Fury of Obsession (Dragonfury Series Book 5) (20 page)

“It’s no big deal.” Wiping a rogue raindrop from his cheek, Venom tried to downplay his decision. Not that he enjoyed being stuck on defense. Offense, knocking heads together, was much more his style. “Humans woo their females all the time.”

“One problem with that argument,” Rikar said, landing behind Forge without making a sound. Snow blew in, camouflaging the white weave of scales before swirling over his XO’s horned head. “You’re not human.”

True enough.

Pretty good argument all the way around.

Which pushed Venom back into uncertainty. As insecurity poked at him, he started to second-guess himself. Goddamn it. Forge might be right. And judging by everyone else’s reaction, Wick’s included, everyone agreed with Forge. Venom sighed, accepting the truth. Frigging hell. No question. He sat on a limb. A thin one that threatened to snap any second.

“Look.” Blowing out a breath, Venom shook his head, bowing beneath the weight of a good argument. “I’m meeting her tomorrow evening. If it’ll make you all feel better, I’ll kidnap her then.”

“No one’s asking you to kidnap her.” Coming in on a fast glide over tall treetops, Bastian folded his wings. Midnight-blue scales rattled as gravity yanked his commander out of the sky. Huge paws thumped down behind him, flattening frozen blades of grass, making the garage doors jump a second time in one night. “We just don’t want you to lose her, that’s all.”

“Fair enough.” Glancing over his shoulder, he stared at Bastian, then gave in and nodded. “But I do it my way, B. Bring her here by car instead of in flight. I don’t want her to freak out an
d . . .
” He trailed off, meeting each warrior’s gaze in turn, putting a warning in his own. “No one touches her but me or I’ll—”

A creak rippled through the quiet.

Venom’s gaze cut toward the house.

The front door banged open.

Heavy footfalls paused as Sloan stuck his head outside. “Thank Christ. About time you guys got home.”

Magic murmured as Bastian shifted into human form behind him. “Any news?”

“Tons,” Sloan said. “Granite Falls is on somebody’s shit list. Better come inside.”

Already on the move, Venom led the charge and, stepping onto the flagstone path, jogged toward the lair’s main entrance. Six steps up and he crested the top tread. Pace steady, he strode across the porch, pushed the door wider, then followed Sloan over the threshold and into the aboveground lair. The smell of homemade bread drifted down the main corridor. His mouth started to water, but Venom didn’t stop. Or head toward the kitchen and the culinary wizard wielding a baking pan inside it. He took a left instead, moving away from the decadent aroma and what it signaled. The morning meal. Relief for his empty insides. Fuel for mind and body.

His stomach rumbled again.

Temptation tugged, urging him down the opposite hallway, toward Daimler and the promise of extraordinary eats. It would just take a second. A slight correction in his trajectory. No big deal. A minute tops, and he’d grab a slice, slather it with butter and—

Shaking his head, Venom forced his feet to remain on course. Another round of mmm-mmm-good floated down the hallway. His insides tightened on a pang. Venom sighed in resignation. No matter how hungry, he didn’t have time to make a pit stop in Daimler’s domain. Not right now. Not with the boys at his back and Sloan in a tizzy about whatever intel he’d picked up about Granite Falls.

Tragic, really. A shame in more ways than one.

He could already taste the hot cross buns. Smell the cinnamon goodness. Imagine the sugary perfection. Feel the melt-in-your-mouth decadence. Just the thing every male wanted to come home to after a night spent hunting Razorbacks. His sweet tooth whined. Venom stifled a groan of longing and crossed under an archway. Boots thumping on the hardwood floor, he jogged down the stairs and into the living room.

Familiar décor greeted him. Huge double-faced fireplace rising beyond a leather sectional dead ahead. Entertainment center with fifteen comfy chairs and an enormous flat screen to his right. Twin billiard tables to his left. Standing behind the second one, laptop set up and sitting on green felt, Sloan didn’t look up. Absorbed in cyberspace, his fingers flew over the computer keyboard. A wall of windows rose behind him. Clear glass rippled with magic, becoming darker by the moment as Washington State woke under the influence of the rising sun.

An orange line appeared on the horizon.

Covered in frost, the winter landscape sparkled under the warm glow.

Alive with movement now, the windows darkened even further.

