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The rest of the trip to Farrow’s apartment was uneventful, and we arrived at the apartment complex within five minutes. That was the benefit of being a dragon rider, though. We could skim over the freakin’ interstates and highways, where traffic was heavy enough that it was backed up for miles, while we enjoyed the freedom of gliding over the road being able to get anywhere without having to stop.
Though guilt had hit me when we’d gone after Farrow instead of Mace’s mate.
I knew when Mace finally realized that I knew longer than he, that he wouldn’t forget it. Especially if something happened to her while we were working to free her.
I thought it best not to tell him anything until we had a better idea of the situation, and it was more than apparent that Farrow knew more than he was letting on.
Not that he’d told us anything at all.
Which surprised me, because Farrow was usually pretty open about his dislike for all things family and dragon rider related.
We touched down, one after the other, in the back parking lot of the apartment complex, and dismounted.
The moment we were free of their backs, our dragons cloaked themselves and disappeared from view, even though they were all still there.
I could see each and every one of their DNA signatures. Even Farrow’s dragon, in the back of the lot, who looked bored and wished he could be anywhere other than where he was.
“Farrow’s dragon is here in the back corner of the lot,” Nikolai pointed.
“How do you know?” Keifer asked absently.
Nikolai snorted. “Heat signature, brother dear.”
Among his other powers, Nikolai could also read heat signatures. If he wanted, he could tell us exactly how many people were in the building we were heading into.
And, apparently, he wanted to, because the next sentence out of his mouth said as much.
“There are twenty people in the complex, all of them but two are on the bottom floor,” Nikolai explained.
“Are there two heat signatures in Farrow’s apartment?” Keifer questioned as we started to take the stairs.
Derek and Jean Luc took the north set of stairs that would lead to the opposite side of the hallway, and would make sure that Farrow didn’t try to make any great escapes.
But, it turns out, the moment we let ourselves into Farrow’s apartment, that he wouldn’t be making any great escapes. At least not with his woman there, anyway.
A woman who I’d seen dead with my own goddamn eyes.***Farrow looked at his brother with his eyes filled with sorrow.
“I needed her. She’s my heart,” Farrow apologized, looking at his brother like he was ravaged by the decision he had to make.
And I was sure that he was ravaged. Had I been in his position, and seen my own woman get killed, then I would’ve likely done absolutely anything to change that fact.
“How?” Keifer asked in a deadly quiet tone.
Farrow swallowed, looked over at his girlfriend—cough zombie—and licked his lips.
“It was a…” Farrow cleared his throat.
“Trap,” the not-so-dead-woman, Macy, finished for him. “I was killed, and he was sitting there waiting for Farrow the moment he showed.”
“He who?” Keifer pushed.
Farrow and Macy looked at each other, and Keifer growled with impatience. “This isn’t a time to be contemplating a lie, Farrow. What you’d done has a fucking word, and it’s called treason.”
“According to Dragon Rider Law, treason is punishable by death. There are no excuses here. Either you are found guilty, or you’re not,” Derek growled. “And your mate suffers the same fate as you. Now would be a good time to start talking.”
I looked over at Nikolai, whose hands had fisted at hearing what Derek had just said, and I wondered if I’d need to pull him off Derek.
Keifer, though, was the one to surprise me.
He looked resigned, like this was what he knew it was coming to all along.
Farrow’s face looked ashen, as did Jean Luc’s. Jean Luc’s parents had been on the receiving end of such a punishment; not by the dragon riders, but by his mom’s people.
See, dragon riders weren’t the only big, bad entity on the planet.
In fact, there were a lot of fucked up things in this world. Such as the skinwalkers.
Skinwalkers weren’t bad, per se, but it was yet to be determined if they were good, either.
Skinwalkers were born to the powers just like we were, but where our power came to us from our dragons, theirs came from sacrifices. Most didn’t use sacrifices lightly.
If a sacrifice had to be made, they’d use already dying animals.
In very rare instances, in only of the gravest circumstances, then they’d use healthy animals.
It was absolutely forbidden to use a human sacrifice.
But that’s just what Jean Luc’s parents had done when they found out that he had cancer. They’d made a human sacrifice, and they’d saved Jean Luc by helping him into not only his dragon rider powers, but also his skin walker powers.
