Page 36 of Red Dragon’s Heart

He slammed the door and dragged her off before she could protest. He was delusional, thinking he wouldn’t be noticed. Invisibility was a crock. Unless… was it possible that dragons’ psychic abilities included some kind of light-bending effect? Or maybe it was telepathic—like the way he’d pulled her into his dreams. Could he affect the neurological pathways between onlookers’ eyes and their brains, convincing people they weren’t seeing what they were seeing?

That would be fascinating. If he were affecting people’s brains, did he have to focus on all of them? Was there a limit to how many people he could affect? Now she wanted to pull away from him and see if she could still see him.

As if he could read her mind, Zak took a tighter grip on her hand.

Fine. She’d test it out later. She just hoped it worked right now. She wasn’t immediately recognizable in her Chrystal guise—and Eric had only gotten a glimpse of her last night—but he might still be able to identify her.

They made their way to the outskirts of the crowd. Surprisingly, it seemed like no one did notice them—no one even glanced their way, even when Zak slid them through the crowd up next to the police line. Although he was careful not to bump into people.

If he bumped into someone, did the two of them become visible to that person? She really needed to explore this effect further.

Zakerek was holding on to Madeleine, and using his shifter hearing to overhear what the fire marshal was saying to the plainclothes detective who appeared to be in charge.

“I don’t care about your report. I can’t conclude my investigation until I figure out what the hell actually happened here, not what some damn CEO with a vendetta said. There’s definitely signs of extreme heat and fire damage on the outside, which is possibly consistent with an incendiary device—”

Zak smirked. More like an incendiary dragon.

“—but there’s no such damage on the inside.”

The detective said, “So the Fox woman put the bomb on the outside?”

“You’d think. Except for the fact that the wall exploded outward. It looks like something just punched a hole right through it.”

The detective looked exasperated. “So, what? You’re telling me my suspect is Godzilla? Or that Fox is in league with Superman?”

Zakerek rolled his eyes. Definitely not Superman. And that purple asshole was no Godzilla, either, even though his dragon had punched through the wall.

A reporter rushed up to the detective. “Can I quote you on that? SPD Detective blames Godzilla for warehouse destruction?”

The fire marshal and the detective both snarled, “Get her out of here!”

The reporter was escorted out of the area by a uniformed officer.

The detective turned back to the fire marshal. “Excluding Godzilla and random superheroes who can blast through walls, what’s your best guess as to the cause of the damage?”

The fire marshal shook his head. “You got me. It looks like it’s been hit with a wrecking ball.”

“There’s no damn wrecking ball inside,” the detective said. “You’re thinking the Fox woman put it in her purse and took it away?” He gestured to the area outside the exploded wall, where there were large, misshapen holes in the pavement from the purple dragon spitting acid. “And what the hell caused that? Some kind of chemical?”

Zakerek saw Maddie turn her head to look, and then go pale and look away.

She was picturing what would have happened to her if she’d been hit with the acid, he realized. She moved closer to him, and without thinking he put his arm around her, as if protecting her from the acid once again.

She froze.

At first he thought it was because she didn’t want him to touch her, but then he realized the door of the warehouse had just opened and a group of men were walking out, arguing between themselves. “I’m telling you, Madeleine Fox lured my men here, and—”

Eric Chisholm.

Chisholm’s head went up suddenly, going on the alert as if his animal sensed Zakerek—or maybe it was Madeleine he sensed. He scanned the crowd, and Madeleine moved so Zakerek was shielding her.

“Relax,” Zakerek murmured. “He can’t see us.”

Then someone else walked out behind Chisholm. The purple dragon. “Fuck,” Zak muttered. “He might be able to see us.”

The man’s eyes fastened on them, and he caught Chisholm’s arm and murmured something in his ear.

“That’s it,” Zakerek said. “We need to get you out of here.”