Chapter 7
The room around her spun wildly.
“…nothing more than a passing amusement…”
“…she’ll never be worthy of you…”
The words echoed in her head. Cade hadn’t objected to a single word Victor had said. He’d agreed with him, and she now felt like an absolute fool.
She’d tiptoed down the remainder of the steps, and hurried through the banquet hall and out the hotel’s front doors as fast as she could. No doubt, people stared after her, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t possibly feel any more humiliated. She never should have gone to that stupid dinner. What had she been thinking? The infamous Cade Stryker, the man who had a different high-profile beauty on his arm every week had suddenly found something profound with a lowly magician’s assistant? No, she’d been nothing more than an amusement to him—he’d said the words himself.
The worst part was she had believed him; she’d sensed that he had felt the same inexplicable need for her. But that was ludicrous. It had been nothing more than a ploy her mind had played on her to bend her to its will.
She strode along the busy Vegas streets, alight with neon signs and flashing lights now that the sun had set. She walked blindly, paying no attention to the turns her feet made or the direction she was heading. She just walked, and she continued until she didn’t recognize the scenery that surrounded her. If it weren’t for Lexi, she wouldn’t stop. She’d continue walking until she’d left the city—and Cade Stryker—far behind her.
“Ava,” a man’s voice called out from a sleek, red car that pulled up next to her.
It wasn’t Cade’s voice; he hadn’t come after her. Of course he hadn’t. He had no more use for her. She recognized the voice though and it sent a shiver down her spine. Why the mere sound of the man bothered her so thoroughly, she didn’t know.
“Ava, please,” he called louder as he stopped the car and hopped out of the driver’s seat of the Aston Martin One-77.
“Please go away, Mr. Weathersby.” She wasn’t in the mood to chat, especially not with yet another man who felt she was little more than pond scum.
“I fear you overheard my conversation with Cade, and I do apologize. I feel the need to offer you an explanation. If you’ll just listen to me…” He fell in line next to her, keeping up with her pace.
“I believe you’ve said more than enough.” No doubt, he intended to regale her with his heartfelt concern for his friend; for Cade’s reputation and whatever else being seen with her could destroy. He’d tell her that it was unfair of society to be so judgmental, but it was the way of the world, nevertheless.
“It’s true that I encouraged him to stay away from you, playing into his ego and status, but it wasn’t for him that I felt concerned.”
“Is that so?” The man was a terrible liar. She could see right through his lie. In fact, she could not only see it, but sense it. Some part of her could feel the falseness in his words. It was strange though, because it was the same part of her that had been so drawn to Cade. Why she trusted that part of her after being proven so wrong was irrational, but she did—despite the way she’d dismissed that ‘sense’ as nothing more than a mind-trick a moment before.
“I’m warning you, Ava. Cade is not all he appears to be. There is another side to him, of which I’m sure you have already been given a glimpse,” he nodded to the bruises on her arms. “You would be wise to keep your distance.”
She looked down at her arms and her hands moved automatically to cover the bruises she saw there. She hadn’t even noticed they were there, but memories of what put them there flooded her veins. “And why do you say that, Victor? To protect me from him, or to protect him from a poor, pathetic magician’s assistant?”
He looked at her, but didn’t say a word. He was breathing deeply and the glint in his golden eyes set her even more on edge. She picked up her pace, wanting to get away from him even more than she had a moment before.
“What you are doesn’t concern me, Ava. What difference would it make to me if my friend gets himself involved with a rich woman or a poor woman? I only worry about what will remain of you when he can no longer keep his darker side in check in your presence.”
Lies—every word he spoke was a lie. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve been looking out for myself for a very long time.”
“Suit yourself.” And just like that, he stopped.
Good. She kept up her pace, trying to put as much distance between her and Victor as she could. Looking around though, she realized she’d certainly covered quite the distance; she didn’t even recognize her surroundings.
