city of dragons 02 - fire storm

by Val St. Crowe

  After breakfast, he told me he was going to do some work. He was working remotely here, and he had some conference calls with people up north. He told me to be a good girl and watch TV or something. I wasn’t to bother him or he would make me regret it, or so he said.

  Once Alastair was ensconced in his office on the top floor, I tried to break the compulsion. I thought maybe if he was all the way up there, I’d be far enough away from him that it wouldn’t work anymore. I didn’t know how far compulsion reached, but I knew it wasn’t far. Generally speaking being out of the person’s presence broke it. But I guessed that being in the same house was still too close.

  I went all the way down to the carport, which was underneath the house. The house itself was up on stilts in case of flood or high water. But I couldn’t leave the steps. Whenever I tried to step off them onto the carport, I felt dizzy.

  Something inside me rebelled against it. It was wrong to leave the house. I couldn’t do that.

  I sat down on the bottom step and fought tears. Crying wasn’t going to help anything. And if Alastair saw that I had been crying, it would get him going. He liked it when I cried, and once he’d gotten me to do it once, he’d push and push until I cried more. He said that nothing made him harder than me in tears.

  He was such a sick bastard.

  Now that I was stuck in this house again, I could not believe that I had spent so many years with him. It seemed unfathomable, as if I must have been missing a piece of my brain to have done that.

  And that might have been the truth. I had been brainwashed by him. Controlled. Used.

  So, that was why I wasn’t going to cry. Instead, I was going to figure something out. I had to get out of here, one way or another.

  I went upstairs and paced around the living room and then the kitchen. I didn’t think I could throw myself out of a window. That probably wouldn’t work. Plus, I might get hurt in the fall.

  I wondered if someone else could pull me out of the house. If I didn’t leave of my own free will, maybe that would allow me to sidestep the compulsion.

  But who could I get here?

  I wasn’t going to call Connor or Felicity. I didn’t want to put either of them in danger. And Connor was out, anyway, considering it was daylight.

  Lachlan could handle himself, though.

  Then I had to go searching for a phone. I couldn’t find one anywhere, though. Not on the end tables. Not on the counters. Not connected to the wall.

  Didn’t this place have a landline?

  I knew there were people who were opting just to use their cell phones, but it had always seemed a bit irresponsible to me not to have a landline. It was expected in polite society, and that was important to being a dragon. Doing what was expected of you. Now I owned a business, and a hotel must have a landline. I had more than one line, in point of fact.

  Still. Maybe there wasn’t one here.

  That meant I’d need to get a cell phone. But Alastair probably had his on him. I doubted he was just running around the house without a cell.

  I went back into the kitchen and searched the bureau and the bed side tables. I looked in the pants that Alastair had been wearing the night before.

  Nothing there.

  But then I saw the landline. It was attached to the wall, right next to the bed.

  How weird for a phone to be in the bedroom, instead of somewhere else, but whatever.

  I snatched it up. It was a cordless phone, so I could have gone anywhere with it, but I just sat down on the bed. I stared at the number keypad.

  I didn’t know Lachlan’s phone number. I had it programmed into my phone. I had never typed it except the one time I’d programmed it into my phone.

  Well, damn it.

  I could call 911, I guessed, but that would turn out badly. I might get assistance, but it would be likely that Alastair would compel them to leave here, and if he couldn’t compel them all, he might just burn them to death. I didn’t need it to turn into a circus here, and I couldn’t handle all those deaths on my conscience. Stealthy was the way to go.

  I hit the zero button, hoping to get an operator.

  Nothing happened.

  I hit the button to hang up and try again. That was when I heard voices on the other end of the phone.

  Damn it all to hell. Alastair was on a conference call. What was I thinking? Had he heard me hit the button? I put the phone to my ear.

  “…those numbers back into shape by Saturday, we’re going to be dead in the water,” Alastair was saying.

  “Oh, I agree with you,” said the other voice.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. I sat there, waiting as the conversation went on for several minutes. I had no idea what they were talking about. There were at least five men, and I didn’t really know what they were referencing. It might have been stocks. It could have been sales. I wasn’t sure. They kept referring to a document, which they were apparently all looking at.

  “But on line twelve,” said one man, “I’m seeing an increase.”

  “There’s no increase on line twelve,” said someone else.

  “No, there is. It says a thousand there.”

  “What are you looking at?” said Alastair.

  “The document,” said the first man.

  “I think we should switch to video chat,” said Alastair. “Then we can all see what we’re looking at.”

  “All right,” said someone else. “Sounds good.”

  Within minutes, they disconnected, and the phone went dead in my hands. I waited until I heard that Alastair had hung up, and then I hung up too. I hit the button to pick the phone back up and heard the soothing sounds of a dial tone.

  I hit zero again.

  There was a pause, and then the sound of something being connected. I got a recording telling me to dial an eight hundred number for operator assistance.

  Sighing, I hung up again, and then dialed the number.

  Someone answered in a bored voice. “What listing?”

