Chapter Seven

Jade

My father, Craig Kinnard, stormed into the kitchen where I sat at his table. His deadly scowl, one that frightened me when I was smaller and younger, failed to move me now. Having just escaped a terrible fate, freed myself from imprisonment on my own, I'd never feel fear when I faced him ever again.

"Hi, Dad."

Leaning his butt against the counter, his arms folded across his broad chest, his glower deepened. "So you escaped."

"Obviously."

"Don't get smart with me, girl."

My hands around a hot mug of soothing tea, I leaned back in the chair. "Thanks for jumping in to pay for my freedom. It meant so much."

He snorted. "I'm not paying that jackass a single dime. I earned my money just as he did. He doesn't have the right to demand money from me when he could have done what I did years ago."

I batted my eyelashes. "Your love for me is so clear. Thank you."

"Don't give me that bullshit," he snapped. "I knew you'd get away."

I also knew he'd just lied to me. "So I did. Why aren't you happy to see me?"

"I've had a fucking bad day."

"Like mine? Escaping that prison your friend created, avoiding his guards, walking twenty miles before finding a friendly face? That sort of day?"

"What do you want from me?"

"Whatever I might have wanted, I won't get it. You're incapable of love, cherishing your only child, why, golly gee, you're just like Arnaud. How about them apples? All you care about is wealth."

He turned away and opened a cupboard. Taking down a bottle of Wild Turkey, he poured a glassful. "Maybe that is all I care about," he said, his back to me. "After your mother died – nothing seemed to matter anymore."

"Not even me," I retorted bitterly. "I loved her, too. And I needed you."

He sipped from the whiskey, his eyes flinty, his face hard. "What for? You grew up, became independent, got tough. You didn't need me, Jade. I didn't need you, either."

"That's nice to know," I snapped. "But you were an adult, and I was a kid. Your kid. You didn't bother to fake it. I'm your fucking daughter , asshole."

Kinnard shrugged. "So I'm a bad parent. Sue me."

Too furious to drink my tea, I shoved it across the table, spilling some from the rim. "Then it's good we had this little heart to heart, eh? Clear the air? Fall into one another's arms while crying? I'm outta here, and you'll never see me again."

I started across the kitchen to stalk past him when his voice halted me mid-stride.

"He'll be looking for you."

"So?"

"Arnaud won't stop. Not ever. He'll never let this insult slide."

"Again, so?"

My father took a long drink, grimaced, then shook his head slightly. "You'll need money. Find a new city, a new country to live in."

My mouth dropped. "Are you bribing me?"

"No." He smiled slightly. "I'm helping you in the only way I know how. Five million will keep you for the rest of your life if you're smart. Invest it wisely."

"Live long and prosper, I get it."

My father sipped again, his eyes no longer hard. "I'll transfer the funds to your account. It'll take a day or two. Lose yourself in the world, Jade. Change your name, mate a human, and forget you're a dragon."

I stared at him for a while, trying to read what went on behind his forehead. Except I couldn't. As he always did, he kept his thoughts hidden from everyone, not just me. Secretive became his middle name a very long time ago.

"Bye, Dad."

Turning my back to him, I walked away from his home, his life, and the life I used to live.

A very long time ago.

***

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Alix, after picking me up near my dad's house while a winter gale whistled down from the mountains, gaped at me from the driver's seat. "He kidnapped you? GQ?"

"Yeah. Let's get going, okay? I got away, but I'm not in the clear. Neither are you."

She drove away from the curb, watching for traffic, accelerating to merge with the cars that sped along the wide thoroughfare. "Tell me everything."

I did. Except the part that I'm a dragon. Alix was human and had no idea I wasn't. Nor was that the time to let her in on the secret.

"My father wouldn't pay the creep," I said, staring out the window. "But he did give me money to get lost."

"Your dad is an asshole," Alix snapped. "So this Arnaud guy will keep looking for you? Out of revenge?"

"Yeah, I believe he will."

Alix stared at me for a long moment before returning her attention to driving. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. First, I have to get to my apartment. Change into fresh clothes, replace my credit card, my cell, that stuff was on me when GQ hit me with the dope. I don't know where they are now."

"Want to go there?"

Pursing my lips, I thought about it. "No. I won't put you at risk. They may be watching the place."

"Then don't go back there, dammit."

"I have to. I need my stuff, my car's there."

"Nothing's worth your life, jeez."

"I'll be careful. Look, drop me off a few blocks away, then go home. I'll meet you at your apartment."

Alix sent me a long look. "And if you don't show up?"

"Forget you ever knew me."

"Jesus!"

"Look, Arnaud may know of you. In fact, he probably does. Your life may be in danger now. Shit, maybe I shouldn't have called you."

Taking her hand from the steering wheel, Alix gripped mine. "I'm your friend. I'll do whatever I can to help you."

