Jorden: The McCade Dragon –Erotic Paranormal Romance (8 page)

“So these paintings, they’re of the women who wore them. But not the torques. I’m assuming that somewhere out there, someone owns these paintings and has hidden them away and forgotten them.” Dragon told Jorden that was correct, but at some point, there had been several paintings of all the pieces with the woman. Jorden asked him if he knew where the paintings were.

No, I’m sorry. I have had no connection to the paintings, but I have heard that they are alive.
Jorden was almost afraid to ask. Alive could mean all sorts of things, but he had a feeling it was just as he’d thought. They moved. But he had to know.

“Alive?” Dragon told him that each generation before the pieces were sold off would get together and have their portrait made with their husbands. And thusly, magical beings, like the ones that Vance had mentioned, would see it as it was. Dragons with their mates standing beside them. “You mean somewhere there are paintings of women with dragons, and the pieces that complete them?”

“The dragon would have been complete only in the first few, when all the pieces were together. After that, a single picture, painting, or whatever would have been made with each new bride. Again, the dragon would have been seen, but he would not be complete. Much like you are with only my heart beating in your chest to shift and the wings you can now use to fly.” Jorden looked at his brother as he relayed the answer to him. “Yours and Lord Kenton’s dragons would have wings, your body fully formed, if you were to be photographed now. But you’d not be whole. It would take all the pieces, all six of them, to make you whole and bring me to full life. And again, no one would see anything but a man near his bride. It would take someone magical to see either of you how you truly are.”

“I’m more confused now than I was before this.” Vance laughed at him. “Seriously, what could the other parts bring to the table that we might need? We can fly. Our bodies are dragon, and as Kenton found out at the hospital, we can breathe fire. What else is there?”

Each part of the set that is brought by your mates makes you more. The ring was your heart, the part of the dragon that brings him and me to life. The earrings, as you have discovered, brought you the wings so that you may have flight. The torques will give you strength in your arms and legs that will help you safeguard others. The necklace, a beautiful piece, will give your mind all manner of information, generations upon generations of all the McCades before you. There are the hair combs too, that will strengthen the blood that flows through your bodies. And in your mates’. It is said that once the pieces are together, the hair combs bring forth a dragon in the mates as well. Then there is the brooch.

“What does it do?” He felt the dragon shift along his body. Jorden thought that Vance had felt it as well, but before he could ask him about it, the dragon spoke again.

The brooch gives you armor. Stronger than the body you have with the dragon, and it will protect all that touch you. Even as men, you will be able to protect yourself with this piece of the
demi parvure
. It will not be seen by those that wish to breach it, but the magic will be powerful, consuming as well as deadly to your enemies.

Jorden looked at Vance as he told him what the dragon had said. They would be powerful; beyond that, they’d be nearly impossible to kill. Things ran though his head, not just questions—and there were plenty of those—but things that could happen to them should someone find out about it. What things someone with that kind of power could do to humans.

“And this Glass person. He wants the pieces. Why? He more than likely can’t see them. He has no way of using the pieces, does he?” The dragon said no, no one but a McCade could ever use them. That was a relief. “Then why would he try to get them as his own? Blackmail? I can’t believe that would be it. There must be something else.”

There is, my lord. If a human, and he must be fully human, has even one of the pieces as his own, then he can command the dragon
. Jorden was almost afraid to ask what he thought that might be.
He can control me. By owning the piece, he will own a part of me. When Emma was given the ring, it was from her brother to her, an inheritance. When Jasmine bought the box of junk and paid for them, she too owned me. She gave coin for it
.

“So as the women come here, they will have gotten the piece they bring in some way other than theft. If they don’t, then the piece won’t work.” Dragon said that was correct. “Then if this Glass person takes it from someone, won’t that, too, be a form of theft?”

