Page 28 of The Dragon Recruit
“Aye, impress me,” he mimicked in her accent. One that sounded as if he’d been Scottish his whole life.
“So now you do accents. Just how many skills do you have?”
He snorted. “My mimicry comes from doing impressions as a child. At one point, I thought about becoming an actor or to even do comedy.”
“How the bloody hell did you go from wanting to be a comedian to being a James Bond on steroids?”
“I’m flattered you think I’m like James Bond. But, in actuality, he’s an idiot compared to what me and my team can do.”
“What was that about ego?” she drawled.
“It’s not ego when it’s the truth, my dear. How many times did Bond get distracted by a pretty woman? I mean, honestly, I would’ve kicked him off my team after the first time.”
“True. I stopped watching after one film because I started shouting at the screen and people got angry.”
He laughed. “I would love to see that. Maybe we should have a team-building exercise where we watch a James Bond film and point out the flaws.”
“Whilst that would be entertaining, I’d rather focus on finding out who created that gas, is spreading it around, and who murdered all those dragon-shifters. Even if they were traitors, they didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Some of them did, though. A few were leaking information to Simon Bourne and his cronies.”
She sat up straighter. “What?”
Simon Bourne was the leader of the dragon hunters, who hated that dragon-shifters had any rights. His people only wanted dragons so they could drain them of blood and sell it on the black market. In their ideal world, they’d keep dragons in pens, drugged and treated as nothing more than a resource they wanted to control.
Antony replied, “It’s true. One of the worst offenders from the clanless dragon group was Grant’s father, Michael.”
“Wait, how? He was captured and transferred to the DDA’s care years ago.”
Michael McFarland had formerly betrayed Lochguard and truly believed dragons were superior to humans and should rule over them. The thought of him working with Simon Bourne, a human, didn’t make sense.
Antony replied, “This isn’t common knowledge, but he and a few others escaped from a DDA prison about a year ago.”
“What? How could you not tell us about that? Both Grant and Chase have bairns now, and given how their mates are dragon-shifters, I wouldn’t put it past Michael to kidnap and raise his grandchildren ‘the right way’ in his mind, meaning without humans.”
“I’m aware of his anti-human sentiments. But we couldn’t risk sharing this information with anyone but a select few. If news got out about dragon-shifters escaping from DDA prisons, what do you think would happen?”
While Iris wanted to strangle Antony for keeping this information secret—and for how much it might’ve hurt her clan—she took a deep breath and tried to think about it rationally. Part of her job relied on her being able to control her emotions to focus.
After a few seconds, she replied, “If the news got out, then both humans and dragons would’ve panicked. But you could’ve at least told Grant. He’s loyal, wouldn’t share the information with anyone but his mate, and could better protect his daughter and nephews.”
“Perhaps. However, I have things in hand. For now. I may have to talk to Grant soon, anyway, since his uncle Roderick was one of the bodies found in the mass grave.”
Iris remembered Roderick McFarland. He’d never been a nice person and had caused her clan some pain, but he still didn’t deserve to be murdered. No, he should’ve faced justice instead.
Eager to learn as much as possible before Antony closed himself off again, she asked, “Can you stop dropping information little by little and just tell me who from Lochguard was found in the grave? If I know who’s still alive, I might be able to shed some light about how they’ll act or react since we have files on all of them. In fact, I bet all the clans have files and could share. And since you’ve recruited the head Protectors for this set of missions, that must mean you trust them. At least somewhat, aye?”
He glanced at her, but Iris couldn’t read his expression. Part of her admired him for his control, and another part wished he’d relax a little more around her.
Her dragon snorted.And why is that?
Shush, dragon.
Why? With the contacts in, he can’t even tell we’re talking, aye? Actually, that could be fun—to flash sexy scenes in your head, make you hot and bothered, and Antony would think it’s you and not me.
Don’t even think about it.
Oh, calm down. I wouldn’t embarrass you that far. Although, I think you want him to loosen up around us because you’re curious. Curious enough to want to know the man behind the façade. Especially since he treats us as an equal and not lesser because of our gender or skin color.
