Mikhail felt the moment her life slipped away. The last bit of breath in her body vanished, and the silence where her heartbeat should have been was deafening.

There was nothing there now. Nothing. Nothing at all.

He threw back his head and roared. The rafters of the small museum quaked around them as his dragon surged to the surface. It forced itself through the thick, deadening weight of whatever Conrad's drug had done to it, but not even that could stop the dragon ...