Dragon didn’t answer. Jorden wondered if he was thinking about his answer or just simply didn’t know. Vance got up to pace but paused in front of the blank canvas. As he stood there staring at it, Jorden had an idea. He was going to paint them, all of them, on a single canvas, adding the women as they came. No one would know this but him, but he was going to do it. His mind was abuzz about how it would look when the dragon spoke.

I have checked the information that I have here. And so long as the piece is given to him by a man who steals it, and he does not murder to get it himself, then the piece is considered a gift to him. And should he pay the person to get the piece, it is a contract between them that has been fulfilled.
Jorden told Vance what he’d been told.
I do not think I like this way of thinking.

“Yeah, neither do I. So long as he doesn’t steal it, he can pretty much…that’s why Richard said he wanted to strike a bargain with me. He wants me to give him the piece I have. He doesn’t know that they’re a part of her.” Vance said he thought that Wilburn did, but Richard didn’t. More than likely it was something he was keeping from his brother. “So there is no trust between them either. Right?”

“I would say not. But this information, it gives me some things to consider. Like what if he were to take the piece that he wants…simply take it from the woman before she manages to make it her own? Is that the same thing? Does it not work?” Jorden said that he had no idea. “Me either.”

Vance said he had some things to look into and would get back to him. When he left him there, Jorden looked at the canvas and decided it was too small for what he wanted it for, and started building one the way he wanted it. He was deep into his project when he felt Jasmine touch his mind.

Are you busy?
There was panic there, not a lot but enough to have him moving toward the door.
I’m having some…I don’t want to call them issues, but I might be in prison before the end of the day if you don’t come here and rescue this fool in front of me. People who cheat others should have a special kind of hell, don’t you think?

He was laughing when he told her he was on his way
. Where are you, and what sort of weapon are you planning to use on this fool? And for the record, you should know that I’ve heard that a body can be incinerated with just a breath of air from my dragon should it come to that.

Good to know. I’m at this auction house in town. I had no idea that there even was one, but I’m with your mom. By the way, she’s not one to piss off, is she?
He told her no, she wasn’t.
Anyway, I’m here with her and Emma, and this jackass is trying to say that your mom broke this priceless piece. I told him that it’s a knockoff, which it is, and he’s calling the police. They’re on their way, I guess.

Dalton would be the one showing up, I’m betting. And he has Gavin.
She asked him why.
I’ll explain later. I’m on my way. Please don’t kill anyone. And try to hold my mom back as well. She has a mean streak in her a mile wide. Just don’t tell her I said that.

He was nearly there when he saw the cruiser. It wasn’t Dalton’s, but he and Gavin were walking toward the man who worked for him along the modest size building that Jorden had completely forgotten about until Jasmine mentioned it. Once he spotted him, Dalton waited until he caught up before he asked what was going on. When they entered, Jorden thought about leaving again. This could not end well.

A…well, it looked to him like a mob had gathered. And they were no happier with what was going on than Jasmine and his mom seemed to be. As they made their way to the center of it all, he thought that he might need more money than he had to bail them all out.

“There you are.” Jorden wasn’t sure why he’d been pointed out by Mr. Wilson, but when he came toward him looking like a man on a mission, Jorden backed up. “You take this little woman of yours out of here right now and I won’t press charges. The nerve of some people coming in here and calling me a fraud.”

“I never said you were a fraud. You are, but I never said that.” When he looked at Jasmine, she had her hands on her hips, her body stiff, and all he could think about was taking her home and fucking her brains out. “First you claim that my future mother-in-law broke this piece that you said you paid hundreds of dollars for. And by the way, if it’s priceless, then hundreds of dollars won’t cover it. And this break…how do you figure this is a fresh break when there is so much dust between the pieces of wood it’s hard to see how they’d fit? Secondly, this is not old. Unless you count something from a few years ago as old. And which is it you’re upset about? That it’s priceless at hundreds of dollars? Broken today and that dust just happened to settle on it that fast? I’m confused as to what crap you’re selling now.”

