The sheets were so soft and warm it was like being wrapped in a heated cloud.
I was alive. I smiled.
Rogan!
I sat straight up in bed. I was in a large room with a single hospital bed.
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
The door swung open and Dr. Arias strode into the room. About forty, over six feet tall, Daniela Arias was huge: broad shoulders, powerful legs, and muscular arms. Her features, large and attractive, were handsome rather than pretty, but right now her face was a cool professional mask. I’d met her before. She was Rogan’s private physician.
“Is Rogan alive?”
“In better shape than you.”
Relief washed through me. I slumped back on the pillow. He lived. We both lived.
“What happened?”
She pulled up a chair. “You dragged him out. Somehow, you managed to pull him thirty yards across the floor and up two flights of stairs. His back and ass are one long bruise with a helping of concrete road rash, so his dreams of being a nude model are shattered for a while.”
I’d laugh, but her face told me it wasn’t a good idea.
“The reservoir’s door had an excellent waterproof seal, which is what saved you. The air outside of it was at a normal temperature. You got up to the second landing, where you got a signal and you called 911 and told them that you needed a pickup because Cazadores were coming. They thought you were delusional, but we were monitoring the 911 calls.”
“How?”
“Your cousin and Bug, from what I understand. After Rogan and you disappeared and his tracking went dead, they snapped to it. Rivera’s team was dispatched Downtown, to mop up, and my team sat, waiting for any sign of you. As soon as we caught your call, we went to you. We’ve dealt with Rogan falling unconscious before, so we knew what to expect. You had a gun, so we tasered you, and then we did all the things you normally do when you’re trying to save someone’s life. Here we are, almost twenty hours later. You have two broken ribs. Howling did a number on your face, so you won’t be modeling in the near future either. I’ve notified your family that you’re safe but otherwise occupied. I figured you needed some downtime. Your cousin is fine. Melosa got him out. The summon disappeared after you teleported out, so Houston is fine as well.”
“Rogan’s cousin? She walked children onto the street to block our way. That’s why we crashed.”
She shook her head. “She disappeared.”
Of course, she did.
Daniela handed me a mirror. Bruises covered the right side of my face. A lump swelled on my right shoulder. I looked like a boxer at the end of a final round of a hard title match.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I told her.
“Oh, it will,” she said. “Once the painkillers wear off.”
“Where is Rogan?”
“He decided to give you some space.”
That wasn’t an answer. I reached for my blanket.
“I understand that your first instinct is to dramatically jump out of bed and rush over there,” Daniela said. “It’s a good plan, except you’re so medicated you’ll have trouble making it to the bathroom, let alone driving. Why don’t we sit here and chat a bit?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Her eyes were hard. “Not really.”
“Okay.”
Daniela cleared her throat. “I have a nephew. Sweet kid. Martin’s twenty-four now. He did his four years in the army, earned his college tuition, and enrolled in UNC. He wants to be a geologist. He says he likes rocks because they don’t shoot back at you.”
It sounded like a joke, but again she didn’t smile.
“He got himself expelled a month ago. You know that horror movie where the guy in a pig mask chases kids across college campus. Screamer-something.”
“Screamer-Dreamer.” Living in a household with three teenagers made me a horror movie expert. It was a stupid cheap flick, but for some reason it had caught on and there were memes of Piggy, the killer, all over the Internet with witty sayings plastered over them.
“A campus radio station was pranking people live on the air. They had a guy dressed in a pig mask and some sort of black shroud. He’d hide behind something, burst out with a big plastic knife, and chase people around. They were filming it for YouTube.”
Yep. Sounded just like something college kids would do. I knew exactly where this story was going.
