“War!” Kiril shouted. “Some help.”
Warrick and Darcy walked arm in arm from around the manor. Warrick shook his head with a smile. “I’d rather stay right where I am. Dry.”
“Scared of me, huh?” Rhys said as he and Kiril tried to get the upper hand on each other in the snow.
Lily clapped her hands together and smiled at Rhys. “Come on, honey. Kick some ass!”
“Kiril, you can take him,” Shara cheered.
Ryder studied Kinsey as she watched the group. He was glad she’d been interrupted, because she had been about to leave. And that was something he couldn’t allow. He wanted her to think staying was her idea. Forcing her would only hurt his cause, not help it.
“You were saying?” Ryder prompted after a moment.
Kinsey cleared her throat and turned back to him. “I was saying that I don’t think it’s wise for you to look for these people on your own. They put me in the middle of it. I want to find out who it was.”
Ryder let her lie because it benefited him. He opened the door for her to return inside, sending a wave to the others as he followed her.
They managed to make it up to the third floor and back into the computer room without anyone seeing them. Dmitri was gone, but that’s how Ryder wanted it. Though he wasn’t sure how he would be able to remain near Kinsey and not pull her against him for a kiss.
Her kisses were breathtaking. Just as she was. He could kiss her for hours, and sometimes they’d done just that. The woman could seriously kiss.
“You can take this seat,” Ryder said, indicating the chair Dmitri had abandoned.
Kinsey set her bags against the wall and pulled the chair up to the metal table. Her gaze looked over the monitors. Ryder took a few minutes to point out the location of the cameras and the layout of Dreagan.
“It’s bigger than I imagined,” she said.
“Dreagan consists of sixty thousand acres. Up until a few weeks ago there was a no-fly zone over the entire estate.”
“Until the video was released,” she guessed.
Ryder sighed and sat back in his chair. “Everything changed then. MI5 patrols our land for the moment,” he said, pointing to several cameras that showed the agents.
“They’re looking for dragons.”
Ryder shrugged and tapped the table near Kinsey so that a keyboard appeared. He did the same in front of himself. “Hopefully they’ll be gone soon.”
“The video showed the dragon changing into a human. Didn’t they see that?”
“They did,” Ryder said. “They’ve asked us repeatedly to change into a dragon. We laugh and go about our business. They can no’ prove anything.”
“Unless you’re caught again.”
That was exactly what he’d been thinking for weeks now. “Aye,” he replied in a low tone.
“How were you caught to begin with?”
Ryder hesitated. Kinsey might know of him, and she had already seen the Dark, but why get her involved more? Though she was already fully involved if someone—and he hated to think it was Ulrik—had sent her to Dreagan.
“I need to know,” Kinsey said. “How else can I help you? You said you have enemies. Tell me.”
“You doona need to know more than you already do.”
“Why?” she pressed.
Ryder ran a hand through his hair. “Because it’s no’ safe.”
“Am I safe if I return home?”
He met her gaze for a long stretch of silence before he grudgingly said, “Nay.”
“And I’m not safe here.” She said it flippantly and turned to the monitor.
He grabbed her chair and swung it around to face him. “I’ll die before I allow anyone to hurt you.”
Her face softened. Her unusual, beautiful violet eyes regarded him before she nodded. “That I do believe.”
“Good.” He released her and allowed her to turn the chair back to the screens.
“Tell me,” she insisted. “Those people with red eyes in Glasgow. What were they? I thought they wore contacts and colored their hair. You called them dark.”
Ryder grunted. If only that were the case. “They’re Dark Fae.”
“Excuse me?” she asked and turned her face to him.
Her eyes were wide, disbelieving. This was why he hadn’t wanted to tell her anything. It was going to be a lot for her to understand and accept. Considering how violently she’d reacted to seeing him shift, he wasn’t expecting things to go smoothly.
“Dark Fae,” Ryder said. “There are two kinds of Fae. Light and Dark. Both are so beautiful that it’s almost like they’re no’ real, and both have magic.”
Kinsey nodded solemnly. “All right.”
“The Light have silver eyes and coal black hair. The Dark are the ones with red eyes and black and silver hair. Their eyes turn red the first time they do evil. The more silver in their hair, the more evil they’ve done.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said. “Why were the Dark killing humans?”
“They feed off your souls while having sex with you.”