Smoke and Fire: Part 1 by Donna Grant Read Free Book Online

to Ryder. “Do you remember what I told you long, long ago on dark night that changed our lives implicitly?”
    Kinsey watched as the two of them stared each other down. Ryder’s anger was palpable, and though Con didn’t show his fury as Ryder did, Kinsey still felt it. There were no words between them, but once again she felt as if Ryder was communicating with Con in another way.
    Con returned his black eyes to her. “Someone went to great extremes to get you here. I want to know why.”
    “As do I,” Kinsey said.
    Con tugged on the wrist of his shirt, pulling it from his suit jacket so that his cuff links showed. “Check everything she has. I’ll no’ have another incident like Iona’s.”
    Kinsey waited until Con and Dmitri strode out before she asked, “What happened with Iona?”
    “She was used by her company to gather intel on us. Her phone was bugged, as was her computer.”
    “Who did she work for?”
    “The Commune.”
    Kinsey drummed her fingers on the table. “I’ve heard of them. So they were connected to Ulrik?”
    Ryder mumbled something that sounded like an affirmation. Kinsey leaned over and tugged her purse and bag to her. Then she swung them around and set them between her and Ryder.
    “Look through everything,” she told him. “I want to know that my things are clean. They’ve not been out of my sight for days, but I suspect if someone really wanted to get to them, they could.”
    Ryder set her large black bag in his lap. “They used an e-mail loaded with a virus to get into Iona’s mobile and laptop.”
    Of course they did. Kinsey knew that was definitely an option, because she’d helped people do that before. It wasn’t a service her company announced, but the people with the right amount of money and clout always got whatever they wanted.
    She turned back to the monitor as Ryder sorted through her bag. Yet she couldn’t concentrate. She kept running Con’s words over in her head.
    Perhaps she shouldn’t have run. Maybe she should’ve stayed. And did what? Talked to Ryder? People were dying all around her, buildings were on fire, and Ryder was a dragon.
    An effing big dragon at that!
    She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Or maybe subconsciously she had after what he’d done to her. Regardless, her fear ruled her that night. Though that explained her reaction then, it didn’t explain it now.
    Weeks had gone by where she’d been able to sort through all she had witnessed and experienced. Why then would she still be so fearful?
    That’s what she believed Con wanted to know. He hadn’t come right out and asked, but there hadn’t been a need. She was sure that Tristan and/or Dmitri had told Con what transpired when she saw Ryder.
    Kinsey was ashamed of herself. Yes, she was still completely freaked out at the idea that Ryder was a dragon—and that she was surrounded by dragons.
    But she’d trusted Ryder implicitly at one time. He was the other half of her soul, the man she had always known would be who she spent her life with.
    Should it matter that he was a dragon?
    He certainly hadn’t cared that she was a vegetarian. In fact, he had gone out of his way to make sure whenever he cooked that she had all she needed for a filling meal, even if he was eating meat.
    Now she knew why he always laughed when she attempted to get him to stop eating meat. He was a dragon . Dragons weren’t herbivores.
    Kinsey snorted as she hid a laugh. How was she to know what a dragon was or wasn’t? They didn’t exactly teach dragon basics in school.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryder look up at her before he went back to her things. The smile faded from her lips. She knew one big reason she’d treated Ryder the way she had since she walked into the computer room.
    When she hadn’t been able to get in touch with Ryder after he walked out on her three years ago, she had fallen apart. Weeks later, when she was finally able to pull herself together, she used her skills to look for him.