Page 45 of Tempt the Dragon
Chapter Twelve
Enes had been following him all night. After the fire at Montoy’s house the day before yesterday, she’d known he’d make a move. Now, she pulled up next to his car. With gloved hands she removed her helmet and stared at the tinted windows of the car. Montoy had given it to him right after he arrived. He’d given him money and an apartment too. Anything to get Montoy closerto that ancient burial ground. Anything to get Montoy more power. That’s all the Chief Lord could think about.
Stepping off her bike, she kicked the stand down to keep it parked, then walked across frozen grass toward the front door. That’s when she picked up the scent. Her mouth watered and she stared around into the darkness trying to pinpoint its source. Changing course, she walked aroundto the side of the house, booted feet making deep crunching footprints in the snow. There was another set of footprints alongside hers, moving in the same direction.
Three bodies were piled, one on top of the other, and pushed up against the side of the dilapidated house, blood still dripping from wounds at their neck and wrists.
“Fuck!” Now, she stomped back around to the front of thehouse. She was so tired of doing this, so exhausted by the wholekill to survivemotto vampires lived by. Her life as a human had been full of fighting and now, in this other life, she seemed destined for the same ending.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He was too cocky to ever think somebody would follow him. Too arrogant to believe he’d ever get caught.
The stench of blood insidethe house was even more powerful than it had been outside. This time she had to swallow a few times before she could look around to see where it was coming from. Her gaze froze on the wall where a bloody handprint was smeared, then the curtain in the doorway that had blood spatter. But that wasn’t enough to make her stomach churn and the seemingly insatiable hunger pump through her. It was on theother side of that curtain, a puddle in the floor she was betting, and somewhere else inside that part of the house would be the dead body.
“What happened? Who’re those men outside and why’d you kill them?”
He shrugged. “Some type of security guards, I guess. It’s nothing you need to worry about.” He walked around her pushing the door she’d just come through closed and grabbed the cansitting there. “Now get lost. This is not a place you want to be in the next thirty seconds.”
He was pouring something out of the can—gasoline—spreading it around the perimeter of the room. “Wait a minute, you’re planning to burn this place down. You’ve got to be kidding me? What’s Montoy going to say?”
Obviously not deterred by anything she said, he continued to move around the room.“Well done. Good job. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what he says. As long as the check clears.”
“You’re bringing a lot of heat to town. Those at the Capitol won’t like it.” How many times had she been forced to listen to all the rules and regulations those at the Capitol expected to be followed by all the Royal Blood? Rules that basically castrated the Lords from ruling as they pleased. Warrickhad hated them with a passion and yet had been so heartbroken because they wouldn’t let him in. All she could do now was shake her head at how things had turned out for the vampire who’d changed her and now, ultimately, for her.
Duncan tossed the can across the room and laughed. “You got jokes.”
“No. I got good sense. This won’t play out well. You should’ve just—”
In a flash he wasright in her face, smelling like the gasoline he’d just poured and more blood. He leaned in close, baring his teeth and she knew in those seconds he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her too. Another time, another place, and definitely another vampire, and she might’ve been scared. Her stomach rumbled again and she stepped around him, to glance at the blood on the floor. She’d come straight here from thetownhouse where she still stayed after Warrick’s death, hadn’t stopped to feed before going about her nightly business. It wasn’t often that she needed blood. Warrick had trained her not to solely depend on it for sustenance. Food could suffice for a period of time, but ultimately, it was the blood that would keep her functioning at full capacity.
“You don’t get to roll up in here and changemy plans. And look at me when I’m speaking to you,” he ordered. He was a moody vamp, kinda like a newborn, high on the power he thought he had over Montoy. But she knew better. Montoy was just entertaining this fool, the same way he’d done with Warrick. The Chief Lord always had a backup plan and if this joker couldn’t deliver on getting them onto that burial ground so that Montoy could raise hisancestors, he was as good as dead.
Turning to him slowly didn’t mean she was doing his bidding. He was a newbie in Burgess and while he had Montoy’s ear for the moment, she didn’t bow to him or anyone else. “You don’t get to come into my town and start fuckin’ up what we’ve got to live with after you’re long gone. Now, the best thing to do is just walk out of here.”
