Dragon's Luck: Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (Shifter Agents Book 3)

by Lauren Esker

  Sacking out in the other room was a strong temptation. But, with Lucky asleep, she had a perfect opportunity to explore.

  "Sleep tight," she murmured, and eased off the bed with exquisite care. She left the bedroom, pulling the door gently closed, and padded softly to the suite's main window.

  She had a moment's concern about her choice of room until she found the controls to open the window, which turned out to be a large push button under the sill. When she pressed it, the window slid smoothly a few inches into the wall with a soft mechanical hum. That seemed to be as far as it went, but it was plenty of space for her purposes. There was no window screen. It would interfere with the view, she supposed, and the bird netting would keep anything large out. Though there must still be bees and butterflies and things.

  And geckoes, of course.

  She stepped behind the drapes and slipped out of her clothes, dropping them in a heap on the floor. Touching the windowsill, she shifted, focusing on reducing her size while keeping her fingertips in contact with the sill. An instant later, the world had blown up enormous around her, and she was clinging to the windowsill with small gecko feet.

  She scurried to the window and scrambled through the gap onto the wall.

  A greater contrast to the world outside the ship could not be imagined. Outside, she knew, it was a cold gray afternoon, shading into evening. Here, the air was warm and perfumed with tropical flowers, and the soft white-gold of an artificial sun shone through the leaves.

  The bird netting was draped along the entire length and height of the atrium, hanging on a frame a few feet from the walls. Branches grew through it, here and there; she could see where they'd been pruned by what had to be a small army of zealous gardeners. However, their assiduous efforts to keep the birds from smashing themselves on the guests' windows worked out beautifully for her. She could scuttle in perfect safety, in no danger of being picked off from the air by a hungry raptor. When she wanted to rest, all she had to do was find a nice branch to lie on, soaking up the humid warmth around her.

  After years in the dank misery of Seattle, this warm, bright place was a delight. She'd grown up in California and had never quite adjusted; she always felt a little sluggish and cold in the Pacific Northwest. Here, the warmth and the bright artificial sunlight filled her with energy. She could run all day; she could climb any number of walls.

  Yeah, you also haven't slept in two days, Cho, and you know how you get. She'd crash sooner or later, but until then she'd be desperately hyper. May as well use it, she figured.

  She was no expert on tropical places, but it didn't appear that the arboretum was attempting to copy the biome of any specific place. She saw a wide variety of birds from different continents, and the trees were an equally eclectic mix. Was this Lux's private garden, she wondered, with its reclusive and eccentric owner adding whatever plants or animals struck his fancy? Or was it something else—a zoological garden, maybe, or a pleasure garden for Lux's guests? She did see a few people down there, walking on the curving gravel paths or sitting on benches by koi ponds or under shade trees.

  As she contemplated this, she noticed one woman on a bench looking up into the trees. Jen wasn't entirely sure what about the woman had caught her attention, until she scuttled a bit closer, down the wide branch of the tree that was currently providing a resting place for her, and realized that the woman had the familiar whatever-it-was—not quite a feeling, not quite a smell—that indicated a fellow shifter. She'd obviously noticed Jen too.

  Jen went flat under a clump of broad, shiny tropical leaves.

  "Hello?" the woman called softly.

  Jen put her head up. She could hide ... but she was curious. She'd gone out to reconnoiter, after all.

  The woman tugged out an earbud from the music player in her lap and continued to gaze up into the trees. She wore a stylish blazer and brightly patterned slacks, and a brilliant orange and purple headscarf was wrapped around her hair, knotted in an ornate way that made it bloom out like a tropical flower. Between that and the woman's soft accent, Jen guessed she was African, though she wasn't sure from exactly where.

  The woman took out her other earbud and got up from the bench. She walked around it, down a curve of the path. Jen was going to lose sight of her. She scuttled through the bird netting and leaped from branch to branch, trying to keep an eye out for birds of prey without losing her quarry.

  The woman didn't go far. She stopped at a place where a little ornamental bridge arched over an artificial stream between two koi ponds. Just below the bridge, it dropped off in a waterfall. Bushes adorned with lush tropical blossoms hung low over the water.

