The dragon slayer was down, his magic deflating—I could feel it back off like pressure easing in a descending plane.

I bolted to the other side of the pool and stepped on him with my thick-soled motorcycle boot.

“Where is she?”

I should just break the guy’s neck. But not when the slayer knew what had happened to Gabrielle and I didn’t. Her dead body wasn’t in evidence, but there was a lot of blood and the remains of a blue dress floating in the water.

The slayer mumbled something. Weak, dazed, vulnerable. The dragon fire in me burned, itching to come out of my fingers and fry him whole.

I satisfied the itch by grabbing him by his hair and knocking his head against the tile. “Where. Is. Gabrielle.” Each word was accompanied by a thump of skull.

“Took …” the man rasped.

“Who took her? Where? Why?” Smack, smack, smack.

“Don’t … know …”

I felt the man’s power trying to resurge. I couldn’t be here when he restored himself, or I’d be dragon meat.

I hadn’t met this dragon slayer before, but they were mostly the same. See dragon, kill it now—dragon either escapes and has nightmares the rest of his life or ends up as a lifetime supply of dragon burgers.

If he didn’t know what had happened to Gabrielle, he was no use to me anymore, and too dangerous to be allowed to live. I needed to kill him now and go find her.

As I tightened my hand on his neck, a shadow fell, one too vast to be anything human. A huge black dragon, so close I could see the individual silken black scales, hung over the pool house, its bulk covering the pool, the attached bar, and part of the garden beyond.

Drake, obviously back together again, hovered like a hummingbird, except he didn’t buzz his wings—he went for slow, ponderous flaps.

Black threads of magic came out of his talons to crawl over the dragon slayer and wrap him tightly, a few brushing me in passing.

I knew what those were, and no way was I letting Drakey catch me in his binding spell. Not again.

I dove away from dragon and slayer, but unfortunately, the only place to go was into the pool. I found myself in nine feet of water, sinking rapidly to the bottom.

Swimming and me didn’t mix—land dragons don’t float too well. I crawled along the bottom until I reached the shallow end and rose to my feet, gasping for breath. I climbed ponderously up the steps, my jeans and shirt sodden, water in my boots.

Drake already had the slayer smothered in threads of the binding spell. They were magical strands, not tangible ones, but I knew from experience they’d shackle him more solidly than chains.

Drake was one powerful dragon—something I’d never admit out loud—and when he exerted his will on those he bound, it was a terrible thing. I remembered my body obeying everything he said, even half my mind obeying it, while the other half of my brain was screaming at me to get away.

No matter how hard I’d struggled, I’d been trapped. Gabrielle, the sweetheart, had reached through those bonds and freed me.

It hadn’t been Drake’s choice to enslave me—he’d been following orders and had no choice—and I didn’t hold it against him. But damn me if I’d ever let him do it again.

By the time Drake finished his spell, the dragon slayer was a cocoon of black cords. Drake had used far more magical ropes on him than he’d ever wrapped around me, but then, I wasn’t a deadly slayer.

Drake flapped away while I squished around the pool to the slayer and stood looking down at him.

“Okay, we’ll start again,” I said. “Where’s Gabrielle? You know, the lovely lady who was kicking your ass.”

The man glared at me. He was an ordinary-looking human, with brown hair, brown eyes, skin darker than white but lighter than that of anyone of color. Bland, that’s what he was. Mr. Bland.

“You should get some tatts,” I said, holding out my well-inked arms. “Human bodies are kind of dull to me—at least the male ones are—but they take decoration well. Got these done in a little shop in Tokyo, in Shibuya, tucked next to the best onkatsu stand in the world—three stools and a guy cooking like crazy behind the counter. You’d never know that stand was there if you didn’t know it was there.”

Mr. Bland only stared up at me, so I nudged him again. “One more time. Where’s Gabrielle?”

“I told you,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t know.”

If he answered like that, smothered in a binding spell, it meant he really didn’t know. My fears deepened. She couldn’t have just vanished, could she? Not that I knew a hell of a lot about Gabrielle’s magic. But all the blood scared me.