  “Sea City Police Department,” I said.

  “One moment and I’ll connect you.”

  I waited.

  The phone rang again, and then another bored-sounding voice came on the line. “SCPD, how may I direct your call?”

  “Detective Lachlan Flint, please?”

  “He’s not in the office currently, would you like his voicemail?”

  Damn it. Should I leave a voicemail? No, because then Lachlan would show up with sirens and backup and the whole nine, which I didn’t want. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “He doesn’t talk much to me. Well, to anyone really. So, I have no idea.”

  “Right. Well, I guess I’ll call back then.” I hung up.

  Damn it all to hell. Who else could I call?

  That was when I heard the sound of a car pulling up to the house. I ran to the window.

  Lachlan! He was looking for me, wasn’t he? He was smart enough to know that if I was missing, Alastair probably had me.

  Argh, but he was going to ruin everything. He was already getting out of his car and heading towards the door to the house.

  I leaped off the bed and ran for the stairs, hoping to intercept him and tell him to do this quietly.

  Too late.

  Alastair was coming down the steps. I ducked back into the bedroom. I didn’t want him to see me right at that moment. Instead, I shut myself in the adjoining bathroom and opened the window. From this vantage point, I had a good view of Lachlan’s head.

  He was banging on the front door.

  Alastair threw it open. “Come to make more wild accusations, Detective?”

  “Where is she?” Lachlan’s voice was tight. “I know she’s here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Where’s Penny?”

  “You’re the one with your nose in her ass these days, Detective. Shouldn’t you know?”

  “She’s gone. Missing. If you’ve hurt her, I swear to God, Alastair, I will kill you.” Lac
hlan delivered this in a soft, purr of a voice that left little doubt he was serious.

  “Alastair, hmm? Are we on a first name basis now? I hope you didn’t just threaten me, Lachlan.” Alastair sneered. His voice dropped contemptuously. “Maybe she got sick of your stubby dick and decided she wanted a real man again.”

  Lachlan smashed Alastair against the door frame.

  Alastair used magic to send Lachlan sprawling backward. Lachlan flew through the air and landed hard on his back, facing the sky.

  I waved at him furiously.

  Lachlan saw me. His eyes widened. He started to speak.

  I put my finger against my lips.

  “Get your ugly car out of my driveway,” said Alastair, slamming the door. I heard him coming back up the steps. “Penny!” he yelled.

  “In the bathroom,” I called.

  “Don’t even think about trying to talk to that sack of shit out there.”

  “I’m peeing, Alastair.”

  Seemingly satisfied, he ascended the steps, back to his office.

  I waited, and then I leaned out the window to talk to Lachlan. “Drive your car away. Sneak back and come to the back door.”

  “Penny, what are you—”

  “Please, just do it,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  He picked himself up off the ground. He nodded at me.

  * * *

  I waited at the back door anxiously, watching the wind blow through the tall grass that surrounded the bay.

  Finally, Lachlan appeared.

  I threw open the door. “Hey,” I said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “He compelled me not to leave the house,” I said.

  “Shit,” said Lachlan.

  “I thought maybe if you pulled me out, maybe that would work.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. He reached through the door, grabbed both of my hands and gave a mighty tug.

  My body rebelled. I struggled, wriggling out of his grasp. It was wrong to leave. I couldn’t.

  “Damn it,” I said.

  “Seriously?” said Lachlan.

  “Try again,” I said. “Get me around the waist this time.”

  He did.

  But now my arms were free, and when he tried to pull me out of the house, I began clawing his face.

  He let go of me, swearing. My nails had left marks on his cheeks. They were bleeding.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wincing.

  He stepped back, shaking his head. “I’ll heal. We have to get you out of there.”

  I nodded.

  “What’d he do to you?”

  “It wasn’t bad,” I said. “It’s been much worse. I’m fine.”

  “Penny, what happened?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want out. I want away from him.”

  He nodded, rubbing his chin. “Maybe if you were… I don’t know… unconscious.”

  “You’re going to club me over the head or something?”

  “Maybe.” He looked around. Then bent down and came up with a rock. “You could just shift afterward, right? Heal up?”

  “Yeah,” I said, cringing. “Okay, I guess… Yeah.”

  He came inside the house, the rock over his head.

  I steeled myself for it. This was going to really hurt, but when I woke up, I would be away from Alastair, and everything would be okay. I could do this.

  I waited.

  I opened one eye.

  Lachlan lowered the rock. “I can’t do it.”

  “Lachlan!”

  “I’m sorry. Just hitting you with a rock, it seems… wrong.”

  “You’re saving me.”

  “I know that.”

  He lifted my chin. “You’ve got a bruise on your cheek bone.”

  I pushed his hand away. “Get me out of here.”

  He moved the rock from one hand to the other. “Give me a minute.”

  “If you had only picked up the damned phone when I called you last night,” I said. “He was in the apartment right then.”

