Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire by authors_sort Page A

to open. Installed just days ago, the pair of reinforced steel sliders retreated with soundless precision. Well, at least they worked right. Thank Christ.
    Ivar rolled his shoulders, fighting muscle tension as he abandoned the deserted, concrete corridor. In less than five hours, the subterranean labyrinth would be buzzing again: a symphony of jackhammers, welding equipment, and the scraping turn of cement mixers playing a happy tune as his worker bees went back to work.
    Right. Worker bees. A misnomer, for sure. Slave had a nicer ring to it—was more accurate, too.
    Man, he hated humans. Filthy creatures, lowest of the low. But he needed them to build his facility. Each man had been selected and then taken for his proficiency—the skill he brought to his trade. Ivar would have preferred to leave the humans out of it, but his soldiers were warriors, not construction workers. And though each could have learned the necessary trades to complete the project, he didn’t have time to dick around. The laboratory—and the framework of tunnels, bedroom suites, and cellblocks attached to it—needed to be finished five minutes ago.
    At least, the humans had one thing going for them. They took direction well…with the right incentive. Leverage. Ivar’s mouth tipped up at the corners. God, he L-O-V-E-D leverage. It never failed. The little bastards responded so well to arm twisting—literal and otherwise. Most begged for their lives, their freedom, or his personal favorite: to see their families.
    Too bad Ivar wasn’t into making promises. He only provided what they required to keep working: food, water, a bunk, and their lives. The last he dangled like a carrot, the proverbial golden pledge—do what I ask and you’ll make it out alive. Jesus, he was a dog; the dictionary’s definition of deceitful.
    But, hey, the end justified the means. Didn’t it?
    Yeah, a big thumbs-up on that one.
    War wasn’t a word with any candy coating. It was a brutal contest of wills. A fuck you to the world and the enemy. May the best dragon win.
    Ivar pressed the main-floor button on the face of the electrical panel. The elevator’s ascent was smooth, a silent climb made possible by a series of huge magnets. He hummed his approval and glanced around the steel cage. It was a thing of beauty; the best technology had to offer.
    The modern marvel slowed, coming to a bump-free landing on the top floor of 28 Walton Street. One hundred and fifty feet above his subterranean home, the red-brick, three-story walk-up wasn’t much to look at from the outside. Surrounded by a quiet neighborhood filled with crooked A-frames, the abandoned fire station made the ultimate HQ. A dragon lair hiding in plain sight. It was perfect: cover and proximity to prey rolled into one.
    The only problem? The building. It was long on character and short on comfort. Ivar liked it anyway. The wide-open spaces worked for him and—despite the rotten stair treads and holes in the wooden floor—the structure was solid. The roof needed patching when he’d first moved in, but he hadn’t bought the place for its 1950s charm.
    He’d dropped $3.6 million on the rat hole for the land. Thirteen beautiful acres of trees, tall grass, and beat-to-shit oil tanks, cars, and forgotten construction machinery. It was a graveyard, a wasteland where shit came to die. The sinkhole of Seattle.
    Disgusting, just like the race responsible for it.
    Without making a sound, the elevator’s double doors slid wide. Ivar stepped out into what would become the Razorbacks’ common room—into decay, dust, and moonlight. Into his XO’s (aka executive officer’s) presence.
    Arms crossed, lean frame propped against the pitted brick wall at his back, Lothair’s black gaze landed on him. “We have a problem.”
    The muscles bracketing Ivar’s spine tightened. Great. Just what he needed…another screwup to toss on the ever-growing pile. Taking a calming breath, he threw out his best guess. “The female