In his anxiousness to see his mother, Osiris hadn’t thought about the possibility of shocking Makara into a heart attack. She’d fallen to her knees, crying. He’d slumped to the floor with her. Despite the shock of opening her door to find her dead son on the other side, Makara had rallied enough for Osiris to explain.
For the sake of Isis’s investigation, he omitted a lot and filled in the gaps with lies. He hated lying to his mother. She’d been so happy to see him Makara either didn’t catch the discrepancies in his story or hadn’t cared.
“I’m not here to talk about Mom. I want to know why you did it.”
At five hundred, the rock dragon, strong and stout, had been one of the loudest anti-Queen Nut protestors when they’d arrived in the human realm. At every turn, he sought to undermine her decisions and rules, with no appreciation for her leadership.
Dragons came to the human world with nothing, but ever-resourceful Nut had traveled to the realm many times. She had bank accounts set up in her name, as well as deeds to homes and businesses. Dragons were immigrants, but they weren’t paupers forced to learn human customs and language for their survival.
For years, what was left of dragonkind lived off Nut’s financial planning and forward thinking. In the event of an emergency, this was Nut and Geb’s contingency plan. But “old school” dragons like Nour and Hanif couldn’t see past what they’d lost when they fled Nebty. Funny enough, Nour and Hanif were strong dragons, yet neither stayed to fight by King Geb’s side.
“W-what are you talking about?”
With a hard shove, Osiris sent the older man onto the couch. As CEO of Kemet Holdings, Osiris learned males like Nour were moved by three things. Fear, money, and power. Nour had money. Isis had taken his power when she’d fired him. So that left fear. Osiris despised bullies, but he knew how to act the role.
“I was murdered, went to Hell and was sent back by the Devil to have my revenge. I know you were involved in what happened to me.”
Reaching behind him to the waistband of his jeans, Osiris pulled out a gun. He didn’t point it at Nour. He didn’t have to. As soon as the silver handgun came into view, the man’s eyes widened with fear.
The first night of his resurrection, he’d found not only a knife but a gun under the pillows on Isis’s bed. He’d placed both in the nightstand drawer, intending to ask her about them. One thing after another happened and he’d forgotten. While she slept this morning, he’d crept to her side of the bed and removed the loaded gun from the nightstand drawer.
“I’ll ask again, why did you do it?”
Sweat broke out on Nour’s forehead. Eyes darted from Osiris’s face to the gun in his hand.
“Look. I told him I didn’t want any part of the plan.”
“Be specific.”
“Hanif came to me months ago. He said he knew of a way to get back at Princess Isis for firing us.”
“Queen.”
“What?”
“Isis Philae is your queen.”
“Queen, right, right. She’s worse than Nut, you know. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her. Isis and Nephthys look sweet and innocent, but they aren’t. No one has seen them in dragon form since they were newborns. It makes a dragon wonder what Nut and her daughters are hiding.”
“You wanted revenge because Isis fired you, so you helped them kill me.”
“No, no.” Nour raised his hands in front of him, as if they could shield him from a bullet. “I threw Hanif out. Did you hear what I said about the twins? There must be a reason why they’re keeping their mature dragon form a secret. I may not be a fan of Nut, but I don’t have a death wish. I told Hanif the same thing, but he was sure he could get away with it.”
Osiris needed more details from the dragon. One thing was obvious, Nour wasn’t faking his fear, and it had little to do with Osiris and the gun he held.
“Tell her I had nothing to do with what happened to either of you. Please, Osiris, tell Queen Isis I wasn’t involved in the plot.”
The five-hundred-year-old dragon fell from the couch and to his knees, hands clasped in front of him and begging for his life. Damn, did Isis have any idea how her effort to protect her secret had, in dragons like Nour, created an irrational fear?
Then again, Nour had every right to fear Isis. She’d told him last night that she would annihilate anyone involved in his murder. Isis offered that threat up with such scary calm that he understood why Nour feared her. He may be a thief, but Nour was smart enough to not cross an enemy stronger than him.
