Page 43 of Fated to the Grumpy Dragon
“Fuck you!” Killian shouted.
“Do me a favor, will you?” I asked Emma, leaning my head to the side to speak it to her quietly. “Find and hit the switch for the anchor release on the control station?”
“Sure.” She wandered toward the console while I turned my attention back to Killian.
“You can’t win this,” he called. “No matter what trick you’re going to try.”
I stared at him, not bothering to keep my reaction from my face. “Win this? Winwhat, Killian? What the fuck are you talking about? We’re not in competition with one another.”
“I know you’re searching for something and that you found it!” he snapped. “I will find it. It’s going to be mine!”
“I quite literally have no idea what you’re referring to,” I said, this time schooling my face into one of frustration, working to keep my true reaction hidden.
Could Killian possibly know what I was looking for? The true reason I’d brought us out to this point? It seemed unlikely. Why would the sovereign have told him about the mission as well? Not to mention having Vicek help send them to the right location. Two teams were unnecessary … unless her faith in me wasn’t as strong as she made it out to be.
Or maybe the sovereign didn’t send him at all.
The yacht started to sway a little more freely as the anchor began to retract into the hull, the electric winch whining away.
I barely noticed. My mind was whirling with the new thought that had entered it unbidden. The one that suddenly made this encounter all the more worrisome and potentially dangerous.
Because if nobody had sent Killian out here, he had either followed us … or he already knew where to go because he’d been here before.
And he knew what it was I was looking for—what I’d found—during my last dive. I’d already had the pendant necklace in one my claws. I’d instead used the time to search the ocean area.
And I’d found it.
The wreck of Vicek’s ship.
A ship Killian and his thugs may have sent to the bottom of the ocean. A ship they would desperately like to keep anyone else from finding.
“Hey, Emma?” I called.
She came over to stand at my side. “Yes?”
I turned my back on Killian. It was a dangerous gamble, but I needed to keep him in the dark as to my plan.
“Two things. One, keep an eye on him. If he starts to do something hostile, yell and hit the deck.”
She nodded, not putting up a protest, having picked up on the issue we faced. A smart woman. “And two?” she asked.
“If he doesn’t do anything, hold on to the railing like hell. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I turned back to Killian. The waves were slowly turning the ship so our stern was starting to point in their direction. That would be the icing on the cake.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Killian snapped, walking along the gunwale of his ship to follow me as I headed toward the bow.
“Away from you,” I spat as I started to pass the driver’s seat and threw myself into it, hitting the ignition key.
Killian shouted angrily, but I wasn’t listening. A second later, the motor kicked in, and I jammed the throttle fully forward.
The engine roared to life, and the twin propellers bit deep into the water, dragging the stern down and tilting the bow upward as they built up pressure and shot us forward.
A huge rooster tail sprang up behind us, spraying Killian and his crew as I wheeled us around and took off. The yacht thrustthrough the water, slowly getting itself up onto plane, where we really began to gather speed.
“I think you may have pissed them off!” Emma shouted as she carefully worked her way to me, holding tightly as we bounced over the waves, easily passing forty miles an hour and still climbing as the big Ilmor engines roared away.
