Aroused In Inferno (Curse 0f The Dragon Book 3) Read online




  Aroused in Inferno

  Curse of the Dragon

  Jadyn Chase

  Copyright © 2020 by Jadyn Chase

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  1. James

  2. Paige

  3. James

  4. Paige

  5. Paige

  6. James

  7. Paige

  8. James

  9. Paige

  10. James

  11. Paige

  12. James

  13. Paige

  14. James

  15. Paige

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  1

  James

  I gasped in horrified shock at the sight. “What in the Holy Name of God is going on here?”

  A man in a tweed jacket and shabby loafers wheeled around to glare at me. “Listen, tosser, you can’t just trounce on in here. Get in the queue with the rest of us or beat it.”

  I paid no attention to him. “But…. this is an outrage! Where’s the Arch?”

  I waved my hand at what I can only distantly refer to as Buckingham Palace. It bore no resemblance to the Buckingham Palace I knew, though—at least in part.

  The angered man threw up his hands and spun the other way. He muttered to his frumpy wife, “This blighter’s gone over the blinkin’ rainbow.”

  “Try to ignore him, dear,” she quipped. “Just look at his clothes. Perhaps he’s escaped from the circus or even the mental asylum.”

  I humphed more to myself than to anyone else. “I’ll get to the bottom of this. My father is a personal friend of Lord Melbourne, you know.”

  I set off toward the Palace determined to find some answers, but I only made it a few paces before a different, much younger, more strapping chap flung out an arm. His knuckles slapped against my lapel. “Hold it right there, maggot. You heard the man. Get in the bloody queue and pay up like the rest of us or get on your bike and piss off. No one gets a free ride around here. You can kiss the Queen’s bloody arse if you don’t like it, but I won’t stand for it.”

  My jaw dropped and I stared at him in utter disbelief. “How dare you speak about our Queen in that tone? I will have you know I do NOT kiss her arse or any other part of her. I’ve never even met her. Besides, I’m not a maggot, so I’ll thank you to speak to your betters with a bit more respect in the future.”

  The person—I hesitate to call him a man—scanned his eyes down to my feet and back up. “My betters, is it? Is that what you think you are? I be a working stiff off me own bat, but at least I pay me way, which is a mite more than I can say for the likes of you. Why don’t you nick on down to the public assistance office, pick up your dole, and go get pissed with your free-loading mates? You can give honest folks like us a break.”

  He turned his back on me with the utmost disdain. I drew myself together for another withering sally when a helmeted bobby came strolling down the queue and happened to see me standing there. He cast a nonchalant glance first at me and then at my two associates. “Is anything the matter here, chaps?”

  I started to open my mouth, but the young bricklayer or whatever he was, whipped around first. He jerked his callused thumb at me. “Only if you count the Lord High Poobah here trying to jump the bloody queue. He’s out of his bloody tree if you ask me, and he looks like he needs a wash.”

  The bobby rounded on me. He shot another sidelong glance at my clothes. “What’s the jig, mate? Don’t you know you can’t just jump the queue like that? Buy your ticket and get in the back where you belong.”

  I curled my lip at him. I cannot stand when public servants try to use their positions to talk down to their social superiors. “I was NOT trying to jump the queue. I was just….”

  “You were so,” the tweed gent interjected. “We both saw you. You can ask my missus here if you don’t believe him or me.”

  The woman gave a clipped nod. “It’s true. You were.”

  “I was not!” I cried. “I was simply pointing out that the Arch is gone. Whatever can have happened to it, I don’t know.”

  The bobby frowned. “What Arch?”

  “Why—Marble Arch, of course!” I fired back. “Everybody knows Marble Arch was right here just the other day.”

  The bobby furrowed his brow even more. “Marble Arch? That’s all the way over in Hyde Park, mate.”

  “I told you he was barmy,” the tweed man grumbled. “Get him out of here, Officer. He’s causing a public disturbance.”

  “I am NOT barmy, as you say,” I sneered. “Are you telling me that great lump of building over there just materialized overnight and whisked Marble Arch to Hyde Park? Do you really think I’m that dim that I would believe a story like that?”

  The bobby put out his hand and took hold of my elbow. “I think you’d better come with me, Sir. We can sort all this out away from these good people who have all paid good money to see the Palace.”

  I whipped around trying to free my arm. The minute I did, he tightened his grip, and I knew he meant business. He didn’t intend to let me walk away on my own. “Unhand me, you cretin. Do you have any idea who I am?”

  The bobby exerted a little more pressure on my arm. “I don’t care who you are. You’re coming with me.”

