by Dyan Chick
10
My nose itched, but when I tried to lift my hand to scratch it, I couldn't move my arm. That's when I opened my eyes and realized I was tied to a chair in an unfamiliar room.
Head throbbing, vision fuzzy, I tried to recall what caused me to end up here. The memories came flooding back all at once. The dragon attack, the open vault, Jimmy's death, the drive to San Francisco, the tea. "Alec? Are you here?"
I was in a dim room that looked like a basement bedroom. Plain white walls, cheap carpet and a window that led to a window well, which was the only source of light.
Behind me, someone groaned. My feet weren't bound, so I stood and turned with a chair attached to me until I was facing Alec. He looked just as groggy as I felt.
"What happened? I passed out. I didn't even know vampires could pass out." He shook the chair. "Why am I tied up?"
"There was something in the tea," I said.
"Why the hell did you make us drink it?" he asked.
The door opened with a creak and two of the ninjas walked in. Shit. Maybe we should have run for it.
Hot guy walked in behind the ninjas. I let my head fall backward, and I let out a sigh of frustration. He was responsible for the mind games, and things were starting to click into place despite the still fuzzy room.
"She was smart to drink it," he said. "Showed us she has nothing to hide."
"Smart?" Alec said. "Dude, this is not cool. You need to let us out. There's a dragon rampaging through our city. We have shit to do."
I tipped my head back up and locked my eyes on the man standing between the ninjas. Narrowing my eyes, I glared at him. "What's with the games, James King?"
He smiled and cocked his head to the side. "You're smart. I can see why Jimmy likes you." He glanced at Alec. "You, I'm not so sure about."
James walked over to me and knelt down in front of me.
"That might not be a good idea. I don't know what the hell you are, but your pants are tight enough that I'm guessing that if I kick you, it's going to hurt."
He laughed. "Give it your best shot. You never know, I might be into that sort of thing."
I scowled at him.
"Is the vamp right? That why Jimmy sent you to me?"
I nodded. "Someone let a dragon out in Realm's Gate. We have to stop it."
"You don't strike me as the hero type," he said.
James was talking about Jimmy in the present tense. He didn't know. A lump rose in my throat, and I sniffed, trying not to cry again.
James narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to me. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Jimmy," I said, struggling with the words. "He's gone."
"Gone?" James asked.
I nodded.
"Someone killed him," Alec said. "And they set her up to take the fall. We have to prove it wasn't her."
James stood. "Now, that makes more sense. You're here to save your skin." He took a few steps away, then stopped. "Why you?"
"I don't know," I said. "All I know is that I would never do anything to harm Jimmy."
"She didn't do it. I was with her all night," Alec said.
James snapped his fingers, and the ninjas were by my side so quickly I didn't even see them move. Both of my wrists were freed from their binding, and then they moved to Alec to release him.
"What's with all the theatrics?" Alec said. "And what are you?"
I rubbed my wrists and stared at James, hoping to get some answers to those questions, myself.
James just smiled. "We have some things to discuss, I believe."
"Does that mean you're going to help us?" I asked.
"I think we can arrange something," James said, walking over to the door.
"You know, the drugging and tying up wasn't necessary," I said as I followed him.
James paused at the door and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, then tapped on the screen before turning it to face me. I stared in disbelief at a video of myself. I was tied to the chair, just as I had been, but my eyes were open and I was talking.
"No, I've never had an interest in becoming a vampire," video me said.
A mumbled voice off-camera asked a question I couldn't hear. Then, video me responded, "I've never met my father."
My face heated up. I knew I must be completely red. "You questioned me without my consent?"
"I had to know the real reason you were here," he said.
I knew there was a possibility there was something in the drink, but I never thought it would be something that powerful. Truth serums were common but possible to overpower if your will was strong enough. For the most part, they were like giving someone three or four beers, then asking them questions. Most of the time, you'd get the truth out of them, but some people could hold their liquor better than others. Truth serums worked the same way.
"What was in that tea?" I asked.
"I have my secrets," James said.
"And apparently, you have all of mine," I said.
He shrugged. "Want to see the really juicy stuff?"
"What did you ask her?" Alec said.
"Alec!" I elbowed him in the side, hard, then turned to James. "Fine, you got your answers. You know I'm telling the truth. Now delete it."
"The good news is that I believe you when you say you didn't kill Jimmy." He smiled as if that made everything okay.
My skin crawled. I hadn't felt this violated in a long time.
"You sure you don't want to see what I asked you?" he asked. "I can play them all for you."
"No. Delete it." It wasn't worth chancing that any of those videos ever saw the light of day and I certainly didn't want Alec to find out certain things about my past. There was too much I wasn't proud of and too much I had worked hard to forget.
"Alright, ladybug," James said.
Rage bubbled to the surface and I ripped the phone from his hand. As fast as I could, I threw the phone on the ground and stepped on it with the heel of my boot.
Alec let out a stifled cry. "What did you do?"
Nostrils flaring, I moved closer to James. It didn't matter that he had two feet on me. It didn't matter that he could probably snap me in half with his bare hands. Some things should never be let out. "Never call me that again."
