CHAPTER 22
CHLOE
The sun was so bright the whole island seemed to sizzle in its glare. Heavy ripples of heat filled the low gardens and made the sandstone walls of the estate shimmer like a mirage.
Walking beside Julian, Chloe was looking forward to getting back inside. Even the tacky décor of the Gold Lounge would be preferable to this blinding assault on her eyes.
How the hell is it this hot? It’s not even summer yet. Chloe plucked at her collar.
“You’d think it was summer already,” she complained. “Is this going to take long?”
Julian didn’t seem affected by the heat at all. He was wearing his usual uniform of a crisp button-down and dark suit pants, as though he was walking down a city street instead of dodging sunbeams on a tropical island.
He was escorting Chloe to a surprise meeting with Harper. Chloe wondered what the hell he wanted, but she wasn’t too worried. The opposite in fact.
Her success the night before had filled her with a kind of buzzing impatience. Stifled energy crackled along her bones. Maybe the message she’d sent out would work, and maybe it wouldn’t. Either way she wasn’t going to wait around and let chance decide her fate.
Mathis had almost died last night. She couldn’t just sit tight and hope help was on its way. She couldn’t.
They were halfway to the main residence when Chloe realized Julian had never answered her question.
“I said, is this going to take long?” she repeated, squinting as she tried to get a look at Julian through the glare of the sun.
A muscle twitched in his cheek.
“Oh, come on, you can tell me,” said Chloe, laughing. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but she felt drunk. Reckless. She covered her mouth and muttered, “We both know you’re not exactly on Harper’s side, here.”
Julian’s face was entirely blank, apart from the panicked twitch of that one muscle. Not meeting Chloe’s eye, he said coolly, “Keep walking, Ms. Kent.”
Chloe’s stomach went cold. “Why won’t you answer my question?”
“Because I don’t want to reassure you by saying ‘Not long’.”
“What are you talking about?”
Chloe stopped walking. The air around Julian shimmered, and Chloe blinked. It’s like he’s fading in and out of sight, super fast. What the hell?
“I’m going back to the room,” she said, backing away. “Mathis should have woken up by now, and I want to see him before I see Harper. I don’t want him to wake up and find me gone.”
“Believe me, it’s preferable to the alternative.” Julian’s voice was barely audible, a bitter hiss that filled Chloe with dread.
No way in hell I’m sticking around to find out what the alternative is. Chloe drove one foot into the gravel and spun around, ready to race back to Mathis’ room.
Strong fingers closed around her arm, yanking her backwards.
“I’m sorry. Please believe that.” Julian’s face was a white mask as he pulled her along the path. Chloe tried to kick his legs, but it was no use. Her own feet made heavy divots in the gravel as she tried to brace herself.
“Sorry—like you were last time? When the polar bear almost gutted me? Mathis!” she screamed, painfully aware of the layers of glass and stone between her and her protector. “Help me!”
Something fluttered past her head and exploded with a whoomph of air behind her. Julian let her go so quickly she almost fell. Staggering, Chloe darted out of reach, and looked back to see Thandie, naked, crouching over Julian’s prone body.
“Run!” Thandie cried. “Get to the beach—there’s a—”
Her shouts were cut off as Julian groaned and pushed himself to his feet. There was a flash of black scales as he reached for her and Thandie jumped back, shifting mid-air. Air rushed in to fill the space as the human woman shrank and transformed into a glittering hummingbird.
Thandie-the-bird darted skyward, wings beating furiously.
She wasn’t fast enough.
Julian didn’t shift, but he moved supernaturally quickly, whipping out one arm and snatching Thandie from the air.
“Let her go!” Chloe screamed. “If you hurt her—”
She scanned the garden for something, anything she could use as a weapon. Thandie’s hummingbird was tiny, its wings beating helplessly against Julian’s fist.
There was nothing. Just gravel and spindly palms, and the hideous glare of the sun.
Chloe groaned. Damn it, Thandie, why did you have to do this now? You should have left me and gotten yourself to safety—
She could only hope that Julian hadn’t heard Thandie mention the beach. Their plan must be underway. If he let her go now… at least one of them might escape.
“Please don’t hurt her. Just let her go, Harper doesn’t need to know anything about it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Harper strolled around a corner, smiling beatifically. Chloe gulped. She hadn’t even heard him arrive.
“Mr. Harper, there’s been a misunderstanding,” she burst out. Do it. Do it now. You have to try. She gathered her scattered thoughts, clenching her fists tight as though she was holding herself in one piece. Time for Ms. Jedi Mind Trick to come out and play.
