Mercy Burns (7 page)

“So I do.” I pushed up from the bench too fast and pain flared, providing yet another reminder that I hadn’t fully healed. I grimaced, grabbing at my side as I walked to the door. The stranger’s gaze followed me—a weighted heat that caressed my skin and sent a tremor running through me. I did my best to ignore it—and him—and bent to study the door.

“It’s solid,” he said, the amusement that had been so evident in his eyes now reaching his voice.

“It certainly looks that way.”

But I’d learned long ago that everything—and everyone—had a weak point, no matter how minor. This door might look rock solid, but that didn’t mean
it wouldn’t give way if it was given the right sort of push.

I just had to uncover what sort of push that was.

There was no handle on this side, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. Dragons were notorious thieves, and more than capable of cracking most of the locks and security devices currently on the market. Thieving was in a dragon’s blood, and it was a skill learned—and honed—since birth. Hell, even draman could pick a lock faster than most humans could blink.

Not that my clique had actually taught us draman that trick, either, but some skills were easily picked up when they were being practiced all around you.

I peered into the small gap between the door and the frame. The metal bolt on the other side was at least an inch wide and who knew how thick.

“There’s a rather large dead bolt out there,” I said. “They’re making sure you don’t escape.”

“You’re in the same cell, remember.” He studied me for a moment, then added, “Why is that? What did you do?”

“Asked a few too many questions, I think.” I stepped back and studied the door as a whole. No hinges on this side. “What’s your excuse?”

“Much the same thing, really.”

I glanced at him. He looked healthier than he had five minutes ago, so obviously the warmth I’d lent him was chasing the coolness from his skin. But it wouldn’t last long—not if he remained in this darkness.

“What questions were you asking that you shouldn’t?”

“Lady, when you start answering my questions, I’ll start answering yours.”

“My name is Mercy Reynolds.” Then I hesitated, wondering how much I should tell him. But really, what was the point of hiding anything? It wasn’t like I actually knew anything vital. “And I was asking about two cleansed towns and missing draman.”

“So was I.”

“Then obviously someone doesn’t want those questions asked.” That was a point I was
all
too aware of already. I looked at the door and ignored the tendrils of pain and anger that rose with the thought. “What’s the melting point of steel?”

“I have no idea.”

I found myself grinning. “So Mr. Death doesn’t know everything?”

“It’s Damon—Damon Rey—not Death. And why would you want to know the melting point of steel? You think you can melt the door with your flames?”

His tone gently mocked and I met his gaze with a frown. “You think I can’t?”

“Dragon fire is fierce, granted, but it’s not concentrated enough to generate the sort of heat needed to melt
that
door. It’s flameproof, like the walls.”

Meaning he’d tried when he’d first arrived, obviously. “But I don’t want to melt the door. I just want to heat the bolt enough so that it’s pliable. Then we should be able to push it open.”

“It still needs a concentrated heat.”

That, I
could
do. Fire had been my only defense for a good part of my life, and I’d learned pretty quickly to make the most of it. Not even the dragons in my clique had my control—which didn’t mean I was right and this man was wrong.

“So you did try to flame the door when you were first thrown in here?”

“Once, and they’ve pretty much kept me drugged since then. By the time they woke me to question me, I was sunshine-starved and had flamed out.”

“So how long have you actually been in here?”

“What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“And the date?”

“April fourth.”

He swore softly under his breath. I raised my eyebrows. “Is that bad?”

His gaze came to mine again, dark eyes intense. Angry. And though that anger wasn’t aimed at me, it was a frightening thing to behold.

“It means that I’ve been here for thirteen days.”

Thirteen days? Without sunlight? Angus might not have been impressed, but I sure was. Most dragons could survive four or five days without sunlight, but to go thirteen—and still be lucid—took amazing strength.

“Are you going to be strong enough to handle those men if I can get us out of here?”

