5. Jade

It takes two minutes of sitting on a pile of gold before I remember Dominik’s chain.

I still don’t know how I removed it. Just that I did.

I’d always known there were four elements: earth, air, water, and fire.

Until Dominik.

Dominik told me I was wrong. That those were the four elements for humans, but I’m not human and neither is he. We’re firedrakes, and my mother, who died when I was a baby, came from a royal house.

My mother descended from House Kaida, where she had been a princess and my father her guard. They’d fallen in love, run away together, and built a new life for themselves in Chicago.

Kaidas were masters of an element called spirit. At least, according to Dominik. Is that what the jumbled, blue translucent ribbons I’d untangled were? Spirit?

“Air, chaos, fire, and spirit,” I whisper the words he spoke back in the collector’s cell.

I frown, trying to recall what else Dominik had told me. It might be the only way I get myself out of here.

Air enables flight. Chaos aids transformation. Fire comes to a firedrake in man or beast form. And spirit allows us to see through magic, which is only deception. You cannot hide the truth from spirit, and Kaidas are masters of spirit.

That’swhat he had told me.

I had looked at his chain and seen something.

I don’t know what spirit is, exactly, but I swore, for the briefest of moments, I saw some blue… thing woven around his chain. Had that been spirit? I don’t know. Whatever it was, I’d broken the magic in his chain that wouldn’t let him transform.

And I had freed him.

I wish I’d thought to ask more questions. Knowing more might have helped me escape. Not that Dominik and I had much talking time.

Between Atticus continually gassing us and the friends he brought along to stare at us like we were animals in a zoo, Dominik and I had sex.

First, we pretended until a fertility doctor made pretending not an option. We had to do it for real. It had been awkward, and then it wasn’t awkward anymore.

It had felt good. Really good.

When I realize just how much my thoughts have wandered, I shake my head.

“Focus, Jade. Now is not the time to think of something that will never happen again. Dominik was using you,” I mutter.

Maybe everything he told me before were lies designed to get me to trust him so he could kidnap me.

I have a sudden flashback to a bolt slamming into Dad. Of him falling.

Maybe even dying.

Tears fill my eyes, and I dash them away.

“Now is not the time for crying.” I sniff as I shove myself to my feet. “This is the new Jade. The strong Jade who will get herself out of this shitty situation without falling apart.”

I get up and stalk over to the locked door, trying to ignore the part of me desperate to sift through the jewels or dive into it like Scrooge McDuck. The part that sees gold and wants.

I stamp that part down because this Jade is getting the hell out.

Then I think of Shep, Patten, and Isaiah. The only reason they were there in the first place was because I asked them to help.

They could all be dead.

“No. They are alive and I am going back to them.” I repeat it over and over, my new mantra until I break out of here.

I stare at the lock until I go cross-eyed, trying to see—or summon?—the blue translucent threads I briefly saw in Dominik’s chain.

When that doesn’t work, I close my eyes and lean my head against the metal door.

But concentrating is hard when I can’t stop thinking about how I trusted Dominik and he betrayed me. Or the fact I’m pregnant and bonded forever with him.

It’s too much.

Too much fear, worry, anxiety and terror. Not knowing how or even if I can do anything to help in Oklahoma. Getting back to Wilkerson is just the start of it, and it’s not even the biggest battle I’ll face.

My mind is a jumbled, twisted mass of fears I struggle to see through.

The fear is winning.

Fear of things getting worse and of not being strong enough to protect myself or the life growing inside me.

Fear I will trust again and be betrayed again.

But I did something in my dream when an incubus tried to feed on me. I protected myself. I am not weak. There’s no way Dominik would be free if I hadn’t used my powers to remove his chain.

So remove this door and get out of here, Jade.

I think of the thin, almost ghostlike blue strands wound around his chain. Of the knots and the tangles, the way my mind knew instinctively which strand to pull and which to push.

I didn’t use hands and fingers. It was all in my mind.

No.

It was magic.

Kaidas are masters of spirit, Dominik told me.

“Unless he was lying about that,” I breathe, kicking myself for not having seen how things would go. I should have pushed harder to know why he bit me. I should have spent the time in the cell ignoring him.

No. I should have listened to Dad when he argued against freeing Dominik.

I let go of my anger and refocus on the door.

It sure beats kicking it until I break a toe.

I will myself into the state I was in, in the cell, to force whatever thing I did back in Atticus’s cell to happen again.

My head pounds with all the effort I’m exerting until I have to stop.

Force.

For a person used to cowering from situations and people, I default to force a lot and it never works.

“If brute force never works, try something else,” I breathe.

