Fury of Desire (41 page)

“Stands to reason,” Rikar said, lacing his fingers with Angela’s. Treating his mate to a heated look, the Nightfury XO pressed his mouth to the back of her hand… against the mating mark that matched his own. As Wick watched, his throat went tight. Deep-seated sorrow followed, surprising him even as he accepted it. He would never do that… never treat Jamison with such open affection. “If the club is a Dragonkind asset—”

“It’ll be surrounded by powerful magic,” Bastian murmured, interrupting his best friend. “A smoke screen to keep the humans off the trail. One worthy of Ivar.”

Wick hummed, excitement sinking deep. Finally. A viable lead. Something to stick a target on. “Could be his new lair.”

“A good source of cash flow too.” Big hands gripping the back of the couch, Venom leaned in, making the sectional groan. “We need to check it out. See if there’s an underground complex beneath it.”

“Then blow it sky-high.” Wick cracked his knuckles. Fucking A. A club full of Razorbacks. A contained space with limited exit points. Or rather, escape hatches. God, he
couldn’t wait to unleash hell and hit the bastards where they lived.

“And so we will.” Swinging his feet off the table, B stood. “But not tonight.”

A litany of curses rippled through the room.

Green eyes flashed in warning as Bastian shook his head. “Tonight is for celebrating. To relax and get some much needed R & R. Deuce’s isn’t going anywhere. We’ll do some more research, get an action plan together, and hit the club tomorrow night. In the meantime… Sloan, you got anything for me?”

With a nod, Sloan hit a few keys. Dark eyes unreadable, he swung the laptop around on his thighs. “DNA’s a match, B. Azrad’s telling the truth. He is your sire’s son… your brother by blood.”

The pronouncement landed like a bomb, sucking the air out of the room.

No one moved. No one said a word. The entire pack waited, poised on the edge, wondering which way to jump. And where Bastian would land. On the safe side of sanity? Or in Guiltsville for leaving his younger brother to a fate worse than death after the murder of their sire. The fact B had been abused, confined, made to submit to the Archguard’s cruel guardianship before he went through his
change
didn’t matter. Neither did the fact he’d fled as a fledgling male in order to save his own life. Nor that he hadn’t known of Azrad’s birth. Not to Bastian. Wick knew it just by looking at him. An honorable male, his commander couldn’t stand the thought of abandoning those he considered his family.

No one got left behind. Pure and simple.

It was part of the Nightfury code. A credo Wick lived by, loved, accepted without question. Except in this case,
someone had gotten left behind. Azrad. So only one thing left to do. Figure out how to make it right. For Bastian. For the brother his commander didn’t know. For the entire Nightfury pack.

“Fuck.” Raking both hands through his hair, B hung his head. “What the hell am I supposed to do? He was sent here by Nian. Has ties to the Archguard, for fuck’s sake. Despite what he says, I can’t trust him.”

“No, but you can test him,” Wick said, stepping into the breach… as much for Bastian as for Azrad. He understood the male. Had shared experience to guide him, and something—instinct, intuition… a misguided sense of duty to the warrior who’d suffered the same fate he had—wanted him to give Azrad a chance to prove his loyalty. “Set him up. Tell him about Deuce’s. Give him the entire plan… the when, where, and how. Down to the last detail.”

“Goddamn.” A predatory gleam sparked in Venom’s eyes. “If we walk into an ambush tomorrow night, we’ll know he’s in deep with the rogues. If not…?”

Rikar huffed. “We work him as an asset inside the Razorback camp until we’re 100 percent certain he’s ours, then we’ll reel him in. Make him a member of our pack.”

“All right.” Exhaling hard, Bastian scrubbed his hand over day-old whiskers. The rubdown left red marks on his jaw, broadcasting his unease and upset. “We’ll go that way. Set it up, Sloan. Let Azrad and his crew know what we’re up to. And the rest of you? Send a good word upstairs… pray I’m not forced to kill my own brother before this is through.”

Good idea. An excellent item to put on a wish list, Wick decided as he followed his comrades into the dining room.

Killing blood kin, after all, always came at a terrible cost.

As dusk folded into night, giving way to the dark skies and the violence of the season’s first snowstorm, Nian checked his computer again. Palms pressed to the desktop, frustration turned the screws, twisting his muscles into knots. Hellfire and brimstone. What was taking so goddamn long? Gage and Haider should’ve contacted him by now. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled smooth, combating the tension, and scrolled through his messages again. He clenched his teeth. No video message. Not a single e-mail. Nothing from the warriors he wanted—no…
needed
—to help.

How incredibly disappointing.

Dangerous too. For him as much as the Metallics. Everything hinged on the Nightfury warriors, the ones both here and abroad. He needed the powerful pack’s support to secure his position. But if the pair got swept into Rodin’s net before he could get them out of the country? Bastian would kill him. But not before the Metallics died inside the Archguard’s three-ring circus. And honestly, a double beheading at the closing ceremony of the festival wasn’t his idea of a leap in the right direction. The second Rodin spilled Nightfury blood all bets would be off. So would all his best laid plans. The strategic power play would be dead in the water. Without movement. Or enough current to carry him into future greatness.

But worse? Bastian would abandon restraint, murder him, and declare war on the Archguard.

God have mercy on them all if that happened.

Nian didn’t hold any illusions. Not after talking to Bastian. The Nightfury commander was a force of nature, a powerful figure able to curry favor, devotion, support, and…
yes, even love… from the Dragonkind community. The second Bastian sounded the call to arms, thousands of warriors would answer. Starting a war unlike anything their kind had ever seen.

