by Cecilia Lane
“Like I said, fragments. Mostly things from my childhood.”
“That can be a problem. We took your childhood and modified it, changed the details. Brothers became sisters, the wild forests became the Alaska wilderness. Different enough to avoid immediate detection if someone ran you through Powyrworld Affairs but similar enough to keep you emotionally connected so you don’t stink of dishonesty if questioned by shifters. How good is his memory?”
“Too good. If I shared something then, he’ll know if I contradicted it now.”
“You can always play that your drug-addled mind was confused.”
“No,” Annika said. The seemingly innocuous questions slid into place. “He’s clarified after I detoxed.”
He knew. At the very least, he suspected something. There were too many repeated questions peppered into their daily activities. He distracted her with pushes at her physical boundaries while probing her mind and the depths of her betrayal.
“You could be in danger with your cover blown. Say the word and I can have you removed immediately. We can bring you home. You should come home if you aren’t at your full strength.”
Annika hesitated. She’d given the Dragon Court her loyalty for a reason. That reason didn’t change just because she couldn’t entirely remember it. She had wanted nothing more than to find where she fit in the world and didn’t know what to do now that she’d found it.
Jaya felt like an old friend. She was another connection to her past. Her true past, not the one she made up for Eoghan. Not the one she had with Eoghan. Jaya was her link to family and friends and an entire life on Patomas.
Eoghan was a complication. They were mates. He was strong, protective, caring. How many times did he clean her and the bed she messed while she came down from the drugs? He was relentless in his teasing and testing but didn’t push when she told him to back off. Which was becoming more difficult every day. He could walk into a room and send heat rolling through her body. He was slowly unlocking the place in her heart that he’d claimed before she lost her mind.
And with that came a craving for more. She’d seen how he treated his sisters and their children. He provided for them and doted on them. The kisses he laid on her stomach to tease her wouldn’t stop when she was heavy and round with his child, she was sure of it. Who didn’t dream of a life with a mate and their children?
“He’s not working with the Dragon Court’s enemies. He’s not a threat. To the Court or to me.”
Rough and caring, those were the two sides of Eoghan. She wanted a life with him. She could get used to the penthouse and late nights and breaks from it all with his sisters. She knew he was into shady business but that just added to his appealing roughness. He had rules to protect those that weren’t willingly in the criminal life and rules to keep everyone else in line.
But she also wanted her own life back. She couldn’t fully give herself to Eoghan when she didn’t fully know herself. She missed what she didn’t have. The blank spots in her memory needed to be filled with the places and people she once knew.
Annika pulled her bracelet from her pocket and ran her fingers over the beads. How many times did she do the same while she slowly spiraled further into depression and madness in DC? All she wanted then was to know who she was and to be worth something to someone. She never wanted to be someone who could abandon her life or be abandoned by others.
“Jaya… Why did no one come looking for me before this?”
A brief flash of pain passed over Jaya’s face. “You weren’t supposed to be here in the first place. It would only reveal our hand if we made official inquiries into your location.” She paused, then continued. “Eoghan’s rise to power wasn’t bloodless. He purged a number of the former Don’s men when he took control. We thought it a possibility that you had been discovered and dealt with in the same way, especially when our unofficial questions learned you hadn’t been seen in some time.”
Someone with a weaker heart might be put off by the information. Annika saw it as another sign of his protection. He was responsible for everyone in the family. If a threat was perceived, it needed to be put down. Was it really any different than how dragon parents protected their children? Fathers and mothers barely let others close to their children until they could defend themselves.
“And my family?”
“They knew the risks you were taking, if not the exact way you were taking them. They’ve been informed that you are alive. If you need help extracting yourself, just say the word. But we need to get you home soon.”
She was worth something to someone. The operative part of her understood the reasons Jaya listed. She knew the risks she took on behalf of the Dragon Court and how those risks obtained useful information.
Knowing and accepting weren’t the same thing. She was worth something different than being a useful tool to Eoghan. Eoghan looked for her. Eoghan set his men to searching the entire city for her. They’d turned up empty but he looked.
The same couldn’t be said for her family and colleagues, even if one group was in the dark and the other had good reason.
She glanced up and spotted Eoghan leaning against the bar. He scowled, as if he were impatient and waiting for her to finish her conversation with Jaya. But as soon as he noticed her eyeing him, his scowl turned to a grin.
Hot and cold.
How much did he suspect? How much did he know?
How much did she dare tell him?
Jaya followed her gaze and tapped a finger against her lips. “I have to admit, his resemblance to the Pythian is remarkable.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You were the first to suspect and now that I see him, I think you were on to something. He needs a blood test to confirm, of course. But maybe he is one of our Lost Princes.”
Another bit of memory snapped into place. The Dragon Court, and none more than the Delphina and Pythian themselves, suffered a horrendous loss when the five princes were stolen away. The war changed then, everyone said. Both sides became crueler. Would the return of a prince ease the tensions or add more fuel to the fire?
