Rogue Spotter Collection

by Kimberly A Rogers

  “Cod.”

  I hesitated and offered a smile he most likely didn’t even see as I picked up a ‘chip’. “In the States, we would be calling these French fries. I do wonder how making such an order would go over on this side of the pond.”

  Despite watching him carefully for any reaction, Mathias didn’t even pretend to pay attention to me. Much less react to my slight teasing. He seemed so . . . distant. I ate in silence for a bit, thinking. Something was definitely wrong, but it was difficult to say what or why.

  It was a difficult reminder that I still didn’t know very much about Mathias himself. I did not know his history, his family, or even what kind of paranormal he was, only that he was a 10. I didn’t know if this silence and distancing was his normal approach to life. After all, most of the time we had spent together in Olympia, he was trying to get me to trust him. Perhaps he had acted differently than his true nature in order to achieve that goal.

  I mulled over that thought, then I rejected it. No, I didn’t just rely on numbers to tell me about people. I read their body language too. I learned their tells. Mathias had not been pretending when he acted with gentleness and honor in Olympia. I would have been able to figure it out if he had been acting a part. I was sure of it. No, this was something else.

  Picking up a chip, I sighed softly. We were in Edinburgh, and I couldn’t even tour the history that lived in the city. Life could be quite unfair at times. Missing my chance to explore such a historic city was one of those times. I dropped the potato wedge back into the box and then picked up the last strip of fish. Just as I dipped it into the tartar sauce, there was a solid thump at the door.

  The door shook on its hinges at another blow. The strip of fish fell from my shaking fingers. Mathias’ expression had changed, going blank as his eyes turned icy. It was a petrifying change in him. Unable to get out of my seat easily, I still found myself leaning back and away from the table. I wanted nothing more than to dive to the floor, but my body had frozen in place as I stared at Mathias.

  The door burst open slamming into the stone wall behind it and a scream escaped me as a partially transformed dragon shifter burst into the room, his hands were covered in scales and tipped with curved talons and smoke was wafting from his draconic mouth and nostrils. But, the rest of his body still looked human in shape. Mathias was already lunging for him by the time the shifter entered the room. The dragon shifter swiped at him, talons tearing through his sweater, but then he staggered and looked down at the sword sticking out of his side.

  I stared in shock at the sudden appearance of a sword. Ringing sounded in my ears and if the wall hadn’t already been right behind my chair, I probably would have fallen backwards. I couldn’t move. Instead, I could only watch as the dragon shifter’s scaled throat began to glow red between his dark grey scales. His nostrils flared and his narrow snout started to open. Mathias didn’t slow, didn’t give a chance of mercy or show any hesitation as he withdrew the now bloodied sword and darted forward again. This time he deepened the cut.

  When the shifter started to open his mouth, smoke billowed out. Mathias reversed the sword and slammed the pommel against the same wound. The dragon shifter stumbled backwards, his roar of pain fading to a more human sounding scream as his draconic features faded back to human, and he clutched at his wound. He dropped down to one knee and raised a hand as he gasped, “Stop!”

  Mathias brought the sword to the man’s throat. My breath caught in my own throat. He wasn’t going to stop. I struggled to my good foot, arms trembling as I braced myself against the table. “Don’t!”

  There was a flicker of a pause in the sword’s progression, and I thought he might have glanced over his shoulder at me. It was impossible to say for sure. All I knew for certain was I couldn’t even draw a breath until I saw the blade come to rest against the man’s skin.

  However, Mathias’ voice was so cold and devoid of emotion that it sent a chill through me as he said, “Your life is forfeit to me. You are bound by your true name to leave Weard and go your own way. Tell no one you saw us.” The blade pressed harder against the man’s throat and a trickle of blood appeared. “Swear it on your true name, your honor. Break your oath, dragon, and your life is forfeit.”

