Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
FIONA
R oman curses and lowers that crossbow of his, the way it glows blue reminding me of its dragon-killing magic. I gasp in horror as it morphs back into his Order ring. At least two of those bolts hit Connor. Is he dead? Frantically, I search for the bond deep within me. Nothing. No. No. No. No. But then, as if someone throws a switch, I feel him. Pure agony pours into me and I have to white-knuckle the seat to keep from curling in on myself. Connor’s hurt, but he’s alive. My breath comes in pants as Roman sits down beside me and buckles in, thumbing that deadly ring.
“You look pale,” he says through his teeth, and I know one thing for certain in that moment: I absolutely can’t allow him to know what Connor means to me. “Something upsetting you?”
I see the question for what it is—a test. “Of course I’m upset!” I grab his hand. “I’ve been a prisoner for weeks, and a dragon almost ate our helicopter. Are you sure it’s gone?”
He studies me for what feels like a very long time. “It won’t be back. Those bolts I shot it with are poisonous. With any luck, it’s already dead.”
I look away from him, out the side of the helicopter, to hide my eyes. I’m fighting back tears with everything in me.
He threads his fingers into mine. “Relax, Fiona. I have you now. We’re going home.”
I force a grateful smile onto my face and then hug him like he’s my hero.
Alex appears in my head, slow clapping. An Oscar-worthy performance. Keep it up. Connor’s going to need all the information you can obtain while you’re undercover.
Days ago, I offered to allow Roman to take me. I wanted Connor to use me as a spy for the Zodiac Brotherhood. This wasn’t what Connor wanted for me, and I wouldn’t be here by choice. But now that I am in this position, I need to play the part until Connor finds a way to rescue me. He’s not dead. I can feel him on the other end of our bond. And once he’s healed, he will come for me. Nothing will keep him from me.
The helicopter lands at a small, private airport, and Roman leads me by the hand to his jet. I’ve flown with him before, but everything feels different now. We buckle in, and I go to work on plan Make Roman Believe I Love Him .
“What took you so long to find me?” I load my shaking voice with all the fragility of a damsel in distress.
He sighs. “Nothing about the property where he was holding you is connected with dragons. Once you were able to get a message to me, I traced the IP address of that computer you were using and then narrowed the location down to that lodge in Wyoming. It took a few days to put together a plan. I knew if you were getting messages out, he was monitoring them. Sending them in the wrong direction worked like a charm.”
I fight to keep the sadness and guilt from my expression. Connor gave me the WiFi password so that I could see that Roman hadn’t reported me missing, and what did I do with that information but immediately message Roman. In doing so, I gave him a map to our door. Now that he knows about the lodge, Connor won’t ever be able to use it as a safe house again. “But why didn’t you just negotiate with them from the start?”
He doesn’t answer me. The stewardess comes by and hands him a gin and tonic. She asks me what I want, and I say water. Alcohol is out of the question. I have to keep my mind clear.
“She’ll have a chardonnay,” he tells her.
The stewardess nods and brings me a chardonnay. No water. An urge to argue and ask again for water rises in me. Being with Connor has awakened a fire in me that desperately wants to burn. But old Fiona would never challenge Roman, and my life and my future with Connor depends on me proving I am the docile, obedient creature I was on that altar.
“Thank you,” I say sweetly, as if I couldn’t possibly expend the mental energy to know what I’d like to drink.
“Where’s your ring?” he asks, noticing my bare finger.
I glance down at my hands. “He took it. I never saw my wedding dress again either after the first day.”
“Did he”—his eyes trace me from head to toe—“spoil you?”
Spoil me. If he only knew. “Do you mean did he rape me? No.”
“Good. Dragons can be brutes. You’re lucky to be alive.”
I sip my wine. “But Roman, if you knew that, why didn’t you negotiate for me?” I wipe under my perfectly dry eyes and make my voice sound small and upset. “The dragon kept asking me about the Order and about a woman named Lucy Vale. I didn’t know what to tell him. I thought he was going to hurt me.”
Roman’s eyes go darker still. “I told you, Fiona, I do not negotiate with dragons. As for the Saint’s Order, I planned to tell you everything you needed to know once we were wed. It’s sensitive information. You of all people know the importance of keeping a secret society secret.”
“Of course I do, but?—”
His phone chimes, and he raises it to his ear, mumbling a greeting as he unbuckles himself and disappears through a door to his office area. I don’t see him again until we begin our descent.
It’s late by the time we land and take a private car to a mansion on the coast of Rhode Island that Roman calls home. Although home is a strong word for one of over a dozen places around the globe where he sometimes stays. I once had dinner at his flat in Paris, but I’ve never been here. I now know that all those places are in the Order registry. If a dragon sets foot on this property, the Order has the right to capture or kill them. That won’t stop Connor though. Nothing will stop him.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end when Roman guides me directly to a bedroom. “This is our room,” he says. “Shower. I’ll have the butler lay out fresh clothes for you. Then we can talk over dinner. I know you must have so many more questions for me.” His gaze turns dark. “And I have a few for you.”
