“I’m not a guard. I’m a counselor, and this place is secure, right? Why would I need to run?”
“Seventeen,” Emmitt murmured, sliding his card at a security panel beside a door. He shoved it open and glared at her as she passed through. “Don’t matter who you are down here. The second you forget that number, you’ll become eighteen.”
The room was dark, but as they entered the small space, the lights clicked on by a sensor. There was a desk covered in notes, a computer, security screens, and an empty Cheetos package. Through the window, the lights in a cavernous room came on, too. And sitting there on a bare mattress, on an iron bed, surrounded by black scorch marks, the Red Dragon himself stared back at the glass—right at her.
She stood there frozen, unable to move a single muscle, as if ensnared in a cobra’s stare. He looked so different from the man she’d seen on the news, from the pictures Clara had sent of him as a boy and a young adult. His red hair was burred close to the scalp, and he wore a plain white shirt that clung to the defined muscles of his broad shoulders and chest. Tattoo ink peeked out from under the sleeve, decorating his tensed bicep on his left arm. He looked pale, and there was a long, fresh scar that ran from his temple back, back, disappearing behind his head. There was no greeting smile on his lips. In fact, there were no smile lines around his mouth, as if the man had never smiled a day in his life. His cheeks were hollow, and he had bags under his eyes. Even wrecked, he was the most striking man she’d ever seen, and her heart banged against her chest as she realized why he looked so demolished. It was his eyes.
One was the color of a summer sky, and the other was silver with an elongated pupil.
Her chest physically hurt.
Fuck the New IESA and fuck what they were doing to Vyr. She wanted to puke. Eventually, they would take his dragon. They would kill him, and that beast would be still and dead inside him. Both his eyes would freeze and remain silver with those reptilian pupils, as if his dragon was a staring corpse inside him.
Her chest heaved as she fought to gain control of her emotions for Emmitt. Right now, she wanted to kill him. Riyah wasn’t violent by nature, but she already felt like she knew Vyr because she knew his mother, who loved him like he was the sun and the moon. This was a man born with a monster in him. Not his fault. He was being tortured for something he had no control over. Her eyes stung, and she blinked hard. Clearing her throat, she carefully asked, “Why was he sitting in the dark? And if you’re so concerned about what a beast he is, why is there no one in here watching him?”
“He is a creature of darkness, Mercer. He’s comfortable there.”
“Yeah, the goddamn scorch marks all over the walls back your theory.”
“Seventeen is sitting in the belly of the beast.”
“W-what?” she asked, ripping her attention from the man.
Emmitt made his way to the computer and brought the screen to life. “No one is in here observing because this is my office. There are two more across the way. Those have someone in them at all times. We didn’t leave the Red Dragon alone. It’s against the rules to not have at least two rooms occupied at all times in case he goes off the rails again.”
“Again,” she repeated, her gaze drifting back to Vyr. He looked harmless enough, just sitting there with his fists clenched between his knees. Just to test, she moved a few steps to the side, and his gaze followed her.
“Can he see me?”
“No. This is two-way glass. He sees his own reflection.” Emmitt looked up from his screen at Vyr. Quick as a whip, the dragon shifter with the vacant eyes turned his head to the left. Huh. So Emmitt didn’t realize Vyr could sense them. When Emmitt gave his attention to the glowing computer screen again, Vyr blinked slowly and dragged his gaze directly back to her.
Chills rippled up her arms.
Clara had kept some things to herself, clearly. Riyah had a moment. She had a moment when she wondered if she’d been tricked into this, when she wondered at Clara’s end game. Was Riyah at more risk than the red-haired grizzly shifter of Damon’s Mountains had told her? She’d sworn up and down that Riyah would be safe with her son, but Vyr’s gaze was filled with such fiery hatred, she was seriously questioning what the hell she was doing here.
“Here you go. I like to show this to all newbies as a warning.” He stood back and let her have a better view of the video that was playing on the oversize monitor.
On it, a lone man approached Vyr, who looked cool and relaxed. At that point, his hair was shaved on the sides but longer on top. There wasn’t a scar on his head. His eyes were piercing blue, and he was leaned back against the wall, one knee bent and his arm resting on it like he didn’t have a care in the world. He smiled and seemed to say something cordially.
“What are they saying?” she asked.
“Don’t know. There’s no volume on this footage.”
She was calling bullshit. There was volume—he just wasn’t letting her hear it. She had good instincts for when someone was lying. No, she wasn’t a shifter, but she was something people here didn’t know about or understand. Emmitt was stepping slowly to her bad side—a very unfortunate place to be.
Riyah set her clipboard down and locked her arms against the desk, squinted, and focused on the two men having a conversation on the grainy footage. Vyr clenched his fist once in the video, the muscles in his forearm flexing, but his face was still relaxed. He was even smiling. Sure, it looked like the devil’s smile, but it still counted. He was talking now, his masculine lips forming words she would’ve given just about anything to hear.
Other than that clenched fist, nothing seemed off, and when he relaxed his hand, she naturally relaxed, too. Big mistake. With zero warning, a massive red dragon exploded from Vyr like a bomb going off. Fire covered the screen, and then there was the guard, burning. The Red Dragon opened his mouth, full of rows of razor sharp teeth, and the burning man disappeared into his maw. Vyr tossed his head back, swallowed, and lowered his gaze to the camera. He tensed and blasted fire onto it, and the screen went dark.
Utterly shocked, she stood there panting, traumatized, eyes glued to that black screen, wishing she could wash the memory of that awful few seconds from her mind.
Vyr really was a man-eater. A guiltless one. He was a monster, like Emmitt had said.
“Well, lookee there. You dropped your sympathy. Good. You’ll live longer without it. Come on, Mercer.”
“W-where are we going?”
Emmitt held open the door and smiled slowly. “You’re going to meet the Red Dragon.”
Chapter Two