Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset

by Serena Meadows

  Jude put his gun away. Turning to a man near him, he asked, “What happened?”

  “I saw some of it,” the man replied in an accent Jude thought was Indian. “The big man was hit, then an Arab woman walked up behind the man on the ground and shot him in the head.”

  “She was as cool as you could imagine,” added a woman who had overheard them. She sounded British to Jude’s untrained ear. “Just walked over to him and shot him.”

  “But she saved the big man’s life,” continued her companion. “I saw it. The dead guy, well, he wasn’t dead then, but he hit the big blond fellow, and looked like he was going to stab him as he lay unconscious.”

  “See the knife? It’s right there by the dead man’s hand.”

  “Or cut his throat.” Jude, grim, saw the deadly blade lying on the carpet beside the dead fellow’s right hand. Daryl, wherever you are, thank you. He glanced at Taylor beside him and gripped her hand when she would have run to Kane.

  “Not yet,” he hissed in her ear. “Daryl saved him. Let him express his ignorance. They’ll have to let him go; he didn’t kill anyone.”

  “But he’s hurt.” Taylor’s frantic plea tore at Jude’s heart.

  “He’s on his feet; he’s tough. Stand down, honey.”

  Sniffing, Taylor nodded, and stood at Jude’s side, her hand still gripping his. Natalie stood to her other side, her arm around Taylor’s waist to offer comfort. On his left, Emily and Jordan watched as though they were casual witnesses, yet Jude recognized the glitter of suppressed rage in their eyes.

  “Where’s Daryl?” Emily muttered. “I need to know she’s all right.”

  But Jude did not dare try to get Daryl on the radio. Too many people pressed close to them and could overhear. Still, he worried why Daryl, who could talk to them, did not. Is she dead? Had someone snuck up behind her to put a bullet in her brain?

  His worry rebounded in his mind even as the hotel staff broke the crowd up, encouraging them to return to their rooms, get some sleep; there would be answers in the morning. The ambulance crew loaded the dead man onto a stretcher, and took him out, his face covered. Another medic cleaned Kane’s wound, added a bandage, then closed his case of supplies.

  The security men shut their notebooks and shook Kane’s hand. He strode toward Jude, Taylor, Natalie, Emily, and Jordan as the crowd finally dispersed, his face pale, his mouth a grim line. Taylor controlled herself enough to not throw herself into his arms but grabbed his hand in a tight grip.

  “Are you all right?” she demanded; her tears close.

  “A bloody headache,” Kane answered, meeting Jude’s eyes with his own fiercely pale blue ones. “Any sign of Daryl?”

  “No,” Jude answered, taking Natalie by the hand as they all headed toward the elevators. “Nothing on the radio. Shit! Where is that girl?”

  “We found the inner door to the spire,” Neil declared as he and Drake entered the suite an hour later. “It’s locked, but—” He stopped dead, staring.

  “Oh, shit,” Drake said, sensing the grim emotions in the suite, observing the bandage on Kane’s head. “What the fuck happened?”

  “Someone tried to murder Kane, and now Daryl is missing.” Jude paced in place of Kane, who lay on a sofa with an icepack on his skull. “She shot the guy who tried to kill him, then poof. Vanished.”

  “Where’s Ronan?” Drake demanded. “Maybe she’s with him.”

  “Watching the front entrance from the hotel across the street,” Kane replied, his voice strained. “If she knew he was there, and if he recognized her behind her veil, and even if she left the hotel at all.”

  “Why aren’t we out there looking for her?” Neil snapped, glaring around the room.

  “She’s dressed from head to toe in black,” Kane answered, adjusting his icepack. “Just where do we look? There are dozens of women in Arab outfits around here. It’s my guess that she is lying low for right now and waiting for the chance to return.”

  “Why isn’t she answering her radio?” Jordan asked, pausing to hug Neil before striding to the door to open it and peer out.

  “Again, if security is prowling around, she may have to stay silent.” Jude fretted inwardly, wanting to go look for Daryl, but also knowing Kane was right in that such a search might well be fruitless.

  “What if someone saw her shoot that guy, then followed to do the same to her?” Emily demanded.

