Mercy Burns (6 page)

“She’s a reporter asking too many questions.”

“Doing a story on the towns or the disappearances?”

“Both.”

The other man grunted. “You’d think no one would be interested in ghosts these days. We locking her in darkness?”

“She’s dragon, so it’s best to.” Footsteps echoed as we began to move again. “How’s the muerte?”

“After more than a week of darkness, the fire has all but gone out of him.”

Angus snorted again. “Thought those boys were tougher than that.”

We seemed to be moving downward now, and the
bright sense of light faded into darkness and shadows. The realization gave me hope. If I was beginning to recognize light and shadow from behind closed eyelids, then maybe whatever drug they’d given me was starting to wear off.

Angus stopped and somewhere ahead a door creaked open. The shadows became true blackness and the air became stale, smelling faintly of mold. I was slung onto something hard and cold, my head hitting with enough force that stars danced behind my closed eyelids. Footsteps retreated, a door slammed, and thick, cold silence swirled all around me.

At least I wasn’t alone.

The muerte was here. Even if those men hadn’t said as much, I still would have known. The odd, tingling sort of awareness running through the part of me that wasn’t human suggested as much. But it was an awareness that had been hit-and-miss most of my life—sometimes accurate, sometimes not—and it was a lottery that had caused me a lot of grief over the years.

Of course, I had no idea what a muerte actually was—aside from the fact that
muerte
meant “death” in Spanish.

That they were locking him away in darkness meant he was at least a dragon, because dragons—and most draman—needed the warmth of the sun to fuel their shape-shifting and fires. Locking them away from sunlight for any length of time robbed them of two dangerous weapons—which was a good thing in this case, because it meant he posed no immediate threat.

Not that the darkness presented any real problem to me, but that was a secret I kept closely guarded. I’d been shoved in more than one dark box over the years,
and the terror I’d shown on release had been due to the length of my stay rather than the darkness itself. I’d never been sure if they’d release me or forget me.

If the voice on the phone
had
been someone from my past, maybe that’s what they’d been referring to, rather than anything sexual.

Old fears stirred, but I shoved them away. I wouldn’t be forgotten this time, even though
this
time it was probably the better option.

I swallowed, and centered my thoughts back on the man in the room with me. Angus had said he’d been over a week without sunlight. It was a long time for anyone, so why had Angus expected more from the muerte?

It was a question I pondered in the darkness, though no answers were ever likely to come to mind. My clique hadn’t exactly exerted themselves to educate us half-breeds. Not when it came to dragon lore, anyway.

I have no idea how long I lay there before I realized I could move my fingers. It could have been hours, and it could have been minutes. There was no point of reference in this utter darkness, and my mind was still oddly disconnected. I tapped my fingers against the cool steel of my bed, strangely reassured by the movement. Gradually, the rest of my body began responding, and suddenly the dragon came roaring to the surface, until my whole body burned with the heat of her. The glow chased the chill from the blackness.

My gaze was drawn immediately to the man on the other side of the room. Like me, he lay on a bed that was little more than a slab of polished steel. Unlike me, he’d evidently put up quite a fight before capture. What remained of his clothes were bloody and torn,
and the strong body visible beneath the many rents and tears was cut and bruised. There were several more recent wounds, some of them still bleeding, some of them barely beginning to bruise.

His face was as battered as his body, and his hair—which was as black as the darkness had been before my flames had returned—was matted with sweat and blood. His eyes were closed, his breathing even, and he showed no awareness of my being in the cell with him. I wondered if the cause was drugs or the beating he’d received.

My gaze lingered a little on the strong, straight length of his nose and the lushness of the lips underneath, before moving on to canvass the room. At which point, my stomach dropped.

I
had
been locked in a place like this once before. I’d barely been ten at the time, but even at that age I had gained a high degree of control over my flames. It was the only thing that had saved me when Seth and his friends had locked me into one of the clique’s main freezers and left me there. Rainey had rescued me before I’d actually become a popsicle, but it had been a close thing.