“Tell me everything about Hanif's plan. Who else was involved in the plot?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t let him get that far. I figured the less I knew, the better. When months past, I thought Hanif had come to his senses. Then I got a phone call about Isis. And another about you a few days later. I was there at the hospital. I may not like how Isis and DIG swept in and took over our business, but I would never go along with what was done to her.”
That was the second time Nour mentioned something happening to Isis.
A headache that was never far away inched its way back, one painful throb at a time. Sucking in a deep breath, Osiris gripped the gun harder, which had Nour scrambling to the other side of the living room.
“Tell me about Isis and the hospital.”
His headache intensified, worse than it’s ever been. He could barely concentrate enough to make out what Nour said.
“I’m sorry about the baby. I really am. I swear on the goddesses that Hanif never mentioned anything about harming Isis and the baby. I can’t believe he would even do something so horrible. With you, I thought he and whoever he was working with would rough you up a little to send a message to Isis. It didn’t occur to me that he would be involved in planning your murder.”
“Who did you tell?”
“What do you mean?”
Osiris turned to where Nour huddled in the corner near the living room window. This time, he did raise his gun and point it at the sniveling bastard.
“You said Hanif came to you months ago about a plan to get back at Isis. You knew it involved me. Who did you tell? Did you go to Nut? Isis? Nephthys? Me?”
His head felt like tiny explosions going off, detonation every twenty seconds.
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
Holding his trembling gun hand still with his left hand, Osiris fired. The first shot went wide and so did the second, embedding in the wall above Nour’s frightened face.
“You knew and said nothing. In my book, you’re complicit. Your silence protected Hanif.”
“Come on, Osiris.”
He shot again and again.
An unharmed Nour crouched with his arms over his head, screaming at Osiris to not kill him.
A baby. Nour had mentioned a baby. Isis wasn’t pregnant, and they’d been no baby at the manor.
Dropping the empty gun to the carpeted floor, Osiris staggered out of the living room and to the front door. He didn’t have to unlock it because Hathor stood in the foyer, a broken door behind her.
She grabbed an arm and hoisted it over one of her strong shoulders and helped an insensible Osiris out the house and into the back of a black luxury car.
“What happened to him?” Serqet, in the driver’s seat, peered back at him. “He looks like shit. We can’t take him back to Isis looking like that.”
“I know. Drive to the closest pharmacy, and we’ll get him something for the pain. He’s holding his head, so I assume he has one mother of a headache.”
“Did he shoot Nour?”
“No, the lucky bastard is still alive. I could change that, though.”
“Better not. That’s for Isis to decide. She’ll want to do a cost-benefit analysis.”
Hathor laughed. “Cost, a bullet to the head. Benefit, one less duplicitous dragon for us to worry about.”
Hathor closed the car door, after buckling him in. The car purred to life. Within minutes, Nour’s suburban neighborhood had given way to congested
roads.
“Hold on, rock dragon,” Hathor said, “we’ll get you meds as soon as we can.”
“Baby,” he mumbled. “B-baby.”
He didn’t know if the women heard him, and Osiris didn’t have the strength to say more. Before he drifted away, Osiris saw himself holding a pregnant Isis.
"I'm as big as this manor."
"You're beautiful."
"Only if you're into beached whales."
"I'm into you, no matter the size."
Chapter 11
Are you sure?” Isis held her cell up to her ear as she ran from one room of the manor to the next.
“I’m positive. I have access to all executives’ work calendars, and I reviewed his before calling you back.”
Chione, Isis’s Special Assistant, wouldn’t share information with her unless she was certain about the details, so Isis never second-guessed the lightning dragon. With this, however, Isis had to be one hundred percent positive. A dragon’s life and her mate’s heart and sanity depended on Isis gathering reliable and valid facts.
“Would you like for me to speak with his Executive Assistant?”
