Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

Lothair glanced toward the door. He tipped his chin, greeting Ivar as the male strode into the kitchen. “Fun afternoon?”
    Well fed, his friend’s eyes glimmered behind his wraparounds. Skirting a row of cabinetry, Ivar strode behind the huge island on his way to the fridge. His mouth curved, he tossed Lothair an appreciative glance. “Jesus, man…love the twins.”
    “They’re prime.”
    “Got any more surprises for me?”
    Lothair planted his forearms on the table and looked at his paper trail. “I’m working on it.”
    “Any word on Myst Munroe?” Ivar asked, cracking the fridge door, tone casual.
    But Lothair knew better. There was nothing casual about Ivar’s interest in Bastian’s female. The boss man wanted her. Had from the moment he’d seen her picture. The fact she belonged to his enemy just deepened the obsession. Imagine, stealing a female your rival loved…craved, needed to survive? The ultimate conquest, and a victory that proved one male’s supremacy over another.
    “Nothing yet. Bastian’s keeping her locked up tight,” he said. “How’s project superbug? Any progress?”
    “Fuck, no. I’ve KO’d the first batch. I’ll lock down the other humans and fire up the second viral load tonight.” With a silent curse, Ivar pulled the milk out of the fridge. Popping the top, he drank right out of the carton, then plunked the container down on the granite countertop. “You hungry?”
    “I could eat.”
    “Roast beef sandwich?” Ivar tossed a loaf of bread onto the kitchen island.
    Plastic crinkled as the Wonder Bread slid across the flecked surface. Lothair nodded, watching his friend closely, an idea sparking. Ivar wanted the Nightfury’s female, and Lothair hadn’t checked in a while. He’d check her phone records again. Who knew? Maybe she’d been out sometime in the last few days. Maybe she’d used her cell phone. Maybe he could get his commander what he needed with a couple clicks of a mouse.
    Turning the laptop toward him, he tapped in his password. Denzeil’s program came up on screen. Inputting the female’s number, he scrolled through phone records and…
    Derrˋmo. How the hell had he missed that ?
    Bastian’s female had called one number more than any of the others. Lothair’s heart started to pound as he brought up a fresh screen and typed in the number. The computer hummed, the whirl of the fan loud in the silence as it searched the new set of parameters. A second or two passed before a home phone, address, and name complete with picture popped onto the screen.
    Lothair’s mouth curved. “Hello, Tania.”
    Hmm, she was a beauty. Dark hair. Brown eyes. A mouth made for sucking.
    A couple of key clicks opened a new browser window. His eyes narrowed on the screen, Lothair sifted through the World Wide Web, picking up more intel on the female, searching for the best way to nail her down. In less than ten minutes, he had his in…and her superintendent’s name.
    With a satisfied hum, he reached across a stack of paperwork and grabbed his new cell phone—the one he’d bought for just such a purpose three days ago. As his hand closed around the BlackBerry, he shuddered. He hated the thing…and the inferior race who’d invented it. He much preferred mind-speak with his fellow warriors to the humankind’s preferred mode of communication. But necessary was just that… necessary .
    Flying all over Seattle in search of a female wasn’t a timesaver. So he always called ahead. Made sure she was home. And if she wasn’t—he fired up his MacBook and the special program Denzeil had designed. Got her real-time location via the GPS chip in her cell phone. He didn’t, after all, have time to fuck around.
    Pressing on the black button, Lothair waited for the cell phone’s dark screen to go blue, and then he dialed the number.
    Time to see if Ms. Solares was home.

     
    Standing on the threshold of her walk-in closet, Tania grimaced. Ugh. What a catastrophe. A den of iniquity full of pirates would’ve been easier to navigate than the travesty that had become her wardrobe. Stuffed to the ceiling, her clothes overflowed the large rectangular room. Dresses. Jeans. Skirts. Tops. Oh, and she didn’t even want to think about the number of shoes and boots hiding in dark corners. Or underneath the pile of handbags that had grown monstrously large over the past year.
    She chewed on her bottom lip. The abundance was kind of embarrassing, actually.
    Stepping inside the war