Prologue

For the first time since Claire Kennedy died, there wasn't a deputy guarding the site of her murder.

Kayla peered out from behind the boarded up beauty salon. Seeing no one, she hoisted her backpack and set out, kicking stones, her gaze fixed on the ground. She was careful to walk slowly. If you ran, grown-ups paid attention. Kayla hated it when they paid attention. She liked being invisible.

Until her mom died, murdered with her best friend in this same building, Kayla had always been invisible. But now it wasn't just the other kids who whispered behind her back, calling her weird or, in grown-up language “an odd little thing.” Grown-ups did, too. It wouldn‟t help if they found her sneaking into the place where her mom had died.

Kayla knew the rear door would be locked. Kayla had lock picks from her Junior Detective kit, but they were just toys. Kayla didn't need toys. She knew a way in, though. A boarded up window on the first floor with a gap big enough to for a nine-year-old to squeeze through. Concrete blocks scattered behind the building made a good stepladder.

She pushed her backpack in first. It hit the floor with thump.

As she hoisted herself through the window, she avoided the broken glass she'd cut herself on last time. Grandma had flipped out and taken her to the clinic. Grandma was like that. She worried a lot. After Mom died, Kayla thought Grandma would have less to worry about. No such luck.

She dropped to the floor and rummaged in her backpack for her flashlight. Plastic, of course. She'd considered asking Grandma for a real one for her birthday, but hadn't figured out yet how to explain why she needed it.

Kayla shone the flashlight around. Empty. No, that was the wrong word. The building was only empty of people. Abandoned.

There was tons of crap here, all of it dirty and old and broken, but Kayla barely needed the flashlight to get where she was going. She'd been here five times since her mom had died. She'd recorded every visit in her notebook. There hadn't been much to see, though. By the time she thought of coming, the police had cleared the place out.

This time it would be different. If Claire Kennedy had been killed here, there had to be a connection to her mother's murder. There just had to be.

She opened the basement door and shone her light down into blackness. She went down one step, then stopped, working up her nerve as she always did before shutting the door and letting the darkness of the basement envelope her, her plastic flashlight barely strong enough to cast a distant circle of light.

Halfway down the stairs she heard the thump of a door shutting above. A deputy back on duty? That was okay. He'd peek inside the main floor, assure himself all was clear, then go back to sit outside in his pickup. Kayla knew the routine.

Still she listened for a minute. When no more noises came, so she resumed her descent. Down into the basement, where the chill was enough to make her wish she'd brought her jacket. Lissa would say it was the chill of death.

Lissa talked like that. When Kayla confided that she came here, her friend's eyes had gone round and she‟d said, “Are you trying to contact her ghost?”

“Whose ghost?”

“Your mother's, dummy. If you could talk to her, she could tell you who killed her.”

Kayla thought that was dumb, but she didn‟t say so. Lissa was the only friend she had.

It was just a dark, cold, smelly basement. Where her mom had died. And no one knew who'd done it or why. That's why Kayla kept coming back. To find out what had happened to her mom. And to Brandi, though really she didn't much care what had happened to Brandi, though she knew Grandma would say she shouldn't think like that. She did want to find out what happened to Claire Kennedy, though. She hadn't really known Claire—she was one of the girls from the cookie place—but she'd seen her around town a few times, and she'd seemed nice, always smiling and waving, even though they'd never met.

From the bottom of the basement, she picked her way around piles of junk until she saw the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around a pillar, the broken end trailing across the floor.

She stopped. It was exactly the same spot where her mother's and Brandi's bodies had been found. She shivered and maybe it wasn't the cold this time, but she told herself it was.

She crept forward. There was blood on the cement floor. The spot wasn't very big, not like the big stains she could still see, almost hidden under a layer of dust.

She shone the flashlight on those old blood stains and, for a second, she could see her mother lying there, her eyes open, her—

Kayla shook her head sharply and swung the beam away. She wasn't here to think about her mother. She was here to find out who killed her. And she didn't need ghosts for that. She needed science.

She took her backpack off and unzipped it. Inside was her Junior Detective kit. She had a camera, too. A real one. It was on her mom's old cell phone, which Grandma let her keep for emergencies. She took it out to take a picture of the blood. Blood stains were important. They could tell you—

A creak overhead. Kayla froze. Then she shook her head. Just a noisy old building. She aimed the flashlight with one hand, holding the cell with the other—

This time footsteps sounded above her, crossing the first floor, the distinct thump-thump of someone walking.

She swallowed.

Just the deputy. Or maybe the sheriff, come back to check something. Or someone from town, also trying to sneak a peek at the crime scene.

But what if it was someone else?

Kayla had read every book in the library on murder investigations. One line came back to her now. The killer may return to the scene of the crime.

It seemed crazy to come back after you‟d gotten away, but Kayla trusted the books, and listening to those footsteps, her heart hammered.

Then it hit her. If this was the killer, maybe she really could solve her mother's death. All she had to do was hide and see who showed up.

A click from upstairs—the basement door opening.

Kayla turned off her flashlight and tucked herself into the shadows beside the old furnace.

Gwynellian took a deep breath, blew it out and walked toward the cottage. She paused before the door and took another breath before raising her fisted hand to rap against the oak. A voice called from within before her knuckles touched the wood and the door swung slowly inward.

“Come in.”

Gwynellian stepped inside. Temporarily unable to see in the dim light of the cottage, she waited for her eyes to adjust, and pushed the door softly shut behind her. She looked around the single room. Sparsely furnished, the room had only the absolute necessities. Against the far wall stood a narrow bed, with a shuttered window above it. To Gwynellian’s left a fireplace made of river rock crackled warmly. Fitted between the fireplace and the adjoining wall the old woman stood at a wooden counter before shelves of jars filled with roots, herbs and colored candles. An old table with four wooden chairs filled the center of the room.

The domed ceiling gave extra headspace the old woman didn’t need but Gwynellian certainly did. Her father and brothers had all stood well over six feet tall and though her mother had been of average height, Gwynellian inherited her father’s height, and stood just an inch below six feet herself.

“Hello,” Gwynellian said with a nervous smile. She fidgeted as she looked around the room, glancing at the old woman now and then. “I-I’m Gwyn,” she stuttered nervously.

The old woman turned slightly and peered at her visitor with steely eyes. Age had lined and creased her face but Gwyn could tell she had been beautiful as a younger woman. Her drab brown dress was as shapeless as her body, her breasts hung nearly to her waist and her hips were no longer rounded. The hem of the dress she wore nearly touched her bare feet, and her toes were nearly as gnarled as the fingers that continued to pluck at various herbs on the worktable.

“I know who you be, girl,” the old woman said. She transferred dried roots to the mortar, used the pestle to quickly grind them into powder, tapped them into a jar and poured steaming water over them.

“I need your help,” the girl whispered.

The old woman glanced at Gwynellian for a moment, went back to the task before her. She knew what the girl had come for, had known she was coming before she’d arrived; however, the old woman only pursed her lips tightly together and continued working with her herbs. She wasn’t going to make it easy, nor would she help her in the way the girl wanted either, though Gwyn would find that out soon enough.

“I heard you could help me,” Gwyn continued. “I’m, um…” she faltered, took a deep breath, tried to calm herself and build up the courage needed to continue. “I, well, that is, I need a concoction to…” Gwynellian tried to keep the tears from falling. She took another deep breath and chewed her bottom lip for a few moments. She wanted to turn and run from the cottage as quickly as she could, but she had to get what she came for. A little voice in the back of her head told her to forget it, to turn and run, and face the consequences of her actions. Instead, she tightly fisted one hand around the fingers of her other hand and forced herself to speak.

“I’m in need of a concoction to rid myself of the child that grows within me,” she blurted out on a rush of air.

The old woman didn’t look at her, didn’t pause from her work. She continued chopping and mincing and macerating herbs, roots and leaves. After a few moments of silence she said, “I don’t provide concoctions for that purpose.” She heard Gwyn sob, and the scraping of chair legs on the packed dirt floor as the girl sat heavily at the kitchen table. The old woman turned to face the girl. “I am a healer, girl. I make rubs and potions for what might ail a body. A little of this for a cough, a little of that for a fever, something warm for a chill, but what you are asking for is something to kill. I won’t help you kill the child you’ve made.”

Gwyn looked up with tears streaming down her face. “If anyone finds out, I’ll be cast aside. I’m unmarried and betrothed to a man I have never known in the way a woman knows a man. My fiancé will come in the spring and I cannot be presented to him with a babe at my breast. But you have strong magic!”

The old woman smiled, the wrinkles and lines on her face deepened. “Aye, I have magic in what I do with my herbs, a gift for healing. I can manage a few parlor tricks still.” She pointed a finger at the candle in the middle of the table and the flame came to life. She waved her arm and a brisk wind swirled through the cottage and the flame went out. The old woman rose off the cottage floor and hovered momentarily before setting her feet back on the packed earth.

“Parlor tricks,” the old woman said dismissively. “But what you are asking of me I cannot give you. My gift has been handed down through the blood, generation after generation, and the greatest oath I, and all who came before me has kept is, ‘An harm none.’ I cannot harm, and especially not the innocent life of the child that grows within you.”

She took a breath, not enjoying the pain she could see in the girl’s eyes. “Where is your lover? What has he to say of all this?”

Gwyn looked away, her hands fidgeted with the material of her dress beneath the table. “He, uh, he has gone,” she finally stammered.

The old woman clucked her tongue and went back to working her herbs. “Without thought for you or his child, he has left you to fend for yourself alone, to explain to your betrothed. What kind of man is he that would dishonor you and himself?”

Gwyn shook her head sadly and said nothing.

“Were you thinking of the consequences of your actions, either of you, when you laid down together? Did either of you think to ask for the concoction that would have prevented the conception before it occurred? No. But now the deed is done and your lover’s seed has taken root in your womb. Only now do you consider the consequences of your actions. Only now do you consider your betrothed who expects a virgin bride in the spring, and expects to plant his own child within you.

“I cannot give you the help you seek, but I can offer you this. Stay here with me. I will deliver you of your child in the winter and you will nurse the babe till early spring. You may leave the child in my care and go to your betrothed.”

“No. I cannot give birth to a child. My betrothed will know I am not a virgin. He will know when he touches me there has been someone before him.”

“Do you think he will not know anyway? Do you think to begin your marriage with a lie?”

