Page 260 of Dragon Slayer

Liam, though…

He took another sequence of deep breaths and turned back around, features schooled into a mask that was almost polite. “The girl. The one who escaped. She’s his daughter.”

Talbot didn’t blink. “Yes, I know. Mr. Price and his wife donated sperm and eggs respectively, and the children were incubated by surrogates, and raised in our New York lab.”

Of course. Because mage mothers had a hard time carrying children to term. Using their powers drained valuable nutrients from the fetus – and the reverse could be true as well.

And also…

“What the fuck,” Fulk deadpanned. “You bred your own mages.”

“We’ve tried to, yes.”

“How many?”

“A dozen survived past birth.” His expression clouded. “The Russian vampire killed one at the New York lab. A boy. Only ten-years-old.”

Fulk couldn’t say he blamed Nikita Baskin one bit, child or no.

He shook his head to clear it. “None of this explains why Liam is coming here.”

“Haven’t you figured that out yet? Our crusader will need a mage, and the girl escaped.”

Oh.

Oh.

~*~

It was the middle of the night, and there was nothing to see beyond the helicopter’s windows save layered shadows and the occasional pinging red light of a cell tower.

Mia had spent the day in a private jet flying across the country, meeting the oncoming night. From the tarmac, she’d been none-too-gently bundled into a dark-green military helicopter and told it would only be “about ten minutes” until they reached their destination.

Treadwell had tried to make small talk on the plane. She’d asked about Val, and he’d clammed right up, scowling. That was fine; she would get answers from her father, then.

She had a list of things to be angry about: the fact that she hadn’t had a chance to tell her mother goodbye, or pack a bag, or give her horse one last big hug. The idea of being taken in and of itself; abducted by people who weren’t acting according to any sort of law. The fact that she was about to be forced into her father’s presence again, when he was the last person on earth she wanted to see right now.

But clothes could be bought, phone calls to Mom could be made, and who knew, maybe it would prove cathartic to shout at her dad in person.

The untenable thing, for her, was Val’s situation.

After all, she was a girl living on borrowed time; why not go out with a bang doing something for someone who had a chance to live a better life – or several lives, as it were.

A net of yellow lights appeared just ahead, and Mia hitched herself up against the seat, straining to see out the window. A city, she thought; that was the only thing that would explain that many lights all clustered together.

The helicopter slowed, and she clutched at the hard-plastic edge of her seat as the machine tipped sideways and swept out in a wide turn. The beginning of their descent, then.

“We’re here,” Treadwell shouted at her over the constant thump of the rotors.

No shit. And then every other thought flew out of her head, because it wasn’t a city…it was a single house.

Not a celebrity mansion. Not a new-construction nightmare of clashing styles. This, its thousand windows blazing, its glass-walled conservatory lit up like an incandescent bulb, belonged to an age of landed gentry that had never existed in this country. The palatial estate of royalty. It had wings, and peaks, and leaded glass, and gas lampposts illuminating pathways and soaring stone staircases that led to gardens, and fountains, and a stable built to match.

In her awe, she forgot a little of her hatred for Major Treadwell. “What is this place?”

“Blackmere Manor, home of the Baron Strange of Blackmere. Unofficially. Officially: the Virginia branch of the Ingraham Institute of Medical Technology.”

~*~

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