Suddenly, she fell to the ground, pushed so hard from behind, she had no hope of keeping her balance. Her cheek hit the hard pavement at the same time as her knees and the palms of her hands. She’d heard about plenty of instances of late-night muggings—and worse—in Sin City, but in all her years there, she hadn’t fallen victim once. She tensed her muscles, prepared to fight as she flipped over to see who had pushed her.
Oh God. It wasn’t a man, or even a group of men.
A blood-red beast towered above her. It was enormous, larger than any creature she’d ever seen. Its head was as big as a car, its teeth, like daggers, and she had no doubt its powerful jaw could bite through steel with little effort.
Its scaly arm stretched out toward her with talons that looked sharp enough to lacerate flesh and bone to ribbons in a single swipe. She scurried backward, but she knew it was useless. Its arm stretched further until it caught up with her.
Her heart pounded violently and her breath got stuck in her throat as it touched her, sliding a talon up the length of her thigh. It was toying with her, like a cat plays with a mouse before it devours its prey. She could sense it. Sweat beaded on her brow and trickled down her spine as its talon continued up her ribs, making a long slice in the fabric of her dress and cutting into the flesh beneath it.
“No!” She couldn’t stop the cry that fell from her lips, although she cursed herself for it. She could tell by the evil, satisfied gleam in its eyes that was what the beast wanted. Her pain pleased it immensely.
The look in its eyes changed abruptly, as if it somehow knew its time to play had run out. She was about to die.
It withdrew its talon, and its pentagonal scales stood on end. A deep roar assaulted her ears. It was unlike any animal she’d ever heard. Smoke billowed from its nostrils, irritating her eyes while the scent of sulfur overwhelmed her. Its mouth opened wide. What stood before her couldn’t possibly be real, and yet it was about to devour her. She was about to become a meal to a fictional beast.
To a dragon.
A deafening roar rent the air, so loud, it drowned out even the sound of her own heart beating wildly in her ears. But it wasn’t the dragon, at least not the dragon in front of her.
Something black descended from the sky, its iridescent wings spread wide; a fiery inferno shooting from its mouth. Another dragon? It wasn’t possible.
With a tremendous thud, it landed behind the other dragon, its massive size dwarfing the crimson-colored beast. In the blink of an eye, it had hooked its talons into the scaly, red back and tossed it at least one hundred feet behind itself into the park.
The red beast crashed down, making the ground beneath her shake with its impact. The black dragon was right there, swiping at the other with its talons and making it roar in what she could only imagine was sheer agony. It took flight, its ruby form streaking across the sky as it fled from the black dragon and faded quickly into the distance.
The black beast turned toward her then and she scurried to her feet, intending to flee—even if it was a futile attempt at escape. She looked up at the black dragon, its iridescent scales gleaming even in the darkness, countless spikes jutting backward from its brow, and its brilliant green eyes staring back at her intently. It was terrifying and beautiful. It could destroy anything that crossed its path, but it wasn’t going to—she could sense it.
She took a step forward on shaking legs, and it looked at her strangely, as if it was trying to figure out what she was or what she was doing. Its eyes swept over her, lingering on the place across her ribs where the other beast had sliced her. A low rumble rose up from its throat. She should have turned and run away, but she didn’t. She did the most insane thing she could imagine: she took another step forward.
The dragon lowered its head slowly and tucked its wings against its massive body. What was it doing? Its green eyes narrowed then as it gazed at her. It was as if the beast was trying to see into her soul, just like… “Cade,” she whispered aloud, though it was absurd.
And then it was gone. The dragon took flight just as quickly as the red beast had and flew off into the night’s sky.
Then, just like nothing had ever taken place, she was alone. If it weren’t for the bloody gash across her ribs, she’d wonder if she had imagined it all, the vile monster and the terrifying, yet majestic black dragon.
