“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Javee.”
“Bren?”
“Yeah?”
“Something doesn’t feel right about this. I know the guy is your father, but…”
“I know. Send me Bones’s number.”
He ended the call and waited impatiently for Javee’s text to come in, ignoring the others in the room. His phone dinged and he immediately called Bones’s number, his free hand clenching into a fist when it rang and rang in his ear.
It clicked to voicemail and he said, “Bones, it’s Bren. I need you to call me back immediately and tell me where you’re meeting with my father.”
He disconnected the call and muttered a loud curse.
“What’s going on?” Mal asked.
“Cadmus, Kaida, and Bones are meeting with my father right now. No one knows where, Kaida’s cell is dead, and Bones isn’t answering his.”
“Can you call your father’s office, find out from them?” Ava suggested.
“They wouldn’t tell me even if the office was still open,” Bren said. He slammed his hand again the wall. “Fuck! Something isn’t right. I can feel it. My father doesn’t want peace and if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t meet with Cadmus without the press around to document it.”
“You’re a cop. Can’t you just, like, get your IT guy to track your dad’s phone?” Willow asked.
“I need a warrant for that, and no judge will give me one without probable cause.” He hammered his hand against the wall again as Tyler walked into the room.
“What’s wrong?” Ty asked.
“I need to know where Dad is and he isn’t answering my calls,” Bren said. “Have you talked to him today?”
Tyler snorted. “I haven’t talked to him since he was such a dickhead at his place.” He glanced at Ava and Willow before smiling sheepishly. “Uh, sorry about the language.”
Bren tried to calm down. His usual levelheadedness and ability to think through a crisis had completely abandoned him. Which was stupid because he didn’t even know it was a crisis. Maybe his father really did want peace.
You don’t actually believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be freaking the fuck out right now.
“You okay?” Tyler was giving him a cautious look. “You seriously look like you’re freaking out, dude.”
“I am, a little.” He didn’t have the energy to lie to his brother. “I’m worried about Kaida. She and a few other clan members are meeting with Dad, but no one knows where and they’re not answering their phones.”
He had a sudden idea. “Do you still have Dad’s assistant’s number in your cell?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said.
“Can you call her? Tell her there’s been an emergency and you need to know where Dad is.”
Tyler pulled his phone out of his pocket. “If you need to know where Dad is, I can track his phone.”
Bren’s pacing slowed. “I – seriously?”
“Yep. Dad insisted that I let him do that stupid find my phone thing with me. I said fine but that if he got to track my location, it was only fair that I got to track his. I can find his location for you.”
Bren rushed over, grabbed Tyler’s head between his hands and planted a loud smacking kiss on his forehead. “Jesus, I love you, kid.”
Tyler grinned at him. “Everybody does.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You’re sure this is the place?” Kaida stared out the windshield.
“Yes,” Cadmus said. “It’s the address that was texted to me.”
“He wants to meet at an abandoned airfield?” Kaida shook her head as she studied the black Lincoln parked beside the largest hangar. “I don’t like this.”
“What’s there to like?” Bones replied.
“We should leave,” Kaida said. “The Senator is up to something.”
“We’re not leaving,” Cadmus said. “Come, we have nothing to fear.”
He opened the door and climbed out of the car, leaving Kaida and Bones no choice but to follow them.
They slammed the doors and started after the high elder as he walked briskly toward the hangar. Bones was sniffing the air and Kaida said, “It’s a trap.”
“No shit, Admiral Ackbar,” Bones said.
“We need to force Cadmus back to the car and go,” Kaida said.
Bones laughed dryly. “Like we can force Cadmus to do anything. If we piss him off enough, his dragon will kick both our asses. The old man is tough as fucking nails.”
“Shit,” Kaida muttered as they drew closer. The only car visible was the Lincoln, but she could smell the scents of many different humans drifting out from the open door of the battered and weather-aged hangar. “There’s more than just the senator inside there.
Bones shrugged. “Look, the senator obviously has some sort of plan that’s not going to end well… for him. Doesn’t matter how many guys he brought with him, they’re no match for us. We don’t like what they say or do, we shift to our dragon forms and burn them to a crisp or we just fly out of there. Right?”
“Right.” Kaida followed Cadmus and Bones into the concrete and steel hangar.
To her complete lack of surprise Bren’s father was there with, she counted quickly, fifteen other humans. The hangar was cold. Most of the windows that made up the far wall of the hangar had been broken by vandals or bored teenagers and the enormous rusted doors at the front of the hangar were pulled back and half hanging off the hinges, exposing the inside to the elements. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete floor as they joined the senator in the middle of the building.
“What are you doing here?” Senator Matthews said coldly.
“What are they doing here?” Kaida pointed to the men standing around him in a loose cluster. “I thought you wanted to meet with our high elder alone.”
“These are my associates,” Senator Matthews said. He glanced to his right. “This is Martin Grimes.”
Kaida studied the man standing to the right of Bren’s father. He was over six feet and heavily muscled. He had pale skin and light blue eyes and his blond hair gleamed in the beams of dying sun that peeked through the holes in the roof of the hangar. He stroked his thick beard as he returned Kaida’s look. He looked vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn’t place how she knew him.
