Love Burns (9 page)

Principe Quinton Teague crouched behind a cluster of quaking aspens near the small hunting cabin where he’d set up the meeting and glanced at his watch again, as he had dozens of times already. The stiff breeze rustling the treetops failed to quell the anger that boiled up inside him.

As he scanned the cabin, a tremor of nervousness ran through him . Due to the nature of his visit, he had come alone, without any backup, and he was facing a dragon assassin. An assassin who’d royally screwed him over.

That was why he’d showed up an hour early and concealed himself in the woods outside the cabin, laden with pistols and a rifle, all with silver-tipped bullets. He’d driven there in one of his personal vehicles, wearing civilian clothes. He was going as incognito as possible.

He’d been trying to get hold of Sergei for the last week and a half, the son of a bitch. He’d only hired Sergei to scare his daughter, not try to kill her.

The burn on her arm – fine. Teague was okay with a little injury to bring his wayward daughter into line. Frankly, she deserved it, for so many reasons. She deserved it for refusing to join his clan, for sticking up for her mother – that treacherous bitch – and for showing him disrespect and refusing to go along with his perfectly reasonable plans to find her a suitable mate.

But blasting her with fire at her house, then picking up her car like that with clear plans to drop it into a gorge – Sergei had openly tried to murder her. Teague was angry at his daughter, sure. He wanted to humiliate her. Teach her a lesson. Force her to listen to reason, force her to admit that Teague was right. Make her marry a man who’d teach her some respect.

But he didn’t want her dead.

After the attack at Olivia’s house, Quinton had repeatedly tried to text Sergei from his burner phone, ordering him to call the whole thing off. Sergei hadn’t answered. Finally, today, Sergei had sent him an outrageous text with instructions to meet him here at this cabin…with an additional hundred thousand dollars in gold bars. If Quinton didn’t show, Sergei would reveal everything.

So Quinton was going to kill him, of course.

He wasn’t stupid. When he’d hired Sergei, he’d made sure that there was nothing to trace the attacks back to him.

Or was he? Sergei was late. Was he even coming?

He began pacing in the dirt, muttering under his breath.

The wind blew harder, carrying with it a smell of rotting meat. Quinton’s heart froze in his chest. Rotting meat?

It was ten minutes past the hour now, and there was no sign of Sergei approaching. There was no one in the area at all. Nobody flying, nobody driving up the long dirt road.

He walked over towards the cabin.

The smell grew stronger as he approached.

When he got to the threshold he hesitated. He knew the smell of death; there was a decomposing corpse in that cabin. He heard a clicking sound.

Heart jack-hammering in his chest, he turned and ran for his life, shifting as his legs frantically churned through the weeds.

The cabin exploded, turning into a massive fireball. The sound shook the earth, and he felt a wave of heat roll over him. If he hadn’t shifted into dragon form, it would have scorched him to death where he stood.

He turned around clumsily to face the cabin, his long tail brushing through the shrubs on the other side of the road. The cabin was a ball of fire, and a blackened human arm lay in the road.

Quinton poked his snout closer to look at it. The arm was covered with scales, as if the person had been killed mid-shift.

And the smell of decay, underneath the smell of charring...

The unique coloring of the scales revealed that they were Russian dragon shifter scales.

Sergei couldn’t have sent him the text this morning. He’d been dead for days. Long enough to start decomposing. Maybe for a week or more.

So he hadn’t been the one to launch the fatal attacks on Quinton’s daughter. He might have carried out the first attack, simply burning her arm and scaring her, but the later attacks…Sergei had been dead when those had happened.

Quinton’s heart hammered in his chest and he struggled to breathe. Who had been attacking Olivia? Whoever was behind all this had tried to lure Quinton to his death. They’d taken Sergei’s phone and sent him a fake text to get him to come out to the cabin, and rigged it with explosives set to go off when he entered.

Was it all over for Quinton? His luxurious life, his prestigious job? If it were found out that he’d hired the dragon assassin, he’d probably be blamed for actually trying to have his daughter killed, even though that had never been his intention. He stomped on the dirt and blew out a stream of fire twenty feet in the air. It was so unfair!

Finally he calmed down and forced himself to think about his next steps.

He needed to stall for time.

He shifted back into human form and quickly dressed in the spare outfit he kept in the back seat of his car.

With shaking fingers, he called his department and left a voicemail message for his lieutenant Arnold, who was also his nephew.