There was nothing pleasant or warm about his smile or the sudden glint in his cold, dark eyes. “You get us out of this room and I’ll make sure we get free.”

I believed him. It was impossible not to. Even so, I couldn’t help wondering if Mr. Death himself might be more of a problem once we’d gotten out of here than the men upstairs.

But what other option did I have? There was only one thing that was certain—I didn’t want to be here when that well-cultured man came back. One look at
the mess Damon was in suggested their methods of getting information weren’t ones I’d enjoy.

As if there’d ever been any doubt of that.

So I said, “Can you sense anyone nearby?”

“You really are going to try to melt the bolt, aren’t you?”

Annoyance ran through me. “You got a better idea?”

“No. And if you can flame at night, why do you need me to sense the other dragons? Shouldn’t you be able to tell that yourself?”

“I should, but I can’t. Is there anyone near?”

He paused for a moment then shook his head. “They’re both upstairs.”

“Both? There should be three.” Unless Angus had already left. But why would he do that? Was he really just a messenger boy or was something else going on?

“There aren’t. Trust me.”

Not as far as I can throw you
. I turned away and studied the bolt again. It looked
really
solid—and despite my earlier boast, I’d never tried to do anything like this before. Not with steel, anyway.

I raised a hand and lightly pressed one finger against the gap between the door and the frame. With the bolt directly opposite my finger, I reached down and called to the waiting fire. It came in an explosive burst of energy that had heat radiating from my skin and the air churning. I frowned and concentrated the flames, channeling and intensifying them, forcing them away from my skin and down into my hand, into that one finger. Heat shot out from my fingertip, the glow of it so intense I had to close my eyes lest the image burn itself into my retinas.

I could still feel the heat of it, though. Could still see the glow of it, even through closed eyelids.

“I’ve never seen anyone control their flames with such precision.”

Damon’s words were little more than a whisper past my left ear. He was standing so close that the heat of his body washed across my bare shoulders and arms. So close that the raw, masculine scent of him—a scent that was an odd combination of musk, controlled violence, sweat, and blood—filled every breath, until it felt like his very essence was invading mine.

But perhaps what was even scarier was the fact that there’d been absolutely no sound to indicate he’d moved.

True to his name, he was as silent as a ghost.

I briefly opened an eye to check how I was doing and saw that the bolt was beginning to glow. It
was
working. But sweat was trickling down my forehead and my arm was beginning to shake. Worse, the maelstrom inside was rapidly losing its intensity. Generally, a dragon could flame for as long as she or he was awake and aware, simply because we were fueled by the heat of the sun. But it was now night, and my flames were drawing their energy directly from my body—a body that had lost a lot of blood in the accident and was still very battered and bruised.

I opened my eyes. The tight beam of fire was definitely less intense than it had been, but the bolt was glowing brighter.

I just had to keep going for a little bit longer, and we might be able to get out of here.

I bit my lip and concentrated on the flame, forcing as much energy as I could into it. The tremor in my arm
spread to the rest of me, until my whole body seemed to be shaking with effort.

Hands touched my waist—just enough to hold me steady, and to catch me should my knees buckle. Damon’s grip on my injured right side—though gentle—had the pain flaring again, but his touch was also heated and strong, and the dragon inside wanted to snatch and use it. It was a temptation I resisted. He needed to cope with the men upstairs, and who knew how much strength he actually had left? He might have lasted longer in darkness than I’d ever thought possible, but I doubted even Death could go on forever without the sun’s warmth to fuel him.

The metal finally began to glow white hot. At first it was little more than a small pinprick right at the center of the flames, but it gradually spread, flowing outward across the hot metal.

Just a little bit more, I thought—and in that moment, the flames sputtered and died, and my legs went out from underneath me.

Damon caught me one-handed, pressing me against his side while he pushed his weight against the door. The muscles in his arm corded, and the exertion had his body shaking as much as mine.

