House Of Dragons Read online

  Incredulous, I scoffed. “Prison time? For basically refusing to uproot my whole life to go date the commander’s grandsons? How does he know that I’m even in a position to date his grandsons anyway? How does he even know that I’m single and that he won’t be ripping me away from someone I love or something?”

  The male agent gave me a small, somehow paternal-looking sort of smile. “We were able to gather a lot just from your social media pages. We know that your last serious relationship ended six months ago when your ex-boyfriend, Kevin, cheated on you with a stripper at a bachelor party held at his best friend’s house.”

  Unfortunately, that was true. Kevin had cheated on me at his best friend’s bachelor party, leaving me devastated when I’d seen pictures of him with his tongue between a stripper’s cleavage and his hands down the front of her bikini bottom. I hadn’t ever posted these details on social media, though, preferring to keep the very private details of my private life private. However, a casual friend had posted the details on one of my pages, wanting to know if they were really true. As irritated as I was that this friend hadn’t contacted me privately and instead had posted on my wall, I’d answered her post with a simple yes and had then left the post up somewhat reluctantly, hoping that it would satisfy all curiosity and prevent any other friends from texting or calling me to get all the “juicy details” of my breakup.

  When I didn’t respond to what the male agent had said, his female companion jumped in again. “In addition to knowing that you’re single, we also know that, sadly, your parents were killed in an auto accident here in Jacksonburg a few years ago, and that you don’t have any other family. Furthermore, we know that the childcare center where you’ve worked for the past three years closed a month ago, leaving you unemployed. So, to the commander, there really doesn’t seem to be any good reason that you can’t come to stay in the capital for a while. You’re not in a romantic relationship, and you don’t have any family or work responsibilities. In fact, when he received the report with all your information, I think the commander was actually a bit tickled by the fact that you actually seem to be at a perfect point in your life for all this.”

  Incredulous, I snorted. “Oh, really? I wasn’t aware that there was a ‘perfect point’ in life to basically be kidnapped or else face prison time.”

  Wearing an exasperated sort of expression, as if she was fighting not to roll her eyes, the female agent gave me a small smile. “Look, Miss Wakefield. I understand that you’re upset and probably in a bit of shock. I’m sure I would be too. However, I don’t think you’ll find being ‘kidnapped’ to be all that unpleasant of an experience. You’ll get to live in your own luxury apartment within Iverson Towers, and you’ll get to date the two most eligible bachelors in the nation. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of Mason and Alex Iverson in the celebrity magazines. They’re not too hard on the eyes, are they?”

  They definitely weren’t, yet still, I scowled at the two agents sitting at my kitchen table.

  “I guess I may as well go get packed. Wouldn’t want to get thrown in prison for taking too long.”

  With my jaw tightly clenched, I stood up from the table and began storming out of the kitchen, wondering if that day would count as the first of my ninety-day “sentence,” or if the commander would make me wait until the following day to start counting down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It wasn’t that I found the prospect of dating Mason and Alex Iverson unappealing; I didn’t. It was just the fact that I was being forced into it that rankled me. Like most modern women, I was used to making my own decisions in life and calling my own shots. I certainly wasn’t used to essentially being taken from my home against my will because of some prophetic dream that someone had had fifty or sixty years earlier.

  New Detroit, which used to simply be called Detroit before being completely rebuilt after the war, was about an hour’s drive from Jacksonburg. During this time, I sat in the back of a shiny black limousine, staring out the window, still having the sense that I was in some absolutely bizarre dream.

  When I arrived at Iverson Towers, which was in the heart of the city, near downtown, I was greeted by a beautiful, taciturn woman who identified herself as one of the commander’s secretaries. Looking more like a fashion model in her stiletto heels, short skirt, and tailored jacket, she told me that the commander wanted to visit with me first thing, before I got settled into my new apartment. Thinking that I probably didn’t have a choice about this, I said that was fine, and she led me through the bustling lobby of the building to an elevator bay. Once inside the elevator, we didn’t speak until it stopped on the fourth floor. There, the commander’s secretary told me to please follow her down to one of the commander’s meeting rooms, which I did, increasingly feeling like I was in some sort of strange dream. I was even starting to feel a bit dizzy, which was probably pretty understandable. After all, it certainly wasn’t every day that I was basically forced out of my home, and it certainly wasn’t every day that I met the commander-in-chief of the nation. In fact, seeing them on television was the closest I’d ever come to meeting any member of the Iverson family.

  The commander’s meeting room was massive, more like a great hall or a library than a simple “room.” With hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, and walls lined floor-to-ceiling with books, it reminded me more than a bit of a state history museum I’d visited while on a field trip once in elementary school.

