Talon. Julie Kagawa

out.’”

      “I’m sure it’ll come to you.” He headed to the back corner, stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of alcohol. I continued to glare at him, and he sighed. “Look, just think of it as an exercise. Observe and blend in. Try to think like the enemy. You’ve done that before, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “It’s the same thing. Adapt. Engage in conversation. Smile sometimes.” He grabbed the nearest twelve-pack and tossed it at me. I caught it, and my partner shook his head with a grin. “Poor Garret. He can face down fire-breathing dragons and leap from a helicopter at two hundred feet, but stick him with a bunch of adolescents and he falls apart.”

      I ignored the jab, holding up the twelve-pack of beer. “What’s this for?”

      “Forget torture and interrogation. You want someone to spill their guts, share a secret or reveal they’re actually a twenty-foot winged lizard that can breathe fire?” Tristan smiled wickedly and picked up another case. “This is the quickest way. Besides, most parties nowadays are BYOB.”

      “What?”

      “Bring your own booze.” Tristan rolled his eyes. “Seriously, partner. We do have a television in the bunkhouse. Sometimes, too much training is a bad thing.”

      “I don’t drink.” Not that the Order didn’t allow it; in a profession as dangerous as ours, they recognized the soldiers’ need to unwind, as long as it didn’t devolve into drunken stupidity. But alcohol muted the senses and made people do silly, incomprehensible things. I wanted to be fully in control of myself, always.

      “Everyone at this party does, I guarantee it,” Tristan said. “And you, my friend, are going to, as well, if you want to blend in.” He shouldered the case and turned toward the exit. I followed, grabbing a two-liter of Coke for the drive home.

      Back at the apartment, I put the beer in the refrigerator and sat down at the laptop on the kitchen table. Opening a secure link to Order Intelligence, I paused a moment, then typed, Requesting subject analysis into the subject line at the top. Continuing to the body of the email, I wrote, Garret Xavier Sebastian, ID 870012. Requesting detailed background information on potential targets: Alexis Thompson, Kristin Duff and Ember Hill. Location: Crescent Beach, CA. Importance: high. Response: immediate.

      Clicking the send button, I closed the laptop and leaned back in the chair, thinking of the encounter this afternoon. My mind kept drifting back to the red-haired girl, Ember. The other two girls I’d nearly forgotten, though I knew I shouldn’t write them off so quickly. But Ember was the one that mattered. When she’d first looked at me on the beach, my entire body had seized up for a moment, something I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t catch my breath; I couldn’t do anything except stare at her. And for a split second, I’d wondered if she knew who I was, why I was there.

      Fortunately, Tristan had appeared, and the fight with the college students had cleared my head, though I was still fairly annoyed with myself for losing focus. I was a soldier. What had happened between me and the girl, whatever that was...it was a fluke, something that wouldn’t happen again. I knew my mission. I was here to find and kill a dragon. Nothing else mattered.

      I had to stay focused. I would not let myself be distracted by thoughts of a red-haired girl with bright green eyes, even though she’d surprised me today and made me laugh. Even though I admired her fierceness in standing up for herself and her friend.

      Even though, hours later, I could not seem to get her out of my head.

      Ember

      “Hey, Dante, do you ever miss flying?”

      My twin looked up from his desk and open laptop. We were hanging out in his room with me sprawled on the bed, flipping through a surfing magazine while he streamed videos on his laptop. The window was open, and a cool breeze filtered through the curtains, smelling of sand and seawater. The digital clock on his dresser read 11:22 p.m. Late, but I was too nervous and excited to sleep, despite the somewhat exhausting day I’d had. Determined to make up for yesterday’s dud waves, I’d dragged Lexi out past the reef this afternoon, and we’d surfed until the sun went down. Of course, this was after my training session with the dragon from hell, hauling bags of compost around the building for two hours straight. It took a thirty-minute shower and three scrubbings of shampoo to wash the stench from my hair, and I was positive my instructor got the extrarank bags just to spite me.

      Dante gave me a strange look. “Yeah,” he answered, swiveling in his chair to face me. “Occasionally. Why? Do you?”

      “All the time,” I admitted, closing the magazine. “I mean, that’s why I love surfing—it’s the closest thing I can get to flying, but it’s not the same.”

      “Oh? I thought it was because you loved getting pounded by waves and bashed against reefs and nearly drowning.” Dante grinned and shook his head at me. “Typically, you’re supposed to start with tiny waves and work up to the monsters. You’re not supposed to go charging into eighteen-foot surf on your first lesson.”

      “Calvin said I was a natural.”

      “Calvin nearly got his ear chewed off by Aunt Sarah when she heard what happened.” My twin’s expression darkened. “This was after he nearly got his head bitten off by your furious brother when they dragged you out of the water that day.”

      “I said I was sorry about that.” We were getting off topic, and I held up my hands. “Anyway, the point is, I miss flying. A lot. Do you...” I fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “Do you ever think about...breaking the rules?”

      Dante frowned. “What do you mean?”

      “Well...sneaking out. Finding some lonely corner of the beach, where no human could possibly see us, and...Shifting. Just for a few minutes, just enough to go flying around—”

      “No.”

      Dante’s voice was sharp. I blinked in surprise, looking up at him. His face was grave, worried, his brows drawn together in a serious frown. “We can’t do that, Ember. Ever. Tell me you’re not thinking about it.”

      My stomach twisted, but I shrugged. “Sure, I think about it sometimes,” I said, keeping my voice light, uncaring. “But that doesn’t mean I’d actually do it.”

      “Good.” Dante relaxed. “Because if we ever did something like that and Talon found out?” He shivered. “At best, they’d call us back for reeducation. At worst, they might think we went rogue. Like that dragon we saw on our first day here. You don’t see him around anymore, do you?”

      I studied a loose thread on the blanket. “No.”

      Guilt prickled. I hated lying to my brother, but there was certainly no way I was telling him about the rogue. The first time we’d seen him, Riley had disappeared and, coincidentally, our trainers had arrived the very next day. Dante never spoke of the incident in the parking lot, evading the question or ignoring it completely when I asked. I strongly suspected he had done something, informed Talon about the rogue dragon, and Riley’d had to get out of town before the Vipers came for him.

      Now, not only was he back, he had challenged me to come flying with him, defying Talon and all their rules, daring me to do the same. And, though my dragon practically jumped out of my skin at the chance, the situation with Dante made me a little sad. I’d always told my brother everything before, but there was no way I was letting him in on this little secret. Riley could vanish, for good this time. I wasn’t going to let him get away again.

      Maybe sensing my mood, Dante rose, walked over and dropped beside me, putting a hand on my back. “I know it’s hard sometimes,” he said as I picked morosely at the string. “But it won’t be forever. We should just enjoy this while we can. I don’t want to risk losing what we have here. And...I don’t want to risk us getting separated. So, we have to follow the rules for now, okay, sis?”

      “Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “You don’t have to