Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(31)
Jordan blinked several times. “Several centuries?” She practically recoiled. “How old are you?”
Zane pursed his lips together and briefly shut his eyes. “I’m just over a thousand years old.”
She gulped, started to speak, then quickly closed her mouth. Another time. “So where are we going, then? Straight to your…lair?”
“Yes,” he answered bluntly, punctuating the inevitability with silence.
Jordan followed suit.
Sometimes silence was golden, and it had become a language unto itself between the two of them: Jordan’s way of saying, I’ve heard enough; I can’t digest any more; and Zane’s way of, well, being Zane.
Powerful.
Mysterious.
Always in control.
Intimidating, whether he intended to be, or not.
Jordan ran her hands up and down her arms to stave off a sudden chill. So that was that, and this was real. In a matter of minutes—maybe ten, maybe twenty—she would be standing in an alternate world, on the other side of some mysterious portal, surrounded by savage males who were neither human, nor men, vampire, nor dragon, but some cryptic combination of the four.
She would be alone in a foreign, terrifying world.
A world that was ruled by actual dragons.
“Baby…” Zane’s deep, rugged voice cut through the tension.
Jordan met his seeking gaze and tried not to tremble. She was so tired of being afraid.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered huskily. “It is going to be okay. You are not the first dragyra ever born, nor claimed, and you won’t be the last. I am not going to let anything harm you, and this”—he swept his arm around the elevator to indicate the building and the car, even as it came to a smooth, even stop—“this isn’t going away. You will be back on Monday to see your friend Macy; you will still attend the jury selection on Tuesday; and your life will go on. We will build a bridge between our worlds, not an impassible chasm. I know it’s impossible to see right now, from where you stand, but this is the beginning, not the end—and I am your protector, not your enemy.” His voice dropped to a sultry purr. “And in time, I wish to be your lover…and your friend.”
Jordan held both hands in front of her in a cease and desist gesture: Stop, just stop.
It was way too much information, and since she really didn’t have a choice, there was no point in litigating her purpose. She didn’t need to hear it spoken aloud.
As the elevator doors slid open, Jordan followed Zane into the lobby; and as those same metal doors shut behind them, she watched as her life, as she knew it, came to a close.
Chapter Thirteen
A five-minute walk to a nearby park.
Sixty seconds beneath the low-hanging branches of a cottonwood tree.
Thirty seconds clutching his amulet while he reached out to take her hand, and Jordan and Zane were in the Dragons Domain.
Just like that.
An overwhelming wave of vertigo assaulted Jordan’s senses, and she reached out to steady herself against the nearest wall: Her palm struck a large, rugged pillar, constructed from organic white-and-sapphire stones, each individual brick possessing its own unique shape and contour, seamlessly woven together by packed, translucent clay. The lighter stones were pearlescent; the darker stones were an unalloyed, deep blue; and the utter vibrancy emanating from the rocks shone like a living band of color, pulsating in visible waves of energy.
Jordan squinted and covered her eyes, trying to adjust to the supernatural light, and Zane immediately set down her bags, sidled behind her, and placed the pads of both fingers on the sides of her temples, where he applied a gentle, circular pressure. “Your eyes will adjust quickly, my love,” he murmured.
Jordan cringed at the term of endearment. “The light. It’s too bright.” She felt hopelessly lost and extremely disoriented.
“You’re fine,” he reiterated, rotating his fingers in small, soothing circles. “Open your eyes again.”
She blinked several times, slowly reopened her eyes, and took another glance at the stones…at the lair. This time, her vision was clear, unimpeded, and she couldn’t help but notice that the architecture was magnificent. In fact, she had never seen such expert masonry in her life—she had never beheld such vibrant colors, not even in her dreams. And then, all at once, the ambient symphony echoing all around her rose to a thunderous crescendo, almost as if the adjustment to her vision had amplified her hearing as well. Water roared all around her; electricity swelled within her; and her heart began to pound, like the steady pulse of a bass drum, beating in time with the rhythmic flow.
“Come,” Zane whispered, taking her by the hand before she could utter a protest. She tried to draw back, but Zane’s grasp was firm. Seemingly unaware of her hesitation, he led her across the wide wood-and-stone deck to the far end of the lair and came to a halt before a waist-high terrace wall. “Look to the right, behind the lair.”
Jordan instinctively turned her head and gasped.
Flowing like a crystal surge of raw, liquid power was the most brilliant waterfall she had ever seen. Six or seven distinct channels of white-capped, vertical streams flowed out of the apex of an enormous, resplendent cliff, the entire fall capped by bountiful, flowering trees in every shade of autumn, each organic cluster of foliage rising straight out of the rocky bluff. She had never seen anything like it.