“The pig guy charged Martin, and Martin took the knife away from him and hit him. He didn’t just hit him once. He went for the knife hand first, dislocated the guy’s shoulder, and then punched him four times in the head in less than two seconds. It took three people to pull him off. I asked him about it. He said something just snapped inside him. He saw a threat and reacted. He isn’t a violent kid. Never been in a civilian fight before. He felt terrible about it. He apologized. The college expelled him and there were serious charges, until Rogan’s lawyers moved in and had it dropped down to a misdemeanor. Still, it will be on his record forever. He’s going to a private university in January.”
“Piggy should’ve played dead,” I said. “If he stopped moving, Martin would’ve stopped hitting.”
“Probably,” she said. “The kid who had the bright idea to scare people with his knife didn’t expect to be hospitalized, because civilians typically don’t try to kill you when you scare them.”
“It was irresponsible either way.”
Daniela sighed. “We have rules in our society. Don’t steal. Don’t hurt others. Don’t kill. That’s the big one. We take these kids, some of them barely eighteen years old, tell them that rules no longer apply and then we drop them into the war zone. Fight or flight is a constellation response, a perfect storm within your body. It makes you faster, stronger, hyperaware, but all of it comes at a cost. Soldiers in combat are running a biochemical sprint, except for them it’s a marathon that doesn’t end. It wears the body down and it carves new neurological pathways through your brain. It changes you. Permanently. Then you finally come home and people expect you to set all that aside and immediately remember what it’s like to be a normal person.”
Daniela leaned back.
“My nephew, Martin, is a relatively well-adjusted veteran. He simply needs time and a little help to re-attune himself to the civilian world. The switch that moderates the severity of his response needs to be recalibrated. Some people don’t understand that.”
I understood it. I knew all the statistics and I’d seen the hysteria firsthand. When Mom snapped, the assistant DA assigned to her case called her a ticking bomb and waved around the PTSD flag, which Mom didn’t have. He made it sound like she would go on a shooting rampage any minute. In reality, most veterans were a danger to themselves rather than others. The suicide rate among vets was 50 percent higher than in the rest of the population.
“Like I said,” Daniela continued. “Martin was a sweet kid. You know who else was a sweet kid before the army got a hold of him? Connor Rogan. I knew him at the very start of his service. He was so young. Full of himself, a little cocky, and idealistic. The brass realized early on what they had, so they guarded him like the Hope Diamond and controlled everything he saw. We used to call him BL—Bubble Lieutenant. They built this bubble of patriotism around him. Everyone he interacted with told him he was a hero, that he was serving his country, saving lives, and doing the right thing. They would bring him out, tell him how many thousands of lives would be saved if he did what they ordered, then he’d crush a city, and they’d whisk him away before we combed through the ruins. He knew there were casualties, but he never saw the dead bodies. He was an officer in name only. When they promoted him to captain, we had a good laugh.”
Daniela’s voice broke. She held her hand up for a moment, then continued.
“After about two years of this, he became their ultimate weapon. Just a rumor of his presence in an area changed the conditions of engagement. During that summer the command received reports of a superweapon being built in the Maya Forest, thirteen million acres of jungle that stretch all across Belize into the Yucatan. It was some sort of superbomb that could level a city and then poison everything around it with radiation, and the Mexican military was desperate enough to use it. I never got all the details—above my clearance—but whatever it was had to be convincing, because our command got together a strike team and attached Rogan to it. The plan was to covertly paradrop into Campeche, get Rogan to target, and once the facility was destroyed, get picked up. Ten seconds into the paradrop we knew we were fucked, because they were shooting at us while we were still in the air.”
She paused. Her eyes turned haunted.
“Captain Gregory died before his boots ever hit the ground. Top, our master sergeant, died after Rogan started mowing down the jungle and they dumped napalm on us. Once we got clear, we ran across a Cazador tower.”
Everyone knew what Cazadores meant. A special forces unit of Mexican military, Cazadores hunted mages. They were elite troops—scary, efficient, and lethal.
“It was a trap,” I guessed.
“Mhm. They wanted Rogan so badly they built a fake factory in the jungle hoping to lure him in, and we served our greatest weapon to them on a silver platter.” Daniela’s face was grim. “They flooded the jungle with Cazadores and their hounds. Except they weren’t really hounds. They were these things they pulled out of the astral realm.”
