Now it was her turn to save them.
***
“It’s over for me, Rave.”
Rave closed his eyes against the unwavering finality in those words. It was so dark on the upper floor of the Keep that the abyss behind his shuttered lids actually seemed brighter in comparison. The acrid stink of old smoke and scorched metal filled his lungs like the urge to roar a denial.
“It’s not over.” Instead of shouting, he hissed out the words one at a time, each fletched like an iron-tipped arrow to find its mark. Not that he
wanted
to hurt his blood brother and liege lord, but he needed to trigger some feeling—
any
feeling—to stave off the petralys. Once the curse had sunk too deep, Bale would turn to stone.
Literally.
But for now—for too long—the turning to stone was only metaphorical. His brother had become cold and remote, but Bale wasn’t lethally locked into his rocky fate.
Not quite yet.
“I just need a little more time,” Rave said. “I’m getting closer to finding a cure.”
“You said that a hundred years ago.”
The implicit blame chilled Rave from his solid gold cufflinks to his combat boots, and he fisted his hands on the thighs of his jeans where he knelt on the hard floor. “If you’d let me see—”
“No.” The single word was as blunt and unstoppable as a bullet.
Because no one used arrows anymore.
Rave opened his eyes. If he changed, he’d be able to see, even in this stygian blackness. But the threat of his presence in shifted form might force Bale over the edge.
Besides, he didn’t really want to see how far his brother had fallen.
He could guess well enough, anyway, since he felt the same tendrils of stony coldness invading his bones, aching in the depths of the night.
“I’m close,” he repeated. And he hoped his brother knew he meant both to a cure and to call on. If Bale would ever deign to call on anyone.
Still blind, Rave rose to his feet and strode toward the doorway he knew was behind him.
“Rave.”
The whisper rasping from the darkness made his hackles prickle. Brother by blood and camaraderie Bale might be, but he was still lord of this place.
Rave turned to face the void.
“When I’m gone, you will be the oldest among the last of us.”
“Yes,” Rave acknowledged. Bale had found all of the remaining Nox Incendi and brought them to the Keep. The Tribe of the Burning Night had never been large, but now they were nearly extinct.
Turning to stone—first emotions, then sensation, then body going cold and still—was the curse of their tribe, and all their fathomless riches meant nothing.
Unless he could find a way to halt and reverse the petralys.
To bring fire back to the Nox Incendi.
“You must find the heart of your treasure,” Bale said. For the first time, life pulsed in his words. A thrum of urgent need. The scent of burning metal wafted through the nothingness. “You must show the others the way.”
Rave curled his lip in a sneer, knowing his blood brother could see him. “That’s a myth.”
“
We
are myths. It’s too late for me, but find your solarys—your true mate.” Bale’s voice hardened. “I command it.”
Rave laughed aloud. “You can’t command me to find love.”
“Are your ears as useless as your eyes in that shape? I just did.”
Rave peered through the blackness, but of course he couldn’t tell if his brother was joking. No one—not even a king—could command love. Although legend had it that a solarys was fated by a fever in her own blood to find her dragon.
“I have enough troubles,” he said, “without exposing myself to the mating fever.”
“That is all you should be thinking of,” Bale shot back. “You have buried your dragon too deep if you don’t long for your solarys.”
Buried his dragon? Rave bit back an annoyed curse. Hadn’t they all? But what choice did they have in this world.
“I’ll find a way to stop the petralys,” he swore.
There’d been a time he never would have dared walk out on his liege, but if Bale wouldn’t let himself be seen… Rave slapped his hand forward and hit the elevator button. The door opened instantly, letting a rectangle of light spill into the emptiness.
He ignored the hiss and the metallic clatter behind him, just as he’d ignore the other command.
He wasn’t going to chase an imaginary solarys when he had to run the Keep, hide the Nox Incendi, and cure a curse.
He’d had centuries to amass his treasure, a dragon’s lifeblood, but he’d run out of time for love.
