Page 57 of Awaken the Dragon
Theo rubbed his chin and looked around the room once more. “Where’s Shola?” he asked Ziva, who still hadn’t spoken.
“In her room,” Ziva replied quietly and sat up straighter in her chair.
Theo nodded as she looked at him with expectancy in her gaze. She thought he was going to ask for more information on how she knew the vampire woman, and most assuredly what had happened in that alley after he left, because that had been the moment he’d felt Hoan’s presence the most. But he wasn’t going to ask her any of that. Not right now, anyway.
“The vampires can’t fly long distances,” he said when he was standing next to his seat at the head of the table. “They have actual bats that carry a poisonous bite, but only lords have the ability to shift into bat form and fly. About a hundred or so miles was the best he could do before floundering. Just before the wind mysteriously picked up, Camden started dipping in the air and his wings hadn’t been strong enough to bring him back up. But I lost him in a tuft of thick clouds.” They’d suddenly littered the sky, sticking together like glue and blocking Theo’s movement.
“We need to get to Camden and fast, before he’s able to do whatever Hoan has asked of him,” Magnum said.
“Right.” Theo nodded. “He’s a pawn in Hoan’s demented game and probably doesn’t even know it.” And while Camden was definitely in his top five of people he didn’t mind seeing dead, Theo wanted it at his hand, not Hoan’s possession.
“Well, if the vamp’s turning into a bat and flying around town now, that’s not going to be as simple as we thought,” Aiken added.
Theo’s gaze immediately went to Ziva.
“It’s your turn,” he said to her. “Tell me how you know Camden’s flunky and then tell me how you plan to get her to cooperate with setting him up.”
Ziva tossed him a heated glance, her eyes taking on the green hue of her dragon.
“I told you that was a long time ago,” Ziva countered.
Theo stood back from the table. He folded his arms over his chest and stared at her. “Which means there’s more to tell.”
Ziva opened her mouth to say something, and Theo narrowed his gaze at her. She hesitated for a moment, a mixture of fury and sadness on her face.
“I had sex with her. A couple of times,” she said. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
This was Ziva’s defense mode—snappy comments, simmering anger and irritableness. It all hid what was actually going on with her. Things Theo really didn’t want to know about except to the extent that it involved this current situation.
“What? How’d I miss that?” Aiken asked.
Ziva shot him a death glare too. “Because you know it’s best to bark up your own horny tree and to not go poking your nose near mine.”
“Right, because my tree is definitely different from yours,” Aiken added with a wiggle of his brow.
“You’re disgusting and ignorant,” she snapped.
“That’s partially true,” Theo added and tossed his own irritated look toward Aiken.
“Look, I liked her, and she liked me. We hooked up a couple of times. Like I told you before, she was human then. I don’t know when Warrick turned her or if he’s even the one who did it,” Ziva explained.
“You slept with that hot ass vampire that tried to suck me dry?” Magnum asked.
“It was a long time ago, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted out of life. I wasn’t inclined to sit around waiting for her to figure it out,” Ziva said.
“And now she’s a vampire.” Theo brought the conversation back to the important part. “And she works closely with Camden.”
“Apparently not close enough to tell us where he was tonight. I mean, before we bumped into him in the alley on our way out,” Ziva said.
“What? You came face-to-face with him again?” Magnum asked. “Did you kick his sorry ass into giving us any information?”
“No,” Theo said through clenched teeth. “We didn’t get that far, and I ended up being face-to-face with his bat, like I said before.”
“We could have fought them though,” Ziva added. “I mean, how many times are we gonna run away when we’re supposed to be the good guys?”
“We run away so that we can live to fight another day. This is not the Far Realm, everything is not about losing your life for the greater good. We’re going to think smarter than that.” Theo believed those words wholeheartedly. At least he had up to this point. Now, he wasn’t so sure they were going to continue working, but he wasn’t ready to tell them that.
“You want to set a trap for Camden to walk into? And then what? What are we going to ask him that we haven’t already figured out at this stage?” Steele asked.