She’d checked every room on the first floor. Isis saw no one.
“No, I’ll have Nut take care of it. She’ll question Khepri, but I want you to record the conversation and then collect supporting documents. Dates, places, and times. If there are gaps, I need to know that as well.”
Taking the steps two at a time, Isis dashed upstairs.
“Expect a call from Nut soon. She’ll provide you with additional details. Chione, I know this goes without saying, but this doesn’t go beyond us.”
“I understand, Queen Isis. I’ll email you my report as soon as it’s ready.”
“Good. Thank you.”
She walked past the open door of her sister’s room, as she called Nut.
“Déjà vu, but so much worse,” Nut said, after Isis explained her conversation with Chione. “There’s no room for error.”
“I know.”
“I mean zero error.”
“Don’t you think I know? I hate the thought as much as you. I want the trail to lead nowhere. I want to be wrong, and you know how much I despise being wrong.”
Isis reached the last room on the floor, which was the suite she shared with Osiris before the demon stole the best part of them. She’d bypassed only two rooms—Merit’s and the nursery.
“Get everything you can from Khepri.”
“Of course. We’ll talk tonight.”
Isis turned around and headed back down the hallway and toward the stairs.
“Being queen, daughter, means having to make ugly and difficult decisions. People who seek power without the heart and mind for peace and justice serve only themselves. It would be kind yet naïve to think them misguided and in need of empathy, support, and forgiveness. In truth, they’re undeserving of all three because they act with purpose and a cruel, selfish heart. As queen, match their purpose with your own, but not their cruelty.”
Nut lectured plenty, over the years, about the characteristics of an effective business leader and leadership styles. Not until this minute had Isis realized that all those talks had also been about being queen and ruling dragons.
“Betrayal, murder, and treason, Mother. I’m tired of hiding and lying, and so is Nephthys. I’ll not lose myself, but the guilty will be punished, and Nebty reclaimed for dragons. Vengeance isn’t my goal, but I’ll have that as well. Trust me.”
“I do.”
“No, you used to trust me. But you think, after losing my baby and mate, that I’m broken.” Isis walked down the steps.
“Not broken, but deeply hurt and not yet healed. It hasn’t been that long.”
Emotionally healed, Nut meant, which Isis heard in the worried tone she’d come to use with Isis when she thought her fragile and in need of tender care.
In fairness, she’d given Nut reason to worry about her psychological state. Yesterday, she’d told Osiris she would kill everyone involved in his murder. Isis hadn’t changed her mind. When they traveled to the preternatural realm and faced the demons, she would avenge her dead baby.
So no, Isis may not be emotionally healed, but she was of sound mind and clear of purpose.
“If you think I’m unfit to be queen, I’ll step down.” Not that a change in status would alter her plan. She stopped at the front door. “I never asked to be the Scepter of Wadjet or Dragon Queen. But I’m both, and it’s past time I began acting like it. As your queen, I’ve given you a mission to complete. As your daughter, I ask you to have faith in the dragon you raised. You and Nephthys caught me when I fell. I won’t put either of you in a position to have to catch me again.”
“Isis, I—”
“Trust me. Believe in me. You want to go home, even though you’ve never said and have built a wonderful life here. Let me return Nebty to you.”
“Don’t make this about me.”
“It’s about all of us. But it’s also about my mother being homesick and too proud to admit that, in her quiet times, she questions the biggest choice of her long-lived life. When you’re ready, Nep and I would like to know why we’re the Scepters of Nebty.”
Silence slipped into the space between mother and daughter, as thick as dragon fog magic. When Nut hung up, having not responded, Isis took it as personally as it was intended. Nut had no more forgiven herself for leaving Geb and destroying the dragons one route home than she’d stopped thinking of herself as Dragon Queen.
Both were overdue.
Isis stepped outside. Before running all over the manor, like a fool, she should’ve done this first. No cars were parked in the driveway. Isis supposed Set could’ve parked in a vacant spot in one of the garages. He had the security code. That thought brought her up short. The garage led into the manor.
