"I tucked him into an old dog kennel you had lying around. You don't seem like the dog type," Olivia said. She stole one of my bottles without permission and sat down across from me.
I enjoyed her struggle with the bottle until she realized it twisted off as easily as it peeled. I scowled at her. "There are strays now and then. I send them to the Fontaine's sanctuary. They require a place to stay until the Fontaines can get here to pick them up, in most cases so they do not ruin my home."
"Ah. Big rescue nut, huh? Didn't they make some kind of news a little while back about putting up shelters all over the country?"
She gestured at me with the bottle when she asked. I raised both brows at her. "You follow dog rescue news?"
"No, but Nicole does. She adores the stuff. You know, those videos online where the dog gets rescued from a bad situation and suddenly, they're happy and furry and wiggling again? Totally her stuff."
I shook my head at her. "They have been considerably charitable throughout the years and I shall leave it at that. We need to discuss what we are going to do to get into your precious museum."
"Then I need six more packs of these," she said, wiggling the bottle at me. "Minimum."
"I see no reason for that, or for these to be here in the first place," Iyadre frowned. "Is it that complicated?"
"You're looking at advanced security systems and fingerprint scanning door locks to get into the areas where your eggs would be kept," Olivia said.
I leaned forward. "What are the doors made from?"
"Steel, I guess? Big, thick cores? I don't know. I've never asked anyone. It's even possible that they've put them down in the vault, and if they've done that, you're never getting in there."
Vadriq snickered as he settled beside Iyadre. "Oh no, big scary vault door."
"Vadriq," I chided. "She doesn't realize what she's dealing with. Be kind."
"Big scary vault door, what ever will a bunch of dragons do when they're stuck with that?"
Olivia looked between us and picked up another bottle. "If you intend to rip down the museum, I'm not helping. The place is great. They have so much stuff that you've never seen before."
"If it was made in the past thousand years, it is entirely possible we have seen it before," I told her. "Yet, I have no interest in bringing the building down. Rather, I simply prefer to remind you that it is plausible for us to smash stone castle wall to steal the taxes within. Do you truly believe that a vault offers us any resistance whatsoever?"
She gave me a level look as she thought about it. It was if I could see the gears turning in her head. "I think it's harder than you might think it is. Vaults have been upgraded in the past century or so, ever since all the western movies made people think they could plot a bank robbery and get away with the cash."
"It's still no match for a dragon's bulk and heft."
"And how are you going to get a dragon's 'bulk and heft' into a space that's six-foot square?" she asked.
I paused, then looked at Nariti for help. He blinked at me and shrugged. "She has a good point. I have no idea how we could possibly use our dragon forms without smashing the place to piece. And I'd rather not ruin the museum. They have such an interesting display on the American Revolution-"
"You like that?" Olivia asked, brightening. "I put most of it together myself in between digs. No one stops to look at it."
"I do. It's my favorite thing there. Did you know-"
I stopped listening and ran through my thoughts instead. The American Revolution was well and good, but it got us no closer to our goals. Sadly, the only time I had been to the museum was when it had fallen on hard luck. We had considered purchasing the property but were outbid at the last moment. Thankfully, I'd gotten a good look at the grounds. It was doubtless that displays had come and gone since I had been inside, but perhaps the manner in which the museum was laid out differed little.
Besides that, we had Olivia to help us. She clearly had ideas about where they would stow our eggs, how to get there, and the possibility of getting them out. Would vault doors melt or burn as they had years ago? With the advent of video recording, we'd stopped laying siege to add to our treasure hoards and acquired things as they caught our eye with a fairly strict legal guideline.
Most dragons had continued in that manner, amassing the sparklies they desired with little ill intent. Most of us had proceeded to get into mineral or gemstone trades that involved buying low and selling off what we didn't care for.
Given the problems surrounding some of the gem trade, I had avoided such ventures. Instead, the humans had decided real estate was the best way to secure their money. And I was happy to take that money from their hands. Then I purchased the sparklies I so enjoyed.
And perhaps that was the best manner in which to attain our eggs once again. I took the last bottle from the pack and interrupted the display chatter. "Is it possible to donate something to the museum in exchange for the eggs?"
"I doubt it. Those are the largest opals that they've ever found. Testing is scheduled to begin on them in the next few days. Once they figure out that they're organic, they're going to get feisty with them." She put her bottle down and looked around at us. "So. I suggest doing whatever you intend to do. Because I doubt that those eggs are going to last much longer than through the weekend. I just ask that you leave me with a place to work by the end of it all."
"Vadriq, watch the whelp," I ordered.
A few beers weren't enough to manipulate my supernatural metabolism. I stood, unphased by the faint alcoholic element in my blood. Bluntly, the brewers rice I had once been fed while living overseas had been more potent than the beer in the refrigerator.
