Then he left the room, once again not bothering to turn the small box back on. He hadn’t allowed him this small luxury for months now. Or, as he used to call it in Arizona, moons.
The door slammed closed, leaving Xenon once again in the dimly lit room. With his real torturer.
“Man, he’s really not going to forgive you for double-crossing your dragon crew in that fight for the Zone 2 gates,” Fensa observed in his wake. She then turned her contemptuous sneer on him. “And he really doesn’t seem to understand I’d never do anything for you. I hate you. I’ll always hate you for what you did.”
Yes, shortly after gaining her trust he’d betrayed it. He’d lost everything in the blink of her human eye, including his son. But for some reason Fensa’s words didn’t cut him like they usually did.
“What was it the Drakkon king said again?” he asked her. “He keeps attempting to tell me something. He seems to think it of great import.”
“Never mind him,” Fensa answered, coming to stand over his body where he sat naked upon the floor with legs bent. She lowered herself down to sit upon his groin like she used to during those few months when their flames had burned yellow for each other. “Do you have desire for me? Would you like me to take out your male works and put them inside my wet heat?”
A trick. He knew it was a trick, but nonetheless, his male works became steel inside his stomach at just the thought of having her again.
Fensa laughed, low and husky, “Oh, I can feel how much you want me, Xenon. What would you do to have me again? To be inside me? What price would you pay?”
“Anything,” he swore, his voice little more than a whisper. “I would give anything. Pay anything.”
“Would you beg? I’d like to hear you beg for my forgiveness.”
He begged. And apologized. And begged some more. Begged and begged her forgiveness, until his voice gave out with a croak.
“Mmm…” Fensa made a considering sound in the back of her throat, pressing her forehead into his as he had taught her. But it wasn’t reverence. He knew this. Had been taught this lesson by her so many times. Still, his breath caught. The longing so poignant, it vibrated within him like a plucked string.
However, it came as no surprise when she withdrew. “Too bad your anything is worthless to me,” she spat. Before retreating into the darkness.
No…Xenon thought, his flame returning to its usual blue. Damianos tricks were worthless. As much as his cousin would like to be the foremost benefactor of his pain, no one could torture him as perfectly as his Fensa.
And no one else ever would.
44
Of all the ways he thought his long-held plan to punish the Prisoner for his traitorous acts might end, Damianos never imagined it thusly. All these years of watching the girl, Fensa. Millions spent to infiltrate her Michigan household and track her every move from afar.
Only to have his cousin not believe him when she finally came back from the shared past he’d been talking about with the delusion in his room for hundreds of years. Perhaps that, too, had been a delusion. Perhaps his cousin had been mind sick from the start of their ill-fated journey.
Wouldn’t that explain it? Why their former king had spent so much time obsessively building portals across the land now called the United States…only to refuse to help his few remaining drakkon subjects when Damianos came up with the plan to use the DNA match portals as a time traveling system to return them to their destroyed civilization. Perhaps even save it before the Royal Geneticists dark matter bomb went off. Why he had secretly plotted against them in the war for the Zone 2 fating portals, instead of doing whatever he needed to save their planet.
This Fensa of his could have been the mere delusion of a lunatic king.
That’s was what Damianos had been inclined to believe when the arguments started about five hundred years into the former king’s imprisonment. But then, a child by the name of Fensa had been born into the family of his sworn enemy, and she was even named after the Viking who had killed Damianos’s father—
His cousin’s begging interrupted his contemplation. Again. “Please, Fensa. I beg of you. Love me again. Let me love you. I am sorry for what I have done. Please forgive me!”
The sound of the prisoner’s pleas echoed through the old castle. Seeping down from the floor above to his study.
“Would you like me to turn on the television in his room, sir?” Colby, his longtime manservant asked, appearing in the study’s doorway.
“Yes, do,” Damianos answered irritably. “And, close the door. I’ve a call to make.”
With a deferential bow, the small human did as he’d been instructed. Yet somehow the action still rubbed Damianos the wrong way.
He remembered his halcyon days in Rome, when he used to take human slaves as servants. Any human he wished. He’d once destroyed the life of a centurion simply because he thought he would make a fine gladiator for his house. Now he paid the latest in a family line of English manservants who had waited on him since the late 18th century a monthly check, which included a generous pension plan.
He’d rotted most of his life on this planet, and though his true home was seared into his memory, Damianos had become more like the upright primates than he cared to admit.
But he had gotten his wish. His father’s wish, as well. Damianos had become the King of Drakkon shortly after surviving drakkon of the Lupin-Drakkon War had stripped the Prisoner of his crown.
He’d only had to lose his true home, his father, and imprison his only other living relative to gain it.
Strange, it still did not feel much like a victory.
Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown, as the human saying went.
But that would change soon. He had plans. Big, vengeful plans. Percolating in the back of his shelled head.
And these plans compelled him to open the drawer in front of him. He pulled out a quaint little piece of history that used to be called a burner phone. Just about everyone used the biosystem these days. But like cash, criminals tended to hang on to technology that could not be tracked. And though both cash and these little gadgets had been declared illegal in many countries, including the one he currently resided in, they had not in the United States, which made the “phone call” he was about to make a somewhat gray legal area.
