Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(15)
Chapter Six
Zane flashed into view in a dark, empty alley—it was as good a place as any to quiet his mind, collect his thoughts, and tune into Jordan Anderson’s unique vibration. He had taken her blood earlier in the parking garage at the mall, when he had pierced her wrist with his fangs and tasted her delectable essence; and that was all he needed to find her, to track her and stake his claim.
He tuned everything else out and concentrated on those microscopic platelets, the blood that now moved through his own veins, and slowly, one by one, fragments of information began to emerge: a memory; Jordan pulling into an underground garage beneath a high-rise building, an impression; Jordan walking through the front door of a comfortably appointed living room and dropping her keys into a nearby basket on a decorative iron-work stand, and an address; Jordan filling out a credit card form—no, a shipping statement—for an online purchase, an expensive pair of earrings.
Yep, that was it: 2496 East Haley Avenue in the Skyline Mosaic subdivision, unit 905 on the top floor. So she had lied about her address—smart. He took bits and pieces of the layout, internalizing the blueprint from random scattered images and other disconnected impressions, and he committed them to memory.
It was enough to go on…for now.
Zane took a deep breath, solidified his determination, and then shimmered out of view.
It was 11:45 PM, still day one of the mandatory claiming; he wouldn’t stick around to get to know the female better. Rather, he would simply materialize inside her room; place a fixed compulsion inside her head while she slept, perhaps weaving the command into a dream; and then he would head back through the portal to the Dragons Domain, where he would prepare the sapphire lair for a new arrival.
f
Alonzo Diaz stuffed the large, sloppy end of the mop into the heavy plastic bucket and pushed the contraption forward, stepping out of the service elevator. Three months of cleaning up after spoiled, rich white people who’d been born with silver spoons shoved up their tight derrieres; three months of shining chrome and sanitizing toilets in the public lobby so stuck-up African-Americans could look down their haughty noses at other, ignorant black people; and three months of polishing mirrors in the common hallways so his own kind, other Latinos who thought they were white, could pass by the glass and forget where the hell they came from: This job was bullshit, and he hated every minute of it.
But—and wasn’t there always a but—he had done it for a reason.
To bide his time and get close to Jordan Anderson, close enough to wrap his strong, tattooed hands around her skinny little throat and end her pathetic life, but not before he used her in every way imaginable. Oh yeah, Jordan was gonna learn a thing or two about sexual predators, up close and personal. Enough of watching her from across the veranda, from the top of an adjacent building with a pair of cheap binoculars. Enough of cleaning up her pristine building’s halls.
Alonzo pushed the mop to the end of the corridor, came to a stop—just outside of door number 905, Jordan’s luxury apartment on the top floor of the high-rise—and he smiled like a Cheshire cat. Damn, he had waited a long time for this. He stuffed his hand into the oversized pocket of the dark blue jumpsuit—and why the hell did they dress janitors like prisoners, anyway?—and felt for the master key. Damn right, he had a copy of the master key, and all it took was a bottle of tequila, a couple of sleeping pills, and a late-night card game with the superintendent to get his hands on the original and make the copy.
Done and done.
Now glancing at his watch—it was 11:45 PM—he slipped the key out of his pocket and laughed. He had all night long to play his wicked game.
Chapter Seven
Jordan Anderson sat up abruptly in bed. She stiffened and angled her head to the side, trying desperately to listen. She thought she’d heard footsteps in the hall, a soft but steady clomp, clomp, clomp heading in her direction. Her heart began to race as she struggled to clear the cobwebs, force her brain to come online, and will her senses to awaken.
What time was it anyway?
One glance at the soft blue LED lights glowing on the nightstand clock answered her question: 11:50 PM, almost midnight. She tossed the sheets aside, bounded from the bed, and pressed her back against the wall, beside the closet doors, still listening. Those were definitely footfalls, and she needed to act quickly.
The phone; she should call 911.
The security alarm; why hadn’t it gone off?
Protection; she needed a baseball bat or a knife or a—
“Jordan. Oh pretty Jordan. Here, witchy witch. Here, witchy witch. Come to papa.”
She gasped, her heartbeat accelerating to double time. Oh, shit. That was him. The creepy guy. The one who had called her office earlier, threatening her life. The sexual predator she had helped put away. What in the world was he doing in her apartment? And how the hell had he gotten in? Didn’t Mike have patrol cars surveying the building?
None of that mattered right now.
Her LC9 was on the other side of the room, safely tucked away in a gun safe with the loaded clip resting beside the revolver—safety on, chamber empty—and she didn’t think she could make it across the room in time, around the bed and to the safe, let alone punch in the four-digit code quickly enough to retrieve the weapon. Some home protection that was. She made a quick dash to the nearby nightstand, instead, snatched her cell phone, and ducked into the closet, trying to close the heavy wooden doors as quietly as possible as she swiped wildly at the cell phone screen, trying to turn it on.