Talon

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He flew backward and landed on his butt in the sand, a startled grunt escaping him. For a second, he stared at me in shock. Then his face went red, and he leaped up with a snarl.

“Bitch!”

I didn’t see the slap coming. I mean, I did, but I wasn’t expecting it. In my sixteen years, no one had ever hit me. Annoyed swats upside the head, or taps with a ruler when I wasn’t paying attention, but they’d never really struck me. Not even Scary Talon Lady had ever laid a hand on me. I wasn’t prepared for the explosion of pain behind my eyes, the world tilting violently, feeling sand under my hands and knees when I fell.

The instant rush of fire through my veins, my dragon surging up with a roar, ready to blast this puny human to cinders.

Lexi and Kristin screamed. I clamped down on my fury, gritting my teeth with the effort not to Shift, not to erupt into scales and teeth and claws and show this human true fear. My fingers crushed the ground beneath me, the nails elongating into curved talons, and I buried them in the sand. My nostrils flared, and my lungs burned with heat as I bowed my head, fighting to stay in control. I knew my eyes had gone slitted and reptilian, and didn’t dare lift my head as the disgusting human stepped closer. I trembled and squeezed my eyes shut. If he so much as touched me, there would be nothing but a pile of bones and ash when I was done.

“Hey!”

The shout came from behind us. I raised my head just as something slammed into Colin from the side, pushing him off. He flew backward again, tripped and went sprawling in the sand. Blinking, I craned my head up and looked into the face of a boy.

My heart gave a weird little flutter. I’d been around Lexi for over a month, listening to her gush about boys, watching her point out the “gorgeous” ones. I understood human beauty now, and I’d even reached the point where I could nudge Lexi toward a cute guy, and she would agree that he was hot, but I still didn’t get the fascination.

Maybe all that boy-watching had finally sunk in, because this stranger was, to use two of Lexi’s favorite words, absolutely gorgeous.

He was about my age, maybe a little older, with cropped hair that glinted a pale gold in the sunlight. He was tan, lean and muscular, as if he spent most of his time out in the sun and the rest at the gym. And his eyes. They were the brightest shade of gray I’d ever seen. Not silvery, more...gunmetal. Metallic. They pinned me with a vivid stare, and my heart leaped as he extended a hand. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I almost whispered. Making sure my digits were free of scary-looking claws, I placed my hand in his, and he gently pulled me upright. Those brilliant eyes gazed into mine, and my stomach danced. “Thanks.”

“What the hell!”

Colin had leaped to his feet and was stalking toward us, his friends in tow. They did not look friendly or charming now. But then, another stranger appeared, taller than my rescuer and just as fit. He had short black hair and midnight-blue eyes, and his lips were curled in a dangerous smirk as he stepped up beside us. Colin and the others halted at his arrival, no longer outnumbering the new boy three to one, and everyone stared at one another for a moment.

“Well.” The other stranger’s voice dripped sarcasm, and he raised an eyebrow at the three goons in front of him. “Yet another fine example of evolution in reverse. Good thing we decided to take a walk, huh, Garret? We would’ve missed the monkey show.”

The light-haired boy, Garret, didn’t move, but his mouth twitched into a grim smile. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

“Who asked you?” Apparently, Colin had recovered, though not enough to come up with anything witty. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward, and Garret deftly moved me behind him. “You’re messing with my girl, kid,” Colin said, his face pulled into an ugly scowl. “This ain’t your business. Get lost, before we send you to the E.R.”

“I’m not yours!” I snapped before either of them could reply. “And if you bring that nasty, slobbery excuse for a mouth anywhere near me again, I’ll kick you where the sun don’t shine!”

Colin blinked, possibly too thick to realize what I meant by that, but the gray-eyed boy in front of me chuckled. It sounded...rusty, somehow. Out of practice, as if he didn’t laugh very often and I had surprised it out of him.

His friend snickered, too. “Sounds like she doesn’t want you around anymore,” he said as Colin swelled with outrage. “At least, that’s how it looks to me. What do you think, Garret?”

