Ember's Kiss (10 page)

The rusted Toyota pickup slowed down beside him and the driver peered at him. “Where you going? You want a ride?”

“Hale‘iwa.”

“Close enough. Hop in.”

“Thanks!” Brandon grimaced when he sat down in the truck. He touched the bruise rising on his gut where he was missing a scale. Liz had one heck of a powerful kick, that was for sure. He did respect that she'd tried to defend herself, though. He liked her spark and her determination.

“Won't be many cars on this road today,” the driver said, drawing Brandon back to the moment. “Given the avalanche at Kane‘ohe.”

Brandon looked at the other man. “Bad?”

“Road's closed. Nobody killed, despite the odds. You hear about Honolulu?”

“No.” Brandon wondered then at the epicenter of the earthquake. “Did the earthquake do a lot of damage?”

“It's crazy.” The driver rolled his eyes and turned on the radio. Brandon listened with dismay at the reports of extensive damage in Honolulu and Waikiki, so extensive that that side of the island had been declared a national disaster.

“We got lucky over here,” the driver said. There were some skewed buildings and some cracks in the pavement, but clearly the epicenter had been farther south. Brandon's gaze strayed repeatedly to the rolling surf, wherever he could catch a glimpse of it from the road. He hoped the waves would stay high and unpredictable for a couple of days. He'd need every minute he could get to build his focus and his strength.

He was glad that Liz intended to stay. He was going to need a bit of time to get himself together enough to go back and explain himself to her.

He had no doubt that she was the woman for him. If the firestorm wasn't a lie and he wasn't a moron, he'd make it work.

“You surf,” the driver said with a smile, no question in his tone.

“Yeah, how'd you know?”

“All you care about is the ocean. It's going to be mean for a couple of days, even though they don't think we're getting a tsunami.”

Brandon nodded. “That's good. I was wondering about tsunamis.”

And that wasn't the only thing on his mind. All the way back to Hale‘iwa, Brandon tried to figure out a way to fix his mistake. He really wanted to have a chance with Liz but couldn't risk screwing up again. It had been too close with his dragon. He couldn't think of how to ensure that his dragon listened to him, which meant he'd have to ask someone who knew more.

His pal Chen. Chen knew more about dragons than anyone else and had helped him to manage his dragon in the past. Chen might have some advice for him. If Chen gave him an answer, one he could work with, then he could focus on his performance in the competition.

The next time he saw Liz, he wanted to have secured his financial future. That depended on a lot of things—keeping his dragon contained, nailing the Pipe, and generally keeping his shit together. Brandon exhaled and told himself he could do it.

He had to believe that he could do anything for Liz.

And Chen would help.

The earthquake had a devastating effect on the Institute.

The sensors in the labs had gone wild before they'd either broken or shut down. The power was off, since the backup generators had been damaged in the earthquake. Liz told Maureen that she'd been walking on the beach when it happened, blaming jet lag for her inner clock being out of whack.

Maureen had believed her, but probably only because there was so much to do. They worked all morning, tugging the injured out of the collapsed building, and Liz thought they were lucky that no one had been killed. Most of the scientists and guests knew what to do when they felt an earthquake. Some had run outside during the first tremor, and those who had taken refuge from the first shake-up had gone outside immediately afterward.

No one else had seen the dragon. This would have amazed Liz, until she realized that her end of the building had been mostly vacant—they'd been intending to put up this day's arrivals for the symposium in that wing. It also gave credence to her mother's assertion that most mortals couldn't see the magical beings that shared our world.

But the woman he'd saved had seen him. Could he reveal himself to humans by choice?

Had the dragon known that she was the only one at risk? Was that why he'd saved her? Liz resolved to find out about the casualties in Kane‘ohe.

There'd been two more aftershocks but they'd been comparatively minor. That one residence building was a write-off, so they'd had to pair up for accommodation.
Liz would be sharing with Maureen for the duration of her stay. Maureen was worried about having to delay or cancel the symposium, but so far, they were trying to keep to schedule. There were broken arms to bandage and cuts to dress, all basic first aid that was within the capabilities of everyone on the island.

