Page 5

“Darling, she’s allowed to have a grudge against my kind. We’ve earned it.”

I shook my head. “No. It felt off. She didn’t want to talk to either of us.” I pulled his shoulder toward me so I could give him a good, long kiss. “We don’t need her.”

My phone rang. It was Coco.

“Hello again,” I said.

“I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Alice is glaring at me right now.” Alice was Fyr’s Irish Wolfhound, sort-of sister to Fergus. I’d found her on the English moors and returned her to Fyr last December. Fyr had allowed Clive and me to adopt puppy Fergus at the time as a kind of thank you for finding and caring for his dog. I guessed when Fyr worked nights, Coco watched Alice.

“Yes. You can both come over,” she continued. “And please bring Fergus. Alice likes to pretend he annoys her, but she loves it.”

The tension in my gut began to unclench. “Thanks. We’re on our way.” I disconnected and looked over at Clive.

“Thank goodness,” he breathed, “because we absolutely need her.”

Chapter 3

IN THE DRAGON’S DEN

Clive drove around the back of Drake’s Treasures. The jewelry store was in an old Art Deco building in the Marina District. Behind the building was a narrow parking lot with room for only a few cars. Clive pulled in beside Coco’s Jeep.

Owen had once explained that though Coco, George, and Alec loved their grandmother dearly, they also recognized that she could be a lot. Coco had moved out of Benvair’s mansion first. She was the oldest, after all, but Owen also believed that she’d needed out from under her grandmother’s scrutiny and judgment.

Coco had an affinity for metal and jewels. Dragons often did. In the current Drake generation, though, only Coco seemed to posses it. According to Owen, dragon hoards are a real thing. There’s huge generational wealth in dragon families, so Coco used some of her hoard to finance remodeling the upper floors of the building into two beautiful one-bedroom apartments. Could she have made herself a larger flat? Absolutely, but she wanted to provide a safety hatch for George as well.

It was probably then, living alone for the first time, with nothing to distract from the guilt over her brother Alec’s abduction, that Coco had begun to drink.

George had been away, becoming a doctor of veterinary medicine, and hadn’t seen the decline. Benvair had. And so when George graduated and was considering taking a position in Seattle, Benvair called him home. His sister needed him.

The store hadn’t suffered. Coco had never shirked her duties. It was at night, when sleep eluded her, when the movie of her brother’s abduction played over and over in her head, that she’d drunk to dull the images and drown her guilt.

I knew a lot about sleepless nights and never-ending loops of horror playing in my mind’s eye. Where Coco dulled it with alcohol, I smothered it with books; lots and lots of books. I’d abandoned my own memories and immersed myself in the lives of others. We each had our own form of oblivion.

Coco had been ten—George and Alec eight—when Finvarra, the fae king, had mesmerized George in order to hand him over to Aldith, an evil old vampire who liked to feed on the blood of other supernaturals. Alec and Coco had gone looking for their brother in the forest and had found him with a strange blonde woman in the woods. Alec had attacked her, wanting his twin back, and so she’d decided to take Alec instead.

Throughout the encounter, Coco had remained frozen in place, unable to help either brother. They’d only recently learned through Owen and myself that the man and woman they’d encountered in the woods had been fae and vampire, that they’d never had any chance against either of them.

Guilt was strange, though. I would imagine that twenty years of believing yourself weak and pathetic for not saving your brothers didn’t just disappear because you’d learned new information.

Clive turned off the engine and took my hand. “You two go in. I’ll wait here.”

“But she said⁠—”

He squeezed my fingers and let go. “Darling, I make her uncomfortable. You go talk with her. I need to call the pilot and have him get started preparing the plane. We’ll need a vehicle in Athens, assuming that’s where we’re flying in. I’m not entirely certain about the airports in Greece. He might be able to find us a smaller airfield closer to our destination. Trust me. This is a better use of my time than making a woman uncomfortable in her own home.”

Deciding he was probably right, I got out. Before I could open the back door, Fergus leapt over the seat and followed me out. Waving goodbye, I closed the door.

“Listen, bud. No wandering off. I forgot to grab a leash.” Fergus didn’t need the warning. He was already on board, racing up the outdoor stairway to the upper floors. Apparently, this was the way to Coco and Alice.

By the time I got to the top of the stairs, Coco was opening the door, with Alice dancing behind her. Coco, like her brothers, was tall with broad shoulders, warm brown skin, and the bright green eyes of a dragon. Instead of the long hair I remembered, she now wore it close-cropped, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and beautifully angular face. With no makeup, in a hoodie and leggings, she was beautiful. And sad. The sadness never seemed to leave her eyes.

Leaning over, she gave Fergus a full-body rub. “I heard this one galloping up the stairs.” She glanced over my shoulder, no doubt looking for Clive.

“It’s just Fergus and me. Clive had some work to do in the car.”

It was subtle, but her shoulders relaxed. “Okay. Come on in.” The hall between the apartments was narrow, with light walls and dark wood floors. She gestured at the door to the left. “That’s Fyr’s place.” She opened the door on the right, stepped in, and then held the door for us.

The apartment was light and modern, very different from her grandmother’s formal estate in Sea Cliff. The color and life in the room came from the artwork on her walls. The images were a little disorienting until I realized that they were all landscapes painted from above.