Chapter 14

Zazie

Well, it was a night of no sleep. It was possible I’d never sleep again. I missed the time when two dragons taking me captive was my biggest worry. Those were simpler times, happier times. I had orgasms in those times. Would I even orgasm again? My brain felt like it was going to combust and come out my ears any second.

Miles was the only normal person in this mansion, and therefore I shouldn’t have been surprised when he walked into the room and brought me clothes. Panties, too. Apparently, he let his dragon employers kidnap girls, but after that he was at least up for making them breakfast and dressing them like they weren’t sex slaves.

I didn’t know how the guy figured out my shoe size, but he did, and was working his way into my heart by having done so.

I might have been surrounded by chaos, but at least I was dressed. “Where are the guys?” I asked him.

“Talking to the witch still,” Miles said as if pained. “Did you see a talking cat out there? Caspian did not do well with it…”

“Yeah,” I sighed. Caspian was a very large, very noble-looking sort of man. He had heard a lot that night, done a lot. I didn’t know how the cat had upset him so much that he got sick.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised that he was a weirdo.

“Believe it or not, he was not the weirdest part of my night.” I raised an eyebrow—Miles didn’t look odd. He looked like a thin man in his mid-forties. He was trimmed up, clean shaven, well-dressed… There was nothing out of place. “You’re a human, right?” I still felt like I had to make sure.

“Yes. I mean, I’m a human who’s seen all the world wars, but yes. When Caspian made me his familiar, he was good enough to slow the aging processes considerably. I only put on a year for every five or so. So, I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a time where I danced the Mashed Potato unironically,” he informed me, giving me a slight grin. I think he was trying to make me smile. If I looked anywhere near how I felt, then it probably looked like I would never smile ever again.

I was still reeling from the revelations about my father, Seraphus. Like seriously? He needed to eat me? That seemed like a little much, and I didn’t quite know how to handle that. I mean, how exactly are you supposed to swallow the fact that there is someone out there that has the sole mission of trying to capture you just so he can eat you and gain shitloads of power as a result?

I was twenty-two. I couldn’t even balance my checkbook or escape this house. How could I deal with a powerful, psychotic being? How could I even deal with dragons? How could I deal with the fact that I wasn’t nearly as human as I’d thought I was?

Even Murtagh, who seemed to have nerves of steel, had sojourned into the pantry shortly after Caspian got sick, and he was probably already on his fourth bag of chips. He was surely still munching his sorrows away with something salty and uncomplex.

“How are you holding up?” Miles asked softly, his voice laced with concern.

I sighed, my fingers idly tracing the edge of the bedsheet. “It’s a lot. To think that I’m… that I’m part of something so… dark. That this monster, Seraphus is my father… And what does that make me? An evil half-djinn or something?”

Miles nodded, understanding in his eyes. “Your father may be a creature with malicious ambitions, but you’re not bound to his path.”

His words were a small comfort, but the weight of my father’s legacy pressed heavily on me. I looked up at him, my mind swirling with questions. “Is there a way to stop someone like him?”

Miles pondered for a moment, then spoke. “I only know what Caspian told me ages ago, sweetheart. That and what I’ve gained when eavesdropping around our visitors. But in my experience, great power comes with its own set of weaknesses. Every creature, no matter how powerful, has vulnerabilities. We just need to find his. Luckily, Murtagh found a crew that seems to know things, as unsettling as they are. Because Caspian certainly doesn’t know how to navigate a problem like this. Caspian always thought the upside of this realm was that Seraphus wasn’t part of it.” He frowned and added with consideration, “That man is going to need a stiff drink after this…”

“Well, if you know about Seraphus, tell me more about him. I need to understand who… what I am dealing with.”

Miles took a deep breath, choosing his words with care. “Did the witch and demon tell you anything?”

I shrugged. “They mentioned towards the end that he was leading some cult-like army, but that was after Caspian had to check-out. Morale was low.”

