“Do you see me moving?” asked Ivan.
“Keep it that way.” Felipe got in. Balaclava crouched beside Ivan.
Suddenly, Ivan’s vision darkened and he could barely make out the back of the seats or the crowded interior of the van. Felipe let out the clutch and rolled slowly out of the courtyard and through the entryway. The two Lindorms on sentry duty ignored the van.
Balaclava scrambled into the passenger seat and Ivan’s vision cleared. He turned his head so his cheek pressed into something sharp and smelly. He kept it there, ignoring the discomfort. He had to keep Felipe in view. The van moved sedately through the countryside. From the floor of the vehicle, Ivan realized he could not see where they were going. But the road was old and full of turns and twists. Every curve meant he was bounced around like a crash test dummy. The trolley fell off the chests and crashed onto his back.
“Shit,” he said.
Felipe laughed.
Ivan realized that Balcazar Mendez could no longer see him because the fallen trolley obscured the sight lines from the driver’s seat. It was as good a moment as any to get his knife. He wriggled his hands trying to get a little slack. None was forthcoming. Ignoring the pain in his joints, Ivan managed to tug the shirt out of his pants and reach for the blade.
“Get this damned thing off me,” he complained plaintively.
“Shut up.”
Ivan halted his painful progress, until Felipe’s attention was once more on the winding country road. It took a long time, but he managed to force his arms to grope in the small of his back. Under his breath, he muttered the words of power to activate the tattoo. H was uncertain as to whether or not the magic would take when he was distracted and drugged.
He felt again for the knife. One of the curving blades bit into his fingers as he tried to grasp the handle and bring it fully into three dimensions. He cut himself twice more and his blood made the handle slippery. But he was able finally to grasp it in his hand and then to turn it so he could cut through his bonds.
Blood was dripping everywhere. For every slice through the nylon rope, he nicked his wrists. His sweat stung the cuts but he bit his lip and continued until his wrists were loose and the circulation started in his shoulders and pecs. He lay like that for what seemed like a long time. As the blood returned to his arms, he silently endured agonies far worse than the strain on the joints had been. He made sure he had a good grip on the handle of his shuriken and waited.
His moment came when something large and heavy landed on the roof of the van, denting the roof inward, and making Felipe swerve. Ivan sat up, shifting the trolley over the chests. At the same instant, he pulled his arm back as far as he could to put some power into his throw and released the razor sharp weapon. Felipe’s bullets hit him simultaneously.
He could see that the multiple blades of his circular throwing knife had spun through Felipe’s throat and cut the jugular. He just hoped that wasn’t Christina on top of the van. If she had put herself in danger, he would blister that fine ass of hers. Too bad Felipe had bloody killed him. He slid away into darkness as the passenger door was thrown open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Christina took dragon as soon as Felipe and his accomplice settled into a rhythm. Open a chest, close lid, carry it out. It was typical of him to underestimate her, to believe she would just lie huddled on the floor until he chose to kill her. She knew he had done something to the security cameras, but she didn’t know what. But certainly, Oskar had been disabled by the hypodermic and so had Ivan. Her mate was lying unconscious and bound on the floor next to her. There was probably no help forthcoming from either one.
She bent light as she had never bent it before. No sense in making this easy for Felipe. The room lost the little color it had as she altered the light to go stealth. Once in dragon, she raked her clothes up with claws that were blurry to her and tossed them into the chest of silver coins which Felipe had left open, then nudged the lid gently on top of them. A shred of denim was still visible, but there was no time to fix that.
Of course, she was too big in dragon to leave via the door, even if Felipe and his henchman hadn’t been in the way. She was invisible, not incorporeal. She looked up. In the corners of the cell, iron bolts had been driven into the walls almost at ceiling height. Below them hung armor. Once undoubtedly, prisoners had been shackled to that brutal ironmongery. A single bound, and she had reached the corner to the right of the open door and was clinging there with the talons of all four limbs. The armor rattled loudly against the limestone wall.
