Captivated (The Dragons) (3 page)

In looking for pain-killers that could help various apothecaries side-step the addictive qualities of poppy and other opiates, various herbalists had stumbled upon the plants in question.

Their properties were interesting, indeed. From the little bit I'd read already, in the combinations the author had experimented with, there were a number of arousing properties that accompanied pain relief, and test subjects reported having strange dreams they couldn't explain.

––––––––

“W
hich shipment did he lose? The Erygium or the Wine Leaf?”

Link lingered in the door way, looking me over with unconcealed admiration.

“You're quick. But I knew that. Come have breakfast with me.”

I almost rolled my eyes but stopped when I realized how juvenile it would look. I didn't move though. The way he'd asked me to have breakfast with him was too familiar

for my tastes.

“Are you going to buck me every step of the way?”

“Why can't you just tell me which shipment he lost? That's what this is all about. You need me to come up with an herbal equivalent, right?”

Something in me started when the humor left Link's face, and I saw another aspect of his personality. Dark and exacting. It rose to the surface for the barest glimpse before he recovered himself but spoke to me without the smile this time.

“We don't need you for anything. We're giving you an opportunity to keep the president from deciding to let Vinnie pay for his own mistakes. A far messier prospect.”

I swallowed my nerves, as I'm sure his chilled demeanor was designed to have me do, and drew a breath. If he wanted to have breakfast, fine. We would have breakfast.

“What's on the menu for today?” I asked, holding back the venom.

“Eddie made the smoked tofu. And there's always homefries, grits, and pancakes.”

“Nobody eats eggs around here?”

Link frowned and turned without another word, leading me out of the room to the landing and stairwells that carried us directly down to the lounge. Apparently, I wasn't parked in the warehouse anymore.

Despite my better judgment, my eyes traced the cut of his muscles through the fitted A-shirt he sported as he descended the steps before me, and I allowed myself a glimpse of his well-rounded glutes and hamstrings beneath the denim jeans he wore just tightly enough to make his attributes obvious without actually “advertising” them.

He walked with the calm assurance of a wild cat. One who didn't necessarily want to do anyone damage but could if riled. He was the cat who to sought prey when his stomach rumbled, not for sport. I guess there was some small bit of honor in it. Maybe it was even natural to an extent. So many people pretended to be civilized while sharpening the knife they intended to stab you in the back with.

It was more dignified the other way. I'd rather have someone stab me in the front while having the balls to look me in the eye sans the fake smile.

His eyes met mine when I touched down to the main landing, and I saw the same chill in them that I'd seen before. It disquieted something in me in a way that almost felt final, and I couldn't understand why.

Not that I tried to delve into the psycho-analytics of it all too deeply. All I knew was that I'd insulted him somehow, and despite the circumstances, it bothered me?

Maybe it was the onset of Stockholm syndrome after all. Whatever it was, it dulled my fires, and I followed him back into the lounge without cutting an eye, tossing a saucy comment, or scowling at him or anyone.

When I sat down across from him, he laid a menu in front of me and leaned back in the booth, his biceps rippling with a morning stretch against the Dragons logo expertly airbrushed on what looked like reclaimed wood.

“So why no eggs?” I asked, deciding to be friendlier against the advisement of the screaming banshee at the back of my consciousness insisting on vengeance, a never-folding demeanor, and that sort of thing.

“Commercial eggs are nasty. We don't eat any of the bullshit coming from factory farms. That garbage will kill you.”

That was rich coming from a smoker involved in who knew what kinds of nefarious activities.

“And drug dealing won't?”

“We're not drug dealers.”

“Pharmaceutical reps, then?”

“We were in the business of protection. One of our clients cut us into what you're studying now.”

The business of protection, huh? There was undoubtedly money in that.

“Isn't tofu genetically modified, though?” I asked, steering the conversation back into terrain that didn't frighten the shit out of me.

“Not if you buy organic.”

“Ah.”

I followed his gaze to find Sue approaching the table with a sunshine smile and the eyes of someone who “gets it” more than people probably ever gave her credit for.

“Morning, cupcake. What can I get for you?”

“Morning,” I managed with a smile. It wasn't Sue's fault I was being held captive, after all. No reason to throw shade at her when she was only doing her job. And she might have been right about “playing ball,” seeing as the game wasn't exactly hard ball. I could manage it if I didn't have any other choice.

Link ordered the “Big Breakfast,” and I decided to do the same. Might as well see if these folks knew their way around a tofu block while they were wasting my precious time.

My attention turned back to Link when Sue stepped away, and I watched him look over a blue book she'd brought to him. When he was finished assessing whatever had captured his focus on its pages, he signed off on something inside of it and closed its top, lifting his eyes to meet mine.

He must have felt my gaze on him.

“So what are the terms of the deal if I 'play ball,' Link?”

I met his gaze head on, steeling myself enough that I didn't come across as a complete novice at this sort of thing. I was.  But the last thing I needed to do was show it. He tested me and leaned forward, his smoky gaze penetrating me on a few levels that might have shaken me if I weren't more hard-headed.

