AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We will come back here later and finish what we started, no?” He shifted off me and rose smoothly to his feet before helping me to stand. I stumbled against him and realized I was still a little unsteady on my feet.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“The remains of some of my people were found a little while ago.”
“The ones who went missing before thesfaralast night?”
“Yes, but not all of them. Only four are dead. The others are still missing.”
“You’re tied to your people by blood. You said last night that you felt when they were taken.”
“Yes, but I lost all ties to them when they were taken to another Realm. I cannot feel the bond of my people across time and space.”
I wondered if the same would be true for me now that we were joined.
“I do not know,” he answered without me having to ask aloud. “I hope we never have to find out.”
I ran my hand down his arm and then squeezed his fingers. I had to touch him. And the ferocity of the need scared me. I released him and paced back and forth in front of his desk so I could think.
“How did you find the remains?” I asked.
“Their bodies entered back into this Realm shortly before dawn. I felt the tie immediately, but it was short lived. They’d been dropped into a densely wooded area far away from any civilization, Drakán or otherwise. Their hands and feet were bound. And then they were torched by the flame of another dragon while they lay there helpless. It had to be The Destroyer. I could feel the strength of his power through my people. But I could not see his face.”
“Take me to them,” I said, no longer thinking of myself as his lifemate, but as the Enforcer. I wasn’t sure I liked it that the title I’d always associated myself with was now overshadowed by another.
ChapterTwenty-One
Julian drove us to the crime scene in a mean-looking SUV that had tires the size of small elephants. I’d convinced him it would be better to drive instead of dematerializing, since I needed some way to transport the remains back to the chateau once I was done inspecting the ashes.
The rain was a light drizzle when we left Brussels, but by the time we reached our destination, the drizzle had turned into a deluge. It was almost a two-hour drive to Nieuwpoort, a small town close to the Belgian port of the English Channel, but Julian managed to make it there in half the time.
The land was open and empty, with only a smattering of farms and cottages along the countryside. Fields of wheat were broken up by groupings of towering trees, and both of them swayed as a storm rolled in from the coast.
I worried about the crime scene with the weather the way it was. Ash didn’t last long against water or wind. But Julian assured me that it would be okay.
Half-walled fences of stone broke up the land and lined the narrow road we sped along. Julian turned the car sharply through a narrow break in the fence and directly into a field of grass toward a heavily treed area. Cars were already parked just outside the perimeter of trees, and our tires spit up mud so it splattered across our windows as we raced to meet them.
My boots squished down in the mud when I jumped out of the SUV. The air was considerably colder than it had been in the city. The wind cut through my clothes and whipped my hair around my face in disarray until I stepped into the shelter of the trees. The upper branches were so thick that water was unable to seep through. The ground was dry.
I followed Julian deeper into the wooded area, but I no longer needed him to guide my way. His memories were fresh in my mind, and I knew exactly where the remains were. Xana stood guard over them, her posture straight and her hands clasped tightly behind her back. Everything was utterly still around her. Not even the leaves dared to twitch.
Others of Julian’s clan were spaced farther out, forming a wide circle around the scene in case there were intruders or The Destroyer decided to make another visit.
Four long piles of fine black ash were lined up next to each other. There was nothing else left to show that anything living had once been there, not even a shard of bone. I knelt down beside the first pile and put a teaspoon of ash in a clear plastic bag. I’d send each sample back home for Erik to analyze.
A protest formed on Xana’s lips at disturbing the ashes, but I cut her off with a look. She knew her job. And I knew mine. I sifted through the pile with my hands, the ashes like silk between my fingers.
My knuckles grazed something cold and hard, and I knew what it was before I dusted the ashes away to see for myself.
A misshapen disc of melted silver gleamed against the blackness of the ash. I picked it up gently and rubbed it between my fingers. It had already hardened completely.
“What is that?” Julian asked, kneeling beside me.
“A piece of silver. If it’s the same as the last Drakán victim there should be two inside all of the remains.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Destroyer feels as if these people have betrayed him somehow. These are the exact coins that Judas was given for betraying Jesus.”
