Dragon Fever (8 page)

Rave snarled at him soundlessly. “If she’s not an alchemist—”

“Well, she
is
a chemist. Works with a company doing water quality control.” Torch grinned a little goofily. “She makes water pure. Isn’t that sweet?”

Rave took a threatening step toward his cousin before he could force his boots to a halt. He spun back to the ichor, swirling with faint rainbows like the surface of a bubble. “If she’s
not
an alchemist,” he said firmly, “if she doesn’t have magic, how can she be influencing the ichor?”

“It’s not what she is, exactly,” Torch said. “It’s what she is to
you
: your solarys.”

Something inside Rave thundered, a wordless cry he couldn’t interpret. A warning from his dragon? “I admit something is reversing the effects of stone blight on the ichor,” he said. “But why her? Why now?”

Torch shrugged. “Does it matter? You found her.”

If
she was a solarys. Maybe part of him had become too human, because he couldn’t make himself believe.

“I’m not going to give her to Bale until I know how and why this is happening.”

Even as he said the words, the roar within him turned deafening. But he didn’t need his ears to see Torch’s jaw swing open in surprise.

Over the cacophony in his own head, Rave said, “Our liege must be saved if the tribe is to survive.” That the Nox Incendi existed still was only because Bale had driven himself remorselessly on their behalf. Bale Dorado was their liege, but more than that, he was their guiding light. The survival of the Nox Incendi depended on their liege being alive and strong enough to hold their dragons in check. Without him, the tribe would literally fly apart.

The chaos inside Rave froze at that truth, and the shivering rainbows in the ichor burst.

“You can’t deny your true mate,” Torch said softly. “You’ll turn to stone.”

“But the Nox Incendi will go on.”

Even if he had to sacrifice Piper Ramirez.

Chapter 7

Piper woke late with sticky eyes and the taste of old wine in the back of her throat.

Ugh. She stumbled to the luxurious bathroom that, nice as it was, didn’t have a waterfall.

Or a lover.

She briskly scrubbed away all remaining evidence of the night previous, until the water ran clear.

If only it could get to her insides…

She dressed quickly, wishing she’d brought nicer clothes. When Esme had told them they were going to Vegas, she’d packed flirty-casual, not upscale elegant. And she’d thought she’d be rooming with them again, so Anj could help her do her hair while Ez consulted on makeup, just like they used to.

Maybe she just had to be okay with things never being the same again. She’d have to stand on her own.

That was the other thing they’d taught her.

When she felt sufficiently pulled together in a slouchy cowl sweater over gray leggings, she went to the interior door that opened between their room. She took a steadying breath and knocked lightly. They’d gone to bed before her, but maybe they’d stayed up chatting and were still sleeping.

There was no answer. She bit her lip as she eyed the doorknob. If they’d locked it against her, her heart would break… She turned the knob.

The door swung open, and she almost sobbed with relief.

“Anj?” she called as she stepped inside.

A note tucked into the jamb beside her head fluttered down.

Didn’t want to wake u. Went down for brekkie. Text me. A.

Piper hustled back to her room for her phone. Damn, she’d forgotten to charge it last night. It died as soon as she flicked it on. She plugged it in and checked her messages. Nothing from Anj.

Morning
, she typed.
Where r u guys?

She waited, nervously pacing on the short tether of the cord, until the ding.

Morning, Pipsqueak. Down in the Badlands
.

Sheesh. Seemed a little early for drinking. But whatever, at least they were talking to her. Leaving her phone to charge, she slipped into her clogs and raced to join her friends.

Before they changed their minds.

When she got there, they had a mimosa ready for her and a danish missing only one bite.

“Sorry.” Anjali wrinkled her nose. “I’m supposed to be juicing, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Relieved that last night’s awfulness seemed to have blown over, Piper grinned at her friend. “Mimosas count as juicing?”

Anj snorted. “Sure. They have orange juice, don’t they?”

“True.” Piper took a sip of her drink. The OJ was refreshing but so sweet. For some reason, she wanted something darker, lustier, with more bite…

Hastily, she stuffed the danish in her mouth.
This
was what she had.