I think about how I felt back in the cell. Panicked. I was terrified the drugged smoke Atticus was pumping into our cell would knock us all out, and I’d wake up being dissected by a chainsaw on a metal table.

Nope. Not helping to focus, Jade.

I shake the horrifying thought loose, and I try again.

The smoke was filling the cell. It made me tired and sluggish and slow. I kept trying to use Dominik’s shoulder as a cushion. A mistake, I know that now. He is never touching me again when I get out of here.

I was tired. Dominik kept shaking me.

Right when I stopped using force, stopped trying at all, the blue, translucent ribbons were just… there.

I lean into that moment.

They felt… wispy. Like cold smoke. And they danced away from me at first. It’s only when I stopped reaching for them that I saw the pattern.

My eyes open, though I didn’t will them to.

The door is still there in front of my face. Still locked. A big, black metal door trapping me inside a room filled with gold.

I want it open.

If I could break a chain which had trapped Dominik for twenty years, then surely a door is nothing.

Something tickles the back of my right hand. I look down and bite off a scream as I stumble back, away from whatever the thing is, landing heavily on my ass.

The thing follows.

A bluish, almost translucent ribbon slowly circles my wrist, passing through the mounds of gold I’m sitting on.

“Are you spirit?” I whisper as I stare at it, willing myself to touch it.

I’m getting ready to prod it when a lock clicks. I scramble to my feet.

The door swings open, and Dominik fills the doorway, smiling. “Have you picked something to wear tonight?”

“You let me out early.” I’d thought he would leave me in here for the full two hours he said he would.

He lifts a brow. “Early? You’ve been in here for three hours.” He steps aside. “Come. I have an outfit for you.”

I look down, too surprised to argue. The blue ribbon circling my wrist is gone.

“What is it?” Dominik asks.

I bend over and grab a gaudy ruby and gold necklace from the floor. “This is what I want.”

It isn’t. I just don’t want him to know I called spirit. It was a mistake running for the elevator before. When I break myself out of here, he won’t see it coming.

His bright green eyes probe mine, corners creasing in suspicion. “That?”

My fingers clench around the necklace as I stalk toward him. “Yes, this.”

“That is ugly,” he tells me. “There’s a reason it’s on the floor and not on the wall.”

“Well, I want it to remember what an ugly day this is,” I mutter.

As I walk out of the door, his fingers circle my wrist. “You will learn to be happy.”

Tilting my head back, I meet his eyes. “I’ve learned I need to do something about my too trusting nature, and one of those things is to never trust a single word you say.”

He releases me with a smile. “We will have to agree to disagree about that. Let me show you the dress for this evening.”

Dominik arranged a fancy dinner at the restaurant near his apartment building.

He also had the concierge of this fancy penthouse apartment go pick up a dress for this dinner.

Vera Wang.

A sleek, fitted black floor length dress with off the shoulder sleeves that hugs my curves, that made Dominik stare at me for a good three seconds when I stepped out of the bedroom in it.

I hadn’t wanted to wear it at all, but I’d done a lot of thinking in the shower. Namely, how I might use this dinner he wants to take me out on as the perfect opportunity to run.

Like he said, there are two ways to escape his apartment: the roof and the elevator.

The elevator it is.

Getting from Manhattan to a tiny Oklahoma town isn’t going to be straightforward. That’s a problem to resolve once I’m out of Dominik’s apartment and away from him. If I have to walk there, then I’ll walk.

He pulled a small silver key from his black pants pocket when we stepped into the elevator, inserted it into a slot just below the ground floor button, and the door slid shut. When he caught me watching him, he raised a brow.

“Question?”

I looked away, but I was thinking. Getting that key off him won’t be easy. Escape has to come now because it won’t come later if it involves getting hold of that key.

Outfitted in our finery, I try to look placid in my beautiful dress, matching black heels, and the gaudy ruby and gold necklace as we ride the elevator down to the lobby.

The door smoothly slides open, and we step out of the elevator and into the lobby. A man in a smart navy-blue suit rises from behind a square slab of white marble to the right side of the building’s front door. “Mr. Alarik.”

The concierge, presumably, and the marble slab must be his desk. I don’t see a phone, but there are a couple of maps on the end and nothing else.

“We will walk to the restaurant,” Dominik says.

“Of course, sir. It’s a beautiful evening,” the blue suited man says, giving me a closed-mouth smile. “Madam.”

As Dominik escorts us past the marble desk, I look at him.

This must be his first taste of freedom. I slept as Dominik showered, shaved, and dressed. Did he go for a walk as well? What must that have felt like when he spent literal decades in a glass cell?

He must feel my attention because he peers down at me. “What is it?”

