Page 99 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume Two

Cameron reached Cassie’s door first and briefly knocked before stepping inside. Ravi followed Alric and stopped just past the threshold. The room wasn’t blue anymore. None of it was. He thought he’d heard Cassie saying that she didn’t want to see the color blue for a long time.

What he did find was an explosion of paper, Cassie’s insane array of computers and monitors, and Gunter seated at a table with his laptop, scribbling some notes on a yellow legal pad. The dragon looked more than a little disheveled, his blond hair sticking out in all directions. His glasses were balanced on the end of his nose, and dark circles surrounded his eyes.

“Gunter, I thought I told you to get some sleep,” Alric grumbled.

Gunter’s head snapped up, and he blinked at the king as if coming out of a daze. “I did.”

Cassie barked out a rough laugh from her desk, but she didn’t look much better. Maybe a little more awake. Ravi suspected she might have sneaked some coffee recently.

“That was two days ago.”

“Really? It’s been two days?”

Cassie held up two fingers and nodded. “Oh yeah. Two days since you last left this room.”

“I’ll say. The room smells like you could both use a shower,” Cameron announced, wrinkling his nose.

Ravi couldn’t argue that. The air had a musty quality—hints of old food, stale coffee, and possibly smelly feet.

Cassie folded her arms tightly over her chest and leaned back in her chair, glaring at her twin brother. “Are you done insulting us? Do you even want to hear the good news?”

Cameron opened his mouth, but Alric quickly placed his fingers over Cameron’s lips. “We’re sorry, Cassie. We’d love to hear your news.”

“We found the Jaeggi,” Gunter declared.

“What?” Ravi screeched, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be hanging in the background.

“Where?” Alric demanded.

“Prague,” Cassie announced with a proud smirk.

“That’s not all. It’s Thomas Jaeggi,” Gunter continued.

Ravi didn’t think it was possible for his mouth to fall open farther, but it did. Thomas Jaeggi was the suspected leader of the Jaeggi Clan. He was the one who’d taunted Alric and had been behind the kidnapping of Cameron nearly a year ago.

“Fuck,” Cameron muttered. “I’d been hoping he was killed in the fight and we just never found his body.”

Alric immediately stepped closer to his mate. Wrapping his arms around his waist, he pulled Cameron into the shelter of his wider frame. “Thomas Jaeggi will never get close to you again.”

“Oh, he’s gonna get real close one day because I’m punching his lights out.”

Alric growled low in the back of his throat, and Ravi nearly echoed him. He didn’t want the Jaeggi getting anywhere near their Consort ever again. Ravi was ready to make damn sure it never happened.

“How did you find him?” Alric inquired.

“Facial recognition software,” Cassie replied.

“I worked with Lisette to replay all the footage we had of Jaeggi encounters here in Germany, which included confrontations with Thomas as well as a few other Jaeggi members,” Gunter explained.

He took off his glasses and started to clean them with the tail of his untucked shirt. Ravi seriously couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Gunter look so rumpled. But then, like Cassie, Gunter tended to get tunnel vision when he was working on a project and forget basic things like eating, sleeping, and bathing.

“I snapped pics of them and fed them into the computer along with the crappy picture we were able to dig up of the suicide bomber who hit Burkhard.”

“Cassie had a few other searches running through Czechia.”

“Yeah, but this is the first one that really panned out.”

Alric nodded. “Was he passing through? How long ago was it?”