Leo’s eyes widened. He looked offended. He looked…guilty.
“Hard to miss a guy with giant wings flying through the air,” she snapped. “When you grabbed me and flew up into the air, he must have been watching. It fits the timeline Keri just gave us. She tipped him off, he would have started closing in—since he’d gotten confirmation of my location—but then you pull your dragon routine and he backed off. The guy could be running right now, going away far and fast because of you!”
Keri shuddered. “Did you say…d-dragon?”
Rose didn’t glance back at her. “We can’t just stand here and keep waiting. Keep hiding. If you want to rescue the others, then we’re doing it.” She nodded decisively. “But on my terms. Got it? Because it’s my deal now.”
The guilt was gone from Leo’s face. “I don’t think you understand who it is that you’re talking to.”
“I don’t really give a shit who you think you are. All I care about…well, it’s that we work together on this. I said I’d help find those other paranormals, and that’s what I’m going to do.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, peering back at Julian. “Though you might not like all my methods…”
“Rose…” Julian began, voice grim.
“We’re going to take the Devil’s Prize, and we’re going back to Key West.” Her shoulders were squared, her spine straight, her chin up. “We think Simon has a base somewhere in the Everglades, right? So we need to get him to show us his hiding spot.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Leo snarled as he threw his hands into the air.
“You haven’t been trying with the right bait.”
Julian bounded toward Rose. He caught her shoulder and spun her around to face him. “No. No.”
She smiled. “Yes. Yes.”
A growl broke from him.
“I’m not the damsel in distress, Julian.”
What the fuck? Who’d ever said she was?
“I’m not the woman who gets to hide from the dark. I see all of that now. I am the dark. I’m the vampire. I’m the bad thing that others should fear.”
She wasn’t bad. That was the problem. She’d always been good, straight to her soul. Far too good for someone like him. He’d known that truth the instant he met her, but he hadn’t been able to stay away.
“I’m the thing he should fear. Simon thinks he’s going to collect me? Terrorize me? Hurt my friends? No, this is ending. He wants me…” Her smile flashed, showing her white, sharp fangs. “Then he’s going to get me.”
He hated this plan. His hands fell away from her.
“He’s going to get us all,” she added.
His eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.” And maybe he was liking the plan a bit more. If they were all attacking.
She inclined her head toward Keri—a Keri who’d gone white and appeared to be suffering from shock. Learning about dragons probably did that to a human. “She and I will go out on the Devil’s Prize. You and Rayce will be below deck. You two will stay out of sight…I figure that’s something you guys excel at, right? Shifters are good at sneaking around.”
Of course. They knew how to hunt without making a sound.
“And Leo…he can cover us from above. Provided, of course, that he can go up high enough that his ass won’t be spotted again by Simon.”
Leo sniffed. “We don’t know he spotted me before. Maybe he just decided to back off when he saw your panther lover dive into the water after you. Not every day that a full-sized black panther decides to take a swim in the ocean.”
Only he hadn’t been a panther when he’d found her. He’d shifted beneath the water and saved her as a man.
“We get on the boat,” she continued doggedly, “and Keri contacts him again on the radio. She tells him that she’s bringing me in…she gets a meet site set up.”
Leo smiled. “And then we show up and grab the bastard.”
“Give me patience,” she muttered. Rose squeezed her eyes shut. “I get that you think you can make the guy talk, but what if you can’t?” Her eyes opened. “What if Simon won’t reveal the location of the others? What if he keeps them there, locked away, no matter what you do to him?”
“I have dominion over all humans—”
“We don’t know he is human,” she said, her voice rising. “And since we don’t know what he is, then we don’t even know if I can put him under a compulsion or if you can control him. So we can’t just grab the guy and force the location out of him.”
Julian knew where she was going with this plan, and he was back to hating it. “You want to offer yourself up—get him to take you and lock you up with the others.”
Her smile hurt his heart. “When he takes me with him, you all follow. Easy enough, right? I mean…” Now her hand lifted to press against his chest, right over his heart. “You’re a shifter. Doesn’t that mean you can follow my scent anywhere?”