“Come on,” he murmured, staring at the blank screen. “Call me.”

Silence greeted the entreaty.

With a growl, Nian pushed away from the desk and strode past the wall of windows. Snow swirled beyond the glass outside his study, howling along with the winter wind. He watched it a moment, wondering if staying home had been the best decision tonight. Maybe he should’ve abandoned his computer and gone downtown to the Emblem Club instead. A favorite spot of the Metallics, the swanky cigar bar drew the pair like a couple of magpies. The warriors had spent most of the festival entrenched in a back corner booth, drinking expensive Scotch, smoking cigars, pleasing whatever female approached them.

A trio of vices. Add the love of a good poker game to the mix, and their sins multiplied.

At the moment, though, he hoped the pair weren’t anywhere near the Emblem. He prayed Gage and Haider were smarter than that. The cigar bar was too obvious. Every member of the Archguard knew the males favored the place. Nothing about the Nightfuries had gone unnoticed by the high council. Which made Nian nervous. Rodin hadn’t risen to power by being stupid. He might already have the Metallics in custody. Not an impossibility, considering the numerous death squads the bastard commanded.

Which explained the radio silence, didn’t it?

With a muttered curse, Nian stopped in front of the sideboard. Snatching a glass tumbler off the gold tray, he
grabbed a bottle of bourbon by the neck and splashed himself a finger of the alcohol. As he turned and leaned against the antique, he glared at the computer. He wanted to toss the thing out the nearest window. Just wind up and—

A thump sounded outside his study.

Listening hard, Nian stared at the closed double doors. Nothing but quiet came back. Pushing away from his perch, he crossed the room. The Turkish rug whispered, cushioning his footfalls. With a quick mental flick, he turned the handle and pulled the door wide. The threshold opened into the soft glow of candlelight.

Another bump-thump rattled through the silence.

He frowned. “Lapier?”

When the call went unanswered, Nian stepped into the central corridor, searching for his servant. The noises were no doubt the male’s doing. True to his Numbai nature, Lapier never went the night without tidying or polishing something. And yet as Nian scanned the shadows at the end of the hall, a chill snaked over his skin. Something was off. Not by much, but…

His night vision sparked. Nian pivoted toward the front foyer. He called out for Lapier again and jogged down a set of five stairs. Huge oak doors that guarded his home loomed in the shadows. As he cleared the last step, he saw Lapier. On the floor beside the round table sitting in the center of the vestibule, the Numbai lay in a limp sprawl: arms flung wide, head turned away from him, tuxedo vest in disarray.

“What the hell?”

Concern for his servant followed his outburst, sending him across the mosaic floor. The second he knelt next to Lapier, Nian realized his mistake. But it was too late. The
enemy was already inside the gate. As he spun to protect himself, a whistle sizzled through the air. Pressure lanced the back of his shoulder. Two prongs cut through his shirt to puncture his skin. An electrical charge lit him up, making his muscles seize, paralyzing him with the press of a button.

God help him. A Taser.

Complete electrical overload. The only thing that could render a Dragonkind male powerless. The smart bastards. They’d used his weakness to effect. No mercy or the slightest hesitation, the male hit him with another forty thousand volts. His body spasmed, tunneling his vision, locking the air in his lungs, stealing his ability to move. Unable to breathe, Nian wheezed, falling facedown on the floor as agony threw him over the edge and unconsciousness reached up to claim him.

Hidden inside a cloaking spell, Ivar touched down in the parking lot. Gravel crunched beneath his paws, scraping against his claws. The grating sound drew him tight. Worry took him the rest of the way, plunging him into uncertainty. Dependence on another. Not his strong suit. Relying on anyone when it came to his science seemed, well… unnatural.

A kind of cop-out that sat beneath his skin, irritating itch inevitable.

A leader in the field of virology and microbiology, he never allowed another to take the wheel. Or rather the microscope. But as the water treatment plant rose in the man-made clearing, standing alongside ancient trees, rising beneath moonlight, Ivar admitted that after two failures in his lab, Hamersveld’s idea held the most promise. The best chance for success, and honestly? After all was said and done, it didn’t matter who hatched the plan. The prospect of unleashing one of his babies—supervirus number three—upon the world outpaced his unease, jazzing him like nothing else had in a while.

Granite Falls, Washington. Everytown, USA.

With a population of just over three thousand, it was the perfect target. Rural. Picturesque. Nestled in the shadows of the Cascade Mountain Range, northeast of Seattle… not too far, but close enough. But better than that? The municipality was home to couples and families, a young community full of healthy immune systems. A shiver of excitement skittered through him, rattling the spikes along his spine. So much promise. So much fun. So much to do. If he could infect Granite Falls and get his virus to spread, then he could do it the world over.

In any city he wanted.

Humming with anticipation, Ivar bared his fangs. A bona fide test run in the wilds of human society. God. Other than fucking a female while he drained her dry, he couldn’t think of anything better.

Coming in on a slow glide, Hamersveld landed beside him. The big male wing flapped. Smooth shark-gray scales clicked together, and tribal ink danced, rippling beneath heavy muscle. Shifting into human form, the Norwegian glanced skyward.
“Fen… on the roof. Keep watch. Any sign of trouble, give us a shout.”

The wren shrieked in answer. The terrible sound throbbed in the air, obliterating the quiet, invading his skull, slamming against his temples.