With the moment of terror and wonder past, the wound on her torso flared to life. The slice left by the creature stung, and blood saturated the bodice of her gown. While it hurt, it wasn’t life threatening. It hadn’t dug deep enough to find any vital organs, and her blood had slowed to a trickle from the gash. It had been toying with her; the wound hadn’t been meant to kill her.
She turned and started back the way she’d come, though she had no idea how far she’d traveled to know how long it would take to find her way home. She didn’t care. Her head was preoccupied as back and forth, Cade’s eyes and then the dragon’s flashed through her mind. For sure, the dragon’s eyes were much larger, but somehow, they were the same.
Sure, they were the same brilliant green, but it was more than that. The wisdom in their eyes, the way they tried to peer into her soul…it couldn’t be coincidence, could it? If not coincidence, what was the alternative? Not only had she happened to run into two mythical creatures on the same night, but one of those creatures happened to be the man she’d had sex with an hour prior?
She couldn’t explain the first impossibility, never mind the second. But without an answer or any way to make sense of what had happened, the terrifying encounter continued to swirl around in her head, so much that she grew lightheaded.
“Hope,” a man’s voice called to her just as she sensed a presence behind her.
She stopped walking, though why she did was a mystery to her, but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t want to see him. Even if she hadn’t just had the most terrifying, confusing experience of her life, he’d humiliated her, using her for sex and throwing her out like garbage.
“I’ve been trying to find you. Why did you run off?” he asked, but his words sounded hollow. He knew why she’d left.
“We don’t need to have this conversation.”
“Yes, we do.”
She exhaled heavily. If she was smart, she’d keep on walking, but her feet wouldn’t allow it. Without thinking, she spun around to face him. His eyes grazed over her disheveled and bloodied appearance, but there was no surprise in his countenance, nor did she see it in his eyes. Even someone who didn’t care about her—which described him perfectly—would still be surprised to see the injury she’d sustained. His eyes met hers, and the dragon’s stare flashed through her mind.
“Let me take you home, Hope,” he whispered.
“I’ve always managed to make it on my own, Cade. I don’t need your help.”
He scoffed at her assertion, as if she’d spoken a blatant lie. The dragon’s eyes appeared in her head again, and it was only then that she realized the reason the black creature had swooped in was to save her; to drive off the vermilion monster. Was that why Cade scoffed at her? She never would have escaped on her own, not without his help. No, that was ridiculous. It wasn’t Cade who had rescued her; it was the dragon. But then, why wasn’t Cade at all surprised to see what had happened to her?
“How did you know where to find me?” The question slipped from her lips unbidden.
“I’ve been out looking for you since I realized you’d left, and I saw you walking along the street just now.”
Maybe she was too overwhelmed by the night, or too tired, or just completely and utterly insane, but she sensed he knew more than he was letting on, and so she persisted, “No, I mean how did you find me before, when I…needed your help?”
He stepped toward her and his hands reached out, stopping a hair’s breadth from the gash across her ribs. Without touching her, he outlined the wound with his fingers. The pained expression he wore would make a person think he was the one who had just been sliced by the razor-sharp talon.
“Hope…I…let me take you home.”
A car pulled up beside them right then, and Steven James stepped out, coming around to where they stood. “Miss Winter, it’s good to see…” he began, but fell silent the moment his eyes caught sight of her bloodied bodice. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding! We need to get you to the hospital,” the man spoke in a panic, his head darting back and forth between her and Cade, obviously confused why the two of them were just standing there.
“It’s okay, Mr. James,” she reassured him. “It’s not as bad as it appears. I’m tougher than I look. A couple of bandages, and I’ll be as good as new.”
It was nice that he was worried about her, though she had a feeling some of that stemmed from having a weak constitution, squeamish when it came to the sight of blood—if the greenish hue his skin had taken could be used as an indicator. Still, there was something else about him, just like before when he’d come banging on her door before sunrise.
