“Cold, wet, but otherwise, no worse off than before I was snatched by a dragon.” I paused, then added, with a touch more acidity than I meant, “Why are you here?”
His expression closed over even more—and I hadn’t thought that was possible. “My men called me and told me you’d been snatched by Rebecca. Guy then informed them that Keale had gone after her. I had both dragons radar tracked until they landed.”
“So how did you get here, and where the hell are we?”
“I flew, and we’re in Point Nepean national park.”
Meaning I’d come down near the heads of Port Phillip Bay. Then I blinked. “You flew?”
“Helicopter, not wings.” The slightest trace of a smile touched his lips, and it was a sharp reminder that he hadn’t always been so cold in his dealings with me. “That’s the other branch of the fae family, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I paused, watching that slight smile fade and mourning its loss “What happened to Keale and Rebecca?”
“Keale forced her down not far from here. Val wrapped a containment shield around her, but Keale and Guy are keeping watch until I have the chance to question her.”
“You haven’t yet?” That surprised me. I’d have thought it would have been the first thing he’d do.
“No.”
Because he wanted to see if I was okay first. He never actually said the words, but I felt the force of them shimmer deep inside all the same. He might be distant, he might be a part of my past and would never be anything more now, but some small part of him still cared enough to not want to see me hurt.
And damn if that realization didn’t go some way to warming the chill from my flesh.
“I want to be in on the questioning,” I said bluntly. “The bitch owes me some answers after all she put me through.”
“I figured you’d probably say that,” he said, a hint of resignation in his voice. “Which is part of the reason I’m still here. Are you up to moving yet?”
“She’s not going anywhere until she strips out of those wet clothes,” Val stated. “With all the shit going down at the moment, she can not afford to catch a cold.”
“You bought clothes?” I asked, surprised. “How did you know I’d need them?”
“Felt the impact, darls, and sensed you were in water.” He studied me for a moment, expression as serious as I’d ever seen it. “I thought I’d lost you, Harri, and it made me more determined than ever that you and I will never again make like strangers. Like it or not, I am now in your life for good.”
I smiled. “I wasn’t the one who went off in a huff the last time.”
“That is beside the point.”
I laughed, then winced and gripped my side, even though it didn’t hurt quite as much as it had before Rebecca grabbed me. “Maggie, you haven’t got something for the ribs, have you?”
“I’ve put some numbing salve on, but it takes about ten minutes to kick in.” She glanced at her watch. “You should be right in four.”
“I have no intention of laying still for that long. Someone help me up.”
Maggie—sans nose wart—and Val offered me their hands, and hauled me gently but effortlessly to my feet. Kaij rose behind be, one hand pressed against my spine, as if he expected me to fall back down again. I didn’t, although the night took several mad dashes around me.
“Right,” I said, when I felt stable enough to move. “Clothes.”
Val presented me with a plastic bag. “They’re Bryan’s, I’m afraid. I didn’t have time to get anything else, as I had to catch a broom taxi to get here.”
I frowned. “Why didn’t you just magic yourself here?”
“Restrictions, remember? It took a bit to provide Keale’s wing with a temporary fix, so I was saving my remaining store of daily magic for whatever I might find here. Just as well, considering what is here is one hell of a pissed off female dragon.”
I glanced at Maggie. “So you provided the broom? You’re game.”
She snorted. “Yes. And he will not be heading back that way unless he can refrain from whooping ‘ride ‘Em cowboy’ the entire time.”
Val grinned. “What can I say? It was exciting.”
“Well then, laddie, you can excite yourself on someone else’s broom.”
“You, Maggie Tremaine, are almost as boring as my sister.”
“Which is probably why I like her so much. You need a hand stripping those wet clothes off, Harri?”
“Probably.” I paused and glanced over my shoulder at Kaij. “Turn around.”
His expression was deadpan. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”
“That was when we were together, and a long time ago.”
He made a disparaging sound, then crossed his arms and turned around. But if lean, muscular backs had a language, then his said ‘pissed off’. Good, I thought, a little uncharitably given he was here with me and not questioning Rebecca like he probably should have been.
