Mentored in Fire (Demon Days, Vampire Nights, #10)

by K.F. Breene

All this time, the vampire had been playing the long game, strategizing how to get Reagan back before her father even knew she existed. Any doubt that Penny had possessed about his intentions toward Reagan dried up completely.

“Reagan Somerset, isn’t it?” “Yep. You knocked up my mother.” His grin pulled wider. “And you are the result.”

“Two for two. And you are…” I quirked an eyebrow at him. “A rescuer? A kidnapper? A jailer?” “Yes.” He laughed, a rich, hearty sound.

“It doesn’t matter, Turdswallop,” Emery said, his face closed down in concentration, his fingers moving. “This isn’t the only thing that will go wrong. We need to rebound.”

“If we get out of here—” “When…” he interrupted. “When we get out of here, I’m going to marry you. I don’t care what my mother says.” “I’d like that.” She heard the love in his voice. The hopefulness. She wished she had hope.

“Oh great, yeah. Good.” Penny shuffled a little closer to Emery. “I was hoping for more terrible things in this wretched place.”

“You will get a lot of opportunity to explore your…newfound tastes,” Darius said. “My newfound tastes—what does that mean?” Penny wondered.

“Who could hold on to lust in a place like this?” she muttered. Then Darius’s words finally registered. Newfound tastes. A new sexual appetite, he meant, for peeping. “He’s making fun of me. Even here, he is making fun of me for accidentally seeing him with Rea—”

“Vulnerabilities aren’t something to be afraid of. They make us stronger in the end. You cannot really hate unless you know how to love. And you cannot revel in rage if you don’t know great passion. You cannot claim true vengeance unless you’ve felt the rush of fear that something you love has been hurt or lost. You will never know your true strength unless you give in to your greatest weaknesses. I enjoy vulnerabilities. I enjoy feeling the edge of my comfortability. I enjoy the rage that comes from fear. A rage I will unleash on the elves when the time is right.”

The dragon had washed away every ounce of cool I possessed. Now I knew what Penny always felt like.

He had to know the lengths I would go to in order to win. It was a problem. I was not working on it.

I had a job to do: save my friends, bang my boyfriend, and then knock the elves down a peg so Lucifer could open up the Underworld and I could come and go as I pleased. That was the real end game. That was what I wanted. I wanted to be here on my own terms.

Anxiety and worry bled through the bond, followed by confusion, and then a gush of love so powerful my knees weakened. He felt me as I was feeling him. Relief washed in next, and suddenly I knew exactly where to find him. I could sense his direction in relation to mine.

My kinda dragon. No plan was a good plan.

Penny has been on the edge of breaking since she was forced to leave you behind, Darius thought. “Yes, I can see that,” I murmured. “That rat is talking about me, isn’t he?” Penny snorted. “I don’t even care.”

Cahal had been my rock in the storm even as he waded through dark waters of his own. If it killed me, I’d help him find his mate. I’d go to the gods or angels or dickheads to do it. And those might all be the same person, according to my father.