Page 50 of Tempt the Dragon
Like any other annoyance, it was better to ignore him. “What’s up?” he asked Theo as he took the seat beside Mel.
Steele and Magnum were seated at the table along with Reese. Theo and Bleu were standing.
“The others can jump in when they arrive. Let’s get started.” Theo pulled out the chair he normally sat in whileBleu activated the holographic screen behind him.
Crime scene photos flashed rapidly. Ones from the apothecary and then from the other two places where witches were found dead. When the ones from the Royal Blood headquarters popped up all eyes fell on him.
“Remind me again, was that part of our plan?”
Before this was all over Aiken was gonna have to kick Reese’s ass.
“In Aiken’sdefense, Montoy really was poking at the sleeping beast.” All eyes flashed to Mel. It was a quick shift, one which had Theo’s brow raising. “What? It’s true. The guy never planned to give us any real answers. He just sat there on that ugly ass chair tossing his own questions and hollow assumptions back at us. It was infuriating.”
“I can imagine,” Theo chimed in just as Reese had opened hismouth to speak. Saving the Drakon’s life, no doubt.
“It wasn’t my intent to do a lot of damage, just to shut the bastard up.” If the wall of fire he’d created so they could get away safely had managed to kill the Chief Lord in the process, he wouldn’t have been torn up about it at all. “And Mel’s right, he wasn’t giving us any answers.”
“What about Enes? You mentioned when we first returnedthat she was there.” What Steele was really asking was if Enes had acted as if she were going to protect the Chief Lord or was she still on their side.
Aiken shrugged. “She didn’t say much and truthfully I didn’t pay that much attention to her.”
“I did,” Mel spoke up. “I don’t think she wanted to be there any more than we did. When she walked out, she didn’t have that same swagger theother vamps did. And the answers she gave, like Montoy’s, didn’t really tell us anything.”
“Do you think she knows where Duncan is and just isn’t telling us?” Magnum asked.
“I don’t know,” Mel replied. “She just didn’t seem forthcoming, but that could’ve been part of the plan. Or it could’ve been because she intended to give the important information to Ziva when they were alone. I justcan’t say since I don’t know her all that well.” But she’d done exactly as Aiken had instructed her, she’d paid attention to everything that was going on in that room. She hadn’t liked him instructing her, he knew that without a doubt, but she’d taken what he’d said and applied it during an assignment. That made the beast within smile.
Another picture flashed on the screen behind Theo. Itwas Riya Merriwell’s house.
“Shit! What happened? Is Riya alright?” he asked and felt the waves of worry rolling off Mel.
“Someone burned her house down?” Mel asked, her voice tight with mounting emotion.
“Detective Milton Posner paid us a little visit at the Tower tonight. He had lots of questions about you two. Nothing we couldn’t handle, but the most interesting part of the meetingwas when the detective informed us that a truck that resembles one of our vehicles was spotted leaving the Royal Blood headquarters right after the fire started. That same truck was also identified as being at all three of the witches’ places of business before their deaths were called in to the enforcers.” Theo paused, as if to let all that sink in.
Aiken lowered a hand, reaching betweenthe chairs to grab Mel’s where it rested on her lap. She immediately latched on, squeezing as her heart thumped.
“That’s straight bullshit!” she snapped.
“Riya Merriwell was found burned to death. The three Legion guards we had stationed at her house were also killed. Bleu managed to hack into the medical examiner’s database and put in a request for an autopsy for all four of them.” Theokept his tone level, but the flicker of bright color in his eyes said he was barely holding on to his irritation, as well.
Aiken cursed, his beast filling with rage and bringing Mel’s along for the ride. “They’re trying to set us up.” It was the only reason for this meeting and for Posner going to the Tower. “If they can point the enforcers in our direction, we’ll be so preoccupied tryingto prove our innocence we won’t see what they do next.”
“But we’re gonna play this one step ahead of them,” Bleu interjected. “We’re going to multitask. Proving your innocence will take second seat to getting to that burial site first. Once we take care of one thing, the other will take care of itself.”
“Unless the otherworldly has been exposed,” Mel said. “Remember, Posner asked if Ibelieved in witches? He knows there’s another element at play here.”
“He knows only what we confirm,” Magnum stated coldly. “If we don’t play into his hands, he won’t have any more proof. Whatever he’s thinking will be all he knows, but he won’t go to his superiors with a hunch about witches. They’ll laugh him off the job, because while there are some humans who believe in the preternatural,there are far many more who don’t.”
“But if he knew about them then we could just explain about the vampire army and maybe get his help stopping Montoy instead of keeping everyone in the dark,” Aiken said, knowing that now was definitely not the time or place to have this conversation about them coming out to all the world. To piggyback off what Mag had just said, there were some humans whomight find it easy to believe somebody’s practicing witchcraft, but accepting a living breathing dragon walking in their city was a whole different story. Theo’s frown echoed Aiken’s thoughts.
“What’s the play?” Reese asked, and for once Aiken was glad he’d spoken.
“Like Bleu said, we get to that burial site and dispatch their efforts to bring those vampires back to life,” Theo said.
Mel sat up straight, her hand still in his, but her full attention was on Theo and whatever plan he was about to roll out. She was ready for battle and it was a lovely sight to see, but for that small hint of dread he’d been carrying since their earlier fly together.
“And how are we supposed to do that? We don’t know where the burial site is, nor do we know how to stop vampires from comingonto the scene and digging their ancients up from the ground. If that’s even how they plan to do it. We just don’t have enough information to do any of these things right now. And we don’t have a whole lot of time to keep chasing Duncan around Burgess.” Steele sounded exasperated, and right.
