[2023 Wattys Shortlist, 2023 Amby Awards winner, Featured 3 times in Wattpad Picks lists]
Kaleth has worked as an agent of Luxarx for years. What the average person might see as an exciting, dangerous job has become the routine, and the only thing...
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"You're being ridiculous!" Nef yelled at his brother, glaring at him from where he was sitting at the table. He was getting tired of this conversation. Alor just refused to listen. They had been in this hotel room for over an hour, and they had been arguing the entire time. At some point, Nira even turned on the TV, clearly done trying to get them to stop, probably because Alor made them get rid of their phones to avoid being tracked like he'd tracked them. Which was incredibly uncool, by the way.
"You claim you saw a dragon," Alor argued, gesturing with his hands to emphasize as if that would prove his point better. Okay, sure, what Mel was saying sounded ludicrous, but that was what he had seen. Besides, Alor wasn't the one basically kidnapped here, so Nef was pretty sure he wasn't the one who was crazy.
"Well, if you hadn't closed that laptop, maybe you could have seen it too," Nef snapped back.
He wished Nira hadn't left and had seen the giant lizard as well. She had taken his side immediately, but he was sure that was only out of sympathy, and Alor wasn't convinced anyway since she hadn't seen anything. Somehow Nef doubted his brother would be convinced even if Nira had actually seen the dragon, though.
"Seriously, Al, why are you being like this? You had no problem with dragging me into this whole situation before, and suddenly you're betraying your coworkers just to stop me."
Alor looked away at that, but Nef continued to glare at him. "They'll be fine. Kara and Rayni will just say that Kaleth ordered them to help him."
"What about Areon then? You realize you left him stranded in a top-secret facility with a dragon and Morthan, right?"
Alor looked like he had been about to argue until he heard the last part of Nef's sentence. "The president was there, too?"
He sounded so shocked Nef wondered if he hadn't truly believed that the politician was up to something until now. Which would be weird because weren't all politicians up to something?
"Yeah. He didn't sound happy that Kaleth was there. I didn't hear much 'cause like a minute later you ended the transmission," Nef complained, and his brother grimaced. "Now, would you mind telling me why the hell you've been doing all this?"
Alor sighed. "Nef—"
Nef sent him a stern look, which thankfully seemed to do the trick.
"I got a call from someone. I was told that if I let you help us, they'd have you killed," Alor explained, sighing. He looked regretful, but Nef barely noticed. Someone wanted to kill him for helping with some hacking?
Nef made a huh noise, as he thought about it a little. That was both scary and flattering. He hadn't thought someone would pay good money to get rid of him.
"That's not a good thing!" said Alor, sounding horrified.
"Wait, someone wants to kill Nef?" Nira said with alarm, quickly putting the magazine she'd been reading to look at them. Looking at her, Nef was once again reminded of what he'd learned just a few hours ago. She seemed genuinely worried about him, though, so Nef would hold onto the fact that she hadn't lied about her feelings for him. He hoped.
