Charred Tears (#2, Heart of Fire) Read Online Free Page B

afraid to ask who Gavin considered to be a bad person, when he’d gone to such lengths to outsmart Chace and kidnap her.
    “Can I ask … why did he trade me to you?” she asked. “So he could become human?”
    Gavin didn’t answer.
    “I’ll just ask him later,” she told him. “Whether you tell me or he does, I’ll find out.”
    “He’s dead.”
    “No, I don’t think he is.”
    Gavin’s blue eyes settled on her. He’d gone rigid again, his features tense.
    “You wouldn’t be like this” she waved her hands at him “if he was dead. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not happy with him right now. But I think unless one of us is dead, I’m supposed to be with him. The way mom and you were together. Right?”
    Gavin rose and started away, stopped, then began pacing.
    Skylar watched him, sensing he was close to telling her something important, but not at all certain what her unpredictable dragon shifter father would say.
    “While you were with the slayers, did you ever find any reason to believe your mother was alive?” he asked finally.
    Skylar tilted her head to the side, not expecting the question. “I’d hoped you’d know.”
    “I don’t.”
    “Then why did you torch the slayers’ compound?” she demanded. “What if all the answers we need were right there?”
    “They weren’t.”
    “You don’t know that!” She rose. “Dad, there are hundreds of brainwashed slayers like me, probably the children of other shifters. All our personnel files were on the computers at the compound. I could’ve found some way to get into them, to help them, maybe even to find Mom. But you had to torch the place.”
    “The people and place that took you away from me? I’d gladly torch it again! I don’t give a damn about the other slayers.”
    “I’ve never seen anyone throw a temper tantrum like a dragon,” she said. “You are just as bad as Chace.”
    Caleb’s library. Skylar suddenly recalled a second place where she might find out more: the treasure trove of information about slayers and shifters, allegedly collected over thousands of years in Caleb’s house north of Phoenix. Was the large library, too, another well-manufactured falsehood? Or was some part of it real?
    “I operate under different rules.”
    “Are all dragons like this?” She sighed. “Anyway, I want to go back to the slayers. I want to help the others and find Mom.”
    “No.”
    “No?” she echoed. “I’m not asking, Gavin.”
    He glared at her. “I spent the past six years trying to find you. I’m not going to lose you the way I did your mother.”
    “I get it. But I have my own life and make my own decisions. I’m not happy sitting here all safe and pretty while my friends are being brainwashed.” And I want to find Chace, not just my mom.
    “You won’t find him.”
    Skylar eyed him, not about to ask if dragons were able to read minds. She was afraid he’d say yes.
    “You’re not going anywhere, Skylar. This isn’t your – our fight. I followed through with my agreement with Chace about giving the other shifters a refuge. That’s as much as I care to do.”
    “Was that why he traded me?” she asked curiously. “So you would protect the others?”
    “Chace came to me and wanted to become human. He offered up everything that was his in exchange. I agreed. Later on, he realized what a stupid thing he’d done in granting someone else his magic. Without it, the other shifters would have nowhere where they’d be safe. He asked me for a new deal, one where I’d agree to protect them. In exchange, he hunted you down and brought you to me.”
    Skylar listened, uncertain whose actions were more appalling: her father tricking Chace into giving up his magic or Chace for being stupid enough to trust Gavin.
    I’m related to him, and I know not to trust him.
    “I don’t know if that’s better or worse than what I thought,” she admitted. “He traded me to you because he wanted to protect the others, but only because