Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons #2) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,95

I crouched down behind the bed, Chopper in hand. There was nowhere to hide my six-foot frame even if there had been time. I was about to see how well my cloaking charm worked on these guys. The dark-elf apprentice alchemist had seen me when we’d been within a couple of feet of each other.

A male shifter in human form stumbled in, his jeans halfway off his hips. I wasn’t sure if that represented a stylistic choice or if he was in the middle of undressing, especially when a giggling blonde slinked in after him. They embraced, tumbled to the bed, and started a noisy kiss-and-grope session a foot away from me. They reeked of alcohol. Maybe everyone here would be drunk and this would be easier than I thought.

Do you think he recited poetry for her first? Sindari asked.

No. Moving as soundlessly as I could, I headed for the door, stopping only to peer in the closet to see if there was a panel in the floor. There wasn’t. I’d already been in the room with the TV—now replaced, judging by the video-game music drifting out of that corner of the house—and hadn’t seen an access panel in there either.

Sindari and I checked the master bedroom next—it was also empty and even grimier than the first room. As we checked the closet, voices roared in laughter scant feet down the hall. Someone went barreling past and tried to get into the bathroom. It was locked, and the person rushed into the master bedroom. I barely had time to flatten myself to the wall and avoid getting hit as the man sprang into the small bathroom. But he—another shifter, this time a big man with shaggy blond hair who might have been a lion—paused with his hand on the jamb.

He sniffed a few times, and I held my breath. He was looking right at me, and it was hard to stay still, but his eyes weren’t quite focused on the right spot.

He shook his head and disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door.

There is an entrance here. Sindari backed up so I could check the closet.

There was a rectangle cut in the carpet. It looked like an access panel to a crawlspace under the house and nothing more. I almost backed out, thinking there had to be stairs and an actual doorway somewhere, but I had seen most of the house by now, and I hadn’t noticed anything like that.

Chopper’s soft light shined over dirt in the carpet. I touched it. It was fresh dirt. Someone had been down there recently.

The sound of the man peeing echoed through the wall, so I was careful not to make any noise as I pressed Chopper’s tip into the crack and wedged the panel open. The smell of mold and mildew and dampness rose up, and I frowned. My sensitive lungs were going to love this.

There was no light below, so I crouched and lowered Chopper. I was tempted to use my new Dwarven command, but not until the man with the bladder the size of a canteen finished his work.

Val? Sindari had been next to the bed and watching both doors, but he looked gravely in my direction. The dragon is coming.

Please tell me you mean Zav.

I do not. The other one.

Why? I barely resisted the urge to thunk my head against the wall. He shouldn’t be able to sense me while I’ve got the charm activated.

Or was that wishful thinking? He’d lost his ability to cloak himself when he lost that onyx stone, but I had no proof that he didn’t have other magical tools or an innate sensitivity. Just because Zav hadn’t seen through my cloaking charm didn’t mean another dragon wouldn’t.

It’s possible he’s not after you.

And just wants to visit the cat-shifter party in Bothell?

Maybe he’s not coming here. This is along the route he was flying when he was kidnapping people.

True.

The bathroom door opened, and the lion shifter walked out, heading for the hallway. Once again, he paused, nostrils twitching as he tested the air. He stood right between me and Sindari.

A part of me was tempted to jump out of the closet, shut the bedroom door, and try to knock him out before the others heard anything, but a lion shifter wouldn’t be easily subdued. He would fight back and make noise.

He turned toward Sindari. His innate stealth was different from what my charm granted me. As his handler, I could see him, but nobody else should