Only me.
Anything else will be suicide.
You have about two hours, maybe three at the most, before my jury selection concludes, and then it will be too late. Resist the urge to act impulsively, to try to see his face, or to come back into the courthouse and confront him. Curiosity is not your friend.
Time is ticking, Dan.
Please trust me…please believe me…please help me.
Jordan
Jordan shivered at the sheer intensity of the note, wondering what Dan would do. Every instinct in his body would want to rush in and save her immediately, identify and confront Zane right there on the spot, but hopefully, he would heed her warning.
She knew Zane and Axe—or whoever he brought with them tomorrow—could easily overpower a building full of humans, manipulate their minds, make child’s play of any human weapons, but—and she was really counting on this exception—it would take a lot of time and attention to control something as organic and crowded as a busy courthouse, all the way down to the bailiffs, security guards, and armed officials at the front doors. Jordan was betting on the fact that the Dragyr also preferred to lie low, to remain undetected—they didn’t care to be on the nightly human news, destroying a seven-story building.
Bottom line: They couldn’t be in all places, in all the courtrooms, and on all the floors of the District Plaza at once.
She sighed, feeling curiously small and ashamed: It was a truly shitty thing to do, and it made her furious that she might feel guilty, even for a moment, about choosing to fight for her life. Just the same, she had seen the sincerity deep in Zane’s eyes; she had felt his terror when she had leaped over the falls; and she had tasted his longing…for her…in his kiss. And she knew, perhaps for the first time since she’d met him, that this wasn’t a game; it wasn’t an act; and the stakes were incredibly high. But she couldn’t think about that now—all the things that Zane had told her—not only about the conversion, but how irreversible it was.
If she entered that temple on Sunday, there would be no turning back.
She shuddered and reached for a thick terrycloth robe hanging on an ornate sapphire hook by the bathroom door. And then she shrugged into the garment, tightened the belt around her waist, and raised the collar to her chin in an effort to conceal her neck.
Truly, it was like she was hiding…
From Zane.
And from herself.
From what she knew she was capable of doing—whatever it took to win her freedom.
f
Zane drew back the covers and waited—practically holding his breath—as Jordan came out of the bathroom, padded across the floor, and made her way toward the large wood-and-iron bed.
The energy that had been coming from that bathroom was distressing, unnerving, and alarming at best, and he didn’t know how she would react to the fact that he was lying in the bed, waiting to greet her, that he had no intentions of spending another night in an armchair that reclined, no matter how comfortable the cushions.
Not to get it twisted: He knew better than to make a move on Jordan, to try to take their connection to another level, physically—she wasn’t ready, and that was putting it mildly—and he certainly had no intentions of trying to feed, to reanimate his fire, though the impulse when he was around her was all-consuming. Just the same, he also knew that his presence, being next to her, was more imperative than ever.
His dragyra was frightened.
She felt alone.
And she was struggling with a major, heavy decision….
More than likely, it had everything to do with what was hidden in her purse, and he was taking a major risk by not following through, taking control of the situation before it got out of hand. But in the end, he wanted her to keep her dignity—he wanted to gain her trust. And right now, he wanted her to feel his nearness: to know that he was there…with her…beside her…and for her. She could reach out to him as a friend and a partner.
As she rounded the corner of the platform and approached the edge of the bed, the side of the mattress she had slept on since Sunday night, her eyes grew wide, she froze in her tracks, and she stared at him like he had donned his bestial scales.
“Shh, dragyra,” he whispered in a soothing, gentle voice. “I am not here to take advantage. I only want to lie beside you.” He shrugged, unsure if she could see it in the dimly lit space. “And honestly, I need to get some sleep.” He patted the mattress beside him and crooked his fingers, ushering her forward. “Come. Lie down. Trust me.”
She lowered her head and shut her eyes, almost as if those last two words had somehow shamed her. Ah, so it had come to that—she was still going to try to escape their fate. More than likely tomorrow, after they crossed through the portal…
He buried the hurt that welled in his chest and watched her like a hawk as she shrugged out of the robe, dropped it on the floor, and climbed into bed: slowly—tentatively—and with great reservation. He waited until her slender frame sank into the mattress, her hair fanned out on her pillow, and she seemed to find a comfortable position on her side, her back blatantly turned toward him. And then he snuggled up beside her, careful to keep his hips—or anything else untoward—from touching her curves as he wrapped a strong, enveloping arm around her waist.
She immediately stiffened, but he didn’t care.
Her arms were crossed over her chest, her fists tucked beneath her chin, and he intentionally slid his fingers over her wrist and gently clutched her hand, interlocking his fingers with hers. Her breath quickened, and he squeezed her hand. “Listen to your heart, Jordan,” he whispered softly. He knew he wasn’t playing fair—he was consciously invoking their shared, singular flame, magnifying the flicker in his mind’s eye, and coaxing it to burn brighter with his voice. “Follow what it’s telling you, dragyra. You know me. You recognize…this. You are free to be at peace.”
Jordan exhaled, like half of her was fighting it, while the other half was being drawn into the glow.
