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Calista ignored his taunt and licked her lips at the blood that pooled at my feet. My expression stayed blank, and I didn’t move a muscle, not wanting to tempt the beasts in the room by showing weakness.
Alasdair stood against the far wall, his posture relaxed and his gaze taunting. His hand was transformed into sharp talons, and my blood coated the knifelike claws. The hot breeze passed by me again, and I couldn’t help the growl of pain that escaped from my lips. I looked down my body and saw the damage at my thigh. The skin hung in tatters, and the sheen of bone glimmered white between the pink of useless muscles.
“Leave her be for now, Alasdair,” Calista commanded. “There is time for play later. I am here for a purpose.”
Alasdair didn’t take his eyes off me. “We are not finished, Rena. You will pay for what you’ve done. And don’t think to try and escape my wrath. I will just hunt you down, though the chase does make things more interesting,” he said thoughtfully. He moved in the blink of an eye and sat back across from Calista. The tumbler of whiskey back in his now-human hand. “Tell us why the hell you’re here, Calista, and then get out of my lair.”
Calista kept her gaze steady on me. “I know who you’re hunting, Rena. I’ve seen them,” she said.
I raised my brow in confusion. “Yes, I believe I just dispatched some of them in the garden. What I need is their Master. I’ve already decided to ask the Council for a warrant of execution. They’ve killed too many humans. And if I keep hunting the minions, then there will only be more to take their place. The Master is my priority. But now I have a separate problem. The FBI has become suspicious. I was questioned this morning.”
My arm was numb from the damage, and I was losing a lot of blood. I’d have to take at least a vial full of the dragon tears to heal enough to hunt.
“You have no idea what you’ve been dealing with,” Calista said. “Your investigation has only skimmed the surface of what these Drakán are capable of. You’ve only been focusing on the humans they have butchered because those are the visions you’ve seen, and your humanity closes off your senses to the rest of it. But these Drakán have a vast hunger, and they’ll keep hunting your humans and laughing at you as you continue to clean up their messes. It takes many victims to feed an army of this size.”
“An army?” I asked as dread filled me.
“Yes, but the humans are inconsequential. This is what you always fail to remember. The Drakán remains you found last night are not the first to have been found. The ashes of dozens of our people have surfaced over the past two months—different clans from different parts of the world.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“No, you wouldn’t have seen as I have. Your powers are strong, but you’re hampered by your lack of knowledge of the other clans, and your lack of connections to them. That is your father’s fault for keeping you secluded here. He is the only one who could grant you permission to meet the other Archos. If you met them face-to-face your visions would encompass all of the Drakán and not just our clan. And then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Alasdair growled, but I could understand his anger at being provoked. I could also understand Calista’s view. An Enforcer’s powers had everything to do with connections. I had visions and was able to keep track of the members of our clan because I’d met them all—a little over two thousand at the last gathering. We’d be minus three at the next one since Alasdair had killed Marcos and I’d freed his children from the Drakán bond.
Calista went on. “It is also the fault of the Council that other clans are ignorant to what is happening. Not even they are fully aware of what is going on under their noses. The clans know only of their own losses. All the while, the Council sits in solitude and hoards its power, avoiding each other and the knowledge they could share because of the hatred that existed between their fathers.”
I took a chance to look at my father. His face was hard and impassive, but his anger was growing hotter.
“So how do I find them?” I asked Calista. “I’m ready to begin hunting.”
“Patience, Rena. I haven’t told you the rest.” The whiplash of her voice almost made me flinch, but I continued to hold myself still.
“I said remains had been found, but there are hundreds of our people who are simply missing. This is what I’ve seen in my vision. What I’ve come to tell you.”
“Missing? I don’t understand,” I said.
Calista and Alasdair shared a look filled with knowledge—secret knowledge—and silent words passed between brother and sister I couldn’t interpret. A warm wind rushed through the room. My father’s rage was a palpable thing, thick and heavy as it lashed against my skin.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Rena?” Alasdair asked. “I would have gone to the Council if you’d told me this group of Drakán was drawing attention to themselves sooner. Before they started kidnapping Drakán and killing them. It could be too late for us all now.”
He had me by the throat before I could blink and pressed against the hard stone of the fireplace. “Answer me!” he roared. The stone crumbled beneath my back, and the heat of the flames licked against my legs. Blisters bubbled, but I ignored the discomfort. I had to focus on Alasdair—on living.
The room passed by me in a blur as my body was flung in the opposite direction. Plaster and drywall turned to dust as my body went through the wall. I hit the marble floor with a jarring thud, but the momentum of his force pushed me another twenty feet or so, tunneling a path of crumbled stone in my wake.
I lay dazed for a minute before crawling to my hands and knees. The damage to my body was so severe the pain wasn’t registering yet. I willed myself to my feet, and only had to steady myself against the wall for a moment. The bloody handprint I left on the wall was a stark reminder of the violence I came from. I was Drakán. Not human. And I needed to remember it.
A curl of smoke escaped Alasdair’s nostrils as I faced him down. I couldn’t defeat my father in strength. There was no point in trying. I’d been in this position before.
“That’s enough, Alasdair. Don’t damage her too much. She is of need to us,” Calista said.
Alasdair broke eye contact and began pacing like a caged tiger. “Explain yourself, Rena,” he demanded.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t see a need for it before now. You’ve never cared about what happens to the humans. You barely care and provide for your own people. Your father and the Council created the laws we live by. Even now that you and the other Archos make up the new Council, you still uphold the laws of old. And because of this, I’ve been doing my job half blind. I didn’t know of the other Drakán being killed. And that oversight lies at your feet.”
“Don’t push me with accusations, Rena. You have an obligation to inform me when you feel we are in danger. If Drakán are dying then we are most definitely in danger.”
“I can’t predict the future, Alasdair. That’s Calista’s talent. My visions have shown only the human kills, with the exception of the vision I had last night. And I have no idea why I saw her in my vision when we’d had no previous connection. The only conclusion I can come to is I saw her because one of our own was responsible for her death.”
