Dark Spy’s Resolution Read online

  Dark Spy’s Resolution

  The Children of the Gods book 37

  I. T. Lucas

  Also by I. T. Lucas

  THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS ORIGINS

  1: Goddess’s Choice

  2: Goddess’s Hope

  THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS

  Dark Stranger

  1: Dark Stranger The Dream

  2: Dark Stranger Revealed

  3: Dark Stranger Immortal

  Dark Enemy

  4: Dark Enemy Taken

  5: Dark Enemy Captive

  6: Dark Enemy Redeemed

  Kri & Michael’s Story

  6.5: My Dark Amazon

  Dark Warrior

  7: Dark Warrior Mine

  8: Dark Warrior’s Promise

  9: Dark Warrior’s Destiny

  10: Dark Warrior’s Legacy

  Dark Guardian

  11: Dark Guardian Found

  12: Dark Guardian Craved

  13: Dark Guardian’s Mate

  Dark Angel

  14: Dark Angel's Obsession

  15: Dark Angel's Seduction

  16: Dark Angel's Surrender

  Dark Operative

  17: Dark Operative: A Shadow of Death

  18: Dark Operative: A Glimmer of Hope

  19: Dark Operative: The Dawn of Love

  Dark Survivor

  20: Dark Survivor Awakened

  21: Dark Survivor Echoes of Love

  22: Dark Survivor Reunited

  Dark Widow

  23: Dark Widow’s Secret

  24: Dark Widow’s Curse

  25: Dark Widow’s Blessing

  Dark Dream

  26: Dark Dream’s Temptation

  27: Dark Dream’s Unraveling

  28: Dark Dream’s Trap

  Dark Prince

  29: Dark Prince’s Enigma

  30: Dark Prince’s Dilemma

  31: Dark Prince’s Agenda

  Dark Queen

  32: Dark Queen’s Quest

  33: Dark Queen’s Knight

  34: Dark Queen’s Army

  Dark Spy

  35: Dark Spy Conscripted

  36: Dark Spy’s Mission

  37: Dark Spy’s Resolution

  Dark Overlord

  38: Dark Overlord New Horizon

  PERFECT MATCH

  Perfect Match 1: Vampire’s Consort

  Perfect Match 2: King’s Chosen

  Perfect Match 3: Captain’s Conquest

  SETS

  The Children of the Gods books 1-3: Dark Stranger trilogy—Includes a bonus short story: The Fates take a Vacation

  The Children of the Gods: Books 1-6—includes character lists

  The Children of the Gods: Books 6.5-10—includes character lists

  TRY THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS SERIES ON

  AUDIBLE

  2 FREE audiobooks with your new Audible subscription!

  Copyright © 2020 by I. T. Lucas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  Dark Spy’s Resolution is a work of fiction!

  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  1. Kalugal

  2. Kian

  3. Jin

  4. Arwel

  5. Turner

  6. Kalugal

  7. Jin

  8. Turner

  9. Arwel

  10. Kian

  11. Kalugal

  12. Kian

  13. Kalugal

  14. Yamanu

  15. Mey

  16. Lokan

  17. Magnus

  18. Kian

  19. Kalugal

  20. Wendy

  21. Vlad

  22. Kian

  23. Arwel

  24. Jin

  25. Kalugal

  26. Kian

  27. Kalugal

  28. Jin

  29. Annani

  30. Arwel

  31. Kian

  32. Jin

  33. Kian

  34. Kalugal

  35. Wendy

  36. Vlad

  37. Wendy

  38. Vlad

  39. Kian

  40. Kalugal

  41. Jin

  42. Arwel

  43. Wendy

  44. Vlad

  45. Wendy

  46. Mey

  47. Wendy

  48. Vlad

  49. Kian

  50. Arwel

  51. Jin

  52. Kian

  53. Jin

  54. Kalugal

  55. Kian

  56. Jin

  57. Arwel

  58. Kalugal

  59. Jin

  60. Arwel

  61. Jin

  62. Kalugal

  63. Arwel

  64. Kalugal

  65. Jin

  66. Kalugal

  67. Arwel

  68. Kalugal

  69. Jin

  70. Kalugal

  71. Jin

  72. Kalugal

  73. Jin

  74. Arwel

  75. Jin

  The Children of the Gods Series

  The Perfect Match Series

  FOR EXCLUSIVE PEEKS

  1

  Kalugal

  Kalugal watched the monitor, following the steps as the program ran through the lockdown protocol. Once the bunker was secure, he pulled his immortal captive’s earpiece out of his pocket, put it in his ear, and tapped it to activate.