Drake strode in through the gate as a human, one as naked as a newborn. His skin was dark, his hair black, but he didn’t resemble any one specific race of humans. He probably didn’t think he had to, didn’t think about it at all.

He had tatts, black lines depicting dragon’s wings that covered his back and rose up his neck. I don’t know where he had those done, but probably not my tattoo place in Shibuya. The guys there would be too cheerful for him.

Drake was one of the most obstinate, single-minded dragons I’d ever met. He’d been perfect working for the Dragon Council, because honoring his word was more important than breathing, but he’d quit them when he realized they didn’t live up to his standards.

He eyed me. “I will need clothes.”

I wrung out my sodden T-shirt. “You can’t have mine.” I’d need new ones too—these wet jeans were going to chafe like a some-bitch.

Drake moved to stand over the slayer. Tall and ice-cold, he gazed down at the man, a gleam of satisfaction in his black eyes. “You are bound to my will,” he announced. “If I demand a thing of you, you will do it, even if it is to throw yourself over a cliff to your death.”

“He’s not kidding,” I said. “Trust me.”

The slayer glared up at both of us. “It doesn’t matter. The Earth is rising. I am but a taste of what’s coming.”

Normally I ignore crazy statements like this one, but for some reason the words sent a tingle of warning through my body.

“See, I hate cryptic shit,” I said, nudging him with my wet boot. Okay, so maybe it was more of a kick than a nudge. “What is coming?”

“She woke the Earth. She angered it. And now, it rises.”

I kicked him again, harder this time. “See what I mean? Really hate it.”

“I am but one vessel,” the slayer said.

“Yeah, yeah.” I was tired of kicking him, and besides, my socks were all squishy with water which was hurting my toes. “Aren’t we all?”

“We must take him to the dragon compound,” Drake said.

I gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Take a dragon slayer to a dragon compound? Now there’s a great idea. He’ll last, what, two minutes? Then die before telling us anything. Anyway, I thought you quit them.”

“I did. But there are cells there that can hold him. His magic is strong, and he might eventually work his way free of the binding spell.”

“Don’t give him ideas. I understand your logic, but I have a better idea. Two actually. One, kill him and put him out of our misery. Two, since I want him to live a little longer, take him to Janet.”

Drake paused a long moment, face impassive, while he weighed my suggestions. Then he gave me a nod. “I believe you are right.”

“I am? Wow, would you look at that?” I said to the slayer. “Drakey agrees with me. Write it down. Date and time stamp it.”

The slayer’s lip curled. “It matters not what you do with me. You are obsolete.”

I put up with squishy socks to kick him one more time. “Now you’re hurting my feelings. And who the hell says ‘it matters not?’”

“Take him,” Drake said impatiently. “I need to clothe myself.”

“Huh.” I leaned down and hauled the slayer up and over my shoulder. Now that the binding spell was complete and specific to the slayer, it wouldn’t grab on to me, at least in theory. “I’m surrounded by guys who talk in medieval poetry. Where am I taking him?”

“To Janet.” Drake was already walking away toward the gardens, possibly to mug someone for their suit. I imagined him waiting a while until he found a man his exact size with his exact taste before he struck.

“Great.” I adjusted the slayer’s weight, and he hung limply without fighting me. “I always get stuck with the dirty work. So I’m supposed to drag you out, me soaking wet, through a posh hotel casino and lug you back down the Strip to find my friends. I’d much rather stay here and find out what happened to Gabrielle. If she’s hurt, you, my friend, will pay with your life. Understand?”

---

Mick led us at a run through the C hotel and out into their gardens. Security tried to stop us, but Nash flashed his badge and we charged through. I don’t think it was so much the badge that did the trick as our determination and Nash’s air of authority. The whole world backed down from Nash when he was after a culprit.

I was right behind him and Mick, with Titus following me. I didn’t like Titus behind me, but I didn’t have much choice at the moment.