  The dragon shifter didn’t move. There was a flicker of emotion in his slate grey eyes as he looked up at Mathias. In that moment, I couldn’t help wondering just how old this particular dragon was because he looked . . . uncertain enough that I wondered at his experience. Or it was simply because he was unaccustomed to being defeated quickly given the fact that the number above his head was a flickering 8. That in itself was nearly enough to send me into a fresh panic. My good knee shook, threatening to buckle, but I forced myself to stay standing.

  After a painfully long silence, the dragon shifter’s lips finally moved. His voice sounded a little strained as he spoke though. “By my true name, I swear it.”

  Mathias eased back withdrawing the sword little by little until the dragon shifter was able to move again. As the dragon slumped back against the stone wall, lowering his head and touching his bleeding neck, Mathias stared down at him with a terrifyingly cold expression. It was enough to make me question whether the oath was going to be acceptable to him. There was no hint of warmth in Mathias’ voice when he ordered, “Go.”

  The dragon shifter didn’t hesitate. Scrambling to his feet, he ran out of the safe house as fast as he could. I collapsed back into the chair, my entire body shaking from the sudden absence of adrenaline. When I looked back up, Mathias had closed the door and was wiping down his sword . . . a sword I didn’t realize he had. I stared at him, feeling just a little fearful in that moment.

  What I had seen was definitely worse than what had happened before we got into Edinburgh proper. It was so very different from the way he had subdued Smalls and Reubens when he took those men down in Olympia. He had been fast and certainly deserving of his 10 but this . . . this was cold and . . . and detached. It was so very different.

  Mathias finally met my gaze, but he didn’t say anything as he continued to drag the rag down the sword’s blade. Then he took a breath. “We will need to leave tomorrow,” came the cold, matter of fact announcement.

  I stared at him searching his eyes for some glimmer of warmth or encouragement. Their blue-green color had changed to a pale almost icy blue with his grey sweater. But, they looked so terribly cold. Perhaps he wasn’t expecting an answer, but I couldn’t just sit there and nod. “Won’t he be forced to give a report to Weard? Will you go after him if he does?” I barely forced the second question out, but I so desperately needed to know.

  “Dragons won’t break oaths bound by their true names. Too much power and value is bound in a true name, to sully it by breaking oaths is the height of dishonor. I won’t need to track him down if he breaks his word. His own kind will kill him as an oath breaker.” He recited all this information as coolly as though he were giving directions to a stranger.

  “How, um, how would they know?”

  “Some sort of mark.” Mathias looked around the room, appearing a million miles away, tapping a finger against the hilt of the sword.

  I found the entire thing disconcerting. I placed my hands in my lap and prayed he wouldn’t notice my shaking. With this strange coldness over him, my own sense of self-preservation rebelled at the thought of showing too much weakness. I wanted to keep him talking too if I could. “What kind of mark?”

  “It curls along the neck and jaw. Six heads spreading in different directions, but at least three always mark the face.” Mathias still didn’t make eye contact as he continued the unemotional and chilly recitation, “The six-headed hydra was a potent enemy of the dragons and to be marked with it is a death sentence. So the elders turned it into the most feared punishment and bound it to the magic of true names.”

  “But you don’t know that man’s true name,” I pointed out.

  “It is of no matter. He swore the oath and it is binding.”


  “Mathias, are you certain that—” I cut myself off suddenly afraid to voice my doubts. Not because I feared he would do something to me. Rather I was very concerned that he might decide to change his mind and go after the dragon shifter, who would certainly be more on his guard now and not so easily surprised by Mathias’ fighting prowess. Mathias was looking at me now, and I quickly offered a faint smile. “I am glad you had a different solution to killing him. It was a good thing, you know.”

  Mathias didn’t respond to my statement as he strode around the table and hung the sword on a hook tucked between the shelves of the pantry and the corner. When he was done, he turned around once more, and stopped to frown at my remaining food. His gaze drifted up to mine, and it seemed torn between cool aloofness and the warmth that used to be there. His voice was still cooler than normal, but it wasn’t quite as frozen when he broke his silence. “Finish eating. You need your strength.”

