Smoke and Fire: Part 1

by Donna Grant

  There was no use hiding the various dragon relics, paintings, and such. Dreagan meant dragon. It was the first thing Con told MI5 when they arrived. To try and say they didn’t know anything about dragons would only make them look guilty.

  So Con had told them the video was an elaborate prank by some competitor that wanted to knock Dreagan whisky off as the top-selling Scotch in the world. For the time being, MI5 was buying that lie.

  “So the Dark factor in because of Ulrik?” Kinsey asked, her gaze on her screen as her mind worked not just on her search, but on everything he’d told her about the Dragon Kings.

  Ryder sat back and let his gaze run over the rows of monitors that surrounded him. It felt right to have Kinsey near him again, but he knew it couldn’t last. She might have listened to his story with interest, and even felt something for the dragons. But there was still fear in her violet eyes.

  “Nay,” he finally answered. “The Fae came to this realm a verra long time ago hoping they could force us to leave in order to have the mortals to themselves. That was the Fae Wars. The Dark have been our enemy since. The Light vary, but most times they side with us.”

  Kinsey turned her head to him. “And Glasgow?”

  “It wasna just Glasgow,” he said. “It was Edinburgh, Inverness, Oban, and countless other cities throughout the U.K. The Dark wanted to take over. Dragon Kings were assigned to each city to protect as many mortals as we could from the Dark.”

  She turned back to the monitor. In a tight voice she said, “I see.”

  Was it his imagination, or did she sound upset at his response? “Doona travel to Ireland. That’s where the Fae live.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” she commented as she typed something.

  Ryder focused on his search. One by one, he went through the top executives at Kyvor. When nothing came up, he widened his search and found the smaller companies Kyvor was parent to and repeated the process.

  He was running searches on three computers simultaneously. Every so often he looked at Kinsey. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that the outside world fell away. It was how she had always worked, and Ryder found it endearing.

  Minutes turned into hours. The longer he went without discovering anything on Ulrik, the more frustrated Ryder became. If there was anything out there, he’d find it. Which just proved there was nothing.

  That, however, wasn’t possible.

  Not with today’s smart phones with cameras for pictures and videos. Then there was social media where even the most skilled people sometimes got caught out at a restaurant or crossing the street.

  Facial recognition software had been searching for Ulrik’s face for the past three hours, and had come up with absolutely zero from all social media outlets.

  Ryder pushed back from the table and rolled his head from side to side. Kinsey hadn’t moved other than her fingers over the keyboard.

  Suddenly, the door opened and Dmitri filled the doorway. He met Ryder’s gaze and shrugged before he stepped aside. Ryder then found himself looking into black eyes.

  Con.

  “I hear we have a visitor,” Con said as he walked closer to the monitors and looked over them to Kinsey. She was too intent on her work to notice Con.

  Ryder said, “This is how she works. She doesna even hear you.”

  “Perhaps you should get her attention.”

  “No’ yet,” Ryder said.

  Con stared at him for a stretch of silence. “Dmitri filled me in on Kinsey Burns. I’d like to hear it from you now.”

  “There isna much to tell,” Ryder said. He hadn’t wanted Con to know of the time he and Kinsey had been together in Glasgow, but it was inevitable.

  “I knew you were seeing someone during your stay in Glasgow. I gather the woman was Kinsey.”

  Ryder nodded. There was no such thing as privacy in the world of the Dragon Kings.

  Con’s gaze moved to Kinsey where he studied her for several minutes. “We’ll talk more about that later. Catch me up on what the two of you’ve found.”

  “I have nothing,” Ryder said and motioned to the screens. “There is nothing that I can find to link Ulrik to Kyvor. Yet.”

  “Then he’s hiding it,” Dmitri stated.

  Con glanced at Dmitri and said, “I agree. Ulrik is too smart to leave a trail leading back to him. That is, if you believe Kinsey.”

  “She didna put in the work order,” Ryder said.