And I’d been afraid of anything resembling a freezer ever since.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to calm the rush of fear, trying to stop the instinctive need to shiver and flame. This small, dark metal box
wasn’t
cold. It wasn’t a freezer, and I was in no danger of becoming a popsicle.

It was just a small, metal-lined basement—one obviously designed to contain dragons.

And best of all, I wasn’t alone in
this
darkness.

I forced my eyes back open and tried to concentrate on realities, not fear. Five steps, if that, divided the four walls. Beyond the two steel beds and the solid metal door to my left, there was nothing else in the room. No windows, no vents—although they had to be here somewhere, because the air, although stale, stirred sluggishly. But there was also nothing that would provide any obvious form of escape. There wasn’t even a smoke detector in the ceiling that I could flame and perhaps get help that way.

I swung my legs over the bed and slowly sat up. For a moment, the room spun around me and bile rose. I swallowed heavily and breathed deep and slow, until the spinning faded and the urge to throw up went away.

I waited several more seconds, just to be sure, then did a check of everything I had on me. My cell phone had been smashed by a car, and the only other things I’d been carrying were my keys and my wallet. My keys—like my jacket—were gone, but my wallet was still in my pocket. Okay, in a different pocket, which probably meant someone had been rifling through it. I took it out and discovered that while my cash, ATM card, and credit cards were still there, my drivers license and press card had gone. So they now knew not only who I was, but where I worked and lived.

They could find me again
.

Not that they’d had any trouble finding me before. But the thought sent a chill down my spine and fear rose again, thick and fast. I thrust it away, back into that dark corner of my mind that held the grief. I needed to get out of this place before I started worrying about who these men were and how they knew so much about me.

Slowly, carefully, I pushed to my feet. My side twinged—a reminder that it hadn’t yet healed—but my stomach remained still and the room didn’t spin. I licked dry lips and wished I had some water to ease the metallic dryness in my throat. But that wasn’t likely to happen unless I got out of this prison, and I couldn’t do
that
without help. I shuffled forward carefully. It was only five steps, but it felt like a mile and left me tired and shaky. What the hell had they given me?

I dropped to my knees beside the stranger’s bed, sucking in several breaths to stop the trembling and to feed some strength back into my limbs. It didn’t seem to help much. It probably wouldn’t until the drug leached out of my system.

I reached out and carefully touched the stranger’s face. His skin was cold, almost clammy. It meant he’d spent far too long locked in this darkness. His body was beginning to slow down, getting ready for hibernation. It wasn’t something most dragons attempted these days—simply because the number of humans who walked this earth meant it was no longer safe to do so—but I doubted this was deliberate. It was probably an instinctive reaction to the endless darkness, and it was something I’d have to stop if we were to get out of here.

I might be able to fight, but there were three men, at least, beyond this cell, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could tackle them alone. I needed help, and this man was the only likely prospect around.

Of course, there was no guarantee that he
would
help me get out of here, but I couldn’t imagine him wanting to remain in this darkness or take any more beatings.

I let my fingers drift from his chin, sliding them along the sinews of his neck then down underneath the torn and bloodied edges of his shirt. His breathing was soft and even, his chest muscular but not overly so. I let my hand rest in the middle of his chest, enjoying the feel of soft hair under my fingertips and the strong, steady beat of his heart. His slip toward hibernation must be a recent thing, because that rhythm would be much slower otherwise.

After another deep breath, I concentrated on the heat within my body, building up the fire until it was a maelstrom inside me. Then I channeled it forward, into my fingertips and down into his flesh. Chasing the chill from his skin, warming the inner dragon. I had no idea how long this would take, but hopefully it wouldn’t …

The thought died as a hand grabbed mine and ripped it away from his body.

