Rogue Spotter Collection

by Kimberly A Rogers

I swallowed, trying and failing to hide my nerves, before I cautiously nodded to her. “Dragon Prince Cesarina, I was not expecting to experience the honor of your company again.”

  Her slit pupils contracted slightly as she peered down the strong curve of her aquiline nose at me. Her alto tones resonated through the holding cell as she replied, “Still playing the game, I see.” She didn’t give me a chance to even attempt an answer as she continued, “Though I doubt you have any idea how much the stakes have been raised since we last met.”

  She paused deliberately and I scrambled to think of a reply. Her burning gaze was difficult to meet, and I instinctively lowered my own to study the stone floor beneath our feet. I swallowed hard, willing myself to speak. “Much has changed since our last meeting in May. It is true.”

  “Yes,” she agreed too smoothly. The hairs on the back of my neck rose in alarm as a hint of sulfur filled the air between us. I watched her boots come into sight as she drew closer. Her alto tones lowered as she added, “Much has changed indeed. Weard moves openly against the dragon and Fae councils, calling for war and rebellion. While a trail of destruction and death follow in the wake of a little Spotter and her Myrmidon protector, an abomination who refused to heed the summons of the council of dragon princes when you two appeared in Crete. And, now . . .” She trailed off for a long moment and then the scent of sulfur grew heavier before she murmured, “And, now, your Myrmidon has fallen back into the hands of his masters. While you, little Spotter, carry his child.”

  My head jerked up to meet the fiery gaze of the dragoness. She smirked a little at my reaction and then inhaled pointedly. I almost groaned out loud. Shifters could smell the hormonal change of pregnancy, something that was meant to serve as a protection against crimes toward expectant mothers since no shifter with a properly working nose could claim they were unaware a woman was pregnant past the second or so month. Unfortunately, the little voice in the back of my mind was rightly screaming that this wasn’t a protection for me. It was a rather pronounced weakness.

  My mind flicked back to the Forge of Hephaestus and Mount Etna. All those hunters who had been shifters . . . They would have known I was pregnant. I could feel the color drain from my cheeks as my breath caught in my lungs, strangling itself into knots. Weard knew I was pregnant . . . He knew I was pregnant, and they had Mathias.

  “You should have considered the consequences of such a fate,” the dragon prince nearly purred, her smoke laden breath wafting over me.

  I blinked her back into focus even as my mind gibbered with panicked thoughts and half thoughts. “What is it you want from me?” I rasped. Looking around, I realized her consort was nowhere to be seen and the man was hardly the type to blend in with the background. “Where are we? Why did you bring me here?”

  “Would you have preferred that I left you to be swept into Weard’s claws?” the dragon prince asked. She looked me over once more and added, “Though their treatment of you would have resolved at least one of the problems you carry, no?”

  It wasn’t a question. I didn’t bother to attempt an answer. My mind was spinning too fast to attempt a safe answer. I had to be careful. The dragon prince of Venice had always struck me as being very different from the dragon prince of Thrace. Not solely because she was a daughter who inherited the title. Where Prince Ciril had been intimidating, Cesarina carried the air of a predator wrapped around her like a billowing cloak. Mathias had hinted after our last encounter with her that she carried some of the bloodline of the Medici clan of dragons, who had all gone infamously mad and enjoyed playing bloody mind games.

  My stomach turned at the memory of the dragon prince sinking her claws into Mathias’ jaw as opalescent scales covered her hand. This woman was not an enemy to the extent of Weard’s hunters. However, she was most certainly not my friend. I glanced at her number, the golden 9 held steady above her head as it had at our last meeting. Not a particularly comforting sight when the feel of danger flowed so readily from the woman in front of me.

  Focusing on the dragon prince once more, I forced myself to stand my ground. “Please, tell me where we are.”

  “The prison adjacent to my palace.” She paced around me as she continued lightly, “You see, I could not risk anyone discovering that you are in my keep. I have spoken to my seer at length about you, Lauren Hope. Do you know what he has told me?”

