Mated To The Dragon Of Manhattan (A BBW Paranormal Romance Book 1) (2 page)

Soon the three of us boarded the elevator and ascended to the second floor, where we automatically stopped, like the dark-haired guard had said we would. The elevator door slid open, revealing two guards clad in all black. They took one look at us and simultaneously asked what was going on.

The dark-haired guard beside me, who'd finally taken his hand off my shoulder, gestured to me. "One of the other shifters finally slipped through from the other side. One of them with invisibility capabilities, I think. And of course, a woman, just like Lieutenant Stevens thought. So, we're headed up to the throne room right now. And why don't you do us a favor and call up ahead?"

I'd completely given up trying to figure out what was happening to me. I was just hoping and praying everything was just some sort of a very bad, very confusing dream. I hoped maybe I'd somehow stumbled and had hit my head on the bank vault door, knocking myself unconscious. And if so, I prayed I'd soon wake up.

But another thought had been growing in the back of my mind. And the thought was that maybe, somehow, I'd been attacked while trying to deposit the cash in the bank vault and had been knocked unconscious and then kidnapped. Maybe my kidnappers had somehow deposited me inside the building I was currently in, and I'd somehow regained consciousness in the lobby and had pulled myself to my feet behind the fern. Or, maybe the two guards with me were actually my kidnappers but had just feigned surprise when they'd seen me, for whatever reason. Maybe to cover their tracks. Or maybe to make me think I was crazy.

A concussion from a blow to the head would certainly explain why I wasn't comprehending what was being said to me. Although my head didn't hurt at all. I was just dizzy.

Soon the elevator door closed again, and the two guards and I began ascending to the sixty-fifth floor. Except for white marble flooring, the elevator was glass, or fiberglass, or whatever builders typically used for a clear view with safety, and this not only allowed me to have a look inside the building, but outside the building, and at other adjacent tall buildings as well.

Hundreds of people inside the building bustled around while the elevator rushed by each floor. With the elevator's rate of ascent only giving me a second or two to peek at each floor, it was hard for me to tell what exactly the people inside the building were doing. Some floors seemed like office space; some seemed like kitchens of some sort; and some seemed like they might be cafes or restaurants. And still others were blacked out entirely from view of the elevator, as if they might be private residential space.

I considered trying to wave or call out for help to some of the people on the various floors, but my hands being cuffed behind my back prevented me from waving, and since
I
could barely hear any noise inside the elevator, I doubted whether any of the people on the floors would be able to hear
me
. Not to mention that if anyone did, I'd likely be gone in the second it took for them to turn around. And also not to mention, I was terrified of what the guards might do if I made any sort of attempt to get help.

While we rose higher and higher, I eventually turned my focus outward and spotted the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

I couldn't help but sigh with relief at the familiar sights. "Oh, good. So, we're still in New York City, then."

The two guards made no response, and I suddenly noticed something strange. It had been cloudy and gloomy all day. It had been pouring rain when I'd been preparing to deposit the cash in the bank vault. And now, the sky was perfectly blue and sunny. There wasn't a single cloud in it, actually. Bright sunlight illuminated the interior of the elevator. Sunlight had also been streaming in through the glass doors the guards had run over from to arrest me downstairs, though this hadn't registered with me at the time.

But suddenly, something
did
register with me. If I'd been kidnapped, which was seeming more and more likely to me, just because things were seeming too real to be a dream, I'd apparently been knocked unconscious for hours, or even days. Because there was no way the sky could have cleared so completely and dramatically in anything less than an hour, I figured.

While we continued to ascend, I spotted in the distance a greenish dot that was the Statue of Liberty. And for some reason, just the sight of her allowed just the tiniest shred of hope to rise in my heart. And it was a hope for something vague that I couldn't quite articulate, even to myself. The hope of some kind of rescue, maybe. Maybe the hope that Dave the security guard at the bank had seen my kidnapping and had called the police.

But I didn't have long at all to enjoy or contemplate this tiny shred of hope. Because we soon reached the sixty-fifth floor of the building; the elevator door opened; and the two guards ushered me out. And at that moment, the tiny shred of hope lifting my heart popped like a bubble.

*

The sixty-fifth floor of the building was similar to the lobby in that it had marble flooring and various other touches of opulence and luxury. However, it was different in that the walls weren't decorated with velvet tapestries and gold-framed oil paintings. Instead, the walls were lined in sconces in the shape of dragon heads. Some appeared to be made from gold, while others appeared to be made from silver. Still others were carved out of various shades of marble. But they were all dragon heads. And they all looked fierce. They stretched down a long marble hallway as far as I could see. Oval mirrors in gilded frames hung between maybe every five or six of them. And I could see that the frame of the gilded mirror closest to the elevator was decorated in a dragon motif.

With knots forming in my stomach, I recalled earlier seeing charcoal gray dragon insignias on the side of the shirt sleeves of the two guards holding me captive, as well as on the sleeves of the two guards at the second floor stop. Kind of up high on the shirt sleeves, like on the bicep area, where a military insignia might be.

And that's when I figured that I'd been kidnapped by some sort of bizarre dragon cult. Maybe one who worshiped dragons as symbols? Or maybe one who believed in the actual existence of the mythical creatures. Either way, I knew I was in serious trouble. And I was afraid. Much more afraid than I'd been at any point in my ordeal thus far.

