Page 14 of Red Dragon’s Flame

She shrugged. “For you and Shadow? Sure.”

She was acting like there was no risk at all, but Mikah knew better. Wild, but big-hearted—that was NinjaWolf. He gave her a one-armed hug and picked up his laptop. “Thanks. Let’s go.”

Devon dragged herself across the concrete floor. She was leaving a trail of blood. Have to… do something… hide it.

All the fires had gone out, but the air was full of smoke and the stench of scorched objects. Plastic. Cloth. The smoke clogged her lungs, made her choke and cough.

She pulled in a deep gasping breath, and with it came more smells—charred flesh and burned feathers. It made her gag. She stopped for a minute, gathering her strength.

Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. But it was like a vise squeezing her chest. Lightly now, but with the promise of more to come.

She wanted to get up but her legs weren’t working. Through the smoke she could see her goal—the bookshelf on the wall with the hidden door behind it. She refused to look the other way, to where the bodies were crumpled on the floor.

The horrific results of the power that had risen inside her when they tried to take her.

But it had burned itself out, and with it had gone her strength. She was still bleeding, and her legs were dead weight. The strength was beginning to drain for her arms as well.

She had to make it. She had to get to the tunnel before they sent others. She didn’t have any more strength to fight them, and the fire wouldn’t protect her now.

There was nothing left.

She dragged herself over to the wall, inch by agonizing inch, and activated the entrance mechanism.

It seemed to take an eternity to get herself inside, but finally it was done. She put her fingers on the edge of the blood trail and activated the locket Auntie May had given her.

Hopefully it still had enough power for this.

Magic trickled through her fingers and back along the trail, obliterating it until there was just large smear in front of the desk, where she’d fallen.

She hoped it would be enough to hide her. It was all she had.

She let the door to the tunnel close, and darkness descended.

Chapter 8

Mikah and Michelangela stepped from the portal into a small underground room with smooth rock walls. All around the portal entrance were glowing magical wards—Draken-level security. Mikah knew there were also traps for any unwary invaders who got that far—which was extremely unlikely.

Thorne’s cave complex inside Vista Ridge, overlooking downtown Portland, had been carved out by Draken centuries before anyone but the indigenous peoples had lived in the area. Layers and layers of magic had been laid into the stone—to protect the dragons’ hoards and their magic, to keep it a secret from humans, and to secure what had once been the tomb of an evil comatose Draken god.

Later, as the city grew, a mansion had been built on top of the caves—now owned by Thorne and his adopted brothers, and their mates. They’d added their magic to what already existed. Even though the entombed Draken god had woken and been defeated by Thorne and his brothers over fifteen years before, their lair was still probably the most secure place on earth.

Thorne—who was grumpy and severely socially challenged—did not come to meet them. Instead, after stopping by the doorway and letting the wards check their identities, Mikah and Michelangela made their own way down the stone corridor to what everyone but Thorne called the Batcave.

It was a huge stone cavern big enough to hold several full-sized dragons, with an entire wall of computer servers with blinking lights and a couple dozen monitor screens, all with reams of information constantly flickering across them. Thorne tracked the world financial markets, news, politics, and who knew what all else.

No one really knew how far his influence reached, but he was invaluable to the Shifter Council, who needed strategic government contacts to make sure shifters remained secret from the public.

Thorne was sitting at his huge desk, typing into his system and watching a couple of screens.

“Hey, Thorne,” Mikah said. “What’s up? Saved the world lately?”

Thorne stopped typing and swiveled around in his chair, a large man with dark hair, midnight-blue eyes, and a forbidding expression.

“Mikah,” he said, giving him a nod and Michelangela a sharp look. “Not lately,” he answered Mikah’s flippant question. “The way the political situation is going, though, I might have to do it again sooner than I thought. Although, I’d rather deal with a homicidal Draken god than the US Senate.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Mikah said.

“So, what’s so important that you had to come here yourself?” He eyed Michelangela with suspicion. “Bringing the hellion with you?”