Nero woke on his side, with his heart racing and his wrists on a short chain attached to a ring in the center of a stainless steel floor in a stainless steel room. All four walls — no window — the door, and the ceiling were steel, with every inch covered in hieroglyphics. Inside his head, Becca was silent, but he didn’t know if that meant she was unconscious or dead—

No, not dead. He’d feel it in his soul if she were dead.

So, one plus. And yet so many negatives as well. She was captive again by the same drake who’d had her before, and now so was he.

A heavy lock on the door thunked, and it swung open.

Wonderful. No windows and a solid bolt on the outside, not to mention he could still feel the tingle of the gatelock and the weight of something else, most likely the lingering effects of the tranquilizer.

The woman with the dark-rimmed glasses, the physician’s coat, and the clipboard, who’d been interrogating Becca before, stepped inside and shut the door behind her with another heavy thunk. A hint of flickering aura glowed around her. It indicated she was a human but didn’t have enough magical strength for any kind of power, probably not even enough for the development of an earth magic ability. Which meant she wasn’t the dragon in charge.

She stayed by the door, pulled a pen from her breast pocket, and tapped it against the clipboard.

He shifted, but the chain securing him to the floor was too short to get his knees under him without forcing him into a scrunched, bowed position, so he gave up and subvocalized his power word instead, hoping she wouldn’t notice his discomfort or his magic. Nothing. Not even a hint of the surge of power within him indicated he’d summoned his wind.

She cocked an eyebrow, but he couldn’t tell if she knew he’d tried to summon his earth magic or not. Given she didn’t have any magic herself, probably not. But that meant whichever drake had him was a powerful sorcerer, if not a true power, then close enough. It also meant the weight inside him wasn’t just the last of the tranquilizer. It was the feel of a null magic spell — most likely coming from the hieroglyphics — which would explain why Becca wasn’t in his head.

His gaze slid to the figures in the floor at his knee. There were a lot of glyphs. Grey had said Servius had only had a few symbols on his arms, and he could control the earth and wind as well as gate through a gatelock. How many glyphs were needed for a permanent null magic spell and how many other spells were in this room?

“Not going to try the chain?” the woman asked.

“And then? I’m in the middle of a secure facility. I suppose I could break free and threaten to tear your throat out until you release me.” But that wouldn’t help Becca, and he couldn’t demand her freedom as well, because that would reveal to the dragon in charge that she meant something to him.

“Or do you not have enhanced strength?” The woman pursed her lips, her gaze steady on him.

He didn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Even if he did, the odds weren’t good for escaping from this room. Biding his time and hoping she’d eventually move him someplace less secure was his best bet. Except with a dragon in charge, that could take a lot of time, and the more time Becca spent here, the greater the danger.

“Why don’t we cut to the chase and you introduce me to your boss.”

“What makes you think I have a boss?” the woman asked. “Because I don’t have any magical strength or because I’m not a dragon?”

That would be a yes to all of the above. He met her gaze and held it.

“I expected arrogance from an ancient dragon.” She jotted something on the clipboard. “So far you’ve only partially disappointed.”

“Oh?”

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure out that, even with enhanced strength, you couldn’t break the chains.”

“You can put me down for five seconds.”

She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have a clue until I told you.”

“And you’ll never really know.” Come on. Slip up and mention the dragon in charge.

“You’re right. I never really will.” She flipped over the page she was writing on and drew out a slip of paper the size of her palm, clipped to the top of the next page. “But let’s find out for certain if you’re the dugga of the Asar Nergal.”

She sauntered toward him, confident in the magic on the chain securing him to the floor, and crouched opposite him, his hands and the ring on the floor between them.

“No growl? No sneer?” She flipped the first page back and made another note. “I wish I’d had an ancient dragon to study sooner.”

Which suggested her boss wasn’t an ancient dragon. “You’ve studied a lot of dragons?”

“A few.”

“Because your boss won’t allow more?”

“Back to the boss again.” She clicked her tongue. “Are you hoping to make a deal?”

He was hoping to find a way out of there and take Becca with him. “Just trying to fully understand the situation.”

“Understandable. You wouldn’t have survived as long as you have by being an idiot.”

Even if right now he felt like an idiot for having been caught by a human with only two dozen men and a sniper with a tranq gun.

“The problem is that you won’t be able to figure it out.” She raised the small piece of paper to eye level, drawing his attention to the four black hieroglyphics on it. “The others never did.”

“I’m sure just about any dragon, including a hatchling, could recognize a sorcerer.” He let a hint of a sneer seep across his expression. Maybe if he got her riled up, she’d reveal something. “It isn’t even the most powerful kind of sorcery if it needs glyphs.”