Garret’s voice went cold, soft and lethal. “I think they need to leave. Now.”

Colin lunged, swinging a savage fist at his smaller opponent. I jumped, but Garret somehow caught the arm and twisted it so that Colin flipped over and landed square on his back in the sand, his breath leaving his lungs in a startled oof! I blinked in shock, and Colin’s friends gave howls of fury and leaped into the fray.

I scrambled back, retreating with Kristin and Lexi, away from the sudden brawl. I wanted to help; my dragon was urging me to get in there and start blasting away, but of course I couldn’t do that. Besides, the two strangers were doing fine on their own. I didn’t know if they took some kind of martial art, or if they were just badasses, because they dodged, blocked and countered punches with no problem, moving seamlessly with and around each other. The dark-haired stranger blocked a vicious hook, lunged in and drove his knee into his opponent’s stomach, bending him over. Garret ducked a nasty right cross, then returned with a fist under the chin, snapping the other’s head back. I whooped in encouragement.

In a few short seconds, the scuffle was over. The taller stranger landed a blow across his opponent’s jaw that sent him crumpling to the sand, and Garret caught Colin in the temple with a savage elbow, knocking him down. Colin tried to get up, failed and slumped back, cradling his head.

Straightening, the two boys looked at their fallen opponents, then back at us. The dark-haired one grinned. “Well, that was entertaining,” he said dryly, rubbing his knuckles. “Reminds me of so many good times we’ve had together, right, cousin?” The other boy shook his head and turned to me.

“Do you need a ride?” he asked in his quiet voice, and for some reason, those bright gray eyes sent another quiver through my stomach. “We can take you home, or back to the main beach, if you like. I promise we’re much better behaved than these idiots. Even Tristan over there.”

The other boy sniffed. “I’m not even going to dignify that statement by taking offense.”

I shook myself, needing to stay focused as Lexi and Kristin looked a bit shell-shocked. Lexi clung to me, shaking, and Kristin stared wide-eyed at the bodies sprawled in the sand. “Back to the main beach would be perfect,” I told Garret.

He gave a somber nod, but at that moment, Colin groaned and staggered to his feet. He swayed, glaring poison at the two strangers, then, shockingly, turned his furious gaze on me. “You bitch,” he spat, and Lexi gasped with outrage. “You West Coasters are all the same. You ask for it, beg for it, then refuse to put out. You’re nothing but a whore! You’re nothing but a slut—”

Releasing Lexi, I straightened, marched up to the reeling jock, and kicked him where the sun didn’t shine.

“That’s for stealing my first kiss,” I told him as he made a strangled noise and dropped to the sand again, clutching his groin. I didn’t know if it was really that important, but all the movies seemed to think it was, and besides, he didn’t know how easy he’d gotten off. I turned to the strangers, both staring at me in amazement now, and raised my chin. “Well? Are we leaving or not? I think we’re more than done here.”

Garret

We drove to the main beach, Tristan and I in the front, our three passengers and a surfboard in the backseat. The girls, especially the blonde and the brunette, talked consistently in excited, high-pitched voices, speaking so quickly it was difficult to follow the conversation. Not that I was trying very hard. I already knew a lot about these girls, beginning with their names. Kristin Duff and Alexis Thompson I remembered from the long hours spent watching their group, learning their routines and their habits. And, of course, Ember Hill. I knew several facts about her, too. She was sixteen. She knew how to surf. She spent a lot of evenings at the Smoothie Hut with her friends. But nothing could have prepared me for this afternoon, when she had marched right up to the bigger, heavier frat boy, and kicked him “where the sun don’t shine.”

At the time, it had been amusing, though I had been too stunned to do more than wince. Tristan had cackled like a hyena. But looking back, I cursed myself for not reacting, for just standing there as Ember Hill marched up to that civilian and slammed her foot between his legs. Not that the boorish frat boy didn’t deserve it, but my hesitation could have gotten us killed. For just an instant, with her eyes flashing and her lips curled back in a snarl, I’d thought the girl was our target. That her slender body would ripple and explode into a mass of hissing teeth, claws and scales before she bit the civilian’s head off. And that we would be next, because I had foolishly left my Glock in the Jeep and had nothing to defend myself from a raging, fire-breathing dragon except my flip-flops.