  The bricklayer cast a condescending smirk over his shoulder. “Piss off with that plonk. Call yourself an Englishman, will you? You’re daft.”

  “I will not piss off!” I thundered, but when I tried once again to wrestle free, the bobby moved in.

  I saw the situation deteriorating in a hurry. The bobby steered me across the street, away from Buckingham Palace and my intended object. The harder I struggled, the tighter he clamped his dreadful fingers around my arm. He cut off the blood flow and pinched the nerves.

  Just then, he did something that struck me as rather odd. He took hold of a small black box perched on his shoulder. For some strange reason, I didn’t notice it before. He depressed a button on the side with his free hand and spoke into it. “Public disturbance at Palace entrance. Request immediate backup.”

  I didn’t understand what he was doing or why, but the instant he stopped talking, he jerked his hand down and grabbed his billy club. He slid it out of his belt loop. I saw the black weapon rising toward my head, and I knew I had to get out of there fast.

  So many things happened in the last ten minutes that I didn’t understand, but I didn’t take the time to puzzle them out. I whirled around to fight the bobby and get away from that club. He sensed me moving in his grasp. In slow motion, I watched his features harden. His lips stiffened and he braced himself to fight.

  I had to get the jump on him before he attacked me, so I attacked first. I lunged and seized his club hand by the wrist just as he smashed it toward my head. I grappled his hand above his head and locked my eyes on him. In the back of my mind, I spotted three more bobbies rushing toward us.

  The queue to get into the Palace retreated to make room for them. A murmur of excitement rippled through the once-docile crowd. They withdraw from the scuffle, but many of them turned around in their places to watch. Their expressions lit up with delight and vivacity they certainly didn’t display standing in line to see the Palace.

  Alarm gr
ipped me. I had to get away. I couldn’t allow these minions of the law to drag me off to ignominy and incarceration. I had to uphold my reputation as a gentleman. If I could only get free long enough to explain.

  The other three officers charged in and surrounded me and my original foe. They all wielded clubs to assail me with blows. I couldn’t fall to these brutes.

  I flung myself with renewed energy at the man who initially restrained me. If I could break his hold, I could get away before the others arrived. I concentrated all my strength on wrestling his club away from him.

  His lips curled back and he bared his teeth, but necessity gives a man resources he never knew he had. I dove at him and knocked him staggering. At the same time, I ripped my arm out of his grasp and laid hold of the club with both hands. With one yank, it came free and I turned it on him.

  I wound it back only a few inches and bashed it into his nose with all my might. A satisfying crunch answered my efforts, but at that moment, a resounding concussion shattered my brain. Splintering pain rocketed through my skull from behind. I willed myself to turn and fight these foul, uniformed strumpets, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.

  Sickening dread enveloped me. My stomach wrenched and a veil of darkness dropped over my eyes. I did my best to blink it away, but more blows rained around my ears and shoulders and neck. I couldn’t stand. I felt myself falling to the ground.

  At that moment, for no reason I could divine, an exquisite whirling dynamo blasted out of me with the force of a thousand typhoons. It shot me straight up out of the policemen’s midst in a torrential geyser of unstoppable power. The next instant, I peered down on them from above. They gaped up at me with their mouths open—all except the poor beggar whose nose I smashed. He knelt on the ground pressing his sleeve to his face.

  The others blinked up at me. Like so many things that happened in the last few minutes, I didn’t understand what was happening, and I really didn’t care. I was free of those dimwitted codgers. I turned tail and left.

  I drifted over houses and buildings toward the river. I didn’t have any idea where I was going or how I would get there. None of that concerned me. I left all the idiots in that queue staring at me in astonishment.

  2

  Paige

  I twisted around at my workbench and made a face at my colleague, Tristan. “Will you please turn that crap off? How am I supposed to concentrate with that noise going on?”

  He cracked a grin over his laptop. “Just let me hear the morning news. Then I’ll turn it off. I promise.”

  “You promise!” I snorted. “How many times have I heard that one?”

  He smirked down at his screen. A tinny voice drifted from the onboard speakers. “The Green Party announced today that they will take their bill for environmental reform directly to the Prince of Wales for intervention. They accuse Members of Parliament of deliberately stalling on the measure in order to further relations with big corporate donors…..”

  I glanced back one more time. “You better not let Sweeney catch you watching that on department time. You know what he said about using the network for personal business.”

  Tristan waved toward his machine. “This is hardly personal business. How am I supposed to do my job if I don’t keep up with current events?

  I shook my head and faced my own workstation, but the noise distracted me. I made up my mind to block it out until he turned it off—which I could only hope he would do sooner rather than later.