  “Everyone listening can move and talk now. Good night.”

  “Wait! What have you done with Arwel?”

  Kalugal paused with his finger a fraction of an inch away from the device.

  Should he disconnect? Or should he engage?

  A dilemma.

  On the one hand, he was eager to start questioning his captive, but on the other hand, this was an opportunity to talk with the team’s commander and learn what he had in mind as far as escalating things.

  Was the guy on the other side of the connection in charge of the operation?

  His quick recovery from compulsion indicated that he had a good head on his shoulders and a strong personality, which were both prerequisites for a command position. Most people would have needed several moments to collect their wits.

  This should be an interesting conversation.

  Leaning back in his chair, Kalugal crossed his legs at the ankles. “So that’s Flyboy’s name. I haven’t had the opportunity to chat with him and his girlfriend yet.”

  “Flyboy? And what girlfriend are you talking about?”

  Kalugal sighed. He hated it when people played dumb.

  “Your man sailed over the crowd to knock out the shooter, which was very impressive, but it also gave him away. Then Flyboy’s immune girlfriend rushed to save him and fought like a hellcat. But don’t worry, we handled them both with care. As you are aware, I don’t need to use force to extract information from people.”

  “She is not his girlfriend, and we know where you’ve taken them. As we speak, your place is being surrounded.”

  Even if the guy wasn’t bluffing about knowing the location of Kalugal’s compound, there was no way Arwel’s pals had made it there so fast. Except, he might have had additional warriors stationed nearby or some that hadn’t been connected to Arwel’s channel when Kalugal had compelled them to freeze. r />
  His immediate safety was not an issue.

  While locked down, the bunker was nearly impenetrable, and they had enough supplies stored to last them for months. The problem would be getting out of there while a large force was surrounding the place.

  Two tunnels led in and out of the bunker, but one went into the house, which wasn’t going to be helpful as an escape route, and the other led to a grate in the sidewalk on the other side of his property, which wasn’t very useful either.

  That was the trouble with building a bunker inside an established and affluent community. Digging under existing houses had not been possible.

  If the force outside wasn’t large, he could just walk out and compel the men surrounding his property to let him through, but there was a limit to how many immortals he could compel at once.

  Kalugal wasn’t as powerful as his father. Not yet. Twenty or so warriors were the most he could handle at the same time.

  With a few quick taps on the keyboard, he flipped through the feeds from the perimeter’s cameras and was relieved to find no one outside the compound or on its grounds. That meant that his initial assessment had been correct. The team that had been sent after him wasn’t large, and they were all still in the vicinity of the club. Or so he hoped. Whoever had organized this operation might be sending reinforcements.

  It was time to issue some threats of his own. “I can just command them to freeze again. Should I do it now?”

  “They are no longer connected to this channel. It’s just you and me.”

  Smart move, which Kalugal had anticipated.

  “Who am I talking to? Are you the head of this operation?”

  “I’m just the communications guy. The head of the operation is going to join us in a moment.”

  That wasn’t good. A small unit didn’t need a dedicated communications person, which implied that he was dealing with a large force after all.

  The most logical conclusion was that it belonged to Annani’s clan. Except, what did they want with him?

  He had never bothered them or tried to find them, and they had left him alone as well. Kalugal was surprised that they even knew of his existence.

  He was supposed to be dead.

  Why the sudden interest? Perhaps they sought his cooperation against his father?

  If that was why Annani had sent men to follow him around, she would be disappointed. Kalugal had no such intentions.

  He lifted his legs and put his feet on the desk. “Wonderful. I can’t wait.”

  “If you are planning to compel him as well, it’s not going to help you. His second-in-command is an immune.”

  The possibility of compelling the commander hadn’t even crossed Kalugal’s mind. At this point, all he wanted was to find out why Annani’s clan was after him, and then to get them off his back as soon as possible. Which probably meant releasing the warrior and his girlfriend.

  He would gladly do that, but only after interrogating them. There was little chance that an opportunity to learn about Annani’s clan and what they were up to would present itself again.

  Regrettably, once this was over he would have to relocate, and that was a damn shame. Kalugal liked the neighborhood and its proximity to Stanford, and the bunker had cost him a fortune to build, not to mention the hassle it had been. But his location had been compromised, and he couldn’t allow the clan to breathe down his neck and interfere with his plans.

  “How fascinating. I can’t wait to hear who your boss is, and to find out what he wants with me.”

  “Hello, cousin.”

  Cousin?

  All immortals had common ancestry, but to call him cousin was a stretch.

  “Who is this?”