  Dmitri crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “She’d have to be a good actress to fool us. The shock was genuine. She was sent here.”

  “To Ryder,” Con said with a small frown. “Why?”

  “Aha,” Kinsey said with a bright smile as she pushed the rolling chair back from the table and threw up her arms. Then she saw Con and Dmitri. She lowered her arms and turned to Ryder. “I found out who put in the work order.”

  Ryder scooted his chair next to her. “Who?”

  She grabbed the table and pulled her chair forward. Kinsey then pointed to the screen. “The name is Clarice Steinhold. She’s a new employee hired at the start of October.”

  “So?” Con said.

  Kinsey spared him a brief look. “The work order is dated December fourth. After a little checking I ascertained that Clarice called in sick on the fourth.”

  Ryder smiled and nodded. “Nice catch.”

  “Someone used her computer so it wouldna trace back to themselves,” Dmitri said. “Can you find out who?”

  Kinsey bit her lip. “No.”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Ryder said.

  “You learned something new?” Kinsey asked excitedly.

  Ryder had kept a lot of his skills from her before. He paused, unsure of what to say.

  Kinsey then rolled her eyes. “Ah. I see. You’ve always been able to do that. You just failed to mention that part three years ago.”

  “Three years,” Con murmured with a raised brow.

  Ryder inwardly winced. Con was going to piece it all together. So much for Ryder keeping what had occurred a secret. Then again, nothing stayed private at Dreagan.

  He ignored Con’s penetrating gaze as well as Kinsey’s censoring stare and focused on his task. It took him but a few minutes to hack into Kyvor’s private server. He then went back to the date in question.

  From there he was able to discover Clarice’s employee number that led him straight to her computer. Then he looked back through the camera to a week earlier, hoping that Kyvor was like most companies and recorded their employees.

  “Shite,” Ryder said as he glared at the screen.

  Con walked around the side of the monitors to stand beside Ryder. “What is it?”

  “Someone was smart enough to cover the camera on Clarice’s computer screen while they were there. Once they finished…” Ryder punched a button to show them. “The surrounding area was visible once more.”

  Dmitri grunted. “Then someone knew you would be able to hack into the system.”

  “Or they just didn’t want to take a chance of being discovered,” Kinsey said.

  Ryder stared at his monitor. “It has to be someone who works there. I’d wager it’s someone higher up in the corporation.”

  “No’ necessarily,” Con said. “Ulrik could easily get to someone much lower on the corporate ladder.”

  Kinsey wrinkled her nose. “That’s true. It could be anyone. There are tens of thousands of people working for the company. We can’t go through each one.”

  “We can, but it willna do any good,” Ryder said.

  Kinsey’s head tilted to the side. “Why do you say that?”

  “They went to great lengths to conceal their identity. There willna be anything to find.”

  “So how do I find out who set me up? And why?” Kinsey asked. “I don’t like this, Ryder. Someone intentionally sent me here because they knew about us.”

  Con turned the gold dragon-head cuff link at his left wrist. “How much do they know? T
hat’s what we need to determine,” he said, looking at Ryder.

  “Obviously they know enough,” Ryder muttered.

  Con shook his head. “No’ especially. The wanted us to think Kinsey wrote the work order, but they also had to know her skills—and yours, for that matter. It’s why they hid themselves at Clarice’s computer.”

  “Then knew we’d clear Kinsey,” Dmitri said, his gaze riveted on her.

  Ryder frowned. He didn’t like the direction the conversation was turning. “Nay,” he stated.

  “That would be a hell no from me,” Kinsey said. “I didn’t willingly come here. Had I known this was where Ryder was, I’d have gone the opposite direction.”

  Ryder grimaced. It was the wrong thing to say to Con. And Con’s icy demeanor confirmed Ryder’s suspicions.

  “Is that right?” Con asked in a smooth, even tone.

  Kinsey gave a firm nod. “Yes.”

  “Because you saw him in his true form.”

