by A. C. Arthur
Ravyn had no idea when she collapsed on his chest, but it seemed like some time after that he was carrying her into the bathroom.
“You go first,” he said in his normal snappish tone and set her inside the shower before switching on the water and closing the door to the shower stall.
He didn’t leave the bathroom, was most likely handling the condom and all that good stuff. She couldn’t really see through the clouded shower doors, but she could make out the outline of his body. Seconds later she was looking at the real deal when he pulled the shower doors open. Momentarily startled that he’d obviously changed his mind, she dropped her washcloth. He bent to retrieve it and she saw more tattoos on his back, along with a few very ugly scars. When he stood she grabbed the cloth and finished washing. There were no words exchanged while they washed, climbed out of the shower and walked back into her room.
He was going to leave. She was okay with that. But when would she get her money?
“It’s late,” he said and grabbed her hand, leading her to the bed. “Get some sleep.”
“I don’t really sleep,” she said and was glad it was dark in the room so he couldn’t see the embarrassment on her face.
“What do you mean, you don’t sleep? Are you nocturnal, like a bat?”
“No,” she said and slid her hand out of his grasp. “I just don’t sleep. It’s not always safe to let your guard down in that way. But anyway, when are you gonna make the deposit into my account?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight, you sleep.”
And when he eased her into the bed, pulling the sheets up to her neck, Ravyn was shocked to feel him slide into the bed beside her.
Chapter Eight
Rays of sunlight were just peeking through the sheer curtains at the hotel window when Steele appeared in the center of the room. Although immediate movement was possible the moment he came out of a fade, he remained still, looking around the space.
What the hell was he doing?
Saving her.
And sleeping with her. He’d literally slept in the same bed, holding her close to him for the last few hours. That could be construed as him being her personal guard, which was more Magnum’s area at the company. Or it could be what it was, him actually liking the act of holding her while she slept.
A string of curses followed that thought, and he moved, stalking across the room to pull the curtains closed. He took another shower, a longer one filled with steam that he hoped would clear his mind of the nonsense that had been residing there where this woman was concerned. This human woman who didn’t want him in her life any more than he wanted to be there, but had opened herself to him in the hottest way possible.
Half an hour later, after he’d pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, Steele walked barefoot out into the living area of the suite. He sat in the uncomfortable chair behind the too-small desk and powered up his tablet. The second it was up and ready he dialed a number and then propped the tablet up so he could see the screen.
“Good morning, Sunshine!” Isla said in a tone that was full of anything but golden cheer at the moment.
Actually, Isla never had a cheery tone. On the occasions that Steele saw her, which were few and far between because, besides his recent defection, Isla was the only Drakon who didn’t stay in her designated suite at the Office. She preferred her space, that’s the reason she gave Theo or any of the others anytime they asked about her not being there. Steele never asked. Not because he didn’t care about her, but because he knew the value of having personal space.
“Hey,” he replied in just as droll a tone as she’d used. “I met with that new client, Daron Robles yesterday.”
“Okay,” she said and turned her attention to another screen while her fingers raced over a different keyboard.
Isla’s office/living space was located in the Towers, otherwise known as Masters Towers, which was owned by Theo. This was the official business location of Legion Security and it was where the company’s thirty-two human employees worked. Isla was often the only Drakon in the building—after the meeting with Chief Lord Hikeen Montoy had gone terribly wrong and Shola had been kidnapped—cloaked in extra layers of Drakon magick as well as a full-scale security arsenal that would make the weapons at a military base as worthless as those metal detectors at the doorway of the courthouse.
“Senator Daron Robles, age forty-nine, race Afro Caribbean, marital status single. Political career started as a city representative twenty-four years ago. With the financial backing of the Burgess City Enforcers and The Winston Group, he won the senate seat five years ago. Owns homes in Sodesto, on a private island in the Caribbean region and a newly built compound in Madagascar. No children, five bank accounts, one faithful assistant of twelve years, Marona Combs.”
She’d recapped all things Steele had already learned about Robles.
“Where did he go to school? Any degrees in archaeology? Other interests in that area? There’s a bank on that island in the Caribbean where his vacation home is, can we find out how much is in that account? I want a list of withdrawals and deposits in the last six months. No, make that a year.”
Steele watched as her fingers continued to move over not just the keyboard to her left, but another one on her right. Her head turned from one screen to the next, long, straight black hair swishing over her shoulders with each motion.
“Cordone College in a town called Lufet. That’s in the southern region. Was born here in Burgess and returned with a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeological Studies, with a minor in political science. His father had been a senator, as well. It’s gonna take me a minute to get into that offshore account,” she said.
Steele sat back in the chair, rubbing his fingers over his chin. “That’s fine, just get it to me as soon as possible.”
“Why? I thought Robles was our client? My preliminary background check on him was included in the packets sent to your communicator yesterday morning.”
