Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet Book 1): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 1

by Theodora Taylor

  “It’s looking pretty good,” Layla answered, observing their son with a chuckle, her breath warm against his jaw. “And I’m thinking Level 10 afternoon delight.”

  Knud raised his eyebrows. “Level 10?”

  His wife was still considered America’s sweetheart, even after the announcement of her marriage to some shady doctor, with a mysterious background. But Knud wondered what people would think if they saw the gleam in her eyes now at the prospect of Level 10 afternoon delight. Wicked and sexy as hell.

  “What do you say?” she asked.

  He started to answer the same way he did when she proposed to him. With a “Hell yeah!”

  But then a blaring siren erupted in his head. “Alert, Alert. You have a hail from President Nightwolf.”

  “Papa?” Layla guessed with a sympathetic look when Knud cringed against the siren’s wail.

  “No, worse…Rafes.”

  He tapped his neck to answer his pushy oldest triplet’s hail. “This had better be good.”

  RAFES

  Rafes was glad his quick-tempered brother was with his level-headed mate when Knud answered his emergency hail.

  Rafes used to be a cold and distant loner himself. But ever since Myrna, his wild red-haired former Viking princess, literally fell into his life via the North Dakota time gate, he’d come to appreciate the love and support of a completely opposite spouse. He and his wife were both sitting in the Wolf House office right now, he in a suit and Myrna in a cut-out spandex leotard. She’d been due at rehearsal for her next wrestling event over an hour ago but had opted to stay after he told her about what Nago had dug up on Ola’s disappearance.

  “Family is more important than rehearsal,” she’d insisted. And now she held his hand while Rafes talked to his two younger triplet brothers, Knud and Nago, over an audio-only and heavily encrypted biolink.

  Rafes was grateful to have her there. And he squeezed her hand as he told Knud, “With the basketball player boyfriend still insisting he has no idea what happened to her after she left the club, I was afraid the trail had gone cold. But then Nago found something important while he was sweeping Ola’s biosystem files.”

  “Wait, you had Nago sweep Ola’s biosystem files?” Knud asked.

  Rafes rolled his eyes. Of course his contrarian brother would call him out on that. Knud’s favorite pastime was thinking the worst of Rafes.

  “She’s in possession of state secrets, and with her biosystem having gone offline so abruptly, we had no idea if she’d been captured or if she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. We had to secure North Dakota for either eventuality. I assure you this is standard protocol when royals go missing.”

  “Yeah, okay, if that’s your excuse for having Nago hack into Ola’s biosystem while her dads are going crazy trying to find her, that’s your excuse,” Knud answered, his voice full of skepticism.

  Rafes growled low in his throat, his wolf threatening to rise. His middle triplet had always had a way of pushing his buttons. Months of therapy and training, but a few words from Knud and his disordered wolf came right back to the surface, fur and all.

  “Down, boy,” Myrna murmured, sensing his distress over their mate bond, and flooding him with calm.

  That worked. His wolf stepped back at their mate’s command and allowed Rafes to calmly point out. “We wouldn’t have made this breakthrough in the case if I hadn’t put the safety of all the wolves in North America above the privacy rights of one queen.”

  Knud let out a disbelieving snort. “Okay, keep telling yourself that.”

  “Guys, stop fighting,” Nago said right on cue. “Rafes, just let him think you’re an asshole. And Knud, let him tell you what we found in Ola’s biodata already.”

  Rafes nodded, his anger receding. This was why he’d put Nago on this call, even though he technically only needed to speak to Knud. Their youngest triplet had been breaking up their fights since they were all old enough to form words.

  “As it turns out, Ola’s not exactly a privacy nun herself,” Nago told Knud. “She inserted a nanite spybot into her boyfriend. Probably via a drink.”

  “That is insanely illegal, but I am zero percent surprised,” Knud replied, his voice knowing and dry.

  “Me either,” Rafes said, agreeing with Knud for once.

  “I found some footage from the night she disappeared. Turn on your mind’s eye for the playback…”

  Rafes had already seen the video but switched back on his Mind’s Eye View with a thought command so that he could view it again with his brothers.

