Authors: Edward Lazellari
You’re another victim of Dorn’s war.
“I don’t know,” Cat said. She tried to shake the cotton out of her brain.
“I’m going out of my mind,” Tory said. “Most of my life’s lived through this monitor—I can’t get Wi-Fi or any stations. My battery’s running down.”
She could hear the fear behind the complaint. She’d read about these modern computers that reacted to eye movements, giving some semblance of control to people like Tory who lived vicariously through others. What would it be like for the simplest tasks in life to become herculean efforts? Cat’s maternal instincts kicked in. She hated the thought of any frightened child.
A throbbing in Cat’s hand soon joined the one in her skull. She massaged it and remembered Kraten’s smack with the flat of his sword. The sheets around her were soft, at least six hundred thread count; they implored her to lie back down and close her eyes. She squeezed her injured hand and winced, coming awake.
“At least it’s nice,” she said to Tory, and feebly gestured to the room.
A cold, sick feeling ran through Cat. She looked around the room. Bree wasn’t here. Cat remembered the girl running up the trail. No one went after her. So where was she? Lost on the streets of Manhattan—or worse. Lelani was probably dead. With Cal in Maryland, who would help Brianna? An overwhelming depression came over her tinged with guilt. She wanted to mourn the centaur, but could think only of her daughter.
“It could be Jay-Z’s house for all the good it does me,” Tory said.
“What?” Cat said, coming back into the moment. She shifted slowly to the edge of the bed.
“The room,” he said. “Luxury doesn’t do me any good. There are medicines I need to take daily. I have to be moved several times a day to prevent sores. My chair will run out of power soon. I—I can’t eat—or use the bathroom—I can’t—anything.” His eyes were moist, and he struggled to stay calm. “My colostomy bag needs to be emptied…”
He truly was helpless, more than even Bree. Bree could at least run. At least there was a chance she’d run into policeman or a good Samaritan. Cat wondered what value this poor kid could have to Lord Dorn. This was no random kidnapping; they’d targeted Tory. She was afraid for the boy.
“I’ll take care of your meals and cleaning,” Cat said. “I’ll get you out of here.” The hollowness of those words echoed back at her. It was a knee-jerk statement to make her feel better, and she was already regretting it. Cat just saddled herself with an extra burden. Her number-one responsibility was to escape and get back to her family. How the hell was she supposed to accomplish that dragging Tory along?
The French doors opened and the brightness of the adjoining room flooded into the dark bedroom. A tall, well-built man with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail entered. He had high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and wore an expensive dark gold suit. Cat was reminded of the actor Julian Sands in his youth. This had to be Dorn. He flipped a switch beside the door and the bedroom’s chandelier came to life. The brightness made Cat squint.
“Ah—the Lady MacDonnell.” His voice had a trace of an accent, similar to Lelani’s. It was deep and penetrating; the kind of voice that led men into battle or broke the laws of physics by asking. His intense gaze made Cat grateful to be squinting. “A pleasure to finally meet you. Please, remain seated,” he ordered, as though she was expected to stand in his presence.
Cat had a million questions for Dorn but mixed feelings about voicing them. This was the psychopath who’d invaded her home, killed Erin and Ben, invaded Cal’s kingdom. Then a thought occurred … if Dorn’s kingdom hadn’t invaded Aandor, she would never have met her husband. It irked Cat to believe she owed this monster any debt of gratitude.
“Please do not entertain thoughts of escape or rescue,” he said. “I have wards around this suite that block any messages or sorceries I do not approve of.”
“Where’s my daughter?” Cat asked.
“She’s not here, if that’s what you are concerned about,” said Dorn. “A mistake on my men’s part since she, too, would have been a valuable hedge against your husband’s success. Perhaps the centaur found her, or, no doubt one of New York’s finest.”
Lelani was alive! Cat considered this news a mixed blessing. Bree, alone in the park at night—she was sure Malcolm wouldn’t abandon her daughter either.
“Why have you kidnapped this boy?” Cat asked. “What threat can he possibly be?”
“My lady, kidnapping to create leverage over an opponent, or ally, is a time-honored tradition in my reality. Whole battles can be avoided by a simple compromise. The cripple is simply an insurance policy.”
Cat winced at Dorn’s very un-PC reference to Tory. It was a bad sign that he didn’t refer to the boy by his name. It dehumanized the boy—made him expendable.
“This has something to do with my dad,” Tory said.
