Crush Read online

  “I don’t know if I’m willing to defy Kay,” Tristram said with reluctance. “While I know in my heart what you speak is right, I don’t want to see our knighthood divided.”

  Fear of division seemed to be the concern each of them had. A knighthood without unity would collapse on itself. “Then take some time to think about it,” Nate pleaded.

  “I will.”

  Kay’s SUV came into view, cruising down the road toward them. Their group broke apart and they moved inside.

  One by one, the slayers took their seats at the round table. Beginning with the oldest knight to the youngest, they recounted their actions of the month in the debriefing. Nate was among the last to report.

  Kay’s baleful glower seared into his son. “It’s been nearly a month, Galahad. Three weeks and what do you have? Nothing.”

  As uncomfortable as the name made him, Nate refused to squirm in his seat. Echo set her head in his lap, and he rubbed her ears beneath the table. Good girl. “She hasn’t said anything to implicate her status, Echo hasn’t reacted violently to her scent, and I’m not in a position to outright ask and receive an honest answer.”

  “I have to say, I’m with him on this one,” Lancelot added his support. “She didn’t show anything supernatural during my attack, only a good handle on skills any woman can learn in a proper self-defense class.” He frowned. “Really good. Props to whoever taught her.”

  His father drummed his fingers on the table. “What about her family? We’ve been trying to get a bead on Saul Drakenstone for years, but he always manages to slip away.”

  “She doesn’t speak about her father or mother unless it’s a vague reference to family affairs. She doesn’t use names.” Nate shrugged and spread his hands in defeat. “What do you want me to do? I can’t even tell you what the inside of her apartment looks like.”

  For good reason. A week ago, she’d tiptoed around the subject of him coming up for coffee after they’d gone for a casual night socializing with her friends. He’d feigned ignorance and mumbled an excuse about needing to visit the base.

  “Then ramp up your charm, or we’ll get someone who can. Pelleus from Italy has been put on standby now that he’s finished with that blue in Greece. His third kill in this incarnation.”

  Pelleus from Italy was a womanizing douche who would have peeled Astrid’s panties off of her on the first date and had no qualms about putting his sword through her chest afterward. Nate straightened and pushed his shoulders back. No woman deserved that. Dragon or not.

  His father knew how to egg him on.

  “Three kills, and you’ve yet to get one. When will you contribute to our cause, Galahad?” Bedivere asked.

  “He isn’t Galahad anymore,” Kay said. “Not yet anyway. Not until his memories are back. And that starts when he’s finished this mission and spilled some dragon blood.”

  “Then stop getting in my way,” Nate shot back. “You want me to get the info you need, then don’t go behind my back and send Lancelot to scare her or Gareth to vandalize her shop.”

  His father glowered at him.

  There was a small part of him that had hoped Astrid would call, that she’d need him after finding her shop entrance in tatters. Worse, he’d wanted to comfort her.

  In the past, Nate would have remained a passive but obedient spectator, but something about Kay’s words stirred a fire in him. He straightened and stared directly at Kay, meeting his eye. “To be honest with you. I think this entire thing stinks. Why are we hunting this family? When was the last time Saul Drakenstone has razed a village? Has he ever attacked a human? Nothing about this fits our usual modus operandi. We’ve been reduced to street thugs mobbing girls in alleys and stalking harmless supernaturals. I thought we were supposed to go after threats?”

  “We can’t determine whether or not they’re a threat until you proceed with your duty,” Kay snarled back.

  “What duty? The one you’re constantly calling into question and interrupting?”

  “Man’s got a point,” Percivale said. “How is he supposed to work while she’s terrorized by your antics? We’re professionals. Let’s act like it.”

  Nate sighed in relief. It was good to have someone on his side. The other knight smiled warmly at him from across the table.

  “Fine.” His father leaned back in his seat. “You have until our next meeting to produce worthwhile intel or we go to Plan B. This meeting is adjourned.”

