“That’s what they tell me.” Just as long as they didn’t ask her to prove it. Because dragon shifters? Really?
He stared.
“Would you like to see some identification?” She pulled her briefcase around and lifted the flap. Maybe then he’d invite her in.
“Emerson,” he said.
She glanced up. “Family name.”
“Indeed.” He touched her arm, stopping her scrounging. “That’s really not necessary. I was just taken aback.”
“By what?” Dropping her wallet back inside, she closed her briefcase again.
He opened the door wide and gestured for her to enter. “I thought I knew all the Bloodkin.” He inclined his head. “All the Bloodkin women, that is.”
That right there. That’s why she was quitting. The money was not worth the utterly cultish control the Bloodkin had over the members of their community. It was either in—with all the luxury she could ever desire—or out—with a life of her own. At least she hoped there was an out.
She stepped into a gleaming atrium, a chandelier of crystal and gold overhead. “Well, I’m here now. Shall we begin?”
“Absolutely,” he said, though questions still lurked in his eyes.
He’d just have to deal.
The sitting room of the suite—elegant in ivory, pale blue, and gold—was larger than her childhood home. Sunlight diffused to a warm, calming glow through the tall windows that flanked the far side of the room, and an oversized fireplace hulked at the center of the wall, a large bouquet of white blooms on the hearth.
But it was the seductive aroma of coffee that caught her attention.
Please, pretty please, offer me some.
She flicked a glance at the younger brother, who was on the phone. “I see. Yes. Thank you.” He gave his older brother a short nod and hung up.
Checking up on me?
Big brother gestured to the tufted white sofa, which turned out to be hard to sit on.
“My apologies, Ms. Clark. I’m Ransom. And this is Locke.”
“Pleased to meet you both.” She set her briefcase on the floor next to her feet.
“Everyone knows everyone in the Blood,” Locke said. “Where have you been hiding?”
Emerson sat up a little straighter. “Not hiding. I’m here, aren’t I?”
She hadn’t known she was so-called Bloodkin—the term applied to all dragon shifters—until a few years ago, and even now she was certain there’d been a mistake. But she had happily—gratefully—taken Bloodkin funds for school tuition, thinking she’d hit the jackpot. And this job had been waiting for her when she’d graduated, offering her a salary she’d been embarrassed to compare with others from her graduating class. It’d seemed too good to be true…and it was.
“Can I ask about your family?” Locke sat down across from her. “What is your bloodline?”
It was none of their business. “Convoluted.”
Consternation tensed Ransom’s brow.
Still no offer of coffee. Okay. Might as well jump in.
“I’ve been working with the Kingman Hills project,” she said. “I think they’re being extra cooperative because they should’ve informed the Bloodkin immediately that they’d found a possible dragon shifter.” Probably someone who had scoliosis. “I’ve lodged complaints with both the university and the companies that donated the funds for the research, stating that due to their waiting four months to notify us, the site was paved over for the new shopping center, which impacts our own investigation. Any data, photographs, and samples they’ve taken of the remains will have to be turned over to us, in their entirety, right away.”
Ransom sat down next to his brother. “That sounds excellent.”
She nodded. “I’ll be repeating the same to Thane Ealdian when I meet with him while you speak with Dr. Buckley at the university.”
The brothers exchanged glances.
“Is there a problem?” Please say no.
“Have you ever met Mr. Ealdian?” Ransom asked.
She blinked at him. “No. Not yet. Is there something I should know?”
Ransom opened his hands. “You might wonder why we requested mediation in the first place when the law is so clearly on our side…”
“I thought you might be anticipating trouble from the university as they’ve initiated several research projects since the discovery. I’m taking steps to ensure the research team’s full cooperation with regards to the return of the remains.” A female in her twenties, with marked deformities, and an infant, who’d been burned. They’d been dug up only to be buried again. She actually kind of felt for Dr. Buckley, who’d seemed devastated at the prospect of losing the remains.
