Free Bloodlust by Helen Harper Page B

amazingly helpful information, you know. We’ve been trying to find something concrete about him since we got back to London. You’re the only person who’s managed to come up with anything. Well done.”
    Aubrey blinked several times. Then he started to sniff, and his eyes became visibly glassy. He let out a small hiccup. Before he descended into full blown hysterics, I wisely took my leave. I’d done enough crying of my own recently. I didn’t need to watch anyone else do the same, even if it was for a happy reason.

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    I checked my watch as I barrelled out of Clava Books and sprinted back home, feeling a burst of sudden renewed energy from Aubrey’s intelligence. It was still early evening so that meant that there was plenty of time to prepare myself. Nightclubs weren’t generally my thing, and Unseelie Fae nightclubs even less. If I was going to inveigle my way inside and get hold of this Tarn, then I had to be ready for every eventuality. The promise of what could finally be a real lead on Endor’s whereabouts had set my bloodfire tingling. I smiled to myself as I unlocked my shiny red front door. It was about time things started to go my way.
    Once inside, I quickly plonked myself down at the kitchen table with my laptop, lifting the lid and logging on to the Othernet. As promised, as soon I was connected, huge warning signs and plaintives requesting information about Endor popped up. At least the other council members were doing something right. A photo and caption towards the bottom of the page caught my eye and I frowned, clicking on it. As soon as I did so, a vast photo of Corrigan flashed up. My eyes lingered on it. He was wearing dark trousers and a green shirt that highlighted the jade of his eyes. My stomach squirmed. Quashing down those feelings as best as I could, I scrolled down, staring in horror at what was written there.
     
    Our very own Lord Alpha, pictured here at a local fundraising event, seems to have gotten himself into a rather fiery situation. After disappearing for a few days, apparently into the wilds of rural Shropshire, he was spotted with an as yet unnamed redhead. Word is that the draconian Brethren leader was smitten. That is until she unceremoniously – and very publicly - gave him the old heave-ho. A lesser man may have burst into flames of eternal embarrassment at the snub. Not so our dark-haired were-panther, however, as the very day after he was spotted with a brand new squeeze. No doubt the mysterious redhead is spitting fire at his fast recovery.
     
     
    Fucking hell. Seriously fucking hell. I let out an inarticulate yell into the screen and I could feel little explosions of heat flaring up through my intestines. This wasn’t just some inane piece of gossip from a tawdry Otherworld blogger. It was effectively calling me out. ‘Fiery situation’? ‘Draconian brethren leader’? Oh, this self-styled journalist was going to see exactly just how much fire I really was capable of spitting out if I caught up to them. It now appeared that the whole fucking world was about to know about my Draco Wyr heritage. The only thing that this spelled was trouble. Why the fuck couldn’t this have happened after Endor was taken care of? Not only was there the chance that the necromancer himself might read it and I’d lose any element of surprise I could have had when I finally tracked him down, transformed into a dragon and bit his sorry little head off, but now I’d have all manner of idiots wanting to know more about me. The way that even the Arch-Mage and the Summer Queen had behaved before the events at Haughmond Hill, with their determination to follow me around and encourage my allegiance to them, had been sickening. I didn’t need it from every other Tom, Dick and Otherworld Harry at the same time. And that wasn’t even to mention the mysterious ‘they’ who’d been after my mother, or rather me, in order to theoretically rid the world of the Draco Wyr