“I saw them in Rogan’s memories.” I fought a shiver.
“Then you understand. You see one, it will give you nightmares for a lifetime. We learned the rules fast. Cazadores had sniffers, mages sensitive to magic. Any use of it by us brought another air strike. Any attempt at radio communication brought an air strike. Any sighting of one of us brought dozens of troops. There would be no pickup. If we called for help, we’d die.
“Rogan had a choice. He could radio in, and if he used his full power, he’d survive within his null field long enough to be rescued. But he would be the only one who got out. Or he could try to walk out of the jungle with us. He chose to walk out. He became the senior officer after Gregory’s death, and Heart, our staff sergeant, became the senior NCO. You haven’t met Heart yet, have you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Trust me, you would remember if you did. We were supposed to have been out in forty-eight hours. We had food for five days. People think the jungle is paradise, filled with fruit and game. Let me tell you, the jungle is hell. There is nothing to eat, there is nothing to kill, especially when you can’t shoot. Insects come at night, relentless, draining you dry. Howler monkeys follow you and scream and scream and scream every day and night. There is no clean water. We ate snakes. We ate worms.”
The dark cave flashed before me. “Rats,” I said.
“Yes. Some nights the Cazadores were so close, there was no fire, no light, just the jungle and the hounds, always near, always listening and waiting. Rogan could’ve pulled the plug anytime. Instead he stayed and he took care of us. When Hayashi went down with infection, there was no way to get the stretcher through the growth, so we built a frame out of wood and strapped it to Rogan. He carried Hayashi for two days on his back.”
It didn’t surprise me. Not even a little.
“To get off the mountain we had to clear a Cazador camp, and we couldn’t walk around it. Rogan walked into it and let them take him so they would send a scout team out in the direction he came and we could sneak past. We went around the camp and had to wait until the next night to come back for him. They had him for fourteen hours. We heard him screaming.”
She swallowed.
“They only had prewar images of Rogan and by that point, after five weeks in the jungle, he looked a decade older. He gave them Gregory’s name and so they tortured him for a while, until Jimenez, the man in charge, decided that if Rogan were a Prime playing soldier, he would’ve broken by then. Jimenez finally ordered him shot. You probably saw Rogan’s dog tags. They’re not his. He killed Jimenez when they cut him down off the torture rack and took his tags. It’s his reminder that he survived.”
The tags were probably lost now, disintegrated by the teleport spell. Rogan would have to find something else to remind him that he was alive.
“We spent nine weeks in the jungle, fighting and starving, as the Cazadores bled us like wolves bleed an injured deer. Twenty-four people went in. Sixteen came out.”
Bug had said that Luanne was one of sixteen. Now it made sense. The sixteen who had walked out with Rogan.
“It’s my professional opinion that Connor Rogan died in that jungle,” Daniela said. “The war took Connor, crushed him down to powder, and reformed him into Mad Rogan. He had to become that to survive. I told you that my nephew Martin will adjust to civilian life with some help. Mad Rogan will never adjust. His world is black and white. There are enemies and allies.”
“And civilians,” I added.
Had Rogan put her up to this speech? No. Rogan wouldn’t have made her do it. Rogan took care of his own dirty work. Dr. Daniela must’ve taken it upon herself to spell things out for me.
“He does recognize noncombatants, although his definition of civilian is shaky. He won’t kill children. He tries not to take a life unless the person presents a direct threat, but if he chooses to kill, he does it. There are only two Primes in House Rogan: him and his mother, and she has no interest in involving herself. He has us, and we’ll do anything for him. We all tried to go our separate ways, yet we all ended up right back here. We’re good at what we do, but none of us are Primes. Rogan has to rely on himself and he likes the way he is. He thinks it keeps him sharp and alive, and he’s probably right. He doesn’t feel he needs to change and he doesn’t want any help.”