Locke turned his head to his brother in a silent question.
Ransom glanced at him, nodded, then sighed and narrowed his eyes at Emerson as if he were searching for the right words. “We’re more concerned about trouble from Thane Ealdian.”
Emerson raised her eyebrows. “What kind of trouble?”
“He’s been known to be very difficult.”
“Will he contest the findings?” The female had been found with the Heolstor sigil, and the family had claimed her. DNA should solve this neatly.
Then she could quit.
“He’ll do something,” Locke mumbled under his breath.
Emerson cocked her head. “What can he possibly do? Unless the remains are not Heolstor? In which case, I’m sure you’ll give up your claim.”
Please don’t draw this out on me.
The brothers were silent. They weren’t telling her something. Her hopes were sinking like a two-day-old helium balloon. Well, crap.
Locke scooted forward on his seat. “I’d like to accompany you when you meet with Thane.”
Emerson smiled slightly. “That really won’t be necessary.” And it wasn’t appropriate.
“He can be very aggressive,” Ransom said.
“So can I,” she answered.
“He has a reputation for treating women badly.”
She smiled broader. “He does so with me, and he’ll have hell to pay.”
Locke seemed like he was holding his breath.
She scooted forward, too. In order to leave. “Any other questions?”
Locke scratched his head and went all golly-shucks, which didn’t seem like his thing at all. “I have one.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I’m wondering if I have to wait until this Kingman Hills business is over before I can ask you out.”
Ransom turned his head to glare at his brother as heat flooded her face. “I’m very flattered, of course,” she said, “but I’m already in a relationship.” Which was a lie, but she was not going to entertain the idea of dating anyone from a Bloodkin family. Nope. Nuh-uh. No way. But they sure were nice to look at. This one was a little young for her anyway.
“Lucky guy,” Locke said.
Emerson stood, as did the brothers. “If you have any concerns about the remains following your meeting with Dr. Buckley, please don’t hesitate to call me. I’ll contact you as soon as the results are in. I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”
A girl can hope.
“We’ll do that,” Ransom said as he walked her to the door. “My father wasn’t able to fly in, but I know that this dispute weighs heavily on his mind. Finding lost kin and having its identity in question has been intolerable for him. And communication with Thane Ealdian has been…less than civil.”
That would be Gerard Heolstor, patriarch, philanthropist, and statesman before his retirement.
Maybe the whole dragon thing was metaphorical? Fierce negotiators, or ruthless in the boardroom. Maybe it was hype. And then at some point, maybe when the other shifter clans were organizing politically, the so-called dragons jumped on the bandwagon. There was a big difference, however, between a person shifting into an animal that actually existed—like a wolf, bear, or panther—and one that was entirely mythological.
The remains of one deformed woman did not
and could not confirm the existence of dragons, no matter what Dr. Buckley hypothesized. And Emerson very much doubted that the Heolstor brothers could prove anything, either. She certainly didn’t have a dragon lurking inside of her. Well, maybe without coffee.
With a hand to her shoulder, Ransom kept her from exiting. “Could I trouble you to visit us at our family home while we await the results? Hearing first-hand what steps you’ve taken might settle my father somewhat.”
Emerson fought back a sigh. She was supposed to be at their disposal for the duration of the mediation. She just hadn’t considered that she would be settling a dispute between the families themselves, rather than merely between the families and the university.
“I’d be happy to meet with your father,” she said, though she had a feeling this was less about the old man and more about getting the edge on Thane Ealdian. “You have my contact information. Just let me know when is convenient for him.”
She held out her hand for a good-bye shake, but Ransom took it and held it. “If not one of us, will you please consider taking someone with you to meet with Mr. Ealdian?”
She nodded. “I’ll do that.” Consider it, that is.
The door was just closing behind her when she overheard Locke tell Ransom, “Good thinking. Keep her away from Thane.”
Dragons? She'd worked for them for a year, kept her eyes and ears open, and she still didn’t believe it for a minute.
