Page 96 of Dragon’s Rogue

“Reb? Please… don’t leave me… only one who’ll come…”

Fuck. “If you lead me into a trap, Harper, I swear to God I’ll kill you myself.”

He didn’t answer. The line went dead.

Rebel threw the phone on the couch, cursing under her breath. Jack wasn’t worth much these days, but she’d cared about him once. She couldn’t let him die alone in a fucking warehouse.

But she wasn’t going to leave Tempest here unguarded or walk into a trap, either.

It was time to finish this. If the call was a trap, it meant they were going to try to use her to get to the dragons and the idol.

She might as well cut out the middle man, and save herself some torture.

She leaned over, grabbed the phone, and scrolled through her contacts. There it was, under the F’s. ‘Fucking Dragons.’

She tapped the number, and then hit ‘Call.’ If she was heading into a trap, the witch and the fucking dragons were coming with her.

The warehouse was exactly where Jack Harper said it was. Blaze, Thorne and Zane had picked up Rebel and flown straight there, landing in the deserted parking lot. Tyr had taken Tempest back to the lair for safety, over Rebel’s protests.

Blaze noticed that Tempest had seemed fine with it, dressing calmly and gathering up her notebook and sketch pad while Thorne and Rebel were arguing.

Once at the warehouse, they’d checked the perimeter and seen no signs of a trap. Blaze and the dragons could feel faint traces of Silas’s spell signature on the outside of the building, as if it had once been warded, and the wards erased later.

As if the coven wasn’t using the place anymore, and had just left their refuse behind.

Including a dying man, who Silas had used and thrown away like garbage.

Inside it was echoing and empty, nothing there but the remnants of a spell circle. Bits of herbs could still be seen on the floor, as if they’d been hastily swept up, and a ghostly tingle of magic remained.

There was a small pool of blood in the middle of the circle, and a smeared trail to the side of the warehouse that led up a set of iron stairs, as if someone had dragged themselves up.

They found Jack lying in a dusty second-floor room that had once been an office, with a dirty window that looked down on the warehouse floor. It was littered with broken furniture, empty boxes, and debris that had hidden an old landline desk phone, still plugged in.

But it wasn’t the blood loss that had nearly killed him. Harper’s body was emaciated, with spaces in his torso that looked like they were just… gone. Blank and black, as if they’d been removed and replaced by pieces of the blackest, most starless night.

The closer Blaze got to those missing pieces, the more she wanted to vomit. It was a visceral reaction, as if her magic—or the Seal’s—couldn’t get too close without reacting.

Thorne didn’t seem to feel it, although she could see the curl of distaste on his lips. He’d brought a healing potion that worked on both magical and physical damage, which he poured down the half-conscious Jack’s throat. Then they wrapped him in a stiff cocoon like the ones rescue workers used to airlift lost hikers off mountains—except this one had magical wards woven into it.

They carried him up to the roof, and Thorne and Zane transported the three of them back to the Batcave.

Thorne carried Jack into a small room that looked like some kind of disused infirmary—probably for injured Guardians. He laid him on a waiting gurney in the middle of the room, which looked modern and out of place next to the old-fashioned cabinets holding thick glass jars of herbs, candles, and healing stones.

“What have we got?” asked Tyr, hurrying into the room. He was followed by Tempest, who immediately went over to Rebel, linking her arm through her sister’s.

“A fucking mess,” Thorne said bluntly. “Looks like Turner’s magic bonded to him, and it’s eating him away.”

They were stripping the cocoon off Jack, and the residual magic permeating him spread out into the room like a bad smell.

Blaze stood back against the wall with Zane, leaning on him for support. She was still feeling sick. Silas’s magic was all over Jack, as if it were woven through him somehow. She could never mistake it; they’d spent years working together as children, trying new spells and practicing fending them off.

The power felt familiar, yet twisted. The familiarity hit her in the gut, raising so many emotions she’d thought she’d left behind. And the twisted darkness made her feel like she’d returned home to a place she’d loved, only to see it blackened and ruined by a devastating fire.

“Can you get it out of him?” That was Tempest. Rebel was just standing there, mouth pressed together in a tight line.

“Maybe,” Tyr said, his voice growing gentle as he looked at her. “There’s a good chance it won’t help, though. He’s pretty far gone.”

“Can we cut the connection?” Blaze asked. “Sort of like cutting Silas off from the idol, except cutting Jack off from Silas.”