Predatory

26: Nuisance

SASHA POV

"All right, ladies, our target's cave is in that mountain," Zoe announces, pointing out her window. "I'm going to put us down in that cute little runway-shaped valley the next mountain over. Make sure you're properly strapped in and you're wearing your parachutes."

I groan and curl more tightly into my seat, tucking my head to prevent view of the windows. I can't bear to watch when Zoe makes daredevil landings like this.

"Zoe, you know I trust you with my life, but is there any chance we could land somewhere less...scary looking?" Rika inquires. From the sound of her voice, she's more anxious than I am.

"Nope. This place is perfect. Just make sure you've got our stealth cloaking mechanism ready to go, and keep tabs on our lycan friends."

"They haven't done anything remotely exciting for a couple of hours. It's like 2am there. Even Drake put his phone up and went to bed."

I flinch at the mention of Drake and hope that my teammates are too preoccupied with our descent into the valley to notice. I've texted with him a bit since we left, mostly just to make sure that Rika's virus is picking up texts as well as calls. Of course it is. She's the best in the world at what she does, as far as I know, and shouldn't have been worried about her quality of work in the first place.

So with her wiretap virus, she got the messages Drake and I sent back and forth tonight, which revealed that he's insanely worried about me making this trip to Montana. According to Rika's simulation, if we were driving like I told him we are, we'd be somewhere in Illinois right now. I told him a couple hours ago I wouldn't be able to text for a while; it was my turn to drive and then I'd need to sleep for a while in order to be useful for my next driving shift. Of course, in reality I needed to sleep so that I could be ready to take on this dragon.

Svartheron. About 215 years old, fire-breather. Five meter wingspan, and about the same length from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, according to WASP's data. Weighs a little over seven tons. Red-gold scales. No known weak spots from past injuries. He hasn't been in many fights, which I'm considering to be a point in my favor. It won't be an easy fight, by any means, but taking a nap hasn't cooled my rage at Anselm, which should combine nicely with the experience gap between Svartheron and me to assure me victory.

I hope.

I'd never admit it aloud, especially not as Zoe executes complicated aerial maneuvers to bring us closer to the ground, but I'm kind of nervous about this. I've only sparred with a dragon a couple of times. They're huge and smart and powerful, and any one mistake in a fight with one could be my permanent undoing.

At least if I die here I won't have to break Drake's heart.

That's the coward's way out and you know it, and it would leave your main life objective unfulfilled. Cut the crap, Sukoshku.

As if to punctuate my internal lecture, the plane's wheels jolt against the rocky ground, bouncing me around the confines of my seat. Zoe whoops and Rika shrieks as we continue to rumble down our improvised runway, brakes straining against inertia to bring us, at long last, to a safe and complete stop.

"There we go! Another perfect landing," Zoe exults. "Rika, please deploy the stealth cloaking mechanism."

"Yes, Captain," Rika groans. She looks like she would be puking right now, if vampires were capable of such a thing, but she presses a button on one of her devices that's tapped into the plane's electrical system and a familiar whirring whoosh sweeps through our small craft.

"Solid. All right, Sasha. How do you wanna do this?"

"I'd prefer to just get it over with, wouldn't you?" I answer grimly.