Keri Arthur - Mercy Burns

But perhaps what was even scarier was the fact that there’d been absolutely no sound to indicate he’d moved.

True to his name, he was as silent as a ghost.

I briefly opened an eye to check how I was doing and saw that the bolt was beginning to glow. It was working. But sweat was trickling down my forehead and my arm was beginning to shake. Worse, the maelstrom inside was rapidly losing its intensity. Generally, a dragon could flame for as long as she or he was awake and aware, simply because we were fueled by the heat of the sun. But it was now night, and my flames were drawing their energy directly from my body—a body that had lost a lot of blood in the accident and was still very battered and bruised.

I opened my eyes. The tight beam of fire was definitely less intense than it had been, but the bolt was glowing brighter.

I just had to keep going for a little bit longer, and we might be able to get out of here.

I bit my lip and concentrated on the flame, forcing as much energy as I could into it. The tremor in my arm spread to the rest of me, until my whole body seemed to be shaking with effort.

Hands touched my waist—just enough to hold me steady, and to catch me should my knees buckle. Damon’s grip on my injured right side—though gentle—had the pain flaring again, but his touch was also heated and strong, and the dragon inside wanted to snatch and use it. It was a temptation I resisted. He needed to cope with the men upstairs, and who knew how much strength he actually had left? He might have lasted longer in darkness than I’d ever thought possible, but I doubted even Death could go on forever without the sun’s warmth to fuel him.

The metal finally began to glow white hot. At first it was little more than a small pinprick right at the center of the flames, but it gradually spread, flowing outward across the hot metal.

Just a little bit more, I thought—and in that moment, the flames sputtered and died, and my legs went out from underneath me.

Damon caught me one-handed, pressing me against his side while he pushed his weight against the door. The muscles in his arm corded, and the exertion had his body shaking as much as mine.

For a minute I thought it might all be for naught, but slowly, surely, the door began to inch away from the frame. I broke free of his grip and grabbed at the wall to steady myself. Damon flung his full weight against the door and, with little ceremony, the bolt gave way.

The door sprang open. We were free of the cell.

Now we just had to get out of this place and away from the men.

D amon barely stopped the door from crashing back against the wall. He looked at the melted bolt, at the strings of still glowing metal trailing from it, then at me. In the darkness, his eyes burned with an unearthly heat.

“That’s an amazing thing you did there,” he said, voice so soft it barely carried.

“Yeah.” I blew out a breath and forced my shaking knees to lock. We weren’t free yet, and as much as I wanted to sit down and recuperate, that wasn’t an option right now. “Where are those men?”

He glanced up the stairs. “One to the left, one outside.”

“I’m not going to be of much use on the fighting front at the moment.”

His lips twitched, hinting at a smile, and for the second time that night, my breath hitched in reaction. I had an odd feeling this man didn’t smile a whole lot, and that was probably a good thing if my reaction to the merest hint of one was anything to go by.

And that reaction was troubling. The last thing I needed was an attraction to a dangerous man—not when such an attraction had gone wrong so often in the past.

“You’ve upheld your end of the bargain. Time for me to uphold mine.” He flexed his arms and his smile faded, his lips becoming as cold and harsh as his expression. “Wait here.”

He didn’t give me time to answer. He simply turned and melted into the darkness—a shadow that made no sound as he flowed upward and disappeared.

I grabbed the door and swung it closed again, just in case one of the men walked past the stairs. I trusted Damon to do his job, but even Death couldn’t be in two places at once. It’d be just my luck that I’d get discovered on the verge of escape.

I pressed back against the wall, hoping the shadows were deep enough to cover my presence. And then I realized that was totally stupid. I mean, the guards were dragons . They’d sense me down here in the shadows regardless. I was better off hoping that I regained fire strength quickly so that I’d at least have something to protect myself with.

A clock ticked loudly into the silence and, as the minutes stretched, I wondered what was going on upstairs. I wondered if Damon was taking care of the men or simply getting the hell out. Maybe I was doing him an injustice by thinking that, but there’d been so many other dragons over the years who—in one way or another—had let me down.

I’m not sure how long I stood there before the awareness that something was wrong began to steal through my soul. I pressed back harder against the brick wall, the chill of it seeping into my spine, making me feel colder than I’d ever thought possible.

I stared at the stairs, hating the fact that I didn’t know what was happening up there. I took one step upward then stopped. I’d been told to wait here and it made sense to do so—especially given my fires were still little more than embers.

But if things had gone wrong—if Damon had been too weak to take care of both men—then staying here meant I’d be caught, too. And given I’d basically rendered the lock useless, who knew what they’d do to keep us still and quiet until tomorrow night?

I bit my lip, then slowly climbed the stairs, my heart racing so hard it felt like it was going to tear out of my chest as I strained to hear the slightest sound.

But nothing and no one else seemed to be moving.

Besides the clock, the house was deathly quiet. I reached the top step and paused. My dragon senses still weren’t providing much in the way of information, which was damn frustrating because I really could have done with a little extra help.

But then, that was practically the story of my life. Things never went the way I wanted or expected them to.

Like Rainey . I pushed away the flare of pain and tried to concentrate on the here and now.

I peered carefully around the corner. Darkness lay to my right, but to the left, muted light filtered through huge ceiling-to-floor windows, highlighting the dust on the wooden floors and giving the cobwebs hanging from the cornices a silvery edge. Obviously, Albert and Jay weren’t all that into housekeeping.

I looked at the darker end of the corridor. No windows, no filtered light. Nothing to indicate anyone or anything might be nearby.

It was the perfect place to hide.

Whether someone was, I couldn’t say. My radar for that sort of information was still off-line. Which meant, unfortunately, there was only one way I was going to find out.

I slipped off my shoes, holding them in one hand while I felt along the wall with the other. Normally, dragons—and draman—could see pretty well in the darkness, but with my energy levels so low, it seemed “human” sight was all I was going to get.

My fingers hit a door frame and I hesitated. The clock’s ticking suddenly seemed louder, and it was coming from beyond this doorway. I peered around cautiously. Floral patterned drapes framed the deep-set windows opposite, beyond which glowed the sullen, muted fire of an outside light. Little else was visible through the glass. The fog was too thick.

I scanned the small room, noting the plush chairs and mahogany furniture, the bookcases lined with books. This was someone’s home rather than just a place being used as a prison.