“Brogan Holt.” Liona mock-smiled at him. “Still as charming as a Vestonian slashworm, aren’t you?”
“Takes one to know one, love.” Brogan grinned back.
“Please,” Elaina cut in. “There are some things we need to ask you, Liona, and we need to get to the point.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Liona, resting her eyes for a moment on the badge on the hem of Gabrielle’s top. “You’re keeping such special company these days. Your new friend doesn’t like to be kept waiting, I’m sure.” She made a digging glance to Brogan at that. And to Gabrielle: “And what about you? Aren’t you slumming a bit, going about with the likes of these lizards?”
“I go to whoever I need to get the job done,” Gabrielle replied. “Which is what brings us to you, Ms. Vess. You know the deal that the Spires offered you for helping the IBI. We can make that reduced sentence happen—provided you tell us whatever you know about the recent activities of Drakkar Skinner and his organization.”
Liona leaned back in her seat, opting to toy with her visitors at least a little. “Oh, right. You want to know what Drakkar’s been up to. Now why would you think I’d know anything about that, especially now?”
“Don’t play games,” said Elaina. “When you were in Kharno’s gang, you also had contacts with Skinner’s people. We need to know if you’ve had any recent contact with them.”
“Why would any of them have had anything to do with me now?” Liona scoffed. “Skinner’s people broke off all contact with me the first time you threw me in. Skinner’s too big and bad to deal with anyone once they’re locked up. I’m spoiled goods to him, thanks to you. All I know about Skinner now is what I knew then, and you know that as well as I do.”
“And what exactly is that?” Gabrielle asked.
Liona’s face lit up with the most perverse and twisted smile that Gabrielle had ever seen. “Drakkar Skinner is a human who loves his life. He loves his pleasure and he loves a lot of it. He lives big, dreams big, plans big—never does anything small, never goes halfway. That’s how he got to be where he is, with every smuggler and arms dealer and flesh peddler from here to Beta Atheni rolling over when he whistles. You should see the parties he throws. He entertains a lot. You haven’t lived ’til you’ve been to one of his parties.”
She leaned forward at the two Squires again, gazing hard at Brogan. “Do you know he keeps a harem of female weredragons? It’s true—the most gorgeous Lacertan ladies you’d ever want to see. You should see the way they lounge around him in half-dragon form, and dance for him. And the things they do for him while all his guests watch. I’ll just bet that would get you all fired up…”
She stopped herself, her eyes glinting with a sick mockery at the male Squire. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. It’s human women who are your favorites, aren’t they?” Now she turned that same look on Gabrielle. “While you’ve got him, you should have him tell you sometime about the double dates he and Prince Tynan had with human women visiting Lacerta—that is, before Tynan met me. The stories I heard when they thought I wasn’t listening…” She leaned back again, laughing venomously.
“Shut up,” Brogan simply said, unsmiling and unamused.
“None of that is relevant now, Ms. Vess,” said Gabrielle dismissively. “We came here looking for facts.”
“What facts are those?” asked Liona, switching moods and now acting bored. “You mean the facts about his interspecies fight clubs? That’s the other way he likes to entertain himself. He loves to have the meanest scrappers from the meanest places get into the ring and go at each other, see if they can tear each other limb from limb. Or sometimes tentacle from tentacle. If it’s not sex with him, it’s violence.
And I know your intel must have told you already, Skinner’s the biggest fan of my people. He doesn’t just enjoy sleeping with us and playing games with us. He wants to be us. He likes us better than he likes his own kind. They say he’s been that way since he was just a little boy. A lot of humans are like that, but Skinner’s the biggest case of dragon envy I’ve ever heard of. Everything about him always goes back to us. And I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do to become a dragon.
Skinner doesn’t like the way we guard our water. He doesn’t appreciate how we keep it all for ourselves and don’t share the wealth, so to speak. He thinks we’re greedy and stingy with it. Skinner’s tried to cut deals with the Ruling Aerie; he has. And he’s tried to go under the table to get what he wants. He’s tried going to the law, over the law, under the law. It’s the one thing he’s never been able to get, and he’s frustrated. A human like him doesn’t like frustrations.
Skinner wants what he wants, and you know what? I think he’s going to get it. I really do. So you want to know what I know about Skinner? He’s coming, that’s what. And after he comes for Lacerta, once he’s finally the dragon he’s always wanted to be—then he’s coming for everyone. Nothing will ever hold him back again.”
Gabrielle took a deep breath, impatient with Liona’s rambling and ranting. This was getting her nowhere. She opted for a direct and pointed approach now. “Ms. Vess…has anyone given you any information about where Drakkar Skinner is now and what he’s doing? Is Skinner in the Catalan system right now?”
“I told you before,” answered Liona, “his people cut me off. They don’t tell me anything anymore.”
“Are you sure?” asked Gabrielle. “Remember the deal we made for you. It stands or falls on what you tell us now. So think hard. What have you learned about Skinner lately?”