  Together they all watched Ola enter the club on Akwasi’s arm. She was sparkling from head to toe, in a curve-hugging floor-length gold dress paired with the North Dakota crown. Rafes frowned as he often did at his tacky and needlessly crass cousin. Lupin royals were only supposed to wear their kingdom crowns at official ceremonies, and Ola was the only wolf queen in the world who would have chosen such a form-fitting dress for her coronation.

  At least she had been the only queen in the world who would pull such a stunt. His chest panged as he watched his cousin through Akwasi’s eyes. Yes, Ola had been nothing but a pain-in-the-ass since the day she learned to argue. But now Rafes had no idea if he’d ever see her again.

  “So she’s going into the club with him, just like Akwasi reported…” Knud said. “Wait was that...?”

  “Yes, it’s Damianos Drákon,” Rafes answered.

  “I was surprised too when I first saw him on the spybot’s feed,” Nago told Knud. “I went through all the club’s security tapes and he wasn’t on any of them. I’m assuming he disabled them somehow. But let’s fast forward about a couple of minutes past that fight that was all over WolfNet. Here’s Akwasi and Ola talking in the parking lot with Damianos Drákon.”

  “Okay…” Knud murmured. Then came a few moments of silence until Knud said, “Holy shit!”

  “Exactly,” Rafes agreed, as he rewatched Akwasi collar Ola, then threaten to shoot himself, before Ola gave in and got into the car with Damianos.

  “What the hell was that?” Knud asked as they watch the untraceable early-century car drive out of the parking lot and turn left through Akwasi’s eyes. “Why did the boyfriend collar her like that? Then threaten to shoot himself?”

  Yet another reason he’d made this call over the heavily encrypted presidential biolink. Rafes told Knud the highly classified state secret that he’d found out the hard way when his compromised personal security guard tried to hurt Myrna.

  “We believe Damianos Drákon has some kind of strange mental power. One that allows him to brainwash his victims and make them do whatever he commands, even when he’s far away. A further investigation by my team revealed that Drákon was the primary investor in Akwasi’s club.”

  “Why would a trillionaire give two shits about a club in Fargo?” Knud asked.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too,” Nago said. “But given what Rafes told me about these mental powers of his, I can only assume that’s when he was compromised...and maybe why he approached Ola in the first place.”

  “I knew that hookup was too good to be true!” Knud said. “He’s one of the nicest guys in basketball. Always giving back. Building orphanages in Africa, No drinking. No swearing. From the first time I heard he asked Ola out, I was like, but why though?”

  “Hey, opposites attract,” Rafes smiled at his wife in her sexy wrestling leotard.

  “Yeah, you know I believe that,” Knud conceded, most likely thinking about his own wife. “But there’s opposite, then there’s Ola. Even my lucky ass figured that relationship would end with her grabbing his heart out of his chest and eating it while he watched.”

  “Then yelling ‘YOLO 100, bitch!” Nago quipped.

  They all laughed, only to sober at the thought of the incorrigible cousin who’d been kidnapped by her fathers’ worst enemy.

  “Even after watching it twice, I can’t believe Drákon just grabbed her like that,” Nago told them.

&n
bsp; “Wish I could say the same.” Rafes took Myrna’s other hand as well, needing to feel even more of her skin against his. “But I’ve known Damianos Drákon was most likely planning some sort of revenge against Olafr and FJ and perhaps even Myrna for years now. I just didn’t know he’d target Ola first.”

  Rafes shook his head, telling both his brother and Myrna, “I’m afraid the problem is much more complicated now. Not only do we need to find Ola. We need to rescue her and possibly deprogram her, which…” Rafes swallowed before admitting. “My people in mental services still haven’t entirely figured out how to do.”

  “Wow, this is so jacked,” Nago said.

  “Yeah. The best-case scenario is we’ll get a note soon with a list of his demands,” Rafes answered.

  “And the worst-case scenario?” Nago asked, his tone concerned.

