Damn.”

It was all I could think to say, stupid as I knew it sounded. I reminded myself of a yokel who’d never seen the big city and was catching his first glimpse of it, mouth agape, eyes wide and shining, almost unable to walk for fear my legs would give out on me.

I had never seen anything like it. Saighead Uaine. Green Arrow. I could see why it had earned its name. The mountain’s peak had been carved into the shape of an arrowhead by eons of gusty winds, and on it grew the greenest moss I’d ever seen. It looked like an emerald, standing out against a heartbreakingly blue sky.

So, there were other types of beauty in the world. Beauty which had nothing to do with white sand beaches and palm trees. I realized had seen so little of what was beautiful.

Snickers came from the dragons walking past me—not nasty, by any means. They found it amusing that I was so taken aback by what they’d always known. Perhaps the real transfixing majesty of the mountain and surrounding land had worn off over time. I knew how old they were, how long they’d called the caves beneath the mountain their home.

“The air is so clean,” I mused as I continued up the stony path.

“Aye.” Owen fell into step beside me. “A bit thinner, of course, the higher one goes. But clean and fresh. Och, I’ve missed it so.”

Interesting how the way they spoke had become familiar to me, almost unnoticeable.

They had all missed their land. I’d heard of nothing but their enthusiasm and deep, abiding love for their home since we’d left the jet behind in Edinburgh. SUVs had been waiting for us at the hangar—another of Mary’s bits of genius, her ability to plan every mission down to the last detail—and we’d split up into groups and bundled in, everyone chattering away about how they couldn’t wait to arrive.

Everyone but her.

She was far ahead of me, having taken another car. Was it just my imagination, or was she deliberately avoiding me after our last conversation?

I had pushed too hard, gone too far, said something I shouldn’t have. What was I thinking, staring at her as I had been? No wonder she’d frozen me out for the rest of the flight.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me. She wasn’t special, and I wasn’t there to make friends. With any luck, security around the caves would tighten up sufficiently in a short amount of time, and I’d be able to move on. Surely, Mary had better things for me to do than babysitting a group of dragon shifters.

A group of five tall stones stood in a circle, roughly a hundred yards from the mouth of the cave. “What are they for?” I asked. “Surely, they aren’t a natural occurrence.”

“Depends on what you mean by natural,” Owen chuckled. “The Ancient Ones placed them there before any of us came into being. Used them for rituals, ceremonies and the like.”

“I take it you don’t use them now.”

“Nay, but I don’t think any of us practices the old ways anymore. Once or twice, perhaps, back in the old times. No longer. The modern world eventually caught up with us.”

“I see.” Or, more to the point, I would see once we reached the inside of the cave.

I noticed something, the closer I drew to the entrance, hesitation. For all their excitement and longing to be home, none of them seemed to be in much of a hurry to actually step foot inside the cave.

Mary hadn’t told me many specifics of what happened here, nor had any of the rest of them. They were stoic. They kept their feelings and thoughts to themselves, aside from frivolities and lightweight things which bore little real purpose. Everything else stayed inside.

Something told me none of them was in a hurry to remember what had taken place. In fact, several of the women looked rather red-eyed as they gazed about.

“I wonder what they did with the blood,” one of them murmured to another as I passed.

They’d cleaned it, of course. The monsters who had kidnapped them weren’t the sort who left anything to chance, especially the evidence of their crime.

“From what I’ve heard, the interior of the cave has been completely cleaned,” I explained to Owen and anyone in earshot. “Miles and Gate were here, remember. They explored in search of what happened to your clan.”

“Everything’s fine,” Alan announced, coming out with a smile on his face. He’d gone ahead of the others, naturally, ever the leader.

Ainsley was beside him, looking self-assured. She slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and looked to her brother as he instructed everyone on how to proceed.

“Klaus, of course, will be helping us work out the technological kinks in our security system. We’re leaving nothing to chance after this. Otherwise, be careful when you choose to come out and hunt or simply shift for the sake of shifting. Be aware of what—or who—is around you.”

“Do you think there’s still a threat here?” Tamhas asked.

