Chapter Sixteen

They left the prison and what surely promised to be a much easier sentence for Beauregard Champayne if the centipede was on board with the idea. Smith had promised to talk to both men and then if they agreed, he'd put them together during their yard time and see if there was any chemistry. Either way, he promised to make the effort and let them know the results. They left dreary Folsom, its nasty warden, and the new friends they'd made in Smith and Champayne, feeling hopeful.

Champayne had made them another promise on the trip back to Folsom. He'd contact his mate, Victoria, and ask her to speak to their clan leaders about the possibility of helping King John Townsend. Eoghan didn't seem too hopeful about the prospects that she'd be successful, and he told Ari. Honestly, Ari appreciated the frankness and straight talk from his partner, a man he was very possibly falling in love with.

They found a motel and checked in, dropping off their duffels in the room before going to find a place to eat. They hadn't had anything in hours, and they were both famished. After a nice sit-down dinner of Caesar salads and air fryer sweet potato fries at a diner called The Melt, they were both sated and happy. In Ari's opinion, the best part about the place was that because they'd eaten healthy dinners, they could indulge in dessert. They opted for strawberry milkshakes served in sweating mason jars that were so divine, he wanted to cry.

"We need to call her," Ari said, sipping on his shake as he leaned back against the booth cushion.

"Priest?" Eoghan asked, glancing down at his and Ari's Faraday caged cells. "Yeah, I know. We probably should have checked in before we ate, but I was starving. We'll do it with the burner as soon as we get back to the room."

"I thought we were supposed to use these unless we're talking about Townsend," Ari replied, nodding at their phones.

Eoghan gave the side of his own cheek a little slap like he was trying to wake up. "You're right. I'm so tuckered out, sometimes I forget."

Ari put down his empty glass and reached for the check before pulling out the company credit card and glancing over at Eoghan. "Come on, baby. If I don't get you back to the room, you're going to fall asleep sitting straight up in the booth." When Eoghan gave him a tired smile, Ari stood, held out his hand, and helped haul his man to his feet. They somehow managed to stumble to the counter, pay their bill, and head out to the car before Eoghan fell on his face.

When they got back to the hotel, the night clerk said they had a message and handed them the note. Eoghan smiled and nodded a thanks before turning toward the elevators with Ari at his side.

"Who left a message?" he asked, feeling uncertain. No one knew where they'd be. When he read the note Eoghan passed him, he immediately felt better. "She must have tracked our phones earlier and figured out this was the most likely hotel in the vicinity of the restaurant. Did you notice the name?" He held the paper aloft as the elevator arrived.

Eoghan nodded. "Priest Burns. I'm pretty sure it means she wants us to call her burner," Eoghan replied. "We'll do it when we get to the room."

"She's gonna be pissed," Ari singsonged. He could tell Eoghan wasn't in any hurry to rehash the entire evening with their boss, which was probably why he'd blown off calling her earlier. It was late, and Eoghan had not only gone over and above for the assignment as always, but he'd also been behind the wheel most of the day.

He felt slightly angry that the chief would expect the debrief as soon as they finished their duties and dropped Beauregard back off at Folsom. Surely, if there was a problem, she'd know they would contact her, and one call to Smith at the prison would have reassured the chief that things went fine. Some days he loved his job but there were others in which Ari really resented not being able to spend a minute alone with his lover without expectations.

He was still getting used to the micromanaging tendencies of their boss. Then again, she was not only dealing with an understaffed office which was responsible for alien and paranormal life in a huge state, but also, a mole at the Agency. Of course, she was uptight. He was just going to have to learn to adjust to the way she wanted things done. Sure, he was used to the rather laid-back way his former chief in Lexington handled his marshals. But Reynolds was older, nearing retirement, and not dealing with anything like the kind of fugitives the I.S.R. hunted. Ari really shouldn't complain. After all, in this job, he was lucky enough to be working with his best friend.

And in all fairness, there was an incident with Champayne and they should have reported it immediately.

Ari strode over to the duffel bag where he'd stored their burners and pulled both out before checking the Faraday cage on their regular phones. Sitting on the opposite bed, he noticed Eoghan making sure his phone's signal was blocked as well. When he looked up and held out a hand for one of the burners, Ari shook his head.

"I'm going to call her. Lie down. You look like you're going to pass out, Eoghan."

"I'm fine." He wiggled his fingers. "Gimme the phone."

"I'm serious, Eoghan. Let me do this."

"Fine." He flopped backward on the bed where he stared up at the ceiling and waited.

Ari dialed her number from his burner, and she picked up on the second ring. "Where have you two been? Is Sapphire okay? You were supposed to brief me as soon as the job was done."

