Fury of Seduction (Dragonfury Series #3) (3 page)

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make it better.

Heavy heart weighing on her, Tania jogged up the front steps, her focus now on the entrance. Flanked on one side by a monstrous green wall, the glass doors weren’t much to look at, and yet every time she saw them she wondered the same thing. How could the entryway to a prison look so ordinary? So run-of-the-mill? So office building pleasant? The effect—or camouflage...whatever—seemed a sort of sacrilege. As though the perfectly manicured flower beds with their red chrysanthemums and sculpted shrubbery belied the true nature of the place. Hid the ugliness that went on beyond the tailored front entrance day in and day out.

Mounting the last step, Tania walked across the landing and swung one door wide. The hinges hissed behind her, the sound soft and familiar as she crossed the small entryway and into the hallway beyond. The fast clip of her boot heels echoed along the empty corridor, joining the harsh buzz of fluorescent lights overhead.

Silence prevailed, no murmur of voices or clang of reinforced steel bars. Odd, really. She usually arrived with the late afternoon rush—amid the chatter of an excited crowd as each person waited to be allowed in to visit loved ones. But now? The absence of sound struck her as eerie. And for some reason...dangerous. A kind of calm before the storm reserved for horror movies...you know, the moment right before the psycho jumped out and massacred somebody.

Rubbing her upper arms to chase away the chill, Tania kept herself moving. Her wet soles squeaked against the
floor tiles, cranking her tighter as she turned the corner into the—

“Ah, Ms. Solares. There you are.”

The voice slithered from the far side of the room. Tania went rigid. White-knuckling her purse strap, she scanned the glass booth in front of the door to the visitor area. Nothing. No Griggs. The weasel wasn’t in his usual spot. She looked to her left. Ah, crap. He was unleashed, out roaming the waiting area instead of caged behind the command center. But even worse than that bit of bad news? The second guard that usually worked the evening shift wasn’t with him.

Terrific. No go-between, which meant no buffer to keep him in line.

Raising a brow, he tossed the magazine he held onto a scarred side table. Leather steel-toes creaking, he stepped around a double row of chairs in the middle of the room. As he walked toward her, Tania made a beeline for the front counter.

“You’re late, Solares. What gives?”

She shrugged. “Car trouble.”

“Really,” he said, tone edged with sarcasm. He didn’t believe her. Tania didn’t blame him. She never told him the truth. About anything. The weasel was a chronic snoop: calling her at home, contacting her boss under the guise of completing prison records, digging into her background until he unearthed the fact her good-for-nothing father had walked out on her mother, abandoning Tania a week before her second birthday. Which, of course, he used to belittle her every chance he got, poking at the open wound the way a sadist taunted a cornered animal with a sharp stick. “I could help with that if you’d—”

“Nothing my mechanic couldn’t handle,” she said, her tone so sweet it made her teeth ache.

“So disappointing.” He hooked his thumbs on his leather utility belt, drawing attention to the gun holstered at his hip. “Why not be nice to me, Solares? Give your sister a few perks on the inside?”

Tania’s stomach rolled. The greasy jerk.

Ignoring his creep factor, she stopped at the high counter. The overhead lights reflected in the glass that rose from counter to ceiling. She kept her eyes forward but her peripheral vision sharp as Griggs came alongside her. If he so much as touched her, she’d—

The weasel flicked at the end of her ponytail with his fingertip.

She shifted sideways, hating his proximity, and planted herself in front of the rectangular opening in the glass partition. Her chin level, she met his gaze head-on, then glanced toward the wall-mounted camera at the rear of the booth. “Smile, you’re on camera.”

His gaze followed her sight line. Tania swallowed the urge to crow in triumph. She’d outflanked him. Standing where she was, the security camera was all seeing. One wrong move, and the warden would have a bird’s-eye view.

“Smart girl,” he murmured loud enough for her to hear. Her stomach churned as he brushed by her. Anger perfuming the air around him, he opened the door into the command booth and stepped inside. His back to the camera, he leered at her. “Let’s see how well you do on the way out. I’m off at seven,
sweetheart
, and got nothing to do but wait.”