She reached inside herself, building up a vision of what she needed to be. Confident. Authoritative. The sort of person you couldn’t say no to.
Walking up to Harper, she fixed him with a wide grin.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” she repeated. She didn’t sound angry; she burnt off the weakness of those emotions before the words reached her lips, distilling the gritted fear and rage into a smooth, soporific sing-song. Something inside her fluttered as fast as Thandie’s wings. “Tell Julian to let Thandie go. You don’t want her at all.”
Harper’s lazy grin began to slip off his face. “No, you’re right.”
Chloe took a deep breath. The words didn’t matter so much as the tone. So she just let herself talk, focusing on drawing Harper in.
“I know, right? It just makes sense. She’s not important. You’ve got so many other things on your plate right now, you don’t want to bother with her. Tell Julian to let her go.” And I hope like hell she goes straight down to the beach and escapes, if that’s what she was trying to tell me before.
“Let her go…” Harper’s eyes went hazy. Chloe felt victory begin to swell in her chest—and the familiar churn of her stomach. Not right. Not right.
“Let her go, yeah. It’s for the best, right? It’s all part of your plan. Everything’s going fine.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
Chloe came back to Earth with a jolt. Harper’s eyes were clear, and glittered in the sunlight as he narrowed them at her.
“Well, well,” he drawled. “Now that is interesting. Julian, bring them both.”
He spun around and walked off without another word, heading for the blinding white of the private wing of his estate.
Chloe sagged. Putting on the charm always drained her, but it not working made her feel like she’d just sprinted a marathon—and lost.
Julian grabbed her arm again and, with Thandie trapped in his other hand still, marched after Harper into the tower.
All the way up the steps to the tower door Chloe was desperately trying to think of a way to fix this. She glanced sideways, trying to get a glimpse of Thandie.
Why doesn’t she shift again? Chloe thought she could guess. Thandie wasn’t a fighter. Attacking Julian had probably taken every ounce of courage she had, and it had failed.
You might as well ask why you aren’t trying to fight Julian off, too. Chloe bit back a groan. Every time she thought she’d found a hole in Harper’s sadistic set-up, he’d gotten in there first.
The boat. Using her as collateral for Mathis’ obedience.
She’d thought Julian was a chink in the fence, but now she was beginning to doubt it. Maybe the dragon shifter was another trap. Build enough trust so that Chloe and Mathis let their guard down around him, and then betray them.
Chloe’s skin felt cold, even in the damp heat of the afternoon. She rifled through her memories. Julian didn’t see my message in the tower yesterday—but could he have overheard Mathis and me talking about it?
All too soon they were at the tower door. Chloe didn’t have any new plans.
The darkness as she stepped through the door was so sudden it made her eyes sting. She blinked, willing her eyes to adjust more quickly. Julian didn’t give her time to get used to the darkness, firmly leading her forward.
Chloe mapped her steps against the image of the room in her head. Close to the hideous gold sofa—across to the staircase…
As they reached the staircase, Chloe’s vision cleared enough for her to see the steps in front of her. Her foot froze on the first step.
The trophy room. Oh God.
“Tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” she muttered to Julian through gritted teeth.
She heard Julian swallow. “You’re an intelligent young woman, Ms. Kent. I’m sure your predictions are accurate.”
Harper was nowhere to be seen. Already upstairs, Chloe thought, her mouth dry. Probably sitting down on that sofa. Waiting for us. Oh, hell.
“Let Thandie go,” she whispered desperately. “He only wanted to see me originally. Please let her go.”
“I wish I could,” Julian muttered back, and pulled her stumbling up the stairs.
Harper was waiting for them, as Chloe had guessed, on the sofa. He had one of the eggs cradled casually in his lap, and Chloe’s last hope that Julian might turn on his employer faded.
“Ms. Kent.” Harper’s smile was as genuine as it always was, and for a fleeting moment Chloe felt her brain try to convince her that, hey, she must have got something wrong, because Harper was a nice guy, wasn’t he?
She shook herself. It was a trick. With Harper, everything was a trick.
“Harper,” she growled. “What do you want? Mathis is in a bad way, so if you want him to fight again tonight, you need to let me go back to him. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You need me to be around him so he can heal enough to be your entertainment.”
It was a dangerous tactic, she knew. She’d only ever used her charisma-whammy to charm people into things before, but that hadn’t worked on Harper. Maybe going on the attack would.