Alan shook his head. “No, but I do believe there’s something to be said for awareness. The more aware we are of each other and our surroundings, the more secure we’ll feel. And let’s not forget the antidote we’ve brought with us. We now have no weaknesses which can be exploited, as we did before. There’s nothing to fear.”

No, nothing. Except for semi-automatic rifles like the ones used to intimidate and murder half the clan before the rest were sedated and taken away in iron shackles.

It seemed I was the only one who had this thought, however, as the rest appeared to considerably relax and begin their trek into the cave.

I followed along, taking in everything around me. Not that there was much at first, only a tunnel which went deeper into the heart of the mountain and seemed to stretch on forever. Just when I was beginning to wonder if there was a mix-up or someone had been lying to me, the walls changed from bare rock to smooth sheetrock which had been painted over in a soft shade of off-white.

None of us needed help seeing in the dark, our eyesight far superior to that of humans, and we made it to a circular room before the lights went on. Laughter and a smattering of applause rose up from the clan.

“It looks as though Dallas made it to the generator room,” Owen announced, grinning.

I glanced around, using the additional light to my advantage. Just as described, the room was round and empty. The room where the girl who’d discovered the cave had hit her head, where Miles and Gate had found her.

Owen noticed my confusion, why would such a room exist? It was larger than the lobby of the resort back in St. Lucia.

“They were very fond of circles in the ancient times,” Owen explained with a smile and a shrug. “I believe they held meetings here, more rituals which didn’t require being outdoors, beneath the moon.”

“It’s fascinating,” I admitted, following the flow of traffic down yet another tunnel. This time, the walls were not smooth and unchanging. Doors marked both sides at varying intervals. The excitement grew as members of the clan broke off and hurried away to their respective bedrooms. I thought I might even have heard a squeal or two.

Alan spotted me, waving me over to where he waited. “You’ll get a room of your own, of course,” he assured me. “But I wanted to show you around the place a bit, first.”

He looked overwhelmed but managed to sound as though he had things under control. I gave him quite a bit of credit for that, as he had recently taken tremendous responsibility onto himself, not the least of which being the task of keeping the clan united in the face of what they’d been through.

“No need to get to me right away,” I assured him. “Whatever you need to take care of, go ahead.”

“This is what I need to take care of. Making sure you’re familiar with your surroundings and what we need from you.” He led me to a room which I could only describe as a control center, one wall half-covered in monitors above a table which spanned the length of the space beneath them.

“There are no computers,” I observed, noting the empty space beneath the table. No routers, no anything.

“Yes, indeed,” he agreed through clenched teeth. “The bastards stole everything. I suppose they didn’t expect us to return, so what did it matter? One of the SUVs which met us was filled with what we need.”

“Mary comes through again.” I chuckled.

“Yes, indeed. Alan drove that vehicle, taking a rarely used road we only travel when we drive into the city for supplies. He’ll arrive shortly, and we’ll unload the electronics Mary arranged for us to have. She assured me you were well-versed in all of them.”

I could already imagine what she’d arranged; there was something to be said for having worked with someone long enough to nearly be able to read their mind.

Hers wasn’t the only mind I could read, either.

Alan was clearly desperate to get things over with in order to get back to the business of making himself at home once again. Already, I’d noticed four or five of the clan members we’d traveled with hurrying back toward the cave mouth. Their dragons were straining to be let free.

So was my lion.

Show all of them who is truly strong, my lion urged, growling and pacing in my head. We are the most feared, the most revered, we could take on all of them.

It was one thing for the lion to feel that way, but another for the sentiment to be true in reality. I hated to disagree with him, but the idea of two dozen dragons against a solitary lion didn’t leave me with much confidence. If he wanted to believe that, he could continue to do so as long as I maintained control.

We’d shift later, I decided as I followed Alan to the room which would be mine, ten doors down from the control center. I counted as we went, just to make certain I couldn’t be accused of walking into the wrong room at an inopportune moment. The doors were all identical, a flat, matte shade of gray, and the corridor floor was smooth stone covered in a long, ornate, colorful runner which contrasted with the otherwise bleak surroundings.

My single-wheeled suitcase in hand, I stepped into the room which would be mine for the foreseeable future through a door which slid open when Alan entered a code in a small keypad to the right of the doorframe.