Until visiting hours were over.

He didn’t say the words. He didn’t need to. Tania knew what he meant. The bastard was escalating, moving past veiled threats to outright intimidation. Though what Griggs thought he could do in a parking lot monitored by security equipment, she didn’t know. Follow her maybe? Figure out where she’d booked her hotel room for the night? Well, she wished him luck with that one. She drove like a speed demon, better than most race car drivers. He’d never catch her once she hit the blacktop stretching between the prison and Gig Harbor. She and her Mini would be long gone before the jerk clued in and put his 4x4 in drive.

Thank God for high-powered performance engines. Oh how she loved her wicked smart mechanic.

Clearing her throat, Tania put the kibosh on her amusement. Laughing at him would only make Griggs meaner, and cranking him up another notch? Not a good idea.

Wasn’t power grand?

And here—inside the prison walls—Griggs possessed the ultimate leverage, every bit of authority. But no matter how many times he insinuated that her sister’s chances at parole would increase one hundredfold if Tania decided to be “nice” to him, she refused to play that game. J.J. would kill her, for one thing. And for another? She didn’t sleep around—or trade sexual favors.

Ever.

Now all she needed to do was get through the security check. Without kicking Griggs in the balls with her fancy new boots. If she didn’t, J.J. would suffer the consequences. No way Tania would allow that to happen. Or give in and let the scum-sucking weasel win.

Nightfall couldn’t come fast enough. Ivar wanted out of 28 Walton Street and the confining spaces inside the Razorback lair. And away from the thoughts banging around inside his head. He needed the rush and chill of winter against his scales. Yearned to shift into dragon form, stretch his wings, and soar above the cityscape. To hunt the female down before he lost his mind.

He was dangerously close to the edge already. Way off base with no hope of pulling back to the saner side of safe anytime soon.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Ivar hung his head. He cupped the back of his neck and pressed down. Discomfort nagged at him. He pulled harder, stretching tense muscles, distracting himself with physical pain as an ache of another sort expanded inside his chest. Like a surgeon with rib spreaders, the sorrow cracked him wide open, engulfing his chest cavity, devouring what little remained of his heart. He closed his eyes, combating the mind-fuck of unimaginable loss.

Or at least, it had been...until three weeks ago. Until his warriors had returned and delivered the terrible news.

Lothair—his best friend and XO—was gone. Dead. Murdered by his enemies.

Now he choked on the grief. And didn’t know how to handle the pain. He’d never been one for sentiment or brotherly love. Emotional excess belonged to other males—weaker ones with attachment issues—not him. Never him. Death, after all, happened more often than not. Was as inevitable as the rise and setting of the sun in the war he fought against the Nightfuries and the Dragonkind males that supported his enemies’ cause.

But losing Lothair...

Fuck him, that hurt. More than he’d thought possible.

Planting his elbows on his knees, Ivar raised his head and stared at the wall opposite him. With all the lights off, the row of plasma TVs should’ve faded into the darkness, leaving the flat screens indistinguishable from the wall. But he saw everything in high-definition. Even from behind the dark lenses of his Oakleys, his night vision was pinpoint sharp, throwing each detail into stark relief: the textured surface of sea grass wallpaper, the fine grain in the bamboo floorboards, the crystal glass and empty bottle of Jim Beam sitting on the marble-topped bar.

Sucking back the JB hadn’t helped. Hadn’t put a dent in the pain or given him the oblivion he craved. Nothing ever did. Clarity was his cross to bear—always sticking with him, laying out the best course of action like playing cards in a poker game. Logical. Straightforward. Precise. His mind never failed to see all the angles, which meant he needed to get off his ass. Go hunting. Set the wheels of plan A in motion and avenge his friend.

Too bad daylight was screwing with his flow.

