by Tracy Tappan
Alex adjusted the set of his glasses as he peered into the box. “What kind?”
“Macadamia chocolate chip.”
“Oh, definitely.” Alex took one.
Hannah plopped back down on the couch, looking drawn and pale. It was clearly taking a toll on her to leave the community she so adored. “I knew right away. All of the Vârcolac exude a kind of animal essence, don’t you think?”
“Yep,” Ellen said, sitting next to Hannah. “That’s what got me, too.”
Toni was still skimming the pages of the strange book. “How did you find this anyway, Alex?”
Alex sat down with his cookie. “When I was fifteen, I pried up a floorboard in my bedroom to hide my reefer stash from Mom. The Book was just sitting there, like, shazaam, it’d been patiently waiting for me to find it.”
She arched her brows, but that was her only reaction. She probably wasn’t allowed to think that scenario was weird, considering her recent experiences. She ran her fingers over the strange lettering on the page. “Do you know what language this is?”
“Utter gibberish from what I’ve been told. But,” he lifted a single shoulder, “I can read some of it. Before today and your story, though, it never made much sense to me. I mean, when I read that you and I were Dragon royalty, I really didn’t understand the—”
“Wait.” Kimberly held up a hand. “What? Did you just say royalty?”
Alex smiled widely. “Yeah…get this. According to The Book, Toni and I are both descended from some royal lineage of the ancient Dragons.” He brushed cookie crumbs off his hands, then reached across the table to flip to a different page. “See?”
Ellen, Maggie, Kimberly, and Hannah moved to hover over Toni again.
Toni studied the page. “My God, these people kind of look like us, Alex.”
“Bizarre, huh?” Alex pointed to one of the pages of gobbledygook language. “From what I’ve been able to gather, there were two main lines of Dragon monarchy, which came into being because their bloodlines were able to stabilize the population, erasing a lot of genetic problems that were starting to show up. One line went off to breed with the Vârcolac, the other with humans, which ended up making people like you and me. Apparently, we’re very rare.” He glanced at her curiously. “Did the others know the full extent of your genealogy?”
“I doubt it.” She couldn’t imagine Roth not using information like royal bloodlines to try and pressure her further into reproducing with his people.
Kimberly sucked in a sudden breath. “This is great! You’re the answer to our problems, Toni.”
Toni frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“Vârcolac culture only allows those of royal lineage to hold positions of authority, right? So with your royal bloodlines you could become co-leader of Ţărână with Roth. Ha!” Kimberly clapped her hands together. “The Dragons would finally have representation.” Kimberly swung around to look at the other women. “We don’t need to negotiate any more than that, you guys. Once Toni gets into power, she can take care of the rest.”
“Hold on a minute,” Toni butted in. “It was never the plan for me to go back with all of you.”
“I’ll go with you.” Alex said quietly.
She whipped her head around and gaped at her brother. “For the love of God,” she bit off low on her breath, “now who’s the insane one?”
His expression sobered. “I think you’d agree that, outside of you and Mom, my life has been damned empty so far. Yours, too, from what I can tell. I don’t want to go back to it.”
She pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead and let out a long moan. Why was everyone so determined to screw up her plans?
“Think about it,” Alex went on. “Our whole lives, both of us have been the square pegs in the round holes. We’ve never fit in. Me, with all of my strung-out rebellions, and you…do you have any close friends at all, even one?”
She dropped her hands and lowered her head, the familiar pain of that relentless loneliness throbbing in her chest.
Hannah stepped closer to Alex. “You’d feel like you belonged in Ţărână,” she promised him.
“I bet she’s right,” Alex aimed the comment at Toni. “We’re not part of this world, sis. That’s been the problem all along, we just never knew it. We belong in theirs.”
Hannah added another two cents. “It’s the same thing we’ve been trying to tell her.”
“Just give her a moment,” Kimberly said.
