Lyah backed up, crushed she wasn’t going to win. “I… I have to go. I’m sorry to have bothered you. You won’t hear from me again.”
She ran off, tears streaming down her face now.
“Good riddance,” Ryoko muttered as she watched Lyah run away.
I, on the other hand, didn’t care about where Lyah ran off to. Instead, I continued to focus on Seda and Argus.
Seda pulled away from him and took off his necklaces and offered them to him. “Thanks for letting me use them. I hope you’re not mad. I know how important they are to you.”
He accepted her offering. “Not at all.”
“She’s going to be fine after a few days,” she whispered as she headed back upstairs. “You made the right choice. She was just bored, and figured you might still want her back. She just has to come to terms with the idea that she didn’t get her way.”
Seda disappeared from my sight as she headed up the stairs. Argus soon followed, so I moved to sit on the windowsill. Just as she walked into the living room, she deactivated the cloaking watch. I stayed quiet as Argus reached the living room seconds later.
“Hey, Seda?”
She turned to look at him. “Yeah?”
“Um, thanks…” He rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact. “For helping back there.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
She turned to head off somewhere, but Argus stopped her again. “Um, Seda?”
She giggled and looked at him again. “Yes?”
He hesitated and then grabbed his dog tags. “Thanks for fixing this. You didn’t have to.”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. It was a real easy fix.”
Seda headed down the hall and Argus sighed, disappointed with himself. I shook my head and climbed inside. I didn’t say anything until I was about to pass him. “Pansy.”
He didn’t look at me. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know and understand you better than you think. I see how you look at her. I see the chance you’re not willing to take.”
He sighed. “Do you think I’ll ever make the right choice? The right one that’ll actually make me happy?”
“Yeah, I do.”
He looked at me then, but I continued on to my room to do… something.
I crouched down in the shadows when the warehouse came into view. Then Ryoko, Rylan, Raikidan, and Raid caught up and waited with me. We watched the warehouse for movement, but saw none.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Rylan murmured.
I nodded and continued to scan the area. We had received an anonymous tip that something was going on here. Normally we didn’t take anonymous tips, but the Council believed this one might be true. It wasn’t looking that way.
I motioned for them to follow me. “We’ll still check it out.”
Keeping low, we snuck over to the building. Ryoko located an unlocked window and the five of us climbed in. The place was dead quiet, aside from our breathing and movement on the metal grate.
“We’ll split up,” I whispered. “Ryoko and I will go right and you guys go left.”
They agreed and we split up. Ryoko and I wandered around, but we found nothing but an empty warehouse. We ended up splitting up to cover more ground. I stopped searching when I noticed a large crate that wasn’t marked. It was required for all crates to be marked for inventory and safety proposes. My curiosity got the better of me and I took a look.
Pulling out my special dagger, I changed into a crowbar and pried open the box. I tilted my head when I moved the lid to the side. There was nothing in it. Not even packing straw. What was an empty crate doing in an ammunition warehouse?
“Find anything interesting in there?”
I turned to see Raikidan leaning against a stack of crates. “How long have you been there?”
He shrugged. “Not long.”
“Shouldn’t you be with the guys?”
“Shouldn’t you be with Ryoko?”
I leaned on the edge of the crate and looked in again. “There’s nothing in here.”
“That’s a problem?”
“Why would there be an empty crate in a warehouse?”
“Maybe they used whatever was inside.”
I shook my head. “The crate was sealed. Why reseal a crate after using it? It wouldn’t make sense.”
Raikidan leaned on the crate, boxing me in. “Maybe they did it to confuse a smart person like you.”
I turned and pushed him away from me. “Raikidan, you know not to do that.”
He held up his hands and backed up. “All right, all right. Should we go looking around more?”
I nodded. “Let’s go this way.”
“Sure.”
We snuck around looking for more weird crates or anything else out of the ordinary, but I was having a hard time focusing because of Raikidan. He was walking far too close to me, and attempting to grab me inappropriately at times. For him to walk close to me too much was normal for him, but for him to grab at me, that wasn’t like him.
Pretending to find interest in a marked crate, I pried it open with my crowbar. Before I could pry the lid completely off, Raikidan stopped me.
“What the hell?” I demanded.
“I don’t think you should do that,” he told me.
“And why the hell not?”
He boxed me in against the crate. “Because I don’t.”
I pushed him away but he came right back. “What the hell is with you all of a sudden?”
He grinned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t. You know to give me my space and you definitely weren’t acting like this earlier.”
He leaned closer to me. “I just have something better on my mind than this lousy, pointless assignment.”
My eyes widened with shock and I tried to move away from him, but he grabbed me by the wrist and pinned me against the crate. His eyes locked with mine and my breath caught. He continued to lean closer, and I froze up. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. It was like his gaze hypnotized me.
