir busy for a while, then jammed him back into the fridge and slammed the door.
He pivoted to find Sam backed against the far wall, her eyes wide.
She held out the key with shaking hands. He could see that the Dracontias was clutched in her other hand.
Sloane waited for her.
She took a deep breath, more valiant than he’d expected, then crossed the floor with a little bit of trepidation. “Sorry again. I should have listened, especially the bit about him not being quite dead.” Her eyes widened as she surveyed him, and Sloane recalled that she’d never seen him in his dragon form. “It is you, right?”
He nodded slowly, then pointed at the lock. Sam came to stand beside him, her terror clear in her scent, and locked the fridge quickly. Sloane could hear Boris whimpering, then the Slayer’s breathing changed as he passed out again.
Sloane released the breath he’d been holding and gestured to Sam to look away.
“Oh, I want to see this,” she said, evidently guessing the reason for the blue shimmer of light around his body. She folded her arms across her chest, determination in her gaze.
Sloane knew better than to argue with her. She was stubborn. He summoned the change and tipped his head back as it ripped through his body, then opened his eyes to find her watching him closely.
“Your eyes changed last,” she said and Sloane was surprised. He’d hadn’t known that. She looked at the fridge. “Will he stay there?”
“Only until his injuries heal. He’s consumed the Elixir.”
“Which means he always heals and is practically immortal.” Sam nodded understanding. “That’s why you hurt him more. The refrigeration must be slowing his metabolic rate, but he’ll still heal in time.” She glanced up. “Have you had time to do any tests on him?”
Sloane shook his head. “There hasn’t been time.” He couldn’t think of a way to explain it. “He’s not normal, not for our kind. He and multiple others appeared at the same time. They look identical to a Slayer who is long dead. That’s why I think they’re clones.”
Sam grimaced. “If there are more of them, they could out-number the Pyr, or at least turn the tide of the war.”
Sloane nodded.
“How many more?”
“There have been seven so far. One’s here. It’s tough to say for sure how many of the others have survived. When they’re injured, the other Slayers collect them.”
“So the Elixir has time to heal them?”
“Maybe.” Sloane watched her. “Maybe to eat them to harvest more Elixir. The source is gone.”
She shuddered with revulsion and retreated a step, her move expressing her opinion about dragon shifters. She glanced over the wreckage of the lab and he guessed that she was avoiding his gaze. “It’s trashed.”
“I’ll clean it up.” He was glad that she was in her HazMat suit, and that there were no other humans in the vicinity.
“The blood samples with the virus are locked away, but your control of the lab environment is compromised,” Sam noted.
&n
bsp; “I’ll burn it all.” Sloane nodded at her surprise. “Dragonfire purifies.”
She smiled, but only a little. He feared that seeing his truth had changed everything. That filled him with both anger and sadness, a frustration that he’d been cheated by fate of the one woman he desired, along with a bittersweet regret that things couldn’t have been different.
Or maybe that he hadn’t managed to change them.
It felt to him that this time, the price to the Apothecary was too high.
“You should go,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to be late for your connection and you’ll need to scrub up.”
“No, I don’t want to miss the flight.” Sam took a breath then stepped toward him. She took his hand in hers, then placed the Dracontias in his palm. “I had an idea that this could eliminate Slayers from the world forever, leaving the Pyr to survive the Dragon’s Tail Wars,” she said quietly. She closed his fingers over the stone. “I don’t know if it will work. I didn’t have time to try it, but that’s the way I want this story to end.”
“I don’t want the story to end at all,” Sloane murmured.
Sam smiled and bowed her head, her hands wrapped around his for a sweet moment. Even with the barrier of her gloves, he savored the pressure of her grip. Then she turned and walked across the lab, then paused to glance back at him. There was admiration in her eyes. “Your dragon form is beautiful, you know. So majestic and powerful.” She swallowed, then smiled at him. “I can see why damsels in distress lost their hearts so easily.”
Hope was a tightness in Sloane’s throat, but then Sam was gone.
* * *
In the greenhouse that had been part of the isolation room, Ronnie bent and picked up something from the stone floor. It was a scale, a dragon scale, one that gleamed with the hues of tourmaline and was edged with gold. She’d seen it fall when Dr. Wilcox had screamed and she knew what it meant.
The Apothecary was in love.
Ronnie smiled and caressed the scale with her fingertips.
Then she left the rooms where she had been living, intent upon meeting Dr. Wilcox in the foyer. She’d say farewell and thank the other woman.
Plus give her this very precious souvenir of Sloane. Ronnie couldn’t think of a safer place for such a treasure to be.
* * *
Timmy couldn’t sit still. He certainly couldn’t eat his dinner, even though it was hamburgers and fries, his very favorite. Mrs. Patterson had told him that Drake was coming to pick him up and take him to see his mom, and Timmy knew what that meant.
A dragonflight.
He couldn’t wait. He didn’t care where they were going or how long it took. He was going to love every minute of it. He wanted to see his mom, too, because talking to her on the phone wasn’t like being with her. He had a hundred things to tell her.
Dashiell was excited for him, too, even though Timmy hadn’t shared Drake’s secret. That was how it had to be. He wasn’t authorized to share information, although he was going to ask for permission. His stuff was all packed, because he knew he’d be moving now that his mom was better.
“Don’t be sad, Dashiell,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Timmy will be back in a week or so.”
“And then he’ll need your help moving,” Mr. Patterson added. “It’ll be great to have you all as neighbors.”
Drake had bought a house just down the street from the Patterson’s, having located it with Mrs. Patterson’s help and Timmy’s mom’s suggestions. Kristofer and Theo had taken Timmy and Dashiell past it the other day. It looked awesome, with a backyard that led to the creek they’d been wanting to explore, but the best part was that he and Dashiell would be living so close to each other.
