Legend Of The Highland Dragon by Isabel Cooper Page A

the house of a wealthy man who lived alone—who was known to keep few servants and to send those away at regular hours—it wouldn’t be at all unusual.
    And while Stephen had said the manes weren’t coming back for a while, Ward could have conjured up other things.
    Mina swore under her breath and found that her mouth had gone completely dry.
    MacAlasdair was locked away being a dragon for a little while longer. Running to get the police would give the burglars or demons or whatever time to do their work and get away. If they were working for Ward and managed to see Stephen in dragon form, that would be awful. If they weren’t human and caught either Stephen or the rest of the servants by surprise, that would be even worse.
    She took the poker from the fireplace. It hadn’t helped much last time, but she wouldn’t be facing a dragon now—at least, not with any luck.
    Mina went up the stairs slowly, keeping close to one of the walls and moving as quietly as she could. She wasn’t bad at that. She was no burglar, but she was a slim woman with a light step, and one who’d spent her life in crowded houses.
    Nobody was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. No hand lunged out of the dark hallway to catch her wrist; no chloroform-soaked cloth descended over her nose and mouth.
    Not yet, at least.
    She snuck down the hallway, passing one closed door after another. No noise came from within any of them so Mina kept going, the poker heavy in her hand.
    Then there was a thump at the end of the hall, from a room whose door had been left open just a crack. From what Mina knew about the house and what she’d seen from the servants’ routine, she thought that it was MacAlasdair’s bedroom.
    She stepped closer, pressing herself against the wall.
    “…anything in there?”
    It was a male voice, and the accent was familiar. The speaker might have been any of the men she’d grown up with.
    “Lot of fancy clothes,” said another similar voice. “You?”
    “Nothing big enough. Couple sets of cuff links, though,” the first man added, clearly pleased by this unexpected development. “Look like gold, they do.”
    “Well, don’t ’old out once we get clear of this place. ’E only cares for one thing, after all.”
    Mina had heard enough.
    Slowly, she put the poker down, then moved away and into the bedroom next door. Shuttered windows and dust cloths announced that nobody had slept there for some time, but the furniture still remained: a bed with a brass frame, a washstand, and most importantly for Mina’s purposes, a dark wooden desk and a chair to match.
    Good thing she was a strong girl.
    Even so, when she lifted the chair, she knew she’d pay for it later—and that she wouldn’t have managed it normally. Fear did wonders for the human body.
    As she approached MacAlasdair’s room again, one of the men inside spoke.
    “Nothing ’ere but papers. Bloody desk was the devil to open, and it’s just a lot of scrap.”
    “Anything look valuable?”
    “Damned if I know, Bill. Do you take me for a barrister?”
    Mina set the chair down very slowly, wiped her sweating hands on her skirt, and then grasped the doorknob. The door closed very quietly so she wasn’t sure either man had noticed the click.
    Then came the chair. Terror still fueling her muscles, she shoved it against the door and wedged the top under the doorknob.
    “’Old up a tick, Fred,” said Bill. “Was that door closed before?”
    Mina didn’t wait to hear the rest. She picked up her skirts in one hand, the poker in the other, and ran. Behind her, the doorknob rattled. Then the door itself thumped.
    The chair was sturdy, but it wouldn’t hold forever, nor against all force. Mina didn’t know how strong the men in MacAlasdair’s room were. She went faster, taking the stairs down two at a time. She didn’t let herself look behind her because that wouldn’t help anything.
    It had been getting dark before she went upstairs. Surely the first stars