Chapter Seventeen
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At noon, EmmaLee’s burner phone rang. Thankfully, Connor had given her a cell and programmed his number into it. “Hey there,” she said, happy to connect with him again.
“Hey yourself. I was wondering if you wanted to grab some lunch.”
That took her by surprise. While Connor had shown her a more caring and considerate side, she understood his obsession to his job. “Do you have time?”
“Sam is picking up some pizza for everyone, and I thought you might be hungry.”
“I am, thanks.” That sounded more like him, but she sensed an ulterior motive for wanting her close by. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. Can’t a man just want to see his woman?”
Her heart pulsed hard, and EmmaLee had to grab the kitchen counter. His woman? “Of course. I’m always happy to take advantage of your faster-than-light Internet.”
“That’s all?”
Connor actually sounded disappointed. “No silly. I want to see you too, but be forewarned that I might try to tease the wolf out of you.”
“You better not, dragon lady.”
She loved that nickname. “Are you going to pick me up?” He’d promised that when Slater was in jail, he’d have someone drive her car to Silver Lake.
“Dad called and said he was stopping into work, so I asked him to pick you up. But don’t worry. As soon as two of my guys have finished their regular cases, I’ll have them bring back your car. Ronan is in Billard now, but he can’t drive two cars at once.”
“I’d appreciate it. I’ll be on the lookout for your dad.”
As soon as EmmaLee disconnected, she rushed to the bedroom to put on a cuter top, since she wanted to take advantage of her time with Connor. Just as she changed her shirt, a knock sounded on the door.
“Coming!” She grabbed her purse. Since it was often cold in the office, she took a sweater with her. EmmaLee hadn’t met Connor’s dad yet, so she was a little nervous. When she opened up, she was quite taken aback by the similarity between the two men.
Mr. McKinnon smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Connor’s dad.”
“So nice to meet you, Mr. McKinnon.”
“Same here, but please call me Cameron, or Cam. Everyone does.”
“Cam it is.”
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes.” EmmaLee locked up, and he escorted her to his Cadillac.
Mr. McKinnon, or rather Cam, was about an inch shorter than Connor, but he stood straight and held his head high. He might be retired from running the Clan, but he had an air of confidence and authority she found appealing.
He held open the door and she slid in. Once he took off, he glanced over at her. “Connor tells me you had a few setbacks in Billard. I’m sorry for your losses.”
“Thank you. I’m trying to put it behind me and move on.”
“Smart. So what are your plans now?” he asked.
“Plans?” She could see where Connor learned his bluntness.
“My son said you’ve relocated here. He told me you’re getting your master’s degree in Lore and Legends. That’s very commendable.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know how else to respond.
“The dean of the college is a personal friend of mine. If you’re planning to pursue a career in teaching, I can put in a good word for you.”
EmmaLee was shocked. No one, except for Vinea and Connor, had ever tried to help her. Since the age of twelve, she’d basically been on her own. Her aunt and uncle certainly never did much—other than berate her for not doing a better job of helping them.
“I’d like to try on my own first, but I appreciate the offer.”
He grinned, and her blood pressure dropped. That must have been the right answer.
Instead of parking in front of the office like Connor did, Mr. McKinnon drove around to the back and parked underground. She hadn’t been aware this garage existed, and she wondered why Connor didn’t use this space. After all, he ran the company.
Once inside, they found Connor in the kitchen, the area attached to the break room where she’d been doing her Internet work. As soon as he spotted her, he rushed over and lightly kissed her on the lips. Heat raced up her face at the public show of affection.
His dad cleared his throat. “So where’s this pizza you promised?”
Connor looked up at him and smiled. “It’s in the oven; just keeping it warm until you two arrived.” He took out the food and set it on the table.
Chatter filled the hallway and grew louder as a group of men entered the area. Jackson and Ronan were the only two she recognized. As soon as the other two men spotted her, the group quieted.
“EmmaLee, meet my team.” Connor told her about Sam Pompley, soldier and Wendayan extraordinaire, and Kip Landry, who was their non-shifter of the group but who could manipulate electricity. “You know Jackson and Ronan.”
Connor asked Kip to demonstrate his talent, and she was delighted at the way he could turn the lights on and off with a wave of a hand.
“I can do a bit more, but Connor would be pissed if I set anything on fire.” He winked.
These men were so extraordinary. “I’d love to see a demonstration of what Sam can do.”
“Later perhaps. Connor would kill me if I scared you.”