“I know who your associates are,” Bones said. “You bringing the leader and members of the HAPI group to this meeting isn’t exactly setting a tone for peace.”
Kaida’s dragon growled out a warning as Martin laughed. “You’re wrong, dragon. We want peace with the paranormals. It’s why I created the HAPI organization.”
“You literally have the words ‘against paranormals’ in your name,” Bones growled. “We are not stupid, human.”
“You sure about that?” One of the other men said under his breath.
Bones growled again, smoke drifting out of his mouth, and the men glanced uneasily at each other.
Cadmus held up his hand. “Enough. We are here on good faith to speak about peace with you, Senator Matthews.”
“That’s right,” Senator Matthews replied. “And how we achieve peace is by your… clan, leaving my city.”
“Are you serious?” Bones said.
The senator ignored him, training his gaze on Cadmus. “Before your clan leaves, we want you to agree to being tagged and monitored by the HAPI group. It’s a simple procedure, a small chip is embedded in the back of your skull and -”
Bones barked out a laugh. “Enough. High elder, it’s time to leave.”
Cadmus held out his hand. “One moment, Bones.”
“Cadmus -”
“A moment, I said.” A growl rose from the old dragon’s throat and both Bones and Kaida took a step back, giving each other a troubled look.
Bones hadn’t been joking when he said Cadmus could kick their asses. In his youth, the high elder had been the clan’s most powerful dragon and despite what appeared to be a fragile appearance now, his dragon was still incredibly strong and dangerous. Eve
n Bones with all his power and strength, would be no match for an angry Cadmus.
“Senator, while I appreciate that you have your concerns about my kind, I want to assure you that we have no wish to harm the humans. We will continue to live our lives as we did before, quietly and with little contact with humans.”
“Is that right?” Senator Matthews turned his dark gaze toward Kaida. “Because a member of your clan is in a relationship with my child. That doesn’t seem like the dragons are keeping their distance.”
Cadmus glanced at Kaida, a soft smile crossing his face before he turned back to the senator. “We cannot choose who our children fall in love with, Senator. You may not agree with your son’s choices, but I will not deny Kaida her mate.”
“Mate.” The Senator’s voice held a thin note of disgust in it. “Your dragon whore seduced my son to drive a wedge between him and me, and to weaken the faith my constituents have in me. I will not -”
“Call her a whore again and you will be nothing but ash on the floor,” Bones snarled at him.
Kaida put a hand on Bones’s arm as Cadmus said, “Insulting my clan will not get you what you want, Senator. Peace can only be achieved through -”
“The only way to achieve peace is if you disgusting animals leave. You are a threat to every human in this city, and it’s my job to protect them,” the senator said. “Revealing yourself to humans was a mistake. They’re frightened and their fear will push my bill through the senate. If everything goes to plan this evening, by this time next year every single paranormal on the planet will be tagged and registered. No longer will you be able to hide your true nature in the shadows. We will know exactly who and what you are.”
His face red and his hands clenched into fists, the Senator lapsed into silence. Kaida could almost hear the heavy thud of his pulse as he glared at Cadmus.
A weary look of resignation on his face, Cadmus said. “I want peace between our kinds, Senator Matthews. I want paranormal and human alike to live without fear of the other. But with men like you in charge, there can be no peace. We will not leave our home or allow ourselves to be tagged by your group, and you will not accept anything less. Our conversation is done.”
A triumphant look passed over the senator’s face. “Understood.”
The senator held out his hand, and Cadmus walked forward to shake it.
Her dragon growled a warning and beside her Bones stiffened. “Cadmus, return to me. Now!”
Martin stepped closer as the senator took Cadmus’s hand. Both Kaida and Bones growled a warning as something in the man’s hand glinted in the light.
“Cadmus!” Kaida shouted as Martin stuck the hypodermic needle into Cadmus’s neck and injected its contents.
Cadmus jerked back, his hand clapping down on his neck as he stared at the big blond man. “What have you done?”
Bones and Kaida charged forward and, moving quickly, Martin yanked Cadmus closer, whipping him around as he yanked a gun from his belt and pressed it against Cadmus’s temple. “Any closer and I’ll blow his brains out. Think your high elder can survive that?”
They stopped and Bones snorted harsh laughter as the other men pointed guns at them. “You stupid asshole. You’re fucking dead and you don’t even know it.”
Kaida waited for Cadmus’s scales to appear. Even if he didn’t fully shift immediately, the scales of his dragon would be thick and heavy enough to stop any bullet from piercing his skull. When he remained in his human form, she took a step forward. “Cadmus?”
The senator laughed, an ugly sound that echoed in the abandoned hangar. “What’s wrong, bitch? You didn’t really think we’re this stupid, did you?”
“Cadmus, shift,” Bones said.
“He can’t,” Martin said. “How’s that for fucking bananas? We just injected your precious high elder with a serum that suppresses his ability to shift.”
Horror infused every molecule in Kaida’s body as she stared at Cadmus. The old dragon’s face was pale and for the first time in her life, she could see fear in his eyes.
