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I tried to keep the story short and to the point, and my emotions out of it. “It was before I was born, but I know that your twin was the executioner. The elders loved to tell me the story when I was disobedient. The females of the clan were too rebellious. The men betrayed them, chained them all and had your brother execute them, one by one, while the men watched. The only one left alive was my mother, since she was considered young enough to still be malleable. That left all of the burden of breeding on that one woman. She went mad by the fifth child, they said. That fifth child was me. So they gave her the ‘Sleep of Eternity.’ By then they had Lynn and me to replace her. It didn’t work out quite how they’d planned.” I smiled without humor. “I freed Lynn and we ran before we could be made to breed.” The memories were too old to hurt me anymore. Mercifully, the years almost made it feel like it had all happened to someone else.

No one spoke for a long time. What can you say to a story like that? Not much, apparently. They all just stared at me in varying degrees of horror and disbelief.

Eventually Dom made introductions. The black man was Hamish, and he was a slayer. He wasn’t friendly, but he wasn’t hostile, either. The one that looked like Helen’s brother was, in fact, her twin, James. Twins were apparently very common in slayer families. The male druid who looked like Sloan was Calum, the red-head Jasper.

“Jillian will be leading you when I am not there myself,” Dom briefed us. “Your goals are as follows. Finding and rescuing Jillian’s sister, Lynn. Also locating and eliminating any rogue dragons or those assisting them. I want in on any dragon kills. You are not to make any moves without reporting to me. In fact, I expect to be updated daily. I want no unnecessary risks here.”

I sighed. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He never looked away from me as he gave his orders. I inclined my head in agreement. He looked relieved that I wasn’t throwing a fit about it. What choice did I have? I clearly couldn’t do this alone.

Dom rose, and his entire side of the table rose with him. “Now for the geases,” he said.

Everyone but Sloan seemed confused by that. I was watching her, and she seemed to be the only one on Dom’s side that knew it was coming. Interesting.

Several of the slayers shook their wrists. “We all already have them, Dom,” Helen said pointedly.

He smiled amiably enough but his eyes were cold. “You do, but I’ve created a spell of my own to add reinforcement to it. I needed you all together to cast it.”

I made a note of the ones that protested the loudest and the ones that didn’t have a problem with it. A list with two columns marked ENEMIES and NOT ENEMIES… YET. Optimism had never been my thing.

“If you insist,” Hamish’s voice split cleanly through the vocal melee.

“I do,” Dom said implacably. “A room has been readied for the ritual just down the hall. Sloan will lead the way. Thank you all for your cooperation.”

“Let’s get it over with then,” said Hamish. He was quickly going to the top of my favorite new people list, though admittedly that wasn’t hard considering how much I distrusted new people.

They filed out. Helen sent me a venomous look as she left the room, but I didn’t like her either, so I wasn’t bothered by it. It was no fun to hate alone. Two was a number for lovers and haters as far as I was concerned.

Dom was the last to leave, and I almost put a crick in my neck watching him go. He drove me crazy, but damn it was nice to watch him leave.

“Can we go?” Christian asked quietly. “Was that a dismissal? I’m bored to tears. Let’s get outta here.”

I blinked. I really had no idea. “Best to wait,” Caleb and I said in sync.

I pointed at him. “Stop that. It’s creepy.”

He smiled, and that was creepy too.

They were in the ritual room for less than thirty minutes. We were waiting back in the lobby when they came out. The geases on their wrists had all changed from white bones to black. I’d never seen such a thing, but I found it encouraging. Helen looked particularly pissed, and I found that even more encouraging.

Dom came out last, the tallest in a room of extremely tall men. When was he not? Only when his cousin Cam was around, I supposed. Cam might have had an inch or so on him. But Cam wasn’t here. I guessed that he was in a rage somewhere on account of Sloan’s involvement in this whole mess.

Helen stepped close to Dom, speaking quietly. I couldn’t hear what she said, but Dom was looking at me. He didn’t look away once. His face was closed, but I thought his eyes were asking me a question.

He wants forgiveness, I thought. For not warning me about Helen and the other slayers.

Pointedly, I turned away, in no mood to forgive. My temper needed to cool down first. For a few hours or a few decades.

I remembered right as Caleb spoke to me quietly. “You need to get us in to see the captive dragon.”

I gave him a narrow-eyed glare, because he’d just spoken my thoughts aloud. “Creepy,” I muttered, then moved to approach Dom.

“I need to talk to you,” I told him, my jaw set hard. “Alone.”

I caught Helen staring daggers into me at the edge of my vision.

Dom just pointed back to the conference room, waiting for me to precede him.

I walked stiffly ahead of him, stepping just inside the door. I stood there, arms folded across my chest as he followed behind me and shut the door.