Gerald Harper.
Gerald Harper was dead.
The man who’d used her as his attack dog was dead. The man who’d tricked her, used her, while he was torturing her twin.
He was dead, and Francine’s last fingerhold on what the hell was going on here was slipping away.
Everyone at dinner the night before had been disgustingly coy. They were alloverjoyedthat the man was gone, but who, ohwhocould have done it? The question had gone round and round the table, accompanied by fluttering eyelashes and gleeful smiles, as though they were discussing a prank and not an assassination.
Nobody had needed to saywhohad done it, because they all already knew. Except her.
She ground her teeth. Harper being behind the auction had made sense. If he couldn’t have sole control over the dragons and their magic, he could at least cause chaos by setting everyone else who wanted them against one another. Her information had come from hand-picked sources. Entrepreneurial dick-rags who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make her reliant on their intelligence. She wouldn’t have trusted one of them alone, but their stories had all lined up.
What if they were plants, too? What if her being here was as much a trap as her going after poor Irina Diaz had been?
And if Harper wasn’t the mastermind behind the dragon auction, who was?
She gnawed her lower lip. Eloise had spoken abouthimreturning. Capital-H Him. Which couldn’t have meant Harper, either, given her delight at his sudden death. And the way she’d said it, as though she were capitalizing the word—He—was almost religious. Had her friend stumbled into some sort of cult?
Across the room, Julian stirred. Francine stilled, tension dancing whorls over her skin. In an instant, all her awareness was focused on him, and another terrifying question surged into her mind.
Had she tried to fuck him?
She didn’t know. But she remembered wanting to. She closed her eyes and for one self-indulgent moment remembered the surprise of his skin, warm against her cheek; how his arms had wrapped around her…
She opened her eyes quickly and found herself staring into Julian’s eyes.
There was nothing soft in them. Nothing warm.
Good.
She swung herself out of bed, willing her stomach not to revolt. The universe’s worst-planned mate bond couldn’t affect her plans here. She couldn’t afford any more distractions.
Not when she was already so out of her depth.
The distraction she couldn’t afford insisted on sticking to her side like a shadow.
“I’ll leave you to your own devices later,” he said coolly when she suggested he go to hell.
“I don’t—”
“You don’t want anyone to think you’re weak enough to need protecting. But you also don’t know what you might need protecting from. The shadows here are host to heavily armed soldiers, remember.” He smiled, cold and sharp. “And after last night’s revelation, I don’t feel comfortable letting you out of sight.”
Her skin chilled. Forget trying to drag him into bed. How much had she said?
Julian didn’t know of her connection to Harper. Hecouldn’tknow. He thought she was Lance and Grant and Mathis’s ally. That she hated Harper because of what he’d done to her twin. Not that she’d been duped into being Harper’s pawn.
“Fine,” she snarled, and prepared for a day of…
…relaxation?
“We’re only days away from the edge of the world.” Eloise sounded like she was still drunk. She slipped her hand around Francine’s waist, and Francine’s nose wrinkled. Shesmelledlike she was still drunk, too. “And theendof the world, too, who knows? We want to look ourbe-est.”
Which meant Julian would be sticking to her side while she was poked, prodded, and plucked. Wearing nothing but a robe.
Joy.
Every room she set foot in on this ship felt like opening a door to a previous version of herself. She braced herselfnotto brace herself as the spa’s manager welcomed them inside.
