by Lili Zander
I’m on the verge of opening the door to do just that when Silas answers. “Aria,” he shouts. “I didn’t hear my phone ring. It’s busy here tonight.”
Busy’s good, right? Drakkar won’t be able to attack Silas in a crowded bar. Or am I just grasping at straws? “Silas, listen. This is important.”
His tone changes at once. “Are you in trouble? Is something wrong? What do you need?”
His words tug at my heartstrings. The questions, with their undertones of love and concern, is so typical of Silas. “I’m fine,” I assure him. Hopefully, that isn’t a lie. The dragons might change their mind and snack on me, but somehow, I can’t really see it. “But,” I continue, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat, “I might have gotten you involved in something.”
“What’s going on?” There’s not as much background noise now. Silas must have stepped outside.
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” I promise. “But Silas, please just listen to me. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t be alone, and whatever you do, don’t go back home tonight. Go to Pete’s place.” Pete’s Norm. Most shifters believe that the magical and the Norm can never be friends. With any luck, Raedwulf is one of them. Tomorrow, Silas and I can pack our belongings and run, fleeing Drakkar Raedwulf, fleeing the dragon princes. All we have to do is survive tonight.
He takes a sharp inward breath. “Okay.” His voice is grim, but he doesn’t ask me any more questions. Thank heavens for Silas. In a crisis, his calm demeanor is exactly what I need.
I hang up and immediately dial the one number that I’ve spent a lifetime hoping never to have to use. Hagen Nygaard.
Mariana is an ally, as is Pieter. I might not fully trust them, but in general, I don’t expect them to stab me in the back.
Hagen is a very different story. I met the Arctic fox-shifter crime lord when I was a street rat. Hagen’s men ensured I didn’t get raped, and in return, I picked pockets and surrendered my earnings to the large blond man. “Not for long though, Aria,” he’d said to me once, his black eyes greedy. “Once you turn sixteen, you’ll be working in my brothels.”
Make no mistake, I was Hagen’s property. He was fond of children, and so I was allowed to grow up, unmolested. But once I turned sixteen, my life would have turned out exactly as he wished.
Until Silas came along. The wolf-shifter had paid Hagen off and taken me to live with him.
I hoped never to speak to Hagen again, but if there’s one person who can provide the kind of protection I need, it’s him.
“Aria. It’s been quite a while.”
Of course Nygaard would know my number. “Hagen. How are you?”
“Better than you, I’d imagine,” he replies. “You tried to break open Lord Jaeger’s safe, and he’s missing from his own party. Putting two and two together, I’d say you’re in a world of hurt.”
I rub the mark on my wrist absently. Hagen knows a lot, but not everything. “I need to buy some protection.”
“For you? Sorry, my dear. My reach is vast, but if I oppose the dragons, I will be annihilated. You’re on your own.”
“Not for me. For Silas.”
“Who’s threatening dear old Papa Wolf?”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. My mystery client had called Silas Papa Wolf. Is Hagen working with Raedwulf? “A wolf-shifter called Drakkar Raedwulf,” I reply. “Friend of yours?”
“A client, as you’ve undoubtedly figured out,” he replies calmly. “So Raedwulf is going after Archer, is he? That explains it.”
“Explains what?” I demand.
“I like to keep an eye on some people, you understand.” Hagen’s voice is conversational, and I want to scream. “Like you, like Silas Archer.”
“And?”
“He’s being followed. Five panthers.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you want,” I beg. Tears are prickling in my eyes. “Please, Hagen.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounds genuinely regretful. “It’s not about money, Aria. I can throw ten men or even twenty at the problem, but there are five panthers on Silas’ trail, and as weak as Archer is, it’ll only take a second to kill him. We can’t save Silas.”
I never cry, but I sit in Rhys’ bedroom for a very long time, tears falling down my cheeks. There’s a knock at the door, and Bastian says something about food, but I don’t respond. The door swings ajar and a hand sticks a tray of food on the floor before closing it again. I can smell French fries, but I’ve lost my appetite along with my hope.