“I must. It will dishonor my family’s name if he refuses the marriage. There is a great deal depending on this marriage. You must give me the concoction.” Gwyn wailed and rose from the table. She paced nervously around the small room, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please,” she begged pathetically.

The old woman looked at Gwynellian with rheumy eyes that seemed to peer straight through her. “I’m sorry, child,” the woman said softly. “That is all I can do for you and your child.”

Chapter One

Flames raced up the walls to spread across the ceiling.  Orange.  Red.  Alive.  The fire was looking right at her.  She could hear it breathing.  It rose up, hissing and spitting, following her as she crawled across the floor.  Smoke swirled through the room, choking her.  She stayed low and held her breath as much as possible.  All the while the greedy flames reached for her with a voracious appetite, licking at her skin, scorching and searing, singeing the tips of her hair.

Chunks of flaming debris fell from the ceiling onto the floor and glass shattered.  A series of small explosions detonated throughout the room as lamps burst from the intense heat.  She dragged herself toward the only exit, the small doggy door in the kitchen.  Behind her, the fire roared as if enraged by her attempt to escape.
           
The fire shimmered like a dancing wall.  Her vision tunneled until the flames became a giant monster, reaching with long arms and a ghastly, distorted head, crawling after her on the floor, its hideous tongue licking at her bare feet.  She screamed, but the only sound that emerged, was a terrible choking cough.  She turned to face her enemy, felt its malevolence as the flames poured over her, trying to consume her, trying to devour her from the inside out.  Her scream finally broke past the terrible ball blocking her throat and she shrieked her terror in a high-pitched wail.  She tried to call out, to beg for water to come to her, to save her, to drench her in cool, soothing liquid.  In the distance the shriek of the sirens grew louder and louder.  She threw herself sideways to avoid the flames…
           
Rikki Sitmore landed hard on the floor beside her bed.  She lay there, her heart racing, terror pounding through her veins, her mind struggling to assimilate the fact that it was just a nightmare.  The same old, familiar nightmare.  She was safe and unharmed—even though she could still feel the heat of the fire on her skin.
           
“Damn it.”  Her hand fumbled for the clock-radio, fingers slapping blindly in search of the button that would stop the alarm that sounded so like the fire engine of her dreams.  In the ensuing silence, she could hear the sound of water, answering her cry for help, and she knew from experience that every faucet in her house was running.

She forced herself to sit up, groaning softly as her body protested.  Her joints and muscles ached, as if she’d been rigid for hours.
           
Rikki wiped her sweat-drenched face with her hand, dragged herself to her feet, and forced her aching body to walk from room to room, turning off faucets as she went.  At last only the sink and shower in her bathroom were left.  As she went through the bedroom, she turned on the radio and the coastal radio station flooded the room with music.  She needed the sea today.  Her beloved sea.  Nothing worked better to calm her mind when she was too close to the past. 
           
The moment she crossed the threshold of her bathroom, cool sea colors surrounded her with instant calm.  The green slate beneath her feet matched the slate sea turtles swimming through an ocean of glossy blue around the walls. 
           
She always showered at night to wash the sea off of her, but after a particularly bad nightmare, the spray of the water on her skin felt like a healing wash across her soul.  The water in the shower was already running, calling to her and she stepped into the stall.  Instantly the water soothed her, soaking into her pores, refreshing, her personal talisman.  The drops on her skin felt sensual, nearly mesmerizing her with the perfection of shape.  She was lost in the clarity and immediately zoned out, taken to another realm where all chaos was gone from her mind.

Things that might ordinarily hurt—sounds, textures—the everyday things others took for granted were washed away with the sweat from her nightmares or the salt from the sea.  When she stood in the water, she was as close to normal as she would ever get and she reveled in the feeling.  As always she was lost in the shower, disappearing into the clean, cool refreshing pleasure it brought her, until, abruptly the hot water was gone and her shower turned ice cold, startling her out of her trance.
Once she could breathe without a hitch, she toweled off and dragged on her sweats without looking at the scars on her calves and feet.  She didn’t need to relive those moments again—yet night after night—the fire was back, looking at her, marking her for death.
           
She shivered, turned up her radio so she could hear it throughout the house, and pulled out her laptop, taking it through the hallway to her kitchen.  Blessed coffee was the only answer to idiocy.  She started the coffee while she listened to the radio spitting out local news.  She dropped into a chair, stilling, to concentrate when it came to the weather.  She wanted to know what her mistress was feeling this morning.  Calm?  Angry?  A little stormy?  She stretched as she listened.  Calm seas.  Little wind.  A freaking tsunami drill?
Not again.  “What a crock,” she muttered aloud, slumping dejectedly.  “We don’t need another one.”
           
They’d just had a silly drill.  Everyone had complied.  How had she missed that they had scheduled another one in the local news?  When they conducted drills of this magnitude, it was always advertised heavily.  Then again…Rikki sat up straight, a smile blossoming on her face.  Maybe the tsunami drill was the just the opportunity she’d been looking for.  Today was a darned perfect day to go to work.  With a tsunami warning in effect, no one else would be out on the ocean, she would have the sea to herself.  This was the perfect chance to visit her secret diving hole and harvest the small fortune in sea urchins she’d discovered there.  She had found the spot weeks ago, but didn’t want to dive when others might be around to see her treasure trove. 
           
Rikki poured a cup of coffee and wandered out to the front porch to enjoy that first aromatic sip.  She was going to make the big bucks today.   Maybe even enough money to pay back the women who’d taken her in as part of their family for the expenses they’d incurred on her behalf.  She wouldn’t have her beloved boat finished if it wasn’t for them.  She could probably fill the boat with just a couple of hour’s work.  Hopefully the processor would think the urchins were as good as she did, and pay top dollar.
           
Rikki looked around at the trees shimmering in the early morning light.  Birds flitted from branch to branch and wild turkeys were walking along the far creek where she’d scattered seed for them.  A young buck grazed in the meadow just a short distance from her house.  Sitting there, sipping her coffee, and watching the wildlife around her, everything began to settle in both body and mind.

She’d never imagined she would ever have a chance at such a place, such a life.  And she never would have, if not for the five strangers who’d entered her life and taken her into theirs.  They’d changed her world forever. 

She owed them everything.  Her ‘sisters’.  They weren’t her biological sisters, but no blood sister could be closer.  They called themselves sisters of the heart and to Rikki, that’s exactly what they were.  Her sisters.  Her family.  She had no one else and knew she never would.  They had her fierce, unswerving loyalty.

The five women had believed in her when she’d lost all faith, when she was at her most broken.  They had invited her to be one of them, and although she’d been terrified that she would bring something evil with her, she’d accepted, because it was that, or die.  That one decision was the single best thing she’d ever done. 

The family—all six of them—lived on the farm together.  One hundred thirty acres which nestled six beautiful houses.  Hers was the smallest.  Rikki knew she’d never marry or have children, so she didn’t need a large house.  Besides, she loved the simplicity of her small home with its open spaces and high beams and soothing colors of the sea that made her feel so at peace.

A slight warning shivered down her body.  She was not alone.  Rikki turned her head and her tension abated slightly at the sight of the approaching woman.  Tall and slender with a wealth of dark wavy hair untouched by gray in spite of her forty-two years, Blythe Daniels was the oldest of Rikki’s five sisters, and the acknowledged leader of their family. 

 “Hey you,” Rikki greeted.  “Couldn’t sleep?”

Blythe flashed her smile, the one Rikki thought was so endearing and beautiful—a little crooked, providing a glimpse of straight white teeth that nature, not braces, had provided.

“You’re not going out today are you?” Blythe asked and nonchalantly went over to the spigot at the side of the house and turned it off.
           
“Sure I am.”  She should have checked all four hoses, darn it.  Rikki avoided Blythe’s too-knowing gaze.
           
Blythe looked uneasily toward the sea.  “I just have this bad feeling…”
           
“Really?” Rikki frowned and stood up, glancing up at the sky.  “Seems like a perfect day to me.”
           
“Are you taking a tender with you?”
           
“Hell no.”
           
Blythe sighed.  “We talked about this.  You said you’d consider the idea.  It’s safer, Rikki.  You shouldn’t be diving alone.”
           
“I don’t like anyone touching my equipment.  They roll my hoses wrong.  They don’t put the tools back.  No.  No way.”  She tried not to sound belligerent, but she was not having anyone on her boat messing with her things.
           
“It’s safer.”    

Rikki rolled her eyes.  How was having some idiot sitting on the boat, not diving alone?  But she didn’t voice her thoughts, instead, she tried a smile.  It was difficult.  She didn’t smile much, especially when the nightmares were too close.  And she was barefoot.  She didn’t like being caught barefoot and in spite of Blythe’s determination not to look, her gaze couldn’t help but be drawn to the scars covering Rikki’s feet and calves. 
Rikki turned toward the house.  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
           
Blythe nodded.  “I can get it, Rikki. Enjoy your morning.” Dressed in her running shoes and light sweats, she managed to still look elegant.  Rikki had no idea how she did it.  Blythe was refined and educated and all the things Rikki wasn’t, but that never seemed to matter to Blythe.
           
Rikki took a breath and forced herself to sink back into the chair and tuck her feet under her, trying not to look disturbed at the idea of anyone going into her house.
           
“You’re drinking your coffee black again,” Blythe said and dropped a cube of sugar into Rikki’s mug.
Rikki frowned at her.  “That was mean.”  She looked around for her sunglasses to cover her direct stare.  She knew it bothered most people. Blythe never seemed upset by it, but Rikki didn’t take chances.  She found them on the railing and shoved them on her nose.

“If you’re diving today, you need it,” Blythe pointed out.  “You’re way too thin and I noticed you haven’t gone shopping again.”

“I did too.  There’s tons of food in the cupboards,” Rikki pointed out.
“Peanut butter is not food.  You have nothing but peanut butter in your cupboard.  I’m talking real food, Rikki.”

“I have Reeses pieces and peanut butter cups.  And bananas.”  If anyone else had snooped in her cupboards Rikki would have been furious, but she just couldn’t get upset with Blythe.

“You have to try to eat better.”

