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The room went silent.

“But Carrick never knew a Dragon Guardsman might have been involved in those experiments,” Bernie said softly. “Until now.”

Knox’s hand clenched at his side. “You think I was the experiment.”

Guy’s eyes met his brother’s, hard and steady. “I think Keevandrie may have built an experiment around a living Dragon's Magic. And I think we need to prove whether you were the subject.”

8

“I think Keevandrie may have built an experiment around a living Dragon's Magic. And I think we need to prove whether you were the subject.”

My first reaction was not panic.

Panic was loud. Panic wasted breath. Panic got people killed.

What moved through me was a fury so controlled it went cold. It slid beneath my skin like a blade drawn slowly from a sheath, clean and silent and made for one purpose.

Inside me, Sullevan raged hard enough to shake the walls of our shared psyche.

“They hunted us, Lad.”

My hand curled at my side, then relaxed. “Looks that way.”

“Then let us find out why.”

A century ago, maybe I would have reached first for the clean satisfaction of ending whoever had built this trap. Hell had taught me every ugly language violence could speak.

But before I was a Dragon Guardsman, before I was Mammon’s Enforcer, before I was a dead man walking back into a world that had buried me, I had been a Texas Ranger.

Rangers found evidence first.

Then they hunted.

Maisie’s words from minutes earlier were still lodged beneath my breastbone like a blade turned sideways.

We choose.

I glanced at her.

She stood beside me. Not behind me. Not tucked safely in another room while the dangerous men handled the dangerous secrets. Beside me, charcoal still smudged across one cheek, chin lifted, eyes sharp. Her expression read as clearly as words written on the page: Fate can make all the introductions She wants, and Maisie would be the one to decide where to plant her boots.

“Our Mate stands with us,” Sully said, his voice quieter now.

I did not correct his use of the word Mate. I simply said, “Aye.”

Carrick’s voice crackled through the communication spell. “I need to be very clear. I don’t know that Knox was the subject. Not yet.”

“Understood,” Guy said, though his jaw looked like it was moments away from cracking a molar.

“What I do know,” Carrick continued, “is that Keevandrie spent years trying to combine Dragon Magic, containment Spellwork, and Infernal Gateway Magic. Infernal Gateway Magic can punch holes through boundaries, but keeping those gateways stable Topside is another matter. Keevandrie believed living Dragon Magic could anchor what Hell Magic alone could not.”

Bernie’s expression tightened. “That’s why she wanted a living component.”

“Possibly,” Carrick cautioned. “What I never confirmed was whether she successfully used an actual living Dragon… Until Knox appeared wearing a Hellmark built from the same Magical language.”

The mark on my forearm seemed to hear him. It pulsed once, black and red and obscene beneath my skin.

Maisie shifted closer to the table, not touching me, not crowding me, simply standing exactly where she had chosen to stand.