Page 20 of Red Dragon’s Flame

He peered around the corner, into the gloom. He heard another almost imperceptible noise, but he couldn’t see anything… wait, was that a shadow? It blurred, disappeared, and then he caught another tantalizing glimpse.

He prepared a silent spell to reveal hidden objects, and the next time the blurry shadow appeared, he threw the spell right at it.

The hidden intruder shimmered, became visible, and was suddenly illuminated in a ball of light.

Mikah stared—and then swore. He dropped his own cloak.

“Michelangela NinjaWolf Connors, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Michelangela stared back defiantly at him. He had no idea how she’d managed to cloak herself—probably pinched an artifact from someone at Al-Maddeiri. Or from Thorne.

But he didn’t have time to deal with that now. He walked over to her and loomed in his most intimidating dragon manner. “What were you thinking?” he hissed at her. “You could have been killed!”

“By what? There’s nobody here.”

“It could still happen,” he said grimly. “I might do it myself.” This was the last thing he needed. He had to get Shadow to safety, and whoever attacked her could come back at any moment.

“How the hell did you even get here?” he demanded.

“Uber,” she said. “I mean, I saw the address on Thorne’s screen as we were leaving, so I just sneaked through the portal after you into the corporate HQ, and then Ubered here.”

Mikah was furious. She needed a lesson, and she needed it bad.

“Want to know what you almost walked into?” He wrapped his hand around the scruff of her neck and pushed her into the room.

She was a wolf, so she had to have already smelled the blood, but smelling and seeing were two different things.

“Fuck,” she said, looking around at the burned and bloody state of the room—and what was left of the people in it.

She was obviously taken aback, but not as upset as he expected. Of course, she was a predator shifter, and her pack’s territory had been attacked more than once over the years. Maybe she wasn’t as sheltered as he’d thought.

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Neither of them is—I mean, Shadow’s okay, isn’t she?”

His heart softened a little. She really was concerned about Shadowfire.

“She survived,” he said. “But she’s badly wounded. She’s in a tunnel behind—”

Suddenly Michelangela’s head went up, and she turned toward the door, sniffing the air. “Oh, great,” she murmured.

He scented the second intruder just after she did. Fuck on a stick, he though wearily. What was this, a Teen Wolf movie?

He stepped out of the doorway and raised his voice slightly. “Hey, Brock,” he called. “The party’s in here.”

Brock emerged silently from the shadows, lifting the barrel of his handgun so it wasn’t pointing directly at them. He surveyed the situation, and then stuck it back in its holster at his hip. “What the fuck is going on?” he demanded. “I smell blood. Is Mikey okay?”

“Mikey is fine,” he said. “I suppose it was too much to ask that you should keep her chained up.”

“It’s the only way,” Brock agreed. He turned to Michelangela, who had come up behind Mikah. “If you were trying to get away clean, you shouldn’t have used my account for the Uber ride. They sent me an alert.”

She stuck her tongue out, and he shook his head. He turned back to Mikah.

“So, should I ask why you killed these people? Do you need help cleaning up the bodies? And what the hell is that one?” He gestured.

“It wasn’t me, no, and I have no fucking idea,” Mikah said.

Brock went over and knelt down by the one with the singed wings. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

“Maybe it’s a fallen angel,” Michelangela said.