The Walls of Jericho

Hide and Seek

Unknown Dragon’s POV

Angling north at the outskirts of Crossroads’ city limits and flying high to hide in the darkness, I seek to avoid any further skirmishes with the wolves in my weakened state. The night sky obscures my passage as I round the northern borders of the city, making a beeline for the slim beautiful sixty-story tower that is my present home.

Above the squalid homes and businesses of the multitude of pathetic wolf and human inhabitants of this wretched place, my graceful spire gleams. Its mostly glass exterior is a modern and contemporary wonder of the world. Only fitting for my place of business and personal residence.

Of course, it’s also touted as the most spectacular place to work since employees on every floor enjoy naturally lit interiors and an uninterrupted view of the concrete jungle that KDS, my company, dominates.

This is how a benevolent ruler gifts those loyal to him.

The wind is heavy with humidity gathering in advance of the oncoming rain. The moisture coats my glimmering scaled hide. It weighs down my patagium, the thin membrane of skin that comprises my wings, with condensation. Since my internal temperature is lowered with my flame suppressant-suffocated fire, my body can’t evaporate the wetness. The extra burden tires me.

That angers me.

Dragonfire is a plasma. Unlike the Auroras, or northern and southern lights which are cold plasmas, dragonfire is a hot plasma, like the fusion reactions that occur in stars or can be generated using lasers. What’s more, it’s created inside my body in tube-like furnaces on either side of my lungs. The furnaces generally burn so hot, my dragonfire is impossible to quell since it blazes so hot that it destroys suppressant materials.

Except the wolves are getting better with their weapons.

Their suppressant missile should have burned up before it deployed, defeating its purpose. But this one exploded instead, spreading a powerful cooling agent through one lung furnace and removing heat and oxygen sources from the fire tetrahedron I depend upon. Eliminating both the heat and the oxygen, they also prevented my re-igniting the furnace using the other.

More dangerous than the wolves was the mage.

My impressive penthouse mansion occupies the uppermost three floors of the sky-high KDS building. The with the rooftop dedicated to some of its private amenities, including a massive outdoor sunbathing terrace with potted lemon trees and a special winter garden that overlooks the ocean. It also has a private helipad for more convenient travel in my human disguise. I circle above the building, approaching the helipad in a gently sloping glide so I don’t draw attention from any casual by-standers elsewhere across Crossroads.    

Once my claws clack in a loud staccato on the helipad’s surface, it’s a matter of moments to complete the shift from my natural form to my current human camouflage. It’s an uncomfortable torsion into a fragile form that annoys me, but once complete, is irresistible to humans. Like all other things dragon.

The atmospheric humidity that clung to my hide now coats my vulnerable skin, running in rivulets along the rippling lines and bulges of muscles beneath as I amble slowly to the rooftop elevator. It dampens the human feathering crowning my head, making the lush, dark plumage cling to my face in wavy clumps.

The maid serving my luxurious skyscraper villa awaits mildly just inside the sheltered elevator area with an Egyptian cotton robe and a pair of slippers.

“Well done, Camilla.” I slip my arms into the sleeves as she holds the robe for me.

“I’m glad to have pleased you. You have a guest, Mr. Kemp.”

Tying the robe’s sash at my waist, I turn to face her. “That doesn’t please me.”

She stares mindlessly at me, glassy-eyed and mesmerized, through a pair of rimless Vera Wang glasses studded with tiny rhinestones at the hinges. In general, I’m not fond of women who wear glasses, but these look incredible against her winter white skin and cloud of inky hair. She has a fine complexion, shockingly blue eyes and a greyhound-thin body which appeals to me greatly. Thankfully, she’s also remarkably simple-minded and easy to charm, making her one of my most loyal servants.

Even if she has no idea that she is one.

“You said ‘no guests this evening’ unless it was Mr. Daniels. It’s Mr. Daniels, sir.”

