Julie Kagawa - Talon

Colin blinked, possibly too thick to realize what I meant by that, but the gray-eyed boy in front of me chuckled. It sounded...rusty, somehow. Out of practice, as if he didn’t laugh very often and I had surprised it out of him.

His friend snickered, too. “Sounds like she doesn’t want you around anymore,” he said as Colin swelled with outrage. “At least, that’s how it looks to me. What do you think, Garret?”

Garret’s voice went cold, soft and lethal. “I think they need to leave. Now.”

Colin lunged, swinging a savage fist at his smaller opponent. I jumped, but Garret somehow caught the arm and twisted it so that Colin flipped over and landed square on his back in the sand, his breath leaving his lungs in a startled oof! I blinked in shock, and Colin’s friends gave howls of fury and leaped into the fray.

I scrambled back, retreating with Kristin and Lexi, away from the sudden brawl. I wanted to help; my dragon was urging me to get in there and start blasting away, but of course I couldn’t do that. Besides, the two strangers were doing fine on their own. I didn’t know if they took some kind of martial art, or if they were just badasses, because they dodged, blocked and countered punches with no problem, moving seamlessly with and around each other. The dark-haired stranger blocked a vicious hook, lunged in and drove his knee into his opponent’s stomach, bending him over. Garret ducked a nasty right cross, then returned with a fist under the chin, snapping the other’s head back. I whooped in encouragement.

In a few short seconds, the scuffle was over. The taller stranger landed a blow across his opponent’s jaw that sent him crumpling to the sand, and Garret caught Colin in the temple with a savage elbow, knocking him down. Colin tried to get up, failed and slumped back, cradling his head.

Straightening, the two boys looked at their fallen opponents, then back at us. The dark-haired one grinned. “Well, that was entertaining,” he said dryly, rubbing his knuckles. “Reminds me of so many good times we’ve had together, right, cousin?” The other boy shook his head and turned to me.

“Do you need a ride?” he asked in his quiet voice, and for some reason, those bright gray eyes sent another quiver through my stomach. “We can take you home, or back to the main beach, if you like. I promise we’re much better behaved than these idiots. Even Tristan over there.”

The other boy sniffed. “I’m not even going to dignify that statement by taking offense.”

I shook myself, needing to stay focused as Lexi and Kristin looked a bit shell-shocked. Lexi clung to me, shaking, and Kristin stared wide-eyed at the bodies sprawled in the sand. “Back to the main beach would be perfect,” I told Garret.

He gave a somber nod, but at that moment, Colin groaned and staggered to his feet. He swayed, glaring poison at the two strangers, then, shockingly, turned his furious gaze on me. “You bitch, ” he spat, and Lexi gasped with outrage. “You West Coasters are all the same. You ask for it, beg for it, then refuse to put out. You’re nothing but a whore! You’re nothing but a slut—”

Releasing Lexi, I straightened, marched up to the reeling jock, and kicked him where the sun didn’t shine.

“That’s for stealing my first kiss,” I told him as he made a strangled noise and dropped to the sand again, clutching his groin. I didn’t know if it was really that important, but all the movies seemed to think it was, and besides, he didn’t know how easy he’d gotten off. I turned to the strangers, both staring at me in amazement now, and raised my chin. “Well? Are we leaving or not? I think we’re more than done here.”

Garret

We drove to the main beach, Tristan and I in the front, our three passengers and a surfboard in the backseat. The girls, especially the blonde and the brunette, talked consistently in excited, high-pitched voices, speaking so quickly it was difficult to follow the conversation. Not that I was trying very hard. I already knew a lot about these girls, beginning with their names. Kristin Duff and Alexis Thompson I remembered from the long hours spent watching their group, learning their routines and their habits. And, of course, Ember Hill. I knew several facts about her, too. She was sixteen. She knew how to surf. She spent a lot of evenings at the Smoothie Hut with her friends. But nothing could have prepared me for this afternoon, when she had marched right up to the bigger, heavier frat boy, and kicked him “where the sun don’t shine.”

At the time, it had been amusing, though I had been too stunned to do more than wince. Tristan had cackled like a hyena. But looking back, I cursed myself for not reacting, for just standing there as Ember Hill marched up to that civilian and slammed her foot between his legs. Not that the boorish frat boy didn’t deserve it, but my hesitation could have gotten us killed. For just an instant, with her eyes flashing and her lips curled back in a snarl, I’d thought the girl was our target. That her slender body would ripple and explode into a mass of hissing teeth, claws and scales before she bit the civilian’s head off. And that we would be next, because I had foolishly left my Glock in the Jeep and had nothing to defend myself from a raging, fire-breathing dragon except my flip-flops.

Ember Hill, I mused, turning her name over in my head. The signs were all there: her status, her arrival in Crescent Beach, even her name. Everything about her pointed to a possible sleeper, except for one thing.

She had a brother. A twin, in fact. And despite their wealth, power, influence and global domination, our enemies only produced one offspring at a time. Dragons did not have siblings, but Ember and Dante Hill were definitely brother and sister. They were comfortable with each other; they argued and teased and fought like normal siblings, but they also looked out for the other, stood up for each other even to their friends. It was obvious they had grown up together. And they looked too alike not to be related. Which meant, despite her fierceness and fiery demeanor, the red-haired girl in the backseat could not be our sleeper.

She seemed perfectly human now, talking excitedly to her friends, sometimes asking me or Tristan a question when the other two let up. All three were extremely curious, wanting to know our ages, where we lived, if we were residents of Crescent Beach or just visiting. I didn’t speak much, letting Tristan fill them in on our fabricated history: that he and I were cousins, that his dad’s job had brought us to Crescent Beach for the summer, that we had an apartment farther down the main strip. When they pressed me further for information—where I came from, where my parents were—I had the answers ready. I’d come here from Chicago. My dad was a disabled veteran, and my uncle had invited me here for the summer. The lies flowed smoothly and easily, though the boy in the story—the one who attended Kennedy High and lived on Mulligan Avenue and had a beagle named Otis—was a complete stranger to me. An imposter, living a made-up life.

I wondered if any of these three were doing the same.

We finally pulled into the parking lot along the main stretch of beach, and the girls piled out, Lexi and Kristin stumbling a bit as they exited the vehicle. Ember smoothly grabbed Lexi’s arm and steered her aside, preventing her from walking into another beachgoer, then turned to me.

“Um.” Her green eyes appraised me, boldly direct. “Thank you,” she said, “for today. For getting rid of those trolls. You and Tristan both. Lexi and Kristin are a little too tipsy to know what could’ve happened down there, but...thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, meeting her gaze. “We were happy to help.”