He shrugged back into his jacket. "A disabling charm before you entered the room and snipping the wires after you left but before it faded. We'll butcher these cameras in the same manner."
"Then what keeps you from just stealing anything you want?" I frowned.
Eskal let down the tailgate and slid out, then offered me his hand to help me down. "Honor."
"And the fact that he doesn't care to have the business lose reputation if he were to get caught hoarding diamonds," Iyadre said.
I took the hand, because what did he have to win if he yanked me down in my ass, and hopped out of the truck. "Is that really a thing? All the books always said to offer dragons precious metals or rubies-"
I stopped speaking and looked at the three men towering over me. Their eyes were locked on me, stuck on every word I said. They'd gone as still as the night around us, and in the darkness, I saw three sets of cat-slitted eyes staring back at me. "Focus, gentlemen."
Nariti was the first one to fix his eyes. He rubbed them, briefly, then turned and headed for the front of the museum. With a flick of his wrist, something sparkly and light blue shot out toward a number of locations across the building. I'd known that we had plenty of cameras, but that many? Our collection wasn't that impressive.
Eskal and Iyadre walked after him but I found it much harder to move my feet. I was betraying the friends, the family, that I loved. That museum represented everything I had in my life, and it was because of them that I did have so much. I'd agreed to help the dragons and some part of me knew that it was the right thing to do. They deserved to have access to something so culturally significant to them.
But why did it have to be me? Couldn't someone else have been the magical weirdo among us? Nicole would have loved the attention. She'd have probably already had them eating out of her hand. I wasn't that kind of girl. These days, I wasn't really sure what kind of girl I was; but I wasn't that kind. I was sure of it.
Super sure.
I lowered my head and sighed, then trudged after them. If only I hadn't accidentally awakened that egg in my room. If only Mom hadn't decided that she'd wanted a dragon of her own. If only Mom hadn't been right about the egg being a freaking dragon's egg.
Though, in the position I was currently in, I had to wonder how that egg had been separated from its nest. These dragons had freaked out over the potential to hatch a nest. "Are all flights as obsessed about eggs as you are?"
"Hatches are rare enough. It's why we're so long-lived," Iyadre said.
Well, that made more sense than it didn't. "So, everyone wants eggs. Everyone's ready to tear down brick walls for eggs. Then why did my mom have one?"
"Theft. It happens from time to time. Eggs are fertile for a very long while should they become separated from the omega incubating them. It is plausible that the egg was stolen when knights rode on horseback and dragon slaying was a common hobby for the lords to impress the ladies with," Eskal muttered as he worked to break the lock.
I looked around the business district as he worked. "You might want to hex all these other cameras. I mean, there's an ATM right over there."
Nariti glanced at Eskal for permission. The alpha shrugged and Nariti cast the same spell on a thousand thousand cameras around us. It was like watching some sort of fireworks show. A few of those cameras sent sparks of their own, the magic too much for them. I assumed they were newer models.
Finally, I heard a click behind me. Eskal opened the door and gestured, mutely, for the rest of us to go in. I was the first one through, hoping that all the magic being thrown around had ruined the alarm systems, too. Or maybe Eskal had simply paid someone off on the way over. The world worked in mysterious ways, I'd been told, when people had the kind of money he had.
All I knew was that Martin, the usual night guard, was nowhere to be seen.
We crept through the entryway and down to the stairway that lead to the basements. Yes, plural. Museums are often rather maze-like, with lower levels keeping a wide variety of outdated information in the ground. We dig it up only to bury it again.
It was one of my favorite rants.
The emergency lights gave us just enough to see by. Yes, the older belongings were down here but so were the newest discoveries; if my guess was correct. The lab was on the first basement floor and I was betting that we'd find the eggs there.
I was wrong.
Nicole lay across one of the workbenches, her skirt up as Willem pounded her from behind. I stopped in the shadows and stared for a second, then whipped my head away from the scene in front of us. "Jesus, your standards, honey," I whispered.
But the fucking dragons didn't look away. I shoved Iyadre and led them back up the stairs, hoping they hadn't seen us. I doubted they had; they were probably too involved in each other to worry about anyone or anything that happened outside of that lab room.
"There's the store rooms on the third floor," I muttered.
Eskal frowned at me. "Is that likely?"
"It's possible. New stuff gets sorted through there now and then, but it's such a pain taking everything up the elevator that we usually don't. Either way, it doesn't matter. We can't get past them while they're busy down there."
"Are you uncomfortable
