by Riley Storm
“That’s great,” he told the woman, beaming at her. “I’m so glad to hear it. We definitely need more people here.”
“We?” she asked, sounding confused, leaning to the side to stare past him at Matthew.
“Yes, we. Me and my brothers I mean,” he said, sticking out a hand. “I’m Jax Drakon, it’s a pleasure to meet you Miss…” He trailed off, hoping that she would take the hint and introduce herself in return.
“Mingott.” She took his hand, shook it once perfunctorily, and then dropped it.
It took Jax a second to come to terms with the abrupt change in her demeanor. What was going on here? She’d gone from strong-willed gaze to terrified retreat, to…blossoming anger?
It made no sense. They didn’t know one another, so why should she hate him? Most people would be excited to meet one of the Drakon brothers. He should know, he’d been dealing with it ever since setting up shop at the Outreach Center while he worked on the quest his brothers wanted him to achieve. It had only been two weeks, and in that time, he’d dealt with more fawning admirers than he cared to admit.
Some were generally ecstatic and grateful for what he and his brothers were doing with the Outreach Center. Jax felt somewhat awkward taking any credit, because he’d had literally nothing to do with the idea, design or implementation of it, but it made the people of Plymouth Falls happy, and that did matter to him, so he accepted it stoically all while reminding himself constantly that he wasn’t worthy of it.
Just like I’m not worthy of the faith others have given me, their unwavering belief that I will be able to pull this alliance of Houses off. They don’t understand just how hard this is going to be…
“Well, Miss Mingott, she of no first name,” he joked. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Mr. Drakon.”
“Please, call me Jax,” he said, trying to get her to relax. The green eyes had gone flat behind the glasses.
She hates me. But why?
“I really should be going,” the alluring, yet standoffish woman said politely. “I…I don’t think this is the place for me.”
Jax scratched at his goatee. “And why is that? You only just got here, did you not?”
The smile he received in return could have frozen his ice dragon brother’s heart. “Sometimes you just know,” she said coolly. “Thank you, and have a good day.”
She turned on a heel and was gone. This time, Jax let her go. Whatever her issue was, she didn’t seem to want to talk to him anymore.
Unfortunately, all that did was intrigue him further. Who was she, and why did she harbor such a grudge against him? Jax had barely finished his training, and he was positive he’d never run into her before. He would remember such a beauty. Even now, her face was printed upon his brain. He’d never forget it.
But how was he going to find her to know more?
“Excuse me, sir?”
He turned to see Matthew holding a piece of paper.
“Yes, what is it?” he asked, unhappy about the intrusion into his thoughts.
“She left this, sir. If you want to take a look at it.”
Jax was at the desk in an instant, snatching the piece of paper away. He read it over and grinned.
“Thank you, Matthew. Thank you very much. I’ll handle this one,” he said, looking over the resume.
Now I know how to contact you, Miss Mingott.
Or should I call you Sarah?
Chapter 5
“I still can’t believe they didn’t hire you right then and there.”
“Grandma,” she moaned. “I told you, that’s not how things work. He was probably just an administrative assistant. They don’t do the hiring. It was already weird enough that they took your resume in person. Who does that these days?”
“Well, I like it,” Grandma Mingott said as she bustled about in the kitchen, making lunch for the two of them.
Sarah had long since learned not to offer help. One area she sadly had not gotten any of her grandmother’s skills, was the kitchen. Sarah could burn water if left unattended, and both she and G-Nance had long ago realized it was for the best if she remained out of the way.
“Of course you do, Grandma,” she teased. “It means you don’t have to use the computer.”
Her grandmother was a wonderful woman, and still smart, but using a computer was just too much for her.
“Don’t give me any of that sass!”
Sarah grinned, welcoming the deflection from the topic about her job. Or lack thereof. A day later and it still stung the way she’d basically run away. Then she’d gotten rude with one of the Drakons himself! Her attitude had most certainly killed any chance she had of getting a job there.
She’d not had the heart to tell her grandmother this of course, and so she’d left out all the fine details about her experience at the Outreach Center. It was better that way.
Abruptly, there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” she said with a frown, wondering who it could be. They didn’t get many visitors, and Plymouth Falls wasn’t overly hospitable to the travelling salesman either. As a community, they deplored such interruptions and worked hard against it.
She pulled back the wooden door and just stared. A familiar set of copper-brown eyes stared back at her, and just below them rested an easy smile.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” she said, managing at the last second to keep her voice somewhat thawed, and not as icy cold as it wanted to be. “Actually, better question. Why are you here?”
Jax started to reply, but she shook her head. “No, I take that back. Even better question, and one you had better have a good answer for. How are you here? How do you know where I live?”
Answering wordlessly, Jax held up one hand. Gripped in his fingers was her resume.
“I’d like to hire you.”
Sarah rubbed at her face, not entirely believing what she was seeing, or hearing. “Let me get this straight. You took my resume. Then you used the information on it to come to my house. All to tell me you wanted to hire me.”
Jax shrugged as if that answered all her questions and concerns.