  Nate and Echo caught up to Percivale outside as the knight was en route to his vehicle. He was an older fellow, a decade Nate’s senior, but younger than their current leaders. Killing the fire wyrm, Anansi, in Ghana had earned him the respect to move up in their ranks.

  “Thanks for having my back in there,” he said.

  “No problem. I know where they’re coming from, but sometimes I think Kay forgets we’re here to slay dragons. And only slay dragons. Stalking little girls and harassing them like this? It bothers me, Nate. There are better ways to flush them into the open. This is childish.”

  “It is. And there are more dangerous dragons to hunt. Everyone agrees Anansi needed to go down.” The dragon had been demanding tributes in first-born daughters from the villages and collected quite the harem of abused young women. He’d tricked parents by promising riches, wealth, and good luck to those who obeyed his commands. Death came to anyone else.

  Finally, Percivale pinned him down and ended his long reign of terror in Africa. Even his own kind wouldn't miss him.

  “What’s Saul Drakenstone done to be loathed like this? He abuses no women. He harms no one. Hell, he makes good movies,” the knight muttered, rubbing his bearded chin. Gray peppered his black hair, and his skin was weathered, dark brown from a lifetime of work outdoors.

  “You’ve watched his movies?”

  “Who hasn’t watched his movies, Nate?”

  Percivale was among the small handful who used Nate’s current name as an act of kindness, not as a taunt.

  Maybe the name Galahad would feel right after he’d recovered his memories. Maybe it never would. How could he possibly know until he’d murdered a dragon?

  Until he’d killed one of Astrid’s possible relatives or friends.

  “My father.”

  “Kay is stuck in the past. Times are changing for the dragons, and if we want to survive without losing our sanity over the next thousand years, we have to adapt.” He shook his head. “What shall we do once the last dragon is dead? Will we turn to shifters? Ah, we’ve wasted enough time. I need to get on the road, kid.”

  Nate grimaced. “Where are you going in a hurry?”

  “San Francisco. Kay’s ordered the usual routine surveillance on Loki Agnarhorn.”

  “I’ll come with you if you don’t mind. I need to clear my mind.”

  “You sure? I won’t be coming back for a few days.”

  Nate shook his head. As for work, mortal members of their brotherhood worked everywhere, and a single phone call would account for his absence at the base.

  After grabbing his gear from the tool chest in the back of his Jeep, Nate joined the other dragonslayer, and they headed to the airport.

  ***

  Gathered around an open pizza box, Astrid sprawled on the floor with three of her closest friends. Toni was the only human among them. The twins, Heather and Melanie, were coyote shifters. After her harrowing day, a night with her pals was a must.

  They all adored Nate. One evening out with them and their current boyfriends had cemented a bond between the sailor and all of her pals. Eventually, she’d be introducing him to her family.

  Astrid imagined Saul staring down his nose at her boyfriend before the interrogation began. Within seconds, she’d killed her buzz with anxiety.

  With a mischievous look on her face, Toni leaned forward and murmured, “So. You and Nate. Spill the beans.”

  “Toni,” Astrid groaned. “What more do you want me to say?”

  “Have you two kissed yet?” Heather asked.


  Melanie refilled their wine glasses. “When’s he taking you out again?”

  “No, and I don’t know. We haven’t had the chance to talk in a couple days.”

  “Why not?” Toni demanded. “Doesn’t he know your shop was vandalized? He didn’t show up?”

  “No, and I didn’t want him to since I haven’t told him my real name.”

  “What the hell? Woman, you have to tell him. Eventually, he’s going to find out about your—” Toni mimed flapping wings.

  “Not necessarily,” she hedged. “Most people assume Mom had me thanks to artificial insemination.”

  “Still, if you two are gonna get serious, he has the right to know.”

  Astrid took another sip of wine and reached for more pizza. “I know. I guess I’m just trying to stretch it out, you know? Before the inevitable change happens where he either runs away or starts seeing my monetary value.”

  “We don’t care about your monetary value,” Melanie reminded her. “Or do you think that about us now, too?”