  “I am Kian, son of Annani, your mother’s sister.”

  What?

  “You heard me right. Areana, your mother, is my mother’s sister, which makes us cousins.”

  Kalugal wasn’t aware that he’d voiced his astonishment.

  It took a brief moment for the shock to subside and for the gears in his mind to start spinning again. The guy couldn’t be talking about Annani the goddess. Many of the clan’s daughters were probably named after her.

  Had Navuh stolen Annani’s sister from the clan?

  Was that why they had been stalking him? To get her back?

  His mother hadn’t said anything about the clan. But then Kalugal had been a young boy the last time he’d seen her, and the subject of the clan and how she’d come to be in Navuh’s possession hadn’t come up in their conversations.

  “Are you still there?” Kian asked.

  “I can’t help you recover your clanswoman. If I could have, I would have freed my mother a long time ago. Regrettably, she loves my father, and even though I must assume that he kidnapped her and forced her to mate him, she wants to stay with him. I guess Areana is suffering from prolonged Stockholm syndrome.”

  2

  Kian

  Kian felt like scratching his head.

  What the hell was Kalugal talking about? Could it be that he didn’t know who Annani was?

  Navuh had kept Annani’s survival secret from her sister, but not from the Brotherhood. Since the very beginning of the conflict, he’d been using her and the supposed evils she and her clan were committing to unify his men behind his so-called cause.

  Perhaps Kalugal was suffering from amnesia?

  Could it be that he hadn’t escaped during WWII but had been buried in stasis for decades, only to revive recently?

  It had happened to Wonder, so it wasn’t an implausible scenario.

  “Do you know who Annani is?”

  “I know who the Annani is, but naturally, I don’t know any of her namesake descendants. If memory serves me correctly, and I’m quite sure that it does, my mother has never mentioned her sister, by name or otherwise.”

  That explained it.

  Kalugal assumed that Kian’s mother was an immortal named after Annani, not the goddess herself. And given that Areana hadn’t revealed her true identity to her son, Kalugal’s assumption made sense.

  Unfortunately, the wind had already been knocked out from under the bombastic proclamation that Kian had hoped would have such a profound impact on Kalugal.

  How disappointing.

  On the other hand, lengthy explanations were precisely what Kian was after. The longer he kept Kalugal talking, the more time he would buy Kri and Jin to get out of the area, and the Guardians to surround the complex.

  “No clan females are named after Annani. My mother is the goddess, and your mother is her half-sister.”

  There was a long moment of silence before Kalugal responded. “What you are saying is impossible. If my mother were a goddess, she would be more powerful than my father, and she obviously is not.”

  “Areana is a very weak goddess, and Navuh is a very powerful immortal. Still, Navuh doesn’t want anyone to know that his mate is a goddess who outranks him in the gene hierarchy. That’s the reason he’s hiding her in the harem, and that’s also the reason he didn’t allow her sons to grow up with her.”

  “He doesn’t allow any of his children to be raised in the harem. He thinks that by preventing his sons from being raised in the harem he is protecting them from killing each other over succession rights. If we don’t know who our mothers are, we also don’t know the hierarchy of who was born to a wife and who was born to a concubine, and Navuh does not play favorites. No one knows who he is going to choose.”

  Kian shook his head. He’d assumed that Kalugal knew so much more than he actually did, but he should have realized that Areana couldn’t have told all that to a five-year-old boy. He’d been too young to understand harem politics and the web of lies and deceit that Navuh had created.

  “Navuh has only two sons. You and Lokan. The others were fathered by human males who look like him. I loathe saying anything positive about your father, but he loves your mother and has been loyal to her throughout the years.”

  As Kalugal processed that n
ugget of information, there was another long moment of silence.

  “Are you saying that the other women in my father’s harem are having relations with the human male servants? That means that other than Lokan, my other so-called brothers are not related to me at all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll be damned. My father actually cares. That’s an ingenious way to protect Lokan's and my identity. With numerous fake sons, no one suspects who Navuh’s real successors are, or rather is. I have no intention of taking over. Lokan can have it all.”

  That hadn’t been the take-home value Kian had hoped for, but it didn’t matter. His main goal was to keep Kalugal talking and asking questions until Turner confirmed that Jin was safe and that the Guardians were in position.

  “I’m not sure that you’ve got it right. Whatever Navuh does serves him and no one else. Technically, you and your brother outrank him as far as godly genes go. While Navuh is the son of a god with a mortal, and therefore only half a god, you and your brother are three-quarter gods. It’s just as important for him to keep that information from you as it is to hide his mate’s godly identity.”