  He didn’t wait for a response or say another word. He strode toward the door pausing only long enough to pull on a heavy woolen coat and grab a flat cap tugging its brim low on his forehead, before vanishing out of the door.

  I sat there staring after him for too long. The remnants of my meal were cold by the time I was able to focus again. I closed the box with trembling hands. That wasn’t Mathias. Not the Mathias I had grown to know in Olympia, not the man I had grown to . . . to care for despite common sense. This change in him . . . I didn’t understand it. And to be perfectly honest, it was a change that scared me.

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  Lauren

  Mathias was gone for hours. Stuck with my foot in a cast and no crutches to help me get out of the safe house, all I could do was wait for him to come back. The safe house’s position in the underground vaults beneath Old Town meant I could hardly make out any noise from the levels above. But, it didn’t stop me from jumping in my seat any time I imagined I heard something. Eventually, I hopped from the seat at the table over to the lumpy couch.

  It certainly wasn’t the most comfortable couch in the world, but I was grateful it was in one piece and not precariously balanced on only three legs. The safe house was small and lacked any windows, but at least it had the most basic amenities. I had certainly stayed in worse apartments like the one in Phoenix, Arizona that had nothing except an air mattress and three scorpions or the one that I had to abandon immediately because an angry jackalope decided I was trespassing. Those creatures were meaner than they looked. Eventually, I curled up on the couch noting that the lumps were still better padded than the leaky air mattress. The space heater was running on batteries so I was spared the problem of trying not to trip over a cord. I couldn’t hear anyone coming and the heater made the air warm, so I dozed off.

  A crick in my neck woke me up. I squinted at my watch, which claimed it was only half past ten. Every inch of my body ached. I got up only to nearly fall on my face when I tried to put weight on my cast encased foot. I caught myself on the arm of the couch, which gave a little groan, or perhaps it was me as a dull shooting pain emanated from my ankle. I somehow hobbled and hopped my way to my bedroom where I promptly collapsed face first on the bed. Exhaustion was already dragging me back into sleep, but I still managed to hope Mathias hadn’t gotten himself thrown in jail. I didn’t have any bail money.

  It was after midnight when I was awakened by the sound of the door closing. I raised my head, not quite awake, wondering if I had just imagined everything . . . again. There was another noise. Footsteps? I rolled onto my side, listening. Definitely footsteps. A yawn escaped me then I called, “Mathias?”

  After his name slipped out, my brain caught up enough to realize I probably shouldn’t have announced I was in the back of the safe house. What if it wasn’t Mathias?

  The steps in the front room slowed and I had just sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, when he appeared in the doorway. He didn’t look like he had been attacked or tossed in jail until he charmed the warden into letting him out. Unless the wardens in Scotland didn’t worry as much about the security of their holding facilities as in the States . . . Although that seemed unlikely. Perhaps he had landed in a norm prison . . .

  Mathias gave a low sigh and annoyance tinged his voice as he suddenly asked, “Did you need something, Hope? Or are you talking in your sleep?”

  Of all the things to say! As though he hadn’t done anything at all to cause me to be stuck in this safe house fretting that he had done something to get himself in worse trouble! Worry immediately gave way to irritation and I glared at him. “Where have you been?”

  “Hunting.”

  The cold word sapped my anger and replaced it with a dread that sent panic’s wings beating hard against my ribs. Hunting as in hunting the other hunters sent out by Weard? He couldn’t be serious, but even in the shadowy doorway I could make out his impassive expression. Merciful God in heaven, he wasn’t making some poor attempt at a joke. The dread beat harder against my ribs. “Mathias,” I choked, “what have you done?”

  “I am eliminating the problem of the hunters,” he stated as though we were discussing vacation plans and not killing people. “It will protect our trail.”

  “How does leaving bodies around Old Town protect us?” I hissed through clenched teeth. My arms were shaking as my hands curled into fists scrunching the covers beneath me. How could I be having this conversation?

  “I did not hunt in Old Town,” Mathias stated with cold precision. “I ensured the hunters followed me to different parts of the city before I eliminated them from the hunt.”