James picked up the broken phone, his face expressionless. Without a word, he walked to the corner of the room and dropped it into a trash can.
I held my breath as the realization of what I had just done sank in. I still didn't know who or what James was. There was no telling what he was capable of. He had access to very powerful magic as demonstrated by the tea and I probably shouldn't have pushed him. Time seemed to stand still as I waited for him to return.
My fists clenched as a reaction to hearing the nickname from my past. The things that man had done to me were too gruesome and terrible to even bring to memory. I didn't want to think about them and if James knew the nickname, he probably heard some of the memories.
"Should we run?" Alec whispered as James walked back over to us.
Lifting my chin higher, I waited for the reprimand or the threat that I knew was coming. Instead, James inclined his head. "I apologize, that was too far."
Releasing my hands, I stared at him in shock. This man was nothing that he seemed to be. Swallowing, I lowered my eyes. "I'm sorry I broke your phone."
James extended a hand. "Truce? I'll do my best to help you if you do your best to help me in return when the time is right."
A jolt shot through me. He was asking for an unnamed favor. "Can you do that? Aren't we cashing in on Jimmy's favor?"
"Technically, I don't owe Jimmy anything seeing as how he's gone. I want a favor from you."
"We don't have to do this," Alec said. "I'm sure there's some other way to take down a dragon and clear your name. Can't we just find a knight with a sword or something?"
Alec's lack of understanding of what the magical world was like might have been cute if it weren't my life on the line. "That's not exactly how it works. Dragons are immortal. More so tha
n Vampires, even."
"Something has to kill them, right?" Alec asked.
James waited, hand still extended. "You need my help if you want to send away that dragon and if you want to clear your name."
Ignoring Alec, I looked at his large hand and bit down on the inside of my lip. What kind of favor would someone like James need from me? He sealed off an entire building with magic in one of the busiest parts of the city. I wasn't even sure how I'd managed to get in. But he was right. There was no other way. If he knew how to send the dragon away, or had any way to help me clear my name, I needed his help. "You can help us get rid of the dragon and you can help me?"
He nodded.
Before I could change my mind, I set my hand inside his. He squeezed it as we shook and I was surprised to feel calluses on his skin. He didn't strike me as the kind of man who would do anything to get his hands dirty. Another surprise. My palm tingled, then the sensation traveled up my fingers, into my wrist. He was using magic. This wasn't just a civil gesture; it was a promise, backed up by whatever magic he held. He was binding his word. There was no getting out of the favor once he asked it of me.
Dropping his hand, I examined his expression. James was difficult to read, which I didn't like. "I think I deserve to know a little bit about you since you dug through my mind without my consent. Especially since now I'm locked into an unnamed favor and can't back out."
James stepped into the hallway and nodded for us to follow. There didn't seem to be much choice when it came to him. Reluctantly, I followed. I'd agreed to play nice when I shook his hand, but so had he. "This way. Back to my office. We'll talk in there."
"I just missed something, didn't I?" Alec said.
I glanced over at him. "You have so much to learn."
11
Sitting in the same chair in James's office, I glanced at the place in the wall where I knew there was a hidden door. I knew the tea was a test, and I had a feeling that if we hadn't taken it, we'd have been sent packing. The price I was paying for this information was skyrocketing. On top of that, with each passing second, I was losing time.
"So, Marco says they have video footage of someone who looks just like me entering the vault and killing Jimmy." Saying the words was painful. Why would someone have hurt him in the first place, and why would they have blamed me? "Marco said he'd keep them off me for 48 hours."
"I've already called in someone to deal with that, but you'll have to wait until morning. And you'll have to trust me," James said.
For a moment, I wanted to lash out at him, tell him that wasn't good enough, but something about his calm demeanor felt so reassuring. Besides, I had no clue where to begin with this. If he had sent for help, that was something. I nodded. "Okay, I'm going to trust you."
"I'm sorry, but I'm confused as to why we're moving so slowly. Is a dragon attack a normal thing?" Alec leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't know if there's going to be much of a city left by the time we get back."
I ran a hand through my hair and tried not to look too frustrated. Alec was new to all of this, after all. It wasn't his fault they didn't teach this stuff in human schools. "We have time. It'll be okay."
"How do you figure that?" Alec asked.
"Dragons need time to recharge," James said.
"The destruction in the first hour or so is the worst. Then it dies down until they run out of fire," I added, quoting what I had learned from the textbooks in school.
"How long to recharge?" Alec asked.
"A day or two. Depending on how strong the dragon is," James said.
Alec looked up at the ceiling, and his mouth moved, but no words came out. I could tell he was calculating the hours we'd been gone already. He looked over at me. "So we have, what, twelve hours?"
"Maybe more, depending on how strong the dragon is," I said.
"You have more," James said. "From what Marco said, it's a wild dragon. Fierce, but wears out quickly. They take longer to recover."
"Wait, you talked to Marco?" I crossed my arms over my chest.
"How do you think I knew not to kill you on sight?" James said.
"Seriously, you were expecting us, and you still put us through all of that shit?" I was annoyed before. Now I was angry.