“That’s it, angel,” he rasped, releasing her hand so he could stroke her side, massage her shoulders, and then her neck. “Relax, baby. I’m right here.”
He smelled—or sensed—more than he saw, the single tear welling out of her eye and trailing down her cheek, and his heart surged with compassion. What must this be like for her? To feel the truth in his words? To know the connection in her soul? To get, on a level that was far from conscious, the fact that her life was tethered to his—that he was, in fact, the other half of her soul—her greatest need? Yet to have her mind reject it, to have her body rebel…to be torn in such opposite directions?
“Let go, dragyra of mine.” He spoke the words in Dragonese, allowing the lyrical, ancient language to wash over her like a cooling wave. “Give yourself up to the truth in your heart. Free your mind from your human restraints. Come home. Be home. Know that you are home.”
He knew she didn’t understand a word he was saying, at least not with her ears, but she was listening acutely, and something else was happening: Her body temperature was rising, and her heartbeat was slowing. Whether she understood it or not, it was the beginning of an offering: her human body offering its essence and heat to Zane’s dragon, preparing itself to connect through the intimate act of feeding.
His fangs began to throb in his mouth, and he consciously overrode the impulse—buried the desire deep inside. Now was not the time, or the place—she didn’t even know what she was doing—but his soul took solace in the physical reaction, and his inner dragon stirred, even as his amulet began to softly glow.
“That’s it, dragyra mea—dragyra of mine,” he continued to soothe her in Dragonese. “You are safe within my care.”
As the dragon moon shone through the sparkling windows of the Sapphire Lair, casting a brilliant shadow over Zane—and Jordan’s—bed, and the cool night air swept through the room on a gentle breeze, Zanaikeyros Saphyrius continued to speak to Jordan in his native, primordial tongue: He told her about his childhood;
he told her about his precarious life; and he told her how long he had waited…for her.
Until at last, the woman in his arms, who was listening so raptly, fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-four
Tuesday ~ 9:45 AM
Dan Summers clutched the unopened letter in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he exited through the back door of Judge Stanley’s chambers, division B-9, and headed down the hall toward the courtroom plaza’s elevators.
It took every ounce of self-control he had ever possessed—and a host of reserve he did not—to restrain the impulse to turn in the opposite direction, head down the hall to the main courtroom door, and march straight to the prosecutor’s table: to walk straight up to Jordan and confront her.
What in the name of heaven was going on!
First, Jordan had sent him an email, late Friday night, telling him about some creepy perpetrator who had confronted her in the Two Forks Mall garage, letting him know that she had given the freak Dan’s address. Fine, it hadn’t amounted to anything—at least not with Jordan—but a two-bit gangster had been murdered in that same garage, on that same night, under some very questionable—and gruesome—circumstances.
Still, Dan had kept his distance.
He had not contacted Jordan…
Not even when his friend at dispatch had told him Saturday morning about another late-night call that had come in on Friday night: a possible domestic disturbance at Jordan’s freakin’ address!
Once again, the incident was cancelled, and he’d let it go.
But then, she had sent him the most cryptic, disturbing text he had ever received on Monday, telling him about this even more bizarre letter: I need your help…go to Judge Stanley’s office and pick up a letter from his clerk. Do not try to contact me…etc., etc.
What. The. Devil. Was. Going. On.
Just what kind of trouble had Jordan gotten into?
This was Jordan Anderson: stubborn, brave, one hundred percent independent, Jordan Anderson, the woman who had told him she never wanted to see him again, and no, they could not be friends. Other than when their paths crossed at work—which was seldom, as he worked on a different floor, primarily litigating appeals—he was supposed to look the other way, pass any necessary messages through clerks, and deal directly with one of her team members on the rare occasion that they were working a related case.
He had done all of that.
Even when it was inconvenient…
Now, as Dan stepped into the elevator and tapped the button to Level One—pressing it way too hard, at least three or four times—he was still surprised that Jordan had reached out to him…and in such a mysterious way. He stared at the standard white envelope still clutched in his hand, and appraised the cursive characters in his name, Jordan’s familiar handwriting: Were the letters different, did they betray distress, had she written it under duress? “Screw it,” he bit out beneath his breath as he tore the envelope open. He wasn’t a blasted handwriting expert. And he couldn’t wait to find out.
He yanked the letter out of the envelope and summarily began to read…
Dear Dan…
His eyes moved from line to line with a fury, sometimes backtracking to retrace the last word or to reread the last sentence. His heart began to slam in his chest, and his palms began to sweat as he continued to fly through the disturbing paragraphs.
And then his mouth dropped open.
He took me from my apartment, brought me into his world, and I have been “with” him ever since. He has no intentions of letting me go, and I have no clear avenue of escape.
Dan swept a trembling hand through his hair and clenched a handful of locks in his fist, above his neck. He began to pace in tight circles around the elevator as he continued to read even faster. “Oh, shit…oh, shit…oh, shit.”
His eyes came to the last line—please trust me…please believe me…please help me—he took three steps backward and virtually slammed into the elevator wall, slinking against it to support his weight.
He needed to catch his breath.
This guy—whoever he was—had Jordan.
She was free to move back and forth through her life—what the hell?—but she was doing it under duress…as a captive.
