city of dragons 03 - fire magic (2 page)

I followed him. Damn it, I’d just come from the elevator.

We stepped inside. We were the only people inside. We waited, and the doors closed, shutting us in together.

“Listen,” I said. “You’re the one who said that we should make a concerted effort not to be around each other all the time.”

He gave me a funny look. “I said that months ago. Are you pissed at me or something?”

“No. Are you mad at me?”

“No.” He rubbed his chin. “I hope the reason that you keep shutting me down is not to get me back for saying that we needed space, because if so, that’s kind of passive aggressive, and it’s not like you.”

“I’m not trying to get you back,” I said.

“You seem jumpy.” He studied his fingernails. “You know, maybe it’s a bad idea to show you this today.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, putting my finger in his face. “You don’t just talk this up and then demand that I let it go. I have to know what this news is.”

The elevator door opened.

Lachlan got out. “Well, okay. I guess you’re right.”

I got out too. “What’s it about? Is it a new case?”

“You want to help out?” he said. “Because I thought you were too busy with the hotel right now.”

“I am,” I said. “It’s just… if you were going to say it was a new case, then I would tell you that I was too busy.”

He laughed again. “You know, Penny, you’re acting a little strange right now.”

We walked back to his desk, which was tucked in the back of a big, open room lined with other desks and cubicles. Lachlan’s was completely empty except for his computer. He wasn’t one for clutter.

“Strange?” I said. “What do you mean?”

He gestured for me to sit down next to his desk. “Did something get shaken loose in therapy? Because that happens to me sometimes.”

I sat. “She said you weren’t nice to her.”

“She what?”

“Well, she didn’t really, but when I said you were nice, she acted like that was strange, and then when I questioned her about it—”

“Maybe I can be a little hostile with Shirley sometimes.” He shrugged. “She has a way of cutting to the center of things, you know? It can be a little hard to take. What did she say to you today?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I twisted my fingers together. “I think she wants me to face my issues or something, like you were saying.”

“But you don’t want that?”

I looked around the station. “Do we have to talk about this here?” Truthfully, we were far out of anyone else’s earshot.

But Lachlan shrugged. “We can talk about it later.” He tugged a folder out of his desk drawer and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s the results of your PERK,” he said.

“PERK?”

“Physical evidence recovery kit,” he said. “It’s what they did after Alastair—”

“Right,” I cut him off. I opened the folder. The words and numbers swam in front of me.

Lachlan’s voice was soft. “They didn’t find any of Alastair’s DNA.”

My gaze snapped up to meet his. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Some fibers that might have matched stuff in his house if you hadn’t, uh, burned it down, but no evidence of him.”

“That’s…” I furrowed my brow.

“All along you kept saying that you thought he stopped,” said Lachlan. “Maybe you were right.”

I shut the folder. “No.”

“No?”

“He didn’t stop,” I said.

Lachlan looked at me sharply. “You remember this now?”

“No, I just
know
…” I rubbed my forehead. “How could there not be any evidence?” I knew that Alastair had done this to me. The baby growing inside me was all the evidence I needed. “If we find him, does this mean that he wouldn’t be convicted—”

“No, it doesn’t mean that,” said Lachlan. “There are lots of witnesses of his behavior toward you. And
when
we find him, he’s going to be locked up for the rest of his life for the murder of Fletcher Remington and all those policemen he compelled to shoot each other when they were trying to arrest him.” Fletcher Remington was a dragon shifter that Alastair had sacrificed for more power.

“Oh, right,” I said. “So we don’t even really need this.” I gave the folder back to him.

He looked down at the folder. “I, uh… you’re taking this differently than I thought you would.”

I sat back in my chair, musing over it. “So… maybe the DNA was gone by the time I got there?”

“They did find…” He sat back in his chair too. He opened the folder and peered at it.

“What?”

He looked at me. “Me. They found my DNA.”

Did that make sense? I shook my head, puzzling it out.

“Penny?” said Lachlan.

I looked up at him.

“You okay?”

