17
CASSANDRA
An angel carried me to safety.
One minute I was quivering in my seat with screaming passengers all around, and then I was weightless and floating through the air. My body had no feeling, except to know that I was surrounded with warmth and safety.
And then I was laying in a bed of clouds, and I closed my eyes and slept, because I knew everything was going to be okay.
I woke laying on my side, with a body curled up against mine protectively.
The arm draped over my body was dark-skinned, and when I breathed deeply I could smell his familiar smell.
Orlando.
“Mmm,” I said, taking his hand in mine and pulling it close for a kiss. It felt normal. Natural.
“Hey,” his voice rumbled into my hair. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I said.
Memories flooded back.
Men with guns. The Italian leader, Sebastian, and his strained eyes full of pain. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against my ribs.
I began trembling, and Orlando squeezed me tighter.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” he said soothingly. His voice alone was instantly calming. “I’m here.”
“You’re here,” I repeated, both a prayer and an answer all at once. “You’re here.”
His arm wrapped across my chest and under my shoulder, and squeezed me even tighter. All anxiety melted away in his strong, protective grasp.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I got here?” I said.
Orlando snorted, puffing air against my neck. “I know why, because I’m the one who brought you here. I carried you.”
“No, I mean…” I hesitated. “How I got here here, on the train itself.”
“Oh.”
“You probably think I’m some crazy stalker.”
He pushed up on one elbow to look down at me, and I twisted enough to stare into his eyes.
“Cassandra. Cassie. You’re the farthest thing from a stalker I could think of. I was praying you would come, I was terrified of what would happen if you didn’t, but you did, so it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that we’re together.”
My skin tingled as he loomed over my body, a protective ceiling of dark muscle.
And before I could kiss him, he was kissing me.
His warm lips erased all of the fear of the situation, a distraction from the reality neither of us wanted to face. His lips were possessive and desperate, a primal need that took over both of us. His lips tasted like cinnamon gum, and I laced my fingers around his head and pulled him close, because I would die if he left me even for an instant.
I was still twisted onto my side, and Orlando’s hands curled under and in between my legs, finding my sex hot and willing. I moaned at his touch through my pants, my voice deepening as the button came loose and then the zipper and then his fingers were inside my panties, rubbing past my clitoris and against my wet sex. My hands shot out to touch his chest, and I tried to reach down to find his cock but he was too far away, just out of reach, and I moaned into his mouth at the realization.
“Hurry,” I groaned.
Staying on his knees, he pulled his dress pants off and then his boxer briefs. His massive cock came into view and I gasped at how much I needed it, wanted to feel it deep inside of me. He yanked off my pants, and I moved to help him with my panties but he was already pushing up against me, there was no time to take them off, so he slid them out of the way and pressed his cock against my slit.
“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes, please, now…”
I wanted to spread my legs for him, to surrender completely, but his hands held me in place on my side with my legs out to one side. I held my breath as he guided himself in, widening my lips with his round rod, and once the head was inside he was pushing harder because there was no time for easing into it in our desperation, both of us hungry for one another without delay, and I drank the expression on his face as he gasped and shoved deeper and deeper, the tiniest flicker of pain to go along with the immense pleasure, and I couldn’t keep the cry of ecstasy from escaping my lips.
“Oh Cassie,” he said, staying as deep inside me as possible for a moment, all the way to the hilt. Then he leaned over and kissed me, and I closed my eyes and forced my tongue into his mouth and thought of nothing but the way he tasted and felt and smelled.
“Fuck me,” I gasped as I broke off our kiss. If we didn’t cum together in the next minute I thought I might explode. “Fuck me!”
He held himself up with both arms and began pumping, long strokes that pulled back all the way to the tip leaving me feel hollow before invading back inside with gusto, each one knocking the air from my lungs with pleasure. He grabbed a handful of my hair and squeezed it tight because he needed to hold part of me, was afraid to let go, and I ran my hands along his wide back and felt the muscles as they had their way with me.
One finger curled back in to touch my clit, rubbing it in quick circles. “Oh God,” I whispered, tilting my head back against the sheets. “Oh God!”