I sigh through my nose and a thick cloud of smoke exhales with it, curling about my head before dissipating into the night air. It smells and tastes of the wolves fire suppressant, arousing my ire again. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Stepping into the private elevator, I descend past the sixtieth floor spa facilities, including an infinity pool, hot tub and sauna, as well as a personal massage salon and gym.

My intimate living space begins on the fifty-nineth floor which boasts three-hundred-sixty degree breathtaking views of the entire city and the ocean towards the west through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The master bedroom and marble-finished bathroom is also on this floor, with personal library office, hardwood floors and countless fireplaces.

I by-pass my personal spaces for the fifty-eighth floor where the six guest bedrooms are located, among the other public rooms a ‘man’ of my stature is expected to keep. A wine-tasting facility and refrigerated cellar. A soundproofed cinema. A ballroom. Its own panic room. Plus the myriad of living and entertaining spaces necessary for hosting the spectrum of parties and functions. Mr. Daniels will be here, likely in one of the lavish living rooms. Once the elevator doors open, I saunter along the circular hall to find  him.

On the fifty-seventy floor is where I keep my public office, ruling my company with a firm and certain hand. On the city-ward side, it supports a four-car garage with a private vehicle elevator to the ground level. The same entry leads to a secret underground passage to the restaurant in the neighboring five-star hotel and access to my private lagoon and beach. Overall, it affords a rewarding and unassuming contemporary standard of living. 

Mr. Daniels stands with his hands behind his back facing the doorway, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. Beads of sweat trickle along his temples, soaking the bristly graying hair at his ears and the collar of his button-down shirt. His dove-gray eyes widen when he sees me.

“Mr. Kemp, I am exceptionally sorry to bother—.”

I walk past him with scarcely a glance, stopping at the wet bar to pour myself a drink. “Tell me that you have the Heritage database installed.”

“I—,” Mr. Daniels clears his throat anxiously, “uh—no, sir. But,” his words rush in a nearly incomprehensible jumble, “I do know what’s causing it.”

“That’s further along than your predecessors.” My tone leaves no doubt about my disappointment as I toss back my drink, then pour another. I pivot towards him slowly. “I hope it’s enough to save your job.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Kemp. I thoroughly reviewed all the notes of my predecessors. I know by heart every single one of the errors they’d fixed and how many times.” His hands unclasp from behind his back and he extends an open palm towards me. In it lays a USB drive. “The outcome is inevitable. We can’t succeed in installing the database because it’s being sabotaged from inside.”

Mr. Daniels flinches at the furious expression I can’t keep off this human face. As I snatch the external drive from his hand, he actually squeezes his eyes shut. As if I’d deign to strike him. I plug the drive into the computer stored behind a cabinet in this room and access the MP4 video file on it.

It’s desktop footage of running the installation program inside the Heritage virtual private network we’ve established with them for this project. The executable program that builds the KDS database according to the parameters we design is called Prodigy. As I watch, Prodigy rapidly completes the first steps—initializing, setting up the database, installing.

Then it hangs.

A few seconds later, it displays the exception message: ‘Prodigy Installation has encountered an error. Some files were not copied correctly. Please verify you have sufficient disk space and privileges or try to install after a system reboot.’

I whirl on Mr. Daniels. “This is nothing new!” I shout savagely, yanking the drive out of the port and throwing it at him. Inside me, my stifled furnace attempts to ignite and the foul scorch of the suppressant stings my nose and throat. It makes my eyes burn.

The terrified man dodges the flung USB drive, his hands up in subservience. “I know! I know! Please! Sir! If you’ll just let me explain!”

Standing over him, I hiss through clenched teeth, “This had better be good.” And it better. Otherwise, he’s dead.

“It is, sir. I promise, you won’t be disappointed,” he pleads.

“Explain. Immediately.”

