Chapter 23
Zane
Wow, this dude sure liked shiny things. Was it a dragon trait?
I ran my fingers over a gleaming gold picture frame, enjoying how the metal shone in the muted light from the massive picture windows.
Everything in this place glittered. Glinted? Gold ornaments, lights, jewel-encrusted vases. I half wondered whether the bathrooms were solid gold as well. The idea of taking a shit on a gold toilet made me giddy as hell.
I didn’t like the idea of gold beds, however. That would be too much. Nothing wrong with hard things, but not mattresses. Nobody needed a gold mattress.
“Do you reckon this dude sleeps on a gold mattress?” I whispered to Maverick, taking full advantage of all the shiny gold things to distract myself from doom spiraling.
It was that or commit mass murder.
Was that why my father lost the plot?
He must have doom spiraled after my mother died, only unlike me, he hadn’t had his harem mates to lift his spirits and ground him to reality.
“Don’t be a fucking moron,” Maverick hissed.
I grinned. Such a caring bear. I loved how he never missed an opportunity to cheer me up. Insults were care bear’s love language. It was the only explanation I had for the continual disrespect he showed me.
“Love you too, furry butt.” I made some cute little kissy noises, so he knew I meant it.
The bear threw me a glare that promised pain and suffering, both of which I needed to keep me on the straight and narrow.
I planned to lie low for now. No point in making it too easy for the mage security dickheads. Not that they stood a chance of catching me. But it amused me to think of them casting their pathetic attack spells while Brenda sliced and diced.
“Please make yourselves comfortable,” the dragon dude said. I immediately threw myself down onto a red velvet sofa and stretched luxuriously. Damn, if the beds were this soft and squishy, I might bring my pet back here for a vacation. This place was way nicer than the shitty vampire dorm.
And besides, after hearing the enraged voicemail Montgomery sent Maverick earlier, informing him his employment contract at Starfall Academy had been terminated for crimes against humans (utter bullshit) and murdering mages (much deserved), I doubted I’d be welcome back on campus.
Rasmus might get away with it as nobody knew who he was when glamoured, but Kai had blown his chances of a stellar education, although he probably gave no shits. Of all of us, he’d endured some of the worst discrimination from the mages and wolf shifters.
“Can you help us find our mate?” The dragon dude didn’t react to Maverick’s blunt question. Instead of replying, he plucked a bottle of elkwine from a shelf and placed it on the shiny gold table, along with glasses.
“Drink first, and then we talk.”
I snatched the bottle up and poured myself a glass of the liquor before handing it to Maverick.
“I’m cold,” I explained. “My magic reserves are low, so I can’t warm up. Fancy a cuddle?”
He bared his teeth at me, which I took to mean no. Since I genuinely was cold, I threw him an adorable little pout. Sadly, that didn’t work either.
“Mean.”
“I apologize,” the dragon said. “Dragons don’t feel the cold. Let me light a fire for you.”
“He’s not that cold,” Maverick scoffed, throwing me some side-eye. “Don’t go to any trouble.”
The vampire smirked but didn’t defend me. Kai had already checked out of the conversation. He stood by the window, staring out like a trapped bird. Or goldfish. Yeah, goldfish suited the vibe better.
“No trouble at all.” The dragon heaved a ginormous log from the basket by the obscenely ostentatious fireplace and tossed it onto the grate. Impressive. No way could I have lifted that log. Not without rupturing a disc.
The dude was one giant slab of muscle. Tall too. He had to be at least seven feet, which put him a couple of inches taller than the bear. With his pale blond hair and hulking frame, he reminded me of a guy I’d seen in a human movie. Thor?
“Have you got a hammer?” I asked, remembering that in the movie, Thor had wielded a giant hammer. Everyone turned to stare at me. “What?” I shrugged. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question!”
Olaf, not Thor, ignited the tree trunk in the grate with a stream of dragon fire. Smoke wisps curled from his nostrils when he dropped his giant ass into a leather armchair. It creaked alarmingly under his considerable weight but didn’t collapse.
“Do you have to buy special furniture because you’re so, um, heavy?”
Maverick rested his head in his hands and groaned while Rasmus stared at a painting of a dragon in flight as if it were the most interesting masterpiece he’d ever seen.
“I’m so sorry. The incubus has no filter. Please ignore him. We all do,” Maverick gritted out eventually.
Olaf chuckled. “It’s fine.” He swallowed a mouthful of elkwine and sat back in his chair, huge thighs spread wide. Was that an alpha dominance thing? From Maverick’s disgruntled rumble, I guessed so.
Kenji blinked into the room and trotted next to the fire. He flicked his tails and chittered at Olaf, who nodded.
“In answer to your question, no, I do not know where your mate is being held, but I can offer some background to why she’s been taken.”
My shoulders slumped in disappointment at the dragon shifter’s words. The sight of so much gold no longer interested me. What was the point in being surrounded by pretty baubles when my mate was missing?
“Explain,” the bear growled. Like me, he was on the verge of exploding. Count Jugular too, if his twitchy red eyes were any indicator. Although he could be thirsty. It had been a while since he fed from our mate.
“If you need a snack,” I whispered to him, “I can take one for the team.” He cocked an eyebrow at my suggestion.
“You’re offering your blood willingly?”
“Of course! I’m all about sharing. It’s the incubus way.”
“…Tiberius Vane and his witch wife have been experimenting on lesser magicals for years,” Olaf was saying when I tuned back in. “I’m not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with his dark magic experiments.”
“Is this why females have been going missing?” Maverick asked.
