“You know her kind don’t have a choice. The ocean is their joy. She didn’t leave you to…to hurt you.” Leo seemed to stumble over those words, as if unsure how to comfort his twin. Mostly because they’d never comforted one another before. “She left because she had to go home.”
“Fuck off.” Before he turned his growing rage on his brother.
“Figured you’d say that,” Leo muttered. “Look, I healed her, okay? That was what you wanted. You wanted—”
I wanted her. He’d wanted to keep her with him, forever. But even more than that… “I wanted her alive. Happy.” The Eye of Hell seemed to heat on his hand. That damn Eye was part of him. Mina hadn’t realized that. No one ever did. He wielded it because he owned the darkness inside of it. The Eye only did what he wished.
And right then, he was trying so very, very hard not to be a selfish bastard. Trying so hard…
Not to wish her back to me. But a mermaid couldn’t stay with someone like him. In order to stay, the Eye would have to change her.
She’d lose the new life that she’d just found.
His hands fisted. I will not wish it. For once—for fucking once—I will let the choice be Mina’s. The ring kept heating on his hand. It will be Mina’s choice.
Leo the dumb ass stepped closer. “Mermaids experience only joy in the ocean. You know that. They command every creature beneath the surface. Even great whites will thrill to a touch from her fingertips.”
But Mina was afraid of sharks. He remembered how she’d frozen that first night. He took a step forward. The water hit his shoe. What if she was afraid right then? What if she saw a shark and it terrified her? What if—
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Leo continued, the words bemused. “To sacrifice your happiness for someone else.”
The waves kept breaking against the shore. “You ever think the damn stories about us are wrong? Maybe I’m not evil to my core.” His lips twisted. “And maybe you aren’t so freaking good.”
“I’m not.”
A surprising admission.
“I’ve made mistakes, too. Mistakes like…Garrick McAdams.”
Very slowly, Luke turned his head to look at Leo.
“I didn’t pay enough attention to what the humans were doing. I didn’t realize just how powerful that group was becoming.” Leo heaved out a breath. “You think I gave them my arrows, don’t you? That I gave them my arrows because only their tips can pierce the hide of a dragon.”
Luke just stared at him. Leo’s arrows were very special and very ancient. They were made of material no longer found on earth. The only material that could truly hurt his kind. Not just hurt me, but kill me.
“If you think that, why am I still alive?” Leo asked.
Luke looked back at the water. “Because even if you betrayed me, you still saved her.”
He heard Leo’s sharp inhalation. “You…love her, don’t you?”
I will always love her. “My good will toward you is ebbing. I have humans to go destroy. You probably don’t want to watch that part. Being the squeamish sort that you are.” He waved dismissively toward him. “I’ll get back your arrows. Try not to lose them again.”
“I haven’t lost them.”
And once more, Luke studied his brother.
“I did not betray you that way, I swear.” Leo didn’t even blink. “But I want to find out what is happening. I have to find out.” A grim smile curved his lips. “After all, brother…what wounds you, well, it also wounds me.”
True. They did have the same weaknesses, but their strengths were very, very different.
“I think they’ve taken some of my kind, too,” Leo continued. “There have been some troubling disappearances of late. I can’t let that keep happening. I protect what belongs to me.”
Something else they had in common.
“They’ve vacated the Naval Air Station.” Leo rolled back his shoulders. For just an instant, Luke saw the shadow of wings behind his brother’s body. “But we can track them.”
The dragon could track anyone, anywhere.
“Are you ready to hunt, brother?” Leo asked.
He hadn’t hunted with his brother in centuries. “I don’t plan to play nicely with these humans. Are you ready for that?”
Leo’s lips pressed together, but he didn’t argue.
Interesting.
Luke smiled at him. “Then I’m ready.” He motioned to the sky. “By all means, you first.”
Leo erupted, heading straight up, and he shed the body of a man. A great, hulking dragon shot toward the sky.
You try to act as if you’re civilized, but I know the truth. Inside, you’re just like me.
Luke didn’t immediately fly off after his brother. He stood on the beach a moment, waiting…
Then he sighed. “Are you going to keep lurking back there forever?” Finally, he heard the quick rush of footsteps approaching him. He turned around and saw Rayce closing in. “I was wondering how long you were going to eavesdrop.”
Rayce lifted his brows and appeared vaguely insulted. “Eavesdrop? No way, man. I was just hanging back to make sure the world didn’t explode because you and your twin were so close together.” A little pause. “I figured you’d go for each other’s throats.”
They hadn’t. “You know the old saying…the enemy of my enemy is my for-the-moment friend.”
Rayce shook his head. “That isn’t the way the saying goes.”