Jaime Rush - Dragon Awakened

“I don’t want you coming in with me. I’d like to say I trust Fernandez. He and his wife raised me after I was orphaned. That’s the way being a Ward worked in the old days, if you had no family to take you in.”

She didn’t want to know about how he’d lost his parents, how he had no family. “But?”

“I can’t completely trust him.”

“So I’m hiding in the car?”

“No, I want you nearby so you know what’s going on. We’ll walk through the neighbor’s yard. They’re up north for the summer, so the house is closed up. I’ve got a boat off the side dock. Duck down there. Ready?”

“As I ever will be.”

He stood and dropped some bills on the table. Once outside, he walked to the passenger side and peered into the car first. “Rule of thumb when being hunted by demons: always check your vehicle before you get in. Not a bad idea anyway. Miami has its share of ghouls of the Hidden and the Mundane variety.”

He was still teaching her. It should annoy her, but somehow it had the opposite effect. Their gazes locked, and that sexuality curled through her. She could feel the heat of the sun on her back, and his heat from where he stood inches in front of her. “Cyn…”

She tried to dredge up something angry or cold, anything to put distance between them. All she felt was a draw to him, even knowing what he’d done. She ached to feel his hand on her, even just to brush a strand of hair from her temple.

“Ruby, don’t look at me like that. Because it makes me want to do this.” He did touch her, stroking his fingers along her jawline.

She batted his hand away. “Damn it, we aren’t supposed to be here again. Together. Feeling like this. You were supposed to be—” She cut off the words.

“Feeling the ache of you turning your back on me?”

“Yes, I wanted you to feel even a fraction of what you caused me to feel. But you can’t feel, can you? That’s what you said, anyway. Tell me I was only a moral obligation to you. A few moments of lust.” She lifted her chin.

“You like to hear the raw truth, don’t you, Ruby?” As though he’d read her mind, or maybe her energy, he did brush a stray strand of hair from her forehead, trailing his fingers across her brow. “Are you sure you want to hear it this time?”

“Yes.” She braced herself for his cold, harsh words.

“Watching you Awaken woke up a part of myself I didn’t know existed. It was more than you growing into your Dragon’s sensuality. It was how your spirit touched me so deeply that I could not stop myself from wanting you. I told myself it was just sexual attraction. But when you told me I was the first man you wanted to give your heart to, I realized what’s between us was much more. And that I wanted you more than anything I’ve wanted in a long, long time. The only way I could keep from violating my moral code was to tell you the truth. Watching you walk away cut so deep, hurt so much, I actually looked for blood on my shirt. Now I feel such a deep emptiness, it’s like my insides have been sucked out. Does that fill your need for revenge?”

She swayed, forcing herself to breathe. Every word had twisted so tight around her heart, lungs, her entire body. She felt the truth in words filled with pain, saw it in his eyes. Her voice sounded hollow when she said, “That should do it.”

He opened the door for her and said, “Let’s see what Fernandez has to say. Maybe we can finish this now, and you can walk away again.”

Ruby was glad for the silence in the car as Cyn turned onto his street. She was waiting for the satisfaction over his admission. It should be coming any second now. But it didn’t, because she was suffering, too, though she’d die before admitting it.

What astounded her was that he didn’t appear to be in pain. He could mask it so well. What else did he hide from her? From himself, for that matter?

He parked in the driveway next door and killed the engine. “I want to get you into a hiding spot before I meet Fernandez. Mr. Smith could be watching.”

He led her around orange and grapefruit trees to the ocean that sparkled in the midday sun. “We’re going to climb down there and take that ledge over to my dock.”

The ledge was made of broken concrete close to where waves splashed. Bracing himself on the edge of the seawall, Cyn stepped down and gained his balance, then looked at her. She followed suit, mirroring his movements as he scooted along the ledge, hidden by the seawall to anyone who might be lurking around Cyn’s house. His property was on a point, the dock on the side that faced across the canal to another house. The other side looked out to open ocean. She eschewed his offered hand and stepped onto the dock, crouching down as he did.

“Wait for me to get you. If there’s trouble, you’ll have to determine whether it’s better to get involved or stay hidden. For instance, if I’m killed straight out, there’s no point in jumping in. You’ll only die, too, because if someone gets the best of me, you have no chance.” He took his phone from his back pocket and placed it in her hand. “If that happens, wait until they leave and find Kade. Or Grayson.”

She put her hand to her chest as she watched him head back to the car. The thought of his dying made her heart hurt. It was only fear of being on her own, right?

It seemed like forever before she heard his voice, carried on the breeze. “We’re safe to talk out here. My neighbors are gone for the summer. Lately I don’t like being in closed spaces.”

Ruby dared peek just above the wall. The other man was dark-haired, too, but shorter and stockier. Cyn positioned himself so that the man’s back was to her. His gaze flicked to her before focusing on Fernandez again. “What’s going on?”

“Mr. Smith came to see me again. He said you’re harboring a woman who has been trying to sabotage his efforts to save as many people as possible from the Deus Vis fluctuations.”

“It’s not the fluctuations that are threatening us. It’s that our life force is actually breaking up. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you that he’s causing the fracturing. Brom Winston saw the devastation his project would cause. That’s why Justin sabotaged the project, and why he was executed.”

Fernandez shook his head. “Mr. Smith told me how he hired Justin to come up with portable Deus Vis so Crescents could leave the Field. How the device he engineered exacerbated the fluctuations of the solar storms that were hitting at the time. And yes, Brom did warn him, but Justin ignored those warnings. When Mr. Smith talked of shutting the project down, Justin took all of his research and the device and went on the run to continue his experiments. That’s why he was terminated.”

Fernandez clearly believed the story Mr. Smith had fed him. But Ruby didn’t.

Cyn didn’t either by the hard edge to his next question. “So why are we experiencing this extreme disruption now? Did he have an answer to that?”

“It’s a huge solar storm. You’ve heard it on the news, physicist Michio Kaku talking about the way it might affect electricity and satellites. It will affect Crescents in more devastating ways. Mr. Smith has a device that holds Deus Vis and will feed a select number of Crescents the energy we need. The woman is trying to destroy this device. We’ll all die.” Fernandez’s words grew raw with emotion. “Celia is already ill, as you know. Those who are weakened are feeling it first.”

“Who chooses the ones that benefit from this supposed device?”

“The Chosen are based on their value to Crescent society. My wife, I, and you, Cyn, we’ll all get the energy. But only if you turn over this woman to my custody.”