Dragon's Honor

by Natalie Grey

Talon sighed.

  “Frankly? I was as worried as you were. Something here doesn’t add up.” His eyes flicked to Cade. “If you turn around and walk away now, you’d have my backing on it.”

  But the man was clearly praying that Cade wouldn’t. And after three evasions, Cade knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Talon would never say why.

  “You don’t have to worry.” He managed a tight smile. “I need the money. I’ve got to get ten thousand credits—”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “What?”

  “I took care of that.”

  “Ten thousand credits? And you just ‘took care of it’?”

  “Well, it was slightly more complicated than that. Let’s just say certain people were reminded of favors they owe us.”

  “I’m not a Dragon anymore!”

  “So pay me back.” At last, Talon’s eyes flashed. “Whatever you need to do. But goddammit, Williams, I am not going to let you burn to death in acid snow. Your life is worth more than that.” He took a deep breath, and his voice softened slightly. “Can’t you accept that we might want to help you? There wasn’t one of us who didn’t understand why you walked after that mission.”

  “Don’t talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry.” The apology was genuine. “Williams, all I’m saying is that this is a fresh start. I don’t want to trap you. That’s why I got the debt taken care of. It wasn’t to….” He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “It was the opposite of a trap. I mean that. I wanted this to be your choice. If you want to walk away now, you can.”

  It was kind—kind enough to bring a lump to Cade’s throat. He looked away.

  The thing was….

  “I can’t.” His voice was soft. He took in the velvet blue night, the deep hue of the sky highlighting the warm interior of the room. He hated New Arizona with a passion—pretty to look at, deadly if you weren’t careful to insulate yourself from it. “Ellian pointed out that she doesn’t deserve to die for what he is. And he’s right.” Talon said nothing at all to that, and Cade felt his eyes narrow as he looked back. “What?”

  “You just said you hate her. That she could be up to anything.”

  “She just wants money; that’s what this is. And even if she was running around on him with every one of his rivals, she wouldn’t deserve…. Well, if someone did come after her for his work, you know what would happen to her. He’s right to worry.”

  “She’s making her own choices,” Talon reminded him.

  “She doesn’t know,” Cade said softly. “He said she doesn’t know what he does for a living.”

  Talon whistled through his teeth. “Now, there’s something I hadn’t considered. Especially given….”

  “Given what?”

  “Nothing. Look. Stay if you want. Keep your eyes open. But whatever the hell you do, Williams, keep hating that woman.”

  “What?” Cade had tipped his head back and closed his eyes; now he looked up suddenly. His head spun slightly, the alcohol burning in his blood. “Why?”

  “First, remember that I wouldn’t have offered you this unless I thought you were right for it. I wouldn’t have recommended almost anyone else, actually. You’re right that a woman like that is trouble, whether she means to be or not.”

  It was Cade’s turn to snort.

  “Just hear me out.” Talon’s voice was soft, and his eyes were worried. “A woman who can ensnare someone like Ellian Pallas has something special. And Cade, it’s true that Ellian plays by the rules in his line of business—but one of those rules is that when someone takes what’s yours, you make them pay. Publicly. Painfully. So it’s good that you don’t like her. Ellian’s a vengeful bastard.”

  “Noted.” Cade lifted one of the bottles in his direction. Warmth suffused him. He even felt a certain humor about his hatred for Aryn. “I don’t like the bitch. ‘S good. World is full of beautiful women.”

  Talon stood, his mouth twitching.

  “Indeed. I have to go. You stay here and drink. But not too much—the tailor will be back in the morning, and I need you to be able to stand upright.”

  “Roger.” Cade picked up another bottle and looked up at him. “Why in hell are you dressed like that?”

  “The Dragons are going to a party.”

  “Were you invited to this party?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the host?”

  Talon only smiled, and let himself out of the room, leaving Cade to contemplate the bottle in his hand. It was tequila; probably not a good idea. In any case, the drink had already stolen the edge from his dislike of Aryn Beranek. He raised the still-closed bottle in a mock toast.

