by Amelia Jade
Not all shifters lived within shifter territories. Some worked for the human governments, and most of the bigger and more powerful nations had several companies’ worth of shifters in their militaries. But beyond that, there were the private security firms. Such as the one he was fairly certain had been responsible for the earlier attack.
Daxxton didn’t have any firm data on that, but he thought he had recognized one of the dragons. Miranda had also mentioned something about the man in the first car, though he had disappeared at some point without anyone noticing. There were just enough things about the dragons who had attacked to indicate that they weren’t just a Fenris hit team.
“You saw why we’re here,” Miranda replied at last.
Translation: Fenris feels confident enough to move against us in the open under the disguise of mercenaries. We know we aren’t strong enough to hold them off on our own, but we’re not here to beg. We’re here to talk.
“I do hope you don’t have too many more parties planned,” he said dryly.
Translation: Are they desperate enough to attack you in Cadia?
It wasn’t necessary to speak in code, but Daxxton knew that for politicians it was all a big game, one they refused not to play. Miranda was far too professional and blunt to be a politician herself, but they were in the presence of a major one in the princess. So, despite the taste it left in his mouth, he played along with them.
“I’m not much of a formal ball lady myself,” Miranda said with a snort. “But you never know when the urge might strike.”
Translation: We don’t know, but they might, so be ready.
“I’ll have the on-hand staff doubled then, just in case you have a whim,” he said, sitting back in his chair and wondering just how the hell he was going to double the border patrols.
Things had been…tight, for the Guardians of late. There were generally peaceful interactions with the other shifter strongholds and the humans at Cloud Lake just on the other side of the Quicksilver Mountains to the west. With so few conflicts happening, Klara Nova, head of the Cadian ruling council, had massively scaled back the budget, although he and many others had contested it fiercely.
Daxxton had the unfortunate feeling that either he was going to be funding this himself, or he was going to have to rely on volunteers. Neither of which was ideal.
The rest of the ride passed peacefully, much to everyone’s relief. Even the tension that had built up between him and Miranda had mostly dissipated by the time they reached the Guardian headquarters building.
They walked on either side of the princess, escorting her up the stairs. As they did, he noticed the way Miranda matched her stride to that of the nobles, mimicking it almost perfectly. He frowned, looking at the facial features, body size, and hair of the two women…
“Princess!” Klara gushed, pushing open the door and emerging to greet them. “How wonderful to see you safe and sound.”
“Miss Nova,” the princess said, stopping to give the most powerful woman in Cadia a shallow curtsy.
“Oh nonsense. Call me Klara and please, do come in!”
He marveled at how sugary polite and chummy Klara was, even though to the best of his knowledge she’d never actually met the princess of Tanith before. Yet that didn’t stop her from acting as if they were old friends.
Politics. Ugh. He hated it and the fakeness associated with it all. Rolling his eyes, he pushed it from his mind as best he could.
Daxxton and Miranda hung back a pace as the two women began to chat, ignoring everyone around them. He caught snippets of the conversation before his attention was fully distracted, and knew they were discussing where the princess would stay while in Cadia.
“You’re not just her head of security, are you?” he asked Miranda as the pair went into a room, waving at the rest to stay outside. He gritted his teeth at being dismissed so easily, but the chance to spend more time talking to Miranda wasn’t exactly a bad thing in his mind. He could feel the fires stirring once more, and this time they pushed a bit of the guilt aside as well.
The raven-haired woman turned to face him sharply.
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’re her body double too, aren’t you?”
Miranda relaxed. “Oh, yes. On the occasion where we feel it necessary, I’ve played the part of the princess before.”
Deep inside Daxxton, something he thought would lay dormant forever awoke. His dragon’s protective side reared its head, very unhappy with the prospect of Miranda purposefully putting herself in danger. He didn’t like it one bit, and Daxxton felt his mouth opening to say that she shouldn’t do that.
Shut up.
Right now. Do not say that. Whatever you do, do not utter those words, you fool. Not only do you barely know this woman, but what you do know indicates she can more than handle herself in a fight. So don’t patronize her.
His teeth clacked audibly as he snapped his jaw shut, common sense getting the better of him.
“Dangerous job,” he commented instead.
“Sometimes,” she agreed, though there was a twinkle in her eye.
Had she known what he was about to say? Or was the look because she enjoyed the danger? He wasn’t sure.
“I hear Cadia can be dangerous too though,” she continued, making a none-too-subtle reference to what had happened with the Fenris delegation a month earlier.
They had been attacked several times, though in the end it had turned out to be one of their own. Still, there had been collateral damage to the citizens of Cadia, which had not helped things much.
“So, we’re going to need a security liaison while we’re here. Help keep us away from the unsavory parts of town.”
Daxxton snorted. There wasn’t really a “wrong side of town” so to speak. Oh sure, one didn’t want to go into the gryphon sanctuary, but that was well north of the town, and not exactly a tourist spot. The Tanithians would have to fly there on purpose to land.
