Page 24 of Firedrake Betrayal
And then she says, “I won’t stop trying to escape.”
“You cannot escape from a penthouse twenty stories up,” I remind her.
She tilts her chin. “Yet.”
Our stare extends.
Seconds pass, and Jade’s expression doesn’t become any less stubborn.
Despite my growing need to lock her in a room to prevent any further escape attempts, I swallow my smile. “If your eyes hadn’t marked you out as a Kaida, this would have.”
“What would have?”
“Stubborn.” I hadn’t believed she would do something as ridiculous as to climb out of a bathroom window. It hadn’t been easy to ignore her pale, slender legs as she fell out of the window, but I had. “Kaidas were always stubborn.”
I wonder if that’s what killed her mother.
Jade was curious about her heritage in the compound. She told me her father had kept a lot from her, so I wait for her to ask about her mother like she did before.
She doesn’t say a word as I watch the sun disappearing in the distance.
I feel her studying me as I consider my options.
She hasn’t come into her powers yet, so it would be easy to cage her.
I could lock her in my hoard again. Until her emergence, she could never escape. And I would if I didn’t have such intimate knowledge of how that felt.
Locking her in my hoard had been a deeply, deeply uncomfortable experience.
I knew what it was to pound at a door, to kick it. To yell.
For twenty years Atticus caged me, and the first thing I did when I freed Jade was cage her in turn.
My mate and the mother of my child.
If I cage her long enough, I will teach her to hate me as much as I hate Atticus Chira.
But if I take her back, I might lose her.
Three men will be in Oklahoma. She hasn’t asked to see them, but she will want to see them. This is more than just her wanting to see her father.
I need to do something about those men.
“I will arrange a private plane for tomorrow morning.” I search her face for her reaction.
Which will give me more time to persuade you that you don’t want to go back at all.
Her brief smile quickly melts away into suspicion, then frustration. “Why not now? My dad might need me now.”
“A plane will be faster, and it will enable us to return quickly once the task has completed.”
“Chicagois my home. I won’t be coming back to New York.”
So you think.
I pull my cell phone from my pocket. “First, you need clothes.”
Her eyes flick to the black dress I picked out for dinner. It’s a beautiful dress, but Jade would look striking in color. Maybe green or blue.