Cade leaned in close, his lips brushing lightly against her ear. “Let me take you…” he whispered, bringing to the forefront of her mind what they’d just done in the hotel’s upper lounge. Her body sprung to life, despite the ordeal she’d just been through and regardless of the humiliation she’d suffered earlier. She couldn’t help it. Worse, she let him guide her to the car and slipped into the back seat when he opened the door. He slid in next to her and the car began to move a moment later.
The scenery grew familiar quickly, and she stared out the window at the bright lights of Vegas as they drove, though she saw little more than a colorful blur. She needed to focus her attention elsewhere, not on the man sitting next to her. What was she supposed to say to him? Did she really believe he was a mythical creature? Mythical was the key word—a creature who only existed in folktales, not one that drove around the streets of Las Vegas. If he wasn’t, and she told him what had happened and what she believed he was, he was going to have her committed.
The car slowed a few moments later, coming to a stop at a rear entrance of the hotel, the same hotel she’d fled from just hours before. “This isn’t my apartment, Cade.”
“I realize that,” he told her, already sliding out of the car. He reached his hand out to her like he’d done when they last arrived together at the hotel. It was such a short time ago, and yet since then, she’d had the most incredible sex ever and had been humiliated like never before. She’d been terrified and assaulted by one dragon and rescued by another. A giggle rose up in her throat and she couldn’t contain it. She covered her mouth as it spilled from her lips. It was just all too ridiculous.
He peeked his head back in. “Hope?” He looked genuinely concerned, and she couldn’t blame him. A hysterical woman in the back of his car—that would give any man cause for concern. But he took her hand gently and she slid out of the car. He kept her hand in his as he led her toward the door. Once inside, it was only a few steps to the service elevator, a brief trip up to the top floor of the hotel and a few steps to the door of his suite.
Outwardly, he appeared calm, but she could sense that it was only skin-deep. Inside, a plethora of emotions roiled within him—anger…pain…guilt. One would never know it by the expression on his face, which left her wondering how on Earth she knew without a doubt what he was feeling underneath it all.
“Tell me what happened,” she demanded quietly as he closed the door behind them.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll talk.”
He released her hand then and crossed the massive suite to a room somewhere outside her view. He was back a moment later with a bathrobe and a first aid kit in hand. He placed them on a table near the door and then turned to her. His hands reached out slowly, grasping the neckline of her dress gently. “Hope, I have to take this off…”
She’d been humiliated enough for one night, hadn’t she? And yet she nodded, watching his expression as his fingers lowered the gown. Fire flared in his eyes, but it faded quickly, replaced by something else entirely as he continued lower, exposing the long gash across her ribs. He knelt in front of her, and she wouldn’t have imagined hands as large as his could work so gently, but he moved carefully as he tended to her wound. And watching his hands move against her skin sent a multitude of other sensations coursing through her, drowning out the sting of the gash.
“Tell me,” she whispered when he stood back up.
“Tell you what?” He met her eyes, and she knew what he was doing. He was trying to read her, to delve deeper. She couldn’t read his thoughts to know that’s what he was doing, but she could feel it; she could sense what he was after. She’d never been able to read people like this before, but so quickly, she’d come to feel and sense almost everything about Cade.
“I need you to tell me what happened tonight.”
“It isn’t safe. I’ve already put you in too much danger. You won’t be able to go home…”
“What?” Why couldn’t she go home? If it wasn’t safe there, that meant Lexi wasn’t safe.
“What you saw tonight…”
“What do you mean I can’t go home, Cade?” Panic rose in her throat.
“Damn it, Hope. I should never have let this happen.”
“It already happened. What do you mean ‘it’s not safe’? Tell me!”
She didn’t have time for this. She grabbed the robe from the table, threw it on and reached for the handle, but he was already there. He covered her hand with his own.
“I can’t let you leave, Hope. Not until I figure this out.”
“Get the hell out of my way, Cade. I have to get back, I have to go home.”
“You’d rather stay there and wait for death than stay here with me?”
