The doorway he had been told to enter was as battered as the others. His knock swung the door open on sagging hinges. Except for a wooden desk too broken to be worth stealing, the room was empty. A stink of mold overlain with sewer gas greeted him. He was grateful for the funk. It meant he was not dead. Of course, that might still lie ahead. For either he was early, or things were even worse than he had thought. Odéen was not here.
Boris sent his flashlight around in a single swift arc. He did not locate the cameras. But he was not naive enough to believe they were not there. This room looked like just another dilapidated office. The acoustic tiles in the ceiling were stained with overlapping brown watermarks. The dripping pipes above a heap of rotting carpet underlay explained the smell of mildew and methane.
The tiny windows had been boarded shut. The three heating vents were missing their grilles. Three closet doors randomly placed on one of the side walls had been nailed shut with new two by fours. Presumably that was where Odéen had stationed his assassins. The flimsy barrier of the doors would not protect Boris from a spray of bullets.
Boris folded his arms behind him and awaited his interview stone-faced. If Odéen was close enough to smell him, his second-in-command’s nervousness would be immediately obvious to that wily dragon shifter. But if the Boss’ surveillance consisted only of cameras, it was possible Boris could maintain an illusion of composure. He was, however, startled into a quivering spin when the heating duct behind him crackled.
Odéen’s icy amusement vibrated the metal ducts. Boris rose from his crouch sweating. “If I wanted you dead,” Odéen said calmly, “You, my friend, would be dead. I want an explanation for the capture and death of my boys.”
Acid burned Boris’ dry throat. Of course Odéen was principally concerned that those four fuck-bait dragonlings had been captured. The death of the bears was not a concern. Fucking Argentina.
He pulled himself together and projected calm. “Oblimov and Shir went to Argentina with instructions to ensure their safety,” Boris reported. “Only bears and tigers went up against the Guild dragons. Oblimov and Shir left the dragonlings behind in safety when they went to recover the dragoness and her kid.”
“A mission which they failed completely to accomplish. This operation has been an utter disaster, Dva. For which I hold you personally responsible. There have been too many deaths. I am facing dissension amongst my remaining dragonlings.”
Boris fought to draw a deep breath into a chest suddenly too small. “The dragons all followed standing instructions, Odéen. They activated their capsules when they were captured. They were never interrogated. And nothing on their bodies could lead the Council to you – to us.”
“My dragonlings are obedient,” the vent continued remorselessly. “It is you fucking bears who have defied my orders and permitted the capture of my boys. So far this year we have lost twelve dragonlings. It is obvious that you are sacrificing them in favor of bears.”
“I instructed the team to safeguard the dragons,” Boris defended his men. He stiffened his spine, it was time to give unwelcome advice. He was a dead bear walking anyway. “The dragonlings are as yet only half-trained, Odéen. It is not surprising that they were captured by more experienced opponents. In the event of capture, standing orders are to bite down on their radio transponders to initiate broadcast of their position. They followed procedure.”
“Their brothers are muttering,” retorted Odéen exactly as if the capsules were Boris’ idiot idea. “I want this matter concluded, Dva, before I have to quell a rebellion. You are going to have to find another way, or another story, to tell them. The remaining dragonlings are whispering that the capsules we fitted in their teeth are not radio transmitters.”
Privately Boris thought that of the Boss’ soldiers, only those infantile showers of dragon shit were young enough and dim enough to believe that tale. He and his bears had never given it a moment’s credence. “I will look into other technology, Odéen,” Boris forced the words past his throat.
“Do so. The Council is to take no more prisoners. There are to be no more deaths – of dragons. Have your people located the woman and the fireling?”
The apparent reprieve allowed Boris to finally fill his lungs. “Not yet, Odéen. However, we know the Lindorms have her. A marriage was registered between Lars Lindorm and Nicole Balcazar Mendez neé Hastings. It is a Swedish marriage, performed on Swedish soil – at the Swedish Consulate in Mar del Plata. We can find no evidence that she left Argentina. We are continuing our search.”
