Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
I didn’t have time to ask questions, or even process the horror of what he’d revealed. The door eased open, Ryker’s head popped in, and he stared at both of us for a moment before moving fully into the room, folding his arms, and narrowing his eyes at Callum.
“Who am I?” he demanded.
After a brief hesitation, Callum seemed to pull himself together, locking away both his worry and despair as he rose to his feet, bringing me with him.
“You’re the bratty little brother who won’t leave me alone when all I’m trying to do is get a decent nap,” he grumbled, with a tired half-smile.
Ryker’s jaw clenched. His eyes went suspiciously red, then he whirled around to face the wall, hands on his hips, head tilted back. I heard a sniffle or two before he turned back again, blinking and grimacing in a transparent attempt to conceal his relief.
“You know what, I hate you,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s the last time I turn down a party invitation to babysit your lazy backside while you recover from a tiny little scratch that would barely inconvenience a baby.”
Callum’s lips twitched. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but I could tell he was trying. For Ryker’s sake.
“Fine by me. Maybe next time I’ll be able to actually get some rest instead of listening to you carry on like you think you’re at a funeral.”
Ryker’s face went flat. “I almost was,” he said softly. “And I think you know it, too.”
Callum sighed, released me, and moved towards his brother. Pulled Ryker’s head into his shoulder and clasped his arm in a firm grip.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I know that can’t have been easy, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, you stupid lizard,” Ryker choked out. “Just don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try.”
They pulled apart. Ryker swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, and then it was as if a switch flipped and they were back to normal. Like nothing had ever happened.
Boys.
“Seriously though, how are you?”
Callum shrugged with studied nonchalance. “Up and breathing,” he said. “Beyond that, I think only time will tell. You want to fill me in?”
For some reason, he wasn’t ready to tell Ryker what he’d told me, and a sick current of apprehension coiled around my gut. Why not share that with his brother, unless it meant something far more dire than I’d realized?
“First thing you should know,” I blurted out. “Angelica says the Shapeshifter Council is sending someone here to check up on you. They found out what happened at the Fae Court, and now they’re accusing her of hiding the fact that you’re dead.”
Callum’s expression turned to ice.
“Also,” Ryker added, “whatever poison they used, we’re pretty sure it wasn’t just intended for fae. I don’t think you were an accidental target.”
“I wasn’t.”
This time, even Ryker couldn’t miss the bleakness in his tone. The red dragon was suddenly poised and tense, regarding his brother with razor-sharp focus and a dangerous edge. “What’s wrong?”
Callum hesitated.
“Don’t you dare hide this from me,” Ryker growled. “At least pretend that you respect me enough to tell me the truth.”
“I can’t shift,” Callum said flatly. “My body is whole, but my magic is completely sealed off. I can’t feel the dragon at all.”
Ryker blanched. “And your bond?” he asked, glancing at me with a taut expression.
“I can’t feel that either.”
I thought I was prepared to hear it, but I still flinched, and Callum saw it.
“This changes nothing,” he said, and even though I knew the harshness in his tone was not for me, it still stung. “Not about my feelings for you. I told you before, this isn’t just about magic for me.”
I knew that. I did, but it didn’t stop the fear and doubt from creeping in.
“We aren’t going to lose hope,” Ryker said firmly. “And this might actually be a good thing. It means we can start narrowing down the possibilities for the poison. There aren’t a lot that can do that to a shapeshifter.”
Bless Ryker for being such an optimist. In that moment, there was no part of me that could see this as a good thing. Not when it had left my indomitable dragon as little more than a shadow of his usual self.
“So what else do I need to know?” Callum asked. “Did you find the herbalist Rath was looking for?”
“I haven’t heard,” I admitted. “We were ambushed that night.”
His expression went fierce and almost feral before I added, “But we were fine. Kira did her dragon thing and I…” I shrugged a little sheepishly. “I think I might have killed a few turtles.”
Both dragons looked utterly confused, but thankfully I didn’t have to explain because that’s when the apartment door opened to admit Angelica, followed by Logan, Kira, Faris, and Morghaine.
Where was Ethan?
Faris dropped into a chair and rubbed the back of his neck, looking more exhausted than I’d ever seen him.
“Before you start worrying”—he shot me a knowing look—“Ethan is with Kes. They’re getting moved into the apartment next door.” He jerked his head in Callum’s direction. “You caught him up yet?”