  It wasn’t a question. Ryder closed his eyes, seeing the train wreck that was about to happen.

  There was a beat of silence before Kinsey’s said, “Yes. And before you ask, of course I was scared. I’d never seen a dragon before. How else was I supposed to react upon witnessing something that large flying through the sky breathing fire?”

  Ryder opened his eyes, hiding his smile. He had to give it to Kinsey for turning the question back on Con. She had a point.

  “Did the dragon come after you?” Con asked.

  Ryder watched Kinsey. He knew the answer, but he wasn’t sure if Kinsey thought he had gone after her.

  She briefly met his gaze before she swung her eyes to Con. “The city was burning. People were screaming and running for their lives. There were red-eyed men and women everywhere with droves of people around them. Then there was something in the sky. I didn’t stop to ask the dragon if it was going to kill me. I simply ran. As any sane person would do.”

  Ryder smiled, because she had a very good point. She hadn’t known it was him. Not at first. Now, once she had … well, that was an entirely different matter.

  “That’s a good explanation,” Con said. “How did you discover it was Ryder?”

  Kinsey swallowed and said, “I was being chased by one of those men with red eyes, the Dark. I just wanted to get away. The next thing I knew, there was a dragon flying right toward me. Then it was gone, and Ryder stood there. He killed the Dark Fae.”

  “And you ran away,” Con concluded.

  Kinsey’s gaze skated to Ryder for a heartbeat. “Yes. I ran.”

  Chapter Six

  Kinsey held Con’s gaze. There was no way he was going to make her feel bad for doing what 99 percent of humans would’ve done in her shoes.

  However, she knew that had hurt Ryder. The look on his face that night, and even now while he watched her with hope, told her she had wounded him severely.

  “Con,” Ryder said, his voice holding a warning.

  Kinsey wondered what it was Ryder didn’t want Con to say to her. There was no emotion on Con’s face. Even his black eyes seemed to see right through her.

  It was contradictory to the golden waves of his hair that gave the impression of a relaxed and cheerful man, which was also in direct contrast to the sharp black suit he wore that looked as if it cost more than her entire wardrobe.

  “Let him say whatever he needs to,” Kinsey told Ryder. “He is King of Kings, after all.”

  Con’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, but it was enough that Kinsey saw it. She felt she’d gained a small victory over him. She should’ve known that no one got anything on Con for long.

  “You shared Ryder’s bed, knew him intimately, and yet when he saves you from the Dark, you run away. And you doona believe you have anything to be contrite for?”

  “I was scared.”

  One side of Con’s lips lifted in a smile. “You. It’s always about you, is it no’? What about Ryder?”

  “Enough, dammit,” Ryder said as he got to his feet. “I can handle this.”

  But Con’s words filtered into her brain regardless of the fact that Ryder tried to stop it. Was Con right? Was she making it all about her?

  Con slowly turned his head to Ryder. “Do you remember what I told you long, long ago on dark night that changed our lives implicitly?”

  Kinsey watched as the two of them stared each other down. Ryder’s anger was palpable, and though Con didn’t show his fury as Ryder did, Kinsey still felt it. There were no words between them, but once again she felt as if Ryder was communicating with Con in another way.

  Con returned his black eyes to her. “Someone went to great extremes to get you here. I want to know why.”

  “As do I,” Kinsey said.

  Con tugged on the wrist of his shirt, pulling it from his suit jacket so that his cuff links showed. “Check everything she has. I’ll no’ have another incident like Iona’s.”

  Kinsey waited until Con and Dmitri strode out before she asked, “What happened with Iona?”

  “She was used by her company to gather intel on us. Her phone was bugged, as was her computer.”

  “Who did she work for?”

  “The Commune.”

  Kinsey drummed her fingers on the table. “I’ve heard of them. So they were connected to Ulrik?”

  Ryder mumbled something that sounded like an affirmation. Kinsey leaned over and tugged her purse and bag to her. Then she swung them around and set them between her and Ryder.