I’d needed him since that first night in the hotel, but it felt like I’d been waiting years for this, a pressure that had built and built and built and was finally releasing, and his release was mine, ours, pulsing with one heartbeat.
His cock moved in and out of me, faster with each stroke. I felt my climax rushing toward me like a train without brakes, each thrust another shovel of coal into the fiery engine that we shared. Orlando pulled back until his torso was upright, and he used his free hand to grip my ass, holding me tight on that side while rubbing my special place on the other. He undulated like a belly dancer as he fucked me, his entire muscled body writhing with each wonderful stroke, and the sight of him and the feel of him and the touch of him drove me to ecstasy, eyes clenching shut to go with my lips clenching around his meat, and I screamed in a silent wail while his hands gripped me tighter.
And then he came with me, shuddering gasps as he thrust as deep as he could, each stab singular outside of the rest. His orgasm was a powerful event which disturbed the air around us and made my body tingle, a vibration in the air just outside the range of hearing. I felt every moment of it in my body and mind, and then he was easing his grip, and he slumped over like a man who’d run a mile.
He smiled like he was seeing me for the first time, and I smiled back with just as much warmth.
*
The bed was tiny and cramped, so the only way for both of us to fit comfortably was for me to lay on his chest.
Let’s just say I didn’t mind that one bit.
“You know,” Orlando rumbled underneath me, “now that I’ve had my way with you… it’s kind of weird that you randomly showed up on this train. Like a stalker.”
I flinched, and started to get up to look at him, but then he fell apart into a chuckling mess and held me back down.
“I’m joking. Relax.” He stroked my hair. “There are things I want to tell you. About me.” He pointed to his pants on the floor. “And about that.”
I knew he was referring to the gryphon totem. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it in his pocket on the floor. Like an extra appendage which I was just now learning how to move.
“Those men said they were looking for a gryphon…” I trailed off, remembering my hallucination of Orlando on the roof. The monster he turned into.
Now, thinking about the memory with fresh eyes, it didn’t seem like a monster at all.
“They searched me,” I added, “and even though they didn’t find what they were looking for, I got the impression that it was me they wanted. I don’t know why…”
“Yeah,” Orlando said, embarrassed. “They’re looking for this.” He stretched off the bed and tugged on his pants until the pocket was in reach, then pulled the little carving out of the pocket. The dark stone on its back sparkled strangely.
“They’re looking for me,” he said with enormous weight in his tone.
“That makes no sense,” I said. “They’re only searching women. Why would they do that if you’re the one with that figurine?”
“You know, I tried to tell you before, but you weren’t in the mood to listen.”
I twisted to look up at him. “Fair enough. I promise I’m willing to hear you out this time.”
“It might sound crazy,” he warned.
“I can handle it. It can’t be any crazier than what we’re already going through.”
It was.
He told me everything in a slow, patient voice. I listened quietly, nodding along even though I didn’t really understand. When he was done he looked like an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“Dragons,” I said. “That’s not a euphemism or gang name?”
“Nope. Real dragons.”
“Dragons, dragons?”
“Uh huh, that’s what I’m told. I’m sort of a noobie in all of this too.”
I took the figurine—the totem, he called it—and held it in my palm. It was warm to the touch now, and was beautiful with carved detail.
“So if I press this button…”
“Please don’t.”
I grinned at him. “I kind of like having this much power over you.”
Once the words were out of my mouth, I realized something profound about myself.
I was the kind of woman who liked being in control. In everything. I hated being a passenger in a car rather than behind the wheel. If I got lunch with coworkers, I had to pick the place. I hated being a grunt at my marketing company, and was only content when I’d worked my way up to the management level where I could be the one making decisions rather than following orders.
And deep down it was the reason I enjoyed being an escort.
Normal relationships were open-ended and structureless; meeting someone for drinks could be a one-night stand, or a week-long fling, or a relationship spanning years. Sometimes the person you were dating had secrets which were slowly revealed as trust formed. They carried invisible baggage with them, the collected scar tissue from every previous relationship.
I loathed that unknown aspect.
