Chapter Three
Oakley
Barney Porter was the biggest ass in the history of asses, and it was taking everything in me to continue to laugh at his horrible and cruel jokes. It had been over two hours of playing it up with this guy, and I was so ready for this night to be done.
To make matters worse, Roman had been sitting at the bar the entire time, looking more and more pissed off. I didn’t know what his problem was since our plan was working out perfectly, but it was annoying me that he was so angry.
I was the one who had to act like a mindless airhead who thought Porter was the funniest person alive. At least Roman didn’t have to suffer through the guy’s terrible jokes and all the ass grabbing.
Leaning across the table, I grabbed the wine bottle and poured a generous amount into Porter’s empty glass. He was well on his way to being drunk, which was good news for me. I didn’t want him too drunk, but just enough to make his reaction times a little slower.
When I set the bottle down, hands grabbed my hips, and I almost, almost, jerked away, but I managed to stop myself and allow Porter to pull me close.
I giggled like I was supposed to as I landed on his lap, then I wrapped an arm around his neck and traced a finger of my free hand down his nose, giving him a flirty little boop at the end.
My skin crawled, and I wanted nothing more than to punch the guy in his gross face, run to Roman, and then go back to our place so I could shower all the ick off me—I’d probably have to wash at least ten times to accomplish that.
His friends were distracted, and Porter seemed drunk enough, so I ran my fingers through his hair and asked, “You can protect me tonight, right?”
He gave me a squeeze. “Of course, sweet thing. I’ll keep you safe.”
My dragon senses flared, and I knew he was lying, but I held in my shudder.
The guy was good, and I had no doubt that other people could’ve easily fallen for his charm if they didn’t already suspect a snake lived beneath his skin.
But I knew what he was deep down, and my magic helped me detect lies when I was face to face with a person.
I bit my lip, trying to look unsure and innocent. “Have you heard about those missing people? I heard they went missing from somewhere around here.”
I could feel his body tense up beneath me as he responded. “You have nothing to worry about, sweet thing. Like I said, I’ll keep you safe. I’ve amped up the security here to protect my patrons, so you’ll be perfectly safe all night long.”
My dragon senses flared again. Lies, lies, lies.
He didn’t want to keep me safe. He wanted the opposite.
“Thank you, Barney.” I gave a little giggle. “I knew you’d protect me.”
He gave me a squeeze and pulled me closer to him so our faces were only a few inches apart. It made me want to scream, but I held my airhead smile in place. He leaned even closer, but he was distracted by his friend—thank goodness, since I was pretty sure he’d wanted to kiss me.
If he had, I might’ve thrown up in my mouth. So freaking gross.
He held me on his lap like that for over twenty minutes before I had enough. I couldn’t do this any longer. I was disgusted, and horrified, and just blech.
So I leaned in and whispered into his ear, “Ready to get out of here?”
He stared up at me with lust in his eyes, and I wanted to puke. “Yeah, baby. Let me take you back to my place.”
Ugh. Gross. “I like the sound of that.”
I hopped off his lap, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to his feet, giggling as I helped steady him.
His friends hooted and hollered as we walked away from the table, and Porter made some gross gestures behind my back—really, this guy was complete and utter scum—before draping his arm over my shoulders and leading me to the exit.
I knew without looking that Roman was following us, so even though I didn’t exactly feel safe under this perv’s arm, I knew I’d be okay.
Not to mention that I was a trained fighter. There was no way this guy could take me down.
Also, hello, dragon here.
If I felt really threatened, I could simply shift and eat the asshole in one bite.
I had to keep reminding myself of those things. That I wasn’t a victim. That I wasn’t going to let this guy hurt me. That I could and would get away if he attacked me.
We made it outside and walked around to the side of the building where Porter had a reserved parking spot. He walked me over to the passenger side door, unlocked it, and opened it for me.
I giggled again. “Thank you, Barney.”
“My pleasure, swee—” He let out a gasp as Roman silently stepped up behind him and stabbed a needle into the side of his neck. The guy hadn’t even heard him coming.
Rome caught the guy, and I grabbed the keys he dropped before pushing the trunk’s unlock button. The trunk popped open, and Roman threw Porter over his shoulder, walked to the trunk, and stuffed the man inside. He shut it and held his hand up to me, so I tossed him the keys.
“Are you good to drive?” he asked as he walked to the driver’s seat.
I nodded. “You know it takes a lot more than two glasses of regular human wine to get a dragon drunk.” I’d need a hell of a lot more than that, or maybe just some dwarf beer—that shit was so good and could fuck anyone up.
“True enough.” He stared at me for a few seconds, tilting his head to the side. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.”
“Oakley.”
I sighed and ran a hand over my shaved hair. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just need to shower about a hundred times to get his scent off me.”
He nodded. “There’s a shower at the safe house. He’ll be out for a while, so you can get cleaned up once we’re there. Our position hasn’t been compromised, so you can bring your bag in from the car, yes?”
We’d packed our bags and kept them in our car, just in case we’d needed to hightail it out of there, but luckily, that wasn’t the case.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Alright. Follow me.”
I gave him a nod and headed over to our car, getting into the driver’s seat.
Once Roman and I were both good to go, he pulled out in front of me in Porter’s car, and I followed him in ours.
As I walked out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over my head, I caught sight of Roman in the makeshift kitchen, cutting up an apple.
He popped a piece in his mouth, and I couldn’t look away as he quietly chewed and worked.
He was only in a t-shirt now, so I could see plenty of his arm muscles, and as usual, all I could think about was licking him.
Mmm. I wonder if he has any juice from the apple around his lips. I could suck it up and pull him in for a long, lingering, amazing kiss as I grab his ass and—
“Feeling better?”