  Astrid tossed a bunched up napkin at the coyote across the coffee table. “Of course not. I’m just thinking about my track record with men. You all liked Scott, too.”

  “Yeah, that fireman was hot.” Heather fanned herself.

  “But not too brave, freaking out about you being a dragon. You’d think a dude who battles wild brush fires wouldn’t almost piss his pants over you being able to breathe it.” Melanie winked at Astrid.

  Heather frowned. “Anyway, how are you holding up after the break-in? Did they get anything?”

  Astrid shook her head. “Doesn’t seem like it. I did a full inventory afterward. I don’t think it was a theft. It was…” Someone sending her a message. Chilled, she shivered and raised her wine for another sip. She felt safe in her shop and had even slept there before when the work flowed easily, keeping her up until late into the night. She wouldn’t allow someone to take that from her.

  “They spray painted the windows, but whoever it was, the cameras didn’t pick up their face.”

  “They didn’t try to get inside?”

  “That’s when the alarm went off, most likely scaring them away. Grandpa Max insisted on that alarm system. He said it’s so loud Daddy would be able to hear it at the studios in L.A., and I agree. Now that the professional window cleaner finished his work and I had a new door installed, everything has gone back normal again.”

  Toni leaned over for the television remote. Her discreet tap of the channel button came too late to hide a newscast of the recent events in Greece. Someone had murdered another dragon shifter in cold blood.

  “It’s okay. I know about it already,” Astrid assured her. Though it was no less disturbing to know it was open season on shifters and that dragons were no longer unstoppable behemoths.

  “Did you know him?” Toni asked.

  “No, but my dad did. He’s upset about it. Mom says today is the first day he’s come up from his hoard since they found out. He goes there to sulk usually over not getting his way with Mom, but now it’s like his mourning shrine every time we lose a family friend.”

  “Ugh. I’m sorry you guys even have to go through this stuff. Slayers seem to leave the rest of us shifters alone mostly,” Melanie said. “It’s bad enough some asshole tried to mug you and Nate, now you have problems with bigots, too.”

  Astrid hesitated before speaking. Giving voice to her concerns made them real, gave them power, but clinging internally to her terror had twisted her stomach into knots. “I think it was a slayer who tried to mug Nate and me during that first date. I keep going back over it in my head and there’s just no way a sorcerer would attack someone with a gun.”

  The twins stared at her until Toni spoke up with a gentle reminder. “But you said it was a toy.”

  “I know. It was weird, but nothing else makes much sense.”

  “So why didn’t he spear you and call it a day?” Toni asked.

  “Who knows. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt Nate, too, since Nate is a human. Maybe they were testing me. Maybe it’s the same guy who came up and kicked in my door. I guess my parents had my aunt put charms on the place when I first opened up, but this guy bypassed all of it. We have a family friend who’s a witch, and she came out here to check into it for us, right?”

  “Right?” Heather said, waving her hand for Astrid to continue.

  “All gone. It was like this guy cut through my aunt’s spells. And she’s a genie, so that should have been impossible unless...”

  “Unless it was a slayer,” Toni said in a strained voice.

  “Astrid, that’s terrifying. If this is a slayer, what’s going to stop him from coming back?” Melanie asked.

  “She left a few hidden traps around my shop that she says should even give a dragonslayer a kick in the ass.”

  Chapter 5

  Nate collapsed into a desk chair inside of the slayer safe house and brought the computer out of sleep mode. Within seconds, he’d brought up the dossier on Loki Agnarhorn, a digital file consisting of scanned pages written centuries ago and recent data acquired during the age of technology. The handwriting and style varied over the years as different slayers took over the task as their keepers of history.

  “Half of the older stuff is in Old Norse,” he muttered. “Hell if I know what this means.”

  “How’s your Middle English?” Percivale asked.

  Nate gestured with a hand and shrugged. “Decent.”