I shook my head. On top of all the other bad news, how could I tell him about the attack on The Portal?
“Well, the good news is, the police don’t think I’m involved. The bad news…” He glanced at Kira and for the first time I noticed her shell-shocked expression.
“The bad news is that they don’t blame me because Tairen claimed it was all her doing.”
I gaped at him. “Wait, she…”
He turned towards Callum. “Short story is, a black dragon rampaged around Bricktown and destroyed The Portal.”
Callum went utterly still.
“The dragon disappeared, and no one was hurt, but it’ll be a while before we get everything put back together. And someone in the street was shouting your name the whole time. Guess they were hoping to pin the responsibility on you.”
No one said anything for a few moments while Callum digested that.
“So Mom was arrested because she was trying to save me from the consequences of a crime I couldn’t possibly have committed?” I’d never heard him sound so flat and cold.
“Not entirely.” Morghaine spoke so quietly, we almost couldn’t hear her words.
“Then why?”
“Because the dragon that destroyed The Portal… was me.”
I watched as Callum and Ryker went through the same thought process I had and came to the same conclusions.
“How long do we have?” Callum wanted to know. “Before they find out it couldn’t have been Mom?”
“They might never find out,” Faris returned heavily.
“Not unless someone tells them the truth. And chances are, unless she shifts, they won’t even care enough to dig into it.
The Bureau of Idrian Affairs in Washington is sending an agent, but with all the video recordings and your mom’s confession, why would they bother digging? ”
“But no one got hurt. What will they do to her?”
“Lock her up as a threat to humanity?” Faris suggested bluntly.
“You know there’ve been more ugly rumors and hostile encounters with humans lately, and this is only going to make it worse.
And just like the Symposium, we can’t expose Blake’s play without letting the humans know what’s possible. Our hands are tied.”
I wasn’t going to accept that, and I could tell by looking around the room that no one else was either.
“So we have to figure out what Blake is actually planning. Why this attack? Why now? And how does it tie into the missing kids?”
“Plural?”
I laid out for them what Kira and I had discovered, both about Jeremiah and about Tabitha.
“If I’m right, and Blake had a hand in Jeremiah’s kidnapping, I don’t think he’s going to stop there.
So I have to convince Tabitha’s mom to talk to me.
See if we can find out whether there’s any link between this online game and their disappearance. ”
I had a feeling there was a connection, and it meant that Blake had something big in mind. He had to have been planning this since even before the Symposium. But what I couldn’t figure out was…
“How did Blake get his people here, then get them out again so quickly? At Monique’s place, the scent trails ended in the middle of the backyard.”
“I tracked the dragon to the alley behind The Portal,” Kira put in thoughtfully, staring at her hands. “The trail disappeared after that.” As if he or she had shifted back into a human and simply walked away. But to where?
“So he has to be close, right? Blake’s base has to be somewhere nearby.”
He was the key to all of this, just as he had been since the beginning, and it felt like we were no closer to catching him. No closer to understanding. We stood in the center of the board, but we were blindfolded, with all the pieces shifting around us.
All we could do was pick a direction and keep moving.
“We’ll find him,” I said grimly. “He can’t get away every time. And now that Callum is awake, we can focus on the next most urgent tasks.”
“The poison,” Ryker said.
“Mom.” Kira sounded like she was about to break.
“Jeremiah and Tabitha,” Logan added.
“And our treacherous court members who are already on their way here to pretend to mourn over Callum’s corpse,” Angelica put in acidly.
Somehow, the list never seemed to get shorter.
But we could do this. If only…
“Ryker, you keep working with Rath and Draven on the poison.” Callum folded his arms and surveyed the room with a keen glance, taking on a hint of his usual authoritative manner.
“Angelica, I’ll need your help to arrange a meeting with the Shapeshifter Court, and Faris, any assistance you could give us with the city would be appreciated. ”
Faris grunted in acknowledgment. “Whatever I can do.”
“If worse comes to worst,” Callum continued, “we can always prove Mom wasn’t responsible by having her shift so the humans can see she’s the wrong color. But even so, we probably need to get her out of their custody as soon as possible, before she loses her patience and causes another incident.”
Even my brief acquaintance with Tairen indicated that his concerns were justified. If she got angry and shifted while in human custody… I shivered.