I look around the room, at his things on the bureau, and ask, “Will we be staying together then?” We’ve never slept in the same bed before. He always claimed he wanted to wait until we were married.
He brushes my hair back from my face and tucks it behind my ear, and I smile wider to keep from flinching at his touch. “Premarital relations are forbidden by the Order. They make us vulnerable.” I try to disguise the relief that I feel at those words. “However...” His fingers trail along my neck, down to my collarbone, and dip between my breasts. “I think after everything, we’ve waited long enough. Our not being legally married is a technicality that I plan to rectify as quickly as possible. We will share a bed.”
I swallow and nod, my anxiety raging again. If it shows on my face, he doesn’t ask me about it.
“Don’t be long,” he commands. I breathe a sigh of relief when he turns on his heel and leaves, whispering something to a maid who stations herself in the hall outside the room.
Slowly I close the bedroom door, shutting her out. I open one of the drawers. My breath trembles as I take in a tray of watches and cuff links. The enormous walk-in closet is full of his things. This is his room. A room he regularly uses by the looks of it. It stinks of him.
God help me, this is worst-case scenario. He wants me to stay in his room with him. Wants to make our marriage legal as quickly as possible. Wants to have sex. I swallow hard and try not panic at the thought.
I go into the bathroom and start the shower, stripping out of the clothes Connor bought me, the soft, warm and comfortable clothes that fit me exquisitely despite him not knowing my size. What I need is a plan. But after twenty minutes in the shower, I still don’t have any ideas of how to get away from Roman and back to Connor.
Worse, when I try to feel my mate through the bond, I can’t anymore. There’s just… nothing. I tell myself it’s the distance, or maybe he’s unconscious. I refuse to consider any other scenario.
I shut the water off and wrap a towel around myself, finding the clothes the butler left for me in the adjoining dressing area. It’s a cocktail dress and heels, because of course the thing you want to wear to a late dinner at home after traveling all night is a cocktail dress. I roll my eyes. The bodice is beaded, tight and unforgiving, strapless with a short, ruffled skirt that looks like it will end halfway down my thighs. I slide my feet into a pair of shoes with red soles and tall, skinny heels. I hope to heaven I can even make it to the dining room in these things.
When I finally clop out of the room, there’s a woman in a black maid’s uniform waiting for me. She shows me to the empty dining room and commands me to sit .
“The master will be with you shortly,” she says as she fills the wineglass next to my water goblet, which is blessedly full.
I wait, sipping my water, for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. I’m both grateful for the time away from him and annoyed. Every minute I sit here, my anxiety ratchets a notch higher. I’m starving and uncomfortable. I’m considering collapsing out of the chair and feigning illness to gain some power over this situation when he finally walks in.
He chucks me under the chin with his knuckle, then turns my face to the left and right as if he’s admiring a doll. His gaze rakes down over the bodice of the dress. “You look lovely, Fiona. It will be a relief to put this entire thing behind us, wouldn’t you agree?”
Because a person who’s been held hostage for more than three weeks should immediately bounce back? I force the smile again. “I’ll try, but I might need time to recover.” I swallow hard, allowing my hands to tremble. If I can milk the trauma of my ordeal to maintain distance between us, it might give Connor enough time to come for me.
“Oh, I think the best thing for you is to pick up exactly where you left off.” He taps my nose and then makes his way to the other end of the table, lowering himself into his chair.
“Speaking of, where is Vivian? I haven’t seen or heard from her since the wedding day. I thought you said she was with you.”
He scowls and unfolds his napkin, resting it across his lap before reaching for a dinner roll. “Let’s not ruin our first dinner at home with talk of Vivian.”
“What do you mean, ruin dinner? Is she okay?” I’m a good actress, but I can’t hide how upset I feel. If something’s happened to her, it’s entirely my fault.
He smiles in a way that chills something deep within me. “Perfectly fine and somewhere safe.”
I nod and sip my water, forcing down the rising tide of apprehension and anxiety that almost overcomes me. Roman is a psychopath. I don’t believe for a second that Vivian is perfectly fine. But I do sense she’s alive. That’s the important thing.
“I was also wondering if you had my purse and phone and things. I left it all in the dressing room at the chateau.” It seems like the obvious first thing someone would ask for.
“We can check with the staff, but I’m sure there’s nothing we can’t replace. You won’t need those things for a while anyway.” He taps his thumb on the table twice, and a servant rushes into the room with the salads.
“Is that some kind of signal, the thumb tapping?” I ask casually, honestly perplexed by it. The woman flees like the dining room is on fire.
“You’ll find the staff here is highly trained and serves me without question or hesitation.”
