by A. C. Arthur
“You’re from Mobo,” Magnum said after fixing his plate and sitting across from her.
“Yes,” she replied.
“But the Odò Guard didn’t stay with you here. Why is that?”
“How do you know of the Odò?” she asked. From what she’d learned, the Western World did not care enough about her lands or her people to know much about them. Hence the reason she was sent to be their savior because the River Tribe didn’t wait for anyone else to fight their battles for them.
“We come from that region,” Steele chimed in. He was sitting one chair away from his brother. “It’s not normal that the daughter of an Odò guard and a captain from the royal army would be allowed to travel alone.”
There was the faintest hint of an African accent in Magnum’s voice and a curious look in his gaze.
“I am not of the royal family.” Shola didn’t like how much these two seemed to know about her. Their joint questioning made her defensive.
“But you’re of the River Tribe and a woman. It’s definitely strange that you’re allowed to travel alone,” Steele said.
Ziva huffed. “Because women certainly cannot do anything on their own.”
“That’s why we were hired,” Magnum intervened. “It’s uncommon, however, for the River Tribe to trust their own with others.”
He was correct. Shola had thought this as well, but when she asked about it, her parents disregarded her concerns.
“It’s also uncommon for a wedding to take place anywhere else but in the village,” Steele added.
They were a tag team, a very lethal and scrumptious-looking team, but she was not phased.
“When was the last time you were in Yorubaland?” Defiance was clear in her tone. They were not the only ones with questions.
Ziva snickered.
And then a hush fell over the room as Theo walked in.
* * *
Everything was different this morning. Theo had known it the moment he’d rolled out of bed after a sleepless night. Not only was the beast brushing closer to the surface than it ever had, but the man was also on edge. Both could be blamed on the woman sitting at the table amidst those who served as the closest thing to family he had on this realm.
“And now we are complete,” Ziva announced when he walked in.
Ziva sat back in her chair and stared at him as he came farther into the room. Magnum and Steele sat up straighter, their attention immediately shifting from the conversation they’d been having to waiting on whatever Theo said or instructed them to do. These three, plus Bleu, were key parts of his team. They were the ones he trusted because they were among the only ones left who trusted him.
Water was his drink of preference this morning as Shola’s scent—the heady musk of her body that had stuck with him since they’d stood so close last night—filtered through his nostrils and filled him as completely as any food or drink could. Usually, the man needed sustenance, but this morning the desire to see this woman again was much stronger. The very present huffing of the beast said it hungered for her and nothing else.
When he was seated at the table, Theo looked to Magnum and Steele. “I’ve already sent Aiken back to the hotel to follow up on something we may have missed. We’ll proceed with business as usual and head downtown until tonight’s event.”
“Who’s on for tonight?” Steele asked. “The Owing Center isn’t in the best location.
Theo nodded. He was aware of that because he’d reviewed the paperwork the Odò guard handed him more than a dozen times. That, along with every bit of digital information Bleu had provided on the N’Gara family in Mobo. He knew more about Shola than she’d been willing to tell him, and yet, he was certain he was still missing the biggest part of this puzzle. Nowhere in any of those files was there mention of her or her family being magickal. But he knew—every instinct he possessed knew.
“Everybody’s on the move tonight. We’ll run through the layout when we get to the Tower,” he stated.
“Do you want us to assemble an ah...another team?” Magnum asked.
Theo nodded. Another team would be his human agents. “Yes. They’ll stick to the perimeter.”
He would never willingly send his human employees into a location known for its demonic inhabitants. In his opinion, humans weren’t equipped to go against preternaturals and with that thought, he’d finally decided his hunch that she was magickal was closer to being right than wrong.
“I’ll let Reece know we’ll need more drivers,” Ziva added.
She didn’t like waiting for Theo to give her assignments. Initiative was always forefront on Ziva’s mind because the thought of possibly being left out wasn’t an option.
“You do not need to talk about me and tonight’s dinner as if I am not here. If you are making plans for tonight, I should know what they are,” Shola said.
Theo, gripped his glass tighter as he brought it up to his lips. His gaze moved slowly until it landed on her and settled there. As he swallowed, the cool liquid slid down, barely dousing the fire simmering in the pit of his stomach. This morning her hair was a wild curly mass around her face, her lips coated with gloss, cheeks and forehead highlighted with tribal markings as icy eyes peered directly at him. She was wearing normal clothes, he was sure, but what he saw her in was a sheer white gown, her pert breasts hugged by the material, arms bare but for nine beaded bracelets on her left wrist. The pendant that rested at the hollow of her throat sparkled almost as brightly as her eyes, as if sending its own message for him to see.
“You will stay here with Bleu until it’s time to leave,” he finally managed to say.
He was used to seeing things others did not see. It was part of the magick his beast possessed, so a part of him that could never be totally shaken. But the beast was growing impatient. It wanted. Needed. And the man denied.
“I would like to go back to the hotel.”