  Rafes had been afraid that would be Nago’s next question.

  Knud answered before he could, his voice as hard and cynical as it used to be before he struck the marriage jackpot. “Her fathers killed his father. Worst case scenario is he’s trying to take from FJ and Olafr like they took from him.”

  Nago’s answering curse sounded both angry and mournful.

  “But we’re not there yet,” Rafes reminded both of his brothers. “There’s still the chance Damianos will be in contact. And meanwhile, at least we know who we’re looking for now. But we’re going to need some help. That’s why I hailed you, Knud. About that super-secret location that Alexei Rustanov arranged for Fensa. I think that dragon of hers can help us find Damianos…”

  Now it was Knud’s turn to curse. “Fuck, now I’ve got to ask my father-in-law for another favor. Looks like the fam and me will definitely be staying in this new house.”

  “You moved to a new house?” Nago asked. “When did that happen.”

  Rafes was surprised, too. Knud moved into a two-bedroom apartment after snagging the famous daughter of one of the world’s richest men, less than a year ago. “It’s kind of soon to be moving, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Daddy Rustanov bought us a castle,” Knud grumbled. “I’ll be in touch after I talk to the other trillionaire pain-in-my-ass.”

  Chapter Eleven

  OLA

  I wake inside a bright room with the immediate sense that it’s been a longer than usual time since I last opened my eyes. But not long enough.

  Images of what happened immediately assail me…Akwasi with the gun to his head…sitting across from a seven-foot plus Greek statue who smelled like fire and ancient cologne…trying to run…

  “Ola. Don’t do that again.”

  My arm! That ancient asshole’s chest broke my arm, I remember with a gasp. Reflexively, I raise the broken appendage to see it again. But…

  Nothing. Save for a faint scar where the bone split skin and a slight dull ache at the breaking point, you’d never know that it was broken.

  However, any relief I might have felt over that fact is quickly erased by what I see around my other wrist. A chain. A silver chain. And by silver, I don’t mean the manmade chrome alloy that most people refer to as silver these days. I mean the native metal that burns like a motherfucker when supernatural folks like me touch it.

  The only reason my skin isn’t sizzling now is because of the cloth padding in between me and the cuff’s underside. But that doesn’t mean I can pull myself lose. I find out the hard, burn-y way that the edges have no protection when I try to use my wolf strength to tug my hand out.

  “Oh good, you’re awake! I was beginning to think you’d stay asleep forever.”

  I lift my head at the sound of the voice.

  Kirk, the gatekeeper, is sitting in a chair near the bed, his smile warm and bright. He’d sullenly stood there when my uncles and I came out to Yellow Mountain for the poorly attended ceremony to appoint him as the official North Dakota gatekeeper. But now he’s smiling down at me like we’re long lost friends.

  “I wouldn’t try getting out of that chain again,” he warns. “It’s made out of one-hundred percent silver. Had a helluva time attaching the cuff after your wolf healed your arm and you shifted back.”

  Wait, I shifted? That must mean…

  My heart surges with hope as I reach my free arm up to pat my throat…only to sink when I feel the biocollar still around my neck. I also notice that I’m dressed in some kind of linen nightgown, old-fashioned, loose, and long.

  “Master told me to take it off you after you fainted. Then he had me put it back on as soon as your wolf was done healing your arm,” Kirk explains. His tone helpful, even if his actions were not.

  “Master,” I repeat, shaking my head at Kirk. “You didn’t want my uncles or me to run the pack, but now you’re calling that dragon shifter Master?”

  Kirk’s eyes widen. “Is that what he is? A dragon shifter? I knew it had to be something special, but I was thinking a vampire or maybe even a demon when I saw those wings of his. A dragon! Who would have thought it?”

  “Yeah, the asshole who kidnapped your state queen is major impressive,” I start to answer. But then I stop.

  Patience…patience, Ola. You need this guy to get out of here. Even if he is a Civil Wolf War Prepper turned abettor.

  Okay, okay…assuming that he’s underneath the same weird spell as Akwasi, I ask, “What exactly are your orders here? What did the dragon tell you to do?”

