Page 86 of Dragon’s Rebel

“Oh, there’s nothing in the wine,” Jean-Claude said. “I wouldn’t taint good wine like that.”

But there was a trap somewhere. Blaze rose to her feet, Zane half a second behind her. “What the hell are you up to, D’Amboise?” he demanded.

Jean-Claude leaned forward, all pretense of friendliness gone. “You think you can just waltz in here, offer me a cast-off trinket from your hoard, and expect me to do whatever you want and come begging for more? I have powerful allies now. I don’t need to tiptoe around you and your arrogant brother. Why should I, when I can have everything you have, and more?”

Magical wards sprang up around them, great sheets of light like a cage. Behind Jean-Claude, Corwyn walked into the room.

Blaze couldn’t help a shudder of revulsion. He still had the body of her former friend, enemy and surrogate brother, Silas Turner. Most of that body was mercifully concealed under a long black robe, though the sickening stench of decay emanated from him. But the face that had been so grotesquely misshapen was now rotting away, strips of skin peeling from the skull.

Only the eyes seemed alive, glowing red.

Blaze touched the wards. She couldn’t penetrate them, and they stung her fingers. Zane threw himself against them, and they burned through his clothes to his skin.

They had miscalculated so very, very badly.

“What do you want?” Zane snarled, panting and holding his burned arm.

It was Corwyn who answered, his voice low and gravelly. “You know what I want. I need the last two Seals to Vyrkos’ tomb, before the Keepers release their power. And I need your lair.” He cocked his head, as if thinking. “And oh, yes. Once I have the Seals, I need the Keepers dead.”

Only everything they had. No damned way.

Zane said, “And what did this half-dead loser promise you, D’Amboise? Wealth? Magic?”

“Power,” Jean-Claude said. “After all, that’s what all the other things are for, non? Otherwise, why bother?”

His face grew avid, and Blaze could see the lines of dissipation, the black hole where his heart and humanity were being eaten away.

“But unknowingly, you have offered us both so much more,” he said. “Like many, I’ve been searching for years for the heir to the Coven of the Waves. But even I didn’t know she was the key to power beyond imagining. More power than I’d ever dreamed of.” He looked at Corwyn. “Immortality.”

Seriously? He was looking at a walking corpse as something to aspire to?

“You’ve got it wrong,” Zane said. “Blaze isn’t from the Coven of the Waves.”

“Not her,” Jean-Claude said. “Your dirty little thief from St. Johns.”

Rebel? Rebel was the sought-after heir to a coven? Then the lawyers’ story must be true. And it was probably also a trap.

Corwyn stepped forward, his ravaged face alight with excitement. “You are going to tell us how to find her. And then, you’ll give us the keys to the new wards on our lair.”

“Over my dead body,” Zane snarled.

Corwyn laughed—a chilling, nerve-grating laugh. “Oh, no, my little blue friend. I plan to keep you alive for some time. These wards will keep any Draken trapped—unless you’re a Draken Lord in disguise? No. So I have plenty of time to persuade you. I think you will find pain to be extremely… motivating. Especially when I’m causing it to your mate.”

He turned to Blaze. “And you are trapped too—by your bond to him. As long as he’s in there, so are you.”

Blaze met Zane’s eyes, silent communication flowing between them. Draken, she realized. He’d said Draken. He knew all about Draken.

But some dragons were wild. And despite what had happened in their lair a few weeks ago, Corwyn still didn’t seem to understand what that meant.

Especially for Zane.

Zane gave her a nod, and Blaze shouted a word of power.

Vines shot out of the statuette on the coffee table, encircling Jean-Claude and Corwyn until they were nearly lost in tangle of green leaves and thick brown stems. The vines grew and proliferated—and then they started squeezing.

Blaze smiled grimly. Jean-Claude wasn’t the only one who’d set up a trap for this meeting.

She felt the magical bonds around them begin to weaken as Corwyn’s power and concentration was diverted to fight the vines. She started battering at the cage with her own magic.