“That’s my boss. She’s very cranky and looking for a reason to kick my ass out of here. So, yeah…” She smiled quickly. “Later.” Turning she did a small skip and twirled over toward the awaiting customers, her arms sweeping and swooping as her skirt lifted and twisted in a beautiful Beauty and the Beast type dance she displayed on her way over.
Attor was mesmerized momentarily by the graceful way her body moved, it was like music was playing, but she was the only one who could hear it. He lifted his eyebrows in admiration, perhaps fate wasn’t an entirely jacked up bitch like he had referred to her last night. Taryn was a truly beautiful woman. And if it wasn’t for the ‘wanted for murder’ part, she’d be perfect.
Turning to go, he glanced back up to see the blonde woman still staring. The only difference was she’d gone from staring at Taryn to now him. Attor stood up taller, his shoulders sliding back to create the tallest and most intimidating height he could. He knew she was Taryn’s boss, but that meant shit to him personally. She held his gaze for a moment too long. Attor tilted his head as it registered something was different. At the very moment his brain clicked, she vanished from view. A noise from behind him caused him to turn, a small brown-haired child was walking toward him with a bright smile on the small male’s face.
“Prince Charming,” the child’s voice squealed with excitement.
“Not in this lifetime, kid,” Attor scoffed, as the kid’s parents bundled him up and scuttled away from the tall, dangerous looking male. He smirked, at least all humans were stupid because he was obviously not now, nor would ever be, a prince charming to anyone.
Attor looked around, the woman was gone from the window, and Taryn had danced away from his line of sight. Too many people were in the park now, so he decided to go and grab some food. Maybe he’d come back later when it was closed. If he could resist following Taryn home to see where she lived that was.
Shaking his head, he grinned. “Work first, Attor,” he said quietly. “Work first.”
Q took his feet off the corner of his white marble desk and turned to face the floor to ceiling glass panels that enclosed the two sides of his large office. He was up on the fifty-first floor of a ginormous building in the center of New York City. His views looked directly over Central Park and out onto an unending ocean of concrete. Apart from the park and its amazing colors especially in the fall, the view was gray, every shade of gray you could imagine.
He leaned back in his tall, red leather, presidential recliner, crossing his legs as he looked out to the sun making its way down for an early evening departure. Between his first and second finger on his right hand, he cradled a snifter glass containing a whiskey double, which he swirled delicately as his mind wandered to a year ago.
Q had come so close to having his moment in the sun. He’d been within sight of being able to deal a death blow to a clan leader. Trusting Mr. Embers to fulfill his promise and attack the dragons underwater, while it cost him his life, it had been successful. The dragon’s hideaway was destroyed, and they had been forced to flee from the mighty power of a phoenix attack.
A number of phoenix had lost their lives that day. Q had walked amongst the weeping faces of family members in the aftermath of the dragon’s destruction. He had asked them why they wept when they had been the ones to succeed in destroying their sworn enemy. Why sob at what was lost, when what they gained was far greater. Sure, some birds of battle were cremated in the days following, but they burned as heroes. Their ashes scattered to the wind forever remembered as those who battled the dragons and won. Their ultimate sacrifice caused the scaled demons to run under the might that was the phoenix.
Q was proud of the battle as a whole but wished he’d gained the head of the one called V. He wished he’d killed the female mate while he’d had the chance. If he were ever to get close enough to a female connected to one of the dragons again, he would rip their throat out before even a scream had a chance to escape. Leaving the lifeless flesh as bait for when he would have the opportunity to do the same to their dragon mate. Q had spent a lot of time thinking about the ways to cause the greatest pain and eventual death to dragons over the past year. He was eager to give strength to those thoughts and make them a reality.
The setting sun was filling his office with colors of reds and oranges. Colors that made him feel connected to the sky. Colors that matched him when in beast form. His feathers were a perfect imitation of a glorious sunset. Living in the city gave him little chance to wing up and take flight anymore. He had been so busy scanning the web and locating any tiny discrepancy which might lead to a place to find dragons.