He shrugged and said, “I could see that. But Murtagh and Caspian know about him, and so I do know some things about this particular djinn. Seraphus is not renowned for his restraint. His pursuit of power knows no bounds,” he continued. “He’s cunning, ruthless, and exceptionally intelligent. He’s not just a threat because of his physical strength but because of his ability to manipulate and to bend others to his will. That’s probably why he’s been leading a secret cult through the centuries.”

I leaned back, trying to process this new, overwhelming information. “So, what am I supposed to do? How do I even begin to deal with something like this?”

“Well, you haven’t passed out yet. That’s better than I’d be doing in this situation,” Miles informed me flatly. “I’d be looking for a hole somewhere to hide in.”

I blinked. That was actually sounding pretty good right about now. “Know any good, comfortable holes?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “No. I know some uncomfortable ones,” he offered, which I imagined might be an actual hole in the ground.

I took a deep, calming breath. This wasn’t going to defeat me. I was Zazie Fucking Henderson—even jewels couldn’t compete with how much I wanted to survive. “Well, I got something to find, then,” I considered. “That’s step-one: Find a comfortable hole.”

“That’s the spirit,” he told me with a smile, and then I laid back on my large, squishy luxury bed and passed out.

Two weeks later

I was finally getting used to my new life. It was a life maintained within the small boundaries of this very large mansion. The good news? Caspian hadn’t undersold the amount of gems he had around this place. And it was a nice mansion. I had a butler. I had a theatre room. I had as many snacks as I wanted. I didn’t work—didn’t have to.

The bad news?

Me being their mortal enemy had really shaken up my freshly-awoken sex life. Funny enough, me knowing they were dragons did not make them lose their appeal.

They were sexy dragons. An absolutely mouth-watering man-sandwich.

But they were also grumpy dragons, so I didn’t want to push. They were often tired; by the time they got into bed, they had been working so hard at “improvements” to the mansion, that they’d come into my bedroom at night, curl their arms around me, and promptly pass out, sometimes while they were talking, in the middle of a sentence. They’d often smell like dirt or smoke, too tired to do anything but fall into bed.

Okay, so perhaps ‘improvements’ was the wrong word for what they were doing. They were fortifying. The windows? Gone. Boarded up from the inside. Tunnels were getting excavated in the basement—an almost impossible feat in New Orleans, but they were somehow doing it. And they were making more than one.

When I mentioned to Miles that I felt like I was living all by myself in a prison, he told me, “This is what dragons do. They feel safe when there’re no openings. I saw them do this when the second world war was brewing up, and they were a lot more certain that they could have handled themselves back then than they are now. They’re scared.”

“They can just leave.”

“Scared for you,” he assured, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Do you know how emasculating it is for a man to have a woman who’s in half as much danger as you’re in?”

That was where I was confused, because I had spent a lot of time in the theatre room not being afraid, just watching the new season of Stranger Things. “I don’t think they need to go overboard.”

“They’re not,” he assured me, and that did not make me feel good.

I wanted to start the conversation again about maybe just looking for the things they needed to get back to their realm, but they never listened to me. I didn’t think they understood that I wasn’t just a clever gem-detective. I was batting 1000. Yet they wouldn’t use me, wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t consider leaving, and when I’d tried to push it at one point, they took out the paddle, and I immediately silenced and agreed with them.

I know, I’m a wuss. But they were cranky, and if I learned anything from reading The Hobbit, it was not to fuck with a cranky dragon.

“I need to visit my brother,” I told Miles, and he snorted. “I need to see him before the dragons get too crazy.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Miles assured me frankly.

I straightened. “What do you mean?”

“They’re not going to let you go anywhere, let alone a place where you can be more easily discovered. All it would take is for someone in Seraphus’ cult to make the connection, or for Seraphus himself to get a whiff of you. Apparently, your scent is quite strong.”

I hated it when they talked about my smell. They were giving me a complex.

“Well, he’s my brother, and he’s not sounding well, and I have a million questions to ask him. The dragons downstairs don’t want me talking over the phone about anything exciting because they’re being paranoid now, but it doesn’t matter! I can’t ask this shit over the phone, Miles.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like ‘Hey, were mom and dad in a cult, by any chance?’ or ‘Hey, did Dad, perchance, let a crazy monster fuck a baby into mom about twenty-two years ago? Remember anything about that?”

