Page 24

I didn't blame him. Having a top-secret strategy meeting directly beside a massive Magical barrier that Hell had literally just tried to use as a counterfeit garage door opener seemed like a spectacular way to get ambushed by a fresh pack of Demons… Or beasties… Or ghoulies…

Bernie stepped forward, her lavender-and-silver, disciplined Magic rippling through the cold air. With a fluid wave of her hands, the ether around us tore open, revealing a perfectly stable, glowing portal that looked straight into the warm, rustic interior of a house.

I blinked, my Alicorn Sight tracking the way the edges of the tear anchored themselves seamlessly to the local environment. It was very cool, because the portal stayed entirely within the geographic boundary of Arrhythmia. It didn't trigger a single concussive spark from the containment Wards.

“So, she can make doors,” I murmured, tapping my houndstooth boot against the sand.

Bernie offered me a dry, incredibly calm look. “Sometimes.”

“Can you make one out of Arrhythmia?”

“No.”

I sighed, throwing my hands up. “Of course not. That would've been too damned convenient. Goddess forbid we make things easy on my Doc Martens.”

Ten seconds later, the canyon was empty, and the four of us were standing in Guy’s living room. The transition hit me like a smack to the face. Going from freezing, sulfur-coated sand to the scent of cedar, old paper, and the lingering warmth of a wood stove was nice, but disconcerting as all get out.

Knox stood in the center of the room, looking entirely massive and deeply out of place. He was still wearing the heavy, glowing bronze scales that his Dragon King had manifested to replace his Stygian Iron prison armor. He looked like an ancient warlord dropped into a Texas ranch house.

Guy disappeared down a short hallway and returned a moment later, tossing a bundle of dark denim, a thick flannel shirt, and a pair of leather boots at his brother’s chest.

Knox caught the bundle, his heavy brows knitting together as he glared down at the clothes. “You expect me to wear your pants?”

Guy crossed his arms, his mouth twitching into a familiar, infuriating smirk. “You'd rather keep dressing like an armored lawn ornament, Bud? Change your clothes. You’re tracking sand and dirt on Bernie’s rug.”

Knox grabbed the clothes and ducked into the hallway bathroom. A second later, a wave of Magic I imagined was Sully pulling back the bronze armor floated under the closed door. When it opened a few minutes later, my brain, and my libido, did a brief, unprompted stutter.

Without the terrifying ten-foot dragon silhouette or the armor, Knox MacAllen looked almost like an ordinary man. Almost.

He was six-foot-four of raw, ancient power and Dragon Magic that had somehow learned to walk on two legs. The denim clung tightly to thighs that looked like they could crush a beer keg, the flannel stretched precariously across a massive chest, and his long, wavy blond hair fell around sharp features that were entirely too attractive for a man who had just spent a century in the Pit.

“Oh, that's unfortunate,” I thought, my fingers tightening against the pockets of my jacket.

“What?” Neysa purred inside my mind, her voice dripping with sudden, insufferable smugness.

“He looks better in jeans,” I breathed. “It’s a design flaw.”

“MATE!” the Alicorn shouted, practically throwing mental confetti.

“You shut your face, NeyNey.”

I aggressively forced my expression into a mask of pure, professional indifference as Guy ushered everyone into the dining room and around the heavy oak kitchen table. Within minutes, Bernie had a pot of black coffee brewing, the rich, earthy scent grounding the room. Apparently, this was life in Arrhythmia: four Supernaturals investigating a hundred-year-old interdimensional conspiracy over mugs of dark roast.

As we took our seats, my intuitive senses locked onto Knox’s movements. He didn't just sit down; he calculated. He walked around the perimeter of the table, systematically avoiding the chair with its back to the wide bay window. Instead, he smoothly slid into the corner seat, the exact position that granted him an unobstructed view of the front door, the kitchen exit, and the hallway, ensuring nobody could ever sneak up behind him.

He didn't say a word about it, and neither did Guy or Bernie, but the raw trauma of a century spent in Hell, serving Mammon, and trying to survive was written into every line of his posture. A quiet ache crept into my chest, but I kept my mouth shut, respecting the pride of a soldier.

Guy set a steaming mug of coffee in front of his brother and leaned over the table. “Start before the explosion, Knox. Don't tell us about the fire. Tell us why you were on that rig in the Gulf in the first place.”

Knox wrapped his large, scarred hands around the ceramic mug, the steam rising into his face. His eyes went distant, locking onto the dark liquid. “I was there as both a Texas Ranger and a Dragon Guardsman. The Guard had been tracking strange activity along the Gulf for three months. Crewmen disappearing between rotations. Falsified supply manifests. Atmospheric-pressure readings that didn't match the weather reports. Things didn't add up.”

He took a slow sip, his jaw tightening. “I went in undercover, embedded with the roughnecks. It didn't take a week to realize the operation wasn't behaving like an ordinary oil extraction rig. Structural sections below the waterline were completely restricted. Heavy steel bulkheads wrapped in localized cloaking spells. I found industrial equipment down there that had absolutely nothing to do with drilling for oil.”

Knox paused, his dark eyes shifting to Guy. “And most importantly, I found containment Wards. Heavy-duty ones.”

My eyebrows flew over the rim of my mug. “I'm not a supernatural engineer, Dead Guy, but I'm gonna go with no shit. Oil rigs don't usually need Magical containment Wards.”

A faint, ghostly trace of amusement flickered across Knox’s face before immediately vanishing. “Sully had sensed something wrong the second my boots hit the deck. The Wards weren't cleanly Elven, they weren't Dragon, and they weren't anything the Rangers had on record. There was a dark, suffocating thread woven through the geometry.”