“I need to take an emergency leave of absence for the next week.  Family business. You’ll be in charge until I get back,” he said. “You know how to get ahold of me if it’s a real emergency. Otherwise, don’t call me.”

He hurried to his car and drove off.

He’d stay in a cave he knew of, far outside town, and monitor his police radio, maybe drive close enough into town to get internet service and keep abreast of what was happening. He would wait to see how things shook out over the next few days.  He wasn’t going to tell anyone other than Arnold where he was, even family. The centurions might start monitoring his family’s phone calls, and he didn’t want them to be able to trace his whereabouts.

* * * * *

“Am I invisible?” Ermengarde asked irritably, following Nora, Kenneth and Sailor into Christine’s office. “Does nobody know I’m here? I
said
that you need an appointment to see her.”

“We’re family,” Nora said haughtily.

“Please don’t be rude to my secretary,” Olivia said, putting a hint of steel in her voice. “She’s right. What if I were having an important meeting in here? If you need to see me during the work day, just call or text me or Ermengarde.”

Nora waved her hand impatiently. “I needed to talk to you right away. You’re getting married and you didn’t tell us?” She sounded mortally offended. “We’re your family.”

Olivia rubbed her temples. “It was a surprise,” she said. “And in all honesty, I was a little hesitant to tell you because I know you don’t approve of Calder.”

“Well, of course he’s the Principe, and that’s a prestigious position…”

Olivia could hear the unspoken
“but”
in her aunt’s voice.

“But he’s just a cop and he’s not wealthy?” Olivia finished for her, with annoyance.

“Olivia, if you marry him, you will likely have to work for a living your entire life,” Nora chided gently.

“Yes, I was already planning on it. I like working. I’ve never really been the ‘ladies who lunch’ type.” Olivia let her eyes go reptilian for just a moment. Not only was Nora interrupting her work day, she was insulting Olivia’s husband-to-be.

There was a long moment of silence, and finally Nora sighed. “You are my niece, and I love you no matter what. I would like to hold an engagement party for you. And…your fiancé.”

“You can’t even bear to say his name,” Olivia pointed out.

Nora’s voice softened. “Does he make you happy?”

Olivia didn’t hesitate. “Yes, he makes me very happy.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess.” There was a pause. “All right. If you’re happy, then I’m happy for you.”

Sailor looked at her mother with shock and disgust. “You’re happy that she’s marrying a poor person? Well I’m not. That’s just…it’s gross, is what it is.” And she flounced out of the room.

“She’ll get used to the idea,” Nora said to Olivia, and she and her husband hurried out after her.

Ermengarde looked at Olivia and shook her head. “It’s times like this I wish I was a dragon shifter so I could ice a bitch,” she said, and followed them out of the office.

Personally, Olivia didn’t think Ermengarde needed to be a dragon shifter; she was plenty fearsome on her own.

Olivia was at work when the realization struck her. She was just reaching for the phone to call Calder and tell him about it when he burst into the room with Tabitha and Ermengarde on his heels.

“Good heavens, all of you at once,” she said, surprised. “What’s the occasion?”

“He has news!” Ermengarde said excitedly.

“I have news,” Calder agreed.

“So do I. I just had an epiphany,” Olivia said proudly. In fact, what she’d realized was so obvious she could have just kicked herself for not figuring it out sooner.

“I bet my news beats your epiphany,” Calder said, sitting on her desk.

“I will take that bet. Loser has to…” She glanced at Ermengarde and Tabitha. What she was thinking of couldn’t be said in front of them. It involved bedroom favors. “Oh, heck, I’ll think of something. What’s your news?”

“Your dragon assassins have been busted.” Calder’s eyes glowed with happiness. “Three Russian dragon shifters; Interpol suspected them in a number of hits and they were in this country illegally. They were just arrested flying over the border into Canada. Once they were captured, one of them took a poison pill. The other two are in custody and not talking yet. But the Elders are sure that these guys are the assassins who were after you. ”

“Wow.” Olivia stared at Calder, at a loss for words. Was it finally over?

She felt a huge weight lifting off her. Then she remembered the missing piece to the puzzle. “Any sign of my father?”

He’d gone missing two days ago, after leaving some weird message with his lieutenant about a “family emergency”. It was a bogus excuse; there was no emergency with any of his clan. His phone had apparently been turned off, because they couldn’t track him that way. He wasn’t at any of the properties owned by the Teague family. And Nora and everybody in the clan vigorously denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.