“I do try.  I added the bananas like you asked me.  And every night I eat broccoli.”  Rikki made a face.  She dipped the raw vegetable into the peanut butter to make it more edible, but she’d promised Blythe so she faithfully ate it.  “I’m actually beginning to like the stuff, even if it’s green and feels like pebbles in my mouth.”
Blythe laughed.  “Well thank you for at least eating broccoli.  Where are you diving?”

Of course Blythe would have to ask.  Rikki squirmed a little.  Blythe was one of those people you just didn’t lie to—or ignore as Rikki often did others.   “I’ve got this black out found and I want to harvest it while I can.”

Blythe made a face.  “Don’t speak diving.  English, hon, I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

“Urchins, spine to spine, so many, I think I can pull in four thousand pounds in a couple of hours.  We could use the money.”

Blythe regarded her over the top of her coffee mug, her gaze steady.  “Where, Rikki?”
She was like a damn bulldog when she got going.  “North of Fort Bragg.”
 “You told me that area was dangerous,” Blythe reminded.

Rikki cursed herself silently for having a big mouth.  She should never have talked about her weird feelings with the others.  “No, I said it was spooky.  The ocean is dangerous anywhere, Blythe, but you know I’m a safety girl.  I follow all dive precautions and all my personal safety rules to the letter.  I’m careful and I don’t panic.”

She didn’t normally dive along the fault line running just above the Fort Bragg coast because the abyss was deep and great whites used the area as a hunting ground.  Usually she worked on the bottom, along the floor.  Sharks hunted from below, so she was relatively safe, but harvesting urchins along the shelf was risky.  She’d be making noise and a shark could come from below.  But the money….  She really wanted to pay her sisters back all the expenses they’d covered for her, helping her with her boat.

Blythe shook her head.  “I’m not talking about your safety rules.  We all know you’re a great diver, Rikki, but you shouldn’t be alone out there, anything could go wrong.”

“If I’m alone, I’m only responsible for my own life.  I don’t rely on anyone else.  Every second counts and I know exactly what to do.  I’ve run into trouble countless times and I handle it.  It’s just easier by myself.”  And she didn’t have to talk to anyone, or make nice.  She could just be herself.

“Why go north of Fort Bragg?  You told me the undersea floor was very different and the sharks were more prevalent there and it kind of freaked you out.”
Rikki found herself wanting to smile inside when just seconds earlier she’d been squirming.  Blithe saying ‘freaked out’, meant she’d been spending time with Lexi Thompson.  Lexi, the youngest of their ‘family’.

“I found a shelf at about thirty feet covered with sea urchins.  They look fantastic.  The fault runs through the area so there’s an abyss about forty feet wide and another shelf, a little smaller, but still packed as well.  No one’s found the spot.  It’s a black out, Blythe, uni spine to spine.  I can harvest a good four thousand pounds and get out of there.  I’ll only go back when no one’s around.”

Blythe couldn’t fail to hear the excitement in her voice.  She shook her head.  “I don’t like it, but I understand.”  And that was the trouble—she did.  Rikki was both brilliant and reclusive.  She seemed to take her talents for granted.  Blythe could ask her to program something on the computer and she’d write a program quickly that worked better than anything else Blythe had ever tried. 

Everything about Rikki was a tragedy and Blythe often felt like holding her tight, but she knew better.  Rikki was very closed off to human touch—to relationships—basically to anything that had to do with others.  She had allowed each of the other five women into her world, but they could only come so far before she shut down.   She was haunted by her past—by the fires that had killed her parents and burned down her foster homes.  By the fire that had taken her fiancé, the only person Rikki had ever let herself love.

“You had another nightmare, didn’t you?” Blythe asked.  “In case you’re wondering, I turned off the three others hoses around your house. 

She didn’t ask how the water had gotten turned on.  The entire family knew water and Rikki went hand and hand and strange things happened when Rikki had nightmares. 

Rikki bit her lip.  She tried a causal shrug to indicate nightmares were no big deal, but they both knew better.  “Maybe.  Yes.  I still get them.”

“But you’re getting them a lot lately,” Blythe prodded gently.  “Isn’t that four or five in the last few weeks?”

They both knew it was a lot more than that.  Rikki blew out her breath.  “That’s another reason I’m going out diving today.  Blowing bubbles always helps.”

“You won’t take any chances,” Blythe ventured.  “I could go with you, take a book or something and read on the boat.”

Rikki knew she was asking if there was a possibility she would get careless on purpose, that maybe she was still grieving, or blaming herself.  She didn’t know the answer so she changed tactics.  “I thought you were going to the wedding.  Isn’t Elle Drake getting married today?  You were looking forward to that.”  Another reason why the ocean would be hers and hers alone.  Everyone was invited to the Drake wedding.

“If you won’t go to the wedding and you need to go to the sea, then I’ll be happy reading a book out there,” Blythe insisted.

Rikki blew her a kiss.  “Only you would give up a wedding to go with me.  You’d throw up the entire time we were out there.  You get seasick, Blythe.”

“I’m trying ginger root,” Blythe said.  “Lexi says there’s nothing like it.”

“She’d know.” 

Lexi knew everything there was to know about plants and their uses.  If Lexi said ginger root would help, then Rikki was certain it would, but Blythe was not going to sacrifice a fun day just because she feared for Rikki’s safety.  Rikki’s life was the sea.  She couldn’t be far from it.  She had to able to hear it at night, the soothing roll of the waves, the stormy pounding of the surf, the sounds of the seals barking at one another, the fog horns.  It was all necessary in her life to keep her steady. 

Most of all, it was the water itself.  The moment she touched it, pushed her hands into it, she felt different.  There was no explanation for it.  She didn’t understand it, so how could she explain it to someone else that when she was in water, she was at peace, completely free in her own environment.

“Blythe, I’ll be fine.  I’m looking forward to going down.”

“You’re spending too much time alone again,” Blythe said bluntly.  “Come to the wedding.  All of the others are going.  Judith can find you something to wear if you’d like.”

Rikki had a tendency to go to Judith for advice on what to wear or how to look if she was going to anything where there would be a large group of people and Blythe obviously mentioned her on purpose in the hopes that Rikki would change her mind.

Rikki shook her head, trying not to show a physical reaction, when her entire body shuddered at the horror of the thought of the crowd.  “I can’t do that.  You know I can’t.  I always say the wrong thing and get people upset.”

She had met Blythe in a group grief counseling session and somehow, Rikki still didn’t know how or why, she’d blurted out her fears of being a sociopath to the others.  She never talked to anyone about herself or her past, but Blythe had a way making people feel comfortable.  She was the most tolerant woman Rikki had ever known.  Rikki wasn’t taking any chances of doing anything that might alienate her or any of her other sisters. And that meant staying away from the residents of Sea Haven.
           
“Rikki,” Blythe said, with her uncanny ability that made Rikki think she read minds.  “There is nothing wrong with you.  You’re a wonderful person and you don’t embarrass us.”
           
Rikki tried desperately not to squirm, wishing she was already at sea and as far from this conversation as possible.  She adjusted her glasses to make certain she wasn’t staring inappropriately.  Sheesh.  There were so many freakin social rules, how did people remember them?  Give her the ocean any day.
           
“And you don’t need to wear your glasses around me,” Blythe added gently.  “The way you look at me doesn’t bother me at all.”
           
“You’re the exception, then, Blythe,” Rikki snapped and then bit down on her lip hard.  It wasn’t Blythe’s fault that she was completely happy or completely sad, utterly angry or absolutely mellow.  There was no in between on the emotional scale for her, which made it a little difficult—whether Blythe wanted to admit it or not—for her to spend time with other people.  Besides, everyone annoyed the hell out of her.
           
“I’m different, Blythe.  I’m comfortable being different, but others aren’t comfortable around me.”  That was a fact Blythe couldn’t dispute.  Rikki often refused to answer someone when they asked her a direct question if she didn’t feel it was their business.  And anything personal wasn’t anyone’s business but hers.  She felt her lack of response was completely appropriate, but the individual asking the question usually didn’t.
           
“You hide yourself away from the world, and it isn’t good for you.”
           
“It’s how I cope,” Rikki said with a small shrug.  “I love being here, with you and the others, I feel safe.  And I feel safe when I’m in the water.  Otherwise…” She shrugged again.  “Don’t worry about me.  I’m staying out of trouble.”
           
Blythe took a swallow of coffee and regarded her with brooding eyes.  “You’re a genius, Rikki, you know that, don’t you?  I’ve never met anyone like you, capable of doing the things you do.  You can memorize a textbook in minutes.”
           
Rikki shook her head.  “I don’t memorize.  I just retain everything I read.  I think that’s why I seriously lack social skills.  I don’t have room for the niceties.  And I’m not a genius, that’s Lexi.  I’m just able to do a few weird things.”  

“I think you should talk about the nightmares with someone, Rikki.”

The conversation was excruciating for her and had it been anyone but Blythe, Rikki wouldn’t have bothered making an effort.  This conversation skirted just a little too close to the past—and that was a place she would never go.  That door in her mind was firmly shut.  She couldn’t afford to believe she was capable of the kind of thing others had accused her of—setting fires—killing her own parents—trying to hurt others.  And Daniel… 

She turned away from Blythe feeling almost as if she couldn’t breathe.  “I’ve got to get moving.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

Rikki nodded.  It was easier than arguing.  “You have fun at the wedding and say hello for me.”  It was so much easier being social through the others.  They were all well liked and had shops or offices in Sea Haven—all a big part of the community.  Rikki was always on the outside fringe, and was accepted more because she was part of the Farm than for herself.  The residents of Sea Haven had accepted the women of Rikki’s makeshift family when they’d moved here just a few short years earlier, all trying to recover from various losses.

She forced a smile because Blythe had been the one to give her a place to call home.  “I really am fine.”

Blythe nodded and handed her the empty coffee cup.  “You’d better be, Rikki.  I would be lost if something happened to you.  You’re important to me—to all of us.”
Rikki didn’t know how to respond.  She was embarrassed and uncomfortable with real emotion and Blythe always managed to evoke real emotion, the heart-wrenching kind better left alone.  Rikki felt too much when she let herself feel, and not enough when she didn’t.  She pushed out of her chair and watched Blythe walk away, angry with herself for not asking Blythe why she was out running so early in the morning—why she couldn’t sleep.  Instead, she knew she’d hack into Blythe’s computer and read her personal diary and then try to find a way to help her.

