Page 36 of Dragon’s Rogue

He hesitated, not knowing what to say. How could he possibly make her understand? He looked at her, clutching her purse with that damned evil idol in it. He could tell she hated it, but she was keeping it away from this Silas dude.

He’d worried at first she was a dark sorceress, but he knew now she wasn’t. She’d taken on three dragons just to get this thing back in her vault where it couldn’t do any damage.

He said, “You think Turner is going to take the idol and hurt a lot of people with it, right?”

She nodded.

“And you’re willing to risk your life to stop that from happening?”

She gave a tiny shrug, looking away. “If I have to.”

His heart surged with pride. She was amazing, brave as well as powerful. She cared about doing the right thing.

“Okay,” he said. “I get that. My brothers and I—we’re also trying to prevent something from happening that will hurt a lot of people. And the Dragonfly might be able to help us stop it. All I have to do is look at it, maybe touch it. If it’s what we think it is, we’ll give you a fair price for it. Hell, we’ll give you whatever you want.” He paused. “And whether it is or not, I’ll help you fight off this Silas person, when he comes.”

She studied him, her eyes looking deeply into his. He wondered what she was seeing. He saw a hundred years of dream-memories. Love and laughter and joy and tears.

“Okay,” she said. “Come to my house tomorrow night. At seven. You can tell me about this mini-apocalypse you’re trying to stop, and I’ll decide if you can see the Dragonfly.”

He nodded. It was a chance. That was all he could hope for. “Thank you.”

She nodded back. He stepped aside, and watched her walk into the house. As she disappeared through the French doors, he called after her, “I wish I could say I’m sorry I broke into your house, but I’m not.” He paused. “After all, I got to kiss you.”

She froze in her tracks for a moment, then started walking again. “Yeah,” she called over her shoulder. “Try that tomorrow, and I’ll shove you out the window again. And this time I’ll make sure you go splat on the patio.”

A worthy mate, his dragon said again.

Yep. All he had to do was convince her that he was one, too.

“It isn’t there,” Rebel said.

She still wasn’t used to talking to a magical projection of a dark wizard. And he was a dark wizard, no matter what he or Jack tried to tell her.

All she had to do was look at Jack, hanging in the air like a marionette in his crappy living room, eyes open and staring at nothing, a black hole in his chest where this motherfucker projected himself through from whatever hell he inhabited. No one but a dark wizard would use another person that way.

Rebel was in way over her head here. She should never have listened to fucking Jack Harper when he was on drugs. And now he was a puppet and she was face to face with a dude with a black robe, with a face that looked like it had been mauled by a rabid raccoon, and a dangerous obsession with a golden idol.

“It has to be there!” the wizard snarled. “I have not come this far to be thwarted now. I paid you to find the artifact—”

Rebel interrupted him. “I went back in the house. I looked in the vault. The box is there, but the idol isn’t. I also looked in the artifact room and her magic room. And in her bedroom. I couldn’t search every nook and cranny in the whole goddamn house while she was out at a party. She could have sold it. Given it away. Put it in a bank vault. This job is a bust. I’m out.”

The figure of the sorcerer grew very still, his eyes dark and deadly. “You’re not out until I say you’re out. I have my hand on your pathetic boyfriend’s heart, and I could kill him with a thought. So listen carefully to what I require of you now.”

Rebel listened as the sorcerer issued his orders. When he was through, he disappeared back through the hole in Jack’s chest. Jack crumpled to the floor, heaving in his breath with a great gasp, his chest intact again.

He got weaker every time.

He might be a useless good-for-nothing addict who she’d fallen out of love with a long time ago, but he still didn’t deserve this.

She got Jack some water and helped him onto the couch, putting a blanket over him.

Then she left, thinking hard.

She didn’t like the sound of the sorcerer’s final plan, but she didn’t see that she had much of a choice. The gloves were off. He wasn’t even pretending to be a good guy anymore.

If he turned on Rebel, Tempest could get caught in the crossfire.

There was nothing Rebel wouldn’t do to protect her sister. And as far as tough decisions went, throwing an evil rogue sorceress under the bus wasn’t even in the top ten.