We’re all exhausted by the time it ends, but we have the full picture now of what happened. Not only that, but we have the identities, secrets, and rendezvous locations of the thief ring Ström was working with back then.
All of it, controlled by Alfhild Fey.
As it ends, Lærke’s hand falls from mine. She’s sweating, her cocktail dress drenched, as she sinks back into Mikkel. Their powers shut off with a snap in the quiet room.
Mikkel’s exhausted, too, as he falls back against the side of the chaise, cradling her. Ström is no better as he, Bjorn, and I sink into a puddle on the other end of the chaise, supported by Bjorn.
We stare at each other, heaving hard breaths as we recuperate. Unleashing all of that magic has taken the mickey out of us, and though no one shifted, our dragons feel like we’ve flown ten marathons.
Everyone is shaken to their core by what we just experienced. Because we’ve just learned copious information about the thief ring Ström was running with back in the day.
And Mikkel and Lærke were part of it.
“She used you. She bound you to her with sex and Bone Magic, so youwould do her bidding and be besotted with her… and forget all of it.” Lærke’s gaze pins Ström. Like Lærke, I didn’t miss that part of the show during the memory retrieval. Ström’s missing memories included endless episodes of sexual intercourse with Alfhild Fey, boiling hot and heavy, in as many positions as a person could count, including as their dragons.
With that knowledge has come an understanding of how Ström was ensnared to Alfhild. She was a sexual predator, always taking any dragon she thought she had a use for, and binding them to her via sex.
It doesn’t shock me that both Mikkel and Ström have memories of sex with Alfhild, but it surprises me that Lærke also has a memory of sex with the lead thief. For Lærke, it was just once. A drunken dalliance she thought would be good fun, while Mikkel had a handful of them.
Each of them was bound to Alfhild’s power in this way, however—the head thief writing her intense memory-erasing curses through all of them from their very first encounters. It makes a blistering hate sear all through me now, for this drakaina I’ve not met.
And I’m going to tear her to pieces once I do.
I can see I’m going to have to fight Mikkel, especially Lærke, and not to mention Ström for that honor, as all three of them fume upon the couch. Lærke is the hottest of the lot, as she sears with a terrible passion at what Alfhild did to them.
Ström was the only one Alfhild chained to her side like a dog, however. He was her special little pet, thanks to his uniquely powerful curse-breaking magic. She pulled Mikkel and Lærke into their thief ring whenever she needed them for special jobs because of their mind-controlling powers.
The twins had been rewarded for their efforts in those escapades; money had poured into their clubs from Alfhild, and none of it had to be secured by mob relations. Still, it was just as nefarious a beginning for their empire, as it fueled their expansion from this first flagship club.
Blood money—paid for by their lost time.
“Now we know what all those mysterious cash influxes a hundredyears ago were.” Mikkel laughs sourly as he shakes his head. “Finally, all our ledgers make sense. At least we don’t owe it back to anyone.”
“We paid quite enough.” Lærke is bitter as she glances at her brother. We’ve all regained enough energy that she can pull away from him, and she does.
Going to the built-in bar in the gaming room and pouring herself a stiff whiskey.
“We have the locations of all the thieves’ storehouses, meeting areas, and heist-planning locations,” Ström says now as I feel him process the memories he’s retrieved, sorting them out. “There are dozens of places they could be. Where do we even start?”
“I say flush them out,” Bjorn growls now as he joins the conversation, just as much a party to Ström’s missing memories as I was. “Get help from your great-grandfather the Jarl, and raid every fucking location you’ve remembered, all at once, with muscle. They can’t predict our moves if we hit them with all guns blazing.”
“The Jarl of Copenhagen would never allow such a thing.” Mikkel dismisses Bjorn now, as he waves a hand. “He lets no other Jarl send forces here without direct permission from him, and getting that could take weeks… if ever.”
“Precious time we don’t have.” I look at Lærke. “What about the club’s defenses? Could your guards and bouncers be amassed to do a raid like that?”
“Not in so many places at once, no.” Lærke scowls as she shakes her head. “We have good security and dragon-power here, if it comes to a fight. It’s not enough to amass a strong enough raid on so many locations at the same time, though. We’d need our best guards from all our clubs all over Blood Dragondom to do that. And we can’t summon them on a moment’s notice.”
“What other options do we have?” I ask as I look at Ström.
He goes quiet as I feel him churn deep inside. But then, something in him locks into place—for the worst sort of retribution.
And I know he has it.
“We hit Alfhild where she thinks she’s strongest, but is, in fact, weak,” Ström says now, gazing into thin air like he’s watching his old captor from afar. “We invade her boudoir—the place she called her Sanctuary Vault. It’s her most private residence where she rests between heists and keeps her most cherished stolen items far underground. She blindfolded me and put wards on my ears so I couldn’t see or hear where we were going when she took me there to fuck. She undid extensive Bone Magic wards in various places to get there, however—and I felt all of them. With Mikkel and Lærke’s help to enhance my Bone Magic-tracing ability… I might just be able to find those wards and reverse-track them. Until we find her heart.”
“And bury an axe in it,” Mikkel says with the darkest look ever, stone-cold sober. With a shake, he rouses himself out of his merciless killing-mode… but I know what I saw.
The veritable beast that lives inside Mikkel—that wants nothing but blood from those who’ve wronged him.