Liona paused before she gave her answer. She took a moment to set her jaw, to gnash her teeth a bit—to keep her visitors waiting, wondering, guessing, anticipating, just one moment longer. To take the one last bit of power she could get, just one more time. It was owed to her, after all. She had lost everything: the male she wanted, the fortune she wanted, the revenge she wanted—and her freedom. So she would have just this last moment of satisfaction of watching them wait for her to answer. Then, she spoke up again.
“All right. I’ll tell you the only thing I know, which is the last thing I found out, the last time I asked—before I tried to repay my ex-lover for giving me up. The last thing I knew about Skinner was…nothing about the man himself.”
For the first time, Gabrielle showed her impatience. She leaned forward on the table, into Liona’s smug and vindictive face. “Do not play games with us. We cut a deal with you and we can take it back. Not only can we take it back, but we can make things worse for you than they are. Now answer the question!”
Liona snapped back, “I just did! I don’t know anything about Skinner! Not where he is, or when he’s coming to Catalan, or what he’s going to do when he gets here except go after the water! I don’t know anything—about him! All I know about is the ones with him, the ones around him. That’s the only thing I have for you: who they are and what’s happening with them. That’s all.”
“Names,” Gabrielle pressed. “I want names.”
“If I were you,” said Liona, “I’d be looking at the other people around him. He’s been reorganizing, moving people around. There are people moving in his organization—changing places, moving up, moving into position where he wants them. They’re the ones he trusts and respects the most: the strongest, the toughest, the meanest. He’s been promoting people, giving them new marching orders. They’re the ones who are going to be his first line. And they’re on the move.”
She settled into her seat again. “Look at Burl Holman. Look at Enzo Goss. They’re the ones moving up the highest. They’re the ones who’ll be taking their orders from Skinner and giving orders to everyone else. I know you have records on both of them. They’ve got a history. Maybe no convictions, but still…I’m sure their names must come up a lot. If you want Skinner…look for them.”
Gabrielle stood up straight again. “Is that all?” she asked.
“That’s what I have,” Liona answered.
With a small nod, Gabrielle said, “All right
, then.” To the two Corps members: “Squire Brogan…Squire Elaina…I think we’re done here.”
As Brogan and Elaina stood up from their seats, Liona asked Gabrielle, “So, Agent Long…is our deal still good?”
Gabrielle answered, “The Bureau will be in touch.”
Liona watched the three of them head for the door of the interrogation room and could not resist the chance to dig her claws into the two Squires one last time. She called after them, “Oh, and Brogan…”
Turning on his heel to face her, Brogan said, “Yes…?”
“The next time you see Tynan and that human he’s shagging…give them my love.”
Liona saw them out with a silent, mocking laugh. Brogan gave her a sour smile in return.
On the other side of the interrogation room door, once it slid shut behind them, Brogan shook his head, his sour smile turning to an equally sour frown, and wondered aloud to his companions, “What the hell did Tynan ever see in that bitch?” He left his other question unspoken: Was she really that good between the sheets?
_______________
Aboard the hovercar on the flight back to Talontown, Gabrielle checked in with the IBI Annex back in Silverwing. She asked for the Bureau’s contacts inside Drakkar Skinner’s network to find any and all information on the current whereabouts and movements of Burl Holman and Enzo Goss. Their informants would work quickly to find all pertinent information, which would be relayed back to Gabrielle immediately.
With that process under way, the three of them, Gabrielle riding in the back seat again, allowed themselves a chance to talk about other things.
“So, Agent Long,” Brogan began. “How did you happen to pull this assignment?”
“It came to me,” replied Gabrielle, “because of my background. It happens I spent a lot of time on Lacerta when I was in school. I studied here for a semester in college.”
Both Squires were properly intrigued. “You must have studied law enforcement or interplanetary criminology,” Elaina guessed. “Was there something in particular that brought you to Lacerta as a student?”
“Law enforcement was my major,” Gabrielle said. “My minor was interplanetary history with a concentration in the history of your planet. So I took a semester here to learn about you by living with you—an immersion course.”
At the controls of the car, Brogan smiled a smile that Gabrielle could not see, but he wondered if she could feel it. An immersion course, indeed. Assuming that she was attracted to males, as he guessed she was, Brogan could well guess some of the things in which the Agent had immersed herself. There was one thing that every single, heterosexual human female wanted when she came to Lacerta, and there was never a lack of opportunity for her to get as much of it as she liked. With the concerns of duty relaxed for the time being, Brogan felt no guilt at the ever-so-slight stiffness below the waist of his armor skin.
Elaina recalled, “You were talking earlier about the ‘millions of humans who are Lacerta fans.’ I gather you’re one of them, then.”
“I was,” Gabrielle replied. “From when I was little. Mind you, I was never as pathologically obsessed with Lacerta as our friend Skinner. But this planet and your people—yes, Lacerta has always been a major interest of mine. Have you ever been to Earth?”