Rikki didn’t mind invading privacy if she thought she had good reason.  The fact that she was inept at meaningful dialogue with those she cared about gave her all the reason in the world.  Blythe, of all the women, was an enigma.  Rikki was an observer and she noticed how Blythe brought peace to all of them, as if she took a little bit of their burdens onto herself. 
           
Rikki sighed and threw the rest of her coffee out onto the ground.  Sugar in coffee.  What was up with that?  She glanced up at the clear sky and tried to concentrate on that, to think of her sea, the great expanse of water, all blues and grays and greens.  Soothing colors.  Even when she was at her stormiest and unpredictable, the ocean brought her calm. 
           
She went back into her house, leaving the screen door closed, but the back door wide open so she wouldn’t feel closed in.  She polished the cupboards fast where Blythe had touched them leaving undetectable prints, washed the coffee mugs and carefully rinsed off the sink around the coffee pot.

She hummed slightly as she packed a lunch.  She needed high calories, lots of protein and sugar.  Peanut butter sandwiches, two with bananas, even though there was an old saying that bananas were bad luck, and a handful of peanut butter cups and two bags of Reese’s pieces would keep her going.  Her job was aggressive and hard work, but she loved and reveled in it, especially the solitary aspects of being underneath the water in an entirely different environment—one where she thrived.
           
Extra water was essential and she readied a cold gallon while she prepared and ate a large breakfast—peanut butter over toast.  She might not like sugar in her coffee but she wasn’t stupid enough to dive without taking in sufficient calories to sustain her body functions in the cold waters. 

She ate, toast in hand—she didn’t actually use her dishes.  Her sisters had given her the most beautiful set with seashells and starfish surrounding each plate.  She carefully washed the entire set on Thursdays and her wonderful set of pots and pans on Fridays—but she always had them displayed so she could look at them while she ate her sandwich.

She’d washed and bleached her wet suit the night before and made certain that her gear was in repair.  Rikki repaired all her own equipment religiously waiting for that one moment when all her senses would tell her there’d be a calm and she could go diving.  Her gear was always ready and stowed at all times so the moment she knew she could make a dive, she was ready.
  
Her boat and truck were always kept in pristine condition.  She allowed no one else to step on her boat except the women in her family—and that was rare.  No one but Rikki touched the engine.  Ever.  Or her baby, the Honda driven atlas Copco air compressor. Important)   She knew her life depended on good air.  She used three filters to remove carbon monoxide which had killed two well known locals a few years earlier.

She knew the tides by heart thanks to the northern California Tidelog, her bible.  Although she’d committed the book to memory, she read for fun daily, a compulsion she couldn’t stop.  Today she had minimum tide ebb and flood with hopefully no current, optimum working conditions where she wanted to dive. 
Despite Blythe’s concerns, Rikki really did consider safety paramount.  Rikki stowed her wet suit and gear in the truck along with her spare gear—divers—especially Rikki—generally kept a spare of every piece of her equipment on hand just to be safe on the boat in an air tight locked container which she checked periodically to make sure it was in working order.  Moments later she was driving toward Port Albion Harbor, humming along to a Joley Drake CD.  The rather famous Drake family lived in the small town of Sea Haven.  The Drakes were friends with her sisters, particularly Blythe and Lexi, but Rikki had never actually talked to any of them—especially not Joley.  She loved Joley’s voice and didn’t want to chance making social mistakes around her.

Strangely, she’d never been bothered by other’s opinions of her.  Friendships were too difficult to manage.  She had to work too hard to fit in, to find the right things to say, so it was easier just to be herself and not care what people thought of her.  But someone she admired—like Joley—she was taking no chances.  Better to just keep her distance entirely. 
           
Rikki sang along as she drove down the highway, occasionally glancing at the ocean.  The water shimmered like jewels, beckoning to her—offering the peace she so badly needed.  She’d had a few months reprieve from her nightmares but now they were back with a vengeance, coming nearly every night.  The pattern was familiar, an affliction she’d suffered many times over the years. The only thing she could do was weather the storm.
           
Fire had destroyed her family when she was thirteen.  Definitely arson the firefighters had said.  A year and six months later, a fire had destroyed the foster home she was staying in.  No one had died, but the fire had been set.

The third fire had taken her second foster home on her sixteenth birthday.  She had awakened, her heart pounding, unable to breathe, already choking on smoke and fear.  She’d crawled on her hands and knees to the other rooms, waking the occupants, alerting them.  Everyone had escaped, but the house and everything inside had been lost. 
           
The authorities wouldn’t believe she hadn’t started any of the fires.  They couldn’t prove it, but no one wanted her after that.  No one trusted her and in truth she didn’t trust herself.  How had the fires started?  One of the many psychologists suggested she couldn’t remember doing it, and maybe that was the truth.  She’d lived in a state run facility, apart from the others.  Fire-starter, they’d called her, the death dealer.  She’d endured the taunts and then she’d become violent, protecting herself with ruthless, brutal force when her tormenters escalated to physical abuse.  She was labeled a troublemaker and she no longer cared.
           
The moment she turned eighteen she was gone.  Running.  And she hadn’t stopped until she’d met Daniel.  He’d been a diver too.
           
Rikki turned her truck down the sloping drive leading to the harbor, inhaling the fragrance of the Eucalyptus trees lining the road.  Tall and thick, the trees stood like a forest of sentinels, guarding the way.  The road wound around and the Albion Fishing village came into view.  She drove on through to the large, empty, dirt parking lot and then backed up to the wooden guard in front of the Gang way connecting to the dock.
           
As she unpacked her gear, the last remnant of her nightmare faded.  Now, here, in the daylight beside the calming influence of the ocean, she could almost be grateful for the nightmares.  They always heightened her awareness of safety on the farm and the recent spate reminded her it was time to check all the fire alarms, sprinklers and extinguishers on the farm.  She could never risk growing complacent again. 
           
Even if she was not the one who somehow started the fires, someone else had.  It seemed clear to her that someone wanted her and everyone near her dead.  She’d almost run from Blythe and the others in order to protect them, but she’d been so beaten down, so close to the end of her rope, she couldn’t have survived without them. And despite everything, Rikki wasn’t ready to die.  Thankfully her newfound sisters had realized how important fire safety was to her and they had spent the extra money on everything she’d asked for. 
           
Rikki walked along the dock until she came to her baby—the Sea Gypsy.  She didn’t buy clothes or furniture.  Her home was stark, but this—this boat was her pride and joy.  She loved the Radon, all twenty-four feet of her.  Everything on her boat was in impeccable condition.  No one touched her equipment but her.  She even did her own welding, converting the design of the davit to make it easier to haul her nets on board.
           
The river was calm and the boat rocked gently against the bumpers, a soothing mixture of sounds, water lapping and birds calling back and forth.  There was one lone camper trailer in the park and no one in sight.  The harbor was nearly deserted.  She went through all her checks and started the engine.  Rikki untied the lines and cast off.  A familiar eagerness raced through her veins as she pushed the Sea Gypsy from her dock.
           
For Rikki, no feeling on earth matched the thrill of standing on the deck of her boat, the powerful engine, a 454 Mercruiser with Bravo 3 outdrive and two stainless steel propellers, rumbling under her feet and the river stretching out in front of her like a wide blue path.  The wooden bridge, with metal spanning the river, stretched above her, sandbar and rocks to the sides, was her gateway to the ocean.  The channel was narrow and impassable in low tide or heavy swells.  With the wind on her face, she maneuvered the boat out of its slip, kept a low throttle as she moved along the channel.  The sandbar to her right could present problems and she kept to the center as the Sea Gypsy swept around the curve to enter the actual sea.
           
Double-crested cormorants vied for space on the closest sea stack, a small island made of rock where the birds nested or rested.  She sent them a smile as she judged her mistress.  She never fully trusted the weather reports or tide books, she had to see for herself exactly what mood the ocean was in.  Sometimes, in the protection of the harbor, the sea felt and looked calm, but the waters beyond the land mass could betray her angry mood.  Today, the ocean was calm, the water smooth and glistening.
           
The Sea Gypsy swept out into open water and Rikki relaxed completely.  This was her world, the one place she was truly comfortable.  Here, she knew the rules, the dangers, and understood them, in a way she could never understand social situations and human interactions.  The sky overhead was blue and clear, the surface as smooth as the California coast ever managed to be, as the boat rushed over the water.  She had a great engine, built for speed—a gift from her sisters and one she could never begin to thank them for.
           
She rushed passed caves, sea stacks and cliffs—from here the coast appeared a different world altogether.  Pelicans, cormorants and osprey shared the skies with sea gulls, sometimes diving deep, their bodies sleek and stream-lined as they plummeted into the depths after fish.  Little heads popped up here and there as a seal surfaced close to shore, hunting for a meal.  Two seals played together somersaulting over and over in the water.
           
Spray burst up the cliffs in a display of power as the sea met land.  She lifted her face to the salt air, smiling at the touch of water on her face.  She began to sing, one hand weaving a dancing pattern in the air as she maneuvered the boat with the other.  It was almost a compulsion, each time she found herself alone where no one could see or hear her.  An invitation.  A language of love.  The notes skipped over the surface to the side of her boat as she rushed over the water.
           
Tiny columns began to form, sparkling tubes that danced over the surface like mini cyclones.  The sun gleamed through them, lending them colors as they twisted and turned gracefully.  Some rose high, leaping above the boat in thin rainbows to form an archway.  Laughing, she shot through it, the wind and water on her face and ruffling her hair like fingers.
           
She played with the water, out there in the safest place she knew, the shore in the distance and the water leaping all around her boat, drawn to her in some mysterious way she didn’t understand, coming when she beckoned, saving her life numerous times, making her feel at peace when everything and everyone she loved had been taken from her.  Under her direction the water plasticized, forming shapes.  The joy bursting through her there on the water where she was so alive, could never be duplicated on shore where, for her, there was only vulnerability and emptiness.
           
She anchored the Sea Gypsy just off the shelf, but gave herself plenty of scope just in case a large wave did come at her out of nowhere.  She checked her equipment a final time.  Eagerness rose inside her unmarred by any hint of fear.  She loved to be in the water.  Being alone was an added bonus.  She didn’t have to try to adhere to conventional social customs.  She didn’t have to worry about hurting someone’s feelings, embarrassing her chosen family or having people make fun of her. 

