Authors: Coreene Callahan
Another flash. More blue-white light.
Jesus Christ. The E&E (evade and escape) had gone from simple to goat-fucked in seconds. Lothair glanced over his shoulder. He caught a flash of green scales and shimmering ruby-red eyes. Venom was right on his ass. Terrific. Nothing like the threat of getting hammered by poisonous exhale and then flambéed by fire to motivate a male.
Diving beneath a rocky overhang, Lothair flew in close, hugging the cliff face. He heard the hiss of breath, got a whiff of the Nightfury’s special brand of poison. Derrˋmo, it smelled nasty, like gasoline mixed with turpentine and rotten eggs. He needed to get the hell out of range.
Two more minutes, a little fancy maneuvering, and…
Poof. He’d be gone. But 120 seconds seemed like an eternity. Especially with Tweedledum and Tweedledee breathing down his neck.
The two males were like dogs with a bone: vicious, tenacious with bucketfuls of never-say-die. Literally. Which was a shame. Seeing them KO’d would’ve been fun after the clusterfuck of a night. Another high-energy female lost to Rikar and his band of bastards. Man, that stung. It really did. Enough for him to want to say “fuck the plan” and turn around long enough to hammer the Nightfuries riding his tail.
Too bad he wasn’t stupid enough.
No way would he screw with Ivar. Disappointing the boss man never ended well for a male, so…yeah. He’d stick to the plan and buy Denzeil enough time to get the females out of the underground lair. Which left him on bait duty, swishing his tail, leading Tweedledum and Tweedledee on a wild goose chase through mountain passes.
But later. When the female captures were secure? He’d come back for revenge. To get what he was owed before the round ended and the bell went ding-ding-ding.
Another bright flash. More thunder.
Banking hard, Lothair flipped sideways, threading the needle between two cliff faces. His fast flight ripped stone from the mountainside. Shards of rock flew, splintering into long, jagged pieces. Lothair held his breath, listening for—
Yup. There it was. The curse he expected, and even better? A hiss of pain. He’d nailed the green-scaled bastard with a face full of fuck you. His night was looking up. Now only one thing left to do. Find Tweedledee. The black one with gold-tipped scales and a mouth like a toxic blowtorch wasn’t behind him.
Making himself small, Lothair rocketed through another crevice. The rock face closed in, narrowing into a tight channel. His wing tip dragged along the granite rise. Lothair ignored the burn, absorbing the pain. Distraction wasn’t an option. He needed to stay focused to stall for time.
His velocity nearly supersonic, his night vision flared, picking up trace: the arc of electricity, the dampness in the air, a slight disturbance in the magical shield guarding the lair’s back entrance. Bingo. Tweedledee at ten o’clock, gold-tipped scales gleaming in the storm-flash, hanging like a gargoyle off the cliff face.
Hmm…clever plan. One on chase duty, herding him toward the kill zone. While the other waited with his finger on the trigger, an exhale away from blowing him out of the sky.
Lothair stifled a grin. The bastards deserved full marks. An A-plus-plus, because whatever else they were, stupid wasn’t one of them.
He bared his fangs. Time for the grand finale.
The first raindrop hit, splattering his scales, sliding across the bridge of his nose. More followed as the sky opened like a gift. The hissing deluge blurred dark mountain edges, distorting sound. Lothair hummed and counted off the seconds.
The Nightfury exhaled.
Blue-orange flame flashed against rain-slick rock. Rocketing toward him, the fireball ate through the darkness, streaking like a comet with a furious tail. Muscle gripped his bones, and Lothair held his breath, timing it to perfection. An instant before the lethal mix of fire and toxic gas struck, he tucked his wings. Gravity took hold. He fell like a stone between the cliff faces. Fire hammered the mountainside. Granite exploded, raining down like shrapnel, rock mixing with rainfall. Like a wild animal, the jagged ground approached with a snarl.
Ten feet from contact, the air crackled, rattled the spikes along his spine.
A growl locked in his throat, Lothair shifted into human form, cloaking himself with an invisibility shield as he plummeted. A tug. A rough pull and…
Bam!
