Chapter Four

Magnus

Clothed in shadow, I stood over my father as he slept. The temptation to cut his throat before he could wake grew so strong, I trembled. I clenched my fists to halt their shaking, knowing anything might wake him up. My rage alone might make him feel me beside him. Should he wake and find me standing over his bed, he'd kill me.

Not if I killed him first.

I couldn't. No matter what, Arnaud was my father. Not much of one, granted, but still of my blood. Patricide just wasn't in my genes.

When my trembling subsided at last, I carefully, silently, picked up his key ring from his dresser's top. Closing my fist around them to halt any potential jangling that would alert Arnaud, I crept from his bedroom. Once I'd made an impression of the key I needed, I'd have to return them to the exact same place.

Hyper alert, Arnaud would know immediately if his things had been touched. In the past, he'd fired housekeeper after housekeeper for the simple crime of not replacing his possessions back precisely where they'd been. He wasn't just anal-retentive, he'd devolved into a full-blown psychosis.

Down the hall, I quietly closed the bathroom door, then switched on the light. Taking the block of clay from my pocket, I pressed both sides of the keys I'd need into the clay. One to the main house itself, the other to the room I suspected he'd stashed all his illicit blackmailing evidence.

After returning the block of clay to my pocket, I washed all traces of clay from the keys. No sense in letting him know the moment he picked them up that someone, me, intended to make copies. I sucked in a deep breath and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I hadn't shaved in a few days, thus my cheeks and jaws looked like those of a grunge artist. Lines of stress from the last few days had me looking older than my twenty-eight years. I shook my head at myself, then shut the light off. You really should have left him a long time ago.

Standing still to permit my eyes to adjust to the darkness, I sucked in deep breaths to calm my nerves. Taking the keys back was just as dangerous as taking them in the first place. At last, I paced silently back down the hall, and peered at my sleeping sire.

With a snort, he rolled over, clutching his blankets to his neck, then settled. When his light snoring became slow and regular, I stepped cautiously inside. At his dresser, I slowly set his keys back in the exact same place I found them, in the same position.

Except I inadvertently tapped one key against another.

The faint sound ripped through the darkness like a gunshot.

Snorting again, Arnaud woke. His head came up off his pillow. "Huh?"

I had nowhere to run. No place to hide.

I dropped to the carpeted floor, on my belly, as close to his bed as I could get.

Arnaud rolled toward me, his bed sagging under his weight, no doubt peering toward the source of the sound. I barely breathed, didn't move, and waited, frozen in panic. If he found me, I'd fight. I'm stronger than my father. I'd knock him out cold, then run. Go dragon. Fly across town, free Jade from her prison, demand that she also run, leave the country.

All those thoughts crossed my mind in a split second.

Arnaud grunted, perhaps still staring into the darkness, not seeing anything amiss, and obviously not sensing my presence a foot from him. If he chose to swing his legs from the bed to stand up, investigate further, he'd step on me.

I waited, listening, unmoving.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably a minute or less, Arnaud rolled back over. He tossed around, getting comfortable, then sighed. Within a few minutes, he snored again. Still, I waited, ensuring his sleep deepened before I eased my way from his bedside.

I stood, glancing at his sleeping form, and wished I had the guts to simply kill him. I'd do the world a favor, he wouldn't be missed, his empire would crumble, the poor sots being trafficked into the country might be safe.

Or so I hoped.

I didn't kill him.

I escaped his room without waking him.

***

"She can't escape," Arnaud informed me when I suggested Jade might. "I have two guards in the building. She tries anything, they'll be on her before she can whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks."

I sat with him at his dining room table as he ate his breakfast the next morning, sipping my coffee while watching him eat with all the manners of a starved wolf. His cook, a thin, silent woman who served him with her eyes down, had stepped back into the kitchen to fetch the coffee pot.

"I'll go check on her," I commented.

Arnaud shrugged, stuck three strips of bacon together and took a huge bite. I looked away from his greasy lips with a shudder and considered going on a diet. I doubted I could ever eat bacon again. "Have you heard from her old man?"

"Not yet. He will though. He won't risk me killing her. And a single tape of her screams will be enough for him to think twice about double crossing me again."

As the cook returned to pour us both fresh coffee, we ceased discussing Jade. Since we had nothing else to talk about, I said nothing, and Arnaud continued to harden his arteries with his cholesterol diet. Maybe he'll have a stroke and end all my problems without me lifting a finger.

I stood up. "I'll head over to the warehouse, check on things. Jade needs food."

"All right. Remember, I'm going to New York the day after tomorrow."

"Oh? I didn't know that."

He waved his fork. "I thought I told you. So, you're in charge of our guest until I get back."

