Forbidden Embers (2 page)

He refused to let it get to him. Predator, prey. It was the way of the world. Certainly, the way of
his
world, and after a decade of watching his clan mates living in fear, he was sick of being the quarry. Sick to death of hanging around and waiting for the next attack, the next wave of sickness, the next horrifying death of someone he loved and was sworn to protect.

He was ready to strike. It was the nature of the beast, after all. The nature of
his
beast, and those of his closest friends. He would find his enemy’s weak spot; hit fast and hard. Whatever damage he sustained—whether fleeting or absolute—would be more than worth it if he could finally find a way to neutralize the enemy.

He snarled at the thought of the Wyvernmoons, his long legs eating up the miles as he walked off his frustration, his pain. Inside, his beast thrashed and snarled in an effort to get out, but Logan kept it on a very short leash. One slipup, and the dragon would burst free. He couldn’t afford that, not now, when logic and reason had to be everything.

Not now, when the hot-tempered screams of the animal would do nothing to advance the case he knew he had to make.

As he walked, he memorized the feel of the desert at night. After more than two hundred years, he should be able to call it up at will, but he wasn’t taking any chances. South Dakota in the wintertime was as different from New Mexico as one could get and still be in America. And God only knew how many winters he would have to endure in that hellhole of a compound before he would once again find his way back here.

If he ever did.

The pragmatist in him knew that there was more than a passing chance that he would die on this latest quest, knew that after he left here in a few days, he might never see his beloved stretch of desert again. And while he didn’t fear death—at 397 years old, he had faced that enemy many times before—he did regret that he might never again enjoy the peaceful solitude of a walk over the land, his land, while a blanket of stars stretched as far as the eye could see.

He broke into a run then, all but flying in human form across the forty or so miles that separated him from the small house he kept in town. But that was the thing about dreams—fiction and reality could mix until it was impossible to tell one from the other.

The closer he got to the small city that was the heart of the Dragonstars’ home, the more voices and thoughts crowded in on him. They pressed down from every side, nearly blinding him. Almost making him insane with the fear and worry and pain that threaded through so many of his fellow dragons.

He could feel walls closing in even though he was outside. Could feel time ticking away from him like the sand of his beloved desert through an hourglass.

It was exactly what he needed to cement his resolve. Usually his psychic abilities drove him nuts. Though they made things easier in battle, the rest of the time they were nothing but a pain in the ass.

An ability to eavesdrop on thoughts and conversations that were never meant to be public.

An invasion of privacy that, even after almost four centuries, he sometimes couldn’t block.

A knowledge of people’s most embarrassing moments and deepest, darkest secrets.

It sucked, big-time.

His psychic ability was one of the reasons he spent so much of his free time deep in the desert, away from the other dragon shifters. It was often the only way he could give the civilian dragons of the clan any privacy. The only way he could quiet the nonstop chatter in his head. It was also the reason it had taken him nearly three centuries to find a home.

He shied away from the thought and the emotions that were still too raw, even after all this time. Then he slipped silently into town, nodding to his friend and fellow sentry Ty as he passed him on the street. It was Ty’s turn to patrol the town boundaries, and though he looked like he wanted to talk, Logan didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to, not now, when his plan was only half-formed. It would still be too easy to talk him out of it.

No, there was a council meeting in a few days, a gathering of the other sentries like him, and that was where he would reveal his plan. It wasn’t much time, but he was determined to be prepared.

To be resolute.

To be unshakable. Otherwise, his peers would never go along with what he wanted to do.

They still might not—that fact was what had driven him toward town before he even knew where he was heading. He needed to talk to Dylan before the meeting, needed to talk him into the idea that was still not fully formed in his own head.

It shouldn’t be that hard to convince the Dragonstar king,
a little voice inside Logan’s head whispered. Dylan had to go along with it. They were running out of time. Even with the Wyvernmoons’ last attack party decimated, it wouldn’t take long for them to regroup and head back to New Mexico, looking to wipe out the Dragonstars once and for all. And while they couldn’t beat the Dragonstars in a fair fight, the Wyvernmoons had much greater numbers and an amorality that gave them a firm advantage. After all, they were responsible for the disease that had ravaged his clan for more than a decade.

He wouldn’t let them destroy the Dragonstars. He couldn’t. Not when this clan,
his
clan, was the only one who had taken him in after long centuries of searching. Not when these people,
his
people, had given him the only home he’d ever known.

That generosity was one of the many reasons it was so difficult to contemplate leaving. And one of the many reasons he had to.

After checking around his house for signs of disturbances, he opened the door and let his senses flood the place—searching for the thoughts, the presence, of any intruders. He found none, but that didn’t stop him from making the rounds, checking every room to make sure no enemies lay in wait. As he did, he cursed the Wyvernmoons and the fact that such hyper-vigilance was even necessary when he and his clan mates wanted nothing more than to live in peace.

It wouldn’t be for long—not if he had anything to say about it.

When he was convinced his house was clear, Logan strode into the kitchen and yanked a pair of scissors out of one of the drawers. Then went into the bathroom and, without thought or remorse, cut off the long, flowing hair that had all but been his trademark for centuries. Amid the Dragonstars, almost all of whom were dark, his too-long blond hair and amber eyes were legendary.