Chapter 2
Down in the control room in the casino’s first basement, Rave checked in with the night managers. He’d long ago learned to leash the dragon when dealing with humans. Not because he wanted to, but because he
had
to if the Nox Incendi were to survive in the modern world. Which made Bale’s accusation sting all the worse. The employees knew him, they trusted him, they liked him—and still he felt the way they flinched away, just a little.
His title might be general manager, but while
general
fit who he was to the clan, there was nothing of
man
in him. The humans sensed the apex predator in him, even through his very fine linen shirt, even though their kind wouldn’t believe in him.
In dragons.
And Bale thought the Nox Incendi could find their true mates among these oblivious humans? Forget it. Shifters had gone into hiding precisely because humans were a scourge on the earth: small-minded, treacherous, jealous of the power and beauty of the beast…yet too craven to embrace the passions that ruled fang and wing.
The mating fever
… Rave crushed the thought, turning the diamond back to coal dust in his mind.
The Keep was humming, brimming with restless humanity. It always was. Bale had created a place to entice the most alpha among the humans. They might not know why they were drawn to the eclectic mix of stone and steel, of ancient and cutting edge, but the melding of splendor and danger captured their imaginations and kept them coming back, always with more of their treasure. Rave suspected that on some instinctive level, they sensed the threat of the lurking dragon, and like the misguided knights of old, they couldn’t help but throw themselves to their doom.
Their financial doom, anyway. Today’s dragon-shifters had no need to stockpile gold coins over old bone when they could amass stocks, bonds, mutual funds, securities, futures, real estate, patents, collectibles, and art.
Of course, gold coins were still very, very satisfying.
As for old bones… Well, bones were better with some meat attached.
As he strode past the bank of CCTV screens, a flash of something caught his eye. The security guard didn’t react, but Rave reversed his step for another look.
In the low light of the casino, the colors in the cameras were muddy, so why had he thought he caught a glimpse of scintillating gold?
The screen showed three young women entering the Badlands bar—not unusual in the Keep. Just as the Keep enticed the rich and powerful, the rich and powerful enticed their own milieu of followers, including opportunistic young women who might get into more trouble with gluttonous human predators than with draconic ones.
But when he looked again, Rave noted that the middle female—thin and pale-haired—was clearly one of their primary upscale clientele, despite her youth and the hesitant way she turned her head to follow the antics of the other two. The second female in the flowing skirts was gesturing animatedly above her head, remarking—if he had to guess—on the faint, glowing stars embedded in the ceiling to simulate an endless dusk.
But it was the third female—a petite, curvaceous Latina—who had caught his attention.
Despite being translated to two dimensions, her hair gleamed with a rich, lively darkness. She stood with her hands on the lush rounds of her hips over a shiny skirt, staring at something.
He forced himself to follow the angle of her gaze. She was staring at the wall… No, at the sconce in front of her.
She pushed up the sleeves of her vee-neck sweater and reached out as if questioning its reality. At the same moment, his dragon stirred, stretching against the confines of his awareness.
“Don’t touch, silly girl,” he whispered. “It’s real. It’s all real.”
She jumped back, flapping her fingers. Her companions huddled around her. The blonde took her hand and examined it. The one in the flouncy skirt smacked her lightly on the back of the head, making that dark hair fly.
Rave’s hand tightened into a fist, as if he could soothe that singed skin, catch those flyaway strands. Clearly she was enthralled by fire.
To his shock, his cock stiffened too, as if he could feel the phantom sensations of heat and air through the remote images. To power the sconces, the Keep tapped into natural gas reservoirs far below. And below those, there were older, stranger vapors…
He growled low in his throat, hardly more than a rumble in his bones.
The security guard seated before the screens ducked his head and glanced warily over his shoulder. “Sir, did you say something?”
“Those three,” Rave said. “Who are they?”
The guard spun to his tablet, scrolling quickly through the facial recognition program. “Checked in this evening. Reserved with full service by Lars Ashcraft for Esme Montenegro. Two-bedroom suite in the Delphi wing with a connecting bedroom. Additional keycards issued to Anjali Herne and Piper Ramirez.” The guard eyed Rave cautiously. “Is there a problem, sir?”
