Page 16 of Bad Blood Alpha

“What for?” he said finally.

She glanced out the window. There was no one around, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being hunted. “We can’t talk about it here. Your territory has protections, doesn’t it?”

He snorted with brutal laughter. “You really think I’m just going to take you back to my territory, like a fucking Trojan Horse? You could be anybody. And my crew has been through enough. Whatever trouble you’re dragging around with you, I’m not bringing it down on them.”

She bit her lips. He didn’t believe her. She hadn’t really expected him to. He was everything they said, and more. Paranoid, dangerous. Wicked smart.

“If I can prove who I am, will you take me back to your territory?”

“You can’t prove it.”

“Give me your hand.”

He turned his head and looked at her. She could see him in the dark, his face partially illuminated by a streetlight. Across the street, a neon sign flashed, sending alternating bars of yellow and blue across his face.

She could feel the emotions warring in him. Anger, frustration, loneliness, pain, curiosity. And a tiny flicker of hope.

Slowly, he slid his hand over to her.

It was strong and warm—and battered, the knuckles scraped from the fight. She turned it over gently.

He shivered. The scent of him filled the truck cab—wild and beautiful. Suddenly she just wanted to get out of the truck and run and run, leaving him to the life he’d made.

Because he was right. She was dragging trouble around with her. But the only hope of beating it was with his help.

A surge of need and loneliness welled up inside her, and she closed her eyes against it.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This was supposed to be all business and duty. It wasn’t supposed to feel like a wild adventure and coming home, all at the same time.

Flynn’s hand closed around hers. A soft growling purr came from deep inside his chest.

He pulled back, his eyes searching her face. “Who are you?” he whispered.

She flicked her wrist, and a knife handle slipped soundlessly into her palm. She could see him register the movement, but he didn’t pull away.

She moved his hand so she could get at the bracelet around his wrist. The leather coverings he’d wrapped it in had been damaged in the fight, and were torn partially away. She slit them with the tip of the knife and peeled them back.

The bracelet shone in the dim light. Pure gold, it was an inch and a half wide, with magical runes and pictographs engraved on it. To her dragon sight, they shone faintly with the magic that lay within them. She ran her finger over them, one by one, until she found the one she wanted on the inside of the wrist, just below his thumb. A spreading oak tree.

She let go of his hand and slid the knife blade over the pad of her left index finger. A bead of blood welled up.

She pressed her finger to the engraved tree. When the symbol began to glow, she pulled her hand back.

The smudge of blood seeped into the gold like it was being sucked up into a sponge. A beam of light shot out from the bracelet and turned into a holographic display about eighteen inches in diameter, in the shape of a stylized tree with rows and rows of leaves, branching out in every direction. They were too small to see clearly, but she knew each leaf had a pictograph—a dragon or a lion—and a name.

The family tree of the Draken House of Al-Maddeiri.

One leaf at the edge of the tree glowed brighter than the rest. Slowly, that section of the holograph enlarged, until all the names were clear. The last Draken king and queen of the House of Al Maddeiri. Their three children. The first of the siblings, the eldest, was the brightly glowing leaf. Hers. Kiraset Lael, crown princess of the House of Al-Maddeiri.

She felt Flynn suck in his breath. The bracelets had been created for the Elite Lion Guard of the House of Al-Maddeiri, and one of the things they did was provide a way for the Guards to identify any member of the House—the ones they had been born to protect.

It was a magical DNA test, and there was no way to fake it. But she wasn’t done.

Kira took a deep breath. What happened in the next moment—and how Flynn reacted to it—was going to chart the path of both of their futures.

The tiny cuts from Flynn going through the window of her room were almost healed, but his shoulder wound wasn’t. It had opened up again when he fought the hellhound, and it was still stick with drying blood.

She reached over and dipped her finger in Flynn’s blood. Then she smeared it on the bracelet, right where she’d put hers.

Once more, the blood sank into the gold and disappeared. Another leaf on the tree glowed and enlarged—this one with a lion pictograph. She knew what it said without looking: Arflyn Dali of the House of Al-Maddeiri. Lion Guard, but descended from the dragons of Al-Maddeiri themselves.

As they watched, that leaf floated upward. It settled on the branch next to hers, their stems twined together.

Mates. Destined from birth.

He stared at the tree for a long moment. Kira held her breath. This was the moment she’d waited almost twenty years for. Flynn opened his mouth, and one single word came out.

“Fuck.”