“You ever hear of a phone?” She pointed at her desk where a phone sat. “Be my guest.”
“It has to be delivered in person. There’s someone after me, or I would go myself.”
“You need help?” The makeup didn’t hide her snide expression. “From me? A two-bit downtown stripper?”
Mei’s face heated with embarrassment over the way she had treated Lana before. “I’m sorry.”
The careful organization of Lana’s office told her that Lana was obviously what Darius had called her—a brilliant businesswomen. On her desk sat first-rate computer equipment and security monitors displaying every angle of the club.
Lana followed her gaze. “Darius installed the systems. We traded out favors.”
A week ago, Mei would have been ready to tear out her throat for implying there was something between her and Darius. Now, Mei found she wasn’t angry, just so tired of fighting. She slumped back in the chair.
“I should’ve known better than to judge you by the way you looked when we met,” Mei said. “I really am sorry.”
Lana tilted her head to the side and looked skeptical.
Mei struggled to explain. “Since I’ve come here, people think I’m cold because I keep myself back and don’t trust easily. But it’s because I just need to be safe.” She touched her heart. “Someone hurt me badly, but no one understands this because I don’t tell them. I can’t.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now that you need something, you’re sorry.” Lana drank deeply from her water glass. In her upturned face, Mei could see her real skin on her throat, clear of stage makeup. She had lovely, clear skin.
Was that what everyone saw in her, the painted on facade, never knowing the real Mei? If Li caught her and she disappeared, would Jane miss her? Would Tee, after she had blown up at her? Would Darius forgive her for not telling him about Li? Regret tore at her heart.
She had much to atone for.
Lana took her neatly stacked piles of bills and handed them toward Mei. “That’s five hundred bucks.”
“I don’t need money,” Mei said.
“Sure you do.” Lana moved behind her desk, putting a physical and emotional barrier between them. She pulled out a mirror and removed her cat makeup with an alcohol wipe, making the air smell astringent. Her quick swipes spoke of many removed masks. “I’ll even up with Darius when I see him. Just get out of here.”
“You don’t understand.” Mei stood. “You’re the only person I can come to. They might be waiting for me outside.” Fear spiked through Mei, and she shuddered at the thought of Li and his thugs in the alley.
Lana glanced at her, all her makeup gone except around her eyes, which narrowed on Mei.
“I was forced into a marriage, and I ran away. And now he has found me. He’ll take me back by force, and he’ll try to harm Darius.”
“Good God. You’re a real winner; you know it,” Lana said. “I thought Darius was smarter than to get wrapped up with a train wreck like you.”
“Now who’s judging?”
Lana met her eyes briefly and nodded. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Mei slouched in the chair, feeling run over, devoid of substance. “I was his property. He’ll never let me go. Controlling me gives him a rush. He loves the power.”
“I’ll send one of my bouncers with you, to make sure you get to the Crown Jewel safely.”
“A human?” Mei laughed, and at Lana’s sideways glance, she could tell she didn’t know about the dragons.
Lana waved her arms. “I don’t want to know.”
“I just need a place to hide out until I can let Darius know where to meet me.”
“Sorry, no can do.” Lana pointed at the door. “Take the money and leave before I get aggravated.”
Mei stumbled outside the office door, recrimination circling her mind like so much bad air.
The cigarette smoke from the club goers irritated her nauseous stomach, and she found herself at the back corner of the club near a warm-up studio door. The door opened easily under her fingers. Inside, fluorescent lights shone down on two women warming up their acts.
The mirrored dance studio was typical of most ballet studios, with a plié bar across a mirrored wall and scarred maplewood floors. High windows and spotlights illuminated the rectangular room. It was bright and utilitarian compared to the dark of the club.
Several sets of dance poles were here as well, but unlike the ones in the front, these were stainless steel, marked and scratched, and obviously used for practice rather than show.
“Are you lost?” the one in a bondage outfit asked her.
“No.” Mei knew what she needed to do. It would mean risking capture by Li but she had to get to Darius. Even if she only got to see him one last time. She had to tell him the whole truth. She’d loved him from the first day and had been terrified by the feelings and the uncontrolled trajectory it placed her on. She had fought against it. Been awful, nasty, and rude at times, not just to him but to everyone, because she was always scared.
She had been scared of this moment, and now that it was here, she saw that her careful remove had been for nothing. She should have been braver, embraced those who wanted to love her when she had the chance.
“I think I’ve just been found.”
Chapter Nineteen
Darius landed on the floating dock under the cover of the early evening sky. He smelled the lingering scent of Mei, only to find her crushed bag of pearls.
His heart constricted with a terror unlike any he had ever known. No way would she allow her jewels to be destroyed unless the water dragons already had her.
He scanned the dark surface of the lake. Surely, she was still down there, where she knew the terrain and had the advantage. His dragon wavered between wanting to dive in after his mate and primal fear of the water. He jumped off the dock and landed hard, repeating the upward jerking motion several times in agitated indecision.
Peace. Darius took control of his beast, needing more than ever to think rationally. He opened his senses, searching for Mei above the water, but felt nothing.
