“We’ll take care of it,” Donovan said. “Then we’ll meet you at your place.”
Erik extended his hand to first one brother, then the other. “Thank you. I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m very glad you are.”
“I had a feeling,” Donovan said with a grin. “Even though you’re supposed to be the one with foresight.”
Erik frowned at that. Was he losing his abilities?
How much change would the end of the Dragon’s Tail Wars bring to the Pyr, even if they survived? Erik couldn’t see that future and felt a new concern that his kind might not survive.
Who would defend the earth and its treasures then?
* * *
Marco was playing with fire, and he knew it.
Worse, he believed it was the best possible choice. He was convinced that the Pyr could only survive by walking through the flames, so to speak, and confronting their worst nightmare. Erik Sorensson was concerned about the past repeating itself, about the prospect of Pyr being hunted by humans as they had been once before. It was already happening. Marco could see it all around him. He heard it in the tone of news reports about the outbreak of the Seattle virus and its insidious spread through the population. Marco heard the fear and he heard the blame. That video of Jorge, willfully scattering infected blood over the crowd, had been shown so many times that it was burned in his memory.
As well as that of everyone else. Just two minutes of any broadcast by Maeve O’Neill made it clear that she not only hated the Pyr, but that she had an enthusiastic following. Who knew what those people would do to rid the world of dragon shape shifters, whom they saw as responsible for the Seattle virus?
It would only get worse, unless the Pyr revealed themselves and fought fire with fire.
Seattle’s population had dropped to a quarter of its former total, some of the loss by deaths to the illness, but more to people choosing to move. Of course, in relocating to other parts of the country, people had unwittingly spread the virus. It remained untreatable and fatal, but it was now clear that it had a tendency to lurk in the blood of a victim for an unspecified amount of time. Symptoms could appear days after exposure or years. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to it. There had to be another contributing factor, but no researcher had yet identified it. Worse, there was no test to identify carriers before they began to show symptoms. Isolation wards had been set up in every hospital, but the virus kept spreading.
And killing.
Sloane had explained it all to Marco, when Marco had last visited him.
Marco had listened, then left the Apothecary to his hunt for a cure.
As ever, Marco followed his own intuition and the spark of the darkfire. He’d gone from Sloane to Erik the previous summer and listened to the concerns of the leader of the Pyr. He found himself in vehement disagreement with Erik, but didn’t argue with him aloud. Marco couldn’t, after all, articulate why he thought Erik was wrong, and he doubted that Erik’s mind could be changed with discussion anyway.
Marco knew Erik certainly wouldn’t trust the darkfire with the intuitive conviction that he did. The darkfire was in Marco’s blood. It was attuned to his very nature. He felt a stronger link to the darkfire than to any other creature alive, or even to any substance. It was a part of him and he liked to believe that he was a part of it.
Marco wasn’t sure he could survive without the sight—and the feel—of its blue-green spark in his proximity. To deny the impulses it gave him would have been a violation of everything he believed to be true.
Instead of arguing with Erik, he stole Sigmund’s book from that Pyr’s hoard, the darkfire urging him on. While in Erik’s hoard, Marco had seen the last of the darkfire crystals, its spark extinguished. He knew that Drake had returned this stone to Erik after the adventures of the Dragon’s Tooth Warriors, and that both Erik and Drake believed the stone’s task to be done. Marco wasn’t so certain. He took the extinguished crystal, as well.
Then he moved to Seattle, drawn by a leyline sparked with darkfire, drawn to this particular apartment. His direction was nothing he could have explained clearly, but Marco knew that this was where he should be, that the one apartment—of all the ones shown to him—was the one he must occupy. He wasn’t sure why he was there or what he was waiting for, but he waited.
When, one night, the darkfire had sparked in that darkened crystal, Marco had believed himself to be on the right track.
To wherever he was going.