My heart just about stopped and a scream roared up my throat, but it came out as little more than a squeak as I clamped down on it hard. I didn’t need my jailers to know I was awake. Didn’t need them to know that the stranger was awake.

“What are you?” His voice was deep and smoky, thick with disuse and rich with a menace that sent a shiver down my spine.

“A prisoner, like you.” I tried to pull my wrist from his grip, but it was stuck fast.

“Then why do you glow?”

“Because I was using my heat to warm you.” I pulled at my wrist again. “Damn it, let me go.”

He did so with a suddenness that had me sprawling backward. I picked myself up and scrambled to my
side of the box, letting my fire die until it was little more than a muted glow that barely heated my skin, let alone the darkness.

But it was enough to see his eyes. They were as black as the shadows and as cold as hell.

I shivered. Not a man to be taken lightly.

“Dragons can’t use their fire at night.”

“Then it’s just as well it’s not night, isn’t it?” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, because the slivers of energy still riding the air suggested the last vestiges of daylight hadn’t fully given way to darkness.

I pushed up onto the metal bench, but felt no better for being at eye level with the man. He could freeze an ocean with that stare of his.

I raised a hand and half covered the angry-looking scar on my forehead, then realized I was being stupid and let it drop. What I looked like or what he actually thought of me didn’t matter. All that did was his willingness to help me.

“You were slipping into hibernation,” I added, somewhat snippily. “Maybe I should have let you.”

Since I
did
want his help, they probably weren’t the wisest of words, but I just couldn’t help it.

He raised a dark eyebrow. It lent him an arrogance that seemed appropriate given his strong nose and steely gaze. “So why didn’t you?”

“Because there are three guards upstairs and that’s one too many for me to handle.” Hell,
two
was probably too many for me to handle, especially if they were all armed. I might have flames, but they couldn’t beat back a bullet.

He smiled. Like his eyes, it was a cold, hard thing,
and yet it sent my pulse tripping. It was very easy to imagine those lips touched by the warmth of a real smile. Very easy to imagine the beauty of it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a rather secure cell. It has no windows, it’s lined with some sort of metal sheeting that is impervious to flames, and it has a rather thick metal door.”

“I can see that. I’m not blind.”

“Then how do you plan to escape?”

His tone was that of a parent humoring a well-meaning but errant child, and that irritated me even more than his stare. “I haven’t been here very long. Give me a chance to think.”

Again a smile teased the corners of his mouth, but this time, it hinted at amusement. My breath caught briefly in my throat. Lord help me if he actually flung a full smile my way. I had a feeling it would be devastating.

“Don’t you think if there was a way out, I would have found it by now?”

“Well, considering you were unconscious and slipping into hibernation when they dropped me in here, I’d have to say no. I mean, it’s hard to be proactive about escaping when you’re out of it, isn’t it?”

He studied me for a moment, then swung around on the bench and sat up. His long fingers gripped the base tightly for several seconds, hinting at either pain or dizziness—neither of which showed in his stony expression.

“Who are you?” he asked, after a moment.

“What are you?” I countered. I might want this man’s help escaping, but I wasn’t about to trust him
with anything more vital than that. “The men upstairs were calling you a muerte. What the hell is that?”

“Literally,
muerte
means ‘death.’ ”

And death had
never
looked so good. I mentally slapped the thought away, and said, “I realize that. I meant, why would they call
you
that?”

Amusement flirted with the night-dark depths of his eyes, a spark that did little to warm the chill of his countenance. “Because it’s my occupation.”

O-kay
. I’d landed in a cell with a trained killer. Great. I shifted back on the seat a little, and the amusement in his eyes grew stronger.

Several limp black strands of hair fell across his forehead. He brushed them away with strong hands that were as bruised and as beaten as the rest of him, then said, “How does a dragon not know what a muerte is?”

I smiled, and saw something flicker in his eyes. Surprise, perhaps. It was a reaction as odd as the man himself. “I never said I was a dragon.”

“You flame like a dragon.”