CHAPTER 2
“They sent a mediator to deal with me?” Thane was trembling on the verge of change. Again. He’d suffered through the meeting with Dr. Buckley, and gazing upon the remains of his wife and boy, his heir, had been difficult enough, but this? This was an outrage.
He could almost feel his son, warm and pink with life, in his hands. Smell that sweet milky scent. Gaze upon the deep blue of his eyes, so wide and alert that Thane knew he’d have grown up strong. Been a leader, heir to the Ealdian hoard. The finest black dragon…ever.
Did the Heolstors think he was so far gone that he wouldn’t fight to bring his family home at last? They deserved to come home. To be put to rest. Honored.
“Yes, sir. A Bloodkin by the name of Emerson Clark.” Matthew had been with him for centuries, sustained by dragon blood, but this past decade into Thane’s sixty-year seclusion, he’d taken to standing across the room when delivering news of any kind.
“Clark isn’t a Blood name,” Thane observed. But Emerson was. Or had been once. In fact, he remembered a time long, long ago when it had been Emmerich.
“Shall I take the meeting on your behalf?”
The Heolstor claim was an insult, a prevarication, a ploy. They knew very well that their family tree was complete, the bones of all their dead gone to ash. That Carreen had gripped their sigil through the ages didn’t mean she belonged to them. She’d held it all that time so that she could hand it to her husband. A gift, like the peace of an olive branch—the identity of their child’s murderer.
It meant she hadn’t run away after all. The rumors that Thane himself had been responsible for the deaths of his wife and their son would finally be put to rest, too.
“No,” Thane said. Matthew had taken on the Ealdian business affairs in preparation for Thane’s final shift into his dragon, but Thane would handle this himself, as a man. He wouldn’t dishonor Carreen’s act of courage by returning his ear to the Night Song, no matter how sweetly it called him into fire and flight. “Send the mediator to me when he comes.”
“What are you going to do?”
Matthew knew him so well.
Thane would handle this the old way. “I’m going to eat him.”
***
“My meeting should be done by five at the latest,” Emerson said to her long-ago foster brother Bryan as she exited the limousine. Bryan! I get to see Bryan! Was it professional to dance in the street? “Then I’ll head over.” Bryan and Mexican food—the perfect combo.
“I’ll be there,” he said. “Can’t wait to see you, Ember.”
Emerson grinned. Ember. She’d thought the name was so cool when she was seventeen. “Feeling’s mutual. You have no idea.”
Bryan was the closest thing she had to a brother. She should’ve kept in better touch. The Bloodkin controlled so much of her life, but they didn’t control her phone.
Tip in hand, she leaned down to the front passenger window of the limo to speak to the driver.
“Thank you so much for your help today. I don’t think I’ll need you anymore.” She was already downtown, and the restaurant wasn’t far.
“Please, no,” he said, warding off the cash. “It’s already taken care of.”
Of course it was.
She stepped back onto the sidewalk, inhaling deeply, enjoying the early summer afternoon air. So far, everything about Santa Barbara was gorgeous—the weather, the flowers in bloom, the hope for new life. Maybe she’d move here after she quit.
Then she marched up the steps of the townhouse in front of her. Mr. Ealdian had apparently taken an entire home instead of putting himself up in a hotel for a few days while he met with Dr. Buckley at the university. A whole house. Who did that?
For the second time that day, she rang a doorbell. Waiting, she smoothed her skirt and patted her blouse. With any luck, she’d be done here in half an hour.
The door opened to a man in a trim navy suit, slightly balding, with sea-gray eyes. His composure was so quiet and contained that she concluded he must be Matthew Chandler, Mr. Ealdian’s personal secretary, with whom she’d been corresponding by e-mail.
She held out her hand. “Emerson Clark for Mr. Ealdian.”
Pink spots flushed the man’s cheeks. Then, clearly unsettled, he stepped aside, gaze dropping to the gleaming hardwood floors. “Please…my lady, do come in.”
