Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2)

by Rita Stradling

  “Um, hello everyone.” I sat up abruptly, but my knees on my heavy skirt caught me. “Shit,” I whispered as I tried to untangle myself from my very awkward situation.

  Glacier’s soul was a dark and defined cloud of a relief as he ran to me. Halfway to me, Pax and Wyvern Rex Senior appeared between us, and Glacier halted in his course, though his gaze still fixed on me.

  Pax spun to look down at me. “Do you do this every time you are teleported?”

  “Um, help,” I said.

  Pax grabbed my hand and lifted me to my feet.

  “I am officially pawning this dress, Pax,” I said, as I raised my head. Then I blinked, realizing that everyone in the room, except the dragons, had bent into a deep bow.

  A little groan escaped me as I forced myself to bow, yet again, to Wyvern Senior. The idea of being locked in his keep for the rest of my life was horrible, but having to bow to him every single time he walked into a room for the rest of my life made it even more unimaginable. Not that I would even consider the chance that I would not succeed in this mission.

  “You may rise,” the High Rex said, but I had already risen, so I just pretended to do it again.

  “Hello my grandsons. Which one of you is my grandson Reeves?” Pax said.

  Reeves stepped forward. His hair was as harried as I had ever seen it. Deep dark circles ringed his brown eyes. His thin, angular body somehow looked even thinner and more angular. For a moment, I felt sorry for my uncle, but it was completely wiped away when I remembered what it felt like to have my cheek smashed.

  As Reeves bowed to him, Pax pursed his lips. “If you ever intentionally harm Dakota again—”

  I fake coughed, saying, “Or her sisters.”

  “—or her sisters, you will serve me in my halls for the rest of your life.”

  “Of course,” Reeves said in a whisper, still bowing low.

  “That will be all.”

  “What did he do?” Wyvern Senior asked, a spike of anger crossing over his soul.

  “It is an internal family matter.”

  “She was in a contract with my son.”

  “And she no longer is. Family discipline is internal, always, Your Highness.”

  Wyvern Rex Senior harrumphed, but leveled a look on Reeves. “I hope for your sake that you did not disrespect my son by your treatment of his intended.”

  Pax cleared his throat.

  “His intended at the time.”

  Reeves, wisely, said absolutely nothing and did not raise his head from his submissive position.

  “Where is the son of the Vrykolakas dragon?”

  “He’s here,” Glacier said.

  “We planned to return him to his family tonight,” Reeves said, continuing to talk to the floor.

  “I will speak with him. Where is he?”

  There were a few beats of silence, then Reeves said, “Below ground.”

  “In a cell?” I asked, eyes wide.

  “Yes,” Reeves responded.

  “I will take you,” Glacier said, coming to stand before Pax.

  “And you are Glacier?” Pax asked.

  A spike of amusement passed over Glacier’s soul. “Bradson, sir. Glacier is my work moniker, and what Dakota insists on calling me.”

  “I see. I think I prefer it as well, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, Grandfather.” Glacier gave a slight nod of his head.

  “Well, please lead the way, Glacier.”

  Glacier gestured toward the main staircase.

  “I will stay here,” Wyvern Rex Senior said, going to stand next to the brazier.

  “Of course, I will have the cook make you something and… the servants bring you refreshment.” Reeves said quickly, signaling one of my uncles to go.

  “That would be appreciated.” Wyvern held his hands into the flames, letting the fire lick over his skin.

  “And for you, Grandfather?” Reeves called over, obviously flustered into forgetting his usually impeccable manners.

  “I am fine, thank you, but bring some food for Dakota. She will need quite a large meal, as her tasks of the night will be daunting, and she has already faced quite an ordeal.”

  The words made me feel even more exhausted, if that was even possible.

  “What time is it?” I asked Glacier as we stepped out of the Hearth Room and into the entrance hall.

  “Early morning. You were in the Dragon Kingdoms for thirteen hours.” Glacier’s expression, as always, showed nothing, but his soul was a stew of mixed emotions, anger and love, pain and happiness.

  “That’s got to be some kind of record,” I said.

  “Where is the Rex—the Rex of New Anglo?”

  I touched where that tugging sensation still pulled at my ribcage. The thread of soul stretched down, disappearing into the ground. “He’s still alive.”

  “And quite a few matters are dependent on that staying true,” Pax interjected. “One of them being that Dakota will be a prisoner in the High Rex’s keep if she doesn’t save the boy.”

  Furry blazed off Glacier’s soul as he rounded on me halfway down the staircase that led down to the front entrance. His dark gaze locked on mine.

  “It was either that or war for the entire family—”

  “We choose war.”

  “My sisters and mother are already in his hands, at the Dracon High Court in New Anglo. This way there’s a chance that everything works out for everyone, Glacier. And if not, it’s the cost of one life, not everyone I love—”

  “Or you could give everyone you love the chance to choose for themselves.”

  “We can do this.” I pointed to my chest. “I can do this. We will save him and everyone else. There is no doubt in my mind that we’ll win.”

  Pax nodded slowly. “We will continue on now. We have little time to waste. And, I wish to see my son.”

