Annika struggled to keep her pulse to a normal level as Eoghan silently led her out of the warehouse. She inhaled and exhaled with timed intervals to keep her nerves to a minimum. Eoghan would sense her unease.

She shouldn’t have worried. She doubted he could sense anything over his own barely contained energy. He nearly vibrated on the entire drive to Silo Point and barely looked in her direction. She subsided into nervous silence after a sidelong glance and a grunt for an answer.

She managed to keep her questions quiet until he ushered her into the elevator. “Why are we back here? Aren’t there more matches tonight?”

“Gio will watch the warehouse. I have somewhere tae be.” He leaned against the railing and drummed his fingers with impatience.

“So? I could have stayed behind, too.”

“No. You’ll be safer here. Less people tae get at ya.”

“Mariko was able to get in here. I’d be safer in at the warehouse with everyone else. Or, you could bring me with you.” Going anywhere alone with him screamed of danger. Surrounded by people loyal to him would feel safer at that moment.

If she had been prepared to kill him, was he prepared to do the same to her?

“I said no.” He passed a hand over his face and his voice softened a fraction. “Mariko tried her play and failed. She doesn’t need ya when she has a chance at me.”

“What does that mean?” She frowned and tried to snare his attention but he wouldn’t look at her. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing of yer concern.”

The elevator dinged on the top floor and she followed him out. “I know that look. You’re up to something.”

He glanced over his shoulder and punched in the keycode to open the door. “I thought that was one of yer problems, not knowing my looks.”

The door closed behind her and she hesitated at venom in his voice. He was already crossing through the living room and laid an envelope he pulled from his jacket on the bar. Keys followed, jingling as they landed.

The irritation and annoyance that rolled off him in waves alarmed her. She didn’t know if it originated from her. Surely, she was part of it. But she didn’t want him to do business in his current state of mind. Worry for her own safety quickly became worry that she wouldn’t see him again if he went off on someone at the wrong moment.

Annika slunk after him and slid her hands up his chest. It felt dirty and not at all in a good way. “I remember the night you went into Heat.”

He stood stiffly for a moment and before springing into action. His hands skimmed up her sides and he tangled fingers in her hair. Roughly pulling her head to the side, his lips skimmed over her shoulder and neck.

“Ya remember, Ann? Ya remember coming back tae this flat? I sat right over there and then I could smell yer shampoo and yer soap and yer sweet cunt from all the way over here.”

Despite—or maybe because of—the danger radiating off him, Annika shivered. His lips on her skin sent her boiling. His rough and demanding touches arrowed through her and liquid heat gathered in her core.

“Ya remember coming tae my bar and applying for a job? Ya remember being sent tae do that by yer king? Or was it the Mad Queen herself that gave the order tae kill me if I sold mercenaries tae the other side?”

She stilled and licked her lips. She was caught.

“Jaya knew, certainly. Is she here tae do what ya should have done last year? Or did I come off yer hit list when Andon left the city without my men?”

He reached around her and a quick shake of the envelope spilled two file folders onto the bar. He flipped one open and a picture of her face was stapled to the first page. His finger was stiff when he angrily tapped it and all trace of his burr was gone from his voice. It wasn’t a quick anger that would burn out in seconds, it was the truly cold fury of a man betrayed.

“You remember now? You remember how you came to be here? There were no sisters you lost touch with, no growing up in fucking Alaska. You were sent to spy on me.”

He pushed away from her with disgust and paced. Each thudding step of his boots sounded like a nail in her coffin.

She couldn’t defend herself. It was all true. Every word, every accusation, all of it true. She didn’t need to look in the file to know what he read. Hell, he probably knew more of the still-fuzzy details in her head than she did.

Her life’s account was within those pages. Every update she sent to Jaya would have been read. She’d been purposefully distant in those. She didn’t want anyone to know how deeply entangled with Eoghan she’d gotten before she had a chance to sort her own feelings out.

That chance had never come. Instead, he went into Heat and she threw herself off a cliff and straight into his arms.

“You let me fall in love with you and every word that spilled from your lips was a lie.” He spat.

“Not everything—”

“Not everything? Tell me, were you not lying about your dead parents? Where you grew up? The fact that you were prepared to stick a knife in me if I said the wrong thing to the wrong person?”

“Eoghan—”

“No,” he snarled and got in her face, “don’t you fucking say my name. You don’t get that privilege.”

Panic gripped her throat. She’d found a piece of herself when she wandered back into his life and now that piece was being torn away. She couldn’t stop the destruction. She could only try and force it back together.

