by Angel Lawson
No wonder the doctors were afraid.
Quinn and Owen dart into the road and Charger tosses up a protective field, holding back Blaze’s attack. Kincade shouts from behind his minion and a troop of men in black clothing pours from the shadows.
“Owen can’t fight them off alone,” she says.
Draco nods. “He’ll have to give it a shot.”
He’s not the strongest fighter but he does have his powers, and he uses them the instant the first of Kincade’s bodyguards gets close. Astrid can’t watch, she has her own job to do, and she feels for the cuffs on her belt.
“Go,” she says to Draco with a nod, and he walks up to his boss with zero fear. He’s not afraid of her or her dragon. Astrid wishes she could say the same, because the woman stands beneath her beast and screams with a feral cry.
“How dare you trespass against me and my people. This is my town. My community!” She moves her hand into the shape of a claw and the dragon swipes the air too close to where Quinn is holding Blaze back.
“Demetria!” Draco shouts over the roaring fire. The heat from the burning float is sweltering. Her blue Wendy nightgown is singed along the ground. Sweat trickles down his neck.
“Draco?” she says, her voice is weak. The dragon wavers. She’s expended an enormous amount of energy.
“This isn’t what you came to do.” He takes a step closer. “This isn’t what you wanted to do to your neighborhood.”
He reaches for her hand.
“What?” Her eyes widen like she’s seeing the destruction for the first time. He holds her eyes and draws her in. How? She doesn’t know, but Draco is a very powerful man. “I can’t let him have it.”
“So you’d rather destroy it?” he asks. “Call down your beast. Echo and the others will take care of Blaze.”
Her eyes narrow. “He was always naughty. Always. I tried to get him to join us, but he’s too wicked.” She hisses in his direction and the dragon roars, spitting fire. Draco cuts his eyes in Astrid’s direction. She needs to act—now.
“Demetria,” he says, holding her eye, both of her hands in his. “I’m sorry.”
Astrid moves quickly and gets behind the deranged woman. Draco thrusts her hands behind her back. She slips the cuffs over Demetria’s wrists, pressing the button to make them magnetic. The dragon stutters and in a blink turns back into a tiny toy, landing with a clatter on the ground.
Demetria jerks against them, hair trembling down her back, but she’s locked tight.
“What have you done?” she asks. There’s genuine terror in her voice and Astrid backs away, not wanting her emotions to spill over.
With the dragon down, Blaze pauses his attack. Owen’s fighting three men in black, using a mixture of his power and tactical moves. Fighting, but not winning. Quinn turns and sees him take a hard kick to the side and fall. He drops his shield and races over to his friend, tossing his opponent to the ground.
Astrid starts to run over but Draco grabs her by the arm and holds her back. A full team in military gear runs from the side streets. They’re carrying guns, big ones, and the battle is swift. Blaze shifts his focus, tossing fire bombs in the direction of the soldiers. Shots are fired.
A segment of the fighters turn their way.
“Take her,” Astrid tells Draco, knowing Demetria needs to get out of here. Away from whoever these people are. Heavy footsteps pound behind her and she spins, fists raised. She’s ready to fight off whoever is coming next.
To her relief, she doesn’t have to. It’s Jensen.
He’s covered in soot and looks like he’s just been through war. They all do.
Draco looks between them, but his eyes linger on Jensen before he focuses back on Demetria. Already she seems to have slipped away, her mind somewhere else. Probably somewhere better.
“She’s coming with me, son,” Jensen says.
Draco doesn’t argue and steps away. Astrid stops Jensen when he reaches for his own pair of cuffs.
“Don’t take those off.”
“No?”
“Atticus made them,” she says, as if that should explain it. He nods as though it does.
He reaches for his gun and holds it in the air. She flinches when he pulls the trigger but flares rip into the sky and his men hold.
“Who are these people?”
“They’re with me.”
“Recruits?”
She scans for their faces. She can’t see them behind the masks, but a few bodies look familiar, especially one with a massive frame. Rowe.
“You trained them well.”
“Did I train them for this?” she asks, but he doesn’t answer, handing Demetria off to a mask-faced soldier. With only a quick look at Astrid, Draco follows his boss.
Everything smells like smoke. Everything feels like adrenaline—too amped up to identify. She searches the street for Quinn and Owen, but they’re gone. Blaze is surrounded by a group in black. Kincade lies face down on the street.
“I saw you in the crowd. I wanted to warn you.”
“We’ve been watching Holmes and WIND-E for a while, since the Gala. We didn’t know who was behind those fires but she’s unstable enough to have set them herself.”
“She didn’t. It was Kincade.” She watches the troops yank him off the ground. His hands are cuffed and his cheek bloody. “They had a difference of opinion on how the Swamp should be used.”
“So they decided to blow it the fuck up instead?” He laughs bitterly. “Are you going to tell me what was going on with all this? The dragon and that guy?”
Astrid looks at Blaze’s unmoving body on the ground.
“I don’t know if I can.” No more than he can tell her how he knew all of this was going down and how his team knew to be ready.
