Page 6 of Denied

Kayla walked down the rows of stalls, greeting each horse with a touch on the nose and a smile. Sampson and Grania both greeted her with happy thoughts, but Titan took one look at her and nudged his stall door.

You are miserable. Let me out, and I will take you for a ride.

“Not tonight, Handsome. Too much work to do.” She reached up to stroke the big white stallion’s strong neck. “I need your help, though, if you’re okay with being my bodyguard.”

He turned his head to glare at the very last stall, in which the dragon motorcycle had been locked.

That monster is dangerous. If he turns on you, I may not be fast enough to ride you away.

“He’s chained,” she said, as she unlatched Titan’s door. “But if anything goes wrong, you and Jannon need to get Ryan.”

As she led the stallion down to the last stall, Jannon joined them.

“It is too dark to go for a…oh, bloody hell, no.” He lunged between her and the dragon’s door. “You cannot mean to release it.”

“It’s staying right where it is,” she promised him. “I need to know why the Blackstones want me, and all I know is that I’m not a changeling.”

She stepped around him and carefully unlatched the stall door. Jannon glanced at the bike, and drew a long dagger from his belt.

“Sheridan will tear my head off if you come to grief, lady. Very slowly, too. Remember that.”

Kayla nodded and stepped just inside the stall. The motorcycle, which had been wrapped with heavy iron chains, blinked on its headlight.

“Sorry to wake you, Fallon, but we need to talk.”

The dragon inside the motorcycle began sending his thoughts the moment hers touched him.

I will tell you what I can, my lady.

The dull gleam of the iron chains matched the tone of the dragon’s thoughts, and Kayla touched one of the heavy links. “Are these hurting you?”

They prevent me from shifting, and block my power.But my bondage does not pain me. It is being separated from my brothers and sisters. Without them I am bereft.

“I can understand that,” Kayla said. “I’m also sorry I have to question you like this, but we have to learn what the Blackstones have planned. I know they switched Tara with my real sister when they were infants. Where is my real sister now?”

I was left outside the night the changeling was put in her place. The dragon gave her his memory of being parked outside the house she’d shared with her father and Tara. When the clan left your home, they did not have your sister with them.

“Was she already gone?” As the dragon affirmed this, Kayla felt even more confused. “Then why did they leave Tara with us?”

For you, my lady. You were to be watched until it was time to take you. The clan believes you are the key to finding the spellsinger.

Kayla cocked her head back, but repeated everything to Jannon, who looked bewildered.

“The last Fae spellsinger was murdered by Dark Fae,” he told her. “There have been no others since her death. Their gift is the rarest among our kind. It may be another ten thousand years before the next will be born.”

“Well, even if this person exists,” Kayla said. “I don’t know who it is. Why do the Blackstones think I know where this spellsinger is?” Kayla asked the dragon.

You may not know, my lady, but they believe you are key to finding her.

Fallon showed her memories of conversations he had overheard between Dirk Blackstone and his father, Jarek. In every one of them they argued about taking the mortal girl Tara was watching. Dirk always pressed to take Kayla at once, but his father never agreed.

“They were waiting for something,” Kayla told Jannon. “Or someone, maybe, to come to me. But the only person I haven’t seen since…” She stopped herself and cleared her thoughts. “Thank you, Fallon. I’ll talk to Ryan about what we can do to help you and your herd.”

She gestured for Jannon to follow her outside, and once they left the barn she led him down to the lake.

“I think I know why the Dark Fae want me,” Kayla told him. “They want to use me somehow to lure the spellsinger to them.”

“You said you did not know the spellsinger,” Jannon pointed out.