"Hello, to you too, Chief," Ari said. "First of all, yes, Sapphire's fine. He's right here." He put the call on speaker, holding the phone out.

"I'm fine, Chief," Eoghan said, sitting up and frowning at him. "We know we should have called you as soon as we finished the job, but we were starving and thought we'd refuel before calling. I apologize. I guess I thought you'd call Smith if you were worried." He paused and Ari noticed how bone-deep tired he really was. "It won't happen again."

"It's fine, Eoghan. I can hear the exhaustion in your voice. I already talked to Smith, so I know Champayne got back to Folsom in one piece. If you don't feel up to telling me what happened, that's fine. Call me in the morning."

"I'll fill you in while Eoghan jumps in the shower, Chief," Ari said, looking at Eoghan and pointing to the bathroom. "He looks like he's about to keel over."

"That'd be fine, Brown."

Eoghan cocked his head to the side, staring hard at him as Ari shooed him toward the bathroom door. He leaned toward the phone. "Night, Chief."

"Get some rest, Sapphire," she said.

Ari watched him walk to his duffel to pull clean boxer briefs and a T-shirt out, before walking to the bathroom. Once the door shut, Ari started talking. He told her all about what had happened, the fact that neither of them knew they were dealing with a vampire who had a toe fetish going in, and to his utter surprise, she apologized.

"Forgive me. I didn't know," she said.

"You didn't know?" Ari asked. "How's it possible you didn't know that Champayne had a thing for feet and that was the real reason he was incarcerated?"

"Do me a favor, Brown. Hang up this burner and call me back on your regular phone."

"Okay, boss. Why?"

"I got this request from a guy in the Agency two days ago and nothing at all was said about Champayne's interest in feet. I was told that he was there because he'd had contact with an unregistered donor. I admit, I was surprised at the rushed nature of the escort because if something like a prisoner escort is arranged, I know dates way in advance. Clearly, Champayne's daughter's mating was planned in advance, so if the request for his presence was requested, that would have happened a while back. Why didn't that happen?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"No, of course. I'm thinking out loud. It's very odd that it was so last minute. I didn't give it much thought since—as you know—there's been so much going on. When you call me back on your cell phone, make sure Eoghan's on the line. Tell me in detail everything that happened like you did just now."

"Yeah, okay, Chief."

"While I've got you on the burner, Brown…" She paused before going on. "I'm sorry that you and Eoghan are caught up in all of this. Things could have gone bad out there and I'm beginning to wonder if they weren't meant to."

"I'm beginning to wonder myself, Chief." Ari looked up as the bathroom door opened, and Eoghan walked out, dressed in clean clothes and towel drying his black hair. When Eoghan cocked his head to the side, Ari said, "Okay, Eoghan's here, boss, we'll call you right back."

"Before you hang up the burner. One more thing. This is regarding Townsend. I'm sending you out to meet with Severin and Invictus about helping the king get his clan back."

"They contacted you?" Eoghan asked, sitting on the bed beside Ari.

"I got an email. They never replied to Two Trees and his deputy."

"It sounds like there's still a grudge there," Eoghan said.

"I'm afraid so and if it goes on like this, they'll never get access to the food they need," she said. "In any case, I'll send you details on the dragons. I'm not going to transmit them through normal channels. For all I know, everything is being monitored. It was bad enough that we were forced to contact them through the I.S.R.'s email system. They asked why we were bothering them."

"What'd you tell them?" Ari asked.

"That I'd be sending you two to meet in person so you could get an accurate count of their numbers. And while it's true that we need that, you both know the real reason. You're going to have to explain in person why we need their help to deal with the situation between Townsend and Bradshaw."

"So, how will you get us their files and background information, Chief?" Eoghan asked.

"Believe it or not, I'm faxing it to the hotel where you're staying. Fortunately, they have a business center there with a landline fax."

"Old school. Cool," Ari said.

She chuckled. "Now, I feel very old. Call me back on your regular line."

"Will do, boss," Ari said. "Give me a minute to tell Eoghan what you told me."

"Good enough." With that, she hung up.

"Okay," Eoghan said, taking the towel back into the bathroom. "Tell me what she said," he called out before appearing with a toothbrush and toothpaste in his hands. He gestured for Ari to join him, and then disappeared back inside.

Ari stood in the doorway and told him the gist of their conversation as he watched Eoghan brush his teeth. When he was done talking, Eoghan spat out the last of his toothpaste and wiped his mouth before turning around.