He leaned back with an easy grin after awhile, giving me the Chesire cat bullshit that I knew better than to feed into. I guess this was the part where he made me sweat or some such. Again, it might have worked if I hadn't already set my mind. I had classes starting up next semester, and I fully intended to be back in time for that.

“Eight months,” he extended, like he was tossing out a debatable figure he wasn't particularly attached to. It was a ridiculous amount of time, and we both knew I wasn't going for it.

“One,” I countered, knowing damn well, he wouldn't go for that, either.

His grin deepened, and his eyes keened with interest.

“Stiff bargain. Six.”

Six months was still an insane amount of time to work off a debt, but I wasn't entirely sure he was joking anymore, if the look on his face was any indication.

“Two and a ½.”

“Five.”

“Two and ¾.”

“Four.”

It was obvious at that point where we were going to wind up, and I suppose I should have considered myself lucky, but I was still peeved about it. Three months of my life in service to a bunch of tofu-eating bikers expanding their business into natural aphrodisiacs and sleep tonics was not my idea of a happy Fall. I was supposed to be taking this time off to work on a book. It was exactly the amount of time I would need to finish a polished first draft that I could pass along to an editor before I submitted it to the university press.

I
needed
this time.

He grinned.

“Three months if I can work on something private on the side, with full privacy.”

He looked me over with the regard of someone taking it easy on the competition.

“Fair enough. So long as your side project isn't illegal and doesn't interfere with the main project.”

Isn't illegal. This guy was hilarious.

I gave him a nod, my stomach growling just as Sue brought over our “Big Breakfast” platters, his coffee, and my tea.”

––––––––

––––––––

A
fter the Big Breakfast, I was ordering the tofu a lot more regularly. The cook
did
know his way around a tofu block, and it was actually something called Tohu, made from a different bean. Because Bikers are into shit like that. These ones anyways. Apparently, Tohu is healthier than soy.

Link revealed a few extra factoids to me while we dined on what his crew deemed a healthy breakfast, and the picture came a little clearer. There was competition trying to create a different, but similar drug, and if Vinnie had brought the shipment meant for them to the competition, he'd be wise not to ever show his face around the Dragons again.

He'd have crossed them in a major fucking way, but they weren't yet sure that's what  happened. No one had seen or heard from Vinnie, a detail I was greatly displeased to hear, and people were starting to wonder if the competition had actually offed him.

“Try not to sweat it,” I was advised, and my head flicked up from my hands before I realized what was happening. I was well and truly bonding with Link. He was sharing warmth and compassion, and I could feel myself letting him.

I bit my lower lip anxiously and remembered Vinnie. It was nice not having to endure the ice in Link's eyes, but befriending the enemy was always a mistake, and right now, that's what Link and the rest of the Dragons were: enemies.

I lifted my tea in a desperate plea to still my nerves, ignoring the shift in emotion I felt coming from Link. When I set it down, he was taking a key off its chain and passing it over to me, his fingers gripping the dragon head top.

“For the storage area in your room.”

“Thanks?” I half-asked accepting the key.

“You look like you're ready to go back up and get to work.”

I'd pissed him off.

“Sure. That sounds good.”

It was better this way.

I watched him leave the cost of the meal and a healthy tip for Sue. He was still the enemy, but I gave him points for not being stingy, and we exited the lounge without much fan fare after that.

He didn't linger when he unlocked the door to my room, and I stepped in easily.

“Thanks for breakfast.”

“Yep.”

The sound of the door slamming ended our conversation.

Flipping the key into the air, I scanned the room again, the paranoia that wanted to win my mind making me question whether or not I really was under surveillance. The thought disgusted me. It wasn't the sort of thing that would make for any fetish I'd ever want to claim.

I was more of an “evade attention” sort of chic by nature, so the thought of exhibitionism actually made me blush. I decided, after a lingering moment, that no one was watching me, and I stopped flipping the dragon-headed key, lifting it up for inspection instead.

It was silver, and intricately carved (or welded, or whatever you did with metal- I'd have to run that through a search engine that could actually still deliver winning results). It was good to know things, if only for the purpose of sussing out minor curiosities that presented themselves.

My attention turned to the only other door in the room, besides the shared bathroom, and pressing my lips together resolutely, I stepped toward it. I couldn't imagine what was waiting in there for me, but Mr. Smiles obviously wanted me to know. It probably had something to do with the gargantuan tomes I was expected to read to get my cousin's ass out of yet another bind.

Shaking my head and forcing thoughts of Vinnie away from my consciousness, I slid the key into the lock and gave it a turn that proved to move in the wrong direction. Brow rising, I tried again, turning it in the opposite direction to the reward of a satisfying click.

If circumstances were different, I'd be excited, like I'd found something on some super scavenger hunt in an adventure flick. But my condition in no way mirrored that of an adventure flick. It was more akin to a bad biker soap opera, in which the kid who always stirs the shit other people will be destined to clean up introduces people who wouldn't have ordinarily crossed paths as their plot lines lead them on a plight to get things back in order.

It was a show destined for cancellation in Hollywood, or wherever they were shooting major media these days, but in the real world, I knew not the time limit for this particular episode, or even how it would end.