Out here, in the water, she could be herself and that was enough.  Out here she couldn’t hear the screams of the dead, feel the scorching heat of a blazing fire, or see suspicion on the faces around her.
           
After rubbing herself down with baby shampoo, she warmed her suit by pouring hot water from the engine in it before putting it on.  Once again, she checked her air compressor—her lifeline.  She’d spent a great deal of money on the Honda 5.5  horsepower engine and her Atlas Copco 2 stage air compressor with the three extremely expensive filters, two particulate filters with a carbon filter on top.  Divers had died of carbon monoxide poisoning and she wasn’t about to go that way.  She had a non-locking Hanson quick release on her end of the main hose so she could detach quickly if necessary.  She carried a 30 cubic feet—small bail-out—her back-up scuba tank on her back.  Some of the divers dove without one, but since she usually dove alone she wanted the extra protection.  Rikki didn’t care to be bent by an emergency assent.  She wanted to always be able to come up at the proper speed should anything happen such as a hose getting cut by the boater who did not see her dive flag.   
           
Donning her weight belt and then bailout, she put on the most important instrument, her computer to keep track of her time so there was no chance of staying down too long.  She had a compass to know where she was and where she wanted to go.  Grabbing her urchin equipment, she slipped into the water, taking four five hundred pound capacity nets with her.

The massive plunge felt like leaving earth and going in to space, a monumental experience that always awed her.  The cool liquid closed around her like a welcome embrace, bringing with it a sense of peace.  Everything inside of her stilled, made sense.  Righted.  There was no way to explain the strange sensations others obviously didn’t feel when being touched.  Sometimes fabrics were painful, and noises made her crazy, but here, in this silent world of beauty, she felt right, her chaotic mind calm. 
           
As she descended, fish circled her curiously and a lone seal zipped past her.  Seals moved so fast in the water, like small rockets.  Normally, they would linger, but today apart from a few scattered fish, the sea seemed empty.  For the first time, a shiver slid down her back and she looked around her at the deserted spot.  Where had all the fish gone? 
           
The San Andreas fault line was treacherous, a good nine hundred feet deep or more, a long black abyss stretching along the ocean floor.  At around thirty feet deep, a high shelf jutted outward, the extensive jagged line of rock covered in sea urchins.  The drop off was another good thirty feet across where a shorter shelf held an abundance of sea life as well. 

Rikki touched down at the thirty foot shelf and immediately began to work.  Her rake scraped over the urchin-crusted rocks along the shelf wall, the noise reverberating through the water for the sea creatures to hear.  She worked fast, knowing that below her, sharks could hunt her, where normally, when she worked on the floor, she wasn’t in as much danger.
           
The feeling of dread increased with each stroke of her rake..  She found herself stopping every few minutes to look around her.  She studied the abyss.  Could a shark be prowling there in the shadows?  Her heart rate increased, but she forced herself to stay calm while she went back to work, determined to get it over with.  The sea urchins were plentiful and large, the harvest amazing. 

She filled her first net in a matter of twenty minutes and as the weight increased, she filled the float with air to compensate.  In another twenty minutes she had a second bag filled.  Both nets floated just to one side of her while she began working to fill the third net.  Because she was working at thirty feet, she knew she had plenty of bottom time to fill all four five hundred pound nets, but she was getting tired.
She hooked the bags to her hose, and stayed on the bottom while she let the bags go to the surface, holding the hose to slow the urchins assent and so the air didn’t leave the float once it reached the surface.  She climbed her hose a foot a second until she hit ten feet where she stayed for five minutes to be good and safe before completing her assent.
           
Working in the water was exhausting, with the continual flow of the waves.  The wash could push forward and back against a diver and exposed as she was, having to be careful not to fall into the abyss, harvesting the urchins had made her arms feel like lead.  At the surface she hooked both bag lines to the floating ball and climbed onboard to rest and eat two more peanut butter sandwiches and a handful of peanut butter cups, needing the calories.
           
The strange dread that had been building in her seemed to have settled in the pit of her stomach.  She sat on the lid of the urchin hold and ate her sandwich, but it tasted like cardboard.  She glanced at the sky.  It was clear.  Little wind.  And the sea itself was calm, yet she felt threatened in some vague way she couldn’t quite comprehend.  As she sat on her boat, she twisted around, looking for danger.  It was silly, really, the feeling of impending doom.  The day was beautiful, the sea calm and the sky held no real clouds.
           
She hesitated before she donned her equipment again.  She could pull up another two nets filled with sea urchins, bringing her total to four thousand pounds, enabling her to pay a good amount of money toward the farm.  She was being silly.  This part of the ocean had always given her a bad feeling.  Resolutely, Rikki put on her weight belt and hooked her hose to her belt before reaching for her tank. 
           
The air around her suddenly changed, charging, pressure pushing on her chest.  She turned, still reaching for her tank when she felt the tremendous swell building beneath her. Rikki turned her head and her breath caught in her throat.  Her heart slammed against her chest as she stared at the solid wall of water rising up out of the sea like a monstrous tsunami, a wave beyond anything she’d ever witnessed.

New York City—June 26, 2010

Rox came home, triumphant. She’d finally found the perfect job for her roommate and current “project.”

This would work.

Thorolf, who called himself T, was a big bike courier with no direction or ambition. Rox had known from the outset that T could make more of himself, but she’d had a hard time persuading him to try. Every option had been impossible in his view, but Rox hadn’t given up. And now, her efforts would pay off. True to form, Rox had pulled in a favor and found exactly the right job for T.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle didn’t just apply to goods in Rox’s world. People could be reinvented, too.

And if there was ever a man who needed reinvention, it was T. She’d never met anyone with such a lack of focus, yet so much potential. Once she’d seen what he could do, Rox had been determined to help him make the most of his innate gift.

T, unfortunately, wasn’t inclined to change.

Delivering groceries for the neighborhood organic store would be a perfect step for him. The job would give him a paycheck, enable him to help with the rent, allow him to be outside—which he preferred—and keep him from partying late so that he could get to work early each day. Rox thought it was the perfect combination of responsibility and freedom.

But it would work only if Rox could persuade T to accept the job. He was the obstacle to his own success.

She unlocked her apartment door and heard T rummaging in the bedroom. It was a good sign that he was home. She dropped the bag of groceries on the counter—scored while she finalized the job offer—and strode into his bedroom, only to find T packing his few possessions.
He was still in his black Lycra tights with the khaki shorts over top of them, the mud up his back fresh from a day of being a bicycle courier.

He was home early, though—and the fact that he hadn’t just grabbed himself a beer from the fridge and crashed on the couch, or gone drinking with his buddies, meant something was up.

Something, Rox would bet, that she wasn’t going to like.

The furtive glance T shot over his shoulder in her direction, as if he had been caught, only fed her suspicions.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

T dropped his gaze and returned to his packing. If anything, he was moving faster. “I’m, uh, leaving.”

Rox folded her arms across her chest. “Leaving as in taking a vacation or leaving as in moving out?”

“Door number two,” he mumbled, not looking at her.

Rox feared he was going to move in with one of his friends whom she considered to be bad influences. “You find a job or just a better offer?”

“Both.”

Rox waited, but T said nothing more. He picked up greasy bike parts from the floor in the corner of the room and packed them with a reverence most people would have saved for precious gems. She waited, but he kept packing, gaining speed. She tapped her toe and he ignored her.

Rox’s anger flared that he was being so evasive. “You’ve finally found a job, after three years of my bugging you about it, and you can’t even look me in the eye to tell me?”

T shuffled his feet. “I know you’ll be pissed.” In another time and place, Rox might have been amused that this man—who was almost two feet taller than she and weighed easily twice as much, who could use his fists like no one she’d ever known, and who could change into a dragon at will—was afraid of her.

As it was, her mouth went dry. What had T gotten himself into?

“It’s not a real job, is it?” she guessed. “Are you involved in something illegal? Because you know that has to be the stupidest choice . . .”

“It’s not illegal, Rox. Just weird.” He faced her,but still didn’t meet her eyes.

This was bad news.

“Tell me the truth,” Rox demanded. “No matter what you’ve done, I’ll be more mad if you lie to me.” She poked him in the shoulder when he didn’t immediately reply. “What’s going on, T?”

“Not T,” he insisted, as had become his habit recently. It was exactly the opposite argument he’d made when she’d first met him—then he’d insisted that he had to be T.

And they said women changed their minds too much.

“Thorolf,” she said deliberately, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. If he needed direction, she had one for him. “I found you a job today. That organic grocery store by the tattoo shop needs a delivery guy. You’d be outside pretty much all day, but you’d get a regular check. . . .”

His lips set stubbornly. “No. I gotta go, Rox. That’s all there is to it.”

“Where are you going to live?”

“That’s taken care of, too.”

It wasn’t much of an answer, not enough of one to suit Rox, but T turned back to his packing. He began to jam T-shirts and bicycle parts into his backpack in no particular order, obviously in a rush to get away from her. It was incomprehensible that this man who had never shown a spark of initiative or determination, despite her many efforts, had finally developed some resolve.

And it meant he was saying no to her.

After three years of encouraging him, after three years of trying to make something of the mess of a man she’d met in a bar and taken into her protection, Rox was not amused.

She was worried.

“Why?” she demanded.

“There’s something I gotta do. Something I gotta learn.” He ran a hand over his hair. “A whole lotta stuff I gotta learn and it’s not easy.”

“You?” Rox was incredulous. “You’ve never had any ambition to learn anything, no matter how many ideas I shove under your nose. You don’t even have the initiative to stock beer in the fridge.”

“Well, that’s gonna change.” His tone was resolute. “I know this guy and he’s teaching me things. . . .”

Rox felt her eyes narrow as everything began to make sense. “Guy?”

“Yeah.” For perhaps the first time ever, T—Thorolf—showed real enthusiasm. “His name’s Niall Talbot and he’s a bit of a pain—snotty, you know—but he’s teaching me this great stuff that I want to know. And now it’s time to take the next step.”

“What kind of great stuff?”

“I, uh, can’t tell you.” His nervousness gave Rox a pretty good idea of what was really going on. T was a lousy liar. “I need to go and live there with him, like an apprentice, and learn as much as I can.”

“There?”

“He runs an eco-tourism travel place, with an office down in Chinatown. I’m gonna stay with him. Erik said so.”

Rox’s suspicion rose with the introduction of another unfamiliar name. “Who’s Erik?”

