She spoke as if the egg was climbing with her but she felt as if it were a sentient thing. She’d taken to talking to it. It couldn’t answer but sometimes she swore it looked slightly shinier if she said something that it might have agreed with.
Lucy got one leg over the spikes and she wobbled, her eyes on the dark backyard. She heard the glass door sliding open just yards away, and she whimpered even as she began to lose her balance. She swung another leg over and the momentum of the egg in the bag and the unstable gate knocked her to the ground where she half fell on her ankle in the darkness of the street. She squeezed her eyes shut for one moment; just enough to absorb and accept the pain of having falling on her ass onto pavement. Then she pushed herself to her feet, brushed off her scraped up hands and began to run.
She was limping, her ankle stinging as she made her way down the road around a corner, in the opposite direction of the mansion. The men had come from the front of the house. She needed to get away.
Lucy ran, limping, half crying and clutching the messenger bag to her body for a few blocks, taking enough turns that she hoped she’d lost the men even if they had seen her fall from the gate. Except that all the houses in Jack’s neighborhood were huge. She stuck out like a sore thumb. There was no sidewalk and nobody was out walking. She was limping her way down the road at a clip and lights with sensors kept flashing on as she walked by. Every time she saw a car, she thought it was one of Sean’s killers and cowered back into the shadows.
She took out her phone, her sweaty hands shaking as she called up a ride-share and prayed it would be noticed. She heard a car coming, and seeing that it was a black sedan coming from down the road, she dove into some bushes, egg and all, praying she had not been seen.
About five minutes later a car slowed in front of her, and Lucy checked her phone to make sure it was the ride-share, peeking out of the bushes tentatively. She climbed out of the shrub and staggered over to the car, scratched up and limping and got into the back seat, heaving a breath of relief as the car pulled away.
“You okay, lady?” The driver asked. He had a big beard and he peered at her over the seat, frowning.
“Sometimes I really miss just being a showgirl,” Lucy said, sighing.
“I hear that a lot.” The driver glanced at his phone and said, “You’re going to The Four of Clubs? Old Vegas?”
“Yeah.” Lucy heaved a breath and sat back as the car sped away from Jack’s mansion. “Old Vegas.”
The Four of Clubs was one of the strip’s oldest hotels and casinos. It sat off the strip in the old town part of Vegas and best of all it was about as far from Jack’s as Lucy could get without actually leaving the hustle and bustle of the strip. It was still as crowded as the newer parts of Vegas where the big, popular hotels were. She could easily get lost in the crowd and maybe find a nook to hide in for a while until she could get Jack to come and meet her.
“Oh,” she muttered. “Idiot…”
She snorted at her own forgetfulness and whipped out her phone, tapping out a message to Jack.
Mystery friend said they’re on to me. Going to Four of Clubs.
She was surprised when he didn’t message back immediately but tried to calm herself, cradling her egg in her lap. But it was hard not to worry. She wished now that she’d kept the mystery friend on the phone for a while. Were they onto Jack too? Was he in danger? She found herself with a lump in her throat just thinking about it. She bit her lip, staring down at her phone. He was running a massive business and trying to get everything done quickly and come home again. That much had been obvious. He was probably just busy.
“Jack,” she whispered. “I hope you’re okay.”
The ride-share slipped into the traffic of the strip and Lucy started humming as she reached into the messenger bag and stroked the egg. She hoped the duress wouldn’t hurt the little thing. It was supposed to be kept warm and comfortable. It was a hot evening in Vegas tonight but it wasn’t heat-lamp hot. She held it a little closer, feeling protective and stared out at the people rushing by, the neon lights, the place she’d called home for so long that she both loved and hated.
“We’ll be okay, little egg,” Lucy murmured. “We’ll be okay.”
At The Four of Clubs, Lucy hopped out of the car and found herself rushed along with the crowd on the hubbub of the strip as she attempted to cut her way through hordes of people and get to the arched entrance of The Four of Clubs, with its giant black neon clubs that blinked above the casino.
“Excuse me, excuse me…” Lucy huffed and held her hands protectively over the bag. She felt so vulnerable suddenly. She’d never been around kids much. Lucy’s family was small and she had grown up an only child. Now the egg felt like precious cargo as she cradled the bag to her chest. It was so helpless. It needed her and she almost felt as if she needed it too.
Lucy battled her way into The Four of Clubs and the familiarity of the bells and whistles of the slots and the flashing lights and smell of booze and cigarettes made her feel much safer even as she held the egg tightly to her chest. She knew nobody at The Four of Clubs, which made it a remarkable place as she knew somebody in at least half the casinos in Vegas. She checked her phone as she wandered through the casino floor, looking for a covert little spot where she could cool out for a while but still public enough that if some gangster came looking for her, he’d be seen by a lot of people. Jack had still not responded.
“Oh man, I need a drink,” Lucy muttered. She had some cash in her purse and went to buy chips before finding a spot at a Black Jack table where she could sit with other people and feel a little safer. The game was blessedly slow with the tourist players taking eons to decide on their bets and Lucy sighed in relief even as she searched out suspicious-looking people among the crowd. She ordered a gin and tonic from a cocktail waitress and absently petted her egg until the bet came around to her. The table was low stakes. Lucy bet five and won the game without trying and everyone applauded. “See, little egg,” she whispered as she patted the smooth, shiny surface. “Our luck is changing already.”