The car tried to skid on the slushy pavement, forcing her to put both hands on the wheel again. "And that means I'm staying with you. We'll get what you need, your car, you follow me to my place."

"That's really not a good idea, Alix."

"You're not facing this asshole alone. And that's the end of it."

What could I say? Not a helluva lot. Truth was, I needed her. I was scared, alone, hunted. Having her at my side, loyal, risking her life to help me, I needed someone I could turn to. Someone I could hug, whose shoulder I could cry on, who loved me when no one else would.

Tears burned my eyes. "You get killed, don't blame me. I told you to stay out of it."

"Your old man gave you money? Enough to skip the country?"

"Yeah. But it'll take time to get into my account. A few days."

"Then once you get it, we'll leave." Alix nodded to herself. "You and me. We'll go to some English-speaking country, lay low, change our names, get jobs."

Staring out at the blowing snow, the traffic, the stores, a few pedestrians walking with their heads down, I pondered her idea. True, I knew I'd be forced to leave. I never gave thought that Alix would go with me.

"What about your family? Your folks? Your S.O.?"

"That'll be tough," she admitted. "I'll miss them, and they'll miss me. Things are off with the S.O.. He asked a chick from my work out, can you believe that? Dumb shit. Anyway, we can come back in a few years. By then, the heat will be off."

Hope, that dangerous emotion, seeped into my soul. I wouldn't face Arnaud, GQ, and their goons by myself. I wouldn't run into an unknown country alone. "Where do you want to go?"

Alix chuckled. "New Zealand. Spectacular scenery, beaches, nice people."

"New Zealand it is."

With growing excitement, we talked about packing up and getting on an airplane, the challenges of living in a foreign land, speculations of getting busted as illegals.

"We'll go as tourists with visas, then vanish into the population," Alix commented. "It's done all the time."

"We may not be able to get jobs unless we prove we're citizens," I objected.

"Illegals get jobs here in the States all the time."

She drove into the parking lot of my apartment building and stopped beside my car. It sat where I'd left it before going to the bar last Friday night, the snow beginning to cover it. So much had happened since I'd parked it, not knowing what I'd soon face, and how close I came to not coming back at all.

"Let's get inside," I said, opening the door. "They might be watching."

Our heads down against the blowing snow, we rushed up the cement stairs to my unit on the second floor. As GQ had taken my keys along with everything else I had on me that night, I fumbled for the spare I'd left on the top of the doorframe.

Once inside, I locked the door behind us, and switched on lights. "At least I left the furnace on," I commented, rubbing my arms.

Alix went around the sitting room and closed the curtains. "How'd we know if anyone's out there?"

"We keep our fingers crossed they haven't discovered I escaped yet and get out of here fast."

"Oh, well, that's a load off my mind."

In my bedroom, I grabbed clothes to stuff into a backpack, and quickly changed into a sweater and clean jeans. Alix helped by taking things I'd need from the bathroom and dropped them in. At my bureau, I opened a drawer to retrieve my spare baton. I snapped my wrist, elongating the steel rod in a microsecond. Alix eyed me and my weapon.

"That thing's evil," she observed. "And that you handle it so well speaks volumes."

I pushed it back into its case and stuffed it into my back pocket. "It's saved my ass. And maybe one day will save yours."

"As long as I hang around you, I'm certain that'll happen."

As I'd never return to the apartment, I took a few possessions that once belonged to my mother, remembered my passport, then zipped my pack closed. I looked around for anything I really didn't want to leave behind but found nothing.

"I'm going to miss this place," I said. "It was my sanctuary."

"You'll find another," Alix murmured, rubbing my shoulder in affection. "Ready?"

"Yeah." I slung my pack over my shoulder. "Let's make like a tree and leave."

Alix rolled her eyes. "Gawd. That's so retro."

"Make like wood and split?"

"Eat me."

"When we get to your place."

Alix led the way through the door. I locked it behind us and tucked the key in my pocket. Just in case. Striding down the stairs, I gazed past her to the parking lot, searching for – what? I doubted I'd see a spotter in the ever thickening snow if one stood still enough. In that mix of light and shadow, I wouldn't know trouble had found us until too late.

Keeping my mental fingers crossed, I strode just behind Alix, crossing the parking lot to our cars. Like my apartment, I kept a spare key to my car hidden in the front left bumper. Kneeling in the wet snow, I fumbled for, and found it.

"We good?" Alix whispered.

"Yeah –"

I'd no sooner straightened when a black shadow rose from hiding between rows of cars. A very big rifle swiveled in his arms, the business end pointed toward Alix. She uttered a faint screech of fear and ducked behind me.

"Come with me, Jade," the man called. "No one needs to get hurt."

I heard the gun's click that belied his words. His eye sighted down the rifle. Go with him, fight, it didn't matter. Both Alix and I were dead.

Unless I acted.

I reacted.