Kai’s chin snapped up. “My troll friend’s sister was taken,” he said in a quiet voice. “He’s been searching for her with no luck.”
Olaf nodded. “Yes. Some of the rarer females disappear completely, but others are being sold to mage sex clubs, which is how I met Kenji.”
I frowned. “I’ve spent a lot of time in mage sex clubs…” Maverick growled at me. “Before I met the other half of my soul,” I clarified hurriedly, in case he tried to bite my head off. “But I’ve never come across any trafficked females.”
“Only mages from Vane’s inner circle get invited to these private clubs. Kenji’s abilities mean he can cross any wards incognito. He discovered the underground clubs while searching for his missing cousins and inadvertently overheard Vane bragging about something of interest to me.”
“How did Kenji know you existed?” As far as I knew, there had been no dragon shifters for at least a century. A book I’d read, once upon a time while bored out of my skull, had stated the fae slew the last dragons while searching for dragon gold.
“Most of my family perished at the hands of the fae back in the 1800s, but a few of us survived and have remained hidden. My sister, Astrid, has a home in Siberia, and my cousin, Axel, lives in China.”
Wow! Dragons!
“Kenji knows many things. Kitsunes and dragons have always been allies. But I digress. We have been working together, along with a select group of magicals, to find out where Vane is taking the lesser magicals and other assets he steals. Kenji and his fellow kitsunes steal valuables from Tiberius Vane’s allies to help fund the resistance against the mages, while picking up valuable intelligence along the way.
At least they did until Kenji’s cousins disappeared while on a mission. ”
Kenji rested his nose on his paws and sighed, and for a hot minute I actually felt sorry for him—an alien emotion that took me by surprise. Then he shook himself and a sprinkling of hair landed in my glass, which killed any sympathy I had for the little bastard stone dead.
“This is all very interesting,” Maverick interjected with a tight smile, “but while we all agree that Tiberius Vane is a prick, I’m more interested in finding my mate.”
“Our mate,” I corrected for the fiftieth millionth time.
Olaf nodded. “Yes, it’s vital we find your mate. Kenji has told me how powerful she is. If Vane harnesses her power, it will become much harder to oust him.”
Rasmus frowned. “And you’re hoping to take his place?”
Was that why the big dragon dude had gotten involved in magical politics when outing himself was potentially dangerous?
Olaf chuckled. “No. I have no interest in politics. My only concern is finding my treasure.”
I looked around the gaudily furnished room in confusion. How much gold and shiny shit did one dragon need?!
“The resistance has pinpointed a few possible locations for Vane’s research facilities, and we would like your assistance in checking them out.”
“Where are these locations?”
“Alaska, Montana, and Arizona.”
Maverick sat up taller.
“My contact at the MIB discovered that shipments of synthetic blood were being sent to an address in Arizona,” he said.
“When he dug deeper, he found the GPS coordinates showed a remote farm, apparently abandoned for some time. If Vane is holding a vampire, then he’d need synthetic blood to keep them alive, as I doubt any of his followers would willingly become a blood source. ”
Rasmus turned to Olaf. “Is the mage scum keeping vampires in his facilities?”
Olaf and Kenji exchanged a look that spoke volumes. “We believe he has at least one vampire, yes, as vampire blood is essential for certain dark magic spells.”
I watched with fascination as the vampire’s fangs popped out, and he clenched the arm of his chair so tight it snapped like a twig.
“Our investigations suggest that Vane’s research team created the bloodborne virus,” he said. No surprise there. I think most of us already knew this. “He may also be behind the feral shifter disease, but we’ve found no concrete evidence of that yet.”
This time it was Maverick’s growls that filled the room.
Then Olaf turned my way, and what he said next floored me.
“Your father’s mental collapse was no random event.” Every part of my body stiffened, and not in a fun way. “Kenji overheard a conversation between Vane and his wife that said he’d had your mother killed and then used a dark magic enchantment to trigger psychosis in your father.”
Olaf’s words sliced into me. The emotional overwhelm was almost too much to deal with as the realization that neither of my parents needed to die hit hard.
“Why?” I stuttered, fighting the urge to blink away and track down the mage who’d ruined my fucking life. If Mom and Dad were still here, I’d have had a happy childhood instead of being raised by literal wolves.
Wolves that despised everything about me.
“Because Xavian was too powerful. Vane has spent the last two decades removing any threats from the board. First the vampires, then your father. And now the shifters. The witches align with his beliefs, and the lesser magicals don’t have the numbers to fight back or, like the mer queen, are happy to do deals in return for things they need. ”
I sensed Kai’s fury at the dragon’s revelation, but I shut him out. His mommy issues didn’t concern me.
“Vane’s a dead mage walking.” I plucked Brenda from my pocket realm and examined the runes engraved in the metal. Brenda and I would take great pleasure in carving Vane into tiny pieces.
“If I slice and dice the mage, you can light the barbecue,” I told Olaf, my sorrow at learning the circumstances of my parents’ death having morphed into ice-cold rage.
“Are you seriously suggesting we eat Tiberius Vane?” Maverick looked sick, which surprised me. I thought bears loved meat. Sure, the mage might be a bit gristly, but meat was a valuable source of protein.
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but before I could speak, a violent jolt of magic hit me right in the chest. The magical tether linking me to my pet flared back to life, and from the loud groans around me, I wasn’t the only one who’d felt her magic calling.
“I can feel her!” The bear shot to his feet and roared.
Kai dashed over, his eyes wide with anxiety.
“We have to go to Arizona right this minute! Raven’s in danger!”