Page 106 of Fire Dancer
Ingo must have communicated the same sentiment to Nash, who roared into the night and took off, belching fire. Erin joined him, and I couldn’t help being a little awed.
My sister, the dragon shifter.
And she wasn’t the only one who’d rushed to help me. I could sense Abby back home on the ranch, panting from the exertion of tapping into a vortex. Somehow, she’d channeled some of that power to me despite the intervening distance. When I got home, I would hug her.
Ingo leaned against my legs, telling me I was just as amazing. And thinking back on the past few hours… Well, maybe I was, at least a little.
“Wow.” Delaney stared as staccato bursts of dragon fire lit up the mountainside.
I decided she won my vote formost amazingtonight. She was just human — well, mostly — but she’d kept herself together enough to kill vampires, to handle the sight of Ingo shifting into wolf form, and now, to process the existence of dragons.
I was sure she was a relic, but I doubted she was aware of that part.
“No one can know,” I warned her.
She snorted, her eyes still glued to the dragons. “No one would believe me anyway.”
We watched Erin and Nash. Their eyes glowed in the dark, their wings beat, and their massive tails lashed. Every now and then, when they spat fire, an anguished cry would slice through the night.
Delaney nodded in approval. “Another one bites the dust.”
I made a mental note to ask Ingo if the agency was recruiting for vampire hunters.
But first things first. Police were pouring into the area, and fire trucks were grinding up the mountain behind them.Humanpolice andhumanfirefighters. It was time for Ingo to shift back to human form. But Delaney had already gotten up close and personal with enough supernatural activity for one night — plus, shifting would leave Ingo in the buff. A verybuffbuff, so to speak, but still.
“Over here.”
I led him to the dressing room I’d used earlier. It was eerily quiet now, except for the flash of red and blue police lights against the windows.
I retrieved my belongings while Ingo gave himself a massive nose-to-tail shake, making ash and dust fly. A short time after I rejoined Delaney, Ingo emerged in human form, wearing a pair of slacks and boots and fiddling with a shirt.
My girl parts fluttered. Did I mention my true love was buff?
He pulled on the shirt, then wrinkled his nose. “I still reek.”
We all did, though I was more concerned with the gashes on his arms and shoulders.
“Are you really okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured me, though he winced a little, then sighed. “As far as injuries go, at least.”
I squinted into the flashing lights of law enforcement vehicles. “Is the agency already here?”
“No. But they will be.”
And when they appeared, they would question why Ingo had been on the property of a vampire he’d been ordered to avoid.
I tapped my lips, thinking. “Well, who’s to say you were here at all?”
He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
Slowly, I worked it out, then whispered my plan to him and Delaney. Shortly after, Ingo disappeared into the darkness while Delaney and I walked directly toward the police.
“Remember, no mention of vampires, dragons, and definitely nothing about a wolf,” I whispered as we drew close.
“Wolf? What wolf?” she murmured. “And I didn’t see Ingo either. Never even met him.”
We raised our arms and walked into the melee at the security entrance, where a handful of police were doing their best to corral witnesses and potential suspects — including Delaney and me. Within minutes, though, Ingo appeared among the law enforcement officers.