“You’re offering your blood willingly?”
“Of course! I’m all about sharing. It’s the incubus way.”
“…Tiberius Vane and his witch wife have been experimenting on lesser magicals for years,” Olaf was saying when I tuned back in. “I’m not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with his dark magic experiments.”
“Is this why females have been going missing?” Maverick asked.
Kai’s chin snapped up. “My troll friend’s sister was taken,” he said in a quiet voice. “He’s been searching for her with no luck.”
Olaf nodded. “Yes. Some of the rarer females disappear completely, but others are being sold to mage sex clubs, which is how I met Kenji.”
I frowned. “I’ve spent a lot of time in mage sex clubs…” Maverick growled at me. “Before I met the other half of my soul,” I clarified hurriedly, in case he tried to bite my head off. “But I’ve never come across any trafficked females.”
“Only mages from Vane’s inner circle get invited to these private clubs. Kenji’s abilities mean he can cross any wards incognito. He discovered the underground clubs while searching for his missing cousins and inadvertently overheard Vane bragging about something of interest to me.”
“How did Kenji know you existed?” As far as I knew, there had been no dragon shifters for at least a century. A book I’d read, once upon a time while bored out of my skull, had stated the fae slew the last dragons while searching for dragon gold.
“Most of my family perished at the hands of the fae back in the 1800s, but a few of us survived and have remained hidden. My sister, Astrid, has a home in Siberia, and my cousin, Axel, lives in China.”
Wow! Dragons!
“Kenji knows many things. Kitsunes and dragons have always been allies. But I digress. We have been working together, along with a select group of magicals, to find out where Vane is taking the lesser magicals and other assets he steals. Kenji and his fellow kitsunes steal valuables from Tiberius Vane’s allies to help fund the resistance against the mages, while picking up valuable intelligence along the way. At least they did until Kenji’s cousins disappeared while on a mission.”
Kenji rested his nose on his paws and sighed, and for a hot minute I actually felt sorry for him—an alien emotion that took me by surprise. Then he shook himself and a sprinkling of hair landed in my glass, which killed any sympathy I had for the little bastard stone dead.
“This is all very interesting,” Maverick interjected with a tight smile, “but while we all agree that Tiberius Vane is a prick, I’m more interested in finding my mate.”
“Ourmate,” I corrected for the fiftieth millionth time.
Olaf nodded. “Yes, it’s vital we find your mate. Kenji has told me how powerful she is. If Vane harnesses her power, it will become much harder to oust him.”
Rasmus frowned. “And you’re hoping to take his place?”
Was that why the big dragon dude had gotten involved in magical politics when outing himself was potentially dangerous?
Olaf chuckled. “No. I have no interest in politics. My only concern is finding my treasure.”
I looked around the gaudily furnished room in confusion. How much gold and shiny shit did one dragon need?!
“The resistance has pinpointed a few possible locations for Vane’s research facilities, and we would like your assistance in checking them out.”
“Where are these locations?”
“Alaska, Montana, and Arizona.”
Maverick sat up taller.
“My contact at the MIB discovered that shipments of synthetic blood were being sent to an address in Arizona,” he said. “When he dug deeper, he found the GPS coordinates showed a remote farm, apparently abandoned for some time. If Vane is holding a vampire, then he’d need synthetic blood to keep them alive, as I doubt any of his followers would willingly become a blood source.”
Rasmus turned to Olaf. “Is the mage scum keeping vampires in his facilities?”
Olaf and Kenji exchanged a look that spoke volumes. “We believe he has at least one vampire, yes, as vampire blood is essential for certain dark magic spells.”
I watched with fascination as the vampire’s fangs popped out, and he clenched the arm of his chair so tight it snapped like a twig.
“Our investigations suggest that Vane’s research team created the bloodborne virus,” he said. No surprise there. I think most of us already knew this. “He may also be behind the feral shifter disease, but we’ve found no concrete evidence of that yet.”
This time it was Maverick’s growls that filled the room.