Miles looked at me, frowning. “You’re right,” he admitted flatly. “Those aren’t really over-the-phone questions…” He looked thoughtful for a moment, but then shrugged. “You’re never gonna talk Caspian or Murtagh into that right now. They’re spiraling.”

I shook my head, less than moved by the dragons’ plight. I hadn’t asked them to do me any favors. “So is my brother, man. He’s got cancer.”

“People survive cancer,” Miles assured me.

“Miles, this is my family.”

He shrugged. “Ask the guys, then. Maybe they’ll take you to go see him.”

“Do you think they will?” I asked, suddenly feeling absolutely certain of their answer.

“No.” At least he was honest.

I went downstairs to the men anyway, but I didn’t get around to asking them. They wanted to show off the tunnels they had made like the proud puppies they were. It looked interesting—they had been burning sand into glass somehow, and fortifying it that way. How, I didn’t want to know. Seemed like a lot of work, and they looked too tired to be asked favors of, so I decided not to. I was one-hundred percent sure that they would look at me like I’d asked for a trip to the moon.

So I loftily said instead, “I miss my brother. Maybe we could have him over?”

“Eventually,” Murtagh grunted, then turned back into the tunnel, seeming to be anxious to get back to work again.

“Darling, it’s important that you stay as far away from your brother as possible. You are a hot potato,” Caspian assured me crisply.

“I didn’t ask to be a hot potato!” I cried, gesturing to the stupid tunnel next to us. I refused to be grateful for it. “You can’t just lock me up here.”

“My mother hardly ever left the cave once she was taken as my fathers’ mate, and she was safer for it!” Caspian assured me very high-handedly.

I did not like that at all.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I getting in the way of your dreams of conjugal bliss?” I snipped.

He looked at me wearily. “In so many ways.” He looked me up and down, and I saw a flash of desire cross his face, but he didn’t move on it. That was probably because he was exhausted.

I flipped him off.

“Do we need to see to you?” Murtagh asked, and I had a feeling he didn’t mean sex. I wasn’t that lucky.

“No,” I assured bitterly.

“Then you have your answer. Upstairs with you,” he demanded, pointing at the ceiling.

“Fine.” Oh, I was going to go upstairs.

I grabbed a screwdriver on the way up.

Now, I hadn’t even made a birdhouse in the past. But I had replaced a lot of batteries, so I did know how to handle a screwdriver, thank you very much, and that was all I needed to un-board my window.

I took my time, because everyone was very, very busy. I wanted to be quiet.

The bedroom they’d placed me in was only on the second floor, which wasn’t an impossible climb if I really thought about it. Again, I had time. Miles was in the kitchen or cleaning something, and the men were in the basement. As far as they were concerned, I was just watching TV.

I pried a board off the window—actually, layers of boards. Five boards; it took an hour. I was proud as I pulled myself up on the ledge and looked down and out the window, opening the pane towards me and exposing myself to sunlight for the first time in quite a while.

Vitamin D? Ah, it felt good.

There was a trellis out there. It was totally doable.

Okay, it was kind of scary because it was one of those ivy trellises, the type spiders love, but other than that, this was doable.

I glanced back at the door, half expecting it to burst open any minute now. My heart pounded in my chest as adrenaline starting to kick in. A bead of sweat rolled down my spine, and my palms felt clammy. I took a deep breath.

This was it, my chance to escape, and I needed to take advantage of it.

I opened the window quietly, the cool air brushing against my face. Taking another deep breath, I tried my best to steady my nerves.

I had to do this. I needed to do this.

Climbing out, I felt the uneven texture of the framework under my fingers. With one last look at the room, I began my descent. I gripped the vine-covered trellis tightly, my hands slightly trembling as I climbed downward. The rough vines scraped against my skin, but I ignored the discomfort, focusing solely on getting down safely. The air was cool against my face, a stark contrast to the warmth of the room I’d left behind.