After the hair was gone—and he was barely recognizable even to himself—Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out the stalactite he’d shoved in there earlier. He studied it for a moment, made sure it was strong enough and sharp enough to do what had to be done.

Then, without pause, he reached up and raked the hard, sharp tip of it down the right side of his face, from his eye to the corner of his mouth.

They had reached the point of no return. As he watched blood flow freely down his face and neck, he knew that nothing else mattered.

His clan would be safe. He would make sure of it.

He woke up a few minutes later, shivering and huddled up on the couch in his living room in town, though he had fallen asleep in his cave. He blinked a few times, brought the world around him into focus.

And realized that the pillow he’d been sleeping on was coated in his blood.

His fight had already begun.

T
he murmurs started the second Logan walked into the War Room. He ignored them as he headed to the front of the long, underground cavern that Dylan used as a meeting and strategizing room for himself and his sentries, but that only made the sounds—and the worry that fueled them—more insistent.

The room wasn’t even close to full. After finding a traitor in their midst a few weeks before, Dylan had tripled patrols around their territory. Everyone was suddenly being very careful about what they did and who they trusted, but still, the emotions of his closest friends pressed in on Logan from every side.

He refused to acknowledge them, instead choosing to keep his eyes on his king, who stood at the front of the room, waiting for him. The look in Dylan’s eyes was a mixture of fury, concern and resignation. Logan recognized it because they were the same emotions that had been flooding him for far too long, as he’d watched clan mate after clan mate die around him.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” Quinn, the Dragonstars’ number-one healer, jumped up from his spot next to Dylan and crossed the room so quickly he was nearly a blur. “You should have called me right away.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re patently not fine,” Quinn answered, reaching for his face. Though the healer had yet to touch him, already Logan could feel the warmth emanating from his fingers. The promise of healing that would make the ceaseless ache in his face finally go away.

He shrugged Quinn off and shouldered his way past the other sentries who had gathered around him to lend support and inquire about his health. They were his friends, his family, the only people he had cared about in his long, long existence, and he was afraid if he spoke to them now, he would let them change his mind about what he planned to do.

It wasn’t that he was uncertain of his choice. He wasn’t, and the support of his king had only made him more resolute. It was simply that none of those closest to him were bothering to shield themselves and he was too worn down, his mind in too much turmoil, to do it for them. Their emotions were coming at him from every side.

Concern from Paige, the sentry he had been involved with for nearly half of the previous century.

Rage from his closest friend, Shawn.

An ice-cold need for revenge from Gabe, who had lost his wife and daughter to the Wyvernmoons’ machinations less than a year before.

And from Dylan, his king and one of his closest friends, a resigned and resolute sadness that very much matched his own feelings. Strange that with everything floating around the room, his were the emotions that came closest to breaking Logan.

“What happened to you?” Shawn demanded, flashing across the cave in an instant to block his path. The look in his best friend’s furious gold eyes would have felled a lesser man, but Logan just stepped around him.

“I’m fine.”

“Not to echo Quinn, but you don’t look fine. You look like you went a full ten rounds with a weed whacker. And lost.”

Even though that had been the point—the scar was raw and ugly enough to draw even the most discerning attention away from his features—he still took exception to the implication that he couldn’t hold his own in a fight. “I think you have me confused with yourself,” he said, bumping his shoulder into the other dragon shifter as he passed.

“Yeah. Because I’m the one who didn’t even bother to call for help when someone messed with
my
pretty-boy face.”

“That’s because you’re so ugly no one would try to mess with your mug. Any scars would be an improvement.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t say the same about you. You look like shit. And what the fuck happened to your hair?”

“Enough!” Dylan’s voice echoed through the cavern. And while theirs wasn’t a council that stood on ceremony, the five sentries currently in the room froze. When Dylan used that tone, it meant business—usually of the bloodiest, most serious kind.

Logan worked his way around Shawn and Quinn and kept walking through the cold, underground cave. But instead of taking his normal spot in the War Room on the large, flat rock against the side wall, he continued to the front of the room, where Dylan, Quinn and Gabe, the king’s seconds-in-command, always sat in huge, heavy chairs.

Quinn followed him, and Logan was aware that everyone in the room was staring at him, their cagey, intelligent minds casting around for a reasonable explanation for his appearance and Dylan’s obvious lack of worry over his wound.

Paige, one of only two female shifters on Dylan’s council, hit on the answer first, but, then, she knew a side of him that no one else did. It had been years since they’d been together, but some things you didn’t forget. He still knew all her weak spots, as well.

Her understanding cut like a beacon of light through the murky gray that surrounded the others’ thoughts. “Don’t do it, Logan,” she pleaded from where she was seated on one of the large black couches in the center of the room. “You don’t look nearly different enough to pull it off.”

Confusion continued to press in on him, and Logan made a belated effort to slide his psychic shields into place. If he spent much more time in this room without their protection, he’d be crushed under the weight of his fellow sentries’ concern.

“Pull what off?” demanded Shawn, his voice little more than a growl of frustration. “Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

“It won’t work, Logan. You’re one of us,” Paige continued. “You’ve been one of us for two centuries. You won’t be able to hide that.”