Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(26)

“Keith blackmailed me into stealing something from you,” she said. “It didn’t matter what it was. He owed some people a lot of money.”

“Gambling debts,” he said.

She lifted her head. He had settled into a hunter’s patience. “You got that far already?”

“We found his bookie. Also dead.”

Icy fingers slid down her spine. She pulled the hoodie closer around her torso. “I dated Keith for a few months. For a little while I thought—it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

He tilted his head. “You thought what?”

“You’re not interested in all that.” Color tinged her cheeks.

“Don’t make assumptions about what I am interested in or what I will think or what I will do. You have no idea what interests me,” he told her. He settled back against the edge of the dining room table and crossed one ankle over the other. “We clear?”

She nodded, her color deepening. She went on, “We’ve already established I was an idiot. Keith came along when I was feeling low, and I fell for his charm. I was . . . indiscreet. I should have known better, and I screwed up.” Her throat closed.

“You said you had broken things off,” he prompted when she fell silent.

She nodded. “I had, a while ago. Then last week he showed up. He was full of this scheme that was going to pay off all his debts and make him rich. Of course by then my rose-colored glasses were gone. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, or him. Then he . . . made me.”

“Blackmail, you said. Over your indiscretions.”

He spoke in a neutral tone. He had throttled the aggression down. She was very aware that he was “managing” her, but he still sounded pitiless. She covered her throat with one hand as he dissected her expression.

“Can we please not talk about that?” She tried to steady her voice. “Please?”

His lids dropped down, hooding his gaze. “Go on with your story.”

“There’s what I know.” She stressed the last word. “There’s what I think, and then there’s what I’ve guessed. Keith was all about his ‘associates.’ People he met through his bookie that he was going to do business with. He was somehow a bigger man in all his stories than he was in real life, know what I mean?”

He nodded, keeping silent.

“Well, I think he was half desperate, half boasting and all-the-way manipulated. He started promising those contacts of his anything he could. His loans had come due. He said he told them he could get them anything they wanted.” She swallowed hard. “And they said, how about something from Cuelebre, then. They gave him a charm that would locate your lair, and Keith came to me.”

“Did they, now.” He hadn’t moved, but he had tensed all over. What radiated off him had her heart pounding.

She licked lips that had gone dry and whispered, “I think Keith told them something about me but not much. He would have wanted to keep me a secret because he wanted to be the big player, and he thought he could control me. He was hoping to set up a repeat business. But I think someone very nasty and Powerful was manipulating him, and now, thanks to me, they’ve got something of yours.”

“They do indeed.” He bared his teeth in that machete smile. “I’ll have to thank you later for that one.”

She whispered, “That charm scared the shit out of me. If I didn’t do what he wanted, I knew Keith would sing like a canary. Would he give me up? In a heartbeat, if it would save his own ass. Then they would come after me. So I was in that damned if you do, damned if you don’t place.”

“Where’s the charm now?” His eyes had gone pure gold, all dragon.

“It disintegrated when I used it.”

His eyes narrowed. “I would have felt my spells fail if it had nullified them, but they were all still in place when I went to investigate.”

She cupped her ear with one hand and rubbed her neck, a stressed, defensive gesture as she remembered the pain from using the charm. He moved closer as that pitiless dragon gaze dissected her face. She whispered, “The charm didn’t nullify anything. Between it and your spells, I felt like I was being ripped apart.”

“Yet you still got through them.”

She didn’t bother to reply. Instead she searched his face. His expression was savage, catapulting her thoughts forward to consequences that were more far-reaching than just her own future. Her lips felt numb. “A charm that Powerful could find anything hidden, couldn’t it?”

“Depending upon the strength of the user, yes.”

Anything hidden. There were things in the world that should never be found, dangerous things, or fragile, and precious creatures whose lives depended upon secrecy. A finding charm as strong as the one Pia had used could slice like a knife through someone’s every defense. She shivered and huddled into herself. Despite her fears and preoccupation for her own safety, this had never been about her.

Dragos frowned as he considered the minefield she had maneuvered in order to get to his hoard, the unknown charm acting in opposition to his spells. The conflict of opposing magics might have killed another person. That elegant citadel inside her mind was probably what had saved her life. Despite her obvious upset, he didn’t think she realized how much danger she had been in.