Wildfire

“Chocolate mousse,” he said without hesitation. “I craved it in the jungle. No idea why. Never liked chocolate much before. Some days when we were starving, I’d wake with the taste of it in my mouth, thinking it was real. When we walked out, they put us into helicopters and brought us to Arrow Point, the base in Belize. I stayed awake until they got us to the hospital. All these people were running around, frantically trying to make sure I didn’t die on their watch. At some point someone asked me what I wanted. I must’ve told them, because when I woke up in the hospital bed, it was waiting for me.”

I wanted to hug him. I had to settle for reaching out and gently stroking his hand with my fingers. “Was it good?”

“Yes. It was.”

A young woman walked up to our table on tall needle heels. She was about twenty, with light blond hair, twisted into a complicated arrangement on the back of her head. Her skin was flawless and her makeup expertly applied. She wore a black cocktail dress, but unlike my simple number, hers consisted of artfully sewn strips of ghostly black silk, each strip shot through with a streak of gold. The dress screamed money. She knew she was beautiful and she was used to taking it as her due.

She ignored me, her gaze fixed on Rogan. “My name is Sloan Marcus of House Marcus.”

Rogan pondered her.

“We’re the third largest telekinetic House in Texas,” she said. “I’m a third-generation Prime. I’m twenty-one, in good health, and free of genetic diseases. I’m a graduate of Princeton. You interest me. My profile will be available to you on request.”

She just propositioned him right in front of me.

Rogan nodded. “My companion is much too polite to explain the facts to you, Sloan, so I’ll have to take it upon myself. She and I had a rather trying morning, and, having washed off the blood and gore, we came here for a quiet meal. You’re interrupting it.”

Color tinted her cheeks. She wasn’t embarrassed. She was angry at being rebuffed. “I don’t believe you understand. I said, my profile will be available to you.”

“I don’t think he wants to see your profile,” I told her. “He hasn’t even looked at mine, and we’re sleeping together.”

She condescended to look at me. “Primes marry other Primes.”

I smiled at her and kept eating.

Sloan raised her chin. “Nobody says no to me.”

“Lie,” I said.

“How dare you?”

“It’s a fact,” I told her. “Someone says no to you a lot. You lied about being twenty-one as well, but it was a good speech, so I didn’t interrupt.”

Rogan laughed quietly.

“Who do you think you are—”

“Leave us,” Rogan said. His voice had a tone of unmistakable command to it.

Sloan opened her mouth. Rogan’s magic splayed out around him, an invisible but violent current. The dragon had opened his wings.

Sloan stumbled back, her face shocked, and hurried off on her impossible heels.

Rogan’s magic vanished.

“Have you ever checked if you and I are compatible?” I asked.

He frowned. “I’d have to get Tremaine records for that. Do you think your grandmother would give me access?”

“I doubt it. Although you never know with her. Didn’t she promise me to you?”

“Yes.”

Now was as good of a time as any. “Garen Shaffer came to see me today.”

Rogan’s face was relaxed, almost casual, as he cut his steak. “The heir.”

“He asked to have dinner with me tomorrow.” I cut another tiny slice of the pork chop. “I said yes.”

Something crunched. Rogan kept eating, his expression perfectly calm. The thick window glass beside us developed a hairline crack all the way across the top corner, just above Rogan.

“Thinking about the future is important,” Rogan said, his voice neutral. “I understand why you want to keep all possibilities open.”

Oh, you idiot. “A truthseeker was involved in breaking through the hex and helping Pierce to find the artifact. A truthseeker also created a barrier in Harcourt’s mind. We haven’t yet been confirmed as a House, but the moment our profile went up, Shaffer jumped on it. I’d like to know more about him.”

“That’s as good of a reason as any.”

“If he’s working with Harcourt, he may know where Brian is kept.”

“Sounds logical.” He was cutting his steak with surgical precision.

“I’d like you to watch.”

“Of course.” He froze with his fork in midair. “Run that by me again?”

I spoke slowly. “I’m going to record the conversation with a hidden camera and send live feed to Bern. I’d like you to watch it.”

He just stared at me.

“Going to see Shaffer carries a risk. He did something today in my office that made it difficult for me to recognize if he was lying. He was testing my magic. There is some possibility that he will try to do the same thing with me as I did with Augustine. If you hear me start to confess things, please call me. I’m hoping a phone call will be enough of an interruption, but I can’t be sure.”

“So you don’t mind if I listen in on your date?”

“It’s not a date.”

“Your dinner appointment.”

I sighed. “If I minded, I wouldn’t ask you to monitor the conversation.”

He came to life like a shark sensing a drop of blood in the water. “What if I come with you and just get a different table?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re clearly concerned. I’m also concerned about your safety. If you allow me, I can be near in case things go wrong.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the moment Shaffer puts his fork down the wrong way, you’ll storm in there and slice off his head with his silverware. Or some loose change in your pocket.”

“I won’t need silverware or anything else. If he hurts you, I’ll wring his neck with my hands.”

I pointed my fork at him. “And this is exactly why you will give me your word that you will maintain some distance.”

“How much distance?”

“Lots.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Rogan, stop.”

He took a swallow of his wine. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. They grew guarded.

“Sturm,” he said quietly.

I pulled my magic to myself and let it out, drenching the table in it.

A man walked up. He was about six feet tall, lean, and pale, with eyes the color of coffee grounds. His dark brown hair framed his face in soft waves, long enough to brush his neck. He’d shaved that morning, but now stubble peppered his jaw, and he didn’t seem to care. He had an attractive face, but not handsome. Where Augustine’s features had the perfection of beauty, and Rogan’s spoke of power, Sturm’s telegraphed focus. He was a man who would patiently plot and think of a strategy. His eyes said he’d be ruthless in its implementation. Watching him wasn’t really a choice, it was a compulsion. He tripped some instinctual alarm deep inside my brain that said, Danger, and my survival dictated I had to keep an eye on him to see what he’d do next.

“Rogan. Fancy meeting you here. What a lovely surprise,” Sturm said. His voice had a slight rasp. If wolves could assume human form, they would sound just like that. Come to think of it, he looked like a wolf too. A patient, vicious, smart wolf.

“Sturm,” Rogan said, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Sturm landed in the spare chair. I drank my wine and moved my magic, one thin strand at a time, to wrap around him.

“I thought you became a complete recluse,” Sturm said. “A hero damaged by war and withdrawn from us ordinary mortals. Yet here you are having a steak at Flanders’, in presentable clothes even, and your date is wearing the Tear of the Aegean around her neck. How wrong I was.”

The Tear of the Aegean?

“Assumptions can be dangerous things,” Rogan said.

“Indeed. A man can often assume that he is in the right, only to find himself unexpectedly on the wrong side of history.” Sturm smiled. “I’m glad to see you out and about, Rogan, enjoying the finer side of life. This is, after all, what being a Prime is all about. Comfort. Wealth. Power.”