Shane: Dragon’s Savior – Ménage Erotic Fantasy (Dragon's Savior Book 4) (12 page)

Asher was still standing there with his mouth open when Essie pushed it closed. She was looking at him like she wasn’t sure if he was her mate or not. Taking Sally Anne from her, he glared at no one in particular and held his daughter close.

“She is not going to find a mate. And she will not leave our home without an escort. If I must, I will put magic all around her to keep all males away.” She just looked at him, then laughed. “I’m serious. No one is going to touch my little girl.”

“Whatever you say, Asher. I’m sure you can make that happen.”

He had a feeling she was still laughing at him as they made their way back to the house. He’d just see about this whole dating and finding a mate thing. This was his baby girl. No one was going to.... Well, no one was going to do anything to her.

Chapter 6

Robert stood before his congregation and thought of how proud Rohm would be right now. They were seventy members strong and getting stronger every day. When one of the men stood and asked to bring something before the group, Robert sat in his chair.

The group was composed of all men, and he could see the reason for the first group being that way as well. Men were less inclined to be emotional, out of sorts for no reason. And they would not insist that the food they were having be healthy and nutritious as his own wife had done before he left to come here tonight. Robert was growing tired of his wife’s ways, and needed to think on how to rid himself of the ball and chain she was fast becoming. Running his hand down along the arms of his chair, he had to smile. It was perfect for the head of this clan. Perfect.

And it was a monstrosity. Too big for even the size of the room they were in. But he had fallen in love with it when he’d come across it at an estate sale, paying the asking price when he knew he could get it cheaper if he were to haggle. Robert had to go without lunch for an entire month just to pay for it so that his first wife wouldn’t see it.

Lynne hadn’t liked it any better when he’d shown it to her, and insisted that he take it out of the house. He was beginning to hate to take things into his own home, knowing that she was going to make him take it right back out again. That was added to his mental list of things that Lynne was doing to piss him off. Robert really was going to have to do something about—

“I have a problem with my wife’s mother. I’m thinking that she might be a witch.” Robert wanted to tell him that mothers-in-law, by their very nature, were all witches, but waited as the rest of the group asked him what she’d done to him. “Just last night she came to our house and told my wife that she needs to make me find a job. I had to put my foot down on that one. I do have a job, and she has no right telling me what to do. I might be only making a little money here working the phones, but it’s a job and she don’t have any right to tell me it’s not.”

“How does that make her a witch?” It was a good question, and Robert was curious to see how the man answered the question put to him. “And while we’re at it, I’m thinking my wife might be as well. She sure did put a hex on my cock. And now I’m not able to perform at all. Not even my mistress can get me up.”

Robert only marginally believed in magic. He knew that there were ways to combine herbs, chemicals, and other things to get effects that would certainly look magical. Like he’d seen a trick that his son had done in preschool that was labeled as magic. He’d put a daisy in a glass of blue water and it turned the flower petals blue, thus draining all the color from the water. He had been so thrilled with the results that he’d tried the same thing on everything in the house. The dog had had his tail dunked in the bathtub so much that he’d run away some months ago, never to return.

As the conversation went on around him, each man telling how they thought their own wife or someone that they knew were witches, Robert thought of his own wife. Not Lynne, who was beginning to wear on his nerves, but Beth, his first wife. She’d not been a witch, but a pain in his ass for sure.

He’d killed her and her father when she told him that she was filing for a divorce. Beth had come from money, a great deal of it, and when she’d agreed to marry him, Robert really had loved her. Or so he thought. It was the things that her money could bring to him and his causes that he truly loved. And even then he had a great many causes that he enjoyed. The cause to get him laid more. The cause to get him a new boat and new clothing. All things that he’d loved about having money at his fingertips at any time. Like the new house, the cars he would get carted around in, as well as new suits when he found a small spot on an old one. Money had made his world perfect.