“Aiken will inquire about your remaining belongings. You’re staying here.”
“I am a client. Not a prisoner.”
And she was right. Theo set his glass down, acutely aware of the other eyes on him as they all wondered what he would do or say. This wasn’t a normal situation for any of them. For starters, there had never been anyone else at the Office but them, the only Drakon he knew of in this area. They hadn’t asked the question but he knew it was plaguing their minds—they would want to know why her. Magnum had a sense that she was different, his dreams had told him so. Unlike his older brother, who was a dream watcher, Steele was a dream reaper. His dreams visited those who were selected to die. Steele hadn’t mentioned knowing Shola in any way, a reassuring thought for Theo. But Ziva was the clairvoyant, so Theo wondered how long it would be before one of her sporadic visions showed her something he wasn’t ready for her to know.
As it stood right now, he was the only one who knew that while Shola was not a prisoner, neither was she only a client.
“You are under my protection, and as long as that is so, you’ll do as instructed. There’s an indoor pool on the property, just past the gym. Bleu can show you where it is.”
Their gazes held for endless moments as she undoubtedly struggled to digest him remembering water was her calm. He wasn’t certain why he’d retained that fact about her either. As for the beast, it fed off her gaze, using it to scrape its scaly skin against the man’s, warning just how close it was to making an appearance. Theo stood.
Shola lifted her chin defiantly and stood as well.
“I will not be detained here against my will,” she told him.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “You will remain throughout the day with access to the pool and fitness facilities, television, food, all the modern comforts. Tonight you will attend your engagement party. Your husband-to-be will be there, and if he requests, you can stay with him until the ceremony. That’s how this is going to p
lay out, Shola, and it’s not up for negotiation.”
* * *
The Owing Center was an electric blue sphere-shaped building located at the intersection separating two very distinct districts in Burgess—the arts district and the financial district. Places that were also known in the preternatural world as the shifters’ playground and the vampires’ stomping ground.
It was a little after nine in the evening when the three black trucks turned into the building’s back parking lot. Reece climbed out of the first vehicle and Aiken exited the last one. Theo watched from the rear passenger side window of the second truck, as the two met up near the first vehicle and scanned the area. Aiken French, the one the others called the GQ Drakon, was dressed in a black suit, shirt, tie and shoes. His hair was cropped low and precise, his slim build concealing the brute strength he possessed along with his telekinetic abilities.
They were scanning the area for demonic activity. From inside the truck, Theo was too. One hand lay flat on his thigh while he’d propped an elbow on the door handle and ran the fingers of that hand over his chin. The man was acutely aware of every sound and movement in the vicinity while the beast had sat up on the offensive as well. There were no questionable scents, none related to demonics, only the sweet heady fragrance coming from the woman sitting a couple feet across from him.
“Why did you ask me if I loved him?”
The question came just as he was insisting his beast focus on things outside of this vehicle only.
Up to this point she hadn’t said a word in the hour they’d been in the truck. Her hands remained folded and resting in her lap.
“Isn’t that why people get married?”
“If you believed that, then why ask me? Would it not be obvious that I did?”
What was obvious was that she didn’t act like a woman in love. Not that he knew what that looked like either. The one commitment he’d paid attention to had ended in betrayal and death. Those two things he knew all too well.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” he asked.
Her silence drew his gaze back to her.
“It would be good if we could create our own destiny,” she said quietly.
He shook his head at the odd statement. “I don’t believe in destiny. Live the life you want.”
“I do not think it is always that simple. Some things are bigger than you and your wants.”
His father had said something similar the night Theo announced he was leaving. “Not if it means you sacrifice a part of yourself in the process.” He meant those words because he’d refused to live a life filled with death and destruction, no matter what clan he’d been born into.
“What if the sacrifice is all you know?” She stared at him with a gaze so poignant he felt a heaviness in his chest.
He didn’t think before reaching out to run the backs of his fingers over the warm smoothness of her cheek. She stiffened, but she didn’t move away.
“Clear!” Reece shouted and knocked on the hood of Theo’s truck.
He and Shola remained still, but he heard the others moving outside. Bleu stepped out of the driver’s seat and Ziva exited from the passenger side, both heading toward the back of the truck. In seconds they would open the doors to let him and Shola out. They couldn’t see him touching her, not in this way. But he couldn’t ignore the tug in his gut that had prompted him to put his hands on her, or the allure of her quiet acquiescence to the touch.
When he did pull his hand away, he continued watching her as she sucked in a breath before grabbing the small purse she’d set on the seat beside them. When Bleu opened her door, she accepted his hand and stepped out. Theo opened his door before Ziva could grab the handle and stepped out to adjust his suit jacket. He took note of the position of his men, the cars parked on the street and the building all while walking around the truck where Bleu was waiting with Shola.
“Reece and Aiken can get the team situated out here. You and Ziva go in with us,” Theo told Bleu.
