Fury of Ice (3 page)

Most males weren’t so lucky. Their magical abilities diminished in human form. But he was different. Bastian, too. His best friend was the only other male he knew who could command his magic in both forms. Maybe that was the reason they were so tight, bonded in a way he found difficult to describe, never mind understand.

Right now, though, the mystery didn’t mean much. He had a job to do. And what do you know? His frosty side was on board with the plan, juicing him up, chilling him out.

His mouth curved as frost rose. As the chill got thicker, the temperature dropped, and Rikar exhaled, thankful for the deep freeze. The cold evened him out, settled him down, made him remember his purpose.

Angela. Why the hell couldn’t he find her?

He should’ve been able to…had tapped into her and fed on the energy she drew directly from the Meridian. Which meant he was linked in, so attuned to her life force that tracking her should’ve been the work of minutes. Instead, he had nothing. Zippo on the leads front.

Rikar cranked his hands in tight, praying for a miracle. For the rogues to screw up and let the cloaking shield they held around Angela slip. He needed thirty seconds tops to lock onto her signal. But that wouldn’t happen now. Not with dawn approaching and the deadly UV rays that arrived with it spreading over Seattle.

Twelve hours. Twelve freaking hours before he could go back out. Before he could hunt, maim, and interrogate Razorback soldiers. And in the meantime? He had his very own plaything locked deep inside Black Diamond.

“Rikar, man.” Venom took a step back and turned his face to the side, like someone forced to stand too close to an inferno. “Could you lay off until we get in there? I’m getting frostbite over here.”

“Suck it up, Ven…or find a parka.” Yeah, that and a bomb shelter. His frosty side was just getting started, and as the air fogged, ice spread, turning the door frame and wall into an arctic wonderland of white. “It’ll only get worse.”

“Great.” The grumble in his voice unmistakable, his buddy pulled a long-sleeved shirt over his head. “I’m gonna end up a frigging ice cube before this is over. Theraflu, here I come.”

Rikar’s lips twitched. Thank God for Venom. The male never failed to pull something out of his hat. And that
something
was either wicked funny, off-color, or just plain cool. Which always chilled Rikar out, parked his instincts long enough to put intellect in the driver’s seat. Man, he needed that right now. Walking into the interrogation center in snarl mode wouldn’t get him the information he wanted. Or a map…with the longs and lats of the Razorback lair.

Pinpoint accuracy. Lethal precision. A successful raid, and…bam! Angela would be home safely. Was that too much to ask? He swallowed past the lump in his throat, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t.

Rikar threw Venom a grateful look and grabbed the door handle. The security system beeped, releasing the electronic locks. With a tug, he pulled the heavy door wide. Even toned down, his frosty side made itself known as icicles formed, clinging to the handle before he let go and stepped over the threshold. With a curse, Venom scrambled—shitkickers sliding on the icy floor—to avoid touching the freezing steel and muscled the door aside with his shoulder.

Completed less than a month ago, the interrogation center was a thing of beauty. Secure, state-of-the-art, surrounded by miles of granite, the facility sat one level below the underground lair. A prison with attitude, the cell capacity maxed out at seven prisoners. Not that he wanted that many rogues anywhere near Black Diamond. Especially now, with B’s female in residence. But planning equaled preparedness.

Or so he’d been told repeatedly by Gage.

Their resident gearhead-slash-architect-slash-engineer and…well, all right. So the male was a jack-of-all-trades in the “build something” department, and now that the facility was completed? He was glad Gage had pushed Bastian to build the prison.

But that didn’t mean he liked the magic surrounding it.

The electrostatic current pulsed in the air, attacking his central nervous system, drawing him so tight his skin felt like it was shrinking. The nausea hit next, making the back of his throat burn.

And wasn’t this fun? Uh-huh, so not a picnic. Just steel walls, concrete floors, and dimmed halogens marching down the middle of twelve-foot ceilings.

Rounding a corner, Rikar tensed as the current grew stronger, boxing him in until claustrophobia reared its ugly head. No surprise there. Enclosed spaces weren’t his thing. Venom, though, didn’t mind tight quarters, liked riding the elevator to reach the main house above the underground lair.

But shit, even his buddy was squirming under the strain, shuffling his feet as he growled, “I hate this place.”