Magic grabbed hold and dragged him sideways. He hit the energy shield protecting their lair at maximum velocity. The barrier expanded then contracted, rippling like water before snapping like a rubber band. He catapulted into a cave, into a face full of dark, damp, and musty.
With a curse, he tucked into a ball and rolled. Sticks, stones, old bit of bones scratched at his skin. Lothair didn’t care. The only thing that mattered lay outside…in the rain, hunting for any sign of him. Had they seen his freefall turned rescue? Had they detected the crack of magic in the air? Derrˋmo, he hoped not. The storm played on his team tonight, an ally throwing out electricity like a whore gave out blow jobs.
So…yeah. Fingers crossed. Maybe he’d gotten lucky.
Heart thumping, Lothair landed in a crouch. Balanced on the balls of his feet, his eyes narrowed on the mouth of the hidden cave. Breathing hard, he waited, struggling to hear through the blood rush as he listened for sounds of pursuit: the scrape of claws against stone, the hiss of an exhale, and growl of dragons.
Foolish, he knew. The energy shield was solid. Not even the Nightfuries could break through it. At least not for a while. And he needed less time than that.
Sure, the bastards would eventually figure it out. But they’d spend the rest of the night scratching their heads, hemming and hawing before hammering their way into the lair. By then, he’d be long gone. Along with the female captives.
“Surprise, surprise, motherfuckers,” he murmured, the chill in the air raising goosebumps on his bare skin. Still he watched the entrance, counting off the seconds. When he got to thirty, he relaxed and conjured his clothes. The idiots didn’t have a clue. His mouth curved. Nightfury losers. “Have fun trying to find me.”
His footfalls soundless in the gloom, he pivoted and strode toward the back of the cave. Skirting tall stalagmites, he approached the rear wall, reached out, and, curling his fingers around a small stone ledge, pressed down. The lever clicked. Metal shifted, the clink and grind sounding loud in the silence as granite slid sideways, uncovering a steel door.
With a flick, Lothair opened the keypad and punched in his code. Another series of locks. More clicking, and he was over the threshold. He hit the stairs running, his boots rapping against steel treads as he slammed the door and reengaged the electronic locks with his mind.
Down. Down. Down. The circular staircase went on forever, taking him into the bowels of the earth, closer to the underground lair. When he reached the bottom, he checked in with his comrade.
“Denzeil…where you at?”
“On the move
,
”
the male said, sounding out of breath.
“Females in tow.”
“Keep it tight. I’ll meet you in the garage.”
“How soon?”
Lothair sprinted past the old clinic.
“A minute and a half
.
”
A female screamed, her terror coming through mind-speak loud and clear.
Denzeil grunted. The crack of knuckles sounded against flesh. A female voice begged for mercy in the background as Denzeil asked,
“Nightfuries?”
“Clueless, but not for long.”
Lothair’s lips curved, reluctant admiration for his friend’s methods growing with each female sob.
“Get your ass in gear.”
“Ten-four
.
”
Ten-four
. Lothair fought an eye roll. Denzeil’s trucker lingo drove him bat-shit crazy. The male might as well have said,
Breaker, breaker-one-nine, good buddy
. He shook his head, wind whistling in his ears, pace NASCAR fast. The male watched way too many reruns of
Dukes of Hazzard
. Still, terrible taste aside, Denzeil was useful most of the time, solid in the heart, if not always in the head. So, yeah. Guess he was living with the eighteen-wheeler crap.
Uneven concrete crumbling beneath his boots, Lothair skidded around the last bend. Boxes lay strewn in all directions: up against walls, in the middle of the corridor, stacked three high in some places. And in between them? A pool of congealed plasma and blood-spattered walls…his parting gift from the she-cop.
A whole lot of
get even
banged around inside his head.
Lothair pushed it aside. He needed to keep his head screwed on straight and stay focused on the exit strategy. But later? New plans would be made with payback in mind.
With a swallowed curse, he put the memory away and ran past the mess, leaping over an overturned box as he headed for a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. He hammered the wooden panels, punching through into the garage. Just in time too. The party had started without him.