“I traced the failure all the way back to the code. I edited it, then I attempted the install again. Each time Prodigy reaches the point of the installation, it fails. But it fails at a different point in the code. Every single time,” Mr. Daniels sputters quickly. “I went back through every version to the very first we coded for them. We’ve fixed the same errors over and over, Mr. Kemp.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I slowed it down and watched it step by step. There’s some program on the Heritage side. Every time it detects the Prodigy software installation start-up, it forces Prodigy through a security protocol and edits it—either by adding dysfunctional code or by deleting functional code— so the installation fails.”

“How did Heritage account for it?”

“Everyone in their IT swears it’s not them. I walked through every program they run with their Chief Information Officer. It’s hidden in their system.”

I turn my back to him and stare out the floor-to-ceiling window, watch as the western ocean rolls towards the shore. “Avernus?”

Mr. Daniels exhales softly. “There’s no footprint. No back door. If it’s Avernus, I—I don’t know how we’d find them.”

Of course you don’t, you stupid fool. This is far beyond the capabilities of a bunch of filthy wolves. This level of sophistication and targeted response requires something infinitely more powerful. “See yourself out.”

He practically runs abandoning me.

This degree of sabotage requires the expertise of a mage. One with power far beyond any born before her.

The withered and emaciated body of Mia had been empty of a spirit when I found her, two decades ago after she’d betrayed me to the wolves. She’d escaped me before I could kill her. Before I could send her spirit back into oblivion awaiting passage of another six to eight lifetimes to be reborn in a new era. In a new body.

She’d found a glitch in the system.

She’d become an anomaly.

One with enough power to harm me in dragon form.

So you managed to escape to the wolves, did you, Mia? I know you hear me. Answer my call.>

When no answer is forthcoming, I take the lift to my study. My personal laptop connects immediately, waiting inside the laptop where I discovered her manipulating various programs last night.

**

Breakfast gets really uncomfortable after I force Channing to admit he’s— God, I don’t even know how to process that.

More than once I draw breath to ask him to show me. Not just the ability to jump higher than a normal man. Not just the ability to run faster than a normal man. Not even the ability to see in the dark. Or the weirdly acute sense of smell.

After all, werewolves are supposed to have another form, right? Like the dragon. They’re supposed to shapeshift. To have the mythological ability to metamorphose into a wolf or a man-wolf hybrid form.

You know, like when the full moon comes up. Which would kind of suck.

What if he can’t do it unless it’s during the full moon? Or maybe he can.

By the time I work myself up to ask, Channing’s loading up the tray and preparing to take the uneaten food away.

“I’ll send the nurse in to take care of Dr. Lyall’s orders. And find you some clean clothes.”

**

About an hour after the nurse has removed the catheter and covered my IV so I can shower, Channing returns. I recognize the sound of his footsteps in the outside corridor. The handle turns on the door.

He smiles when he sees me. Another of those heart-stopping grins. If I wasn’t already half-crazy about him, that smile of his would push me there. I smile back.

“I brought you some clothes.” Dragging the wheeled chair along with him, he sits down beside my bed and drops a plastic bag on the covers. “before you give me any lip, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Yeah? Just remember you picked when you see me.” I pick up my bag.

There’s a couple pairs of super-soft cotton leggings on the top. Beneath are two overlarge button-down flannel shirts, also exceptionally soft. Then there’s a couple of thigh-length nightshirts and at the bottom, three matched sets of lacy bras and underwear in red, black and peach. At the very bottom, he’d picked up some travel toiletries—shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste—plus a toothbrush, hair brush and comb.

When my eyes flick up to his, he’s got that scarred eyebrow quirked. That white-blue star rotates about his pupils like a moon in orbit about a dark planet and one corner of his mouth curls.

“So you know, Dr. Lyall says you probably should forgo the bra for at least a few more days.” For a few seconds, his eyes drop to the visibly pebbling tips of what passes for my breasts. “I really think it’s in your best interest to be compliant with her medical advice.”

