Chapter Seventeen
I made it through the next three hours on autopilot. Remy’s mouth had thinned at my revelation, but all he said was “We’ll talk about it later.” Then his family swamped us, making concerned noises at how I’d been caught up in that “rogue downburst.”
Being a nurse had taught me how to handle high-stress situations without letting it show, so on the outside, I was a smiling, happy girlfriend who was flattered by their attentiveness.
Inside, I was cracking around the edges.
Angela could tell I was rattled, but after I insisted I was okay, she didn’t push it.
I told her we’d get together for coffee in a few days, which seemed to make her happy.
As the afternoon slid into evening, Angela left. So did some of Remy’s family. Others retired to their rooms in the hotel. I said my goodbyes with a wary look at the ever-darkening sky. Was that a cloud in the distance? Or an approaching dragon?
When the event was finally over, I let Remy lead me back upstairs. All the doorways in the hallway felt like a line of Pandora’s boxes filled with knowledge I wished I didn’t have.
Dragons were real. They also looked like everyone else, so you wouldn’t know it until it was too late. God, how I missed when I thought monsters—including my own—were imaginary!
But this was the world I lived in, so I had to deal with it.
Zenobia’s wings flashed in my mind. They’d looked nearly bloodred due to the color of her aura. How I’d love to let the Beast drain some of the excess violence from her.
Don’t make an enemy of me, girl.
Yeah, we were past that already. Zenobia hadn’t flashed her inner dragon at me because she wanted to be friends. She’d wanted me shocked and scared. While she’d succeeded with the first one, she’d failed at the second, at least after I’d had a little time to get good and mad about what she’d done.
You better hope you never see my inner monster, bitch.
“Here we are.”
Remy’s voice shook me out of my autopilot state. This wasn’t my room. We were in front of his.
“Why are we here?”
Remy said the spell that unlocked his door. It opened into the beautiful but far-less-impressive library, once you’d seen the magical one in his New York hotel.
“Whispers reached one of my family members that you slept in a different room,” he replied as he ushered me inside.
“I dismissed it as you feeling self-conscious about our relationship, but if one person said it to my face, dozens more are saying it behind my back. So, we stay together from now on.”
I walked past the library. There was also a dining room, a wine cellar, another room that looked like an old-timey apothecary, and a kitchen that was bigger than my entire apartment, but not an extra guest room. And Remy’s bedroom only had one bed.
I turned to find Remy behind me. “We’re not sleeping in the same bed.”
A sardonic smile curled his lips. “I might be attracted to you, Raine, but I will be able to control myself.”
“Yeah? Well, I won’t.”
A gleam appeared in his crystalline eyes. Oh, he wished I meant it that way.
“I nearly killed the last person I slept with.”
Remy hadn’t been expecting that, but after a second’s pause, he shrugged. “You won’t be in any danger, so the Beast shouldn’t feel threatened enough to break out.”
“I wasn’t in danger then, either.” Memory sharpened my tone.
“It was a slumber party at my best friend’s house.
Shelly and I fell asleep watching movies.
But I had a nightmare, and woke up to find my claws stabbed into Shelly.
She spent over a month in a coma because of the amount of life force the Beast consumed from her before I stopped it. ”
And no one but me knew what had really happened. The tether marks from the Beast faded almost instantly, so Shelly’s parents thought that she had suffered a sudden, inexplicable stroke. I’d never allowed myself to have a friend since that day.
“There’s a perfectly good couch out there,” I went on, my tone crisp from the guilt that still remained. “I’ll sleep there.”
“The entire point is to have my staff see you in my bed,” Remy countered.
My jaw tightened. “I won’t risk hurting you.”
“I’ll chain you to my bed.”
The mental image of that briefly robbed me of my voice.
Remy gave me one of those cool, appraising looks. “If the Beast’s claws can’t reach me, then it can’t hurt me. If my staff see the restraints, it will only reinforce the illusion that we’re lovers, since I’ve never chained anyone in my bed for anything other than sex play before.”
Ohhh … kayyyy.
“That might not work, either.” I forced the words past my newly tightened throat. “Shortly after nearly killing Shelly, I handcuffed my wrists together and jumped into a lake. Next thing I knew, I was on the shore, uncuffed and naked, with no memory of how I’d gotten there.”
That’s when I knew the Beast wouldn’t let me die. Oh, I’d tried again, of course. Several different ways, but they all ended the same. The Beast saved itself by saving me.
