Page 35 of Red Dragon’s Flame

Emon said, “If you’re all quite through?”

Oops. Pissing off the crazy dragon. Very bad. “Sorry.” She straightened up and tried to look serious, but too much had happened tonight and she was suddenly exhausted, and starting to feel a little giddy. “What was the question again?”

Emon sighed audibly. “I want to know what these winged creatures are, where they come from, what the hell they want, and how they track you. Specifically, whether they can find you here, and if so, what kind of an attack might they mount to get you back.”

Overwhelming, much? “Um. I’m not sure I know all that.”

Emon impaled her with the dragon eyes. “Let me be clear,” he said. “I invited you here because Mikah is a trusted advisor, and you’re his friend. I’m willing to go to some lengths to keep you safe.”

Devon nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.

She couldn’t tell if he’d heard—he just kept on talking. “However—” Here it comes, Devon thought. “—I have made this interdimensional bubble into a sanctuary for a large number of shifters who’ve been previously kept in captivity and mistreated. I have given them my word that they will be as safe as is dragonly possible. That safety is my responsibility.”

Devon nodded again. Responsible. Keeping his word. That was good.

“If your presence attracts a credible threat that could potentially breach my defenses—and put any of my people in danger—then you will tell me what it is and every scrap of information you have, or you will leave. Is that clear?”

She swallowed hard. “Yes.” Her voice came out very small. The fire started rumbling inside her.

Oh, no. Not now. They’ll kick me out for sure.

Mikah said to Emon, “Quit scaring her. She almost died tonight, for fuck’s sake. She should be in bed with a cup of hot tea.”

Or a hot dragon, she thought.

She could have sworn she heard a mental snicker—like boulders tumbling down a path.

Was that the dragon?

Mikah put his arm around the back of her chair. It felt solid and warm. She could get used to this. But first she had to get past the king.

“The problem is, there’s not much to tell.” She took a deep breath. “When I was seven years old, the Allohim killed me.”

Chapter 17

Devon’s words dropped into the room like stones, stillness rippling out from them. No one spoke, so she plunged in.

“I’m an only child. My parents and I lived in a cabin in Oregon, a few miles from even the tiniest town. When I was seven, they took me on a car trip—to visit an old friend of my dad’s, they said.”

She bit her lip. “It wasn’t a happy family vacation, though. My parents forced themselves to act cheerful, but I could tell they were both worried about something, and they were always going off in a huddle and talking in low, strained voices. It made me anxious without completely understanding why, you know?”

Mikah nodded sympathetically; the others just watched her. Super-uncomfortable.

“Then I found out that they weren’t just going to visit—they were going to leave me with Auntie May for a while, and that made me really anxious, like they were abandoning me. But—we never got there.”

She shut her eyes, trying to say the words without seeing the pictures in her mind. Mikah rubbed her upper arm gently, and she wished it helped more than it did.

“Those creatures—my dad called them the Allohim—attacked us on a mountain road. I remember thinking they looked like evil angels, and they were coming after me because I’d been bad and the devil was going to take me.”

She didn’t look to see if there was any sympathy or compassion in the faces around her, just kept going.

“The road was steep and there was a drop-off on one side. My dad was trying to stay in control, but the Allohim ran us off the road. They pushed the car…”

Devon had to stop and swallow hard. This was the part she relived in her nightmares. She opened her eyes and saw Brock watching her, compassion in his face. He was a healer, Mikah had said. He cared about people.

She closed her eyes again. No amount of sympathy could heal this.

“We crashed,” she said, her voice coming out a whisper. “I remember—I remember I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my arms and legs, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.” Mikah continued to rub her arm gently, his hand warm and solid. But despite the fire still churning inside her, her insides felt frozen.