“We need to call Harriet. You need healing.” She began to get up, but he squeezed her hand again.
“Wait, wait a minute.”
“I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Do you remember what I said to you in the van, about wanting to try this bond thing?”
She placed her hands on either side of his face. “Yes. I want that too. But I’m worried for you. Let me get Harriet.”
“I don’t think we should start a new relationship with any secrets between us.” He narrowed his eyes on her. He remembered when he saw her in the Stevensons’ closet, and there was something bothering him about the memory. “This isn’t your true face, is it?”
She shook her head.
“Show me.” Nick watched in utter amazement as her face subtly changed. Her nose became more pronounced with a gentle hook, her eyes changed from hazel to bright amber, and her skin darkened to a beautiful shade of creamy bronze. Along the temple beside her right eye was a mark like a double crescent. She tapped it.
“All dragons have this.” She pulled up her hair and pointed to a series of V-shaped ridges along her neck. “And this.”
Nick remembered now, her face. He hadn’t noticed the markings but her hair had been down, the swoop of her bangs covering her temple. But he remembered this face. This gorgeous face. “So this is the real you?”
“As real as it gets.”
“Good.” He sighed. “You’re beautiful as you are.”
She smiled and rested her hand on his cheek. “Do you forgive me?”
“I was going to tell you last night when you came to my place that Stevenson was blackmailing NYPD cops right and left. He used my partner, Soren, to threaten to pin the theft on me if I didn’t cover for NAVAK.”
“That bastard.” She bared her teeth.
“Yeah. Now that we’ve dealt with NAVAK and have over a hundred trafficked humans to reincorporate into society, I think I’ll ask your brother’s wife, Sabrina, to help us take down Stevenson too, and Verinetti while we’re at it. Do you think she’ll go for it? Thought we could get your building back if we play our cards right.”
She nodded her head, a smile spreading across her face. “You’re absolutely diabolical. In a good way.”
“Someone’s got to pay for what happened to Allison.”
“Who’s Allison?”
“Allison Sumner, the girl who was murdered. My case.”
“You really care about her. I mean, her personally, not just the case.”
“Everyone deserves justice. The punishment we doled out to Malvern doesn’t make up for what Stevenson did and won’t stop him from doing it again for the next highest bidder. And Verinetti is a menace. He has to go down.”
A dark cloud passed behind her eyes. “I agree.”
“You want to take out Verinetti yourself?”
She nodded. “I owe him one. Besides, the human justice system has a hard time containing supernaturals.”
Nick winked at her. “All right. I take care of my kind and you take care of yours. I promise you, I won’t cry for Verinetti, whatever you do with him.”
Their eyes met and held, and Nick’s heart flipped in his chest. His body ached and his head was spinning, but he’d never felt better. Never more at peace.
“Are you okay, Nick? I better get Harriet. You’re sweating, and by the Mountain, you’re so pale. Nick?” Her cool hand patted his cheek.
God, he was tired. Darkness pressed in at the edges of his vision. He needed to rest, to sleep, maybe for a couple of days.
“Nick?”