I stripped off my wet clothes with a little help from Maggie and Val, then carefully pulled on Bryan’s shirt and jeans. They were miles too big, but they were at least warm and dry. I rolled up the shirt sleeves while Val did the same to the jeans, then he produced a pair of the most garish pink slip-on shoes I’ve ever seen. “These can’t be Bryan’s.”
He raised his eyebrows, “What, you think Bryan can’t do bright?”
“You’re all the bright anyone would need, so no.”
He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And you’re right.”
I slipped them on, then turned around. “Okay, let’s go question our dragon.”
Kaij led the way, moving out of the clearing and following a winding path through the trees. The rest of us followed in single file, me with one hand still pressed against my side. Despite Maggie’s promise, the salve had not kicked in yet, and walking hurt.
We heard Rebecca long before we saw her—the air was thick with hissed expletives. As we came out into a second clearing, her head came around and she belched fire. The flames shot forward, only to stop abruptly and crawl upwards, as if along an invisible wall. Val’s shield. Keale and Guy stood over the other side of the shield. Guy leaned against the bonnet of my car drinking a can of what had to be beer given he rarely touched anything else, and Keale studied Rebecca with a somewhat grim expression. There were scorch marks along his tail and flank, and a cut near his forearm, but other than that, he seemed to come out of it relatively unharmed
“Harri my friend,” Guy said, raising his can in greeting. “Good to see you up and about.”
“Thanks for rousting everyone, Guy.”
He grinned. “Least I could do. Besides, whose fridge would I raid if the ice bitch had made a meal of you? My own?”
“Heaven forbid,” I said, voice dry.
Keale’s head snaked around. “S’arri? S’kay?”
“Yes. And thanks for breaking bail to rescue me.”
The dragon shrugged—an awkward movement on a beast so large. “S’kay. You’s s’elping me.”
My gaze moved past him. Rebecca sat on all fours, her tail flicking back and forth and the moonlight dancing off her silver scales. There were two deep cuts just above her eyes, and another along one wing, but both had stopped bleeding some time ago, if the minimal scent of blood was anything to go by.
Kaij stopped a few steps behind the shimmer of the containment shield. I stopped beside him.
“You’s,” Rebecca hissed, her blue-black eyes glowing with alien fire. “S’ould ‘ave ate you when I’s had s’hance.”
“It’s fortunate that you didn’t,” Kaij commented, before I could, “Because then you would have been up for six murder charges rather than five.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “I’s no s’ucking kill anyone. You’s talk s’it.”
Kaij took his badge from his pocket and showed it to her. “I may talk shit, but I’m also with PIT. If you’re the person responsible for drugging Keale Finch, then you’re ultimately responsible for the deaths he caused when he crashed into that helicopter.”
I have to hand it to Kaij—he sounded very convincing, almost as if he actually believed every word he’d just said.
“I’s s'illed no one.”
“Then you deny giving him the drug?” I said—obviously to the chagrin of the man standing beside me, if the annoyance that washed through my mind was anything to go by.
“S’eny s’illing. Saying s’othing else.”
“Then I guess we have no choice but to charge you.” Kaij shook his head. “Hope you enjoy being locked up while your partner walks around free.”
“S’all not gets me on no s‘uking cell.”
I half-smiled. Her words were an echo of what Keale had said only a couple of days ago—only he’d been referring to a truck not a prison cell.
“Then give us a name, Rebecca,” Kaij said, and this time there was an edge in his voice that the wise would not ignore.
Rebecca continued to flick her tail back and forth as she contemplated the two of us. It was the sort of look a spider might give a fly—but if she thought Kaij would make an easy meal, then she was in for a rude awaking. Not that she’d get the opportunity to eat either of us anytime in the near future.
“Name,” Kaij snapped. “Or I walk and you get the full murder rap.”
Still she said nothing. Tension wound through my limbs. I wanted the answer—wanted to know once and for all who’d employed Rebecca to drug Keale—and yet, at the same time, I didn’t. Because I already knew what the answer would be.
Eventually, just when the tension running through my limbs was so fierce it felt like I’d surely snap, she spat, “S’yle. S’yle S’lecky.”