I should call Silas back to warn him, but I can’t. How can I tell the man who is the only family I have ever had that because of my foolishness, because of my recklessness, he’s about to die?
I can’t.
Silas, I failed you. I’m so sorry.
4
Casius
Aria’s distress and fear fill my mind, wave after wave of despair and hopelessness. I grow pale, and my skin turns clammy with her terror. “Something’s going on,” I push out through gritted teeth.
Bastian’s expression is grim. He tasted her blood, and he is connected to her emotions, the same way as I am. The others are too, to a lesser extent. Except for Erik, who hasn’t touched her at all. Not that he needs to taste her in order to understand Aria. Erik Valder hides his emotions under a gruff exterior, but of us, Erik feels most deeply.
“She won’t talk to us.” Bastian runs his hands through his hair, his frustration boiling over. “She won’t come out to eat. She won’t tell us what’s wrong. I don’t know what to do.”
Rhys lifts his head. “Hack into her phone.”
“Really?” I stare at the Welsh dragon. “I thought you wanted us to leave Aria alone.”
“The time for that is past, and you know it as well as I do,” he responds. “I don’t like invading her privacy, but something is badly wrong, and we need to help Aria through it.”
He’s right. What kind of mates would we be if we stood by and did nothing? Our first task is to keep her safe. Our second, to keep her happy. So far, we might be succeeding at the first, but we’re failing miserably at the second.
I grab my laptop from my bedroom. Tomas Vallin has prepared a dossier on Aria, and I’m pretty sure her phone number was part of the information he’s collected. Yes, there it is. I quickly run a search to see who her provider is and catch a lucky break. “Bastian, she’s with River Comm. I can hack into your company, or you can look up her call history yourself.”
“Can you?” he asks dryly. “Remind me to hire better information security people.” He opens his laptop, logs in, and hands it to me. “Do your worst, Slater.”
Mateo’s eyebrow rises. “Hang on,” he says slowly. “You’re giving Casius your laptop? After causing his company’s stock price to tank last year? You really are worried.”
“I really am,” Bastian replies.
“I don’t need Bastian to give me his password to take my revenge,” I say absently as I log into River Comm’s customer records and search for Aria’s phone number. There it is. Her call history.
Bastian inhales sharply when he sees the first number on that list. “Fuck,” he swears under his breath. “Why the hell is she calling Hagen Nygaard?”
I don’t recognize the name. From the blank expressions on Mateo, Rhys, and Erik’s faces, neither do they. “Who’s Hagen Nygaard?” Erik growls.
“Trouble,” Bastian replies. “He rules the streets of Manhattan. He likes to think of himself as the king of the underworld. Street gangs, protection rackets, whorehouses, strip bars—you name it, Nygaard runs it.”
Rhys’ expression turns stormy. “According to Vallin, she spent a few years on the streets.” His hands clench into fists, and his voice turns to ice. “If he hurt her, he will pay for it.”
“Before she called Nygaard, she called Archer.” My eyes wander down the list of calls and texts she’s sent and received. There are several texts from a girlfriend. Probably the Norm that Vallin had mentioned. What was her name? Beatrice C
onnelly. I read the messages, and my lips twitch.
But my smile fades when I read the message Aria received before that. Handover at 5am at the Carousel. No excuses.
A photo is attached to the message. I click it open and see a bar, and in the corner, there’s a familiar face. I flip the screen toward Mateo and Erik. “Is this Archer?”
Erik glances at the laptop. “Yeah, that’s him.” His body turns tense as he reads the message. “She’s not afraid for herself,” he says, his voice filling with comprehension. “She’s afraid for Silas Archer.”
Bastian extends his hand for the laptop, and I wordlessly hand it to him. “Someone hired her to steal from us?”
“Someone who’s threatening to hurt Archer.”
Bastian’s expression changes to one of tightly contained fury, and fire dances over his skin. “Who is responsible for this?” he growls, the dragon threatening to break free. “I will tear them from limb to limb.”
I type in the phone number the message came from into River Comm’s database, but there’s no match. Of course there wouldn’t be. The person who sent this message would have known to use a burner phone.