Connor treated his dog better. I lift my fork and push my salad around my plate. No way can I eat. Not with my stomach churning like it is. Roman, however, has no problem enjoying his dinner and proceeds with neat, precise, efficient bites.
I gather my courage and ask, “If we’re going to be living here, can someone take me to my apartment tomorrow so that I can box up my things?” And I can use the opportunity to run and hide.
Roman stops chewing to look at me with flat, dead eyes. “That depends on how quickly we resolve our little problem.”
“Problem? What problem?” I set down my silverware but toy with it and my napkin.
He sighs. “It’s the oddest thing, Fiona. I watched you sign that marriage license, so imagine my surprise when the officiant informed me your signature wasn’t legal.”
I sip my wine, playing dumb even though I know exactly why it isn’t legal. Flaring my eyes, I ask, “Why’s that?”
He looks me over, seeming to weigh my words and expression. “You signed Alex Rogue instead of Fiona Morrow.”
A rebellious laugh barrels out of me before I can rein it in, and I hope to God I haven’t made a grave mistake. When Roman pressured me to sign that paper, something of my younger self bubbled to the surface. I signed Alex’s name as an act of defiance. But Roman won’t see the humor in that. “I’m so sorry,” I say quickly. “I often sign her name in books and to get into her character. I was nervous that morning. Must not have been paying attention, but then you weren’t either, considering you didn’t notice.”
He doesn’t laugh, but a tiny, wicked smile turns his lips. “Easily rectified,” he says. “I have new paperwork, and a judge—a personal friend of mine—lined up to perform the ceremony tomorrow. ”
“Tomorrow?” My brows pinch together, panic rising in my throat. “After everything that’s happened, we can’t possibly have a replay of our wedding tomorrow. Having a new dress designed and fitted will take weeks, and then there’s renting the venue, the flowers, and the guest list. It can’t be done.” Not to mention I have no intention of marrying you .
“No wedding will be necessary. We’ll just formalize the marriage and put this entire thing behind us.” He raises his glass of wine to me in a silent toast and then drinks.
I draw a shaky breath. “You don’t want a wedding anymore?”
“No.”
“But a wedding like the one we planned has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.”
“And you had it, before you were abducted. It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is that we are legally wed as soon as possible.”
I tilt my head and giggle lightly to diffuse the growing tension I can feel coming from his side of the table. “But why? It’s not as if we’ve had a lengthy engagement. What’s the rush?”
He taps his thumb on the table again, and the staff rushes in as if they’ve been hovering on starting blocks just out of sight. They take our salad plates and replace them with a main course of rare leg of lamb on a bed of vegetables and couscous. “Because I wish to be married to you.” He says it like no other explanation is needed. “I’ve waited long enough.”
The fire in me starts to rise again. I know it now for what it is—a part of me that I squashed after the accident. I was so beaten down and defeated I would have gone along with anything to ease the pain, and I did before. When I met Roman, I was an empty husk of a person, moving through the world like a robot. Roman loved that about me, loved having a Barbie he could dress up and control. And I didn’t see how sick it actually was until Connor healed me. Not just of my writer’s block, but of the remnants of my grief. Connor reignited that part of my soul I’d put out after Marion died. I don’t ever want that fire extinguished again.
“Marriage is supposed to be about what both people want, and I want it to be special, Roman. Besides, I need the time to recover from everything that’s happened. Maybe I should talk to a psychotherapist first. I don’t want the trauma of my experience to come between us in our marriage.” Another excellent reason to delay until my mate can get me out of here.
“It will be special. How could it not be?” He meticulously cuts off a perfect square of lamb and brings it to his mouth. “And as for your... trauma...” He scoffs as if he doesn’t believe in the word. “I’ll make certain you are safe from this day forward. The best thing for you is to fall into a regular routine. Our marriage will give you a purpose. You won’t have time to wallow in those feelings.”
Jesus, he’s a psychopath. My palms start to sweat, and my pulse pounds as every door to freedom is slammed in my face. I rack my brain. There must be something I can use to stall this thing, some card I haven’t played. I take a deep breath and it comes to me. “ If we’re getting married tomorrow, I’ll want Vivian there.” He scowls across the table at me. “It’s nonnegotiable. You have to allow me to see her tonight so I can ask her to witness for us again.”
He sighs in annoyance but takes in the determined set of my jaw. “Very well. After dinner, I will take you to Vivian.”
A bit of tension eases from my shoulders. If he’s promising to take me to Vivian, she must be close and unharmed. I pick up my fork, and this time I take a bite of the lamb, proving myself to be the appreciative fiancée. It’s flavorless compared to the meals Connor made me this month. But I chew and swallow.
“Now I have some questions for you, Fiona.”
My stomach clenches, threatening to expel the small amount of food I’ve put in it. “Yes?”
“How many dragons did you meet during your captivity?”