Not that he cared. Damianos Drákon was and would remain for the duration of his reign, above all human laws.
“Report,” Damianos said when his man in the States answered with a “’lo?”
“Hey, boss, I was just getting ready to call you. I’m still watching the house like you said, even after they kicked all us out. By the way, I complained about that and got a few other Detroit Wolves to do it, too—but they still ain’t letting nobody in, except the pack doctor, and I couldn’t interrogate her without blowing my cover.”
“Yes, yes, get to the point of why you were going to call, please,” Damianos said, already impatient with the man. These humans never seemed to run out of excuses for their inferior work.
“So I’m watching the house, and last night, the target came out with her sister and they got into the sister’s car.”
“I followed them, but they didn’t stop til they got to a small airport. And by the time I got around security, they’d already taken off in a private jet. Had a hell of a time getting a flight plan for one of those old jets, let me tell you that.”
“Are you trying to tell me they’ve left the state? On a plane? And I had to call you to receive this information?”
“Not just the state. The country. Like I said, I had a hell of a time getting the flight plan. You’ll never guess who’s plane they used—”
Imbecile. “Where is she?!” Damianos roared, cutting him off. “Where is the she-wolf you’ve been charged with tracking?”
“She went to Greece. Set down on the mainland, then chartered a boat to some island I ain’t never heard of. Not sure how to pronounce it, since it’s in Greek. It starts with a swirly upside down q, then there’s a
p….”
It had been a long and hard road to teach himself to blink in order to better blend in with the human race. Yet at that moment, Anos found himself blinking on instinct. “Are they going to Drakonisi?”
“Nanh, that can’t be it. This place has got a p and a v in the name. I’ll put it through the translator, but main point is you need to get a man on the ground wherever this place is as soon as possible so we can figure out why they flew out of here like bats out of hell.”
“But…”
Anos faltered. Because of course the man would respond in this way. He had no idea the person he was reporting to was located in Greece. Was, in fact, standing in his castle estate on the island of Drakonisi as they spoke. Or that all the “strange” letters he’d mentioned were, in fact, in the Greek spelling of the island’s name. But why would the daughters of his sworn enemy come—
A sharp tap sounded on the door, followed immediately by Colby entering the room. “Sir, sorry to disturb you. However, there are two young ladies and a boy here to see you.”
“Boss, boss…are you there?” the voice on the other side of the line asked.
Damianos hung up without answering. Because in the end, he hadn’t needed to send a killer in after Fensa Greenwolf. She’d come right to him.
45
Damianos Drákon lived in a castle. Of course, he did. Knud’s contact had called it an estate when he’d sent her the address, but Ola pretty much spoke for them all when she said, “Estate my ass. Hell if this ain’t a straight up castle.”
Eos who’d spent most of his life in a cave up until a few months ago, goggled up at the fifty-foot high ceilings. The foyer they stood in stretched up three floors, showcasing landings with ivory columns, and what Fensa suspected might be pure gold railing. Art had never been Fensa’s thing, but the paintings peeping out from the arched alcoves surrounding the room screamed “long ago.” As her eyes rose to join her son’s on the beautiful ceiling mural, she had to wonder if Michelangelo had received a secret commission he hadn’t told anybody about back in the day.
“Have you ever ssssseen anything so wondroussss?” Eos asked beside her.
“I mean, yeah,” Ola answered. “But it usually comes with museum security. I can’t believe this is Drákon’s crib! I always figured he lived inside a black crystal mountain, or in some underground cavern, or some really evil-looking place.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Greenwolf.”
The distinct smell of smoke hit Fensa’s nose even before she looked up to see Damianos Drákon descending the stairs. She’d only heard stories about him. Bad stories, told to her by Rafes in another attempt to extract information she didn’t have.
And her first sight of him was kind of a surprise. She’d been expecting a slinky supervillain. Bowiesque, tall, and skinny. Maybe holding a cat or something.
But this man was strikingly handsome, with a face so symmetrical, it made her recall Xenon’s perfect beauty before he lost his eye.
The comparisons stopped there, however. This dragon was even taller than Xenon, but instead of one red glowing eye, his were brown. Completely standard, save for the hard glint in them as he approached. He also wore a suit, crisp and tailored. The kind of classic design that could have passed for current in any decade from the 1930s to now. No not classic. That was the wrong word. Timeless, rather. He struck her as timeless.
Damianos stopped in front of them and silently took them in. Fensa. Eos. And finally Ola.
To her shock, he blinked when his dark eyes reached her twin. Another difference between him and Xenon. Nor did she clock anything but a round tongue and straight, blunt teeth inside his mouth as he asked in a smooth, faintly accented voice, “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, daughters of Drakkon murderers?”
“We prefer the term ‘slayers’ if you gotta,” Ola answered. Her default zero fucks tone on full display. “But if you want to go there, sure, why not?”
Fensa swallowed, the urge to run already stronger than she’d thought it would be. But she couldn’t run. Instead, she put on her best facsimile of a brave voice and answered, “I’m here because I need your help. I’m looking for one of your kind. A dragon named Xenon.”