One of Mick’s friends had called us while I was struggling out of bed, saying he’d spotted Gabrielle at the C, fighting for her life. I’d thrown on clothes, and we’d charged over here.

I stopped in the middle of a vast swath of greenery bordered by hedges and trees pruned into careful cone shapes. Dawn light streaked the sky pink and touched fleur-de-lis shaped flower beds that pumped blue, scarlet, and gold notes into all the green.

Through this beauty came a dripping man covered in tattoos that rivaled the flowers’ colors. He carried another man over his shoulder, that man half-conscious and helpless.

I darted forward. “Gabrielle? Where is she?”

The glare Colby turned on me could have started fires. “She was fighting this dickhead, but by the time we caught up to them, she’d disappeared.”

Colby upended his burden and dumped a man I’d never seen before onto the grass. He was thick-bodied but not fat, the thickness due to muscles and sheer bulk. He, like Colby, was wet, clothes soaked.

Titus and Mick pulled back involuntarily, and I felt the deep bite of Earth magic in him.

“You’re the dragon slayer?” I asked in surprise. He didn’t look that dangerous, but then, neither had Emmett, the most powerful mage in the world. Nor had Pericles McKinnon, the second-most powerful.

“Dragon slayer under a binding spell,” Colby said. “Drake’s specialty.”

Both Titus and Mick stepped closer to the slayer again, and I sensed their dragon-ness awakening—dragons were very, very good at taking revenge.

Studying the slayer with the eye of magic, I saw the dark threads that wound him in a tight, unbreakable swath. If those had been tangible ropes, he wouldn’t have been able to move or breathe.

“Don’t kill him yet,” I said quickly to Mick. “Not until he tells us where Gabrielle is.”

“I don’t know,” the dragon slayer said groggily, with the impatience of a man who’d been asked the same question a dozen times already. “Something hit me, and when I pulled myself out of the pool, the girl was gone. What is she? She crackles with demon magic. And why is a demon defending dragons?”

Not demon—goddess, I could have told him, but he didn’t need to know my family history.

“You really don’t know where she is,” I stated.

“I keep saying …”

“Good.” Mick went for him, dragon fire dancing in his hands.

Titus’s expression was stone cold instead of eager, and his suit wasn’t even wrinkled, but the ball of dragon magic he brought to his hand was deadly. The dragon slayer, in the next second, would be toast.

“You can’t kill someone in your custody,” Nash said. He was ever a stickler for the rules of law and order.

“Dragons can,” Mick said.

The dragon slayer held up his hands, his fear unfeigned. “Wait! You need me. You need me against what’s coming.”

“What?” I bent forward, carefully avoiding Mick’s line of fire. “What do you mean what’s coming?”

“He’s been spouting that crap since Drake bound him,” Colby said in disgust. “A ploy to save himself, I’m thinking.”

“No.” The dragon slayer shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. “I’m bound to the Earth, so closely that I know every move it makes—every tiny shift in its crust. That woman woke it when she opened the way to send my demons home, angered it by letting the wrong magic beings penetrate its heart. The Earth is rising. I guarantee it. It will bury every demon, dragon, and creature of darkness in its wrath. That is why you should not have tried to break your contracts with me, dragon creatures—your mistake will cost you everything you have.”

I did not like the sound of this. Colby might be right that the slayer was trying to keep himself alive by feeding us a load of bullshit, but his words held a ring of truth.

He was talking about Gabrielle and me creating the vortex in the hotel to get rid of the attacking demons. But why should the slayer focus on her alone, when our magics had combined to create the hole? And what did he mean, letting the wrong magic beings penetrate its heart?

“He keeps saying that,” Colby said. “The Earth is rising. Sounds like a bowel movement. Can we dust him now and find Gabrielle?”

“No,” Titus said. The flame in his hands died, and Mick had dampened his as well. “We need to interrogate him. Find out exactly what he means.” He gave Colby a nod. “Then, we dust him.”

