Free Dragon Heat by Ella J. Phoenix Page B

sofa. ‚I am sorry for having to reprimand you
    in front of the vampires.‛
    Sam looked up and smiled, but it never reached her eyes. ‚Oh,
    that’s all right. I probably deserved it.‛
    ‚You did?‛ Zoricah asked not believing her ears.
    ‚Oh, well, you had warned us about what could happen and told
    us not to overreact. And I did, so<‛ Sam shrugged and let the silence fill
    in the gaps.
    Zoricah frowned not understanding where the guilty-your-honor
    attitude was coming from. Something was wrong, very wrong. She looked
    straight into her youngest fighter’s eyes and tried to read what wasn’t
    being said but failed miserably. ‚Sam, what’s wrong?‛
    Sam looked away, then back at Zoricah and smiled again, but once
    more, it never reached her eyes. ‚I    had rescued Deirdre already. This waiting is driving me crazy.‛
    She was right; this whole abduction was taking a very big toll on
    them all. It had been one of the first times that someone close, a dear
    friend, had been their mission. But Zoricah knew her petite blonde fighter
    was not disclosing the whole truth. Unfortunately now was not the time
    for therapy session; maybe later, after they finished their job in New York.
    Apa Dobrý only knew Zoricah herself was in no condition for giving out
    inspiring advice at that moment.
    ‚Why don’t you go to bed and have a nice rest?‛ Zoricah suggested
    with the best motherly voice she could muster. ‚It’s almost dawn, and we
    have to be really sharp tomorrow night.‛
    ‚Okay. I think I’m just tired,‛ Sam agreed. ‚Yeah, that might be it.‛
    It was clear Sam was trying to convince herself more than Zoricah. She
    stood up, gave Zoricah one last small smile, and went inside.
    Once alone, Zoricah could not stop the images of the past
    forty-eight hours from flooding her mind. She had planned the whole
    operation, from tracing Tardieh’s personal guards to the meeting at
    Prospect Park. Of course she hadn’t anticipated that Yara would be
    outsmarted by a human bimbo at the nightclub and that Hikuro would
    take such a mind-boggling interest in Sam. She was very proud in the way
    Sam turned the debacle around and completed the mission with flair and
    innovation. She was still learning how to fully control her powers—she
    could blast a whole house with one energy blow—so it had been a nice
    surprise to receive the news she had managed to strike Hikuro with
    enough energy to knock him out but not too much to cook him alive.
    Images of Tardieh were next to invade Zoricah’s mind. She
    remembered his angry expression when he had mentioned the knocking
    out Hikuro business earlier that evening. Was that the reason for so much
    hatred? She had expected him to be suspicious or even cold but not angry.
    With sadness she remembered the end of the bloody war at the turn of the
    nineteenth century. Both vampire and dragon kings were assassinated,
    and Tardieh had been true to his word. He had contacted the draconian
    high council and led them onto an arduous but decisive peace deal. It took
    several decades before her country recovered from the damages of war.
    By the end of it all, humans had acquired too much knowledge and
    invented new technologies. The most traditionalist dragons had been
    forced to hide deep into the Russian far east mountains. The younger ones
    were happy to be scattered around Europe and Asia as dracos.
    She still remembered the last time she had seen Tardieh on the
    alleyway just behind his father’s castle in Romania. She had been so
    young back then; they both had. He had refused to promise her something
    he wasn’t certain of, and that had really touched her heart. Zoricah’s life
    had been filled with empty promises and deceptive friendships. It had
    been surprisingly refreshing to meet someone who would risk losing an
    ally for the sake of the truth. She had really admired him then. Well, being
    honest with herself, her feelings had been a