Mercy Burns

“And what might that be?” I said, grinning as he nudged my legs wider and settled in between them.

“The fact that you don’t seem willing to get out of bed.”

The heat of him began to slide inside me, filling me, stretching me. And it felt so good I sighed in sheer pleasure.

He chuckled softly and added, “I do so like a woman who’s easily pleased.”

“Don’t start patting yourself on the back just yet, dragon. There’s a whole lot of work to be done before I’m utterly satisfied.” I shifted and wrapped my legs around him, driving the thick heat of him deeper. “How are we going to get into the club? They’ll be looking out for us now.”

He began to move slowly, rocking deep inside, sending ripples of delight flooding across my body. A delight that increased when his hands slid up and cupped my breasts. “We disguise ourselves.”

“It didn’t work the last time.” The words came out slightly breathy as his clever fingers began to pinch and tease my nipples.

“It will this time.”

“Why? What do you plan to do?”

“Kiss you senseless so you’ll shut up and concentrate on the business at hand.”

A grin curved my lips. “That doesn’t sound like it’ll get us past—”

The rest of the sentence was cut off as his lips captured mine and our kiss deepened into something that was pure and simple yet, at the same time, so very complicated. Because it spoke of possibilities that I didn’t dare contemplate for more than a second or two.

So I concentrated on the physical and let the enjoyment flow until it filled me, until he filled me, and there was nothing left but contentment.

“Now you can ask your questions,” he said, kissing my nose then pushing backward into an upright position. “But I think we need to get moving.”

“Says the man who was, until minutes ago, lolling around in bed.”

“You woke me up.” His grin was insolent. “And most delightfully, I might add.”

“Meaning it’s your turn to be delightful, and go make breakfast while I shower.” I leaped to my knees and gave him a kiss before bouncing off the bed. “Pancakes would be nice.”

“So they would, but I can only manage toast and coffee.”

Which is exactly what I got. I booted up the netbook as I downed my breakfast, then proceeded to explain the code Rainey and I had used.

“Now that you’ve explained it, it seems really obvious,” he commented, swinging the computer around so he could see it more fully.

“Naturally,” I agreed, between mouthfuls. “We were all of seven when we dreamed it up.”

He picked up his coffee and studied the screen, occasionally flicking the track pad and shifting to another file.

“You’ve got a note here about some town called East River in Arizona.” He frowned at me. “Never heard of it. Is it another cleansed site?”

I shook my head as I rose to refill my coffee mug. “It was a tip we got a month ago. We went to investigate, but the town—and everyone in it—was alive and well. If a little singed.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Singed?”

“Yeah. Wildfires came pretty close, apparently, but the draman were able to suck in enough of the fire’s heat to stop it from destroying the town.” It was tempting—mighty tempting—to add that if Damon and the council had their way, those people would have had no personal fire, and therefore no fire control, and might well have ended up homeless if not dead. But I didn’t want to get into another argument, so I simply added, “Interestingly enough, the person who gave us that tip also gave us Desert Springs. He had a car accident a couple of days later. Apparently he collided with a truck.”

And a day later, in another so-called accident, a car had lost traction on the wet roads and had come skidding across at us. Only Rainey’s quick thinking had actually saved us from being hurt. That time.

Damon’s gaze met mine, sharp and edgy. “And that didn’t give you a warning that it might be wise to walk away, while you still could?”

“Rainey needed to find out what happened to her sister, so no, walking away was never a consideration.”

“Rainey’s sister isn’t your sister. You didn’t owe her anything.”

I snorted softly. “Rainey is—was—the sister of my heart, and I could no more walk away from her kin than I could my own. Besides, it was an accident. The driver didn’t run off and abandon the vehicle, not like the man who hit us.”

“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been planned.”

True. And I guess with the benefit of hindsight, it was all too easy to see the connections to what we were investigating. But back then, it had all seemed pretty coincidental and nonthreatening.

Which was naïve of us, I guess.

I poured some milk into my coffee, then sat back down.

“What’s this list of names?” he asked eventually.

I leaned over. “The one on the left is a list of everyone we think went missing in Stillwater.” It wasn’t a huge list, because the only names we really knew were those we’d met when visiting Rainey’s sister. A good half of them, though, had been from Jamieson. Stillwater seemed to have been some sort of refuge for the outcasts from my clique. “The column on the right are the various names mentioned when we were questioning people about the towns. The ones asterisked are the ones we’d intended to follow up.”

He glanced at me. “Who did you question?”

I shrugged. “Friends. Family. Anyone we could track down, really. Most of them couldn’t have given a damn, but there were one or two who were willing to talk.”

“I see you’ve asterisked Hannish Valorn.”

His voice held an edge that made me frown. “His name came up in several conversations. He was seen at Stillwater, from what we could gather. Why?”

“Because Hannish Valorn is the son of the Nevada king.”

“Well, considering both cleansed towns were in Nevada, I guess it’s not unusual for the king’s son to be checking up on them.” I paused, and frowned. “You don’t think Nevada would have arranged the killings, do you?”

He was shaking his head before I’d even finished the sentence. “Marcus Valorn is considered a moderate. As long as neither Stillwater or Desert Springs caused him any problems, he would have left them alone.”

“So why did seeing his name there make you pause?”

“Because Hannish Valorn left after a massive argument with his father ten years ago. As far as I know, he hasn’t been near clique grounds since.”

“Then your information is out of date.”

“Not that out of date.” But he shrugged and continued reading.

After a few more minutes, I leaned against the table and asked curiously, “Is there any king who is actually considered revolutionary in his thinking?” I hadn’t heard of any, but my knowledge of other cliques and their kings was limited. “As in actually supporting equal rights for the draman?”

“No dragon in their right mind would ever consider that.” He said it almost absently, then, as if realizing exactly what he’d said, glanced at me sharply. His dark eyes, so warm and open only minutes before, were noticeably cooler. The dragon was replacing the lover, and somewhere inside I mourned the loss—even if I wasn’t surprised by it. “Dragon civilization has existed successfully for thousands of generations. You won’t find many who are willing to upset the balance. Not when it has worked for so long.”

“But the world is changing, and draman are becoming what the dragons are. You lot need to face that, or there will be consequences.”

His smile was harsh. “It’s only the sea cliques who appear to be producing draman with dragon skills. It would be easy to fix that, if the council wishes.”

Anger swirled at the cool, calm way he spoke about the destruction of hundreds of draman—because that’s exactly what he meant by “fix”—but I somehow managed to keep it in check. “And you can see nothing wrong with that?”