Page 58 of Awaken the Dragon
“I want to know how Hoan contacted him and why him specifically. Shola hadn’t been born when she was promised to Camden. But Camden’s not a member of the Royal Blood, so how was he even on Hoan’s radar as a candidate for this marriage in the first place?”
“Enes won’t talk to me,” Ziva said. “You saw how she acted at the club tonight.”
Theo looked at her, hoping she could see past the flurry of emotions going through her at the moment to the fact that he was only trying to get to the bottom of this situation. He wasn’t prying into her business or attempting to tell her how to live her life. Outside of this company, Ziva was on her own. What she did and who she did it with was not his concern. Unless she ended up hurt, and then, he wouldn’t hesitate to defend or avenge her if necessary.
“I saw what looked like two people with a world of emotion flowing between them. I think she’s more open to talking or any other type of persuasion if it comes from you,” he told her.
Ziva stood. She planted her palms on the table and leaned in while staring at Theo.
“Are you telling me to use sex to get the advantage over her?”
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “We’re above that. I expect you to be above that. But your connection with her will get you through her door. How you work extracting information from her is up to you. I’d like a report by tomorrow night.”
“Really, Theo? Because you want a report I’m supposed to backtrack into my past and drudge up a situation I had a hard time releasing in the first place. Yeah, that’s about right,” she continued with a nod of her head. “Theo is the emotionless one of all of us. He’s the one who accepts and assigns the cases and refrains from having any type of personal life or emotional connections. Because that’s what he’s good at. His simmering anger from two hundred years ago fuels his every action. But little ol’ me, I’m just a mess with showing my emotions and expecting things from others. So I guess that makes me expendable.”
“Stop,” he said slowly, yet forcefully. “That’s not what I meant, and this outburst isn’t necessary.”
“Oh you bet your ass it’s necessary! Just like you sleeping with the little vampire hunter is necessary. But when she’s gone back to her precious village, you’ll be standing right where I am with a memory of something you didn’t have the guts to make into a real thing!”
Ziva stormed out of the conference room before Theo could respond. The others looked at him, waiting for him to explain the part about him sleeping with Shola, he assumed. But Theo didn’t speak a word on any of that.
“We need to talk about our contingency plan,” he continued and took his seat. “Because if this doesn’t go the way we want it to, we may be facing something much more ominous than we thought.”
And the choice Theo was certain he’d already made, might need to be addressed, again.
Chapter Twenty
When Theo stepped into her room, Shola immediately felt her balance returning. When had that happened? It was the same feeling she obtained after praying on her altar. The same, but different. Before he’d come to her door, she’d been filled with anxiety and energy. She wanted to go back out and tackle that mysterious sludge that had attacked her, to get back on the streets and hunt for Warrick because an impatience had begun to fill her spirit. Things needed to end. All of these dangling loose ends needed to be gone.
And then what?
As he’d walked past her and she closed the door behind him, Shola’s heart stopped racing. Her thoughts still circled around the pending matters, but her mind had cleared enough to see that something about Theo was different from when she’d seen him earlier.
The dark blue jeans and black shirt he wore were different from earlier at the club. He would have changed when his dragon returned to the Office this evening. There’d been no time for her to be in awe of the magnificent beast tonight; too much was going on. So much that it still ran races in her mind. And all of that took a second seat to the flip-flop of her stomach the moment he turned back to stare at her.
There was the difference. This balance was new and intriguing, while before she’d left the altar steady and focused.
“I needed to see you after everything that happened, but you weren’t in the conference room when I came down,” he said.
“I am not part of your team,” she replied.
He shook his head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
He was staring at her with a slight frown. “Back down. Earlier you told me that you were either coming with us to the club or you were going in alone. I took you with us. That made you part of the team.”
Shola nodded. “And what about after the job is done?”
She hadn’t realized that was a concern until the question slipped from her lips.
“I can’t think about after until this is done and you’re safe. Camden is still out there, as well as the one he’s partnered with. I believe it’s the Dark One that your father made the deal with.”
Shola thought about what he’d just said. “Yes,” she replied. “I did not connect the two. Oya’s stories of him said he used to be able to walk the realms in his true dark form, but that for centuries he was only able to appear as smoke and liquid.”
“You saw him?” Concern and a touch of anger were evident in his voice.
“When we tried to drive away, the liquid or sludge that had been on the ground wrapped around my legs. Ziva got us away from it but when I looked through the rearview mirror, it was a man. Or at least the form of a man in a hooded robe.”