“Just one,” I answer immediately. “And his servant and his dog.”
“What was his name?”
“He called himself Valentine.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair, thin. He changed his appearance though. It was never the same.”
We continue like this, him asking and me saying the exact opposite of the truth.
When he finishes his questions, I say, “He told me a bunch of things about the Saint’s Order, but I didn’t know what to believe. Can you explain its purpose, Roman? ”
His voice is soft but lethal when he answers. “The Order is the antidote to those secret societies you write about in your thrillers. That thing that took you, if we had our way, we’d end them all.”
“You’d kill all the dragons? Sorry, this is all so new to me. The dragon who held me told me the basics but it was so confusing. Why do you want them dead?”
His brow lifts. “After being his prisoner for so long, I’m surprised you’d need to ask. They’re brutish and wild, adhering to no rules or propriety. A world ruled by dragons would be a world of chaos with ever-shifting axes of power. The Saint’s Order maintains stability. Our members have maintained a level of wealth that transcends generations. People like you—ordinary people—you play the game. You work your way from pawn to knight to rook to queen, and you think if you have enough of the things you desire that you’ve won, but the members of the Saint’s Order have been ordained by God to own the board and all its pieces. No one makes a move we didn’t decide for them to make. Dragons, if they have their way, would have each person designing their own set of rules, or perhaps not playing at all, simply existing and being happy about it. It’s ludicrous. They are the creation of the devil.”
God, he’s sick. What a twisted way to look at the world. I nod, because I sense that’s what he expects me to do, but my mind keeps circling back to the fact that he pursued me. He was going to marry me. And I can’t stop myself from asking the obvious question. “You’ve always known then, that I’m just a pawn. Why did you pursue me? Why ask me to marry you? ”
He takes a sip of his wine. “You are no pawn, Fiona. You are a queen. A stunning beauty. You are exactly what I deserve.”
My disbelief must show on my face because he raises an eyebrow. “You don’t believe you’re beautiful? You are. Exceptionally. But you’re correct to assume that I’m not the type of man to fall for a pretty face alone. Initially, I sought you out because you also have something I want.”
My head starts to pound. He sought me out. In other words, our meeting was no coincidence. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, but you do,” he says. “As it so happens, you own a very important piece of land, one that used to belong to the Order until one of our members died unexpectedly and his family sold it within hours of his passing.”
An icy chill spider-walks up my spine. I shake my head like I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“A small but important property. One with unique qualities that must stay in our society’s hands. One that would also be mine if we were married. We were supposed to be married by now.”
Slowly my brain sifts through the timeline. It never made sense to me, how hard he pushed to marry me. How quickly he asked me. How he wanted me to sign that marriage license so badly. I stare and stare at him, and all the little pieces start clicking together. Roman pursued me, at least initially, because he wanted Marion’s land. It feels like a punch in the stomach.
“What’s so special about the property?” I ask, keeping my voice light. I remind myself that Connor will come for me, and when he does, the more information I can give him, the better.
He cocks his head and slants me a patronizing grin. “That is information for Order members only.”
Of course it is. Bastard. A dark thought comes over me, and I clear my throat. “After we’re married, the land will be yours. Will you still want to be married to me?”
He tilts his head, studying me. “Oh Fiona, so needy already. Take heart. While it’s true that I initially pursued you because of the land, there were other ways I could have obtained it. When I realized who you were, the author of the Alex Rogue series, I knew you were wife material.”
I sip my wine, digesting everything he’s shared and drawing some conclusions. “You couldn’t reveal your involvement in the Saints Order before we were married, but you knew through my books that I was capable of understanding your role.”
He nods. “Not just understand it. Help to expand it. Propel it. Every grandmaster needs a woman to help with the day-to-day. Who would make a better grandmaster’s wife than an expert in secret societies like you?”
Grandmaster’s wife. Ice forms in my veins as I connect more dots. Connor said that Stefan and Donovan hadn’t responded to his messages. My stomach churns and I swallow reflexively. “I thought your father was grandmaster.”
“Not anymore.” His smile is chilling and sends another tremor of fear through me. “That title is now mine. ”
“Congratulations,” I sputter with all the enthusiasm I can muster.
“No more secrets, Fiona. If we are going to be man and wife, you must fully embrace the mission of the Saint’s Order.”
My skin crawls but making him believe he chose wisely with me is my best chance at survival. “You’ve always made the right choices when it comes to us. Now that you’re grandmaster, I’ll support you however you see fit. And you’re right, we can’t have secrets between us if I’m truly to be useful to you.”
He stands from his meal and saunters to my side of the table, holding out his hand to me. “Then come, darling.”
I allow him to help me out of the chair, suppressing a cringe at the feel of his touch, and then follow him as he leads me by the hand toward the back of the house. “Where are we going?”
“To see your friend Vivian.”