Riley grimaced. “At least there are extinguishers by all the exits,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I can see the headlines now, though. Vegas Casino Mysteriously Ignites on Twelfth Floor. Strange Creatures Seen Flying out Window. That wouldn’t catch Talon’s attention at all.” He shook his head. “You certainly keep my life interesting, Firebrand.”
“You love it. Just think how boring life would be without me.”
A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “My old trainer gave me a bit of advice once,” he said. “Not that I listened to his ramblings most of the time, but this one stuck out. He said, ‘A flame that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.’ Any idea what that means?”
“Um. That you’re a secret philosopher who writes poetry between car heists and jailbreaks?” I guessed.
He snorted. “Normally I don’t break out the metaphorical crap, but I thought I’d make an exception.” One hand rose, knuckles very lightly brushing my cheek, searing and tingly. My heart leaped, and warmth bloomed through my stomach. “You remind me of that flame, Firebrand,” Riley murmured. “You burn so hot, and so bright, you set everything around you on fire. And you don’t even realize what you’re doing.”
“I’m a dragon,” I said, trying to catch my breath. He was so close; part of me wanted to pull away, though my back was still against the door and there was nowhere to go except through Riley. The other half wanted to step closer, to press my body against his until our combined heat became an inferno. “I’m supposed to set things on fire. What’s the point in lighting a candle if you’re going to hide it away so it doesn’t help anything?” His brows arched, and I grinned. “Ha, see? I can be philosophical, too.”
Riley’s smile turned grim. “Just be careful that the people around you don’t get singed,” he said in a low voice. “Or that you don’t burn too hot, too quickly. The brightest flames are usually the ones that are extinguished first.” His eyes went dark for a moment. “I know what I’m talking about, Ember. I’ve seen it before. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“It won’t,” I promised.
He paused, as if he wanted to say something more but thought better of it. For a moment, we stared at each other, both our dragons very close to the surface. Riley’s fingers still gripped my arms; I could feel the heat of his body as he stood there, gazing down at me.
Wes cleared his throat, very loudly, from the corner.
Riley blinked, as if just realizing where he was, what he was doing, and let me go. Disappointment rose up, but what surprised me was the fact that I didn’t know whose it was, mine or the dragon’s.
“It’s been a long day. Get some rest.” Riley didn’t look at me again as he turned and walked toward Wes. For a second, I had the crazy urge to grab him and pull him back, but he stepped out of my reach and the moment was lost. “Go watch TV, or download a movie or something. Order room service if you want. We’re not going to be doing anything tonight.”
I wrinkled my nose at his back. “How long are we going to be staying here?”
“Until I figure out what’s going on with the Order.” Riley reached the back of Wes’s seat and peered at the screen over his shoulder. “And when I decide that it’s safe to move out,” he added. “Until then, we sit tight. Stay in your room. Don’t go down to the casino floor. There are cameras everywhere and according to my contact, St. George is on the warpath and Talon is pretty pissed, too. It’s a good idea to lie as low as we can right now. Think you can do that, Firebrand?”
“I’ll try not to set the room on fire,” I promised, and walked out of the room. But as the door clicked behind me, I paused. Going back to my silent, empty room with only the television for company sounded depressing. I could stay in Wes’s room, but the human didn’t want me there, and besides, I wasn’t sure I could face Riley again. My dragon was still writhing and coiling beneath my skin, frustrated at being contained. If I went back in there, I might really break my promise about not setting things on fire.
Spinning around, I crossed the carpet to the door right beside Wes’s. Garret’s room. Putting my ear to the wood, I listened for movement, voices from the television, anything to tell me he was awake, but there was only silence. I hesitated a moment, then tapped softly on the wood.
“Garret? Are you in there?”
Nothing happened. No footsteps shuffled toward me, no movement, sound, or voice came from the other side. The door stayed firmly closed. I hovered in the frame a moment, debating whether or not I should try again, louder this time. But if he was asleep, or worse, ignoring me on purpose, I really didn’t want to disturb him.
Finally, I turned around and padded back to my door, feeling restless, lonely and slightly depressed. My room was quiet, and though the city twinkled and bustled outside the window, never still, the silence on this side of the glass made me feel very alone. I showered, turned up the television for noise and spent a good ten minutes figuring out how to order room service from the kitchen downstairs. When the food came I scarfed down the slightly overcooked burger in less than a minute, not having realized how ravenous I was until the first bite.
I guess gun battles and car chases work up quite the appetite. Not to mention nearly being shot to death.
My stomach turned, and my appetite vanished as quickly as it had come. Shivering, I left the fries to harden on the tray and crawled beneath the covers of the huge bed, pulling the quilt over my face. Curling into myself, I listened to the babble of the television filling the suffocating quiet, wishing I could just turn off my brain for a few hours. Garret, Dante and Riley all crowded my mind, each pulling at different emotions until I was a tangled knot of feeling inside. I finally drifted off, but kept jerking awake throughout the night as their faces, and the face of the man I’d killed, continued to chase me through my dreams.
Riley
“You’ve gone mad for the girl, haven’t you?” Wes remarked.
I glared at him from across the room. He sat on the bed with his computer in his lap, finishing off his bottle of soda. Lowering his arm, he raised a shaggy eyebrow at my expression.
“Don’t try to deny it, mate.” He gestured at me with the bottle, sending a spatter of Mountain Dew across the white bedcover. “I saw the two of you in the doorway, and you were a half second away from a full-on snog fest.”