“Let me explain. Please.”

He kept his eyes on her as he grabbed a bottle of whisky from the bar and took a seat across from her. He uncapped the bottle and kicked his feet onto the coffee table.

She knew he purposefully chose the spot as a bookend to where they started. They occupied the same positions as the night he went into Heat and everything changed between them.

“May I sit?” she asked quietly.

“You may not. I don’t want your filth on my things.” He took a swig straight from the bottle and gestured for her to begin. “So, from the beginning.”

There was trouble in his eyes and it made her wary. He was interrogating her even more than when she was placed in the cell at the warehouse. He was suspicious of her then but he knew what she was now.

A pang of guilt made its way through her. She was simply doing her job and she allowed herself to spiral out of control. She got too close to him and allowed him too close to her.

She did the worst thing a spy could do. She let herself be compromised. She fell in love.

And now she owed him answers.

A small part of her calculated the chances of her leaving the condo alive and she kicked it to the back of her mind. Being honest with Eoghan wasn’t a calculated risk. It was something she needed to do.

She took a deep breath and folded her hands at her waist. From the beginning, he said. “Once it was discovered that half-blooded dragons and those who can’t shift were able to leave Patomas, it wasn’t long before we received reports of enemy clans sending representatives out into the world. You, obviously, weren’t the only one to receive an offer of money for mercenaries. They didn’t have the power to overthrow the Delphina and Pythian themselves but stood a chance if they could supplement their troops with outside forces.

“I was ordered to watch you and discourage any deals you might make with enemies of the Dragon Court. Barring that, I was to make sure those deals fell through.”

“With my death.” His eyes were shards of blue ice.

“If your death was necessary, yes. Disinformation would have been tried before assassination.”

“Did you have it planned that far? How would you have done it?” He drank down another bit of liquor.

“Eoghan, stop. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“No. How were you planning to kill me? You had to have some plan up your sleeve. You’d be a shite spy otherwise.”

She shut her eyes and swallowed. Her mouth tasted like ashes. She couldn’t look at him and stared above his head and out the windows. “Poison would have been easiest. It would have been done between the bar and setting foot in the private room. You frequently met with your capos there after I started working. More often than not, I alone delivered a new bottle of liquor and glasses. Something slipped into the bottle, perhaps. Maybe lining a single glass to avoid poisoning others.”

“So, when I was letting ya meet my sisters and seeing what I did for a living—”

“We weren’t interested in any of that. It was only to make sure you didn’t send anyone to aid the other side.”

Those activities weren’t her concern. She knew he demanded tribute. It was the same tribute in every mob, human and shifter alike. Everyone kicked points up the chain and Eoghan benefitted from it all.

There were the bars and clubs with their inflated drink prices and the side business of selling weed to the college kids and artists in the Inner Harbor, the gambling dens, the hiring of muscle for protection or intimidation. He allowed ring fights and set his bookies loose on the crowd. He had a mess of semi-legitimate businesses to launder money. The only three that were pure and untouched were the ones run by his sisters.

The Dragon Court didn’t care about any of it. They were looking out for their own interests. He could operate in the shadows as much as he pleased, as long as none of his hired muscle made it to Patomas to fight on the wrong side.

He had been human when he inherited all of it from a fight with the previous Don. As a human, he earned or beat loyalty into the shifters he didn’t purge from his ranks.

If he could achieve all that, as a human in a shifter mob, what could he achieve as a dragon among his own kind?

And if he was one of the Lost Princes?

“Eoghan,” she said softly and nearly flinched when his cold blue eyes pierced her. “Think about what good you could do for Patomas.”

He scoffed and waved her words away. “Fook yer islands and yer courts. Yer not getting my men. Andon’s not getting my men. I won’t send them tae die for yer causes.”

She didn’t miss the burr back in his voice. He still drank from the bottle and directed icy glares at her but the perfect accent was replaced by the rougher sound of his voice. It gave her a little hope.

“You, then.” She weighed her words. Would he be more or less likely to hear her out if she mentioned his potential lineage? “You read the updates I sent.”

He nodded and drank another sip of whisky.

“Then you know who I think you are.”

“The answer is the same. Fook yer islands. I don’t give a shite about yer war or yer fables of stolen bairns.”

“You’re wasting yourself here. You can do more back on Patomas.”

“I’m protecting every single person at the warehouse right now. If it’s not me, someone else will come in and take bigger cuts, force them tae do fouler crimes.”

