Page 10 of Alan

“Another visitor?” Dallas chuckled, with several of the others joining in. “It seems our ranks are growing all the time.”

“This is not that sort of visitor.” I turned to Tamhas and Keira.

“My friend, Emelie,” Keira said with a tremor in her voice. “Her bracelet was in the woods.”

“Why would she be here?” Ainsley asked. She and Keira hadn’t gotten off on the best of terms, but they seemed to be warming up to each other quite nicely. Rather than an accusation, her question was one of concern.

“We went looking for any sign of her because she sent Keira a message of concern a week ago,” Tamhas explained. “Stating she was in Scotland and would be looking for her.”

“She might not necessarily have come here straight away,” Keira added. “She might even have become lost at first. But someone found her, and they left this behind.”

“Damn it!” I could control myself no longer. “I knew that as soon as we began bringing in outsiders, something like this would happen. This is why I was so unfair—I know you all thought I was,” I continued when mouths opened, as though my family was ready to protest.

My dragon would not be silenced. “This is why I was so unfair. This is why I did not wish for us to open our lives to the lives of humans.”

Of everyone present—including Tamhas and Keira, who were stunned into silence—it was Ainsley who spoke up. Naturally.

“To be fair, neither Klaus nor Keira are human,” she called out from the rear of the group. “Klaus is a shifter, same as us.”

I should have known she would take his part.

“He is not a dragon,” I reminded her before looking to him. “I mean no offense.”

“You spoke of humans,” she countered, her voice more strident than before. “I merely remind you that he is not one.”

The two of us needed to have a talk about undermining me while among the others. I expected no less from her when we were alone—she had always been one of rather strong opinions, to put it mildly—but my leadership was still fresh enough, still so new, that I feared what the effects of too much opposition might bring.

Doubts, whispers, perhaps the belief that one of the others might be better suited to leadership than myself.

“Neither is Keira, not entirely, she continued. “She is a Blood Moon Priestess.”

“Aye,” I growled, jumping on this fact. “And it is because of her relation to the Priestesses that her friend has disappeared. For if any of you believe this does not have something to do with the coven, speak now. I’m willing to listen if you truly do not believe the Priestesses have a hand in this.”

The silence was deafening.

I nodded slowly, more than a bit relieved. We had no time to argue the point if it was a matter of readying ourselves for war with the Priestesses.

“For all we know,” I added with a snarl, “this friend is one of the Priestesses, herself.”

“That is not true,” Keira spat. “She knew no more of them than I did before my arrival. These Priestesses aren’t exactly a viral sensation, you know?”

“You were not aware you were one of them,” I reminded her. “Who is to say she isn’t also an unknown member of the coven?”

“I’ve seen the back of her neck before,” she informed me with a smug smile. “She used to wear her hair as short as a man’s in the back. She doesn’t have the mark I have.”

Tamhas slid an arm around her waist, and she leaned against him. He shot me a look, as though asking me to take it easy on her.

I knew she was hurting, worrying about her friend, but that was hardly a concern of mine. My concern was with the clan, as always. This Emelie was not one of us. A mere human. Humans would gladly have hunted us down and murdered us until we were no more.

My dragon reminded me of something else—something even more insidious, something which would surely get through to her and Tamhas and my sister. All of them.

“What if this is their way of getting to you?” I asked. “What if they want you back, and this is their way of finding you? What if they thought she was you?” My anger grew with every word, like a cloud billowing larger all the time, until I was very nearly enraged.

She seemed to shrink beneath my suggestions, as though she had already considered herself at fault for whatever might be happening to her friend. And it would be her fault, all of it, because she had chosen to find Tamhas at all.

This pleased my dragon immensely. He pushed me forward, as though urging me to take one final shot which would render her silent for good. He wanted to hurt her for putting us in danger, for bringing the coven so intimately into our lives after hundreds of years of separation.

None of them knew the reason for the separation. None, except me.

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