Chapter Seven
Rip
My wanderings brought me back to where it had all started. The balcony alcove outside Laurie’s room. I stared through the doors, but nobody was inside, even though the lights were on.
I sank onto a chair, ignoring the biting chill of the wind. I wasn’t dressed for the colder weather, given the relatively balmy climate that was my home, but only extremes really bothered me. The chill was little more than a footnote.
What was really troubling me was the fact that I couldn’t return to that warmer weather.
Not without ease, at least. I circled the balcony, looking everywhere to see just how and why I had been deposited there of all places.
There had to be a reason, or maybe even a way to trigger the Watching Mirror and send me home.
I was out of my element, and I wanted to approach the situation properly. Formally. Besides, Laurie already had a fiancé, a man to whom she was betrothed. I’d seen the ring on her finger before she’d mentioned it. I knew what it signified to a human woman.
“Come on,” I growled to the empty air. “Bring me back. There’s nothing more I can do here. Wherever here is.”
Movement from the corner of my eye drew my attention back to the room.
Sitting where I was, in the corner of the little alcove, I was mostly out of sight to anyone inside unless I moved or stood up.
Doing neither, I watched as the person, a man, came into the room and started looking through it, peering into adjoining rooms.
If I listened, I could hear him calling for Laurie repeatedly. That was odd. Where would she have gone, and why was he searching so intently for her?
I only stiffened when he made his way for the French doors. Shit. I would get made. Thinking swiftly, I slid down to my knees, pretending to be fiddling with things under the chair as one of the doors opened.
“Laurie?” the man called, dragging out her name as he noticed me. “Hey, you.”
I stifled a thunderous growl at the arrogant manner in which he addressed me.
I might just be an employee of the house in his eyes, but that didn’t give him the right to treat me or anyone like they were lesser.
After all, the house staff did all the jobs he was too lazy or useless to do himself.
If they all left, he would suffer, not them.
But people like that rarely understood they weren’t actually superior.
“Yes?” I asked, not turning around, knowing that would anger one like him.
“I’m looking for Laurie. Have you seen her?”
I clenched my jaw, then let it relax as I counted to ten. “She’s not under here.”
The door opened fully as he came out onto the balcony to stand beside me. “Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of shit answer is that?”
“The kind you deserve,” I muttered back, still bent halfway under the chair, fiddling with things that didn’t really exist.
That was the man she wanted to marry? I hadn’t talked to Laurie for long, but I knew my mate was not like that. She’d thought I was the help, too, and her first instinct was to introduce herself and learn my name. The two of them couldn’t be more different.
“Excuse me?” the fiancé snapped hotly, kicking the chair. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Talking back to me like that. Do you know who I am?”
I sighed and slowly withdrew myself from under the chair. Then, still kneeling, I cranked my head up until I could look him in the eyes. “You’re the person blocking my light. Could you please move?”
“Get the fuck out of here,” he spat. “I don’t want you spying on my fiancée and me. This is her house. You should watch your tongue if you want to keep your job.”
I laughed in his face, which he didn’t take so well. “That’s it. You’re fired. Get the fuck out of here. Now.”
“You know,” I mused, flexing my leg muscles and slowly standing up.
“This isn’t your house. Nor is it your fiancée’s house.
It’s her father’s house, and he’s the one who makes the calls on who does or does not work here.
So I would watch your attitude, you over-bloated, arrogant, inferior piece of shit. Before you piss off the wrong person.”
By that point, I’d risen to my full height.
My shirt was practically ripping as my arms filled with blood.
I was eager for a fight. I wanted him to take a swing, so I could put him in his place and teach him some manners.
Laurie’s fiancé or not, he was in desperate need of an attitude check, and I was just the type to give it to him.
My only rule was that he had to swing first. Given that I knew how badly I outclassed him, and he had no idea, I didn’t want to take advantage of him.
Well, not too much advantage. A little is fine.
“Try it,” the fiancé snarled. “Touch me, and you’re gone. I’ll have you up on charges so fast it’ll make your head spin, or my name isn’t Eric Wrexton II.”
I snickered.
He feinted toward me, intending to make me flinch. I didn’t move other than to slowly lean forward.
When none of his usual bullying tactics worked, he got fed up. Or fearful, though I doubted I would ever get him to admit that. Bullies never did. If they admitted defeat, nobody would ever fear them again.
“Watch yourself,” he growled, poking me in the chest with a finger.
I growled back. Not a human growl. A dragon one that made the very air vibrate. At the same time, I lunged at him.
He stepped back, looking at me wide-eyed.
“Can I go back to work now?” I asked in a bored tone.
“Better do a good job fixing the chair,” he said, trying to recover some of his arrogance. “If you don’t, I’ll make sure Winston fires your ass.”
I just rolled my eyes and bent down. In my head, I grabbed the heavy patio chair and slammed it down over his head. Or … a better idea came to me as I reached out to the water in his body. It would be so easy. The human body was mostly water. One violent tug and I could rip it all out.
Easy. Down.
I fought the violent, darker traits back, but it wasn’t easy.
I’d fought as a youngster in the depths of the Sea of Oblivion, just like every other sea dragon.
I had seen and done things there that no person should have to handle.
It had destroyed me like it did all of my clan who fought.
None of us were ever quite right again. Too quick to violence, to that feral anger.
Which was why we layered a veneer of diplomacy over it the older we got. As if we could pretend we weren’t the brutal killers that the dragon realm needed us to be.
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving me on the balcony. Alone. Again.
I really need to stop ending up here.
It was time I came up with a plan to get home. Or at least, on my way home. No more dawdling.
“Great plan,” I said to nobody. “But how the hell are you gonna do it?”