Page 27 of Red Dragon’s Heart

She looked really upset. Either she was an incredible actress, or she really was innocent.

That gave him an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. He’d assumed she deserved everything that he did to her.

What if she didn’t? What would he do then?

The uncertainty brought out his natural surliness. “So, what? Chisholm killed them just to make you look like a murderer? Someone as brilliant as you’re supposed to be should be able to come up with a better story than that.”

“I’m a scientist,” she snapped. “I deal in facts, not fairy tales.”

He snorted. “And yet here you are, dealing with shifters. The biggest fairy tale of all.”

She waved her hand. “It’s not like it’s magic that changes them. I told you, it’s a retrovirus we don’t totally understand yet.”

Wow. Okay. He’d turned into a dragon and flown her through the air—and then turned human again and remained dressed—and she was still thinking she was going to science the shit out of that.

He said, “Sometime I really want to hear where fire and acid-breathing dragons fit into all that science, but that’s entertainment for another day. Look, your theories are totally wrong.”

She bristled and opened her mouth, but he raised his voice and kept talking. “I don’t know how or why animal shifters evolved, or where they came from. But they’ve existed for thousands of years.”

She closed her mouth. Then she folded her arms and said, “What do you base that hypothesis on?”

He sighed. “The dragon elders say so. Some of them are over a thousand years old.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “No creature can live that long.” Then she frowned thoughtfully. “Although, some Greenland sharks live to be as old as five hundred, and there was a Quahog clam found off the coast of Iceland that was five hundred and seven. And jellyfish don’t actually die of old age. They can regress to their polyp form if outside conditions become hostile, and then mature again, which makes them functionally immortal. It’s fascinating, really. We actually considered using some of their DNA for—”

“Back up. Did you just compare me to a clam?”

That brought her back from her scientific side trip. She started, and then said tentatively, “No? Because I would never offend someone holding a gun on me with a shellfish comparison. Nope.” She paused. “So… could you maybe… not do that? Your arms must be getting tired. Mine are.” She was still holding her hands in the air.

“My arms are fine.” But he lowered the gun. He couldn’t shoot her anyway—he needed her, and she knew it. And she might even be innocent—mostly innocent. Much as it pained him to admit it.

She lowered her hands with a look of relief, and rubbed her shoulders.

He said wearily, “Look, babe, you’re going to have to face it. You don’t know shit about shifters. We’re not a zombie apocalypse infection that needs to be contained. There are thousands of us, all over the world. Probably more like tens of thousands. Shifters have families. Friends. Jobs. They fall in love. They worry about their kids. They could be all around you and you’d never know, because they don’t typically hurt humans. The Shifter Council doesn’t allow it.”

She stared at him. “The what?”

“The Shifter Council. Our government. They make our laws, police our people…”

Madeleine sank down in his desk chair, as if her knees had given out. She looked totally bewildered. “Your government,” she repeated. “You have a government. And jobs? I don’t—if what you’re saying is true, nothing is how I thought.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

She was silent for a long moment. He suddenly wondered how she must feel, with all the beliefs she’d based her life’s work on crumbling around her.

She said, “All this time, I thought if I showed the FBI what Eric and his people are—told them the danger—then his credibility would be gone. They might believe I was innocent.” She looked off into the distance. “I could get my life back.”

Her last words dropped into the gloomy, echoing room like stones into a pond. Zak’s heart lurched.

They wanted the same thing. Just for things to be normal again. And—assuming she was telling the truth—they’d both been fucked over by Eric Chisholm and his minions.

He said quietly, “The Shifter Council will never let you show that video to anyone. It would endanger every shifter in the world.”

Her eyes sought his face, and he could tell she saw the truth there. She said softly, “Then what am I going to do?”

Dammit. He did not want to feel sorry for her, but pity welled up inside him anyway.

He sighed. They both might still be able to salvage something out of this. “I’ll make a deal with you.”