“I got it. But I need more information.”
She looked directly at him now. Resting her elbows on her desk, she clasped her fingers together and eased her chin onto them. “And I’ll ask my question again, why?”
There was only so much information Steele wanted to divulge to Isla, even though she was the information and technology guru of their group. If there was anything to be found, she could get it even if she had to use her power of mimicry to make it happen. Luckily for Steele, the only way she’d get all the information he had was to transform herself into him, and even that wouldn’t give her access to his mind, only the body that others could see.
“The item that was stolen from his house was an Egyptian dagger. I looked through a few books that were online and found out it was stolen from King Tutankhamun’s tomb. I want to know how Robles got his hands on it and who might be willing to steal something so expensive from him.”
“Ohhhhh,” she said with a nod. “Got it. I’ll start a search. And while I’m at it I’ll also trace Robles’s political dealings. Maybe he’s in debt to someone and needs the money his insurance company will likely pay since the dagger’s been stolen, to pay off that debt.”
Or maybe he’d secured the dagger for another purpose, a murderous one.
Steele wisely kept that thought to himself and logged off from the call with Isla.
By now it was barely eight o’clock in the morning. He got up from the chair, went into the bedroom to put on socks and shoes and then made his way down to the hotel gym.
His beast was itching to be free and if he was back at the Office, it would have been as simple as heading out the back doors to the secluded space designed for the Drakon to roam. In the city there was no such place, but pushing himself to the limits—which for a two-hundred-and-ninety-year-old dragon, was pretty far—would have to do the trick. The physical exertion would help shave the edge off the sexual hunger already building inside h
im again. What had he expected? It’d been at least ninety years since Steele had been with a woman. Celibacy was his choice. Connections of any kind for him had been off limits. Last night was a temporary reprieve, but it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.
He walked through the gym, all the way back to the weights and added all the weights stacked to the bar before lifting it over his head, one, two...sixty-seven times. And still, he wanted her again.
* * *
Ravyn woke alone.
Her eyes opened slowly and her body moved sluggishly as she rolled from one side of her bed to the other. It was morning, she could tell because there was light music playing in her room. Waking—even from the not quite sleep zone she was always in—to an alarm clock made her jittery all day, but the slow melodic sounds of instrumental music filtering into the room were a calm reminder that it was time to get up.
Extending her arms and confirming emptiness was going to be her jolt for the day. She rolled over and lay flat on her back, staring up at the pipes in the ceiling.
“Was it all a dream?
“It had to be. He couldn’t have gotten in here, strong-armed me to the floor and then convinced me to have sex with him. That was ridiculous!”
Lifting an arm and letting it drop down over her eyes, she chuckled. That was one hell of a dream.
But wait, to dream she had to have been sleeping and there hadn’t been a full night that Ravyn had lain in this bed, or any other bed for that matter, and slept. Not one. At least four to five hours in the middle of the night, she was up. She didn’t get out of bed—General Walsh had been adamant about bedtimes and obeying rules—but she didn’t sleep either. Many of her best ideas had come in the hours of her half-sleep, half-awake twilight.
“Did you really believe that guy was gonna give you a half million dollars?”
With that question spoken into the air, Ravyn didn’t think about the so-called dream again, instead she sat up and pushed her hand under the pillow.
“Good,” she said with a deep sigh. “It’s still there.”
But there was also something else. Pushing the pillow aside she looked down at the dagger and then at the slip of paper beside it. She rolled over and reached toward the table to tap the base of the lamp there. In seconds warm yellow light filtered around the room and she lifted the piece of paper into her hand so she could read what it said.
Steele—it was signed only with an “S”, like he was Superman or something—wanted her to meet him at the address provided tonight to give her the money.
“It was real?” She gasped at the question and then looked down to see she was naked.
Ravyn never went to bed naked. What if something happened in the middle of the night and she had to be ready quickly? Naked wasn’t conducive to being ready, unless she was going to be ready for Ste...
Shaking her head, she stared at the piece of paper again. So he had been here and she had agreed to have sex with him, so he could pay her a half million dollars for a dagger that may or may not be cursed. Or was there some other reason she’d ended her self-imposed celibacy with that guy? Of course there was, and denying the obvious wasn’t her thing. She’d wanted him and he’d wanted her, simple as that.
“Losing your mind, girl. You’re losing your damn mind.”
But those words and that piece of paper got her out of bed and into the bathroom. Once finished, she dressed, made her bed, touched the dagger and contemplated whether or not she could leave it under the pillow. She wouldn’t need it until tonight when she went to meet Steele. Today she had some things to do around Safeside so it didn’t make sense to carry around a dagger while doing those things. But as she walked toward the door and reached out to touch the knob, she couldn’t help but look back and stare at the pillow. Something felt odd. Like it was missing. It couldn’t be that dagger.
