“About what?” I asked.
“Don’t you dare, Dakota!”
“Okay, okay, it was between the Hells’ Hogs and a team of security personnel, and since Alika is your boyfriend and all, I thought you would prefer the Hogs.”
It had actually cost me the promise of a pretty substantial favor to Ailani to arrange twenty-four-hour protection for Mele with a to-be-determined end-date. I was starting to get pretty in debt to the club, and I knew it was going to come back and bite me in the butt.
“We both know I can take care of myself,” she hissed at me.
“Not against this. I’m the primary target, Mele. And these people know way more than they should about my family, so I have to assume they know about you too, somehow.”
“You suck,” she said, sounding defeated.
“I know, and I know how it feels, believe me. Just, if they got you or hurt you, I’d die Mele, okay. So, be careful and be smart. I’m sorry for always putting your life in danger.” As I said it, an unwanted tear splashed onto my cheek.
“Shut up and stop crying,” Mele said.
“I’m not,” I said, a small laugh escaping.
“Yeah, you are. You know that if I went back four years ago to that party where we became friends, I’d still throw all those random assholes in the pool for you. You’re my best friend and even though I’m pissed as hell that you got a motorcycle gang to follow me around everywhere, I still love you.”
“Motorcycle club,” I said.
“Yeah, whatever. You be careful doing whatever stupid thing you’re doing now, I will murder you if you get yourself killed,” she said.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, before I hung up. The sun had long ago heated up the day and produced that baked concrete smell as it beat down on the little unsheltered private terminal. I’d never been on a private plane as I usually flew in coach on one of my grandfather’s commercial airplanes.
Standing next to Sophie, I watched as Wyvern and Harrison were surrounded by dracons I didn’t know. There were also a hundred or so people walking around, performing different tasks to get the plane ready.
A smartly dressed werewolf woman approached Sophie and me with some water bottles but Sophie stepped between us. She gave Sophie a big familiar smile.
“Hey, would you two like some water?” the werewolf asked.
Sophie held out her hand. “Thank you, Cynthia,” she said. When she handed the bottles to me, she whispered. “Will you inspect both of these, I need to stay vigilant.”
“You don’t trust that Cynthia woman?” I asked, glancing over at the thin, beautiful blonde.
“Cynthia is a friend, but we need to be extra vigilant,” she said.
The bottles were plastic, designer water that I had never heard of. I inspected the seals, then the bottles themselves. “It looks good,” I said, handing her the second bottle.
Her voice, when she spoke again, was so low I could barely hear her. “You know that the Rex is trying really hard, don’t you? I’ve never heard him allow someone else to take the lead so many times.”
My immediate thought was to change the subject or tell her it wasn’t really her business. But something had changed between Sophie and me. She’d been that last eagle, the eagle who had flown with me until its wings gave out. I sighed, and thought about what she’d said.
“Yeah, I know he’s trying. You might not see, but I’m trying too, at least as a friend. It’s just difficult with us,” I said.
I glanced over at where Wyvern was speaking to a group of men and women. Just for a second, he glanced back and his gaze met mine, then he turned back to the group.
Above us were the first sign of clouds I’d seen in a week, hanging heavy over the runway and obscuring all but the base of Mabi Volcano. The temperature hadn’t lowered though; the air still felt thick and too hot.
Sophie turned sharply to something behind us.
I spun to see Sarah and Annie crossing the parking lot, Sarah carrying a duffle bag. I had seen Annie early this morning, she’d been sitting at a computer, busy with research when I came down from Wyvern’s room.
I stood awkwardly for a moment, remembered who had died and who he was to her.
“Hi,” I said.
She looked up, and for the first time since I’d met her, no smile was on her face.
“Hello Dakota, I’m glad to see you’re safe,” she said.
“I’m glad to see you’re safe.” I forced a tear back and said, “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
She gave me a straight-lipped smile. “All I need is work right now, mountains and mountains of work.”
“Okay,” I said.
She’d only been gone for a couple hours, but I couldn’t help feeling that it had been too long. Not because I felt I wasn’t adequately protected, but because we’d survived what happened, and seeing her face kept reminding me that each of us was still alive. It also reminded me that one of my security team hadn’t survived, though no one had mentioned Teddy. The one time I brought it up, Sophie had only solemnly nodded when I said how sorry I was.
Sarah’s gaze was on Sophie, her eyes rapidly moving over her as if searching for any visible injury. Her soul overflowed with a myriad of emotions, guilt visible among them.
I considered telling her she had nothing to feel guilty about, that if she hadn’t left us when she did, both she and Lorelei would be dead. When she was only ten feet away, Sarah gave me a forced smile. “I have your clothes Dakota,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to take the duffle bag from her, though she refused with a ‘who are you kidding’ look.
“I also found your guns when we went back for the car. They’re in there, unloaded of course.”
“You’re serious? Thank you so much,” I felt choked up just saying it.
My phone rang and I dug in my back pocket to get it, glancing at the screen before answering. “Hey Lorelei, I—”
“Dakota, it’s Bobby—”
“Oh my gods, you’re—”
“We don’t have time for that. I know who betrayed us, who are you with right now and can they hear me?”