Dorn picked up on Cat’s lost expression and added, “The detective.”
“Dretch!” she said, realizing. “But he’s your man. We saw his trail of bodies upstate.”
Dorn poured himself a glass of something smoky brown from a crystal decanter on the bureau. “Colby has not killed a single person in my service,” he said. “His heart is not fully committed to the task. I have been sanitizing the trail behind him. Yet, your husband is quite the sleuth in his own right. So here we are, neck and neck at the stretch. My horse just needs a good kick. Brandy?” he offered.
“He’s quadriplegic,” Cat said. “His life’s hard enough already.”
“My dad doesn’t give a crap about me,” Tory said.
“Quite the contrary,” Dorn said, ignoring the boy and continuing to speak directly to Cat. “Colby’s deal with the devil was to give his cripple a better life than he could ever provide for on a prison salary.”
Behind Dorn, in the suite’s common area, Kraten walked in with an unconscious blonde over his shoulder. Cat’s heart jumped into her throat. The woman was tied and gagged. He unceremoniously dumped her on the couch. Her leather miniskirt rode up her thigh, her fishnet stockings were torn, and she was missing one red shoe with three-inch heels. She looked cheap, not because of her disheveled appearance but because her hair was too bright to be natural and Cat could smell the overbearing perfume from a good twenty feet away. Cat’s instinct said something more nefarious was going on than the carnal needs of Dorn’s men. Symian walked into the bedroom pushing a cart of covered food plates and blocked her view of the living room. He placed the cart before Cat and removed the silver covers. Chicken Francese with risotto and a side of string beans. Under a towel lay a basket of freshly baked rolls, still steaming, and next to it, cool water in a carafe, dripping with condensation. A crystal tumbler and wineglass sat next to a bottle of Trimbach pinot gris Hommage Á Jeanne 2000. There was nothing on the tray for Tory.
“What about him?” Cat asked, pointing to the boy.
“In my reality, there are two sets of rules,” Dorn said. “One for the aristocracy, and another for everyone else.”
“I’m a commoner,” Cat pointed out.
“You are James MacDonnell’s daughter-in-law, the mother of his granddaughter, and therefore are entitled to be treated in the manner with which we treat captured nobles. In a way, we are two of a kind. Please, regard me as your … friend.”
Dorn just managed to squeak the word “friend” out of his throat, Cat thought, where it was in danger of getting stuck. The gracious bit was an act. He did not consider her equal to him despite the fancy speech.
“Can you eat this?” she asked Tory. A miniscule shake of his head confirmed that he couldn’t. He would need something strained. Cat looked at the meal before her. It smelled great and she wanted nothing more than to dig in. Instead, she folded her arms and looked up at Dorn, refusing to touch even a napkin or utensils.
“These are
rules
of etiquette,” Dorn said, calmly, “not
laws
. Pray that you do not try my patience, Lady MacDonnell.”
Cat looked around the suite, at the crystal chandelier, the oil paintings, mahogany furnishings, and the rest of the opulence. She turned back to Dorn and in a tone designed to underscore his pettiness said, “Would strained beef and carrots really break your bank, Mr. Dorn?”
Dorn gestured with two fingers, and Symian left the room. “It’s
Lord Dorn
,” he corrected her. “Your bravado shall make our conversations very
interesting
.”
And by “interesting,” Cat was sure he meant “trying.” “I have nothing more to say,” she shot back.
“Ah, but there is so much more that you want me to say, my lady.” He paced slowly before Cat, studying her, deciding on a tack, no doubt, by which to wheedle his way into her heart and mind. “You think me the villain,” he said. “Your husband has filled your head with his version of events about how
we
invaded his kingdom.”
“Do you deny it?” she asked.
“The invasion? No. But there are more shades of gray to this story than on a mountain before the storm.”
Cat stood up wobbily from the bed and walked stiffly around the room trying to improve her circulation. “You killed his countrymen, tried to murder an infant, wrecked my home, and now you’re here to kill an innocent thirteen-year-old boy,” Cat said. “How many shades of gray does that cover?”
“That boy is not innocent,” Dorn said in a severe tone. “He is a weapon, stained with the blood of his ancestors.” Dorn positioned an expensive-looking chair by the bed and motioned to Cat to resume her seat on the edge of the mattress. Whatever he had to tell her, it required her undivided attention. Cat sat reluctantly, more because he wanted it than her being exhausted from standing up.
