Whisper Kiss

  Rox's bile rose at the idea. "But Niall's not going to die."

  "Are you so sure?" Phelan flattened himself against the glass. He seemed larger and more menacing when he blocked out the night, and Rox recoiled. "I could kill him. It would be easy. Then I'd have you all to myself."

  "No!" Rox was on her feet.

  "Why not? It would only be fair." Phelan chuckled. "Since Niall's the one who killed me."

  "That's not true!" Rox backed away from the window. "I don't believe it."

  "Oh, but you should. It's an expensive mistake to trust my brother," Phelan whispered.

  Rox knew all about misplaced trust.

  Had Phelan guessed as much?

  Rox meant to run but made the mistake of glancing toward Phelan. She froze instead, snared by the sight of him. There were flames in the depths of his eyes, like bonfires burning in the night. They looked so welcoming, so tempting. She wanted to move closer to him and see them better, even though she knew that was stupid.

  "Go ahead," he murmured, his words low and seductive. "Ask him about my death. I'm sure he'll tell you the truth."

  I'm sure he'll tell you the truth. Rox found that easy to believe--so easy to believe that she almost repeated it. Niall would tell her the truth.

  She tore her gaze away with an effort, shocked that she had even considered trusting Phelan. She remembered her dream and her dread. "What about your mother?" she demanded, knowing that nothing good had come of that encounter.

  "Oh, he betrayed her, as well." Phelan clicked his teeth and shook his head. "Very untrustworthy, our Niall, even though he looks so upright. You know, some people simply rely on charm."

  Rox stared at him, intending to argue, but those flames undid her force of will. She just wanted to stare at them forever. She stood and looked, unable to move even as she wanted more than anything to do so.

  "You should trust me," Phelan whispered, those flames leaping high in his eyes.

  "I should trust you." Rox was stunned to find herself echoing his words.

  "You should leave with me."

  "I should leave with you."

  "You should choose me over my brother."

  Rox's mind screamed outrage. She fought the suggestion, knowing how wrong it was, but her mouth formed the words, anyway. "I should choose you over your brother."

  Phelan chuckled. His nails scratched on the glass. "You should open the window," he murmured.

  "I should open the window." Rox found herself reaching for the clasp, even as her mind raged in protest. Her breath came in agitated gasps. But her body moved against her own desire.

  She unlocked the window. She pushed the window open and it creaked. She felt a waft of cold air sail around her ankles. The rain came over the sill and pooled on the floor.

  Phelan smiled at her, never breaking eye contact as he offered his hand. "You choose me now," he murmured.

  Rox stared into the flames, trapped, and nearly had heart failure. Her lips moved, but the words caught in her throat. She stared at his extended hand, felt the force of his will, and fought it with every fiber of her being.

  She was terrified it wouldn't be enough.

  Niall didn't sleep. He couldn't. Not with his body raging for a satisfaction it hadn't had, not with the taste of Rox on his tongue, not with her scent on his hands. The firestorm burned hotter in the night, surging through him like an unchecked bonfire and demanding that he do something to sate it.

  She was so close.

  And the door, even with its lock, was no obstacle.

  But Niall knew he could win the battle and lose the war. And he was becoming convinced that the firestorm had it exactly right--Rox was the woman for him, and if he gave her the time she needed, they could make the enduring match of which he'd always dreamed.

  But still, he was hard and hot and ready.

  He tried to be still. He tried to slow his body's rhythms. He tried to breathe slowly, and he halfway closed his eyes. He made his pulse slow.

  He still didn't sleep, not really, but he dreamed. His eyes were mere slits, his breathing slow, as he lay coiled across the living room of Rox's apartment in dragon form.

  He must have dozed, because the dream slid into his thoughts, as quietly as a mouse might slip into a kitchen in the night. His eyes were partially open, and he was aware of the haze from the streetlights that fell into Rox's apartment.

  Suddenly it became dark as pitch. Niall thought the power had gone out. The world closed around him with suffocating intensity, and all light was extinguished. The air was still, like he was enclosed in small space, and he felt claustrophobic.