“I’ve always wanted to go,” said Elaina. “I’ve never had the chance.”
“What about you, Squire Brogan?” Gabrielle asked.
“I’ve never been, either,” Brogan replied. “But I’ve always appreciated it that so many humans like to come here.”
In another expression that Gabrielle, in the back seat, could not see, Elaina rolled her eyes at Brogan. Oh, smooth, partner. Very smooth.
Brogan responded with just a crooked little smile at Elaina.
“If you had a chance to look at my personnel file,” Gabrielle went on, “you would have seen that at one time I was even interested in applying for the Transition Program myself.”
Brogan’s curiosity was especially piqued now. “You wanted to be a Lacertan?” His unspoken question was, Now why would you want to give up your beautiful human-ness when so many of us would like you just fine the way you are?
“Because of the way so many of us admire you,” Gabrielle answered. “You know we do. I was like so many other humans, fascinated with the idea of becoming what you can become, doing the things you can do. I actually thought about applying for the Transition. At one point I was seriously going to do it.”
“What made you not go through with it?” Brogan asked. “That is, if it’s not too personal a question. Tell me it’s none of my business if you want.”
“It isn’t that private—not really,” said Gabrielle. “It’s really about…my family.”
“Your family?” Brogan repeated, more intrigued now. “Your family didn’t like the idea?”
“I think part of it,” Gabrielle recalled, “was the way I brought it up to them.”
“Uh-oh,” said Brogan, arching his eyebrows. “What happened?”
“It was at the end of the semester that I took here. Actually, before that, I got involved with someone—a Lacertan student. His name was Dillaine. He was that one great romance that a girl wants to have when she’s away at school. Dillaine was in one of my history classes. You’ll understand if I don’t go into all the intimate details; you can probably imagine them for yourselves anyway, but…Dillaine and I were very serious about each other. Very serious.”
The two Squires could not help but shoot a quick glance at each other at that, and Brogan flashed a quick and mischievous smile. Elaine, knowing him so well, intuited what her partner was thinking. Yes, they were very serious. Dillaine was probably serious with her about four times a night. It’s a wonder they got any classwork done.
“We were really in love,” Gabrielle said, flatly, candidly, so caught up in memories that she did not sense any reactions from the front seats. “And we talked about making it permanent. We were serious about staying together. We talked about me transferring to University here on Lacerta, finishing my degree, and getting married after we graduated. And I was so taken up with him, and with being here, and the life that people live here, and I’d been so interested in Lacerta my whole life, that I wanted to make it a total commitment—as much of a complete, total commitment as a human can make when she’s in love with one of you.”
Elaina was rather touched by the whole idea. “You loved him so much that you wanted to become one of us.”
“I did,” said Gabrielle, her voice softening, as if she were not in the car with them but someplace—and some time—very far away now.
“And then…you broke the news to your family,” Brogan guessed.
Speaking aloud again now, Gabrielle continued, “Looking back, I really feel like I was a different person back then than I am now, even without going through the Transition. I took Dillaine home with me at the end of the semester, to introduce him to my parents and my sisters. I thought I was a typical college girl, bringing home the boyfriend I was in love with and wanted to marry one day. I thought I’d just present Dillaine to my family and tell them, ‘Here he is, we’re engaged, and I’m going to become a weredragon and we’ll try to have a nest someday.’”
“And it didn’t go exactly like that,” Brogan guessed again.
“The way it went was that I told them and…it felt as if my parents were deflating like balloons. Their faces fell at first, and it took them an effort to smile. That was the first sign of disaster. It got worse from there. The big warning was how polite they were being. They were polite to me, they were polite to Dillaine—very polite. You have to understand, when my parents are very polite, it means a fuse has been lit and it’s burning down, and sooner or later it’s going to go off.”
“Which it did,” Elaina anticipated.
“Before our visit was over—it did. You know, we’re supposed to be over prejudices. The time when people hated what color other people were, or where they came from, or hated someone for w
ho they wanted to sleep with—that’s supposed to be just something we study in history classes. But there are some lines that some people just can’t cross. And my parents couldn’t get across that line. They didn’t hate Dillaine so much as they hated what I wanted to do to be with him.
Why couldn’t I be with him and marry him and still stay human? They felt like I was choosing Lacerta over them, over my own family. They felt like I thought it wasn’t good enough to be just human anymore, like…I guess it was like I was trying to renounce being their daughter. And I tried to tell them I wasn’t trying to be not human anymore; I was only trying to be the best mate for Dillaine. They weren’t hearing it, though.
“My father exploded. He said such things… I don’t want to tell you the things he said, things that weren’t even rational. He was furious with me, furious with Dillaine, furious with your planet. And Mom…when she wasn’t crying, she did what mothers do. Out came the guilt. How could I do this to them? They wanted to be the grandparents of human children someday, not dragons. I was taking away their dreams. Can you believe that? I was depriving them of their dreams.”
BROGAN_A Steamy WereDragon Romance Page 3