Inferno (Talon #5)(13)
I felt a stab of very real fear, imagining myself surrounded by ancient dragons, eyes blazing with anger and hate as they loomed over me. If even one of them decided to end the life of Talon’s representative, there would be nothing I could do about it. Even taking Gila bodyguards would be useless against dragons that old and powerful; they would crush us all without a thought.
“However,” the Elder Wyrm went on, “you are not a mere hatchling. You are the heir to Talon, the prince of an empire, and the Voice of the Elder Wyrm. If you convince them of that, they will not dare to touch you.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips as she turned and walked back to her desk, her final words causing a chill to settle at the base of my spine. “Now go, and take Talon’s message to the Eastern council. We will see if you are truly worthy of your title.”
RILEY
“This is bloody impossible, Riley.” Wes sighed.
I glared at him. The six of us—myself, Ember, St. George, Mist, Jade and Wes—stood in what had once been the tornado shelter of the old farmhouse. It had been repurposed as the command center, mostly because it was the only room that could fit four dragons, a hacker and a soldier of St. George without curious hatchlings wandering in. And that was a good thing, because my temper was running very short, and I was likely to snap at the first teenager who poked his head in wanting to know what we were doing.
The rest of the trip from Brazil had been uneventful. No ambushes, no vessels or agents of Talon leaping out to kill us in the middle of the jungle. No ancient Wyrm swooping in to swallow us in one bite. Though Ember had ranted a bit about spending more time in airport lines than the meeting with Ouroboros. We’d left the Amazon, caught a ride back to civilization and flown home as quickly as we could. I’d arrived at the farmhouse half dreading Talon had already come and that nothing remained but charred, blackened skeletons of both buildings and hatchlings in their wake. But nearly everything was as I left it, and everyone was accounted for: twelve hatchlings, one human hacker and two female dragons. As she had promised, Jade had taken over in my absence, and the hatchlings had developed an almost fanatical respect for the Asian woman.
Mist had been with them, as well, though no one could tell me what she had been doing while we were in Brazil. I’d told Wes what we’d learned as soon as I could reach him, and Mist had gotten ahold of that information, too, because somehow she had been able to acquire an old map of the island, one that detailed the layout of the facility, the buildings, the fence line, everything. When I’d demanded to know where the hell she had gotten it, she’d told me her employer had been able to dig up the old blueprint and send it to her. She wouldn’t say anything more, except that her mystery employer wished us luck with our mission, that he approved of us taking down the facility and would send us more information as he acquired it.
Of course, I’d been suspicious as hell, but I couldn’t argue that having a map to the unnamed island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle was a godsend. I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but I couldn’t decide if having the Basilisk around was worth the paranoia. I would have to deal with her eventually, but rescuing the breeders came first.
Unfortunately, after studying the map and discussing the security Talon would likely have set up around the island, it was becoming increasingly clear that we didn’t have a chance.
“Dammit,” I snarled, slamming a palm onto the table where the map had been laid out, smoothed over, pointed at and argued about. We’d been stuffed into this dimly lit hole for several hours, trying to come up with some sort of plan for storming a Talon-owned island facility without getting killed, and we were no closer to rescuing the breeders than we’d been when we first started. The problems were always the same. How were the six of us going to sneak onto a heavily guarded island, make our way past the security and defenses and numerous Talon employees, to get to the breeders? And even if we did get to them, how were we going to sneak them off again? There could be several hundred dragons on that island, some of whom were likely to be pregnant and unable to Shift to human form. We certainly couldn’t herd them all down to the water and tell them to swim for it.
I raked a hand over my scalp, feeling like I was beating my head against a wall as the truth slowly crept over me. There were too few of us. Six individuals, no matter how skilled, stubborn or determined, would not be able to pull this off. We didn’t have the bodies, and we didn’t have the resources. If we attempted to rescue the breeders on our own, we would all die.
Still, I couldn’t give up. I had spent too many years searching for the facilities to stop now. I knew where the breeders were; I’d promised myself I’d free them all if I ever found them. I wasn’t going to stop until I figured this out.
“There has to be a way,” I growled, staring at the map again, as if a solution would suddenly make itself clear. “Something we’re missing. Something we haven’t thought of.”
“Riley,” Wes said. “It’s in the middle of the bloody ocean, mate. You’re not going to float there on a raft. And who knows how much armed security is between you and the breeders? Not to mention all the normal Talon employees, all the people who actually take care of the dragons, the facility and the island. It’ll be like assaulting an amusement park.”
“I don’t want excuses,” I snapped at him. “I don’t want you to tell me it’s impossible. I want you to figure out a way to rescue the dragons Talon has been using as fucking broodmares for years. There has to be a way to do this.”