For a minute I thought it might all be for naught, but slowly, surely, the door began to inch away from the frame. I broke free of his grip and grabbed at the wall to steady myself. Damon flung his full weight against the door and, with little ceremony, the bolt gave way.

The door sprang open. We were free of the cell.

Now we just had to get out of this place and away from the men.

D
amon barely stopped the door from crashing back against the wall. He looked at the melted bolt, at the strings of still glowing metal trailing from it, then at me. In the darkness, his eyes burned with an unearthly heat.

“That’s an amazing thing you did there,” he said, voice so soft it barely carried.

“Yeah.” I blew out a breath and forced my shaking knees to lock. We weren’t free yet, and as much as I wanted to sit down and recuperate, that wasn’t an option right now. “Where are those men?”

He glanced up the stairs. “One to the left, one outside.”

“I’m not going to be of much use on the fighting front at the moment.”

His lips twitched, hinting at a smile, and for the second time that night, my breath hitched in reaction. I had an odd feeling this man didn’t smile a whole lot,
and that was probably a good thing if my reaction to the merest hint of one was anything to go by.

And that reaction was troubling. The last thing I needed was an attraction to a dangerous man—not when such an attraction had gone wrong so often in the past.

“You’ve upheld your end of the bargain. Time for me to uphold mine.” He flexed his arms and his smile faded, his lips becoming as cold and harsh as his expression. “Wait here.”

He didn’t give me time to answer. He simply turned and melted into the darkness—a shadow that made no sound as he flowed upward and disappeared.

I grabbed the door and swung it closed again, just in case one of the men walked past the stairs. I trusted Damon to do his job, but even Death couldn’t be in two places at once. It’d be just my luck that I’d get discovered on the verge of escape.

I pressed back against the wall, hoping the shadows were deep enough to cover my presence. And then I realized that was totally stupid. I mean, the guards were
dragons
. They’d sense me down here in the shadows regardless. I was better off hoping that I regained fire strength quickly so that I’d at least have something to protect myself with.

A clock ticked loudly into the silence and, as the minutes stretched, I wondered what was going on upstairs. I wondered if Damon was taking care of the men or simply getting the hell out. Maybe I was doing him an injustice by thinking that, but there’d been so many other dragons over the years who—in one way or another—had let me down.

I’m not sure how long I stood there before the
awareness that something was wrong began to steal through my soul. I pressed back harder against the brick wall, the chill of it seeping into my spine, making me feel colder than I’d ever thought possible.

I stared at the stairs, hating the fact that I didn’t know what was happening up there. I took one step upward then stopped. I’d been told to wait here and it made sense to do so—especially given my fires were still little more than embers.

But if things
had
gone wrong—if Damon had been too weak to take care of both men—then staying here meant I’d be caught, too. And given I’d basically rendered the lock useless, who knew what they’d do to keep us still and quiet until tomorrow night?

I bit my lip, then slowly climbed the stairs, my heart racing so hard it felt like it was going to tear out of my chest as I strained to hear the slightest sound.

But nothing and no one else seemed to be moving.

Besides the clock, the house was deathly quiet. I reached the top step and paused. My dragon senses still weren’t providing much in the way of information, which was damn frustrating because I really could have done with a little extra help.

But then, that was practically the story of my life. Things never went the way I wanted or expected them to.

Like Rainey
. I pushed away the flare of pain and tried to concentrate on the here and now.

I peered carefully around the corner. Darkness lay to my right, but to the left, muted light filtered through huge ceiling-to-floor windows, highlighting the dust on the wooden floors and giving the cobwebs hanging
from the cornices a silvery edge. Obviously, Albert and Jay weren’t all that into housekeeping.

I looked at the darker end of the corridor. No windows, no filtered light. Nothing to indicate anyone or anything might be nearby.

It was the perfect place to hide.

Whether someone was, I couldn’t say. My radar for that sort of information was still off-line. Which meant, unfortunately, there was only one way I was going to find out.