Anandrox had taken so much from me, and I wasn't gonna let him take any more.
Right then, my phone rang. Picking it up, I saw that it was Benson back at the lab. "Yeah," I said, my voice terse.
"Jack, Benson here."
"What's the situation with the weapon?" I asked, my jaw tight.
"We've got it," he said. "But you're gonna need to get back here."
That was all I needed to hear. I revved the engine and peeled off, driving as fast as I could. Soon, I was back at HQ and making a beeline for the lab. On my way there, I noticed that the entire place was abuzz with agents. Turned out that more skirmishes had broken out between the wolves and the Tigers—it was only a matter of time before full-on war was declared.
Striding into the lab, I saw that Benson was alone and sitting at his station. His eyes were squinted as he looked at his computer, and on the desk in front of him was a long, black rifle.
"Benson," I said, barely able to talk through my anger. "Give me some good news."
"Weapon's ready," he said, patting the rifle in front of him. "But here's the thing-"
He pulled the magazine out of the rifle, which held three bullets the same color as the piece of the spine that I'd given him earlier.
"Three rounds—that's it," he said. "So make ‘em count."
"Three rounds?" I said, looking over the weapon.
"Yep," he said. "We lost a lot of the material in the grinding-down process. And the bullets will only work on the dragon the spine belonged to, so don't get any fantasies about being the dragon-slayer of New York City."
"Just need it to work on the one," I said, jammed the mag back into the gun and slinging it over my shoulder.
"And one more thing," Benson said. He reached into his desk and pulled out a small, perfectly circular item that was no bigger than a marble. He dropped it into my hand. It was smooth as glass and warm to the touch.
"What's this?" I asked, tossing the strange, almost unearthly stone back and forth between my hands.
"That's all that remains of the spine," Benson said. "Dragon parts…well, they remain a part of dragons—connected to them. It's incredible—these beasts rule over us all, but we know so little about them."
"The point, Benson," I said, unable to take my eyes off of the stone.
"The point is that stone wants to be a part of the dragon again. Meaning, that if you have it with you, it'll guide you to him."
"'Guide me"?" I asked. "How?"
"That heat radiating off of it…that's how you know when he's near. My thinking is the heat has something to do with how dragons are, well, held together. Maybe if you brought that stone back to Anandrox it would get so hot that it'd become pliable- able to form onto the dragon once again."
"Interesting theory, but all I care about is that I have a way to find him and to kill him."
"Only three chances," Benson said. "Keep that in mind. Those shots go wide and you're toast. Literally."
"That's all I need," I said, turning to leave. "Thanks, Benson."
"Good luck out there, Jack," he said.
With the weapon strapped my back, I was off. I was already imagining training the sights of this rifle on Anandrox, letting the round fly and taking that motherfucker out. I couldn't help but think about what he was subjecting Nadia to at this very moment, and it filled me with so much rage that I could barely see straight. And through it all, I still was coming to grips with just how much my new partner was starting to mean to me. I'd thought our night together was a one-off thing, nothing special, just a little ill-advised fling with a co-worker. But I couldn't stop thinking about the sex—her body, her smell, the way her face looked as we made love…it was all too much to process. I did my best to put it out of my mind as I made my way out of HQ. I had a job to do, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted by anything.
"Jack!" a voice called out as I reached the main floor of HQ.
I turned, and sure enough, it was Ms. Delahunt. Dressed in her usual black-on-black pantsuit, she stood with her arms crossed and a grim expression on her face, still as a stone while the other agents in the building bustled around her.
"I take it you're not going out to shoot clay pigeons with that thing," she said, noting the massive rifle strapped to my back.
"I've got a score to settle," I responded.
"Anandrox?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Come with me."
I was eager to get a move on, but I knew that when Ms. Delahunt gave an order like that there wasn't any saying ‘no.'
We went to her office and she pulled out a small black leather suitcase. "Break that thing down and put it in here," she said. "You can't go strolling down Fifth Avenue with a damn elephant gun strapped to your back."
Goddamn, what was I thinking?
I'd gotten so focused on revenge that I didn't even consider the details. Between killing Anandrox and saving Nadia I was barely able to think. I swung the rifle off my back, placed it on the desk with a heavy thunk, and began disassembling it.
“Here's the deal," Ms. Delahunt said as I worked. "I've been on the line with the wolf and tiger elders all goddamn day. They're itching for a fight, but if we can prove that Emmanuel Martin's murderer was a dragon, they'll stop this war before it even starts."
"They're willing to play nice just for that?" I asked, placing the rifle parts into the suitcase.
"The only thing wolves and tigers hate more than each other is being manipulated by dragons."
Made sense to me—I was dealing with a dragon now and all I could think about was blasting that prissy smile off his face.
Soon, the rifle was stored and ready to go. I didn't want to waste another second more than I had to.
"Jack," Ms. Delahunt said, "I know you have your history with this dragon, but I need you to keep a cool head. Don't get carried away with revenge. Take him out, but stay professional. You forget you're a professional, then you forget your training. You forget your training, you lose."
"Got it," I said.
"And bring our girl back."
