Preoccupied wondering who is going to win a bidding war to enslave other shifters. Feeling hollow inside, she echoed his laugh.
And the hairs on the back of her neck prickled with awareness.
She blinked. *Julian?*
*Here.*
*I thought you were going to stay in the suite.*
*Someone used one of my scales to try to sneak into the rooms. I informed them of their mistake and thought I’d better see how much was happening in the shadow world on this ship.*
She swallowed. *And?*
*It’s very lively.*
The shadow world.Was that what he called using his powers to turn invisible? As though he were traveling to a different plane of existence.
She should interrogate him about the extent of his powers.
*Enjoying yourself?*he asked, and the back of her neck flushed hot.
*Shouldn’t you be making sure no one can break into our rooms, instead of leaving them unguarded?*
His answer sent tendrils of anticipation dancing across her skin.*There’s nothing in our rooms right now that requires guarding.*
11
Julian
The dinner was no different to the hundreds of other events he’d gritted his teeth through as Gerald’s lapdog. The only difference was this night’s event wouldn’t end with other prisoners forced to fight each other for the guests’ amusement.
Probably.
The guard he’d discovered attempting to break into their suite had been a lynx shifter. He’d crept in without a sound, using stolen magic to keep to the shadows. Where he had found Julian.
Julian had expected a fight. One he wasn’t sure he could win, not without giving away the fact that he was a dragon shifter, and maybe not even then. What a heroic end that would have been for the noble shadow dragons: shifting into his dragon form to fight an oversized house cat and collapsing in a broken pile before exchanging a single blow.
But there had been no fight. The lynx shifter had noticed him, nodded his head as though they’d come across each other on the street, and strolled out without a care in the world.
It left Julian with a prickling disquiet. What had the man been looking for that he’d left so easily without finding it?
Unless he had found it. Proof that Julian could access the shadow world.
Or proof that he hadn’t accompanied Francine to dinner.
It had felt like a threat. One he could not ignore. So here he was: trailing after her, exactly where she’d told him he wasn’t wanted.
His dragon stirred uneasily.Be calm,he warned it.You’re still healing.
It lashed its tail. Julian tensed automatically. Pointless. If it had done that while he was in dragon form, the pain would have been overwhelming. In human form, with his dragon nothing but an echo in his soul, it shouldn’t have hurt.
Reflected pain crawled up his spine and along one side, searing and torn.
He sensed eyes tracking to him before he saw them. His movement, small as it had been, hadn’t gone unnoticed.
The other bodyguards were eyeing him up. He met their gazes flatly, his dragon pulling back from behind his eyes like a whale slipping beneath the waves. When he was satisfied none of them had seen his true nature—and when he’d glimpsed the various predators not bothering to hide behind their own eyes—he moved his attention to the dinner.
Every person seated around the table thought they were here to kidnap his family and steal the shadow dragons’ magic for their own use.