“I’m sure there’s something illegal in that,” she said. “But all the same, no thank you.”
“Do you not need a job then?” he asked, expression slipping slightly as confusion entered his face.
“Yes, she does!” Grandma Mingott’s answer came from the kitchen.
Sarah buried her face in one hand as she heard the telltale shuffling of feet that meant her grandmother was coming to the door. This wasn’t happening. It simply wasn’t happening.
“Please just go,” she said softly, hoping to be rid of him before—
“Oh my, isn’t he a tall one,” G-Nance said, bustling up right next to her. “And handsome too. Such nice features, and muscles too. You want to hire my granddaughter, you said?”
Blushing furiously—partially because she couldn’t refute her grandmother’s comments about Jax’s attractiveness, which Sarah was very well aware of—she closed her eyes and introduced the pair of them.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Mingott,” Jax said, bending low, taking her grandmother’s hand in his and kissing the back of it. “I can see where Sarah gets her looks.
“Flatterer,” Grandma Mingott giggled. “But you can call me G-Nance. All of Sarah’s other friends do.”
“G-Nance,” Jax said, rolling the label around. “If you insist.”
“I do. Now, what’s this about hiring my granddaughter? Is that why you’re here?”
Jax nodded, while Sarah suffered helplessly, suddenly invisible between the two of them.
“Well then, come in, will you? I can make another sandwich, we were just about to have some lunch. It’s really no trouble, I promise. No big deal at all. I can whip one up in a hurry while you two talk business. Or shop. Or whatever term you use now. Come on in!” she backed away, tugging at Sarah to make room for him.
“Alas, as wonderful as that sounds,” Jax said. “I must decline your generous offer.”
Relief flooded Sarah’s system.
“Are you sure?” Grandma Mingott sounded truly disappointed.
“I’m afraid I am. I have another engagement that I must attend shortly. This was on my way there, and I didn’t want to wait any longer, so I had to stop by. Couldn’t risk someone else hiring Sarah before I did, you understand.”
Sarah nearly died at the way her grandmother beamed at Jax.
“Oh of course. My Sarah, anyone would be better off if they hired her. She’s something special.”
Jax’s odd copper-lined eyes turned toward her. “She certainly is that, isn’t she?” he agreed softly.
“So, when does she start?”
“Grandma!” Sarah protested, feeling like a spectator while the two of them talked about her as if she wasn’t present for the conversation.
“I’d like for you to come by the office tomorrow morning if you can,” Jax said, looking mostly at Sarah as he talked, though he occasionally flicked his eyes back to her grandmother. “We can get started then, right away.”
“She’ll be there!”
Sarah’s jaw fell open. What? She had no intention of accepting his job offer! Not from Jax Drakon. Why would one of the Drakon brothers himself come to find her and offer her a job? There were no issues with that, not at all!
“I’m glad to hear it,” Jax said, taking her grandmother’s hand again and kissing it. “Truly, it was a wonderful pleasure meeting you, G-Nance. Hopefully, we’ll speak again soon.”
“You just take good care of my daughter, and I’ll bring you some baked goodies.”
Jax laughed, an easy, rolling sound like that of incoming thunder. “I can do that, Miss Mingott. I can most certainly do that.”
Then he turned to go, pausing only to catch her eyes one last time. “Eight-thirty,” he said quietly. Then he was gone.
“I hate you,” Sarah said emotionlessly to his back, closing the door and retreating to the TV room where she flopped into a chair, feeling helpless. “That wasn’t very nice of you.”
“He is quite handsome. You didn’t mention that to me.”
Grandma Mingott was many things, observant being chief among them. Sarah knew her grandmother had picked up on the fact that something was being left out about her story of applying for the job, and now some of it was coming to light.
Including the fact that she thought Jax was devastatingly hot and hated how he made her body feel when he was around. It simply wasn’t fair that all he had to do was direct those wonderfully mysterious eyes at her and she started to heat up from the inside. It wasn’t like she had that sort of effect on him after all.
“Grandmother, that’s Jax. Jax Drakon.”
“Drakon you say? Like the ones who built the Outreach Center?” G-Nance came back into the room with a plate in each hand, a loaded sandwich on each. “Here. Eat. You need to keep your energy up now you’re a working girl again.”
“Grandma, I can’t work for him. How could you even think such a thing?”
“The man came all the way to the house to offer you a job. You don’t turn such offers down, sweetheart. You know as well as I do that we’re almost out of money. I can’t afford this place on what little money I get a month from the government. I’ll have to sell and move in with my brother, and you’ll have to go back to the city if that happens.”
Sarah looked away. “How is this any different than that?” she asked. “He’s rich, powerful, used to getting his way. He’s everything I want nothing to do with, grandmother.”
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. This is one of the Drakon brothers. One of the founders of Plymouth Falls. It’s not the same.”
“How can you be so sure, Grandma? How can you know, that it won’t be different than last time?”
For once, her grandmother didn’t have a response.
