Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Dirk
“A lead? That’s all you can tell me?” Ella asked, working hard to keep up.
I jumped down to the floor below, my legs bending to absorb the impact as quietly as possible.
“Someone trying a little too hard not to be identified,” I explained, grabbing her waist as she dropped through the hole and swatting aside the idle thought of my dragon at the intimate grip.
Not now. We will have time to process what just happened between us. But later.
“That’s it?”
We hurried down the stairs to the rear entrance of the building. I pulled up my hood, tucking my hair deep into the shadows it created, while I waited for Ella to reach the bottom.
“That’s all you’re going on? Someone is trying hard to stay incognito?” she asked as I pushed open the door and held it for her. “Thank you.”
“Yes. Exactly. And you’re welcome,” I said, snagging her arm without asking. “We might be in pursuit, but there’s still time for manners when it comes to you, my mate.”
Ella fought back a smile, and we dove into the busy corridor, just another mated pair.
“Can you be a little bit more generous with your information, now that we’re ‘in pursuit,’ as you say,” she asked, her short legs pumping hard to keep up while I scanned the crowd ahead for the figure I’d seen exit the building.
“They’re wearing a hood. Looking down. Trying not to be noticed.”
Ella slowed until I pulled her along by the arm. “That’s it? That’s what has you so excited? That they’re wearing a hood?”
I gave her a look and then continued tracking our quarry.
“I’m serious, Dirk.”
“So am I.”
She sighed, letting herself come along as we weaved in between passersby. “I feel silly having to be the one to tell you this news, but you realize that you’re wearing a hood and trying not to be noticed. Right? Heck, so is that person there, and those over there.”
“It’s different,” I said. “I need to keep my profile down, so people don’t recognize me and make a scene.”
“And there’s no chance that person is doing the same thing?”
“I think that’s exactly what they’re doing.
After all, this person should have no reason to be sneaking out of a building, especially one that Mirko has gone to lengths to hide as being owned by him.
I can’t prove that his hair is perfectly coiffed, but the manicure on the nails gives me a solid guess as to who it might be. ”
“Andrik?” Ella whispered. “That’s who you think it is?”
“I see you’ve also noticed how he’s always done up.”
“Only because he looks like an out-of-place fool with an overinflated sense of worth.”
I expelled air from my nose in amusement. “Tell me how you truly feel.”
We followed our quarry across the streets of Kylma, from one busy street to another. Eventually, he turned down another street lined with shops but lighter traffic, forcing us to fall back even further so he didn’t grow suspicious about having picked up a tail.
“Why would A … he have to leave that way?” Ella asked, stopping herself before saying his name.
There were fewer people, thus less background noise. Dragon hearing was excellent, and I didn’t want Andrik to pick up on us. Not yet.
“I can’t think of a good reason,” I said, tugging her out from the middle of the walkway and lowering my mouth to hers.
Ella squeaked but quickly leaned into the kiss, melting up into me. My dragon once again bellowed in my head.
“Ow,” Ella said, pulling back as my fangs nicked her lip ever so slightly.
“Sorry,” I growled, looking just past her, my hood and her head concealing the vast majority of my face from anyone looking down the road. “My dragon is very much demanding I claim you right now, after we … after earlier.”
“It’s okay. But why the kiss?”
I approved of the fact she didn’t once look over her shoulder but instead stayed focused on me. My mate was smart. Thoughtful. I liked that.
“He slowed, and I suspected he was going to look back at us. I didn’t want our cover blown.”
Ella licked her lips. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m along after all. Maybe Caz was right.”
“Do not tell him that. His head is big enough as is,” I said, smiling. “Now come on. He went down an alley. Stay on my right, so I can look down it while pretending to talk to you.”
We strolled along at a much more sedate pace, and I leaned over to kiss the top of her head as we ambled past the alley entrance.
It was empty.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I cursed. “He’s gone. I should have …”
“What?” Ella asked, keeping her head against my arm. “What is it?”
“A Hunter,” I growled, a long-simmering rage boiling to the surface as I watched the figure emerge from a set of double-doors halfway down the alley. “And now I think I know where our long-nailed friend went.”
“What do you mean?” Ella asked, looking up at me once we passed the entrance to the alley.
“There’s another illegal market in there,” I stated. “I’m sure of it.”
Ella stiffened. “I can’t go in there, Dirk. I can’t.”
“Hush, my mate,” I said, pulling her in to my chest as her fear registered through the cold fury sinking into my bones. “I wasn’t going to make you.”
Seeing and experiencing that visceral reaction to the market from Ella only solidified my desire to march through the doors and slit the throats of every single Hunter or Elite inside. I could do it. I had done it. Before.
Frigid darkness was moving in, slipping free of the barriers in my mind as I thought deeper on the topic.
Of just what must have happened to Ella and her friends over the course of their lives.
How every day was filled with fear that it would be their last as free people.
Tracked by the Hunters, sleeping on edge, always with an escape plan, a way out.
Nobody deserved to live that life.
I had once tried to bring the Hunters to heel, to topple their entire organization, but I had gone about it wrong.
I was borne by guilt then, a guilt that fed into a rage.
For years I’d buried that, tried to move on.
But now, seeing Ella flinch brought it all back.
An old friend, draping its bloody desires over my shoulders once more.
The more Hunters and those who deal in Grounded and heart scales and electro-crystals that I can eliminate, the better.
The Hunters were supposed to protect the dragons of the Ice Kingdom from the creatures that plagued the wild. Rogue faeries, feral shifters, creatures from the deeps, things that could not be reasoned with. They weren’t supposed to be criminals, trafficking their own kind.
“Please, Dirk. Don’t go in there alone,” Ella said, pulling on my arm, a light reaching through the darkness to find my soul.
What little of one I had left.
But there must have been something. In the past, I would have given in, let loose the three heads of rage, vengeance, and single-minded purpose without thinking twice.
Now, small feminine fingers pushed their way between mine, squeezing tightly and holding on to them. Holding on to me.
Reminding me of what was still here. Of what I had to fight for now.
Mate.
I shook my head, banishing the cold fury and the beast I became with it. Instead, I latched on to logic, intelligence, and a new emotion—one I was still fumbling my way around understanding.
Was it love? The seeds of love? It was more than desire, more than caring. But I had never been in love before. It was foreign, unknown.
But I didn’t hate it.
“Sorry,” I said, fully returning from the brink.
“What was that? What happened to you there?” she whispered, searching my eyes for an answer.
“We all have our darkness,” I said, not ready to explain everything to her. Not yet. But soon. That day was coming. “Come on. You can wait here.”
I guided her across the street to the storefront that would allow her to see down the alleyway from between the racks of hanging rugs and woven wall art.
“Stay here. I’ll be back. Okay? If you don’t make it too obvious by sticking your head between the rugs, they won’t see you if they look.
But I have to go in there, Ella. I have to see what Andrik is doing.
It might be the best evidence we get against Mirko. Wait for me here. I’ll be back.”
Ella looked around unhappily, but I knew she couldn’t protest much. The street wasn’t a main thoroughfare, but people were still passing every couple of seconds. Not thirty feet away was a pair of guards.
I didn’t like leaving her, but no way was she was going inside, even if she’d been okay with it, and I had to enter.
“I won’t be long,” I said, kissing her briefly and taking the taste of her sweet lips with me as I went to interact with the worst the kingdom had to offer.
I was going to find the quarry. If it was Andrik, I would get the information I needed. Regardless of what I had to do to get it …