Soldier (Talon, #3)(87)

I nodded, watching Riley turn away and slip through the door. “Thanks,” I murmured as it clicked shut behind him, the echo of the unspoken truce hanging in the air as he left. I wondered why he was extending the olive branch now. Maybe he really thought I wasn’t coming back.

I walked down the stairs and found the car Wes had called for me waiting at the sidewalk. It was late evening, the air was cool, and the sun had long since vanished behind the distant mountains. Slipping inside, I gave the driver the address, then stared out the window while my thoughts looped in endless circles. The Order, Talon, Tristan, the Patriarch, Ember.

Strangely enough, though the rest of the night loomed before me like a dark cloud, I was calm. Perhaps it was because I knew I was likely walking to my death. Putting myself in the hands of my former partner and appearing at an assembly of those who’d lived through decades of war with Talon... I didn’t see how I would walk away alive, let alone free. Even if Tristan didn’t turn me in, even if they couldn’t ignore the evidence, I was still their most-wanted criminal, a traitor who had sided with the enemy.

The cab dropped me off on a dark corner, and I followed Tristan’s directions down a narrow alley to the back of an abandoned lot. A single black car, its windows dark and tinted, sat beneath a sputtering streetlamp. Its lights flashed once as I entered the lot, and I headed toward it.

The front door opened, and Tristan stepped out wearing his dress uniform, the black jacket with brass buttons marching down the front, the symbol of the Order on the right shoulder. His face was set, eyes narrowed in the flickering light of the streetlamp as he stepped away from the car and aimed a 9 mm at my chest.

I stopped and raised my hands, wondering for a second if he would shoot me right here. Leave my body in a lonely alley and take the evidence himself, never to been seen by anyone in St. George. The shot never came, though Tristan approached cautiously, his gaze flicking to the shadows behind me, searching for dragons.

“I’m alone, Tristan,” I said as he stopped a few yards away, the gun still trained on my center. I kept my arms raised as he glanced at me warily, gaze searching my waist, my side, anywhere there could be a weapon.

“Are you armed?”

“No.”

He patted me down, anyway, checking for wires or transmitters as well as weapons, making sure no dragons were listening to this conversation, ready to follow or pounce. When he was certain I was clean, he stepped back, motioning me toward the car. I obeyed, though my apprehension was growing.

“Do you have the evidence?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered, feeling the envelope tucked into my jacket. It contained the original documents, bank statements and all of the pictures showing the Patriarch with the Talon agent.

“Okay.” Tristan paused, as if steeling himself for what he had to do. “From here on out, this has to look completely real. You turned yourself in, and I’m bringing you before the Patriarch to decide what to do with you. That’s how this lie has to work. Otherwise, we’ll both be shot dead before we reach the front doors. Do you understand? Once we get there, we’re enemies, you’re my prisoner and I have to treat you that way.”

“I understand.”

“All right.” He motioned at me with the gun. “Turn around.”

I did as he instructed and felt the bite of plastic restraints around my wrists a moment later. “I’ll do the talking to get us past the guards,” Tristan muttered, cinching the cuffs behind my back. “Once we reach the Patriarch, I’ll cut you loose, and you can shock everyone with your announcement.”

Or you’ll turn me over to the Patriarch for real, and there’ll be nothing I can do to stop it. Experimentally, I tested my restraints, wondering if I could slip free if I had to. There was not an ounce of give; the bands were tight around my wrists, to the point of digging into my flesh. As Tristan had said, this felt completely real.

He stepped back and yanked open the passenger door, gesturing me inside. I slid into the seat, leaning forward to keep the weight off my arms as the door slammed, trapping me within. The windows, I noticed, were very dark, almost opaque. No one on the outside would be able to see anything.

Tristan slipped into the driver’s seat a moment later, and the locks clicked into place as he closed the door. I glanced down, saw a dark cloth bag on the seat between us, and felt my stomach drop. My former partner saw what I was looking at and grimaced.

“Sorry, partner,” he sighed, picking it up. “Just a precaution, in case any lizards are thinking of showing up in the middle of the assembly. Better that you don’t know where we’re going. It’ll be safer for all of us.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you going to gag me, too? Make sure I can’t accuse anyone while we’re there?”

“Hmm, intriguing thought. Keep it up and I might.”

The bag slipped over my head, plunging me into complete darkness. A few seconds later, the engine shuddered to life, and the car began to move. I leaned carefully back against the seat, trying to calm my breathing, to focus myself for what lay ahead. If this was a trap, I was caught. I was alone, in enemy hands, and there was no Ember to save me from St. George this time. There was nothing I could do now but trust my former partner and hope that he would keep his word.

But if this was a trap, if I was going straight to my death, I knew a certain red dragon would keep fighting, no matter the cost. I was doing this for her, I reminded myself. Yes, it was for Riley, the rogues and all the dragons I had slaughtered in the past, but mostly it was for Ember. To give her the hope of a world without war, without the threat of St. George constantly breathing down her neck. A world where, just maybe, dragons and humans could understand each other a little better. I would try my hardest to give her that, to at least start things down the right path.