After another sip of the mimosa for courage, she cleared her throat. “Guys, about last night—”

“Yeah,” Anjali said. “The party next door was pretty annoying, keeping us up all night.”

Piper frowned. “That
is
annoying. I guess I couldn’t hear it from my side.” Where she’d been banished. Not that she’d been there until much later anyway, due to her side trip to a secret underground paradise… “Uh. But I meant before that. Esme, I’m sorry about what I said about Lars. You love him, and that’s what important, so I just wanted to tell you—”

“We were all tired,” Anjali said.

Piper nodded but kept her gaze on Esme. “Ez?”

Her friend had been looking at her mimosa but finally raised her head. “Hmm? Sorry. I was thinking about…” She trailed off, but her brow furrowed as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was going to say.

Was she still that mad? Piper bit her lip. Anj was always the one to hold a grudge, claiming her spicy temperament came from her Cajun mother. When Esme got mad, she’d explain in great detail with big words how disappointed she was that people weren’t living up to their potential. She didn’t do the silent treatment.

Worry about being ostracized turned to a different concern.

Piper reached across the table to touch her friend’s hand, bringing her attention upward. “You okay, Ez?”

Esme’s pupils were wide and jittery, as if she was having trouble focusing. Piper wondered how many mimosas she’d missed before she got there.

Anjali took Ez’s other hand. “Just tired,” she said again.

Piper slipped two fingers over Esme’s pulse, frowning at the erratic beat. They’d had some health scares with Ez back at school, and Piper had found her first aid skills useful when working in the field. She snapped her other fingers briskly in front of Esme’s nose and shook her head at the long delay before her friend blinked. “More like stoned. What did you guys do after you took off last night?”

Anj scowled at her. “We told you we were going back to the room. What did
you
do?”

Well, she wasn’t going to answer that. “I think someone might’ve spiked Ez’s drink.” Piper looked at Anjali. “Are you feeling okay?”

Twin spots of color blazed on Anj’s cheekbones, obvious despite the dusky cast of her skin. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Maybe
just tired
of you calling us down.”

“Tired,” Ez muttered as she tilted her head back, gazing upward. She was still wearing the same winter-white sheath dress as last night except now she had a knee-length cardigan over top, and her blond hair streamed down the back in half-twisted knots. No way would she have left the room looking so unkempt. Even their pajama parties after finals had required mascara and lip gloss.

Piper widened her eyes. This was too odd. “I’m not calling you down, Anj. I really think there’s something wrong with Esme. There must be an EMT on staff here, or we can get the limo to take us to a clinic in town—”

“No.” Anjali reached across the table and clamped her hand on Piper’s wrist.

The strange tableau—each of them linked to the other—made Piper sit back in her seat, breaking the connection.

Her hands tingled.

Probably just the champagne in the mimosa, but if there
was
something spiking the drinks, her friends could be in more trouble than she’d thought last night.

She stood up and pushed away from the table. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s wrong. I’m going to get the manager.”

“Piper, no.” Anjali grabbed for her hand, but Piper evaded her. Esme never even glanced over at them. “You don’t understand—”

She didn’t. But she would.

Piper marched to the bar and summoned the bartender with more insistence than she’d ever used in her life. “Is there a manager on duty? My friend is…” What? “Sick.” That should get them moving, since presumably they dealt with alcohol-induced ailments often enough to have a protocol in place.

But by the time the manager joined her and they returned to the table, Anjali and Esme were gone.

***

Rave’s phone kept ringing even though he kept ignoring it.

The mystery of the ichor was his only concern now—

It rang again.

He grabbed it from the table with a roar. “What?”

“Mmm-Mr. Dorado? Sorry to disturb you, sir. But we have a situation.”

Rave let out a slow breath. He never barked at employees.

After barking, it was too much of a temptation to bite.

“Have Torch deal with it.”

“I’m really sorry, sir. But she asked specifically for you.”

She?

“I’ll be right there.”