  “Look through everything,” she told him. “I want to know that my things are clean. They’ve not been out of my sight for days, but I suspect if someone really wanted to get to them, they could.”

  Ryder set her large black bag in his lap. “They used an e-mail loaded with a virus to get into Iona’s mobile and laptop.”

  Of course they did. Kinsey knew that was definitely an option, because she’d helped people do that before. It wasn’t a service her company announced, but the people with the right amount of money and clout always got whatever they wanted.

  She turned back to the monitor as Ryder sorted through her bag. Yet she couldn’t concentrate. She kept running Con’s words over in her head.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have run. Maybe she should’ve stayed. And did what? Talked to Ryder? People were dying all around her, buildings were on fire, and Ryder was a dragon.

  An effing big dragon at that!

  She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Or maybe subconsciously she had after what he’d done to her. Regardless, her fear ruled her that night. Though that explained her reaction then, it didn’t explain it now.

  Weeks had gone by where she’d been able to sort through all she had witnessed and experienced. Why then would she still be so fearful?

  That’s what she believed Con wanted to know. He hadn’t come right out and asked, but there hadn’t been a need. She was sure that Tristan and/or Dmitri had told Con what transpired when she saw Ryder.

  Kinsey was ashamed of herself. Yes, she was still completely freaked out at the idea that Ryder was a dragon—and that she was surrounded by dragons.

  But she’d trusted Ryder implicitly at one time. He was the other half of her soul, the man she had always known would be who she spent her life with.

  Should it matter that he was a dragon?

  He certainly hadn’t cared that she was a vegetarian. In fact, he had gone out of his way to make sure whenever he cooked that she had all she needed for a filling meal, even if he was eating meat.

  Now she knew why he always laughed when she attempted to get him to stop eating meat. He was a dragon. Dragons weren’t herbivores.

  Kinsey snorted as she hid a laugh. How was she to know what a dragon was or wasn’t? They didn’t exactly teach dragon basics in school.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryder look up at her before he went back to her things. The smile faded from her lips. She knew one big reason she’d treated Ryder the way she had since she walked into the computer room. />
  When she hadn’t been able to get in touch with Ryder after he walked out on her three years ago, she had fallen apart. Weeks later, when she was finally able to pull herself together, she used her skills to look for him. But he had disappeared quite effectively.

  She wanted to hurt him for leaving her. How silly for her to think that she was over him as she’d told herself for so long. It was obvious from the way she couldn’t stop looking at him, listening to his voice, and yearning for his touch that she’d been lying to herself.

  But she wanted him to suffer as she’d suffered. The pain had been so unbearable at times that she honestly thought she might die from it.

  At times she’d wanted to die, begged for it. But each day she woke to see the sun.

  Kinsey tightened her ponytail, wincing as her head began to ache. She decided to forgo the pain and took her hair down. With a shake of her head, she sighed as her headache began to dissipate almost immediately.

  She rubbed the spot where the band had held her hair against her head and closed her eyes. One of these days she was going to learn how to put her hair in a ponytail without it hurting.

  After a minute or two, Kinsey opened her eyes and sat back. Only to find Ryder watching her with his hazel eyes darkened. She knew that look all too well.

  He wanted her. The desire was tangible, physical.

  Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach felt as if an entire flock of hummingbirds was trying to get out. The urge to get up and go to him, straddle his lap was strong.

  Then she thought about the last three years where he hadn’t bothered to contact her. Saving her life or not, Ryder had been a dick in the way he’d left. She’d be an utter and complete fool to give in to her need for him only to have him push her away again.

  She was stronger now. She was the one in charge of her life and her destiny. Even if he was the other half of her soul, that didn’t mean she should allow herself to be treated so harshly. She deserved better.

  Kinsey pulled her gaze from Ryder and focused on the computer screen before her. She pretended as if she had something important to do.

  And she did. If only she could remember what it was.

  Oh. Right. Trying to determine who would want her at Dreagan and why.