Read Kissed by Fire for Free Online

out,
everything taken, not just the heart. But other than that, it all
fits.”
    “What fits? What killed my niece?” He was
angry now. Impatient. But there was an eagerness there, too.
Definitely odd.
    I sighed. This was not a good time to be
right. If I was wrong about this, I would create some temporary
chaos. Piss some people off. But if I was right? Then I could start
a war. The gods help us all.
    “I could be wrong, but from the looks of
things, Alison was killed by something that’s not even supposed to
exist anymore.”
    “What?” he practically snarled at me.
    I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. This
was not going to go down well. “It looks like Alison was killed by
a Dragon.”

Chapter Four
     
     
    Alister and Dex stared at me as though I’d
suddenly grown a second head. I got that. It wasn’t every day
someone blamed a murder on a dragon. Especially since dragons had
supposedly died out centuries ago.
    “Did you just say ‘dragon’?” Dex
repeated.
    “Yeah, I did.” I slammed the scale down hard
on the edge of the table. It gave a dull ‘thunk’ but was otherwise
unaffected. “This isn’t metal or stone. If this were just about
anything else, it would have broken. It doesn’t scratch, either.
I’ll bet if we try and melt it we’ll find it’s resistant to fire.
And look,” I tilted toward the light, “it shimmers, changes color
like abalone. I’ve read up a bit on dragons, and their scales fit
the bill perfectly.”
    “This is a dragon scale.” Kabita sounded
gobsmacked. I couldn’t blame her. It was pretty cool.
    “You’re sure?” Alister’s voice still had that
strange edge of eagerness. It made me uncomfortable, though I
couldn’t put my finger on why. My Spidey senses didn’t really work
with humans.
    “Yes, I believe so.” I ran my thumb over the
warm surface and felt a little thrill run through me. I was holding
a real dragon scale. “Interesting, though, since dragons are
supposed to be extinct.”
    Alister didn’t comment and Kabita narrowed
her eyes at him. “According to the Hunter records dragons were
hunted to extinction nearly four hundred years ago. You have
anything to add to that? Dad? ” Her voice dripped with
sarcasm. Kabita was really good at sarcasm.
    Alister gave her a look before calmly
returning to his curry. “Not here, Kabita.”
    I glanced around at the other diners. They
looked harmless enough in their Saville Row suits and Manolo
Blahnick heels. Plus we were sitting pretty far away from anyone
else. He was right, though. Too many eyes and ears. Very cloak and
dagger, but anyone could be hiding in the crowd.
    Even if the restaurant was spy-free, there
were still plenty of innocent, ordinary citizens who’d be none too
thrilled to hear there were dragons on the loose. If there were
dragons on the loose. Murder wasn’t exactly dragon style. Full out
mayhem, certainly, but not murder.
    I turned the scale over in my hands again,
for once completely distracted from my dinner. What I held was
something akin to a scroll from the lost Library of Alexandria. If
I weren’t actually holding the thing in my hands, gliding my
fingertips over its smooth surface, I would have never believed it
was real.
    I glanced back up at Alister. “You want to
find out who killed your niece? We’d better get some answers.
Soon.”
    He gave me a regal nod that was just a tad
too theatrical. “Soon,” he agreed. “Soon.”
    I glanced at Kabita. Her expression was stony
as she focused on the plate in front of her. She didn’t want to
rock the boat? Fine. But this was a boat that needed to be rocked.
I was starting to get tired of all the non-answers. Kabita’s dad or
not, I was going to have to get bitchy.
    It wasn’t the British way to get all up in
someone’s face, but I’d been away from London too long and this was
too important to play the game of being civil. Because if I was
right, a lot of lives were in danger.
    “By soon, I mean today. You don’t