  Surely he could appreciate her gamesmanship, if nothing else. There could be no harm in that.

  15

  “Programs are up and running in their system and Aegis is putting a call in for them to look for someone in the main room, so there’ll be less eyes on the security screens.” Nyx’s voice fed into their earpieces.

  “Excellent, thank you, Nyx.” Talon checked his weapons and adjusted his cuffs. “Ready check.”

  The repetitions of ‘ready’ came back one after another over the comms, and it didn’t escape Talon’s notice that there were only 12 instead of 13. Even with Loki, they were still one person short.

  He’d brought Mars and Camorra’s bodies back to Seneca. He could hardly do anything less, given that he was passing their death off as a tragic mystery. It hadn’t been as hard as he wanted it to be to grieve for them. They were kids, hardly past 25. He’d trained them, for God’s sake.

  And they had betrayed him, and he had killed them, and he would do the same again. He felt his jaw tighten and he sat back in his seat, trying to find something to distract himself.

  He didn’t have to look very far. Across from him, Tersi was looking halfway between annoyed at the world and annoyed at himself, and Talon knew very well why. He’d wanted a striking couple to catch eyes when they entered, and it hadn’t been hard to determine that Sphinx and Loki together would catch the most eyes: her a riot of golds, from her hair to her dress, and Loki, who was—it had to be said—devastatingly handsome. When he stepped out into the hallway from his bunk, warm brown skin glowing against the white of his shirt, eyebrows had shot up all around the group.

  It made sense to have Loki accompany Sphinx. With the security guards looking at them on the feeds, there would be less chance of them noticing the faint distortion on the feeds. And with all heads turning in the ballroom, there would be less eyes following Talon.

  Tersi, however, did not like it, and Talon had a plan for that. He adjusted his tie, picked a speck of imaginary dust off his sleeve, and looking up with the blankest expression he could manage.

  “By the way, we’ll need someone to listen out on the dance floor. Loki doesn’t dance, apparently, but you do, right?”

  It was hard not to laugh when he saw just how instantaneously he had Tersi’s full attention. It was even harder when the man said, trying to be casual about it, “Yeah, I can dance.”

  “Excellent. Well, we’ll have you take Sphinx out on the floor, then. And it works doubly well—if there are still too many eyes on me, I’ll just have the three of you manufacture a fight. You and Sphinx storm out and just take a cab back or something”

  “Right,” Tersi managed, and Talon had the sense that it was going to be a very roundabout cab ride back.

  “Good, well.” Talon switched his comm channel back on. “Sphinx and Loki, you’re up. Knock ‘em dead.”

  It had been two hours, and the party was, as far as Christian could determine, just a party. Not one person was doing anything that could be construed as a negotiation, and the steady stream of normal, reasonable people was giving way to the sort that entered late to make a statement.

  He was beginning to think Ellian’s intel had been wrong, though he was certainly not looking forward to that conversation.

  He made his way over to the bar, from where he had a good view both
of the dance floor and the entrance, and ordered plain water. People tended to be impressed by a man with a full glass of vodka, and, even better, they usually tried to catch up.

  He saw them the moment they entered. Everyone saw them: the woman with her golden hair barely held back, glinting in the light, wearing a clinging gold dress that showed off an impressively toned body, and a man whose half-smile hinted that he knew just how handsome he was.

  People Christian had never seen before. People who were expected, apparently, but—given the murmurs—unknown.

  Jackpot. Christian forced himself to sit still as the couple made their way around the edge of the dance floor, and found his eyes locked on them. His pulse was beginning to pound, and he could feel the first stirring of desire. Those lips, those eyes.