That was the night Marco had heard one of Maeve’s broadcasts emanating from the apartment below him. He’d recognized the sound of the video with Jorge and heard Maeve’s call to humans to rise up and destroy the Pyr. He knew that the darkfire was right. He’d sauntered down the corridor of the floor beneath his own and passed his neighbor coming out of her apartment. Marco knew that she looked familiar but couldn’t place her.
The darkfire urged him to find out more.
A day of research made everything clear. The woman who lived below him was actually in that video of Jorge. She was part of the crowd spattered by the blood. She was holding the hand of a young boy, who looked up at Jorge in his dragon form with awe and then fear. She ducked and pulled her hood over her head, trying to tuck the boy protectively beneath her. He was fascinated by Jorge, though, staring open-mouthed at the Slayer. Marco saw the infectious blood flick from that severed arm into the boy’s mouth and shuddered as the boy cried in pain.
The boy, too, looked familiar. It didn’t take much more research to reveal that he had been the first victim of the Seattle virus. The boy’s picture had been inescapable after his death, and the fury for hunting dragons had grown louder.
The tragedy was that this Nathaniel had been the only child of a biologist who hunted viruses and isolated them to create antidotes and vaccines. She’d failed to isolate this one in time to save her son.
She wasn’t the woman downstairs, though.
Marco didn’t know his neighbor’s relationship to the boy. She’d known him, that was clear, and she’d loved him. Her expression in that video had revealed all of that.
There were other signs of her affection, too. She’d lost weight since the video had been made and she seemed both focused and grim. Marco noted the purpose in her stride when she came and went from the building. He noticed how determinedly she worked out at the gym. He was aware that she alone in all of Seattle seemed driven by a fierce goal, one that demanded she train to the utmost of her ability, even to the detriment of everything else in her life.
She was listening to Maeve O’Neill.
The darkfire twinkled in the crystal and he guessed her plan. Vengeance, as they said, was a dish best served cold, and humans had a touching conviction in their own abilities to defeat evil. She didn’t have a chance against Jorge, if she could find that Slayer, but humans could accomplish more than was reasonable to expect when they were as driven as this one was.
She might, at least, surprise Jorge.
Marco realized that he’d like to see that.
He wouldn’t, however, like to see Jorge’s reaction to that surprise, or his retaliation against Jac.
So, Marco gave her the book.
Then he waited for her to act, as still and observant as only the Sleeper could be.
In fact, Marco dozed in his empty apartment in his dragon form, fairly daring his neighbor to discover his truth. He breathed dragonsmoke, weaving the boundary mark high and deep around his temporary lair, as much for the meditative value of the exercise as for his own defense. He knew humans wouldn’t be able to discern it.
Possibilities floated through his mind as he dozed. He wondered whether the crystalline ping of the completed barrier would be heard by Slayers, whether it might draw one or more to seek him out. Would his dragonsmoke lure Jorge? Would Jorge’s presence draw Jac to him? Marco didn’t know and he had no desire to hide. The darkfire in the crystal crackled and burned, telling him to trust that Jac would come.
Marco was content to
let her choose the time.
When the eclipse was done and the firestorm had sparked, a prophecy unfurled in his mind, as leisurely as a dream. Marco opened his eyes. The words clung to his thoughts with a persistence he knew better than to ignore. He shifted back to his human form, then took a Sharpie marker and began to write the words on the living room wall.
Maybe this was why Jac would come.
* * *
Liz Barrett, marine biologist, wife of a Pyr and a Firedaughter, looked up from her sample as an involuntary shiver rolled over her body. She wasn’t cold, but she’d had the sense of someone walking over her grave. The boat bobbed slightly where it was anchored near the Great Barrier Reef. She looked east, certain the ripple had come from that direction, but there was nothing but water discernible as far as the horizon.
“What is it?” Brandon asked, obviously having noticed her reaction. He was playing with the boys and resting in preparation for his next surfing competition in December, as well as helping a little now and then with Liz’s research. She was part of a team determined to observe the influence of the eclipse upon the fall spawning of the coral in the reef.