“He’s, um, this other guy.” Thorolf rummaged in the pockets of his shorts and came up with a business card that looked the worse for wear. “There! That’s Niall.” He smiled triumphantly as he handed it to Rox, then began to whistle as he plucked his spare brake parts off the radiator.

He was leaving and he was happy.

Rox found her hand shaking as she stared at the card. Either T had finally gotten a decent job, just the way she’d been bugging him to do for years, or he was lying to her and had found some big trouble.

Rox would have bet her favorite tattoo gun on option number two. She was pretty sure “Niall” was a cover story for a woman. T only showed this much energy when he thought he was going to get lucky.

What was she going to tell Gary about the delivery guy who was no longer around to take the job?

And what would happen to T?

“You found this card,” she accused, “or you delivered a parcel there. You don’t know this guy .”

“Sure I do.” He gestured vaguely with one hand. “He’s, um, like me.” Thorolf slanted Rox a glance that made her heart stop cold.

That admission changed everything. She had seen T shift shape in that bar fight when they had first met; she had seen him become a dragon right before her eyes. If she hadn’t been stone-cold sober, she wouldn’t have believed it. If she hadn’t already been crazy in love with dragons, she would have been afraid.

As it was, Rox had taken T’s nature in stride.

In fact, she’d thought—very, very briefly—that he might have been her dream come to life. One morning had been all it had taken to relieve Rox of that romantic notion.

T was a mess.

He was a project, not a dream date.

Part of the reason she had taken T into her care was to give him an alibi and an endorsement. She didn’t doubt there were many people who would take advantage of his odd talent, and T was ridiculously trusting.

But two dragon shape shifters in New York? With a bit more thought, Rox had more doubts. She flicked the corner of the card, not troubling to hide her skepticism. “Have you seen him do it?”

“Well, sure.” T shuffled his feet. “He knows stuff, a lot of stuff.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“No.” Rox didn’t believe him. “This is a bad idea.”

He appeared to be insulted. “Why shouldn’t I learn to use my abilities?”

“It would be one thing if you did, but I know you, T.” At the flash in his eyes, she corrected herself. “Thorolf. You’re driven by three things—sex, sex, and beer, in that order. You have no aspirations, no dreams, no desire to learn anything. If you weren’t such a big sweetie, I’d have given up on you ages ago.”

“That’s not why you stick up for me,” he said, gesturing toward the living room walls.

Rox wasn’t interested in talking about her motivations. She wagged the card at him. “This isn’t true. You found this card. You’re really moving into some woman’s place, aren’t you?”

T pushed a hand through his hair and looked discomfited. “Awww, don’t make this harder than it is, Rox.”

“Why not? I’m worried about you!” It was typical of T to think he could just saunter out of her life, without giving a decent explanation, without even realizing that someone gave a crap about him and his survival.

Rox knew that the world could be a tough place, and that an ability to fight wasn’t always enough.

“Okay, so maybe it’s because of you.” T held up a hand when she might have argued. “Maybe because you’ve been on my ass all these years, I recognized opportunity when I saw it.” He appealed to her, apparently sincere. “I’m doing what you’ve always wanted me to do, Rox. I’m learning about my powers. Be happy for me.”

“But . . .”

“But nothing. I gotta go, Rox. Ciao.”

As Rox watched, stunned, the hulk of a man who had been the greatest make-work project of her life strode out of her apartment.

Just when she’d been within an inch of making something of him.

The door clicked behind him and she heard T leap down the stairs, as if he’d broken free of a prison.

Whistling, dammit.

Trusting in someone.

Someone other than her . She was perfectly prepared to help her projects find their wings, so to speak, and loved watching them take flight into their own futures.

But this was different.

Something was wrong.

Rox stared at the business card and felt sick with concern. She wondered whether Niall Talbot had ever even heard of Thorolf.

Rox was going to find out.

The Halls of Law occupied real estate that the merchants' guild salivated over every time discussion about tax laws came up, and for that reason, if no other, Private Kaylin Neya was proud to work in them. The building sat in the center of the city, its bulk overshadowed by three towers, atop which—in the brisk and heavy winds of the otherwise clear day—flags could be seen at the heights. It was the only building, by Imperial decree, which was allowed this much height; the Emperor considered it a personal statement. She would probably have been slightly prouder if she'd managed to make Corporal, but she took what she could get.

What she could get, on the other hand, could be a bit disconcerting on some days. She approached the guards at the door—today Tanner and Gillas were at their posts—and stopped before she'd passed between them. They were giving her funny looks, and she was on time. She'd been on time for four days running, although one emergency with the midwives' guild had pulled her off active duty in the middle of the day, but the looks on their faces didn't indicate a lost betting pool.

"What's up?" she asked Tanner. She had to look up to ask it; he was easily over six feet in height, and he didn't slouch when on duty.

"You'll find out," he replied. He was almost smirking.

The problem with coming to the Hawks as an angry thirteen-year-old with a lot of attitude was that the entire force felt as if they'd watched you grow up. This meant the entire damn force took an interest in your personal business. She cursed Tanner under her breath, and left his chuckle at her back.

It was only about ten feet from her back when she ran into Corporal Severn Handred. Who just happened to be loitering in the Aerie, under the shadows of the flying Aerians, who were practicing maneuvers that no other race on the force could achieve without a hell of a lot of magic, most of which would require postmaneuver paperwork that would keep them grounded for weeks. The Emperor was not a big fan of magic that wasn't under his personal control.

Kaylin, her wrist weighted by a few pounds of what was ostensibly gold, knew this firsthand. The bracer—studded with what were also ostensibly gemstones, and in and of itself more valuable than most of the force on a good day, which would be a day when their Sergeant wasn't actively cursing the amount of money being wasted employing their sorry butts—was also magical. It was older than the Empire.

No one knew how it worked—or at least that's what was claimed—but it kept random magic neutralized. Kaylin had been ordered to wear it, and on most days, she did.

Severn looked up as she approached him. "You're on time," he said, falling into an easy step beside her.

"And the world hasn't ended," she replied. "Betting? It's four days running." It was a betting pool she'd been excluded from joining.

He grinned, but didn't answer, which meant yes, he was betting, and no, he hadn't lost yet.

"If you win, you can buy me lunch."

He raised a brow. "You're scrounging for lunch this early in the month?"

"Don't ask."

He laughed.

"Instead," she continued, "tell me why you're here."

"I work here."

"Ha, ha. You don't usually loiter in the Aerie, waiting for me to walk by." In fact, if it was something that was a matter of life or death, or at least keeping her job, he was more proactive: he'd show up at her apartment and throw her out of bed.

"Loitering and waiting are not considered—"

"Tanner was smirking."

Severn winced. "An official courier came by the...

Chapter One

There were few streets in the main port of Sydney which deserved the name, besides the one main thoroughfare, and even that bare packed dirt, lined only with a handful of small and wretched buildings that formed all the permanence of the colony. Tharkay turned off from this and led the way down a cramped, irregularly arranged alley-way between two wooden-slat buildings to a courtyard full of men drinking, in surly attitudes, under no roof but a tarpaulin.

Along one side of the courtyard, the further from the kitchens, the convicts sat in their drab and faded duck trousers, dusty from the fields and quarries and weighted down with fatigue; along the other, small parties of men from the New South Wales Corps watched with candidly unfriendly faces as Laurence and his companions seated themselves at a small table near the edge of the establishment.

Besides their being strangers, Granby's coat drew the eye: bottle-green was not in the common way, and though he had put off the worst excesses of gold braid and buttons with which Iskierka insisted upon adorning him, the embroidery at cuffs and collar could not be so easily detached. Laurence wore plain brown, himself: to make a pretense of standing in the Aerial Corps now was wholly out of the question, of course, and if his dress raised questions concerning his situation, that was certainly no less than honest, as neither he nor anyone else had yet managed to work out what that ought in any practical sense to be.

"I suppose this fellow will be here soon enough," Granby said, unhappily; he had insisted on coming, but not from any approval of the scheme.

"I fixed the hour at six," Tharkay answered, and then turned his head: one of the younger officers had risen from the tables and was coming towards them.

Eight months aboard ship with no duties of his own and shipmates nearly united in their determination to show disdain had prepared Laurence for the scene which, with almost tiresome similarity, unfolded yet again. The insult itself was irritating for demanding some answer, more than anything else; it had not the power to wound in the mouth of a coarse young boor, stinking of rum and visibly unworthy to stand among even the shabby ranks of a military force alternately called the Rum Corps. Laurence regarded Lieutenant Agreuth only with distaste, and said briefly, "Sir, you are drunk; go back to your table, and leave us at ours."

There the similarity ended, however: "I don't see why I," Agreuth said, his tongue tangling awkwardly, so he had to stop and repeat himself, speaking with excessive care, "why I should listen to anything out of a piss-pot whoreson traitor's fucking mouth--"

Laurence stared, and heard the tirade with mounting incredulity; he would have expected the gutter language out of a dockyard pickpocket in a temper, and hardly knew how to hear it from an officer. Granby had evidently less difficulty, and sprang to his feet saying, "By God, you will apologize, or for halfpence I will have you flogged through the streets."

"I would like to see you try it," Agreuth said, and leaning over spat into Granby's glass; Laurence stood too late to catch Granby's arm from throwing it into Agreuth's face.

That was of course an end to even the barest hope or pretense of civility; Laurence instead pulled Granby back by his arm, out of the way of Agreuth's wildly swinging fist, and letting go struck back with the same hand, clenched, as it came again at his face.

He did not hold back; if brawling was outrageous, it looked inevitable, and he...

The link between the world of man and Elfhame had sundered long ago, the elven people and their magic fading to legend. Tall beings of extraordinary beauty, the fae preferred a world of peace. But seven elves—considered mad by their own people—longed for power and war. They stole sacred magical scepters, created their dragon-steeds, and opened the gate to the realm of man again and flew through.

Each elf carved a sovereign land within England, replacing the baronies that had so recently been formed by William the Conqueror. They acquired willing and unwilling slaves to serve in their palaces and till their lands. And fight their wars. Like mythical gods they set armies of humans against each other, battling for the right to win the king, who’d become nothing more than a trophy. They bred with their human slaves, producing children to become champions of their war games.