  Glacier spun, fury still wafting off his soul, but there was nothing I could do about it except continue on my course.

  “Why did Reeves imprison Harrison?” I asked as we walked through a door at the side of the entrance hall to another stairway.

  “Reeves thinks that he was planted here as a spy, and I am not sure that I disagree with him.”

  “That’s ridiculous—”

  “The vampires that attacked you were not from here; they are from Oceania.”

  “No way—”

  “Directly after nightfall the leader of the Rose Coven in Mailua called me. He told me that Jeffery Peters had been his contact, and he had given him my number in case he couldn’t get a hold of Jeffrey. He told me sufficient evidence to convince me his words were true.” Glacier looked over his shoulder as he talked, leading us down a second stairway to the quasi-dungeon my grandfather built under his mansion.

  Pax kept pace with me, his attention fixed on Glacier’s reporting. And I realized, Glacier was reporting, but not to me.

  Glacier continued, “Yesterday night the coven leader gave Jeffrey evidence that Oceania vampires have been killing coven vampires across the island chain and framing our family. It has happened slowly ever since the cruises started, all the covens’ investigations had pointed to us as the culprits until the Lily Coven had made a breakthrough.”

  “Was that the coven that got wiped out by the Dracs?”

  “It was.”

  “So Sarah was working with the vampires—did you get a gemstone from her?”

  “A gemstone?” Glacier asked.

  “A white stone, it looks like bone?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it!”

  “Dakota,” Glacier scolded.

  “It’s not a power or an aspect behind what’s happening to Lorelei and Bobby and now Wyvern, it’s a wound from a magical gemstone.”

  “A magical gemstone.” Glacier showed nothing on his face, but the anger in his soul was suddenly doused with amusement.

  “It’s not funny, Glacier! I’m being serious.”

  “She is serious.” Pax said the words
casually, chiming in for the first time in the conversation.

  Glacier stopped before a heavy cement door. “I think I need a little more explanation.”

  As quickly as possible, I explained everything that Pax had led me to discover for myself. As I spoke, Glacier’s amusement diminished to nothing. The one detail I left out though was the story about my father and the Regina, and what my grandfather had done to her. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Glacier, it was just that I had promised Pax… and so recently.

  “I’ll send family out there to comb through the grass, but I am assuming they took this stone with them.”

  “They escaped?”

  “They did, and the two guards that were unconscious followed them. You say that Father knows a cure for this wound?”

  “He might. A lot is riding on that possibility, otherwise I’m just going to have to wing it.”

  “And you say that the Regina is suffering a soul wound from this gemstone?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you want to pass her soul through your body?” Glacier raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Yes… yeah. But, you know, I wound a piece of her soul into my body and I’m still fine.”

  A raw, bleak resigned emotion took over Glacier’s soul. “It doesn’t seem that you have much of a choice.”

  “Nope, I don’t.”

  Glacier flipped up a keypad beside the cement door and typed in a code. I listened to the subtle difference in the tone sounds.

  “I am recoding it when we are done here, Dakota, do not even think about it.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said indignantly, though I totally was.

  The cement door slid up, revealing a thick pane of glass. On the other side of the glass was a spare room with a bed, a television and a toilet. Harrison sat on the bed, his gaze on the floor. He looked haggard, his expression bleak and his soul stark with currents of pain.

  “Are you serious, Glacier? This is so ridiculous!”

  At the sound of my voice, Harrison looked toward the glass. “Dakota?” his mouth moved but he made absolutely no sound.

  “Stay back here.” Glacier typed in a second code, a longer code, and the glass slid upwards as well.

  As soon as the glass was halfway up, I ducked under it. Harrison was already standing, staring at me like he couldn’t believe his eyes. His hands reached out for me, but he pulled them back. “You made it out,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay? Whoa—Glacier.” I jumped back, realizing my uncle had come up. “You are really invading my personal space bubble.”

  “Back away from her,” Glacier said.

  “I went up to him. Seriously guys, I already did this with him. I read through his memories.”

  I looked back to Harrison, who had not stepped away. He inhaled deeply through his nose, then his gaze flew to look over my shoulder. Harrison did take a step back then and bowed.

  “Stand,” Pax said from where he was leaning against the wall.

  I took another step toward Harrison, but ran into Glacier’s arm that was literally making a barrier between us.

  “Where is Wyvern? Is he alive?”

  “For a little while, and I need your help keeping him that way, but…”

  “What, Dakota?”

  “Harrison, the vampires that are trying to kill me are from Oceania. Did you know anything about vampires coming over with the cruise line?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Benjamin’s cruiseline traveled with some customers and the staff. I’ve seen the staff, but the customers stay on the island.”

  “How many in the staff?” Glacier asked.

  “Three hundred. I inspected each one of them myself when Imogen boarded a week ago.”

  “Benjamin was the one guarding the door that night, when I was pretending to be a server?”

  “He was.”

  “And also the one who rules Albonia when he’s not on the islands?”

  “You believe he is the traitor?”

  “I know he is,” I said.

  Harrison shook his head. “He is not.”

  “I saw it in Sarah’s memories.”