“For the love of God,” Toni hissed, snapping her head up. “Do you have any idea what you’d be giving up, Alex? Regular access to the sun, your plants, a successful career, Friday afternoon racquetball with your—”
“All of that’s meaningless if I’m alone. Hell, I’d live in zero gravity on the moon if it meant sharing my life with someone I loved. And I’m never going to find that special someone here. I’m sure of that now.” Alex reached across the table and took ahold of one of her hands. “What do you want, sis, huh? To be just another widget-hematologist up here, or to really make a difference down there? To have a chance at falling in love down there, or to continue to have one meaningless affair after another up here? Or no man at all, which is pretty much what—”
She jerked her hand away from him. “I did fall in love, Alex, that’s the freaking problem.” She thrust to her feet and paced away from the table, heat building in her face. “You want to go live in Ţărână? Fine. Go. These women will gladly take you there. But I can’t survive spending every day of my life living next to a man I want with every fiber of my soul, but can never have.”
Hannah brightened. “Who?”
“Jaċken,” Maggie answered, putting the lid back on her cookie tin. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Apparently not to Hannah. The pleased look fell off the librarian’s face, replaced by an expression of aghast incredulity. “Jaċken?”
Alex set his forearms on the table, clasping his fingers in front of him. “A man who you can’t have, Toni? Nuh, uh, the dude doesn’t exist.”
She exhaled a frustrated breath, tears springing into her eyes. “This isn’t just a matter of me wearing a tube top and hot pants or sitting on him until he cries uncle, Alex. The man is half Om Rău, which means he has an incurable genetic defect. Incurable as in, there’s nothing I can do about it. Do you understand? I can’t just change the laws of science and nature to suit my love life.”
“I’m not buying it. You’ve got a stubborn streak in you a mile wide, Toni.” Alex shrugged, his hands still clasped. “If you really want this dude, then find a way to get him.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The succulent scent of bacon wafted in the air, along with the aroma of fresh baked muffins. Blueberry, too, usually Jaċken’s favorite. Today, it tasted like sawdust. Crumbling the muffin onto his plate, Jaċken slugged back another mouthful of coffee, scalding his tongue and not giving a shit.
Activity in the mansion’s dining room hummed around him, the soft clink-clank of dishes and silverware, the low murmur of people talking about stuff he couldn’t give a shit about. But then there wasn’t much he cared two fucks about anymore. He ate, drank, slept, and put one foot in front of the other to keep the machinery of his body working, but that was about it. He was a drone. The worst he’d ever been. His persona in Oţărât had been Giggles the Clown compared to this. Everything was nothing. Food had no taste, music had no rhythm, friendships had no depth, the world had no color, no substance. No vibrancy.
Because it was a world without Toni.
They couldn’t find her. Not anywhere. Night after night over the last week, he’d gone topside with a team to search for her, but they always returned without a single lead. No sign of life at Alexander Parthen’s house or at Toni’s place or at her work. Not anywhere.
Cleeve couldn’t pin her down, either. The last known trace the computer whiz had been able to find of either Toni or her brother was on the day Toni had escaped. A substa
ntial ATM withdrawal had been made by Alex Parthen from near his home. The same day, Jaċken and his men had found the Pathfinder, but since then, nothing. No activity on credit cards, no cell phone calls, not a single thing Cleeve could track. Toni, her brother, and four other Dragon women had all become a bunch of ghosts.
Toni was gone. For good. Like in, never-fucking-ever coming back. Accept it, asshole.
Jaċken glowered down at the scrambled eggs congealing on his plate. Jesus H. Christ, if there was a man on this earth stupider than he was, he’d like someone to stand up and name the imbecile. How could he have ever thought for even a fleeting second that life might be easier without Toni around? That somehow his existence would be less agonizing if he was spared the necessity of watching her hook up with another man some—
The rapid-fire staccato of multiple footsteps interrupted his thoughts, the strides heading down the outer corridor’s polished wood floor toward the dining room. Jaċken grimaced at his coffee mug. More of the community’s bullshit to deal with. He was the interim man-in-charge, so when anyone had a problem these days, it was his ear they yapped it into. Not exactly known for his people skills, he sucked at the job and liked it even less, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice in the matter. Over the last week, Roth had been progressively withdrawing, to the point that for the last two days he hadn’t even left his penthouse. The community was heading rapidly down the john, and nobody seemed to have the first clue how to save it. Jaċken least of all.
