I stopped with my feet still in the sea. There were still several yards between us, but I could see him and hear him, and that was close enough. Not that I thought he’d hurt me, even if his anger was hot enough to burn.
His face might as well have been a brick, for all the emotion he was showing. But I could see the flick of it in his bright eyes. Feel the thunder of it rolling through the air.
“How did you find me?”
“I’ve been patrolling all night.” His rich voice was as clipped as mine. “Air dragons may be creatures of air and sun, but we have damn good night vision. A sea dragon is hard to miss, even at night and under the water.”
“Bit risky flying around like that, wasn’t it?”
He gave me a cold sort of smile. “If I fly high up, people just think I’m a large bird.”
Extremely large, I would think. And if those people happened to be near a pair of binoculars, well, there went any resemblance to a large bird. Still, an air dragon flew extremely fast. It was doubtful that even those who had a camera at hand would catch anything more than air swirls.
“What about the laptop and the equipment you had in the car?”
He gave me a dark sort of look. “I went back to my house and stored them there.”
“Look, Trae—”
“Not here,” he snapped, closing the distance between us, wrapping me in heat and anger. “The night is freezing, and you’re shivering. My car is just up on the road. Let’s get somewhere warm before we do this.”
He gripped my arm and propelled me forward several steps. Caught by surprise, I almost fell, and it was only his grip that kept me upright. Once I’d managed to catch my balance, I ripped my elbow out of his grasp and stopped.
“The last thing I need”—I stabbed him in the chest with a finger and tried to ignore the warmth that flared up toward my arm with each tiny touch—“is some fool acting like a damned he-man. You can’t just haul me around as you please. Be civil, or that ring is going to remain sea-bound for eternity.”
He crossed his arms, his eyes flat and dangerous. “That’s not a threat you should be making, sweetheart. Trust me on that.”
I growled low down in my throat and pushed past him. “Why couldn’t you have just accepted the situation and left me alone?”
He followed, a presence I could feel through every pore, in every fiber. In some ways, he felt like sunshine through rain—an inner warmth surrounded by threatening darkness.
“Because we had a deal.” His voice was even, not hinting at the fury vibrating the air. “And you’re going to live up to your side of it.”
I swung around and faced him. “All you need the ring for is to get some information out of your bastard of a father. I’m trying to get to mine before he dies. What makes you think I really give a damn about any stupid deal you might have made right now?”
“What makes you think that the information I need is any less urgent than you getting to your dad?”
“Because if it was, you would have told me.”
“Not when the fucking ring was already out of my reach and couldn’t be immediately retrieved.” He eyed me for a minute, the heat of his fury washing over me again despite the tight control he obviously had over his emotions. “Agreeing to the deal gave me the ring in a couple of days. And that was okay, because it helped me, and it helped you, as Egan had wished.”
I studied him for a moment, then said, “So what sort of information does your father hold that is so important?”
He sighed, and thrust a hand through his hair. “My sister has gone missing, and my mom feels sure that she’s in some sort of trouble.”
“Is this a kin intuition thing?”
“She’s human, remember, so the kin intuition doesn’t apply. She just occasionally gets these feelings about things, and they mostly come true.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you tell me all this in the first place?” My voice was sharper than I’d intended, but damn it, he deserved it. If his sister was in trouble, he should have told me. “Why do such a botched job of stealing it?”
“Because we’re conditioned not talk about the clique or clique business. Besides, I had no idea what had happened to my brother, who you were, and whether I could trust you. Running with the ring just seemed easier at the time.”
“You could have just explained the situation, Trae.”
His gaze searched mine. “Would you have believed me? Especially considering you had no idea until our meeting that Egan even had siblings?”
“Honestly? I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe not when we’d first met, because I didn’t know you any better than you knew me. But later, yeah, I would have. Either way, stealing it wasn’t the answer.”
“So I discovered.”
This, I thought sourly, was a complete and utter shambles. And why? Because neither of us had trusted the other enough to just come out and explain things. But at least this was one mess that was easily fixed.
I swung around on my heel and marched back to the sea. I couldn’t change the delay I’d caused—a delay that might very well endanger his sister—but I could do this. I could summon the ring from the sea and give it back to him.
“Destiny, the car is—”
“I don’t care about the car. I’m getting the ring.”
“It’s nearly dawn—” he said.
“Which is the best time for this sort of magic.” I swung around and faced him. “I have enough blood on my hands already, Trae. I don’t want your sister’s on them as well. When I get the ring, I want you to go. Get the information you need, and go find your sister.”
“But—”
“Promise me,” I cut in sharply, “that you’ll take the ring and go.”
He hesitated, then said, “Okay. I promise.”
“Good. You might want to get some blankets from the car, though. This could be a bit of a wait.”
I turned back around and walked to the water. The waves hissed over my feet, welcoming me back, wanting me to go deeper, wanting me to play. I ignored them, wading out until the water was thigh deep. Once there, I stopped and waited for the dawn.
It stirred gradually through the darkness. Slivers of pink and gold began to breach the night, dousing the stars and lending a glory to the predawn darkness. The energy in the air gradually increased, becoming more and more frantic, reaching toward its crescendo as the slivers became a river that flooded the sky. As the beat of energy came to a peak, and the air came alive with the hum and power of a new day, I raised my left hand and held it palm up to the skies.
“To the Gods of the sea, I call on thee.”
The ritual words rode across the silence, holding the energy, shaping it, becoming a thing of beauty and command. The waters around me began to stir and swirl, and the rush of waves were momentarily lost against that gathering whirl. Droplets of water shot into the sky, sparkling like diamonds in the gathering brightness.
“To my brothers of deep, dark waters, and my sisters of the quick shallows, I call on thee.”
More energy touched the air, a deep, bass thrum that spoke of vast, cold places. It flooded through me, filling me, completing me, in a way no human touch ever would.
The droplets came together, becoming a water spout that glittered and spun and danced upon the rich, dark waters.
“Return the ring you’ve kept safe and unfound. Return it to me now from the dark and secret places.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the energy stirred, then leapt away. The turbulence stilled and the waves returned. I turned around and waded back up to the shoreline.
Trae was waiting, and there were blankets at his feet. “Now what?” he said, his fingers briefly touching my cheek, washing warmth across my skin.
“Now we wait.” I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me cocoon-like, then sat down. “What did you mean before, when you said you were conditioned not to talk about the clique?”