Page 4 of Siren's Gift

His family was also leopards, each connected with their cat spirits at birth, much like the wolves. They enjoyed getting together at holidays and other events but knew when enough was enough and were happy to go their separate ways again.

The Sato family had lucked out getting someone like Aaron involved in our businesses. Not only was he a whip-smart accountant who cooked the books with precision, but his feline abilities made him an excellent spy.

Normally, I didn’t do the sneaking around part of our jobs, but we were getting close to finally tracking down the source of Ichiro’s pyrocrystal supply. With all the precautions my friends and I had taken to keep our activities hidden from Ichiro, it had taken over a month just to get this far.

We needed to know how my grandfather was manufacturing so many crystals so quickly, and we needed evidence to prove it. Plus, I needed a distraction to keep from thinking abouther.

I curled my hand into a fist as anger and hurt swept through me for the thousandth time. For the first time in years, I was failing. And it wasn’t from doing a task poorly or not meeting expectations—all of which Ichiro would argue I did every day.

No, I was failing at finding someone with my near-unlimited resources.

I still hadn’t found Bree. She and her sister had vanished after the fight, and no matter how much money I spent on resources or who I sent looking, I’d turned up empty-handed. Not even that stubborn fae woman knew where they went.

Marissa should have been easy to find, but her massage school claimed they had no records of a student named Marissa Johnson, nor anyone matching her description. There was only one explanation at this point—magic was involved.

Just as Frankie had said, the siren left a note apologizing for deceiving us both. I’d read it a hundred times, hoping to discover a clue in her words.

But there was nothing.

Nothing but the constant heartache her absence caused ever since her siren song had released its grip on my mind.

I wouldn’t stop until I found Bree, if only to ensure she was safe. But it was becoming increasingly obvious she truly wanted nothing to do with me, a fact that threatened to consume me if I thought about it too much.

Shaking my head, I refocused on the current task. Besides looking for the siren woman who’d stolen my heart, my friends and I had been digging into the Sato holdings, trying to find everything we could about the dangerous pyrocrystal trade. But because it was illegal and forbidden amongst dragonkind to do what Ichiro was doing, information was hidden deep.

The more we dug, the more questions that popped up. The amount of pyrocrystals my grandfather could produce in such a short amount of time was impossible unless magic was used. And let’s face it, of course he’d used magic. There were no other logical alternatives.

So now the questions had become which kind of magic and who supplied it. Dragon magic wasn’t enough. There was more to this equation; I just needed to know what I was missing.

Although the Gifted Interests Government governed most of the Gifted population, we dragons had a hierarchy all of our own. The High Draconic Council had overseen all dragon activities around the globe for centuries, and the next Council meeting was coming up quickly. It was at that meeting that I planned to expose my grandfather’s actions.

Ichiro had tried many times over the decades to gain a seat within those esteemed ranks, but his business acquisitions and dealings had made him too risky a choice.

Needless to say, he was not pleased.

I had a gut feeling the pyrocrystals were somehow tied to my grandfather’s revenge against the Council. That he had exploited the dragon community at large as a big ‘fuck you’ to the Council. I certainly wouldn’t put it past the grumpy old bastard.

Mentally, I snorted. The only bastard in the Sato family was me. The only known bastard, at any rate. I was sure there were plenty of others, even some sired by Ichiro himself. But none were as offensive as the babe who’d cost him his daughter’s life.

Aaron lifted his head and tilted his ears toward the container’s door.

The bolt slid sideways, and the door cracked open.

I tensed for a fight.

CHAPTER 3

Bree

As much as I tried not to let these human guys get to me, my patience had run dry after the unexpected reappearance of my scales. Rage surged through me like a tsunami, and I flexed my hands, ready to unleash.

But before I accidentally outed myself as Gifted, the human was lifted off me.

Brutus threw the guy halfway across the basement, where he crashed into a group of gaping onlookers. They fell into a heap of scrambling bodies, and my anger dissipated into a laugh.

I accepted the bouncer’s offered hand and let him pull me to my feet. "Thanks."

"I know you didn’t need the help, but I gotta keep up a reputation, you know?" He winked before turning to handle the fighter, who was now yelling like a madman as he struggled to disentangle himself from the others.

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