Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

for you to figure it out.”
    She flicked the card at him, nailing him in the center of the forehead. As he cursed, she said, “So what now…you go half-dragon on me and suddenly you’re channeling Dr. Phil?”
    He rubbed his forehead. Shit, like he didn’t have enough bruises, already? “Smart-ass.”
    “You know it.” She laughed, giving him a big grin. Oh, how he’d missed her. “Now, are you gonna stick around here or…?”
    Mac raised a brow, waiting for the punch line. Angela loved alternatives. And he enjoyed it when she came up with them. The fact her options nearly always landed them in trouble—and closer to the truth—just threw more fun into the pot. Kind of like the bonus round on a game show.
    “Are you coming?” She scooted to the edge of the bed.
    He followed, conjuring a pair of Lucky Sevens as he went. As the denim settled at his waist and against his thighs, he asked, “Where we going?”
    “To ambush Rikar,” she said, tone nonchalant as though she’d just suggested they go for a couple of lattes or something. Not tweak a dragon’s tail. “He’s hiding something from me. I wanna know what it is.”
    His lips twitched. “You know where he’s at?”
    “No clue.”
    “Hmm…a scavenger hunt.”
    “X marks the spot.” Angela hopped to the floor. Slipping her feet into a pair of flip-flops, she headed for the door.
    Not bothering with boots, Mac hotfooted after her in his bare feet. Oh, goody. Angela scented blood in the water, and he couldn’t wait for the show. Rikar was so frickin’ dead when she caught up to him. And lucky him. He’d have a front row seat while it all went down.
    Mac smiled. God love her. It was just like old times.

     
    Standing in Sloan’s computer lab, Rikar faced off with the bank of wall monitors, wondering where the hell to start. The com-center was class-A complicated—freaking NASA on steroids. Nothing but big screens and hard drives, soup-to-nuts Techie Town. A place he didn’t belong.
    Didn’t want to, either.
    The IT stuff had never interested him. Chasing info around cyberspace took patience. The kind he didn’t have. Good thing Sloan possessed it in spades, trolling the underbelly of human networks, digging up intel, keeping an eye on enemy activity. Wicked good stuff. His buddy was truly talented in the realm of IT. Too bad the aptitude didn’t extend into the world of interior design.
    Rikar glanced at the beat-to-hell desk stretching wall-to-wall below the wall-mounted screens and grimaced. Man, what a travesty. The thing had to be at least a bazillion years old. All right. So it was massive and solid-looking, which under normal circumstances would’ve passed muster…had it been the only visual impediment in the room. But something far worse sat in front of it, rounding out the nasty factor.
    One ugly-ass chair.
    With its tall curved back, cracked leather, worn seat, and fraying seams, it looked like something that needed to visit the inside of a Dumpster. And quick because…shit. The thing was purple—as in Barney, here we come.
    He shook his head. Sloan needed an upgrade…another place to sit his ass every night while he tried to keep up with the flow of information. But then, their resident computer genius was funny that way. Sentimental to the point of stupidity, the male never threw anything away.
    Especially his favorites.
    Skirting the purple monstrosity, Rikar planted one hand on the desktop, leaned in, and palmed the mouse. The system woke up, the swirling pattern on the screen flaring blue a second before—
    “Fuck,” he muttered. “Password protected.”
    He should’ve guessed. Sloan was intense when it came to firewalls, hackers, and privacy. No way would he leave his system unattended and vulnerable. Or open for any of his Nightfury brothers to saunter by and screw up. It had been known to happen. Christ, Wick and Venom had crashed the entire system one afternoon playing online video games.
    So needless to say, the expression “no fucking way” got used vehemently whenever one of them wanted to take a turn on one of Sloan’s computers.
    With a growl, Rikar flipped the wireless mouse, sending it skittering across the desktop. Fantastic. So much for sneaking in on the sly and making a fast getaway. Not that he didn’t want his buddy knowing what he was up to, but he didn’t know what was on that video. Had Angela told Forge what had happened to her? Revealed personal things?
    Rikar cursed. He hoped