  Roughly in the center of the room, there was a long table made of glossy, polished wood, and it was here that I assumed I’d be seated to wait for the commander, who wasn’t yet present. However, his secretary walked me right past the table, saying that the commander would soon meet me in one of his “private offices.” I just nodded, experiencing another wave of dizziness. Things were just becoming too strange for me, too unexpected. In disbelief, I recalled how I’d sat at my kitchen table just that morning, eating sugary cereal while watching TV, with absolutely no clue just how eventful my day was to become. And now, I was soon to meet with the commander of the Free Were-dragon States. If I don’t pass out first or something, I thought, and this was kind of a valid concern, since all my life, I’d had a tendency to pass out when extremely nervous or scared. Once, although I hadn’t actually passed out, I’d had to lie down on a couch in a break room before a job interview. Deep breathing exercises had helped me with my anxiety somewhat over the years, although currently, I not only couldn’t remember any of those exercises, but I was having a difficult time just continuing to breathe without hyperventilating.

  Branching off from the main hall or main meeting room or whatever it was were numerous smaller meeting rooms, all of them with heavy, ornately-carved wooden doors.

  Near the end of the hall, the commander’s secretary heaved one of these open and gestured for me to step inside. “The commander will be with you shortly.”

  With that, she took off, high heels tapping on the hardwood as she made her way back down the hall.

  For the lofty splendor of this part of the building as a whole, the office I’d just entered was actually something of a humble little space. As far as furnishings, they consisted of only a wooden desk, a leather highbacked chair, and two wingback chairs opposite the desk . The wood-paneled walls held a few watercolor paintings of the capital skyline at various times of day. Feeling increasingly nervous now that I was completely alone, I began studying these paintings, willing my heartbeat to slow and my dizziness to lessen.

  A minute hadn’t even gone by when the sound of a voice coming from somewhere nearby startled me, making me bite back a gasp. The secretary hadn’t closed the office door, so I could hear that the voice had come from somewhere in the cavernous hall beyond, and I now listened intently.

  At first, I couldn’t make out any specific words, and instead, could only tell that the speaker was a man maybe somewhere between twenty and thirty. It definitely wasn’t the commander, who was in his seventies. Soon, the speaker got closer and seemed to stop just b
eyond the office door. Out of sight since I was practically hugging the wall beside a painting, I hardly dared breathe, just having some funny gut feeling that I shouldn’t. And within seconds, I was able to hear the speaker clearly.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know that, Colin. Here’s the thing, though. It won’t even matter in the end who she chooses.”

  There was a brief pause before the man spoke again.

  “Oh, I absolutely haven’t changed my mind. I’m going to eliminate the competition long before the three months is up, just to make sure I get the outcome I want. I like to think I can be pretty persuasive when it comes to women, but so can he, and we can’t afford to take any chances, can we?”

  There was another brief pause, followed by the speaker chuckling briefly before speaking again.

  “Right. Blame it on the Darkwings. They are evil sons of bitches, right?”

  Another brief chuckle. “Anyway, look. I’ve got to go. The old man is supposed to be having the girl brought in here for some kind of a meeting soon, and I don’t want anyone overhearing me. Obviously.”

  Little too late for that, I thought, still hardly daring to breathe.

  I soon heard the man end his phone call and begin walking away, footfalls heavy on the hardwood. Wondering what on earth I’d just overheard and trying to make sense of it, I began tiptoeing over to the door, wanting to maybe try to get a glimpse of him but still afraid to make a sound. However, about halfway to the doorway, another wave of dizziness overcame me and I had to steady myself with a hand against the wall for several moments. And by the time I finally reached the doorway and tentatively poked my head outside, the great hall was empty.

  Trying to piece things together and wondering if the man I’d overheard could have possibly been Mason or Alex Iverson, I had a seat in one of the two chairs opposite the desk. Deep in thought a minute or two later, I nearly jumped a mile when the commander-in-chief of the nation came in, announcing in a deep, booming voice that he was sorry to have kept me waiting.

  With my heart hammering in my ears, I said nothing and instead just exhaled slowly, feeling more than ever that I was in some sort of strange dream.

  Possibly noticing my state of being rattled, the commander suddenly stopped beside his desk, frowning. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, if I did.”

  I wanted to be mad at him, both for startling me and for having me taken from my hometown. I wanted to give him nothing but terse words and icy stares, in fact. However, his pale blue eyes were filled with such genuine remorse and his apology was so obviously sincere that I couldn’t quite muster these things.

  Instead, I just moved my shoulders in a small shrug. “It’s okay. I startle kind of easily.”

  After we’d introduced ourselves and had shaken hands, the commander asked if I’d like anything to drink. “Coffee or tea, maybe? Or water? Whatever you’d like, I can ring for my secretary to bring us.”

  Hardly able to believe that the ruler of the entire nation was offering me something to drink, I said no, thank you, with a growing sense of unreality. “I think…I think maybe I’d just like to go back home now.”

  I hadn’t exactly planned to say that, but now that I had, it seemed right. I did just want to go back home. I just wanted to forget all about government agents coming to my house and making thinly-veiled threats if I didn’t comply with them. I just wanted to forget all about overhearing strange phone calls and feeling so rattled. I just wanted to forget about the whole damn day.

  Knitting his gray eyebrows, the commander had a seat in his desk chair with a sigh. “I’m afraid I’m not ready to let you just ‘go back home’ yet, Miss Wakefield.”

  “Please…call me Kira.”

  I’d said this in hopes that getting the commander to use my first name might help him to see me as more of a real person and less of a pawn in whatever strange game he was playing.