“Is Archer protected?” Rhys asks. “Aria will be devastated if something were to happen to him.”
Bastian gets his flames under control. “Tomas’ men are watching him,” he says. “No one will be able to get close.”
“So let’s go tell her that,” Rhys replies. “She’s worrying herself to death, and there’s no reason for it.”
Bastian’s expression fills with regret. “I can’t.”
Sudden fury fills me, and I have to fight my desire to punch him. Not even when he tanked my stock price did I feel so much anger. “Why not?” I demand.
“We are dragon princes,” he says heavily. “We are responsible for the fate of the world, and it is a duty I take seriously.” He looks around at us. “Aria can only be here to steal one thing.”
The Bloodstone.
Bastian removes his bowtie and undoes the top button of his shirt, tugging the slim gold chain he’s wearing underneath his clothes over his head. I gaze at the blood-red ruby, the size of an almond, with a carving of a golden dragon wrapped around it, protecting the stone.
Protecting all the magic in the world.
“Whoever hired Aria must want this,” he says, stroking the stone with his thumb as if he’s absorbing the magic that’s buried in the ruby. “It can’t be anything else. First, we find out that a wolf-shifter from Alaska knows about the Bloodstone. Then Aria shows up in our suite, trying to steal something from my safe. This isn’t a coincidence.”
“You think she wants the Bloodstone?” Mateo asks, his expression skeptical.
“No, I think she’s in over her head.”
Rhys starts to say something but Bastian lifts his hand. “We have an obligation,” he says, fixing each of us with a steady gaze, “to protect the Bloodstone. To ensure it never falls into Zyrian’s hands. It is our duty to find out who hired her.”
Damn him, he’s right.
“We could try asking her,” Mateo says unexpectedly. “We want Aria to trust us, Bastian, but before that, are we demonstrating that we’re willing to trust her?”
He’s right too.
Bastian is clearly conflicted. “She doesn’t know us,” he says. “Would she tell us the truth?” He seems to reach a decision. “Take this,” he says, handing me the Bloodstone. “If she intends to keep her meeting, she’ll try to sneak out of here. I’ll follow her.”
“So you can confront her?” Rhys asks hotly.
Bastian sighs. “No,” he says wearily. “Contrary to what you think, Rhys, I don’t think Aria understands the significance of what she wants to steal. I’m following her so I can protect her.”
Erik gets to his feet. “Vallin is more than capable of protecting Silas Archer,” he says. “But I don’t want to take any chances. I’m going to keep an eye on him.”
Bastian’s plan makes sense. We do need to know who seeks the Bloodstone. And Silas Archer will be perfectly safe. If Erik Valder is protecting him, there is no power on this planet capable of attacking the wolf-shifter.
But my heart is still heavy. I can feel Aria’s pain and her fear. With every fiber of my body, I ache to comfort her, to tell her that everything is going to be okay.
That she is our mate, and her happiness is our primary concern.
5
Erik
I stalk away from Bastian’s penthouse, furious, uneasy, terrified. Mateo slips out after me. “How are you doing?”
I punch the elevator button. “Not in the mood for touchy-feely talks, Valentini.”
“Tough shit, Valder,” he replies. “I just have to lift my hand, and I can freeze you to the ground. So start talking.”
He’s going to use magic against me? My temper rises swift and sure, and I grab him by the throat, slamming him against the wall. “You want to threaten me again?” I grit out. “Where’s your spell now, Mage?”
I’m prepared for his counter-attack, but I’m not ready for his quiet reply. “I’m afraid too, Erik. I’m terrified that something’s going to happen to her.”
I release him. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then holds his fingers to his throat. The magic gathers through the air, shimmering, golden threads, and they curl around his neck. An instant later, they dim into nothingness.
Just like that, he’s healed.
“You could have freed yourself,” I accuse him.
He shrugs. “I shouldn’t have threatened to use magic against you,” he replies calmly. “Call it even?”
