Wes didn’t shoot me his normal irritated look, which told me how shaken he was. “I don’t know, mate, but it’s gone now,” he said, and I shoved my hands through my hair, trying to think. Austin. There had been only one dragon in that safehouse, a hatchling I’d gotten out just last year. He’d trusted me to protect him; I’d promised I would keep him safe.

Dammit all to hell.

“We should move,” Wes added, shoving off the counter. “Let the other nests know we’ve been compromised. If we leave tonight—”

I lowered my arms. “No,” I muttered, and he looked back at me in surprise. Anger and resolve settled around me like a cold fist. The Austin nest was lost, but that just meant I had to succeed here. “Not without the girl,” I said firmly, turning around. “I’m close, Wes. She’s coming around. I can feel it. Give me another week or two, and she’ll be so fed up with Talon she’ll be begging me to take her away.”

“Right.” Wes crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “Like the time you swore it would take a week, tops, to convince that Owen chap to join us, and what did he do? We had to spend a month in Chile after he ratted us out to TALON.”

“Yeah, but look on the bright side. You finally got a suntan.” he glowered at me, and I smirked, remembering his constantly red skin and face as we’d moved from jungle to village to jungle, always on the run. Wes did not like the great outdoors, and the feeling was mutual.

“It was a risk,” I admitted, “but we both knew that. This is different.”

“Why, exactly?”

“Because I say it is.”

Wes sighed. “You know that survival instinct that’s kept us alive all this time? The one that tells us to move out when bloody St. George or Talon is closing in on us? You’re very bad for it.”

I smirked and went to my room, knowing we wouldn’t be going anywhere just yet. Tossing my jacket to a chair, I flopped back on the satin sheets of the king-size bed and contemplated this newest problem.

Damn. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to calm the lingering rage and frustration. Another nest gone. That was the second nest I’d lost in as many months, just vanished off the face of the earth. When the first had gone dark, I’d dropped everything and ridden down to Phoenix, searching for the two hatchlings I’d left there, trying to find answers. Nothing. The house I’d set up for them months earlier was an abandoned shell, deserted and empty. No one could tell me what had happened, to the building or the residents.

Overnight, they’d just…disappeared.

I’d thought of them on the long drive back, churning with anger and regret. I’d promised to protect them when they left Talon, I’d sworn to keep them safe, and I had failed them. Where were they now? what had happened to them? Of the two possibilities I could think of, I hoped it was Talon who had discovered their wayward dragons and had whisked them back to the fold. The kids I lured from the organization were often young, gullible, inexperienced hatchlings. If Talon had found the nest, the hatchlings had probably been taken back for “re-training.” And as much as I hated the thought of losing them to the organization again, at least they’d be alive. The alternative, the other reason for a nest and the hatchlings to disappear, was far, far worse.

The alternative was St. George.

I let my arms thump to the mattress, closing my eyes. Wes was right to be freaked out. Not that he needed much reason, but staying here when something was creeping closer to our location was a bad idea. We’d survived this long by staying on the move and knowing when to run if things got too dangerous. We’d already had to leave, once. For all I knew, Talon was still looking for us. The longer we stayed, the more dangerous it would become for us both. but I couldn’t leave without her.

I had to give it to Wes. He was sullen, pessimistic, and drank enough Red Bull to power a freaking blimp, but having an elite, exTALON hacker around was extremely useful. He was the one who could track down Talon’s hatchlings, discover where and when they were being planted, usually with plenty of time for us to move in and be ready when they arrived. That was the reason we’d come here, to Crescent Beach. Because Wes had discovered Talon was about to send another brand spanking new dragon into the world. A hatchling, by the name of Ember Hill.

I’d expected to find what I always did; a green young dragon itching for a taste of freedom, excited, naive, and gullible. Easy prey.

Show them a mysterious stranger, give them a taste of real freedom, and many were all too eager to jump ship. Of course, the life of a rogue dragon wasn’t all bright lights and glory, but the most important thing was getting them out first. The technicalities of keeping them hidden and safe came later.

I hadn’t expected to find a fierce, opinionated hatchling who challenged me, pushed back, and who wasn’t afraid of me…or of anything.

Who defied not only an older, more experienced dragon, but Talon, her guardians, even her brother—a twin, wasn’t that interesting—

to do what she wanted. From the time we’d met, spoken, I’d known I couldn’t let her stay with the organization. There was something about her, something that made me determined to get her out, get her away from Talon. Maybe she reminded me of myself at that age, a fiery free spirit, before Talon had systematically broken any hints of independence and original thought. I’d recovered, of course, but I knew what the organization did to their hatchlings. I was damned sure I couldn’t let that happen to her.

That’s what I told myself, anyway. It had nothing to do with the way my own dragon had responded, nearly surging out of my skin whenever the girl was around. I’d never wanted to Shift into my true form as much as I had tonight, and from the way Ember had looked at me when we danced, I knew she’d felt the same. Though for both our sakes, I’d hidden it well. Ember was decades younger, inexperienced in everything, and she was far too human for her own good.

Case in point, she’d nearly let a human kiss her tonight.

A different sort of rage heated my lungs, and I growled, remembering the brat she was dancing with tonight. Mortal teenagers were normally a pretty useless bunch; cocky and immature, thinking they knew everything about the world. Easy to manipulate, but not good for much else. But that kid…something about him was different, though I wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was the disgust talking, the need to rescue my little Firebrand from the tediousness of human emotion. Or maybe it was my sudden, irrational urge to bite his head off.