“You need to stop treating me like a child! I’m thirty years old, Dad, not three! You can’t keep doing this.”
“Well if I hadn’t you still would be … you’d be there with …” His eyes flashed with the gold of his dragon, and the air grew cold and heavy. “I can’t believe it. Another dragon.”
“What?” Jade asked. “What do you mean another dragon?”
Sebastian ignored her, and instead focused his stare on his daughter. “Did he touch you?”
“My God, Dad!” She buried her face in her hands, mostly because she didn’t want them to see how red her face had gotten.
Karim. Oh Lord. If her dad didn’t have those guys watch her, what would have happened?
No, stop thinking that. In a way, she should be glad she got out of there quick. Wasn’t it better to rip her heart out in a quick pull, like a Band-Aid, rather than have to suffer any longer. If she had, she might have done something rash.
“Deedee—”
“No!” She put her hand up, cutting off her father. “This ends now. You need to stop meddling in my life.”
“You were taken hostage!” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. “What was I supposed to do?”
“You don’t—argh!” She threw her hands up and then looked to the fourth occupant of the room—Uncle Daric—who had remained quiet the entire time. “Take me home, please?”
“Dee—”
“For the last time, leave me alone! Uncle Daric,” she pleaded and grabbed his arm. “Now.”
Sebastian pointed a finger at the warlock. “Don’t you dare—”
The coldness gripped her body again, and relief washed through her as her parents and the living room shimmered away.
Chapter Sixteen
As she sat in front of her couch inside her brownstone, Deedee ignored the incessant ringing of her cellphone where it sat on the well-worn, comfy couch beside her. She didn’t even have to look at the screen to know she didn’t want to talk to whoever it was. It didn’t matter if it was her mother, her father, or either of her brothers. She just wanted to be alone and eat her gallon of Ben and Jerry’s Everything But The Kitchen Sink ice cream.
“Ughh!” She put the spoon and half-empty tub down on the coffee table, grabbed a throw pillow, then slammed it on top of her cellphone. “Just leave me alone,” she cried to no one in particular. “I asked you to give me time, can’t you just respect that?” Taking the tub back on her lap, she began to shovel the sticky sweet ice cream in her mouth.
It had only been forty-eight hours since she’d returned to New York. In that time, she ignored all the calls and messages from her parents and proceeded to stress clean her entire house, as well as order exorbitant amounts of pizza and Chinese takeout.
When she calmed down enough, the first thing she did was contact work, assuring them she was fine and that she had just been lost in the sandstorm, but thankfully she was able to find a way to get to the nearest city and ask for help, and then her father had sent his private jet to pick her up. With what had happened, they had been sympathetic, but needless to say, the fate of her research trip was now up in the air.
She had also discovered what happened right after she got lost. It seemed Hanford was able to make it back to camp, but didn’t say anything or tell anyone that she might have been lost. In fact, he hastily left the camp the next day without speaking to anyone. When she didn’t come for breakfast, they had assumed she had slept in. Then a sandstorm had blown through, and everyone had stayed inside their tents overnight. It wasn’t until the sandstorm had died down and they were cleaning up the destroyed camp that anyone had realized she was gone. The nearest communications towers were down as well, so it took another day for someone to head out to the nearest town to find a working phone and tell her family that she was gone.
It still seemed like a dream, her time in the palace. A dream that had become a nightmare. One would think now that she was halfway around the world, the power of Karim’s words wouldn’t hurt her as bad.
But, damn her stupid, stupid heart, because being away from him hurt even more. She didn't know what was worse: the slow simmering emotions she'd kept for Cross for years or the bright burning ones that fizzled out. However, even now, what she felt for Karim didn’t seem to be fizzling out any time soon.
Her wolf made a pathetic whine. That was the only thing it could do these days, it seemed. Whine and complain at her. Stupid wolf.
The sound of the doorbell made her start. It didn’t stop after the first ring, but keep going. “Fine!”. As she stood up, ice cream carton in hand, the ringing continued and grew insistent. Except for her parents and people at work, no one knew she was back in New York. Who could it be? She told her family to—
Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. Oh. For a second, she imagined who it could be. That he had changed his mind and—
She raced to the door, flinging it open. “I—Astrid?”
Her best friend, Astrid Jonasson-Vrost, stood in the doorway. “I was afraid you weren’t going to answer.”
“Was that going to stop you?” Astrid, like Cross, was a hybrid—part Lycan, part witch, inherited from her father Daric—and had the ability to teleport short distances. She could teleport herself into Deedee’s house from the front door if she wanted to—and did so sometimes.
“No.” Her shoulders dropped. “But I’m so damn exhausted and cranky, and I figured you wouldn’t turn away a pregnant woman.” Her hands went to her protruding belly, and Deedee knew she was ready to give birth very soon. “Let me in please? And—” her eyes dropped to the nearly empty container in her hand, “tell me you have more of those.”
“Tons.” Deedee laughed for the first time in what seemed like days, and she realized the sight of her best friend was all she needed for that cloud looming over her to go away. “Come in, Astrid, and put your feet up. Goodness, are you sure you only have one in there?”