I snort, then groan in misery and click the morphine button. “How did you manage to say that without laughing?”

His hooded eyes locked intently on mine. “I’m thinking about you taking a shower.”

“Damn it, Channing.” Blushing furiously, I pull the blanket up higher on my chest, then grab the bag he brought for me. I tug the blanket over my shoulders, wrapping up like a toddler, and slip off the bed. With my IV pole in hand and my blanket dragging behind me, I head for the bathroom. “You don’t have to wait.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

“There’s no way, Stark.”

“Can’t blame a guy for hoping.”

"Yes I can."

The bathroom is a clearly built for accommodating anything. Wheelchair. Maybe an entire herd of stampeding water buffalo.

There’s a wide-open gap between the sink and the toilet and between the toilet and the standing shower with the drain directly in the floor. At the dry end, there’s a built-in shelf with neatly folded towels stacked there, and a dispenser for a liquid soap. I pull the curtain over to keep from splashing water everywhere, then adjust the tap and wait for it to warm.

Abandoning my blanket to a hook on the back of the door, I root in the bottom of the bag and pull out all the toiletry items. I realize with dismay, there’s no razor.

Well, by the time I get out of here with legs as hairy as a Sasquatch, Channing will be thinking a lot differently about seeing me without clothes. The thought makes me blush furiously as I set the shampoo and conditioner on top of the soap dispenser in the shower.

For God’s sake, what’s wrong with me? Looping the handles of the bag over the second hook on the back of the door, I brush my teeth, looking at my reflection in the mirror.

The right side of my face is bruised from my cheekbone to my jaw, probably from the way I landed when the percussion wave threw me. Grass and debris is caught in my hair and it looks like it hasn’t been combed. Ever.

At this point, I really do have to question Channing’s sanity. He might have a point that a shower will be an improvement.

By the time I’m finished with my teeth, the steam from the shower is swirling, warm and humid. It rolls along the bathroom ceiling like smoke. I can hardly wait to get under the spray.

As soon as I loose the simple tie at the back of my neck, the flimsy hospital gown slithers down the length of me, hanging like laundry on the morphine drip line. It takes another minute or so to run the different cords through the sleeve to free myself of it, then I wheel the whole contraption over to the dry end of the shower and step in.

There’s a soft rap on the door, then Channing’s muffled voice through it. “You almost done?”

“I’m wounded, remember? I’m just getting started.” I dispense a squirt of soap into my hands and lather it into a silky foam with a bit of water. “Don’t you have something else Alpha-y to do?”

“I could help, you know.”

“No, you can’t.”

As I attempt to wash down my injured side, I wonder if that’s not actually going to be necessary. Definitely not Channing, but I might genuinely need some help. Sure, I could hit myself with another dose of morphine and force my way through it. But the whole point of pain is to warn you that you’re doing something stupid.

I have enough problems with doing stupid s**t as it is. I doubt I need morphine’s questionable input.

Whatever. At this point, any washing I can manage is an improvement, even if I do a lousy job. Closing my eyes, I wash my hair, scrabbling out the sticks and bits of dead grass from the tangled mess. Clearly, I have some significant washing due.

Mindlessly, I work the shampoo through my hair again, rinse the lather away and apply the conditioner. With another squirt from the dispenser, I soap across my chest, down my arms, and everywhere I can reach without stretching at my injured ribs before letting the blissful caress of the water wash it all away a second time.

Out of the reach of Channing’s seductive presence, I begin turning over everything that’s happened again. Thinking about a dragon, and my burgeoning ability, and how even when I thought no one knew, it turns out everyone does. Or at least everyone in Avernus. All forty thousand of their global network.

Ridiculous.

Much as I might want revenge, I don’t have to pursue it. In fact, I’ve got three cracked ribs and an ugly bruise on my face that says dragon hunting might be something better left to the professionals at Avernus. My goals shouldn’t change. Get my degree. Get the hell out of Crossroads. Go back to the east. Create another new beginning.

