Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
FIONA
H e knows what he had in you. He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t.
I stand in the middle of the bedroom, replaying the dizzying interaction in my head. The way Connor looked at me sent a rush of need through my veins I’ve never felt before. The pull to move closer to him was like a tightening corset, like God was pulling the strings, squeezing us together, squeezing us into the shape the universe wanted. My God, I almost kissed him, and if I had kissed him, I’m not sure I could have controlled what would have happened next.
Is he lying to me about Roman? He must be. There’s no way Roman wouldn’t do whatever it took to get me back. I was practically snatched right out of his arms. He did shoot at us, but he might be a good shot. If Vivian hadn’t pushed him out of the way, would he have hit Connor and not me? It is weird though that he’s told no one I’m missing. If he’s told no one I’m missing. I have no way of telling if that’s true or not. No internet access. No television.
You need to use this time to tell my story , Alex demands, thrusting herself into the center of my head. She’s dressed in a maid’s uniform. She wants to pose as a maid in the Milk Cult’s headquarters to investigate what they’re doing with the drugged girls.
If I have no choice but to be here, I might as well use the time productively.
Do I have a choice to be here? Should I have tried to run today? Tried to escape? No. I’m not strong enough. Not yet. It’s my first full day out of bed.
I sit down at the desk, turn on the computer, and start writing again.
Hours later, there’s a knock on the door. I’m deep into chapter ten. Alex has crawled out the window and onto a ledge to avoid detection and is listening to the Milk Cult leader talk about selling the girls. If Alex doesn’t find where the cult is hiding the girls soon, she won’t be able to save them or her friend’s daughter in time.
The knock comes again. “Ms. Morrow?”
“Come in, Zaire,” I yell.
Zaire gives a shallow bow when I look his way. “Connor invites you to join him in the dining room for dinner.”
“Do I have a choice? ”
He looks confused. “Of course you have a choice. I can bring you a tray if you so wish.”
For the second time, I sense that Zaire doesn’t know the full story behind why I’m here. I wonder how long that will last and how I can use it to my advantage.
“Would you like for me to bring you a tray, Ms. Morrow?”
The tantalizing scent of Italian reaches my nose, and my mouth starts to water. “No, I’ll be right there. I just need to freshen up.” I point to the bathroom.
“Certainly.” He turns to leave.
“Oh, Zaire, you wouldn’t happen to have the Wi-Fi password, would you? I want to research a few things for my novel.”
He smiles brightly. “Of course! It’s RAMSWAY455. All caps.”
“RAMSWAY455,” I repeat back to him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll tell Connor you will be joining him shortly.”
I wait until he leaves the room to type in the password and almost give myself away by screaming when it works. I click on the search bar and search my own name. A bunch of gossip articles come up about my wedding to Roman, all focused predominantly on Roman. Some older articles are about my books. There’s absolutely nothing about me being abducted.
Ice fills my veins. Connor is telling the truth. Roman hasn’t reported it. I do a quick search on Vivian Hargrave. Nothing but publicity for her new release. The last post she made on any of her social media sites is about her getting on the plane to attend my wedding .
Which begs the question: Where is she now?
I fire off a message to her cell phone, then close the laptop, more confused than ever, and hurry from the room before I draw suspicion. I find Connor in the formal dining room off the foyer. He’s waiting with a glass of red wine in front of an empty plate.
He didn’t lie to me. Pure intuition, if I can trust such a thing, tells me he hasn’t lied about anything.
He stands when I walk into the room. He’s changed out of his flannel and into a dark button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing two immaculately corded forearms. With his hair pulled up into a bun, he’s too attractive to be real. Maybe I fell asleep at the keyboard and am dreaming this, dreaming of Henrik Angel come to life. My tongue feels thick.
“Thanks for coming,” he says. “I’m sorry I raised my voice before. I’m sure this has all been overwhelming for you.”
It’s a sincere apology, although I get the sense apologies don’t come easy for him. He shifts awkwardly.
“Thank you for that.” I stretch my fingers, sore from typing.
His gaze locks on the bare finger of my left hand. “You’re not wearing your engagement ring.”
“I took it off days ago.”
“I thought it was so you could sleep.”
I lick my lips. “I’m not sleeping now.”
I watch his throat bob on a swallow.
“I hope you can understand how hard it is for me to believe things have unfolded the way they have. Even if everything you’ve told me is true.” There. That’s safe enough to admit.
After a moment, he points to the chair across the table from him where a place has been set. The long table. This thing probably seats twelve. I stroll to the opposite end and sit.
“I feel like I’m in another zip code,” I say, enunciating my words so he can hear me all the way down there.
Even from across the table, I see him swallow. “It’s for the best.”
“Why?”
The way he looks at me makes something low within me clench. “Because when you’re near me, I have trouble keeping my hands to myself,” he says in a low, dark voice.
My stomach whooshes like a trapdoor has sprung beneath my chair. I cross my legs against an instant ache. Maybe the table isn’t long enough after all.
I’m relieved when Zaire chooses that moment to enter the room and slide a caprese salad in front of each of us, then disappears.
“He doesn’t eat with you?”
“Sometimes he does. These days he’s usually too involved with his work to take the time.”
“He paints here?” I look toward the hall as if I can see the art studio through the wall.
“He paints everywhere. His life is painting.”
“And serving you.”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” he drawls.
“Someone thinks highly of themselves.”
“He chooses to be here. He likes it with me. ”
“Like I choose to be here? Which is to say, no choice at all.” Anger sparks inside me and offers some relief to the hot, burning need that’s building low within me.
He heaves a sigh and stabs his salad.
