Lucien: Dragofin Mated: Book 2 (Dragonfin Clan Mated)

by Mychal Daniels

  Neither spoke, only nodded their heads. Then Blaise looked up at Lucien, scratched his head and asked, “Will Greg be well enough to attend?”

  As Lucien expected, both Hildy and Quinn began to chatter and ask questions about Greg and what happened to him. He held up a hand and said, “Save it for the debriefing. We meet in an hour. Come on, let’s get Sleeping Beauty here to her cell.”

  35

  Quinn…

  “She killed Craig!” Wren said, staring off into the distance.

  The loud gasp that escaped made Wren stop and look over to her. Quinn hadn’t been ready for what Wren said. Even though it was clear that she’d only been in lust for Craig, his death was still a shock. Looking back at Lucien in response to the shift in his energy over her reaction to her ex’s death, she gave him a smile and whispered, “I’m good, was shocked, was all.” To Wren, she said, “My apologies for interrupting. Please, Wren, continue. It won’t happen again.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes. Julia is a monster. He didn’t do anything to her, and she killed him. It started exactly like what she attempted to do to me. Craig’s eyes, nose, mouth, and ears started bleeding. Next, he started to make gurgling sounds as if he was choking. Then he was dead. Julia didn’t show any emotion. She had the nerve to say she was practicing something new.” Wren rocked herself back and forth as she sat on Matt’s lap. He’d tried to hold her, and she resisted, still too wound up to settle into his lap like the other mates were. “She told me I’d have to wait and see if she decided to do anything to me. You remember what she said back there?” Wren stopped. Sounds of muffled sobbing tore the room up. Quinn leaned forward, prepared to go to her when Lucien stopped her.

  “Let Matt take care of her,” he whispered.

  Quinn came to rest again on his lap. She didn’t like not being able to help her friend, but knew Lucien was right.

  Matt spoke, “Lucien, you have to present this to the council. Julia must be sent there to stand for her crimes before them. This falls within their jurisdiction. She’s already proven that she can’t be contained in a human facility with how many times she’s escaped from them.” He looked over to Ajax for support as he said, “Didn’t you say she’d tortured some of the girls she was with at that sex trafficking house?”

  Ajax nodded, looking uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “Matt, you can save your breath. I’ve already decided that she will be sent to stand before the council for her crimes. That isn’t an issue, what we have to do is find her before she strikes again.” Lucien directed his attention to Hildy. “Hildy, what business do you think your Mr. Scott would have with Julia?”

  Hildy was quick with her response. “First off, he’s never going to be my Mr. Scott. But, if he’s able to work with her and not be her pawn, I’d say he’s either trying to recruit her or use her to find me again. I can only imagine what pressure the agency has put on him to find me for him to go to these lengths. Mr. Scott is a survivor, and might be thinking that if he can’t get me back, then he can give them Julia instead.” To Wren, she said, “Wren I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through tonight. Your ordeal is something you’ll need help processing. I want to offer my friendship to you if you need anything. Please allow me and Quinn to be here for you. Also—I need to tell you something that may give you pause with that offer. But, it’s best for me to get all the skeletons out of the closet.”

  Wren looked up at Hildy. Her eyes were red and puffy but alert. Quinn had to catch herself when her breath made a noise escaping as Wren leaned back and crawled up into Matt’s lap. He enveloped her in his large arms and rocked as Hildy began to speak again.

  “Before I came to be with Ajax and the guys here at the Lair I was a skilled assassin. Wren, please don’t be fearful of me but I killed people for a living.”

  The air in the room grew heavy as Hildy allowed that to sink in. “It’s what I was trained to do from childhood, and I’m extremely good at it. That’s why I’m able to recognize what Julia is capable of. With everyone’s help here, I successfully got away from Mr. Scott and that agency. I don’t plan ever to go back and as I promised Quinn, I give you my word that I will never do anything to harm you knowingly.”

  “Did you enjoy it? … The killing?” Wren asked. She looked so vulnerable in Matt’s lap. Quinn noticed she played with a button on Matt’s shirt. This fidgeting was something she did to keep stress at bay.