Calder shook his head. “No, but we suspect that the last time the dragons failed in their attack, he knew it was only a matter of time before he was busted.”

“Well.” Olivia shook her head. “I hope they find him. I just want to know why. Why did my own father want to kill me? I mean, we were estranged, but most estranged parents don’t try to murder their own flesh and blood. It still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“I promise to have a nice long talk with him when he’s arrested.” Calder’s grim tone gave a pretty good indication of how that conversation would go. Probably not a lot of talking would happen. “All right, what’s your epiphany?”

“I figured out the mystery! With Barnum, I mean. I know why he was freaking out. He’s in love with Alfreda!” she said triumphantly.

“Barnum? Barnum Tompkins?” Calder raised a skeptical eyebrow. “My Barnum, who I wish was not my Barnum?”

“Yes, it’s obvious.” Olivia shook her head at her own foolishness. “I should have figured it out when he didn’t hit on her.”

Calder just stared at her. “You’ve lost me there.”

Olivia looked at him with exasperation. “Don’t you get it? He was instantly smitten, and it made him shy. For once. That’s why he didn’t make a pass at her. And he hasn’t flirted with anybody since he met her.”

“Huh,” Calder mused. “You know, it makes a strange kind of sense. Either you’re right, or he’s got a brain tumor, because something is not right with that boy these days.”

“You’re marrying a smart one,” Tabitha said, nodding approvingly. “Oh, and if he needs anyone to help with the wedding planning, I’ve got time on my hands. Also I’m a control freak who likes to micro-manage everything.”

“Me too, me too,” Ermengarde said eagerly. “All these weddings to plan! All that cake to sample!”

“I’m going to go back to our house to tell Alfreda right now,” Olivia said. “She doesn’t think she’s worth anything, so she’ll never see it on her own, and Barnum’s too love-struck to actually make a move now that he’s met somebody he cares about.”

She stood up. “And finally I don’t need a police escort!”

“Oh, I’m coming,” Ermengarde said. “Leave me out of the gossip loop? I think not!”

“Well, I’m off to chat with some wedding photographers,” Tabitha said. “Let me know how it goes.”

Olivia and Ermengarde headed out to her car in the parking lot, and she was surprised to see Nora pulling in, in her huge SUV.

Nora rolled down her window and stuck her head out.

“Look at her, consorting with the commoners,” Ermengarde muttered.

“Olivia, Sailor wanted to apologize, and we’re going to take you out to lunch,” Nora called out to her.

“I’m actually on my way to run an important errand,” Olivia said. Ermengarde glanced at Olivia and crossed her eyes.

“Just a quick cup of coffee, then?” Nora pleaded. “Your wedding is coming up, and I really want us all to be a family again.”

Olivia sighed. She couldn’t deny that Nora had frequently stood up for her against Quinton, and like it or not, Nora and her family were Olivia’s only blood relatives aside from Quinton.

“All right, a really quick cup,” Olivia agreed reluctantly. “We can have a nice long lunch some other time.”

Sailor was sitting in the front seat, and Kevin was sitting in the back. Olivia climbed into the back next to him, and Ermengarde settled in the seat next to her, looking annoyed.

As they started driving, the automatic door locks clicked shut, and Olivia felt an odd ripple of uneasiness. They drove in uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes, until Ermengarde finally spoke up.

“Which coffee shop are we going to? Because you’re driving away from the downtown area.”

“It’s a surprise,” Sailor said in a sullen voice, at the same time Nora said, “Oh, it’s a nice little shop on the outskirts of town.”

“I don’t really have time for that,” Olivia said. “I thought you just wanted to grab something downtown. You’re going to have to turn around and take me back to my car. I told you, I have an errand to run.”

Nora ignored her, and the car sped up. “Olivia, we really need to talk,” Kenneth said.

“Excuse me? Turn this car around, now.” Olivia was starting to get angry. And a little frightened.

“We’ve got some important information that you need,” Kenneth said in a calm, reasonable tone.

“Stop the car!” Olivia shouted.

Nora ignored her. Olivia reached for the door lock; it wouldn’t open.

They kept driving.

“What the hell is going on here?” Olivia pounded on the back of Nora’s seat. Ermengarde lunged forward and started climbing into the front seat, and Sailor yanked a syringe from her purse and jabbed it into Ermengarde’s arm. Instantly, Ermengarde went limp.

“This is for your own good,” Olivia’s aunt said coldly.