  The woman climbed over a low retaining wall and vanished from Jen's sight.

  Now even more curious, Jen scuttled lower, out onto a branch hanging over the bridge, until she could see her again. The African woman was sitting on a rock beside the water, concealed by the curve of the bridge, looking up.

  "It's private here if you'd like to talk, little sister," she called softly.

  Jen gauged the distance and jumped. She plonked lightly onto the bridge rail, ran along it, and jumped down to the rocks beside the pond.

  The woman smiled at her. "Oh, you're a gecko! I haven't met very many lizards before."

  Jen took a long careful look at her. Fellow shifter camaraderie aside, everyone here would be either friends of Lux, or gamblers in the game, and either way they were unlikely to be harmless or innocent. The woman carried no weapons, but that meant nothing; she would have had them confiscated. And shifters had their own natural weapons, anyway.

  Something that eats geckos ...

  "Don't trust me, hmm?" the woman said when Jen kept her distance. Her accent was an interesting mix, with British hints that suggested private school. "I don't blame you. Look, here, I'll shift too. I'm Onyeka, by the way."

  She unwrapped her scarf; beneath it, her hair was plaited tightly to her head. The blazer and blouse followed, along with the slacks. Amid the tidy pile of discarded clothing, she shifted.

  Her shifted form appeared to be some sort of ... badger? Mongoose? Jen wasn't entirely sure. It had a black mask, a pointed snout, and a catlike body with black paws and tightly patterned black leopard spots on a yellowish-gray coat. It was about the size of a large cat.

  It also looked suspiciously like it might eat lizards. Jen hastily shifted to human, lost her purchase on the rocks, and splashed into the water with a startled "Ack!"

  The water was only about two feet deep. She struggled out under the bridge, ducking her head to avoid cracking it on the bridge's understory. Onyeka had shifted back and was laughing at her.

  "Thanks a lot," Jen said, combing back her wet hair with her fingers. Even wet and naked, she was reasonably comfortable in the warm air. Damn, she liked this place. "I'm Jen. What are you, anyway? Your shifter animal, I mean. I haven't seen one before."

  "I'm a civet." Onyeka began to dress again. "I didn't know there were any other skin-changers here."

  "Just me and my—" Oh, goddamn. Still, if she was going to be having Lucky escort her around, there was no avoiding it. "Boyfriend," she managed to say, without choking on it too badly. "He's a lizard too. We haven't been on board very long; how about you?"

  "A day or so." Despite Onyeka's friendly demeanor, her eyes were guarded, and she offered no other information. Yep, Jen thought, she's one of the other gamblers. Gotta be.

  "This place is amazing." Not having prepared a cover beforehand, Jen decided to fall back on playing the youthful innocent. Lucky was the gambler, after all; she could pretend she'd been dragged along as arm candy and had no idea what she was getting herself into. "It's so huge, and it just keeps going and going. I've never seen anything like it."

  "It is certainly a modern wonder," Onyeka agreed. "Did you come in by air, or by sea?"

  "You can fly here?"

  "Most assuredly. There's a helipad up top." Onyeka pointed upward—rather disconcerting since she was pointing at the lea
fy tree canopy with artificial sunshine winking through.

  "You flew in, then, I take it?"

  Onyeka seemed to consider, as she rewrapped her headscarf, whether or not to answer. "I did," she said at last.

  "From where?"

  "You ask many questions, little gecko sister."

  "I'm just curious," Jen said. "I've never been outside North America before—well, except a couple trips to Seoul when I was a kid to see relatives. But I'm not exactly what you'd call well-traveled." This, at least, had the benefit of being true. "If there are people here from all over, I'm looking forward to meeting them. I wasn't expecting it to be so international."

  "Of course it is. Who wouldn't travel a long way for the prize they offer?" Onyeka smiled slightly. "Lagos is where I'm from. Nigeria. You're American, then? I didn't realize that at first."

  "You thought I was Korean?"

  "I wasn't sure. I forget America is such a cosmopolitan place. And one with interesting skin-changing kind, it seems. I have never been."

