“Listen to yourself, Riley.” The human faced the other in the dingy light, his voice solemn. “Listen to what you’re trying to do. This isn’t stealing a hatchling away from Talon. This isn’t walking up to a kid and saying, ‘Oy, mate, your organization is corrupt as hell and if you don’t leave soon you’ll never be free.’” He stabbed a finger at the laptop. “This is a bloody St. George compound. With bloody St. George soldiers. One slipup, one mistake, and you’ll be hanging from some corporal’s wall. Think about what that means, mate.” Wes leaned forward, his gaze intense. “Without you, the underground dies. Without you, all those kids you freed from Talon will be helpless when the organization comes for them. And they will, Riley, you bloody well know they will. Do you even care about that anymore? Do you care that everything we’ve worked for is about to go up in flames?” He gestured sharply at me. “Or has this sodding kid got you so wrapped around her finger that you don’t know what’s important anymore?”

“Hey!” I protested, scowling, but I might as well have shouted at a wall. Riley clenched his fists, nostrils flaring, as if he might punch the human or Shift into his true form and blast him to cinders. Wes continued to glare, chin raised, mouth pressed into a stubborn line. Both of them paid absolutely no attention to me.

“What are we doing, mate?” Wes asked softly, after a moment of brittle silence. “This isn’t our fight. This isn’t what we said we would do.” Riley didn’t answer, and Wes’s tone became almost pleading. “Riley, this is crazy. This is suicide, you know it as well as I do.”

Riley slumped, raking a hand through his messy black hair, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I know,” he growled. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been trying to convince myself I haven’t completely lost my mind since we left town.”

“Then why—”

“Because if I don’t, Ember will go without me and get herself killed!” Riley snapped, and finally looked in my direction. Those piercing gold eyes met mine across the room, the shadow of Riley’s true form staring at me. I shivered as he held my gaze. “Because she doesn’t know St. George like I do,” he went on. “She hasn’t seen what they’re capable of. She doesn’t know what they do to our kind if we’re discovered. I do. And I’m not going to let that happen. Even if I have to sneak into a St. George base and rescue one of the bastards myself.”

I swallowed, feeling something inside me respond, a rush of warmth spreading through my veins. My own dragon, calling to Riley’s, like he was her other half.