The call had come from the front desk manager’s line, so he headed up. Not quite at a run. But, honestly, any faster and he would’ve been flying.

The moment he exited the elevator, his gaze latched on her. She was pacing, her arms wrapped around her middle, her dark hair flagging behind her with each turn. On her last turn, she saw him and hurried over.

Though he told himself not to touch her—everything had changed since last night—at the panic on her face, he reached out to grip her arms.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“No.” Her voice shook, and her skin was pale over the vivid jade of her high-necked sweater. “I mean, yes,
I’m
all right. But my friends…”

“The ones who weren’t at the bar last night?”

She nodded. “They’re gone.”

He frowned. “This is a big place—”

Her fingers clamped on his forearms, hard enough to compress the tendons there. “I was just with them. I think they might have been drugged, roofied. I went to get help, but when I came back they’d left. They aren’t back in our rooms, and they aren’t answering my calls.”

He rolled up to the balls of his feet and growled over his shoulder to the manager, “Have Torch meet us in the security office.”

He marched Piper back to the elevator. “Tell me everything.”

She stuttered and stopped a few times but quickly laid out the details about her friends and their trip. “All the luggage and toiletries are in the room,” she continued, “but Anj must’ve gone back for her purse because she didn’t have it a breakfast. Usually she leaves it behind because it’s this huge, heavy thing that nobody could carry. ”

Her breath caught, almost a sob, and Rave felt the sound like a stab in his gut.

Even as once again he told himself not to touch her, he pulled her into his arms. “We’ll find them,” he promised. “If they were able to get back to the room and then head out again, they can’t have been too messed up.”

Piper nodded against his chest, then let out a slow breath and pulled away. She frowned, not at him but into the air. “Esme seemed worse. Anjali seemed… I don’t know. Like she just didn’t believe me.”

“Didn’t believe you, or was responsible?”

This time Piper did scowl at him. “Anj would never—”

“You told me your friend Esme is wealthy and well connected. And you said this Anjali has a history of money trouble and questionable business connections.”

“That’s not what I said,” Piper objected. “Or not what I meant, exactly…” She looked so aghast, he wondered how she’d ever made it this far in the world.

A violent urge swept him to drag her close again, under his wing, and never let her out, never let her see the dark side.

At least not without him right there beside her.

She shook her head adamantly, black waves flying, as if rejecting the defense he couldn’t offer aloud.

“This is all so confusing, but we’re friends,” she insisted. “Good friends.”

“You said they were pushing you away last night,” he reminded her. “Obviously there’s more to this than you understand.”

She bit her lip. “That’s what Anj said.”

The elevator door opened and he guided her out with a hand at the small of her back. This off-limits area was utilitarian at best, and he felt her shrink a little at the austere corridor. He needed to get some coffee into her, something warm to take the edge off her shock.

Every nerve in his body urged him to offer his own heat.

But she couldn’t be his, not anymore.

And this might be his opportunity to put her in his debt.

Torch was already in the security office when they arrived. “Torch, this is Piper. Piper, my cousin Torch.”

She stared up at Torch, a touch of antagonism in her stance. “We already met.”

Rave shot a hard glance at his cousin. “Really.”

Torch’s eyes glinted. “Saw her leaving the garden passage last night.”

Piper’s cheeks blazed like the sconces. “Can we please find my friends?”

Torch gestured. “I have a security station open for us.”

Rave quickly recapped where to start their search. With Torch expertly manning the camera feeds, they tracked Piper’s friends from the lobby bar to the elevator and to their room where they disappeared inside.

Torch fast-forwarded through less than a minute of elapsed time. Then the dreadlocked friend—Anjali—stuck her head out through the door. She looked up at the hallway camera in its unobtrusive plastic bubble.

And the feed went dark.

“What?” Torch said. “No. That did not just happen.”

But his quick rewind and play got the same result.

Piper leaned over the back of Torch’s chair. “There are cameras in the stairwell, right? Go there.”

Torch scowled over his shoulder at her but, at Rave’s raised eyebrow, did as she asked.

It was dark too.

“Follow the darkness,” Rave murmured.