I watched closely, memorizing the five-digit series of numbers for future reference.

“What do you think?” he asked, hanging back while I explored.

“I think this gives the resort a run for its money,” I admitted with a chuckle, unable to believe they could turn what was essentially a hole in a cave and turn it into a luxurious retreat. “The only thing missing are windows, really.”

“Yes, one thing we never could quite replicate,” he replied. “But otherwise, we tried to allow for all comforts and conveniences.”

Had they ever. The headboard of what looked like a king-sized bed extended to the ceiling and was covered in an embroidered gold fabric. Gold seemed to be a theme in the room, showing up in the light fixtures, the bedspread, some of the pillows on the bed and the easy chair which sat in one corner.

Opposite the bed was a wall-mounted flat-screen TV, beside which was a touchpad.

“You can access an extremely wide music, film, and television archive through this,” Alan explained, demonstrating how it worked. “Everything’s in the cloud, so we didn’t lose it. One thing we didn’t lose.” His tone was somber.

They’d lost a lot, this I knew.

Beyond the bedroom was a large bathroom, marble and gold, with a huge glass-walled shower, a deep tub, a steam closet. “Does everyone have this?”

“Yes, everyone.”

I turned to him. “I might never leave.”

* * *

An hour later, I was preparing to haul the last of the cameras into the cave on a wheeled cart. Above my head circled at least a dozen or more dragons, all of them rejoicing in being free. I didn’t have to understand the snorts and growls and occasional roars to know what they meant.

I smiled for them, glad they could have their time together. I, on the other hand, had hours of wiring security cameras to look forward to. It didn’t help that I was hungry, but I’d been led to understand there would be food coming in from the city within the next hour or so. Two of them had driven out to fill a pair of SUVs with food for everyone.

I couldn’t imagine how much food it would take, or how long it would take to unload it all. I was never one to shy away from work, but I’d just made four trips back and forth to the heart of the caves and didn’t enjoy the thought of making that walk another few times.

A hot shower and a lot of meat. That was what I needed. Perhaps then, my lion would silence himself and allow me to think through the process of building the network for the security feed.

Lights filtering through the trees caught my eye. The sun was beginning to set, the sky turning a soft shade of dusky blue, and I recognized the SUVs approaching.

My stomach rumbled in response. They had food, and it had been before dawn when I last ate. Any food left behind in the caves had long since spoiled, since the power to the freezer had been cut off.

One of the drivers was Ainsley, who looked none too pleased to find me standing at the mouth of the cave. Instead of waving or even nodding, she walked around to the back of the vehicle and raised the tailgate.

I had offended her, but I had no time to devote to her problems or bruised feelings. There was a feed to be set up and cameras to be placed. Work to be done before I could get out of there, surprisingly luxurious though it was.

“Ainsley!” Tamhas, the other driver, called out to her from the rear end of his vehicle. “Hurry up, so we can get up there before dark!”

“Oh, it’s all right,” she replied.

Her voice floated to me on the warm breeze, sounding remarkably low-energy for someone who’d just returned home. The rest of the were like children, playing and laughing and flying in circles overhead, while she reminded me of a fatigued young mother attempting to keep her children in line.

“You go on. I can take care of your cargo, too.”

“Are you certain?” He was nearly ready to burst from his skin with excitement, but at least wanted to make it seem as though he knew it would be a rotten thing to leave her alone.

“Absolutely. Have a nice time.” She appeared, pulling a wheeled cart, not unlike mine, on which she’d stacked four boxes of raw meat. My mouth watered at the sight and the thought and, most of all, the scent.

When she spotted me waiting there, she shook her head. “You want first pick?”

I almost reeled at the bitterness in her question.

“What? Not at all. Do you think I’m truly that selfish?” I wanted to ask why she thought I’d come all the way to Scotland, if I were truly a self-centered opportunist.

“I wouldn’t know, I’m sure.” She maintained a quick pace down the length of the tunnel.

I followed, more confused over her than ever.

And concerned. Concern even drowned out the confusion.

I’d guessed before that something was wrong with her.

Now, I was certain of it.