Page 288 of Dragon Slayer

“Hmm.”

Price found a comb under the pillow, and a small plastic container full of residue of what looked and smelled like salad dressing. A few empty glass Starbucks bottles under the cot, tucked into the shadows.

“I can’t help but notice,” he finally said, “that there are no restraints of any kind.”

“Vlad had them removed.”

“And you allowed it.”

“He’s taken personal responsibility of his brother’s captivity.”

Price smiled, thin and hard. “And you allowed him to?”

“He…”

“Vlad gets what he wants,” Jake supplied. “That’s just how things are.”

Price’s head snapped around, his gaze pinning Jake to the wall. The smile widened, sharp at the edges. “Is that so.” It wasn’t a question. He glanced away. “Tell me how he managed to escape this cell. He was chained?”

“Yes.” In halting tones, Talbot explained what they’d been able to piece together from context clues, and Valerian’s pained confessions.

“The mortal helped him?Ruby’smortal?” Jake didn’t like the feral gleam that sparked in his eyes. “The soldier.”

“Marine, actually,” Jake said, and he wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to make the correction.

Deep down, he knew why, but he wasn’t ready to examine that reason too closely just yet.

“Marine, yes.” Price’s voice raised all the hairs on his arms. “Tell me about him.”

Something seemed to pass through the cell. A chill, but one with a presence. Jake felt it ripple through the stone beneath his boots, like a shock wave.

“He’s no one important,” Talbot said. “Just a mortal. A badly wounded veteran. He obviously feels some sense of responsibility for the girl–”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Responsibility doesn’t propel a man, unarmed, into a place like this, Doctor. Love does that. He loves her.” His teeth set, a muscle in his jaw leaping.

How dare he, Jake thought, get angry and fatherly about the man who was probably sleeping with his daughter when he’d had her raised in a lab and never even met her face-to-face.

“Does that bother you?” he asked. “That someone loves her?” He thought of Rooster Palmer staring him down on a stretch of Wyoming highway, gun in one motionless hand, Ruby Russell’s big green eyes peering over his broad shoulder. Yeah, Palmer loved her. A terrifying amount.

Price stared at him, inscrutable. “Why should it, Major?”

“You tell me.”

Another grin; dangerous as a knife. “Word games. How charming.”

“I assure you, Mr. Price,” Talbot said, “we will find your daughter.”

The mage laughed. “Oh, Doctor. You’d better.”

~*~

So much of the house had been if not lovingly, then at least meticulously restored to its former grandeur and cleanliness. The new items purchased to replace those aged beyond repair were careful replicas of the original antiques; Annabel felt certain that someone had consulted a historian as to authenticity.

But the one area of the house so far untouched was the conservatory. With its patterned tile floors, and soaring glass walls and ceilings, it had once been an oasis of delights. Native plants, and English plants brought from the duke’s manor in Cambridge, and exotic tropical flowers carefully tended by a team of gardeners. There had been a massive koi pond in the center, studded with lily pads and water hyacinths, fish longer than her forearm begging for food with gaping mouths.

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