The dark-haired guard commanded that I take a left and start walking. "The throne room is at the end of the hallway. And Lord Truman and his advisers should be finished with their end-of-the-week meeting in the conference room by now."

My hands had begun trembling the moment the two guards pulled their guns on me, and now that trembling seemed to be spreading to the rest of my body as well. But
fearful of what the guards would do if I didn't, I began walking, though on shaking legs.

While we made our way down the long hallway, I couldn't help but glance at the dragon sconces and mirrors, despite the fact that doing so only seemed to increase my trembling. In one of the mirrors, I caught sight of myself, just for a brief second, and I barely recognized the young woman I saw. The long, dark hair, the sides swept to the top with bobby pins, was the same as mine, and the heart-shaped face of the young woman in the mirror was the same as mine. But her deep blue eyes I'd never seen before. Dark and terrified, they seemed to beg for help. But I couldn't give it. Because of course, she was me.

Though the gray marble-floored hallway was long, it felt like only seconds had passed before we reached the end of it. And not nearly as many seconds as I would have liked. I would have preferred for time to run out before I had to enter Lord Truman Stone's throne room. Whoever he was. Whatever a throne room was.

The two guards didn't  pause or say a single word to me before the blond-haired guard pulled open one of two dark wood double doors and gestured for me to enter the room beyond. Willing my wobbling legs to carry me over the threshold, I finally did t after a long moment of hesitation. I knew I didn't have much of a choice.

The room was spacious, though
spacious
barely began to describe it. It was honestly downright
cavernous
. With a ceiling vaulted so high I was sure it had to take up the entire floor above, if not the entire
two
floors above, I couldn't help but survey the ceiling in awe. I'd never seen such a high ceiling in a skyscraper before. With massive, dark wood beams running across it at intervals and running from floor to ceiling, supporting it, or so I figured, the architecture reminded me maybe of a medieval lord's hall in a palace. Or, at least, what I'd seen of medieval lord's halls in the movies. I liked the look, especially combined with the gray marble floors in the hall. Or, I
would have
liked the look if I'd maybe been a visitor to the hall on some movie set. And not a visitor by way of being some sort of kidnapped prisoner, like how I currently was.

We'd apparently entered the hall at the very end of it, or beginning maybe, depending on how one saw things, as we were at the beginning of a long, dark gray, velvety carpet that appeared to run all the way up to some type of raised platform at the other end. The carpet was just like the red carpet movie stars might walk down, except dark gray. And most likely, a dark gray carpet of doom. Because I was pretty sure there wasn't going to be paparazzi-flanked, smiling celebrities at the end of it. Though, obviously, I would have welcomed that. I would have welcomed anyone at the end of the carpet as long as they had a cell phone and were willing to call the police. But something just told me that nobody willing to do that would be waiting for me on the raised platform at the end of the carpet.

While the guards walked me down, I tried to get a look at several people seated  in chairs on the platform, but the hall was dimly lit with only a couple of high windows on the far side, which made it difficult to see. However, the platform itself seemed to have better lighting, and once the guards and I had gotten maybe halfway down the carpet, I was able to see the figures in the chairs on the platform with a little more clarity.

A man sat in what appeared to be a solid gold throne in the middle of the raised, gray marble platform. He was tall and well-built, and he had dark hair. To his right was an empty chair, and then a petite, red-haired woman in the chair to the right of that one. On the left of the man in the golden throne sat a man with grayish, blondish hair, and to the left of him sat a woman with long, curly hair the color of caramel. As I got closer, I could see these two were maybe in their forties.

I
could also
see something else as I got closer to the raised marble platform. The man in the golden throne was handsome. Though that word didn't even begin to do him justice. He was beyond handsome. He was some word for profound masculine beauty that hadn't even been invented yet, I thought, while at the same time thinking how absurd it was that I was admiring the man's extreme attractiveness considering the current predicament I was in, and this man might imprison me, or worse. Despite me still not even having a clue to exactly where I was, other than a notion that I was on the premises of some bizarre dragon cult in New York City.

But at any rate, despite everything, I couldn't deny that the man on the golden throne was the most attractive man I'd ever seen in my life, hands down, without a doubt. Though he was seated, I guessed he had to be several inches above six feet tall. Soft, golden light shining down on him and the others flanking him, illuminated his lightly tanned skin and his long, lean, muscular body. Like the guards, he was dressed in black boots, black pants, and a black Oxford shirt, which showed his slim hips and broad chest to their best possible advantage. I wasn't yet close enough to be able to tell the color of his eyes, though there was no mistaking the color of his hair. So dark it was nearly black, his hair glinted in the overhead lights. I guessed he was maybe about thirty-five.

He was the kind of man who'd likely never go for me. Though many people often told me I was pretty, and strangers even frequently complimented my deep blue eyes, I was a shorter girl, and decidedly fuller-figured. And though my body still had a decent hourglass shape, "curvy" was not the shape most men in New York City seemed to find most attractive. A lot of men in the city seemed to chase after long-legged, reed-thin model types. And I just assumed the man on the golden throne would be interested in the same. Not that I wanted to be with some crazy dragon cult leader anyway.

When the two guards and I neared the end of the dark gray carpet, the dark-haired one told me to stop, and then after he and his fellow guard bowed in the direction of the golden throne, he addressed Lord Truman, asking if he had any questions.

Lord Truman moved his head in a slight shake. "No. I think the second floor guards have already told me all I need to know. For now. Thank you."