Still, it would probably not be a bad thing to have someone with them.
“Asher,” he called, motioning one of his team forward. He had been hanging back against the far wall, forming a circle with the other three members of Miranda’s security team.
“No,” Miranda said, holding a hand up to stop the Frost Dragon. “You.”
Daxxton frowned. “What?”
“I want you.”
***
Miranda
What did you just say?!
Her brain went into overdrive. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
“As the security liaison,” she finished in a rush, fighting back the rush of blood she knew was trying to force its way into her cheeks.
Please don’t blush. Please don’t blush.
She blushed.
Fuck.
She had been so good up until then. Her only other moment of weakness had been the little gasp she knew everyone had heard when his fingers brushed against the back of her hand in the car. But she’d been unable to avoid it as electricity had shot up her arm, stunning her heart with its power.
There was something about this man that brought Miranda to life. His very presence even now within such close proximity made her skin tingle. The hairs on the back of her neck had been standing on end from the moment he’d gotten that look of protective jealousy in his eyes when she mentioned she was the princess’s body double from time to time.
“Me?” he asked in surprise.
Miranda gave thanks that either he’d missed the double connotation of her statement, or he’d just ignored it. She wasn’t sure which it was, but she was grateful for it anyway.
“Why is that such a surprise?”
Miranda arched her eyebrows. The tall man with the reserved-looking facial expression just stared at her. He wore a white loose-fitting shirt of fine silk over black pants with black boots. It was an unusual outfit, but on him, it served to do nothing but look dreamy. She wondered if beneath it he was just as tanned or not.
&nb
sp; Her eyes tracked back up to his face as she belatedly realized he’d just watched as she checked him out.
There was a power in his gaze, and not just the power over her. But Power, with a capital P. She’d met powerful dragons before, but few, if any, could match the sheer intensity of his gaze, even as it lacked any real emotion.
It was the eyes, she realized. His gorgeous eyes, so light and brown, specked liberally with gold flakes throughout, reminiscent of his scales. They were the opposite of her own orbs, a brown so dark they were almost pools of inky blackness.
“Well, I know who you are. So that helps. Plus you’re the first dragon from Cadia I met. That, combined with your reputation, has made me more open to trusting you than I would someone else, even a member of your team.”
And more importantly, I want to gaze upon that chiseled, goatee-covered face of yours. Not that I can say that.
Her pupils were dilating with lust, she realized. She blinked, looking away from his broad, powerful shoulders and the way they stretched the sweater he was wearing. Winter had arrived, though the snows were not yet present, much to everyone’s surprise. Miranda had a sneaking suspicion that they would be coming shortly now that she’d come, but Mother Nature was a fickle woman sometimes.
Maybe she’d get lucky and be back on her way to the warm climes of Tanith before that happened.
“I see.”
“I’ve also never met a gold dragon before. You’re a rather rare breed. Maybe that will keep the hard partiers at bay,” she joked.
“Or it’ll bring out all the gawkers,” he returned, and a chill burned down her spine.
“Well, we’ll have to hope for the best. Your team is good,” she said, nodding in the direction of the knot of dragon shifters talking amongst themselves.
“That they are,” he agreed.
Miranda fell silent, looking around. They were in what appeared to be a public lounge within the Guardian headquarters building.
Tanith had its own equivalent to the Guardians. The Shields of Tanith were well respected warriors whom Miranda would pit against any of the other strongholds’ best without a second thought. Or at least, she would have, until she’d seen the impressive way Daxxton and several of his Guardians had carried themselves into battle.
The building they were in now was easily twice the size of anything Tanith boasted, and she glanced around the spacious room once again, trying to find anything to distract her from the sudden silence that enveloped the two of them. But as it lingered on, Miranda noticed something.
It wasn’t awkward. They hadn’t spoken in at least thirty seconds now as her eyes scanned the ceiling, noting the intricate painting of various shifter animals worked into it. It was beautiful, actually. She was comfortable just sitting there with him.
That was dangerous. Tanith had a strict policy of neutrality when it came to Cadia and Fenris. If she was seen with someone from one of them in a non-professional setting, there could be disastrous consequences for the reputation of her home.
She consciously shifted her weight to the right, away from Daxxton, swallowing hard at her sudden clammy-handed nervousness.
It was almost as if moving away from him was…wrong. But how could that be?
“Miranda,” the gorgeous, slightly tanned walking statue said, his full, kissable lips forming her name.
She suppressed a shiver at the delicious sight, not allowing herself to give in to the fantasies creeping into her mind.
“Yes?” she asked formally.
“Why did you come to Cadia?”
There it was. The question. This time though, she knew he wanted a blunt answer.
Chapter Three
Daxxton
He knew as soon as she paused that Miranda understood he was looking for the no-bullshit reason this time. He wanted the gritty details of what had prompted their decision, the flight from wherever it was they had been. Everything.
“Honestly, it’s your fault,” she said.
“Excuse me?” he asked, defenses snapping into place.