“Where is the money?” He asked her what she was talking about when she dared question him as soon as he walked in the door. Her father was there again; he’d laughed when Beth had told him she wanted to speak to him before dinner. Robert still believed that Pete had a lot do to with her asking questions after all this time. When they were in his office and she was seated at his desk, all he could think about was the woman’s bed he’d just left and the hangover he was having. “I talked to the bank today. They said that you’ve gone through nearly forty thousand dollars this month alone. What are you spending it on, Robert? We have everything we need here.”

“You have everything you need, not me. I have a business to run. And other partnerships that you’d not understand. By the way, how long is your father going to be staying this time? You know how much I hate him being here. He’s always in my business. And so you know, I’m not going to functions with the two of you. I have things going on right now.” She pulled out his book, the one that had been in his family for generations. “What the hell are you doing with that? I’ve told you over and over to stay out of my things. Am I going to have to start locking things up from you from now on, Beth? Not very trusting, are you?”

“Trust? You don’t have the slightest clue what that word even means. But this? You’re trying to get this joke of a group back up and going, aren’t you? You know as well as I that there are no witches, there is no magic. What you’re doing is foolishness, and I’ll not have it.” He started to tell her that she’d do as she was told when she continued. “You’ll not have any more disposable money at your beck and call. As of now, your credit cards no longer work. I’ll not have you putting my family in the poor house.”

“
You’ll
not have it? I wasn’t aware that at some point you became my mother. Or had the rights to tell me what I can and can’t do. Fuck you, Beth. I’ll do as I damned well please.” The fights between them had grown more vicious, as well as violent. He’d hit her more than once over the last few months, and his hand was burning to do so now. “Shall I remind you again that I’m the man of this house? You’d like that, wouldn’t you…to be able to run to daddy dearest and have him threaten me again.”

“I’m filing for divorce.” He started to tell her that she was not when she spoke again. “Dad is going to help me. And because of the prenup that you signed when we married, you won’t get another dime from me. Or my estate.”

“You can’t divorce me. I won’t have it.” She laughed at him and he did hit her then. Knocked her back into the credenza behind her, knocking the pictures there over onto their faces. When she didn’t move, he’d thought for sure that he’d killed her. And when her father came rushing into the room, telling him to get out, he’d done the only thing he could do and had pulled his gun out and killed them both.

It only took him a moment to realize that he had fucked up. And a few more for him to think of a plan. The staff wasn’t in residence that day, it being Wednesday, so he knew that no one would have heard the noise. Going to the phone, he called Lynne and asked her if he could come over to talk to her, telling her that his father-in-law was in the house and he’d needed a place to stay.

Then he’d left the front door open and left the house. The next morning it had been all over the news that someone had killed Beth Herald and her father, Peter Winebarger, in cold blood. His alibi, a crappy one to say the least, sleeping over at his girlfriend’s house, had given him all he needed to not get caught. But then no one had been caught, so he wasn’t sure where he stood on that one either.

He and Lynne had married not long after he’d gotten his money from both estates. It was both a pleasant surprise and a great windfall to have known that he was the only living heir to his father-in-law’s estate, too. Since he’d left all his worldly goods to his only child, Robert’s wife, he had gotten that as well. But it didn’t last as long as he’d hoped. Not nearly long enough for him to have as much fun as he’d thought they would with it. Then Lynne had gotten knocked up and he’d been even poorer. And just a bit ago, about three months now, he’d lost his job because he’d been spending more time at his hobby, as Lynne called it, than actually working. But he was going for greatness.

When he thought of spending forty million dollars in ten years without a thing to show for it, he got depressed. And when he was depressed, Robert went looking for women he could take his depression out on. A few good punches to the face, a fast fuck against the wall, and he was good to go. Until the next time. Robert smiled, thinking that his
depression
was certainly convenient to his dick getting used.

And he was no closer to recouping his money than he had been the day that the bank had told him he was broke. So broke, in fact, that he’d had to sell the house that had been in Beth’s family for ten generations, the cars that he didn’t drive because some fool had purchased stick shifts and not automatics, and the book collection that he’d not even known existed until then.

