Fire Song (City of Dragons) (23 page)

I opened the door to my apartment, only to be greeted by the sounds of a squeaking mattress, punctuated by sighs and grunts.

No freaking way.

Felicity was having sex and hadn’t even bothered to put a sock on the doorknob or something.

I slammed the door as loud as I could, hoping they’d hear it and take the hint.

The squeaks stopped immediately, only to be replaced by giggles.

I couldn’t handle this right now. I stalked back the hallway to my bedroom. I slammed that door too, making as much noise as I possibly could. I considered turning on the light in my bedroom, but I didn’t want to.

I crossed the room and threw myself face down on the bed.

God.

Lachlan’s story was messing with my head. I couldn’t handle it. It was too horrible for words. I thought of all the terrible implications of the story. I thought of being mother to a boy like that. What it would mean if my son had shot my other child, had shot the man I loved? I would still love my son, even though he’d done that. But I would hate him as well.

Trying to contain that terrible paradox would make me insane.

I still couldn’t see myself having sex with another man.

But maybe it had been too much for her. Maybe she had felt as if nothing mattered at all. Maybe she had blamed herself. Hated herself.

Or maybe she’d simply wanted everyone to hurt as much as she did.

I rolled over on the bed, stared at the ceiling.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I wished that I didn’t know. I wished that Lachlan had just kept his terrible secrets bottled up, because I couldn’t deal with them.

There was a knock on my door.

I didn’t answer.

But the door opened a bit, and Felicity poked her head in. “Hey.” She winced. “Sorry.”

I sat up. “Are you dressed?”

She giggled. “Yes. Can I come in?”

I flopped back on the bed. “You don’t need to. You can go back to Jensen.”

She came inside. “Nah. He left. He’s afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me?”

“Yeah, because he heard about what you did to The Lost Breed. He thinks you hate vampires. I tried to tell him differently, but considering the way you were when he met you, he’s not really buying it.”

I sat up again. “Oh, hell.” I thought of Lachlan taking a drink of his partner’s cup, getting shot, being a vampire. “Maybe I’ve been a little hard on Jensen.”

“You think?” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I didn’t think about how it could have really been accidental for him to have become what he is. Growing up dragon, all the other magical creatures are painted as people who either kill us outright or fund the people who do kill us. But I should have known better. You’re different. And you wouldn’t have fallen for someone who wasn’t different as well.”

“That’s true,” she said. She sat down on the bed next to me. “What brought this on?”

I shuddered. “I just… I heard the most horrible story I think I’ve ever heard.”

“What?”

“Detective Flint? He’s a vampire.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Pot, meet kettle.”

“I’m not into him,” I said. “I swear to God, we are only friends. He’s very, very screwed up in the head, anyway. More screwed up than me, even.”

“What are you talking about?”

I relayed the story to her as quickly as I could, filling in all the details and rushing to end it, because retelling it was like reliving it.

“That
is
terrible,” she said.

“I just keep thinking about his wife,” I said. “How that must have felt for her. I keep thinking about my baby, own sweet baby, shooting my other baby—”

“Hey.” Felicity grabbed both of my hands. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I can’t help it.” My first miscarriage had been too early for me to even know that it happened, but the other two had been later in the pregnancies. I’d had to go through labor, deliver their tiny little bodies. Afterward, I’d been able to dress them up and hold them. And this was the image I had in my head, of those tiny little babies all grown up and hurting each other. “I don’t mean to think like that. I want it to stop.” My eyes filled with tears.

She hugged me. “You’re too empathetic, sweetie. You put yourself in that story, but it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t your children.” She pulled back, looking me square in the eyes. “You would have loved your little ones far too much for either of them to ever do anything like that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What if that isn’t enough? What if that boy, Lachlan’s stepson, was born wrong, and there was no way she could have stopped it?”

“Even if that’s the case, sweetie, it wasn’t you. You’ve had your tragedies. You don’t need to take on other people’s as well.”

I started to sob. I couldn’t help it. I lay down on the bed, and I cried and I cried, thinking of the feeling of a baby moving in my womb, thinking of how much I longed to watch that baby grow up, and how all of it had been stolen from me.

Felicity lay down behind me and held me.

We spooned together there and I cried until I was spent.

Then we were quiet.

“You have to apologize to Jensen for me,” I said in a thick voice, wiping at my eyes.

“Shh.”

“No, I mean it. You have to.” I turned to look at her. “Because I was horrible to him, and I don’t want him to think badly of me. And I want you to be happy, Felicity. I want you to fall in love and get married and—” I bit off my words. I knew that being a drake made Felicity sterile. She had died, and only magic was keeping her alive now. Her physical body was not capable of having a child. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay.” She smiled at me. “You know that having a baby is your dream, not mine.”

“Fuck.” I wiped at my tears again. “Let’s, um, schedule another dinner, the three of us. So that I can make it up to Jensen. Would he do that?”

She rested her forehead against mine. “I’ll make him do it.”

*

My phone was ringing.

I was asleep, and my phone was ringing.

I groaned, turning over in my bed to reach for it. I answered it sleepily. “Hello?”

“Penny?”

“Yeah?” Last night, after crying my eyes out, Felicity and I had raided the refrigerator, which was mostly full of leftovers from takeout that we’d both gotten. Then we’d pigged out and watched movies and talked girl talk until late into the night. I hadn’t gone to bed until… oh, God, I had no idea, but it had been late.

“It’s Flint. Uh, Lachlan.”