Colby grinned and jerked his thumb at Titus. “I don’t know who this guy is, but I like him.”

“You can’t interrogate him here,” Nash broke in. “The line of security guards behind us are going to stop believing I’m here to make an arrest and come for us.”

I glanced around and saw the formation of about fifteen men in dark suits with earpieces and sunglasses in the morning light, all focused on us. These security guards weren’t cheerful retired men in uniform; they looked like Secret Service agents ready to take down anyone who even remotely looked like a terrorist.

“I’ll get him out,” Mick said. “Best place, the Crossroads Hotel. We can bind him doubly there.”

The Crossroads would be a good place to take the slayer, I agreed, but I definitely didn’t want to leave Las Vegas before I found Gabrielle. Not only was I worried about her safety, but it would be foolish to leave her in this town alone. Grandmother would kill me.

So much for vacation.

---

When I finally woke, I was in a bed. A soft, comfortable bed, nothing like Janet’s lumpy mattress in her bedroom in Many Farms. The room was much larger too, and beautiful, with a high ceiling painted like the sky, soft furniture, and tall windows letting in streaming sunlight.

I had no idea where I was. Not in the hotel suite Janet, Maya, and I had been sharing, not Janet’s hotel at the Crossroads, nowhere I’d ever been.

And I was in bed. Unclothed. I took a peek beneath the sheet. My underwear, blue to match my dress, clasped my hips, but the rest of me was bare.

I dropped the sheet as the door opened and my friend from the baccarat table—Cornelius—walked in. He tiptoed in, as though thinking me still asleep, and I slammed the sheet and blanket to my chest.

He stopped halfway across the floor. “Good. You’re awake.” He sounded relieved.

“Are you a pervert?” I asked him.

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“A pervert. Are you one? Did you take my clothes?”

Cornelius’s expression cleared. “Ah, I see your concern. Your clothes were in shreds and had to be removed. But no, I didn’t touch you. The nurse did.”

“Male or female?”

“Chandra. Female. She’s very professional. Worried about you, but she says you will be all right. We found you in time.”

My heart beat quickly, and magic prickled in my fingers, as it always did when I was scared.

“In time for what?” I demanded.

“To save you from drowning.” Cornelius didn’t move from his spot in the middle of the carpet, which was thick and covered with roses. “The man fighting you was arrested, don’t worry.”

“Arrested.” My mind was cloudy. I’d been battling the dragon slayer, who’d done his best to strangle me and drown me at the same time. Colby and Drake hadn’t been there at the pool—I’d saved them from him at least.

That made me feel a little better, though I hoped Drake had been able to go dragon and heal himself. But Colby would have made sure he was all right, wouldn’t he? The two acted as though they didn’t like each other, but now that Drake had quit the Council, they watched each other’s backs.

“Who arrested him?” I asked.

“My men didn’t say—probably they don’t know. A police officer and some formidable looking assistants came in and took him away.”

“Your men.” I looked Cornelius up and down. “You have men? Who are you? A mob boss?”

Cornelius shook his head, his smile faint. “I say my men, but they work for the hotel.”

“The C. Wait, the C is owned by a guy called Christianson. Is that you?”

“No. John Christianson is my brother. He owns the chain.”

My heart beat faster. “And you were playing at the tables, because …”

He shrugged, his cheekbones staining red. “I like to play. It relaxes me.”

I remembered Cornelius losing hands and pushing away chips like it was no big deal.

“Now I understand why you were being so nice to me,” I said, disappointed. “I was a big spender, and you were trying to keep me happy.”

Why this hurt me so much, I don’t know. I felt tears sting my eyes, like I was a big sappy baby.

Cornelius raised a hand. “Not at all. I saw a young woman a bit out of her depth, and as I said, you are the same age as my daughter, which made me protective. You put up quite a fight against that man. He was a magic user?”

I started and pulled the sheet higher. Cassandra had told Janet that John Christianson knew all about magic, had wanted her to help him fulfill some of his customers’ darkest desires with it. Cassandra had quit the hotel and disappeared, terrified of what would happen if Christianson found her.