“Later then.” She so enjoyed their sense of humor.
Pizza was served, and for the next few minutes, EmmaLee forgot about the robbery and the murder. When they finished, she pushed back her chair and grabbed a few of the empty paper plates.
Jackson held up a hand. “We clean up after ourselves. Besides, I want to show you something that I think will fascinate you.”
She glanced over at Connor who just shrugged. Maybe it was some dragon sighting or perhaps more information on Zane’s home realm. Coming to Silver Lake had been the best thing in the world—for many reasons.
Once she dumped her plate in the trash, Jackson escorted her to a conference room. “It’s easier to share a screen in here,” he said.
“What do you have?” She took a seat and waited for him to boot up.
“Mind you, it might be hooey, but it’s right up your alley of Lore and Legends.”
She was almost giddy. “Does Connor know what you found?”
He lowered his chin. “Connor doesn’t buy into anything that can’t be proven. He has this need to see things for himself. He is willing to admit that Zane came from another realm, but that’s all. If his brother’s mate, Vinea, hadn’t appeared and then disappeared right in front of him, he’d deny she was a goddess.”
She chuckled. “That sounds like him.” Jackson was definitely different.
He clicked on a saved link. “I’ll preface this by saying that this could totally be a figment of the author’s imagination.”
“I’d like to read it anyway.”
“Okay then. This article claims there is a realm—different from the one Zane came from—called Tarradon.”
“Tarradon sounds intriguing,” she said. Learning about new legends always made her imagination flow. “But I thought there was only one realm.”
“Me too. Like I said, this might be the author’s imagination.”
She could understand that. “It still sounds interesting.”
“What’s noteworthy is not its existence, but the fact that Tarradon is full of dragons.” He looked over at her and smiled.
Butterflies beat against her belly. “Dragons? Are you kidding me?”
“As I said, there is no proof any of this is real.”
She leaned closer. It was a thirty-page PDF file. It would take a while to read. “Can you summarize it for me? I’ll study it later.”
“It contains the history of how the realm evolved. What to hear it?”
“Absolutely.”
He sat up straighter and cleared his throat, acting as if he would be delivering a great speech. “Once upon a time, the daughter of the King fell in love with one of the palace guards.”
“Aw.”
“Princess Rhiannon might have been happy about this new relationship, but her parents were not. They told her to stop seeing this lowly guard since he was a commoner. Like most women, she didn’t listen.” Jackson ran a finger along the screen and skipped the parts he must have thought were too boring. “Needless to say, they were furious that their precious daughter would even consider dating outside of their royal circle. It was forbidden, you see. To stop this unwelcome union, they requested their resident black lighter—a witch to us—put a spell on Rhiannon’s lover. They told this black lighter to turn his heart so black that he’d reject their daughter.”
“That’s terrible. Can witches, or rather black lighters on Earth do something like that?”
“I’ve not heard of it, but maybe.”
She believed him. “Go on.”
“Once the spell was cast, the parents thought they’d won. They were so joyous at the change of event that they told Rhiannon that all was forgiven. She and her lover were even welcome at the castle once more.”
EmmaLee loved Jackson’s story telling. “I hope the daughter saw through their lie.”
“Yes. Why is that you might ask? Apparently, when the black lighter cast her spell on the lover to turn his heart black, the spell landed on the daughter too.”
“How sad!”
“Wait, it gets better. Vowing revenge on her family for what her parents did to them, the two fled to the mountains, all too aware that their bodies were starting to betray them. Not wanting this darkness to consume them, they sought out a white lighter witch who claimed she could reverse the spell. All that was needed were a few items—one of which was the heart of a dragon.”
“I don’t care if this is real or not, it’s a great tale.”
“I agree,” Jackson said.
“Then what?”
He scrolled down. “The rest of this tale is about the two lovers searching for these hard-to-find items. They had to sneak back into the castle grounds, fight off a few dragons, and perform other dangerous deeds.”
“This would make a great movie.”
“A movie you say? You don’t believe this tale?”
She lowered her chin. “Do you?”
Jackson lifted one shoulder. “Maybe not.”
“I’ll try to keep an open mind. Were they successful?”
“Yes and no. When they retrieved these items, they took everything to the white lighter, but she failed to reverse the spell. She blamed it on the fact that they brought her the wrong kind of heart.”
“What kind did she need?”
“It had to be a royal heart,” he whispered, his eyes widening.
“So they had to kill one of Rhiannon’s family members?”