She opened her mouth to answer and snapped it shut when she saw Eoghan push away from the bar. He was clearly done waiting. The crowd swirled around him and he was soon climbing the short stairs of the box.
“Ann,” Eoghan said. “I see ya met Jaya.”
Annika smiled. The scents she inhaled were stronger than before. She could almost taste the air and identify what both Jaya and Eoghan were feeling at that moment. And underneath it all was a persistent, smoky flavor. “Jaya was just telling me a little about her home on Patomas.”
Eoghan eyed her and Jaya impassively. “Wonderful. Ya must excuse us, Jaya. I need tae steal Ann away for a bit.”
Jaya flicked her eyes to Annika but bowed her head. “Of course. I must apologize for taking up her time.” She stood and prepared to leave the box. “Should either of you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”
13
Annika struggled to keep her pulse to a normal level as Eoghan silently led her out of the warehouse. She inhaled and exhaled with timed intervals to keep her nerves to a minimum. Eoghan would sense her unease.
She shouldn’t have worried. She doubted he could sense anything over his own barely contained energy. He nearly vibrated on the entire drive to Silo Point and barely looked in her direction. She subsided into nervous silence after a sidelong glance and a grunt for an answer.
She managed to keep her questions quiet until he ushered her into the elevator. “Why are we back here? Aren’t there more matches tonight?”
“Gio will watch the warehouse. I have somewhere tae be.” He leaned against the railing and drummed his fingers with impatience.
“So? I could have stayed behind, too.”
“No. You’ll be safer here. Less people tae get at ya.”
“Mariko was able to get in here. I’d be safer in at the warehouse with everyone else. Or, you could bring me with you.” Going an
ywhere alone with him screamed of danger. Surrounded by people loyal to him would feel safer at that moment.
If she had been prepared to kill him, was he prepared to do the same to her?
“I said no.” He passed a hand over his face and his voice softened a fraction. “Mariko tried her play and failed. She doesn’t need ya when she has a chance at me.”
“What does that mean?” She frowned and tried to snare his attention but he wouldn’t look at her. “What are you planning?”
“Nothing of yer concern.”
The elevator dinged on the top floor and she followed him out. “I know that look. You’re up to something.”
He glanced over his shoulder and punched in the keycode to open the door. “I thought that was one of yer problems, not knowing my looks.”
The door closed behind her and she hesitated at venom in his voice. He was already crossing through the living room and laid an envelope he pulled from his jacket on the bar. Keys followed, jingling as they landed.
The irritation and annoyance that rolled off him in waves alarmed her. She didn’t know if it originated from her. Surely, she was part of it. But she didn’t want him to do business in his current state of mind. Worry for her own safety quickly became worry that she wouldn’t see him again if he went off on someone at the wrong moment.
Annika slunk after him and slid her hands up his chest. It felt dirty and not at all in a good way. “I remember the night you went into Heat.”
He stood stiffly for a moment and before springing into action. His hands skimmed up her sides and he tangled fingers in her hair. Roughly pulling her head to the side, his lips skimmed over her shoulder and neck.
“Ya remember, Ann? Ya remember coming back tae this flat? I sat right over there and then I could smell yer shampoo and yer soap and yer sweet cunt from all the way over here.”
Despite—or maybe because of—the danger radiating off him, Annika shivered. His lips on her skin sent her boiling. His rough and demanding touches arrowed through her and liquid heat gathered in her core.
“Ya remember coming tae my bar and applying for a job? Ya remember being sent tae do that by yer king? Or was it the Mad Queen herself that gave the order tae kill me if I sold mercenaries tae the other side?”
She stilled and licked her lips. She was caught.
“Jaya knew, certainly. Is she here tae do what ya should have done last year? Or did I come off yer hit list when Andon left the city without my men?”
He reached around her and a quick shake of the envelope spilled two file folders onto the bar. He flipped one open and a picture of her face was stapled to the first page. His finger was stiff when he angrily tapped it and all trace of his burr was gone from his voice. It wasn’t a quick anger that would burn out in seconds, it was the truly cold fury of a man betrayed.
“You remember now? You remember how you came to be here? There were no sisters you lost touch with, no growing up in fucking Alaska. You were sent to spy on me.”
He pushed away from her with disgust and paced. Each thudding step of his boots sounded like a nail in her coffin.
She couldn’t defend herself. It was all true. Every word, every accusation, all of it true. She didn’t need to look in the file to know what he read. Hell, he probably knew more of the still-fuzzy details in her head than she did.
Her life’s account was within those pages. Every update she sent to Jaya would have been read. She’d been purposefully distant in those. She didn’t want anyone to know how deeply entangled with Eoghan she’d gotten before she had a chance to sort her own feelings out.
That chance had never come. Instead, he went into Heat and she threw herself off a cliff and straight into his arms.
“You let me fall in love with you and every word that spilled from your lips was a lie.” He spat.
“Not everything—”
“Not everything? Tell me, were you not lying about your dead parents? Where you grew up? The fact that you were prepared to stick a knife in me if I said the wrong thing to the wrong person?”
