Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(75)
He released her hand, sauntered across the floor, and knelt in front of the body, cupping Dan’s head in his hands. “When you awaken, you will remember nothing! The last time you saw Jordan”—he dipped into her mind—“was in passing, at work. You haven’t spoken to her since. There was no letter.” He scanned the bunker, eyed the missive on a tiny metal end table, and drew it into his hand, using telekinesis. And then he scorched it into cinders. “There was no text”—he found Dan’s cell phone in Dan’s jacket pocket and crushed it in the palm of his hand—“and you are no longer in love with Jordan. You don’t know why you’re here; you don’t know what happened; and you no longer worship the Cult of Hades. Return to your life and make it worthwhile.” He started to stand up, but remembered one last thing. “Oh, and you will be asked a lot of questions: about the courthouse, about Judge Moran, about Jordan Anderson. You don’t know, you don’t remember, and frankly, you no longer care enough to investigate.”
There was no need to wake the human up to check for the strength of the compulsion, or to make sure the directives would hold. Zane’s entire essence was still imbued with the power of Lord Saphyrius—the human would be lucky if his entire mind wasn’t scrubbed, and empty, by the time he awakened.
He’d be lucky if he could still speak and walk.
But Zane was not going to share that with Jordan—he had done everything he could.
Just then, a pair of loud, heavy boots beat down the stairs and stomped to the edge of the doorway, and Axe Saphyrius peered through the decimated hatch. “Everything copasetic in here?” he grumbled.
Zane scrubbed his hand over his face and glanced around the room, taking in the massive destruction. “It’s over—that’s what matters.”
Axe glanced at him sideways and frowned.
“What?” Zane asked.
“You’re glowing…kind of blue.”
Zane shrugged. “I had to reach out to my maker.”
Axe whistled low, beneath his breath, and eyed the bunker a second time, paying special attention to the piles of slag and the inky stains of pagan blood. “Damn,” he muttered. “Well, all right, then…” He swept his gaze over Jordan. “She okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jordan said curtly. She sounded a tad bit miffed that Axe had asked Zane, instead of her.
Oh, well…
It had been a really long night—she would have to get over that infraction.
Axe nodded.
“What about the scene outside?” Zane asked. “How many pagans are we talking?”
Axe sniffed and grunted and rotated his shoulders, releasing a boat-load of tension. “Uh, that would be a zero at this juncture.” He smiled, and the light-hearted gesture looked curiously odd on his harsh, masculine features. “The Diamond Lair showed up,” he explained. “Jace has a broken leg; Levi is missing a hand; and last I checked, Nakai’s entrails were still on the front lawn, but the pagans are either gone or dead, and Ghost is blazing Nakai back together.”
“Ghost?” Zane asked, incredulous.
“Yeah,” Axe chuckled. “He ripped two pagans apart in the grass, crouched down to eat them, and almost took a chunk out of Nakai. I think he feels guilty—well, as much as Ghost can.”
Zane grimaced, and Jordan swayed on her feet. “Catch her!” Zane barked.
Axe moved with a quickness, slipping his palm along the small of Jordan’s back, and slowly tipping her upright. He waited for her to catch her breath. “You good?”
Zane stepped in before she could answer, taking his dragyra in his arms, lifting her off her feet, and holding her like a child—tenderly, against his chest. “Well, I hate to skip out on the clean-up, but Jordan needs to rest. I’m gonna take her back through the portal.”
Axe nodded again. “Not a problem, brother. I’ll walk you outside. Nice to see you both in one piece.”
Chapter Thirty
Jordan sank deep into the hot, bubbling water in Zane’s private hot tub, outside on his secluded deck, and tried to let the warmth and the jets take her away. The moon was shining especially bright, and the deep blue sky was littered with glistening stars. Yet and still, her mind was still spinning…reeling…as she grappled with all that had happened over the past twenty-four hours: her decision to go forward with the letter to Dan, and all that ensued afterward.
As always, Zane was close by, refusing to let her out of his sight, but even though he had slipped into a pair of swimming trunks at the same time she’d put on her suit, he had not joined her in the water.
At least not yet.
For now, he stood several yards away on the deck, leaning against the rail and watching the magnificent waterfall—he seemed to be lost in a myriad of thoughts of his own.
Jordan sighed, wondering what he was thinking. He had been so quiet ever since they returned through the portal, nearly three hours ago. He had made sure she had a shower, something to eat, and he had checked her for any injuries—despite the violent night, she was more or less fit as a fiddle—and then he’d given her some space, at least within a dozen yards or so.
Now, as she soaked in the tub, alone, wrestling with her emotions and her thoughts, she knew that she had to face the inevitable—she had to face her fears head-on. She wasn’t going to escape. Dan had been her last great hope, and that had been an ill-conceived, desperate grasp at freedom to begin with. It was time to regroup, and the way Jordan saw it, sometimes knowledge was power. The more facts she knew, the more she could process…the better chance she stood at surviving.