On the ground, Ivan moved sluggishly, and his eyes half-opened. She hadn’t really thought that he was dead. Whatever Felipe had given him was beginning to wear off. His eyelids fluttered shut again. They were still closed when Felipe returned.
Felipe showed no sign of having spotted her. It took him a surprisingly long time to notice she was gone. And when he did, he panicked. She winced as he kicked Ivan to his feet and made his captive leave with him at gun point.
When Felipe banged the door shut and tried to lock it, she knew a moment of panic at the thought of being trapped. She could hear him ordering Ivan to bespell the door. Ivan mumbled the opening spell. She flinched when Felipe hit him in the head again when the spell didn’t work. But Ivan just said the same words louder.
Of course, the cell door wouldn’t lock without the proper spell. Felipe swore some more and pushed Ivan ahead of him. The sound of the trolley rumbling over the floor receded. Chrissy dropped to the floor and took human. She was weary and trembling from the strain of remaining invisible. Light bending took way too much energy. She fumbled through her tattered clothes until she found her cell.
Of course, this deep underground, surrounded by limestone, she had no service. As she had feared, none of her clothes could be put back on. She carried her phone with her as she crept naked into the hall and padded after Felipe and Ivan. They had gone outside and were loading the van before she got a couple of bars. Felipe’s accomplice clambered into the back with the folded trolley. Felipe got in and slammed the door. The vehicle blurred and vanished. Shit.
She sent a quick text to the Eldest, waited until she thought the van had slipped past the gatehouse and hurried after it. Round-eyed Nils and Walter spotted her and emerged looking shocked and babbling.
Nils was trying to strip off his Kevlar vest to get to his shirt. She shook her head at him. She had no time for modesty. She handed over her cell. “Get the Eldest. Make sure that someone follows that van. Felipe Balcazar Mendez has Ivan Sarkany hostage.”
“But...”
“Uncle is expecting a call. Tell him Felipe disabled the alarm.” She took dragon before she had finished speaking. Her last few syllables turned into the whistling shriek of a hunting dragon. She launched herself in the air up to the castle roof. From her perch on the slates, she could see the old plumber’s van lumbering unhurriedly along the country lane. So Felipe had not been able to sustain stealth, or he thought an invisible vehicle was a dangerous thing for its driver.
Christina took a deep breath and bent light once more. The energy drain staggered her but she spread her wings and set off after them. Felipe was driving at a slow but steady pace. He used his turn indicators. He braked for curves. He gave way to a tractor towing an empty cart.
She was now so exhausted that the air felt as sticky and as thick as honey to her wings. She was weakening with every stroke. But gradually she caught up with the van. She hovered overhead and braced herself to land on a moving object. Her feet skidded, but her sheer bulk buckled the roof. It swerved and she grabbed with all four sets of claws. Her talons sliced through the metal and insulation like a hot knife through butter.
Felipe fired. But not at her. The van stopped moving. She peered in through the windshield upside down. Felipe was lying sideways with a gaping wound pumping blood everywhere. His accomplice was running from the vehicle. She couldn’t see Ivan but she knew in her bones he was hurt. It was too hard to sustain invisibilit
y. Her sight was going black at the edges, so she let go of the light. The world slammed back into color. She felt too tired to move, and yet she still had work to do.
Christina sent flames after the escaping thief. His overalls ignited under the blast of dragon fire. He danced in terror for a moment or two while the flames enveloped him, before common sense took over. He dropped and rolled on the paved road trying to beat out the flames. Even his balaclava was on fire. He took dragon, discovered he was still ablaze, and returned to human and rolled on the ground trying to extinguish the flames.
She jumped to the ground and grasped the rear doors with her forepaws. Her talons were clumsy devices and in any case, as she had feared, Balaclava had not unlocked all the doors. Felipe was dead, but Ivan might need her. She focused all her strength and wrenched at the door handle. It came off in her paw. Crap. She fit two talons in the hole and yanked. The hinges shrieked and the door parted company with them. She flung it aside.