“Prince Danel’s mother, Sophia of Bradaan, was first betrothed to my cousin Johan, son of my uncle, the archduke of Farrenheil. Had they married, it would be their child with the blood of ten kings and the next prince regent of the empire and father of the next emperor.” Dorn sipped his brandy patiently, waiting for his words to sink in. He locked eyes with his prisoner and said, “Johan was assassinated before he could pluck that rose. It looked like a hunting accident, but was a bit too coincidental for an experienced hunter. We offered Bradaan Johan’s younger brother, a strapping, handsome lad only one year younger than Sophia. But the duke of Bradaan had already sold his prized heifer to Athelstan of Aandor. Not even four days had passed—my cousin’s corpse was still warm.” Dorn pushed aside the food tray and bent down low to stare her in the eye, blocking her view of everything. Something was not quite right about the man’s look, a frenetic shifting, ever so slight as to be unnoticed—the look of pain and the desperation of hiding it. “Tell me, Lady MacDonnell—who do
you
suppose assassinated Johan?”
Cat stayed silent. This was the big league—breeding contests, wars, and assassinations. Thousands of years of human evolution honed to its deadliest arts. She’d never make fun of Republicans and their dirty politics again if she survived this visit. They were downright congenial compared to Dorn.
“So you see,” Dorn continued, “we’re simply fighting for our rights.”
Everything Cat knew of Cal and Lelani said Aandor was a fair kingdom, inclusive of others. She couldn’t imagine Callum being part of any nefarious organization. “You wouldn’t cease to exist if Aandor ruled the empire,” Cat said.
“What a remarkably arrogant and naïve statement from someone who has never been there,” said Dorn.
He ignored her for a moment, his thoughts moving beyond this conversation. Even seated, Dorn conveyed a commanding posture—the center of the room always cohabitated his space. He put one leg over the other and leaned back. Placing his arms on the rests he revealed a gold Rolex watch on his left wrist. Despite her revulsion of the man, Cat wanted to hear him speak. There was so much that she wanted to know about the universe her husband had asked her to join him in.
“This earth is a paradise,” Dorn began, gesturing at the room, but indicating the world beyond it. “Despite minor annoyances such as freedom and equality, it is fundamentally a human world. There are no other sentient species here. Ten thousand years ago, men were considered little more than a food source for many species in my reality. Even among the races that did not hunt us, we were little more than clothed primates, pitied and taken advantage of as we tried to build safe havens. We were excluded from the forests by centaurs, pushed from the hills by the dwarvs, and so on. We built villages on open river plains and flood zones. Families huddled in the darkness behind wooden walls and thatched hovels, hoping this would not be the night a pack of gnolls burst in or trolls dug through the dirt floors from subterranean caverns. How could a stone wall stop a horde of frost giants, sixteen feet tall with grumbling bellies? How do you stop a twenty-foot ogre with skin so thick and hairy, it calmly leaves your village with its kill while your men throw so many spears at it, you’d mistake it for a giant porcupine in the dark? Man did not have the breathing room to perfect his science, to develop his technology … the smartest were killed as easily as the dumbest and knowledge was readily lost. Life was day to day with no safe havens—man was not master of his domain.”
Dorn paused—Cat was greedy for the rest, but didn’t want to admit it.
He could make the phone book sound interesting.
Symian entered with a second cart. The unconscious blonde in the background was still tied up on the couch. The new tray contained strained carrots, peas, beef, and apricots. She motioned to Tory to come closer to the bed and put a napkin into his collar. Dorn fell into a silent, paternal observation of them—his hands steepled and resting against his lips.
Symian looked to Dorn for further instruction, but Dorn ignored him, so he left quietly and closed the bedroom doors behind him.
Cat heaped a spoon of strained beef and brought it to the boy’s lips. Tory could move his head and facial muscles and sucked up the beef and everything else Cat placed at his animated lips. Dorn still would not resume dinner theater for the kidnapped. Was he punishing her for diverting attention to Tory?
From his jacket, Dorn retrieved a pharmacy prescription bottle, and swallowed a pill with a swig of brandy. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Cat knew a migraine when she saw one, and if Dorn was anything like Cal, it would have to reach pain level ten before he made any outward acknowledgment of it even being there. Some of the sheen had come off, and Dorn looked vulnerable for the first time. He opened his eyes and caught her staring at him. The look in his eyes ran through her like an icy pole.