  “Then security would know about that, too.” Kane grimaced, lifting his icepack to scowl at them, then put it back. “You heard me call them, Emily. They said there were no other shootings.”

  “Unless she left the hotel,” Emily snapped, agitated enough to also pace. “And shot her down like a dog in the street.”

  “Daryl is too smart and too streetwise,” Taylor said quietly from her spot next to Kane. “She’s from the streets of New York City, and she’s got brains. Kane, keep that thing on your head.”

  Even as Kane started to protest, a knock sounded at the door. Jordan, the closest, went to it and peered out through the peephole. “Oh, thank God.”

  She swung the door open and seized Daryl in a savage hug before closing the door again. “Where the hell have you been? We have been worried sick.”

  Jude, the next to grab Daryl and embrace her, noticed her pallor, the dark circles under her eyes. She had changed from her Arab gown and veil and wore her t-shirt and jeans. “Are you okay, sweetie?” he asked as everyone else crowded around, hugging her, demanding to know what had happened.

  Daryl lowered her pack to the floor and sagged onto the couch. “Sorry I worried you,” she said tiredly, leaning against Jordan, who put both arms around her. “I had to hide. The security guys were crawling everywhere, and I couldn’t change until they left the area. Then I did and strolled across the lobby under their noses. I think they wanted to stop me, but they didn’t.”

  Kane lowered himself to his knees in front of her, his fingers caressing her smooth cheek. “I owe you, sweetheart,” he said, his voice low. “What you did—”

  “I would do again.” Daryl smiled tremulously, clasping his hand. “No one messes with my people.”

  Kane swallowed hard. He nodded. “Thank you.”

  Jude blew out a gust of his held breath, his tension dissipating with Daryl’s arrival. “Now we have to ask who was that guy, and why did he try to kill you, Kane?”

  “I recognized him,” Kane replied, getting stiffly to his feet. “He was one of Moon’s bodyguards, and I had noticed him hanging around the front desk.”

  “Did he overhear you asking about the second room?” Taylor asked.

  Sitting back down on the sofa, Kane nodded. “He must have. Anyone asking about it must be a threat and needed to be eliminated.”

  “And if he’s dead,” Emily continued, “our targets are now warned there is a danger to them and their meeting. Will they run?”

  “It depends on how badly they want to chat with each other,” Neil answered. “They may put their guards on high alert and carry on.”

  “Did you find the room, Kane?” Jordan asked, her arms still around Daryl.

  “I did. But I’d expect our pals to change it, provided they aren’t running for cover.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Neil

  Waking with muted sunlight streaming in through the closed drapes, Jordan’s head pillowed on his shoulder, Neil recalled the events of just a few hours ago. As Jordan refused to permit Daryl to sleep in the room she shared with Ronan by herself, Daryl slept in the other bedroom in their suite. Ronan might be worried about her.

  Easing out from under Jordan, Neil rose from the tumbled bed and pulled on his jeans. Padding from the bedroom, he peeked in on Daryl. Like Jordan, she slept on, her blonde hair tousled and spread over her pillows. Though she had claimed to not be disturbed by having killed a man, Neil wondered if that was true.

  It’s a hard thing to shoot a guy in the head, even to save someone’s life. Absently rubbing the faintly sore spot where he
had been stabbed, Neil recalled killing the guy with his own switchblade. I never thought twice about it. Is it the same for Daryl?

  “Are you all right?”

  Neil turned from Daryl’s doorway to see Jordan just outside their bedroom, clad in a t-shirt, her hair tumbling around her shoulders.

  “Yeah,” he replied softly, pacing toward her. “I was just wondering how killing that guy might have affected Daryl.”

  Jordan slid her arms around his waist, leading him toward the sofa. “It hit her hard,” she told him quietly. “She’s hiding it, but I think it shook her badly.”

  Holding her close, Neil kissed her forehead. “Daryl puts on the tough street kid act,” he said with a small smile. “But deep inside, she’s as soft and mushy as a melted marshmallow.”

  “I’m worried about her.”

  “So am I.”