“I bought this off of a reliable merchant, and they never sell me false goods.” Mr. Wilson turned to Dalton now. “You arrest her right now. I want her arrested.”

“On what charge?” Mr. Wilson started blustering about liars and cheats. “Well, those are good reasons not to deal with someone, but not one that would have me arrest her. You go on and get the receipt for that piece and I’ll look it over. The other…well, you’re on your own with that. However, I will tell you that if she proves to be right, then she can have you arrested for slander. If your reliable merchant sold you bad goods, now that I can take care of.”

“I will not produce a receipt for this. I’m an honest man and I do honest sales.” He looked around at the crowd that was beginning to look larger than when they had arrived. “I hold a sale here every week. You can ask these good people. Ask them if I don’t sell good quality merchandise at a fair price here. I don’t cheat them. Ask them. Any one of these good people know me.”

“Two weeks ago, Hubert, you sold me a scale that was supposed to be from the thirties. It’s not true in its calibrations, and when I talked to you about it, you said that I’d already paid for it and I must have done something to it.” Mr. Wilson waved off the dissatisfied customer. “Yeah, that’s about the way you did me before.”

“I got a few pieces of graniteware here a month or so ago. I was told that it’s from the same time period. You even showed me in a catalog where it was three hundred dollars. When I got it home, I found out that the chipping on it, which you called wear, was done recently, and that the same set sells at the local camping store for ten bucks. I think you’d even tried to glue some of it back on when it caused a hole as big as my thumb to come through.”

Mr. Wilson started making excuses as more and more people began to bring up complaints.

Jorden made his way to Jasmine. “You want to own an antique store? I think we can get you some merchandise fairly cheap if you think you can sell this stuff.” She looked at him then around the room. He could see her mind working on how much the furniture and other items were worth that had been hanging on the wall since he’d been a kid. She asked him how high she could go. “You know what this is worth a hell of a lot better than I do. You deal with him and we’ll go from there.” She asked him if he was sure and for an answer, he kissed her.

“Mr. Wilson, do you want to sell out? I mean, all of this. Do you want to get out of the selling business?” He turned and looked at Jasmine when she spoke. “I’ll give you fair price for all of this, excluding the building. I have no use for it. And I mean fair, not what you think of as fair.”

Mr. Wilson asked her if she was kidding. She said she never kidded about money, nor antiques. He then took a look around, his mind working on how much he could over inflate things, Jorden had no doubt. When he looked at the crowd, he could see that he wasn’t going to get help from them. Nor likely any more business would be coming from them.

“How much?” Jasmine said it didn’t work that way, he was to give her a price and she’d work from there. “I’d have to have a lot. I’ve been collecting the stuff in here for years. This here is my livelihood. It’s not going to be cheap.”

“How much?” He could see that she was good at this. And that she was enjoying it. “I don’t think you can count on this being much of a money maker for you, once word gets out how upset everyone is on some of your…sales. You tell me what you want, and as I said, I’ll see.”

He gave a price, fifty grand. It was much less than he’d thought he’d say, and Jorden was ready to say he’d take it. But the hand on his shoulder, his mom’s hand, kept him quiet. Jorden watched Jasmine work Mr. Wilson. It was like watching a professional negotiate down a jumper.

“I’ll give you fifteen. There is a lot of just junk in here filling in space where you could have nice pieces. Fifteen grand. And I’ll even move the crap out that I don’t have any use for.” Mr. Wilson snorted at her and told her she was nuts. “I’m betting that in a few weeks, less, the bank will take what I offer them. Maybe I should just wait for them. What do you think, Jorden?”

“What do you mean, the bank? I have a good standing with my bank.” Jasmine picked up the unopened mail that was laying right in front of them. The words past due were stamped in red on the front of it. There were several more, all of them with some marking that said he wasn’t as flush as he was claiming. Mr. Wilson snatched it back. “I’ve made me some arrangements on that. You can buy it off me for forty grand.”