I blinked at him, not comprehending the question.
“Oak? You okay?”
Shaking myself out, I nodded. “Yep, yeah. Fine. I’m fine.” I snapped my lips shut because I sounded anything but fine.
He stared at me and slowly nodded for a moment. “Right. Um, did the shower help?”
“Oh yeah, for sure. I feel much better now that I washed the sleazeball off.”
“Good. Come eat a snack, and then we’ll go wake him up.”
I nodded and headed over to the kitchen counter where he slid a bowl of fruit over to me. Normally, I wouldn’t eat this late, but this was a sweet gesture, and once I started eating, my stomach decided it was really hungry, and I devoured the fruit in only a few minutes.
“Thank you for that,” I mumbled around my last bite.
“Anytime.” Roman sent me a sweet smile that I didn’t usually see on his face.
He tended to be kind of serious when we were out in public, but behind closed doors and with our friends and family, he was much more relaxed and smiled and laughed more often.
And when it was just the two of us, an even sweeter side came out. He did things like cut up fruit for me all the time, and he always had that gentle smile on his face that made his eyes glitter beneath the light.
It made my stomach swoop with butterflies every time.
After staring at me for a long time, Roman cleared his throat and gestured to the back room. “Ready to wake him up?”
I nodded my agreement, cleaned up my mess, and followed him to a room in the back of the house that we’d set up just for this purpose.
The one window in the room had steel bars on it that were strong enough to keep a dragon inside, and there was nothing else in the room except a chair bolted down and a big steel ring in the cement floor, as well as a few rings around the room on the walls in case we wanted to hook his restraints to a different area.
Plus, it kinda made the room look scarier, which could be a bonus.
Right now, Barney Porter was firmly tied to the chair, and his wrists and ankles had manacles around them. There was a chain connecting his wrists to each other, as well as his ankles, and then a long chain ran from them to the big ring cemented into the floor.
It had taken Roman and me a few days to get everything situated in the room because we wanted to make sure that no one, not even a half-cyclops, could escape from it.
We’d also used some spells supplied by Tan—my stepfather, for lack of a better word—and a few of the Ellwoods, so there really was no hope for the man.
I pulled out my phone, and when Roman nodded at me, I hit record.
We had a video camera set up in the corner that would record all visual and audio, but we liked to have a backup of at least the audio from any interrogation.
We’d learned that lesson the hard way when a perp’s magic caused our camera to glitch for part of the conversation.
Roman waved some smelling salts under the guy’s nose, and after a few seconds, he sucked in a harsh breath and jerked his head up, gasping.
He was breathing hard, so I stepped forward, saying, “You’re okay, Porter. You’re okay.” When he took in his surroundings and seemed a little less out of it, I added, “Well, you will be as long as you cooperate with us.”
He stared at me for a long moment, recognition dawning in his gaze before his face shifted into anger. “You! How dare you! What did you do to me? Where am I? When I get out of here, you’re dead. You hear me? You’re dead!”
He started slashing around, trying to break free from his chains. For a moment, I was nervous they wouldn’t hold, but after a few good tries without the ring or chair budging even a millimeter, I blew out a breath of relief.
We were good. We hadn’t fucked up.
“Where are those kids, Porter?” Roman asked without preamble. “The three girls and two boys who went missing from your club?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Where are they?”
“Fuck you!” The guy spat in Roman’s direction, but all the sexy dragon did was take a small step back so the spit landed on the floor in front of his toe.
So gross.
Roman suddenly moved so fast he made even me jump as he rushed forward, grabbed the guy’s hair, and yanked it back so he was forced to meet Rome’s eyes. “Where are they, Barney? Tell me now, and just maybe I’ll let you leave here with all your limbs intact. Maybe even all your fingers and toes.”
The man sneered at the dragon.
Rome shook him a little. “Tell me now, or I’ll start removing fingernails, then the fingers themselves.
Then I’ll move on to your toes.” He leaned in farther, speaking to him as if they were friends.
“Listen, Barn, I’m very, very old. I’ve fought more battles, more wars, than I can count.
I’ve also interrogated more people than I want to remember.
I know exactly how far to push the body before it breaks. ”
“Bullshit.” The guy had spittle flying out of his mouth, and I wrinkled my nose, glad I wasn’t the one close to him.
Roman smirked, but it wasn’t a nice smirk at all—he was a good actor, that was for sure. Although, some of this wasn’t acting, I didn’t think. I was sure he really had interrogated many people in his life, so he probably did have a good idea of how far to push someone.
I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or horrified that the guy I was crushing on had likely tortured someone—no, multiple people—in the past.
Esch. It was like Roman could do no wrong in my head—the big one and the little one.
Rome grabbed an extra chair we’d brought in, flipped it backwards, and sat down, keeping hard eye contact with the guy the entire time.
“Do you really want to put that theory to the test? Do you recognize me, Barney?” He smiled again.
“I’m Roman Trevil, a royal guard, personal guard to Royal Oakley Von Stein, and the best friend to the very king himself. ”
The man took Roman in, his eyes flickering over his face. I saw the moment it hit him. His eyes widened in horror as he realized Roman told the truth. He whispered under his breath, “A dragon.”
“Yes.” Roman tilted his head toward me. “And so are they.”
Barney glanced in my direction, and I gave a cheery wave, trying to pull off the same mean-smile thing Roman had going for him, and I let my eyes flash to my dragon’s—vertical slits and glowing green.
I wasn’t sure I pulled off the menacing thing, but I must’ve looked at least a little scary—most of the time, people thought I was innocent from my looks alone—because the guy cringed back away from me.
Yay for me.
Maybe I could practice in front of the mirror later so I could really scare the perp next time.