“Cadmus, you must shift,” she whispered.
“I cannot,” he said.
Her dragon screamed with fury and pushed forward. She would turn the pathetic humans to ash for what they had done. She would set the city on fire with her flame and the world would finally know a dragon’s real power. They would cower and beg for mercy before she was done with them.
Beside her, Bones was swelling, his bones cracking and scales appearing on his flesh as he began to shift.
“Stop!” Martin shouted. “If either of you shift, I will put a fucking bullet through the old man’s brain. I swear to fucking God, I will.”
Her dragon screamed again, its wrath rising. With the last of her willpower, Kaida pushed it back. She grabbed Bones’s arm, his body was still swelling and any moment now he’d be in his dragon form. “Bones, stop!”
He growled at her and she balled her hand into a fist and punched him in the face, shouting out a curse as her hand connected with hard scales and the fragile bones cracked under the pressure.
“Stop! They’ll kill him! Stop, Bones!” She shouted as she held her broken hand against her chest.
He pointed his face at the ceiling and roared in rage, red hot flames shooting out of his mouth and illuminating the hangar with flickering light. His entire body trembled, but he was shrinking down to his normal size. Kaida breathed a sigh of relief as his pupils turned normal and the scales disappeared.
Senator Matthews was staring at him, the terror obvious on his face, and the other men had huddled together in a tight circle, their guns all aimed at Bones.
After a moment, the senator loudly cleared his throat and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “And that, gentleman, is why paranormals are a danger to humans.”
“Fucking animals,” Martin muttered.
“What have you done?” Kaida whispered as she stared at the senator.
His smile was chilling. “Do you know how long it’s taken Martin to create that serum? Do you know how many failures we had? The fourth version we tried? It was… bad. We tested it on some shifters, without their knowledge of course. We have volunteers across the world committed to our cause. It was simple enough for them to drug unsuspecting paranormals. One dissolvable tablet in a drink and down the hatch… instant suppression of their shifting abilities. Only that fourth version was a real doozy of a fuck up. It didn’t suppress their abilities. It changed them. It attacked them like a virus and turned their own bodies against them. Four of the five shifters we drugged died within twenty-four hours of receiving the serum.”
He glanced at Martin, his grin widening. “We almost said fuck it, this will work, didn’t we, Martin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It wasn’t the outcome we wanted, but dead shifters weren’t so bad either. Only,” he pulled at the knot on his tie, “the fifth shifter didn’t die. She was a police officer. We didn’t plan on drugging an officer of the law. She just happened to be at the wrong coffee shop at the wrong time. Just happened to leave her drink unattended long enough for one of our volunteers to drop that tablet in her drink.”
“What happened to her?” Kaida said.
“It was quite astonishing, actually. Her body mutated and changed like the others, but instead of dying, she … became stronger. She became a monster.” He grinned at Kaida and Bones. “You’ll love this part – her husband was a scientist. A bear shifter named Wyatt. Not long after she fully turned and it was obvious that it was permanent, he locked her in a cage and spent every moment of his life trying to find a cure for the ‘virus’ she’d been infected with.”
“How do you know this?” Bones asked.
“I told you. We have people everywhere. That includes the labs of mad bear scientists. Wyatt tried to cure his wife with a phoenix shifter he found somewhere, but the phoenix escaped the lab and disappeared. Wyatt moved his infected wife here to our city and we continued to keep an eye on him. We were still work
ing away like busy little bees on our serum but imagine our surprise when the mutant creatures showed up outside of the lab. That idiot scientist had allowed his wife to infect other shifters.”
The senator made a snort of disgust. “We monitored it closely, of course. My own son was the detective who took the case of a squirrel shifter murdered by one of the infected shifters.”
Kaida stared at him in shock. “There are mutant shifters in the city infecting other shifters?”
“Oh God no. One thing about that bear shifter scientist, he knew how to clean up his mess. He caught the mutant and returned him to his lab. The last communication we had from our man inside was that they had also caught the phoenix shifter again and Wyatt was using him to try and cure his wife.”
“What do you mean last communication?”
“The lab was blown apart shortly after that. Our man was a member of the security team and his body was one of the bodies found in the rubble. Burned horribly and a bullet in his brain, but they identified him through dental records,” the senator said.
“Who blew up the lab?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. It also killed Wyatt and his monster of a wife, and the serum mess was finally behind us.”
The senator glanced at his phone before putting it back in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. “It was the thirteenth version of the serum that finally worked. It isn’t perfect, it only suppresses a mutant’s ability to shift for about twelve hours or so, but our boys are already close to creating a longer-lasting version. One that will suppress for a few days, maybe even a few weeks. Eventually we’ll create one that will permanently suppress a shifter’s ability and we will go down in history as the men who saved humankind.”
“You are fucking batshit insane,” Bones growled.
“No, we’re saving the world from monsters,” Martin said. Still holding the gun to Cadmus’s head, he said to the men behind them. “Bring in the body.”
Three of the men left the group and jogged out of the hangar. A few minutes later they returned and Kaida stared in horror at the body of the dark-haired man they carried.
The Dragon's Mate (Book Seven) Page 34