"I couldn't be sure you were who you said you were."
"Or maybe you just have company so rarely, you forgot what it's like to be a good host," I said. "And I still don't even know what you are."
"You seem hung up on that," he said.
"I've never met someone with magic like yours. You're not a mage. Alec says you're not a vampire. Are you a demon?" I asked.
"No, I'm not a demon. And I do know how to be a good host." James stood, then walked over to the wall. He knocked, and the hidden door opened again.
"You're avoiding the question," I said.
"That's because you're not going to like the answer when you hear it." For a moment, his eyes flashed between the gorgeous blue to the inhuman amber.
Suddenly, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. All this talk about dragons, how had I missed that? "It's not possible."
"What?" Alec said.
I rose from the chair and slowly walked toward James. The door opened behind him, and the woman in the silk shirt stood there, waiting for instructions. But James didn't take his eyes off of me. He stood frozen in place as I stepped in front of him. "It's a myth."
"I'm totally missing something," Alec said from behind me. I ignored him and moved even closer to James, studying his face, looking for clues.
As if drawn in through a trance, I reached my hand up to his face and touched his cheek. My fingers slid across smooth skin, that despite its human appearance did not feel human. "You're not human."
"Go ahead," James said.
Feeling foolish to say it out loud, I hesitated.
James nodded, almost as if he was confirming the words floating around my mind.
"You're a dragon," I said. "How is that possible? I thought the Dragon-Bloods were gone."
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the door close, the woman leaving us alone. James grabbed hold of my hand and lowered it. I swallowed hard. James's eyes shifted again, and I took a step back. I'd never met anyone who was part dragon before, and I didn't know what he was capable of or how I should react.
"What the fuck?" Alec said. "Did you see his eyes? What is going on here?"
"Like she said, I'm a dragon," James said.
"So, is it like a were-thing? You shift on the full moon or something?" Alec asked.
"Dragon-Bloods can't shift," I said. "But they are supposed to be extinct."
"I'm not a Dragon-Blood, Morgan," James said. "I'm a full dragon. An elite."
"No," I said. In the time of the Fae Wars, the elites and the wild dragons had fought alongside the Dark Fae, trying to take over all the realms. The history books told us that all of the elites, those dragons who could take human form, had perished, ending the dragon blood line. "How is this possible?"
"After the Fae Wars, I had enough of the politics of the Dragons, so I went into hiding. I'm not the only elite, but I don't need the others knowing where I am."
"A thousand years?" Alec's mouth hung open. "How old are you?"
James smiled. "Older than Jimmy. We met a few centuries ago in Venice. It was a beautiful time to be alive."
"Stop right there," I said. "So you're a dragon. Not human, not mage, not demon or anything else. Pure dragon?"
James nodded.
I blew out a breath and spun on my heels, walking back over to the chairs. It was far too late to be dealing with something like this. I collapsed into the chair, then folded over, so my forehead pressed against my knees. Closing my eyes, I took a moment to consider how weird my night just got. And how I had cried in front of the dragon that I owed a favor. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
"Does this mean you can just take the other dragon out? Like Godzilla vs. the gia
nt moth or something?" Alec asked.
I didn't look up to see James's reaction, and if he'd answered, it wasn't loud enough for me to hear. Part of me wondered if that was what Marco's hope was. Did he think I could bring this guy - this dragon - back to Realm's Gate with me to fight the other one?
After a moment, I realized nobody was speaking. Risking a glance, I lifted my head. Both men were staring at me. Then, I realized the closest person to human in this room was me, and I wasn't human. I was a born mage. Both of my parents were Mages. Being in this room was like the opening line to a bad joke. A mage, a dragon, and a vampire walked into a bar... Then what? They were waiting for me to speak. "So now what?"
"Now, we wait. In the morning, we solve your video problem, and I teach you how to send a dragon away," James said.
"Me? You can't do it?"
He shook his head. "If I shift, I'll attract the attention of the other elites. Plus, it's been so long since I shifted, I could end up stuck in dragon form for weeks. That is not something I'm willing to do."
"Well, wouldn't you be better at sending it away, even in this form?" Alec gestured to James's body.
I had to admit, it was a good looking body. Even if it was fake. For a second, I wondered if he had all the standard man parts. I winced. That was the last thought that should be crossing my mind. I was starting to get punchy. "Look, whatever we're going to do is going to have to wait a few hours."
Alec's brow furrowed.
Had he forgotten so quickly what it was like to not be a vampire? My head was throbbing, and the lack of rest was making me feel nauseous. "I'm not like you two, I still have needs, like a human."
"I have needs, too," James said.
My stomach tightened as my mind went right to the kind of needs I could picture him meeting. "Sleep. I mean sleep. Alone."
12
Somewhere in the labyrinth of a house, James found me a bedroom to get a few hours of sleep. The room was dark and clean. My guess was that he rarely had visitors who required downtime the way a human did. What kind of people hung out with a dragon? He had the woman who brought the tea. Was she a maid? Did she go home at night after serving a dragon all day? What about those ninjas?