Being an escort put me squarely in control of the entire situation. I had pages of background information on every client: work history, credit scores, Homeland Security travel information. Our relationships had a predetermined lifespan, whether that was a single night or a full weekend, but it was always known beforehand, chosen by me as easily as someone choosing between red onions at the supermarket.
I’d been scared of everything with Orlando because it meant I was out of control. Drawn to him by supernatural force, by fate, by lust, or by anything else I couldn’t see. An anomaly outside of our structured arrangement.
It was different, and that had terrified me. But this totem in my hand, smooth and cool and beautifully grey, helped balance out that control.
I think I’d always known it deep down, but I’d refused to acknowledge it until I said those words to Orlando.
“Just don’t let the control go to your head,” he said with mock seriousness. “And not because power-craziness isn’t sexy—you’d make anything look sexy. But because if I shift into a gryphon right now in this room it would probably squish you.”
I laughed at that, then realized how true it was. I turned the totem around in my hand to make sure my finger didn’t accidentally press the gem.
Orlando cupped my chin with his hand to make me face him, and looked deep into my eyes. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. Can you forgive me? And not just because you have to now that we’re bound together by the totem.”
I leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips, a slow sensual answer. “Do you believe in fate?” I asked.
“I’ve never thought about it, I guess.”
“You ordered a caipirinha. That first night, in the hotel. When we met.”
He frowned. “Yeah…”
“You said you used to make them for your grandfather. That answer shocked me at the time, so much so that I pushed it out of my head. But, my father’s side of the family is Brazilian. They immigrated here when he was a boy. Years later, when my grandfather died, we had to put my grandma in a home. She couldn’t take care of herself alone.”
I took a deep breath, because I wasn’t good at talking about myself.
“My father would take us to visit once a month, maybe, but I know he hated going, because he didn’t like to see her that way. It made him sad, which made me sad. Eventually he stopped going, but I couldn’t leave my grandma like that. Her eyes always lit up when she saw me. So I started going on my own once a week, every Thursday, because that was the one night of the week where they didn’t have bingo or dominoes or any of the other games she played. Grandma loved telling stories, and I would curl up with her old knitted blankets and listen. Stories of her growing up in Fortaleza, working in the market in town and selling fruit to curious tourists. Her brother used to take her hiking in Arariboia to look for exotic fruit. God, she had so many stories.
“But my favorite story of hers was the first time she got drunk. Brazil won the World Cup, I don’t remember the year, but everyone was celebrating like it was the end of the world, drinking and dancing in the streets for days. And someone handed my grandma a sour drink made with limes: a caipirinha. She gulped three of them before wandering home and throwing up all over her kitchen floor.” I laughed at the memory of her telling it, her wrinkled face scrunched with embarrassment. “So, being the good granddaughter that I was, I got someone to buy me the Cachaça liquor, and I stole some sugar and lime from our kitchen, and I smuggled them into my grandma’s retirement home.”
“And so began your life of crime,” Orlando said ominously. I poked him in the ribs.
“She was so excited! I was only a teenager, but she showed me how to make the drink: muddling the lime and raw sugar, then adding the liquor and ice. That was my first drink, and she was sure to make sure I only had one so I didn’t repeat her embarrassing story, but it was the first of many. They didn’t allow alcohol at this place since so many people were on a variety of medications, so I became my grandma’s liquor dealer. Every Thursday I’d go by after school with a backpack full of ingredients, and I’d have one drink while my grandma had several and we’d laugh and tease and talk until the sun went down.”
I smiled at the memory of her looking so happy and carefree. She never looked that way around anyone else. Only with the caipirinha in her.
“She’s gone now, but I still have a caipirinha when I want to feel happy. It always reminds me of her.” I returned my gaze to Orlando’s caramel eyes, and I stroked the lines on his chest. “So it felt like fate when you were sitting in that hotel bar, looking as nervous as a teenager on prom night, and were already drinking one before I arrived.”
“Well, I don’t know why my grandfather drank them. He was Dominican, not Brazilian. But if I ever see him again in the afterlife I’ll thank him.” He shrugged. “What’s the other half?”
“The other half of what?”
“You said you’re half Brazilian. What’s the other half?”