I look away.

“Nothing,” I lie.

If I start thinking about the fact he was a prisoner for so long, I’ll feel bad for him. Sympathy might lead to forgiveness, and he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.

“You can talk to me, Jade,” he says.

“No, I don’t think I can.”

I feel his gaze on me as we walk through the white and marble lobby to the suited doorman standing beside the black framed glass front doors.

He opens one side, murmuring, “Good evening, sir. Madam.”

And we step out of marble and luxury glass into noise and smells and people.

The concierge was right. It is a beautiful evening, the sky a pretty bluish-purple and still mild enough not to need a coat, but I’m not slowing to appreciate the view. It’s the people passing by, making me want to turn around and run back to the apartment I’d been so desperate to escape moments before.

So many people.

I was so concerned with how I would escape Dominik that I hadn’t considered people would be on the street. Stupid, really. New York is busy. Everyone knows that.

Everyone but me, apparently.

I slide right into quiet panic. My chest is tight. I can’t draw enough air into my lungs, and all I can think about is all the times Dad warned me that the world wasn’t safe.

Yet here I am.

New York.

One of the busiest—probably most dangerous—places in the world.

The traffic never moves. Eyes swivel our way, linger on Dominik’s face, and then on my gaudy necklace. Yes, it’s ugly, I want to say. It’s why I picked it.

But I still can’t breathe.

Maybe that isn’t why they’re staring. They’re winding up to attack me. Or cage me. Atticus Chira could be right there, feet away, and I wouldn’t know it until he grabbed me.

Dominik’s hand presses on my lower back and his mouth brushes the shell of my ear. “Breathe.”

My eyes fly to his. “What?”

He’s stopped walking. Now that I’m paying attention, so have I. We’re literally in the middle of the sidewalk. People forced to move around us glare at Dominik, then at me.

Dominik doesn’t move. “You are safe. Breathe.”

As if he’s forgotten that he’s my abductor. The funny thing is his assurance chases away a little of the panic that froze me in the middle of the street.

“You kidnapped me.” I don’t lower my voice. “Forgive me if I hesitate to believe you.”

Other than a passing glance, no one on the street bats an eyelid.

If I screamed, would they even care?

Dominik’s appearance is getting more attention than my comment just did. I’d have to be blind not to notice the way he fills out a suit, but is this what New York is like?

Dominik guides me down the street, his palm on my lower back protective, if not downright possessive. “But I would keep you safe.”

“So it’s one of those it’s okay for you to do it but no one else can situations?”

“Exactly.”

That’s it. One word. No hint he’s done anything wrong.

Is this guy for real?

I bristle as the last of my fear melts away, and I wonder if that wasn’t Dominik’s intention all along. “Did you do that on purpose?”

He flashes me a rapid glance. “Did I do what on purpose?”

“Say something that makes me want to kick you.”

A dimple forms on his right cheek, though he doesn’t look at me as he smiles. I hadn’t thought he would have dimples under his scraggly, unkempt beard. “No. I can think of better ways to pass the time.”

A woman is heading toward us, looking right at Dominik with a sultry smile. She’s beautiful. Curly red hair, blue eyes with the longest lashes, and the sort of lean, curvy body that makes me think she’s a model. He must see her, right?

Evidently not, because he peers down at me as his smile darkens into something a little less playful. “I booked a private table. Perhaps I should have booked us a private room.”

“You’re flirting with me.”

He looks surprised. “Of course I’m flirting with you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You kidnapped me.” Now that my fear has melted away, I can get back to planning how to escape and get back to Wilkerson.

He gives me a long look. “That sounds like a conversation for another time. Come.”

We don’t walk far. Two minutes later, Dominik stops at the doors of a dark and moody restaurant with tinted windows, wood framing, and candles flickering inside.

“Did you have a reservation, sir? Unfortunately, the restaurant is fully booked tonight.”

“Alarik. Table for two,” Dominik tells the man standing at the door in a black vest over a white shirt.

The heavy frown lines on the man’s brow smooths away as he smiles, holding the door open. “Of course, Mr. Alarik. We were told to expect you. This way, please.”

Inside, the soft strums of classical music fill the dark restaurant. Low murmured conversation drifts from the tables covered with white cloth and filled with beautifully dressed diners.

The man from the door motions a blond server toward us. “Eric will be your server this evening.”

Dominik presses on my lower back, guiding me into the restaurant. It’s an intimacy I need to put a stop to.

My stomach rumbles from the delicious savory scents drifting from the kitchen, but I’ve just spotted a potential escape route.

“I need to use the restroom. You can go to the table and I’ll find you.”