Ivan was slumped against boxes of tools. Grief clutched her heart and closed her throat. Her mate was dead. She took human without thinking, and climbed into the van, scrambling over Ivan’s legs to get to his chest. The coppery smell of blood and the stink of death overlaid the foulness of sewage. Ivan’s hands and arms were a mass of little cuts and nicks that had bled and dried and bled again. And were bleeding still. The bastard wasn’t dead. He was bleeding.
There was hardly any room, but she managed to turn Ivan onto his back and open his shirt. He was wearing Kevlar. It was dented in several places. With fingers that shook, she undid the buckles of his vest and looked at his naked chest. Bruises blotched his golden skin. But there was no sign of blood. She touched his face, only then realizing that she had been keening his name aloud.
His face was pocked with small bleeding wounds. Shrapnel. But why was he unconscious? In the distance the wail of sirens got louder. She was buck-naked. Flashing Nils and Walter was one thing, flashing the Eldest, was quite another. There was a filthy tarp lying amongst the tools.
She grabbed a handful of the blue canvas and yanked it slowly out. It was nastier than she had first thought. She wrapped it around herself anyway. Ivan was so going to owe her. She sat down beside him to tell him so and that was where Lord Sarkany found her three minutes later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“You should be in the hospital,” Christina said for about the ninetieth time. She gripped his hand tightly.
Ivan tried to look stoic. “How could I explain?” he asked.
“You could tell them that Vassily did it,” she argued.
“Peeled a four-inch circle of skin of even depth off my lower back?” Ivan mocked. “I believe I am better off staying the hell out of this story – exactly as your uncle and Hugo told it, rather than get into explanations with mortals. Don’t worry about it. I’ll heal.”
“It’ll scar,” she worried.
He kissed her hand. “Then I will have a scar, my darling. There is no way that I am going to recover that knife. The gendarmes have it and they won’t give it back, because first of all, they believe that it belonged to Vassily, and secondly, it is an illegal weapon. I can’t claim it without taking credit for killing Felipe. Much better to let the police think Vassily was responsible for that, as well as for his own death.”
“Uncle Thor said the officers were nattering amongst themselves, wondering what he used to set himself on fire,” Christina offered.
“The wrath of Christina of Severn is no light matter,” replied Ivan.
“Remember that, Sarkany,” she said.
“How could I forget it?” he asked. “I do love you, Christina of Severn. I thought I would die when you appeared with Felipe today. I heard you speak the words of power quite willingly – for a moment, I thought you were his accomplice.” He shook his head. “Notice, I did not shoot you.”
“He had a gun on me, and a hypodermic with God alone knew what. Of course, I complied. But I thought the chateau was too well guarded for him to get far.” She shook her head wonderingly. “He thought he had absolute control of me. He probably started enchanting me when I was still a child.”
“For that alone, he deserved death,” Ivan said pleasantly. “Tell me, dragoness mine, do you love me?”
She kissed him. “Can’t you tell?”
“No. I cannot read you at all. I adore you. I need you. I desire you. Do you return my feelings?”
“Yes. Now we have to convince my family to let me marry you.”
* * *
They were all gathered in Lord Lindorm’s study to try and sort out what had happened. Ivan was sitting beside Christina, looking rather gray still, but holding her hand. Extra chairs had been brought in so that everyone could be accommodated.
“I should have listened to my wife,” said Lord Lindorm ruefully. “She complained that our staff resented Felipe’s man fiddling with his laptop instead of helping with the fetching and carrying. Turns out the bastard – excuse my language, ladies – was hacking into my computer. He got control of our security cameras here as well as at the Chateau de la Ghilde.”
“Devious,” agreed Severn.
“So while my sword bearers watched their screens vigilantly for intruders, they were actually monitoring a loop of footage that had been taken days ago. Naturally, it didn’t change.” Lindorm shook his head. “We need better security.”
“Consider the resources of Sarkan Security Systems at the disposal of the Guild,” said Hugo promptly.
“I will hold you to that, Sarkany,” replied Lindorm.
