“Who? Eloise? Eloise is here?”
How could she have found them so quickly? Her mind raced ahead, then backtracked on itself, caught in an eddy. How long had they been down here in the fortress?
And they’d achieved nothing. No secret defenses. No loophole other than the one way out Julian had seen.
She stood up, throwing her clothes on. “If she’s here, we’ll face them—”
“Not her. My niece.”
She stopped. “What?”
“My—my niece. The hatchling.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his expression mingled grief and wonder.
Francine sat next to him. “You can feel her presence?” Panic beat a rhythm in her chest.
The baby dragon. Here. Why?
Julian drew a ragged breath. “I felt a powerful shifter searching for me, and their razor-sharp excitement when they located me. I was terrified. What sort of shifter could sense me from hundreds of miles away?”
“You’re terrified now.”
He met her eyes. “Yes. Because if she’s close enough for me to sense her, then you were wrong.”
Francine felt sick. “Eloise has her—”
“Or, more likely, our mutual friend has been tracking your movements and has chased us both here. Lance is bringing my niece for a family reunion.”
He stared up at her, and she saw the cogs moving behind his eyes.
“They don’t know what they’re walking straight into.”
“Lance is smart. He’ll have some idea, I’m sure.” Her fingers fretted at the hem of her shirt. “He—he has people who look into things like this. And he’s followingme.He knows I’m here with you, that I took you from the safe house the night itexploded.”
“You made sure he knew it. That’s why you made sure your face would turn up in as many videos and photographs in Ushuaia as possible. So he would follow you.”
“A backup. If we were unable to get your family out in time.” Her lips were tight and numb. “I knew I might not be able to do this by myself. That we would need help. But he was meant to bringsoldiers, not—”
“You thought you needed to trick him into helping you, by making him and everyone else in your life think you were the villain of the piece.”
He rose, quickly dressing himself. “You needed him here as backup. Youwantedhim here to see you win. To prove to him you weren’t the monster you’d let yourself become.”
Her shoulders tightened. “Julian—”
“I don’t think that’s the whole truth. Francine.” Silver glimmered, and he grimaced. “I think you wanted him to follow you in case you didn’t end up the hero. In case whatever was inside you that made you such a good scapegoat for Harper’s cruelty was the real you.”
She couldn’t reply. Her lioness wanted to snarl, to fight—but what was there to fight?
He was right.
“It’s not true.” He was all softness and care, pulling her to him. “You’re no monster.”
“No. I’m merely too proud and too stupid to see that I should havetalkedto someone instead of—”
“Still all fire and no forgiveness.” He kissed her. “How much are you going to argue if I tell you I need you to go out there and stop our friends before they bring a child into a bloodbath that might be the start of the end of the world?”
“I’m not going to run away—”
A boom echoed through the fortress. Francine blanched. “That wasn’t Lance.”