I won’t find you. I’ll be leaving.

Dominik gives me a long look.

With our server hovering feet away, Dominik can hardly say no without causing a scene.

Then he smiles. “I’ll wait here for you.”

Shit.

Escape out of the front door would have been more straightforward, but it looks like waiting for Dominik to go to our table and then walking out isn’t an option.

I feel Dominik’s stare in the center of my back as I walk into the bathroom where a woman in a deep red dress is applying lipstick.

Two stalls are free.

I walk past them on my way to a good-sized window with frosted glass.

It slides open easily when I push it up, and discover it leads into an alley. Getting to Wilkerson is a problem I don’t let myself think about yet.

One problem at a time, Jade.

I have my dress hiked up to my knees, one leg out of the window, and a probable hard tumble waiting for me on the other side when the bathroom door flies open.

Yelping, I tip out of the window.

I silence a short, sharp scream as a hand grips my ankle and yanks me back inside.

Dominik.

The woman in the red dress is still holding her tube of lipstick as she leans back from the mirror to stare at us. Then her shock wears off.

“Hey! This is the ladies’ restroom. You can’t be in here.”

Dominik sets me on my feet and gives the woman a wide smile. “My apologies.”

It must be a distractingly handsome smile because she forgets her outrage as Dominik pulls me out of the bathroom and aims a dark scowl at me. “Are you stupid?”

My back stiffens. “I am desperate, not stupid.”

“I disagree.” He propels me toward the front of the restaurant. I don’t know what Dominik said to get rid of Eric before he followed me into the bathroom because he’s not hovering anymore. “This idiocy leads me to believe you are indeed stupid.”

“I am not?—”

The man who opened the restaurant’s doors minutes before looks concerned as we walk out. “Mr. Alarik. I hope all is well.”

If I can convince this server I’m in trouble, then escape can come a little easier than forcing myself through a bathroom window. “This man?—”

“My wife is unwell,” Dominik snaps as he drags me out of the door. “The effects of morning sickness.”

I whip my head toward Dominik, furious and embarrassed. “I am not?—”

The doorman looks delighted. “Such a joyful event.”

The streets are still busy, but one look into Dominik’s face and everyone gets out of our way. Or Dominik’s way. I just get pulled along.

We couldn’t have been gone for longer than fifteen minutes. The doorman doesn’t even blink as he opens the door for us and steps aside, nodding. “Mr. Alarik.”

Dominik nods back and marches me through the lobby to the elevator.

The door slides open within seconds of him calling it, and he pulls me inside. He inserts the same key into the lock before pressing the button for the top floor.

As the doors slide shut, he parks himself squarely in front of them, back to it, eyes on me, and a tight grip on my wrist.

Giving me absolutely no avenue to escape.

It is a very long ten second elevator ride up. Mainly because I can’t help but notice that his pupils are red. No wonder everyone on the street couldn’t get out of his way fast enough.

The elevator dings as it stops, the door sliding open to reveal his apartment.

I don’t move.

“Jade.” A warning note creeps into Dominik’s voice.

I press my back flush against the wall. “I just want to know if my dad is okay.”

“He is fine.”

He tugs.

I tug back. “You don’t know that. I want to go back.”

“Your life is here now. With me.”

It’s inevitable when I eventually lose this tug of war.

He pulls me out from the elevator, sighing. “You were quieter in the compound.”

I tried escaping. I tried anger. Now I try pleading.

“He’s my dad, Dominik. I have to go back. Please. He’s all I have left in the world.”

He looks at me for so long that I believe I’ve gotten through to him, made him understand how important this is to me.

Until he dips his head and looks me right in the eye. “And you are all I have in the world. You will soon adjust to this new life.”

His head lowers.

I back up, struggling to believe someone could be so cruel. Because this is cruel. “No.”

He blows out a heavy sigh. “You are being unreasonable, Jade. I saved you from?—”

“No!” I interrupt. “You didn’t save me. I saved you. Without Shep, Isaiah, Patten and my dad, you would still be in that cell.”

He glowers. “I gave myself up for you.”

“Fully expecting I would feel guilty enough to come back and rescue you so you could turn around and kidnap me.”

He doesn’t respond.

I think of how sad I was in that cell. How desperately I’d sobbed. I’d gone to him, leaned my head against the glass as he did the same, thinking he was comforting me.

He wasn’t comforting me.

He was using me.

“You are no better than the collector, abducting me, locking me up and refusing to?—”

Dominik’s eyes flash red-orange. “I am not like the collector,” he roars.

I drop to the floor and shield as much of myself as I can.

It won’t help.

A firedrake’s flame can melt skin off bone.