There was no sign of Brandon. It was as if he had never been on the island the night before. But the sheets had been warm when Liz had been awakened by the earthquake. There had been no time for him to get off the island, no time for him to run very far.

The more Liz thought about it, the more convinced she was that Brandon had to be the dragon.

The research lab got its Internet connection up before cell phone service was back. That building had sustained only minor damage, whether by luck or construction techniques. Liz felt guilty claiming a laptop and searching for that dragon story she vaguely recalled, but she had to know. She found the article and sat down to read.

It was about dragon shape shifters.

The
Pyr
.

They were an ancient race sworn to defend the earth's treasures, which included the human race. The shifter shown in the YouTube video, while a different color, had definite similarities to the dragon that had saved her.

Same species.

Which led to the obvious question of what the black and orange dragon looked like in his human form.

Liz bit her lip, because she was pretty sure she knew.

Even the scientific part of her mind had to admit that there were lots of things in the world they didn't know yet, lots of species yet to be documented. Plus she couldn't think of how else Brandon could have gotten onto the island or off of it.

She'd have to ask him herself. That was how she'd know for sure. His deep blue aura told her that he was trustworthy and not someone who could deceive. He might not offer the truth of his nature to everyone, but Liz believed that if she asked him, Brandon would tell her the truth.

She checked on Kane‘ohe and discovered that there had been no deaths there, either. There was already an online story about a woman whose house had been damaged by the avalanche. Liz recognized her as the woman the dragon had swept out of harm's way.

So she and her child had been the only ones in peril in Kane‘ohe. Because of the dragon, three people had survived. That certainly fit with the idea of the
Pyr
protecting humans.

It also meshed with her mother's ideas of harming none.

The reporter in Kane‘ohe didn't give much credit to the woman's story of the dragon, but provided a string of links to news articles about the
Pyr
. It was titled
Do You Believe in Dragons?
Liz scrolled through the list. She downloaded and watched a television
special, stopping it when the reporter, Melissa Smith, mentioned a firestorm.

Brandon had used that same word.

Liz replayed the story, listening carefully at the explanation of the firestorm. It was vague and obviously details were being withheld, but the firestorm was the mark of a
Pyr
meeting his destined mate.

She drummed her fingers on the desk, hearing Brandon's romantic assertion again.

She had to find him, wherever he was, and learn the truth. Liz terminated the connection and emptied the cache so no one would know what she'd been researching, then turned off the laptop. She went to find Maureen so she could borrow her car and catch a ferry ride to Kane‘ohe.

The
Slayer
Jorge prided himself on being where the action was.

After numerous insults from the
Pyr
—including a long captivity, essentially buried alive on Bardsey Island in Wales—Jorge was ready to even the score. He wouldn't be happy with a single
Pyr
living out his life in freedom and peace.

They would all die, preferably all at Jorge's claw. He would hunt them individually, if necessary, and ensure that their deaths were slow and painful.

He'd been disgusted to discover how few
Slayers
were left, never mind that the
Pyr
had been seen and documented by humans. The
Pyr
were so stupid that they deserved to lose the battle for domination of the
world. The darkfire was loosed by some idiot's miscalculation, which just added to the unpredictability of it all.

Jorge wasn't stupid. He knew he needed at least one ally. Magnus was gone, but so was the Dragon's Blood Elixir and the Elixir's source. That had been a terrific tool for enslaving young
Slayers
, but it was destroyed. Jorge needed more than an ally; he needed a tool.

And he wouldn't mind an additional supply of the Elixir.

He chose Chen for all three. He'd underestimated the ancient
Slayer
more than once, but it wouldn't happen again. Chen was powerful. Chen had secrets. Chen had old magic on his side, and he'd had that brand to enslave dragons, no matter what color their blood. Plus Chen had drunk of the Elixir, which meant that there was residue of it in his body.