None of it made any sense, and he only knew one thing—he would kill the son of a bitch! He would grab the nearest armed security guard, march right into that courtroom, and yank Jordan out of there, away from that desk. And if that bastard dared to make a move, he would snatch the security guard’s weapon and litter the scumbag’s body with holes.
Consequences be damned.
He started to hit the ninth floor button, to return to courtroom B-9, when his common sense kicked in.
Wait.
No!
What had Jordan said?
You cannot confront this guy on your own; there’s no way you will win. Believe me—nothing is as it seems. He has the power to obliterate you and everyone around you in the space of a heartbeat.
Dan repeated the pertinent words: “Nothing is as it seems.” This was pure, unadulterated madness, but he couldn’t take the risk: not with Jordan’s life, and not with the lives of all the innocent civilians in the building. Hell, this was an active hostage situation. He needed the assistance of a special response team, perhaps ATF or SWAT. Hell’s bells, did he need a bomb squad, too—did he need to clear the building and have it swept for explosives?
No.
Hell no.
That would only tip the bastard off, and he might slip away. Jordan might be lost.
Dan needed to assemble a highly tactical team who could strike hard, fast, and with targeted precision…
He stuffed the letter back in the envelope, dropped his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.
He needed to think this through.
f
Drakkar Hades strolled along the gothic castle battlements, gazing down at the moat several stories below, and for the first time in centuries, he thought about the past.
The ancient, primordial past.
A time before creation, fourteen billion years before the universe as we know it existed.
He thought about the swirling mass of evolving, kinetic energy in its most basic form, the black hole full of hot, dense, burning gas—energy that rotated, fed on itself, then expanded—until that critical moment happened, and the quantum fluctuation expanded.
Poppycock! he thought, revising the accepted version of ancient history. It didn’t expand—it exploded! He should know; he was there.
The mass that would one day yield the seven dragon lords and the most powerful king of all the pagan realm had divided out of that mass due to conflicting consciousness. Everything—absolutely everything—had been there in its most basic, thought-impulse form: love, hate, desire, sin, joy, purity, hope, and destruction.
Everything that encompassed light and shadow had coexisted in that ancient mass.
And then, somehow along the way, the impulses had developed consciousness, and the consciousness had developed minds, and Lord Drakkar Hades had garnered a clear, distinct impression of the Self.
Of his…self.
And he had known from that first moment of inception that he was different from the rest. That all the errant, destructive, divisive vibrations were more pleasing than the rest—that he could feed on them, feed from them, and create an army, unto itself, that gave rise to the darkness and voice to the shadows.
That he could be the Chosen One, albeit self-appointed: Father of the pagan realm.
And at the same time, almost simultaneously, seven other conscious energies had emerged, ranging from a step above his own dark shadow, to the highest form of light. It had been—and still remained—unacceptable: Any trace of light was too stark, too bright, too foul to retain within the mass.
Darkness needed to escape.
It needed to break out.
The quantum fluctuation needed to explode so its individual vitalities could be free…an
d untainted.
And that was truly how it had happened: how Drakkar Hades and the seven dragon lords had burst forth from their own cosmic “Big Bang” and into the unformed universe, where they began to create their own dimensions as powerful, original lords.
The demon-shade sighed. He stopped strolling and leaned against a dark gray parapet, exquisitely adorned with a beautiful medieval sword—there was a witch’s pentacle etched into the pommel; a reversed numerical seven inscribed in gold below the cross guard; and the tail of the seven was outlined in permanent blood, extending along the length of the blade. He crossed his long, spindly arms across his sunken chest and licked his reedy lips as he brought his attention back to the present day and time: the state of the worlds right now.
As Father of the pagan realm, he ruled the underworld with an iron fist, and the Temple of Seven ruled the higher domain. And now—and now—after all these millennia, he had a chance to strike back at his original kin, the brothers who had been born that fateful day: Lord Dragos, Lord Ethyron, Lord Saphyrius, Lord Amarkyus, Lord Onyhanzian, Lord Cytarius, and Lord Topenzi.
He had a chance to alter the state of their domain, a chance to destroy one of their cherished Genesis Sons.
He sharpened his long, pointed nail on the side of the parapet and stared at the thick, murky haze that permeated the underworld’s sky. Now that Salem Thorne was safely sequestered away, ensconced in Dragons Domain, Lord Drakkar Hades needed to alter his plan—there was no point in using Dr. Kyle Parker and his newfound love interest, Macy Wilson, to try to get to Zane when Salem could strike directly at Jordan himself. The ancient demon had already transmitted his plan, and Drakkar had quickly agreed—“By any means necessary,” he had told his wicked servant. “Take the female down at your first opportunity.”
As for Salem’s previous work, the thorough and effective compulsion he had placed in Kyle Parker’s mind, Drakkar had no intentions of pulling it back: One never knew how things might turn out; it was always prudent to have a plan B. If for some ungodly reason Salem failed to get to Jordan, then at least the backup avenue was still in place; and besides, Lord Hades was known to have a plan C—or in this case, a D—up his sleeve from time to time. Things he didn’t share with his counselor…