“Who, may I ask, is Xenon?” he demanded.
Oh shit…dragons don’t bother with names, she suddenly recalled. “Xenon. The Second Prince of Drakkon. Brother of the King. Son of She Who Did Birth Two Princes…wait, no, I think it was just Queen of Drakkon.”
“Ah,” Damianos Drákon said. “I had forgotten his name. How…odd…that you should know it. May I ask how?”
“He was…” again she had to swallow before meeting his intimidating stare.
He’d killed so many. Including her father’s villagers. It was like showing up at the bogeyman’s door…and asking for his help. “He is my mate. We were split up because he feared for my life. But now we’re once again in the same time. And I want to find him. I need to find him. I’ll even deal with you to find him.”
Damianos Drákon studied her for so long, it felt like he might never answer. But he finally said, “I’m afraid I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of this Xenon, as you call him. Or any idea what should prevent me from killing both daughters of my father’s murderer right here where they stand.”
Fensa took a step back, grabbing Eos by the arm. But before she could call out to him and Ola to run, her son said. “He issss lying. Hissss flame burnsss as falsssse as his words.”
“How do you know this?” Damianos demanded, his head snapping to regard the boy down his long egalitarian nose.
“So you know where he is?” Fensa asked Damianos before her son could answer. “Please, tell me!”
But Damianos continued to regard Eos with a suspicious light in his brown eyes. “Who are you? And how are you able to see my flame?”
“I am Eossss. Golden Ssson of the Great Blue Sssserpent King and the Great Wolf Mother,” Eos answered as if they were still in their prehistoric village and not in a dragon’s grand castle. “Where issss my father?”
Damianos was quiet for a very long time. To Fensa, it looked like a number of calculations were being made in his head. Until… “Colby,” he suddenly called out.
A man in an old-timey butler suit appeared in the foyer as if conjured from thin air. “Sir?”
“You may give the Drakkon Murderer’s daughter escort to our guest. Provided her son and sister stay behind with me.”
The protests came immediately from either side of Fensa. But she quieted her sister and son with a loud, “Hold on!”
Fensa pinned Damianos with her fiercest stare. “If I go to Xenon, do you give your word you won’t hurt Ola or my son?”
Damianos flinched as Ola said, “Like you could really trust the word of a dragon.”
“In fact, I can,” Fensa answered her sister, without looking away from Damianos. “Eos can see his flame. If he says he won’t hurt you, Eos can tell us whether he’s lying or not. So what will it be Damianos? Are you going to give us your word or not?”
He flinched a second time.
And Fensa cast her eyes downward to say, “If I knew your title, I’d call you by that instead.”
He started, but nonetheless answered, “I am Damianos Drákon. Anos to the business associates who count me amongst their friends. But my official title is King. I have served as King of Drakkon ever since your…”
He openly sneered before coming up with the word, “Xenon was deposed for betraying his kind in the war with the lupin. For that reason, his crown is now mine. And my home is now his prison.”
Now it was Fensa’s turn to flinch. She so badly wanted to ask what had happened. What Xenon had done to be deposed of his crown. She knew it had to have something, if not everything, to do with the vow he’d made her.
He’d somehow managed to fix her entire life, while in turn, she’d completely ruined his.
But in the end, she didn’t ask, because this drakkon, didn’t care about vo
ws. Or love. She could tell. He was everything her fathers despised, and she doubted explaining Xenon’s motivations would change his opinion in any way.
Close. Xenon was so close. Both her wolf and her human could feel it.
“Do I have your word, Dragon King?” she asked Damianos again, bringing the subject back around to him not killing her sister or son.
“You are in no position to ask this of me. You are nobody to me, save the daughter of Drakkon murderers.”
Fensa pulled herself up to her full height, even though at six-feet-tall, he still had nearly a foot on her. “I am Fensa Greenwolf. The Great Wolf Mother. Mate of Xenon, the Great Serpent King. Mother of Eos, the Golden Dragon Son. And I’m asking for your word. Will you give it to me or not?”
Damianos’ expression didn’t change. But his eyes strayed back to Eos. As if drawn by magnets. “You are really drakkon born, boy?”
Eos opened his mouth, but in a moment of cunning beyond his years, replied, “If you give Great Wolf Mother good answer, I will sssssshhhhhow you thisssss true.”
“You still have your Drakkon accent. How can this be?”
“Doessss sssshhhhe have your word?”
Damianos glanced over at Fensa, as if just now remembering she was there.
“Yes, she has my word. Colby, give her escort please.”
And with that, Colby stepped up to the stairs. “Right this way, Ms. Greenwolf.”
Fensa was in such a rush, she didn’t ask any other questions. Just sprang forward to follow the older man upstairs.
However, Damianos’ cold voice followed her. “Have your see of him. But I will give the grace of a warning, Great Wolf Mother. He is quite mad.”
46
Dragons didn’t joke. Or laugh. Or kid around. It wasn’t in their makeup. One of the many reasons Xenon had viewed their impish son with such consternation.
Yet Fensa found herself praying this was no longer the case as she walked up the stairs. That like blinking, joking was a skill Damianos had acquired over the years.
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 44