  Sealed in a space with no exit.

  Trapped.

  Niall felt a panic, the kind of panic he didn't usually experience in darkness. He felt his pulse quicken and he peered into the shadow that seemed to have swallowed him whole.

  Maybe he had been struck blind.

  The prospect was terrifying, as terrifying as the notion of being imprisoned. He stretched out a claw and felt his surroundings, finding smooth walls beneath every talon. They might have been made of obsidian, or steel, but they were dark, so very dark, reflecting no light and swallowing every sound.

  Except one.

  Niall heard a child weeping. The sound was faint, as if at a distance, but it drew him closer. The child was a little girl; he knew it although he didn't know how or why. He saw her clearly in his mind's eye, lost in similar darkness, curled into a ball as she wept.

  Inconsolable--except that he wanted to soothe her. Her hair was dark; her skin was fair. She wore a flannel nightgown and had tucked it fiercely around her knees. She turned a silver ring on the smallest finger of her left hand, turning it around and around as she wept.

  Niall recognized the ring.

  She wasn't that young, not as young as he had first thought. She might have been fifteen, but petite for her age. She lifted her head and he saw her dark lashes spiked with tears just before she glared at him.

  Her eyes were blue, a blue mingled with gray and a bit of gold. Their expression was mutinous and terrified, her gaze filled with challenge and defiance.

  Niall knew who this child must be.

  Or, more accurately, who she had become.

  Despite her attitude, he reached for her, because he knew her surface did not always reveal her truth.

  He intended to comfort her, to tell her that nothing could be that bad, but he could not touch her. He found only that smooth obstacle on every side. He railed against it, battling his prison in darkness, but didn't make so much as a scratch on the smooth surface.

  In fact, the air seemed closer. Warmer. Suffocating.

  What could make Rox cry? Even as a child, she must have been resilient. Even as a child, she must have been strong.

  Who had hurt her? And how?

  And why couldn't he help her?

  Niall shouted with fury and frustration, lashing his tail against the wall of his prison. It made no difference to his situation. Nothing cracked, nothing yielded, nothing opened.

  The little girl stopped crying.

  She disappeared.

  Niall heard the terrified thunder of her heart. He heard her agitated breathing and her fear. He had time to fear that some terrible fate had befallen her, that her silence was a greater sign of distress than her tears. He had time to be afraid that she had run or hidden herself from him.

  Then he caught a whiff of cold air, as fetid as a breeze from a crypt.

  And he knew the peril was closer at hand.

  "Rox!" Niall roared. He awakened and kicked at the door of her bedroom, ripping it out of the frame to get to her even as he hoped he was wrong.

  But he wasn't.

  Chapter 13

  Niall saw Phelan at Rox's window, Rox frozen in place in front of him. She had opened the window and the rain was pooling on the floor. She didn't move away from Phelan; she didn't even glance toward Niall.

  Niall saw the flames flickering in Phelan's eyes and knew ex
actly what was happening. Rox climbed onto the sill, moving like a woman in a dream, then stepped over the window frame.

  "No!" Niall raged toward them, shifting shape en route. He snatched at Rox and missed, just as Phelan grabbed her and took flight.

  Phelan soared into the night, Niall right behind him. The rain fell in silver drops from a solid layer of clouds the color of pewter. The city below looked dark and wet, slick and dangerous.

  Phelan laughed as he raced upward. He was faster than he had been before and more animated. Niall wondered how this could be. Shadow dragons usually had no personality or initiative.

  What had Phelan become?

  And who--or what--had forced the change?

  Niall leapt after his brother, who changed directions abruptly. He caught a glimpse of Rox, hanging limply in Phelan's grasp, which worried him. It was more typical of her to fight.

  Was the beguiling affecting her even more adversely than it did most humans? Niall feared the worst.

  Then Phelan dove down into the city again, soaring between buildings with Niall in tight pursuit. He clearly had a destination, but Niall couldn't manage to catch a grip upon him. He dreaded his brother's intent, remembered a dark night in their shared past, and flew faster.

