Dragons Luck

Flynn caught a brief glimpse of himself through her eyes, glamour wrapped around him and making him seem glorious and terrible. A pillar of shining light, of burning fire, perfect pristine water. Images mixed and cascading, and each beating down on her senses, coupled with merciless reflections of her pitiful, mad little self. His self-image and her worst fears, all feeding off each other and building.

Flynn smiled cruelly; it had been years since he’d had an opportunity to be so blunt. To really cut loose. As much as he prided himself on his smooth touch, it was occasionally satisfying to smash down like a sledgehammer. It was as if he were showing her a glimpse into the Devil’s own mirror, with him playing the part of both mirror and monster.

Lizzy fell to her knees, and the connection broke. Flynn needed almost intimate contact to maintain that level of power, and it always seemed to have a price. He purposefully didn’t look down at Lizzy as she trembled and sobbed on the hotel carpet. A dragon’s glamour was often a two-way street, and he didn’t want to know what would be reflected back at him.

“Now try again,” Flynn said. “You attacked Valerie McCandles, and she is still alive. Is the sister really that tough?”

Lizzy shook her head, but didn’t look up at Flynn again. Tears stained the carpet.

“Yes . . . no . . . she’s tough, but stupid. I could have taken her.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I . . . I don’t know if I should. Don’t know if I want to. It all changed, in an eyeblink it changed.”

“How did it change, Lizzy?”

Now Lizzy looked up, and from her cold glare Flynn knew the last traces of his glamour on her had faded. Pity, too, it was the kind of trick that was only easy once, before the mind had built up defenses for it. Still . . . this was only Lizzy.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she spat.

Flynn shrugged.

“Yes, I would. I am honestly curious. But at least tell me why you came to me.”

“Not sure I know anymore, after that. Ah, yes, wanted advice I did. Can’t go to family, family mustn’t know, not till I’m done here and back home. Can’t go to locals, locals are the McCandleses, and their pets. But knew you were in town. Saw you, tracked you.”

Lizzy threw back her head and laughed, and Flynn felt mixed irritation and admiration. Irritation that she had known his whereabouts, and he hadn’t even gotten a call from his network of contacts about hers. Admiration that, well, he had never seen someone pick themselves up so fast after a blow like that. That laugh, as it flitted through the scales like an insane hummingbird, was also filled with her strength coming back to her.

Sure enough, she got to her feet and planted her hands on her hips, glaring at him and showing no sign that anything had just occurred. Idly, he wondered if she remembered.

“And what are you doing here? I ask to me. Want the McCandles boy, and completely ignored the sister. Misogynistic bastard. No wonder Mummy dearest runs circles around you old-school male dragons.

“Pot, kettle, black, my dear. You don’t want to kill Valerie anymore; that is fine. But you can still make her suffer. Turn your attentions to her brother.”

“Pot, kettle, polka dot!” Lizzy said triumphantly.

“I have no idea how to reply to that,” Flynn said.

“Good. I have no interest in the boy-child, or your prophecy, and don’t think I don’t know about that. Lizzy will do what Lizzy wants to do.”

“But you don’t know what you want to do.”

“I’ll figure it out and hang about a bit in the meantime. Maybe I’ll find a use for you after all.”

Lizzy stepped to him, reaching a hand out, and even though he saw the claws, he didn’t allow himself to react. Any reaction would just provoke her. She drew her hand across his cheek, down his neck, fingers sliding past the collar of his shirt to his chest.

Claws leaving a set of deep lines over his heart.

“Don’t think for a second I don’t owe you for that glamour, Earl,” Lizzy purred and tightened her grip.

Flynn felt the scrape of claw on bone, and still he didn’t move. She pouted some and stepped back, and the wound closed nearly instantly under Flynn’s concentration. He had always been better at healing than at glamour, but damn did that girl have some wicked claws.

She wiped her fingers delicately on his bedspread and stalked out the door.

Flynn let his guard down, slumping into a chair as adrenaline he didn’t know he had been pumping left his system. Unsteadily, he poured himself a tumbler of bourbon and sipped at it gently.

Despite the danger, and irritation, Lizzy had actually been right. Up till now, he had been a fool to focus solely on Griffen. Griffen’s strength seemed to be largely those around him, and Flynn had thought that he could strip that best by influencing the boy directly. When it would be so much easier to target one of them.

But not his sister. She was not an easy target, not if she sent Lizzy running. That was something he would have to look into. Someone at the conclave perhaps?