The men that had joined him in the Herald were to pay him dues each month. So far he’d only collected about half of what they owed him; some of the men were poorer than him, it seemed. But he would hound them, just enough, until they finally paid up or stopped coming to the meetings altogether. Today he had a list of the ones that were way behind in their billing, and he was going to have a long talk with them. He needed to buy his pretty little mistress a bauble for taking his shitty mood out on her last night.

Robert looked up from his list when he realized that the room had grown incredibly quiet.

“So? Can we?” He had no idea what had been discussed, so he looked around the room for some hint. “We can do like that book of yours says. If they manage to get out of the flames, then we know that they’re really witches and we are well within our rights to kill them. If not, well, we were wrong, but we’ll know better next time.”

“You wish to burn someone at the stake?” The man nodded, the wobble under his chin going faster than his bobbing head did. “You mean to bring a woman out to the land and have her burned at the stake like you’re grilling out? You do know what sort of mess that’ll make…the smell. Why don’t you just kill her?”

“I’m sure it will be unpleasant, but that’s the only way to kill a witch. And if she’s not then it would be murder. Not that we care. But we need to do this correctly. I mean, Christ, you should have heard all the things I tried to get rid of her before this.” Robert was beginning to see the merit to this way of getting rid of the wives. No alimony, no child support, both of which he’d be stuck with should he divorce Lynne. Most of the men’s spouses, according to the stories from the others, were just as bad if not worse than his own wife. “We have all decided that we’d be better off getting this nipped in the bud rather than waiting until they murder us with their magic.”

He told him he’d have to think about it. And as they filed out, he was handed a sheet of paper from each of them, all of them stating that they would take to the grave what was said here tonight. Also, there were notes on the things that had made them think that their wives were witches. Some of them were pretty scary.

Picking up the phone, he tried to call Cybil again. Over the last few days he’d called at least a dozen times and had left her six or seven messages. He thought now and then of what Lelani had said to him, that Cybil would be of no more help, but there was no way that this woman had gotten the jump on a witch like Cybil. Robert needed to know if there were indeed dragons on the land where she was staying. And if so, how that was possible. But he couldn’t contact her, and wondered if Lelani had killed her like she’d said. Hanging up, he dialed the number of the other witch that he had on his limited payroll. She answered on the second ring.

“I’m quitting you. The last two checks from you bounced, and I have needs.” He told her he’d call the bank first thing. “You do that. But I’m still done with you. Besides, I’m thinking it was a mistake to help you out. There are things going on here that scare the shit out of me.”

“What sort of things? Dragons?” He knew when she didn’t answer him that she’d seen them. “How big are they? What do they look like?”

“So many that they blacken the sky when they fly overhead. Their fire warms the ground so that not even the frost bothers the flowers and trees.” She laughed then, her voice tight with the fear he was beginning to feel. “I’m not going to stay here. I have a feeling that I’d be better off out there where your minions can find me rather than trying to make it in this place. The things that they could do to me here would be worse than anything you can make up out there.”

“Get me a picture of one of them. You do that and I’ll make sure that you’re free of the Herald for the rest of your days, as well as your children and their children.” He wouldn’t do that, of course. She was on the list of known witches, and the first time one of them saw her, she’d be dead. Just as Erin Wayne had been. “You do that and I promise you more riches than you can ever imagine.”

“You don’t have any more money than I do. If you did, then my check wouldn’t be bouncing around like one of them balls in a big house.” She had a point. “But I’ll do this, take a picture of one of them. But not for you. I’m going to sell it to the highest bidder and be—”

He heard the shuffle, and the scream that accompanied it was cut off abruptly. Gripping the phone tightly to his ear, he tried to hear what had happened to the person at the other end when he heard laughter. Laughter that he’d heard before. As he started to hang up, he heard her tisking at him.

“Now why would you not at least ask me what was done to her? That’s sort of rude, when you know as well as I that you’re burning…well, not burning, I guess. You have that plan for your own wife, don’t you? And after all that she’s done for you.” He closed his eyes and willed her to not be real. “Oh, I’m real all right. And you’d do well to remember that, Robert. And so you know, I’m coming for you too.”