“Almost there,” he said as much for himself as for Venom.

He hoped voicing the fact out loud would settle him down. No such luck. The rush beneath his skin grew worse the deeper he walked into the center. As sensation screamed along his spine, he jogged down the steps. The descent was fast, controlled, his focus on the door at the bottom of the single staircase. Another security measure. One way in. One way out.

Halfway down, he punched the code into the keypad with his mind. The electronic locks clicked. With a mental push, he swung the door wide a second before he crossed the threshold into the wide open space on the other side.

He released the breath he’d been holding. The electrostatic bandwidth stabilized, throwing all its energy around the prison cells that ran down the left side of the narrow room. He checked the first as he strode past it, searching for the purple-eyed Razorback.

Empty.

The second was too. Which made sense.

Bastian would want the rogue in the largest pen. Farthest from the door, the extra space would give them more elbow room for all kinds of yakkety-yak and nasty—

Something moved in the shadows. Rikar’s head snapped to the right.

Green eyes shimmering in the gloom, his best friend stepped into the light. He tipped his chin. “Anything?”

Rikar dialed back the frost factor. Bastian wasn’t stupid. Truth be told, the male knew him better than anyone. Under normal circumstances, a big plus. Right now? Not so much. His commander would guess his intentions in a heartbeat if he wasn’t careful. Which would KO his shot at the Razorback. B wouldn’t turn a blind eye. Not when he’d gone to such lengths to cage the bastard. And not before Bastian got the information he needed to keep his mate safe.

Rikar shook his head, indicating a negative.

A muscle twitched along B’s jaw. “Fuck.”

No kidding, and the understatement of the century. Angela was out there somewhere—alone, afraid, vulnerable—and what did he have? A shit storm in the making. He refused to let Bastian shut him down.

Did it matter that he loved the male like a brother? Respected the hell out of him? Normally followed his command without question? No. Not even a little. He needed the Razorback to squawk. So as much as he hated the endgame, he would take B out of the equation to have his way.

Stopping alongside his best friend, he looked inside the last pen. The corners of his mouth tipped up. Satisfaction, it seemed, came in size extra large.

Built lean, but loaded with muscle, the rogue stood at least six foot eight in his bare feet. Thank God. Just by looking at him, Rikar knew the male owned fighting chops. Enough to challenge him. Which lit him up, added that special sauce to the dish he was about to toss into the Razorback’s pan.

Bastian’s eyes narrowed on him. “We gonna have a problem?”

Rikar shrugged off his internal flinch. He hated that soft tone. The low pitch was a shade shy of melodic and, when B used it, a smart male got out of the way.

“Nah,” he said, lying his ass off. Backing up the BS with a head shake, he geared up. Distraction time. He didn’t want to tip his best friend off, so in the spirit of the
me-me-me
crap he had going on, he threw out the only question guaranteed to shift B’s focus. “How is Myst?”

“Exhausted, but okay.” Bastian scrubbed a hand over the top of his head. The action spoke volumes, of the worry he suffered for his mate and the relief of bringing her home safely. “I finally got her to sleep fifteen minutes ago.”

Fantastic. He’d missed his window by a measly fifteen minutes.

The irony, right? Now he was stuck in a place he didn’t want to be. He made the hard decision anyway. Bastian would be pissed, but maybe if he left the rogue alive, it would all wash out in the end. Okay. So, that was a long shot, but what else could he do? Honor wouldn’t let him leave Angela and—

Ah, hell. That was a big, fat lie.

Honor had nothing to do with it. What drove him was much more powerful than that. It was predatory and instinctual, territorial and terrible. Somewhere along the line, his dragon half had decided Angela belonged to him and, no matter how much he disliked the admission, biology wasn’t something Rikar could fight.

Silence grew, sliding against the steel walls as Bastian studied him, no doubt working all the angles.

Venom stepped into the void—thank fuck—and up to the energy barrier stretched across the front of the prison cell. Flying in the face of physics, the thin electrostatic current was stronger than steel, yet invisible, giving him a clear view of the male imprisoned on the other side. As their gazes locked, the rogue snarled at him: amethyst eyes flashing, fists flexing, veins popping against the electronic collar around his neck. Rikar studied the metal band, imagining how it would feel against his skin. Not good, that was for sure. But worse than that was the knowledge that once secured, the thing would blow your head off if you crossed the magical threshold into the free zone.