  I resisted the urge to turn and face her as she paced behind my back. Putting one’s back to a dragon was always a risky move, but it would be far more stupid to spin about like a top to keep facing her in clear fear of being attacked. There was still a slight tremor in my voice when I replied, no matter how hard I tried to rid myself of it. “I encountered your seer only once. We didn’t have a long conversation.”

  He’d had enough time to send me to Raz Yakov, though. Promising that it would set me on the path to discovering the truth about my parents and what had happened to them. If I hadn’t witnessed the signs of a seeing myself, I would have been tempted to say he had set us up. The bitter truth of the matter was that I wouldn’t have found out anything about my parents, the Crown of Nimrod, or that I was half Jinn without Raz Yakov pointing me on the quest for the crown. Something he couldn’t find himself so he had sent me, and I had foolishly trusted him.

  “My seer tells me that you are the Destroyer.” Cesarina leaned in close, her sulfur-laden breath choking me, as she murmured, “Something that I agree with given all the chaos that has followed you. I should have killed you and the abomination the first time you dared to trespass into my city.”

  A chill swept over me. She was going to kill me. I could hear it in her voice, the promise that she would do so. Somehow, despite the expectation that her claws would plunge into my back at any moment, I managed to choke out a question. “Why bring me back to Venice?”

  “Because Weard’s hunters were close to scorching your heels, and I won’t allow that pretender to best me,” she hissed. “Not after he had the gall to make demands of the council of princes as though we were mere Sprites or Brownies awaiting a command to fulfill. The council is still in an uproar, though none of those fools have the stomach to acknowledge we will have no choice save to reveal ourselves to the norms if we are to preserve our world.”

  “By ripping it apart?” The question slipped out without thinking, and I nearly swallowed my tongue when I realized what I had said.

  The dragon prince circled around to stand in front of me. Her hand shifted to opalescent scales and tapered claws. Her fiery orange eyes glowed in stark contrast to her dark olive skin as she reached out to touch the tip of a claw to the underside of my chin. The point of her claw teetered on the border of uncomfortable and painful although she hadn’t broken the skin. She leaned in close, the sulfur heating her breath, as she replied, “Sometimes, we must break things in order to restore them anew. The norms grow too comfortable with the Fae’s tricks. Perhaps it is time for dragons to reemerge into the memory of mankind. We would be able to openly react to Weard’s threats then.”

  “And, potentially trigger a new wave of purges and outright war between norms and paranormals,” I murmured despite the discomfort of her claw. “He’s not a rogue dragon.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Raz Yakov,” I winced as pain flared with her claw puncturing my skin, “the man who now leads Weard Enterprises. He isn’t a rogue dragon.”

  “If that was an offer of new information, it was a very poor attempt.” The dragon prince abruptly pulled away and then retrieved a slim tablet from inside her jacket. “It seems you have fallen behind the times in knowledge. A very dangerous thing to allow in days such as these, no?”

  I resisted the urge to dab at the blood trickling down my chin to my throat as I watched her tap at the tablet before she turned it toward me. A video played across the small screen, and my heart stopped at the sight of Mathias lying on his back in chains. His face was bloodied and bruised, his left eye swollen shut, and bloodstains on his clothes. Oh no, w
hat had they done to him?

  I could only stare in horror as the scarred dragon from before, Khalid, and another man dragged Mathias into a kneeling position. His head hung low, and I pressed a hand to my mouth to keep from crying out at the clear signs of torture. A man’s voice I couldn’t quite place ordered, “Do it. Now.”

  A knot twisted in my ribs, pressing against my lungs and choking me, as I watched with terrifying dread that I was about to witness Mathias’ death. An older looking Asian man shuffled into view and in his hands . . . He held the Crown of Nimrod. Oh no . . .

  Even without the Sapphire of Shinar, the crown looked foreboding as Khalid yanked Mathias’ head up by his hair. Then the man, he had to be a Spotter, forced the crown onto Mathias’ head. A tremor ran through me as Mathias twitched, his face twisting in a grimace. His eyes opened for a brief moment, and I caught a glimpse of bloodshot blue green before they rolled up. Only the whites of his eyes showed as he went limp, falling from Khalid and the other hunter’s grasp to land face down on the floor.