Being a working mom with two young sons and a professional surfer husband who traveled to competitions for a good part of the year made their lives hectic enough, without Brandon’s obligations to his kind. She knew that Brandon would likely be summoned by the Pyr during this key year, and hoped they could juggle it all. She doubted she’d be involved in this project all the way through to the fourth eclipse in this sequence, but she’d ditch any project if she could help to ensure the survival of the Pyr.
There would be more eclipses.
“Something. Like a spark, but not.” Liz bit her lip, trying to feel it again. “It was there, then gone. It burned really hot, then cold, then died.” She shivered once more. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“The eclipse is in progress,” Brandon said, scanning the cloudy sky. Although the eclipse might have been visible from this point, the skies were overcast. Liz knew that Brandon could feel its progress because of his Pyr nature. “Do you think you felt the firestorm it sparked?”
Liz shook her head. “I never do. Did you?”
He nodded. “It’s Drake’s. In Virginia.”
“It can’t have been that. This was closer.”
“Darkfire?”
Liz narrowed her eyes as she considered the horizon. “No. Something new. A kind of quickening.” She looked at Brandon. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“No, but it might make sense to someone else. Let me ask the other Pyr.” He smiled and indicated the ocean sample she’d just gathered. “Carry on with your tests and I’ll see what I can find out.”
Chapter Three
The first time was fast and hot, just the way Ronnie needed it. Drake’s urgency was a perfect echo of her own, and the sparks overwhelmed her with desire. She’d never been so impulsive about sex, but it felt absolutely right.
Ronnie was going with it.
Drake lifted her in his arms, balancing her on the counter in his embrace. She knew he would have caressed her, but she wanted him inside her when she climaxed. She turned to straddle him, felt his surprise, then wrapped her legs around her waist. He shuddered when his hardness touched her soft heat, then there was no holding back.
He felt so good, so strong and so resolute. That light brightened even more, becoming almost blindingly white in its brilliance. Ronnie closed her eyes and surrendered to the moment. She felt as if there was a fire burning beneath her skin.
Had she ever wanted a man this much? Ronnie couldn’t recall, couldn’t think beyond the pleasure of Drake’s body entwined with hers.
She kissed his shoulder when he was within her and felt him shaking with self-control. He was so protective of her, so determined to do what was right. It was enough to make her heart burst. Ronnie ran her hands over him, loving the muscled power of his body, and felt his reaction to her caress. She deliberately drove him on, touching him more boldly, and locked her legs around his waist to draw him deeper inside.
He caught his breath so that his nostrils pinched shut, then his hands cupped her buttocks. She felt his fingers flex and liked it. He started to move rhythmically and Ronnie smiled at him.
Then she pulled Drake’s head down for a demanding kiss. The way he rubbed against her was perfect and she felt the tumult rise within her immediately. She gripped his shoulders and he kissed her as if he’d devour her whole. She dug her nails into his shoulders, letting herself follow her every impulse. She kissed him and nibbled at him, licked him and nipped at him. She scratched him and moaned, then whispered to him of what she wanted him to do to her. She watched his eyes blaze as she confided a fantasy.
In fact, Drake swore softly under his breath. Ronnie didn’t know the word, but the inflection made its meaning obvious. He whispered her name, as if to apologize, but his body wouldn’t be commanded any longer. He drove into her with a vigor that she loved and she felt a patina of perspiration on his skin. She caught his head in her hands and felt the thunder of his pulse under her palm as she kissed him hungrily. Again, it was beating the same rhythm as her own, and she liked the sensation.
She felt the tremor begin within Drake as he lost control and was proud of her ability to affect him. His eyes opened and his gaze locked with hers, his eyes glittering with that intensity she associated with him. The light became so brilliant between them that there was nothing but Drake in Ronnie’s world. She gripped him more tightly and rode him hard, needing all he could give her. In a trio of heartbeats, the passion overwhelmed everything except the feel of Drake, and Ronnie cried out in her release. Drake buried himself deep within her and growled, his grip tightening convulsively around her as he came and came and came.
