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My heart started to pound as I remembered the conversation I’d overheard earlier between Mace and Wink.
Wink tensed beside me, and her eyes met mine, fear clouding them.
Wink stood up, but didn’t leave my side.
“It’s Daya, isn’t it?”
Merrick looked up, his eyes connecting with Wink’s for the first time since he’d arrived at our sides earlier in the day.
“It is.”
“But she died. Mace said so,” Wink asked in confusion.
“She is. Almost. She’s as close as she can be without actually being dead. A pile of bones and flesh, with no will whatsoever to lift her head or try to eat,” Merrick confirmed.
“Then how is she still alive?” Brooklyn asked.
“He’s keeping her alive, just like he did me.”
Wink’s head whipped around, and her eyes bored into mine.
“If he gets her loose…if he finds a way to get her out…can you save her?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve only ever worked on a human body before.”
Her eyes pleaded with me.
“But you’ll try?”
I nodded my head slowly.
“I’ll try.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and retook her seat.
“What’s his agenda?” Blythe asked. “What is he doing? What is he trying to accomplish by enslaving dragons?”
Merrick shook his head.
“I’ve never been able to figure out why. All I know is what he made me do, and that was help the purists. He’s not one…but he’s something.” He paused, looking torn on what he was about to say. “And I’ve seen Farrow come into the area five times over the last six weeks.”
I stiffened.
Keifer did as well.
“And has he made contact with Robert?” Keifer asked carefully.
Merrick shook his head.
Before I could stop her, Wink shot to her feet.
“He was in your office,” she blurted. “He went through your files. Took some and then left when you showed up shortly after he started looking.”
I closed my eyes as Keifer turned his angry glare her way.
“He what?”***I walked behind Keifer, sure that if I didn’t he would likely kill his brother before we got any information out of him.
“Wait, Keifer,” I grabbed his shoulder. “You need to calm down. If you go in there all hot and bothered, he’s going to clam up before you get anything out of him.”
Keifer gave me an evil grin.
“That’s why I brought Jean Luc.” He pointed at the other man that was walking beside me.
I sighed and picked up the pace, determined to get to Farrow before Keifer.
Despite what he thought, Keifer wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t get the full story first before he killed him, and I didn’t doubt, for one minute, that he wouldn’t kill him.
Farrow may be his brother, but Keifer was the king. He had everybody’s well-being on his hands. The sacrifice of one, even if it was his brother, was better for his people.
I let him go and raised my hands when he continued to stare at me expectantly. “Just don’t come crying to me tomorrow when you feel bad.”
His laugh made my stomach hurt.
Yeah, it was doubtful he would ever come to me.
“What’s with that look?” Keifer stopped and stared at me.
My brows rose, surprised that he would even notice a change of expression on my face.
“Nothing. Let’s go,” I grumbled, starting the procession of people forward once again.
Nikolai, Derek, Jean Luc, Keifer and I were all on our way to Farrow.
Farrow lived in his old girlfriend’s apartment, and it only just occurred to me how he was living there. Apartments cost money, and Farrow wasn’t working. He’d never worked, in fact.
“How did he afford to get this place?” I asked the group as a whole. “I looked over Wink’s rental agreement when we first got together.” When I backed out of her lease for her and paid the early termination fees. “That apartment goes for upwards of twelve hundred dollars a month. That’s a pretty penny for someone who doesn’t have a job and hasn’t had one in his entire life.”
Keifer’s cheek clenched.
“I’ve been wondering much the same thing for a very long time,” Keifer grumbled. “And I haven’t come up with other answers. I’d hoped by making him responsible for doing the nightly security with you that he’d catch the protector bug, but it only seems to have put him off of doing his dragon rider duties instead of wanting more.”
That thought had occurred to me after the one and only night I’d taken him with me on my patrols. He’d been uncaring, uninterested in learning and had decided, early on during that patrol, that this just wasn’t for him. Something which he’d said to me multiple times that night.
“He could be selling information on you to pay his rent,” I offered.
Keifer’s eye started to twitch.
“That would be one of the better case scenarios,” Derek mumbled to himself.
Not quietly enough for us not to hear him, though.