  Phelan turned a corner suddenly and dove toward the earth. Niall realized that they were in his old neighborhood, that Phelan soared over the crack that had consumed Niall's building.

  Phelan dropped the unconscious Rox into the rubble. She fell like a rag doll, sprawled in the broken debris, and didn't move again.

  Niall leapt after his mate, but his brother pivoted, reared up, and locked talons with Niall.

  "Now she's mine," Phelan taunted. "You wouldn't share, so if someone has to win, it'll be me."

  "You can't steal a mate."

  "I just have!"

  "You're a Slayer and a shadow dragon. You don't need a mate."

  "Oh, there's need and there's want." Phelan leaned closer to whisper. "And I want this one."

  Niall wasn't going to let that happen. The pair struggled in the air above the demolished building. Phelan laughed all the while, exposing the yellowed teeth in his maw. His scent of death and rot was overwhelming; that old wound in his chest looked to be festering. Niall thrashed at his twin with his tail, struggling to free himself to save Rox.

  "Don't worry," Phelan taunted. "Soon we'll be exactly the same, just as we were before."

  Niall was horrified. "I'll never turn Slayer. . . ."

  "You won't have to. You can just go straight to shadow dragon. You don't even need the Elixir." Phelan's eyes gleamed. He flicked a glance over Niall's shoulder and smiled a welcome. "Chen! I fulfill your command!"

  Niall had time to twist, to glimpse the massive lacquer red dragon that had appeared silently behind him. In that same instant, he was struck down with a hard blow from the new arrival's tail.

  His thoughts spun. Chen? Who was Chen?

  Was this who had overtaken command of the shadow dragons?

  What was his plan?

  Niall fell into the rubble, not nearly close enough to Rox. Dust rose from the impact of his fall, then settled quickly beneath the assault of the rain. He was dazed but not out. He would have gotten up to fight, but there were two of them.

  And he wanted to know Chen's scheme.

  Niall pretended to be more seriously injured than he was. He dropped his head to the debris and sighed, letting his eyes close to watchful slits. His wings fluttered once, then fell limp on his back. He tried to suppress his breathing, even though his body was on full alert.

  Chen chuckled. "The prize is finally mine."

  How far away was Rox? Niall caught a whiff of her perfume and felt the spark of the firestorm on his right side. She was behind Phelan, perhaps a dozen feet away. He could barely feel her pulse.

  He'd get them both out of here.

  Somehow.

  Chen's scent was disguised to the point of his not having one. So that meant he had drunk the Elixir. How old was he? What did he want? What powers did he have?

  Niall felt Chen land beside him and smelled Phelan on his other side. Chen laid one heavy claw on his back. Niall didn't flinch, didn't move, even as the talons dug beneath his scales.

  He needed the element of surprise to escape.

  To save Rox.

  "What about my firestorm?" Phelan complained. "When will you deliver? The mate is here--let me feel the sparks."

  "Not yet," the Slayer murmured. "First I must make him mine. Bring the brand."

  Niall's heart leapt. What brand? He thought of the tiger mark on the throats of the shadow dragons he'd killed, and the identical mark on Phelan's throat. He saw the flash of dragonfire through his lids and felt the heat of Chen's flames. Niall dared to look.

  Chen heated a tool, just as Quinn the Smith did at his forge. He held the iron form between his talons, breathing dragonfire at it. The metal heated, turning red, then orange, then yellow, until its color was lost in the flames.

  Niall thought he knew what it was. He recalled Rox's assertion that gang tattoos could be applied against someone's will, but that person then had to live by the code of the gang.

  Was Chen's brand magical? Did it give him control over those he claimed? Was this how he was able to make shadow dragons without the Elixir? Was Chen the force behind the shadow dragons?

  The brand neared the left side of Niall's throat, held in Chen's talons and hot enough to burn. It radiated white heat and a ripple slipped over Niall's flesh.

  Niall felt his scales singe. He waited; he waited until the hot brand was treacherously close to his hide; then he thrashed his tail, breathed fire, and erupted from Chen's surprised grasp. He scorched the Slayer before rearing out of his reach.

