“No, it wouldn’t have.” He stood up abruptly. “Would you like a cup of black coffee? We haven’t got any milk.”
“I can live without milk. I can’t live without three sugars.”
“Three sugars? It’s a wonder your teeth aren’t rotten.”
I stretched out a foot and toed open the wallet. “Who said they aren’t?”
“Sweetheart, those teeth of yours look in fine biting order.”
“Well, they aren’t going to be biting you any time soon.”
He flung me a grin that briefly lit the room with its bright cheekiness. “What a shame. I might have enjoyed it.”
I snorted softly. “Your license says you live in San Francisco, but that’s not where Egan came from.”
“No, we were both born and raised in Stewarts Point, and our clique still lives there. I was there visiting my mother when he contacted me.”
A clique, I remembered from the few talks I’d had with my dad about my air cousins, was generations of air dragon families living together in a community. Unlike sea dragons, who tended to live in single-family units.
I had no idea how many cliques of air dragons there were, but I knew there were more of them than there were of us sea dragons. The sea might be a vast and mighty mistress, but she was also full of predators, and the ancient safe havens where we could birth and raise our young were few and far between. And getting more crowded with humans every day.
“What did he want?” I asked. “Why did he contact you?”
“He wanted help.” He hesitated. “And he wanted protection.”
He had to have meant from Marsten. And I guess the help of a thief would be valuable, given our plans to break into Marsten’s mother’s place and steal the backup security codes apparently kept there. But protection? “What can you do that Egan couldn’t?”
“Nothing.” He hesitated, then added, “He didn’t really explain what was going on, he just said he needed an extra pair of hands to protect you.”
That was Egan all over, I thought, blinking back tears. He was always more worried about everyone else than himself. Which was probably why the younger kids at the research center had taken to him so quickly—he was their protector. Or as much as anyone could protect them in that place.
He’d been my protector, too. Only now he was gone, and I was left with his brother.
“Carrying a gun doesn’t make you capable of protecting me.”
“No. But my willingness to use it does.”
I supposed that was true. I looked out the window, studying the cold night. Moonlight washed across the small parking lot beyond the room, highlighting several cars and the twisted shapes of the trees lining the boundary. They spoke of sea and sand and wind, those trees, even though we weren’t anywhere near them.
The small coffeemaker began to splutter. Trae clicked it off and poured two mugs. The sharp smell of coffee touched the air, mixing with the tangy scent of man, tantalizing my senses and stirring my desire to greater heights.
Which was annoying, to say the least.
I hitched the sheet up over my knees. Maybe covering up would offer some sense of control. He walked across the room and offered me a cheap white mug. “Black coffee, sickeningly sweet.”
“Thanks.” I took the offered mug, my fingers touching his briefly and sending little shocks of electricity up my arm. “Where, exactly, are we?”
He stepped back and sat down on the other bed. Though his moves were casual, I could taste the sudden tension in him. See the flare of desire in his bright eyes. “We’re in Newport.”
“Where’s that? Besides in Oregon?” I hadn’t swum that far, but I had no idea where he’d actually picked me up from, and therefore no idea where in relation to Florence that was.
“About fifty miles north of Florence.”
“So we actually went past it? Why, when that’s where we wanted to go?”
“Because when you’re being chased, it’s always safer to go past a target, then come back to it.” He took a drink, his gaze holding mine over the rim. Those blue depths were still watchful, still distrusting, despite the deep burn of desire. “Are you going to explain what you were doing, and how Egan got shot?”
I blew out a breath. As much as I’d wanted to avoid remembering, he deserved an answer. “We’d gone to Mexico—”
“Mexico?” he interrupted. “Why there?”
“He had this place near San Lucas—”
Recognition sparked in his eyes. So did surprise. “Villa Costa Brava?”
I nodded. “You know it?”
“Yes.” He shook his head, amusement and old pain evident in his expression. “It’s a long story, but let’s just say it was our escape house when we were teenagers. Go on.”
“He’d wanted to check that the villa was okay. He said something about it being the home of his heart, if not his soul.” The pain that had been evident earlier came to the fore, accompanied by a sadness that tore at my heart.
“It was indeed. Sila is buried there.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sila?”
“The black dragon he loved.”
“What happened to her?”
“As I said, it’s a long story.” Trae’s voice held a bitterness so cold, so deep, that my soul quaked. “Go on.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to hear about Egan—the man I’d spent ten years sharing a bed with, and yet who I so obviously knew so little about. But Trae’s commanding tone suggested he wasn’t about to be derailed from getting his answers.
“They were waiting for him at Costa Brava. Waiting for us.”
“Who?”
“The scientists. The hunters.”
Pain rose and I closed my eyes. But the memories would not be denied this time, and images flashed—sharp stills of a past part of me didn’t want to remember or relive. The crystal-white sharpness of the glorious building, juxtaposed against the blue of the sky and the pool that from a distance seemed to meld right into the ocean itself. The smoky gray of the stone surrounding the pool, the coldness of it under my bare feet. The fingers of dread that ran down my spine as shadows moved and became our hunters. Fighting and fear and flames—hot, yellow-white flames—flung from Egan’s fingertips, which surrounded those who threatened us, consuming them. My hand, encased in the warm security of Egan’s grasp as we ran for the ocean and the safety it offered. The sharp echo of gunshots. The burn of a bullet tearing past my scalp. The man who’d jumped out of seemingly nowhere, right in front of us. Then blood—thick and crimson—splattering across the crystal walls, flooding across the gray stone.
And panic, sheer panic, as I tried to save a dying man and myself from recapture . . .
I gulped for air, fighting the tears, fighting not to remember—to see—anything more. I scrubbed an arm across my eyes, and said, “They were waiting for us. I don’t know how or why, but they were waiting for us.”
He leaned forward and touched a finger to my cheek, catching a tear I missed. “Why were the scientists even hunting you? How would they even know either of you existed?”
“Because we’d been their captives for the last ten years. Well, eleven in my case.”
My gaze searched his, surprised. “Egan didn’t tell you?”
“Egan didn’t have a whole lot of time to tell me anything.” He hesitated. “I thought he’d sounded strange— distant. I guess now I know why. He was dying.”
And even in dying, he’d thought about others. Had contacted Trae to look after me.
More tears tracked down my cheeks. God, he’d deserved more—so much more—than what life had dished up to him these last ten years.
I sniffed, and continued. “They were shooting at him more than me. I didn’t think they’d want either of us dead, but I was wrong. Egan fought back. He . . .” I stopped again, trying not to think of those burning figures,
