Page 81 of Shielded in the Shadows

What did I feel like? Was I warm on her skin? Or cold? Could she still smell my scent as I could hers? I would ask her later, when we were safe and away from this place.

The snoring continued unabated from the rear of the apartment.

After once last glance at her wristcomm screen, Keela followed the sound, her steps soundless on the Vorcian marble floor. I moved ahead of her to visually confirm we were alone and there were no traps along the way.

We passed an opulent room with a bathing pool and several empty guest rooms before arriving at wide double doors at the end of the hall. These led to the main suite containing Orqiel’s sleeping chamber, his private bathing room, and a balcony overlooking the training grounds.

I was about to slip under the doors to check on the inhabitant of the room when they suddenly slid aside.

Behind me, Keela didn’t react audibly, but I sensed her sudden tension. It blazed through me like power sparking from a frayed conduit.

In the open doorway stood a tall, gray-furred Ganaian male with a metal-tipped horn and a pulse rifle in his hands. The false sound of snoring cut off abruptly.

Every instinct demanded I return to my physical form and sink my fangs into his neck to inject him with enough venom to drop him where he stood, or at the very least swiftly disarm him so he couldn’t harm Keela.

But I’d sworn to follow my mate and our plan for this meeting, and revealing my presence by paralyzing Orqiel or taking his weapon was not part of the plan. Not yet, anyway.

Instead, I forced myself to remain unseen, silent, and in the shadows while Keela and Orqiel studied each other.

“I do not recall summoning a bathing attendant,” he said finally, his voice cold and broad face expressionless. “So I must assume you are here on other business.”

“I am.” Keela’s tone was calm, and still soft and sweet because of the modulation.

Despite her nighttime intrusion into his quarters and her dragoness features, her relative size and lack of visible weapons apparently didn’t alarm Orqiel enough that he aimed his rifle at her, but I was all too aware of how quickly that barrel could move and emit deadly bolts of plasma in the hands of someone with training.

“Speak, then,” Orqiel snapped. “Speak, and then get out. I am an old male, and I have an early meeting with my training staff.”

Slowly, her gaze locked on his, Keela reached up and flipped back her hood. She’d worn her hair long but braided on the top and sides to keep it back from her face. The braids also disguised her biomask band.

Very deliberately, she deactivated the mask and the voice modulator. Her scaly red skin and red eyes faded, revealing her bare human face and icy green stare.

Orqiel unha’Feste, Beastmaster of the Aiphelevia, grunted and rocked on his feet as if she’d shot him. His hand tightened on his rifle until its grip creaked.

“Hello, Orqiel.” Keela smiled. “I heard you were looking for me.”

CHAPTER 20

KEELA

Orqiel unha’Feste had indeed become an old male.

And the thought that surfaced as I noticed the white fur on his face that caught the gleam of the dim lights in the hall was that largely thanks to him, a great many human and Ganaian children didn’t live long enough to become old—or even adults.

It was a thought that made my chest feel tight and cold.

In a glance, I assessed Orqiel as I would any adversary. His grip on the rifle was steady and his gaze was keen, but he no longer had the lean strength of his earlier years. He was also favoring his left side as if his hip troubled him. His fur didn’t look quite right in that area. Had he perhaps been injured and the wound not completely healed? Strange that with the Liktarr resources at his disposal he had a lingering impairment.

Of course he was larger and heavier than me, which had its advantages in hand-to-hand combat, but I would be faster and more agile. Thanks to all my sparring with Jarrix, I’d adapted to compensate for my still-healing shoulder. Judging by his physique, I doubted Orqiel had kept up his training.

I didn’t need to look away to check on Jarrix’s position. I sensed him ahead and to my left, taking advantage of a shadowy area between the dim hallway lights. My mate had to be beside himself with the need to eliminate the threat, but he was holding back—at least for the moment.

“You wear your hair long now,” Orqiel said, his voice still that cold monotone. “Lovely, but tactically unsound.”

As if he had the right to have an opinion about it.

Rage and disgust made my stomach clench, but I kept my expression neutral. If he wanted to test me, to see if he could get me to react emotionally instead of with discipline, I would show him I was far too experienced of a fighter to fall into that kind of trap.

Even if for a moment I felt the echo of a careless jab of the blade used by our barracks attendants to shear our hair so it was too short for an opponent to grab, I didn’t let him see any hint of pain in my eyes.