1
The scream tore through the cypress trees and gripped Violet Castanega’s heart like a strangler fig’s roots. She dropped the amethyst and silver necklace on her work table and ran out the open doorway of her workshop. Chumley, her tan hound, ran up beside her, her brow wrinkled as she stared in the direction of the sound.
Not good when a man screamed like that. It wasn’t horseplay or a foot being run over by a swamp buggy but the sound of life being torn from a body. Her brothers and cousins flashed through her mind, sending her sprinting barefoot across the muddy ground. She’d spent thirty years roaming her family’s acres, most of them without shoes. Rocks and roots dug in, but she knew instinctively how to shift her weight to soften the impact. Chumley ran beside her, his paws slapping the ground.
Another sound, lower and more guttural, squeezed her heart, and dammit, she was already having a hard time breathing. She thought it came from the southern edge of the Castanega land. The stitch she usually felt when running pinched her side.
She emerged from the thicket of pine trees into the more open area of the palm farm, running between the low rows of bushy sago palms and through the outer edge of thicker areca palms. Her pace slowed as she searched for whoever had screamed. She heard shouting. Others were coming, too. She tried to identify the voices that were filled with the same fear she felt, but they were too far away.
Her foot hit something. Grabbing onto a feathery palm frond didn’t stop her momentum. She pitched forward, her hands sinking into the soft ground. Before she’d even scrambled to her feet, she found him, bloody and motionless on the muddy ground. Gods, not mud—blood. It soaked the ground around the naked body from a gash in his chest.
Even through the blood, she recognized Arlo’s square face. “No, no, no.” She dropped down beside him, clamping her hands on his cheeks. “Arlo!”
He didn’t respond. She searched for a pulse point at his throat, but her finger slid in his blood. His clothing lay shredded nearby. That meant he’d Catalyzed, turning Dragon so quickly that he didn’t have time to disrobe. Which meant he’d been ambushed. Her Dragon tingled with awareness, the threat of danger rolling through her cells like a wave of energy.
Two people ran closer, smashing through palm fronds. She opened her mouth to call for help but stopped. Maybe those footsteps belonged to her family and maybe not.
“I thought I heard Vee,” a man said.
“But that scream… it wasn’t her.”
“I’m here!” she called, hearing her voice falter.
Her brothers burst into view, their wide-eyed gazes taking her in as they rushed toward her.
Ryan and Jessup took in the blood, then Arlo, and both went into defense mode, spinning around, their bodies rigid and ready to fight off an attacker.
“Are you all right, Vee?” Jessup asked, sliding his wary gaze toward her.
“I… yes. But Arlo…”
“Keep watch,” Jessup told Ryan, dropping down beside her. He assessed her with light green eyes that usually sparkled with mischief or flared with ire. Crescent Dragons had flames in their eyes, visible only to other Crescents, and Jessup’s blazed with anger and shock. “What happened?”
“I… don’t know. I heard the scream and came running, probably like you did. He was already… dead.” She looked around. “I saw no one, not even a rustling palm frond to let me know where the murderer went.”
Jessup felt for Arlo’s pulse, too, with a hand much steadier than hers. He spit out an expletive, his mouth tightening. His voice was a growl as he again surveyed their surroundings. “Someone came onto our land and killed him. How the hell did they sneak up on Arlo?”
Arlo was the oldest of her siblings and had seen the most action during the centuries-old feuds between the Dragon clans.
“He was drinking,” she said. “I smell booze on him.”
He’d struggled with alcohol and drugs the last few decades, a dangerous combination when you were a Crescent. You couldn’t afford to be out of control when your DNA held the essence of a god, especially when you were a Dragon. The Dragon part took advantage of weakness, eager to manifest and play. Or kill. Arlo’s very human addictions gave control to a magick beast that lived by its baser instincts.
Jessup lifted Arlo’s body slightly. “Someone killed him for his power.”
Violet sucked in a breath; the blue Dragon tattoo once sprawled across his chest was gone. “He’s been Breathed.” Her Amethyst Dragon, wrapped all the way around her like a belt, vibrated in fear and anger.
Every adult Dragon wore their Dragon’s essence on their body, a magnificent image that manifested during their Awakening ceremony when they turned thirteen. The fact that it moved and kept watch over its person was hidden from Mundane humans, who saw only a regular tattoo. When one Dragon Breathed in the power of another, their Dragon disappeared, and the one who Breathed gained its power. Ryan stepped closer, still watching but taking in his brother’s still form. “It’s got to be one of the Fringe clans.”
The Fringe consisted of the marshy land along the outskirts of Florida City and Homestead where several Dragon clans had settled.
Violet came slowly to her feet. “It doesn’t make sense. We haven’t had any clashes or encroachments lately.”
“The Murphys started an alligator farm, damned copycats. That’s an encroachment. And the Augusts copied our tourist show.”
“Both were years ago. And they copied us, so why would they attack us on our land?”
The fire in her brothers’ eyes scared her. There had been relative peace—okay, more like the Cold War kind—for the last ten years. Nothing more than a few broken bones and torn flesh, disagreements settled at Ernie’s, the old watering hole that served up pool, booze, and a back room designed for brawling. She craved that peace, being able to wander their land without fear of being attacked. That was now gone… along with Arlo.