  “All right, Kira…I’m afraid I’m not ready to let you just ‘go back home’ yet. You see, maybe the agents I sent explained to you about the premonition my mother had all those years ago….”

  “Yes, they did, but…well, I guess I don’t know how to say this. I’m just not sure if I really believe in that kind of stuff. It honestly sounds kind of crazy.”

  The commander fixed me with an unexpectedly compassionate look. “All I ask is that you give things a chance. Just three months. Just help the nation by helping me to choose a successor. That’s not such a bad task, is it? After all, you might even find love along the way. And in the meantime, you’ll get to stay in your own luxury apartment here in the Towers, receiving a monthly income ten times what you used to make at the childcare center, just for your time and cooperation with the task I’m asking you to do. That’s not such a bad deal, is it?”

  Feeling increasingly comfortable with the commander, or at least not outright afraid of him, I folded my arms across my chest. “Look. I know I don’t have a choice about all this. I know that my only alternative is prison. I don’t, however, have to like all this, though.”

  “Fair enough. You don’t. You just have to stay here for three months and get to know my two grandsons a little better. That’s it.”

  “I’m not sleeping with either of them, by the way. I may have to suffer through this, but I don’t have to do that.”

  I was hoping I didn’t have to, anyway. If it came down to being forced to share a bed with someone against my will or go to prison, I’d choose prison.

  To my relief, the commander lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, and my grandsons won’t force you into anything. They’re not monsters, and they’re not criminals. They’re gentlemen.”

  “Well, I think I’ll be the judge of that. And if I decide that I don’t like either of your grandsons, I hope you know that I have every right to leave this building and go back home.”

  With his expression becoming just slightly stony, the commander steepled his fingers. “Not for three months…and just so you know, you’ll have guards closely monitoring you for the next several days until we can be sure that you’re not going to try to do anything crazy.”

  Incredulous, I snorted. “Oh, like what? Something ‘crazy’ like go back to my own home?”

  Just then, his phone began going off, and he pulled it from one of his suit jacket pockets, apologizing. “I’ve got to take this.” He answered, listened for a few moments, and then spoke to the caller. “All right. Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can. Now, why don’t you send Sheila down here? I think our guest is ready to get settled into her new apartment.”

  This was actually kind of true, but only because I wanted to be left alone to collect my thoughts.

  The commander soon ended the call and pocketed his phone while rising from his chair. “I hate to cut this short, but I really must go. Sheila will be here soon to lead you up to your new apartment. It’s been nice meeting you, Kira.”

  I mumbled a very perfunctory “You, too” in response just out of deeply-ingrained politeness, not really meaning it at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  On the forty-ninth floor of the fifty-story building, my apartment was indeed luxurious, with marble flooring throughout, a sunken marble tub in the master bathroom, and gilded mirrors everywhere. I kind of hated to admit it, since this apartment was now essentially my prison, but I really loved the place.

  After seeing to it that my couple of suitcases were delivered up to me, Sheila informed me that Mason and Alex would be by to pay me a visit shortly. She didn’t say anything specific about the visit, and then immediately left, leaving me to wonder just exactly what kind of a “visit” I was soon to receive. It just maybe seemed a bit strange to me that Mason and Alex would be meeting me in my own apartment first, and not in a public place like a restaurant or something. Unless the commander has banned me from leaving my apartment, I thought, which didn’t seem implausible at all.

  If this visit with Mason and Alex was just
a brief visit to make introductions, I was ready for it, or at least as ready as I would ever be. After all, since I was forbidden from going back home, I was kind of curious about the two men I’d be spending the next three months “getting to know.” However, if Mason and Alex thought that I was going to hop right into bed with one of them during this visit to my apartment, they had another thing coming. If my meeting with the commander had illuminated anything, it was that I was pretty sure he wouldn’t condone his grandsons trying to pressure me into anything like that.

  After unpacking my suitcases, I decided to change into something maybe just a bit dressier than the jeans and sweatshirt I was wearing, and I peeled both these items off. I’d just begun rifling through my dresser drawers when I thought I heard a loud knock on the front door in the distance.

  “Oh, great.”

  I continued rifling through my drawers, not really finding what I wanted, and soon a knock sounded in the distance again. Even though I was in my bedroom and the apartment door was down a short hallway and across the vast living room, the knock had been plenty loud enough for me to hear it. This knock had clearly been the knock of a person who was insistent on being let into my apartment and who wasn’t used to waiting.

  I jerked open yet another drawer, wondering if I’d happened to pack a semi-dressy fuchsia top that I liked. However, I didn’t find it, and I just couldn’t remember if I’d grabbed it or not. “Dammit.”

  The loud, insistent knock sounded again, and I darted out of my bedroom in my bra and underwear, thoroughly irritated. “Just a minute, okay? Just a minute! I’m trying to get dressed!”

  After jogging back into my bedroom, uncertain whether or not I’d even been heard, I began rifling through my drawers again, wondering why I even cared about finding something nice to wear in order to make a good impression. After all, it wasn’t like I actually wanted to try to find love in my current situation. I just wanted to serve my three months and go the hell home. This is what I told myself, anyway.