Odéen lost his temper. “The bitch is microchipped. Even you fucking bears should be able to trace her, Dva. Find her. I want her and her brat retrieved. I paid Balcazar Mendez far too much to let the cunt remain in the clutches of the Council. You have a week. Go.”
Boris turned without a word and went out into the falling snow. He was going to have to send more fucking cannon fodder to fucking Argentina. More bears. More tigers. To fucking go against a blaze of mighty fucking dragon lords. This stinking donkey crap assignment was utterly doomed and so was he.
It was too late for Boris to change his mind. It had been too late for many years. For forty years, he had watched as successive bosses eliminated one rival after the other. Of course, the excuse was always that they had failed in their mission, or had betrayed the organization. Three years ago, Boris had put in place the digital mines that would execute his revenge from the grave. In the hour that Boris died, a complex series of programs would lay a trail directly to OdéenOdéen.
Boris had lived for decades with the knowledge that caring about anyone meant a death sentence for that person. Now that his mother and sisters had died, Odéen had no surety against Boris’ betrayal. OdéenAnd without any sureties for Boris’ loyalty, the Boss would be looking for a new second-in-command. Odéen was nothing if not pragmatic – unless it was treacherous.
At least his boy was safe. Not even the Boss knew Bori had a son. The boy was happy and healthy in America. At least Boris hoped so. Of course, he didn’t know who his father was. And Boris had not seen him in over thirty years. He didn’t even know the boy’s new name. That had been the price of safety.
It had been a price he was willing to pay when he was younger. Now it seemed too steep. He regretted sending the woman away too. He had passed her along to a minor thug, long dead. They had not been kind to the boy. Was it sufficient compensation that his son was probably alive and that Boris was probably a grandfather of bear cubs he would never see?
Boris had lived his entire career surrounded by spies. He had planned his vengeance accordingly. Only Boris and perhaps his counterpart Tree – Number Three – in Mongolia knew Odéen’s real identity. Neither of them was in a position to tell. But Boris had planted a Trojan horse in the software that the organization used. So far it had remained invisible through eleven changes of equipment. There was an unholy comfort in knowing that Boris’ death would trigger the Boss’ doom.
Odéen’s end was written in code. The morning after Boris’ execution, seven Dragon Lords would receive Dva’s bequest. And once they knew who, what and where Vladimir was, the Boss was as good as dead. Every morning when Boris turned on his laptop it scanned his irises. Odéen was safe only so long as Boris was available to gaze into the camera. When the day came that different eyes sought access, Odéen’s darkest secrets would be instantaneously broadcast. The Guild of Dragons would know their enemy.
The only problem with Boris’ revenge, was that he would never see it. Originally, he had toyed with using the threat of discovery as a means of preserving his life. But he could never devise a foolproof scheme. Every scenario played out with his eventual torture and death – to say nothing of the destruction of his Trojan horse.
When he exited the building, the cold air immediately chilled Boris. He was sweating and the wind turned his sweaty pits to ice and formed crystals in his mustache. He did not complain. He had been lucky. He had not been terminated. Tonight. Sergio and Alex were waiting for h
im where he had left them. Sergio Solzhenitsyn respectfully passed him his weapon. Together the three of them took the train to where they had left their vehicle.
“Have we got fresh orders, sir?” Alex Korsakoff asked once their limousine had pulled away from the curb.
“Our orders remain the same. We are to retrieve the dragoness and her fireling. Odéen wants her.”
“Who are we going to send?” Solzhenitsyn muttered.
“No more dragons,” Boris said. “Odéen doesn’t want any more deaths in their ranks.”
“May the spawn of Satan rot in their nursery.” Solzhenitsyn swore long and profusely.