Again, expecting a guy. What was the Bloodkin’s problem with women who had androgynous names? It’s not like Emerson was that uncommon for a girl. “You seem surprised.”
“Begging your pardon,” he said, deeply apologetic. “Your name contains a patronymic. Emerson. I made a foolish assumption.”
“Please don’t worry about it.” She entered, taking in the tall foyer, spare but spacious, with a long console to the right and a sweeping stair to the left in the same deep, gleaming wood as the floor. Very elegant. Very money.
“Are you accompanied?” Mr. Chandler stood at the threshold, searching the street. The limo had already pulled away.
“No, it’s just me today.”
He stepped back inside. “My apologies again, but I’m afraid I will have to reschedule your appointment.”
Because of her name? She stared at him, and then reminded herself that she was going to quit. Maybe even this week if the university continued to cooperate.
“All right. Would you like to set another appointment now,” she asked, “or would you like to consult with Mr. Ealdian and contact me later?”
“I will contact you shortly.”
“That will be fine. It was nice meeting you.” Or not meeting you.
She turned and reached for the door handle to let herself out, but he put a hand to the door.
“Of course, I’ll have a car take you.” Mr. Chandler sounded appalled at the thought of her leaving alone.
“No, thank you. It’s a lovely day. I’d like to walk.”
“A Bloodkin woman does not—”
“I’ll be fine.” Because this Bloodkin woman does.
He moved—or avoided touching her—and she wrenched the door open. The likelihood of crime in this neighborhood was nil, and now she could meet with Bryan even earlier. At last, she had an evening on her terms. What a concept.
She was on the stoop when Mr. Chandler spoke behind her. “My lord, please stay where you are.”
Because women are so dangerous?
“Is Emerson Clark here?” a low voice rumbled.
Emerson hung her head. So close.
“There’s been a mistake,” Mr. Chandler said.
“Why do I s
cent a woman?”
Emerson huffed silently. Scent? Must be her girl cooties.
She sighed. Might as well get this over with.
She pasted on an extra sunny smile and turned back toward the house. “Mr. Ealdian?” She remained on the stoop but leaned to the side to address the shadow on the stairs. “I’m happy to reschedule for whatever time suits. It’s really no problem.”
A man descended the last few stairs and came into the light. Oh, sweet Lord. Did all the Bloodkin have such excellent genes? Thane Ryce Ealdian was way younger than she expected. Mid-thirties, maybe. Sandy hair. Less dashing than the Heolstor brothers, but his cut jaw, full mouth, and the line of his brow were blunt in their sensuality. He was tall and lean, those muscles no doubt developed with the help of a personal trainer and chef. Her belly fluttered in response—this Bloodkin, so…raw, was much more her type.
When he stepped fully into the sunlight, she attempted to cover a snort of laughter with a cough and ended up with watery eyes and wheezy breathing instead. He was wearing deep indigo contact lenses with a vertical slit for the pupil. Maybe not her type, after all.
“Please, excuse me.” She fanned her face and blinked back tears. “Allergies.”
This was so rude. She was a professional. Up till now, she’d prided herself on her composure. Clearly, this guy was really into the dragon shifter thing, and she respected that, but man, he’d just taken her by surprise.
“You’ve met with the Heolstor family?” He did have a wonderful voice, so low and resonant that she could feel it in her chest like the bass guitar in a club. “What did Gerard say?”
“Actually, I met with his sons.” She held out her hand. “By the way, I’m Emerson Clark. I’ll be handling the mediation for the Kingman Hills project.”
His hand was dry and hot and strong. “You mean the mediation between Gerard and me?”
She smiled with a shallow nod. “I’m picking up on that, yes.”
Finally, someone who could be direct. She could be, too. “I’m also coming to understand that my being a woman presents a problem.”
“I planned on eating the man Emerson Clark alive.”
She laughed out loud.
He merely lifted a brow. “Are you coming inside?”
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 31