So one step in the plan was already completed. I wondered how much time our king had left; how much time Marcus Valorn had left. If we didn’t catch Hannish, he might yet go ahead with the plot, with or without the backing of the Jamieson clique. After all, we had no real evidence connecting him to any of this as yet.
But maybe Damon didn’t need it. Maybe Hannish would simply disappear again.
“So why kill the draman in Stillwater and Desert Springs? Couldn’t you have just relocated them?”
“They refused to sell their land.” He shrugged. “They paid the price for that refusal.”
“But why take that risk?”
He snorted. “What risk? Jamieson wiped out the Whale Point settlement years ago, and not one council member bothered investigating it.”
“You’re wrong. The council has been watching Jamieson—and our king—ever since.”
“Yeah? And done what, precisely?” His voice was mocking. “It was a draman settlement, like Stillwater and Desert Springs. We both know draman don’t matter.”
Well, he was at least right about
Seth raised an eyebrow. “Would you hang on to land on which your whole family had been slaughtered?”
The answer was no, and we both knew it. There would be too many ghosts living on this land for anyone with even a hint of dragon blood to remain.
I would feel them at night’s onset, because the time between day and night gave every dragon power, even those caught between worlds, but I wondered if Seth would. Could someone who appeared to have no connection to life really be aware of those who lingered in death?
My gaze flickered past him, studying the view beyond the fridge’s doorway. Flags of red and gold were beginning to tint the horizon, meaning the night and the shadows would soon be gone. If Damon was going to make a move, then he’d better do it soon.
I met Seth’s gaze again. “So you simply stepped in and bought the land from the surviving heirs? Where the hell did you get that sort of money? And how can you even sleep at night?”
“We have our backers, Mercy, and I sleep very well, trust me.”
Of that I had no doubt. A man so out of touch with anything resembling humanity wasn’t ever likely to be attacked by guilt. “Even so, you can’t possibly think the other cliques are going to let two murderers usurp the council.”
“Oh, but they already have. I’m sure the muerte has already mentioned Montana. It set a precedent—one the current kings will sorely regret.” His smile was cold and arrogant. “Our king’s succession document is not the only one that has been changed.”
So Damon’s guess had been right. This was about taking over the council. “The council knows about the plot. You won’t succeed.”
He gave me a condescending smile. “If the council knew, the muertes would have been unleashed and we would be dead. No, this will be done properly, the deaths will all take time and look accidental, and no one will be the wiser. Not until it is far too late, anyway.”
I glanced past him again, studying the growing shadows and wondering what the hell Damon was doing. His song continued to reverberate through my soul, growing in strength, but it gave me no real idea of his location. He could have been just outside the door for all I knew.
“The mere fact that it’s you who’s becoming one of the kings is reason enough to stop this mad scheme.” His attitude toward draman was worse than most. “You said there were two reasons I’m here.”
“The other is, of course, information. We made the mistake of trying to kill you far too early once before. We shall not make the same mistake again.”
“What do you need to know?” I asked, my gaze shifting briefly as one of the shadows behind him moved ever so slightly.
Damon, here in this room. My inner dragon felt him, but there was no sense of awareness otherwise, no scent to give him away. He was a shadow who didn’t seem to exist in any physical way. Part of me wanted to dance, the rest of me just tensed up. I knew a muerte should have been more than capable of taking out a couple of dragons, but Seth had never been just an ordinary dragon.
It was a point he proved by suddenly producing a gun from under his jacket and spinning around. The sound of the shot reverberated loudly in the metal confines of the refrigerator and light flared briefly, causing little pinpoints of brightness to momentarily burn into my retinas. Fear twisted my heart. But I thrust it aside and launched myself at Tomi, who was slower on the uptake than Seth and yet probably no less deadly.
Even with the heat I’d stolen, my reflexes were still far too slow. Seth saw me coming and twisted around, firing the gun a second time. I twisted around, felt the bullet burn past me, leaving behind a stinging, bloody streak on my side. I fell into Tomi and he wrapped an arm opportunistically around my neck, but I grabbed the hand holding the weapon, forcing the gun up as he fired. The bullet bit through the ceiling above us and bits of metal and freezer lining showered down.
“Let go, bitch,” he muttered, shaking me roughly from side to side like a rag doll.
“Not on your goddamn life.”
The words were forced through clenched teeth as I fought to retain control of his hand while keeping my shoulders hunched in an effort to stop him from strangling me.
I was vaguely aware of Seth fighting with Damon, who was still little more than a shadow, but that awareness bloomed as the two of them hit us. The sheer force of their weight sent us all sprawling to the floor, with me on the bottom. For several seconds, stars danced across my vision and my breath came as little more than labored grunts. Even so, my dragon snapped to life, the contact with Tomi allowing her to suck in more of his heat. He swore softly and thrust an elbow backward; the blow barely missed my cheek. Body weight shifted, then Seth was up and running, with the shadow that was Damon in pursuit.
Leaving me with Tomi.
I wrapped an arm around his neck and hung on grimly as he struggled and swore. His body flamed, and the heat of him burned against my skin—a delicious fire that helped melt more of the iciness from my bones.
He snuffed it out the minute he realized he was helping rather than hindering me, then somehow wrenched his arm around and fired at my legs. The bullet bit into the side of my calf, and pain bloomed, forcing a yelp from my lips. My grip weakened. He scrambled up in an instant but I rose with him, striking low and hard at his kidneys. He fell backward again, forcing me to sidestep in a hurry. As he hit the floor, I stuck again—this time with two stiffened fingers at the point just below his Adam’s apple. It left him gasping for air, and I used those few precious seconds to rip the gun from his hand then leap over his body and bolt for the door. I had barely closed and locked it before his weight hit the other side.
“Bitch!” he yelled, “Let me out.”
“Not on your goddamn life,” I muttered, glancing down at the gun in my hand, then dropping it into the barrel of water at the end of the building.
For a moment I did nothing more than stand there, sucking in the ever-growing power of the dawn. It chased away the last of the cold and stoked the embers deep in my soul.
Then I turned around and looked for Damon and Seth. A scream of inhuman rage jerked my gaze skyward, and my heart just about slammed into my throat. High above me, two dragons battled, one gold, one black, both equally huge.
Seth screamed again, wheeling about in the brightening skies, slashing at Damon’s dark hide with razor- sharp claws. He caught flesh, tearing deep, and blood sprayed. A scream tore out of my throat, but I clapped a hand over my mouth, stopping it before it could pass my lips. Damon didn’t need any distractions right now, and Seth certainly didn’t need to know I was out of the fridge and free.
Damon dived, the growing sunlight playing across his dark scales, setting them ablaze with fires of purple and red. He twisted around, then somehow belly-rolled, coming up under Seth. His bared teeth sank deep into the other dragon’s tender underside, then he shook his head, whipping Seth to and fro. Seth’s fury boiled across the air, his scream so high it hurt to hear it. His claws raked the air, missing Damon’s bleeding side by mere inches, then he lashed out with his tail, the whiplike strike forcing Damon to release him. Damon dropped away, spitting out a chunk of flesh. Then, with a mighty sweep of his wings, he drove upward, obviously trying to get above Seth.
Seth saw him and banked around, coming in fast, teeth bared and a blazing look of hatred twisting his serpentine features. Damon slashed with his claws and spun away, still driving upward, still trying to get the
