Page 8 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

Tristan, I love you, she thought fervently. You’re my very bestest friend.

She closed the bathroom door and sat on the lid of the thronelike toilet, trying to still her trembling hand. She-Wolf was fighting her, but she managed to get the syringe into her vein and push the plunger.

She-Wolf howled furiously. Trish leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling tears gathering. The darkness receded, and her body settled back into human form.

As She-Wolf’s voice faded, the tears spilled down Trish’s cheeks. I’m sorry, she said to her wolf, not knowing if she could hear. I’m so sorry…

Chapter 5

It took about fifteen minutes for the drug to kick in. For Trish to feel normal.

If ‘normal’ meant she couldn’t hear or feel her wolf.

She dashed the tears away from her cheeks and hid the syringe back in the drawer. That drug was experimental, and it was illegal for her to have any.

Tristan was taking a big risk, getting it for her. She owed him so big she could never repay him.

I need to convince Emon to help me, she told herself. Somehow. I can’t keep doing this to Tristan, letting him risk himself for me.

So she had to figure out how to make friends with a dragon.

In the meantime, she had to pretend everything was all right. She got up and splashed cold water on her face.

Find something else to think about. Focus on the good stuff.

Like this kickass pseudo-Victorian Draken bathroom. She took a deep breath looked around, finally able to take in its spectacular awesomeness. It was bigger than her bedroom back at Silverlake, and had a huge marble shower with enough room for a party, with shiny brass pipes and nozzles and faucets. Very steampunk.

Also, a giant-sized bathtub almost big enough to swim in, with a surround of some dark polished wood. The toilet was also crazy old-fashioned, with the water tank attached to the wall overhead, and a pull-chain to flush it.

Trish pulled on the chain experimentally, and the water rushed loudly down a brass pipe into the toilet, sounding like Niagara Falls in the spring.

Sweet. And another up side—she wasn’t going to have to poop in a hole with a four-story drop underneath it, like some European medieval castles she’d seen on the History Channel. Anything could crawl up inside a toilet like that. Snakes. Tarantulas. The Loch Ness monster’s interdimensional cousin. Poop squids with slimy tentacles.

She patted the throne-toilet in gratitude. Positive thoughts.

Continuing on the up side, there were lots of fluffy towels, and something that even looked like a towel warmer, if she could figure out how to turn it on without dragon magic.

Okay. She was calmer now. Next project—find Tristan and the research team. It was mid-afternoon back at Silverlake, but she had no clue what time it was here. Were they working? Sleeping? Eating dinner?

And where did dinner happen, anyway? Grange had said nothing about food.

Should she pull the bell rope and ask whoever came to point her to the research team and the dining area? But would that mean some poor maid would have to schlepp all the way from the basement up to here, just to answer a question?

That seemed wrong.

Maybe she could find them on her own.

She opened the door to the bedroom, and immediately was hit with a sense of wrongness. Her hackles raised in warning. Something was off.

The window was closed.

Had she done that? She didn’t think so. Maybe it had blown shut?

She walked slowly over to it. It wasn’t just closed, it was latched.

Behind her, she heard the fireplace ignite with a soft whump. A voice said, “Interesting books. What’s with all the women running through the woods in their nightgowns?”

Trish jumped about a mile and a half, and whirled around to see a man leaning his hips against the edge of the table, dressed in black leather and looking like a piece of midnight come to life. With a bunch of her books in his hands.