  “You saw wrong.”

  “Seriously people! Do I have ‘idiot’ stamped on my forehead or something? I saw it with my own eyes, Sarah went to get him at the door right before everything happened.”

  “You saw wrong. He would never betray my father’s will. If my father told him to throw himself into the ocean, he would not hesitate a single moment; I would believe myself a traitor before Benjamin.”

  “Well then you’re stupid, and you’re wrong,” I told him.

  His gaze roved over my face. “You left me to get arrested.”

  “You would rather I’d portaled you into a stone box with a transforming dragon?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the Dragon Kingdoms?”

  “Yes. I thought both of you were dead.”

  “Well… almost. And, we’re not out of it yet. We need your help getting Imogen’s body.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Light escaped through the edges of the curtains, and outlined my grandfather’s room. Grandfather still lay on the bed, his beautiful features a waxy mask in the low light. His chest rose and fell in a slow steady movement.

  I curled my legs under me in the chair, something that was much easier to do now I was in exercise shorts and a t-shirt. My hand had been healed. It had taken a single cup of Sylvia’s tea and five minutes of a weird tingly feeling to do it.

  “Sleep,” Glacier said from where he stood in the doorway.

  “I’m trying,” I whispered. “I’m really tired but it’s hard to sleep knowing what’s going on.”

  “The plan is sound. It was the first part of Bobby’s assignment to brand the ship for teleportation. Grandfather will be able to follow the brand. Even if Harrison leads him into a trap, Pax outranks and out powers every dracon on that boat twice over.”

  “He won’t lead him into a trap.”

  “If there was a trap, it has already sprung. Now sleep, that’s an order.”

  I closed my eyes, and even though Glacier’s words weren’t that comforting, I nodded off. A quiet ringing woke me. I reached around for my phone blindly, and I grabbed someone’s arm.

  “Huh?” My eyes flew open and I grabbed the sides of the chair I was in, confused on where I was. I peered around to see Harrison, holding out a still ringing cell phone to me.

  “You’re back?” I croaked as I grabbed the phone from him.

  “A couple minutes ago.” He sat on the floor, leaning his back against the leg of my chair.

  Lorelei face smirked from the screen of my phone. I rushed to answer the phone, and held it to my ear. “Lorelei?”

  “I can’t talk for very long, so just listen okay?”

  “Okay…”

  “The tattoo thing, it’s part of a human hippie cult thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve infiltrated their group—”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Seriously, Dakota, I only have a minute, so shut up.”

  “Sorry, I’ll listen. But I’m killing you later.”

  “Whatever. I thought a lot about what you said on the flight, and that the human that attacked us had gotten into the ship impersonating servers. I figured that if the humans we were looking for did it on the ship, they were probably impersonating servants at the High Court too. So, I came to the High Court pretending to be Mom’s human servant. I was in and out of the kitchens all day.”

  “Smart.”

  “Thanks. Well, anyway I learned that the dracons here are total dickwads and there actually is a total cult thing going on with the servants. And it’s weird too, because they’re not like psycho killer people either. I talked with everyone I could, told them I was really into human rights, and this girl I was working with literally tried to recruit me before nightfall.”

  “You’re good.”

  “Yeah. She told me that she�
�s really into human rights and the environment, and there’s this group she goes to called ‘The Rebirth Congregation’ for humans only. I had to pass through some gate thing to get in. I sat through a two-hour lecture with a slideshow, and everyone was smiling and super friendly. They gave me vegan, healthy cookies and pasta salad. Seriously, they were a bunch of hippies, I’m not even kidding. All they talked about was healing the world so that dragons could no longer come to the surface. They were obsessed with peace for humans on the surface, and the idea that dragons would lead themselves to extinction.”

  “Did they explain the tattoos?”

  “I asked the girl I was with, she just said it was a symbol of hope for tomorrow, said that it had been the movement’s symbol since it began. She did say the movement was all over the world, and growing.”

  “Do you think it was the type of group that could coordinate a long, organized attack?”

  “Maybe… I’m sure they were just showing me their happy joy-joy side, but they were saying that they were really focused on lobbying for better recycling programs and conservation of green-waste at their various occupations, and especially in the court. I don’t know Dakota…”

  “Why is this not adding up? Sarah was with those extinction humans that attacked you, and she attacked Wyvern.”

  “Sarah? That’s so… uh, wait a minute. I’m going to have to call you later. I have been summoned to go serve someone something unessential, urgently, if I want to keep this servant thing up. Love you.”

  “I love you more,” I said, but she was already gone.

  “They had the stone before the attack and with Wyvern, but could they have been the ones to use it in Mailua?” Harrison said in a low voice from beside me.

  “My head hurts too much to think now. I keep taking a step forward, then a step back over and over and over.”

  “Maybe she’ll have the answer.” Harrison tipped his head, and I followed his gesture.

  Beside my grandfather, lay Imogen’s body. She looked dead. Even her fiery red hair had an ashen tone to it.

  “Is she breathing?” I whispered.

  “She is, though not much or often. I want you to do this and I do not, all at once. They are trying to find a way around you doing it while still saving your grandfather.”