every step she took. Her eyes were dark and her gaze was hard. She was slender, moving with the stealth and elegance of a great cat. She stopped in front of Rania and put out her hand.
“My uncle,” she said.
“Yes.” Rania spun the blade so that the hilt was toward the djinn and bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You thought you had no choice,” the djinn said. “I think maybe you didn’t, not the way the odds were stacked against you, and even if it was a choice, there is honor in defending your own.” She took the blade, smiling down at it as it caught the light. “He had this made.”
“It’s beautiful, lethal and beautiful.”
The djinn moved like lightning, catching Rania around the shoulders and spinning her so that the tip of the blade was at her throat. Hadrian stood up but Rania’s eyes flashed and he recognized that she wouldn’t fight back.
Was she surrendering her life or did she know that the djinn wouldn’t strike the final blow? He wasn’t sure but he eased back, trying to quell the telltale blue shimmer of light that surrounded him.
The djinn addressed the Others, still holding Rania captive. “I was the wise woman of my kind. They came to me for counsel and for healing, for advice, for my glimpses into the future and for my wisdom. The Dark Queen stole that from me when she seized all the magick, trapping mine in the gem of the hoard along with her own. My uncle was devastated by the loss and his vigor failed, because he had lost hope in the future. I blame the Dark Queen for that as much as for the final stroke of the kiss of death. His death disheartened us even more, and I would take that back.” She flung Rania aside and held the bichuwa high, so that the curved blade glinted in the light. “I am Yasmina, and I would be wise woman of the djinn again. I would retrieve our legacy, so wrongfully taken from us, and I will ally with this swan-maiden to see justice served for once and for all.” She raised her voice to a roar. “Are you with me?”
And the Others roared agreement.
Rania ran toward Hadrian, her eyes alight with pleasure and he caught her up, swinging her around in triumph. “Take me there now,” he urged. “I need to get started, then you can come back for Yasmina.”
She framed his face in her hands and looked deeply into his eyes, her own filled with unshed tears. “We will win,” she said with heat. “We will win, for our son.”
“We will win because you apologized,” he told her with pride, his heart bursting that this warrior maiden was his destined mate. “It takes strength to admit a mistake.”
“I had to learn to do it, from you,” Rania said with a smile.
The firestorm couldn’t have chosen better for him. He loved her with every fiber of his being, and knew their partnership had been meant to be.
Rania laughed, then the Pyr and the Others shouted approval as she kissed Hadrian thoroughly.
He didn’t even notice the vampires or Sylvia leave.
Mel watched as Hadrian breathed slowly and deeply in the middle of the dance floor at Bones. He’d shifted to his dragon form and Rania sat beside him, watching in silence as he banked the fires. He was much better at it than any dragon shifter Mel had seen before and she was impressed by how quickly his pulse and breathing slowed. When she thought he couldn’t go deeper into what had to be a trance, he did, until it seemed that he wasn’t breathing at all.
She looked at Theo, only to find him watching intently, as if he could learn by example. When she looked back, Hadrian had shifted to his human form. He was so still that he could have been dead, but Rania seized his wrist, nodded once to the Pyr, then they both vanished into thin air.
Murray gave a low whistle and turned back to pull a beer.
It was Raymond who gave her a poke and pointed at the dance floor. “Unless I am mistaken, the dragon will have need of his armor,” the ghost whispered.
Sure enough, an emerald and silver scale was resting there.
“It’s not just a firestorm,” Mel told the Others, indicating Hadrian’s lost scale. “Hadrian loves her.”
“That tells us all we need to know,” Drake said, claiming the scale from the floor. “The firestorm always chooses right