“I have a feeling Aldrich woke him up after your coronation. He must have seen more than we thought he did,” Calvin said.
“But if he saw, wouldn’t he—”
“Contact us about the incident? He did. Yesterday. He called me. The paperwork to transition you as master of Chicago hasn’t been processed yet by Forebear administration, so I am still acting master according to their records. Despite Aldrich having attended your coronation, he followed protocol. You know how they do things there.”
“I take it the Forebears are old-school?” Tobias asked.
“The oldest school there is,” Sabrina said. “What did you tell him?”
Calvin cleared his throat. “I told him I thought the dragon was a complex work of magic created by a local witch who was loyal to the coven. Unfortunately, he was quick to point out the body count. A simple illusion couldn’t take anyone’s head off, he suggested. I was able to convince him that if the dragon existed, it must have been injured during the altercation with the wolves and disappeared, because it hasn’t been seen since. It is the truth, yes?”
It was true in the sense that Tobias had been injured in his dragon form defending the coven. And he did leave to go home and shower and sleep and hadn’t transformed into his dragon since. But there was a huge lie of omission there too. Tobias was the dragon, and he had become Sabrina’s consort and was helping her lead the coven. That ceremony had not included Aldrich or any of the Forebears. But that didn’t change that Sabrina’s coven had seen him shift and knew exactly what he was.
“Oh, Dad, the entire coven knows about Tobias. What do we do?”
The older vampire scowled in a way that showed his canines, as if his teeth were too large for his mouth. He turned his full attention on Tobias.
“You and your brethren need to disappear. This will blow over. Turgun will become bored and go to sleep again, but only if there is no trace of anything draconic when they come here. Under the right circumstances, we might be able to convince them there was never any dragon at all. That it was all a magical hoax. But only if there is no trace of you or your siblings.”
“Father, no!” Sabrina shook her head desperately.
Tobias didn’t like the idea either. They were newlyweds. They couldn’t be apart, and she couldn’t leave the coven.
But her father pressed on. “You, Sabrina, must order your coven to remain silent. Insist they forget they ever saw a dragon. As master, you have that power. Compel them one at a time if you have to.”
“That could take days,” she said.
“I will help you.”
Tobias held up a hand. “Can we go back to the part where I need to not exist? I live here. Where exactly am I supposed to go?”
Calvin gave him a stern look. “Wherever our people won’t find you.”
Once he saw Sabrina’s reaction, he knew what she was thinking. There was a place. His brother and his mate had a safe house in New Orleans and they owed him a favor, but it would mean he’d have to live apart from Sabrina. It would also mean crawling to his brother for help. The notion filled him with dread.
He groaned. “Please tell me there’s another option.”
“I’m sorry, Tobias,” Sabrina said. “It’s the only way.”
Chapter Four
Rowan woke in her treasure room, feeling refreshed, and shifted back into her human form. After a quick shower in the bathroom she’d had built outside the vault, she dressed quickly in a skirt and blouse she kept on hand for such occasions. Keeping her treasure room at the gallery made sense; no one would question a giant vault in the basement of a business that specialized in priceless works of art. However, it would be risky to keep such a thing in any of her many residences. Due to its sheer size, a residential vault would be distinctive and a tempting piece of gossip for the workers who installed it. Not to mention, it might elicit questions when she had intimate guests. Not that she had guests often. Her love life had been embarrassingly anemic the past several years.
Still, while it made sense for her treasure room to be at the gallery, it wasn’t exactly convenient. Her preferred residence was on the Upper West Side and she needed to stop there before her 3:00 p.m. appointment at Sunrise House. She had a meeting with her lawyer to discuss what they could do concerning the building situation, and she needed to remember to call the hospital in Chicago to try to connect with her brother Tobias.
“Do you want to see Alexander’s painting before you go?” Harriet asked when she reached the main floor of the gallery. The older woman was already behind her desk, exquisitely manicured and dressed in a lightweight, robin’s-egg-blue cashmere suit that popped divinely next to her gray hair and classic pearls.
“Of course.” Rowan couldn’t hide the sad tone of her voice. Her brother Alexander was a talented artist, but his work always depressed her. The gallery bought it, of course. Rowan’s money was what had kept a roof over his head all these years. It wasn’t a horrible investment. His work sold on occasion for respectable sums, although not what she sent to him. She overpaid on purpose. It was her way of caring for Alexander when she couldn’t physically tend to him.
Harriet led the way into the back room where they processed incoming shipments of art and supplies. The painting was six by eight feet and wrapped in brown paper, although one corner was pulled back. Clearly Harriet had taken a peek.
Rowan peeled back the wrappings. “That damned bird again.”
“Every painting this last year. And the native woman.” Harriet held her elbows.
“She was his mate. It was her death that broke him. He never fully recovered.”
“Hundreds of years and he still pines for her.”
