Page 13 of Queens Ride Horny Dragons
Which was exactly how I looked now, almost twelve hours later. I was sure of it.
"You have to be a ninja spy," Tavis said, waving at me crouching behind the table on the screen. "They don't even sense you."
"A sexy-as-fuck ninja spy." Calhoun looked over his shoulder from his crouch in front of me, the bandages on his neck rustling faintly, and roamed his dark gaze over all the skin the dress exposed. "That dress is pure sin on you."
I tried for a smile, but watching myself relive the most terrifying night of my life slipped it right off.
Vance narrowed his pale eyes at the screen. "That other guy refuses to face the camera."
"He will, any second now." I remembered it clearly. Already, he was shifting his weight to stand in front of the gun he'd placed on the mini bar. Then he lifted it and turned.
Calhoun immediately pushed the pause button, and the four of us stared at Oliver's shooter. The same guy who'd actually murdered him with the Queen’s Cross? I didn’t know. I didn't knowhimeither.
Calhoun looked to Vance and Tavis. "Anyone you know?"
Vance shook his head."Never seen him before."
Tavis shrugged. "He has that kind of face that sort of blends in, you know? There's really nothing that stands out about him."
He was right. Short blond hair, average height, facial features that weren’t too big or too small. Just…normal, though I supposed a lot of murderers looked normal.
"Keep going," I said.
Calhoun hit play, and on the other side of the table on the screen, a chair moved, seemingly on its own, but it was me diving underneath. Then the man fired at Oliver and charged forward.
I leaned in. "Pause again?"
He did, and something scraped at my memory, something that I should've remembered but didn't. The same thing had happened last night while I'd hidden myself under the table and watched the man stalk past. It was there. Right there. An observation or something…
I rubbed my tired eyes and then tried to stare harder at the screen. "There's something there. I felt it while I was in there too."
"What is it?" Vance asked, his voice gentle yet prodding.
"I don't know. Something I noticed, but my subconscious was like nope at the time. I can't even remember what it was I noticed."
"Have you tried turning your subconscious off and then on again?" Tavis deadpanned.
A strange sound wheezed from my chest, like a deflating half laugh. “Nice one.”
Calhoun turned from his squatted position and gave Tavis the evil eye. "Dipshit."
"Hardly the time for jokes, Tavis," Vance warned.
Tavis rolled his eyes. “Léas, poke my eyes out. Lighten up, you two. That joke was for Yara’s benefit, not yours.”
“It did. Benefit me, I mean,” I said, leaning close to him, and that earned me a devastating grin.
I peeled my gaze away from him and concentrated on what it was I’d seen last night, and again just a few seconds ago, that tickled the back of my mind. Tried rebooting my subconscious and failed. I narrowed my eyes at Calhoun’s back as he faced the TV again, his black dragon tattoo rippling along his skin with the movement.
I sucked in a breath. Blinked. I might've just figured it out. "Do all dragon shifters have back tattoos?"
"Yes..." Vance turned back to the TV, his pale eyes lit with exactly what I was seeing. "It's hard to tell because you can only see a glimpse of the back of his neck between his hairline and tux collar, but…that guy doesn't have a dragon tattoo."
"A human?" Tavis asked.
Calhoun rubbed his jaw as he shook his head. "It's possible, but…" He glanced at Asa sitting at the table still out of earshot and then up at Vance and Tavis. "I told you what we found there. No human could do that to a shifter."
I gulped loudly, shoving that image away for now, which meant it would come back later in my nightmares. "So if not a human and not a shifter, then who?"