  As if sensing his gaze, the woman looked up at him and gave a smile that was shy at first. As they came to the bar for a drink, she leaned on it in a way that showed off every curve, and the long stretch of her back. She turned her head.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.” Christian forced himself to be civil to her. “You should really talk to Sam, you know.” He nodded to the bartender behind him. “He makes the best drinks.”

  “The best? Well, then I’ll have to have one. Or a few.” Her laugh grated on his nerves, and she brushed past him as she made her way down to the end of the bar.

  Finally.

  Knowing he shouldn’t do this, but beyond himself to hold back, Christian went to lean on the bar next to the man. The way the suit clung to his shoulders, tapered to his hips….

  “Buy you a drink?” Christian murmured.

  “Oh, shit.” Nyx’s voice was dumbstruck. “I did not see that coming.”

  “What am I?” Sphinx sounded plaintive. “Chopped liver?”

  “You gave it a good run,” Nyx rejoined. “If he liked ladies, that would have worked. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t, and now the farm boy—”

  “Guys. Guys.” Tersi sounded pleased, but still alert. “I hate to interrupt your discussion, here, but the kid isn’t exactly dropping the ball.”

  Talon looked over, and his jaw dropped as he saw Loki leaning in, smiling as he clinked a glass with Ellian’s aide….

  And flirting like he’d been born to do it, with a ready ease that told Talon this wasn’t the first time Loki had flirted with a man.

  “Oh, shit,” Nyx said again. “Second surprise of the night goes to one Mr. Liam Morel. God of chaos, indeed.”

  “Unstoppable team,” Stabby murmured down the line. “If she doesn’t get ‘em, Loki will. I say we always send them in together.”

  “It’s just good sense, really,” Tersi chimed in.

  Even Sphinx, despite her wounded pride, was laughing.

  Loki’s mouth twitched at the commentary coming through his earpiece. It was hard not to laugh at the jokes, but mostly, he was relieved.

  Victoria had assured him that no one in the Corps was going to care if he were gay, but most people, in his experience, just assumed everyone they met was straight. And how did you mention it to people? There was never a really good conversational opening.

  Especially when he’d recently developed a highly inconvenient crush that was making day-to-day life on the ship a bit of a trial. He resolutely kept his eyes from drifting. Seeing Talon in a suit had been like torture. Loki had kept his eyes focused on the war table almost the entire meeting, and he was still trying to look anywhere but at his commander.

  In any case, as a way to tell the team, this worked as well as anything, he supposed, and the team’s good humor about it made it clear that Victoria had been right.

  He focused on Christian and let his eyes slide over the man’s features and body. The good thing about flirting was that you got to look your target over in detail for weapons, and pretend it was a move. Convenient, that.

  The man wasn’t his type, even if you left out the part about working for an arms trafficker, but Loki was never in a million years going to let on that that was the case. He took a sip of the port he’d ordered and made a small, pleased sound, holding his chin up as he swallowed; he could feel Christian’s eyes on him, on his mouth, on his throat.

  “All right, enough chatter.” Damn, even Talon’s voice made him shiver. Loki allowed himself to do so, knowing that his target would think it was him Loki wanted. “Spread out. Keep an eye out for mercs, keep ‘em off me, and let Loki do his thing.”

  It was an amusing surprise, but Talon had no time to dwell on it. He could see his contact waiting on the other side of the room, a man with tanned skin and salt-and-pepper hair.

  He meandered through the crowd in a roundabout path, aware that there were eyes on him—more than a few society ladies, if truth be told, bored and looking for a diversion. He wandered closer and closer until Nyx said, in his ear, “Clear, boss.”

  Talon leaned up against one of the columns near the man. “Good evening.”

  “Major.” The man did not look over.

  “I don’t believe I gave you my rank.”

  “And it would be truly stupid of me to agree to meet you for this purpose, and not have done my research.” The man’s voice was dry. “Satomi Kreuger, after all, was not a stupid woman, and she’s dead now.”

  “Do you know who they sent for her?” Talon had Lesedi searching for the information, but even she hadn’t been able to find it—even though she’d found the man who had apparently tried to kill her.