“You’re not telling me anything new,” I said. “I already know what he’s like. I’ve seen it.”
“Then you know there will be no normal with him. There will never be sweetness and light.”
You might be surprised. “I know.”
“Love makes you helpless,” Daniela said. “You think about the object of your affection all the time. Your happiness or misery depends on another person’s mood. You give up all power over yourself, hand it to the person you love, and trust that they will be gentle with it. Do you know what Major hates most of all?”
“Feeling helpless?”
“He’ll go to great lengths to avoid it. I don’t even know if he is capable of maintaining a relationship in the traditional sense. He’ll never change, Nevada. The best you can hope for is that he alters some of his behavior out of respect and consideration for you, but he won’t think that what he does is wrong. He’s ruthless and when he devotes himself to something or someone, that devotion is a frightening thing that doesn’t always survive collision with reality. Take my advice. Walk away.”
“No.”
“He isn’t here. He left you here and went home because he knows that you need time to think. He left the door open for you, so you can make a clean break. No guilt, no pressure. You can still meet someone normal and have a happy life.”
“Are you done?” I asked.
“Will talking more do any good?”
“No. I heard what you had to say. Thank you for worrying about my well-being.” I pulled my blanket back and swung my legs sideways.
“What will happen when you tell him someone aggravated you and he throws that person off the roof?”
“He won’t. He’ll trust me to handle it, because the only way I’ll ever respect his wishes is if he respects mine.”
“Walk away,” Daniela said again.
“Did Rogan ask you to give me this speech?”
“He didn’t have to. I take care of him. We all take care of him. I don’t want to see him hurt. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
I faced her and I let whatever it was that made me Prime show in my eyes.
“I’ve sat here and listened to you talk for an hour. I heard you, I understand, and I’m done. I’m going to get up, get my clothes, and get dressed. Then you will arrange for a car to take me to where Rogan is. If you try to stop me or impede me in any way, I’ll shock the shit out of you. Do we understand each other, Dr. Arias?”
I took a deep breath and rang the bell on the front door of Rogan’s house. After I’d gotten out of bed, Rogan’s people had panicked. Well, panicked might have been too strong of a word. They sprang into action with agitated efficiency. A pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt were brought to me, and by the time I walked out of the building, a car and a driver were waiting for me, with Melosa in the passenger seat, followed by another vehicle filled with armed personnel. They delivered me to Rogan’s front door and beat a strategic retreat.
I did get a chance to ask Melosa about Leon. Apparently he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen to me and Rogan, so he stole a Glock out of our gun cage and caught a ride Downtown. His plan was that Melosa would shield him, while he heroically shot all of our enemies to pieces. Melosa admitted that he was so crushed when he realized that aegis shield worked both ways, that she almost felt sorry for him.
I waited, feeling stupid. Rogan was somewhere inside the house. Here I was, wearing some sweatpants and a wrinkled white T-shirt. My hair was probably greasy. The right side of my face was one big ugly bruise. I . . .
The door swung open and I saw Rogan standing in his living room.
It finally hit me. We’d both survived. We were both alive and he was standing there, and he was the most handsome man I had ever seen. I looked into his eyes and the iced over darkness stared back at me.
No. He was mine. There was a dragon under that ice and I would bring him out.
I walked across the threshold. The door stayed open behind me. He was giving me an escape route.
“You found me,” he said.
“You didn’t hide very well. And I’m a PI.”
“Nevada, nothing’s changed.”
His expression was detached, his voice almost casual. He’d locked his emotions behind a steel wall of his will. Too late, Rogan. I remember the way you looked at me in that cistern.
“Sooner or later, you will become a House,” he said.
“So you told me.”
“Genetics and children will become important.”
“Children are always important.”
“I can’t share, Nevada. I won’t.”
“Share what?”