The blonde winced. “Some days it feels like I have a basketball team inside my belly. And this game has definitely gone on overtime.”
When she stood aside to let Astrid in, that’s when she realized her friend wasn’t alone. Two men—both of them familiar—stood at the bottom of the stoop. “What are they doing here? Did my father send you to check on me?”
Her friend poked a finger at her sternum. “If you’d left your house at all, you’d have realized these two,” she cocked her head at the two men behind her, “have been guarding your place for the last two days.”
“Nice to see you again, mon petite,” Marc Delacroix greeted, a big grin on his face. “Seems you’re so glad to be home, you never want to leave. I hope you’ve been tipping your pizza delivery guy generously, seeing as he’s made so many trips here.”
Deedee rolled her eyes and fixed her attention on her second guard. “Hello, Jacob, haven’t seen you in a while. Why didn’t you come up and say hello?”
The young Lycan man smirked at her, his green eyes twinkling. “Hey, Dee, how’s it going?” Jacob Martin worked at Lone Wolves Security, an agency her father ran that employed Lycans and sent them out on special missions around the world. He was also a family friend, as his father was an adopted brother of Meredith Jonasson, Astrid and Cross’s mom.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you two doing here?”
“Seems Sebastian Creed was mighty impressed at how I helped save his only daughter, and Lucas—I mean, the Alpha—was happy I could help prevent Sebastian from razing an entire country,” Delacroix said. “So I thought I’d ingratiate myself further by offering to keep you safe. I’ve learned that favors from powerful men can come in handy.”
“Keep me safe? From—” When she turned back to Jacob Martin and remembered who—and what—he was, it dawned on her. That is, the reason why her father would send him of all people.
I will come for her, and even if you have an army of a thousand men, you will not stop me.
Karim’s words gave her an involuntary shiver. But su
rely, he didn’t mean to just pluck her from her home and take her back. For one thing, that was kidnapping. And even if he did manage to come for her and bring her to Zhobghadi, her family and clan could just take her back.
“Dee?” Astrid cocked her head to the side. “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine. Just … come in.” She glared at the two men. “You guys can stay out here.” Really! Did her father think that the best way to make amends for sending his people to watch over her was to send more people? With a great big huff, she slammed the door.
As they walked into the living room, Astrid waddled over to the couch. She waved off Deedee’s offer of assistance as she eased herself down with a long sigh. “How are you doing, Dee?”
She considered clamming up and not saying anything. This was her best friend, after all, and she would understand if Deedee was not ready to talk. When Astrid herself had been brokenhearted, she’d come here and Deedee allowed her to just mope and cry as she needed. But really, what good would it do? “I’m … doing as well as I can. What do you know about what happened?”
“Only bits and pieces. I wanted to give you time, but it’s been two days.” Astrid reached out and placed a hand over hers. “When I heard that you were lost, I panicked, I swear I would have given birth right then and there. Zac kept it from me as long as he could because he didn’t want me to panic or try to help in the search, which only made me even more frantic. And then while I was stewing at home, feeling so helpless that I couldn’t go and find you, I got mad.”
“Mad? At what?”
“At you,” she said sheepishly. “Because you ran away so far from us, where we couldn’t protect you. And I was mad at Cross, too.”
“Cross? Whatever for?”
“Because he drove you away.” The look in Astrid’s eyes told Deedee she truly believed this. “If only he didn’t reject you, and if only he declared his love for you, then you wouldn’t have left New York. And then maybe you’d be dating by now or maybe we’d even be pregnant at the same time.” She rubbed her belly. “You guys always looked so good together, and I know I was always that third wheel—”
“Astrid, no.” She shook her head as she reached over and hugged her friend. “Please, don’t think that. I meant what I said before. I love you as a sister, a real sister, okay?”
“Damn hormones,” Astrid wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “And that stupid brother of mine … he doesn’t even know that you were lost. No one’s been able to contact him.”
“He’s doing important work.” Deedee knew all about his work, of course, trying to obtain the two remaining artifacts of Magus Aurelius before their enemies, the mages, did. Her mother kept her up to date. That didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed that Cross hadn’t come for her. “Your dad came to get me.”
“I know,” Astrid said. “It’s weird though, huh? How he could have known you’d be in Zhobghadi, even though that veil of magic prevented him from coming inside?”
“I—” She never questioned it at the time, but she realized Astrid was right. How did Daric guess so quickly? “Well, they knew I couldn’t have gone far. It was probably a hunch.”
“Deedee, what happened while you were there?” Astrid asked, their eyes meeting. “Did they … hurt you? Is that why you haven’t spoken to anyone since you got back?”
She swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “No one hurt me.” Physically. Astrid was her friend, could she tell her? “I—”
Raised voices coming from the outside caught their attention, followed by a crash and a series of loud thumps.
Astrid’s brows squished together. “What the heck was that?”
Her instincts flared, and Deedee didn’t bother to wait for Astrid to get up as she rushed to the door and threw it open. “What in heaven’s name is going on here?”
Two large men had Delacroix pinned against a dark SUV as he struggled to break free. At the bottom of the stoop, two more guys stood on either side of Jacob, ready to pounce on him.