He doesn’t push. He never has, and when he’s called over by one of his men, he squeezes her shoulder and leaves her standing in the road.
Astrid stares at the scene around her. The burned-out shell of the float. The crumbling streets. The fires and the lack of electricity. Jensen is right, these two destroyed what they wanted the most.
It will be up to her to fix it.
Chapter Forty
Astrid
She wakes in a cocoon of warmth, skin smelling of soap and lingering smoke. There’s a hint of roses and the tang of sulfur; both bring the assurance of protection. The weight of exhausted muscles wraps around her waist and her forehead presses into the hard planes of a well-defined chest.
Astrid is the lean middle of a sandwich, and it may be the best night’s sleep she’s had in months.
She wiggles under the covers, pressing her ass into Quinn. His strong hand lands on her hip. Owen stretches in front of her and she burrows into his chest. He rests his hand on her shoulder and after a tense moment whispers, “Don’t start something you don’t want to finish.”
She definitely, completely wants to start something.
So, of course, all three of their phones vibrate on the dresser across the room.
“Perfect fucking timing,” Owen mutters under his breath. She gets a good look of his face and winces at the bruises from the night before.
Quinn sighs and kisses her on the neck and stands, adjusting his shorts on the way. He picks up each phone and tosses them on the bed. He scans his first.
“Casper?” she asks, easing away from Owen. He’s warm and inviting but he’s right. There’s not time. Not after last night. Not after hell tore through the city.
Quinn shakes his head. They haven’t heard from him since the night before. “It’s actually Draco. He wants to meet downstairs.”
“When?” Owen asks.
“He’s already here.”
*
Draco stands on the gym floor. Mick opened up hours before, even though she told him he didn’t have to come in. Not with the damage to the roads outside, but gym rats are habitual, and sure enough, a dozen regulars are scattered throughout.
Draco waits at the front desk, looking a little less
than perfect. Not a lot—a little. He looks as though a weight hangs over his shoulders and it’s clear he hasn’t slept. She’s pretty sure he can still take down a rhino and sweet-talk a crazy woman off the ledge, but he needs a nap. Badly.
“Hey,” she says. Owen and Quinn are back in the office. No one is ready to take Draco down to the Lair yet. He may be a survivor, but he’s not one of them. Not yet.
He lifts up a pink pastry box. “Thought you may need these.”
“How?” she asks, knowing she never mentioned her junk food habits to him. He’s also holding a puke-green smoothie and a cup of coffee. “Do we have any secrets left?”
“I’m sure there’s a few.” The curious glint in his tired eye makes her wonder if knows about her relationship with the others. “Can we talk? I have a few updates.”
“Yeah, come on.”
Quinn and Owen sit around the desk. The monitors are on, each screen a different news channel reporting on the destruction from last night. In the light of day, it looks like an unnatural disaster. The roads are buckled and crumbled. Firefighters still work on smoldering buildings. The streets are littered with broken lanterns and pieces of Demetria’s float.
Astrid turns away and focuses on the guys instead. That’s when she realizes how exhausted they look too. Owen’s feet are propped on the desk, trying to look casual, but there’s no denying his face is a battered mess. She saw the bruises lining his side when they got out of bed. Kincade’s men did a number on him before Jensen’s men finally showed up.
Quinn gratefully accepts the smoothie, even though he does pause to look at the name of the shop. Astrid nods, confirming his thoughts silently. Yep. Draco’s been watching them. The bigger questions is, for who? Demetria or himself?
Is there a difference?
Astrid pulls out a chair and pushes it to him. Then she sits in her own. “What happened last night?”
“They took her,” he says. The guilt he feels is palpable. At least, to Astrid. “To the hospital first—maybe later, jail? I don’t know.”
“She needs help, Draco.”
He nods. “She has a lot of influence, and that can go either way. They may lock her up for good or she may talk her way out of there.”
Quinn sets his empty cup on the table. “We’ll figure out what to do when a decision is made.”
“We?” Owen asks.
“Yeah, we,” he says. “We don’t get to walk away from this mess. She’s one of us. And if someone has to make the hard decisions—like with Blaze—we’ll do it.”
Draco tenses although his heart stays steady—almost intentionally so when Quinn says this—but he doesn’t argue. He’s a rational person. Maybe more so than the rest of us. He knows it could come to it.
“I’ll talk to Jensen and see what he knows. He may have more detail.”
“I’m pretty sure your man Jensen knows more than we thought,” Owen says, pointing to the monitor behind him. Her friend is on the screen speaking with a reporter.
“This is Agent Robert Jensen from the FBI. Can you tell us why your agency is involved here?”
Jensen, like everyone else there last night, looks worn out. “We’ve been monitoring criminal behavior in this area for some time.”
“What kind of crime? Specifically?” the reporter asks.
“Over the last several months there’s been an escalation of arson, the involvement of vigilante justice and the, frankly, weird scenes like the one we saw down here last night. The city called us in to see if we could help track down those involved. Last month we were involved in removing the leader of the Pixie Dust drug business off the street. Or so we thought. We’re reconsidering that now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since the drug hit the streets we’ve noticed more and more unexplainable incidents. The chaos at the Gala. The hysteria at the parade last night. People claiming they see impossible things. Men throwing fire. Dragons walking down the streets. People that can change their attitudes and emotions. There are accusations that someone is sabotaging the electrical grid—”
“Which explains the frequent blackouts.”