"Are you kidding? Now, she thinks sending us into a ballroom with an inmate with certain proclivities and a hundred vampires who'd eat us if we got in the way when they caught him was all a set up?" Eoghan sounded pissed as hell.

"It's not her fault that she didn't know about Champayne's idiosyncrasies, Eoghan."

"Still…she said she knew it felt wrong that the escort was a rush job. She's right about us knowing in advance and since this was a mating ceremony, Beauregard's family would have had to put in a request to have him escorted there weeks ago." He ran his fingers through his hair looking worried. "I don't like it. I've got a really bad feeling about this whole thing, Ari."

Ari stepped close and pulled his lover into his arms before kissing him softly on the mouth. Eoghan hugged him tightly, seeming to be reluctant to turn him loose. When he finally did, Ari held him out at arm's length. "Listen, I'm gonna jump in the shower and wash off this shitty day while you go in there and call Priest, repeating everything as if we didn't already do all that."

"Yeah, okay," Eoghan agreed. When Ari went to brush past him, Eoghan grabbed his hand to stop him. "Hey, babe, I just want you to know—"

Ari waited, holding his breath and hoping his man was about to confess the three words which had been on the tip of his own tongue for weeks. When he just stared at him, Ari nodded, offering him the tiniest of smiles. "Me too, Eoghan." Eoghan turned him loose and walked out of the room, but not before Ari caught the corners of his mouth turning up with their own sweet smile as he pulled the door closed behind him.

He took a good, long shower, washing away the day and thinking of the many ways in which they might have been killed had it not been for the restrained vampires who'd been attending the mating ceremony. Of course, the fact that warm, human blood had been at the ready with no consequences to the party guests, may have been what saved their lives. If someone really had been planning a gruesome end for him and Eoghan, at least they'd utterly miscalculated there. He honestly didn't think Beauregard would have let anything happen to them. His extended family might not have had the same sentiments but Ari was the kind of guy who gave everyone the benefit of the doubt…even vampires.

By the time he'd washed up and climbed into his own clean boxers, Eoghan was fast asleep in one of the beds. He could do nothing but smile at the adorable lump under the covers across the room. So he walked over to the bed, shut out the bedside lamp, and crawled between the fresh sheets, snuggling up to his lover and closing his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.

"Wake up, sleepy head," Eoghan whispered against his lips. When Ari's eyes fluttered open, Eoghan was standing at the side of the bed smiling, fully dressed, and holding two paper cups with lids.

"What?" Ari sat up in bed, looking at the digital clock and blinking to make sure he was reading the right time. It showed ten thirty-five. He glanced at Eoghan, feeling the frown on his face and knowing he must look confused. "Where am…what time…where is—"

Eoghan laughed. "Get it together, Ari. It's ten thirty-five in the morning. I waited for you to wake up on your own but I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went in search of coffee. Here."

He held out one of the cups, and Ari took it, still amazed that it was ten-thirty. The only thing that told him Eoghan wasn't kidding about that fact was the feeling that his bladder was about to burst. He took a quick sip of the coffee and then put the cup down on the nightstand before getting out of bed.

"I gotta pee and then you're going to tell me why we're not on the road." He headed toward the bathroom.

"On the road to where?"

Ari shut the door and did his business before washing his hands and returning to the room where Eoghan sat at the small table sipping his own coffee. He headed straight for his cup and walked over, leaning down to kiss him. "Thank you so much for the coffee. Now, tell me why we're not on the road."

"Like I asked…on the road to where?"

"Didn't the chief say she heard back from the dragons or something?"

"In fact, she did." Eoghan picked up a stack of faxes and waved them at Ari. "Last night after we talked on the cell, she texted me from her burner and gave me instructions to call her back in the morning when I was at the business center so I could wait for the file on the dragons. I guess she wanted me right there to collect them and then delete it from the fax's memory, so none of the hotel employees had time to read it. I'm going to be really happy when we figure out who this mole is so that we can deal with the problem and go back to business as usual."

Ari took several long sips of his coffee as Eoghan talked. "So, what's the deal? You were asleep when I came to bed, so I didn't get to ask. Why aren't we already on the road?"

"We have to meet them somewhere else before they bring us into their kingdom. Apparently, it's some secret place and we can't know the location. Also, they're too busy to make it a priority especially when they've had no contact with us for a few years. I get the feeling that this isn't the typical shifter situation, and I really don't like it."

"Why?" Ari asked, looking over the top of his cup as he took another sip of coffee. "Do you think it's dangerous?"

Eoghan nodded. "Yeah. I think these guys are very dangerous and from what I've been reading in this file, I'm pretty sure I'm right."