“Eoghan—”
“No,” he snarled and got in her face, “don’t you fucking say my name. You don’t get that privilege.”
Panic gripped her throat. She’d found a piece of herself when she wandered back into his life and now that piece was being torn away. She couldn’t stop the destruction. She could only try and force it back together.
“Let me explain. Please.”
He kept his eyes on her as he grabbed a bottle of whisky from the bar and took a seat across from her. He uncapped the bottle and kicked his feet onto the coffee table.
She knew he purposefully chose the spot as a bookend to where they started. They occupied the same positions as the night he went into Heat and everything changed between them.
“May I sit?” she asked quietly.
“You may not. I don’t want your filth on my things.” He took a swig straight from the bottle and gestured for her to begin. “So, from the beginning.”
There was trouble in his eyes and it made her wary. He was interrogating her even more than when she was placed in the cell at the warehouse. He was suspicious of her then but he knew what she was now.
A pang of guilt made its way through her. She was simply doing her job and she allowed herself to spiral out of control. She got too close to him and allowed him too close to her.
She did the worst thing a spy could do. She let herself be compromised. She fell in love.
And now she owed him answers.
A small part of her calculated the chances of her leaving the condo alive and she kicked it to the back of her mind. Being honest with Eoghan wasn’t a calculated risk. It was something she needed to do.
She took a deep breath and folded her hands at her waist. From the beginning, he said. “Once it was discovered that half-blooded dragons and those who can’t shift were able to leave Patomas, it wasn’t long before we received reports of enemy clans sending representatives out into the world. You, obviously, weren’t the only one to receive an offer of money for mercenaries. They didn’t have the power to overthrow the Delphina and Pythian themselves but stood a chance if they could supplement their troops with outside forces.
“I was ordered to watch you and discourage any deals you might make with enemies of the Dragon Court. Barring that, I was to make sure those deals fell through.”
“With my death.” His eyes were shards of blue ice.
“If your death was necessary, yes. Disinformation would have been tried before assassination.”
“Did you have it planned that far? How would you have done it?” He drank down another bit of liquor.
“Eoghan, stop. I don’t want to talk about that.”
“No. How were you planning to kill me? You had to have some plan up your sleeve. You’d be a shite spy otherwise.”
She shut her eyes and swallowed. Her mouth tasted like ashes. She couldn’t look at him and stared above his head and out the windows. “Poison would have been easiest. It would have been done between the bar and setting foot in the private room. You frequently met with your capos there after I started working. More often than not, I alone delivered a new bottle of liquor and glasses. Something slipped into the bottle, perhaps. Maybe lining a single glass to avoid poisoning others.”
“So, when I was letting ya meet my sisters and seeing what I did for a living—”
“We weren’t interested in any of that. It was only to make sure you didn’t send anyone to aid the other side.”
Those activities weren’t her concern. She knew he demanded tribute. It was the same tribute in every mob, human and shifter alike. Everyone kicked points up the chain and Eoghan benefitted from it all.
There were the bars and clubs with their inflated drink prices and the side business of selling weed to the college kids and artists in the Inner Harbor, the gambling dens, the hiring of muscle for protection or intimidation. He allowed ring fights and set his bookies loose on the crowd. He ha
d a mess of semi-legitimate businesses to launder money. The only three that were pure and untouched were the ones run by his sisters.
The Dragon Court didn’t care about any of it. They were looking out for their own interests. He could operate in the shadows as much as he pleased, as long as none of his hired muscle made it to Patomas to fight on the wrong side.
He had been human when he inherited all of it from a fight with the previous Don. As a human, he earned or beat loyalty into the shifters he didn’t purge from his ranks.
If he could achieve all that, as a human in a shifter mob, what could he achieve as a dragon among his own kind?
And if he was one of the Lost Princes?
“Eoghan,” she said softly and nearly flinched when his cold blue eyes pierced her. “Think about what good you could do for Patomas.”
He scoffed and waved her words away. “Fook yer islands and yer courts. Yer not getting my men. Andon’s not getting my men. I won’t send them tae die for yer causes.”
She didn’t miss the burr back in his voice. He still drank from the bottle and directed icy glares at her but the perfect accent was replaced by the rougher sound of his voice. It gave her a little hope.
“You, then.” She weighed her words. Would he be more or less likely to hear her out if she mentioned his potential lineage? “You read the updates I sent.”
He nodded and drank another sip of whisky.
“Then you know who I think you are.”
“The answer is the same. Fook yer islands. I don’t give a shite about yer war or yer fables of stolen bairns.”
“You’re wasting yourself here. You can do more back on Patomas.”
“I’m protecting every single person at the warehouse right now. If it’s not me, someone else will come in and take bigger cuts, force them tae do fouler crimes.”
“The honorable criminal, then, that’s all you are.”
“Honorable, ay. Which is more than ya can say with yer sneaking and lies.”
She ignored the jab. She deserved it. She deceived him from the start, even if it’d been to do her job. But once it became clear that he wouldn’t aid the Dragon Court’s enemies and that he would be more to her than simply someone to monitor, she should have come clean.