“I’m sorry.” I give my head a hard shake. “I didn’t come out here to fight. I don’t know what comes over me, but every time we’re in the same room, I feel like I want to fight or…” Oh shit. Shut the fuck up, Fiona.
“Fight or fuck,” he finishes for me with a deep laugh. “Would it help you to know I feel the same way?”
My cheeks heat. “Maybe.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“December first.”
He presses two fingers into his ridiculously full lips.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re a Sagittarius. A fire sign. As am I, an Aries. We bring out each other’s fire.”
“So we’re destined to fight? Even if you hadn’t kidnapped me and I didn’t hate you?”
He flinches, his smirk morphing into a pained scowl. “You don’t hate me, Fiona,” he says with absolute certainty. “You just don’t understand how to interpret the feelings I evoke in you.”
Fuck. I hate that he’s right. I should hate him. I don’t. I take a bite of my salad and chew slowly to distract myself from his comment. “Both fire signs, huh? I guess that means if we were together, we’d burn out quickly. Like a shooting star.”
“No,” he says in a voice so smooth it feels like a caress. “An Aries and a Sagittarius never stop burning for each other. And they’re never bored. Both of our signs love a challenge.”
I snort. “I’ve had enough challenge for one lifetime. I think I could take some boredom.”
He frowns, biting his lip like he’s trying to find the right words. “I’m reading your series. It’s been a while since you had a new release.”
“Over a year.”
“What happened? Did something change?”
I put another bite in my mouth. Too serious. Too personal. I don’t like to talk about it. Time to turn the tables. I point my fork at him. “So you’re a chef who’s a dragon who kidnaps women on the side. How does one work their way into that job? Is there some kind of program or internship? Do you practice throwing CPR dummies in wedding dresses over your shoulder?”
His eyes flash with inner fire. “I was born the son of a dragon warrior and chosen to serve as the Aries member of the Zodiac Brotherhood. I’m a defender of my race. The cooking, well that comes naturally, although I did attend the Culinary Institute.”
“Seems like a strange choice for a warrior. Shouldn’t you do something tough like be a soldier or deal in weapons or something?”
He snorts. “Being an executive chef in a top restaurant in Manhattan is harder than it looks, and typically, dragon warriors don’t need weapons. We have claws and teeth.”
I ignore the claws and teeth remark. He can stroke his ego on his own time. “Zodiac Brotherhood. I’m picturing you all logging in every morning to read your horoscope before going about your dragon day.” I fake an exaggerated gasp. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? Horoscope Daily said Aries should steal a bride last Saturday, and you took it to heart.”
He drops his fork. “We’re called zodiac dragons because we were sent by the creator from the stars to advance humanity. The brotherhood consists of one dragon for each sun sign because that’s when we’re at our strongest. The sun is in Aries now, so I lead the brotherhood. As for your other question…”
He rises from his chair and walks toward me. Stalks me really. He approaches with the predatory grace of a panther, never breaking eye contact.
“What are you doing?” The utensil in my hand clatters to the table.
His hands land on the arms of my chair, and he lifts and turns me until I’m facing him. He’s hovering over me, caging me in. This close, his size is intimidating and I gulp, my eyes widening.
“This question of why I took you seems to be coming up again and again, Fiona. I think we should set it to rest right here. Right now.”
I tip my head. “It wasn’t the horoscope?” I know I’m pushing him. Needling him. It’s stupid. He’s the size of a truck and in my face. But I can’t stop myself. Maybe there is something to his fire-on-fire theory. “Oh right, you stole me to get my fiancé’s father to talk to you because you can’t use a phone like a normal person. Looks like that didn’t work out so well.”
His face is close enough to feel the heat of his skin. His cheeks are flushed with it and it radiates, warming my entire body. As big as he is though, I’m not afraid until his eyes change. His pupils shift from round like a human’s to slitted like a cat’s, the blue bleeding to green and growing wider, deeper in color, until they glow from within. My heart stutters as I realize I’m looking directly at the dragon inside the man. There’s no other explanation.
When he speaks again, his tone is ashes and cinders. “You want to know the truth, Fiona? I didn’t plan on taking you that day. I went to your wedding to take a peek inside Stefan’s head to investigate what he knew about Lucy Vale. But when I saw you, when I heard you call to me, begging for an escape, I took you. I wanted you and I took you. I answered your call.”
Ice forms in my veins. “My call? What call? I never called to you.”
“I believe your exact words were ‘If you’re out there and I’m not supposed to do this, if I’m not meant to be with Roman, stop this wedding from happening. Send an earthquake or a storm.’”
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Those were my thoughts. Those were my words. “Are you… Can dragons read minds?”
“Normally, no. Not like that. But you were projecting. You were in distress. I could hear you because you wanted me to hear you.”
Goosebumps march up my arms. It feels like my entire body is lit up from within, on the edge of something strange and wonderful and equally terrifying.
“I could hear you, Fiona, because we have a bond. I am your mate . And you are mine . ”
His words do something to me. I feel them enter me and branch like lightning in a summer sky. I can’t take my eyes off his lips. My breath is ragged in my lungs, and my heart skips, stuttering at the pure overwhelm that’s happening in my nervous system. If our two fire signs bring out the fire in each other and make us want to fight or fuck, without a doubt neither of us is interested in fighting right now. A heavy weight in my core turns over, a growing tension between us that needs to be relieved.
Some small part of me knows I should fight this. I should stop and think about what I’m doing, the repercussions. But with his scent in my nose and his heat on my skin and his claiming words in my ears, I can’t think of anything but him. I can’t think of anything but the undeniable fact that there is a fire between us that must be fed.
I grab the sides of his head, dig my nails into his hair, and pull his face to mine.