There was a collective inhale as Gabriel and Raven digested that news. They knew as well as he did that vampires and shifters had a long, violent history.
“As master, Sabrina can control her coven, and all the Chicago vampires have accepted me. But Aldrich is a member of the Forebears, the vampire council of elders. He’s put a price on my head.” Tobias frowned and mumbled, “All our heads.”
Raven fisted a scone and took a fast, aggressive bite, never breaking eye contact. Her fingers drummed nervously on the table. It took Gabriel longer to connect all the dots.
“Are you saying, brother, that the elder vampires not only know we exist but have explicitly ordered all their kind to… seek out and eliminate any and all dragons that might be among them?”
“More or less. And the words you are looking for aredead or alive.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair. “Well now, I’d thought Mother and Brynhoff trying to kill us and finding out my mate was pregnant with a dragon whelp was all the excitement I could expect this year. It seems I was wrong. The vampires want us dead too. My, my, we are popular.”
Raven shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Tobias. You can stay with us as long as you need to. But what about the others? We haven’t been able to find Rowan or Alexander, let alone your siblings in Europe. How do we warn them?”
“No luck at reaching Rowan then, since I last saw you?” Tobias frowned. When they’d visited Rowan’s last known residence, an older human woman had informed them she was dead. They understood that as a dragon, their sister was certainly not dead, but the box the woman had given them held no clues to where she might be. Inside was a small photo of Rowan with Tobias the last time he’d been to Manhattan and run into her, circa 1977. There were some dried forget-me-not flowers, an unopened box of movie-sized Sno-Caps, and the ticket stub to opening night ofStar Wars. The wooden box itself had been decorated with an ornate dragon inlay on the top.
“Nothing in the box is receptive to my magic,” Raven said. “I believe the box and its contents are enchanted so that they cannot be used to find her.”
“Why would she do that?” Tobias asked.
Gabriel gave a low chuckle. “Simple. She wanted you to know she was safe, that she loved you, and that she was disappearing for a while. Everything in that box is about you. She must have thought you would be the only one who might come looking for her.”
“I was the only one who knew where to find her.”
“She probably planned to contact you once her identity was scrubbed,” Raven said.
Tobias groaned. “And now she can’t. I sold the house, shut off the landline, and the hospital has no forwarding address for me.”
“She never had your cell phone?” Gabriel asked.
“No. The last time I saw her, cell phones weren’t a thing.”
Raven exchanged a glance with Tobias. “I’m at a total loss. Without something of Rowan’s that she’s touched recently and hasn’t been charmed against my magic, I can’t do a locator spell. My last hope is to try to use the dress she brought from Paragon, but it’s been so long since she wore it that I don’t have high hopes.”
Gabriel coupled his hands. “Our siblings have stayed hidden this long. There is no reason to believe that will change anytime soon.”
“True,” Tobias said. “Sabrina and her father are wiping the minds of the coven. They mean to convince Aldrich that he didn’t see what he thought he did. If all goes well, this will work itself out and everything will go back to normal.”
Raven poured herself a cup of coffee and slowly stirred in some cream. It was all Tobias could do to restrain himself from lecturing her on the dangers of caffeine to pregnant women. No one said a word over the sound of the clinking spoon. She raised the mug to her lips.
All of a sudden, Raven started to laugh so hard her skin twinkled and the coffee in her mug began to boil. Big rolling bubbles foamed above the rim until she was forced to set it down on the table where it scorched the tablecloth.
“Why are you laughing, Raven?” Gabriel asked.
She stopped, the smile fading from her lips slowly. “Tobias said everything will go back to normal.” She laughed again and leaned back in her chair. “Nothing about you dragon siblings is, was, or ever will be normal.”
Chapter Nine
By Friday Nick had learned a few things about his latest case. The dead girl had a name: Allison Sumner. And she wasn’t originally from New York but West Virginia where she’d had a troubled home life. Her parents said she’d moved out when she was eighteen, four years ago, and given them no forwarding address. They hadn’t heard from her since. And no, she hadn’t had the tattoo the last time they’d seen her.
She’d been killed the night before she was found. Killed and dumped. It was waste management—two sanitation workers—who’d found her beside the dumpster. No one could tell him about the wounds, although his going hypothesis was that she was part of a body-suspension cult—people who got their jollies from hanging themselves from the ceiling with hooks.
He shook his head. This job never got easier.
“Here ya go. Zelda’s Folly gallery,” the Uber driver said.
It was raining like God had left the spigot on. Giant sheets of water thundered against the windshield and made him feel like they were inside a carwash.
“Wait here while I get my girl,” Nick said.
