Then Tarik was in front of me, gently gripping my shoulders. “You okay? What happened?”
“A shifter followed us. It was nothing. I’m fine.”
“Right. Fine.” He growled softly, concern flipping to something darker. “Is he still alive? If he is, I’m going to—”
“Knock it off, Tarik,” Sebastian snapped. “We have a mission. This is no time for vengeance.”
“I’m fine, really. No wounds, see?” I wiped my hands on my skirt to clear the blood. Then I held my fingers up, twisting them in the dim light of the flashlights the twins carried. The sight seemed to appease him. A little.
“But don’t ever wear cologne, Tarik,” Nevaeh taunted. “She might try to rip your throat out.”
The hard look in his eyes melted and he cracked a small grin. “She can try.”
“Getting to the throat wouldn’t be the hard part,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Getting past that ego would be the real struggle.”
All anger bled from his face as he reached up and tugged on a lock of my hair. “Hey, females have their weapons and so do men,” he said, looking pointedly at my outfit. When his attention snagged on my chest, I smirked.
“I’d be perfectly happy to take this off. But since that makes you uncomfortable too . . .”
“Iron out your sexual frustrations on someone else’s time, Tarik.” Sebastian paused, glancing around with a frown. “Something feels off down here.”
Akeno jumped down from the hatch, nodding his agreement. “I can’t find any traps. No tripwires, no scanners. Either Mordecai has tech I’ve never seen—”
“Nor I,” Caspar chimed in.
“—which seems unlikely,” Akeno continued, glaring at Caspar. “Or there’s more to this passage than meets the eye.”
I wandered farther into the darkness, away from the rest of the group, and peered around. Sleek concrete walls rose on both sides, but otherwise there was nothing. No exits, no signs of life. “Why aren’t there any guards?”
“Could you wait for us?” Nevaeh said, an edge to her voice.
But I could see relatively well in the dark, and I didn’t get why the guards, who I knew were scheduled to be here, were absent. I turned on my heel, looking back toward the low glow that illuminated my friends. “I don’t understand why no one is down here.”
“Not no one.” The cheerful lilt in that voice sent a shiver racing up the length of my spine. Sharp, stabbing pain bit into my neck, followed by the caress of warm breath from a low chuckle. “Only your favorite dragon.”
Alec.
“Let go of me,” I snarled, yanking away. My eyes caught the silver glint of a syringe in his hands and I reached for my throat, for the aching spot in the middle of my dragon brand. “What did you do?”
“Nothing much.” Alec sneered at Tarik as he pressed into my side, a taunting grin. “Disabled you a little. Made you a little easier to catch.”
A familiar burn flooded my veins, a dull ache to the fury building inside me. I reached for my lion, ready to tear Alec to pieces and be done with him once and for all.
Nothing.
Only a deep, gnawing, empty feeling.
For the first time in my life, my lion didn’t respond.
My hands were shaking. I searched Tarik’s eyes, frantic, and whispered, “I can’t shift.”
I prepared to catch her, thinking she’d been drugged by a sedative, but Reagan’s blue and gold eyes remained steady on mine. Wide and filled with—
Pain.
What had Alec done to her? That piece of crap Day Enforcer.
My worry for Reagan threatened to snuff out my building rage. She was hurt and couldn’t shift, reminding me of the time I’d foolishly given her a chunk of Genesis Crystal. Well, more like forced her to catch it. I curled my fingers around her arm, the need to heal her affliction an instinct I couldn’t ignore.
Another swell of anger crashed through me, dousing the magic humming through my veins. The idiot dragon shifter appeared to be alone, which was perfect.
I was going to kill him. Slowly.
But before I could take a step toward the creep who’d tried to molest Reagan a few weeks ago, a small hand lightly gripped mine, the touch penetrating my bloodlust.
“Tarik.”
I barely heard the word, but when she groaned in pain and tightened her hold, I was torn. Torn between helping her and ripping Alec to shreds. Purple hair slipped into view. Nevaeh wrapped an arm around her friend with a nod for me to let go. Let go? Never. But I was reminded of her shifter strength as she tugged Reagan away from me. We had only been reunited hours ago and I couldn’t seem to keep her near me for more than a few seconds.
The urge to growl pushed at my throat, but I managed to shove aside my frustration in favor of glaring at a gloating Alec. “Tell me what was in that syringe and I might let you keep your head for another day.” The words were low and lethal, promising endless pain. Alec was too much like his father, though, too puffed up with pride and arrogance to care.
He flicked the needle to the concrete floor and stomped on it. “I’m not worried about some dirty Fae trying to stop me from what I came here for.” His boot ground the glass to fine powder. “Too bad you won’t get any answers. I mean, I suppose you could lick my boots and see if there’s anything left.”
My sarcasm switch flipped on. I had to literally bite my tongue until the taste of rust filled my mouth before I could speak again. “Was the liquid yellow?”
Alec crossed muscled arms over his broad chest. “Now why would I tell you my father’s secrets?”
“Blue?”
“Sure, if it shuts you up.”
“Green?”
For a split second, he paused, giving himself away. I dove in before he could cover up his slip. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful. For that, I’ll only knock you unconscious. Consider yourself lucky.”
Alec scowled even as I shucked off my backpacks to squarely face him. “You gonna fight me, ScarFae?” he sneered, puffing out his chest. I half expected him to beat it like an ape. “Can you actually face me like a man, or do you need to sneak up on me again?” He peered behind me, making a show of flexing his biceps. “Or is that what your little friends are for?”
I ignored the barb and casually settled onto the balls of my feet, giving him my condescending lip curl. “Little? You’re the shortest man in this tunnel, and your brain is definitely the smallest. How do you expect to take us all on by yourself?”
His grin turned wicked. “Like this,” he said, his voice deeper than usual. That’s when I noticed his fingers, splayed wide and tipped in razor-sharp talons. Blue scales slowly formed over his wrists, then forearms, working their way up, up, up.
His neck was still smooth skin, so was his face. But when I met his gaze, slitted dragon eyes stared back.
Crap.
Pressure buzzed along my spine—my wings. I readied to unleash them. A dark thrill shot through me at the thought of fighting a fully formed dragon shifter, when a slight whoosh caught my ear. Before I could so much as frown, Alec slapped a hand to his still-human neck with a grunt. The scales covering his arms receded, slitted pupils rounding as he staggered against the passage wall and slid down its length.