Page 16 of Red Dragon’s Flame

“Shit, you did.” Thorne shook his head. “For fuck’s sake.”

“But you’ll do it?”

With a martyred sigh, Thorne took Mikah’s laptop, looked at Shadowfire’s messages and IP address, and began backtracing her. When that didn’t work, he sat down at his own system and went in through the game server.

It was not the slam-dunk it should have been.

Thorne grew more and more interested as time went on. “I don’t know who this person really is,” he said, “but she’s not a suburban housewife. The name she signed up to the game with is fake, and her messages lead to a chain of IP addresses leading all the way around the world. This woman does not want to be found.”

“But you can find her.”

Thorne didn’t even bother to answer that, just gave a little snort at the idiocy of doubting him.

Time ticked by. Mikah tried eating some cake, but it sat in his stomach like rocks. Finally Thorne murmured, “There you are, my little human prey. One more second, and… gotcha!”

He leaned back in his chair. “She’s in Seattle,” he said. “No white picket fence, though. It looks like…”

He swiveled to another screen and pulled up a satellite map, and then a tax map on the next screen. “Yep. An abandoned office building in Seattle.”

“That’s convenient,” Zane said.

It was. Dimensional Spaces—the corporation they’d started on earth to sell rare minerals from the clan territory—was headquartered in Seattle. They had a semi-permanent portal there from the castle.

Michelangela looked up from the corner. “You found her?” Apparently she’d been keeping her ears open, despite still being in her huddle with Blaze.

“We did, NinjaWolf.”

She grinned and gave Blaze a hug, whispering something to her before she stood up. Blaze nodded, although she didn’t look sure about whatever it was.

Shit. Mikah didn’t have time to find out what that was all about. He’d have to ask Blaze about it later.

Mikah memorized the building’s location from the map, so his dragon could find it. Then said to Thorne, “I don’t suppose we could keep this just between us? All of it?”

Thorne glanced at Michelangela and sighed. “For the moment.”

Mikah said, “Thanks, Thorne. I owe you one.”

“Everybody owes me one,” Thorne said. “If I ever collected, I’d own you all.”

Mikah clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll send you a cask of akhasa mead and some atherias to play with.”

The other dragon brightened slightly at that, but he just said, “Yeah well, if you get in trouble with the Shifter Council over this, I don’t know anything, and you were never here.”

“Of course not.”

Chapter 9

They made their goodbyes to Thorne and the others, and went back to the portal. Mikah noticed Michelangela stowing a small, leather-bound book in her backpack-purse.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Sexy romance,” she said.

“Like Trish doesn’t have enough of those at the castle?”

Emon’s mate was addicted to Gothic romance novels. Mikah didn’t for a minute believe this was one—the book looked at least a hundred years old.

Michelangela made a face. “Hers have no sex. Can you imagine?”