“Get your head out of your ass and get down there!”
“Michael…”
Michael had given her the saddest smile she’d ever seen, and she knew he was thinking of Brian. “Talk to him, Allie. It doesn’t have to go further.”
So she’d talked to him. And she’d listened to him.
She hadn’t planned on kissing him, but she’d needed to do something to ease the pain. Kissing him was just the best way she could think of to say she was there if he needed her and have him believe it. Funny thing, though, she’d ended up convincing herself.
“If I could choose again,” he’d said.
She’d been ready to tell him it didn’t work like that when she’d realized there was no reason why it couldn’t. And maybe she’d babbled a little, but he hadn’t seemed to mind.
The second kiss was less about comfort and, selfishly, more about finding him again.
Turned out, he’d never been gone.
She felt as though she were sinking into him and pulled away before she lost herself. Not the time, not the place… Well, not the time and only the place when she was sure Charlie wasn’t watching from the apartment window.
“Allie…”
The sound of wet laundry flapping by just above the building cut off whatever Graham had been about to say, but when Allie leaned back against the wall beside him, he kept his hand around hers as they watched the sky. She half expected one of the triangular shapes to land on the top of the building, but all three flew on by. “What do you think they’re doing up there?”
“Regrouping. Licking their wounds. Getting ready for round two.” He stroked her palm with his thumb, and it felt so much like family that it literally made her knees weak. “Do you think Jack’s mother is on her way?”
“It’s the only thing Adam and your ex-boss seem to agree on.”
“But what do you think?”
Allie took a deep breath and tasted sulfur on the breeze. “I don’t know. It seems like the females are the defining avatars of the Dragon Lords’ power. It takes a lot to shift that kind of thing.”
“She has a way to finally get to Jack’s father. That’s a lot. Do you think she sent Jack?”
“I don’t think she’d have risked him, especially since it seems that keeping him alive this long has been a big ‘fuck you’ to pretty much everybody. But what do I know about Dragon Lords? I’m almost positive Adam wanted to stop Jack. To stop her. But then Jack gets here, and he changes his mind.”
“Because you claimed him?”
“It can’t be me.”
“Can you stop her?”
“Not alone. And I’m not exploring other options until I’m sure she’s on her way.” The aunties were still the court of last resort. “Adam’s playing some weird game of his own, and I’m not taking the ravings of a man who wants to kill his own child as truth.” She frowned at the sound of sirens in the distance. “Is that fire or police?”
Graham cocked his head. “Fire.”
Allie sighed. That so figured. “You know what I said when we left for the hill? I said all we were going to do was stop the city from burning down.” Without really thinking about what she was doing, she found herself sliding almost effortlessly through the imprint of the city until she touched the place where it went wrong, touched the fire, and put it out. Senses humming, reveling in the unexpected freedom, wondering if Charlie felt the same lack of boundaries stepping into the Wood, she reached a little farther and touched the scar on the top of the hill.
Moved down it just because she could.
Heat.
A little farther.
Rage. Surging. Consuming.
Allie didn’t know where the city ended and it began. Where she ended and it began. It roared through her, scouring bleeding bits of self free as it passed. Then it came around and did it again. And again. She couldn’t find herself.
Pain…
Hatred…
Burning.
Burning.
Burning.
But there, on the edge.
Something.
If she could only remember…
Hand.
She could feel her hand.
“Allie!”
She could feel her nails digging into Graham’s skin where he held her hand between their bodies. She could feel bruises rising on her shoulder blades from where she’d pressed back into the wall.
“Allie? Are you all right? You went away for a minute.” He looked concerned but not terrified. That was weird because given the way her heart was slamming up against her ribs, she had to look like she’d just brushed up against the end of the world. Then she remembered he couldn’t really see her.
“Sh… sh…” Dragging her tongue over dry lips, she tried again. “She’s coming.”
“Jack’s mother?”
“I have to make a phone call.” When he started to release her hand, she tightened her grip. “I can use the other one.”
The number she needed had moved to the top of her phone book. Another time, she’d be annoyed about that. Four rings. Five. Six.
“It’s the middle of the night, Alysha Catherine.”
“I need a first circle, Auntie Jane.”
“You need a first circle.” She heard Auntie Jane yawn, teeth clacking together when she closed her mouth. “Why?”
About to say it was complicated, Allie suddenly realized it wasn’t. “The Dragon Queen is on her way.”
“Really?” Auntie Jane sounded more curious than angry. That was good. “How is she finding her way?”
“Her son, by a sorcerer, is here.”
“Try to be more precise, girl. Her son by a sorcerer is where?”
“In the apartment. Eating pie. The sorcerer is here, too.”
“In the apartment?” Allie was fairly certain she could feel frost forming on the phone. “Eating pie?”
“No. But in Calgary.”
“I see.”
She thought she did. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“No, Alysha Catherine, it is not. A full circle?”
Burning.
Burning.
Burning.
And never burning out.
“Yes. Please.”
“And who will anchor a first circle, Alysha Catherine.”
Allie glanced up at the loft, knowing she’d see her brother staring down at her, knew that when he felt the burning, he’d understand. Hoped that one day, he’d forgive her. “David.”
TWELVE
“They’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
No one in the room seemed surprised that the Gale family expected to be able to book twelve seats on a Calgary-bound flight with less than twelve hours’ notice. Given how much of a threat both his ex-boss and the Dragon Lords had considered them, Graham knew the older Gale women were powerful, but they were clearly more powerful than he’d imagined.
“They’ll be bringing Katie with them,” Allie added.
Thirteen seats, Graham amended as Charlie’s brows rose. She glanced over at Roland—who looked admirably neutral—before saying, “Katie’s closer than I am. Way too close to do David much good.”
Standing just behind her right shoulder, Graham watched the muscles tense in Allie’s jaw.
“They’re not bringing Katie for David.” Her tone suggested that whatever was going on—and he wasn’t positive he wanted it explained—was not open to discussion.
Not that Charlie didn’t try.
“But…”
“David will be anchoring the first circle.”
Roland let out a long sigh that suggested he’d expected as much.
Charlie shook her head, the mute denial as much of a denial as she could evidently make. “Oh, Allie, I’m sorry.”
“It might not… I mean, he’s strong, and nothing might…” Allie pushed a hand back through the hair that had worked its way out of her braid. “But if he does, it means at least one of the aunties will have to stay.”
“Oh, sweetie, now I’m really sorry.”
Allie cracked the first smile she’d managed since she’d hung up the phone. “So you won’t be abandoning me when this is all over?”