Q lifted the amber liquid to his eye line and swirled it slowly, continuing the glasses journey to his lips. He felt the burn hit his tongue as the fluid flowed down his throat. He licked the last of the flavor from his lips and exhaled. It was only the end of a Tuesday, and he already wished for a Friday.
C.O.D.E.—Canadian Oil and Drilling Exploration—the company he’d run was now closed. After the incident in the Canadian bay, they were forced to terminate and shut down then settle some charges out of court. It never failed to surprise Q how easy humans were to manipulate. Open up a briefcase full of cash, and whatever you wanted happened without any questions.
Q still needed a name to hide his operations under. So he had pulled one of his minor companies up and made it the new headquarters. Safe Ocean Scanners, or S.O.S, was a company that offered their services to other businesses who needed to find things underwater. Drilling companies were, of course, their biggest clients. Sometimes universities trying to locate some lost artifacts, sunken cities, or a new previously undiscovered species. Of course, there was always a whack job or two who simply had too much money and a need to play pirates hunting for some ‘X marks the spot’ on a treasure map at the bottom of the ocean. Q didn’t care, money was money, and it kept the authorities from seeing behind the scenes.
The new headquarters were based in New York City but had depots all over the world, all equipped with the best technology money could buy. They had the most up to date submarines, both large and more of a personal size. Phoenix hated the water, so Q paid the most intelligent humans, and phoenix he could find who would do the job. To continuously deliver new ways for them to go deeper, darker, in the search for what and who he wanted. Q wanted to be able to say, he was the first to not leave any stone unturned under the water.
Knock. Knock.
Q turned to the sound of his door. “Enter,” he said as he placed his now empty glass on the desk and pulled his chair in, so he was only visible from the mid-chest up.
Two large men walked in, their heavy footsteps clunked on his polished wooden floor. Both men were wearing a black suit, dark glasses, and had their hair cut very short. They looked almost identical, as most of Q’s security staff did.
Q looked up at the body sized bag currently slumped over one of the men’s shoulders. “You were successful?” he asked Ben and Mike, two of his personal security staff.
“You doubted us?” Ben, the one without the bag said, his voice dangerously low, like his vocal cords were made of sharp and uneven gravel rocks.
The bag was thrown to the floor with a thump that bounced around his office.
“Better be alive.” Q raised an eyebrow. “I specifically asked for a live one.”
“Oh, he’s alive all right, he was just a little…” Mike grinned, “… resistant. So I had to knock him out.”
Q pushed the chair out from where he was sitting, grabbed a cup of water from his chiller and motioned to Ben to open the bag. Waiting to see the face of the man, he had brown hair and was wearing a torn white T-shirt. Q dumped the ice-cold water on the man’s face, which immediately sprung to life. He began gasping for air struggling at the bag which was twisted around his legs in a feeble attempt to escape.
“Hello, dragon,” Q said slowly, he let the last word roll off his tongue. Watching the man’s eyes register what he’d said, the stranger he was looking at k
new what he was.
“I d-don’t…” he stuttered. “Don’t know…” he swallowed, “… what you’re talking about.” Freeing his legs from the bag, he now knelt on the cold wood of a strange office with his true identity being questioned.
“Well, that’s very interesting,” Q said as he walked over to the glass panel looking out to a now darkening sky. “So, if I tossed you out here you’d fall to your death?” Turning around he questioned his guest.
“What?” The man glanced up to the two large men standing over him, then back to the man standing at the window, who was calmly discussing his potential mortality. “Um… I…” His words were failing to process what was happening. “I guess that’s what happens, not that I’ve ever thought about being a jumper.”
Q clicked his tongue twice in a sign of disagreement. “I don’t think you would. I think…” he shrugged, “… I think you would fly.”
“Fly?” the man repeated. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he said to himself. “How can a man fly?” Fuck, he knows. Fuck. Fuck. The man’s head was catching up really fast to the danger he was presently facing. “It’s not like I have wings or anything,” the man added with a squeak in his voice which gave away his false confidence.