Well, the best part was that he’d be secretly hanging out with the Pyr. He hoped they let him tell Dashiell soon.
“And then the baby will be coming,” Mrs. Patterson said. “There are going to be a lot of changes for you, Timmy.”
“All good ones,” he said happily. “I knew Drake would make everything right.”
Dashiell’s parents exchanged a smile, then the doorbell rang.
Timmy excused himself and ran to the door, Dashiell right behind him. Drake was there, smiling as he crouched down before Timmy. He hadn’t changed a bit. “Are you ready?”
“Absolutely,” Timmy said. He might have lunged out the door in his excitement, but Drake raised a brow in silent reminder. He stood, waiting, and Timmy pivoted to thank the Patterson’s for hosting him.
The adults all shook hands and wished each other well, and Drake told Mrs. Patterson when to expect them back. He confirmed that Timmy’s mom was healing well and that the pregnancy was proceeding as anticipated, his confidence obviously reassuring them. Drake took Timmy’s bag and they strode into the evening together, Timmy fighting his urge to run.
“The house is empty,” Drake said quietly. “Because it’s ours now. We’ll have a quick look at it now, to confirm that everything is as it should be, then go into the backyard.”
“That’s why you chose one with a big yard,” Timmy guessed. “And one that leads into the forest.”
“Privacy must be defended, Timothy, for your safety and that of your mother. You have done well with this secret, but you must keep it forever.”
“I know. I’m on it.” He flicked a glance at Drake. “I’d like if Dashiell could know, too.”
Drake nodded slowly. “There may be a way for that to be possible, but not before the eclipse in the fall.”
Timmy nodded agreement, more excited than he’d been in his life.
It seemed to take a million years for them to get to the house and for Drake to walk through it, checking doors and windows. Timmy was going to be able to pick his room, but for the moment, he didn’t really care. He was impatient for his dragonflight. Drake smiled at him, as if understanding his reaction, then led him into the backyard. They walked to the end of the lot, where the forest began, then into the shadows under the trees. Timmy could hear the water in the creek as it flowed over stones and he watched as Drake surveyed the distant houses.
“Better than I had hoped,” he murmured, and Timmy noticed that no windows faced them. Then Drake began to shimmer, just like the dragons in the videos. A pale blue light radiated from his body as Timmy watched, then suddenly grew so bright that Timmy had to close his eyes. When he opened them, he knew what he would see.
Drake was a massive dark dragon, as black as the shadows in the forest, with teeth and claws and a long tail. He was obviously strong and his wings were leathery. He waited, watching with the same stillness Timmy associated with Drake. Timmy raised a hand and touched Drake’s scales, feeling how hard they were and how they overlapped.
Like armor. They even had points on them, like thorns, and were cool to the touch.
There was one missing on Drake’s chest and Timmy’s hand rose to the spot.
“It will be repaired soon, at your mother’s request.” He sounded like Drake, too, although his voice was deeper.
“Do you always lose scales?”
The dragon that was Drake seemed to smile. “A Pyr only loses a scale when he loses his heart. It is because I love your mother that my scale is gone.”
“And she’s going to help you fix it because she loves you.”
Drake inclined his head in agreement and offered Timmy a claw. “Shall we go to her?”
“Is she really having a baby?”
“She is. It will be a boy.”
“Will he be a dragon, too?”
“One day, if all is right, he will develop his Pyr abilities. He will be your brother from the outset, though.”
“I always thought it would be cool to have a brother,” Timmy admitted. “Having a dragon brother will be even better.” He grinned up at Drake. “But not as good as having a dragon dad.” He took Drake’s claw, amazed at the size of his talons. “Let’s do this thing.”
“Indeed,” Drake said as he picked Timmy up. His wings flapped and he seemed to leap into t
he sky with a single bound, clearing the tops of the trees so fast that Timmy couldn’t believe it. Then he was soaring high over the town, his wings beating hard against the air and his claw holding Timmy safely against his chest.
Timmy hung on, not even wanting to blink in case he missed something. He saw Dashiell’s house and their school, the soccer field where Drake had couched them, and the mall. He saw the town get smaller beneath them and fade from view. The stars seemed close enough to touch and the wind was cool against his skin. He felt Drake look down at him, checking on him, protective as a dragon should be, and Timmy knew that everything had come right.
He’d never forget his father, but he was glad to have a new dad.
And new dads didn’t get any better than Drake.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was July when the Pyr gathered behind Sloane’s house in the forest. The moon was full and its light was brilliant. The air was remarkably cool and the stars seemed very bright. In Ronnie’s opinion, it was the kind of night that you’d expect something magical to happen. She held tightly to Timmy’s hand, her heart thumping in anticipation.
The film crew was set up, but Melissa was determined they not be able to even see any of the Pyr shift shape let alone film them. The Pyr would arrive in dragon form, a compromise that mollified Erik. He had also decreed that the ceremony must be done at night, much to the grumbling of the film crew, who wanted better light. The children and the other mates stood back in the shadows and the crew was to hide their identities. Ronnie herself was wearing a domino mask, to protect the privacy of Drake and of Timmy.
She was ridiculously happy and madly in love. She was surrounded by a group of strong women, women who had already made the choice she was making, and she already felt as if she’d been welcomed into a large and protective family. She knew she’d tested their approval by insisting upon this, but she wanted the world to know that the Pyr were good.
They were a fertile family, too. Sara, the Seer of the Pyr, stood to her left with her own infant son in her arms and her young sons standing around her. Eileen was to Ronnie’s right, with her daughter Zoë close by. Chandra rocked her infant son, and Melissa’s daughter Isabelle stuck close to Eileen.