He was a very handsomeman, she’d give him that. Not quite six feet tall, skin the color of pecan pie and a smile that she knew made women want to drop to their knees and worship every part of his well-toned body. She wasn’t mesmerized by the hype.
“Whatchu’ gonna do to stop me?” Lifting his lips, he let his teeth show again, a medium growl escaping with the action.
She didn’t budge, because again, he was thenewbie here, not her. And the one good thing she could say about Warrick was that he’d been a damned good teacher, especially at dealing with situations outside the purview of the Royal Blood. She bared her teeth in response, but to add a little more firepower since he was a prick and would be inclined to think that her smaller stature posed less of a threat, she pulled the semiautomatic weaponfrom the holder at her back and moved fast to put it to his temple. “Don’t fuck with me, I’m not Montoy. I know you’ve been killing those witches, just like you killed those guards the dragons placed here to watch your sister. All that bullshit stops tonight. We don’t need this kind of heat.”
“The dragons brought the heat first, I’m just givin’ it to them in return. And while you’re talkingabout Montoy, how do you think he’d feel if he knew you were cozying up to a dragon?” She didn’t waver. “Yeah, I see you blinking, trying to stay cool. But I’ve also seen you sneaking around at the club with that dragon bitch. You fuckin’ her or just feeding from her? She’s fine though, I give you that much. Still, I think Montoy would find your obsession with her kinda interesting. Don’t you?”
So what, he thought he knew about her and Ziva. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking him not to tell Montoy. “You’re gonna get us all killed.”
“No, baby girl, I’m gonna revive the vampire world, and when I’m done, I’ll be above even Montoy. I’m gonna rule that army of ancients the minute they push through the dirt. They’ll do my bidding and so will everyone else on this realm.That means if I wanna get some payback on some cocky dragons, so be it.”
“I won’t let you do this.”
“Then walk away, because if you kill me, Montoy’s gonna burn your ass and you know it!” The last was said with all the confidence of a new vampire who thought he was holding all the cards. But she let him walk away from her and the gun. She watched him strike a match and toss it to the floorbefore she moved out of the house. Once on her bike she let her hand with the gun rest on her thigh as she watched Duncan leave the house that was already filling with flames.
He had a big grin on his face while walking to his car. She stared him down as he got in and started the engine. And the moment he pulled off she took her phone out of the inside pocket of her jacket and made the callshe should’ve made instead of coming here in the first place. It was time Temptra knew her little experiment was going off the rails.
At almost seven in the evening Theo had already received two urgent messages—one from Shola and another from Bleu. They both wanted to speak to him alone when he returned to the Office. He was still sitting behind his desk at the Tower having a long overduemeeting with Magnum and Steele about Legion Security clients that weren’t currently affected by the vicious Royal Blood and their quest to become even more dangerous, or dead witches who had superior security systems that somehow managed not to catch any part of their murders.
“We’ve got the Revival Concert covered with guards on each of the attending artists and a team that will spread throughoutthe amphitheater during rehearsals and the night of the show.” Magnum was reading from the tablet he hated using but held dutifully in one hand.
“Didn’t we do the security system for that place when it was built a few years back?” Theo had the holographic screen open on his desk because it gave him a view of multiple files at once. A blueprint of the amphitheater was up in the corner and heused a finger to drag it to the center before tapping twice to enlarge it.
“We did, but they haven’t requested any updates. Daily monitoring is still operational, so we can have Isla do a clean sweep before and during the show.” Steele didn’t mind using his tablet, mainly because it not only contained all his client information for the security company, but also the logistic plans for Safesideabove and belowground. That place had become a big part of Steele’s focus, but Theo didn’t mind, especially after learning that Ravyn had first created the underground space to protect disadvantaged citizens who were being abused by the corrupt government structure within the city. In the months since she and Steele had expanded to an aboveground facility, as well, the Legion had hired more guardsto work the area of the city where they were located and had used more experienced agents to investigate some of the corruption complaints.