“That’s where we differ,” Q said calmly as he walked back toward the kneeling man. “I think you do. In fact, I know you do.” His jaw began to clench in anger at being this close to one of his sworn foes.
The man looked up, he could see clearly that his identity wasn’t in question anymore. He was a dragon of pride, a dragon that wouldn’t kneel for anyone. He stood up where his two captors grabbed him instantly by the arms. He didn’t care, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to die on his knees. “Phoenix,” he hissed through his teeth. The smell had only begun to radiate from the men next to him. Like the dragons, most creatures had cloaking abilities and when around humans especially, they wanted to remain completely invisible while totally visible.
The smug look on Q’s face as he nodded and walked closer was undeniable. “How does it feel to be face to face with a phoenix?” he asked with true curiosity to his voice.
“Stinks,” the man snorted. “You birds need to fucking wash. Maybe a dip in the ocean would help?”
Q’s hand whipped out like a snake’s bite and struck the man’s cheek, the sound like a whip crack echoed around the room. “Watch your mouth, dragon.”
The man snorted. “Just kill me and hurry up.”
“You think I’m going to kill you?” Q clicked his tongue again. “I’m not going to kill you. You have an important message from Q to deliver.”
The man tilted his head. “Message?” he said. “To who? I’m a no one to anyone.”
Q’s laugh was from the bowels of an evil pit. “Every dragon is a someone. They might not know you yet, but after I’m finished with you, they will.”
“You’re delusional if you think—”
The blow came from Mike against the dragon’s head, rendering him unconscious for the second time that day. Mike and Ben dropped the unconscious dragon to the floor. “What now, Boss?”
“Take him to the lab, remove his wings. Under no circumstances is he to be killed.” He turned away and picked up the phone. “This message needs him to be alive to deliver.” Pushing the button for a connection, he waved the men off to do as requested.
The men nodded as they picked up a hand each and dragged the man away.
Attor had spent the day at the local library, pointlessly grabbing any books out as they were all in a language he only understood the bare basics of communication in. A trick Wyvern had shown him years ago came in handy though—setting a computer’s language to English meant he could surf the web until his satisfaction was granted. There was something about the blonde woman from the window that made his skin prickle. The way she looked at him wasn’t normal. It was like she saw more, more than the normal, large human male he represented as. Attor had planned for an hour of research, and then he would go back to the Nest.
Eight hours later he emerged to the darkened sky above him and the heavy commuter traffic all around him. Tokyo was a bustling metropolis. He wasn’t one for large crowds and had planned to be gone before the after-work human tidal surge, seeking the comforts of a home cooked meal and a soft bed after a long day’s work.
Feeling a weird pull, he looked up, and across the street he caught a glimpse of a familiar messy bun he’d seen that very morning. Looking left and right, he took his life into his own hands, dodging and weaving through the traffic. He was honked and sworn at as he moved with the elegance of an elephant, bumping into bonnets and standing on tow bars as he climbed up and over. Attor kept his eyes on the bun as it continued moving quickly away from him.
“Taryn?” he called out over the sounds of a peak time city crush. With her head tucked down, she kept moving as fast as the crowd would let her.
“Taryn,” he called out a little louder this time but was left with the same lack of response. Deciding to catch up with her, he quickened his steps and drove his massive frame through the sea of people. They usually saw his determined look, and wall of muscle coming and moved all by themselves.
Attor was close enough to see it was, in fact, Taryn, and she had earphones tucked in. He nodded to himself. At least I wasn’t being ignored. She was just listening to tunes. I totally get that, he said to himself as he saw a spot in the crowd open up behind her. Attor stepped in and stood directly behind her. The smell of her shampoo floated up and nearly brought him to his knees right there and then as it caressed his nose and caused a mini-meltdown in the Neanderthal section of his brain.