Isis wouldn’t consider the possibility until she had more information. Concrete and irrefutable.
Instead of going back inside the house, Isis waited when she saw Serqet’s car speeding up the winding driveway and toward the manor. Hathor, five-ten and two-time winner of the North American Natural Bodybuilding Federation’s Women’s Physique competition, jumped from the passenger’s seat when Serqet’s car skidded to a stop.
Compared to her friend’s ripped body, Isis ranked up there with a toothpick. She needed more carbs and barbells in her life.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“We didn’t call you, so how did you know?” Hathor opened the back passenger side door. “He’s still out.”
“Who’s out? What are you talking about?”
Serqet slipped from the car, her heels and paisley print mini dress a contrast to Hathor’s jeans, summer boots, and training tank top. A frown formed, Serqet’s hand on the driver’s side passenger door. “Don’t be pissed, but Osiris is passed out. He’s not hurt. Not really.”
Isis raced to the car before Serqet finished her second sentence. Hathor backed up so Isis could see.
Reaching inside the car, she removed his baseball cap and leaned his head against the back of the seat cushion. Isis saw no blood, bruises or cuts. After last night’s episode, she had a good idea what happened to him. “Did Osiris complain of a headache before he passed out?”
Hathor answered. “No complaints, but we assumed as much from the way he held his head. He shot at Nour and missed. I think Osiris’s headache screwed up his aim. When I helped Osiris from the brownstone, his hands were shaking.”
That’s where he’d run off to this morning. Another awful piece of the puzzle revealed, but Isis didn’t yet know what it all meant.
“Even with these guns,” Hathor flexed biceps that needed no emphasis, “Osiris is heavy. How are we going to get him in the house?”
The same way Isis did three nights ago.
She glanced down at her clothes, already mourning their loss. Sun dragon magic began at her extremities and flowed inward, a swift-moving tide of heat and purpose
. Skin thickened and body temperature increased. Back, hip and tail bones broke and shifted.
Pants and shirt ripped when tail and wings forced their way through and out into the muggy New York air.
“You know,” Hathor said, “you’re as extreme as your sister sometimes. Osiris is out cold and going nowhere. You had time to run upstairs and throw on a dress that accommodates your hybrid form. I may have all the muscles, but with your ripped and ruined clothes, you look like the Incredible Hulk.”
Serqet came around and tugged at the shredded bits of Isis’s shirt. “Sex with Osiris has always made you a little stupid. I don’t have to ask if you’re feeling better after letting the demon use you as her scratching board because we heard you last night.”
Hathor nodded, a big, mocking grin on her pretty face.
“You could always move out.”
“Nope, we like it here just fine.” Serqet stretched around Isis and unhooked Osiris’s seatbelt. “You pay all the bills, including the food bill, which is unsurprisingly a lot. The only thing that’s missing is an allowance.”
Isis pulled Osiris from the car and held him in a fireman’s carry. Her clothes restricted movement of her tail and wings, which made this the best position. Hathor was right, she should’ve taken the time to change.
“An allowance? I don’t think so. Do you really want to talk about bedroom noises or men I’ve caught sneaking out of your room at the crack of dawn?”
Serqet’s wink revealed the same lack of shame and embarrassment as Isis. “After this demon business is over, we’re going to take you out. Maybe even get you drunk.”
Hathor slapped the top of the car. “You turn into the worst version of your sister when you’re drunk. I love it.”
“You two are terrible.”
“Which means you’re in.” Hathor raised her hand to hit Serqet’s car again but stopped when the thunder dragon shot her a dirty look. “Give me a break, I’m not going to dent your man magnet car.”
“Business then fun. I’m going to take Osiris upstairs. I need you two to check the garage and grounds for Set. If you find him, let him know Osiris is unwell and will call him tomorrow. After that, have Merit help you track down the former members of Kemet Holdings executive team, beginning with Nour.”
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