I chuckled. “I guess we’re just fated to be together.”
Still, in the privacy of our bedroom, Magnus worried. He spent late hours sitting at the window, parting the curtains to stare down at the street below.
“All these guys are at risk,” he murmured as I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “Arnaud’s a dragon. What if he loses it? Starts flaming indiscriminately? Kills innocent residents in his need to kill us?”
“If we left here,” I murmured, my lips against his throat, “he’ll follow us. We’ll lure him away.”
“Will we? How does he know where we are in the first place?”
“He can’t be tracking us,” I mused. “We’ve changed cars, clothes, everything –”
I stiffened. Magnus turned his head to meet my gaze with a slight frown. “What?”
“We changed clothes,” I muttered. “Cars. He’s always known where we are.”
“He can’t, Jade. That’s impossible.”
Leaving him, I crossed the room to snap on the light. Magnus wore his wool shirt, jeans, socks as he sat in a chair to watch out the window. I grabbed his boots from the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Clothes,” I growled. “We changedclothes. But never these.”
I sent him a sharp stare. “He gave these to you, didn’t he?”
Magnus nodded. “Two years ago. For my birthday.”
“A tracker,” I muttered, feeling inside the boots. “He’s OCD, a control freak. Everything where he wants them. Even you, his son.”
“Check the heels,” Magnus said, his tone calm, yet sorrowed.
Twisting, I yanked the heel from the right boot. And stared. “Holy shit.”
Inside a hole bored in the heel sat a blinking red light. “A tracker. Just like on my car. Oh my God.”
“Don’t destroy it,” Magnus warned, crossing the room to the door.
I followed him, the boot’s heel and the device in my hand.
Agent Morgan watched TV on the sofa while Carlson read a book in the armchair. Both glanced up, startled, as we charged down the stairs.
“He knows exactly where we are,” Magnus roared. “He always has.”
I displayed the tracker. “He could be nearby. You guys are in terrible danger.”
“We can handle papa,” Morgan said. “You just mellow out. If he’s around, the boys outside will alert us.”
“No, dammit,” I yelled. “He’s not like us. He has no soul. He’ll kill you all. He can do it.”
“Jade,” Carlson said, soothing, his hand out, “calm down. We’re trained agents –”
Magnus grabbed my hand, ignoring him. “Bring the tracker. We run, he’ll follow us.”
“Now, wait –” Morgan said, standing. “You can’t –”
“Just watch us,” Magnus retorted, running for the sliding glass door and taking me with him.
It took a precious second to unlock the door, then slide it open, a second in which Morgan and Carlson nearly caughtus and dragged us back. They missed by a hair, then we bolted across the back lawn and across the fence. Behind us, Morgan yelled into a radio while Carlson gave chase. Had Morgan put in a pursuit, he might have caught us. But Carlson was less agile, in less than good shape for running, not as young as he once was.
By that time, we’d shifted forms and leaped skyward.