Ember Hill, I mused, turning her name over in my head. The signs were all there: her status, her arrival in Crescent Beach, even her name. Everything about her pointed to a possible sleeper, except for one thing.

She had a brother. A twin, in fact. And despite their wealth, power, influence and global domination, our enemies only produced one offspring at a time. Dragons did not have siblings, but Ember and Dante Hill were definitely brother and sister. They were comfortable with each other; they argued and teased and fought like normal siblings, but they also looked out for the other, stood up for each other even to their friends. It was obvious they had grown up together. And they looked too alike not to be related. Which meant, despite her fierceness and fiery demeanor, the red-haired girl in the backseat could not be our sleeper.

She seemed perfectly human now, talking excitedly to her friends, sometimes asking me or Tristan a question when the other two let up. All three were extremely curious, wanting to know our ages, where we lived, if we were residents of Crescent Beach or just visiting. I didn’t speak much, letting Tristan fill them in on our fabricated history: that he and I were cousins, that his dad’s job had brought us to Crescent Beach for the summer, that we had an apartment farther down the main strip. When they pressed me further for information—where I came from, where my parents were—I had the answers ready. I’d come here from Chicago. My dad was a disabled veteran, and my uncle had invited me here for the summer. The lies flowed smoothly and easily, though the boy in the story—the one who attended Kennedy High and lived on Mulligan Avenue and had a beagle named Otis—was a complete stranger to me. An imposter, living a made-up life.

I wondered if any of these three were doing the same.

We finally pulled into the parking lot along the main stretch of beach, and the girls piled out, Lexi and Kristin stumbling a bit as they exited the vehicle. Ember smoothly grabbed Lexi’s arm and steered her aside, preventing her from walking into another beachgoer, then turned to me.

“Um.” Her green eyes appraised me, boldly direct. “Thank you,” she said, “for today. For getting rid of those trolls. You and Tristan both. Lexi and Kristin are a little too tipsy to know what could’ve happened down there, but...thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, meeting her gaze. “We were happy to help.”

She smiled, and I felt a weird twist in the pit of my stomach. Odd. At that moment, though, Kristin’s face appeared in the window, smiling as she leaned in.

“So, it’s my birthday this week,” she told us in a breathy, slightly slurred voice. Ember rolled her eyes and walked to the back of the Jeep to get her surfboard, but Kristin continued to lean against my door. “And I’m having a party Saturday, no parents on the premises. They’ll be gone for the whole weekend, so...yeah. Pool table, hot tub on the patio, open unlocked bar?” She peered at me from beneath her lashes, blinking rapidly. I wondered if she had something in her eye. “You guys wanna come? I’ll give you the address.”

“Ooh, yes, you totally should!” Lexi added, peeking in over her shoulder, crowding the window. I leaned back to give myself some space. “Come party with us. It’ll be great!”

Saturday. Today was Monday; that was five days from now, plenty of time to do more legwork on these three, find out more about them. I shared a glance with Tristan. He raised both eyebrows, and I turned back to the girls with a shrug. “Sure, sounds good to us.”

They beamed. Kristin gave us the address, then all three strode across the parking lot toward the emptying beach and the sun setting over the waves. I waited until they were out of earshot, then muttered, “What now? What’s the plan?”

Tristan smiled grimly and put the Jeep in Reverse. “Now, the real mission begins.”

Ember

From the edge of the parking lot, I watched the black Jeep pull onto the road, pick up speed and cruise out of sight. Garret’s pale hair glimmered once in the dying afternoon sun, and then he was gone.

I sighed.

