"LUNA!"

Luna sat straight up in bed gasping. She reached out with her link. "Nekros?!"

No answer. The brief moment of their reconnection was already broken. But the magic continued to linger in the air. She inhaled deeply, basking in the sweet familiarity. A dozen kin were trying to link to her. They felt it too. Nekros was smart. If he found a way to reach out, he would have reached out to all of them. She needed to talk to Soliel. She slipped out of the bed and ripped open a drawer to get dressed. "What are you doing?" Constantine grunted. "Come back to bed."

"I have to go." She told him. "Go back to sleep."

"Wait." Suddenly awake, he scrabbled to follow her. "You can't go. We just got back together!"

He reached out to take her arm. She tried to step out of his reach, but he caught hold of her shirt and pulled her to a stop. "I'll be back soon."

She wasn't sure if it were a lie. Probably not. Rhiannon was in this city, so she would have to come back eventually. Soon was a relative term anyway.

"Luna, please." He begged, standing and wrapping his arm around her waist. "I need you right now. Just a little longer. I have to go to Paris soon, anyway."

It took a fraction of her strength to push him away. "Finally going to deal with Raphaël?" She snorted disbelievingly. "It's been, what, two hundred years since he started plotting against you?"

"The time is right. He's getting bold. I'll come back with Nolan at my side and solidify my hold in Europe. I only need a few more weeks, Luna, please, stay."

Luna looked around sharply. "What do you mean? Nolan is coming back?" she snapped.

Constantine stood naked before her. Black cracks marred his perfect, marble-white skin. His red eyes glimmered in the low light. He radiated with unstable power. She really needed to stop letting him feed from her. He shrugged at her question. "I'm taking him back." He answered slowly, as if confused by her reaction. "I need him with me."

"Are you out of your mind?!" she hissed. "Soleil told you to leave him alone!"

He rolled his eyes. "After I'd already talked to him. He can't tell me not to do something I've already done."

"You know he's not going to see it like that! Why didn't you tell... oh fuck," she felt suddenly sick. "What did you do with the female Nolan is with?"

Content with having her attention, he sat down on the edge of the bed and relaxed. "Nothing," he cooed with all the confidence in the world. "Not for lack of trying. She's stronger than she looks. I can't wait to get a taste. I like them feisty."

"Do not!"

Constantine eyes flared and a smirk spread across his face. "Jealous?" he teased, standing again and resting his hands on her hips. "It's alright. I can share. You'll like her too."

She slapped him, a sickly feeling of disgust washing over her skin.

"What do you care?" he snapped, rubbing his cheek. "Nolan's going to leave her, like he leaves all the unworthy trash when I have no need of him. When that happens, I'm free to do what I like with her. I'm thinking of turning her. I'm starting to have a thing for redheads."

Luna was on top of him in the blink of an eye, wrapping a hand around his throat and leaning over him. He glared hungrily up at her despite the frost beginning to form on his skin. "Do not." She snarled again. Her aura of rage was in perfect control, not expanding much more than an inch off her body. Her silver hair began to emit waves of blue and violet light. "You and your own are not to turn anyone while you in the States."

"Luna, lumière de ma vie," He said patiently, almost condescendingly. There was no fear in his eyes. He really believed she wouldn't hurt him. His hands trailed up her legs, the tips of his fingers grazing the backs of her thighs. In any other situation, it would have been her melting point. Not tonight. "That is what the embassies are for."

"Do not argue semantics with me, you child!" she snarled. "If you do anything to the girl, Soleil will kill you and I can do nothing to stop him this time!"

Constantine scowled and his own barely controlled magic flared. The window behind them cracked. "Why do you still call him that?" he snapped back. "He hasn't gone by Soleil in twenty-thousand years."

Luna's grip on his throat tightened, cutting off his air and his magic. "Don't you dare threaten me with the power I gave you! Use your head, Constantine. We are not in Europe. You are not free to do as you please here. Soleil will not agonize over the details. Rhiannon is off limits. Nolan is off limits. If you want to crush Raphaël, you will need to do it on your own."

She released the pressure on his neck, and he sucked in a breath. Fury danced in his eyes. Something hardened between her legs. "It's hot when you get all demanding, ma lune." He growled.