  The Spotter was peering at Mathias before he sighed, his shoulders sagging, as he turned to the right. His voice was creaky with age and he spoke in accented English, but his words were devastatingly clear to my ears. “His number has changed to a 1 as commanded. However, it is sickly in color much like past experiments with the sole crown piece. I fear this 10 will not survive the change.”

  No. No, no, no. No!

  I couldn’t breathe. My heart felt like it was stuttering against the knot pressing against my lungs. It was all I could do to stay on my feet instead of collapsing in despair.

  I couldn’t look at the dragon prince. There would be no sympathy or empathy from her. Instead, I kept my gaze fixed on the screen, silently begging Mathias to sit up or to sass his captors or groan. Anything to tell me he was still alive because I could barely make out his chest moving with each breath, and I couldn’t escape the fear that I was imagining those breaths. Please, God, let him still be alive.

  There was movement to the right of the screen and then a new man strolled into view. He was tall and lean, much like Mathias. However, he had dark olive skin and carefully groomed curly brown hair touched with wings of grey. I stared at him for a long moment and then he looked into the camera with light brown eyes. Raz Yakov, or whatever he was calling himself now, smiled. A cruel tilting of the lips that did nothing to ease the iciness of his gaze.

  “Greetings to you, dragons, my servant Tanaka Aito is as you have no doubt noticed a Spotter.” The Spotter behind him grimaced and swiftly looked down at Mathias once more as Yakov continued, “He is correct that the Crown of Nimrod will not work properly. In fact, without the Sapphire of Shinar, this crown becomes a death sentence. Seven days from this moment, this man will die due to an improperly forced change to his number, his very essence of natural power.”

  He paused, another cruel twist of his lips appearing, and then a thread of amusement entered his voice. “Well, he won’t die precisely in seven days. However, that is when the change becomes permanent. An improper change was closely documented by the Spotters in Herculaneum to result in death by fading or suicide.” He glanced down at Mathias and mused, “This one will fade no doubt. He’s much too stubborn for suicide even with his mind incapable of functioning without being in his natural state of power.”

  The man looked back up and cocked his head to the right as he said in an eerily pleasant tone, “Now for those of you who do not yet know, I am Soslan the Nephilim. The Sapphire of Shinar is mine by inheritance and by might. Lauren Hope has stolen it from me. I know the dragon princes have collaborated to help her escape my hunters in the past, and it seems doubtful that she wouldn’t flee to your protection once more. Surrender the rogue Spotter and the sapphire to me before the annual Yule gathering of Fae and dragon councils at the Yellowstone Summit. If you refuse to do so, then I shall arrange for the most beloved person in your lives to be assassinated.” He smiled as though he hadn’t just threatened the family and loves of a council of royal dragons and added, “Remember nine days from today, the twelfth of December. The Spotter and the sapphire returned to me in Chicago or your beloveds die.”

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  Lauren

  I stared at the tablet as the video ended. The screen froze on the sight of Raz . . . no, on Soslan’s cruel face, preventing me from gaining one last glimpse of Mathias. Nine days . . . Seven to save Mathias from a slow and extremely cruel death.

  Wait . . . My eyes flashed to the dragon prince who was peering at me closely. “What’s today’s date?”

  She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “It is the morning of December thirteenth.”

  “There’s only six days left,” I murmured. My breathing came faster as a wave of panic washed over me. Not knowing what else to do, I stepped toward the dragon prince and extended both hands to her. “Please, the council must fight him. It is the only way to save Mathias and the rest of the paranormal community. The council must see this, you must see this!”

  The dragon prince clicked her tongue. “The hysterics and unreasonable demands of a pregnant woman.” She sniffed, her fiery orange eyes narrowing, as she continued, “Do you truly think that the council of dragons, much less the combined councils of dragons and Fae, would risk exposing the entirety of our world to the norms to save the life of a single man? Not even a man. An abomination that never should have existed.”

