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I sat down on the chair across from Claire. “Still, this is big. At least we know now that this is a curse. And curses can always be broken.”

“But who the hell put it on us in the first place?” Xavier asked, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Good question,” Claire said. I noticed her attention linger on my little brother. “With an answer I don’t actually have for you. It would have to be someone with a lot of power and a lot of investment in seeing dragons falling from the sky and burning to ash. I don’t think this is because of an overly emotional ex.”

I rolled my head back, cracking some of the bones in my neck with audible pops. “How are we going to stop this if we don’t even know who’s causing it?”

“We just have to riddle it out,” Xavier said. “Who do we know that hates dragons more than anything in this world?”

“Helstriva.” The answer had come from all of us at the same time. The Matriarch of the vampires, recently having come into power after the previous one was suspiciously assassinated (which was an incredibly hard thing to do to an immortal and all-powerful vampire queen). Vampires and dragons never got along, but there had always been an unspoken agreement of peace between us. Even though deadly fights weren’t all that uncommon when paths crossed and tempers flared, it never amounted to anything more than a street brawl.

Still, tensions were always high. Especially since dragons were the only reason the vamps hadn’t made a bolder move at gaining power outside of the Obsidian District. Marvels, shifters, fae—they all had difficulty taking them out. But an all-out assault from the dragons would decimate the vampires, although the fight would undoubtedly be drawn out and bloody.

It also gave plenty of reason for why they would want us gone. With dragons out of the picture, the humans were ripe for the picking. They’d have them all enslaved before the end of the year, working on fields and being locked up in blood banks.

A draft kicked up. A scent smacked into me.

No fucking way.

Coppery and muddy, like bloody dirt that had been recently rained on. I heard the jingle of the store door closing, and the scent lessened.

Vampire.

“You picked up on that too, didn’t you?” Maddox was looking at me, thick brows pushing together, scar on the left one cutting a thick slash.

“I did.”

“What?” Claire asked. “None of my wards have been tripped.”

“I just got a strong smell of vampire,” I explained before I threw a glance over my shoulder at the shimmering curtain that hid the rest of the store from view.

“Ugh, I’ve been getting some loiterers recently. I don’t know why. Maybe that’s them?”

“Maybe.” I pulled my focus back to the book, to the curse. “When was the last dragon moon?”

Claire looked at the calendar hanging on the wall. A picture of a cat with bat wings, sitting on a boulder, smiled at us. “Approximately three weeks and four days ago.”

“Exactly when Mom couldn’t shift into her dragon form,” Xavier said. He’d always been good with dates, but that day was especially memorable. I’d never forget the fear in my mom’s face when she realized she couldn’t access her dragon form, something that came so naturally to all of us. It must have been like waking up and finding all her limbs had been removed in her sleep. A gut-wrenching nightmare.

And it only grew worse.

I swallowed a lump of emotion, bottling it all up. I didn’t know how to deal with this. How was I expected to face the suffering and untimely death of my own mother? How could I stare into the dark empty space that was left in my chest? It was a constant ache. A constant wishing, wanting, willing.

And nothing happening. Nothing was bringing her back.

“Let’s find out where Helstriva was on that day, then,” Maddox said. “She had to have something to do wi—”

“Help! Help!”

A crash and a yelp immediately followed the sudden cries. All four of us were on our feet and running to the front of the store. That’s where the guy from earlier was being cornered by a group of tall and lithe vampires, all three of them baring their fangs, one of them holding a serrated blade that already seemed to be crusted with blood.

They were about to kill him.

And I wasn’t about to let that happen.

A roar ripped through my throat as I launched forward, my brothers right behind me, fire swirling inside me.

Chapter 5

Introductions

Robby

I should have known those three from the bus were sketch. I should have turned and walked the other way, but that would have taken me away from the snake-way. I wasn’t taking that damn bus again and these three weren’t going to stop—