She checked her phone again. No Jack. She called him between games and the phone went to voicemail.
“Jack, it’s Lucy,” Lucy said, sounding shakier than she intended. “I had to leave your house. I’m at The Four of Clubs. I’ll stay here if I can, unless they find me. Please come. Jack…”
Jack, I love you.
Jack, I read about mates and I think I’m yours.
“Just please come,” she said, before hanging up again.
Lucy looked at her cards and looked at the chips in the pot when the game started up again. She thought of dancing with Jack, the way he seemed to know when she wanted him to take control like some big, strong man and when she wanted him to be soft and sweet. She never would have guessed it of Jack Damon. There was a way that they seemed to fit together. When he looked at her, it was like he knew her. He understood that she was feisty but also a little quirky. He even seemed to like that about her and she never would have guessed it.
She wondered if there was a chance in hell that she could keep him.
Could it be real between them?
An annoying little voice in her head told her that she would never know if she didn’t put her own cards on the table first. Jack was kinder and more careful than she ever would have given him credit for. He wouldn’t want to think he was exerting his power over her or that he was pressuring her. She’d have to come to him.
That seemed somehow just as scary as running from gangsters.
She looked at the dealer and sighed. “I’m gonna double-down.”
14
Jack
Jack found that if he didn’t turn his phone to airplane mode, he couldn’t get any work done. It wasn’t just the constant requests coming in from seemingly every single person who worked for him, but it was the thought of Lucy back at home. He was constantly checking to see if she had texted. It was partly out of a fear that perhaps something had gone wrong, but
it was also more than that now. He wanted to hear how things were going, even if it had nothing to do with the safety of her or the egg. He wanted to hear about how she was singing to the egg and talking to it. If she was talking to it, what was she saying? She had sent him a selfie of herself with the egg already and he had felt truly like a father and a mate with a family. She had been grinning, cuddling the egg as she posed in front of a giant abstract painting in Jack’s living room which she’d then teased him about. He felt like his heart was swallowing him up when she sent it.
The problem was, he really needed to get some work done. But even with his phone no longer bothering him as he sat at his laptop in his giant office with the big windows that looked out on the busy strip, his mind kept wandering. He even had practical thoughts about how life might work if Lucy was his mate. He imagined she wanted to keep dancing. Every showgirl he’d ever known only worked in that industry because she loved it. He could help her with that. He had connections. He’d seen her dance before. He’d always sort of noticed that she had too much talent to be working as just another one of the girls at the Jack’s Joker. She should be in some residency show, he thought. She could dance and he could do more work from home than he’d been doing to take care of the egg. Or rather, the child.
Sometimes he forgot that part.
He was trying to review a giant spreadsheet of predicted revenue for the next couple of quarters but instead, he sat back in his big, leather chair and it fully dawned on him that he didn’t have to imagine that he would be a father soon. He was going to be a father soon.
That egg was going to hatch and there would be a tiny dragon shifter in the world; a little girl or boy. That he was going to raise the kid had never been in question. Sean had entrusted him with the egg. That meant something.
He found himself grinning now as he thought about teaching the kid to fly and breathe fire. He had fond memories of learning both things from his own father.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered now, his eyes widening as he stared off out the window.
He’d have to tell his parents soon. It would be rough breaking the news that Sean had died. He wasn’t great with stuff like that. But the news that they had a new grandchild would be something else. They’d want to come up. Maybe he could even get them to stick around for a while. Maybe he could now have the family he’d always deeply dreamed of.
But he couldn’t even begin to imagine it without Lucy.
It was night out on the strip. He still had some work he had to finish and then he planned to go pick up some food and bring it home for Lucy. Maybe they could watch some TV and eat on the couch in the living room. Maybe they’d dance again (for the egg’s sake, of course) and then end up making love, this time in Jack’s big bed. His mind was wandering again and he shook his head and dug back into his work.
At around nine o’clock that night, Jack realized he’d had his phone on airplane mode for three hours. He’d gotten a lot more work done, but that had been risky. What if something had happened with Lucy? He whipped out his phone and took it off airplane mode, lightheaded when Lucy’s texts and missed calls popped up.
Mystery friend said they’re on to me. Going to Four of Clubs.
“Shit!” Jack yelped, jumping up from his seat. “Shit! Shit!”
He stumbled around, grabbing for his jacket and holding the phone to his ear as he listened to Lucy’s voicemail. She sounded so scared and it made his heart thud in his chest. She was scared and on the run and he had missed her messages just to focus on work.
Some great mate, he thought, inwardly kicking himself.
She had said she was staying at The Four of Clubs. That had been an hour ago. She was hopefully still there and safe, surrounded by a crowd, but Jack found himself running from his office, down a corridor to the back of his hotel and out to the parking garage. The Four of Clubs was at the opposite end of the strip from Jack’s Joker. He supposed it made sense that she’d hidden out far from the casino where they had killed Sean and knew where she worked. Except now he wanted to get there instantly and by car it would be a crawl and on foot it would take too long to push through the crowds.