Then, just as he was about to get too close to my face, he was pulled back and thrown. “Don’t touch her!”
I blinked in stunned silence as I looked at—Raikidan? Were there two here? How were there two of him? What the hell was going on?
Ryoko’s heavy boots clomped on the concrete floor behind me. The Raikidan who had been thrown took off, and the Raikidan who had done the throwing pursued him, leaving me standing alone in confusion until Ryoko arrived.
“Laz, I heard Raikidan yell. Is everything okay?” She waved her hand in front of my face. “Hello, Laz?”
I shook my head. “What the hell did I just see?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Raikidan… and Raikidan…” My fingers crossed each other as I tried in vain to piece it all together.
“Are you saying you saw two of him?” She laughed. “Hon, you feeling okay?”
I blinked a few times for my mind to finally clear, and then I became very serious. “No, I didn’t just see two of them. I felt one of them, and saw the other grab the one I felt.”
“You know that sounds really wrong, right?”
“Ryoko, this is serious!”
She held up her hands. “All right, all right, sorry. Let’s just go find them and get to the bottom of this.”
“Not without us, you aren’t.” Ryoko and I looked behind her at hearing Raid’s voice, to find him and Rylan approaching. “We don’t know what’s going on here, so it’s best if we all stick together.”
“We also know that if this imposter Raikidan targeted Laz first, then she’s his intended target,” Rylan stated. “It�
�s not a good idea for her to be on her own.”
Ryoko smiled. “Then we can use her as bait.”
Rylan scowled. “That’s not a good—”
“No, it’s a great idea,” I interjected. “I won’t leave your sight, but if this imposter has escaped our Raikidan’s grasp, I can bait him without him knowing you’re there to back me up.”
Rylan crossed his arms. “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t either,” Raid agreed.
“Well I do, so that makes this vote a tie and we’re out of time to negotiate,” Ryoko stated. “We’re the women, so what we say goes, and we’re going with this plan. If you don’t like it, you can just not follow us.”
I chuckled, and the boys just stared at her in shock. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me off in the direction both Raikidans ran off in. The boys didn’t take long to follow.
It was easy to find them. They were making a loud enough ruckus. I watched as the two went at it on each other with no holds barred. There were damaged crates and blood everywhere. I worried one of the crates could be filled with explosives, but I didn’t know how to help. I didn’t know which Raikidan was the real one.
“What do we do?” Ryoko asked.
“What can we do?” I replied.
There really wasn’t anything we could do. We couldn’t just up and attack him, and Raikidan was in a bind as well. He couldn’t shapeshift or use fire, due to the supposed explosive nature of the contents of the warehouse. It was all up to him to get this imposter dealt with and then convince us he was the real one.
“There has to be a way to help…” Ryoko whispered.
I sighed. How could we? It wasn’t like the imposter was easy to spot. That’s when I noticed how different the two were moving. One was moving with fluid, almost snake-like movements and the other with strong, more focused movements. The question was, how did Raikidan fight?
He was strong and protective whenever I was around him. He never let anyone close enough to harm me. He was focused…
“That’s it!”
Ryoko looked at me. “What is?”
Without explaining myself, I bolted out into the open and headed straight for my target. The two men stopped fighting when they noticed me, only making my job easier. Swinging my crowbar, I struck the fake Raikidan over the head.
He stumbled backward. “Shit, Eira, what was that for? Do you really not believe it’s me?”
“I know you’re not.”
Before he could right himself, I changed the wrench back into a dagger and ducked underneath him. He went to grab me, but I plunged the dagger into his chest, stopping him dead. He twitched a little and looked down at the weapon, choking on any words that may have come to his mind.
He stumbled backward, but as he did, he began to change. My eyes widened a bit in surprise when the person collapsed and finished transforming. The man was actually a sultry woman with pale skin and black hair.
Ryoko ventured closer. “Is that… is that Rana?”
I nodded. “Looks that way.”
“But I thought she escaped Zarda’s clutches, too,” Ryoko said.
“No, she chose to stay,” Rylan said. “As long as she did as he asked, she was treated quite well, so she saw no reason to leave.”
“Yeah, I remember her having her own room and everything,” Raid complained. He rubbed his stomach. “She even got to eat whenever she wanted.”
“Who is this Rana woman?” Raikidan asked.
“She’s one of only two successful tank-created shapeshifters in any city,” I explained.
Rylan rubbed his chin. “But I don’t remember her being able to shift into anything of the opposite sex.”
“She probably figured out how to.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, though. She’s dead now.”
“Isn’t it a little suspicious?” Rylan asked. “How did she know about us and our connection to the rebellion?”
“I don’t think she knew about us specifically,” Ryoko said. “I think she was sent to ambush anyone who came. It just happened to be us this time.”