I’m on my second rinse of my hair, running my fingertips over my sensitized scalp to make certain there’s no more vegetation I’ve missed when I hear the door open and quickly close. My eyes fly open wide.

Scrabbling at the edge of the curtain, I poke my wet head out and stare. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The white-blue sparks are a pulsing corona around Channing’s dilated pupils and there’s a fierce scowl on his face that melts my indignant astonishment like ice cream dropped on hot pavement.

Mentally, I flounder. What the hell did I do?

I don’t get much more processing time than that before he strides across the bathroom, grabs the shower curtain from my hand and pulls it back.

Beyond it, he’s still scowling, maybe worse than he was when he opened the door. He turns the water off, then yanks a towel from the shelf, snapping it open and sending my tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles clattering to the shower floor.

Careful of my IV line, he pats me dry with trembling hands. He wrings the water gently out of my dripping hair, squeezing more moisture out of it with the towel. All the time his glowing eyes are glued to mine. The odd prickly sparking rolls over me, then smooths to a pulsing surge.

There’s an undercurrent of outrage to it, biting at me. Gooseflesh pops over my skin in reaction, even though it’s not cold. The cherry tips of my breasts tighten.

A half-growl half-groan escapes from Channing’s fine lips. His voice is dangerously soft when he speaks. “You’re planning to leave me. Why?”

Oh my God.

How had he known?

My lips part along the seam, but I can’t find words to answer him.

“What? No snarky retort?” A flush crept across his sharp cheekbones and his scowl deepened. Simmering.

Lifting a trembling hand, I rest it on his chest, over his heart. Beneath his smoldering indignation, his heart beats, strong and steady. Maybe a little quicker. It’s almost a non sequitur, but I wonder vaguely about the idiom ‘lone wolf’.

We use that term, lone wolf, as an expression of begrudging respect. A lone wolf is often perceived as a resilient nonconformist, stubborn and independent, driven to forge his own path, unhampered by the romantic notions of companionship.

It’s an oxymoron really. The truth is right here beneath my hand.

A lone wolf is a wolf that’s hunting.

What it pursues is another wolf.

Everything in a wolf’s nature tells it to belong to something greater than itself. Everything in an Alpha’s nature tells it that something is an alpha pair.

Oh crap.

Suddenly, my own heart is pitter-pattering around inside my chest, bouncing around in there like a ball in a rolling BINGO cage. In my head, want wars with wisdom. Silently, I plead with him. Don’t say the words.

Channing’s hand finds its home in the small of my back and he drops the towel to the floor. His scowl softens, fades, as he reads me like a book, looking inside my transparent heart. One large warm hand cups my jaw on the unbruised side, tipping my face up towards his. Dipping his head, his dusky murmur caresses across my lips.

“Stay.”

He rains a tantalizing trail of kisses along my jaw, the white-blue stars slip inside me, carrying their compulsion.

My heart revs erratically. Too late, I sputter, “I—.”

“Shut up, Jericho.” More kisses, and the compulsion is stronger.

Wild sweet longing flares inside me, pouring out through my eyes to sun-kiss the planes of his face, along his square jaw.

His fingertips creep, warm and reassuring, along my spine, sending erratic sparks rocketing up my spine and down my legs. “Promise me.”

That much I can’t do .

A tender smile flickers over his lips. "For now, that will do, Jinks." 

Channing knots a fist in my damp hair, pulling my neck back. He echoes the soft moan that escapes me, kisses my neck as his other hand creeps up my uninjured ribcage, seeking.

Finding. It's like my breast plops itself perfectly into his hand. Oh God.

"I've never felt anything like your skin." His voice trails off into stunned silence. His lips wander across my throat, then along my collarbone, slide across to my shoulder. "I want you," he breathes in a husky whisper. 

"I know." I tangle my fingers into his hair.

The alpha voice is silky smooth, firm and confident.