Jorden: The McCade Dragon –Erotic Paranormal Romance (15 page)

The earpiece buzzing told him he had an incoming call. Answering it with a stern warning to the caller, he waited for someone to speak. He should have looked at his phone to see who it was, but he was busy and the caller should have known that.

“Having any luck?” He had no idea who the voice belonged to so said nothing. “I’m thinking that you’re not. Could be because you’re stupid, but I don’t think that’s it. Perhaps it’s just that you have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Who is this?” The person laughed, a sound that was eerily scary as well as confident. “I asked you a question and I demand that you answer me.”

“Well, who died and left you king of shit? Oh wait. When people piss you off they don’t die, they are murdered. By you. When I get you, and I will, I’m going to extract payment for each of them from your body.” The vision of what the man was saying popped into his head.

Fredrick was laying on a table, his body tied there, naked as the day he’d been born. The man, hooded and dark, stood over him with a knife, brilliantly lit in the moonlight. His body was covered in blood, his own blood, and there were cuts and bruises all over him. When the knife blade came down again, Fredrick could—

“Do you see it, Fredrick? Or should I call you by your given name? Bobby Ware. Do you think the children you went to school with still call you Bobby Pin behind your back? A boy as small as you was called a great many names, weren’t you, Bobby?” Fredrick leaned heavily against the wall behind him, thoughts of the girl and her jewelry gone. The man knew a lot, too much.

“Where are you? Who have you been talking to? I demand that you tell me where you got this information.” The man laughed again, and this time Fredrick could almost see him throwing back his head in his humor. “Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare, as a matter of fact. A man that is going to ruin you first, then kill you. Perhaps with my bare hands.” The same vision came to him. Only this time the man was strangling him, his large hands wrapped tightly around his throat. “I shall enjoy making you beg me with your eyes. Telling me with your last breath that you need to live. Yes, I think I shall enjoy this a great deal.”

He felt his bladder loosen and his balls tighten painfully. Fredrick did not like pain, not even to bump his hand against something. But this man was talking to him as if he knew for a fact that he was going to kill him, even knowing how it would be done. When he laughed again, Fredrick told him he was hanging up.

“Before you do, I would like to give you one last chance. Stay away from the girl. All of them, as a matter of fact.” Fredrick asked him why he’d do that. “Because they’re mine. The jewels, the women, even the men, they’re mine. I’m going to rule them all, and the dragon will bring me wealth that no one can imagine, not even you.”

“I’ve a great deal invested in this. Why do you think I’ll just walk away from it all? I mean, riches beyond compare? The sale that I have lined up alone is more than most people would see in several lifetimes.” He saw the girl then; she stood just across from where he stood, her body turned so that he could see that she was talking on the phone. He’d been chasing her for weeks now, and would end this once and for all. “I’m not going to quit, just so you know. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop what you’re doing and know that you’ve given it your best shot.”

He was nearly to her when a man with a dark hoodie came up behind her. Before he could warn her, if that was even in his plan, the man pulled her head back and slit her throat. Then he turned her in his direction so that he could see that she was bleeding out. Fredrick asked him what he was doing?

“Why, I’m collecting on what is mine. And so you know, the others will not die as quickly or as quietly.” He dropped her body then and stepped over her when a crowd began to gather. “They’ll find your prints on the knife, Fredrick. If I were you, I’d run.”

The sirens sounded close by, too soon after the murder for them to have been alerted. Fredrick knew that they’d been called prior to it, and had an inkling that he had been named as a suspect. As he backed from the crime scene and the body laying inert on the ground, he tried to think what he could do now. The man had said that his prints were on the weapon. That they would be after him.

Going to his car, he had his driver take him home. It was the only place he felt safe right now. As he gathered notes, things to run with, he tried to remain calm, think so that he’d leave no traces of where he was going behind. Fredrick wasn’t going to be caught. Not in this lifetime.

Things were put in order; his car, the one he was going to drive, was packed up, money at the ready. As soon as he got word that the police were coming to him, he would be gone, nowhere to be found. An hour after he was home, he began to worry less. Then an hour turned into two, then four. Fredrick thought that the man had fooled him.

And he’d made a fool of him. Fredrick was not one to trifle with, he thought, and this man, whoever he was, he’d pay for this. And in the worst way possible. As he began to relax, his body worn out from all the unnecessary stress, he decided that he needed to figure out if the woman had indeed been killed. For all he knew that, too, could have been a ruse.

His butler came to get him just as it was time for dinner. As he entered his dining room, he looked around. He wanted nothing out of place, nothing to mar the beauty of his home. Just as he was seated, his first course set before him, he heard the front bell. Thinking nothing of it, he told Marco to tell the intruder to go away. Business was not conducted after five.

Taking a sip of his soup, careful not to look greedy, he found himself on the floor with a boot at his throat. Before he could ask what the meaning of this was, he looked up at the hooded man. When he pulled out a gun and pointed it at him, Fredrick had a single thought before the man fired. Where was the jewelry?

Now Available in the McCade Dragon Series

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Kathi Barton, author of the bestselling series Force of Nature, lives in Nashport, Ohio with her husband Paul. In addition to writing full time Kathi likes to spend time with her eight grandkids, three children and three children-in-laws. She writes to relax and have fun.

Her muse, a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Hugh Jackman brings them to life for her readers in a way that has them coming back time and again for more. Her favorite genre is paranormal romance with a great deal of spice. You can visit Kathi online and drop her an email if you’d like. She loves hearing from her fans.
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