Olivia let out a yell of rage, but then she felt a sharp prick in her arm and a heavy dullness swept over her. Her eyes fluttered shut.

“Oh, why lie to her?” her uncle Kenneth sneered. “It’s for
our
own good.”

* * * * *

Olivia woke up with her face pressed into the dirt. Her hands were bound behind her back with rope that was shot through with copper; she could feel the faint burn against her skin. It meant that she wouldn’t be able to shift.

She blinked and snorted to clear her nose, and slowly she could hear birds chirping overheard. There were no traffic sounds at all. That meant they were far out in the woods. She was pressed up against Ermengarde, who lay heavy and unmoving next to her.

She began squirming and struggling against her ties.

“She’s awake
already
!” That was Sailor, yelling in her best tattle-tale voice. “I thought we were going to kill her in her sleep!”

Olivia struggled into a sitting position and saw that Nora and Kenneth were standing nearby, digging with shovels. She felt dull panic well up inside her. Nobody would find them until it was too late.

“Well, excuse me for not being a scientist,” Nora said huffily. “I didn’t know the exact dose. It’s hard to accurately drug a dragon. Could you lend us a hand with the digging?”

“No. I just got my nails done.” Sailor’s tone was pouty.

Olivia’s gaze involuntarily flicked towards the SUV, which was parked nearby. If her cell phone was in there, with the GPS on it…

But Nora saw her glance, and smirked at her. “We tossed your purse as soon as we were out of town,” she snorted. “With your phone in it. Nobody’s going to find you.”

Ermengarde sat up groggily, looking around her in confusion. “They’re digging a grave,” she said to Olivia wonderingly.

“Yes, it appears so.” Olivia’s wrists were slippery with sweat, and she leaned behind Ermengarde to hide her movements as she worked to slide the copper ropes off her wrists.

“I don’t understand.” Ermengarde stared at Nora and Kenneth. “Why would you murder your own niece?”

“Because she’s not my niece,” Nora said scornfully. She glanced at Olivia. “Ever wonder why your mother would be willing to marry my jerk of a brother?”

Olivia snorted in contempt. “Yes, in fact.”

“Because she was already pregnant. He just didn’t know that it wasn’t his. She was dating Quinton, but she had an affair with Alfreda’s older brother, right before he robbed a bank and went to prison. So she married Quinton to give you a future, or something stupid like that.”

Olivia sat there as the fog cleared from her head. “So…if Quinton isn’t my father, then that means your family has no right to my mother’s silver mine. Your family wasn’t even rich before he stole my birthright. None of you pretentious, social-climbing bitches are wealthy.”

“But why would you want to kill her?” Ermengarde demanded. “Olivia didn’t know who her real father was. What difference does it make if she’s not your real niece?”

“The genetic anomaly that all the male Mortensens have,” Olivia guessed. “If I gave birth to a son, odds are that he would have two different-colored eyes. And then everybody would know my real lineage. And then the Mortensens would get the silver mine and everything the Teague clan owns.”

She felt anger pulse through her. Alfreda and her kids didn’t need to be poor anymore. They never should have been poor. That silver mine should have been theirs.

“How did you find out that Quinton wasn’t my real father?” she asked coldly.

“Your mother confided in me,” Nora said. “When she decided to take you and run. She demanded that I give her some money so she could go underground and start a new life, and she agreed never to come back to town and never to reveal the truth. I should have killed both of you at the time. I’ve regretted my weakness ever since.”

“Sucks for you.”

Olivia shifted her weight; she almost had the ropes off. She’d shift and blast them, then grab Ermengarde in her claws and fly off. Of course, it was three dragons against one, so it was a slim chance, but better than none.

“I did try to warn you,” Nora said in a conversational tone. “I tried to tell you not to get married. Not to have kids. Not because I care about you, mind you, but it’s risky for us to have to kill you and dispose of your body, and there’s bound to be an investigation.” She sounded thoroughly put out at the thought.

Kenneth set his shovel down and stalked over to Olivia. She almost had the copper bonds off…almost…

He knelt down next to her. “No more talking,” he snarled, and fished around in his jacket pocket for another syringe.

“Why did you have to come back to Lyndvale?” Sailor whined. “Nobody even wanted you here. Nobody missed you. You should have just stayed hidden.”

“So sorry to inconvenience you,” Olivia snapped at her. The copper bonds slipped from her hands just as Kenneth uncapped the syringe.