  “By killing them,” I spat.

  “When necessary.”

  “What is wrong with you?” The words escaped me in a whisper as my throat tightened too much to shout them as I originally wished. Moisture burned my eyes and I stubbornly blinked it away. I shook my head as I whispered another strained question, “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because it must be done,” he stated with such simplicity it was terrifying. I couldn’t even respond, but my silence didn’t deter him. He offered a slight one shouldered shrug as he added calmly, “And, it is just.”

  “Just?” I stared at him. “Who are you to decide what is and is not just? You are not God’s executioner, Mathias!” He didn’t react. That lack of reaction only drove me to hiss, “But perhaps you are Weard’s. Although that would require you revealing the truth of who and what you are for me to know if that is what happened to make you this way. I can only pray that you will think long and hard on why you feel you can sit in judgment on others and whether you really want to continue acting as Weard’s executioner.”

  “You accuse me of judgment, of a lack of justice, but what have you done with your life, Lauren Hope?” Mathias’ tone was frozen to a point that it was a wonder I didn’t get frostbite as he continued, “You have spent your life hiding instead of using your ability to help others. Some would say that makes you guilty of negligence. Why would I trust you with my secrets? You would only run away. Isn’t that how you survive? By running first and never fighting? You see threats. Do you know what I see? The failings, the faults, and the threats that your numbers cannot always reveal. You grieve for the hunters, but you don’t know how they have abandoned honor and justice in favor of power and wealth. They do not deserve mercy.”

  “It is not our place to make those decisions, Mathias. That is why we have laws and it is why we were given empathy, to understand mercy even when the law ignores the grey areas in life. Because the world does not exist in black and white where everything falls neatly into right or wrong. Empathy is what separates us from the true monsters in our world because it allows us to feel for others even when we haven’t shared their same experiences.” I caught my breath, panting slightly, and then added softly, “I cannot believe that you don’t know all of this yourself. Because I have seen it in you. And, you need to bring that man back, not this cold shell who cannot even pretend he l— cares for . . . for anyone.”

&nbs
p; When Mathias didn’t respond, I caught my breath and dropped my head staring at the tip of my cast where it poked out from beneath my skirt. I still didn’t understand how we came to this point. It wasn’t like Mathias. This wasn’t like me either. I wasn’t accustomed to confrontation. I didn’t normally stay around long enough to even get caught in a true argument with a man, much less one I cared about. My voice shook as I continued in a strained whisper, “If you do not know this, Mathias, why did you help me run?”

  There was no response.

  When I looked up, he was gone. Only an empty doorway greeted my searching gaze, and I wasn’t even certain that he hadn’t left the safe house again. My heart squeezed a little at the realization. Only one thing was clear after this conversation for lack of a better name. The man I had spoken to just now was not the Mathias I knew. It wasn’t him. This man was cold and distant . . . and scary. A stranger. I hated it.

  Part of me still clung to the hope that the real Mathias would come back. It was what drove me to get off the bed and hobble back into the front room. I looked around, but I didn’t see Mathias. For a moment I considered calling for him in hopes he was in his bedroom or maybe the washroom, then I shied away from the idea.

  I didn’t want him to go off on his own again, but neither was I ready for another confrontation. Just the thought of trying to face Mathias again made me tremble. He was still a 10 after all. And with his odd behavior . . .

  After reaching the lumpy couch, I eased down and curled up on my right side. If Mathias had gone out, I didn’t want to miss his return. Even if I wasn’t ready for another conversation, I still wanted to know that he was all right. Or at least as okay as he apparently could be with his current behavior.

  I rested my cheek on my arm as I tried to resist sleep’s call. I wasn’t willing to give up hope that Mathias was still there beneath the cold. However, there was still another part of me . . . The little voice that had kept me alive for so long. For all the time I had been on my own, thirteen years, I had listened to that cautious little voice. It had kept me alive. Now it was whispering that I should start planning to go my own way as soon as possible. That maybe Mathias couldn’t be trusted after all . . .