Chapter Twenty-Four

Jade

Being forced to live with FBI agents wasn't the dreadful situation I'd envisioned. After a time, Carlson loosened up enough to smile and crack a few jokes. His partner, Agent Morgan, turned out to be cheerful and an excellent cook. He prepared gourmet meals once Carlson returned from the grocery store with Morgan's list of ingredients.

"That's why I get this detail," Morgan said. "My cooking keeps the subjects in the house and not roaming to Mickey D's or Wendy's."

I breathed in the delicious scents. "What about the agents outside?"

"They have to brown bag it," he replied. "Can't give them away by taking them dinner."

"That's too bad."

"Luck of the draw."

"My pop's a sneaky bastard," Magnus commented, entering the kitchen. "How would they know if he's out there?"

"They're trained observers," Carlson replied. "They know this block, this neighborhood. If something isn't right, they're on it like stink on shit."

He glanced at me with his mouth open. His skin turned a dark red as he muttered, "Sorry, ma'am."

I chuckled. "I've said a lot worse, believe me. Don't worry about it."

Life with federal agents wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Over meals, Magnus talked of Arnaud, his organization, his life under Arnaud's strict rule. He grinned at me. "But thanks to him, I found the love of my life."

"Even after you kidnapped her?" Morgan asked.

I chuckled. "I guess we're just fated to be together."

Still, in the privacy of our bedroom, Magnus worried. He spent late hours sitting at the window, parting the curtains to stare down at the street below.

"All these guys are at risk," he murmured as I wrapped my arms around him from behind. "Arnaud's a dragon. What if he loses it? Starts flaming indiscriminately? Kills innocent residents in his need to kill us?"

"If we left here," I murmured, my lips against his throat, "he'll follow us. We'll lure him away."

"Will we? How does he know where we are in the first place?"

"He can't be tracking us," I mused. "We've changed cars, clothes, everything –"

I stiffened. Magnus turned his head to meet my gaze with a slight frown. "What?"

"We changed clothes," I muttered. "Cars. He's always known where we are."

"He can't, Jade. That's impossible."

Leaving him, I crossed the room to snap on the light. Magnus wore his wool shirt, jeans, socks as he sat in a chair to watch out the window. I grabbed his boots from the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Clothes," I growled. "We changed clothes . But never these."

I sent him a sharp stare. "He gave these to you, didn't he?"

Magnus nodded. "Two years ago. For my birthday."

"A tracker," I muttered, feeling inside the boots. "He's OCD, a control freak. Everything where he wants them. Even you, his son."

"Check the heels," Magnus said, his tone calm, yet sorrowed.

Twisting, I yanked the heel from the right boot. And stared. "Holy shit."

Inside a hole bored in the heel sat a blinking red light. "A tracker. Just like on my car. Oh my God."

"Don't destroy it," Magnus warned, crossing the room to the door.

I followed him, the boot's heel and the device in my hand.

Agent Morgan watched TV on the sofa while Carlson read a book in the armchair. Both glanced up, startled, as we charged down the stairs.

"He knows exactly where we are," Magnus roared. "He always has."

I displayed the tracker. "He could be nearby. You guys are in terrible danger."

"We can handle papa," Morgan said. "You just mellow out. If he's around, the boys outside will alert us."

"No, dammit," I yelled. "He's not like us. He has no soul. He'll kill you all. He can do it."

"Jade," Carlson said, soothing, his hand out, "calm down. We're trained agents –"

Magnus grabbed my hand, ignoring him. "Bring the tracker. We run, he'll follow us."

"Now, wait –" Morgan said, standing. "You can't –"

"Just watch us," Magnus retorted, running for the sliding glass door and taking me with him.

It took a precious second to unlock the door, then slide it open, a second in which Morgan and Carlson nearly caught us and dragged us back. They missed by a hair, then we bolted across the back lawn and across the fence. Behind us, Morgan yelled into a radio while Carlson gave chase. Had Morgan put in a pursuit, he might have caught us. But Carlson was less agile, in less than good shape for running, not as young as he once was.

By that time, we'd shifted forms and leaped skyward.

Beating my wings hard to gain needed altitude, I glanced over at Magnus. "He's close by. Isn't he?"

"My gut says so," he rumbled. "How it knows when I don't, I haven't figured. Could he have been sitting on a rooftop and watched us fly?"

"Jesus, maybe."

Angling my head around on my long neck, I gazed over my shoulder. Against the starlight flew a great black body. Smart enough to not flame, Arnaud paced us, his wings beating up and down in an almost lazy fashion. The moon lit his eyes, gleaming coldly in the early winter night.

"He's behind us," I hissed. "He thinks he can take us both."

"He might succeed if we don't make a plan."

"So what's the plan?"

Magnus grinned, his lips curling back from the ranks of his long sharp teeth. "Lead him over the Atlantic. As far out to sea as we can. Then drown the mother fucker."

Magnus led the way, flying faster, heading east over the broad city of Washington, DC toward the mighty Atlantic. I kept pace easily, just as Arnaud also maintained the same distance. Every glance I took over my shoulder showed me the same thing – Arnaud doggedly on our tails.

We flew fast over the harbors, ducked under the radars of the military bases and airports, our wingtips dipping into the ever restless ocean. Within minutes, only blackness appeared below. Above, only stars. Should a passing ship observe flames in the sky, hopefully they'd never associate them with dragons.