Remy’s stare made it impossible to look away. “The Beast doesn’t like transferring to a new host. The process weakens it. That’s why it protects you so violently. But I promise you won’t feel the slightest bit threatened when I handcuff you.”
Oh, I believed that. I believed the hell out of it. That’s why this was dangerous in an entirely different way.
“How long do we have to do the whole bondage-in-bed thing?” I managed to ask.
Something hooded fell over his eyes, saving me from burning beneath the intensity in his stare.
“It’ll take a week for you to absorb my power.
It’s done in increments so that it doesn’t overwhelm you.
I estimate another week for you to familiarize yourself with your new strength.
By the end of that, you won’t need assistance keeping the Beast at bay, even when you sleep. ”
Two weeks. It sounded like an impossibly short time for me to finally get control over the Beast, but somehow, I believed Remy. When had I started trusting him so much?
When his powers scared you more than the thing inside you, the truth whispered.
“Two weeks, then.”
I sounded calmer than my churning thoughts accounted for.
Two weeks chained beside Remy in bed would be …
well, it wouldn’t be restful, that was for damn sure.
But it should be safe. Remy had managed to prevent the Beast from killing him when it hadn’t been handcuffed, so really, this should be a breeze.
“Do you think Zenobia’s the dragon that tried to kill Brendan?” I asked, changing the subject.
Remy sighed. “No. She quite liked my grandfather. Besides, she’d consider assassin work to be beneath her.”
She hadn’t considered it beneath her to threaten me, but I didn’t point that out. “How many other suspects could there be? Are dragons a … populous species?” Please say no, please say no.…
“Populous enough,” he replied, shattering that hope. “You’ll have the bed to yourself tonight, Raine. Many of my family members are staying here this weekend. I want to have longer discussions with the non-human ones about the attack on my position as Warden.”
I was glad to miss more talk of intrigue, danger, and attempted murder. I could use some quiet time right now.
“I need to get my things from my room first.”
He waved that off. “They’ve already been unpacked here.”
As if to punctuate that, Belle came out from the library. She batted her head against my legs before giving me a light swat as if to say, You’re late, Mom.
I picked her up. “It’s just us girls tonight, Belle. Then we’ll have to share the bed with Remy for a bit.”
Remy’s brows rose in silent challenge.
I gave him a look. “If I can deal with being handcuffed to your bed for two weeks, you can deal with a cat in it.”
His gaze seemed to say, We’ll see.
We would, and my money was on the spoiled cat versus the suave Warden. If the Beast’s actual appearance couldn’t scare Belle, Remy’s disapproval wouldn’t even make a dent.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Remy said. “I won’t return until close to dawn, so no need to wait up.”
I wasn’t going to. In fact, I was already thinking about the large tub I’d glimpsed in Remy’s bathroom. A long soak followed by a quiet evening to myself sounded like just what the doctor ordered. Or, in this case, the nurse.
“Raine, wake up!”
I rolled over and groaned. Was it morning already? It only felt like I’d been asleep for a few hours.
“Raine!”
Wait. That wasn’t Remy’s voice. It was Mandal’s.
I opened my eyes. Mandal was in the bedroom doorway. His normally impeccable salt-and-pepper hair was mussed, and his charcoal-gray suit was ripped, revealing red streaks on it.
I sat bolt upright. That wasn’t ketchup!
“Where’s Remy?” were my first words.
“Busy,” Mandal said shortly. “I’m to bring you to the other tower at once. We’ve been breached here.”
I was already out of bed. I threw on a robe and grabbed Belle, ignoring the hiss she made at being disturbed.
“What do you mean, breached?”
“Ellie’s missing,” Mandal replied.
Which one was Ellie again…?
I made you something. A flower necklace. Wanna see?
I gasped. “The little redheaded girl?”
“Yes.” Mandal took my arm and propelled me out of the bedroom. “Her parents put her to bed at nine. Hallway cameras don’t show anyone leaving or entering their suite, but two hours ago, her mother woke up and Ellie was gone.”
Oh my God.
I grabbed my purse before Mandal could sweep me past it. My cell phone showed a little past two in the morning. How long had Ellie been missing before anyone realized it?
“Doesn’t Remy have magical cameras in this place, too?”
“Yes.” Mandal’s voice was clipped. “None of them recorded anything in or around their hotel room, either.”
Why did that sound familiar?
Remy’s voice suddenly rang in my head. Brendan was lured away from my hotel the night you met. I don’t know by what, and he doesn’t remember. I only know that whatever it was, my cameras couldn’t record it.…