  The older knight passed him a manila folder. “Here. These didn’t get scanned into the database yet, but I have copies. Most of it’s repetitive, the same information repeated from age to age. Loki the Trickster, God of Mischief, the selfish one, the annihilator. Bringer of Ruin.”

  “Impressive list of titles for a man who makes shitty cellphones now.”

  “And therein lies the trick.” Percivale grimaced. “I bought one of his phones about sixteen years ago before the knighthood found me and I discovered all of this. The title fits. And his phones are still trash.”

  “Apple products, man, it’s the only way to go.”

  Nate read over the old accountings. Like Fafnir and many of the other dragon elders from the past, Loki had raided villages, demanded tributes, and became notorious for his mischief ruining lives across Europe.

  In the past two or three decades, however, he had been relatively quiet. He made no schemes, and while his name popped up from time to time in the technology sector, the world had no idea he was a dragon.

  “It says here he was among the dragons who voted to remain in secrecy. How the hell did we get ahold of this intel anyway?”

  Percivale shrugged. “Ask Kay. He won’t reveal his sources, but you’d think he had a front row seat to their supernatural shindig.”

  “Be straight with me, Perce. Are they planning to slay the trickster along with the other malevolent wyrms now?” Nate asked.

  “Seems like it. Anansi was only the start, but to be honest, we could have taken Loki out by now if Kay wasn’t obsessed with the Drakenstones. I went and did that on my own time because it was the right thing to do and our honorary leader is out of his damned mind.”

  Nate shrugged. Percivale hadn’t told him anything groundbreaking. “He’s offended one of them managed to become president. He’ll never let it go until Emberthorn is dead.”

  “We need Arthur to reincarnate. It’s been over a century since anyone’s seen him, but if he were here, he’d put an end to this madness. What I wouldn’t give to see us return to the good days of glory and righteousness. Guns and rifles. Explosives in dumpsters.” He snorted, disgusted. “It’s no way to battle a creature armed with only his or her claws when we have magic of our own.”

  Nate glanced to his left and raised a skeptical brow. “In a minute you’ll be telling me about how it was back in your day when we had to walk five miles in the snow to slay dragons.”

  “Twenty miles. And hell, it was your day, too, Nate. You just don’t remember it yet.”

/>   After a good laugh, they concocted a plan for monitoring the wyrm’s activities. Loki followed a transparent schedule known to the closest members of his household staff and his corporate associates. A typical nine to five Monday through Saturday followed by quiet evenings in a sprawling fifty-acre compound.

  “Christ, he even works during the weekend.”

  “He’s a dragon. Their concept of time is different,” Percivale said.

  Loki maintained a small staff of loyal shifters on his property, but he had no friends, a loner who attended events with no woman on his arm.

  “My informants tell me he’s going to be at some craft beer tasting down at Fisherman’s Wharf this evening.”

  “Least it’s not wine,” Nate muttered.

  “You haven’t had wine until you’ve enjoyed a good rosé on a fine summer afternoon, Nate. Expand your horizons.”

  “Tastes like pink swamp water.”

  “All right, all right, smart ass. Before we go, let’s see you summon that sword.”

  Nate sighed. “I told you, I can do it now.”

  “I want to see it with my own eyes.”

  Percivale stared him down until he relented. With a groan, Nate muttered the oath under his breath, “When called upon, I draw thee to defend the rights of the weak with all of my strength.”

  In a radiant flood of light, the sword emerged from nothingness and appeared in his hands. Light shone from the crystalline, white metal.

  “Not bad. You’re still reciting the oath to do it, but that’s better than nothing. Think you can take out a dragon if he loses his shit?”

  “I can do it.” Nate made a sheathing gesture with the sword and it vanished again. It was part of his spirit and bound to him throughout all of his many lives.

  “C’mon then. Load up your gear and let’s get moving.”

  Nate fastened Echo’s service dog vest into place and collected their supplies. When it came to reconnaissance missions, slayers didn’t leave their base of operations without the tools necessary to take down a dragon.