“Share you,” he said, his voice harsh. Something wild was trying to claw its way out of him. The cold mask was breaking. “I can’t be with you knowing that you will go back to another man, whether you love him or not. It’s beyond me. It wouldn’t end well.”
“That’s good, because I don’t want to share you either.”
“I’ve given all the warnings I can give,” he said. “All in or all out, Nevada. Decide.”
“You’re a fool, Connor.” I slipped out of my shoes and took a step toward him.
The door behind me slammed shut.
Fire flared in his eyes and burned through the darkness. It was more than lust. More than need. Nobody else ever looked at me like that.
Anticipation gripped me.
He strode toward me, confident, unhurried, a dragon in his domain.
“Am I trapped?”
“You walked into my lair.” He circled me, stalking.
The first drop of his magic fell on the back of my neck, hot and soft like velvet. Breath caught in my throat.
“I gave you a chance to escape.”
The magic slid over my spine, setting every nerve aflame.
“You didn’t take it.” He was behind me.
A quick feather-light touch brushed over my shoulders and dashed down my hips. I turned. He was standing a couple of feet away.
“Now you’re mine.”
I moved, and my t-shirt and sweat pants fell off me.
I gasped.
He pulled off his T-shirt, his huge golden body hard, and waited. Giving me one last chance to walk away.
I closed the two steps between us. My breasts mashed against his sculpted chest. The heat of his powerful body burned me. He wrapped his hand in my hair and claimed my mouth.
Magic dripped onto my lower thighs, like molten honey, soft and hot. It pooled on my skin, heating up, the sensation so intense, the pleasure of it was overwhelming. My body turned supple. My breasts ached, suddenly too heavy.
He smelled of sandalwood. The taste of him in my mouth was making me crazy.
An insistent heat built between my legs. I leaned into him, rubbing myself against him, inviting, enticing, trying to seduce.
He let out a short male growl. His hand closed on my ass and he pulled me on to his hips, supporting my weight like it was nothing. The hard length of his cock strained against my aching core. His tongue thrust between my lips again and again, ravaging my mouth. My head was spinning. I wanted to feel his steel-hard shaft, wrapped in silken skin. I wanted his pants off and my panties to disappear. I wanted him to thrust himself inside. Waiting for it was torture. My hands locked on the powerful muscles of his back and I shifted my hips, grinding against him.
The velvet heat slid up the inside of my thighs, ever so slowly. Inch. Another inch. Oh please. Please.
He let me take a breath. We were face to face. His eyes were dark and feral.
“Are you going to warn me not to scream?” I asked.
“Scream all you want,” he said.
“You seem so confident you could make me . . .”
The delicious heat dashed up my thighs and slipped inside of me, straight to the aching center. Molten honey drowned my clit. Pleasure burst in me. I cried out.
He carried me across the room, deeper into his house.
A heavy wooden door burst open in front of us. A massive bed occupied the room—tall, solid, its headboard ancient and scarred. He tossed me onto the bed. The door slammed shut behind me.
I was in the dragon’s cave, on the dragon’s bed, and he thought he caught me. But he was wrong. I caught him.
Connor loomed over me. His pants were gone. He was huge, naked, and corded with muscle. And hung. Oh dear God.
He reached over and pulled off my panties. His gaze roamed my body and his eyes told me he loved what he saw.
I wanted him so much. The anticipation was killing me. It made me shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm.
The magic splashed onto my collarbone and rolled lower. Its velvet pressure cupped my breasts. My nipples turned hard. The intoxicating heat slid over them, turning ache into bliss.
I moaned. He was on top of me, his big hands caressing me. His mouth closed on my left nipple and sucked, his tongue painting heat on top of his magic. It was almost too much to take.
His head and magic moved lower, dragging moans out of me.
He kissed my stomach.
He pushed my legs apart.
I wanted to grab his head by the hair and drag him to my aching center, but he pinned my arms down by my sides.
He tongued the inside of my right thigh.
The wait was agony.
