Page 53 of Cold-Blooded Creatures
“How do I still tolerate you? Someone needs to kick you both down a notch,” he groused, waving over a stocky man with graying hair. “This is Clyde. He’ll show you to your rooms. Arrange your teams, get comfortable, and meet me downstairs in two hours. We’ll talk more at dinner.”
Savoringthe slightly bitter taste lingering on my tongue, I sipped from my cup. How Conall had gotten coffee, I did not inquire, but I made a mental note to ask for a bag to take home. I bet Kali would love it. And I was certain Zion was going to steal half a bag when he thought I was not looking.
“Where’s Zion?” Damia asked, hugging a cup of the steaming drink across the large oak table from me, her under eyes as puffy as mine. Our dinner had gone way into the night as we reminisced about our childhoods and families, half of which had fallen out of existence by natural diseases, old age, or Ilasall’s military hands. Ruthless years had hardened us to the point it was hard to believe the three of us had been gleeful children once upon a time.
“He had to stay back at the compound,” I said. I was not leaving Kali without protection. Zion had left to visit Damia’s tech team to ask about the microchips we had stolen andwas supposed to be back by lunch. Ryder and Eislyn were responsible for Kali until then. My teeth ground at the concept of something happening to her during that time.
Metal being drawn across the polished oak floorboards screeched as Conall pulled out a dark green plastic chair with steel legs from under the pale wood table and sat down beside Damia. “Not possible. He never misses a chance to annoy me.”
“We have someone to protect now.” Ezra plopped down on my left as the rest of our teams filled the room, filling out the seats around the rough-cut table and along the too-bright walls. “So you have me to irritate you today.”
Conall scratched his beard, incredulity pushing his eyebrows up. “Protect?”
The last time I had seen him, he had been clean-shaven. Now, his beard was three inches long, but it aged him by far more than three years. Or maybe he simply appeared more mature, as the man had not shown any promise of settling down with a family before.
“It holds no relevance to our meeting.” I motioned around everyone gathered in the large room, a dozen around the table and another dozen occupying the mismatched chairs along the three white walls. Whoever had chosen the color deserved to be kicked out of our ranks based on how it burned my eyes. They clearly had no idea a migraine would use the brightness to its advantage, torturing you until nausea set in. “I believe we have a few necessary introductions that need to be made, and then we can start discussing what we came here for.”
Disregarding the passing greetings, certain that Ezra would catch me up later, I drifted away. It had taken yesterday to reach Conall’s compound, and it would take tomorrow to travel back, meaning two days, one full of planning, and one of travel, awaited me until I could see Kali and Zion again.
Too long.
Invited back to reality by Ezra’s imperceptible nudge, I focused back on the discussion.
“It’s safe to assume that Ardaton and Coriattus will follow through with the security update. For the last few years, they seem to have been collaborating.” Greyn downed his cup of coffee in one go and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the action as messy as the heap of blond hair on his head, each strand pointing in a different direction than the one next to it. “They haven’t rolled out anything at the same time before, so this might be a first.”
Greyn. Damia’s second-in-command for the last two years. He had the smarts but lacked the cunning nature the previous one had excelled at. He would have been useful for the future war. This one, I held doubts about.
Second-in-commands died frequently. And Greyn was guaranteed to go in the next year. There was something off in the way he moved, his motions jerky. How he talked, rushing out his words, like his tongue was about to give out on him. How his eyes nervously bounced around the room.
Innocent. That was how he appeared. Not ready to face the consequences of our jobs. You had to bloody your hands to last in our world. Forget your morals. Accept death as your companion. Otherwise, you were a walking target. Easy picking.
Somehow, Zion had managed to become the only surviving second-in-command since the attack twelve years ago. At this point, I was not sure he could die even if he wanted to. And definitely not if you wanted him to. He would purposefully live longer so he could evoke more headaches to torture you.
Dain, one of the three Conall’s partners he was set on marrying, mused out loud, “The question is, how soon? It will immediately end our and Damia’s smuggling operations, like it did with Gedeon’s. We need to figure out how to work around the microchips. If we don’t solve it quickly, our resources willbegin to dwindle. Winter is a few months away, and we can’t produce or manufacture everything ourselves, especially the meds.” Dain twisted the three flat and round steel earrings piercing the shell of his left ear, his right adorned with seven silver rings, the smallest at the top and the largest in his earlobe, the collection exposed by his wild brown hair secured in a swaying bun atop his head. “Has Ilasall taken any other actions?”
Ryder had also mentioned Dain had decided not to wait for summer and had added that trio of studs to this collection the day after the four of them had agreed to tie the knot, stating all he needed was their agreement and not a celebration.
I preferred the opposite. Everyone should know who belonged to you.
Although I had not met Dain before, he carried an aura of alertness, and the ease with which Aanya sat on his left told me everything. She had come from Ilasall about five years ago and held her distance from everyone at my compound before moving to Conall’s. Now, contentedness seeped from her as she listened to Dain speak, both of them flanked by Conall and Nissa, who had their hands on their partners’ thighs. Safety enveloped this room in its blanket, no weapons allowed, the people inside selected based on our trust in them, but I understood their protectiveness. You took care of what was yours.
“Stop smirking and answer the question, you dick.” Conall gave me a dirty look. “Or I’ll come visit to see what exactly you’re protecting back home.”
“If you do, I’ll help Damia with your wedding present. There are a few stories even she does not know about.” I was proud of Conall. He deserved the happiness he had found with his partners. But there was no way I would let him or anyone here anywhere near Kali yet. She would punch them on sight for not helping her escape. “But no, Ilasall has not changed anythingelse. They decreased the number of guards at the gates the day of the final security update, but that’s it.” The plastic chair groaned along the seams as I reclined in my seat. “Damia, your tech team should already have the first samples of microchips. Let me know when they crack them.”
“Greyn will inform you,” Damia delegated to Greyn, and he nodded in acknowledgment to take on the task. “Did you manage to figure out where the auctions occur before this mess?” She propped her chin on her fist.
That was her move. She was about to begin putting the puzzle pieces together.
“No,” I admitted.
“We didn’t get the chance,” Ezra added. “A couple of us went to scope out the school a few days before the auction. The guards shot them before they could cross the wall and left their bodies outside the wall for us to see.” He rested his elbows on the table, spinning his sky-blue coffee cup around its axis. “Later, we, for the lack of a better word,receivedinformation that it was due to the tests of the new security system. The gates wouldn’t function properly while they installed the system and ran the trials.”
Sana, Conall’s second-in-command, remarked, “As if they knew,” and put her tight dark brown curls up in a high ponytail. She had once mentioned it helped her to think. No obstructions in your vision, no obstructive thoughts. “What other information did Zionreceivefrom the unlucky bastard?”
I valued Sana. Cool and astute, exactly who we needed. As a bonus, she had the ability to get under Zion’s skin whenever they were thrown into the same room. A skill I highly appreciated.
“That the tests run for about a week. You can expect Ardaton and Coriattus to take a similar window of time, so be prepared. Set a rotation of your people near their borders, if you can spare any,” I proposed.