“The honorable criminal, then, that’s all you are.”

“Honorable, ay. Which is more than ya can say with yer sneaking and lies.”

She ignored the jab. She deserved it. She deceived him from the start, even if it’d been to do her job. But once it became clear that he wouldn’t aid the Dragon Court’s enemies and that he would be more to her than simply someone to monitor, she should have come clean.

“You’re not looking at the bigger picture. You might be good with them, might be saving the neighborhood from worse men, but that won’t save them if the wrong side of the clan war wins. You’re a dragon, Eoghan. You’re more than some criminal.”

“Am I? What good has it done me?”

“You’re stronger. How long do you think you’d have kept power without that other side of you? The Shadow Mob is separate for a reason and it’s because humans don’t stand a chance against shifters.”

“I’m not like most men.” He shrugged.

“Right, because you’re powyrful. There’s a bigger fight going on and you could do some real good. Fight for something real, something that truly matters.” Each word fueled her resolve. She needed to make him see he was worth more than some connected criminal. She drew in a shuddering breath and struck. “I’m going back. If you don’t go with me, then you’re no better than the man that left your sister at the altar because he was too scared to grow up.”

He was on his feet in seconds. His hand wrapped around her throat and he walked her backwards until she pressed against a wall. “Don’t you fucking talk about my sister. Don’t you compare me to that bastard.”

She raised her hands up. She wasn’t a threat to him. “Eoghan… you know who I am. You know what you are and who you might be. You know I have to go back. It’s my home. I want it to be yours, too.”

He stared at her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I am. I have to.” She tried to nod but his hand kept her locked in place.

The grip on her throat changed and he pressed his nose into the crook of her neck. “You’re not leaving me. Because you don’t want to lose this.”

His mouth closed on hers, possessive and hungry. Annika’s eyes fluttered closed and she sagged into Eoghan. Her lips parted at the first swipe of his tongue and she welcomed the flavor of him on her taste buds.

His hands wandered, skimming over her arms and stroking her back. His fingers dug into her hips and hauled her away from the wall at her back and into the wall of his body. Annika stifled a groan. He strained against his jeans.

He growled into her mouth and refused to let her go. She returned every stroke of his tongue with a caress and tangle of her own. There was no fighting him, no choice but to let him dominate the embrace. She didn’t want to do anything but let him touch her. She only wanted more.

She dragged her nails down his arms. Her head swam. She was used to losing focus because of rising panic. Eoghan made her head hot and hazy. Her pussy grew heavy and wet with her need for him.

Passion. Need. Desire. All of it sang along her nerves. All of it because of her mate.

Her groan when he broke the kiss turned into shock when he knelt and hooked her stomach into his shoulder and lifted her. She struggled and a firm hand came down on her ass. “Stop.”

He carried her up the stairs and into the bedroom, throwing her on the bed and covering her with his body. His mouth crashed down on hers again and his hands lazily explored from her waist up her body. There was no denying him even if she wanted to.

The reasons why she fell in love with him then were the same now. Talking with Jaya only made it clearer. He made it clearer.

She liked the danger he kept locked away. Hints of it poked through and only underscored the devotion and protection that ran in him. He could snap from lounging around to ripping someone apart in seconds if he needed to protect someone.

She couldn’t love him when she didn’t know who she was. Now that she did, she saw it all slipping through her fingers. Eoghan and their future were fading away and it ripped her apart.

She needed to go home to Patomas and piece her life back together. Her loyalty was torn between the Dragon Court and Eoghan. If he wouldn’t leave with her, she could at least have one last night with him.

The heat and desperation in his kiss were matched only by her own. She needed to feel him, even if it was for the last time. The tiniest bit of space between their bodies needed to be banished. She rolled her hips and mewled when the hard line of his cock connected with her needy heat.

Cold metal closed around one wrist and her eyes snapped open. Eoghan tightened the second cuff on her wrist as she bucked underneath him.

“What are you doing?” She shook her bound wrists and the tethers behind the bed. “Let me go.”

“I told ya, I have somewhere tae be. Stay and behave.”

“Behave?” She sputtered. “Let me out right now!”

“Ya need tae think and reconsider this leaving nonsense. I need tae put down Mariko.” He pat her leg and stood. “It will do us both some good tae clear our heads, I think.”

He kissed her forehead and laughed as she struggled against the cuffs holding her in place. “I can see why ya got in this line of work. Deceit can be so rewarding when yer on the other side of it.”