Slowing to a jog, he watched Denzeil toss the second female into the trunk of a rusty Oldsmobile and slam the lid closed. The bang echoed in the large cavern, bouncing off the domed ceiling and smooth stone walls. It pissed him off. Angela should be there, crammed in with the others, coming along for the ride as his personal pet.
Fucking female.
Somehow, some way, he’d hunt her down. And when he did? No more Mr. Nice Guy. High-energy female—ideal for the breeding program—or not, he didn’t care. Ivar and his order could go to hell this time around. The second he got his hands on the she-cop, he’d rip her heart out. Watch it beat in his palm as he raised it high. Like a trophy. Like the conqueror he was and always would be.
Chapter Eleven
Sitting in the backseat of a cab, Tania Solares rubbed the bridge of her nose, wondering what the hell had happened. The last thing she remembered had something to do with plants, a watering can, and a box full of Miracle-Gro. Not surprising, really. As a landscape architect, her job required all three, but not at…
She pushed the sleeve of her sweater above her wrist. No watch. Huh. She could’ve sworn she’d buckled up the faux snakeskin band before she left home, but boy, her brain was fried. And she felt frazzled, like she needed to hurry up for no apparent reason.
With a frown, she glanced out the side window. Rain streaked the glass, running in rivulets as thunder boomed overhead. Another storm. Another day in Seattle. As the tires splashed through puddles, washing waves of dirty water over the street curb, she watched storefronts flash past, neon signs blurred by rainfall. She shook her head. What the heck was going on? No way she should be riding around in the back of a taxicab so early in the morning.
Raising her hands, she rubbed the grit from her eyes. Clue number…she paused (well, she didn’t know what number, but they were piling up and she could take a hint). Okay, so she was sleepy, like she usually was when she got out of bed each morning. But as far as she could tell, the sun had just come up, so…
Leaning forward, Tania rapped on the partition between her and the driver. “Excuse me?”
Tired brown eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Huh?”
“Can you tell me what time it is?”
“Ah, sure.” Deep wrinkles got deeper as he squinted at the clock embedded in the dashboard. “Six-seventeen, miss.”
Tania nodded her thanks and sat back. Six-seventeen a.m. Yikes, she was done for…already scrambled and the day had barely begun. Not a good sign. Particularly when her meeting with the bigwigs was scheduled for later this morning. Well, all right. At least she remembered
that
, but the lost hours worried her. No surprise there. She was always kind of worried, but the missing memory bugged her more than the usual stuff. She could almost touch it. Could see the hole with her mind’s eye, but couldn’t fill in the blanks.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the headrest. God. What was her problem? A brain tumor? Early-onset Alzheimer’s? Okay, now she was just being a jerk. Twenty-eight was too young to be losing her mind, but really, what else could a girl do after experiencing…
What, exactly?
The question gave her a headache. As the thump-thump-throb caught rhythm, banging like a drum on her temples, she grabbed her handbag and plopped it into her lap. The monstrosity took up all the real estate, sagging over the tops of her tights as she rooted around inside. Finding a bottle of Advil, she popped the cap and downed two, hoping for some relief because she sure as heck wasn’t getting any answers.
Why…why…why?
The continuous question circled, chasing its tail, making her hate the word all over again. She had every right. Her life was nothing but one big string of
whys
. The most recent casualty was Myst. Her best friend was missing. Taken. Murdered. Goddamn it, she didn’t know what had happened. And guess what? Neither did anyone else…cops included.
Her throat grew tight as she thought of her best friend. The situation pushed past strange into downright frightening. Something bad had gone down at Caroline Van Owen’s.
Chewing on the inside of her lip, Tania stared out the window, hands strangling her handbag as her imagination went wild. Maybe the pregnant girl’s abusive boyfriend had come home. Maybe Myst had gotten caught in the crossfire. Maybe a flat tire had taken her off the beaten path on the way home and a serial killer had—
“Stop it,” she whispered, staring at her reflection in the window glass. “Get a grip, you big scaredy-cat.”
She tried. She really did, but…God. She was driving herself crazy, imagining all sorts of awful scenarios. Ones that involved chainsaws and wood chippers. And the cops on the case? Big jerks. Okay, that wasn’t fair. Detective Keen was cool. Tough, sure, but as compassionate as they came. Her partner, though?