“Are you telling me that while I was hanging about in the cold and dark, listening to the sentries outside the Vault change, Felipe actually knew the real schedule and had made sure he could move unseen through HQ?” Ivan demanded.
“I’m afraid so,” Lindorm said. “He was deceived by my misdirection about the spell. But he had found the real schedule on my computer. He had a plan for entering Guild Headquarters unseen and had brought Christina along to say the words of power for him.”
“I noticed,” Ivan said dryly.
“He made Christina transfer from the Maserati to the back of that plumber’s van.” Lindorm ignored Ivan’s interruption. “Which his servant Vassily was driving. He then made the entire vehicle invisible and just coasted past the gatehouse into the rear courtyard. The cameras back there were showing the useless loop to the sentries. He was able to make Christina invisible by holding on to her. He then circled around to the front with her on foot. They walked into the chateau without anyone seeing them. After that, it was easy enough to open the rear door and admit his servant.”
“Who was of course the dragon who killed the Grand Duke,” Ivan said. “His scent was unmistakeable.”
“It would appear,” said Hugo thoughtfully. “That Felipe had mastered the Spell of the Cloak of Invisibility. This connects him to Vadim of Montenegro. How many other dragons did that treacherous sky worm teach before he was killed on Tarakona?”
“We will have to investigate this further,” Lindorm said. “I have asked Lord Spyridon to search his archives once again for information. It is especially needful now that we know that the spell can turn whatever the adept is touching invisible. And the High Marshal has redoubled his efforts to locate Vladimir the Enforcer.”
“I wish my talent for going stealth allowed me to conceal more than myself,” interposed Christina. “But I can turn only myself, and only when I am in dragon.”
“Perfectly normal for a light dragon, my dear,” said Lindorm smiling at them all. He turned to Ivan. “This matter has been successfully concluded. Since the police on Juist have learned that the Inventory was recovered from Vassily’s room in the village, they have decided he killed the Duke. Apparently, he entered the Huis von Bulow by using grappling hooks to climb up the front of the palace.”
Chuckles greeted this remark.
“However,” Lindorm continued, “I don’t think you have much chance of recovering your knife, Lord Ivan.”
>
“I don’t care,” Ivan said, “If I get to keep the dragoness.” He brought Christina’s hand to his mouth.
“I don’t see what Felipe hoped to accomplish,” Severn grumbled.
“He was overextended,” Christina said apologetically. “If he hadn’t charmed me all through my adult life, I of all people would probably would have noticed his financial troubles. I always knew he relied on me for advice, but I couldn’t put the things I had observed together because I was enchanted. Until I met Ivan.” Her cheeks became rosier.
“From things he said in the car,” she continued. “I think he needed a big influx of cash and he hoped to be able to sell the Guild treasures to recoup his losses.”
“With counterfeit?” exclaimed Hugo.
“Felipe’s ability to discern value was subpar,” Ivan explained dryly. “He believed the replica inventory was the real deal, when its modern provenance should have been immediately palpable to a dragon. And I saw him open chest after chest of worthless ‘bullion’ and cart it away. No talent for valuables whatsoever,” he concluded.
“What he had a talent for was manipulation,” said Lady Lindorm severely. “I feel like a fool for allowing Felipe the run of my house. I still cannot believe I let him install that Vassily person in my house – against my better judgment.”
“And I wish I had had a whiff of him before I went to hang out in the Vault,” said Ivan ruefully. “I would have known at once that we had found the murderer.”
“He sounds psychopathic,” said Leah Sarkany smoothing her dress over her stomach. “Charming, yet heartlessly evil behind his mask. How could he have his Uncle killed or spend years getting Christina to tell him secrets? That isn’t normal.”
Lord Lindorm snorted. “It is all moot now,” he said. “He is dead and no longer our problem. We have now to decide if Ivan Sarkany is worthy of Christina of Severn.”
Ivan did not let go of her hand, but he did stand up. He moved carefully since his lower back was still bandaged. “I have claimed her,” he reminded the room.
Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3) Page 20
