The man in the center raised a hand. “So, to be clear, Talon had planted one of their operatives in Crescent Beach, and you were sent to find it.”
“Yes, sir.” Tristan gave a short nod. “We were there to kill a dragon.”
A murmur went through the room. From the very first day the Order had been founded, soldiers of St. George had known what we fought for, what we protected, what was at stake. Our war, our holy mission, hadn’t changed in hundreds of years. The Order had evolved with the times—
firearms and technology had replaced swords and lances—but our purpose was still the same. We had one goal, and every soldier dedicated his entire life to that cause.
The complete annihilation of our eternal enemies, the dragons.
The general public knew nothing of our ancient war. The existence of dragons was a jealously guarded secret, on both sides. There were no real dragons in the world today, unless you counted a couple mundane lizard species that were pale shadows of their infamous namesakes. True dragons—the massive, winged, fire-breathing creatures that haunted the mythology of every culture around the world, from the treasure-loving monsters of Europe to the benevolent rain-bringers of the Orient—existed only in legend and story.
And that was exactly what they wanted you to believe.
Just as the Order of St. George had evolved through the years, so had our enemies. According to St. George doctrine, when dragons were on the verge of extinction, they’d made a pact with the devil to preserve their race, gaining the ability to Shift into human form. Whether or not the story was true, the part where they could change their form to appear human was no myth. Dragons were flawless mimics; they looked human, acted human, sounded human, to the point where it was nearly impossible to tell a dragon from a regular, everyday mortal, even if you knew what to search for. How many dragons existed in the world today was anyone’s guess; they had woven seamlessly into human society, masquerading as us, hiding in plain sight. Hidden and cloaked, they strove to enslave humanity, to make humans the lesser species. It was our job to find and kill as many of the monsters as we could, in the hopes that one day, we could push their numbers over the brink and firmly into extinction where they belonged.
That was what I’d once believed. Until I met her.
“I’ve read your report, St. Anthony,” Fischer continued. “It says you and Sebastian made contact with the suspect and began your investigation.”
“Yes, sir,” Tristan agreed. “We made contact with Ember Hill, and Garret began establishing a relationship, per orders, to determine if she was the sleeper.”
Ember. Her name sent a little pulse through my stomach. Before the events of Crescent Beach, I’d known who I was—a soldier of St. George. My mission was to make contact with the target, determine if it was a dragon and kill it. Clear-cut. Black-and-white. Simple.
Only…it wasn’t so simple. The target we’d been sent to destroy turned out to be a girl. A cheerful, daring, funny, beautiful girl. A girl who loved to surf, who taught me how to surf, who challenged me, made me laugh and surprised me every time I was with her. I’d been expecting a ruthless, duplicitous creature that could only imitate human emotion. But Ember was none of those things.
Fischer continued to address Tristan. “And what did you determine?” he asked, speaking more for the benefit of the court, I suspected. “Was this girl the sleeper?”
Tristan stared straight ahead, his expression grave. “Yes, sir,” he replied, and a shiver ran through me. “Ember Hill was the dragon we were sent to eliminate.”
“I see.” Fischer nodded. The entire room was silent; you could hear a fly buzzing around the window. “Please inform the court,” Fischer said quietly, “what happened the night of the raid. When you and Sebastian tracked the sleeper to the beach after the failed strike on the hideout.”
I swallowed, bracing to hear my betrayal lined out for everyone, play-by-play. The night that had brought me here, the decision that had changed everything.
“We’d found the target’s hideout,” Tristan began, his voice coolly professional. “A nest of at least two dragons, possibly more. It was a standard raid—go in, kill the targets, get out. But they must’ve had surveillance set up around the house. They were in the process of fleeing when we went in. We wounded one, but they still managed to escape.”
My stomach churned. I had led that strike. The targets had “escaped” because I’d seen Ember in that house, and I’d hesitated. My orders had been to shoot on sight—anything that moved, human or dragon, I was supposed to gun down, no questions asked.
But I hadn’t. I’d stared at the girl, unable to make myself pull the trigger. And that moment of indecision had cost us the raid, as Ember had Shifted to her true form and turned the room into a blazing inferno. During the fiery confusion, she and the other dragons had fled out the back and off a cliff, and the mansion had burned to the ground.
No one suspected what had happened in the room, that I’d seen Ember over the muzzle of my gun and had frozen. No one knew that the Perfect Soldier had faltered for the very first time. That in that moment, my world and everything I’d ever known had cracked.
But that was nothing compared to what had happened next.
“So the strike was a failure,” Fischer said, and I winced inside at the word. “What happened after that?”
For the briefest of moments, Tristan’s gaze flicked to me. Almost too fast to be seen, but it still made my heart pound. He knew. Maybe not the whole affair, but he knew something had happened to me after the failed strike. For a short time after the raid, while headquarters was deciding what to do about the escaped dragons, I’d disappeared. Tristan had found me a while later, and we’d gone after the targets together, but by that time, the damage was done.
What had happened after the raid, I’d never told anyone. Later that night, I’d called Ember, asked her to meet me on an isolated bluff, alone. I’d been wearing my helmet and mask during the raid; she hadn’t known I was part of St. George. From the hurried tone of her voice, I had guessed she was planning to leave town, possibly with her brother, now that she knew St. George was in the area. But she’d agreed to meet with me one last time. Probably to say goodbye.
I’d been planning to kill her. It was my fault the mission had failed; it was my responsibility to fix it. She was a dragon, and I was St. George. Nothing else mattered. But, once again, staring at the green-eyed girl down the barrel of my gun, the girl who’d taught me to surf and dance and sometimes smiled just for me… I couldn’t do it. It was more than a moment’s hesitation. More than a heartbeat of surprise. I’d stood face-to-face with the target I had been sent to Crescent Beach to destroy—the girl I knew was my enemy—and I could not make myself pull the trigger.
And that was when she’d attacked. One moment I was drawing down a wide-eyed human girl, the next I was on my back, pinned by a snarling red dragon, its fangs inches from my throat. In that moment, I’d known I was going to die, torn apart by claws or incinerated with dragonfire. I had dropped my guard, left myself open, and the dragon had responded as any of its kind would when faced with St. George. Strangely enough, I’d felt no regret.
And then, as I’d lain helpless beneath a dragon and braced myself for death, the unthinkable had happened.
She’d let me go.
Nothing had driven her off. No one from St. George had arrived in the nick of time to save me. We’d been alone, miles from anything. The bluff had been dark, deserted and isolated; even if I’d screamed, there’d been nothing, no one, to hear it.
Except the dragon. The ruthless, calculating monster that was supposed to despise mankind and possess no empathy, no humanity, whatsoever. The creature that hated St. George above all else and showed us no pity, gave no quarter or forgiveness. The target I’d lied to, the girl