“But that means Zarda knows how to get to us,” Raid said.
I shook my head. “No, Rana wasn’t under Zarda’s orders this time.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“She had a habit of doing things behind his back and then only telling him if she succeeded. It’s what helped her position with him. Though I can’t be sure if she told anyone else what she was doing. She had a friend who she confided in a lot, even with her failed ideas.”
The others looked around to see if there was anyone else lurking in the shadows.
Raikidan approached me. “Eira?”
I looked at him. “Yeah?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks… for knowing I was real.”
I smiled. “Sure. It wasn’t that hard when I was able to compare you two. Now let’s get out of here.”
He grinned and then nodded. We regrouped with the others and left. I didn’t double check to make sure Rana was dead, like I should have. Knowing who she was, and some of the more secret traits she possessed, I should have.
Chapter 43
Raikidan stayed quiet when I messed up again, being far more patient with me than I deserved. He was teaching me two words at the same time, without telling me what they meant until I got it down. It wasn’t something he normally did, but I was determined to complete the challenge. I needed to know what these two words meant. He called me this in the Library entry. I needed to know.
I licked my lips and thought of how to they were structured and pronounced. I had caught on quick how possessive their tongue was, not that I was surprised. The way Raikidan acted, I had half expected it.
“S… Sa dnvk…” I groaned. “I suck at this.”
Raikidan chuckled. “Try again. Sa dnuyvk.”
I took a deep breath a tried again. “Sa dn… sa dnoyk.” I laughed with embarrassment and hid my face. “I’m terrible at this. I sound so stupid!”
He touched my arm. “You don’t sound stupid.” I looked at him and a small smile crept onto my face as I held his gaze. He grinned. “Now try again. You had the first word, so you have half of it down.”
“Yeah, the easy half,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “Just try again, sa dnuyvk.”
My eyes narrowed. He would taunt me by using it that way. I took a deep breath and ran his words through my head, trying to figure out how the words were forced out. When I had first heard him speak his tongue, I thought the words mainly sounded like grunts and growls, but now that I’d had the chance to learn it, it wasn’t completely true. Grunts and growls were used, but it still took proper tongue placement and, oddly enough, how much force you put in your voice.
Exhaling slowly, I tried again. “Sa dnoyvk.”
“Almost. Try again.”
Taking a deep breath, I tried again. “Sa dnuyvk.”
I blinked and then looked at him. He nodded in approval while smiling, and I smiled back. When he didn’t translate, my brow rose in question. “Well?”
Raikidan chuckled and thumped me on the forehead with two fingers before getting off the bed. “My friend.”
I stared at him as he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. His friend? Did he really trust me enough to call me a friend? Better question, did I trust him that much to do the same?
The early evening sun warmed my skin as I sat on the edge of the roof, thinking. Raikidan had taught me a lot today, and I was honestly having fun with learning his tongue. Even though it was hard, it wasn’t as hard for me to learn as other languages I had tried.
Though I wasn’t sure, I suspected he liked teaching me, based on how patient he was with me. It was nice of him to do this. He could have kept it
all a secret, but he chose to let me in on it. I smiled. It’s really nice of him…
My mind went back to the last set of words he had taught me. He saw me as a friend. He liked the type of closeness we shared, even though I was human. I know we had our spats, and sometimes I felt like he didn’t care about me, but he still stuck around. If he didn’t want to be here, he would leave, that’s just who he is. I touched the necklace he had given me. He wouldn’t have gone out of his way to give me this…
So, could I see him as a friend? Could I have an attachment to him? Who are you trying to fool, Eira? You already do…
I spun around when I sensed someone standing behind me. I half expected it to be Raikidan or one of the others trying to sneak up on me, but I was surprised to see a beautiful, translucent, slender woman with flaming red hair. Her eyes were a magnificent green with a strange golden ring circling the pupil, and freckles scattered across her skin like paint on a canvas.
I tilted my head respectfully. “Can I help you?”
She smiled at me. “I’m glad I can finally meet you. I’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”
I liked her voice. It was soothing, but I didn’t know who she was, although she did feel a little familiar for some reason. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Why have you been waiting to meet me? I’m not all that special.”
She continued to smile. “Our paths are more connected than you know, Laz.”
I lowered my gaze. “Please don’t call me that…”
“There’s so much hate that surrounds you. It pains me to see it. You could have had such a happy life, if he had—”
I scowled. “Don’t bring him up.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Please, just tell me what you want with me.”
“I come with a warning.” I looked up at her. “Beware of our greed, for we are dragons, and even the purest of hearts can be swayed by the smallest coin.”
I narrowed my eyes. Well now I knew she wasn’t human. “Why are you warning me? What do I have to watch out for?”
Secrets Page 53
