“Yes, I’m defending him!” Ember exploded. Her tail lashed, smacking the barn wall with a hollow bang. “I’m defending him because he is not your enemy. Because all he has done from the moment he left the Order is try to help rogues and other dragons. Because it doesn’t matter what he tells you, you’ve already made up your minds not to listen.” Tongues of fire snapped along her fangs, flickering brightly in the shade as the red dragon gave a furious snarl. “This is why the war never ends,” she raged. “Because we refuse to let go of the past. Because we’re too damn stubborn to sit down and actually talk to each other.”

“Talk?” The lead dragon sneered, glaring at me over Ember’s spines. “What’s there to talk about? He’s a fucking dragonkiller.”

All three teens’ attention was focused on Ember now, so they didn’t see Riley melt out from behind the corner and stride up behind them, his expression dangerous. Without a word, the rogue leader calmly hooked the neck of the teen leader’s shirt, yanked him back and threw him face-first into the barn wall. The teen bounced off the planks, reeled back and collapsed to the ground as the other two yelped and skittered away, eyes wide.

Groaning, the stunned teen rolled over and looked up to see Riley standing over him, smiling grimly. “Kain,” Riley said in a perfectly conversational voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Cobalt! Nothing, I...” Kain staggered upright, rubbing his jaw, then turned to point at me. “He’s a soldier of St. George! Did you know that? Did you know he’s a dragonkiller?”

“Of course I did, moron,” Riley growled, narrowing his eyes. “Considering I brought him here, did you think I had no idea? Yeah, he used to be part of St. George. He’s also fighting for us now, and he has a lot of info on the Order that I thought would be useful in, oh, I don’t know, protecting brats like you from St. George. I brought him here because I was looking at the bigger picture, and I thought everyone else could see it, too.” His eyes narrowed. “But it seems that my network is nothing but a bunch of hotheaded thugs who want to pick a fight.”

Kain shrank back, looking cowed, but still glaring at me with a mixture of fear and hate. “St. George killed Isaac.”