Page 73 of Dragon’s Rogue

“Actually, both of you are,” Tyr said. “And Blaze. The Rogue, the Rebel, and the Storm.”

Rebel stared across the porch at the trio of lunatics facing her.

“You’re insane,” she told them flatly. “I don’t have any Seal, and I don’t believe any of this shit.”

“I do,” Tempest said quietly. She was looking down at her notebook.

Of course she did. Rebel loved her sister, but she believed in all kinds of things that weren’t necessarily real.

Except when they were. She looked at the midnight-blue dragon in her backyard.

Okay, that was real. But that didn’t mean either of them was a legendary figure out of a fairy tale. It was ridiculous. She looked around the porch again. “Do any of you seriously think two normal human women are going to drop everything and just let themselves be carried off by dragons? What have you been smoking?”

She looked at Zane, who had his hands possessively on the back of Blaze’s chair, and then at the way Tyr was looking at Tempest. Then she looked at the one that had grabbed her. “And to top it all off, you’re trying to palm the crazy one off on me? No thank you.”

“I don’t think it’s any of our choice,” Tempest said.

Rebel turned to Blaze. “And you’re going along with this?”

There was a long silence. Zane’s face was impassive, but Rebel could see him holding his breath, waiting for her answer. So, even with the two of them, it seemed this whole mating thing was not a done deal.

“I want to talk to you,” Rebel said to Blaze. “Alone.”

Chapter 32

Rebel ushered Blaze off the porch and took her off to the side, where they could be private but she could still keep an eye on all the wackos.

Then she faced the woman who she’d believed was a dark sorceress. She wasn’t so sure now—the shit that had gone down last night had made her less sure who were the bad guys and who were the worse guys in this scenario.

And now the rabid dragon was confusing her all over again.

Then there was this completely unbelievable fairy tale about hidden dragons awakening and mates of destiny, and she was supposed to let herself be captured by a nutcase dragon and taken away to be ravished by him so that she could get Stockholm Syndrome and give him an artifact she didn’t even have? Or go get it for him?

It was insane.

And yet, Tempest believed it.

Most people wouldn’t think that was anything to go by. Tempest had been dragon fangirling since she was a little girl. Proof that dragons actually existed—and were here in this world—was like someone dropping most kids into a swimming pool full of chocolate and saying, ‘knock yourself out, babe.’

But Tempest saw things other people didn’t see, and knew things she had no possible way of knowing. She’d always been that way.

All Rebel knew was that a few days ago McKenna had been hunting for the guy who broke into her house—this Zane person—and now suddenly she was his partner in all this craziness. And from the looks of it, maybe his partner in bed, too.

Had she really gone freely into this, or was it some kind of dragon compulsion magic? She didn’t seem scared of him, but on the other hand she looked like hell—dark circles under her eyes, and moving slowly, like she was exhausted.

Rebel took control of the conversation before the sorceress could open her mouth. “First of all, I hate rogue witches and sorcerers and I don’t work with them. Second, do you really believe all this shit?”

McKenna bit her lip. “I believe Vyrkos is real. I’ve seen his tomb, and I’ve seen the evidence that the magic that holds it shut is breaking down. And if that’s true, I need to do whatever I can to help.”

“Even uproot your entire life and be a captive mate for a dragon?”

McKenna snapped, “My life is already uprooted. My house is trashed and I can’t go home, thanks to you bringing the coven down on me. What the hell was that about? Couldn’t you feel how evil that idol is? It still has all of them in its power, and they haven’t even touched it for ten years. That’s how dangerous it is. And you saw what Silas was doing to that poor man, using his body and letting the magic eat him alive.”

Rebel winced at that. Jack. She’d been trying to find him all day, and he’d vanished. For all she knew he was dead.

McKenna was still talking. “They’re going to use the idol to wake Vyrkos, for God’s sake. Are you really going to let that happen?”

Rebel said, “They told me you were a rogue who’d stolen it from them—that you were the one hurting people with it.”