I tried a smile. “I’m fine. I, uh, I need to go now, though.”

“Damn it,” he said. “This upset you. I was debating even bringing it up or showing it to you, but I knew that you’d want to know, so I thought—”

“No, I’m glad you told me.” I wanted to reassure him, so I leaned forward and pecked him on the lips once, quickly, and then pulled back. “It’s fine.”

He caught my arm. “If I had a nickel for every time you said that things were fine—”

“Really, it
is
fine, though.” I smiled at him. “It’s only that I’m running late. I have a zillion things that I need to be catching up on right now, and I’ve just gotta go.”

He nodded slowly. He let go of my arm.

I stood up. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“You want to do dinner or something?”

“Tonight?”

He nodded. “Sure. Maybe around seven or—”

“I don’t know. Um, can I let you know later?”

He surveyed me. “If something was really wrong, Penny, you’d never tell me in a hundred years, would you?”

I laughed. “Of course I would. Don’t be silly.”

CHAPTER TWO

The truth was that I wasn’t busy at all. Even though the hotel was packed full of guests, I had hired a fabulous staff who did their jobs impeccably, and no one needed me for help with anything. I didn’t even need to watch the front desk, because everyone always showed up for their shifts. On time to boot.

So, when I got back to the hotel, I actually had nothing to do. Which was probably a good thing. I didn’t want to be overly active. Too much strenuous activity would be bad for the pregnancy, and I had grown desperately attached to this very tiny little being growing inside myself, despite my best efforts not to.

I knew it was likely that I’d lose this baby, and it was still so early on. I had made it past the twelve-week mark, which was when most miscarriages happened, but that didn’t mean anything, because I’d miscarried in my seventh month and in my eighth month, so I wouldn’t be able to relax until I was holding the baby in my arms.

I tried to keep myself from thinking about the future or daydreaming about the baby, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Especially since I had so little of anything else to keep my mind off of it. I spent most afternoons lying on my bed watching youtube videos of pregnancy vlogs.

This afternoon turned out to be no different.

I even ended up taking a nap—I was tired all the time these days—and when I woke up, it was getting dark outside.

Damn it. Had I missed a call from Lachlan?

I went to pick up my cell phone, but the screen didn’t show any missed calls.

That was weird. He must have gotten caught up in a case or something at work. He always called me. I looked forward to talking to him on the phone, even if I wouldn’t let myself see him. Seeing him today had been hard. He was so nice to look at, and it was so easy to get lost looking into his eyes or to remember how good it was when his arms were around me. I wanted to touch him again.

But I shouldn’t.

It wasn’t fair to him if I didn’t tell him about the baby. And I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t want things to change between us.

Of course, they were already changed. I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t tell that.

Lachlan thought that I didn’t want to see him because I was frightened of intimacy. He thought that his touch reminded me of Alastair or something. He was wrong. There was nothing about Lachlan that called to my mind the monster of my ex-husband. But I let Lachlan think that. It was easier that way.

I was starved, so I dragged myself out into my kitchen and put some water on to boil. Spaghetti was easy and filling, though I was going to need some protein, and I wasn’t much up for browning meat. I searched the cabinet for a can of lentils. That would do it. I set the lentils and the tomato sauce on the counter and I wandered out into my living room while I waited for the water to get hot enough.

There was a knock on my door. I went over and opened it.

“Hey, Penny,” said Connor Beckett, who was one of my best friends. He was a gargoyle, so he was only awake at night, and it looked like he might have just woken up. He hated summer, because there was less darkness, and his “days” were too short.

“Hey,” I said, opening the door wider to let him in.

“How’s it going?” he asked, sitting himself down on my couch. He was wearing a pair of cut-off jean shorts and nothing else. Connor wasn’t much for clothes. Most of his gray stony skin was on display.

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Fine. And you?” I wasn’t sure if he’d popped up here to chat or what. That wasn’t like him, but he and Felicity were both concerned for me now, what with the pregnancy and all. Felicity was my other best friend. The two of them and my doctor were the only people who knew I was going to have a baby, and I wanted it to stay that way.