  Hildy gave her the warmest smile Quinn had ever seen on the woman’s pretty face. “No love, I never enjoyed killing. That’s another reason why I left. Unlike Julia who killed Craig for sport, I only killed once the file I received convinced me that the person was a menace to the welfare and health of a lot of people. That’s how I ended up crossing paths with Ajax. A lot of evil people worked in the sex trafficking business here. The agency gave me assignments that took out a lot of those players.” Hildy paused and then looked at Ajax.

  He looked dumbfounded and then finally asked her, “What?”

  “Oh my God. Why didn’t I see this before?” Hildy sat up straighter on his lap. “Y’all, I realized the files of targets I got from Mr. Scott to eliminate targets weren’t a part of the operation Oriana runs. They were her competition. And before you ask, I know this because they were all connected to an international syndicate with connections to Brazil and India—nothing local like Oriana’s organization. From what I gathered tonight, that location we went to was most likely Oriana’s headquarters.” Hildy shook her head in disgust. “I had the nerve to think what I’d done had put a stop to the trade here, believing that they were the main players.”

  “Why is this such a revelation now?” Lucien asked.

  “It’s big because Mr. Scott had to be helping Oriana all along. Instead of the hits coming from some government agency, they might have been coming from Oriana, and possibly Mr. Scott. He’d have me wipe out the competition with those assignments. Eliminating the competition meant they’d make more and more money. I never saw other agents when I did these. I never had to do anything but send him a text saying the deed was done. He’d take care of clean up, and I’d be on to the next one when he called. I feel it in my bones that he’s in partnership with Oriana on this. I may be sick to my stomach. It’s looking like I might have unwittingly been Oriana’s personal assassin enforcer.” Hildy shuddered at those words.

  “Luc, this is why we have to get down there and start interrogating Oriana,” Ajax said. “The longer we wait, there’s no telling what he and Julia are doing.”

  “I agree, but we have to have multiple plans. One thing we don’t want to do is approach a leprechaun without a good plan. You know as well as I do how dangerous that could be. Dragon or no, they can still manage to get a promise out of any of us through trickery if we don’t have a strict plan and script to stick to,” Lucien said, beginning to rock Quinn as well.

  “Hello, new girls in the room here,” Quinn spoke up. “What’s the deal with leprechauns and promises? I’m not following.”

  “Neither am I,” Wren added.

  Lucien sat back up to consider how to put it. While he thought, Quinn looked at how they were perched on the guys laps. When this was over, she’d talk with him about getting their own chairs to sit in. She loved her mate, but she was a big girl and needed her own chair. Images of possible chair designs for Hildy, Wren and her were interrupted by Lucien’s deep voice.

  “Leprechauns are master manipulators. They use words like pretty poisonous flowers where the scent is so alluring, you’ve taken in too much of it before realizing it’s deadly. What would be a banal conversation between anyone else could turn into an agreement for the person to give a leprechaun all his or her worldly possessions. They were deemed so detrimental to the world’s economy and regular humans that the Council of Elders deported them back to their own planet a couple of hundred years ago.”

  “Then why do we know anything about them? And how in the hell is Oriana here?” Hildy asked, clearly intrigued by
the story.

  “That’s a sad part of their history. When they were rounded up and sent packing, many of them who had joined with other races were considered outcasts. Because they didn’t live with the pure leprechauns, they were able to hide or even give their children to other outcasts to raise here on Earth. These outcasts were usually mixed breeds and lived in secretive close-knit communities. They’re called ‘The People’ and are fiercely loyal to their accepted group. Everyone else is considered scum and trash. It would make sense that Oriana had a human trafficking business. The People see nothing wrong with human trafficking since they have worked for years building up their beliefs that they are superior to all other living beings.”

  “That would explain a lot about Oriana’s ways. But why did she agree to raise Julia then? Julia isn’t a leprechaun. Isn’t she a fairy?” Wren asked.

