Dragon Fate by Elsa Jade Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking?” Rave growled when he strode into the lab.
    Torch grunted. “You’re talking to the dragon right now.”
    That brought Rave upright from where he’d been hunched over his little glass vials and pipettes and other delicate things that tended to shatter when Torch was around them too long.
    Rave huffed out a sound that might have been a laugh. “I told you to leave her alone. When I said that, it wasn’t for her benefit but for yours.”
    Torch clenched his jaw. “Anjali has answers.”
    “Since when are you a questions guy?”
    Okay, he had to give his cousin that one. “Since a warlock started stalking us.”
    Rave had to give him that one, and he did, with a nod. But any possible smugness was short-lived.
    “Anjali is too close to Ashcraft,” Rave said. “She’s a witch in her own right, even if untested. She can’t be trusted.”
    “I’m not trusting her,” Torch shot back. “I’m using her.” His dragon coiled and uncoiled uneasily inside him. “And so what if she’s a witch.”
    Rave leaned his hip against the work bench, arms crossed over his chest. His thick, brown hair was almost as rough as Torch’s own, as if he’d been spiking his hands through it in frustration. He’d been working for centuries to find a cure for the petralys, and now he had this new threat at the same time he’d finally found his true mate. No wonder he was freaking out.
    When Torch was supposed to be the enforcer for the Nox Incendi.
    A queasy brew of understanding and annoyance lurched in his gut. Being the clan’s muscle was all he’d been good for, but now it was deadly serious, and he knew his cousin and his liege doubted him almost as much as they doubted Anjali.
    Was he truly up to this task?
    He gave himself a shake, from the inside out.
    “Witch or whatever,” he told his cousin. “I’m on it.”
    Rave snorted. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
    “ It ,” Torch protested. “Not her . Finding your solarys has given you sex on the brain.”
    Arching one eyebrow, Rave asked, “And what’s your excuse?”
    Torch opened his mouth to fire back some snarky comment, as Rave was clearly expecting.
    Instead, his dragon growled.
    He snapped his jaw shut so hard a spark shot from his lips, making Rave jump back a step.
    They stared at each other for a long moment.
    “Get that under control.” Rave’s voice was low. Not a threat, almost soothing.
    Torch’s dragon was not chilled. It curled up through him like smoke, dark and hard to grab. And where there’s smoke…
    “I got this,” he repeated, once he felt sure he wasn’t going to accidentally on purpose incinerate his cousin.
    Rave dragged a hand through his hair again. “She’s getting to you . Whatever alchemical magic Ashcraft commands has tainted her.”
    “No.” The dragon’s denial was fierce and wordless; the best Torch could do was keep it monosyllabic civil.
    Rave sighed. “Piper is pure of spirit. Esme is…just pure. But Anjali is not.”
    “Neither are we.”
    “The dragon wants its pure gold, clear gems, pristine wilderness.”
    “And we don’t always get those,” Torch reminded him. “We’re surviving on greenbacks and credit in Sin City, so don’t spout that purity bullshit at me.”
    “We’re also dying of the stone blight,” Rave reminded him. “I fear that our sacrifices to survive may have only delayed the inevitable.”
    Torch eyed him sourly. “Not for you. You found your solarys.”
    Piper Ramirez was Rave’s soul mate and salvation, her shining spirit reigniting the failing ichor that would’ve meant Rave’s demise.
    She was also sweet and hot as fuck. Rave had scored with a solarys who was an angel in the streets and a devil in the sheets.
    But Torch would never say that aloud since he liked his head sitting on his shoulders, not flying through the air from an off-side kick by Rave’s irate dragon.
    “Not everybody is as lucky a bastard as you.” Torch slouched across the room to stare at the