Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

hope he cracks?” Strangest interrogation technique she’d ever heard of, but all right. It was worth a shot.
    “Forge has a sweet tooth,” Myst said, eyes twinkling, expression impish. “He’ll take one whiff of the shortbread and cave.”
    A Scottish treat, one of Mac’s faves. “Is he from Scotland or something?”
    “The Highlands.” Upping her pace, her new friend made a beeline toward the end of the corridor. And a set of double doors. “Just wait until you get a load of his accent.”
    “Gerard Butler good?”
    “Better. Think Sean Connery on steroids.”
    Oh, boy. Angela loved that actor. And couldn’t wait to meet Forge. No, scratch that. Make it hear the guy talk.
    “But…” Myst paused to crank open one of the doors. “We need to get to him before the boys come home because the second they do, Daimler will squeal on us.”
    “Don’t tell me.” Right on Myst’s heels, she jogged into a clinic of some sort. Neat and tidy, the setup was high-tech with stainless-steel countertops, a crapload of medical machines, and supplies. The smell of antiseptic hand wash hung in the air as she skirted the examination table on the way to a sliding glass door. “Daimler is Black Diamond’s eyes and ears.”
    “Yeah…the nosy butler.” Turning into another corridor outside the clinic, the combined flip-flip-flop of their footwear ricocheted off ancient stone walls. Medieval looking, the granite blocks bore grooved tool marks—probably made by equally old chisels. “Love him to death, but he’s got a big mouth. And what Bastian says goes.”
    Angela raised a brow. “But not for you.”
    “Not always. I know how to get around my mate.” Myst tossed a grin over her shoulder as they passed a bank of elevators. The hallway dead-ended soon after, and she stopped in front of a reinforced steel door. With a flip, she opened the electronic keypad and punched in an access code. The locks clicked. The door swung inward. “Stick around long enough and you’ll figure out the best way to handle Rikar too.”
    One could only hope.
    But sticking around wasn’t part of the plan. Do the job. Get even, and then get out. Ding-ding-ding. That had a much nicer ring to it than settling into domestic bliss with a man-dragon. So yeah, no matter how appealing, Rikar was a means to an end. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now all she needed to do was remember that important fact. Maybe writing it on a Post-it would help. Maybe if she taped it to her bathroom mirror and recited it each morning, she’d learn to cope. Maybe with enough practice, she’d kill the disease.
    The one called Rikaritis.
    But as Angela followed her new partner in crime over the threshold, something warned her there wasn’t a cure for that.

     
    Ahead of the pack and on point, Mac took the last flight of stairs two at a time, the echo of three sets of boots on the metal treads behind him. It was his lucky day. Venom and Wick had joined the parade, bringing up the rear behind Bastian. Man, like he needed an audience for this shit?
    Fly or die.
    Venom’s words, not his.
    Mac felt them all the same as he reached the landing and punched the metal handle barring the security door. The wind took over, grabbing the steel and slamming it back against the skyscraper’s facade. He stepped out onto the rooftop, onto gravel and rock dust, aware of nothing but the building edge thirty feet away. Goddamn, it was a long way down. How did he know? He climbed the whole way up, pounded the flights between floors like a gym rat on a stair-climber.
    Nine hundred and sixty-three feet above Cherry Street. Seventy-six floors of I-wanna-see-Mac-go-splat.
    Or maybe that was just Venom. Bastian didn’t seem to want him dead. The guy had coached him the whole way over in the Denali, going over it again, making sure he understood. Still, he couldn’t help thinking…
    Where the fuck is Rikar?
    He needed the guy. An ally. Before he hit the point of no return. Before he fell seventy-six floors and got messy on the asphalt in front of McCormick’s Fish House and Bar.
    Lovely thought, wasn’t it?
    But it wasn’t as though he had much of a choice. Unless, of course, he wanted to look like a pansy. Normally, the crack to his tough-guy reputation wouldn’t bother him. That’s what his middle finger was for…to say fuck off to anyone who gave him grief. Tonight, though, he was off his game. The whole dragon thing still freaked him out.
    Mac ran his hand through his hair.