Page 90 of Dragon’s Rogue

“I need to try.” She sat up, and he hated even that small distance between them. She sat cross-legged on his pile of gold, putting one hand on his chest and one on his shoulder.

Closing her eyes, she said softly, “By the power and grace of our ancestors, I offer you freely their love and protection in the form of this charm. As it goes from me to thee, may it keep you safe and bring you always to the light.”

A white glow spread out from her back, up to her shoulders and down her hands. Zane felt life and love and healing spreading down to where she touched him. It lingered for a minute, and then gradually faded away.

There was no tattoo.

Blaze twisted around and showed him her back.

“It’s still there,” he said. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Was that why the transfer didn’t take—because he hadn’t truly accepted her gift?

“Maybe it doesn’t work on dragons. Or on men,” he said.

Blaze bit her lip, obviously frustrated. “But I’m supposed to give it to you. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? So there must be a way.”

He took her hand and kissed it. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s go talk to the others. Maybe one of them will have an idea.”

Chapter 40

Ten minutes later, they were dressed and in the Batcave. Thorne and Tyr were both in there: Thorne in his usual place at the computer console, and Tyr at the conference table, surrounded by piles of books and scrolls.

He had several books open and seemed to be cross-referencing between them, making notes on a yellow legal pad.

They both looked up as Zane and Blaze walked in. Tyr raised his eyebrows. “We didn’t expect to see you two for the rest of the day,” he said. “We could feel the hoard singing from here.”

Blaze felt her face get hot, and Tyr’s grin got wider.

“That’s none of your damn business,” Zane growled. “Keep your perverted thoughts away from my mate.”

“Well, since I don’t have my own mate to get perverted with, I have only my imagination to console me. Deal with it.”

Blaze twitched her fingers, magically smacking Tyr on the back of the head. “Ow! Hey!” He rubbed the place she’d hit him. “What was that for?”

“Imagining perverted things about me. What are you doing?” She sat down at the table next to him.

“Trying to figure out how the Seal ended up physically embedded in the Keeper. Which would be you. As far as I can tell, the Seals Arkyld took were physical objects.”

“Do the others have tattoos?” she asked. “Rebel and Tempest?”

Thorne answered from the computer console. “If it were only so easy. I spoke to Tempest while you were sick, but neither she nor Rebel has a tattoo. At least, not a magical one in the shape of the Seal.”

Tyr looked interested. “What other ones do they have? And where?”

Thorne just shot him a disgusted look and shook his head.

“So it’s just me,” Blaze said. Damn. She’d hoped that they all had tattoos, and they would be able to figure this out together. If they could seal up the tomb once and for all, it would limit the idol’s power—maybe even destroy it.

Everything both she and Zane had worked and sacrificed for would come to pass.

“Tell me how you ended up with the tattoo,” Tyr said, pen poised.

“It was my mother’s. She gave it to me when she was dying.” Blaze explained how it had been magically passed down the generations, mother to daughter. “She’d been sick for a long time, growing weaker and weaker, and no one knew why.” She thought back. So many things that hadn’t made sense to her before made sense now.

“Now I realize it started not long after the time the coven began working with the idol. She had bouts of fatigue and weakness, and sudden high fevers. The same symptoms I had before I passed out.”

“The Seal was fighting the idol’s influence,” Zane said.

“And neither one could win. The stress on her body just wore it out. And then—”