  Content to hold Jordan as they sat on the couch, Neil pondered the plans for the day, to follow Bobrovsky and Moon to their meeting and find a way to kill them. “I hope we all survive this with our emotional and mental faculties intact.”

  “Are you still worried about whether we’re doing the right thing?”

  “I know we are,” he answered. “But even doing the right thing can have terrible costs. Are we able to pay them?”

  Jordan tilted her head up to gaze into his eyes. “As long as you’re beside me, I can face anything.”

  “Even my death?”

  “You’re not going to get killed, Neil. We’ll succeed in this and go home. Pick up our lives again.”

  Without answering, Neil merely nodded and kissed her soft lips. A discreet knock at the door broke them apart. “I bet that’s Ronan,” Neil commented and got up from the couch.

  It was indeed Ronan. He stepped in as Neil beckoned and murmured, “Kane told me she was in here.”

  Neil pointed. “She’s still asleep.”

  Ronan nodded a greeting to Jordan, then crossed the sitting room to look in on his mate. He let out a long gust of breath as though in relief but didn’t go in and risk waking her. Instead, he paced toward Neil and Jordan to sit in an armchair.

  “Kane told me what happened,” he said, his voice low. “I should have been here.” He ran his hands through his hair, his expression tight, upset. “Instead, I’m sitting on a roof across the street doing nothing.”

  “Everything we’re doing here is a risk,” Jordan told him. “We can’t see into the future. Daryl did what she had to do to save Kane’s life. He’s alive because of her.”

  “But I should have been the one to kill that dude,” Ronan snapped, his tone low, savage. “Not Daryl. She’s not the type. She’s—”

  “She’s tougher than you realize,” Neil commented.

  “Okay, you can stop talking about me now.”

  Daryl, her golden hair falling almost to her waist, ambled behind Ronan. Before he could stand, she crawled into his lap, her arms around his neck. Ronan buried his face in her hair, his breathing ragged enough to make Neil think he fought back tears.

  “It’s all okay,” Daryl murmured. “We have one less bag guy to deal with.”

  “And another who is probably going crazy with fear.” Jordan chuckled.

  Ronan lifted his face, smiling wryly, stroking Daryl’s hair. “It was rather fun to see him wig out.”

  “Bad, bad dragon,” Daryl commented, then kissed him. “You’re not supposed to let people see you.”

  “I think there should be exceptions to that rule,” Ronan replied, nuzzling her nose with his own. “Such as scaring the bejesus out of Russian bodyguards.”

  “So now Snowman and Nasty know something is going on,” Jordan said, stretching her lithe body and yawning. “One North Korean is dead, and his boss probably doesn’t know why, and Bobrovsky, no doubt, is wondering what his guard saw outside the window.”

  Ronan laughed. “Maybe he simply accused his guy of drinking too much vodka.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Neil stood and lifted Jordan with him. “Kane wants us all to meet and discuss plans over breakfast.”

  “That’s our signal to go to our room, my love.” Ronan also stood up, Daryl in his arms. “Take a quick shower, and you put some clothes on.”

  “As my clothes are in there, you have to put me down.”

  Reluctantly, Ronan let her slide to stand, then let her go to fetch her clothes from the bedroom. When she returned, her jeans on but barefoot, Ronan sent Neil and Jordan a quick wave.

  “We’ll see you both at breakfast,” he said as they left the suite.

  Thirty minutes later, showered and garbed in clean clothes, Jordan’s hair still damp, Neil held her hand as they joined Ronan and Daryl in the hallway.

  “Our friends might have flown the coop,” Daryl commented, her tone gloomy.

  “I think our revered leader may have put something in place to let us know if they did or not,” Neil replied, hitting the button for the elevator.

  In the garishly expensive Armani restaurant, Kane sat with Jude and Drake, but Taylor, Natalie, and Emily were oddly absent. Neil glanced around, expecting them to arrive from the ladies’ room, but he saw nothing of them as he and Jordan sat down.

  “Okay, why are we three short?” he asked.

  Kane smirked. “Our wayward three are not so wayward,” he replied. The lump on the side of his head made his hair stick out a little, but he appeared to have recovered from the events of the night before. “They are watching our friends.”