  “He was?” Lachlan looked at me with agony in his eyes. “Fuck, Penny. I’m sorry. I was such an idiot, being a spoiled child about the whole thing.”

  “I wasn’t even calling to tell you about that. I was calling to tell you—” My eyes widened. “Bite me.”

  “What?”

  “We’re connected. We have this blood bond thing, Lachlan, and it happened when we had sex or something. I don’t know. It’s ancient and weird, but we apparently have crazy power, and every time before that you’ve been biting me, we’ve been able to do insane magic, so put your damned teeth in my neck. Now.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Just do it.”

  “I swore I would never do it again. What if I can’t stop?”

  “Then I pass out,” I said. “Like you were trying to do with the rock.”

  “I don’t know.” He was shaking his head.

  “Lachlan, trust me,” I said. “Do it.”

  He shut his eyes. “God damn it, Penny.” He was shaking. But then he took me by the shoulders, pulled me close, and fitted his mouth to my neck.

  When his teeth pierced me, it was as if I was yanked by a thread behind my belly button and banged into Lachlan at gale force. We merged, our essences sliding into the other, and everything was sharp and bright and bold.

  I could see Alastair, up in his office, staring at the video chat, and I could feel the tendrils of compulsion that went between him and me. They were like tiny, glittering spiderweb threads.

  Easily snapped.

  We did it together, Lachlan and me—we were one mind, one body. I was inside him and he was inside me. I could feel his concern for me, his worry. I could feel how deeply he cared for me. And he was terrified that he would drink too much of my blood.

  Before, the red blot of his blood lust had consumed us.

  Now I felt that red stain at the edge of our consciousness. I could feel Lachlan’s fear of it, how he shrank from it.

  But he didn’t need to worry. We were bigger than that.

  I showed him, had us reach out and push against it.

  The redness turned white. Turned light blue. Ebbed away like the low tide.

  And then he disattached, pulled his teeth out of my neck.

  And we were separate again. Penny and Lachlan.

  But, somehow, I could still feel the connection there, an undercurrent to everything.

  We were both out of breath.

  “What the hell?” said Lachlan.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  He seized my hand and together we went through the door and out of Alastair’s house. We took off running down over the bank, through the tall grasses, until we were out of sight of Alastair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Lachlan’s mouth on mine. His lips, soft and insistent. His tongue, pressing against me, wanting to penetrate—

  I pushed him away.

  He looked surprised.

  We were standing next to his car. We’d just got there, just gotten away, and he’d thrown his arms around me and kissed me, and—

  “You okay?” he said.

  “You startled me.” I reached for him. “I’m fine.” I leaned in to kiss him again.

  And he kissed me back, but it was different. He was being careful with me. He pulled back. “What did he do to you?”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t that bad. And I… I don’t want to think about it. I just want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “He abducted you. There’s no pretending it didn’t happen.”

  “Don’t start in on filing another report or whatever,” I said. “Alastair’s too powerful. It won’t make any difference.”

  Lachlan scuffed his toe against the ground. “We should go to the hospital.”

  “What? All I need to do is shift. And I don’t even need to do that right away, because he barely hu
rt me. I’m a little sore in a few places, but other than that, it’s not a big deal. So, let’s do something. Let’s, um, let’s follow up on some of the suspects. Maybe that slayer. Maybe somebody saw her at Andy’s bar. Let’s go talk to Andy.”

  Lachlan took his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and started playing with the hinges. “You’re really okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You don’t need…” He let out a breath. “You were with him overnight. He said suggestive things to you, and if there’s evidence, you know, on your body of… of…”

  “I’m fine,” I said again. “He touched me, and I was naked, but then he hit the back of my head, and I passed out, and I don’t think he… I think he stopped. I’m fine.” I started for the car.

  He caught me by the shoulder. “Stopped?”

  I yanked away from him.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. He shoved his sunglasses back inside his jacket. “You know, just because you have that bond with him, it doesn’t mean you consented to him. So, it’s a crime, Penny, and—”

  “Don’t,” I said. I was going to start crying if he kept going, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t cry. If I cried, then I might lose it, seriously lose it. “It wasn’t that bad,” I said softly. “It’s been worse before. Much worse. And if they did a test at the hospital, like you’re talking about, they might find… you too.”

  His face twitched.

  “Because it wasn’t like you and I were using condoms or anything, and sperm stays alive for days—”

  “I’m a vampire, I don’t have—”

  “Well, it’s not like you ejaculated air.” I hugged myself. “Can we stop talking about this please?”

  He took a breath. There was a hitch in it.

  “Let’s go to Andy’s,” I said. “Let’s ask about the slayer.”

  “No. That’s insane. You’re in shock,” he said.

  “So? Maybe that can help us. I’ll be really focused and productive, and we’ll find the killer, and then something good will have come out of all of this.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “The last time we talked about the case, you were convinced that Alastair was the killer.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so anymore. When I talked to him about the surf board, he had an explanation for everything. And it just, it would be too convenient. We don’t get that lucky to find a way to lock him up, you know?”