“Your clothes are in the dresser behind you,” Riley said. “Get changed, and meet us when you’re human again.” His smile faded, a darker note creeping into his voice. “There are things we have to discuss.”

Riley

Ember exhaled, sending tendrils of smoke curling around me, and turned away, padding toward the dresser in the corner. I watched her a moment, the sweep of her neck and wings, the way the narrow bars of sunlight glinted off her crimson scales. The urge to Shift was almost painful, burning my lungs and making the air taste like ash. I turned away before it got too tempting and jerked my head at the soldier, motioning him out of the room.

We walked into the hall and shut the door behind us. “All right,” I said, keeping my voice low, so Ember wouldn’t catch it. “You’ve seen her. She’s going to be fine now. Why are you still here, St. George?”

The soldier kept his gaze on the closed door, his voice low and flat. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Well, that’s not my problem, is it?” I brushed past him into the kitchen, knowing Ember would be out soon and on the hunt for food. Except for a box of leftover pizza, there wasn’t much to be had, and I’d sent Wes out for supplies a couple hours ago. Hopefully he’d be back soon. This wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, miles from the glitz and glamour of the Strip, the stretch of giant casinos Vegas was famous for. If you looked out the back window, you’d see a bunch of small, ugly houses and beyond them, the flat, dusty expanse of the Mojave Desert, stretching away to the distant mountains. Crime and poverty ran rampant here, but that suited me just fine. No one asked questions, no one came poking around, and no one wondered why a white van was suddenly parked in the driveway of a previously vacant abandoned house.

The soldier followed me into the kitchen, sweeping his gaze around the room, like he always did. “They’ll be hunting you,” he stated, making me shrug.

“Nothing new there.”

“You’re going to have to move soon. It’s dangerous to stay here, especially with St. George looking for us.”

Irritation flared, and the anger that I’d repressed during the whole ordeal surged up with a vengeance. In the three days we’d been here, we had tolerated each other’s presence in the most mature way possible: pretending the other didn’t exist. St. George didn’t talk to me, I didn’t talk to him, and things were good. Sort of an unspoken truce between us while we waited for Ember to revive.

Now, though, all bets were off. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what would happen if I Shifted forms and bit the soldier in half. Ember might’ve forgotten that he was part of the Order. She might have forgiven him for hunting down and slaughtering our kind without remorse, but I wasn’t okay with it. In fact, the only reason I hadn’t shoved him out of the van and left him in the middle of the desert to fend for himself was the girl who’d convinced me to rescue the murdering bastard in the first place. She was also the reason I hadn’t chased him out of the house with fire and told him not to come back. Right now that was a pretty tempting option.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, St. George,” I said in a low, dangerous voice. “I’ve been at this a lot longer than you. I’ve been outsmarting your kind since before you could wrap your itchy little fingers around a trigger. I don’t need some murdering dragon killer telling me to be careful of the Order.”

“You’ve never broken into a St. George chapterhouse,” the human countered, as if he knew anything about me and what I used to do. “I know the Order. They’re not going to let that stand. Once word of this reaches London—and it probably already has—they’re going to throw everything they can at us, and they won’t stop until we’re all dead.”

“Oh, is that why you’re still here?” I challenged, crossing my arms. “You want the dragons to protect you, now that you’re the hunted one?”

“No.” St. George glared at me, a flicker of anger crossing his face. “I don’t care what happens to me,” he said, sounding so earnest I almost believed him. “But I want Ember to be safe. I owe her my life, and I can’t leave knowing the Order is hunting her right now.”

“They were always hunting her, St. George,” I snapped. “Every single day. The hunt never stops. The war never ends. Or did that fact slip your mind? The only thing that’s changed is now the Order has a wasp up their ass because their pride has been stomped on, and they’ll be desperate to save face. Never mind that they’ve been kicking down our doors and blowing us to pieces for years. But don’t worry about Ember.” I smirked, as his face darkened. “The Order won’t ever get that close. I’ll take care of her.”

“Also,” came a new voice from the doorway, “she’s quite capable of taking care of herself.”

Guiltily, we turned. Ember stood at the edge of the tile, arms crossed, looking peeved with us both. Her red hair stuck out at every angle, and she was definitely thinner than normal, making my gut squeeze tight. But her green eyes were as bright as ever, and the fire lurking below the surface hadn’t dimmed. I could see the dragon peering out at me, the echo of wings hovering behind her. She shot us—well, me—an exasperated glare, before marching to the refrigerator door and yanking it open.

“Ember,” St. George began as she emerged with a flat white box. “I—”