Conrad
TWENTY-SIX
The sensors went off at three in the morning.
I was awake because I didn't sleep well in new places, and especially not with the turmoil in our lives. Madd was beside me—where else would he be?—and he had his leg on my thighs, pinning me to the mattress.
I’d been lying in the dark marveling at how the universe had paired me with this man. But that led me to think of my twin, and I didn’t want to go there. As I pondered the direction of my life, the alert came in, and my phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Flint had given me a secure handset linked to the sensor network. I'd built the system in two days with parts from a hardware store and Ranger's grudging assistance. I’d told myself it was probably overkill for a threat that might be weeks away.
The screen showed a thermal signature at high altitude. Moving east to west, it was approximately eight hundred feet above the ground and consistent with a dragon circling in a glide pattern.
They’re here. My dragon hadn’t been asleep either.
At least one of them is. Maybe more.
I was out of bed before the second alert.
“What is it?” Madd shot up, his eyes wide with fright.
“There’s one dragon, circling the perimeter.”
He was on his feet and pulling on clothes, but I was already halfway to the door. The corridor was dim and quiet, but within seconds, it was teeming with people. Ranger came around the corner fully dressed with his phone in his hand. Words weren’t necessary because he’d received the same alert.
“Your sensors work.” He held up a hand to shush me before I’d gotten a word out. “Don't be smug and say you told me so. Now what are we dealing with?”
“It’s a single dragon doing reconnaissance. He's not attacking because he’s waiting to see how quickly we respond.”
Ranger swore. We moved down to the operations room that Flint had set up on the ground floor. The screens showed the sensor data. The thermal signature was still circling. That was the flight pattern of a dragon who wasn't worried about being detected. And that bothered me.
Flint arrived with Hunter thirty seconds later. He looked at the screen and told me to explain what was happening.
I recognized the flight pattern which was textbook Solari. That had to be one of Vasik’s team. For sure Vasik was on the ground somewhere because he never sent anyone up without being in position himself.
I pointed at the flight path on the screen. “A scout who doesn't want to be seen flies fast and high. This one is circling at eight hundred feet, so he wants us to see him."
“He’s a distraction.” That was Madd. He understood the technique based on the undercover work he’d been doing for Flint.
I wanted to hold his hand and tell him it was okay. I’d protect him with everything I had which was my life. But this was no time for mates to be saying what was in their hearts.
“That's what I'd do. Draw every eye to the sky and send someone on the ground while the perimeter is focused upward.”
“Ranger, get teams to every ground-level entry point now.” Flint wasn’t taking any chances.
Ranger was already moving, snapping instructions into his phone. Madd stood beside me. His presence was the only thing keeping my dragon from surging to the surface because everything in me wanted to shift and meet the circling dragon in the air and tear it apart for coming near us.
Not now. Think smart.
My dragon snarled but stayed where he was. If he shifted now, this would be the second compound we’d destroyed.
The minutes ticked away and reports came in, but no one had sighted another a dragon.
The radio squawked with Ranger's voice. “We've got someone at the main gate and he's asking to speak to Conrad. He must have shifted because he’s naked.
There was no need for Ranger to say the name. It had to be him.
“He says he's Vasik.”
Madd's hand found my arm. “You’re staying here until they contain him.”
It was hard to restrain a dragon shifter. His hands and feet had to be tied in a way that it quashed his ability to shift.
“I’ll go.” I explained about the restraints but said they wouldn’t be necessary if he stayed outside to deliver the message.
“Not alone,” Flint said, and Madd backed him up.
“He won't talk if there's a crowd. That's not how he operates.” I held Flint's gaze. “Vasik is a professional. He's here to deliver a message. If Evander wanted to attack, that dragon wouldn't have been circling.”
“Madd goes with you, and Ranger covers from inside the gate. Anything feels wrong, you pull back.”
I didn’t tell Flint but if something wasn’t right, I’d be taking my scales. But I objected to my mate being there. I needed him tucked up tight inside the building.
“I’m coming too.” Madd wasn’t looking at me, but his tone told me he wasn’t accepting any argument.
“Fine, but let me do the talking.”
We walked to the gate in the predawn light. The compound was alive around us with people at every post and their eyes on the sky. This was what they were trained for.
Vasik was standing ten feet from the gate.
Someone had thrown him a blanket which he’d wrapped around his hips.
He didn’t have a gun because he’s shifted, unless he’d been here before and secreted a weapon somewhere.
He didn’t look any different than usual, though his eyes were darting around, checking out everything so he could report back.
“Conrad.” He sounded as he always had and gave a slight nod out of habit. I may have been the son my father ignored except when he wanted something from me. But the flight members had addressed me as their superior. It didn't mean he was still on my side.
"Vasik."
“You've upgraded their security.” He glanced at the sensor mounted on the gatepost. “That's your design.”
“You're here to talk, not admire the hardware.”
We'd worked together for years. He understood my directness, and I was aware of how patient he and his dragon could be when they were drawing out an enemy.
“Evander has sent a message.” Vasik's voice caught as he mentioned my twin. They hadn’t worked together much in the past, and I wondered if Evander’s performance was not what Vasik expected from an Alpha, especially one who happened to be an omega.
“He acknowledges the mating but doesn't accept it.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Madd blurted out.
Damn. Madd, not now. He had every right to speak his mind but not here and now. I grabbed his hand, hoping he’d understand I needed him to stay silent. As I expected, Vasik didn’t acknowledge my mate. If he had, he would have given it the attention of a man who was about to squash a mosquito.
“He recognizes the bond exists, but he considers it illegitimate because the original arrangement was not honored.” Vasik paused. “He's offering a resolution.”
Madd swung toward me, hostility in his eyes, not directed at me, I sensed, but at what Vasik had said.
Vasik went on to say Evander wanted a meeting with me, but there could be no security and no wolves. He sent Madd a withering glance, and my mate stuck out his chin.
“He says it's a family matter.”
I held my beast down tightly as he begged me to set him free.
“My twin killed our father and called it a family matter too.”
“He’ll pursue other options if you don’t agree.”
The message was clear. He'd rain down fire on us with twenty dragons overhead. No one would be safe.
Madd was rigid beside me. He was simmering, and he was barely containing his wolf who wanted to rip through the gate and deal with this messenger.
“Tell him I'll consider it.”
He walked away, and the dragon overhead broke its circle and followed him east. Within minutes the sky was empty and the sensors showed nothing.
“You're not meeting him alone.” Madd had his hands on his hips. He looked like the fiery alpha I knew him to be.
“That’s right.”
“No, Conrad, this is not a situation where you say one thing and do another. Whatever he's proposing, you're not walking into a room with him without me.”
I looked at the sky where the dragon had been. “He's using Father's tactics. First a distraction using a messenger. It’s the personal approach people appreciate. But Father was patient and Evander isn't. This meeting request suggests he's running out of options.”
“Or he's setting a trap.”
“That’s also possible.”