Evelina was suddenly all business. “How much will he remember when he wakes up?”

“Very little, I should think,” Jorge said, shrugging. He moved near her, put his hands around her waist, and jerked her close to him, so that her breasts pressed against his chest. “Or, let’s say, he’ll remember what you tell him to remember.”

He sat down in the chair. Hiking up her skirt, he pulled her onto his lap and ran his hands up her bare thighs. Evelina’s mouth closed over his and she moaned as his tongue flicked against hers. Relaxing, her worries over, she gave herself to pleasure.

Pleasure with a normal man. Not a freak.

This was all working out for the best. At least now a freak wouldn’t be the father of her child.

Marcus would only think he was the father.

22

THE ABBEY WAS DARK AT THIS HOUR OF THE NIGHT, THE DEEPEST hour, the end of one day and the start of the next. At first, when Ven entered, he could not see Grald, not even with his dragon vision. He knew Grald was here—he could hear the man’s heavy breathing—but he could not locate him. Ven was not about to call out to him, like a lost child afraid of the dark. He assumed Grald was hiding deliberately, to try to intimidate him. Ven followed the sounds of the breathing and came to the thronelike chair that Grald used for his audiences.

The chair was empty. The sounds of the breathing came from the back, behind the chair.

Light flared suddenly, a torch ignited. Ven was momentarily blinded, and he squinted into the brilliance. The dragon crouched outside the cavern of his mind and, for once, Grald was not trying to scrabble or claw his way inside.

“I understand that you paid a visit to your siblings,” his father said.

Grald was a monstrous mound of flesh and shadow in the torchlight, a grotesque figure.

“Splendid, aren’t they? Like you, my son. You are the oldest, you know,” Grald continued, the eyes beneath the overhanging brow consumed in shadow. Not even a glint or gleam was visible. “There were others before you, but you were the first to survive. Finally I came upon the right combination. This might surprise you, but I’d never used a woman like your mother in our previous breeding trials. I deemed such human females, who were strong in the dragon-magic, too valuable. They protected Seth from invasion and, here in Dragonkeep, they help maintain the illusion that hides this city and bear those children who have grown up to become my soldiers. You saw the army, as well, I think. Draconas was most thorough.”

Ven remained silent. No need to speak, when all his questions were being answered.