“Man.” Lexi echoed my sigh, leaning against my shoulder. Not long ago, the unexpected contact would’ve made me shrink back. Now, I planted my feet to balance both her and my surfboard on the other side. “There go two smoking-hot human beings. Think they’ll come to the party like they said they would?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. In the weeks I’d been here, I’d seen pretty humans come and go. From lean fellow surfers, to suntanned volleyball players, to charismatic boys and sultry girls on the prowl for summer romance or a good time. The three trolls we’d run into today were very much in the “icky” category of the good time, but they weren’t unusual. They were here for a finite number of days, and then they’d be gone like everyone else.

Garret was probably no different. A pretty face that I would see only once, before he vanished into the unknown, never to be glimpsed again. I knew that. All the locals in Crescent Beach followed an unofficial rule: don’t get attached to tourists. Summer flings were fine. Kissing and long walks on the beach, making out under the stars, going to parties and doing it in the hot tub, all fine. But never promise, or let them promise, “forever.” Because no matter how much you liked them, no matter how perfect everything was, at the end of the summer they would always return home. And you’d be left with beautiful memories and the longing for what had been and what could never be again. Of course, I didn’t understand that attraction, how someone could get so attached to someone else. I figured it was a human thing and didn’t worry much about it.

Though there was something about Garret that was...strange. Something I couldn’t quite pin down. The way he held himself, perhaps, so careful and controlled. Or that split-second look in his eyes right before Colin attacked him: flat, hard and dangerous. He exuded confidence, but at the same time, there was an uncertainty to him, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do, how to act. I sensed that the calm, stoic front he put up was a wall, and if I dug a little deeper, I would find a completely different person on the other side.

I wondered if I would ever see him again. And if I did, I wondered if I could somehow break through that dignified shell to the person beneath.

I gave myself a mental shake. What was I thinking? Garret was a stranger and, more important, he was a human. I would not ruin the rest of the summer pining over the—admittedly gorgeous—ghost of a human boy. Especially if I had to deal with Scary Talon Lady for the next two months. My summer was already short enough.

“Probably not,” I told Lexi, who gave another heartfelt sigh and straightened, tossing her hair back. I picked up my surfboard and turned toward the beach, just as Kristin wandered back from grabbing her purse from her car. “Come on,” I said to both of them. “Walk me to the Smoothie Hut. I need a Mango Swirl to get this taste out of my mouth.”

Later, with the evening sun setting over the water, we sipped our drinks and chatted about the day’s adventures, a basket of cheese sticks between us on the table. We talked of Garret and Tristan’s valiant rescue, and joked about Kristin’s bad taste in guys. Of course, Lexi agreed with me that the three frat boys were absolute creepers, and vehemently denied that she’d thought any of them were cute. But when she expressed her desire to castrate Colin with a pair of rusty pruning shears for hitting me, my stomach went cold at what had almost happened.

What would Talon do to me, I wondered, if I’d killed that human? If I’d Shifted right there and bitten his head off? Blasted him to cinders, right in front of Lexi, Kristin and everyone else? I remembered the smoldering heat in my lungs, the way my back had itched, ready to burst open with wings and scales. The way my human body had suddenly felt very tight and confined as I’d clamped down with everything I had, trying not to change. The blaze of fury as my dragon had surged up with a roar, wanting to shred that human into bloody confetti.

I shivered, appalled at my own violent thoughts. And, even more frightening, annoyed that I hadn’t gotten to Shift into my natural form and pop the human like a balloon. Wonder if I should tell Dante about this, I thought, as Kristin said goodbye and left for a “lame-ass family event” and Lexi excused herself to go to the restroom. I guess I should; he’ll probably hear about it from Lex or Kristin, anyway. I just hope he doesn’t do the whole overprotective twin-brother freakout.

And then, I got that weird tickle on the back of my neck, a second before the rogue dragon slid into the seat across from me.

“Hey, Firebrand.”

The cool, sarcastic voice rippled through me, stoking a flame to life. It was as if my dragon had never died down, never settled into sleepy compliance. At the rogue dragon’s presence, it perked up again, instantly awake and aware. My eyes widened, and I sat back in my seat, staring at him.

The boy across from me smiled and casually helped himself to a cheese stick, oblivious to the heat singing through my veins. “Mind if I sit here?”