Chen was the dragon to see.

Jorge would make an alliance, steal Chen's sorcery, then eliminate his only real competition.

He would win. Easily. Chen was wily, but Jorge was vengeful.

Jorge had followed the sound of Chen's chants, perceived the fault lines in the earth's crust that the old
Slayer
had made, and had followed the trail to O‘ahu. He hadn't rushed. He hadn't attracted attention. He had changed names and passports, disguised his dragon scent—a feat he could do, thanks to the Elixir still coursing in his own veins—and made his way steadily closer.

That Chen also could also disguise his scent made the hunt more interesting.

Jorge suspected that it was the Elixir alone that let him sense Chen's location. Otherwise, Erik Sorensson would have been hunting Chen, and he apparently wasn't. The brilliant quicksilver thread that drew Jorge ever closer to Chen had to be visible to him because of their shared connection to the Elixir.

He refused to worry about the glisten of blue-green that occasionally touched that thread. This wasn't about darkfire.

Jorge had reached O‘ahu two days before the eclipse. Like Chen, he'd sensed the firestorm in the wind. On the morning after the eclipse, he'd enjoyed the destruction caused by the earthquake.

Then he'd followed Chen's trail to Hale‘iwa. He'd driven past one old Chinese man walking alone on the highway, leaning heavily on his cane, and had been tempted to run over the elderly idiot just for being both persistent and stupid.

But he had no time for frivolous games.

And savagery could draw attention.

In Hale‘iwa, Jorge stood outside Chen's lair and felt the frosty tingle of Chen's protective dragonsmoke barrier. He'd smiled, knowing that he was the only dragon who could cross this line. He and Chen were the sole survivors of those who had drunk the Elixir.

Which meant they were the only two who could take the salamander form and, more important, the only two dragons who could spontaneously manifest
elsewhere. He wondered whether Chen remembered him. He doubted that Chen forgot much. Jorge manifested inside the lair and deliberately chose to unmask his scent.

That would give the
Slayer
a fright.

The lair was austerely decorated. Jorge was reminded of a Japanese shrine. The walls were empty. The windows were shuttered. There was no furniture, just a cushion on the floor against one wall. He could hear the surf on the beach and the wind crossing the roof overhead. He closed his eyes and felt the rhythm of the earth far beneath the lair, and understood why Chen had chosen such minimalist decor.

He could focus on the elements, and, almost certainly, on controlling them.

Jorge headed for the large central room and paused in shock at the threshold. The floor was covered by a layer of sand. The sand had been worked into a great spiral, one that filled the room, with whorls that turned in on themselves. The hills had to be six inches high, the troughs not more than a scattering of sand across the wood floor.

What was it for? Jorge's scalp prickled and he sensed that he was in the presence of potent magic.

This was what he had come for.

He saw something gleaming at the center of the whorl.

Jorge walked across the sand sculpture, not caring that he disturbed it. In fact, he liked the disregard of his footprints in the sand.

In the middle were three black dragon scales. Their arrangement—like three points of a compass—convinced Jorge that Chen had need of one more to complete whatever spell he was making.

Whose scales were these? Chen was red in dragon form. The only other black dragon Jorge knew was Erik, but Erik was more of a pewter color.

He wondered whether this dragon was the one who was having a firestorm. This black dragon must be close, since Chen was hunting his scales and apparently anticipated getting another one soon. The victim must be a weakened
Pyr
, one that Chen meant to enslave.
Slayers
had no firestorms, after all.

Jorge crouched in the middle of the spiral, yearning to seize the power that he sensed in it. He had nothing to offer Chen, nothing with which to negotiate an alliance.

He decided to change that.

Jorge bent and took one scale. It looked like obsidian in the light, a thin line of brilliant orange around its rim. Actually, it looked like a coal, one that was still glowing with the embers of a faded fire.