His brows drawn, Ivar pinched the bridge of his nose and took off his wraparounds. Fingering the twin arms, he twirled the sunglasses between the spread of his thighs. The pair were his favorites, something he always wore in human form, but things changed. He was done with the bullshit. Done lying to himself. Done apologizing for the flaw in his chromosomal DNA...for the bright pink eyes he’d been born with and ridiculed for all his life.

“Weak,” his sire had said. A color worn by newborn babies and little girls, not warriors.

Well, fuck that. Eye color was the least of who he was...or what he’d become, a powerful male in command of the Razorback nation. Throw in his scientific expertise and...shit. What the hell was he doing living in the past and hiding behind dark lenses? His pansy-ass pink irises meant next to nothing in the scheme of things. Lothair hadn’t given a rat’s ass about his genetic shortcoming, so why the hell should he?

Pushing to his feet, Ivar dropped the Oakleys. The pair landed with a clatter on the hardwood. His eyes narrowed on the black frames, he lifted his foot and crushed them beneath his boot heel, enjoying the snap-crackle’n-pop as he ground them into the floor and—

“Hey, boss man.” The German accent drifted through the closed door behind him. “Need a word.”

With a mental click, Ivar flipped the dead bolt with his mind and swung the door wide. Well-oiled hinges sighed as light from the corridor spilled over the threshold, illuminating the darkness. Squinting against the glare, Ivar tilted his head, inviting Denzeil into his domain. “What did you find?”

A determined glint in his eyes, Denzeil crossed the threshold, long legs eating up the space between them. He stopped on the other side of the bed, a pale manila folder in his hand. “The female isn’t home.”

“Where is she?”

“I got nothing on her car. It’s an older model...no GPS to track.”

“But?” Ivar said, waiting for the punch line. Denzeil wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t show up—put himself on Ivar’s radar or in the line of fire—unless he had intel to share.

D smiled, but his dark gaze remained flat. No echo of humor. No spark of pleasure. And rightly so. Lothair’s murder had hit all the Razorbacks hard. No one would be laughing for a while. And if his warrior felt so inclined? Ivar would work the male out so hard it would take him weeks to recover from the beat down. “Her credit card was used at a hotel in Gig Harbor.”

Ivar’s brows collided. “Where the fuck is that?”

“A couple of hours south...near Tacoma, off I-95.”

“We leave at sunset. Inform the others.”

“Ten four.” With a nod, Denzeil tossed the folder onto the king-size bed. As the file’s contents spilled onto the duvet, the male said, “One more thing, boss.”

Ivar tipped his chin, asking without words.

“Rodin called from Prague an hour ago. He’s looking for—”

“Fuck.” Just what he didn’t need...Rodin, leader of the Archguard, snooping around.

Lothair’s sire was a pain in the ass. More so in recent days. But money talked, so Ivar couldn’t afford to walk. Not yet. Not until he received another infusion of cash. The breeding program and his supervirus experiments were
barely off the ground. Add in the fact the new lair needed additional work to take the construction from half-done to complete, and having a wealthy patron with deep pockets was priority number one.

Funding. Soldiers. Intel about the political climate within Dragonkind ranks. You name it, Rodin provided it.

Too bad the male couldn’t keep his yap shut. The aristocratic know-it-all liked to be kept in the loop, which was annoying as hell, but having an influential member of the Archguard—head of one of the dynastic families that ruled Dragonkind—under his thumb furthered the Razorback cause. So, yeah...keeping Rodin happy ranked as important.

Powerful friends, after all, made excellent allies.

Which meant lying his ass off to keep Rodin in the dark awhile longer. Oh, he would tell him of Lothair’s death...eventually. But not before Ivar made the male responsible for his friend’s death pay first. The murdering SOB belonged to him, not Rodin’s death squad.

So, step one...keep it quiet and off Rodin’s radar.

Step two? Find Tania Solares.

Lothair had hunted her before his death. Was Solares the last high-energy female he needed to round out phase one of the breeding program? No clue. But after checking out her picture, Ivar suspected it would be a whole helluva lot of fun finding out, so...