The Dragons’ husbands burst into the dining room, Pedrr and Willen log-jamming in the doorway before stumbling inside, followed by Luken. Sedge and Arc entered last, more calmly, but still clearly jacked with tension. Everyone started talking at once.
“—received a message—”
“—women want to meet at—”
“Finally! Dear heavens, one more day and—”
“—leave right away!”
Jaċken took a sip of his coffee and didn’t say anything, sticking with his whole not-giving-a-shit attitude toward this goat rodeo.
“Cut the noise!” Arc barked at the husbands. Stepping forward from the group, Arc held out a piece of paper to Jaċken. “This was emailed to Beth. Toni’s the one calling for the meeting, Jaċken. She wants to see you, man.”
He surged out of his chair before he was even aware his brain had given his body the command to stand. The dining room went pin-drop quiet, everyone no doubt listening to his heart do the 100-yard dash.
He pushed the single word between his teeth. “Where?”
* * *
Stationed just inside the ER, Kimberly was standing at a perfect vantage point to spy on the front door of Scripps Memorial Hospital. “They’re here,” she said into her cell phone to Toni on the other end. “Roth, Dr. Jess, Jaċken,” she named the entering Vârcolac, “and the husbands: Pedrr, Willen, Luken, and Sedge. No Arc or Beth, though.”
Her heart did a funny pirouette in her chest as she watched her own husband step onto the hospital elevator. He was moving in that fluid way of his, his shoulders so broad he almost had to angle his way inside. She’d really missed him over the past week. She’d visited her parents while she’d been up here, and that’d been nice, but it was Sedge who now meant home to her.
“I’ll be right up,” she finished off with Toni. “I’m just going to grab a cup of coffee first.” The reverse day-night cycle between Ţărână and topside was killing her. She didn’t think she’d adjusted, even after an entire week up here.
Pressing her thumb on her cell phone’s red end call button, she headed for the vending machines.
* * *
Toni heard them coming three minutes after the phone call from Kimberly, the thunder of footsteps approaching from the nurse’s station stirring a flutter of excitement in her belly.
After the longest week of her life, she was finally going to see him again. Jaċken….
It’d been a roller-coaster seven days, every hopeful idea she’d come up with for creating a life with Jaċken getting shot down by a cold dose of reality, back and forth, until she’d finally put her hematological ingenuity to use and discovered a do-able option—a meaningless option if it turned out that Jaċken didn’t love her. Because no way was she going to bond permanently to a man who didn’t.
He was drawn to her, she knew that much, and by more than just her scent. They’d shared some pretty intense moments. But, seeing as all those moments had ended with him backing off, she really didn’t know for sure how he felt about her. Had he backed off out of pure necessity because of his vow of celibacy, or because he genuinely didn’t want her in his life, bugging him? The answer to that, more than her upcoming confrontation with Roth, had her nerves jumping.
“You ready, Toni?” Alex was perched on the edge of a long, oval table. They were in a conference room in the hematology wing, with the other Dragons seated in plush chairs around it at the far end of the room, minus Kimberly, who was still downstairs in the Emergency Room. Their combined seven children were safely tucked away in the hospital daycare. Just tonight, Toni had tendered her resignation at Scripps, but had kept her hospital privileges as an adjunct physician.
She took a deep breath. Right. Keep focused. This was hardly the time to get caught up in a love-daze. Much still had to be decided before she earned her Happily Ever After—if she earned it. Giving Alex a quick nod, she stepped out of the conference room.