  “But she is a mixed breed,” Matt answered. “Julia is part fairy, human, and if I’m not mistaken—part Memoria.”

  “What the fuck! She’s a Memoria? And you failed to mention something as important as that? Matt, why didn’t you say something?” Lucien said, almost roaring.

  “Whoa! What’s happening here?” Quinn asked confused.

  “This is what happens when Greg isn’t here to keep Luc from going off. Plus Matt is kinda off his normal game with his abilities,” Nolan said, clearly enjoying the action.

  “Shut it, Nolan,” Ajax said, jumping in. “Luc, don’t put this on Matt. When I first met Julia I couldn’t identify everything that was going on with her. Matt agreed to keep a watch on her. He suspected she might have some Memoria in her but wasn’t sure. Without being certain, we didn’t think it was right for us to accuse her of being something she wasn’t.”

  Quinn pulled her sweater away from her skin to realize she was sweating buckets, all due to how hot her mate was. Yes, her own chair was going to be a top priority after they managed to navigate out of this shit storm of events safely. Not sure how she knew, but Lucien was going to blow a gasket at what he heard. Greg might not be here, but she was Lucien’s mate and could do as good of a job as Greg could in acting as a buffer between this heated Dragon and his men.

  Not caring what the group thought, Quinn rose up and gave Lucien a sensual kiss. When she felt him pull her tighter against him, she smiled and pushed back. With a soft whisper meant only for his ears, she said, “Calm the hell down and act like you have some manners. Your men need you sane and not some angry Dragon hollering at them. Let me find out more, while you cool down, okay?” To her shock and surprise, this massive mountain of muscle, testosterone, and vigor settled back down and nodded. She patted him on his rock hard chest and added, “Good, I’ve got this, now watch your mate work.”

  Turning to a stunned group, Quinn said, “Let’s break this down shall we? First, what or who is a Memoria—Matt?”

  He spoke up, still a little confused about what was happening here. “Um yeah, so a Memoria is a being who is sort of like a parasite. It attaches to a host and lives with it until the host can no longer support it. Memoria’s can be passed down the line like a hereditary feature and are hard to detect by most. That’s why I’m not so sure that’s what we’re dealing with.”

  “But what does the Memoria do that has my mate so flustered?” Quin asked.

  “Oh, forgot that part. These beings get their names from the word memory. The quickest way to describe them is a memory thief. They thrive off the brain activity that is used to store memories. All it takes for them to siphon a memory is to be nearby.”

  “What happens to the infected person? Do they know what has happened to them?” Quinn asked.

  “That depends. Some Memoria are so skilled they’re able to share memories, leaving the person’s recollection in tact. While others are destructive, brutally snatching memories so violently that they kill the person.”

  Quinn hated to voice where her thoughts were going but had to. “Matt, do you think what Julia did to Craig and Wren tonight was the working of a violent Memoria? They did bleed from orifices of the head, and Wren was dazed for a while.”

  “Yes, it could be I guess. I’ve never witnessed the phenomena before. I’d have to defer to Luc or Greg to see if they’ve had any experience with it. But, the best way to find out is to ask Wren if she remembers something that might be appealing to Julia.”

  “Like what? That guessing game might take all night,” Nolan said. “And before you tell me to shut it, Jax, I have a valid point. So you shut it.”

  Ajax hunched his shoulders and rolled his eyes. “You cuckoo, you now that right, Nolan?”

  “Men please! We don’t have time for this. Any more shenanigans out of you two and I’ll pluck an eye out,” Hildy said, producing a hand with long deadly talons on it. Nolan sat back with a look of terror as Ajax grinned.

  “I don’t have memory loss. I remember everything that’s happened to me,” Wren’s voice was so soft, no one wanted to press her more about it.

  Matt continued. “Since we don’t have empirical proof of how Memoria work, it’s believed they use the contents of the memories to gain experience thus shortcutting the time it takes to master things. The fact that Julia is only a teenager but already has the magical ability of someone with at least half a century of experience is the reason I thought she might be a host to one or it’s a hereditary part of her DNA makeup.”