The elven lords maintained a unified pact, using the scepters in a united will to place a barrier around England, with only a few guarded borders open to commerce. Elven magic provided unique goods and the world turned a blind eye to the plight of the people, persuaded by greed to leave England to its own, as long as the elven did not seek to expand their rule into neighboring lands.

But many of the English people formed a secret rebellion to fight their oppressors. Some of the elven’s children considered themselves human despite their foreign blood and joined the cause. And over the centuries these half-breeds became their only hope.

One
London, England, 1724

The people lining the streets of London cheered while General Dominic Raikes rode to his doom. Not that they had any idea what awaited him at Firehame palace, and if they did, he doubted they would care. He resembled the elven lord too much for that. Yet he had won the final battle and they hailed him as their champion despite his elven white hair and pointed ears.

Young women threw flowers from upper-story windows, the petals flickering through the air like snow and coating the dusty streets with color. Gray skies covered the sun and in some places the buildings nearly met above the streets, further shadowing the rider’s passage with gloom. The glass-fronted shops had been locked up as their owners joined the throng in the streets: painted harlots, street urchins, costermongers, servants, and the occasional prosperous Cit, distinguishable by his white wig. The fishy smell of the Thames overlay the stench of the streets as his troops approached Westminster Bridge.

Over the murky waters the flaming turrets of Firehame palace beckoned Dominic onward.

He shook back his war braids and straightened his spine and glanced back at his men. They had cleaned their red woolen coats as best they could, and lacking wigs, had powdered their hair to resemble the elven silver white. They had polished their boots and buttons, brushed their cocked hats. Despite their stern faces, Dominic could see the glitter of pride in their eyes and nodded his approval at them. They returned his gesture with wary respect.

Dominic turned and sighed. They were brave, good men, every one. Some he owed his victory and life to. He would like to oversee their promotions himself but it would be too dangerous. He didn’t know the personal life of a single man, nor did they know of his. Dominic had grown used to his solitary existence, yet sometimes he regretted the necessity of it.

The hooves of his horse met the road at the end of the bridge with a crunch of pebbles. The noise of the crowd faded as they neared the open gates of Firehame palace. Red flame jutted from the top of the stone pillars flanking the entrance, danced along the outlying curtain walls. Dominic halted his mount for the span of a breath, studying his home with the unfamiliar gaze of one after a long absence. Elven magic had tinted the stone walls a glossy, brilliant red. Warm yellow flame slithered up the stone, whorled over the buttresses, making the entire structure shimmer in his sight. The towers soared above the three-storied palace and Dominic’s black eyes quickly sought out the tallest, looking for a flicker of wing, a jet of red fire. But he could see no sign of the dragon and so flicked his reins, urging his horse into the courtyard.

Dominic wanted nothing more than a bath and then the quiet of his garden or the sanctuary of the dragon’s tower. He knew he wouldn’t manage any of his comforts until he’d been tested in fire.

He thrust away the memory of pain and dismounted, feeling his face turn to stone, his body conform to rigid military posture as he crossed the paved courtyard and ascended the steps into the opulence of Firehame palace. Several of his officers followed, although many decided to forgo the privilege of coming to the attention of the Imperial Lord of the sovereignty of Firehame.

The back hallways they marched through displayed the magic and wealth of the elven lord. Delicate tapestries that rewove their pictures every few minutes covered the walls, and thick rugs of rippling ponds and bottomless chasms carpeted the floors. Dominic breathed in the scent of candle wax, perfume, and elfweed, ignoring the portraits framed in gold with their moving eyes that followed their passage. At the end of summer the air in the corridor still felt chill against his cheeks. His ears rang from the silence.

Then Dominic opened the door leading to the great room and the thunder of applause broke that brief moment of quiet. He paused, waiting for his men to compose themselves, then started down the middle of the enormous room through the crowd of gentry that awaited them.

Fluted columns lined the sides of the hall, capped with ornately carved capitals that supported archways even more ornately carved with golems, gremlins, and gargoyles. Courtiers milled between the stone supports, a riot of colorful silk skirts and gold-trimmed coats. Full court wigs of powdered white sparkled with the addition of the ground stone the nobles used to imitate the silver luster of elven hair. Buckled shoes flashed with diamonds; ceremonial swords sparkled with ruby and jet.

The smell of perfume became overwhelming and Dominic suppressed the urge to sneeze. He kept his gaze fixed on his goal, the dais of gold where the elven lord Mor’ded waited, but he caught the faces of the courtiers from the corners of his eyes. The lustful gazes of women—and more than a few men—followed his every movement. Despite their fear of the elven, humans could not resist their beauty, and Dominic had inherited more elven allure than his half blood warranted.

When he reached the Imperial Lord’s throne, Dominic stared at Mor’ded for longer than he intended. Silvery white hair cascaded past broad shoulders in a river broken only by the tips of the elven lord’s pointed ears. Black, fathomless eyes stared coldly into Dominic’s own, the expression robbing them of their almost crystalline brilliance. Smooth, pale skin glistened like the finest porcelain over high cheekbones and strong chin. A full mouth, straight nose, high brow.

When Dominic looked at the Imperial Lord, he might as well have been gazing into a mirror of his future, for although his father must be over seven hundred years old, he did not look a day over five-and-thirty. And despite the thickness of his elven blood, Dominic aged at a normal human pace. In ten years, Dominic would look like the man before him.

Dominic dropped to one knee and bowed his head, war braids dangling beside his cheeks and eyes fixed on the marble floor. A wave of silence rolled across the room until he could hear nothing but the breathing of his men and the rustle of the ladies’ silk skirts. “I have won the king, my lord.”

At his words, the room erupted in applause again and Dominic stood, gazing at his father, hoping to see a glimmer of pride in those cold black eyes. He had fought for years to achieve such acknowledgement.

Imperial Lord Mor’ded smiled, revealing even white teeth, and cut his hand through the air, signaling the court to silence. He stood with a grace no human could possess and stepped down from the dais, one hand wrapped around the black scepter that enhanced his  magic. Dominic’s eyes flicked to the rod, the runes carved upon it swirling momentarily in his sight before he quickly looked away.

As a child he’d been constantly hungry. He’d been stealing food off the sideboard in the grand dining room when his father and court had entered. He’d hidden under the table and his father had sat, the triangular-shaped head of the scepter jutting beneath the crisp white linen. Dominic didn’t know what made him reach out and stroke the forbidden talisman, for everyone knew only one of true elven blood could hold it without being flamed to ash. But he hadn’t tried to wield it, had only touched it, and since then he couldn’t look at it without feeling strange. As if the thing possessed a conscious awareness of him. It bothered him that he had such a fanciful thought.

Mor’ded reached his side and placed his other hand on Dominic’s shoulder. The chill of his long fingers penetrated the heavy wool of Dominic’s coat. “After a hundred years the king will finally be returned to his rightful place. Thanks to my son, the champion of all Firehame.”

Applause thundered again. The elven lord’s words echoed in Dominic’s ears. His father had publicly acknowledged him as his son. Fierce pleasure rose in Dominic’s chest and he had to force himself to concentrate on Mor’ded’s next words.

“General Raikes has defeated Imperial Lord Breden’s forces and we have won the ultimate trophy—King George and his royal court. London will again be the center of taste and fashion. The sovereignty of Firehame will house the man who decides what color breeches you wear.”

A ripple of excited pleasure ran through the courtiers and Dominic stared coldly at the assemblage. Did they not hear the disdain in his father’s voice? Did they not understand the mockery toward the king who should be their rightful ruler?

Mor’ded’s fingers tightened on Dominic’s shoulder, and  the elven lord’s magic shivered through his spine. Dominic forced himself to relax under the painful grip. It did not matter if the ton understood or not. They could do nothing about it, anyway.

“Tonight we will feast in my son’s honor.”

His fingers gave Dominic one last painful squeeze before he released his grip and climbed back up on his dais. With a flourish of his scepter, Mor’ded filled the long great room with sparkling white fire, the flames harmlessly bouncing off the wigs of the men and the silk skirts of the ladies. The courtiers laughed and wove their bodies through the magic, and Dominic watched them with hooded eyes until his father grew tired of amusing his playthings.

 When Mor’ded swept the skirts of his red silk coat through the door behind the throne, Dominic followed, resisting the sudden urge to draw his sword and run it through his father’s back.

He’d tried it once. It had cost him the life of his best friend.

His father lit their way through the gloomy passage with white fire that slithered on the ceiling above them. Dominic knew most of the passageways behind the walls of the palace. He’d spent hours as a youth exploring them. This particular one led from the throne to Mor’ded’s private chambers, and branched off only once by means of a tunnel that his father told him twisted far beneath the palace, finally opening onto an entrance to the fabled land of Elfhame. Of course, only a chosen one could pass into that land, and Dominic had still failed to prove worthy. They both ignored the heavily warded door blocking the tunnel as they continued on to the end of the passage.

Mor’ded opened the door to his chamber and Dominic followed him into the room and suppressed a shudder. Very few people were allowed into the Imperial Lord’s private chamber, and he didn’t count himself lucky to be one of them. The walls glowed with iridescent color, a copy, Mor’ded had once told him, of the truly living walls of his old rooms in his homeland of fabled Elfhame. Plants grew in the corners of the room, pale pink pods that occasionally liked to dine on warm meat through some corrosive process Dominic didn’t want to understand. A striated crystal sat next to the double doors that led out onto a balcony broad enough for a dragon to land. The stone picked up the color of the gray skies and threw it into the room. Large enough for a table, and yet shaped like a cone, the crystal held a hole in the top of it that Mor’ded often slipped his scepter into.

Chairs that resembled flower petals, a bed that could be some sort of deformed swan, and a desk that snapped closed like the jaws of some great beast completed the room.

Dominic always felt displaced here, as if a part of his mind rejected the surroundings. But then again, he’d become quite skilled at projecting his mind out of his body. It was the only way he’d survived the trials with his sanity intact.

Mor’ded slid into one of his petal-chairs, the scepter carelessly laid across his lap. He liked to play with Dominic a bit before he began, taunting him to display any human weakness.

“You used magic to gain your victory.”

Dominic clasped his hands behind his back and widened his stance. No use in denying it. He’d seen the shadow of the dragon hovering over the battlefield, his father atop the great beast, enjoying the sight of the games. “I used it to save the lives of my men.”

That handsome mouth crooked, so like Dominic’s own. “It looked to be quite a firestorm.”

