Breaking Ties by Vaughn R. Demont Page B

to make this stop. Right now, all this is, is an isolated shooting at a bar in Beckettsville. When Rourke tells me what I need to know, it’s going to get bigger, I know that. It’s something I’ll need help for, I can tell that already, something I’ll have to drag James into and, knowing Fate, my father.
    I don’t want to kill anyone.
    Hell, I’ve got issues with killing zombies, and those aren’t even people.
    But just because Rourke can’t lie, it doesn’t mean it’s the truth. I’m not required to take a life just because he says it’s a possibility. We may be guided by Fate, but we’re not slaves to it, and a con man never has to kill anyone if he does the job right.
    So I’ll figure it out.
    â€œOkay. Tell me.”

Chapter Nine
    James
    December 19, 6:32 pm
    I awaken to music, acoustic guitar with an easy melody, a song you listen to while luxuriating in a clawfoot bathtub, possibly by candlelight. I’m in a comfortable bed, the kind that’s so soft you know your back will pay the price, but you can’t be arsed to care. Warm hands gently stroke my temples, sensual, relaxing. Putting me in the mood, to be perfectly honest.
    â€œOz, I just had the worst dream. But if this is how I’ll be waking up from them, I say bring on the nightmares.”
    What follows is increased pressure on my temples, which quickly departs pleasurable and shoots right across the pain divide. I open my eyes to a man’s face with ruddy skin, deep-red hair. He’s wearing a crimson T-shirt and nothing else.
    â€œMy liege.” His tone doesn’t imply deference at all.
    â€œFluffy.” I get up, or try to, but he holds me down firmly. “My apologies. Stuffington.” I believe I’ve mentioned that I once named a dragon. This would be him. “Let me go. And tell me where the hell I am. Now.”
    He removes his hands, and I get off the bed. Aside from the bed, which has cherry headboards and vermillion satin sheets, there are a pair of matching night tables, a small mahogany dresser, the floor a darker wood, the walls painted deep red. I’m sensing a theme here. The room doesn’t have any windows, so I could be a mile underground or a hundred floors up. There’s no telling with dragons.
    â€œWhy am I in your apartment?” I make sure to put distance between him and me. “And you damned well better not have done anything while I was asleep.” Just because my clothes are still on doesn’t mean anything.
    â€œI am hardly a satyr, my liege.” He shimmers and is wearing the crimson suit from when I first met him in his human form. “And you are here at the request of the Ra’saar. I am to look after you and tend to your needs.”
    â€œTend to my needs?” I crack a smile. “Don’t you hate me?”
    His jaw sets. “You have humiliated me not once but twice before the assembled court.”
    â€œTwice?”
    â€œYou chose an Azure over a Crimson. That alone was an insult to me, but one I could hope to bear had you not branded me with…” he growls, “…Stuffington Fluffypants the Third.”
    â€œEsquire. I made you an esquire as well.”
    â€œI despise you.”
    I shrug. “Tough shit. I’ve faced down two psychotic Ra’keth, you think you or your king make me nervous? I haven’t chosen a protector, I’m not choosing you. Now open that door, let me out, or I start blowing out walls. And then I kick your ass.”
    He grins, showing teeth. “I welcome the opportunity.”
    â€œSalondine.” A new voice, behind me, and I turn to find a man in his forties, an inch taller than me, chestnut-brown hair, no facial hair, blue eyes, wearing simple gray robes. He waves Sal off, his hand adorned with two simple rings, one on the ring finger, one on the index. “Leave us.”
    The dragon bows his head and exits the room swiftly,