He wouldn’t budge. His hand on hers made it impossible for her to turn the damn handle. There was only one solution.
“Cade, I have to go home because there is a thirteen-year-old girl alone in my apartment.”
Understanding donned in his eyes. Well, he understood why she was so persistent about going home. Certainly, he had no idea what a teenage girl was doing in her apartment.
“I’ll send Steven to get her.” He reached for the cell phone in his pocket and had Steven on the line within seconds.
“I need your phone,” she told him when he hung up. “Lexi won’t answer the door unless I tell her it’s alright to, and she definitely won’t go for a ride with your driver without my okay.”
Lexi picked up on the fourth ring, and she told her Steven would be collecting her within minutes. She paced back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, and fortunately, just fifteen minutes later, Steven arrived with Lexi—and two rolling luggage cases in tow. They each kept one just in case an emergency arose and they had to leave quickly.
She offered a lame excuse, telling Lexi she’d had an altercation on the street and the man had run off with her wallet—with her driver’s license inside. She didn’t want to take any chances with the man now having her address, so the two of them would spend the night at Cade’s.
Lexi had remained suspicious, but she’d accepted Hope’s explanation—at least for now—and flopped on the bed when Cade had shown her to the guestroom.
“What’s going on, Cade,” Hope persisted when they were alone in his bedroom. “I need answers.” She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed. “The only other explanation is that I’ve gone completely insane, but I know I haven’t.”
He sighed heavily. “What you saw was real…you know that, but you shouldn’t. No one has ever lived to tell about it, and if I know Victor—which I do—he’s going to try to make sure that doesn’t change now.”
“Victor? The red dragon—that was him?” She hadn’t even considered the possibility, but it made sense. Victor had been with her just a moment before it appeared. And if she believed Cade was a dragon, then was it such a leap to think there could be more than one?
“Yes.”
“Which means you…” she couldn’t believe she was about to say it, “You were the black dragon.”
He didn’t respond right away, but after a moment, he nodded reluctantly.
“You saved me.”
His head shot up and surprise radiated from him. “How did you…what makes you think…”
“Why wasn’t I just as scared of you as I was of the other dragon? I was—until you looked at me. I knew I should have run, but I couldn’t. You were terrifying…but beautiful.”
She stopped pacing and looked up at him. Her feet compelled her across the room and wouldn’t stop until she stood right in front of him. His eyes—the dragon’s eyes—stared intently at her.
She reached for him, gliding her hand down the side of his face, grazing down his strong arms, across the hard planes of his chest and the rippling muscles of his abdomen. All the while, the dragon’s image remained at the forefront of her mind. She remembered his massive size and black, iridescent scales; his teeth and talons more deadly than any weapon she’d ever seen; his outstretched wings, more majestic than she could have imagined.
“Hope…” he whispered hoarsely.
She could feel the desire that had begun to flow through his veins, but there was something else there, too. Guilt—she’d sensed it the last time arousal had overwhelmed the both of them, but not like this. Now the sensation was clear and crisp.
He touched her and a tidal wave of arousal crashed over her, but a battle waged within him. She could feel something even stronger than him struggling to take control. It wasn’t violent, but powerful.
With shaking hands, he reached for her the shirt she’d donned only moments before, but he was too impatient to lift it over her head, tearing it apart with no effort at all.
He stopped suddenly. At first, she thought he was admiring the view, but that wasn’t it. He was angry and full of guilt, and the two threatened to overwhelm him. The bruises and the slash across her ribs: those were what he saw when he looked at her.
“Cade, it’s okay…” she tried to soothe him as she reached for his hand and moved it toward her, but before she felt him against her skin, he ripped his hand away.
“I can’t…”
“You won’t.” He was trying to tell her he was afraid he’d hurt her. She reached for him again, but this time, his hand wouldn’t budge. He took a step back, and then another, and then without another word, he left the bedroom. She heard the front door close seconds later, and he was gone.