  “You know, get the house ready for lady company. Make sure you were comfortable and attend to you—at least those were my orders before you punched me in the dick and tried to run away. After you broke your arm, he brought out the silver chain.”

  Kirk answers so casually. Like we’re talking about plans for a formal tea that didn’t quite pan out. How far gone is this guy?

  Panic rises like bile in my throat.

  Remember Ola, most of being a good state ruler is figuring out what the problem is and making it look effortless when you solve it.

  My uncle’s past advice shores up my mind and keeps it from caving in as I perform the first step in the good queen equation. Okay, what’s the problem?

  I’m stuck in a room with a guy who’s been so thoroughly hypnotized he’s not only being nice to me but also holding me prisoner. How do I solve it?

  Kirk’s first command had been to attend to me while I was here, and it had probably been made with some diabolical consideration. But the second command Kirk was given sounds hasty. Something Damianos shot off in the heat of the moment. Just how thorough was the supervillain’s mind hack? I wonder.

  “Your…uh…master told you to attend to me.” As a descendant of slaves, the word master stuck in my throat. But after choking it out, I ask, “What would happen if I told you to attend to me by releasing me from this chain and driving me back to the North Dakota kingdom house?”

  Kirk stares at me for a long blank moment. But then he says, “Well, I guess I would have to release you and drive you back to the kingdom house.” He sounds just as surprised as me by his answer.

  And I know I’m supposed to make this queen shit look effortless, but my mouth drops open before I recover and say, “Okay, yeah, great. Exactly the answer I was expecting. Let’s do this thing then. Take this chain off and drive me back to the kingdom house.”

  “Yes, I will take the chain off and drive you to the kingdom house!” he repeats as he stands up and comes toward the bed.

  I flinch. Having the Yellow Mountain wolf who spat tobacco at my feet last night come straight at me does not feel right or safe. But, once again, Uncle Kyle calms my mind from afar.

  Remember, Ola, they’re all our subjects, even the ones we don’t like. We have to figure out what each and every one of them needs. Figure out how to help them. That’s what real kings and queens do.

  More good advice from Uncle Kyle. Okay, instead of shrinking away from Kirk, how can I help him?

  Well, we’re going to have to get him unhypnotized as soon as we return to the kingdom house. That’s for sure. Can it be fixed? I’ve ne
ver seen anything like the power Damianos seems to be wielding over Akwasi, that young driver dude, and Kirk.

  But at least we found a workaround for now. That thought gives me solace.

  That solace disappears when instead of putting on thick leather gloves and handling the silver gingerly as any other wolf would have, Kirk picks up the chain with his bare hand.

  “Kirk! What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Letting you out like you asked,” he answers. His face has contorted into a painful grimace, but he pulls the key out of his pocket, nonetheless.

  “But your hand!” I’m gagging on the smell of burning flesh. If I had anything left in my stomach, it would probably be all over the front of his gun silhouette t-shirt by now. And I’m no nerd like Fensa, but I have to wonder if he’ll even be able to drive with a severe silver burn on the palm of his hand.

  Megafrown emoji face, another problem. “I’ll bandage you up after you’re done and drive us both back to the kingdom house myself. Just give me your keys.”

  “Okay.” He repockets the key and reaches into another pocket in his cargo pants.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, eyeing the pocket where he disappeared the key to my freedom.

  “Giving you my car keys like you said.”

  “No, let me out first. Then we’ll deal with the keys.”

  “Okay.” Tears of pain are spilling from his eyes, but he fishes the key out of his pocket again and raises it to my cuff...

  “Oh, Ola. Did you really think it would be that easy?”

  We both look up, and my heart stops when I see Damianos in the doorway. Dressed in a simple wool knit sweater and slacks. Looking very, very large and really, really in charge.

  Shit! Cold dread drenches my body.

  “That will be all, Gatekeeper. You may go downstairs now and complete The North Dakota Queen’s lesson as previously discussed,” Damianos says, his voice sounding calm as tea with the human British king.