His magic crested, spilling into the crease between my legs. The velvet heat squeezed ever so gently and released, washing over me and pulling back, faster and faster. His mouth closed over me. His tongue danced across my clit.
I screamed.
He licked me, again and again, his magic stroking me. I writhed under him. My legs shook. The bed was gone, the room was gone, and all I could do was wait, tense and hot, centered on him and my need for release. It felt like if I didn’t come now, I would die.
My body shuddered with the first pulse of my climax.
The universe exploded.
The orgasm rocked me, but that usually fleeting moment of ecstasy didn’t end. The exaltation built and built, overwhelming, pleasure so intense, so complete, I had no idea my body was capable of it. I couldn’t even breathe. My eyes snapped open and I saw him. He was above me, his eyes wild and drunk. He felt it, I realized. He felt my pleasure and he was sharing it.
Finally, the ecstasy released me, fading in pleasant aftershocks.
I slumped on the sheets, exhausted, my face damp with sweat. The magic pressure eased, still there, but feather-light now.
He was next to me, his hand stroking my side.
So that’s what sex with a tactile was like.
He blinked, clarity returning into his eyes and turning into lust. There was something hungry, and harsh, and male in the way he looked at me. He grabbed my hips and dragged me over to the center of the bed.
The velvet touch of magic between my legs grew warm, then hot, so hot I could barely stand it. It pulled me out of my drowsy bliss into awareness.
He paused over me, muscles tight on his chest and stomach, blue eyes dark, and pulled me to him, lifting my legs onto his shoulders. His warm fingers stroked my skin as he ran his hands down the length of my legs, his touch sending shivers through me.
The last echoes of the orgasm finally faded.
He planted his hands on my thighs and thrust into me.
Oh my God.
I cried out, tilting my hips, trying to take in the whole length of him. He thrust again and again, hard, relentless, dominant, every slide of his cock sending a jolt of pleasure I could feel all the way in the base of my neck. His magic seared me. All of my nerves were on fire. I gasped with each stroke. I was hot and so wet, and he kept pumping, his magic caressing my body in a steady rhythm.
Pressure began to build inside of me.
He pushed my legs apart, wrapped them around his back, and then he was on top of me. I writhed under him, trying to match his rhythm. His muscular golden body caged mine, all those muscles contracting tight, devoted to a single movement.
Ecstasy drowned me. My body contracted, trying to milk his shaft. Climax shook me again.
He growled, holding still. His eyes told me my orgasm was rolling through him and it was about to drag him under into his own release. He fought against it and pulled back.
Wave after wave of pleasure rocked me. I couldn’t even move anymore. I just lay there, limp and shaking, until it faded.
His lips were on my neck. He kissed me and pulled me on top of him, and then I was straddling his hips. He was looking at me as if I were the most beautiful woman in the world.
I reached for his hands, locked my fingers with his, and rode him. We moved in perfect rhythm, making love as if our bodies were meant to be together.
His magic wound around me. I leaned into it, my shoulders back, letting it claim me.
He was thrusting into me.
I felt the climax build. It broke like a wave. I shuddered, feeling the hardness of him inside me, and slumped on his shoulders, boneless, breathing deep, done. Sated and happier than I had ever been in my life.
He locked his arms around me and emptied himself inside me with a short rough growl. A burst of pleasure consumed me, so intense everything else paled before it, and I realized I was feeling the echo of his orgasm.
We stayed like that, pressed together, arms around each other.
Slowly Rogan lowered me onto the bed. I curled into a ball and he wrapped himself around me and pulled a sheet over us. I wanted to stay awake, to enjoy the feeling of him holding me, but instead I yawned and fell asleep.
When I woke up, the first thing I felt was Rogan next to me.
He nuzzled my neck, his hand stroking my stomach. “Are you alive?”
“The jury is still out.” I tried to smile. Pain shot through my face and I winced. “Ow.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, the painkillers wore off.” I tried to gently turn over and instead managed to hurt my whole right side. “Ow.” I finally flopped on my back.