  “No. She just disappeared.” The man paused. “I almost didn’t come tonight. But from what I know of you, your interest in this deal is genuine. My only question is … does a Dragon truly intend to fight alongside the Ymiri resistance?”

  “Do you want the feel-good answer, or the truth?” Talon folded his arms. He could see his team still weaving in front of the identified mercenaries, keeping their eyes away from this corner, occasionally speaking together in a display intended to draw the gaze of those watching: huddled shoulders, furtive glances.

  “The truth, please.” His contact’s voice said he already knew it.

  “No,” Talon said. “I don’t intend them to be anything more than a distraction. But I need the entirety of his forces not to converge on the palace while I take him out, and that means I need them in the streets. Arming the resistance….” He took a deep breath. “It means they have a chance to be more than cannon fodder. It means the fight lasts long enough for us to take him out.”

  There was a pause. “Thank you for your honesty,” the man said finally. “Though I have to wonder if you’re telling them the same.”

  “They know,” Talon said simply. “We don’t have to speak of it. They know their odds.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I’m giving them the best chance they have,” Talon said. “It’s the resistance fighters, or everyone on that planet. I’ll wrap it up as fast as I can, but I need these people to have a fighting chance.”

  “You mean, you need the mercenaries not to be able to mow through them like grass.” The man didn’t sound pleased, but he also didn’t sound surprised. “I’ll help you if I can.”

  “If you can?”

  “We’ll need to do this in cash, and the price is now three times what it was.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Unseen in the crook of his arm, Talon’s hand flexed, and then clenched into a fist. “If you think this is a good chance for a profit, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “Three times the price will still almost certainly put me at a loss. You have to know whose turf you’re on.”

  “Pallas.”

  “Just so. And he’s no fool. He knows there’s a deal going down. He’s offered twice market value for any weapon anyone will sell him. It took me considerable time to find someone who would even agree to hold the weapons for a few days.”

  There was a pause while Talon tried to control his temper.

  “Looks like he’s telling the truth,” Aegis said in his ear. “Prices are up all
across the board.”

  “And the cash?” Talon asked.

  “Pallas has links to the banks here. There’s no way we can transfer money without him knowing about it—and if it’s in a bank, you’ll need to find some other money. They’ll have you dead within minutes if you take it out.”

  “I think you’re underestimating me.”

  “I think you’re underestimating Pallas,” the man snapped back. “And I am certainly not putting myself on the map for this one. If you want my help, we do this in cash.”

  Talon forced himself to stay still rather than giving in to the urge either to break the column or let loose with some very inventive swearing, including a monologue on Ellian Pallas’s parentage.

  “I’ll set up another meeting in a few days,” he said finally. “We’ll have the cash.”

  “Remember, any bank—”

  “I know.” Talon bit the words off. He pushed himself up and forged his way into the crowd. “All right, everyone move out. Loki, give him a fake number. Sphinx, feel free to punch whoever it is who’s trying to put his tongue in your ear. Tersi, refrain from killing him.”

  “Hey.” An elbow caught Loki in the ribs. He looked over, and then hurriedly away, as Talon fell in beside him. “Good job.”

  “Very good job,” Jim agreed. He fell in on the other side and smiled over at Loki, then shot a look back at Sphinx. “Who’s a farm boy now, eh?”

  “That makes no sense.” But Sphinx was laughing. “And I gotta give it to you, man, apparently the farmers on … what planet was it? Fine, don’t tell me. You’re good at flirting, anyway.”

  “We had bars, you know.” Loki grinned at her, only vaguely nettled.

  “No. You’re sure?”

  “With desperate people looking to get laid, and everything. The whole nine.”

  “And you, breaking a bunch of hearts.” Tersi clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, that’s another thing to add to our arsenal.”

  “It’s going to open some doors,” Talon agreed. “As long as Loki doesn’t object.”