Page 64 of Awaken the Dragon
She was still standing behind him and Warrick reached around, pulling her until she fell into his lap. Her ass was so plump and landed directly over his crotch. Arousal began quickly as he stared into her almond-toned eyes.
“I’m still angry that you stood me up. A human died because of your action.” Even annoyed, he was still inexplicably drawn to this one and ran his fingers over the intricately designed cornrows that stretched down her back.
She scooted over to him, receiving what Warrick thought was her desired reaction when his hard length rubbed along the soft cheeks of her ass, barely covered by brown leggings she wore.
“I told you I had a good reason.”
He nodded. “Yes, you did. What was that reason? I’ll be the one to say if it was good or not.”
Instead of telling him, Monife reached down into the fitted red vest she wore and pulled out a purple satchel. The satchel had gold cords holding it closed and a gold symbol on its front—a symbol Warrick had seen before, around Shola’s neck.
“A bag?” he asked.
She shook the bag and something rattled inside. Warrick still didn’t understand.
Monife took his hand and turned it palm up. She opened the bag and poured nine rocks into his palm.
Warrick stared down at the shiny stones. “You want me to believe that rocks were the reason you stood me up? If so, I gotta tell you—”
She covered his mouth with a hot-as-hell kiss and when she finally pulled away—while he was panting for more—she whispered, “These are the blessed river rocks Shola needed to kill you. So yeah, you can start figuring out how to thank me now.”
Theo knew something was wrong the moment he jumped out of the truck and ran up the front stairs to the Office.
Things had become totally chaotic at the Tower after Hikeen had pulled his vanishing act. Not only did they have three dead vampires that needed to be disposed of, but their entire security system had started going haywire.
“Heat sensors were flashing on every floor, at every exit door,” Ziva told him when he’d left his office to go upstairs to the suite filled with wall-to-wall monitoring systems.
Isla ran around the room touching screens and cursing as whatever she was trying to do was not working.
“How could there be that many people in the building at one time? It’s after ten in the evening.” Even as he’d asked the question, Theo considered what might really be going on.
“That’s just it, we knew immediately that they couldn’t be people because the heat signatures were exactly the same. No two people, human or preternatural, should have the exact same body temperature at the exact same moment. And they were moving too fast, almost as if they were flying,” Ziva said. “We couldn’t figure it out, but we didn’t want to immediately interrupt the meeting.”
“Then the heat sensors all stopped at once, and every screen in this room went red.” Isla dragged her fingers through her straight black hair until long strands were sticking up in places they shouldn’t.
“What happened?” he asked her.
She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “We were hacked.”
“How the hell did this multi-million-dollar system that you personally designed get hacked?”
“Don’t yell at her,” Ziva said. “It’s not her fault. No matter how good something is, it’s inevitable that something better will come along. Whoever this was did something better.”
Theo wasn’t in the mood to take it that lightly. “Why tonight? Are there any of our client files missing?”
“No,” Isla replied. She moved to another screen, punched a few lighted buttons, and then dragged her hand over the screen as if she were wiping everything away. Every screen in the room turned black.
“Nothing was stolen or tampered with. Once it was over, the system returned to completely normal as if nothing at all had happened.” Isla folded her arms over her chest and huffed. “It was a distraction. A very clever diversion to keep us from seeing something else.”
“Seeing what?” Theo asked.
“Maybe Hikeen didn’t want you to see his exit. We were recording the meeting, and he dropped some pretty big bombs.” Ziva clapped her mouth shut when Theo turned his gaze on her. “I mean, nothing surprising to us, but definitely some revealing things to Shola.”
“He doesn’t give a damn about Shola,” Theo said, but he wasn’t totally sure. Everything Hikeen had revealed had come totally out of the air. Never in a million years would Theo have expected the vampire to know all that stuff, let alone let it spill out in a formal meeting, especially since...they were talking about what to do with a mutual enemy. Unless Warrick wasn’t Hikeen’s enemy at all.
“I’m going back to the Office. Do a second sweep to make sure nothing has been touched, and then I want this building locked down tight. And you, Isla, come back to the Office with Ziva. No questions and no complaints,” he said in a louder, sterner tone than he’d ever used with either of the women.
But something had changed tonight, something that Theo hated to admit but could no longer deny. Their secret was definitely out. By this time tomorrow, every preternatural in Burgess, and most likely a good portion of the Human Realm, would know who he and every member of his team were. They would know that Theo Masters, only son of Torrance the Drakon emperor, was in Burgess with a team of dragons.
