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Lex was missing too. The hotel staff said that there was no record of Alastor staying in the penthouse. Her dorm hadn’t been touched, and she definitely hadn’t gone home. She had disappeared.
“Dragon,” a man said, pulling me from my misery. I pushed off the swing to my feet as the demon mage approached. He held his hands up, as if to say, ‘look I’m not a threat.’
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” Panic bright and painful gripped my chest, what if he was the reason she was missing? I pushed the thought away, Ty would have told me, not that it eased the feeling of my heart in my throat.
“I know many things about you, dragon.” He circled around me. I turned with him, unwilling to give him my back. He clasped his hands loosely behind him as he studied me. “Including the places you haunt and the lengths you are willing to go to protect the hunter.”
“If you touch a single hair on her head, I will end you.”
He chuckled and waved his hand in the air. “My dear boy, that ship has sailed.” He glanced around the space, eyeing the empty playscape, lifting a single eyebrow as his gaze came back to me. “We have a mutual interest in a certain demon hunter. Although, it is ironic really, considering one of hers hunted and killed your entire family.”
“Lies!” I flew at him.
We tumbled to the ground, each of us seeking control. A puff of smoke left my nose as the fire inside my chest expanded. His magic sparked off of his hands, and I avoided the first burst by rolling off of him. He followed and knocked the air out of me with his shoulder.
“You wish I was lying, dragon, but you only have to ask your fellow dragon-kin.” He pinned me to the ground, hitting me with a zap of electricity. I could taste the metallic flavor on my tongue and in the back of my throat as my muscles convulsed. “That’snot why I’m here, though. You want the girl alive, I want to live here on earth. We can help each other.”
Pure wrath shot through my veins as a growl rumbled in my throat before my dragon burst free and off the tight leash I had held him on. I thrust him off of me, pushing my wings hard against the ground, claws digging into his flesh as I switched our positions and pinned him to the ground. A flame erupted from me, and the plastic of the playground melted on contact. The plastic swings didn’t stand a chance as I destroyed them.
The smoking blaze was sure to alert the fire department and bring them here. They would find me and think I was the monster, not that I cared for what the mortal world thought of me, without Sam it held little appeal.
He laughed maniacally, blood trickling from his mouth as he coughed on it. “She isn’t in my care, yet.”
That got my attention, and I swiveled my head in his direction, a trail of fire singed the grass and smoke flowed over him as I cut it off. If I killed him, I wouldn’t know what he knew.
“That’s right, dragon. I can help you mend your relationship. I even know where she is. That information could be yours for a price.”
I huffed out a small flame, or I could torture it out of him.
“You’ll have to let me go and follow me, do you think I’m stupid enough to bring all of my information to a volatile meeting with a dragon-kin?”
I lifted one nail from his skin at a time, enjoying the look of pain on his face and the blood that slipped from his shell. I was more beast than man at the moment, and the beast relished every bit of anguish he caused the mage. I could hear the sirens approaching in the distance.
Once the mage was released, he let out a sigh as he used magic to heal himself. It made me want to do it again. But that wouldn’t allow me to know what he actually wanted. I foughtfor control and won, then shifting into my human form, I stood naked in front of him. He eyed me with a scoff before he tossed a pair of sweats at me like he planned the entire meeting.
If I wanted I could kill the mage, but I wanted Samantha more. I wasn’t sure if what he said about her family murdering mine was true, but it didn’t matter to me, because she wasn’t the one that did it.
“You’ll talk as we go,” I commanded. He straightened his clothing which was now riddled with claw marks and soaked in blood and nodded once.
“Fine.” He headed for the sidewalk.
“How did you survive?”
“You mean when you made a bar-b-que of my help?” He shot me an annoyed look like it was an inconvenience that I had killed so many, but he didn’t care for any of them. When I stared back at him, he rolled his eyes and looked away. “Myself and my top officials were away.”
“Top officials? Are you some sort of army?” I laughed, not an amused sound, but full of sarcasm.
A slow smile spread across his face. “You’d be surprised who will follow you and make deals for things they want.”
I knew he meant me. And he was probably right. I’d make a deal with the devil if it would get Sam back. What did that make me? I was literally following him down the street ready to pay any price he asked, as long as Samantha was still breathing in the end.
“We are almost there, I suppose we’ll have to relocate with your base so close. No bar-b-que’s or your hunter is dead.”
We crossed another industrial street and headed down a dark alley. He pushed open a metal door into a wide open space. Demons congregated in small groups, most of which stopped talking as soon as I appeared. Their wary eyes tracked my movements as we headed for an office. I purposefully let out apuff of smoke and a few nearby shrank back. The mage ignored me. He probably didn’t care, not if they were just a means to an end for him.
There was a sound in the air that was almost too low for me to hear, almost like electricity or a hum of some power. It made the hairs on my arms rise in a warning. If this was a trap, they were all dead. When he shut the door behind me, it cut off. He eyed me a small smile forming on his face. I should have killed him.
He circled a desk and sank into a tall-backed office chair. It reminded me of the kind of chair cartoon villains sat in and spun around when the heroes entered with their faces cast in shadow and their fingers steepled. Maybe I had just watched too many kids' shows as a child. A wide grin spread across his face, resembling one of those shows, it should tell me everything I needed to know about this deal.
