Page 13 of Rifted Hearts
He glanced at the object then froze.
The wriggling butt of an insect stuck out of the polished surface of the watch, disappearing into it as the organism fused itself with the human technology.
Remi had a cyberbug.
The Riftworld beetle-like animal bioengineered itself to merge with human electronics, and Kaveh was sure Remi had used his enhanced smartwatch to download the insect’s visual memories of Xiang Jao, Rhys, and Tarasque.
Very few humans had access to cyberbugs, and most of those were in the military. Remi didn’t strike Kaveh as the military type, and that wouldn’t explain the odd reaction of both Pogo and Ranger to the streamer.
It was more likely that Remi, like Kaveh, wasn’t fully human.
Remi had been able to hide his Riftworld parentage from Kaveh but not from the equine senses of Pogo and Ranger. The vid streamer could simply be reluctant to out himself as being mixed. Or maybe Remi was here for more than racking up views on his online program. He could have been sent by one of the drakones’ many enemies.
He could be a spy.
Kaveh handed the watch to Remi and forced himself tosmile. There was no getting around it—he needed to find an excuse to spend as much time as possible with the blogger to find out who he was and what he wanted. His nonexistent flirting skills weren’t of much use, but Remi had provided him with an obvious opportunity.
Kaveh needed to ask Remi out on a date.
7
Remi was feeling generous after dinner, pleased with how well the day had ended, especially given how badly it had started out. He even put his own name on the honor system bar for a cactus fruit margarita and took it back to his room.
Lyall was sitting at the edge of the bed, still in his human form and wearing more of Remi’s clothes. It didn’t matter. Remi was in a good enough mood to overlook these minor irritants.
“I thought you’d be out with your new cadejo friend.” Remi relaxed on the sofa and waved his drink in the dog’s direction. “Otherwise, I would have brought you a margarita. I’ve got good news.”
“I can smell that fruity abomination from across the room, and that’s not a real drink.” Lyall sounded grumpier than usual. Honestly, the dog had no collar, no curfew, and had been doing nothing on this job. He should be in bad doggy heaven. “What’s so good about it? Did you and Kaveh finally get busy?”
“Not yet.” Remi tried to wrench his mind away from howfine the vet looked on a horse, with those broad shoulders and muscular arms. The cowboy boots were also a plus. Maybe Kaveh could leave those on when they both got naked. “But he asked me out on a date. He’s showing me the Saguaro Rift monstertown tomorrow. Plus, three of the drakones were banging each other in the clouds during that horse ride I had to go on. The matriarch Xiang Jao and her two husbands. I used Bug to get images of them, the entire monstertown, and the base area, all from a safe distance.”
“There’s no safe distance from a drakone.” Lyall drummed his fingers against the bed, a sullen expression on his face. “You should know all about that, given you almost got eaten by one last summer.”
Remi didn’t want to relive the humiliation of that particular job. “Even I have a bad day every five years or so. I’ve got this one in the bag. I threw everything I had at Kaveh during that damn horse ride, and nothing seemed to affect him. But after watching some dragon sex in the clouds, he came around.”
“I don’t think you should go after Kaveh.” Lyall sounded downright bossy. What, he didn’t think Remi was capable of seducing the veterinarian without using mind tricks? “You’re in over your head, and Arimanius shouldn’t have sent you here.”
“This is a simple seduce-and-run job.” Remi had been feeling so happy about Kaveh asking him out. No, not happy, only pleased he had the mark’s attention. “I’ll have him wrapped around my little paw, and then I’ll call Father and let him handle the rest.”
“The same father who came close to getting you killed by Ceto, the most dangerous drakone on the East Coast.” A little growl punctuated Lyall’s words.
“That was Zale’s fault.” Remi’s cousin Zale, a half kraken,had totally fucked up a job near the aquatic rift offshore of Salem, Massachusetts, and Remi had nearly been eaten by a terrifying—yet insanely sexy—aquatic drakone.
Remi pushed those unpleasant memories away and flashed a grin and pulse of seductive energy in Lyall’s direction. He never tried that stuff with the dog, but it would either annoy him enough to end the conversation or distract him from it.
Nothing would go wrong. Remi would go on a date with Kaveh in the morning and end up in bed with the hot doctor tomorrow night.
“I’m going with you to the monstertown.” Lyall responded to Remi’s sneak psychic attack by unexpectedly going into dad mode, not that Remi had any experience with his real father worrying about his welfare. “The drakones are trouble, and someone needs to watch out for your fuzzy little ass. Do you even know anything about them?”
“Of course I do.” Remi did his best to sound indignant because he didn’t know that much about drakones, other than that they were rich, powerful, and hated the Colony.
“No, you don’t.” Lyall was too damn good at seeing through Remi’s lies. “First of all, the drakone clans aren’t all the same.”
“Some of them swim and some of them fly.” Remi drawled that out, as if the conversation was tedious and unnecessary instead of terror inducing. He didn’t want to know more about the drakones. He wanted to sleep with Kaveh—only to get information from him, of course—and get the hell back to Boston. “They can command the sea or the air in full Riftworld form or walk around looking like the creature from Black Lagoon.”
“Air, water—and land. You’re not including the mostdangerous drakones of all.” Lyall sketched the Riftworld symbols for those elements in the air, and the pulsing red sigils remained floating above him until they gradually faded away.
Remi didn’t like when the dog did stuff like that. Some Riftworld abilities were close enough to what humans called magic that even Remi used the term. Anyway, Lyall was dangerous enough as a fighter without adding in fancy tricks, and Remi had thought he couldn’t do anything like those sigils with the servant compulsion in place. Maybe it would best not to mention it. If Lyall ever broke free of the Colony’s hold on him, he would want revenge, being a hellhound and all. And even though Remi wasn’t even close to being the dog’s most hated member of the Colony, he had no interest in being an incidental casualty of Lyall’s wrath.