“I actually…” He tugged his bare feet up onto the couch and hooked his arms over his knees. “I wanted to ask a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” I peered into the kitchen at the pot of water. I didn’t see any steam rising from it yet.

“Kind of a big one,” he said.”

I sat down on an easy chair opposite him. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“Uh… I have a friend,” he said. “A guy I met at the bar a few weeks ago.”

I groaned. “Are you moving out too?”

“What?” he said.

“Felicity met Jensen and moved in with him and left me high and dry. You’ve got a boyfriend too, now—”

“No, he’s not my boyfriend,” said Connor.

“Oh,” I said. “Just a friend?”

Connor nodded. “Yeah.”

“Is he straight?”

“No,” said Connor.

“So there’s boyfriend potential?”

“Uh… I don’t know. I thought he was cute and funny and everything when I met him. But he’s in so much trouble, and he’s all screwed up over it. And besides, he already has a boyfriend.”

“Connor, getting between a couple—”

“A boyfriend who beats him,” said Connor.

I stopped, stunned. “What did you say?”

“Abuse happens in gay relationships too, you know.”

“No, I’m sure it does. I just wasn’t expecting…” I let out a long, slow breath. “What’s this favor, Connor?”

“I want you to help me get him away from that guy,” said Connor.

“Does he want to leave?” I said.

“The last time I saw him, he was covered in bruises,” said Connor. “I asked him what happened, and he made up some bullshit story, but I pushed, and he told me everything. See, when I met him, his boyfriend was out of town, so that’s when Brian—that’s his name—thought it might be fun to go out with some of his co-workers. His boyfriend never lets him go anywhere, but Brian figured if he never found out, it wouldn’t matter. Except his boyfriend did find out, and he was royally pissed, and he started wailing on Brian, and I can’t leave him there, Penny, I can’t.”

“Does he want to leave?” I said again.

“How could he want to stay when he’s so beat up?”

“Did you ask him if he wanted to leave?”

“Well… no, but he has to want to leave. He can’t
want
to stay.”

“You’d be surprised,” I muttered.

“Penny—”

“I want to help your friend, Connor, but the truth is, until he asks for help, then there’s not much we can do. I stayed with Alastair for years, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, but no one tried to get you out of there.”

“People tried,” I said. “I had friends from before I got mated who didn’t like him. But I didn’t like hearing what they were saying, so I just stopped talking to them. I even had a woman recognize the signs of what was going on with me and tell me to get out of there. She had been through something similar, and she told me I had to leave, that I couldn’t stay, that things would never get better. And still. I stayed.”

Connor hugged his knees tighter to his chest. “But Penny—”

“And besides,” I said. “I can’t go up against some crazy abusive bastard right now. I’m pregnant.”

“You breathe fire,” said Connor.

“Is he human?”

“He’s a drake,” Connor said in a small voice.

I sighed. “Seriously?”

Drakes were people who had died with dragon flesh in their system. They woke up dragon-human hybrids with scales and claws and mutated bodies. Most of them got hooked on dragon meat, which was a popular street drug that made people feel invincible. It was very addictive, and drakes tended to want nothing more than to have more of it.

Connor was quiet.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a gentle voice. “But I don’t think your friend is ready to be helped.”

* * *

After eating my spaghetti, I tried to watch TV, but I ended up falling asleep again. When my phone rang, I was lying in a heap on my couch, still in my clothes. I felt sick to my stomach. Ugh. I hated morning sickness. Especially because it wasn’t confined to the morning.

I picked up the phone, groggy. “Hello?”

“Penny, it’s Lachlan.”

“Oh, are you okay? You didn’t call earlier.”

“I’ve got news,” he said.

More news? Was it more like the information he’d given me earlier? “What kind of news?”

“Were you asleep?”

I yawned. “Yeah, I fell asleep on the couch.” I stretched.

“It’s not even 10:30,” he said. “You feeling all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “What’s the news?”