“A lot of people and a lot of them can probably—”
“I’m going to disappear any second now and I have no idea where I’ll end up. I’ll try to find a phone, but might not be able to in time… listen to me now: don’t go off alone with anyone, even if you trust them-”
“Wyvern—”
“I’m almost certain that Wyvern isn’t involved, stay with him at all times if you can, but don’t trust anyone—” There was a thud, then nothing for a couple seconds.
“Shit! He’s gone. Dakota?” it was Lorelei’s voice.
“Lorelei, where’s Bobby?”
“Gone. He dropped the phone right as he was vanishing. He just appeared here, shouted, ‘give me your phone!’ talked to you, then vanished. He looked terrible, like he was beaten up, then took a swim, and worse, Dakota.”
“He didn’t tell you what he was trying to tell me?” I whispered as I examined the parking lot.
“No, he didn’t say anything more,” Lorelei said.
“Was he seriously injured?” said Wyvern’s low voice from behind me.
I spun to see him about a foot away, he must have sprinted to get here so fast.
I repeated the question to Lorelei.
“I couldn’t see blood or any obvious broken bones, but he didn’t look good. I don’t know Dakota, he looks like he lost fifteen pounds and hasn’t slept in a month.”
“Or in four days,” I said. “How long was he there for?”
“Maybe a minute and twenty seconds, thankfully I was in the living room at the time,” she said.
“Was he wearing the same clothes as the other night?” Wyvern asked, and I relayed the message.
“You know, he might have been. They looked like rags, but they could have once been a suit… Do you think he’s hiding out somewhere, or someone has been holding him captive?�
�� she asked.
“Neither, but I can’t tell you right now, I’ll tell you soon,” I whispered.
“Shit, Dakota. We shouldn’t leave. What if he comes back?” Lorelei asked.
“Too risky, there’s no way Mom would leave without you and Stacy can’t leave without Mom. You need to go… And Lorelei, whatever you do, do not under any circumstance, take my charm bracelet off.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” she whispered before we said our goodbyes and hung up.
“I’ll send someone to wait at your house in case he returns,” Wyvern said.
I looked up into his face, sympathy was written all over it. I whispered, “How long can someone stay awake?”
“For a quarter-blood dracon, the record is fourteen days,” he said, in a quiet voice.
“Before what?” I asked.
“Irreparable brain damage or death,” he said.
“But before fourteen days?”
“They recovered,” he said.
“How do you know these things?” I whispered, not really as a question, shaking my head and looking away. “We need to find some way to fix this,” I said.
“We will,” he said.
“No one has ever found—”
“Not here,” Wyvern interrupted, stepping in closer. “I have a soundproof conference room on the plane.”
A drop of water hit my shoulder, then another hit my face. A low echo of thunder rolled across the sky above. Black umbrellas opened all around us and groups of servants ran in all directions.
I jumped as a black umbrella opened just beside me, and turned to see Annie, umbrella in hand. She gave me a smile and held out the umbrella for me to take.
Hesitantly, I took the umbrella from her hand, saying, “Thank you.”
I trusted only a handful of people in this large crowd, and Annie was one of them. But if I took Bobby’s instructions and trusted no one, my life was about to get a whole lot harder, a whole lot more alone. Some people had earned my trust—my security team, my family and friends, they’d earned it and no phone call would take that away from our friendship.
As I held the umbrella up, to shelter both Wyvern and me, the sky started to pour down on us.
Chapter Twenty-two
Reading further down the list of dracons on my laptop screen, I said to Sophie, “Would you consider breathing fire massive destruction or small scale destruction?”
“Which dracon family?” she said, not looking up from her laptop. We sat across from each other in the soundproof room in the airplane. My other two guards were stationed just outside the closed door.
Two columns of soft recessed light lit the small airplane room. We’d opened the many windows for additional light before sitting at a central table with six chairs. A wet bar with refreshments stretched across one side ending at an alcove for an attendant, though Sophie and I were alone in the room.
Wyvern had yet to join us as people had literally been lined up to talk to him when we entered the plane. If he didn’t get a move on though, we’d land before we got a chance to talk.
Answering Sophie’s question, I said, “Zmey dracons, but their dragon ancestor wasn’t too high in rank. Also, there’s only one quarter-blood and three eighth-blood dracons.”
“I’d put them under mass destruction just in case. Some Zmey dracons have burned entire buildings down in minutes,” Sophie said, her voice betraying no anxiety at the words.
I wrote the Zmey dracons down, under ‘Waibibi Island, Mass Destruction.’
“Did you get the Scultone dracons?” Sophie asked.
“No, what are they?” I asked.
“They’re vacationing on Mabi island from Northern Europa, can kill with a look,” she said.
“Uh,” I said, writing them down under ‘Mabi Island, Small Scale Destruction.’
I slid the list back to the middle of the table between us.
Unfortunately, on the four main vacation islands of the Mabiian Island chain, there were at least three names under ‘Massive Destruction’ and ten to fifty names under ‘Small Scale Destruction’. Furthermore, even though we’d split the registry, I was only about a third of the way through with my half and I didn’t know about Sophie’s progress.