He reached over carefully and brushed the hair from my face. Anger stirred in his eyes. “I’m an asshole.”
“You just now figured that out?”
“I should have waited.”
I gave him my best come-hither look. My puffy eyes probably made it look really stupid. “That wasn’t your decision.”
“Yes, it was.”
“What was the alternative? Leave me standing naked in your living room? Because shoes were only the first step. My clothes were coming off.”
“The alternative would’ve been not jumping you and dragging you into my bedroom like some sort of Neanderthal.”
I kissed him. “Foolish, foolish Rogan.”
“Don’t start,” he warned me.
“You realize that you will never be able to hear me say that without thinking about sex?”
He shook his head. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but that changes nothing. Anytime you say anything, I think about sex. Anytime I see you, I think about sex.”
I caressed his face. “Am I that sexy with my bruised face and messy hair?”
He kissed me, his touch light and tender. “Yes.”
“Let me see your back,” I said.
He sat up and turned. His whole back was raw. He looked like somebody had dragged him across a stretch of asphalt behind a car.
I groaned. “I should’ve put some clothes on you.”
“You should’ve left me.” He turned around and leaned closer to me. “The next time I tell you to leave me, you will go, do you understand?”
“No. I’ll do whatever I think is right.” The next time . . .
“What?” he asked.
“Will there be a next time?”
“There might be,” he said. “This mess isn’t finished. It’s a dangerous game and we’re in it now. There is no backing out.”
The memory of him limp in the circle came to me. I remembered my hands on David Howling’s head. It was too much. I covered my face with my hands.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“Rogan, I snapped a man’s neck with my bare hands. I don’t even know how I did it.”
“Well,” he said. “You did it well. Too well even.”
I stared at him.
“It was quick,” he said. “He didn’t suffer nearly enough. If I had gotten my hands on him, I would’ve made it last. Instead I lay on the floor, unable to move, and watched him hit you.”
I slid even closer to him. He moved to the other, less injured side of me, and pulled me to him. I lay with my head on his carved arm.
“I don’t want it,” I said.
“Don’t want what?”
“The life of a Prime. I don’t want it.”
“Too late.” He kissed my head. “No choice now.”
We’d gone through all that, and Olivia Charles was still free. As long as she remained free, none of us would be safe, and Cornelius would still be waiting for justice. We had to end it.
But even if we ended it . . . David had mentioned Caesar. Olivia wasn’t Caesar. When David mentioned her name, he did it matter-of-factly. When he said Caesar , his voice was filled with awe.
“Did Bug get anything off David’s phone?” I asked.
“It was brand new and Howling was careful about texts and calls—all went to burner phones. The texts are interesting. This thing reaches very far. At least six Houses are involved, likely a lot more. And the moment we walked into Lenora’s office, the video hit the Internet.” His lips stretched.
“Then why are you smiling?” It was a disaster. We’d gone through all that, had nothing to show for it, and whoever was behind it all still got his civil unrest.
“I’m smiling because I emailed the video to Lenora the night we got it. I beat you and Bern by about ten minutes.”
I sat up. “What?”
“Don’t act so shocked. I knew you would send it to her the moment you asked for a copy of it.”
I stared at him.
“I might be a dragon, but you’re a paladin.” He put his hands behind his head, looking unbearably smug.
“Why don’t you just tell me the whole thing?” I asked.
“Originally these people had two options: they could continue to blackmail Howling or they could release the recording of his actions and incite civil unrest. Once they realized that we had the recording, they would release their version. You were right. If you want to destabilize the existing power structure, you have to incite the public to action. It was just the matter of timing it to cause the most damage. They were waiting for the right moment and, since Howling decided to wink and smile at you across the room to make sure you saw him, I realized that that moment was tied to us. We were annoying, because we kept digging. We had to be neutralized. They had plans for you and me. Or rather for our corpses. We were to be the fuel to their bonfire.”