  "No!" cried the Slayer, but Niall struck him across the face with his tail. Dark blood ran from Chen's brow into the debris, and the iron brand fell from his claw.

  It was shaped in the silhouette of a tiger.

  Phelan seized Niall from behind, grasping a claw with each of his talons and winding his tail around Niall's. He exposed Niall's belly to the furious Slayer, who rose slowly and majestically before the Pyr.

  Chen exhaled.

  Chen glared.

  Chen was larger than any Slayer Niall had ever known, and his disapproval was more than clear. "I am not fond of impertinence," Chen murmured. "Especially in those to whom I would grant opportunity."

  "I don't want any opportunity you offer!" Niall struggled, to no avail. How had Phelan become so strong? He writhed and bit, and Chen's eyes gleamed as he watched Niall's struggles.

  Then he picked up the brand from the rubble, blew the dust from it, and turned his dragonfire on the iron again.

  When it was white- hot once more, he turned his glittering glance on Niall. "Shall we try again?" he asked, then moved closer.

  Niall struggled. He fought. He bucked against his brother's powerful hold.

  But he couldn't break free.

  Just as the brand heated his scales, just as he turned his gaze from Chen's intent, just when he thought there was no escape, three Pyr came streaming out of the sky. Rafferty raged dragonfire and Thorolf bellowed. Sloane launched himself at the ancient Slayer, talons extended.

  Chen was startled and looked up in surprise. He fell backward from Sloane's assault. Rafferty went straight to Rox, standing vigil over her.

  When Thorolf attacked Phelan from behind, Niall broke one claw free and kicked at the hot brand. It burned his toe, but fell from Chen's grip. Chen and Sloane battled for possession of the brand. It danced from the grip of one to the other, seemingly possessed of a life of its own. Sloane snatched it from Chen, who reached to grab it back. The brand tumbled into the debris of the ruined building, finding a course down into the earth.

  The Slayer swore and lunged after it, Sloane fast behind him.

  Thorolf pulled Phelan skyward and thrashed his wings. Phelan cried out in pain and his grip loosened on Niall.

  It w
as enough. Niall broke free and spun to attack his brother. He reopened that old wound with a slash of his claws and Phelan recoiled in pain.

  Pain? Niall was shocked. Shadow dragons didn't feel pain. What had Phelan become?

  Sloane attacked Chen, who defended himself only enough to retreat. To Niall's surprise, Chen shifted shape, becoming a red salamander. He then jumped into the wreckage of the building. There was a sound of scrabbling feet; then the Slayer disappeared into the debris.

  At his disappearance, Phelan also retreated. He fled quickly down the street, Thorolf breathing fire as he flew in pursuit.

  "Changed forms again," Rafferty muttered, staring where Chen had disappeared. "Only a salamander could get through that. I could try to go after him."

  "I don't think we should split up," Sloane said, and Rafferty nodded in agreement. "What was that thing?"

  "He was going to mark me," Niall said with a shudder, and the Pyr exchanged worried glances.

  Thorolf returned, looking disgruntled. "I coulda thumped him," he said with some irritation, "but you've got this lame idea of saving him."

  "Something's changed," Niall said. "We need to talk about it. But first, I have to get Rox back behind the dragonsmoke barrier." His heart clenched at the sight of her limp form amid the dust and broken plaster. The firestorm still burned, lighting his touch with a golden glow, so he knew she was alive.

  He picked her up and she stirred, her eyes flying open in fear. She was pale, her pupils so tiny that he remembered her terror in his dream. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

  "I don't remember anything after seeing him at the window." Rox trembled violently, shaking from head to toe.

  "He beguiled you."

  "How did he make flames in his eyes?"

  "It's something we can do. Humans are fascinated by flames and look at them, trying to figure them out."

  Rox shuddered. "Then we get snared. Trapped." She slanted a wary glance at him. "He could have done whatever he wanted to me," she said, and he sensed her terror of that.