Page 75 of Red Dragon’s Heart

Maddie and Zak obeyed. One of Eric’s men walked Troy up to meet them. Maddie handed the data off to Eric’s guy, and threw her arms around Troy. He was so thin! But he felt wonderful.

Troy hugged her hard, swaying back and forth. “Are you okay?” he murmured in her ear. “You shouldn’t have come, Mads. You shouldn’t have given him what he wanted.”

“It will be okay,” she said. If everything went right. If the dragons could get through Eric’s defenses. If, if if.

Troy pulled back. “Who’s this?” he said.

“His name is Zak. He’s my… my boyfriend.” Troy raised his eyebrows, eyeing Zak appraisingly. Zak smirked. “It’s a long story,” Maddie said.

Eric’s people had a computer setup in the back of the van. Through the open doors, Maddie could see them checking the data. She held her breath, hoping they couldn’t detect what she’d done to it.

The tech said, “It looks clean.”

Maddie silently let her breath out.

“You sure?” Eric asked.

“As sure as I can be without a more thorough verification, but it looks like it’s all here, and I don’t detect any malware.”

“Good.” Eric turned and called to Maddie, “You better not have tampered with it. Because if you have, I’ll make you sorrier than you ever thought possible.”

Even from thirty feet away, the look in his eyes gave her chills. Zak put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.

Eric sent two of his guys out, guns drawn, to get Zak and Maddie. She guessed she should be flattered that he considered them that dangerous.

She hugged Troy again and whispered, “Go.”

“Mads—”

“Go!”

Troy took two steps toward the gate, and Eric tapped his security headset. “Now,” he said.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

There was an explosion in the driveway, right under the front of the SUV. Its nose rose up off the ground and it was flung backwards, out of the gates, coming to a crash landing on the car behind it.

Maddie stood, stunned, as Eric’s men swarmed the walls, seeming to come out of nowhere, shooting at the dragons’ vehicles.

Emon’s men stumbled out of them, shooting back, but some of them were obviously injured.

The gates—with the SUV no longer between them—began to swing closed, cutting off her view.

Eric’s men surrounded Maddie, Zak and Troy, hustling them back to the van. Dragons swooped out of the sky, shedding their cloaking spells, but the entire air space over the complex lit up with something that looked like a laser grid, and they sheared off as they hit it, giving angry roars of pain.

Troy was staring, mouth open. “What the hell are those things?”

“Dragons,” Eric answered, as they were shoved into the van. “Unfortunately for them, I anticipated that your sister wouldn’t stick to her part of the bargain, and made sure I had a spell net to keep them out.” He spoke to Maddie. “Your scaly friends aren’t coming to your rescue. You’re mine now. All of you.”

“Don’t play all aggrieved with me, Eric,” Maddie said. “You know damned well you never intended to release Troy.”

The men piled into the van and it began to move toward the house.

“Of course I didn’t,” Eric said. “Troy is here to keep you in line. Apparently the generous salary I used to give you wasn’t enough to keep your loyalty. Maybe he can convince you.”

Maddie tried to keep her voice from shaking, but she was too angry. “Well then, I hope you have a dialysis machine. He’s not going to do you any good dead.”

Eric smirked “Of course I do.”