Page 56 of Dragon’s Rogue

Thorne showed him the results from earlier. Zane looked through the screenshots, and noticed the centers of the disturbance. Blaze’s house. The lair. And the tomb.

All at the same moment. He checked the time stamp. Just after he and Blaze had finished making love, when the idol had gone berserk.

“Everything’s settled down now,” Tyr said. “But we’ve lost another two percent integrity on the tomb.”

“Dammit.” Zane ran his fingers through his hair. He had one eye on Blaze, who was staring straight ahead now, eyes glazed. He could see the last bits of her energy fading.

Quickly, he told his brothers about the idol coming to life and the fight with the coven.

Thorne said, “We should never have given that thing back to her. We should have locked it up with the other dangerous artifacts.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Zane said. “What set it off?”

“Proximity to the coven, probably,” Thorne said. “They must have been right outside, and they’ve already established a link to it. We may be able to sever that, if we have time to focus on it.”

“That would be great,” Zane said, glancing at Blaze. “But they weren’t there the other night, and the same thing happened.”

“You were there,” Tyr said. “Maybe it just doesn’t like you.”

Zane almost resisted giving him the finger.

“Could be the other woman, too,” Thorne said. “She was there both times.”

“What woman?” Zane stared at Thorne. “You mean the thief? She wasn’t there tonight.”

“Yes she was,” Thorne said. “She was outside on the balcony. She got blown off when you two smashed through the doors. I barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground. Broke my foot crash-landing after I caught her, too.”

Zane stared at him. “And you let her go?” Damn. How the hell would they ever find her again?

Thorne ran his fingers through his hair, looking uncomfortable. “She was unconscious,” he said testily. “I saw that there were people still in the house, so I flew back up to try to catch them. They were just disappearing into the magical portal. When I got back down to the ground, she was gone.”

Zane blew out his breath. “That makes things more complicated,” he said, “but it still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Which is what?”

“We didn’t find the Seal. All of this mayhem happened because of that damn idol.”

“True.”

“So how come every time the idol goes ballistic, it affects the integrity of the tomb?”

Thorne stopped and stared at him. So did Tyr. Then they slowly turned their heads to look at Blaze.

Zane walked over to Blaze, sitting down next to her. “Hey,” he said. She started, as if she’d been lost in a trance.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I really am drained.”

“Listen,” he said, nodding toward the idol. “When that thing was talking, tell me what you heard.”

Blaze wrinkled her forehead in concentration, then repeated the words back. Zane nodded. “At any point, did you hear its voice change?”

She frowned again. “Yes. It almost sounded like two people, saying the same thing in unison. Except the second one…” She broke off and shivered.

“What about the second one?”

“It seemed older. More powerful. More… evil.”

“Yeah. The first voice was talking to the coven. To you, and the others.” He paused. “But I’m pretty sure the second voice was talking to me.”