  This time Lucien spoke. Calm and back to a normal level he said, “I want to apologize for my intensity there. Please forgive me for that everyone, but especially Matt. And, no I don’t have any experience dealing directly with Memoria, only what I’ve heard and learned. Based on Matt’s words, it was a good assessment at the time to not brand her as one. Now that we know more about Julia, we can start to craft a planned script to talk with Oriana about her.” Then turning to Quinn, he asked, “Would you help with the strategy for how we approach her and get the information we need? Your gifts will be an asset on that front.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be glad to. But, before we get started, how about we discuss what the end game is with this. Why is everything coming back to Julia? Is she the epicenter of an issue? Lucien hinted at a prophecy. Isn’t it ironic that all this is happening one thing after another? My gut says that Julia is a distraction to whatever bigger is going on. Yes, she’s a big issue that has to be dealt with, but she’s part of the low hanging fruit on the bigger, worse tree.”

  “So how do we go about doing this?” Hildy asked.

  Quinn looked over to her friend and said, “Wren? Honey, do you feel like telling us what you’ve been seeing?”

  Wren looked up at Quinn, misery in her eyes. “How’d you know I’ve been seeing things?”

  “Because you’re my best friend and I can tell when something is going on with you. Plus you asked us if we remembered what Julia said about you when we were on that parking deck. It got me to thinking. One thing she said about you that stood out was that you were a Seer and that you were so open that anyone with half the ability to cast a spell could do you harm.” Quinn leaned toward Wren and said, “I don’t know much about your ability, but I do know you have always had an uncanny way of knowing things about people. If my hunch is right, while Julia was messing around in your—personal space—she might have left a way for you to see into her or what she’s got going on too. Am I right?”

  Wren burrowed into Matt’s chest as if she wanted to disappear. He spoke soft words to her, rubbing her arm and holding her in a protective way. Quinn hated this. It was clear her friend was suffering from the traumatic events, but they needed her to be prepared. It was too painful to force Wren to do anything before she was ready. Quinn decided to remain quiet.

  The room grew still. Moving slowly Wren sat up and spoke, “Since she slid into my head I see things that are twisted and complex in construction. One thing I see is that the man with her, Mr. Scott, is the source of a lot of the complexity. He’s an enigma.”

  Hildy’s attention perked up at hearing that man’s na
me. “Wren, no pressure, but could you see if that agency that I worked for is involved? That might be what is so complex in your visions. Mr. Scott works for them.”

  “I don’t have to do that. It’s true. The organization behind Mr. Scott is involved with all this.” Wren paused, looked at Hildy until everyone thought she’d fallen asleep with her eyes open. “Hildy, you were kidnapped by this organization. So many were and are still sent through the portal to work their agenda. This organization isn’t national or even of this planet. It is made up of a consortium of members from various worlds using this planet as a feeder for resources and a test area for new ways to manipulate other species and words. They use humanoid aliens and humans to test and make sure their agendas will succeed. Julia has always belonged to them as well. She was trained and conditioned to believe their implanted lie that she would become a leader of many galaxies.” Wren looked at Ajax and said, “She was imparted with a subconscious script to join with you. Julia won’t stop until the mission is changed or death. They wanted to see how much they could learn from you of the Dragos through her abilities. She’s being used but doesn’t know that it’s an implanted mission from this organization.”

  The gasps around the room snapped Wren out of her trance state. Quinn got up and went to her. Matt helped Wren to stand. When the two women embraced, Quinn saw pieces moving on a life sized game board in her mind’s eye. Pulling back to look each other in the eyes, the women held hands and began to sway ever so slightly. Quinn fell into the rhythm of the Earth’s rotation as she and Wren supported each other to withstand the mounting current of power rumbling from somewhere deep inside them.

  When it felt like Quinn could no longer be contained by the encasement of her own skin, vibrations of her voice burst forth. They hatched into words of exploding power, bypassing her conscious thoughts. Unable to hold her head steady, it fell back in abandon as the force of the word explosion detonated.