Chained: Reckless Desires (Dragon's Heart Book 1)
Page 11
“I think that would be up to each of the employees to decide on their own,” Dorian said.
“This point may not be negotiable,” Heath said with a sour frown.
Dorian gritted his teeth and said nothing. There were no other buyers, Bella knew. At least none on the horizon. If Heath didn’t buy the estate in one massive deal, then it would need to be split and parceled out, with the fees associated with selling the bits of lands and furniture and art and coins eating up much of the profit. He either sold to Heath and came out of the deal, maybe, with some money left over, or he dismantled his family’s legacy piece by piece and likely still failed to satisfy the debts.
That is, if the curse didn’t kill him first.
But Bella couldn’t work for Heath. That’d be impossible. She hadn’t told Dorian about what had happened. He’d asked once when they were alone together , but she’d evaded, afraid that the stress would make him flip out. Now she wished she’d told him.
“Let’s go back to the office,” Heath suggested. “We can see about amending the contract right now.”
They all walked back to the house. Bella spared one last glance for her father, who was looking at her now. His face was lined and deeply sad. He gave her a little wave and she waved back, which was the most they’d communicated in ages.
Dorian gestured and explained parts of the estate as they approached the main doors. Heath was fascinated by the massive dragon statue overhanging the front steps. “What do you call this? I’ve never seen its like.”
“I call it Father, mostly,” Dorian said.
“Father?” Heath didn’t understand.
Dorian stared at Bella, his eyes heavy with meaning. “This statue is his spitting image.”
Heath laughed. “When I buy this place, I’ll replace it with a statue of my dad.” He gestured expansively. “Just imagine it, a giant horse’s ass made of Italian marble greeting everyone who enters.”
“What are your plans for the estate?” Bella asked as they took the stairs.
“Corporate headquarters, I’m thinking. It’s sure big enough.” Heath pushed open the blackened doors as if he already owned the place. “I figure I can squeeze in two or three hundred employees here. We’ll develop the land farther down and put in some high-density housing, maybe with a view of the sea? The peons like that shit. We’ll build a gym and a movie theater and a laundry. We’ll sink a power plant in to take care of it all, maybe on the other side of the mountain from here,” Heath winked. “We’ll pave a road to the highway and have our own private off ramp. Our own city. That’s how they used to do it, y’know. The company owned the houses, the stores, and the workers. One big cozy family.”
The thought of Heath and his minions ripping the mountain apart and building some corrupt company town made Bella feel ill. Dorian, too, didn’t look good. He was flexing his hands rapidly and taking deep breaths. Did he have a choice? Was he condemned to sign it all over to Heath?
“I’d like Miss Hart here to stay on, I should say. I think her assets would make the transition much more enjoyable,” Heath said with a wink, nudging Dorian in the ribs with an elbow.
Bella felt a fury in her blood. But she tamped it down. No matter what the contract said, he couldn’t make her stay. What would he do? Sue her for all of the money she didn’t have?
“Ladies first,” Heath said, gesturing up the stairs.
Bella steeled herself and walked up the stairs. She could feel Heath’s eyes on her ass as she walked. Why had she chosen such a tight dress? Why weren’t women allowed to wear suits made of sharpened quills to keep men at bay?
“Are you hitting that?” Heath whispered to Dorian just loud enough so that Bella could overhear. Her ears burned with shame. “You must be dipping your wick in there. I can see how she looks at you. But you won’t mind if I get some, too? There’s something about sloppy seconds.”
Dorian said nothing, but Bella could sense the shift in the air and a smell like spices burning. They entered the office and Dorian remained calm, but Heath couldn’t stop talking. He’d worked himself up into a state of excitement.
“Though I’ve always thought that men should be honest with each other. So I have to say, you’re the one having my sloppy seconds,” Heath leered at Bella, enjoying the way the lie made her squirm. “We worked together, intimately, at Black, Cross and Landon. A girl like that, she isn’t the type to marry, you know? With a thick booty like that she’s good for only one thing.”
“Be quiet, you vile man,” Dorian said. His voice was deep and rough and unlike anything Bella had heard before. His voice resonated in her bones and made the chandelier shake. He was turned away from them both, examining the selling papers on the desk.
Heath laughed a caustic laugh. “You old money people kill me. You’re always so proper about everything, acting like you’re better than the rest of us just because you got a head start two hundred years ago, when we both know you do exactly the same fucked up shit as I do, you just whine about it afterwards.”
“You should leave now,” Dorian said. His voice was even deeper now and icy calm. It made Bella’s eyes ache when he spoke. And he seemed to be getting larger.
“I know all about your daddy, boy. I looked him up. I talked to people. There are people around here with long memories that know all about your daddy. He liked to beat on women, didn’t he? Did he beat on you? Is that why you’re such a pussy?” Heath was livid now, his face purple with rage.
Bella knew she should stop them, should intervene, but she didn’t know how to. Heath had no respect for her and any comment she made would only piss him off more, and Dorian was too far gone. The beast that she called Valdemar, his father’s son, was present now. Only instead of ranting and raving it was behaving oddly, staying still and calm, even as the temperature in the room crept upwards.