She pushed off him. She felt dirty, though she wasn't so sure if it was because of what he said or because of her continued association with him. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

She stormed out. Constantine threw himself back on the bed and laughed. The laughed turned into a manic cackle. So, the dragons wanted to protect Nolan's girl? Don't do anything stupid, she said. Didn't Luna know him at all?

~

Maddox groaned and eased himself slowly into the chair with a cup of coffee. It still hurt to sit and stand... and raise his arms... and breathe. It felt like there were still shards of the bullet in his left shoulder. His last ultrasound game out perfectly clean, but fuck it hurt. No amount of training could have ever prepared him for how much it would hurt to get shot.

A loud thump came from upstairs followed by an even louder curse. His laugh turned into a gasp of pain. For such a highly trained creature, she really was clumsy in the morning. A moment later she came flying down the stairs, all legs and long spindly arms. She stumbled on the last step and went airborne. She grabbed onto the counter to stop herself from completely falling. She stared, wide-eyed at Maddox. "Morning, babe." He raised his mug.

"Stop getting up without me!" she barked at him, her English accent thicker than normal in her distress.

"Stop waking up after me."

She scowled and stomped over, which he was perfectly fine with. All she was wearing was that thin camisole nightgown that didn't hide any part of her tall, slender body. She leaned over the table and shoved a finger in his face. "What if you got hurt?!" she demanded. "What if you fell down the stairs? What if..."

"What if I got shot again?" he asked gently.

She jerked back and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring down at him. "I won't let that happen again."

There was a conviction to her voice, and he had no doubt she really believed it. "Hon," he tried to sound patient without being condescending. "I have to go back to work on Monday. Eventually I'll have to get back on the streets. You know how it is out there."

"And I will be right there beside you." She straightened to her full, impressive height. "I won't let you... woah, woah, woah, what are you doing?!"

Maddox was getting to his feet again. She reached out and supported his right side. He tightened his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, pressing his face into her hair. She resisted for a second before relenting and melting into him. Her arms wrapped around his waist and her shoulders started to shake. "I'm sorry." he said softly into her hair. "I can't imagine how scared you were."

He felt her jaw tighten against his neck. "I should have been there." Her voice trembled. "I could have... I could have..."

"You couldn't have done anything." He soothed. "Everything happened too fast. But it's alright now. I'm okay. You heard the doctors. That transference thing. I have you to thank for that."

She nodded and Maddox let her go. He relaxed back into his chair with a grunt while she went into the kitchen to get her own coffee. She rubbed the stone at the end of her necklace and stared into the fridge. He narrowed his eyes again. There were so few moments where he got to see his secret partner these days. He preferred to see her relaxed and smiling. He didn't like the blank look she used when something was bothering her and didn't want him to see.

"There's something else, isn't there?" he asked, watching her reaction.

"I don't know." She said after a second. She slowly closed the door to the fridge and turned to face him again. She stared blankly into space and continued to knead the stone between her fingers. The already polished pearl gleamed in the light. "There's something in the air. It doesn't feel right. It feels like..." she blew out a breath in frustration. "I don't know how to explain it! It's like a pit in my stomach. Like something bad is going to happen. I feel like I should be doing something, but I don't know what."

"Do you need to check in? Maybe your handler has an idea of what's going on."

"Don't call him my handler." She crossed her arms. "It sounds so weird."

"You like it when I handle you."

She threw a kitchen towel at him. "I probably feel like this because you told your family about me, you ass!"

"I didn't actually tell them anything." He threw the towel back and immediately regretted it as pain reverberated up his arm and across his chest. "I didn't even use your real name."

"You couldn't have come up with anything more original than Lynn?"

"I was on the spot! Blame my mother, she was the one who brought up Rhia's date in front of dad, Landon, and Church!"

"But now I have to expose myself, Maddox!"

"Exposed to what? The only people who go to those things are a bunch of pompous artists with their heads up their asses and their spouses that spend more time at the bar. My dad might not even be there, mom's got him in the dog house after what happened at Thanksgiving."

"He deserves worse."

"That's what you're here for, isn't it?"

"As satisfying as it would be, there's nothing I can do to him for being a bastard to his children."

"Will it be taken into consideration at the trial?"