“Unlikely. You all do good work.” Rave didn’t blow smoke—at least not where people might see him—so the guard preened a little. A human boss might’ve clapped the man on the back, but Rave just gave him a nod and continued on.
While humans might be able to mentally explain away their inadvertent flinch in the presence of dragonkin, any physical contact—even glancing—turned most people into a frantic, gibbering mess. In the backs of their disbelieving brains, they
remembered
the pierce of talons and the bone-deep burn of dragonfire.
Yet another reason Rave knew the legend of the solarys was only that—a fantasy, born of desperate Nox Incendi turning slowly to stone. No human could withstand such violent intimate contact to become a dragon’s lover.
The tribe’s only hope lay with him finding a cure to the stone blight.
And that wasn’t getting done with him ogling young human females.
Even if his dragon had been intrigued by the glimpse of gold.
But he found himself taking the elevator to the main floor, one boot tapping out an impatient rhythm until the door opened. He should at least make sure she hadn’t injured herself enough to make a fuss that would bring unwanted scrutiny down upon them—
He strode out, not
quite
at a run.
“Watch your step, cousin.”
The gruff admonition made Rave bristle and swing around at the borderline challenge.
Just as quickly, he forced himself to stand down. He blinked back the lightning he knew was kindling in his eyes. There was no cause to rouse his dragon further, no reason for such a reaction.
Torch lifted his hands, his eyebrows shooting up almost as quickly, and Rave realized the quiet growl he’d swallowed earlier had come out much louder this time.
“Where’s the fire?” Torch rolled forward onto the balls of his feet, the heavy leather of his biker boots creaking with a sound like eagerness. Even his unruly shock of dirty blond hair looked ready to rumble.
“No fire,” Rave said.
But there had been a flame. And
she
had put her hand to it, too curious for her own good.
Why was he still thinking about her?
To his annoyance, Torch altered course to fall into step beside him.
“You talk to Bale?”
Rave jerked his head in a brusque nod. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Including him?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rave admitted, “I didn’t actually see him.”
Torch let out a low curse. “Not good, Rave.”
He wouldn’t honor that with a reply. “I need another vial of your ichor.”
Torch cursed louder. “You’ve almost bled me dry.”
“Don’t be an ass. Ichor rejuvenates.” Or was supposed to, at least.
“Not as fast as you take it.”
“You’re the youngest. If I ask any of the older ones—”
“Fuck. I know, I know. Don’t ask them.” Torch blew out a long breath. “I’ll come by the laboratory in the morning. Just…give me a night, all right? I’ll make sure there’s something worthy in my veins.”
“No going out to fight at the Cage Club,” Rave warned him. “We have enough troubles. Don’t need you wrangling with rogue dragonkin.”
Torch snorted. “But
that
trouble would be fun.”
If only. For the first time, Rave acknowledged the desperation gnawing at the back of his determination, undermining the belief he’d held for so long that he
would
find a way. He’d seen promise in comparing Torch’s younger blood with that of the older dragon-shifters. There were biochemical differences between the two; if he could identify, isolate, and compensate for those differences, he could reverse the petralys. No dragon would be forced to rely on the fantasy of finding his solarys—the heart of his treasure. But his experiments were taking too long. With all the years that had passed him, by now he could’ve turned lead into gold.
If even Torch was starting to lose his ichor—if the flowing fire within him was slowly cooling and congealing—what hope was there for the rest of the Nox Incendi?
***
In the Badlands bar, Piper clinked her glass with Esme and Anjali, wincing a little as she jostled her burnt fingers. At least the bowl of her daiquiri was nice and cold. She was such a dumb-ass to think that fire hadn’t been real.
“It’s been too long,” she said. “To a great girls’ night out. Salud.”
“Cheers,” Anjali agreed.
Esme said nothing. She just drank.
Piper exchanged glances with Anj over their glasses. But Anjali looked away.
Piper frowned and kicked at her under the high table. Instead of barking a wtf at her, which she always would’ve done, Anjali avoided the swing of the heavy Danskos and scooted her tall chair closer to Ez.