I blinked. And then I was wide awake. “Um, hi. How are you?”

“Good, and you?” he said, as if he was responding to a normal inquiry. Oh, okay. He was going to pretend like he hadn’t told me that story the night before. Well, maybe that was a good thing, because I didn’t want to talk about it again. Not really.

“A little tired, I guess.”

“Did I wake you?” he said. “It’s nearly eleven.”

“Oh, well, I was up late talking to Felicity.” I sat up in bed. “So, what can I do for you?”

“The drake we talked to? Anthony Barnes? He’s at the station, says he has some information for us. You want to sit in on the interview?”

“Um, sure,” I said. “I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Good. See you soon.” He hung up.

I set the phone down. Business as usual. Right.

*

“It just came to me,” said Anthony, sipping some coffee from a styrofoam cup as he sat opposite us. “I saw her picture on the news the other day, and it was a different picture than the one they usually use, and she looked a bit different. And that was when I recognized her.”

“Sophia Ward, you mean?” said Lachlan.

“Yes. Now, I don’t think she went by Sophia when she checked in with us. She used some other name, but that’s typical for kids to do that, to keep things to themselves,” said Anthony. “It was only once, and it was just for the night. The next morning, a man in a flashy convertible picked her up.”

“Do you remember anything about that man?” said Lachlan.

“Well, I got a good look at him. He was tall, and he had dark hair, and he was trim and in good shape. If I saw him again, I think I’d recognize him.”

Lachlan slid a picture of Alastair across the table at him.

“Yes,” said Anthony. “Yes. That’s him.”

*

“Now, don’t get excited,” said Lachlan. He and I were at his desk now, and he was pacing in front of the whiteboard. “I think it’s quite likely that this could simply be Anthony’s way of inserting himself further into the investigation.”

“Because you think he’s the killer.”

“I don’t know if he is or isn’t,” said Lachlan. “But he might have simply agreed to any picture I showed him. If he is the killer, he’s got motivation to throw us off his scent.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“But if he’s not the killer, if he’s on the up and up, then this is more evidence against Alastair,” said Lachlan. “I think we need to go and talk to him again. Are you up for that?”

“Of course I am,” I said.

“Because if you thought that it was too much, I would understand,” he said. “I don’t need your presence to throw him off this time. I can handle it on my own.”

“I want to come with you.” I got to my feet, folding my arms over my chest.

He smiled. “Good.”

Alastair had been in the middle of a workout before we showed up. He was wearing a pair of sweats, and he’d thrown on a t-shirt, which was clinging to his sweaty chest.

His sweat was like some kind of intoxicant to me, and I wanted to punch him for being so male and enticing.

“I already told you, I was looking out for Sophia,” he said, pushing hair away from his glistening forehead with one thick, muscular arm.

I remembered the way those arms used to feel wrapped around me. I remembered running my fingers over his solid flesh.

I shivered.

Lachlan shot me a look.

I hugged myself.

Alastair seemed to notice that I was affected. He smirked.

God, he was sexy. I wanted to climb him. I wanted to run across the room, jump at him, wrap my thighs around his narrow hips and put my mouth on those smirking lips.

Lachlan stepped in front of me, as if he somehow sensed my desire and wanted to save me from myself. He took a deep breath. “Look, we know that Sophia’s brother didn’t ask you to look after her. He seemed to take a rather dim view of you, considering you couldn’t keep your own mate.”

Alastair’s nostrils flared. “You tricked me, Penny. But that’s a mistake I won’t make again. Trusting you. When I get you back, you’re going to be mine forever. I’ll never let you out of my sight.”

“I’m not coming back,” I seethed over Lachlan’s shoulder, even though I was imagining what it would be like to peel Alastair’s shirt off of his body, let my fingers dance over his sculpted stomach.

“We’re not here to talk about that,” said Lachlan. “We’re here to talk about Sophia Ward. Did you pick her up at the shelter or not?”

“Yes,” said Alastair.

“And why? Why were you seen talking with her the night she disappeared?”

Alastair caught my gaze. He smiled a particularly nasty smile. “I was fucking her.”

The words slammed into my body like a punch. I stumbled backward. I felt ill.

“Okay,” said Lachlan. “Well, Sophia apparently got around, because she supposedly had a rich boyfriend who was the head of an enormous conglomerate.”

“No, that was me,” said Alastair. “Saying that stuff about me was just our cover story.”

I was struggling to recover. It shouldn’t have mattered to me. I didn’t care about Alastair. I was free of him. I had no hold on him. But the thought of his being with someone who wasn’t me… it felt so wrong that it made my stomach twist.

I needed to hold onto something.

I went to the wall. Leaned against it. Tried to keep my stomach from emptying itself all over Alastair’s white carpet.

“Deena Walsh, her friend, seemed to think that there was a real connection between Sophia and that boyfriend,” said Lachlan. “That she thought they might get married.”

Alastair shrugged.

“I suppose, since your mate was gone, you might have considered finding a replacement,” said Lachlan.

“I never told her we would get married,” said Alastair. “She was young and she was sexy and I needed someone, because I’ve been pretty broken up over Penny running out on me.”

“Oh, so you had to go and stick your dick in a teenager?” I said, feeling even more ill.

“She wasn’t a teenager,” said Alastair.

“Close enough,” I said.

He pointed at me. “You’re the one who did this. You left. If you hadn’t gone away, I would never—”

“Never what?” said Lachlan. “Never have killed those girls?”