"So, when are we going to meet?" Ari asked.

"They told her they'll contact us. She gave them our cell numbers so, we wait."

"Do you think we should go back to Tahoe and wait with Two Trees and Uwaite?"

"No, the chief and I are in agreement. That relationship between the dragons and the reservation is too sour right now. We're going to be tackling this all by ourselves. No other marshals are available to spare right now."

"So that's it? We wait for some dragons to get around to calling us up and having us over for tea?"

Eoghan smiled around the rim of his cup. "Better than having us over for a barbeque, wouldn't you agree?"

Ari laughed. "Okay." He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. "Give me the damned file and let me read about them."

Twenty minutes later, he was sorry he'd even asked. Severin and Invictus were actually the leaders of two separate dragon clans who'd eventually been driven into living secret lives when their world came under attack by humans. If Ari was reading this right, centuries before the Agency was even a blip on anyone's radar, Severin and Invictus had been born into rival dragon clans. They'd roamed the North American continent, settling and resettling in caves many times, having to move their settlements each time the human population began to encroach upon their hunting grounds.

Over two hundred years ago, during the early part of the nineteenth century, buffalo—a mainstay food source for the dragons—had once roamed the great plains in huge numbers and had been nearly wiped out by white men hunting them for their pelts. Not unlike the Native Americans who also relied upon the buffalo, the dragons had been forced to find a new place to settle, if they were to survive. The two clans had moved independently to the Shasta Mountain region, choosing one of the taller peaks around Mount Shasta where they were said to still reside. Though, the mountain had been explored many times, no one had ever found their cave systems nor located their clans which was probably why they yet survived.

Very little was known about them, which explained why the file was thin on details about any clan members including Severin or Invictus. All the Agency did know was that they were very old and had been around for centuries, perhaps even millennia. No one knew and the dragons were not forthcoming with their own histories. Ari really couldn't blame them. Dragon shifters or not, their people had lived through persecution and had been hunted since time began. When he finished reading the pages, he looked up and held them aloft.

"Now what? We wait for them to contact us?"

"What choice do we have?" Eoghan asked. "They said they'd get in contact when they were damned good and ready. All I know is the chief said she wants us to stay local to Shasta and keep watching for an email from them."

"Okay." Ari glanced at the clock again. "I suppose we can grab some lunch on the way."

"You don't want to see if we can find a nearby gym and get in a workout before we go eat?" Eoghan asked.

"Sure. A gym sounds good. I guess we can get a day pass somewhere."

"Let's pack up the duffels and go," Eoghan said. "After we eat, we can hit the road. It's about two-hundred and fifty miles to Mount Shasta. We can drive that in about four hours at this time of day. Hopefully, the dragons will get in touch soon. For all I know, the chief told them we're still in Tahoe."

Ari stood and leaned over as Eoghan lifted his face. When he looked up at him with those sensuous, light blue eyes, he had the sudden urge to take the man right back to bed. Instead, he kissed him softly on the lips. When he pulled back, Eoghan was smiling. "Let's go."

They looked up local gyms and found a workout center open twenty-four hours about two miles from the hotel before packing up everything including their Glocks which now carried regular ammunition. Ari absently wondered what kind of weapon would work best against a fire-breathing dragon. He just hadn't watched or read enough fantasy to be able to figure out a good guess to that. If he really thought about it, he'd have to say something pointy would work but then he laughed at himself. When Eoghan caught him smiling as he slid into the passenger seat, the way he canted his head to the side, was adorable.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked, starting the Charger's engine and pulling out of the parking space.

"I was just thinking about what kind of weapon works best on the hide of a dragon," Ari replied.

"That's so funny!" Eoghan said, grinning. "Because I was wondering the same exact thing."

"What's your best guess?" Ari asked, as Eoghan pulled onto the main road from the hotel parking lot as the GPS's robotic voice told them where to turn.

"Wouldn't it have to be something with a pointy end on it?" Eoghan asked, glancing over at Ari where he was following the map to the gym as the GPS kept talking.

"You'd think so, yeah? I was thinking a spear or something."

"Do you think they have thick scales or something like that?" Eoghan asked. "Because that's how I picture them. It's the fire part of fire-breathing dragon that scares me, though."

A shiver ran down Ari's spine. Two months ago, he wouldn't have believed he'd be having this kind of conversation but here they were, sitting in a car, heading toward Mount Shasta where apparently there were creatures that could fly and breathe fire. Oh, and the fact that they were already in a pissy mood was the icing on the cake. He was really glad they were both diplomatic. He had a feeling they'd need to use all the diplomacy they could summon.