Apparently Christianson couldn’t work magic himself, which was why he’d hired Emmett and Cassandra. It stood to reason Christianson’s brother would know all about magic too.

“Yeah,” I said warily. “Pretty strong Earth magic in him.”

“I’m not certain what that means. He was using his magic to cheat?”

“Sure was. Made the right cards come out of the deck for him.” I’d done the same thing, but I felt it prudent not to mention it.

“Hmm.” Cornelius didn’t look fall-over amazed that a mage had waltzed into his brother’s casino and used magic to cheat, or that I’d figured it out and challenged him. “What do you mean by Earth magic?”

I shrugged, wishing I didn’t have to lie flat, but I wasn’t about to let Cornelius, no matter how kindhearted he was, get an accidental glimpse of my tits.

“Means magic rooted in this Earth,” I said. “Like witches who focus on crystals or water to work spells—stones and water come from the Earth. Or Changers—they get the power to shift from the Earth. Dragons, too. Dragons were made from volcanoes, by volcano gods, which is why they can wield fire.” I closed my mouth before I could mention dragon slayers who went after the dragons. I didn’t know whose side Cornelius was on.

He wore a quizzical look, as though debating whether to believe me. “You know a lot about this.”

“I’m kind of an expert. This guy was definitely using Earth magic. Smelled like dirt.”

“And all Earth magic, er, smells that way?”

“Not always.” Janet’s Earth magic didn’t—she smelled like a rainstorm when she used her Stormwalker powers—a good rainstorm that settled the dust and made the world fresh. Grandmother Begay’s reminded me of rosemary. Mick smelled like fire, and Colby smelled like incense. I liked that. Drake smelled of incense too, but a different kind. Drake was cinnamon, while Colby was more like sandalwood.

“You describe it as though you don’t have Earth magic,” Cornelius observed. “But you fought like a mage. What kind of power do you have?”

Oops. Speaking of secrets …

“Oh, nothing special.” I managed a shrug. “Can I get some clothes? I feel weird talking to you like this. Or are you holding me hostage? Keeping me naked so I can’t run away?” Not that it would stop me. I’d be out the window and down the street in a heartbeat, wrapped in the sheet if that’s all I could find.

Cornelius raised his hands in surrender and stepped back. “Nothing so dramatic. I will have Chandra check you over and bring you something to wear. Then you can choose any clothes you want from the gift shop, as much as you like. It’s on me. As a thank-you for catching a swindler at our tables.”

“And then I can leave?”

Cornelius hesitated a fraction of a second, and that small fraction made my wariness return.

“Of course, leave if you’d like. I’ll have a car drive you anywhere you wish. Though I’d appreciate it if you stayed for a little while at least, and talked to me about how this man used magic to cheat. So we can be on our guard. I can have your luggage transferred from whatever hotel you are staying in, if that will make you more comfortable.”

I sensed a trap, and I hated traps. They made me crazy and want to kill everyone in my path to get out.

But I was also curious. Why did he want to pick my brain? Cornelius seemed personable and polite—kind, even—but something was up.

Grandmother Begay said curiosity was Janet’s downfall—she couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business, no matter how much trouble it led her into. Well, I was Janet’s sister, so I guess the curiosity was genetic.

I flashed Cornelius a smile. “That would be great. Let me clean up, you give me dinner, or breakfast, or whatever meal we’re on, and we’ll talk.”

“Excellent. Thank you—er, would you be so kind as to tell me your full name, my dear? For Chandra’s records.”

I wasn’t sure why that was important, but what the hell? My human name was harmless. “Gabrielle Massey,” I said. “I’m Apache.”

“Are you? How intriguing. Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

Cornelius pressed his hands together, looked as though he might bow, thought better of it, and left the room with dignity.

I waited a few heartbeats until I was sure he wasn’t coming back, and then threw off my sheets as I tore to the bathroom. I truly had to pee.