"I won't let you down."

I left his mansion and got into my truck, thinking of the gift I'd just been handed. With Arnaud out of town, not just out of the house, I could search to my heart's content. On my way to the warehouse, I'd stop by a locksmith known for charging extra for making keys from impressions. Most honest locksmiths would refuse, knowing such impressions were likely needed for illegal entries.

With my freshly made keys in my pocket, a bag of burgers and fries for Jade, I drove on toward the run-down neighborhood filled with abandoned buildings, weedy lots containing trash and broken glass, graffiti scrawled generously across the bricks and overpasses.

The guards, a pair of shifters I knew only by sight, and who knew me, offered me courteous nods as I entered. They sat in chairs at a warped table, wearing jackets against the chill that came in through the busted glass. From what I saw, they played poker and ate Chinese take-out while making sure Jade didn't fly out.

If she did, I wondered how they'd stop her. I suspected Jade had speed and a very tough fighting ability on her side. They might wish Arnaud had assigned them different duties.

I made my way down the long set of stairs, not just to the basement, but past it to the subbasement. No outside light penetrated the place where Arnaud built his cell to hold a dragon. Nor could anyone hear her if she roared or screamed. The place felt dank, cold, and rats made their homes here, coming and going through the cracks in the foundation.

Jade sat on her cot, watching me pace toward her. Perhaps she'd been named for her eyes, for they stunned me yet again with their vivid green color. Her long reddish gold hair hung in tangles around her shoulders, down over her breasts. Jade's still face with those high, curving cheekbones, offered the illusion she was all beauty and no brains.

"Hi."

Jade said nothing. I turned a wooden chair around and sat, my arms folded over the back. We looked at one another for a long time, neither of us moving nor speaking. I wished I dared tell her of my plans to see my father jailed. Of how I hoped she'd escape before Arnaud came to flay her skin from her body while taping her screams.

"Your father has four more days to comply," I commented.

Jade shrugged. "You don't listen. He won't. Just kill me and have done with it."

"I can't do that."

"Why not? I'm dead anyway."

"You might be wrong." I didn't want to tell her what'll happen if her old man doesn't come through. "Your pop might consider the trade worth it."

"GQ, you're full of shit," Jade snapped. "Would Arnaud give up his wealth to save your life?"

I looked away. By her sardonic chuckle, she certainly read my body language, my face.

"I didn't think so," she went on, her voice bitter. "But you believe mine would. So, I'm stuck because of your pop's greed. And your stupidity."

Jade was right. If her old man planned to pay mine, we'd have heard something by now. And I gullibly grabbed her off the street, thinking no one would get hurt.

I had to help her get out of there, help her to run far away from Arnaud. And without getting caught helping her. I want to survive this bullshit situation. If Arnaud finds out I let her escape, I'm one dead dragon. He has too many thugs on his payroll willing to commit murder.

"Look," I said, lame, unable to meet her glare, "I'll work something out. I'll get you out of here. But you have to promise to get out of this city, fly far away. Somewhere he can't find you. Because he'll look. And he'll never stop until he has you again."

"You expect me to believe that?" she snapped. "You'll help me get out of here? Why?"

I hesitated. "Arnaud – he plans to make you scream, record it. Send the tape to your father. An incentive to, you know, pay up."

"Are you kidding me?"

Gaining a bit of courage, I finally glanced at her shock, her renewed terror. The blood had drained from her skin, leaving it deathly pale. She'd clasped her hands together until her knuckles turned a whiter shade than her face.

"I'm not," I replied. "I honestly thought, believed , your father would pay up. That I'd not be forced to join in – in tormenting you. That Arnaud would let you go."

"You're as dumb as a box of rocks," she snarled, standing, pacing forward to lean against the prison's wall. "You're a dragon for fuck's sake. You're supposed to have guts. You can breathe fire, you fly, only a tactical nuke can take you out. And you give in to some prissy little fat man?"

I smiled grimly. "That prissy little fat man has dozens of dragons on his payroll, all loyal to their bones. Can you fight a dozen dragons at once, Jade? Can you fight maybe eight? Nine? I can't. If Arnaud sends his soldiers out to kill me, how far will I get?"

Jade slid down the cell's wall to her knees, her head bowed, her hair hanging like a shroud.

"There are two guards upstairs," I went on softly. "In case you did find a way to escape. You won't get far, Jade. They're dragons."

I paced to her and knelt, putting myself on her level, eye to eye should she lift her head. When she finally did, I stared straight into her abject terror, her hopelessness, her tears glimmering in her eyes.

"Help me," she whispered, pleading. "Help me, please."

I rested my palm against the glass, a pledge. "I will. I swear it."