Boris heard him out in silence. He raised his voice. “If Odéen wants the dragoness and her brat, then the Boss shall have them both.” He was going to have to replace Solzhenitsyn. How had that turd-brained tiger made it this long in the organization when he was so indiscreet? Unless, the turd was spying for Odéen – trying to catch Boris in disloyalty.
The driver took them back to their headquarters. But even here, in a building his men scoured for listening devices three times a day, Boris did not feel safe speaking his mind. Since the death of his deputy on Tarakona, he had had no one he could truly trust. Even the other bears might betray him. The grip of Odéen was ferocious. The Boss’ reach long. When the bear who had called himself Sergei Zhadanov had survived his capture on the island of Ngaire, only to be killed by Vadim of Montenegro, Boris had lost, not just his best man, but his only confidant.
Now even those stupid dragonlings of Vladimir’s had realized that the capsules in their back teeth held death, not tracking devices. Of course their naivety was explained by their youth. From the first, the capsules’ declared purpose had rung false to the old guard. What need had any microchipped soldier for an extra tracking device? Odéen always knew where every fucking member of the organization was at any time.
None of Boris’ bears or tigers had believed that Odéen would rescue them from trouble. They knew if you were caught, you were on your own. The rule was: don’t fucking get your ass in a crack. Rule two was get your own fucking useless ass out of trouble. Only the dragons were young enough and dumb enough to believe Odéen valued them enough to get them out of a pickle. Only it seemed the Boss had not anticipated those fuckwits screwing up so often.
Even Dva was expendable. And if he betrayed Odéen, Boris’ remaining family and friends would be slaughtered as a warning to any other potential defectors. Boris had no real choices. He had to find Felipe’s missing dragoness and bring her back to the Boss. And since he couldn’t use dragons, he would fucking have to send his bears and tigers to attack the fucking House of Lindorm.
In their own way the Lindorms were just as terrifying as Odéen. And considerably better trained than even Dva’s crack troops. Prince fucking Maximilian of Landor, in the days when he stood in Odéen’s good graces, had warned them of the power and prowess of his Swedish cousins. It was madness to send bears and tigers against mighty dragon warriors. But that was what Boris was going to have to do. He had no fucking choice.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When Matt had come rushing up to show them the hermit crab, Lars had seemed to recollect that he was supposed to be educating the boy. He picked up a new notebook about the same size as his massive palm. “Show me where you got that,” he said standing up.
Nicole watched the man and boy as they walked back down to the beach and over to where three or four rocks had made a basin. Although Lars had told her to wear the cover-up, and had found one of those fancy UV blocking swimming shirts for Matteo to wear so that her son’s shoulders and back were covered, he himself was only wearing shorts. He had abandoned the jacket he had been wearing in the house.
An immense blue and green dragon spread its wings across Lars’ broad back and glared in ferocious, open-mouthed defiance at the world. Despite the fairness of his hair, his skin was a golden biscuit color. He looked like a Nordic God. Nicole laughed at herself. Even if she wasn’t squat and fat, she knew better than to drool over a dragon. Even one who made her feel flushed and lightheaded.
“Mom!”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Señor Lars says it is time to swim! Are you coming too?”
Swimming in the warm Caribbean waters with Lars and Matteo was lovely. The sandy seafloor was soft underfoot, although it was sprinkled with shells and broken bits of coral that Lars said had been brought close to the island by storms. As Lars had promised, the sea was very shallow for a long way out and there was no current. She could have floated happily forever in the bathwater warm sea.
If it hadn’t been for the humming of her body, she could have relaxed. But Lars had stripped off his shorts and was mostly naked in a skimpy black banana sling. Up close, his shoulders and back were as impossibly muscled as his chest. To say nothing his six pack and the thick V of muscle that led the eye to his bulging package. Even in the water she felt overheated.
Lars had them all out of the sea long before they were ready to stop swimming. “I know it seems unlikely,” he said. “But you can get dehydrated while you are swimming. We all need a drink, right now.”