“Oh.” I felt my cheeks redden. “My mother was second-generation Japanese. I don’t know much about that side of my family. They didn’t talk about it much. They were afraid of not being American enough.”
Orlando snorted. “Uh huh.” It sounded like he knew what that was like.
I laid my head on his chest and savored the warmth of his bare skin.
“So,” he finally said with a long sigh. “The dragon searching the train for the totem.”
“Nooo,” I moaned. “I don’t want to face reality. Can’t we just lay here and hope it all goes away?”
He didn’t acknowledge my suggestion. “Tell me about him. What’s he like?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I was busy getting pistol whipped in the side of the head,” he said, putting a hand to his temple.
“Technically I think they had machine guns, not pistols.”
“Oh, okay. That distinction makes my head feel better.” But he smiled, which let me know he was only teasing.
“He’s got an Italian accent,” I said. “I heard one of his henchmen call him Sebastian. Unlike them, I didn’t see him carrying a gun. Instead he had a long knife, with a curved edge and barbs on the other side, like a wing.”
Orlando frowned at that, as if remembering something, but then nodded.
“We need to get off the train. But it’s moving too fast to hop off,” he gestured at our window, where rows of industrial buildings trailing smoke moved past our window, along with trees closer to the tracks which whizzed by super fast.
“And I doubt they’re going to stop the train in Joliet,” I muttered. “That was supposed to be my stop.” I remembered something from earlier, and pulled my phone from my pants on the ground. “Hey. I tried calling the police earlier but couldn’t get a signal. They didn’t confiscate anyone’s phones, either.”
“I guess they have something jamming them?” Orlando suggested. “Not that it matters. How long can a train go without stopping before someone notices?”
“Good point. How would they even stop a moving train if they had to? SWAT teams dropping down from a helicopter?”
“I don’t want to stick around long enough to find out,” Orlando said. “Fortunately, if we can get to the roof I should be able to fly us away. I can feel the ability in my chest, ready to go.”
“That’d be swell,” I agreed.
“It’ll be tricky, because the moment we trigger the totem the dragon will hone in on our location. Think you can handle a dragon flying after us, spitting fire at our heels?”
I sat up on the edge of the bed. “What’s the alternative? Waiting for the dragon to find us? That’s not any better.”
Orlando sat up with me and examined the window. He ran his fingers along the outside, then shook his head. “These don’t open, and even if they did I wouldn’t be able to get out this way. The roof is the only place where I’ll have the room to shift.”
I cringed at the idea of going onto the roof of a moving train, but I couldn’t think of any other way. “How do we get up there? Are there hatches in the ceiling?”
“Hell if I know. There’s the door we boarded through. I think I saw a ladder on the outside. But that’s at the back of the train. There might be others. We’d need to find one without the hijackers noticing.” He lowered his voice. “There’s one of them at the end of this sleeper car, guarding the door to the train engine.”
Fury sparkled in Orlando’s eyes for a brief moment, but before I could ask what that was about he was continuing.
“How many of them are there?” he asked. “Three? Four?”
“I saw them when they were getting on the train: there were four of them together.”
Orlando stared at the wall. “Sleeper car, sleeper car, dining car, observation car… and two passenger cars at the end. Six cars, four bad guys. All we have to do is find an unguarded one, and try to access the train roof from there.”
“That sounds simpler than it probably will be.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, hanging his head for a moment. Then he looked up and nodded with firm determination. “But at least it’s a plan.”
“What do we do after that?” I asked. “You said you were taking this train to meet up with the other gryphons…”
“I guess rent a car? We can’t take a plane, for reasons unknown except Roland was insistent.”
I smiled. “I’d be down for a road trip.”
We got dressed, and then Orlando ceremoniously handed me the totem. I felt like Frodo accepting the ring, an immeasurable transfer of power that I couldn’t yet comprehend.
Things did feel more in control now that we had a plan, regardless of how good of a plan it was. Escape the train, avoid the dragon, then meet up with his friends.
But plans rarely survived beyond the opening salvo of a battle, and ours lasted only a few minutes before we had to throw it out the window.