Free Blood of the Dragon (Her Dragon's Bane 2) by Harmony Raines Page B

Connor
    Connor left Serena, and headed back towards the staircase, but not straight to the kitchen. Instead he went to find Zoah, and that trouble maker Tara.
    “I think we need more of an explanation,” he stated curtly.
    “Oh, do you? Well, I’d love to, but my leg is agony, and I really need to sleep.”
    Connor leapt at her, his body towering above hers. Zoah, seeing how this was going to go, for once stepped back to enjoy the show. Tara cowered from him, her hard façade slipping, and in the presence of Connor she couldn’t pull it back together.
    “Look. We need to travel to Spellholm to the dragons there. Only they know the secret.”
    “What’s in it for you?”
    “I have business there. And seems as how Zoah failed to get the one thing that might give me leverage, you and your mate are it.”
    “What’s this Zoah? She asked you to do something for her?”
    “Yes. It’s the reason I was so delayed getting to Charlotte. The trade off for Tara’s help was to get her something Samuel possessed.”
    “What?” Connor demanded, his face flushed with anger at the betrayal he felt. All of this was going on without his knowledge, it only confirmed his opinion of Tara. She was trouble, and the last thing he needed was to go into another dragon’s lair with a trouble maker. Not when he had Serena with him.
    “It doesn’t matter. It was a mere trinket, but now it’s gone in the fire.”
    Connor let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t trust you. Why don’t I simply lock you up and go to Spellholm with Serena alone.”
    “Because if you do, you'll fail.”
    “What difference can you make to the outcome?”
    “I’m a seer. The dragon there will grant you an audience if you take me with you. Otherwise he will turn you away. He is old and jaded, corrupt you might say. But offer him the gift of foresight and he will take it.”
    “And you are going to do this out of the kindness of your shrivelled up heart?”
    “Now, I didn’t say that did I?”
    He growled the last words, his voice terrifying. “Again I ask you. What is in it for you?”
    She shrunk from him, but still answered, “You could ask nicely.”
    Connor lashed out, his fist hitting the stone wall, making the room shudder. “Tell me. And less riddles.”
    “I have my reasons for going, they do not have anything to do with you. If I go alone he will think it’s a trick.”
    “And you give me your word it’s not?”
    “I’ll do better than that.” She stood up, and went to the window, pulling back the drapes. Mumbling words he could not make out, she waved her hand across the glass, and there appeared an image of Serena, with a young dragon. Well young by human years, to Connor he must have been about fifty or sixty years old. Serena did not look a day older than she did now.
    “Mind games and tricks,” he said, his voice choked with emotion at the sight of his son.
    “The child she carries is real, the picture before you is real. As things stand, if you take me to Spellholm with you this will come to pass. Your mate will gain immortality.”

Chapter Nineteen - Serena
    “I’m so glad Hope is here with you, Serena.”
    “I couldn’t leave her in the apartment. We both know what Samuel would have done to her.”
    “He was such a terrible man. I don’t understand how he could take such pleasure in hurting other people. We did nothing to him to make him hate us.”
    “He didn’t hate us. He simply used us to get his own way. That’s what people do.”
    “That doesn’t sound like you, Serena.”
    “I know. I’ve changed. I suppose it’s knowing I have a child growing inside me that will be hunted down if anyone ever finds out what he really is.”
    Charlotte came and sat by the side of her, placing a hand on her sister’s belly. “You really are pregnant?”
    “I think so, Tara said so. Not that I don’t trust her to make it up. But ... and I know this sounds silly ... I feel it. I feel different in a way I can’t