“It’s powerful enough for what I need.” She pressed the paper to the back of his hands and lightning exploded through his body, jerking his muscles taut, as if he’d been hit with a Taser’s current.

Mother of All, that hurt! And he wouldn’t have thought it possible with the null magic spell on the room. But whoever had cast it must have woven in an exception for this woman, since the only way she could have cast a spell would have been an exception to the null magic, or if she’d cast the original null spell herself.

The woman gasped and her eyes widened with dark delight. “It’s true. You’re the dugga.”

The paper turned to ash, the blast released him, and his muscles went limp. If he’d been standing, he would have crumpled to the floor. Black and white specks flashed across his vision and he fought to catch his breath.

“What the hell was that?”

“A little spell I wrote. You know, nothing overly powerful, just a way to know if you possess the dugga’s magic.”

“Well, now you know.” And she could take her confirmation to her boss and destroy everyone he was trying to protect.

She pulled more pages from her clipboard, the sheets bigger and covered with more hieroglyphics. “And I’m going to take it.”

“You’re what—?” If she took the dugga’s magic, she’d have a mental connection with every member of the Asar Nergal, as well as every human mage he’d let live. She’d know who they were and where they were. He couldn’t let her do that, except he had no idea how to get out of there. “Wouldn’t your boss rather have the magic, or is this an attempt to unseat him?”

Buy time. Just buy time, and he could figure a way out of this.

The woman tipped her head back and laughed. “Really. You have to stop thinking about my boss.” She set the papers on the floor beside her — out of reach — and held up her hand, wiggling her index finger and drawing his attention to a gold ring.

With a wicked grin, she slipped off the ring, and her aura blazed white around her with a ferocious magical strength. The flicker was still there, indicating she was human and not a dragon in disguise, but the promise of her magic was revealed in full. She was a sorcerer. Not as powerful as Anaea, but more powerful than most drakes — since dragons only had one or two earth magic abilities or at most a moderate sorcerer’s magic.

“I am the boss, and when I have the dugga’s magic, I’ll be able to hunt down every one of your assassins and kill them.” She slipped the ring in her pocket, pressed her palm to the center of the top paper with the hieroglyphics, and hissed, “So it be done,” in ancient Egyptian.

Light exploded from the glyphs, consuming the black ink into a blazing white brilliance that poured over the papers and ignited the glyphs on the floor. It raced around Nero, shooting from the floor as if cracks had formed and light was bleeding through, then rushed up the walls and over the ceiling.

“So it be done,” the woman hissed again.

The light around Nero blazed stronger, writhing up from the glyphs in strands that strained and stretched and latched around his wrists and ankles.

The woman stood and stretched out her arms. “So it be done.”

The light snapped tight, cut into his skin, and shot straight to his heart. Fire exploded within him, a mix of Taser-convulsing lightning and heart-of-the-sun searing. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t move, and could barely think, his thoughts locked on how he had to stop her and how he had to save Becca.

Through the haze of white, the light swept around the woman’s ankles, dug into her skin, and raced like glowing veins through her body.

She gasped and turned a wide-eyed, wild look at Nero. “I will hunt the hunters and your reign of terror will finally be over.”

The light surged, consuming Nero’s vision with a blinding white nothing and filling him with blazing agony, freezing him in a torturous convulsion and stealing even his thoughts of escape. There was no escape. Even if he could move, he wouldn’t be able to break the chain, and he wouldn’t be able to stand.

“So. It. Be. Done,” the woman screamed.

Darkness slammed over him, taking the light but not the agony. His muscles trembled and he still couldn’t catch his breath. Every inhalation and exhalation sawed through his chest and throat.

“So it is done.” The woman chuckled, sending shivers racing over Nero, sparking a blast of pain that shuddered through him.

“And I can feel them in my head.” A hand grabbed his chin and jerked his head up. “There are more than I expected,” she said, her hot breath burning against his face. Even his clothes, set off by every shift and shiver, chafed against every sensitive nerve.

The darkness turned to a haze, and he could make out the woman’s face inches from his. He should attack her, somehow, fight to take back what she’d stolen, but just the thought of moving made agony roar through him. The only saving grace was that if she didn’t kill him, he had about an hour to figure out what he was going to do. The power wouldn’t fully lock with her soul. She’d know how many members there were of the Asar Nergal, but not who or where. At least until the hour was up.

She cocked her head to the side, her gaze turned inward. “No, they’re not all dragons.”

A flash of ice swept through the blaze.

“They’re humans. More than I expected.” Her focus returned to him. “Saving up your next victims for something special?”

Except they weren’t his next victims. There weren’t that many human mages out there that weren’t part of his puzur, and Mother, what would she do if she discovered his kids were a part of his family? What would she do if she thought that meant they were traitors to humankind?