I turned, motioning Ember forward. Her eyes were wide as she stepped around me, staring curiously at the other hatchlings, who stared back. “This is Ember,” I told them as the three hatchlings eyed each other over the table. “She might be joining us when we leave town tonight. Firebrand,” I continued, as Ember glanced at me sharply, “meet two of mine. That’s Nettle, and Remy. I got them both out of Talon a year ago.”

“S’up,” Remy greeted, raising a hand. “Welcome aboard. So, our fearless leader convinced you to join our cause too, huh?”

“I…uh, haven’t decided yet,” Ember said, and Nettle’s mouth fell open.

“What? Why not?” The other hatchling gaped at Ember, shocked.

“Are you stupid? Don’t you know what they’ll do to you?”

“Nettle,” I warned, and the girl backed off. Ember bristled, and I stepped between them before I had a full on chick fight in the game room. And when those chicks were dragons, it could get ugly real fast. I didn’t feel like calling the fire department right now.

“You’ll have to excuse Nettle,” I told Ember, who gave me a skeptical look. “She has more reason to hate Talon than most.”

“Oh?” Ember turned back to the other hatchling, more curious than angry now. Nettle watched her with a sullen expression, and the other girl frowned. “Why?”

Nettle glanced at me, and I nodded. Better to let her tell her story; as one who had lived through the worst facet of Talon, she knew the organization’s darkest secret better than most. As awful as her story was, I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her.

“I failed assimilation,” Nettle began, bitterness still coloring her voice when she spoke of her past. “My guardian was a real bastard who like to piss me off, just to remind me that if I ever changed, I’d be sent back to the organization. One day he pushed too far. I lost my temper and snapped at him…in my real form.” Her tone became even harsher, as she subconsciously rubbed her arm. “I expected to be shipped back to Talon for retraining. That’s what everyone tells you, right? Only, it’s a big fat lie. Talon doesn’t call hatchlings back for retraining. You get one shot, and that’s it. According to Talon, if you fail assimilation, you’ve been ‘corrupted by humanity.’ You’ve proven you can’t be trusted among humans, ever.”

Ember frowned. This was obviously news to her. “Then…what happens if you fail?”

Nettle snorted. “I can’t tell you what happens to the male students, but I do know what happens to the females. Remember all that garbage they fed us, about how dragonells were so important to our survival, that we were the future of our race?” She curled her lip. “Well, they weren’t lying about that. All female hatchlings who fail assimilation are sent to these special facilities, to become breeders for the rest of their lives.”

It took only a second for Ember to get what Nettle was saying. her face went white with shock and rage, and the other girl smiled nastily.

“Yeah, bet they didn’t tell you that. You must’ve passed your tests with flying colors. Me?” She shrugged. “My destiny was to become a brood mare for Talon’s future dragons, popping out eggs as often as I could.”

I watched Ember’s face for her response. She still looked pale and horrified, but her eyes flashed emerald, the dragon reacting to the thought of being a breeder forever. There was no doubt in my mind;

if Ember hadn’t excelled in both the assimilation process and her training, if she’d “failed” as Nettle had, she would never have stood for what Talon had planned for her. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because we would’ve cleared out long ago.

That’s right, Firebrand. Get angry. This is what Talon real y is like, this is their true face, and you don’t belong with them. You belong with us. With me.

“And then, I met Cobalt.” Nettle nodded in my direction. “And he told me I didn’t have to submit to that life, that he could take me away and show me something better. I figured, might as well, what do I have to lose?” She raised her chin defiantly. “I’ll tell you now, it was the best decision of my life. I’d rather be on the run from Talon, the Vipers, and St. George forever than ever go back to the organization.”

“That’s horrible,” Ember whispered. “They’d really do that to you?”

“It’s one of Talon’s dirty little secrets,” I said. “And one of their best kept, too. I’ve tried to find the place they keep the breeder females—only the top dragons in the organization are aware of them, and even fewer know where they’re located. The females never leave the compound except to breed with a specially chosen sire, and then they’re sent back. I’ve looked everywhere for those damned facilities and have gotten nil. If Nettle hadn’t come with me when she did, I wouldn’t have any hope of getting her out.”

“I’m never going back,” Nettle said again, even more fiercely, as if Ember would be the one to drag her away. “Never. I’d rather die.”

Still lounging at the head of the pool table, Remy snorted. “Geez, Nettle. So dramatic. It’s not like you’re the only one Talon has screwed over.” He turned a rakish grin on Ember, shoving shaggy hazel bangs from his eyes yet again. “Nettle might’ve been destined for brood mare-dom, but they were planning something even worse for me.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. True, I hated Talon, but we didn’t need to invent any horrible tales to win Ember over. And Remy tended to exaggerate when he was telling a story, particularly when it was about himself. “All we’ve heard are rumors and speculation.

No one really knows what goes on in there.”

“Where?” Ember asked, and Remy grinned.

“A secret underground lab,” he said in a dramatic voice. “Where they experiment on the male dragons unfit for Talon.” He thumped his scrawny chest. “Dragons like me. I was ‘too small,’ my bloodline was ‘undesirable’ for the gene pool, so they were going to ship me off to the lab to be sliced up and poked and prodded and turned into something new.”

“We don’t know it’s a lab,” I said again, as Ember’s brows shot up.

“There is no evidence to suggest Talon has a secret lab, and there is certainly no evidence to suggest they do all the things Remy just said. But,” I continued, as Remy pouted, unhappy that I had under-mined his claim,” Talon does have a place where they send ‘undesirables.’ Dragons that are scrawny or crippled or sickly, whose genes will weaken the breeding pool. Poor saps are sent off to a heavily armed facility in the Appalachian mountains—”