Page 54 of Awaken the Dragon
“I’m busy,” Enes told them and attempted to push past Ziva.
The vampire knocked against Ziva’s shoulder so hard that Ziva stumbled backward.
Shola immediately stepped forward, but Theo beat her to the punch. He grabbed Enes by the arm and spun her around to face him. Upon turning, Enes bared her teeth and hissed at Theo. In return, he flashed his dragon eyes and let them heat until he knew she could see the inferno of flames in his irises.
“Make the time,” he told her.
She yanked out of his grasp and put her supersharp teeth away. “Follow me,” she grumbled and walked away.
“You know her?” Shola asked Ziva as they fell in step behind Enes.
“Yeah, something like that,” Ziva replied. “Long story, long time ago. Let’s stay focused.”
Shola glanced over her shoulder, exchanging a look with Theo. He couldn’t focus on Ziva right now. He was too busy looking around while they made their way through the crowd. There were easily more vampires here than any other species. But Theo also spotted a few feline shifters, a witch and humans. Too many humans to risk any type of exposure here. Unless they were believers, which they could very well be, considering they were in this particular club at this time of night.
They’d passed the thickest throng of people and came around the side of the bar where a brawny guy caught Enes’s glance.
“Can I help you guys?” he asked when he came over to the edge of the bar.
Theo looked at the new vampire directly, again with his dragon eyes, and snapped, “No.”
Enes led them into the kitchen and through another door to what appeared to be their storage area, with boxes and supplies stacked on shelves.
“What do you want?” she asked when they were all inside and the door closed behind them.
“We need to see Camden,” Theo replied. “And if he’s really not here tonight, I want to set up a meeting with him. I’ll name the time and place. All he has to do is show up.”
Enes rolled her eyes. “And be slaughtered by your kind. No dice, dragonboy.”
“We were scheduled to have dinner tomorrow at someplace called the Royal Blood,” Shola said.
Theo had no idea she was going to bring up the schedule that had been planned for her. His assumption was that they all knew the remaining items on that schedule were now null and void. However, they had discussed briefly who and what the Royal Blood was earlier, but he remained quiet and watched Enes for any reaction.
“He’s taking you to the Royal Blood? Why?”
Shola squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. “Because I am his fiancée.”
Theo’s fists clenched this time. He wanted to put one through a wall or destroy that word from everyone’s vocabulary forever.
“Why does she need an entourage? What is she, some type of shifter?”
“She’s human,” Ziva told Enes.
Theo watched Enes’s head turn quickly in Ziva’s direction. Even if he hadn’t overheard Shola questioning Ziva about Enes, he would have known that something had happened between the two.
After a few moments, Enes returned her attention to Shola and frowned. “I’m not his personal assistant but I’ll—”
Whatever she’d been ready to say was cut off by the sound of gunfire. Rapid, nonstop gunfire.
“Shit!” Theo yelled and immediately grabbed Shola’s hand.
He looked around the space only to curse again when Enes announced, “There’s no other door back here. We gotta go through the kitchen and out front!”
“To where they are shooting?” Shola asked.
Ziva pushed past them and headed for the door. “Let’s go! We’re sitting ducks back here.”
They rushed through the door to where the people who had been working in the kitchen when they came through a few minutes ago were now either huddled in a corner, covering their heads under the work tables, or dead on the floor. Ziva kicked her way through the kitchen door with Theo close behind her, and Shola’s hand in his. Four men with guns stood at the front entrance producing a spray of bullets as they aimed recklessly throughout the space.
