Darkest Flame

“Amber.”

 

 

Rhi watched Phelan squeeze the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “The amber dragon. I’ve seen you fight in the battle with the selmyr.”

 

“Aye, and I’ve seen you. What of it?” Tristan asked.

 

“Because you’re tw-”

 

“That will come later,” Con said over Phelan.

 

Rhi stiffened as she felt Con’s black gaze. She grabbed the whisky and drained it, hoping it would fortify her for the inevitable battle of words. The bastard had always known how to make her hackles rise.

 

“Did you find them?” Con inquired.

 

She nodded. “They’re in Ireland, in an abandoned manor near Cork.”

 

“Who?” Phelan asked.

 

Con sighed and leaned his hands on the back of one of the chairs. “Kellan and an American named Denae Lacroix.”

 

Phelan’s brows lifted. “Kellan? The Kellan I’ve heard so much about? When did he wake?”

 

“Denae woke him,” Rhi explained. “She worked for MI5, and they sent her on a mission into his cave. To make a long story short, MI5 betrayed her, she killed her partner in a fight, and Con took her as prisoner to find out what MI5 knew.”

 

Con scraped back the chair on the tile and sat, a dark look directed at her. Rhi rolled her eyes and noticed one of her nails was chipped. Damn. Time for a new manicure and color then.

 

“Before we could get Denae out of the country with a new name and wipe her memories of us, we were attacked,” Con finished.

 

Phelan looked from Rhi to Con. “By who?”

 

“MI5.” Rhi swallowed and lifted her gaze to Phelan. “And Dark Fae.”

 

Phelan sat back in the chair and scrubbed his hands down his face. “Shite.”

 

“Did they take Kellan and Denae then?” Aisley asked, a frown marring her forehead.

 

Con shook his head. “We bested them at the dock, but somehow they followed Kellan to Raasay and snatched them there.”

 

“Hal and Laith have been filling me in on the Fae,” Tristan said. “I still say we should go after them and get Kellan and Denae.”

 

Rhi took the bottle of whisky from Tristan’s hand and refilled her glass, trying not to notice how her hand shook. “It will violate the treaty if you do.”

 

“They took one of us,” Tristan argued.

 

Con waved the bottle to himself, and Rhi gave it a shove across the table. He rose and found more glasses that he set on the table and then filled, handing each person one.

 

“It was the Dark Ones who took them,” Con said after he took a drink of his scotch. “The Light rarely pay them any heed.”

 

“Not true,” Rhi said angrily. “We’ve been fighting them forever, and we will go on fighting them for eternity. It is our way. Just as they’ll never defeat us, we will never defeat them.”

 

“And if you ever decide to join forces?” Aisley asked.

 

Rhi looked at Phelan’s pretty wife and shrugged. “It was tried once before. The war with the Kings. That didn’t go so well.”

 

“Forget about the past,” Con stated. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to help free Denae and Kellan?”

 

She didn’t want to fight, especially not now when she was so weary. She was too tired to trade barbs with Constantine, but she couldn’t show him any weakness. He would pounce on it, and never let her forget.

 

“Does your hatred make you blind?” Phelan asked Con. “Can you no’ see she’s exhausted?”

 

Rhi sat up straighter and forced a bright smile. “I’m fine. I came to report what I’ve found.”

 

“You told us where they are. Get back there and keep watch,” Con ordered.

 

It was too much. She’d offered to help because of her love of a Dragon King, but she wasn’t Con’s lackey to be ordered around. Rhi tried to stand, but her legs still refused to hold her. Instead, she threw her glass at him.

 

He leaned to the side at the last second, and it fell to the floor behind him, the crystal shattering. She couldn’t stop the wrath that filled her—nor did she want to.

 

“Rhi,” Con said in a soft, quiet voice. “Calm down.”

 

“Calm down?” she repeated in dismay. “I didn’t have to warn you of approaching danger. I didn’t have to stick around and warn Kellan and Denae the Dark Ones were coming. I didn’t have to follow them into that nasty dwelling. I didn’t have to return here and tell you anything. And each time what do you do? You demand more and order me about!”

 

Phelan took one of her hands. “Rhi.”

 

“What?” she yelled and looked at him.

 

He glanced at the hand he held. “You’re glowing.”

 

Rhi looked down to see that indeed her skin radiated the bright white light held inside certain Light Fae—a light that could be used to make life … or take it away.

 

She closed her eyes and concentrated on pushing aside her rage. When Rhi was once more calm, she opened her eyes to find everyone watching her.

 

“What was that?” Phelan asked.