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, than 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 in-terior, 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?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the same thing. Adapt. Engage in conversation. Smile sometimes.” He grabbed the nearest twelve pack and tossed it at me. I caught it, and my partner shook his head with a grin. “Poor Garret.

He can face down fire-breathing dragons and leap from a helicopter at two hundred feet, but stick him with a bunch of adolescents and he falls apart.”

I ignored the jab, holding up the twelve pack of beer. “What’s this for?”

“Forget torture and interrogation. You want someone to spill their guts, share a secret, or reveal they’re actually a twenty-foot winged lizard that can breathe fire?” Tristan smiled wickedly and picked up another case. “This is the quickest way. Besides, most parties nowa-days are BYOB.”

“What?”

“Bring your own booze.” Tristan rolled his eyes. “Seriously, partner. We do have a television in the bunkhouse. Sometimes, too much training is a bad thing.”

“I don’t drink.” Not that the Order didn’t allow it; in a profession as dangerous as ours, they recognized the soldiers’ need to unwind, as long as it didn’t devolve into drunken stupidity. But alcohol muted the senses and made people do silly, incomprehensible things. I wanted to be fully in control of myself, always.

“Everyone at this party does, I guarantee it,” Tristan said. “And you, my friend, are going to as well, if you want to blend in.” he shouldered the case and turned toward the exit. I followed, grabbing a two-liter of Coke for the drive home.

Back at the apartment, I put the beer next to the refrigerator and sat down at the laptop on the kitchen table. Opening a secure link to Order Intelligence, I paused a moment, then typed: Requesting subject analysis into the subject line at the top. Continuing to the body of the email, I wrote:

Garret Xavier Sebastian, ID 870012. Requesting detailed background information on potential targets: Alexis Thompson, Kristin Duff, and Ember Hil . Location: Crescent Beach, CA. Importance: high. Response: immediate.

Clicking the send button , I closed the laptop and leaned back in the chair, thinking of the encounter this afternoon. My mind kept drifting back to the red-haired girl, Ember. The other two girls I’d nearly forgotten, though I knew I shouldn’t write them off so quickly.

But Ember was the one that mattered. When she’d first looked at me on the beach, my entire body had seized up for a moment, something I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t catch my breath; I couldn’t do anything except stare at her. And for a split-second, I’d wondered if she knew who I was, why I was there.