Vadriq blinked up at me. "You're going now?"
"We can't risk them starting these tests in the morning. Olivia believes they will come soon. There is no time like the present."
Olivia stood up with me. "I thought you'd want to scope out the museum, look for video cameras and stuff like that?"
"If there were time, I would." I snatched my keys up and headed for the door. "Iyadre, Nariti, Olivia."
My wingmates were right behind me. I turned my head to look for Olivia, who remained where she'd been. After a moment, she muttered something and followed after me.
Nariti and Iyadre climbed into the cab of the truck. There simply wasn't room for the four of us up there, which was fine with me. The sun was nearly gone and there was a chill in the air; a promise of season's upcoming change. I settled in the bed with Olivia and frowned at her. "What did you say before you came?"
"I said, I must be losing my fucking mind. I'm going on a heist with dragons."
And as we pulled away into the street, the falling night rang with my laughter.
Chapter 10
Olivia
I wasn't sure if he was laughing at me or with me, but I was pretty sure that it was the same thing when it came to him.
The look in his eyes when he'd seen the whelp, the way he'd immediately gotten all huffy when it was removed from his presence, confused the ever-loving fuck out of me. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who cared about kids. Or people. Or anyone but himself, really.
But how many guys had said the same thing about me? It'd been a while since I'd gone on a date, but the last one I'd been on had still been a total disaster. I'd just wanted to talk about the Ottoman Empire in front of the display, but my date had left me high and dry to yell about how Hitler had done nothing wrong.
So much for being a 95% match. Yikes.
The trip was long enough that I began to shiver in the back of the truck. No, we weren't a million miles away from home or anything, but nobody wanted to drive a few hours round trip every single day just to hit the dig site.
"Are you cold?"
I frowned over at him, the question taking me by surprise. "Cold enough. I'll live."
He scoffed and slid out of his jacket. The thing probably cost more than I made in a year's time. And I was still dirty from work. He offered it
out to me and I leaned away from it. "I can't afford to replace it if it gets all screwed up."
"It's nothing. Take it. You'll do me no good if you're trembling the entire time you're trying to guide us."
Oh. I took the jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I hadn't appreciated just how wide his shoulders were until that moment. The jacket dwarfed me and as I disappeared within its folds, but what I noticed the most was the absolute inferno within it. Though I enjoyed staying warm on a chilly night like anyone else, and I was definitely running on fumes, it was as if I'd brought along my own personal heater.
I snuggled down, tipped my head against the back of the truck, and went straight to sleep.
The truck occasionally jostled me to some form of wakefulness. Still, I managed to stay down pretty good for the rest of the ride. Dreams fluttered past me, just out of reach. That was fine, too. I didn't need to be aware of what my subconscious thought about the whole situation. I was pretty sure that what I was experiencing was some form of brain death.
Maybe I'd been hit by a car. Or I'd died in a dig site collapse, which happened from time to time no matter how careful you were. Maybe I'd just fallen over from heat exhaustion. Whatever the case was, this was my own personal version of hell and I was stuck in it forever.
I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I was sure happy that I didn't have to think about it too much.
I thumped against the front of the truck bed and felt something soft cradle my head. Though my shoulders struck metal, my skull didn't crack with it. I opened my tired, dry eyes to look up into Eskal's.
And the world froze.
He jerked away from me, leaving me to scramble to keep from whacking some other part of myself on the cold metal. "You were asleep. I simply didn't want you to brain yourself. We require you for this."
It was an explanation, but an awkward one. His long-sleeved business shirt was entirely inappropriate for the heat of the day. I slid his coat off my shoulders and offered it back to him wordlessly. Maybe dragons didn't notice the heat like we did?
"How do you intend to get past the security cameras?" I asked. "How did you get past them in the office today, anyhow?"
He shrugged back into his jacket. "A disabling charm before you entered the room and snipping the wires after you left but before it faded. We'll butcher these cameras in the same manner."
"Then what keeps you from just stealing anything you want?" I frowned.
Eskal let down the tailgate and slid out, then offered me his hand to help me down. "Honor."
"And the fact that he doesn't care to have the business lose reputation if he were to get caught hoarding diamonds," Iyadre said.
I took the hand, because what did he have to win if he yanked me down in my ass, and hopped out of the truck. "Is that really a thing? All the books always said to offer dragons precious metals or rubies-"
I stopped speaking and looked at the three men towering over me. Their eyes were locked on me, stuck on every word I said. They'd gone as still as the night around us, and in the darkness, I saw three sets of cat-slitted eyes staring back at me. "Focus, gentlemen."
