Weber's villa rose like a palace in the middle of ruin. A mirage in the middle of a desert. I made out several guards posted at the gate and door.
My dragon snarled.
Prey.
I dropped low, gliding between broken chimneys until I reached the tree line behind the garden. Then I folded my wings tight and descended into the shadows. The first guard didn't even have time to scream.
One clawed sweep—silent and precise—and he slumped into the hydrangeas. Alive but unconscious. The dragon wanted to finish the kill, but the man in me warned that casualties would raise too many red flags, could ignite the powder keg that was Berlin, and I wasn't about to burn down the city or start WWIII. Not yet. Not if I could help it. But I would if they forced me to. I'd do anything for Inga and the kids. Including turning the world to ashes.
One by one, I removed them: the guards at the back entrance, the men patrolling the grounds, the watchman with a rifle too large for his shaking hands. No alarms rang out, no blood that mattered was spilled.
Dragons were made for war.
But we could be quiet when we needed to be.
I slunk to a tall, ornate window framed by velvet curtains. I still needed to find out how many guards were inside to make this clean. I peered inside at a warm dining room glowing with lamplight. Beyond that, voices floated faintly—calm, polite, wrong.
I crept to the next window.
Where I froze. There—in a parlor of silk and gold—sat Inga, Klaus, and a man I assumed was their father. It might have looked idyllic to anyone else. But I knew Inga. I knew Klaus. What I saw in their eyes made the dragon inside me bare his teeth. Inga sat rigid, her hands were folded so tightly her knuckles were white. Klaus perched beside her, too stiff, too silent. His eyes darted to the door every few seconds like he was waiting to bolt.
Gerhard sat opposite them, smiling with the smug confidence of a man who believed he owned everything in the room, including them.
My blood boiled. Nobody keeps my people from me. All thoughts of making itcleanwere gone, the dragon inside me thrust forward, his instincts overrode any rational thought the man might have been still capable of. One powerful leap?—
a snap of wings?—
a crash of glass?—
I smashedthrough the window in a storm of claws and firelit eyes, shards raining across the floor.
Screams erupted.
Gerhard stumbled backward, knocking over a table. Two guards burst in with rifles. I roared—a sound that shook the walls—and batted one rifle aside like a toy. Flames curled from my teeth, scorching the rug but sparing the men. They dropped their weapons and fled in terror. Three seconds later, the parlor was empty of everyone but four people:
Inga.
Klaus.
Gerhard.
And me.
I shifted before I knew I was doing it. The terror in Inga's eyes was too much to bear. My bones snapped back, my wings collapsed, and my claws shrank back into fingers. Within seconds, I was kneeling on the shattered floor, glass cutting into my knees, breath heaving.
"Inga," I gasped, "don't be scared. I'm sorry—I'm so sorry—I should have told you what?—"
"Gideon!" Her scream wasn't of fear. It was relief.
She ran to me, threw herself into my arms with the force of a crashing wave, burying her face against my neck.
"Gideon, you came," she cried, shaking. "You came. I love you. I love you so much."
I clutched her against me, one hand in her hair, one around her waist. Everything in me—man and dragon—lit up like fire in dry grass.
"Inga," I whispered into her skin, "I'd tear this whole damn city apart for you."
Klaus hovered at first, wide-eyed and trembling from head to toe, but then he rushed forward and pressed himself against my side. I pulled him in, too, my heart ripped open from the deep love I felt from both of them.