That’s Mateo. He’s incapable of holding a grudge, and he has a deeply held sense of right and wrong. Thank Odin for that. Lord Valentini is a tremendously powerful mage. If he drifted toward the darkness, he would rival Gideon Zyrian as a threat.
Where the hell is this elevator, anyway? The dragon watches me intently, waiting for me to answer. “Yes, fine. I’m afraid. Unlike you, Mateo, I’ve lost a mate. Remember?”
“Do you think any of us have forgotten?” he says bleakly. “Do you think we do not burn to avenge Gisele and your unborn child? Do you think we don’t care?”
He remembers the baby. I didn’t think anyone did.
“The mating bond tugs at me,” I whisper. “But Gisele’s death wrecked me. Mateo, I don’t want to ever feel that vulnerable again.”
His expression turns sympathetic. “That’s why you’re leaving? You can’t stand to be around Aria?”
Even out here, I can feel her unhappiness and her desperation. I can’t bear it. I want to comfort her, but it’s too late. Gisele’s death broke something in me. “Leaving is the best thing I can do for her now.”
This time around, Mateo doesn’t try to stop me. “If you speak to Silas Archer,” he says, “Try to find out more about Aria, will you? I want to know who her parents are.”
“You don’t think she’s Norm?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “She seems Norm, but every instinct in my body tells me she’s something more.”
Silas Archer’s watering hole is in Hell’s Kitchen, around the corner from his apartment. I make my way there. Two of Tomas’ panther-shifters are outside, across the street from the bar, sitting in a car, the windows rolled up to keep the cold out.
I cross the street and knock at the glass. One of them rolls down his window. “What do you want?” he demands.
Dragon magic. We can’t be recognized unless we want to be.
Before I snarl at the man and remind him who I am, Tomas Vallin appears out of nowhere. “Lord Valder,” he says respectfully. “Please forgive Gavin. He didn’t know who you are.”
Gavin goes pale. I ignore his reaction. “Is Silas Archer still inside?” I ask the head of Bastian’s guard.
“Yes, he is.”
I glance at my watch. Shit. I’m still wearing my tuxedo from the ball. I’m ridiculously overdressed for this neighborhood bar. I slide off my jacket, open th
e back door and toss it in. “You might want to lose the tie and the platinum cufflinks too,” Tomas notes dryly.
“Good thinking.” I remove them. Vallin takes them from me and puts them in his pocket. “How many men do you have inside?” I ask as I roll up my sleeves.
“Three.”
“Call them off,” I tell him. “I’ll stay with Archer until eight in the morning. Your men can relieve me then.”
“Yes, Lord Valder.”
I push open the door and enter. It’s crowded. A chalkboard sign on the wall tells me that it’s ‘Happy Hour Pricing, All Day, Every Day!’ I spot Silas Archer at the bar, gulping down a pint. The two men around him are laughing and cracking jokes, but Silas’ face is long and his expression gloomy.
He’s worrying about Aria.
I thread my way to his side. He looks up as I approach, his face blank. Oh, right. Mateo’s gaes. The wolf-shifter won’t remember meeting us. “Silas Archer?” I stick my hand out. “I’m Erik Valder.” For a second, I drop the magic shield that is innate to my kind and allow the yellow eyes of my dragon to shine through.
A swift intake of breath greets my statement. “Dragon,” he whispers.
I incline my head in agreement. “I’m a friend of Aria’s.” That’s stretching the truth quite a bit, but I don’t even feel a twinge of guilt at the lie. Keeping Archer protected is far more important. “She called you about forty-five minutes ago, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” he says cautiously.
“And she told you that you were in danger.” Now I’m just guessing. With a little more time, I’m sure Bastian could have unearthed a recording of Aria’s conversation with Silas Archer, but more time is not a luxury we have.
He waits for me to continue, his expression wary.
“I’m here to protect you.”
His dark eyes bore into me. “How do I know you’re not the one she warned me against?” he counters.
His expression is achingly familiar, and I try to remember where I know it from. Then it strikes me. Aria, outside the hospital, asking us what we were doing there. She’d had the same expression of deep suspicion.