  "Well, if you ever come to Seattle, I can show you the sights. It's not a large city, probably not much compared to Lagos." Which, from what little she knew, was enormous.

  "I would like to see it anyway. If you are ever in my country, I would happily reciprocate." Her smile faded to a frown. "May I give you a piece of advice, gecko sister? Or, no. Two pieces of advice."

  "Please," Jen said sincerely.

  "First, you are being watched, always. Lux's people have eyes and ears everywhere. Even if you see no one nearby, look for a camera and assume you are being overheard."

  "Hence the waterfall," Jen said in sudden comprehension. "White noise."

  "Precisely."

  "My, uh, boyfriend's employer swept our suite for bugs before we moved in."

  "A sensible precaution," Onyeka said. "Still, be very careful with your changes."

  "And the other piece of advice?

  Onyeka hesitated. Her fingertips, with purple-painted nails, drummed lightly on her leg. "There are people here who are willing to do whatever they can to win."

  "Cheating, you mean?"

  "Cheating, yes. Careful disposal of competitors in unwatched locations, as well."

  Suddenly being under the bridge with Onyeka did not seem like such a good idea. Jen tensed herself for a shift. "What about you?"

  The question didn't seem to offend her, or even surprise her. "Anyone who offers reassurances about their trustworthiness is most assuredly not someone you should trust."

  Good point. "So the only people I can trust are the ones who tell me not to trust them?" Jen asked archly.

  Onyeka laughed. "You know, gecko sister, I think you'll go far in this game."

  "I hope so." Especially since it looked like the mysterious Lux was the source of the drug, or at least knew where it could be obtained. And this might be their one shot at finding him or her. Someone who lived on a boat, even a very conspicuous one, would be difficult to track down once they escaped.

  Never mind that she had no actual authority to arrest him, since they were in international waters. Details. She'd cross that bridge when she had to.

  "I must keep a dinner appointment now," Onyeka said. "I would be happy to give you a ride back to your room. It's a long walk for a small skin-changer."

  It was a generous offer ... which might also be cover for finding out where she was staying. "Perhaps just to the bench where you were sitting when we first noticed each other, if you don't mind."

  "Certainly." Onyeka held out a hand.

  This was probably unwise given the conversation they'd just had, but Jen reasoned that she could, if necessary, shift and use her human strength to escape. So she scuttled onto Onyeka's finger. Onyeka lifted her and placed her atop the folds of her elaborately tied headscarf.

  Oh, this was nice. Much better than riding on a hat or a shoulder. Excellent view, lots of hiding places ... she definitely needed to cultivate friends with better headgear.

  At the bench, Onyeka offered her hand again, and placed Jen on the nearest tree. "Good luck to you and your boyfriend in the tournament."

  Jen flicked her tail in acknowledgement, and scuttled up the tree, hiding herself quickly among the leaves. Looking down from a convenient branch, she watched Onyeka put her earbuds back in and stroll casually away.

  Well, at least I can tell Lucky I met one of his competitors.

  She wanted to explore further, but she could feel herself starting to crash. She burned energy faster as a gecko than as a human; it was one of the reasons for the sugar and caffeine addiction that her coworkers teased her about. Tanking up on easy glucose beat the hell out of passing out from hypoglycemia and falling out of a tree. And right now she had the feeling that getting back to the room would be a good idea.

  It was a sluggish and tired gecko who crawled through the gap between window and sill. Jen shifted back and shut the window, then prowled the room to see what there was to eat. Room service was an option, but she didn't want to wake up Lucky. She found a handful of artfully arranged granola bars in a basket—well, okay, they were actually some kind of expensive snack bar, but they looked like granola bars to her—and a bowl of fruit, as well as some sealed bottles of water in the minifridge. I bet each one of these is costing Roxy Molina ten dollars at least, she thought cheerfully, breaking the seal on a bottle.

  Munching on a granola bar, she eyed the phone. She didn't dare call the SCB directly, so she sorted through which of the various field-agent message protocols would be least likely to raise eyebrows if done from a cruise ship to a city onshore.