I could see the dragon in him, in his near-golden eyes, in the slightly dangerous grin he flashed me over the table, the smile of a predator. I could feel the flames burning within, my own dragon rising up to either challenge or accept, I wasn’t sure which. I did know one thing: talking to the rogue could get me in a lot of trouble, both from my trainer and Talon itself. And I didn’t care one iota.

My dragon snapped and flared, wanting out. I took a deep breath to cool myself off, and smirked back. “Free country.” I shrugged. “Do whatever you like.”

“Interesting choice of words.” The other dragon cocked his head, one corner of his lip twitching. I noticed he had a tattoo half-hidden beneath the collar of his shirt, some sort of Celtic knot or design. “But it’s not entirely free for us, is it?”

I blinked and frowned slightly. “Um, hi, I’m Ember. It’s nice to meet you, weird, cryptic statements aside.” My dragon snorted at me, disgusted. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

He grinned, and it made my skin flush. “You don’t know what I am, do you?”

“You’re a rogue,” I answered, abandoning all pretense of ignorance. Subtlety was never my strong suit. His grin grew wider, showing even white teeth, and I lowered my voice. “I don’t care that you’re a rogue, but why are you here? You could get in a lot of trouble if Talon found out. Aren’t you afraid the Vipers could be looking for you?”

He actually chuckled at that. “I’m sure they are. But what about you, Firebrand? You realize you could get into a lot of trouble just by talking to me, right? If Talon ever found out their vulnerable little hatchling was conversing with a big dangerous rogue, they might pull you back to the nest. Or they might see you as a collaborator, and then the Vipers would come after us both. That doesn’t scare you?”

“I haven’t told you to go away, have I?” I asked, avoiding the question. Though the answer, of course, was yes. No one in their right mind wanted a Viper after them. There were dark rumors surrounding Talon’s most mysterious agents, and all of them were terrifying. I certainly wouldn’t want a Viper on my tail, though I wasn’t about to tell him that.

The rogue raised an eyebrow, appraising me, and I met his stare head-on. Vipers or no Vipers, I was curious. Except for my brother and our trainers, who didn’t count, I hadn’t seen another dragon in years. “Who are you?” I asked, determined to satisfy some of my curiosity. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” He leaned back, still appraising, and gave me a lazy smile. “I don’t know, Firebrand. That seems like an awful lot of faith to put in a complete stranger. How do I know you won’t turn me in? Run back to the organization and tell them you saw a rogue hanging around the Smoothie Hut?” He snatched another cheese stick and waggled it in my face. “That wouldn’t go well for me.”

“I won’t turn you in,” I promised. “I didn’t before, when I first saw you last month.” He ignored me, biting into the cheese stick with a grin, and I frowned. “You were looking for me, weren’t you?” I guessed, remembering the way he’d stared at me, golden eyes piercing even from across the parking lot. “Why?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“And you’re not answering any of them.” I swatted his hand away from the last of the cheese sticks. “Stop playing games. If you were scared I was going to turn you in, you wouldn’t have sat down in the first place. So what do you want?”

He laughed, his deep, low voice sending tendrils of heat curling through me. “All right, you have me there. I’ll stop beating around the bush, then.” Shaking his head, he gave me an appraising look. “Let me ask you a question. How much do you really know about Talon?”

I cast a furtive look at the other tables, making sure no one could hear us. Or that Lexi was not returning from the bathroom. “What kind of question is that?” I said, lowering my voice. “I know as much as the next, um, person. The organization exists to ensure our safety and survival. Every member has a place, and everything they do is to help our race grow stronger.”

The rogue sneered. “Textbook answer, Firebrand. Bravo, you know exactly what they want you to say.”

I bristled. “Says the traitor who ran away from Talon and is living on the run like a criminal. For all I know, everything out of your mouth is a lie.”

“Don’t kid yourself.” The rogue’s voice was suddenly grave, his expression darkening. “I know things about...them...that you don’t. I’ve seen the inside of the organization. I know how they work. And I’m here to warn you, little Firebrand. Be careful. What they show you is barely scratching the surface.”