A necessary thing. A great protective measure. The magic that protected Black Diamond—and hid the lair from outsiders, human and Dragonkind alike—always reacted at dawn. Tightening its grip. Shutting the house down. Blocking out the sun to prevent deadly UV rays from spilling into the aboveground lair. Excellent all the way around. The spell surrounding the Nightfury lair shielded them all, allowing each warrior to move around during the day without threat of getting fried.

Or suffering the inevitable blindness that would follow.

“Sloan, man,” Venom said, halting opposite his friend. Billiards table acting like a barricade between them, he listened to the clickety-click of computer keys. “Whatcha got?”

“Some kind of epidemic in Granite Falls,” Sloan said, more mumble than words. Fingers still flying over the keyboard, he shook his head. “Nothing on the news yet, but the Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington is taking all the cases. I’m mining the system, looking for medical data to run by Myst, but so far, there’s not much. What I do have doesn’t look good.”

Venom tipped his chin. “Nasty flu bug?”

“Or suspicious circumstances?” Wick asked, rolling in behind him.

Planting both palms on the felt beneath his computer, Sloan looked up from the screen. Mocha skin looking dark in the dimness, worried brown eyes met his. “The CDC has been called in.”

“Motherfuck.” Footfalls silent, Mac skirted the table edge and stopped beside Sloan. Aquamarine eyes on the screen, he shook his head. “Not good. Center for Disease Control—they’ve called in the big boys.”

Forge joined the party, setting up shop opposite Mac. “Which means the doctors donnae know what it is.”

Flanked by the wonder twins, Sloan blew out a breath. “Fifteen cases so far. All in the hospital now. But if the humans don’t know the cause of the outbreak—”

Bastian growled. “Myst won’t know what it is either.”

“Bad news.” Arms crossed over his chest, Rikar leaned his hip against the end of the table and threw B a worried look. “Ivar’s doing?”

“Could be. Good guess.” Palming the back of his neck, Bastian bowed his head and pressed down. Classic move. No mercy either. Hell, Venom could practically hear the muscles bracketing Bastian’s spine squawking from five feet away. Typical of B. Pain focused him. So a nasty stretch with a healthy dose of discomfort? Always an effective stress reliever. “The bastard’s a microbiologist. He knows how to put lethal viral loads together and—”

“The best way to infect a human’s immune system. How to ensure maximum infection rates to inflect major damage,” Rikar said, finishing B’s thought.

“Might go worldwide,” Forge said. “Result in a big death toll.”

“Christ.” Skimming both hands over his skull-trim, Rikar pushed away from the table and pivoted full circle. He looked straight at Venom. “We need to get into this.”

A simple sentence. Harmless on its own. Huge when put together with a biological weapon released into the wilds of human society. Which mean
t . . .

Message sent.

Venom received it just fine. “
We
aren’t doing anything. Not until I check it out first.”

Wariness sparked in B’s gaze. Green eyes glittering in the low light, his commander eyeballed him.

Venom met the perusal head-on, refusing to back down.

“Okay, Ven. You’re on,” B said, relenting, giving him the go-ahead even though it meant sending him into a human town alone. First in. Last out. Kind of like the US Marines. “We’ll take the day. Rest up, take a look at any new data Sloan collects before sunset, then fly to Granite Falls.”

On board with the plan, Wick murmured his assent.

“Good.” Expression thoughtful, Rikar scrubbed his hand over his jaw. Stubble rasped against his fingernails. “We’ll set up a perimeter—seven, maybe ten miles outside of town. Wait for Venom to clear the scene. Once he green-lights it, we’ll—”

“Wait a second.” Brows drawn tight, Mac stared at him. He frowned. Venom smoothed his expression. No sense giving the game away. Smart with an extra helping of curious, the ex-cop would figure it out soon enough. But as Mac shifted focus to drill Rikar with a serious look, then turned to glare at Wick, Venom struggled to keep amusement at bay. His usual silent self, no help on the find-a-clue front, Wick didn’t say a word. Silence swelled. Playing another round of visual merry-go-round, Mac’s gaze bounced over the group, nailing each warrior before he gave up and scowled at Bastian. “No way we’re sending him in there, B. Humans are dropping like flies. Whatever bug Ivar’s cooked up could be contagious to Dragonkind.”

Wick snorted.

Rikar grinned.

Mac frowned harder. “What the hell am I missing?”

“Ven’s a venomous dragon, Mac. One of the most powerful of his kind,” Sloan said, as though the tidbit of information explained everything.