As Jacob raised his hands, panic seized Deedee. “Jacob, no! We’re out in public.”
Jacob was distracted by her words for a second, but it was just enough time for the two men to tackle him and take him down.
“No!” Deedee flew down the steps, and grabbed one of the men. But he didn’t budge, didn’t even flinch as she used all her Lycan strength to try and pry him off Jacob. However, the man made no move to fling her off or even try to touch her. Who were these men and how were they so strong? She didn’t sense any wolves in them, so they couldn’t be Lycans.
She heard the sound of the SUV door opening, but she ignored it, focusing on her task of freeing Jacob before they did something drastic. “Get off him!”
“Desiree, stop.”
Her blood froze like an arctic storm in her veins. No, it couldn’t be …
“Desiree.”
Slowly, she looked up. And cerulean blue eyes stared back at her.
What felt like a lifetime passed as they stared at each other. It must have only been seconds, but everything around her seemed to slow down. Someone was calling her name, but it sounded like they were far away. And she couldn’t focus on anything else except Karim’s tall, dark frame as it unfolded from the SUV, the two steps he took toward her, and the warm, musky scent of his that transported her back to his desert palace.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He didn’t say anything either.
“Deedee, get back inside!” Jacob growled as he struggled against the men pinning him down. “Motherfuckers, how the fuck are you this strong?”
She came back to her senses and realized who these guys were. The royal bodyguards. “Karim, call off your men.”
“They were defending themselves and me,” Karim said. “I was trying to go up to your door—”
“No one gets in,” Delacroix growled, his eyes glowing wolf. “Dragon’s orders.”
“I am the dragon,” Karim growled back. “So, these two men are meant to keep me away? They cannot even take on the Almoravid.”
“Four against two doesn’t seem fair,” the Cajun wolf shot back.
“I’m fucking tired of this shit.” Jacob went still, then said in a low voice, “Get. Off. Me!”
The two men holding him down suddenly let go, shouting in pain as they waved their arms, flames licking at the sleeves of their matching black suits. The guys pinning Delacroix rushed to their aid, forcing their companions to the ground to get them to roll around in an attempt to smother the fire.
“What’s the matter dragon? Finally found your match?” Jacob shot to his feet, his eyes glowing with an unearthly light. He lifted his hands, which were both lit up with flames. “Go ahead, light me up. I don’t burn easily.” He blew at his hands, extinguishing the flames with a dramatic flair. “Maybe you’d like to give it a try? I haven’t been tickled in a while.”
And that’s why Sebastian Creed chose Jacob to be her bodyguard. The hybrid could not only produce and control fire, but was completely immune to it.
“Are you crazy, Jacob?” Deedee railed. “We’re out in public! Anyone could have seen you!”
“I have my orders from Sebastian, Dee,” he said. “No one comes near you, especially not this prick.”
For the first time ever, Deedee saw genuine shock on Karim’s face. Of course, he quickly recovered. “You cannot stop me—”
“What the fuck is going on here?”
All eyes turned toward the front door, where Astrid stood, hands on her hips. “Jacob,” she thrust her chin at the two men nursing burns on their arms. “Did you use your magic in public? You know that’s forbidden.”
“Aww, Astrid,” Jacob blustered. “Those guys were all over me!”
“Oh, my Lord, Karim, your men!” Deedee looked over at them. “They need to go to the hospital—”
“They will be fine.” He nodded at the two men, who immediately stood up and bowed, their fists pounding on their chest.
“They are Almoravid and they will heal quickly.”
“Those aren’t just—”
“Just who the hell are you?” Though it took her a while, Astrid eventually made it down the stoop and now stood nose-to-nose—or rather, nose-to-chest—with Karim.
“I am the Crown Prince Karim Idris Salamuddin of Zhobghadi, heir to the throne and bearer of The Great One.”
“Well, I’m Astrid Jonasson-Vrost, Future Beta of the New York clan and take-no-shit from anyone fucking bad ass.” Despite her advanced pregnancy, Astrid clearly wasn’t intimidated by Karim’s title or his looming stance over her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“That is no way to address a prince.”
“This is my territory, prince.” She stared him down, and they stood there, just waiting for the other to flinch.
Desiree slapped a hand over her head. “Karim, just go, okay? We’re causing a scene here. Go and never come back.” She turned her back on him and marched up the steps.
“Desiree!” Footsteps followed her up to her front door. “Stop!”
She whirled to face him. “I’m not going back to you so I can be your fucking mistress!” Goodness, she never ever cursed. While her father was a former marine and cursed like it was going out of style, her mother hated it, so she tried to avoid it. But that damned man just drove her to the brink.
“Desiree, I told you there was nowhere on earth you could hide from me,” he said in a deadly voice.
“How did get my address?”
He snorted. “You told me your name; it was easy enough to find you. And information on your father, if you know the right people.”
Of course. Creed Securities provided services to all kinds of high-level individuals all over the world, from billionaires to celebrities to politicians. Karim would have had the right connections to get the information he needed.
Her heart sank. Because for a moment, she thought he was here for her. But it was obvious, he wanted to know more about her father and his dragon. Would he use her to get to him?
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