“Not you personally!” she reassured him, the reality of what she’d just said setting in clearly on her face. “I meant Cadia.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When was the last time you left Cadia? That you went to another territory?”
He closed his mouth as she kept speaking. He left Cadia frequently, but it wasn’t to go to another shifter territory.
His mind conjured up a vision of a small grassy hill several hours’ flight to the south. A curved stone rose up from the hill, ancient words still chiseled onto it.
Kyra Ryker.
Taken too early.
Below that was scrawled a date.
“It has been some time,” he admitted, shaking his head to clear the image. “Why?”
She frowned, her eyes taking on a long stare, unfocused as she saw something in her mind’s eye. “Things are different out there. For a long time, Cadia was a power, a force to be reckoned with. Fenris and some of the other agitator states out there didn’t do anything, in fear of provoking your wrath.”
He knew she meant Cadia again there, and so he didn’t lash out at her. The memories her mention of his own personal wrath brought forth were not her fault, as she didn’t even know about them. Firmly he shoved them back into the dark box he kept them in and listened to what Miranda was saying, even as his eyes tracked the lines of her jaw, admiring the freckles that dotted her face here and there, adding character to her flawless features.
“But Cadia isn’t the power it once was anymore,” she continued, not noticing anything that he was doing as she continued staring at the wall blankly. “The other strongholds, they know this. Fenris especially, and they’ve been pushing harder, testing the limits of Cadia’s patience.”
Her head turned and he stared into the deep inky pools of her eyes, feeling himself get sucked into their tempting depths.
“Tanith has been paying the price. They make moves, we counter. They want to take us peacefully, turn us into a satellite, or colony of theirs. Add our numbers to theirs, as if we’d actually fight for them,” she finished with an angry snarl.
“Why are they no longer afraid of Cadia?” he asked, confused. What had changed to make Fenris act so brazenly that he wasn’t aware of?
“You can’t be serious?” she asked in dismay. “Are you that blind?”
He frowned. “What are you talking about, Miranda?”
The beautiful woman twitched when he said her name. The first time it’d happened he hadn’t been sure, but now he was positive.
“Cadia doesn’t do anything anymore. Fenris has been very, very careful not to do anything that would disrupt the flow of money to Cadia. As long as that remains untouched, your Council doesn’t lift a finger in regard to anything else. We’ve been probed by mercenaries twice now, testing our defenses. But we can’t prove conclusively that Fenris paid them off, so what can we do? Nothing. We don’t have the strength to match them,” she said bitterly.
Daxxton felt his ire rising. But it wasn’t directed at his home. It was directed at the people who ran it, the ones who had decimated the Guardian budget, allowing this sort of thing to happen.
“And you can’t outright ask for our help, because that would break your neutrality, which would ruin your reputation. If you could prove without a doubt it was Fenris behind those attacks, or the attempted kidnapping earlier, then Cadia and the other territories would be forced to act,” he said bitterly, the situation beginning to make sense.
“Exactly.”
“So, why come here now?”
Miranda paused, gathering her thoughts once more. Or perhaps ensuring she chose the right words. Daxxton didn’t blame her. Tanith’s neutrality toward the two big powers was well known, and well respected. It was located equidistant between the two, and both of them wanted more direct control of it and its rich natural resources that they could sell to the humans for the things necessary to survive. She had to ensur
e she didn’t say anything wrong, even at this juncture. Fenris may be an enemy, but she knew that did not necessarily make Cadia as a whole, friendly to her cause.
“A month ago, the head of our intelligence department—though I’ll deny any such thing exists if word gets out—was assassinated.”
That got his attention.
“Assassinated?” he echoed skeptically.
Shifters didn’t assassinate each other. They killed each other, yes. That happened, more often than he would preferred, often between species. But cold-blooded murder had been effectively tamped out centuries before. Their numbers were too few for that to become a normal practice.
“Well, unless you have a better way to explain how he was found with his neck broken, slumped in his chair at home, with no signs of a fight, then yes, I’m going to go with assassinated.”
Daxxton blinked, for once at a loss for words.
“It was at that time,” Miranda said, pushing on, trying to get past the gruesome topic, “that we knew Fenris was ready to take it up a level. So, here we are, though trust me, none of us wish to be here. Even coming here just to meet with you will impinge on our reputation of neutrality.”
“Shit,” he said angrily, the single word carrying for more weight than it might normally.
He could feel her resentment at being forced to come to his doorstep seeking a solution. She wasn’t angry at him, but at the way the situation had forced them together. She cared deeply for her home and to see it effectively under siege was probably more painful than he would ever know. All he could do was hope that she didn’t hold him personally responsible.
After all, he was nothing like the power figures on the Cadian Council, the ones who had their eyes set so firmly on money, and not on doing what was right.
His lips curled back in a voiceless snarl.
“I take it there was no direct link to Fenris,” he said, knowing the answer.
“Nothing concrete of course, but we know.”
He nodded, falling into a silence. There was something about the way Miranda spoke about Tanith.
“You have a lot of love for your home,” he said at last.