“Yes. At great cost to the city to repair.” Jensen looks at the camera. “This drug seems to have the ability to make people do unbelievable things—make them think they see the unreal and the freedom of unbridled destruction.”
“Do you have a plan to stop it?”
Jensen nods. “Mayor Steel gave us full access to the city. We’ve developed a task force to look into unusual crimes. These are members of a select and highly trained team. If anyone can get rid of the scourge that is plaguing the city, it’s them.”
Quinn glances uneasily at Astrid, but she keeps her focus on the TV as the camera pans wider and the black uniformed men and women come into view. They stand behind Jensen like his own army.
“This task force will be on the lookout for any abnormal behavior. Perform drug raids. Track petty criminals and vandals. No one is off limits.”
“Agent Jensen, why are you taking such a harsh stance?”
He reaches for the camera and pushes it to the side, past his army and toward the utter destruction of the Harbor Line. “People were injured and killed out here last night. At least two died from burns. One from being trampled. We’re moving to a zero-tolerance environment. Crescent City will not be held hostage by whoever is flooding our city with this kind of danger.”
“Last question,” the reporter says. “Do you have any suspects?”
“Yes. And we’re watching them whether they know it or not. We’ll get them off the streets. I promise that.”
Jensen walks off camera and the reporter continues. Quinn reaches over and turns down the volume.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Owen says. “I bet I know who’s on the top of that list.”
“I guess Pixie Dust is one way to explain the weird stuff going on around here,” Draco says. “And you know this guy.”
“Yes, he was my mentor’s best friend.”
“And his task force?”
She holds his eye and confesses. “I trained them.”
*
The estate looks different during the day. The house still looks like a castle but not quite as magical. The topiaries need a trim and no one turned on the fairy lights.
The driver opens the door for her and Draco waits at the top step. He’s dressed casually, in a pair of dark blue jeans and a light blue button-down that brings out the color in his eyes. Astrid wore a sweater that has a hood and pockets, skinny jeans and boots. It’s weird seeing one another dressed ’normal,’ but it’s all part of the façade they’ve agreed to wear until the heat dies down.
“Thank you for coming.” He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“It sounded important.”
They enter Demetria’s home. She’s still locked up in the sanatorium—a high end one located on a country estate. The facility looks more like a resort hotel.
“Have you been out to see her?” she asks. The house looks exactly the same. Draco is living here, managing Demetria’s affairs, but it’s definitely still her home. Astrid has never seen his living quarters—or anything personalized. He’s still a bit of a mystery. Which is why Quinn made her wear a recording device in the pendant on her necklace.
“I’ve been going twice a week.”
“How is she?”
He leads her down a long hallway, away from the dining room they used in their last visit. At a wooden doorway, he stops. “She’s not living in reality right now. Which may be a good thing. She’s happy, at least.”
He opens the door to an office. A large mahogany desk sits in the middle of the room, and the wall to the right is made of windows that look down the hill to the city. It’s the most masculine room in the house—totally unlike the rest of Demetria’s princess fantasy that there’s no mistake this is Draco’s private room. Pictures of foreign countries hang on the walls along with images of him as a teenager, several with a
beautiful older woman.
“Is that Emma?” She walks over and touches the frame. White-capped mountains provide a glorious background.
“Yes, that was in the Swiss Alps. She spoke in Geneva at the University.”
The picture tugs at her—something about the woman’s eyes. Her face. “I never asked. What was her specialty?”
“She was a geneticist, with a focus on mutated genes.”
Astrid pauses, her fingers still on the frame. She waits. Listens. Nothing about Draco changes but he’s the master of his emotions, body and mind. She does hear a small click, followed by the hum of electricity. When she turns, he’s standing before a computer screen built into the wall.
“I have to show you something,” he says, holding a remote. The screen is still black, reflecting back his silhouette. “But before I do, please understand I am on your side. We’re allies. Family, almost.”
Astrid’s world starts to tilt and she struggles to breathe. She manages to ask, “What are you talking about Draco?”
“I wasn’t the first survivor Demetria found. There was another. Someone smarter than all of us but not…exactly functional. He’s lived here since his mentor died—safe. Protected.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I am. Demetria wasn’t the only one that made it out of that explosion alive but damaged.”
“Who, Draco. Who are you talking about?”
He presses a button on the remote and the screen comes to life. It takes a minute for her to understand what she’s seeing. It’s a small room. A desk is surrounded by posters and small boxes. Toys and trinkets. It’s familiar. She’s seen it before. A man sits at the desk, head down, typing on the computer. Astrid’s hand moves to her mouth, she doesn’t need to see his face.
“Casper.”
He looks up like he’s heard her, but it’s obvious that he hasn’t when he focuses back on the screen. He’s the real-life version of his avatar, down to the T-shirt he’s wearing with a ghost on the front.