Climbing down wasn’t as hard as I had anticipated. It was definitely pricklier than I’d hoped, and I was getting thorns in my hands, but the trellis held my weight, and I found a rhythm in moving downward. My heart pounded in my chest, and I glanced back up at the mansion, half-expecting someone to be watching me from the windows, but there was no sign of anyone.

Finally, I reached the end of the trellis. I was only a few feet off the ground now. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself and hopped down, landing with a soft thud on the manicured grass of the gardens. I crouched for a moment, listening for any signs of pursuit, but all I could hear was the distant sound of awakening diurnal creatures and the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze.

I quickly got to my feet and started to run, my shoes barely making a sound on the soft ground. The gardens were expansive, a labyrinth of hedges and flowering plants, but I didn’t have time to admire them. I had one goal in mind—to get to Zach’s apartment.

Bringing my phone would be stupid, I realized. They could easily follow my phone; they didn’t even let me make unsupervised phone calls. There was no way they wouldn’t be able to locate it. Miles was extremely tech-savvy, and he was on their side.

I finally reached the front of the property, ordered an Uber, then left my phone in a rosebush.

The Uber wasn’t going to my brother’s. It was going far past. I would just get out before the end of the trip. No fuss, no muss.

I waited impatiently for it to arrive, feeling nervous. It was not lost on me that the men would have taken my actions so far as defiance, and that probably wasn’t good for me.

Finally, a car pulled up to the curb. I hopped in. As we drove away, I looked back at the mansion and took a deep breath. I was free, at least for now.

An hour and a half later, the outrageously expensive Uber finally pulled up outside Zach’s apartment. I thanked the driver and stepped out into the cool air. As I walked up to the house, I took a deep breath, trying to prepare myself for the conversation that lay ahead.

I didn’t bother to knock. I walked in like I owned the place, but my confident stride faltered when I saw Zach. He looked even more worse for wear than usual, his eyes tired and his hair disheveled. A pang of guilt hit me. I should have been coming here the entire time.

I should have left the mansion earlier. What was I thinking? How could I have just been binging TV when my brother looked this bad?

Before I could say anything, Ryan walked into the room. His expression was a mix of relief and annoyance. “Zazie, where have you been? We were wondering if you fell off the planet.”

I opened my mouth to reply but then closed it, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you guys,” I finally said, my voice softer than I intended. “I mean, I called.”

“You called, but those were barely calls, Zazie. It’s so unlike you,” Ryan scolded, putting his hand on his hips and not pulling back on his obvious disappointment with me.

“Sorry, I couldn’t get away. I’m here now. And I have a lot to talk about.” I sat down at the foot of my brother’s bed. His feet were so cold, even through the blankets, that I yelped before trying to warm them up with my fingers.

“What do you have to talk about?” Zach asked me, sitting up in bed. He had his matching PJ set on. He was the cutest man ever born.

I took a deep breath. “Zach… I’m ready to talk about mom and dad.”

Zach’s expression was so shocked and had so much unease in it, that it actually hurt to see it. “Why now?” he asked.

“Zach…” I frowned, wondering where to begin. “A lot of things have happened. I…” I shook my head and then asked, “Did we move after Grandma died because you think it was Seraphus that killed her?”

My brother fainted.

Don’t worry, it wasn’t for long. I probably shouldn’t have started there, but I felt his reaction did speak volumes.

I watched Ryan as he was getting Zach to come to, looking at him like I’d never seen him before, because he looked way too calm.

“Did Zach tell you?”

Ryan frowned. “What? About the cult you grew up in? That he had to start the fire that ended up killing your parents and several other cult members so he could sneak you out of the building before you could be sacrificed? That there’s always been a psychopath dogging your trail? Yes.”

My mouth fell open. “Well, I didn’t know!” I said, not liking his blame-laden tone.

“How can you not remember anything? You were eight, Zazie! You didn’t have a name until your grandma named you after. Until then, your parents called you Seraphina after your real father.”

I blinked, and somehow I knew that he wasn’t lying. That name sounded familiar.

He watched my reaction and sighed. “Nothing? Zazie, you didn’t go to school. You didn’t have a birth certificate. Zach delivered you to your grandmother because she was trying to free your dad from the cult he got himself into. She took you guys and ran.”