“Apparently so, but remember neither Rhiannon nor her lover had any affection for them.”
She could understand that. “So who did they kill?”
“They took her mother’s heart because she was the one against them in the first place.”
“And was the spell reversed?”
“Yes,” he said. “But they did commit murder, so they had to live with that forever.” He held up a finger. “But there’s more. In the process, this new spell set the evil witch on fire to ensure she could no longer harm anyone.”
The image made her shiver. “I’m glad.”
“But…” Jackson chuckled. “The black lighter managed to fool them all. As she was dying, she cast a spell over the entire realm: all future royalty would succeed in eliminating the weak—the weak being those of non-royal blood. Not only that, she prophesized that this royalty would be the leaders over all of the other realms.”
“Other realms as in Earth and Cargonia?”
“It doesn’t say,” Jackson said. “The black lighter died a fiery death, but some say her spirit rose from the ashes and became even more powerful.”
“Like the story of the Phoenix, rising from its ashes.”
“Indeed, but here’s the main difference—during certain times of the month, it is said she can emerge in her spirit form and inhabit a person’s body.”
“So her evil ways will always live on?”
“Apparently. She can make these poor souls do unspeakable things, all as a way to help the royal dragons conquer the worlds.”
“I didn’t see that coming.”
“Me neither.” Jackson smiled. “It has a happy ending though. The loving couple vowed that their children, and all of their children’s children after them, would fight the evil royalty until they were all vanquished. They called themselves the Guardians of Tarradon.”
EmmaLee clapped. “While I can’t use that tale in my thesis, I thank you for sharing it with me.”
“My pleasure.”
The conference room door opened, and Connor stepped in. His eyes were dark, and his lips thinned. “EmmaLee.”
Oh, shit. “What is it?”
He handed her an envelope. “This came for you in the mail.”
Why would he be upset about mail? When she spotted the return address, she understood his reaction. “It’s from my aunt.”
“The one who raised you, right?”
“Yes.”
Jackson pushed back his chair and gathered his computer. “I’ll leave you two alone. Thanks for letting me share my story about the beginnings of Tarradon.”
That brought a smile to her lips. “I loved it. Anytime you want to share, I’m all ears.”
Once he left, EmmaLee fingered the envelope, not really wanting to know what was inside. It couldn’t be good.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Connor asked.
She inhaled. “I guess I should.”
Her fingers shook so much that Connor slipped it from her grasp. “Let me.”
He had it opened in a second and extracted two items: a note and a key. Picking up the slightly rusted key, he twisted it around. “Do you know what this belongs to?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have the faintest idea. Hopefully, the note will tell me.” Since she didn’t want to keep any secrets from Connor, she read the letter out loud. “Dear EmmaLee. I hope this finds you well. I’m writing to let you know that your Uncle Robert passed away this past weekend.”
Connor placed a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry.”
To her surprise, she wasn’t. “He was a bastard.”
“I’m still sorry.”
She nodded. “I know Uncle Robert was a difficult man,” her aunt wrote. “He loved your father very much, and as you know, he didn’t think your mother was good enough for him.”
“He doesn’t sound like a pleasant man,” Connor said.
“That’s an understatement, though why she decided to rub it in, I don’t know.” As much as EmmaLee didn’t want to relive her past, if she had any hope of staying with Connor, he should be aware of what her life was like growing up. EmmaLee leaned back, not bothering to finish reading the letter. “Uncle Robert controlled everything in the house, including his wife. Aunt Kathy was no saint—mostly because she let Uncle Robert treat me badly. In retrospect, I think she was just as abused.”
Connor took her hand. “You couldn’t leave?”
“I was twelve.”
“Right.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I dreamed of running away, but I had no other relatives that I knew of. I always felt a little like Cinderella, except that I had no other cousins or siblings around. I tried really hard to please my uncle, but it was as if he thought I was my mother.”
“He transferred his anger to you.”
She nodded. “My dad had a scholarship to a big university and was a pre-med major, but he had to settle for the local college when he got my mom pregnant.”
“That’s tough.”
“My dad didn’t care. He loved my mother and wanted a child. It was my Uncle Robert who had lofty plans for Dad, wanting the two of them to open a medical practice together. It was because of my mom that Dad became interested in Lore and Legends.”
“I can see why your uncle would be upset, but to take it out on you was unconscionable.”
She thought so too. “Thank you.”
Connor said nothing for a minute, as she let some of the bad moments race through her head. He then pointed to the letter. “What else did she say?”