Page 27 of Princess Seeks Dragon
Totally caused by skipping breakfast.
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“ARAS.”
“There you are, you scaly fiend.” My boss laughs, and I can picture him sitting alone in his dark office in the back of the bar he owns. Knowing him, some half-drained college girl is lying across his lap or sprawled out on the futon he uses as both his bed and his snack bar. “Did Lawder explain the situation?”
“He did, but I’m not sure he understood it. The girl doesn’t want to be married.” I hold my breath. I know there are a lot of bad guys in the CrossRealms, but there are also a lot of “gray guys.” Guys like me. We lean one way or the other, but we’re not evil. I lean light, Aras leans dark. He’ll take a sip of someone’s soul if they can’t pay back what they borrowed, but to me... Well, that’s fair play, isn’t it? You knew the risk of making deals with demons (and there are some quite demonic humans, believe me). I know he sleeps with willing women. If he saps their sexual energy, I don’t think they mind. I’ve heard the noises coming from his office. Women are more than happy to lend him sexual nourishment in exchange for the multiple orgasms he dishes out.
I think Aras will grudgingly admit that I’m in the right this time.
“I think she’ll grow to appreciate the position of wife. She’ll be spoiled like a Persian show cat.”
“Perhaps, but the man made no effort to court her. He has a mistress and another lover besides. She’s not having it.”
Aras pauses. “That’s tricky. Genovese is getting older. In a few years, his son will have to take over. The old man is starting to show a little... a little trouble with his faculties, let’s say. One of the issues I’ve heard a friend of a friend mention is his sudden bursts of aggression. I don’t need my club shot up.”
“He wouldn’t go that far. It’s not your fault you can’t find a missing girlfriend. They weren’t even dating,” I hiss, looking back over my shoulder.
“You seem to know a lot about it. Was I right when I told Lawder she’d entered your neck of the woods?”
I pause again. “Temporarily.”
“Well,temporarilybring her to Manhattan, and Genovese’s men will escort her to her new home. That’s all you're doing, Graham. Delivering a package. You’re not going to hurt the girl.”
Damn it. “If I bring her there, she could get hurt. You said it yourself, the old man is aggressive. He wants to get his son established as the head of the family with a wife at his side?”
“Exactly. It’s his way of handing over the reins while he can still navigate the road, so to speak. One of his last great acts, one of the final moves on the chessboard before he abdicates.” Aras’s tone is silky, full of poetic imagery.
He’s always been a good salesman. Today, I’m not buying.
“I won’t be handing her over. She’d be forced and threatened into agreeing to a marriage she doesnae want,” my accent slips out as I feel my temper rise. I’m angry at Aras, and at Genovese, and mainly at myself. Should never have gotten mixed up with these characters.
But if you didn’t—who would protect Angela? No one. She’d be wandering around on her own, and who knows who might snatch her up?
My free hand tightens into a fist. The thought of her running to someone else makes my insides droop like a sun-starved rose. The image of someone snatching her up, forcing her at gunpoint into a dark car, holding her mother hostage to force Angela to say “I do...” Rage burns so hot that my vision blurs, and the world is red and black for a second.
“Oh, yes, Graham, how horrible. Forced to live on the Upper West Side in a charming home with a handsome husband who can shower her with jewels, cars, and clothes. She’ll get over it. These little mafia princesses are all the same—meek little mice until they’re wived up, and then they’re breeding stock, getting fat assess and fatter hair. Trust Aras. She’ll adjust. In a few years, she’ll have a little boy to dote over and a little girl to dress up. She’ll forget she ever wanted to say no.”
His voice is thick with thrall, the lulling, soothing tone that’s a thousand times more dangerous than him yelling. For a moment, I sway where I stand, picturing Angela with teased hair and a tight dress, a miniature version of herself at her side, a cherub of a little girl with dark ringlets and pink cheeks.
Another little princess, waiting to be married off to a man she doesn’t love, just to preserve their kind—mafia kings.
“You know,” I breathe out shakily, smoke curling from my nostrils as I feel my horns starting to bud through my scalp, “there are old fairy tales about dragons capturing princesses. Eating them up.”
“Hey, what you do with her is your business, as long as you hand her over in a condition to say ‘I do,’” Aras laughs, a sinister, self-satisfied note in every syllable.
“This dragon isn’t like that.”
The laughter dies at once, and cold steel replaces it. “Oh, lie to yourself some more, Kane. What do you think you are? Some noble Highland knight? Real brave, very valiant, helping me take scared little humans for every penny they’re worth, and their souls on top of it when they can’t meet the terms they agreed to.”
His words sting and slice, all too true.
“You couldn’t protect a fly from a spider—especially since this spider knows where you like to hide.”
“I’m not hiding. I’mprotected. And so is she. Tell Genovese to find another playmate for his son,” I spit, and hang up.
I slam my fist into the wall, easing up on my thrust at the last second so I don’t crack the plaster.