The door opened and I looked over, mouth opening to say, ‘finally,’ when Harrison stepped into the room. He found my gaze immediately.
Closing my mouth, I turned my attention back to the computer and forced myself to focus. Across from me, Sophie stood, and bowed to Harrison, before returning to her seat.
I had no idea if I was supposed to follow her example, but as I refused to bow to my own Rex, I wasn’t about to start bowing to some foreign Princep.
Harrison didn’t take a seat, he instead leaned against the wall, beside the door. I guess Harrison was a leaner, a guy of the lean, a leaning type of guy and all that. I could practically feel his eyes still on me.
Keeping my gaze on the computer screen, I kept reading through the list. My brain was completely not in intake mode as I tried to process what aspects each dracon family had. After reading a name three times without being able to remember the very famous family’s aspects, I turned up to glare at Harrison. “Can I help you with something?” I asked him.
“And you call me moody?” he said, raising an eyebrow. The darkness of his hair contrasted so much with his eyes, making them almost glow in his face. He looked so serious, as if I’d called him a much worse name than ‘moody’.
Though I had taken too long to respond, I forced myself to smirk. “Oh, did you come for an apology?” I shrugged. “Sorry, not sorry for my comment yet. You’re welcome to check back later, though,” I said.
“Why are you mad at me?” he asked.
I turned to stare intently at my computer screen. “Why would I be mad at you? You eavesdropped on a personal conversation where I made an observation that you can be too moody to hang out with before coffee. I wasn’t angry.”
“Is it because I saved your life?” he asked.
Slowly, I returned my gaze to his face. His expression was intent, as if a lot rode on my answer. I kept his gaze for a while, thinking about the question he asked me.
“No.” I finally said in a quiet voice. “I’ve never been very good at thanking people; it just never feels right when I do. But I know what I owe you, Harrison, I know what I owe everyone from that night, and I plan to repay everyone… that I can.”
He broke his gaze from mine, turning to look toward the line of open windows. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said.
I sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t really matter to me for whose sake you saved my life for. You saved my life, and I am the only one who pays my debts.”
Beside Harrison, the door opened. He stepped away from the wall, but when Wyvern came in they nodded at each other, and Harrison resumed his lean. Sophie stood up abruptly and made a much deeper bow to Wyvern than she had given to Harrison. When she stood up, she immediately gathered the list from the table and handed it to Wyvern.
Wyvern had almost no expression on his face as his eyes moved back and forth over the lists.
“It’s incomplete,” I said, when he looked up.
Wyvern handed the paper back to Sophie. “Take this to the team headed by Walter out in the main cabin. They’ve already arranged travel arrangements for the more dangerous dracons on the island but you’ve narrowed the list down much better than they have. You are in charge of the team now. Finish your list, arrange travel for the massively destructive dracons, then move on to the most dangerous of the other groups. Prioritize the Cuélebre dracons.”
Sophie nodded then turned to me. “What name did you stop at?”
I scanned the screen, then read, “Marty Peterson and family, Lindworm dracons.”
Sophie gathered up her laptop and walked out the door without another word.
Wyvern clapped Harrison on his shoulder. “Harrison, could you give us five minutes?”
Harrison glan
ced away from me and nodded. “Not a problem,” he muttered, then glanced once more quickly at me, before leaving.
I stood up, walking toward Wyvern.
Wyvern closed the distance between us in three strides, his expression serious.
I swallowed and asked, “What do you know about—”
His hand came up to my cheek, his thumb brushing over my chin. A familiar soft electric sensation seeped into me everywhere his skin touched mine. His face moved slowly toward mine, lowering so slowly it was as if I had an eternity to object, but yet not enough time to muster the words or force myself to break from his touch.
His lips met mine so gently, yet I felt the zinging sensation web its way throughout my entire body. His lips were soft on mine and I immediately wanted to deepen the kiss. But he pulled back, resting his forehead on mine.
I closed my eyes. I had thought I was getting so good at creating boundaries between us, but the moment Wyvern touched me I just swept the boundaries aside and was like, ‘come on in Wyvern, help yourself.’
Wyvern’s touch was my weakness, and right now, I wanted to be weakened. I exhaled whispering breathlessly, “Wyvern, friends don’t kiss.”
Wyvern didn’t respond to my poor excuse for a protest, instead, he said, “After reading that list, I am so afraid. There is absolutely no way for me to protect us from what’s happening here.” His hands gently grasped my shoulders. “Is there any deal you would be willing to make with me that will send you to the dracon high court?”
My mouth fell open, and I blinked in shock.
He pulled his head away to look at me. “Dakota?”
“You just told me that you are afraid?” I whispered, eyes wide.
His gaze met mine. “I am terrified.”
“I’ve… I’ve just never heard a dracon say those words before,” I whispered. “I’ve felt their fear with my power… more times than I could count. But I’ve never, ever, heard a dracon say those words.”
“You’re changing the subject. Is there any deal you would make with me—”
I gave him a small smile. “Oh, I figured that part was rhetorical. I need to be here. And also, you’re going to need me here, Wyvern.”
Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2) Page 20