“You’ve decided to grace us with your presence, Aunt Cari.”

I couldn’t see his face, in shadow as he was. But I could hear his voice. He was human, all along. Just a man. A very big man, from the looks of it. He dwarfed the leather chair he sat in. I could just make out the arms of the chair, and his large hands hanging over them.

“You knew I would,” I said.

I glanced to either side of me, indicated the two goons who had led me to the study. They looked like they wouldn’t have half a brain between the two of them. The sort of people who’d work with a group like the one Mary had described.

“They’ve been rumored for decades now,” she had explained over Skype, “but nobody’s ever been able to pin them down. Likely because they’ve been hiding out in such a secluded spot, but not one you’d assume was being used for these types of activities. Nobody would think to look in a beautiful, old mansion in the middle of the woods. The owner was always reclusive, too, so that would explain the privacy. From what Harrison told my men, there’s a full-blown lab in the basement—he oversaw its development.”

I wondered where the owner was now, what he was going through. If there was justice in the world, he’d be dead. He set me up. He set up Tommy. He had to know how it would go. But he did it anyway, out of greed and madness.

“Where’s our blood?” the man asked.

“In the cooler. Where else?” I tapped it with my toe.

“Let’s see it.”

I bent, always aware of the men to either side of me, and opened the blue-and-white box. I pulled out two tubes, holding them up where he could see them. “There are fifty-three in all.”

“Well done. I assume, then, that your association with the shifter is finished?”

“Yes. He’s taken care of.”

“Good. And your research? There’s no trace of your association?”

“None. Top secret, all the way.”

“Very nice.” One of his hands waved, and suddenly the goons took my arms. One each.

I tried to fight them off, pushing and shoving, cursing them.

“What’s happening?” I groaned, already in pain from the tightening fingers.

“Take her laptop bag,” the man ordered.

“No! What are you doing?”

One of them tried to pull the bag, hanging across my body on a vinyl strap.

I kicked out, catching him in the shin. This was going just as we had guessed, but I couldn’t afford to let it go much further.

I didn’t have to.

The explosion rocked the building, sending the three of us to the floor.

I was free. I scrambled to my feet in the middle of the chaos, ears ringing.

“What was that?”

I barely heard over the noise.

The figure in the chair shot up, waving his arms, pointing and screaming. The two guards staggered from the room, hands over their ears. They weren’t wearing earplugs, the way I was, so the effect was much worse for them.

I took opportunity where I found it and ran behind them, my head on a swivel when I reached the two-story entrance with its sweeping marble staircase in the center of the room.

“Tommy?” I screamed over the chaos.

Thick, black smoke billowed in through the front door and rapidly filled the space. Another explosion rocked me to my knees and sent the wrought-iron chandelier which hung from the ceiling crashing to the floor. Thank God, I was out of the way, I managed to think over the chaos.

Something silver flashed in the corner of my eye, and I looked up in time to see the dragon gliding down over the stairs and land in front of me.

Tommy was on his back, whooping and grinning from ear to ear.

My heart screamed with joy when I saw him that way, but I didn’t have time to absorb it. Instead, I placed a foot on Cash’s leg and swung my leg over his neck, grabbing Tommy around the waist.

“He’s a dragon!” he shouted, pointing.

“I know!” I patted his flank and Cash got the message, stampeding out of the entry, through the thick, choking smoke, mowing bodies down left and right.

One of them might have been the man in charge, or it might not have been. I would never know. We broke out of the chaos and into the night, my car in flames thanks to the fire I’d set in it before getting out. Everyone had been too busy greeting me and leading me to their boss to pay attention.

We took to the sky, the three of us, with Tommy’s happy shrieks filling my ears. I held him as tight as I dared, stroking his hair, kissing the top of his head as we soared.

The moon was full, shining down on us, turning Cash’s scales to pure, glowing silver.

I felt a strong sense of déjà vu before remembering my dream.