All I could remember from my childhood was playing games with Zach and watching a lot of TV… “Are you sure?” I asked, despite knowing all I knew.

Ryan looked up at the ceiling. “Yes. That’s why Zach’s always babied you! Because you’re broken!”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

I finally realized Zach had woken up because he took my hand. “Because you’re my baby sister, and I love you. I wanted you to have a normal life.”

He made me want to cry. I squeezed his hand and settled back down next to him. “Zach… you should have told me. There’s a lot going on right now.”

Zach patted my hand. “Tell me about all about it,” he invited.

I sighed and raised an eyebrow. “Gonna pass out if I do?”

Zach smirked. “No promises.”

Ryan sat down, settled in. He looked so peaceful, seeming too certain that I wasn’t going to give him an existential crisis.

Poor guy.

Because it turned out to be a three-faint night.

One of those times was Ryan.

I had to explain dragons. And then demons and witches and the fact that we were half djinn. He had to have been too; he was my mother’s son, and my mother had to have been a high concentration of Seraphus herself.

I didn’t know if they completely believed me. It didn’t really matter; I just had to tell him. I had to throw things at the wall. I didn’t know what Zach knew, and I felt like I had to pull details out of him.

He did know that we weren’t completely human, or at least when he was a kid, he was sure of it and had really been trying to talk himself out of it ever since. Our mother was supposedly also strangely gifted, and inquisitive, attracted to gold and metals.

He cried a lot, we talked a lot, we surprisingly laughed a lot, we finally got our past out in the open, and I think we made some headway in our relationship over pizza.

“So… two men, huh?” Zach said, finally rounding back to the bit about the dragons, that they seemed to feel that there was something about me that was so alluring they couldn’t get it anywhere else, something about the way I smelled.

“Two men. Sort of. They’ve been acting crazy since the first night, so who knows?”

“Why didn’t you bring them by?” Zach asked, pointing outside the apartment, as if this whole thing should be done over the dinner table like it was Thanksgiving.

“They’re hoarding me,” I said, because it had to be said. “Dragon-style. I don’t think they’re cool with me leaving the mansion.”

“You mean you snuck out?” Ryan gathered. He didn’t hold any judgement. In fact, he added, “Good girl.”

“Seraphus scares the shit out of them. Like, you know when Grandma’s apartment had that rat infestation and she couldn’t sleep, eat, or do anything else until she felt she was safe?” I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “I think that’s where their minds are. Times a million.”

“I’m thankful for it,” Zach admitted, surprising me. When I gave him a pensive look, he said defensively, “Well shit, Zaz. I can’t go anywhere or do anything. I can’t protect you this time.”

“Yeah, but if we let them be crazy, then maybe I’ll be safe. But what happens to you?” I demanded. I squeezed his hand. “You’re too important, Zach. I want to be here for you.”

“You staying safe is good enough for me,” he told me. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Well, I’m not happy,” I corrected. “I’m stuck in a mansion, and I have two jailers.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you said that they were sexy.”

“Yeah, sexy jailers.”

He looked me over and sighed. “I have a sexy jailer, too.”

“Damn straight,” Ryan grunted, shifting in his seat. He had picked up the newspaper and was reading through it. “Speaking of jailers, Zaz, it’s time for you to get back home so your brother can rest.”

“No way,” I snorted, getting up from the bed and smooching my brother on the cheek before heading towards the living room. “Do you know how much shit I’ll get for sneaking out to see you guys? I’m moving in. See how long it takes them to figure out where I went?—”

I’d just gone through the door of my brother’s room when I realized I wasn’t in his living room.

I was definitely in Caspian’s.

Before I let my dread really settle in, especially because both men were there with murderous expressions, I walked back through the door I’d come in. Nope; that was Caspian’s kitchen.

I tried another door. Nope. Theatre room.

I spun around. Apparently, there was something amuck that I had not been privy to. And now I was back where I’d started.

I said the only thing that came to mind, slapping my hand against the nearest door frame. “FUCK!”