“I’ll tell you this, once you sign over the estate, as a sign of respect to your father who put all of this together, I’ll beat on her real good.” Heath sneered as he spoke. He was enjoying letting his mask fall away, believing that nothing and no one could touch him. He knew Dorian had no other buyers and the billionaire couldn’t resist rubbing his nose in it. They said he once shot a Senator’s ear off during a hunting trip, and the man apologized to Heath for being in the way of his shot.
“You won’t lay a finger on her. Ever,” Valdemar said. His suit jacket split at the seams. His breathing was fast and hot.
“Oh yeah?” Heath said, just as he lashed out and slapped Bella across the face. It wasn’t a hard blow, but it was shocking. She’d never been hit before, at least not since a girl fight in seventh grade.
Valdemar spun and leapt at Heath. He was transformed. His skin had taken on a scaled look with patterns of red and gold shining on his face. His eyes were no longer black, but instead raged with flames. He was taller—a foot taller—and horns erupted from his forehead like two curved knives. His left hand had become clawed and wings of shadow and smoke erupted from his back. Fanged teeth like a tyrannosaur filled his mouth.
Only his right hand, where the chain was, was untouched by the transformation.
All of the rage she’d witnessed, the tantrums, the anger—it was only a shadow compared to the thing that stood before her now. Valdemar, or Dorian, or the beast—whatever you called it—it was a horror. It punched Charles Edward Heath in the belly and sent him smashing into the ceiling. Dust and plaster exploded out from the impact. Heath spit up blood when he landed and then backpedaled away, crawling and tumbling and rolling just to get farther from the monster. He thought he knew Dorian. He thought he could bully him, but there were worse things in the world than he had ever imagined.
Dorian would kill the man. She could see it. She knew what his rages were like when they under control. This was worse, so much worse. She couldn’t let him do it. There was enough trouble in the world already. If Dorian killed Heath all of their lives would be over. Knowing full well what she was doing, Bella stepped into the path o
f the monster, shielding Heath from his certain death.
Heath wasted no time in scurrying out of the room and away, far away.
“Move,” the monster said in a voice deep and rumbling and crackling, like a forest fire. He regarded her with his burning eyes while his body tensed and twitched with every heartbeat. He looked wrong and incomplete, as if his body wasn’t yet done changing.
“No,” Bella said. “Control yourself. Remember who you are. You’re Dorian Winterborn, not this thing.”
The monster laughed and the sound chilled Bella. He was not crazed with rage. There was a mind at work inside him. “Perhaps this is who I am, and Dorian is just a mask I wear?”
Was he a monster pretending to be a man? Was that the truth of him? No, it couldn’t be. She’d seen something great and kind and lively in his eyes that was missing from the thing that stood before her.
“Is this it, then? The curse? Your father did this to you?” Bella could hear Heath throwing open the front doors of the mansion and hurrying away. Another minute and he’d be in his car and unreachable, she hoped. And then she could run, too.
“This is not the curse,” the monster said, enunciating each word carefully around the jagged teeth in his mouth. “But you’re right, my father did this to me. It’s his blood you see now, coursing in me. His cold heart that beats in my chest.”
It was as if Bella’s world spun and flipped and locked into a different shape in seconds. The family seal. The photos where Octavian didn’t age. The hunting trophies from centuries ago. The giant statue over the front door. It’d all been spelled out for her but she hadn’t seen it. She’d been so blind, so stupid.
“Your father,” she said. “He was a dragon.”
“Just so,” the monster agreed. “Now move—I can still catch that rat before he gets away.” He beat his wings of shadow and smoke and Bella was buffeted by the air.
Dragons were real. She’d been living in the home of one, completely unaware. Had Chloe known? Had her father? She thought not, or they would have spirited her away.
“I won’t let you,” she said, blocking the door with her body.
“Don’t make me move you. I am not gentle when I am like this.”
“So you’re going to hit me? Knock me aside after attacking that ass for doing the same? Is that who you are now? Will you hit me like your father hit you?”
The flames exploded in the monster’s eyes and then guttered out. A sharp smell filled the air, like burning cinnamon, and then the beast was gone and Dorian was there, on his knees. His clothes were rags on his body. The chain around his wrist cut deep into him—his blood dripped hotly onto the floor, where it sizzled with inhuman heat.
“Bella,” he said, his voice wrecked. “Forgive me.” He reached up to her with a trembling hand but she turned and ran out of the house as fast as she could. The last thing she heard before the doors closed behind her was Dorian’s wail of anguish. It sounded like a life going up in flames.
CHAPTER 8
Bella found her father still working on the roses in the driveway. If he’d thought Heath’s exit or the roaring from the mansion were odd, he didn’t show it.
“Did you know?” Bella asked as she approached him.
But the man ignored her and kept working.
“Don’t you dare ignore me, Dad. Tell me: did you know?”
He looked up from the ground with tired eyes. “Know what?”
“About the Winterborns? That they’re a bunch of—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—a bunch of dragons?”
Franklin Hart stood up. “The Lord was a dragon,” he said in a condescending tone. “And a great man. His sons are a bunch of temperamental half-breeds. None can hold a candle to Octavian.”