Except all Harper did was grin wider. “My, Ms. Kent, what an interesting voice you have. I’m almost intrigued. It’s a pity I’ve already decided to kill you—we might not be too different, you and I.”
“Wow. Playboy billionaire to half-rate James Bond villain, and it only took you three weeks. What, you can’t afford someone to write dialogue for you?” Chloe’s mouth was flapping with no input from her brain. She frowned. Hang on…
“What do you mean, not too different? We’re completely different! You’re a monster, and I’m—”
“Also a monster, surely? What else would you call yourself?” Harper relaxed back on the sofa, slinging the egg like a football under one arm. Julian was still standing just behind Chloe; she heard him hiss in his breath.
“Uh, a human? Duh?” Is this actually working? Is being a little shit a better distraction technique than begging for Mathis’ life? “I’m the only human on your little murder-island, I thought everyone knew that?”
“I thought you were, certainly. But this…” Harper leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The egg slipped to the cushion beside him, and Chloe knew she should be worried about how it spun towards the edge before it settled, but she was too distracted by Harper’s grin. His bright, shiny teeth. And the rest of the room was so shiny, too, gleaming and glittering and why was she so worried, anyway? Harper wasn’t a danger. He was—
“What the hell was that?” Chloe swayed. Her brain felt… fuzzy. Like it was full of moths. Flapping around, leaving dust everywhere. It…
Wait. Harper’s still talking. And I’m still looking at him. His teeth…
“Wait,” she said, dragging her eyes away from Harper’s blinding smile. The rest of the room was just as blinding—Wasn’t it dark before?—but at least it wasn’t so, so toothy. “Everyone here is some sort of animal, right? So what the hell are you?”
“The question, Ms. Kent, is: what are you?”
Chloe’s eyes flicked back to him. She couldn’t help it. “Human,” she said flatly. “Uh, like I already said.”
“Are you so certain? I’ve never met a human with deflection skills like you just displayed. Perhaps dear Nora wasn’t so lax with her hiring practices as I believed. So very interesting.” He leaned back. “But not, unfortunately, as interesting as the possibilities offered by your mate.”
Chloe tried to snort derisively, but it came out more like a scared wheeze. “But I thought—you need me alive…”
“Only so long as I wanted to control him,” Harper replied lazily. His eyes hardened. “But you have both been so uncooperative. Honestly at this point I might as well kill you just to get a reaction out of him—anything at all!”
He reached out to the egg on the cushion beside him and spun it with his fingers. Chloe glanced sideways; Julian was staring fixedly at the egg, his face twisted with longing and fear. Thandie was still trapped in his hand.
Chloe’s lungs felt like they were full of ice. “So—what?” she said, trying to sound like she wasn’t about to cry with fear. “I’m the main event in tonight’s entertainment, is that it?”
“Oh, not at all. We wouldn’t want to disturb the other employees.” Harper directed a toothy smile at Thandie—or Julian. “Julian, if you don’t mind…”
Chloe whipped around to face the dragon shifter. “No—wait—”
Julian’s jaw set as he stared back at her. In the corner of her eye, Chloe saw Harper lean back, a wide grin stretching across his face.
“Normally I’d ask Cane to do the honors, but… let’s test your loyalty, Rouse.” Harper tossed the egg from one hand to another and Julian jerked towards him. Harper hoisted the egg in one hand, laughing. “Uh-uh!”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small remote. Julian froze. Chloe backed away, trying to keep both men in her sights. Julian didn’t want to hurt her, she was almost sure—but would he have a choice?
Harper flashed a grin at her, waving the remote carelessly in the direction of the dragon-egg case. “Sorry, sweetheart. Julian might try to save you if there was only this one baby lizard to worry about, but he knows that if he disobeys me, the two in the box are toast. Tell her, Julian.”
Julian gritted his teeth. “The case is booby-trapped with aerosolized dragonbane. The eggs are in stasis now but if Harper activates the release, or if someone tries to interfere with the mechanism…” A shadow passed over his eyes. “An adult dragon might survive it. The eggs won’t.”
Chloe’s heart beat like a trapped bird in her chest. Like Thandie. Oh, God. The edges of her vision were going dark, and she found herself looking at Thandie, still trapped in the cage of Julian’s fingers.
He hadn’t tightened his grip on her. He wouldn’t hurt her—until Harper told him to.
Julian closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he whispered, and when he opened his eyes again they were focused intently on her.
Chloe stumbled backwards. “Hey—wait a minute—you can’t—”
Her next words were drowned out by the roar of a massive explosion.