Bleu nodded. He wore a gray suit, black Italian leather shoes and a long black coat. A black fedora completed the outfit. Between Bleu and Aiken, Theo wasn’t sure which Drakon spent the most money on clothes. Ziva wore a short orange dress that hugged her body, five-inch heels and long dangling earrings that gave her the appearance of a movie star, but Theo knew she could also stop a man’s heart with a deadly swipe of her tail. Theo looked around and realized none of them looked like the dragons that breathed just beneath their human skin.
Bleu walked to the right of Theo, and Ziva was on Shola’s left as they entered the building. Two tall women dressed in white suits—pants and jackets buttoned with no shirt beneath—stood in the entryway. They immediately looked at Shola and stepped forward.
“Ms. N’Gara, we have been waiting for you. Follow us this way.”
After speaking the first woman turned and began walking while the second one reached out to grab Shola’s hand. Theo immediately moved to push the woman’s arm away.
Both women stopped.
“She must come with us. We will get her ready for this evening.”
“She is ready,” Theo said.
“She is not dressed properly. We have to prepare her for tonight’s events,” the woman stated.
Theo stared at them. Their skin appeared dry even covered with makeup, their hair was cut very low, and silver bars pierced their earlobes. He didn’t like it, the eerie feeling easing over his skin, not the way the women looked.
“I’ll go with her,” Ziva said.
“We can take her,” the second woman insisted and again reached for Shola.
This time Ziva stepped close so that her face was only inches from the woman’s. “Either I go with her, or she doesn’t go at all.”
A quiet, yet volatile, stare down lasted a few seconds until the first woman nodded and began walking once more. The second one fell into step right behind her. Ziva and Theo exchanged questioning looks.
Shola sighed. “Here we go.”
Theo was certain that was despair he heard in her voice, but before he could think on it too deeply, Bleu touched his arm, and Ziva and Shola followed the woman.
“This place is full of newborns,” Bleu told him as he stared past the entryway, into the open space filled with people.
There was a black runner going down the center of the floor and the people stayed on either side of it. Men and women, at least two hundred of them.
“The itinerary called this an engagement party,” Theo said as he stepped into the room. “But there are no tables and chairs for sitting and eating and no music for dancing.”
From beside him, still scanning the place, Bleu added, “Everyone is dressed in white. They’re only talking to each other, none of them have even looked this way.”
They were completely inside now, the air just a bit chillier here in the banquet hall. Theo stepped onto the black runner to test Bleu’s theory—nobody stirred.
“Newborns wouldn’t give off a stench, and I wouldn’t be able to see them because they haven’t yet taken their full vampire form,” he said as they continued to walk, both of them taking slow, measured steps.
“But they’ll fight to the death if given the signal by their creator.” Bleu’s voice was a low cadence with the barest hint of a British accent. “We could be in the midst of a trap.”
Alarm settled like a weight over Theo, and he stopped in the center of the room, turning in a complete circle, looking all around. “A trap for who?” he asked Bleu but didn’t wait for the older man’s response.
Chapter Nine
Shola stood alone in a room with red velvet walls and gold crown molding. The doorframes were gold, as were the doorknobs and light fixtures. A sectional couch sat in one corner, a darker crimson color than that of the walls, with at least half a dozen pillows covered in different gold-and-red designs. Across the room was a ro
und glass table, the legs of which were gold-painted iron that matched the legs of the four high-back and red cushioned chairs surrounding it. The crystal decanter sitting in the center of the table was filled with what she presumed was red wine, a stemmed glass on each side. The room had no windows and only one door to come in and get out. In short, it was gaudy and creepy as hell.
The women who looked like evil twins were gone and had instructed Ziva to wait outside the door, which Shola was certain they had locked. Ziva had checked the room first and, after noting the single door, agreed to stand guard on the outside until it was time for Shola to make her entrance. That time could not come soon enough because she was becoming claustrophobic. It wasn’t because the room was small, because even though it wasn’t as large as her room at the Office, it was bigger than her bedroom at home in Mobo.
There were two reasons why Shola was ready to leave the enclosed space. The first was that the box Bleu had covertly slipped to her when she climbed out of the truck was heavy in her small purse. Aiken must have picked up the delivery when he was at the hotel earlier today and brought it back to the Office. Bleu, who seemed to be a supervisor over everyone and everything—except for Theo—in the mountain dwelling, had been tasked with giving it to her. Shola’s heart had been thumping wildly since the moment that box touched her hands. Wrapped in brown paper and about the size of a watch box, there was weight to it because of what was inside and a strong energy buzz because of what she knew she would do with them. The knowledge that she now held the nine blessed river rocks that would help her complete her task made her heart race. Adrenaline pumped through her veins with such ferocity her arms and legs shook with the force.
The second reason she was ready to leave was the clenching at her throat that left her struggling for her next breath. It had started just a few moments ago, creeping up from the pit of her stomach and grabbing her as if an actual hand was there wrapping long cold fingers around her slender neck and squeezing. She coughed.