Bella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You did know. You knew and still you let me live and work here, knowing full well the danger I was in.”
Franklin rolled his eyes. “You’re being dramatic, Isabella. As usual. Is the danger here any greater than New York City or San Francisco? No, of course not. Besides, the Lord Heir can’t access his gifts. His father saw to that. He locked them away forever.” Franklin smirked, as if the thought of Dorian being punished was delicious to him.
“What do you know about it, Dad? What aren’t you saying?”
“The Lord and I agreed on a great many things, monkey. We were very much alike. Both of us were self-made men. Strong men, with children who disappointed us. We agreed that discipline was lacking in today’s generation of participation-trophy kids. Coddled by your mothers and your teachers and your schools.”
“What did you do?” Bella asked. She expected his insults to sting, but they rolled off her. She found that after a lifetime of not being good enough for him, of him always misjudging her, expecting the worst, taking everyone else’s side against her, that she simply did not care what he thought of her anymore. The man was always wrong. It wasn’t her fault.
“That bracelet he wears. We salvaged it from an old antique shop. It’s cold-forged iron, the kind they don’t make anymore. Each link was etched by a witch to make the chain unbreakable and to lock away Valdemar’s draconic legacy.” Her father chuckled cruelly. “If he was going to reject his father’s name and his heritage, then they would be removed from his control, you see? We chained the dragon inside him so that it cannot roam or hunt or see or smell. It’s blind and furious inside him.”
“Why on earth would you think that was a good idea?” Bella asked. She was seeing her father for the first time. She saw the cruel lines in his face, and the truth of him. He didn’t hide out in the library reading because he was lonely or sad, he did it because he hated the world. He was afraid of the world.
“Oh, after a few months of having his birthright denied him, Valdemar would have come around and begged forgiveness from his father. He would have knelt before him and apologized for all the ways he’d wronged him and the curse would have been lifted.” Franklin struggled to his feet. “It’s a father’s job to teach his children humility and respect for one’s elders. That’s all we were trying to do.”
“But then Octavian died,” Bella said. “And now the chain can’t be unlocked.”
Franklin nodded. “And the boy will be consumed by his pent up energies. Serves him right for rejecting his father.”
Bella ran barefoot back to the house, aiming for the kitchen entrance. She’d lost her shoes at some point and her feet were raw from running across gravel, but there was no time to lose.
“Chloe!” she yelled as cleared the door, but the girl was right there, with headphones on, shaking her butt as she rolled out dough for scones. Chloe nearly leapt out of her shoes when Bella rushed in.
“Whoa girl, what’s going on?” she asked, pulling the headphones out of her ears.
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“I’ve been cranking the tunes to drown out the spirits. They’re being really pushy today.”
How much could she say? How much did Chloe already know? Bella knew that time was short. Charles Edward Heath was not the kind of man to let anything go. He’d be back with the army or attorneys or something scarier. And he’d be back fast. And who knew how much time Dorian had left? The curse was killing him, Bella knew it with all her heart. The monster—that wasn’t Dorian—it was the dragon in him cut off from the man. It was power untempered by humanity. At least she hoped her hunch was right.
“I need you to ask the spirits something, and we don’t have much time.”
“Okay, just let me finish up these scones first. We’re gonna need them for when the buyer dude and Winterborn have their lunch break.” Chloe turned back to her scones, her hands quickly kneading the dough.
Bella gently put her hands on top of Chloe’s. “Chlo, the buyer split. Dorian freaked out and turned into a monster. My father is an unrepentant asshole and I really need your help.”
Chloe stared at her as if the words didn’t make sense. “Can you run all that by me again?”
“Sure, but they’re being straight up assholes today. Must be all the negative energy. It gets them cranky.” Chloe grinned and turned to Bella, “Did I ever tell you about the time my boyfriend and I blew up a ghost by having sex on top of it?”
“No,” Bella said. “Though I’d love to hear that story another time. Right now, ask them if they know where the key is to unlock Dorian’s curse.”
Chloe nodded, glanced around the room and said, “What she said.”
Bella could almost feel them swirling around. The hairs on her arms stood on end.
“A lot of them can’t talk about it. I think they signed like magical non-disclosure agreements or something. But some of the others are saying stuff.” Chloe paused, then yelled, “One at a time! I can’t understand you when you all talk at once.” She pointed at an empty chair. “You, with the glasses. Yes, yes. Okay. Not helpful.” Then she gestured to a spot near the stove. “You, guy with the grody arm. What do you have to say?”
Chloe called on the ghosts one by one. From Bella’s perspective, it was like watching a press conference held by a lunatic. But after ten minutes, Chloe had answers.
“So, yeah, okay. The spirits keep saying the key is in the house, but they’re saying it with like a laugh at the end, which usually means they’re being technically correct but also playing some game.”
“What kind of game?”
“Y’know, like in the old stories where someone wishes on a monkey’s paw and their wish gets granted, but ironically?”
“They’re saying the key is in the house, ironically?”
Chloe shrugged. “They aren’t great about answering questions.”