I nodded, grabbed the suitcase, and was off. Minutes later, I was back in my car and speeding toward Midtown. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the stone, feeling its smooth texture and heat. And as I drove, sure enough, the stone grew hotter in my hand. It was almost imperceptible at first, but as I moved further and further into Midtown the heat of the stone grew so intense that I had to drop the thing onto the passenger seat. And as I closed in on the tallest tower in the area, the thin, boxy building that dominated the Midtown skyline, I heard a quiet hiss begin to sound from the seat. The stone was now so hot that it was singing the leather.
"Fuck!" I shouted, grabbed the stone and wrapping it in a cloth on the back floor of the car.
The heat muffled, I shoved the stone into my pocket and parked the car. Getting out, I had to crane my neck to look up at the impossibly tall building.
Figures this fucker would be in the ritziest place in the city.
I took a deep breath, grabbed the suitcase from the back of the car, and started off toward the tower.
Here goes nothing.
CHAPTER 16
NADIA
The city was stretched out before me. I couldn't believe how high up I was. My heart was still racing from being carried through the air. It actually so terrifying that I'm fairly certain I passed out for a brief time during the process. We arrived at the massive tower where Anandrox resided, and once we landed on the rooftop helipad, he set me down and shifted back into his human form.
"Now, don't get any funny ideas," he said in his snooty voice. "You're stuck here. No getting down without my say-so."
He grabbed me by the wrist and brought me to the penthouse where he lived. If Emmanuel's place was luxurious, then Anandrox's penthouse was absolutely imperial. The ceilings were so high and the place so spacious that I was sure I could fit my parent's home in here and still have plenty of room. The walls were all glass, and the place af
forded a three-hundred-and-sixty view of the city. I walked over to the wall facing Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and placed my fingers on the glass. The distance below spiraled out, and I felt unsteady just looking. We were up so high that the light pollution didn't affect us, and the stars in the inky-black sky twinkled and glittered.
Anandrox's place was an apartment of aristocratic refinement. Grecian-style sculptures adorned the space, along with Renaissance-style paintings and other upper-class aesthetics. Classical music was piped in through a speaker system that I couldn't see. The whole effect of a place was like being in a museum designed by the world's wealthiest bachelor.
"Take a seat," Anadrox said, gesturing to one of the long, bone-white couches that lay in angles near the windows.
Seeing no point in resisting, I did as he requested. Plopping down on the couch, I couldn't help noticing that it had to be the softest, most comfortable couch that I'd ever sat on. Everything about this place screamed money and luxury. I thought my family was rich, but looked like paupers compared to this dragon.
"What are you going to do to me?" I hissed.
"You? I haven't quite decided." Anandrox turned on his expensive-looking jet-black dress shoes and entered a room to the side that I could see was a walk-in humidor. He emerged with a cigar in his hands. He shifted his fingers into long claws and snipped off the tip, then, once the cigar was in his mouth, lit it with a snort of flame from his nose. "As I said, you're here for collateral. I suppose I could release you once this war is all over and done with. That might be a while, so get good and comfy. But maybe I'll kill you then. Who knows?"
Aside from the fear that ran through me, I was also disgusted. I could sense that he had not even the slightest concern for any life that wasn't a dragon's.
"Why a war?" I asked. "Why do so many need to die?"
Anandrox took a puff of his cigar and regarded me with the weary sort of a look a parent might give a child when asked a silly, pointless question.
"Just as you…lesser creatures have your own power games, so do us superior beings. You needn't bother with such details. Suffice to say, a war between these two species at this point in time over this particular territory would be in my best interests. I may only rise, say, a percent or so in the standing of things, but such things add up. In a century or so, I might just ascend to a new rank in our dragon society."
"That's it?" I demanded. "You're going to put all of these lives in danger just so you might, someday, move up a little? What do you need that you don't already have?" I gestured to the apartment around us, which had to be one of the most expensive pieces of property in the city.
"You little beings have such small imaginations. When you measure a life in millennia, not decades, your priorities…shift, just a tad. A small increase in power now might put me at the ear of a world leader in a hundred years. And that's where the fun really begins."
He took a long, slow drag of his cigar, held the smoke in his mouth for a moment, and let it out. "If only you knew just how much your societies have been controlled by my kind throughout the years. And not just you shifters, but humans, as well. In every major event in the world, anything of any importance, there's a dragon somewhere in the background pulling the strings. And this little war is nothing, just another move on a chessboard bigger than you could comprehend. In fact, I'm a little insulted by you even thinking you could begin to grasp my motives. Then again, arrogance is pretty common with you foxes."
I opened my mouth to speak, but before a single word could escape, a shot rang out in the apartment, a booming crack that cut through quiet ambience. My eyes now wide, I saw that Anandrox's cigar had been blasted to pieces.
"Now, just what the hell was that?" he asked, regarding the now-missing cigar.
I turned to the right and saw that in the shadows of the apartment was none other than Jack. He stood with a large, black rifle in his hands, a look of grim determination on his face. "Get down, now!" Jack said, looking at me.
I didn't need to be told twice. I leapt over the back of the couch and peeked out behind it.