"I go left," Magnus muttered. "You go right. We bank around, catch him between us. He's tough, he'll fight. You'll get hurt, but don't get killed. I want you to have my babies."

"Is that all I'm worth to you?"

Grinning, I shot my forked tongue out to lick his muzzle upon seeing his stricken expression. "Don't you die, buster. My kids need a dad."

"Go!"

I banked hard to the right, dove, and came up under Arnaud, flaming with everything I had. Perhaps taken by surprise, Arnaud shrieked, and banked hard away from me. Right into Magnus's path.

"Hiya, Dad," he yelled, then burned a swath alongside Arnaud's flank.

Arnaud screamed. "I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you, you bastard."

He folded his wings and dove, aiming for the sea, forcing Magnus to follow him.

"No," I yelled, "don't. It's a trap."

Magnus heard me and snapped a hard left, banking around a fraction before Arnaud twisted in mid-air, exchanged his tail with his head, and rose with his flames seeking his son.

Who wasn't there to burn to ashes.

"Fuck," he yelled, chasing Magnus across the sky. "Come here, you little shit. You need a spanking."

As I'd flew hard on Magnus's tail when he dropped, Arnaud's broad and exposed back lay open to me as he chased Magnus. I hit him with all my weight, my jaws latching onto his neck, my talons digging deep into his flesh.

"Bitch," he roared. "I'll fucking kill you and rape your corpse."

My jaws on his neck didn't allow much laughter, but I managed a giggle. "Gud uck wi' dat."

He bucked, he twisted, he swore, he flamed, but none of that dislodged me. Arnaud dropped straight toward the ocean below, perhaps thinking that might frighten me off him. Except I loved to swim, even as a dragon, and had practiced it often.

We hit the water with a tremendous splash. The waves closed over our heads, me still attached to his neck. Arnaud used his four limbs to stroke down, deeper and deeper, bubbles popping from his nostrils. Drown, fucker. You'll drown before I will.

Unfortunately, Arnaud came to that same conclusion.

Turning, he swam for the surface, his blood in the sea enticing predators. He and I broached the surface, Arnaud sucking in deep gulps of air as he beat his wings uselessly against the Atlantic. He couldn't rise and fly with me attached to his back and burying my teeth deeper and deeper into his neck.

Soon, I'd reach his jugular.

"You're killing my dad!"

Magnus flamed as he dove from the sky, striking the ocean's surface only a few feet away. Arnaud gasped for breath, floundering, his wings useless, his fires dampened, as I chewed further and further into his vulnerable neck. His jaws gaped wide as he fought for breath, to survive.

Magnus splashed high, his lips skinned back from his teeth, his wings propelling him closer, ever closer. " I get to kill my dad," he screamed. "Leave go."

I didn't.

Instead, I ground my teeth deeper, seeking his life-giving arteries, tasting his blood, relishing it. Magnus flamed into Arnaud's opened mouth, forcing his father to breathe in fire hot enough to melt steel.

Arnaud's lungs were certainly not made of steel.

He couldn't scream. Magnus's flames melted his throat, his larynx, his trachea. At the same moment my jaws connected with his jugular, Arnaud's lungs flash-fused into a mash of blackened tissue. His eyes bulged in their sockets as he fought to drag in breath, any breath at all. The water around him reddened with his life's blood.

Leaving him to thrash in the water, I half-swam, half-foundered away from his dying body to Magnus.

Magnus watched, with cold indifference, as Arnaud's body finally died. The black dragon floated atop the mild wavelets, dead and gone, the last of his blood seeping into the sea. While not exactly a sailor, I knew the scent of blood would soon attract sharks and orcas.

"Magnus?"

He finally looked at me, his eyes nearly black with hate, with rage. I recoiled, backpedaled, my wings pushing me away from him. Has he gone crazy? He looks as though he wants me dead. Not far away, a dorsal fin cut through the water. Then another.

"Sorry."

Magnus blinked, shook his head. "I'm sorry, Jade. I lost it for a second. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. But we need to skin out or we're shark bait."

Only then did Magnus observe the circling sharks. "Shit. Let's get out of here."

Seagulls, pelicans and albatrosses might take flight from the water with ease, but dragons didn't. We floundered, beating our wings to give ourselves enough lift to take off, trying to escape before the sea predators decided they liked live meat more than dead. At last, shedding sea water, we gained altitude.

Circling over Arnaud's corpse, we watched the sharks' feast. Their long, sleek bodies thrashed on the surface, taking bites of the corpse before swimming away to dine. More and more sharks joined in, taking off chunks of Arnaud's body, gulping the food down, then swimming back for more. Magnus grimaced.

"At least his body won't be found," he said, flying near me. "I think that's best. The feds'll wonder what happened."

"We'll say we ran, then lost him," I replied, watching the feeding frenzy with morbid interest. "Let them chase his ghost. Not that they'll find it."

"They'll have his thugs to prosecute," he added. "The blackmail and bribery schemes to unravel. They'll end his human trafficking, free his victims. They have their names. I think Anderson will have his hands full even if he never gets his hands on Arnaud."

Rising on a warm ocean thermal, I flew beside my love. "He'll know we killed him. Anderson."

"Let him." Magnus grinned. "Knowing and proving are two different things."

"It's nice we had allies eat the evidence?" I asked, coy.

"In an hour, it'll be as though Arnaud never existed."