  “You said Mathias was an asset,” I argued even as I dropped my arms to my side. “You said the council would benefit from his knowledge of Weard Enterprises and his strategic mind. If you save him, I will convince him to work with you to defeat this Soslan. If he claims to be a Nephilim of all things, he’s clearly mad and cannot be reasoned into surrender. You will need all the help you can get to pry him out of Chicago without untold casualties.”

  Cesarina smiled. It was almost a twin to the cold facsimile of a smile that had twisted Soslan’s lips in the video. “How foolish, little Spotter. You have not learned much of the world have you? The abomination wrapped his loyalty in you, and it seems yours is likewise wrapped in him, a very foolish thing to do. He really should have known better as I once told him. You would sacrifice armies to save him even though you have no hope at succeeding.”

  “There is always hope,” I stated simply.

  The dragon prince shook her head. “Not this time. No, what I should do is send you to Chicago with this in hand.” She drew out a familiar gem from her jacket pocket, fingers caressing the faceted surface of the sapphire, and then held it to the light. Her tone grew contemplative as she murmured, “Dragons know treasure. It’s in our very nature to feel it in our blood, in our bones, and in our fires. This stone is very old and it hums with power. Do you feel it, little Spotter? How it desires to be used? How it could unlock the ability to control a priceless artifact of power?”

  Oh, that was just wonderful. The Dragon Prince of Venice was going treasure mad, one of the drawbacks of allowing powerful dragons around ancient artifacts. And, unfortunately, the Sapphire of Shinar was precisely the combination of power and beauty that drew even royal dragons to the edge of madness.

  “Where is your consort, Cesarina?”

  For the first time, her eyes changed to their mortal color. Brown eyes stared through me as she slowly lowered the sapphire. “My consort was attacked,” her voice cracked with unexpected emotion, “and now the healers say he will never fly again because Weard sent dragon-born. They have crippled him!”

  Sulfur suffused the air with the force of her shout, and her eyes flashed back to fiery orange as opalescent scales briefly emerged to cover her cheeks and brow before vanishing once more. Her nostrils flared, and I could almost see smoke emitting from them as she strode toward me. “It is your fault. They knew we’d caught you first, and my consort confronted them at the borders of my city last night. They poisoned him. They broke his wings!”

  I almost countered that she shouldn’t have interfered
with my travel. Almost. I wasn’t entirely mad with grief and guilt to the point of intentionally provoking a royal dragon, however. Mathias . . . There was still a chance to save him. I just had to think. I had to figure out a way to . . . Of course . . .

  “What does the council say to this attack? Will they confront Weard and this Soslan for his crimes against you?” I needed her to focus her anger at Soslan. It could be the only way I was getting out of here alive and time was slipping away.

  The dragoness curled her lip in a snarl. “The cowards say the attack was a territorial dispute since I could not tell them that you were here. They would take you into their own custody. And, they would force a concoction down your throat to ensure that the legacy of those abominations does not continue beyond the deaths of the Myrmidon and the Nephilim.”

  I stepped back as though I had been punched. My hand rose of its own accord to rest on my stomach. If the dragon prince spoke with any truth and not solely out of spite . . .

  What was I thinking? Of course, it wasn’t solely spite driving her words. Mathias had always been excited about the baby, but I . . . I always knew that if any of the high numbers found out about the pregnancy and that Mathias was the father, our baby would be at risk. I could lose Mathias in less than a week. Losing his child . . .

  My hand still protectively resting on my stomach, I looked up into the dragon prince’s fiery gaze. “We can help each other.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, her braid sliding over her shoulder as she tilted her head slightly. “Just how do you think you can help me, little Spotter?”

  Forcing myself to lower my hand, I squared my shoulders and raised my chin slightly. “The powerful are meant to be protectors, it is the innate duty of the high numbers. That, however, is something all of you failed in throughout history. Too busy playing political games or attempting to pass the responsibility off on someone else. And, now, look at where we are. Divided, unofficially of course, but even so. Do you really think this madman who claims to be a Nephilim would have been able to wield so much damage against those we love if the paranormal community truly helped each other, truly acted like a community?”