"Is that little Jack Swift?" Anandrox asked, rising from his seat. "Now, I really hope you didn't throw your life away to take a few potshots at me with that gun of yours."
"You're gonna find out that these bullets might do just a little more damage than you're used to,”Jack said, stepping into the main room.
Anandrox sniffed the air, a quizzical expression forming on his face as if he detected something unusual. "No…" he said. "How did you…?"
"Let her go," Jack said, pulling back on the rifle and preparing for another shot. "Now."
"How about I finish what I started so many years ago and just kill you instead?"
With that, he shifted into his dragon form, his blue eyes burning with rage. "You know," he said, his voice now deep and resonant. "I didn't even remember who you were. I had to really jog my memory to remember that you belonged to a clan that I destroyed so many years ago. Funny how the defining moment of your life was something that I couldn't even remember happened."
Anger twisted Jack's face, and he raised the gun to take another shot. But before he could get it off, Anadrox's swiped his tail. Jack saw the blow coming, and shifted into his bear form to absorb some of the blow. But now he was pinned down under the dragon's tail, and his gun was clear across the room.
"Time to finish what I started, little bear," Anandrox said, fire forming around his nostrils.
I had to do something, and fast. I shifted into my fox form and ran across the room to the gun. Back into my human form, I picked up the rifle, leveled it, and took a shot.
My aim was better, but barely. The bullet cut through one of Anandrox's ivory-white wings. It wasn't enough to do any damage, but got his attention. He let out a mighty roar, and turned his attention to me and loosened his grip on Jack.
"You little bitch…" he said, still preparing to blast out fire.
"Jack!" I shouted, throwing the gun to him.
Anandrox tilted his head back, the room already heating with the impending flame. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. But before he could deliver the deadly blast, another shot cracked out.
This one didn't go wide.
Anandrox froze in place, his brilliant blue eyes now dulled. He wobbled on his massive feet, barely able to stand straight.
"No way…a creature like you…" Anandrox said, his once mighty voice now slurred and weak, "could destroy…a being…like…" He didn't finish his sentence. With one last snort of breath, he collapsed on his side, his body now still, the gentle classical music audible once again. On the side of his large head, I could see the gunshot leak silver liquid.
Jack dropped the gun, ran to my side, and took me in his arms. He looked me up and down, confirming that I was fine. I wanted to speak, but no words formed. I was too overwhelmed by all that had happened, and too overjoyed by the sight of Jack.
And he must've felt the same way, because instead of saying a single thing, he brought me close and kissed me hard.
CHAPTER 17
NADIA
One week later…
I sighed as Jack kissed me. His lips felt like heaven on the sensitive skin of my neck, and he knew by this point exactly where to place them to make my body shiver in ecstasy. He slipped his hand behind my head and brought me close.
I turned my head to the side as he kissed me, taking in the sight of the sun setting over Manhattan. We'd decided to have a private dinner on the rooftop of his condo, and, well, once we'd finished with the main course, dessert was the only thing on either of our minds.
The air was warm and pleasant, and I was all too happy to feel more of it on my body as Jack took down the straps of my dress and exposed my bra. His kisses moved down further, along the lines of my collarbone and to my cleavage. We'd made love over and over again during the last week, and I still couldn't get enough of him and his touch. I ran my hands through his hair and closed my eyes as his kiss moved down further
and further, another shiver running through me as his lips passed over my belly button.
"You know just where to go," I said, my mouth in a smile.
"What can I say?" Jack said. "I'm an attentive guy."
As he descended, he slipped his fingers into the pulled-down dress at my waist, sliding it over my hips and thighs. Once it was past my knees, I kicked it off. Jack then slid his fingers under the waistband of my black lace panties and pulled them down, too. I was now wearing nothing but a bra, and I was happy to take that last little bit of clothing off as Jack attended to the rest of my body.
When I was completely naked, Jack continued his kissing, covering just about every square inch of my hips and thighs with his lips. He moved inward gradually, gooseflesh breaking out all across my body as he moved closer and closer to where I wanted him. He started with little teasing kisses on my lips, his tongue darting out and tasting me. He continued like this for a little while, building the anticipation in the way he did so well. Then, once I was just about crazy with need for him, he slipped a finger into me, the sensation incredible.
I couldn't help let out a little squeal as he did his work, moving in and out of me with perfect precision. He curled his finger up, just the way I liked it, and the feeling of him moving inside of me was unlike anything else. Soon, he parted my lips and, teasing me just a little longer, began licking me.
"Oh, God," I said, running my hands through his thick, dark hair. "How are you…so good at that?"
He said nothing, only flashing another one of his little smirks. "Don't sweat the details," he said. "Just let the master do his thing."
I smiled, too, closing my eyes again and focusing on the sweet pleasure of his tongue on my most sensitive areas. Somehow, Jack seemed to know where to go and when I wanted him to go there, his skill so incredible that I wondered if he had some kind of love-making sixth sense.
He continued to finger and lick me, and before too long an orgasm rocked through my body. I bucked my hips and moaned hard, pressing his head against my body.
Shifter Wars Complete Series Page 24