It di
d . . .
in a way.

Not that Mac knew it. At least, not yet.

New to Dragonkind, the new boy still had a lot learn. Raised in the human world and outside a pack, Mac lacked the fundamentals—a lifetime of education, all the information needed to understand their kind. All right, so Mac excelled in combat. Was more than kick-ass when it counted, but knowledge required more than know-how. It required classroom time too. As the male’s mentor, Forge would ensure Mac completed the handbook—thick-paged monstrosity that it was—but until then, he’d remain a few pallets shy of a full load on the information front.

So today’s lesson? A rundown on the unique subsets of Dragonkind.

Each subset carried different DNA markers that ensured a myriad of talents. As a frost dragon, Rikar commanded ice and snow, the wind and weather too. Mac, freak show that he was, controlled water. Wick and Forge shared an element—fire, although each warrior wielded it in different ways. Forge’s exhale combined fire and scale-eating acid. Wick, on the other hand, was a lava dragon—his weapon of choice a fireball with three layers of lethal that sent Razorbacks running. Sloan, however, broke the mold, spinning talent in new and interesting directions. An earth dragon with scorpion venom in his exhale, the Nightfury IT genius harnessed the energy of the earth, controlling plant life, whipping sand into raging storms, controlling animals when necessary. And Bastian? His commander outdid them all. A lightning dragon, B unleashed his freaky, neurotoxic exhale on a regular basis, zapping enemy soldiers an
d . . .
ahem, frying urban electrical grids on more than one occasion.

Last but not least—him.

A venomous dragon, he was so poisonous anything he came into direct contact with died. Sometimes slowly. Other times within seconds. Zip. Bang. Gone. Toxicity without limitation or end—skin and bone, muscles and blood, every cell in his body venomous from the inside out. Which explained the short timeframe he adhered to with the fairer sex. Too much of him and a female would become ill. Prolonged contact meant certain death for her and a truckload of guilt for him. All in the past. Enter the future. With Evelyn in the picture, he could touch and taste—spend as much time as he wanted—without fear of hurting her, even a little bit.

Thank God.

Finally. Someone to call his own. Someone to spoil. Someone to hold, lounge in bed with after bone-melting sex instead of making a fast exit in the aftermath.

Clearing his throat, Venom broke the stalemate. “Probably should know something about me, Mac.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m toxic,” he murmured, surprised when the admission didn’t bother him. It had for as long as he could remember. Then again, he hadn’t had hope then. No faith either. With a single encounter, Evelyn had restored both without even knowing it. Walking around to join Sloan on the other side of the table, he palmed Mac’s shoulder. The move was all about reassurance. And surprise, surprise? Mac accepted it without hesitation. “So poisonous, there isn’t a biohazard, pathogen, contagio
n . . .
whateve
r . . .
that can infect me. Safest bet is to send me into Granite Falls first. If I can locate the source of the virus, I can kill it.”

Mac raised a brow. “Preventing any more humans from becoming infected.”

“Exactly,” Forge murmured, giving Mac a playful shove.

As the new boy cursed, Bastian smiled. “Sun’s up, boys. Daimler’s waiting for us. Grab some grub, then get some shut-eye. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

Good plan.

But as the boys bugged out, heading toward the dining room and the promise of the Numbai’s cooking like a pack of wild dogs, Venom grabbed Sloan’s shirtsleeve. In the process of shutting down his computer, his buddy paused. Dark eyes met his a second before Sloan raised a brow.

“Got a minute?” he asked, watching the last Nightfury disappear into the dining room.

One hand curved over the top of his laptop, Sloan tipped his chin. “What do you need?”

“Info.”

“About what?”

“A female.”

“On the hunt, are you?” When he shrugged, Sloan’s mouth curved. With a flick of his fingers, he powered the MacBook Air back up and opened a search window. “Name?”

“Evelyn Victoria Foxe,” he said, feeling self-conscious. All kinds of guilty too. Venom grimaced. Shit. He shouldn’t be digging into her life. It felt too much like spying. Like an invasion of her privacy, but wel
l . . .
hell. Compulsion kept yanking his chain. Worry and suspicion too. Something was off. Very, very
wrong
. Nothing else explained her presence inside the Luxmore tonight—never mind her reason for being there. She was in trouble. Was afraid of something or maybe—Venom frowned—being threatened by someone. “Foxe with an
e
.”