A trap. Perfect. Absolute. Diabolical to a male who valued his freedom.

Raising his hand, Venom brushed his fingertips against the invisible wall. The barrier shimmered in the low light, rippling like water in a pond. His buddy’s ruby-red eyes glowed, flashing aggression as he glanced over his shoulder. “He say anything yet?”

“No.” B stopped giving Rikar the evil eye and switched focus. His too-shrewd gaze landed on their prisoner. “We got a name, though.”

Rikar raised a brow, asking without words.

“Forge.”

“Good to know,” he murmured and…made his move.

His feet left the ground before his brain told him to go. He rocketed through the barrier into the cell. Electricity lit him up from the inside out. Rikar ignored the pain and Bastian’s curse. He had one purpose: reach the Razorback before his commander downloaded the launch code and went nuclear on his ass.

Unleashing his frosty side, ice exploded from the floor, slammed into the walls and ceiling, sealing the entrance into the cell. The thick barrier shut his friends out and him in with a rogue he couldn’t wait to get his hands on.

Frost cracked, coating steel and concrete. Rikar roared across the space, breathing white clouds of air on each exhale.

His best friend pounded against the ice barrier. “Goddamn it, Rikar!”

Dropping into a fighting stance, the rogue met him with raised fists. Rikar dipped beneath and swung left, unleashing an uppercut beneath the male’s chin. Bone met bone, cracking through the quiet as the rogue’s head snapped back. Rikar hit him again, his knuckles connecting with the fucker’s rib cage.

Air exploded from his lungs, but no lightweight, Forge countered. Spinning on bare feet, he brought his elbow up, nailing Rikar in the temple. With a snarl, he absorbed the blow as he drove the Razorback into the back of the cell. He needed to hurry. B would give him a minute tops. After that he’d shift into dragon form, use his freaky electropulse exhale, and blow the lid off his interrogation.

“Where is she?” Drilling him again, Rikar cracked the male with a right cross. Blood flew, streaking across the rogue’s face as a cut opened beneath his eye. “Where’s your lair?”

Forge answered with a growl. Blocking a punch, the Razorback hammered him with a strong jab. Rikar’s head snapped to the side. His teeth scraped the inside of his mouth. Blood washed over his tongue. Rikar swallowed and pivoted, kicking out with his foot. His shitkicker connected. The rogue’s knee buckled, sending him to the floor in a messy sprawl.

Rikar raised his fist again. “Tell me where.”

“I’m not that easy, asshole,” Forge said, the Scottish brogue rolling in his voice.

The thick accent ramped Rikar up. Fury roared through him, unleashing violence in an uncontrollable wave. “You fucker. She’s a female…an innocent.”

“So was mine.”

A shadow passed over Forge’s face a second before he rolled, avoiding the next strike. With a slick move, the male gained his feet and, fists raised, circled right. Rikar moved left, eyes narrowed and heart hammering, searching for an opening. Christ, Forge was skilled. Giving as good as he got. But the ice worked against him. The slip and slide hampering his ability to dodge. Losing his balance, Forge’s guard fell. Rikar punched through, knuckles taking punishment as he hammered the enemy with body shot after body shot.

A roar sounded from outside the cell. Shit. B was in full dragon mode. And about to enter the fray.

Working fast, Rikar lunged forward and grabbed hold. His hands slipped beneath the collar around the rogue’s throat. He squeezed, cutting off his enemy’s airway as metal tore at the backs of Rikar’s hands. Blood rolled between his fingers. Rikar didn’t care. With single-minded focus, he tightened his grip and shoved the rogue hard. Thrust off balance, Forge’s feet slid. He went down, shoulder blades slamming into concrete. Rikar went with him, landing on top of the male’s chest.

Losing air fast, Forge struggled, fighting the vulnerable position. Without mercy, Rikar squeezed the male’s throat, crushing the life out of his opponent. “Tell me…tell me how to find her.”

Both of his hands wrapped around Rikar’s wrists, Forge twisted, easing the pressure on his windpipe. Denying him the answer he needed. Craved. Couldn’t do without.

Rikar snarled. “You son of a—”

The ice wall exploded, throwing chunks of ice inward. The sharp shards blasted his back, and…