Ronnie smiled into his skin, then pressed a kiss to him. “Wow,” she whispered.
Drake leaned his forehead on her shoulder and held her close as he took a shuddering breath. “Indeed,” he murmured, then looked at her, his eyes gleaming. That enticing smile curved his lips again, but he studied her, clearly seeking evidence that she had been pleased as well.
Ronnie smiled at him. “Coffee?” she asked and was gifted with a chuckle. She’d never seen Drake smile fully, and the expression made him look younger. Less burdened.
“I am not done with you yet,” he said, sending a thrill through her, then lifted her from the counter. Ronnie wrapped her arms around his neck, content to be compliant with whatever he wanted. “We have barely begun on the fantasies you confided.”
“I have more.”
“We shall make a list,” Drake vowed and Ronnie laughed.
The weird thing was that the light was gone, and so was the heat.
Had she imagined it?
It was hard to care when she was so drowsy and sated. Drake surveyed her living room, then walked up the stairs of the townhouse to the master bedroom suite. He nodded satisfaction when he carried her into the ensuite bathroom and plucked her robe from the back of the door. He disentangled them and wrapped her protectively in her robe, then set her gently on her feet. He kissed her again, his fingers in her hair, and it was a tender, sweet kiss.
A perfect kiss in this moment.
He turned away all too soon and began to fill the Jacuzzi tub that filled one corner. Ronnie seldom used it, because it was a lot of trouble to clean, plus she didn’t often have time to luxuriate in a bath. “The shower is big enough for two,” she suggested but Drake gave her a serious glance.
“But less satisfying than a bath,” he said firmly. “On this night, all will be satisfied.”
Ronnie could hardly argue with that. She leaned back against the wall, content to watch him arrange details the way he wanted. He had the water running and the room filling with steam in moments. He went through her lotions and found the shower gel that she favored, nodding with approval when he sniffed it, then added a liberal amount to the running water.
“Don’t you
intend to share the bath with me?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll smell like a woman.”
Drake flicked a look at her that made her blood simmer again. “I will smell like my woman,” he corrected, and clearly the prospect didn’t concern him.
In fact, it looked as if he liked the idea as much as Ronnie did.
When the tub was almost full and the room was wonderfully warm, Drake reached for the lights, frowning as if dissatisfied with the ambiance. There wasn’t a dimmer, so they were either on or off.
“There are candles,” Ronnie said, guessing what he wanted. She gathered half a dozen fat candles from the cupboard and set them around the tub. She’d bought them one day at a sale, briefly entertaining the fantasy of having a romantic bath. Of course, she’d never had time—or she’d never made the time to so pamper herself. It was incredible to be savoring that bath with Drake, and she found her desire rising again as he lit the candles. He turned off the lights then, and nodded with pleasure, then glanced her way.
Ronnie dropped her robe. Drake’s eyes glowed and she saw that he was ready for more. So was she. She took a step toward him and he met her halfway, sweeping her into his arms again.
“You don’t have to carry me everywhere,” she chided, hearing the pleasure in her tone.
“I like to hold you like this,” he said, suddenly solemn. “But if you dislike it, I will cease.” He was so serious, so concerned with her pleasure, that Ronnie’s heart squeezed tightly. Drake really had been worth waiting for—and was every one of her dreams come true.
“I love it,” she admitted, once again wrapping her arms around his neck. Again, that seductive smile touched his lips. She resolved to make him smile as often as possible.
Drake stepped over the lip and into the tub, surveying her as the water swished a bit. The candlelight was golden, much as it had been when she had seen him in the parking lot, and it made him look as if he were made of a precious metal. He held her gaze and smiled as he sank into the water, lowering them both into first the tickle of the bubbles, then the caress of hot water. Ronnie’s mouth was dry and she was tingling with anticipation of his kiss.