Mad or not, Rogan was a war hero and a man who’d saved the city from Adam Pierce. Houston was proud of its homicidal, terrifying son. If they released the video of Garza’s murder, and then dumped us somewhere in a public location, dead, naked, discarded like trash, the message would be clear. We killed your representative and now here is your hero, stripped naked, humiliated, and dead. He couldn’t protect himself or the woman with him. If this could be done to him, think what can be done to you. That’s why Howling had to resort to hypothermia. They wanted us killed by magic but be instantly recognizable and they wanted people to know we died slowly and suffered.
Houston would have rioted for sure.
Rogan reached over and ran his fingers down my arm.
I exhaled slowly. We’d come so close to the edge of disaster.
“So, after you fell asleep after the ninja ferret heist, Lenora called me on my private line. Augustine, Lenora, and I talked. She had to bring Richard Howling in safely. We assumed that he was being watched, so Augustine volunteered his services. That day Richard Howling went to work as usual, and then he split. One Howling went up to his office and the other was smuggled out by Houston PD. Then that first Howling simply vanished.”
“What’s in it for Augustine?”
“Augustine, despite all his ruthless corporate maneuvering, always tries to stay on the right side of legal and on the right side of the DA’s office, Lenora in particular. He justifies it by claiming it’s good for business. In reality, he has these annoying things called principles.”
“Augustine?”
“I know, shocking.” Rogan grinned at me.
I kissed him. “What happened next?”
“We needed to buy Lenora time to move all of her chess pieces into place. The fact that Olivia and Howling targeted Baranovsky meant they knew the video existed and that he had a copy of it. Either they bribed someone or most likely, it was the matter of a simple logical deduction. Elena de Trevino had access to the video and if she wanted insurance, she would’ve given a copy of it to the most powerful person she knew for safekeeping.”
Made sense.
“After our appearance, I knew they would watch us. One doesn’t go to see Lenora without evidence, so the moment we made that move, they would put two and two together and realize that we either have the recording or know where it is. So, I delayed as much as was realistic, and then you and I went to visit Lenora in broad daylight. She put on a show for the benefit of whoever was listening. Meanwhile, Howling was secured, and Lenora’s second-in-command, Atwood, called a press conference. By the time the video hit the social networks, he was in the middle of the speech explaining how badass they were. Olivia’s firecracker fizzled out. There is still outrage, but not nearly as much of it as they hoped.”
“You could’ve told me all this from the start,” I said.
“You were trying to decide what to do about Augustine. It didn’t seem like the best time.”
“So what now?”
“It turns out that domination forges a link between the dominator and the person whose mind they are hijacking. Richard Howling named Olivia Charles as the dominator who forced him to murder Garza. Olivia has disappeared. That Verona petition Lenora signed specifies that we are free to pursue David Howling and all known associates implicated in the assault, which gives us a clean shot at Olivia, if we can find her. The DA’s office would like Olivia Charles alive, but they will understand if circumstances make it impossible.”
“So we have to find Olivia.”
Rogan bared his teeth, looking predatory. “Howling’s people bugged my car. A very sophisticated piece of equipment. Looks like a tack. We rolled over it and our tire picked it up. Howling tethered his phone to it, so he’d know where we were at all times. He didn’t realize that every time he accessed the app, it recorded his location.”
I laughed.
“David spent a lot of time on a ranch outside of Houston, owned by Dedalus Corp. Bug is still untangling exactly who is behind it. It’s a fortified compound. Sixteen hours ago Olivia Charles arrived there with armed guards and a pile of suitcases.”
“When are we going?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “There are a lot of people in the compound. It will be a long fight.”
“I’ll need to go and see my family,” I said.
“I’ll take you.”
“But not now.”
“What would you like to do now?” he asked.
I turned over, leaning on his chest. “I would like you to convince me that this is real and we’re alive. Do you think you could do that, Mad Rogan?”
His magic slid over me. His blue eyes darkened. “Yes.”