  “How?” Ronan asked. “Just hanging out in the hallways?”

  Kane gingerly touched his lump and winced. “I couldn’t sleep with this blasted headache.”

  “I should have given you my pain meds,” Neil said with a grimace. “Sorry.”

  “No, I put my insomnia to work,” Kane told them, smiling. “I paid a visit to my new best friend at the desk. I got the room across from the meeting place, as well as the empty rooms across from Snowman and Nasty.”

  Neil blinked. “That’s some kind of friendship.”

  “It is. The man is grateful for the bribe money,” Kane went on, his smile widening to a grin. “He desperately needed it to put a kid in school. Anyway, Emily, Taylor, and Natalie are watching those rooms. They’ll let us know if our friends go on the move.”

  “Are we sure they didn’t already run?” Daryl asked.

  “Natalie is on Snowman, and she reported a guard outside his door.” Kane eyed them all. “Why don’t you have your listening devices in?”

  “We’re amateurs, that’s why.” Neil pulled his device from his pocket and plugged into his ear, then turned on his radio.

  “They have been in there since dawn,” Kane continued, waving at a waiter. “Once we eat, we’ll post ourselves outside the meeting room. We need to be in place before they arrive.”

  “So, we’re thinking they will keep that room?” Ronan asked.

  “My new best friend informed me they made no requests for a change nor added a new room.”

  “Now that is what I call a friend.” Daryl laughed.

  The waiter arrived and took their breakfast orders, then departed. “It’s time to start taking out guards,” Kane continued after he had gone. “Alive, if possible; kill them if they leave us no choice.”

  “As in tie them up?” Ronan asked, taking a sip of the strong local coffee. He grimaced.

  “We have the empty rooms,” Drake answered with a quick nod. “They’ll be found before they starve, and no doubt sent home to their respective countries.”

  Neil grinned. “You have rope, revered leader?”

  “In my pack.”

  “So, by whittling down the guards, we leave Snowman and Nasty exposed,” Drake went on. “We’re thinking of providing some sort of distraction to get them away from our friends. While I doubt Ronan’s pal deserted, he might panic when his fellows start vanishing.”

  “And one North Korean dead,” Kane added, “that makes three for Nasty, plus Lieutenant Number Two.”

  “Any
thoughts on distractions?” Ronan inquired.

  “Those we’ll play by ear,” Kane said. “As circumstances permit.”

  “We’ll want to avoid gunfire, too,” Drake added. “Snowman and Nasty are supposed to vanish without a trace. Last night’s attempt to kill Kane may have attracted the wrong sort of attention.”

  “Nothing we can do about that,” Neil retorted, annoyed. “Unless they identify the guy as a bodyguard of the North Korean dictator, it’ll go down as an unknown circumstance.”

  “Especially when they couldn’t catch or identify me.” Daryl glanced around the restaurant as though concerned the security department even then strode toward their table with the intent to arrest her. “I hope they can’t, anyway.”

  Neil also looked around, but he saw no security guys anywhere. “Even the cameras will show an Arab woman with her face covered. They’ll have no idea if she was truly Arab or not, so they don’t know who to look for.”

  “We got lucky there.” Kane smiled at Daryl. “I got lucky.”

  Daryl blew him a kiss.

  Hovering around the corner from the meeting room, Neil peered around at the two guards. One was Russian and the other North Korean, both standing with their backs to the closed door. Kane, Drake, Taylor, and Emily were in the room opposite them while Jordan stood behind him, waiting.

  At the far end of the hall, Ronan and Daryl also waited, hidden around a corner. Jude and Natalie, garbed as an Arab sheik and his wife, paced slowly down the hall toward the pair of guards. They were to provide backup in case the guards proved uncooperative. Neil tensed himself, glad it wasn’t his mate who had been selected to tempt the bodyguards from their post.

  “All right, boys and girls.” Kane’s voice filled his earpiece. “It’s showtime.”

  The door opposite the guards abruptly opened. Peering around the corner, Jordan at his side, Neil watched in fascination as Taylor and Emily stumbled from the room, empty wine bottles in their hands.

  Both were stark naked.