Dominic shrugged.

Mor’ded shifted, the swish of his silk coats loud in the silent room. “Breden is furious, of course. He says we should not allow any of our bastards to play in the games. Indeed, that we should cull any of those possessing the slightest degree of power.”

Dominic kept his face impassive. He did not doubt that the elven lords would destroy all their offspring on a whim, for he knew of their madness better than anyone. “One of Breden’s bastards tried to quench my fire with a wave of water from the Bristol Channel.”

“Which I pointed out to Breden,” replied Mor’ded. He waved a graceful hand. “It matters not what he says. His pride has been injured by the loss of the king. He had become complacent, and we elven must never succumb to that human weakness, eh, Dominic?”

“Never, my lord.”

“Aah, but it makes me wonder. Have I allowed myself to become complacent?” Mor’ded leaned forward, his glittering eyes intent on his son’s face, baiting him with the agony of anticipation.

Dominic clenched his teeth.

Mor’ded collapsed back in his chair, the petal swaying with his laughter, a ringing song emanating from the depths of the flower. “You were one of my greatest mistakes, and yet a most amusing one. We elven procreate with you animals so rarely, and yet a brief rut with a common kitchen maid produced a bastard with enough of my blood to bear a marked resemblance to me. And sometimes I swear your heart is all elven.” He shook his head, pale locks winking with silver. “Still, who knew that when I saw you fighting with the other kitchen boys and threw you into the game you would rise to claim the king one day? Not I.”

“You’ve taught me well, Father.”

“Indeed. And now we must again test your worthiness. You know what has to come, do you not?”

Dominic lifted his chin.

His father stood, the scepter held before him with both hands, calling on the additional power the talisman gave him. “There is no other way to be sure of your power. Defend yourself, boy.” And he unleashed the black flame.

It engulfed Dominic with a hiss and a scream, licking at his feet, shivering down his arms. His clothes appeared unaffected by the flame, and yet he felt them melting into his flesh, fusing into him. His skin still looked whole, and yet he felt it searing into ash. The black flame only burned in the mind, but ah, even the worse for that. He gritted his teeth and vowed that this time, he would not fall. His own little game he always played against his father.

Dominic held up his hands, his own magic instinctively responding to the assault. White, blue, gray—he could call the entire spectrum of fire magic except for the black, but only the red fire did any damage, and his father easily squelched the blaze before it could sizzle the tiny fibrous hairs off his monstrous plants.

“Come on, lad. You can do better than that,” said Mor’ded. And increased the magic twofold.

Dominic gasped for breath. The blackness slid down his throat and into his lungs, charring them until he could not breathe. The pain he could withstand, but the suffocation always defeated him. He dropped to one knee. His magic flared again and he imagined he felt the power of the black fire within him, the flame that burned only in the mind. Dominic tried to call it forth, but as always, nothing happened.

He always forgot how bad the pain could be. How could he forget?

Dominic had been wounded in battle many times. His men whispered that his elven blood made him impervious to pain. They did not know his mind had been tempered in fire, that the cut of a sword or sting of a bullet seemed a minor ache compared to the agony of his father’s magic.

And Dominic knew he couldn’t possess the power of black fire, as much as he wished for it. The gift would have been revealed when he reached puberty, when any elven powers first appeared, and he would have been sent to Elfhame with the rest of the chosen children. Only those with small magics stayed in the human world.

Yet his father continued to test him again and again, as if he suspected his son held stronger power as well. Or perhaps Mor’ded just enjoyed torturing him.

Dominic’s lungs began to falter, his breath reduced to no more than a strangled wheeze of agony. His other knee collapsed and he fell to all fours, cursing his weakness. Cursing his father.

And suddenly the burning fire ceased.

Blessedly cool air caressed his cheeks and he sucked in a deep breath. Dominic resisted the urge to run his hands over his face, his hair--to reassure himself that he stood unharmed as he’d done the first time he’d endured one of his father’s trials. Mor’ded had laughed at him and Dominic had vowed never to give the man the satisfaction of that pleasure again.

Dominic rose with elven grace.

Mor’ded studied him with narrowed eyes. “No elf could withstand such pain and not instinctively call forth his own magic in defense. Again you’ve proven how truly weak you are…and yet…”

Dominic let out a tired sigh. He did not bother using the blue healing fire. His body might be whole, but it always took some time for his mind to heal from the memory of the pain. And he rarely used so much of his power; he felt tired unto death. “Either destroy me completely or allow me to leave. I’m half human, you know.”

“Indeed, indeed.” Mor’ded chuckled, lifted his scepter and the door of his chamber flew open with a breath of fire. “You look so elven I forget you’re half animal. Go lick your wounds, then. I want you rested for the feast tonight, and of course, your marriage tomorrow.”

Dominic halted in midstep. He had forgotten the date. Easy to do, since he’d almost forgotten what his intended looked like. He’d met Lady Cassandra a few times and could only recall a plain wisp of a girl with brownish hair and eyes. “Is it tomorrow, then? I suppose it’s best to get it over with.”

Mor’ded rolled the scepter between his palms, his black eyes glittering. “It will make the humans happy, seeing my son wed to one of their finest aristocrats. And who knows? Perhaps you will breed true and produce another champion.”

Dominic sighed. Fatigue shrouded him and it took all of his will to pick up his feet and put one before the other again. He had realized years ago that it would be pointless to fight the destiny his father had forced upon him. If Mor’ded wanted him to take a wife and breed champions, so be it.

It mattered only that Dominic never allowed them to be used against him.

When he left Mor’ded’s room his feet took him to the tower stairs and not his own chambers. Halfway up the curving staircase a wave of nausea overtook him and he allowed himself a brief moment of weakness. In the dark, where none could see. He felt again the searing of his flesh and the constriction of his lungs. Sweat broke out on his forehead while his body trembled in wave upon wave of remembered pain. But he gritted his teeth against the sobs that threatened to rise from his chest and for a brief moment pictured his father’s slim neck between his battle-hardened hands.

He thrust the futile image away and began to climb again. The elven lord could level London if he so chose.       Dominic’s strength would never be a match against Mor’ded’s and he’d been forced to accept that.
But he had won a victory today. He’d made his father proud enough to call him son before the entire court.     Dominic would grasp that slender victory, as he’d grasped even smaller accomplishments over the years.

He shoved open the wooden door and stepped out onto the flat roof of the tower. Humid air caressed his skin; a light breeze swept his silver hair against his cheeks. The metallic smell of the dragon teased his nose and he glanced across the rooftop at the huge beast.

Ador raised his black-scaled head and blinked at Dominic, his red eyes glowing even in the overcast day. Strange eyes, with elongated pupils with black lines radiating from them, separating the red color like pieces of a pie. The dragon’s leatherlike wings lay tucked against his sides, appearing deceptively small against his long, sinuous body.

Dominic removed his woolen coat and spread it out in his usual place at the base of a merlon and sat, his back against the stone. He leaned his head against the hard surface and closed his eyes with a sigh of utter weariness.
The dragon shifted. Dominic heard it in the slide of scale on stone, felt it in the tremble of the floor beneath his feet. It had once frightened him, the sheer size of the beast. But no more. He’d gotten used to the beast and Ador…well, the dragon had finally managed to tolerate him.

“Do you remember the first time I came up here, Ador?” Dominic didn’t wait for the dragon to answer. He rarely received a response to his musings. But for Dominic it was enough that someone listened. “Father had tested my magic by burning Mongrel to ashes. He was a good dog and a loyal friend. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself for not having enough magic to protect him.”

The pungent smell of the Thames swept across the tower, even at this height, and for a moment, Dominic thought he could hear the muffled sounds of the city below them.

“It was the first time I realized I could no longer allow myself to care for anyone. Man nor beast. For Father would always use them to test my magic.” Dominic blocked the images of those who had suffered because of him. He’d found it much easier to bear the pain himself. “But my human weakness for companionship made me think of you. All alone, atop your tower. And then I realized Father would never harm his dragon-steed. That I could care for you, at least. Even if you couldn’t return the sentiment.” Dominic cracked a hopeful eye. But Ador appeared to have fallen back to sleep, his lungs like a great bellows pumping beneath those black, shiny scales.

Dominic sighed and allowed the solitude of their high perch to settle over him. The world seemed very far away up here. The wars, the court, his father, all dwindled to minute specks of matter. One final small tremor shook him, dispelling the last memory of pain. And when he spoke again his voice held the coldly rigid control it always did.

“I have done well, in most respects, to be like my father. Remote and untouchable, concerned only with my own pleasure. But you know the truth of me, don’t you, Ador? Whether you willed it or not, you’ve been forced to hear my true thoughts over the years.” Dominic scrubbed a weary hand across his brow. “This elven face of mine is deceiving, for I’ve been cursed with an all-too-human heart.”

Ador snorted and his wing twitched, his only reaction to Dominic’s damning statement. Ah, well. Dominic should consider that a remarkable response. Usually the dragon resembled nothing more than a still lump of shiny black coal.

Dominic rose and arched his back, wincing at a stab of pain. Just an ordinary pain, though, from an old bullet wound in battle. He smiled with relief that it held none of the taint of black fire magic. “Are you aware I’m to be married on the morrow? A dangerous proposition, for one such as I. I almost feel sorry for the girl…but the aristocracy are used to being breeding stock, are they not?”

He picked up his coat and slung it over his back. His mind felt settled again, the memory of the burning fading to a manageable degree. Dominic couldn’t be sure if the dragon’s quiet presence soothed him or if the release of his thoughts brought him peace. He knew only that he always healed faster atop the tower.

He’d taken a few steps toward the door when the dragon’s rumbling words stopped him.

“I smell a change in the wind.”

Dominic turned and stared into those red eyes. “What do you mean?”

Ador, of course, did not answer. He closed his eyes again and huffed a small stream of smoke through his nostrils.

Dominic considered the implications of the dragon’s words. Ador had once told him Father was mad. An obvious statement, it seemed, and yet those words had allowed Dominic to deal with his father time and again. So he did not think the dragon referred to something as simple as the coming of the king. Yet no matter how he twisted the statement around in his head, he could not fathom it.

Ah, well. How could Dominic know the turnings of a dragon’s mind? It would become clear in time…or until Ador chose to make it clear.

Love in the Time of Dragons

eBook Excerpt

by Katie McAlister

Chapter One