With the house locked and newly alarmed, he slid onto the soft leather seat of his Maybach and drove away. Frustrated as usual by the long gravel drive, he made a few calls during his slow progress to the road. First up was his secretary, letting her know he’d be late. He didn’t offer a reason; he didn’t have to.
The second call went to the investigator he’d dialed earlier. “Well?” he demanded, when the anonymous male voice answered.
“It’s too soon, but I can tell you this. She’s smart. If she’s using a phone, it’s not registered to her. Probably a burner. No credit card activity yet, but it’s early for that. I checked the parents’ phones, grandparents’, too, just to be sure. She hasn’t called them. Like I said, she’s smart. She knows you’ll be checking.”
“What about her laptop? Her car’s navigation system? Aren’t those traceable?”
“The vehicle’s GPS locator has been disabled. She can still use it, but we can’t find her. And the computer’s a no-go. It’s likely—”
“I paid you to bug the damn thing right after I hired her. Are you saying it’s not—?”
“What I’m saying,” the man interrupted insolently, “is her security is like fucking Fort Knox. And you’re the one who told me to stop trying to break through it.”
“Because she spent all her time on those ridiculous games. What was the point?”
“Exactly. So the computer’s useless to us. On the other hand, unless she has a pile of cash, she’ll show up eventually, either by hitting an ATM or using a credit card. And when she does, I’ll have her.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She will.”
“She’d better. By the way, I want you to put a second man on her. The same one as before. Let him do the footwork. And keep me informed. I want to know the minute you have a lead on her, no matter how small.”
“Will do.” And the damn fool hung up.
No respect for his betters, that one. Unfortunately, he was very talented at his job. Sotiris tightened his lips in distaste, but didn’t waste any more time on it. He’d finally reached the paved road and made the turn with a fishtail of gravel and dust. Before long, he was breaking speed limits in his rush to get back to his Manhattan penthouse. The timing on Dragan’s escape couldn’t have been worse. The fucking warrior had been about to make himself useful as something other than a dust-gatherer, to play a critical part in Sotiris’s latest project. It was almost as if fate had done this intentionally, foiling his plans simply to vex him. But he wasn’t so easily turned from his goal.
After his most recent battle with Nicodemus Katsaros and his allies, revenge had no longer been the only reason to perpetuate Dragan’s imprisonment. It wasn’t even the most important one.
He’d been furious when he’d captured the woman Hana Himura, only to lose her in the subsequent battle. He’d spent years plotting her capture, from the moment he’d first encountered her at her grandfather’s estate in Japan and discovered what she was. An amplifier, possibly the only one currently alive, she had the power to double the strength of any magic user she encountered. And for a sorcerer like Sotiris, she’d been a prize beyond imagining. But in one of those strange twists of circumstance that the fates so enjoyed dumping on the world, Hana Himura had ended up in the U.S., under the protection of Katsaros and the damn vampires.
Sotiris had succeeded in kidnapping her, but in the subsequent battle, he’d lost her. His rage had been powerful enough to destroy continents, greater than any he’d experienced in his long life. She was supposed to have been his. He’d plotted and planned . . . but once he’d burned off his fury, once his mind had returned to its usual state of high-functioning reason, he’d begun to think. What if he could replicate Himura’s talent? Not in a person—he couldn’t control that—but in a device. He’d been a master of such things long ago. And he would be again.
So he’d set himself the task of replicating the power possessed by Hana Himura. For days at a time, he’d barely left his Manhattan workroom, poring over texts, experimenting with various combinations of spells and materials. He’d come close to giving up more than once, but driven by his hatred for Katsaros, he’d persisted.
And when he’d finally succeeded, the solution had made him cackle like a madman. Not only had Katsaros’s interference propelled Sotiris to this discovery, but the final game piece that he needed to make it work was none other than the bastard’s fourth and final trapped warrior.
Because Dragan Fiachna’s magic was nothing ordinary. His power didn’t depend on the pitiful amount of magic to be found in this world. It flowed into him like a fountain from the goddess herself, unaffected by time or distance. The poor bastard wasn’t a sorcerer. He was goddess-blessed.
Chapter Five
The Wooded Isle, somewhere in the mists of time
DRAGAN HEARD THE sound of a messenger running past his cottage, the boy’s feet slapping in the mud left by the previous night’s rain. Striding back inside, he began to dress, donning his leather armor with the ease of long practice. He didn’t require help from a servant or squire, because he’d never had it. He’d learned that lesson before he could handle a grown man’s sword. By the time the horn sounded its clarion call, he was sliding his weapons home on his belt. Short knives to either side, great sword in a sheath along his thigh, though it never remained there for long. Once he entered battle, the blade wouldn’t leave his hand until every enemy was dead.
It was his destiny as the king’s second son. He was the protector, chosen by the goddess to defend her land. He would never have a family of his own, no wife, no children. Only duty.
His blessing they called it. But what was a blessing to them, was the worst sort of curse to him. The villagers praised his prowess in battle, then turned their backs when he rode home, so covered in their enemies’ blood that he would taste it for days, would scent it with every breath. Mothers and fathers would gather children into their homes and close the doors, as if they feared his so-called blessing could spread like a plague. Or maybe they believed he would strike them as dead as the warriors he’d left behind on one blood-drenched battlefield after another.
But the worst of it, the thing that struck the final blow to his soul, were the women who would sneak into his cottage in the deep of the night, eager to lay with the goddess’s own chosen one, to welcome him between their legs as he plunged his cock into their eager bodies. Not to breed great warriors from his seed. Oh no, every woman who came to him stank of the hedge-witch’s potion filling the bags hung round their necks, meant to ensure that no child would be born of their illicit encounters.