Read Smoke and Fire: Part 3 for Free Online Page B

“No.”
    “But you saw the tattoo, right?” Grace asked.
    She turned back around with the coffee between her hands to face the women. “Each of you are mated to a Dragon King, correct?”
    “Yes,” they answered in unison.
    Just as she’d figured. “Tell me how long you were with them before they told you who they really were.”
    All four looked at each other, suddenly very uncomfortable. Whatever hurt Kinsey thought she was getting past reared its head again. She knew the answer. Why did she have to ask it? Did she like being hurt again and again?
    Sammi was the first to say, “Tristan was sent to help me since I was being targeted by the Mob, which of course is run by Ulrik. I saw him in dragon form when I fell from a mountain and he caught me. I’ll admit, I was scared for a bit.”
    “My father was murdered,” Iona said. “That’s why I returned to Scotland. Since Campbell land borders Dreagan, I became the custodian. I fell for Laith the first time I saw him, and loved him before I knew he was a dragon. I learned about Dreagan and the Dragon Kings slowly, so when Laith shifted, I was in awe, but never afraid.”
    Kinsey wanted to curl up into a ball. She started to tell the others never mind, that she didn’t need to hear any more, but Grace was already talking.
    “I had writer’s block and found Arian’s mountain. I saw him battle a Dark Fae, and I’ll tell you, I was horrified and scared out of my mind. I’d only known Arian for a few hours, but he was injured from the Dark magic. I couldn’t leave him. Helping him back to the mountain prompted him to tell me everything. Mostly because he thought I was working for Ulrik, which I kept telling him was wrong,” she ended with a laugh.
    Kinsey stared into the black liquid of her coffee. Her blood pounded in her ears as each story was confirmation of what she’d suspected from the beginning.
    Long minutes passed before she realized there was silence in the kitchen. Kinsey looked to Lexi who was staring at her. “And you?”
    “I don’t think it matters,” Lexi said.
    Kinsey appreciated her kindness. “It does. Please tell me.”
    Lexi swallowed, sadness in her slate gray eyes. “I already told you how I saw a Dark kill my friend and I began hunting them. I knew there was something different about Thorn, so I followed him one time when he left me at the flat. I saw him shift in the warehouse in Edinburgh to burn the bodies of the Dark he’d killed.”
    “Don’t forget how Guy wiped your memories of Thorn, and yet they returned to you,” Grace said.
    They could wipe memories? Now that was something Kinsey hadn’t known. Interesting. And freakishly chilling.
    Lexi shrugged at Grace’s words. “The point we’re all trying to make, Kinsey, is that the first time we see them we’re all a little scared. They’re huge and powerful and immortal.”
    “The point, Lexi,” Kinsey said with as much of a smile as she could muster past the hurt in her chest, “is that each of your men showed you who they were. They chose to make that decision. Ryder kept it from me. He left me. For three years I had no contact with him or a way to talk to him. Then, out of nowhere he’s there. One minute as a dragon, and the next as a man.”
    Sammi’s gaze was full of misery and sorrow. “You’re in love with him.”
    “No,” Kinsey stated firmly. At one time she was, but not anymore. “That time is long gone.”
    “Perhaps not,” Grace said.
    Kinsey walked past them as she said, “It was nice meeting you.”
    She hurried up the stairs to the third floor. The walk down the corridor to the computer room seemed exceptionally long that morning. She couldn’t help but feel as if everyone at Dreagan was watching her.
    Or it could be the dragons in the pictures lining the hall.
    Either way, it was eerie.
    “Did you sleep well?”
    She halted at the voice coming from inside a darkened room she’d just passed. Kinsey backed up and leaned to peer inside the