I thought of my sadistic trainer, her intense gaze following me around the office building, and shivered. “What do you mean?”

“You want answers?” He rose with a shifting of leather and bike chains, gazing down at me. “Meet me at Lover’s Bluff tomorrow at midnight.” His near-golden eyes danced, and he smiled evilly. “That’s past curfew, so you’ll have to play rogue yourself if you want the truth.”

I crossed my arms. “So, you want me to meet a complete stranger out on a lonely cliff in the middle of the night? Seems like you expect an awful lot of faith from me.”

The rogue smiled. “Touché.” Putting one hand on the table, he leaned in and lowered his voice so that only I could hear him. “My name is Riley,” he said, and his nearness made my insides churn. He smelled of dust and chains and leather, and, beneath that, the faintest hint of wind and sky. Impossible to sense unless you’d actually been there. “That’s my human name, anyway,” the rogue continued. “If you want my real name, I’ll tell you tomorrow...if you decide to show. If you’re too scared, just don’t show up, and I’ll know where we stand. You’ll never see me again.”

“And if I do decide to show?”

He chuckled. “Firebrand,” he murmured, his voice going even softer, “think about it. Two dragons, on an isolated cliff overlooking the ocean, with no humans around for miles and no Talon to stop us. What do you think we’re going to do?”

If my dragon was excited before, she could barely be contained now. My back itched beneath my shirt, wings straining to break free, to unfurl and flap away into the sky right then. The rogue—Riley—grinned, as if he could sense my reaction, and straightened, gazing down at me.

“Tomorrow night,” he whispered, and then he sauntered away without looking back. Deep inside, something in me mourned to see him go.

“Oh. My. God!” Lexi squeaked, dropping onto the bench across from me, her eyes big and round. “Was that Gorgeous Biker Boy that just left? Did he actually talk to you? What did he say? What did he want?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, Lex,” I said, feeling bad for lying, but of course, I couldn’t tell her the truth. What had happened between Riley and me was dragon business; humans had no part in it. She gave me an incredulous look, and I sighed. “Fine, but don’t yell at me for bursting your bubble. He asked if I wanted to take a ride on his power machine.” I paused. “Not the motorcycle.”

“Oh.” Lexi thought about that for a second, then wrinkled her nose. “Ew! So he was just a disgusting perv, after all, huh? That’s too bad, he was really, really hot.”

“Yeah,” I agreed softly, standing up, thinking of the rogue dragon’s last words. His challenge to meet him after curfew, to fly with him, when he knew how dangerous that was, for both of us.

I shouldn’t. I should inform Talon that the rogue was still hanging around. That was what I was supposed to do. Rogue dragons were dangerous; everyone in the organization knew it. They were unstable, unpredictable and put the survival of our race in jeopardy. The rogue could be lying about Talon, just to get me out in the open. My rational, logical side warned me not to even think about sneaking out, breaking curfew and meeting a total stranger on an empty cliff after midnight.

Unfortunately, my dragon had other plans.

Garret

“You still haven’t told me the plan,” I told Tristan as we walked through a pair of sliding glass doors. After we’d left the girls at the beach, he’d driven to the nearest gas station and headed to the hugely advertised “beer cave” at the back. I followed him into the chilly interior, letting the doors shut behind us. “The girl’s party is only a few days from now. What’s the objective for this weekend?”

“Garret.” Tristan looked back at me. “Relax. It’s a party. There is no set objective. You’re just there to hang out, fit in, get them to trust you. Surely you can do that.”

“I have never been to a party,” I said in a flat voice, which was true. The Order saw such things as frivolous, and anything that took time away from training was not only considered wasteful, it was dangerous. “I’m not sure what constitutes ‘hanging out.’”

“I’m sure it’ll come to you.” He headed to the back corner, stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of alcohol. I continued to glare at him, and he sighed. “Look, just think of it as an exercise. Observe and blend in. Try to think like the enemy. You’ve done that before, right?”