I glanced at the ring sitting in the middle of my palm. The dragon’s jeweled eyes still gleamed like blood dripping from a wound, and the ring itself remained heavy and cold against my skin. Reluctantly, I closed my fingers around it, then turned and headed back to the beach.
“Here,” I said, holding out my hand. “I hope it helps you find your sister.”
He opened his palm and I dropped the thing into it. The red eyes seemed to gleam ominously before he closed his fingers around it and shoved it in his pocket. As if he, too, felt the coldness in the thing.
His gaze met mine, the rich depths gleaming brightly in the sunlight, as if lit from behind. “Thanks.”
I shrugged, trying for casual, knowing there was no other choice. “If you’re no longer going to use the car, can I take it? I can’t swim in the bay at this hour in either form—there are too many boats and people about.”
He took the keys from his other pocket and dropped them into my hand. “It’s the red Ford with the white top. You can’t miss it.”
I clenched my fingers around the keys, pressing them into my palm, using the pain of it to help stop the tears that were threatening to spill.
“This is not the end for us, Destiny,” he said softly.
My gaze rose to his, and something in my soul sighed at the determination I saw in those bright depths. “Good, because I don’t want this to be an end for us. But I also don’t want to be responsible for your death. Egan was enough. Go find your sister, do what you have to do, and maybe we can meet up at your big old house a month or so down the track.”
“Egan made his choices, Destiny. You’re not responsible for what happened because of them.”
“Egan died because he chose to escape with me, and no amount of prettying it will change that fact.” I half turned away, then added, “Good-bye, Trae. Good luck with your sister.”
“Damn it,” he said, then stepped forward, grabbing my arm and pulling me backward, into his arms. His mouth claimed mine, and it was all heat and intensity and raw emotion. It was a kiss that said everything that remained unsaid between us, a kiss that held so many promises that my heart ached and my stomach churned.
Because I couldn’t afford to hang on to those promises, I really couldn’t. There was just too much uncertainty in my present.
He broke the kiss as suddenly as he started it. He stared at me for several seconds, his breathing harsh and blue eyes stormy, then simply said, “A month, then. Make sure you’re there.”
“I will be.” I turned and walked away. But as I began to climb the steps to the parking lot, I looked back. I thought I saw a muscle tick along his jawline. Thought I saw his fingers twitch, and then clench. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and I didn’t stop.
When I finally reached the parking lot, I gave in to the urge to look around again.
Trae was gone.
Chapter Eleven
It was a lonely drive to my dad’s. But as the miles slipped by and I got closer to home, tension began to crawl through my body. Tension that was an odd mix of excitement and anxiety. I hadn’t seen my dad in nearly eleven years, and I had no idea how badly he’d been ravaged by the diabetes.
Part of me didn’t actually want to see what the disease had done to him. I wanted to remember him as he was back then, not as he was now. Which was selfish of me, I guess.
I swung the car into our street and slowed as I neared the beautiful old maple tree that marked the road that led down to our house. But something caught my eye—the brief glint of sunlight off glass deep in the trees. It took me a moment to realize what it was.
The windshield of another car.
A chill ran down my spine. They were waiting for me. So much for them not knowing where my dad lived.
I pressed the accelerator and zoomed past. No car came out of the trees to follow.
God, all these years of thinking he was safe, of thinking that the scientists didn’t know about him and couldn’t bother him—and yet at any moment they could have so easily swept him into their vicious little net.
So why hadn’t they?
Marsten wasn’t one to hold back from acquiring more test subjects, so maybe they simply didn’t realize Dad was dragon. Maybe they’d been watching him for a while, but had never seen him change, never seen him play with fire, and just presumed he was human.
But how would they have known where he lived in the first place? It wasn’t something Mom could have told them, because she didn’t know. They’d snatched her before we’d moved to America.
And all I’d taken over to Scotland with me was some cash and a couple of credit cards. I’d had no intentions of being there long, and had figured I’d have no reason not to be there illegally. God, I’d been so arrogantly confident—and a stupidly easy target.
Could I have told them?
As I’d told Trae, I’d been knocked out many a time over the years. Maybe they’d found some sort of truth drug that worked with our body chemistry. Maybe I’d babbled my heart out, and just hadn’t known about it.
And if that were the case, it was just as well I didn’t know all that much about my relatives. At least I wouldn’t have been able to betray them as well.
So what did I do now?
With a shortrange tracker embedded in one of my teeth, I couldn’t go too near those men. It’d be my luck that they’d have a receiver.
But I still had to get to the house. Still had to see how my dad was. And that left me only the option of going through the trees and walking along the shore. That should put enough distance between the tracker in my tooth and any receiver the men might have.
I drove off the highway and followed what looked to be little more than a deer track deep into the trees, until there was nothing more to see than shadows and tree trunks. After switching off the engine, I opened the door and got out. The scent of balsam and rotting leaf matter filled the air, but I could feel the closeness of the bay. The energy of it seemed to caress my skin, making it tingle.
Home, I thought, and felt a smile touch my lips.
I shoved the car keys into my pocket and walked through the tree trunks, following the faint whiff of water down to the bay’s boulder-strewn shoreline.
I had no real memories of Loch Ness. I might have been born in its dark, murky waters, but Dad and I had moved here when I was barely six years old. This was the home of my heart. It was here I’d been raised, here I’d learned how to swim and dive, to hunt and fish, and to be all that a sea dragon could be. All under my dad’s watchful gaze and tutelage.
The image of him sitting on a chair, casually drinking a beer as the moonlight played through his blond hair, had tears stinging my eyes. Damn it, I missed him. Missed him so much my heart seemed to ache under the weight of it.
And suddenly I was running up the beach. Waves lapped at my toes, tingling touches of power that seemed filled with welcoming. But I no time to stop and play, because time was running out for my dad.
Our old log home, with its sharply angled green-iron roof and vast array of windows came into view. Despite the urgency hammering at my soul, I slowed. There was no sign of movement near the house, and no sound to be heard other than the whisper of water across stone and sand. There was no sign that anyone had been near the place for months, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t.
I jogged into the shadows offered by the pines, spruces, and cedars that formed a U-shaped windbreak around our house, and slowed as I neared one of the side windows. With every sense alert to catch any sound or movement, I crept forward and peered past the sill. The living room was filled with sunshine, and dust lay thick on the coffee table and along the top of the old leather sofas. Dad had never been the world’s best housekeeper, but even he wouldn’t let the dust get this thick.
Frowning, trying to ignore the fear beginning to clog my throat, I ducked past the window and moved to the back door. Again, no one appeared to be near. After another quick look around, I slipped my hand past the potted remains of a sorry-looking raspberry bush and lightly dug at the soil. My fingers touched metal and relief slithered through me. At least some things hadn’t changed.