Mei! He called to her with mind speak, but there was no answer. It was as if his voice drifted into the ether, endlessly floating toward the stars.
He peered into the lake water, calculating the odds that someone held her under there. He could swim well in his human form, but no way could he reach the depth he suspected water dragons could.
His dragon had a better chance.
He dipped his nose into the water and drank, tasting the elemental quality so close to ice, yet so different. His dragon shook with worry and the frustration of doing nothing. His quivering muscles rocked the dock landing and splashed water at the edges. He imagined Mei, held under by vicious water dragons, drowning her.
They’d only have to wait until her air ran out.
He shot a tunnel of ice into the water and dove. Slipping downward, he encased his dragon completely in an ice tube. He knew the conduit would melt behind him, and the oxygen levels sinking with him would diminish.
He didn’t have much time.
He burrowed farther, watching the blue of the lake give way to dark depths he couldn’t see through. It was like being in the blackest cave with no light. This would never work, his human mind insisted. What would he do if he found her?
He couldn’t leave the protection of the tube.
He slammed into the lakebed with no warning. The shield broke around him, and the crushing pressure of water beat down on him, pinning him in the dirt. Cold seeped under his scales, saturating him, and holding him down like an anchor.
Memories of his young life flashed bright in the darkness before his eyes. His happy years with his parents, the fledgling years as he learned to control his newly manifested dragon, the years of learning and exploring before he met Mei. His mind conjured an image of her resolute face as he’d seen her last, entering the casino with him, ready to stand with him and fight.
All of it had all led him to this moment. Pinned to the
bottom of the lake, the weight of 300,000 gallons of water crushing him.
Mei. He sent her name through the water, hoping she would hear it and know that he thought of her in his last minutes.
Mei.
The blackness covered him, and the small traces of air in his lungs left his mouth in tiny bubbles. He was dying. His human mind urged action, but what? The pressure on his chest was excruciating. He wanted to suck in a breath, even knowing the act would finish him.
Now is when it matters. His mantra hit him hard.
Fight. Mei is somewhere needing you.
Fight. His human mind urged the dying beast. Now is when it matters!
Darius’s dragon shot ice around him, surrounding him with a buffer from the weight of the water, but he had no way to push upward. Slowly, the cage he had made rose from the floor of the lake, floating upward, but the progression was slow—too slow to save him.
He thrust a frozen trail behind him from his wings and moved faster toward the surface. His lungs screamed in pain. His head ached with the pressure. His mouth sealed shut in his determination to survive.
Determined not to take the killing breath. No matter that every cell cried out for it.
He shot ice again and again, forcing the action through excruciating agony.
Finally, his bubble of ice broke the surface, and he shattered out of the shell, pulling painful breaths into his lungs. Pain racked his body, and he felt himself sinking back into the abyss again.
Now is when it matters.
He fought out of the water and flew into the air, collapsing on the dock in a sodden heap. His dragon had used every bit of force that his waning bones and muscles had, and now they no longer responded when he tried to move them.
The evening stars twinkled obliviously overhead, as if he hadn’t just tried and failed to save his mate. Sorrow filled his heart and mind. Was Mei already dead? Was that why he couldn’t find her above or below? Loss weighted him to the dock, every bit as heavy as the weight of the lake.
Except this loss he would never escape.
Mei had told him that he didn’t even like her, and he hadn’t bothered to correct her. She had been wrong. He thought he understood now what she had survived to get to him. He liked her with all her prickly, opinionated-ness.
He liked her. He liked her, and he loved her.
He should have told her. He should have insisted she hear him and kept telling her until she believed him. Now the water dragons had her, or she was dead. Either way, she was lost to him.
The dock shook with the force of a direct hit, and Darius rolled to his side with the movement, but couldn’t come to his feet.
Hello, ice dragon. The sneering voice hit his aching brain. I see the water was unkind to you.
His dragon snarled, but he couldn’t lift his head from the dock. Four massive water dragons surrounded him. They were different in appearance from Mei. Even in the twilight, he could see that they were darkly scaled in shades of blue and gray.
I will kill you! he said.
I doubt it, the leader said. I’ve never seen an ice dragon attempt the water. Very brave, but a wasted effort. She’s not down there.
Where is she?
The leader reared on his hind legs and thrashed his wings. If you’re referring to the woman you call Mei Chen, you have no right to her. She was pledged to me at birth, married to me in a formal dragon ceremony, and mated to me for over ten years. Before she abandoned me and took up with you. Committing the high crime of adultery.
Confusion beat at Darius. Mei had his mated mark. It had appeared only after they had been together in Paris, and she had borne no other dragon’s mark before that.
He pushed himself to his knees, shaking with the effort. Who are you?
Li Xing, commander of the water dragons, but you might know me as Bo Quan.
Whoever you are, Mei isn’t your true mate, Darius said.
It doesn’t matter. She’s mine, Li said. The law of the dragons orders death for infidelity. When I find her, she’ll die for lying with you, and you’ll die, too.
The water dragons didn’t have Mei yet. The knowledge hit him like an invigorating beam of light. There was hope yet.
Seize him.