When the phone she’d clipped to her hip began to buzz Ravyn shook her head and opened the door to head out. She had a lot to get done before she planned to go out tonight.
“Hey?” she answered the phone to Cree on the other end.
“Hey. Need you down in Sec7 right away.”
Sec7 was the entrance to Safeside. “Coming now,” she said and cursed the second she hung up the phone.
She’d asked Steele how he’d gotten in here and he’d never actually told her. Of course, their Q&A session had gotten derailed with other things, but dammit, if he’d destroyed something of theirs or compromised their hideout, she was charging him another half a million for the dagger.
Ravyn moved through the narrow pathways that broke off into separate rooms they’d made with drywall and other items stolen from various construction sites. Cree’s father had worked in construction before drinking himself to death when Cree was nine years old, so Cree had a little bit of knowledge about the industry. Ravyn didn’t have any but she’d been a quick study after hanging out at construction sites for weeks before she actually began taking their stuff.
That last thought sat heavily on her as she passed the cafeteria area and walked up a set of five steps to get to the pathway which led to Sec7. Steele had commented on her stealing, asking why she thought that was the only way to do what she was doing here and she hadn’t given him an answer. Or rather, she had but thinking about the response now, it sounded more like an excuse. Was everything she did because of the way the enforcers had treated her and so many others around the city? Would her entire life revolve around that cause forever?
“There you are,” Jorge Meg said the moment she turned the last corner to the small area that was known as Sec7.
Jorge was a former wrestler, but he’d lost some of his bulk in the years since his last match. Becoming addicted to pain medications would do that. Losing everything he’d worked for as a result of his addiction and his inability to get a decent paying job with health benefits to support his family had only been the icing on the very depressing cake of his life.
“Tell this young’un that you were the last one in last night and that you secured everything.”
Ravyn stepped up to the crowd of three—Jorge, Cree and Maurio, Jorge’s younger brother—and looked around to see if anything was out of place. The area only consisted of about ten by ten square feet of space. Above them was the last rung of the ladder which stretched up to the surface. Along the underside of the manhole that covered their entrance was a silent security strip that sent a flashing red light to their control center whenever it was moved. As that rideshare driver had mentioned last week, there was nothing in this part of the city—no businesses, no houses, nothing but old buildings. Enforcers rarely came here because there was no one to get money from and criminals only frequented the area for as long as it took to do what shady thing they were concocting. Nobody stayed but them.
“I came in a little after nine last night,” she said, running her hands along the beam and steel walls here. There used to be tile on these walls when it was the subway station. This had been the spot where people either came out of the elevator or took the last step from aboveground to the turnstile and ticket booths before going down one more level to wait for the trains. “I secured everything here and then stopped by the control room before going to my suite to go over the daily log. Everything was in order.”
“But when I came around this morning checking the perimeter it felt like there was something off,” Cree spoke up. “I checked the locks and looked around just like you’re doing and there was nothing.”
“Right.” She nodded. “Nothing.”
The something off Cree had just commented on was Steele’s presence, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud, not until they had more proof.
“The boy’s dreaming again. You know he’s been itching to go up there again,” Jorge said.
Maurio shook his head. “Ain’t nothing up there for you, kid. Trust me, I know.”
He did know. Maurio h
ad joined the military fresh out of high school, but was wounded only months later. But like his brother, who couldn’t pass a drug test because he needed the painkillers to walk upright, Maurio couldn’t find a job because of the PTSD and subsequent panic attacks that plagued him, and the government had provided zero help to take care of his health or welfare needs when he’d returned. He’d tried wrestling like his brother, but that hadn’t worked out because each time he got into the ring with an opponent he thought of the hand-to-hand combat he’d been taught in the military, and the few times he’d actually made it through a match, his opponent had nearly not made it out alive.
“Nobody feels like someone may have been standing in this very spot not long ago?” Cree asked.
Jorge shook his head and Maurio just shrugged.
“Did you check the control room? Run the tape back and watch it from the time I came in last night?” Ravyn asked because she not only knew that Steele had been here, she could also smell his scent—the earthy aroma she’d picked up earlier yesterday when he’d grabbed her in the alley, mixed with the smell of her soap.
Cree shook his head. “Didn’t see anything. Just you.”
That was a good thing but she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe because she didn’t want to have to explain how this guy had most likely followed her home at some point, thus giving away their secret hideout. Not to mention that she’d ended up having sex with that guy and was going to meet up with him later.
“Then there was nothing,” she said just so she could hear the words out loud. “Let’s not speak of this to anyone else, we don’t want to cause a panic for nothing.”
“No problem,” Jorge said. “Lorna told me to tell you to take it easy. Just because you’re feeling better doesn’t mean you should resume your normal activities so fast. The flu takes a toll on people.”
Ravyn nodded. “I bet those were her exact words,” she joked with Jorge, who made a point of doing whatever his wife asked him to do because he was a very smart man.