After several glasses of water and some lunch, Nicole had gone to lie down in her new room. Lars and Matteo had gone out on the veranda to look at the hummingbirds some more and continue their biology lesson. She had felt drained by her restless night. Now she was a little bored and wished she had accompanied them. Go figure. It had been years since she’d had any real leisure time. And after half an hour she was already restless.
Of course, part of the problem was that she had nothing to read. She had discovered a stack of glossy magazines under a table, and had carted them off to her bedroom. But while they were handsome publications, of course she couldn’t read the articles which were in Swedish. It hadn’t occurred to her that Lars would whisk her away someplace that had no books. She felt ungrateful, but she could at least keep her discontent to herself.
She had to do something about her stupid crush on Lars. They were not really married. But when he was around it was as though he filled all her senses. It was just infatuation. She had to think, not just of herself, but of Matteo. She could not afford to be misled by her hormones when Matt’s happiness might be at stake. Despite her good intentions, Nicole’s thoughts drifted once more to Lars’ splendid physique.
His scent was so intense. Some mysterious combination of leather, sandalwood, and dragon that was incredibly appealing. His crisp blond hair and pointed beard seemed to glow faintly. And every time she looked at him he seemed a little taller and broader, and his piercing eyes a little bluer. Which was of course a figment of her imagination. She wanted desperately to be able to change into dragon and go flying – anything to shake this unaccustomed passion.
She got up, smoothed the shallow depressions out of the coverlet, and went to the bathroom to check if the swimsuit she had rinsed out was dry. It was not, but she knew better than to hang Lycra in the sun. She turned to wash her hands. The long white marble counter was alive with crawling shells. One scuttled over her bare foot. Nicole jumped and yelped.
* * *
Nicole’s scream had Lars pelting down the hall to her bedroom, convinced they were under attack. He should have known better. When confronted by armed intruders, Nicole had not shrieked, she had incinerated. She was standing in the middle of her bathroom fully dressed, hands clasped on her bosom, trembling.
There were hermit crabs everywhere. On the marble countertop, in the sink, on the bathmat and on the tiled floor. Lars scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom just as Matteo burst in looking worried.
“Go and get your crabs, Matteo,” Lars ordered setting Nicole down the bed. “I’ll get them cleared out,” he promised.
Matteo was picking up the crabs and putting them in the sink. He turned a reproachful face to Lars. “I was keeping them in here,” he said. “Someone must’ve let them out.”
“You can’t keep hermit crabs in y
our mother’s bathroom.” Lars kept his face stern.
“Where can I keep them?” Matteo asked plaintively.
Where on earth had the boy found so many hermit crabs so quickly? “You can keep two, if we make them a suitable habitat. There’s nothing in this bathroom for them to eat, and they will starve to death in here. And your mother didn’t like finding them. No more crabs in the bathroom. Understood?”
“Yes, Señor.” Matteo bravely squared his shoulders in the face of this cruel edict.
Lars thanked his stars that years of military discipline enabled him to keep from laughing. “What did you bring them into the house in?”
“My bucket.”
“Go and fetch it.” As the boy took off, Lars began to search for any specimens still on the floor. He found a couple more in the corners, and one clinging to the kickboard of the washbasin stand. He put them back into the sink, and swept those that had already climbed out back in.
Nicole came to the door. “I’m sorry I overreacted, it was just such a shock when they started to crawl on my feet.” She came and peered over his arm into the sink full of squirming crabs. “Where did he get so many? And what did he think he was going to do with them?”
“Dragons like collections,” he informed her. “This looks like your fireling’s hoard of hermit crabs.”
“A hoard?”
“Is this the first thing that Matteo has ever collected?” Lars asked.
“He has had jars of stones since he was tiny, I used to tip them out occasionally to make room for new ones.”
“Didn’t he notice?”
She nodded. “Did he ever. He used to make such a fuss. I swear he learned to count, so he could check that I hadn’t discarded any of his treasures.”
Dragon's Possession (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 4) Page 14