She raised her eyebrow. "Ancients don't have trials for cases like this," she reminded him carefully. "When the time comes, Richard will simply... disappear."

"Are you getting any closer to that time?"

His dark green eyes glittered with barely restrained hope. She stepped forward and brushed her hand through his cropped hair. "You know that's not my call. The brass knows about us. They're more concerned about my cover being blown and having to pull me out. As soon as this is over, I can take on a more logistical role, and we can be open to the rest of the world. I promise."

He leaned into her caress and sighed. "I know. But you owe me."

"Sure," She snorted with laughter and turned back to the stairs. "I'll do whatever your devious little mind can think of. I'm going to get dressed."

"Nova," Maddox called her back. The most beautiful woman he'd ever met, the stunning, intelligent, powerful shifter, turned back to smile brilliantly at him. He pulled a small ring box from his pocket and tossed it to her. "I already know what I want."

~

Quintiles stood waist deep in the ocean, breathing in the morning's salty air. His mind buzzed with reports from dragonkin across the world. Hundreds of dragonkin had turned, almost simultaneously, and completely out of their control. Waves of dragonkin magic coursed throughout the world, destroying human and Ancient electronics, and causing world-wide panic.

His own kin were scared and asking for answers. They could feel the change in the air. They didn't know what it meant.

Quin did. He'd felt Nekros make brief contact. He'd felt, more than heard, Nekros scream his name through a powerful burst of linking magic. The link had come on the back of a wave of new magic. It had to be hers. Rhiannon's. Gods, she was strong. Strong enough break through the barriers keeping her father silent. Only for a moment... but a moment was enough.

The dragons were on the move for the second time in thirty years.

Luna was conferring with her own kin. She was torn between going back to China where Nekros might be and staying in the U.S. where Rhiannon definitely was. Ares and his mate Keoni were on their way to the little Greek island where Nekros and Phoenix had been before disappearing. They were the closest to their old home and Keoni made an argument that Nekros and Phoenix would go there first if they were able to get free from their captors. Ozin and Tiamat were on standby but had their own problems to consider in their territory. The Brazilian government were up in arms when one of the kin's turning destroyed over a million reals of deforesting equipment, thinking it was a deliberate attempt of sabotage.

If Quin had to worry about anyone, it was Lysander and Valkyr. They had been in a magical sleep when Nekros and Phoenix disappeared. Valkyr had been asleep since before the new millennia and had not adjusted well to the modern world. She'd isolated herself in Russia's tundra and relied on her kin to slowly introduce the new world to her. She had bee furious that one of the other species had acted against them and wanted to drown the world in chaos and death until Nekros and Phoenix were returned to them.

Lysander had been asleep even longer. He fared better with the advanced technology but suffered more from the social changes. He was constantly teetered on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and more than once he had suddenly shifted in the middle of a village in New Zealand. The locals had cheekily nicknamed him after a dragon in a popular movie filmed in the area.

"Quin." He didn't bother turning around to face his kin. "You were right. She was with Nolan."

"Good. It shouldn't be too long before he starts putting the pieces together."

"Why don't we just... tell him?" the kin behind him sounded unsure. "Why don't we tell the other kin? Shouldn't they know that there is a tenth dragon?"

"We will. The concern is what her captors will do to Nekros and Phoenix if we taker her in too soon."

"But Nolan should know." The dragonkin insisted. "He's one of us. He already has an explained connection to her. He can help protect her!"

Quin looked over his shoulder at the kin. While he was motionless and silent, his thoughts were a jumbled mess. The link that tied the kin and dragon together had weakened. How did that happen?

Quin waded back to the shore, rested and hand on the other male's shoulder, and pressed his forehead into his. Through their link, he got a better idea of the male's hesitation and doubts. "It doesn't feel right." He said the unspoken words. "I know. But Nolan will protect her whether he knows or not. Trust me, old friend. All in due time."

He wove magic into his words, strengthening the link between them. The kin nodded slowly. "What about Etienne? He is struggling. He doesn't understand what is happening to him."

"Keep an eye on him." He turned away again and looked across the Pacific Ocean. "He shouldn't go anywhere without another kin until we're ready to bring her home."

"What do we do now, then?

A smile crept across Quin's face and his power flared. "I think it's time we send a message to our enemies."

~