Nariti was the first one to fix his eyes. He rubbed them, briefly, then turned and headed for the front of the museum. With a flick of his wrist, something sparkly and light blue shot out toward a number of locations across the building. I'd known that we had plenty of cameras, but that many? Our collection wasn't that impressive.
Eskal and Iyadre walked after him but I found it much harder to move my feet. I was betraying the friends, the family, that I loved. That museum represented everything I had in my life, and it was because of them that I did have so much. I'd agreed to help the dragons and some part of me knew that it was the right thing to do. They deserved to have access to something so culturally significant to them.
But why did it have to be me? Couldn't someone else have been the magical weirdo among us? Nicole would have loved the attention. She'd have probably already had them eating out of her hand. I wasn't that kind of girl. These days, I wasn't really sure what kind of girl I was; but I wasn't that kind. I was sure of it.
Super sure.
I lowered my head and sighed, then trudged after them. If only I hadn't accidentally awakened that egg in my room. If only Mom hadn't decided that she'd wanted a dragon of her own. If only Mom hadn't been right about the egg being a freaking dragon's egg.
Though, in the position I was currently in, I had to wonder how that egg had been separated from its nest. These dragons had freaked out over the potential to hatch a nest. "Are all flights as obsessed about eggs as you are?"
"Hatches are rare enough. It's why we're so long-lived," Iyadre said.
Well, that made more sense than it didn't. "So, everyone wants eggs. Everyone's ready to tear down brick walls for eggs. Then why did my mom have one?"
"Theft. It happens from time to time. Eggs are fertile for a very long while should they become separated from the omega incubating them. It is plausible that the egg was stolen when knights rode on horseback and dragon slaying was a common hobby for the lords to impress the ladies with," Eskal muttered as he worked to break the lock.
I looked around the business district as he worked. "You might want to hex all these other cameras. I mean, there's an ATM right over there."
Nariti glanced at Eskal for permission. The alpha shrugged and Nariti cast the same spell on a thousand thousand cameras around us. It was like watching some sort of fireworks show. A few of those cameras sent sparks of their own, the magic too much for them. I assumed they were newer models.
Finally, I heard a click behind me. Eskal opened the door and gestured, mutely, for the rest of us to go in. I was the first one through, hoping that all the magic being thrown around had ruined the alarm systems, too. Or maybe Eskal had simply paid someone off on the way over. The world worked in mysterious ways, I'd been told, when people had the kind of money he had.
All I knew was that Martin, the usual night guard, was nowhere to be seen.
We crept through the entryway and down to the stairway that lead to the basements. Yes, plural. Museums are often rather maze-like, with lower levels keeping a wide variety of outdated information in the ground. We dig it up only to bury it again.
It was one of my favorite rants.
The emergency lights gave us just enough to see by. Yes, the older belongings were down here but so were the newest discoveries; if my guess was correct. The lab was on the first basement floor and I was betting that we'd find the eggs there.
I was wrong.
Nicole lay across one of the workbenches, her skirt up as Willem pounded her from behind. I stopped in the shadows and stared for a second, then whipped my head away from the scene in front of us. "Jesus, your standards, honey," I whispered.
But the fucking dragons didn't look away. I shoved Iyadre and led them back up the stairs, hoping they hadn't seen us. I doubted they had; they were probably too involved in each other to worry about anyone or anything that happened outside of that lab room.
"There's the store rooms on the third floor," I muttered.
Eskal frowned at me. "Is that likely?"
"It's possible. New stuff gets sorted through there now and then, but it's such a pain taking everything up the elevator that we usually don't. Either way, it doesn't matter. We can't get past them while they're busy down there."
"Are you uncomfortable with what we just saw?"
I wrinkled my nose at him. "Of course I am. She's my friend. You don't watch your friend fuck unless you're in that kind of a relationship with them."
And without giving him a chance to respond, I led us to the elevators and stared at them. Would the ding give us away? Would we be better off in the stairwells? Or would there be even more cameras to take down if we went that way? I rubbed my tired, aching neck and looked back at the dragons. Eskal gave me a glance and pressed the up button on the panel.
Fine. That was the way he wanted to do it? All the better that he c
hose it. I couldn't be held responsible for it if it all went tits up, then, I guessed.
The elevator slid down the shaft and opened its doors invitingly. I followed them inside and smacked both the third floor and the door close button with my palm all at once. There was, blessedly, no ding. All that happened was that the doors swung shut and lifted us the three stories at an alarmingly quick rate.
"Never fails," I sighed. "Every time I come home from a dig; I forget how fast this thing goes."
The dragons didn't answer me. I assumed they were used to some ridiculous amount of g-forces if they were the sorts of dragons who could fly. Were there other types? How much of the supernatural world had I forgotten?
On Wings: A Reverse Harem Dragon Shifter Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 2) Page 9