The other water dragons lifted from the ground and grabbed him by the wings, and he let them. He was exhausted still, and it gave him time to think, to rejuvenate, to plan.
Above the clouds, his scales dried, the water from the lake evaporating in the dry air before they were halfway back to town. His captors labored to hold him aloft. He gauged their progress as half of a fledgling effort, and four times as sloppy.
The casino’s perimeter scouts picked them up as they approached the Crown Jewel.
Sir, his guard spoke to him, what should I do?
Tell the King that a visiting envoy brings a prisoner to him and seeks his assistance finding a traitor, Li said.
His scout hovered in the air, waiting for Darius to okay the message.
Inform Leo as well, Darius added, knowing Leo would be aware of the threat they posed. Do it.
The scout flew ahead just as twenty ice and fire dragons surrounded them. The water dragons labored on, Li preening ahead of them, not helping with the burden of Darius’s weight.
One hundred yards from the casino, the noise of the gala reached to the clouds, happy and festive, the music of the Viennese waltz with all its regal precision floating in the wind.
The music ended abruptly on a discordant note.
Darius imagined Alec being told the news of their arrival. He could almost see the fury on his face at being surprised. He didn’t know how Alec would react, or what Leo would do, given his anger at Mei’s treatment of Tee. Dragons, he now knew from firsthand experience, were not rational when it came to their mates.
How could Mei have withheld her union with Li from him? The pain of her betrayal beat at him worse than the pain of the fight, worse than his worry of the outcome of this meeting.
How?
How could she have lied to him?
Again.
Maybe he was the only one fighting for a good outcome here. There was no way he could have anticipated all this without knowing about Mei’s past. He had told her that; she knew that. And he’d believed she was finally being truthful with him.
Maybe she was as treacherous as her people.
Pain gripped his heart, and he forced himself away from thoughts of Mei and to the present situation.
He would deal with Mei later.
Now, he had a very angry King to appease. As it was, he was being flown in like a flopping fish to face Alec, from whom he’d withheld information. So much for manipulating a good outcome.
Alec respected strength. He should break away, land for himself.
But then, he would lose his advantage.
On the roof of the Crown Jewel, Darius saw the dragons attending the gala in their human forms on the open terrace. Alec stood in the middle of a grassy rectangle, surrounded by his lieutenants and Leo.
Darius looked hard at Leo, but couldn’t tell anything from his rigid posture.
The four water dragons landed and shifted into their human forms. They were breathing heavily, but they presented a polished air to the king, all four in tuxedos.
Darius shifted himself. He stood tall between the water dragons, waiting to see what their play was. Alec met his eyes, but all Darius could do was nod, knowing their mind speak conversation would be overheard.
Alec stepped forward until only twenty feet separated them. His lieutenants fell in line behind him. Fire flashed in his eyes, and he threw a line of flame at the grass, which flared in a straight line separating him from Darius and his captors. The water dragons jumped in alarm.
Li held his ground and doused the flame with water from his own hand.
Each leader stood silently, assessing the other for the space of a few breaths.
“You’ve interrupted the gala,” Alec said, tight fury in his voice. “You’ve
broken protocol, and you appear to hold one of my trusted lieutenants against his will.”
“They’re after Mei.” Darius threw a sharp jabbing elbow at the dragon that still restrained him. The man fell to the roof, and he walked unencumbered toward Alec.
“This man commits a crime punishable by death according to the Book of Dragons,” Li said. “I bring him to you as a peace offering. I would give him to you for punishment for the return of my mate.”
Alec narrowed his eyes. “Your mate?”
“The women you call Mei Chen was wedded to me ten years ago. She’s a water dragon, and she does not belong here with you.”
A shocked rumble moved over the crowd, and Darius could almost hear the individual voices, murmuring that they had known all along that she was different. Sneaky. Treacherous as a water dragon.
“It saddens me, but Mei abandoned our bond, and has been hiding in your sanctuary.” Li put his hand over his heart as if the information pained him greatly.
The voices in the crowd rose higher. The dragons weren’t taking this information of betrayal well. They would want blood to restore the equilibrium. His and Mei’s.
“It is our wish to rejoin the kingdom,” Li continued. “We wish to live in peace with our dragon cousins.”
“Bullshit!” Darius yelled. “It’s all just a trick.”
“This goodwill gesture is a necessary step to begin the relationship anew,” Li said as if Darius hadn’t interrupted him. “We wish to know that our future interactions will be based on mutual trust.”
“What exactly are you asking?” Alec sounded interested, and Darius’s hope of a positive outcome sank.
“The death of this wrongdoer.” Li pointed at him. “And the rightful return of my mate.”
“No,” Darius yelled. “He means to kill Mei. He kept her prisoner for years. She had no choice but to flee him. She isn’t his true mate. You know this. I am!”
“Silence,” Alec ordered, giving him a quelling look before turning back to Li. “And for this righting of wrongs, the water dragons wish to petition for union in the kingdom.”
“Yes.”
“The reputation of the water dragons of old seems justified based on your actions tonight. You’re aware, of course, that your dragon cousins do not wish to have you in the kingdom.”
Dragon Her Back Page 13