Jaċken was on point, in front of the other Vârcolac, and the sight of him flipped her stomach into a full somersault. Sweet Jesus. He looked smokin’ hot, from his thickly corded legs in black jeans to the leather jacket that hugged the V-shape of his muscular body, the snug fit of his clothes highlighting his masculinity and power. It made her want to do nothing more than run her hands all over those chiseled bulges. She released a slow breath. Damn, who would’ve guessed Tall, Dark, and Homicidal was what buttered her bread, but evidently it was.
The rest of the men were well-dressed in suits, except for Sedge, who was wearing olive slacks and a dark mauve button-down left open at the collar. Dr. Jess had also thrown on a white lab coat for good measure.
She was extra glad now she’d taken such care with her own appearance. She’d clipped her hair into an elegant ponytail, which lay shimmering over one shoulder, and had dressed in a newly-purchased black pencil skirt, black sling-back pumps, and a wraparound blue silk blouse which, while totally decent in all respects, had made even her own eyes go a little zowie when she’d seen The Girls in the mirror. She’d wanted to look pretty for this, though, and…apparently, she’d succeeded.
The group of Vârcolac slammed to a halt the moment she stepped into the hallway.
“Goodness,” slipped incredulously past Dr. Jess’s lips, while Jaċken looked like he wished he had a lead pipe to gnaw through.
She strode forward, fighting the urge to run at Jaċken and throw her arms around his thick neck with a Got any Hershey’s syrup and whipped cream handy? or something equally subtle and coy.
“Gentlemen,” she greeted as she came to a stop in front of them. This close, she saw that Jaċken was drawn and leaner, still totally do-able, but definitely a man who looked like he’d been through the wringer. Had this past week been as awful for him as it had been for her? Probably rude to hope so. “Thank you for coming.”
Jaċken glowered at her. “Do you have any idea how fucking worried we’ve been about all of you?”
She paused, momentarily caught off guard by his heated rejoinder. Then she piffed a breath. Well, it was nice to know some things never changed, and Jaċken’s inability to be diplomatic about anything that displeased him was clearly one of life’s constants.
“You’re a lovely sight, Dr. Parthen,” Roth complimented. “But also a surprising one. Once you rid yourself of us, we never thought to see you again.”
“If all goes well with our negotiations, Mr. Mihnea, I plan to return to the community.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaċken stiff
en. Was that a good or bad sign?
“I see,” Roth said noncommittally.
“Why don’t we all go into the conference room.” She gestured toward the door. “We’ll have plenty of privacy there.”
The seven men stepped inside. Luken, Pedrr, and Willen started for their wives at the far side of the room, but Toni pulled out a chair at this end of the table, prompting them with another, “Gentlemen.”
There would be no consorting during negotiations.
The husbands reluctantly sat.
Sedge began to sit, noting his wife’s absence with a frown, then shot up again.
Roth had spotted the intruder, too. “We have a visitor, I see.”
“This is my brother, Alex,” Toni said.
Jaċken put two and two together. “You told him about us?!”
“Yes,” she replied calmly. She physically turned Alex around and lifted the back of his T-shirt, showing them the significant brown dragon tattoo marks on his back, originally thought to be the aftereffects of a bad sunburn. “He’s one of us.”
She politely gestured everyone to take a seat. Toni and Alex sat on one side of the table, Roth, Jaċken, and Dr. Jess across from the two of them, with the Dragons and the husbands seated at opposite ends. Perfect positioning for a typical Mexican standoff.
She folded her hands on the top of the table and locked gazes with Roth, blue eyes clashing with gray ones. They weren’t in his library-office with her trapped and helpless this time, were they? He damned well needed to be fully aware of that.
Roth broke eye contact long enough to glance around the conference room. “All of this drama doesn’t seem like your style, Dr. Parthen.”
She lazily lifted her brows at him, adopting an expression of mild curiosity, almost boredom. An interesting opening sally. Was Roth trying to make her feel churlish? Childish? Or get under her skin by making her think he knew her better than she knew herself? She smiled. She wouldn’t give him any of it. “You made the dramatic gesture necessary, Mr. Mihnea. You weren’t listening to the women of your community down in Ţărână. The hope is that we’ll have better luck with you up here.”