Attor took a breath and reached out his hand, placing the full weight of his palm on her shoulder. In hindsight, this was a mistake of a cataclysmic proportion. In the time span of three seconds, Taryn placed her hand on his, grabbing it tight as she spun toward him, pulling his arm, causing him to take a step forward. Attor’s eyebrows lifted at the same time as her knee impacted in a fight or flight blow to his balls, and caused the air to shoot from his lungs faster than a missile launch. Attor’s body went rigid as his knees bent in, his hands immediately dropping to cup the area which was now silently screaming in agony. His face was frozen with pain, his mouth slightly ajar and his eyes glazed over.
“Attor?” Taryn looked up at the attacker she’d just junk-punched. Her father had taught her to fight dirty, and unfortunately being as pin-up beautiful as she was, there had been many times it had saved her from a situation which could have cost her, her life.
There was no movement from the large male that was frozen in a state of pain. The crowd started to move around her as it surged for the trains. Taryn didn’t know what to do, but she couldn’t leave him to fend for himself when he obviously couldn’t move, and she had done that to him. A small whimper bubbled from Attor’s lips as his eyes refocused on her.
“Attor?” she repeated softly as she stepped closer to him. She placed her hands on his arms and helped maintain his upright stance. She knew if he tipped over, she wouldn’t have a hope in Hades of holding him up. But still, it gave her some sense of control if she could at least give the impression of holding him. “I got you. It’s okay…”
He was hunched over, bringing his eyes to almost to her level. She looked straight into his soul as her words floated to him, “Breathe… just breathe it out.”
A short, sharp intake of air gave Attor the chance to speak, “Why?” The word was barely a whisper.
Taryn grimaced. “I’m so sorry. But shit, man…” She shrugged. A smirk on her face appeared that at least he was returning to the present time. “You just don’t go sneaking up on a woman and grabbing her.” A tiny laugh escaped. “Not all girls are brought up defenseless.”
Attor’s breathing began to return, short pants, but at least they were more frequent. “Sit, now,” he panted.
Taryn snorted a laugh. He flashed her an accusatory look at her weird sense of humor. Shrugging she said, “Sorry, just nice to know that
no matter how big the opponent, I can still drop them.”
Attor snorted. “Nice… yeah…” He tried to straighten his back, and he mumbled, “Real fucking nice.” Looking around for somewhere to sit.
She spied a bench by a brick wall of a building, tucking her arm under him, she turned him gently, coming face to face with a group of men. Their faces showed they had no intention of moving. They were blank with a sole purpose of going home on their minds.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Taryn shouted. A group of eyes flicked up to see where the loud screech had come from. “I just kneed this man’s balls so hard he’s wearing them as earrings, and he needs to sit. So, move it, or your nuts are next!”
The surrounding men’s eyes went wide as they flicked between the small female with the loud mouth, and the large man still cupping his balls and sporting a look of profound pain. They parted like the legs of a cheap hooker on Freebie Friday, and gave the two of them an easy walk to the empty bench.
Attor exhaled as he sat heavily on the cold steel of the bench. He leaned forward, his arms crossed and elbows rested on his knees. In and out, he said to himself. In and out. Dropping his head, his eyes closed as he tried to regain communication with lil’T and his two-bed buddies.
“I’m really sorry, Attor,” Taryn’s voice came to him as she gave his arm a small nudge.
He’d forgotten momentarily she was there, concentrating completely on his own existence. He lifted his head, turning it slightly, finding his face only an inch away from hers. Attor groaned as his breath hitched, her scent made lil’T jump against the pain in his pants. “It’s okay, it was my fault,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Next time, give a girl some warning. Like I don’t know…” she suggested. “Call her name?”
Attor swallowed a laugh. “Yeah, helps when the girl in question isn’t wearing these.” Lifting his hand, he flicked the earbud that was hanging near her knee. He leaned back and stretched his arms up above his head. Taking a large full breath as his body started to regain normalcy enough to become mobile again.
Depth (Apalala Clan Book 2) Page 8