  The dry cleaner's might do.

  Stretched out on the couch, she tried for an outside line and got an operator instead. "May I place a call to the United States, please?"

  "You'll have to wait for an open line."

  She ate another granola bar and drank most of a bottle of water before the operator came back on, quoted an exorbitant rate for a three-minute call, and asked for the number. Jen gave her a memorized Seattle number and soon she had the answering service for "Evergreen State Cleaners", a.k.a. an answering machine in the SCB phone bank.

  "Hi, this is Jen Cho. I've had to go out of town suddenly and won't be able to pick up my dry cleaning until next week at the earliest. Please hold it for me. I'll pick it up when I'm back in town." She hesitated; that was the important part of the message ("I'm fine and I'll be back next week; don't come after me"), but she couldn't think of how to pass more information relevant to her current situation using a signaling protocol composed entirely of items of clothing. "Thank you," she finished somewhat lamely, and hung up.

  She loaded some fruit into the basket with the granola bars, and took the whole thing, along with a fresh bottle of beer, into the unoccupied bedroom. She closed the door, noting that there was no lock on it. Oh well. At least she had an illusion of privacy.

  So she'd managed to head off the rescue brigade for now, hopefully without waving a flag over her head saying 'I am a federal agent, please shoot me.' As for later ... well ... she'd have to see if she could think of another way of passing more detailed messages without being intercepted. (Signal flare? Message in a bottle?)

  For a single wild instant, she flirted with the idea of telling Lucky. Maybe she could offer him that piece of information in return for whatever mysterious past he was hiding.

  Wouldn't it be hilarious if we were both agents for different agencies?

  But ... no. She really didn't think so. Lucky was something else, and she was pretty sure it was nothing so simple as an ordinary grifter.

  She touched her lips lightly, remembering how it had felt to kiss him. Pity he hadn't been up for a half-hour or so of diverting, no-strings-attached sex.

  What happens on the giant floating sphinx, stays on the sphinx ...

  But no, it was probably for the best. At the very least, it was one less complication to deal with, in a case that seemed to be producing complications every time she turned around.


  This promised to be an interesting few days.

  Against her fingertips, Jen's lips stretched into a smile. She was looking forward to it.

  Chapter Six

  "Wake up," a woman's voice said in Lucky's ear.

  He jerked awake, rolling halfway off the bed. "Jen?"

  It wasn't Jen. Roxy Molina stood over him, arms folded, looking down disapprovingly.

  Lucky sat up and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes, and now he felt rumpled and muddled—not the state in which he wanted to face his first day on the ship. "This is my bedroom," he said with all the dignity he could muster.

  "And I have the key. Your girlfriend has already been roused from her bed." Roxy's mouth tilted in a sideways smile. "Have a fight already?"

  "None of your business," Lucky muttered. He swung his legs off the bed. "Why are you here? What time is it?"

  "Five-thirty a.m. according to ship time," Roxy said briskly. "There is, it seems, a breakfast buffet in the lounge. It opens at six. I'd like you there when it opens, to scope out the competition."

  "Any specific reason why I can't scope just fine at the tournament itself?" Especially if it involved not having to get up at five-thirty.

  "You learn a great deal more about someone when they're off duty, as it were, than when they're on. Something I shouldn't have to tell you, as this is your business, after all."

  Jen wandered in, yawning and pulling down her sweater. She ignored Roxy and spoke directly to Lucky instead. "Good morning. Looks like we have company."

  "So it seems," Lucky said. As memories of the previous evening rushed back, he couldn't find a safe place to rest his eyes. Not on her face. Not on her chest, oh God. How about the wall, that would do nicely ...

  "Since you're both here—" Roxy took a small object out of her pocket and slapped it into Lucky's hand. "Hang onto this. It's important."

  Lucky turned it over in his fingers. It was a wooden disc about an inch and a half in diameter, the size and style of a casino chip, although those were normally made of plastic. An Egyptian sphinx was stamped on one side, with the number 6 beneath it. On the other side was a woman's head, a stylized profile in Egyptian tomb-painting style, wearing an elaborate horned headdress.