“Dragons don’t ‘snog,’ idiot.”
“Oh, sod off. You know what I mean.” Wes shook his head, half closing his laptop to stare at me over the lid. “You’re losing it, Riley,” he said. “Ever since that bloody hatchling crashed into our affairs, your priorities have been screwed to hell and back. For Christ’s sake, we have a bloody soldier of St. George following us around! I still don’t know why you haven’t told the blighter to shove off.”
“He’s useful,” I argued. “Since he’s here, I figured we might as well take advantage of having the enemy with us. If we can get him to give up secrets about the Order—”
“Bull. Crap.” Wes glared at me. “That’s not the reason and you bloody well know it’s not. Don’t lie to me, Riley. I’ve known you too long for that.” He narrowed his eyes, his scruffy jaw tightening in anger. “It’s because of her. Everything we’ve done, everything that’s happened to us since Crescent Beach, is because of her. And now we’re holed up here, with Talon and St. George on our tail, and you’re making promises you have no way of keeping. Dangerous promises. Promises that will get us all killed. If anyone else suggested we contact someone in the organization, you would’ve either laughed in their face and told them to sod off, or punched their bloody lights out.”
“I have no intention of sending Ember’s traitor brother any kind of message,” I said, rolling my eyes. “So you can relax. I didn’t promise her anything, and I’m sure as hell not giving that Talon clone another chance to turn us in. Once was enough.”
“You’re missing the point, mate.” Wes rubbed the bridge of his nose, sounding tired. “Listen to what you just said. Once was enough?” He shook his head. “It should never have come to that. You knew that brother of hers was bad news. You knew he would sell us out to Talon, and you still let her go back for him. And what happened? Fucking Lilith, the organization’s best Viper assassin, tracked you down and nearly killed you both. Because that hatchling has you so twisted around her little claw, you don’t know which way is up anymore.”
I took a breath to cool the sudden rise of heat in my lungs. “How about I worry about running this circus, and you worry about keeping enemy forces from sneaking in the back door?” I suggested in a flat voice. “What I do with Ember is none of your business.”
“It’s my sodding business if it gets us all killed!”
“I’ve protected this underground for years!” I snapped in return. “Before Ember even knew what a human was, I’ve been fighting to get my kind out of Talon. I’ve worked for it, bled for it, nearly died for it more times than I can count. I’m not going to throw that away, and I’m certainly not going to lose it now. You should know me better than that.”
Wes slumped against the pillow. “I know,” he murmured. “I know you’d do anything to keep those kids safe, just like I’d do anything to screw with Talon and throw a wrench into their plans for world domination, or whatever it is they’re planning. But I’ve never seen you like this, mate. We’ve worked too hard to build this underground, to get dragons out of the organization, to weaken Talon however we can. I just want to be certain your priorities are still the same.”
“No,” I said, making him frown. “Weakening Talon, screwing with their plans, plotting to overthrow the evil empire, that’s always been your objective. One more hatchling that I get out of Talon is one less dragon they can use in the future. I go after hatchlings because I want my kind to be free. You go after them because you have this crazy notion that someday Talon will fall because of us. Because of what we’re doing right now.”
“Everyone has their dreams, mate.” Wes’s voice was low, his eyes hard. “I know you don’t believe it will happen, that Talon is too big, but I’ve seen giants crumble and empires brought down. It has to start somewhere. And if you don’t think that what we’re doing now will matter, even if it’s beyond our lifetimes, then what is the bloody point of all this?”
An ominous beep from his laptop interrupted us. Wes jumped and pushed the lid back, bending low. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he hunched forward, his nose only a few inches from the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. I moved up beside him, feeling tense and slightly sick, hoping that alarm didn’t mean what I feared it would.
“What happened?”
Wes’s fingers froze. His face blanched, and he slumped back against the headboard with a hollow thump. His face was blank with resignation as he looked up, and I knew what he would say before he opened his mouth.
“We’ve lost another nest. St. George is moving in.”
Garret
Why am I still here?
I tilted my face to the hot stream of water, letting it pound my forehead and sluice around me, trying to drown the question that had been plaguing my mind for the past three days. The water ran into my ears, muffling all sound, to no avail. I was used to long periods of inactivity, waiting for orders or for missions to begin, but I couldn’t escape my own thoughts.
This afternoon had passed in silence; television had no appeal, and since I wasn’t allowed to leave the floor, I’d leafed through random travel magazines or just lain on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Finally, needing to do something, I’d spent the rest of the afternoon working out in my room, pushing my body to the limits of its endurance, hoping that fatigue, at least, would provide a much-needed distraction. But the second I’d walked into the shower, it returned. The whisper that still haunted me, that nagging sensation of uncertainty and doubt, when before I’d always been so confident. Why was I still here? Why was I, a former soldier of St. George, choosing to remain in the company of dragons? I wasn’t a prisoner; though the rogue dragon hated me—with good reason—he wouldn’t try to stop me if I walked out the hotel door and vanished into the night. On more than one occasion, he’d encouraged me to do just that.
So why hadn’t I?
The obvious answer—because the Order was hunting me—was a stall at best. I was resourceful enough to evade their notice for a while. And while St. George paid their soldiers only a small stipend each month, they also provided us with everything we needed, so I had a sizable amount sitting in an account I rarely touched. It wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough to start over, to begin a new life.