Page 185 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume Two

“Whose sweater is this?” Nikki asked.

“Sasha’s. She won’t mind,” Cassie replied without looking up.

Gunter tried not to grouse. He apparently should have brought his sweater from the library. He didn’t like Nikki wearing another dragon’s clothes, even if Sasha was mated to Cassie. But he couldn’t complain. Nikki was warmer and smiling.

“And no, we weren’t trying to get it this cold in here, but we do need it colder than the ambient temp of the castle,” Cameron tossed out.

Cassie finally spun around and tucked her fingers under her arms. “We set up a server operating system, but it was getting way too hot in here. We thought we could layer a second cold spell on the room to battle the heat.”

“It still needs some tweaking.”

“You need to talk to Evora. She’s spectacular with cold spells,” Dimitri offered, nearly making Gunter jump. He hadn’t even noticed the ice dragon relaxing on a sofa on the opposite side of the room.

Cameron threw Dimitri a look that should have pulverized stone, but the ice dragon just grinned at him. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of her. It just so happens it’s four in the morning in Brazil right now.”

“Yeah,” Dimitri grinned, drawing out the word. “She’s not going to be awake for at least another five hours. She’s not one of those early risers.”

While Cameron and Cassie looked less than amused with Dimitri, Gunter could feel Nikki’s shoulders shaking with laughter as they pressed close to him again.

“Maybe we should talk about what was discovered on the phone before the mages freeze,” Gunter suggested.

Cameron dropped into one of the office chairs on wheels and spun out to the center of the room with a tablet in his hands. Gunter and Nikki settled on the sofa after Dimitri slid down to the far end. While doubtful it was due to any look Gunter directed in his direction, Dimitri was kind enough to straighten and pull his arms back to his sides so there was ample space between him and Nikki.

The beautiful mage might claim to be interested in only him and want to explore this thing between them, but Gunter was taking no chances with unknown and unattached dragons. Was it uncivilized, uncouth, and barbaric? Maybe. But when it came to Nikki, Gunter was willing to allow his fire and claws to do the talking.

Yes, Gunter was aware it was his fears talking. Was there a more mature way to handle it? Absolutely. He also did not, in this moment, give a shit.

In his chest, his dragon grumbled and huffed, throwing the evil eye in Dimitri’s direction. The old lizard had definitely claimed Nikki as their own and was not above giving Gunter some less-than-subtle nudges in that direction.

Cameron tapped on the screen, pulling up a map of Europe with hundreds of yellow pinpoints. The information was daunting.

“So, as we said in our message, we got into the phone and started pulling some really good data off it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get browser history, text messages, or phone numbers,” Cameron stated.

“Which really sucked. I would have so loved to prank all those Jaeggi,” Cassie muttered.

“We’re still tinkering with some of the apps on the phone to see what we might be able to pull out, but the main thing is we were able to access the GPS chip and all its data.”

“How much data?” Gunter asked.

“A lot.”

“A shit ton,” Cassie said over her brother.

Cameron rolled his eyes. “We actually got access two days ago, but it has taken us until now to write the proper data analysis algorithms to make sense of it all.”

Dimitri leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What are we looking at here?”

“This is just the highlights from his GPS—places the owner of the phone traveled more than five times.” Cameron tapped something on the tablet, and the screen changed so that a blizzard of white dots layered over the yellow. “This is all the data.”

“Whoa,” Nikki breathed.

“Obviously, not all these places are Jaeggi strongholds,” Cameron explained. “Based on the locations this person traveled, we are assuming they are likely someone who is trusted to run errands. Most of the locations are cities, so this person was likely bringing in supplies.”

“And maybe also gathering some elements for spells based on some of the less frequent locations,” Cassie added.

“The other option is this person was tasked with hunting down and capturing mages, and simply looking everywhere.”

Nikki shivered and inched closer to Gunter. He wrapped his arm around Nikki’s slender shoulders and pulled them in tighter, barely resisting the urge to resettle them in his lap. This had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with watching fellow mages being drained of their magic and, eventually, their lives.