“Hard call,” Thorolf said.
“You trust too easily,” she countered and the air crackled between Pyr and mate. “He was delivered here for a reason. We should be careful until we figure out what it was.”
Kristofer couldn’t suppress a shiver, because he suspected she was right.
“We need to talk to Erik,” Quinn said with authority. “Someone call him now.”
“At this hour?” Kristofer asked.
Quinn shook his head. “If I know Erik as well as I think I do, he’s already awake.” A cell phone rang in the distance then and Sara appeared in the doorway, offering the ringing phone to Quinn. The Smith of the Pyr nodded as he checked the name of the caller. “Hey, Erik,” he said, moving out to the patio to take the call.
“What’s in his hand?” Bree asked, peering at Theo.
Kristofer pulled what looked like a page torn out of a book from Theo’s limp grasp. He was startled by the shimmer of red light that emanated from it, then it was just a sheet of paper. “It’s a list of the Pyr,” he said.
“It must be the inventory from Maeve’s book,” Arach said, scanning the list then heaving a sigh of relief. “No recent losses. That’s got to be a good thing.”
But Kristofer wondered whether it was.
“What is it?” Bree asked, obviously noticing his expression.
“I won’t trust anything that looks like good luck so long as Maeve is hunting the Pyr,” he admitted. “What if she’s just stacking the odds against us?”
“Then we need to armor up and be ready for the worst,” Hadrian said with purpose, glancing after Quinn. “What about those gloves with the retractable steel talons that Quinn once made for Donovan?”
“If you’re going into production, I’m first in line,” Thorolf said and the other Pyr nodded agreement.
“Hey, what’s with your cheek?” Kristofer asked Hadrian, noticing the blue-black mark there. It looked like the imprint of a kiss but was an unlikely color for lipstick.
Hadrian raised a hand to it, as if he’d been unaware of it. “It’s cold again,” he said, glancing at Lila.
“The kiss of death is back,” she said with concern. “Let me see if I can make it recede again.” She led Hadrian to one side and Balthasar followed. He’d apprenticed with Sloane, the Apothecary of the Pyr, so maybe he and Lila could help Hadrian together.
“I don’t understand,” Kristofer admitted to Rhys. “What does the kiss of death mean?”
Rhys was even more grim than usual. “Lila says it means Hadrian’s marked for death.”
“Like a curse?” Bree asked.
Rhys nodded. “Exactly like a curse, but apparently harder to break. She says its success is inevitable.”
That wasn’t the best news Kristofer had heard.
Maybe the numbers of the Pyr were being diminished in other ways, more cruel ways than simply being killed. Alasdair was suffering and so apparently was Theo. And Hadrian had an inescapable curse in the kiss of death.
Did Maeve intend to torment the Pyr before she eliminated them?
If so, could the Pyr undermine her plan?
One
Wednesday, December 4—Northumberland
Hadrian MacEwan should be dead.
No one had ever survived the kiss of death before, at least not for long. It was relentless, a ticking clock, an inevitable killer. What had changed? Rania had followed the formula, precisely as she had done twelve times before.
But this time, it hadn’t worked.
Was that the fault of the selkie healer? A good healer could counter many charms and undermine many toxins. She’d just never seen one succeed against the kiss of death.
Did dragon shifters have particular powers Rania didn’t know about? She’d never hunted the Pyr before. Perhaps they had some additional resilience that she didn’t know about. But then, why would Maeve have demanded that Rania choose one of the Pyr as her thirteenth and final victim? The Dark Queen understood the kiss of death better than anyone: it had been her gift to Rania, a tool to use in service of her will.
Had Rania herself made a mistake? That was the worst possibility. She didn’t make errors and it was a bad time to start. She didn’t want to betray Maeve’s trust, or let her brothers down.
The unwelcome truth was that she felt different since meeting Hadrian. She’d been surprised that her chosen victim was so handsome, then startled by the flash of light he’d called a firestorm. Had she been sufficiently shaken to mess up? It was hard to believe. Maeve relied upon Rania’s ruthless efficiency. The kiss of death required preparation and concentration, but it was almost second nature to her by this point in time.
Rania had reviewed the brief meeting with Hadrian a thousand times, seeking the solution to the riddle.
It was worrying that she’d even been tempted to give him a real kiss, never mind more. She hadn’t even seen him at his best, but she’d never found a man more attractive. He’d been unconscious when she found him, hit on the back of the head. That shouldn’t have made him intriguing. But there was no mistaking the fire that burned within him or the raw power of his nature. Even if she hadn’t known he was Pyr, she would have sensed that there was more to this man than met the eye.
Something had flickered to life within her in that first moment. Something new. A spark of curiosity and of desire. And her ring, the ring she wore on a chain around her neck, had changed. The stone had ignited with an inner fire. She’d never seen it do that before. How had he done that?
Did he possess some kind of charismatic dragon magick?
Rania had been drawn to Hadrian, against her will. She’d wanted to slip her fingers into the unruly auburn waves of his hair, to caress the square line of his jaw, to touch the firm line of his lips. She’d wanted to seduce him, thoroughly, and that was so far from her usual inclinations that she wondered what was going on. Such attraction, after all, could compromise her effectiveness.
It already had.
She dreamed of Hadrian and daydreamed about him. She savored the memory of her first glimpse of this dragon shifter, and the admiration that had flooded through her. Hadrian was tall and broad, a warrior even in his human form. His eyes were green, but that single word didn’t do them justice: they held a thousand warm hues of green from emerald to sea glass, even with some flicks of gold. There was humor in that gaze and intelligence, too, and the way his eyes had lit with admiration when he surveyed her had been an unexpected pleasure.
She’d only revealed her face to him, hiding the rest behind a veil of feathers, so it hadn’t been lust that had lit his expression. The way he had smiled, just a little, had nearly stopped Rania from doing what had to be done.
That was what made him dangerous.
He could tempt her to hesitate.
“The firestorm,” he’d called it when white light sparked between them and there had been awe in his deep voice. Like it was a marvel. Like she was a wonder. Rania hadn’t ever felt appreciated like that. Maybe that was the secret. He had an accent, too, a British one, which seemed just about perfect for a hunky dragon shifter.
What did he look like in his dragon form? She wanted to see him in flight and when he fought. Curiosity was dangerous, but Rania couldn’t resist the mystery of this dragon shifter who had dared to survive her kiss.