Chapter 6
Jax made two wrong turns on his way out of town, evidence of just how distracted his mind was after the visit to Sarah’s house.
Her grandmother’s house to be accurate, if the décor and furnishings are any indicator.
Getting the intriguing woman off his mind was proving to be nigh impossible. She detested him, yet he could feel a connection between them as well. He needed to know more about her, to talk to her more, and that was why he’d offered her the job.
Now it’s time to get your head in the game. There are bigger things at stake today. Much bigger.
Making his way out into the countryside, he glanced frequently in his rear-view mirror, checking to see if he was being tailed. The dragons had kept their operations outside of Drakon Keep to strictly daylight hours. It had proven tough over the winter, but they had managed.
Only one chance encounter with the vampires had happened during that time, neither side having been prepared. A quartet of young vampires had stumbled across the paths of Aaric and Victor while they were at an abandoned farmhouse outside of town. Two of the vampires had been killed before the sides had split apart, the vampires retreating back to the south of town, where they were building their enclave.
Jax still couldn’t believe what he’d been told. Vampires having returned was one thing. He’d always thought it a little suspicious that his shifter ancestors had claimed to have found all of them. Returning was one thing but coming back as an entirely new bastardized shifter species was something else entirely.
Not to mention their desire to rule over the other shifter species as lords. Jax could have handled a war to extinction. He was over three centuries old. He’d spent most of that fighting the mages. He was used to living under the threat of death if he was caught unprepared.
But this…this was unfathomable, and he had never been so angry as to learn that the vampires wanted to make him and his kind their slaves. Dragons! They wanted to make dragons their lackeys. Anger raged inside of him, and the asphalt under his car cracked and heaved slightly as the earth responded to his anger, simmering with him.
Forcing himself to breathe, Jax took several slow breaths, trying to inject calm into himself with every inhale and let the anger release with each exhale. There was no point in letting himself get worked up over it. It was what it was, and he couldn’t change the vampires’ desires.
But he was damn well going to stand up to them and fight for the freedom of him, his kind, and their mates and children. Not to mention all the innocent humans who had already been ensnared by the vampires, turned to Thralls by the demonic mind control powers of the wretched creatures.
Jax seethed silently as he made his way along the winding road to the north-east of town. The High Houses of Draconis, Ursa and Canis occupied the West, North and East compass points respectively around the town of Plymouth Falls. However, to the northeast, where he was headed, lay the grounds of House Raptere, one of the two minor shifter Houses, and Jax’s first stop on his quest to bring all the shifters together.
He pulled up outside of a metal gate and parked his car. The shifters inside would have been aware of his approach. He’d spied at least one large eagle soaring high above, and knew several more would have been posted along the route, warning anyone of approaching visitors.
I just hope they understand I come in peace.
Raptere were the only other shifters that could take flight. They had a great many forms they could take, from the mighty gryphon standing nearly half the size of a dragon to a hawk barely larger than those found in nature.
They were also extremely envious of House Draconis and those within. Jax figured if he could bring them on board first, it would show the other Houses things were serious, and they needed to put aside their differences if they were to achieve the goal of killing the vampires for good this time.
“I come in peace,” he called, his voice like a clarion call as it echoed out over the grounds of House Raptere.
The lands and the building he knew that lay beyond the treeline were much more modest than
any of those belonging to the High Houses, but that was only to be expected. Raptere was the smallest of all the Houses, its numbers at perhaps two or three hundred worldwide. They simply did not need the space, nor had they accumulated the wealth and power that a house such as Ursa, Draconis, or even Canis, had.
“You are not welcome here, Drakon,” came the acidic reply from beyond the gate, though no shifter revealed themselves. “Turn around, and go back to whatever cave you emerged from. Count your gold some more.”
“How quaint of you,” he said dryly. “I did not come here to pick a fight. I came here to warn you, all of you, of a dire threat.” He paused. “And to ask for your help to combat it.”
It irked him to no end to admit his kind needed help. Just using the word humbled Jax, made him feel inferior. Dragons were not supposed to need help. The others were supposed to come to them for help! Everything was backward. But he couldn’t deny what his dragon brothers had said about the vampires, and this new breed that could shift.
He shivered at the picture of the child-vampire. A creature of immeasurable power, centuries-old, yet taking on the guise of a child barely eleven years of age. It was a cruel trick, especially to the dragons, who so valued offspring. Jax did not look forward to having to kill that creature, even if he knew it must be done.
It is evil. The child that once existed has been destroyed, corrupted by eight hundred years of power imbued into the tiny frame. I must remember that.
“Help?”
He heard a shuffle, and then the speaker appeared. The man was tall, slim of frame yet Jax did not write him off. Though he was slender, as most of Raptere were, his muscles were well defined. He would be wise to be wary of the other shifters’ wiry strength, not to mention speed. Raptere were the fastest of any House.
Long golden hair flowed down the man’s back, unrestrained by any device. A prominent nose and sky-blue eyes gave him an old-world noble feeling. Jax kept his face neutral, but he was aware of to whom he talked.