So Jack took the elevator to the top floor of his parking garage and up to the mostly deserted roof that looked out on the sprawl of casinos, hotels, resorts, clubs, quickie chapels and theaters. The great thing about Las Vegas was, it was a completely insane place. That meant that even if people saw something crazy, they could chalk it up to some weird Vegas thing. Once Jack had seen a gigantic inflatable Elvis flying over the strip. He had seen a marching band dressed in gold bikinis.
Surely, people wouldn’t even be that freaked out by a dragon flying over their heads. They would ooh and aah and decide it was some trick. So Jack shifted, almost dizzy with the relief of it. When he was particularly keyed up, it felt very good to shift. Now he pushed off from the ground and spread his wings, flying high into the warm night air above all the little people with their chips and booze and vapes. He soared over the neon and vaguely heard screams and cries of delight below as people watched a giant dragon fly right over the Las Vegas strip, on his way to save his lady. The flight took all of two minutes and he aimed to land on an empty patch of pavement behind The Four of Clubs where its dumpsters all sat. People might find some way to write off a flying dragon, but they’d have a harder time of it if they saw him transform into a human man right in front of them.
Jack landed neatly and immediately shifted, running to the back exit of The Four of Clubs that let him into the massive kitchen of its restaurant and bar. The busboys and cooks all shot him dirty looks and shouted that he should get out of the kitchen and he ignored them as he shoved his way through, pushing away men and women all in white, making a beeline for any exit to the restaurant and in the direction of the casino.
Once on the casino floor, he sniffed for Lucy. There were so many people and so many scents and his nose wasn’t as strong as it was when he was a dragon. But he finally spotted her sitting at a Black Jack table. She was sipping a cocktail and pumping her fist, having apparently just won a hand.
For a terrifying moment, he thought she had not brought the egg with her. That he had been all wrong and she didn’t care about the egg and she didn’t care about him. The anxiety of having feared for both her life and the egg’s abruptly threatened to cripple him but then he saw it; the messenger bag in her lap that had a distinctly egg-shaped lump. His heart swelled in his chest even as she turned her head and saw him, her eyes big and bright as she grinned at him.
“Are you okay?” He asked, running up to her, reflexively throwing an arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t get your messages before. I had my phone off to work.”
“You turned your phone off!” She said, her eyebrows shooting up. “Jack!”
“I know, I know,” he said, sighing even as he looked her up and down as if to prove to himself she was safe. “Stupid move. Are you okay?”
“The egg’s fine,” Lucy said, in a conspiratorial whisper. She patted the messenger bag. “I worry about it being away from the heat lamp too long though. Maybe it would be safer in your penthouse after all.”
“Good,” Jack said, rubbing his eyes. “Good, that’s good. But what about you? Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Lucy said, smiling softly.
“You in this hand?” The dealer asked, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m out.” Lucy took her chips and got up from her stool, shrugging a little sheepishly as she stood close to Jack. “I won a few hundred bucks anyway.”
Jack could only laugh at that and shook his head. “Of course you did.”
“What about your house though?” Lucy asked as Jack reflexively took her hand in his. “These guys must be good. They didn’t set off any alarms. They could be trashing the place-”
“I don’t care about that,” Jack said. “As long as you’re safe. C’mon, we’ll go to the penthouse. The cops might be dicey in Vegas, but I have my own security.”
“Trust me,” Jack said, winking at her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Lucy. But we’ll be careful. Cover up your blonde hair, disguise you a little.”
They’d walked out to the street and Lucy stopped, facing him as Vegas bustled and buzzed around them. She looked a little worse for wear, he now noticed, even if she said she was fine. Her hair was disheveled, and she had a little scrape on her chin. Her palms were scraped too, like she’d hit the ground hard and she was limping slightly. He took out his phone to call up a ride-share even as he looked around for anyone taking too much interest in him but when he tried to move again, Lucy was holding him still.
“Jack,” Lucy said. “I have to tell you something.”
“Hmm?” He looked in her swimming pool blue eyes and felt transfixed. Unthinkingly, he reached up and smoothed her hair down and tucked a lock behind her ear. “What is it?”
“I…” She opened and closed her mouth, blinking at him. He’d never seen her look so uncertain. She was probably just scared, and he wanted to take all her fears away but it occurred to him that she might also regret whatever this was between them. Why wouldn’t she? He’d completely disrupted her life, even if it had been mostly with good intentions. “When this is over,” Lucy said. “When this is over…”
“Yes?” Jack said, bracing himself.
“I don’t want it to be… I don’t want…” She couldn’t seem to get it out and he found it so endearing to see her nervous like this, no matter what the reason was. She was so sure of herself usually. A passerby bumped into her, slamming her and the egg into Jack and he caught her in his arms, throwing the stranger a dirty look. But when he looked down at Lucy, she was holding onto him, clutching his shoulder and gazing at him with such devotion in her eyes, he couldn’t mistake it for anything else. “I don’t want it to be over,” she whispered. “Not between us.”
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