  All at once, Tristan’s voice rasped low. “Holy fucking shit! Will you look at that!”

  I spun around to see him gaping at the screen. “What is it?”

  He blinked down at the device. His jaw hung slack and he didn’t answer. Without meaning to, I swiveled off my stool and ducked around behind him. The news program still played across the screen. A grainy image flickered into view and the reporter’s voice prattled in the background.

  “Security cameras near Buckingham Palace captured this footage of a man engaged in an altercation with Police. Witnesses claim the man tried to jump the queue to enter the Palace after making a disturbance about the supposed position of Marble Arch. When several Police officers tried to take the suspect into custody, he transformed before their eyes into this unidentified winged creature. The story continues to unfold. This footage was taken near Piccadilly Circus approximately fifteen minutes later with the Armed Offenders Squad and the Special Operations Unit trying to subdue the creature for the public safety. Unfortunately, every time they surround it, it either flies off to another part of the city or returns fire. Its flaming breath incinerates their weapons and melts bullets. The creature has already seriously injured several officers. Oh, look! It’s taking off again!”

  A female voice answered the first reporter. “Can you tell where it’s going next, Seamus?”

  “There’s no way of knowing!” the reporter shrieked. “We’re scrambling news helicopters now, but the Police and Special Operations people won’t let us get too close. We’ll keep you posted the next time they engage with the thing. At this stage, Police are advising the public to stay indoors, and whatever you do, DO NOT try to approach or interact with this creature.”

  “All right, Seamus. We’ll keep in touch for further developments….”

  I didn’t wait to hear anymore. I snatched the laptop off the desk and bolted for the door. Tristan hopped to his feet. “Hey! Where are you going with that? That’s mine.”

  I dove out of the lab and raced along the corridor. Tristan scuttled after me. “Are you completely off your head, Paige? Give me back my computer this instant. I have to….”

  I lunged through a side door. Sweeney sat behind his desk with his nose glued to his own screen. His bald head shot up. “What do you want? This better be bloody good.”

  I slammed the computer down in front of him and clicked the mouse. The video rolled back to the beginning and started playing the same news footage. Tristan scooted in behind to watch, too.

  In front of our eyes, that ferocious winged monster lifted off the ground and hovered over Buckingham Palace. It tilted its long neck to glare at the bobbies and witnesses on the ground. Then it spread its leathery wings and flapped off toward the river.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. Was this real? It looked exactly like a dragon out of a fairy tale, but it had to be real. Security cameras around Buckingham Palace captured it in living color. Reporters and cameramen all over town were tracking its movements. The Special Operations Unit was after it right now.

  Sweeney blinked at the screen. “What the bloody hell is this shit?”

  I bowed my head close to his. I fought to control my voice. “We have to go after it. We have to capture it before the SOU kills it. We have to bring it in alive. Come on, Sweeney! This is the chance of a lifetime. We can’t let it get away. If we don’t get out there right now, they’ll shoot it down and we’ll never find out what it is.”

  “This can’t be real,” Tristan chimed in. “It’s gotta be a hoax or something. I mean, look at it!”

  “You can see it for yourself,” I returned. “It was a man and it changed right in front of the cameras. How do you explain that?”

  He pulled his head down between his shoulders. “I don’t explain anything. I’m a geneticist, not a bloody mathematician.”

  I ignored him and focused on Sweeney. He was the only person I had to convince right now. “Come on, Sweeney. We don’t have time to dither around. Let me take the Acquisitions Team. We can intercept the SOU and you can liaise with their commanding officers from here. You can get them to capture the thing alive and bring it here to the lab so we can test it. Come on! Please, Sweeney. Don’t you see what this means?”

  He stared at the screen for another long moment. I itched to grab him by the shoulders and shake him into doing what I wanted, but that never worked with him.

  After what seemed like hours, he rotated back in his chair. It groaned under his weight and his enormous belly stretched under h
is tired old shirt. The buttons strained and his paunch sagged over his misshapen belt. “All right. You can take the Acquisitions Team. I’ll make a few phone calls from here.”

  I charged for the door. “Thank you so much, Sweeney! I won’t forget this.”

  “Hey!” he called after me. “Don’t get yourself shot out there and don’t forget to take Dempsey with you.”

  Tristan hunched his shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing. No way!”

  I didn’t listen to anymore. I barreled down the corridor to the far end and smashed my palm into the red alarm button. A deafening siren blared. I barely had time to slap my hands over my ears to mute the noise.

  I swung around and beat it back to the lab. I fumbled around my desk for my phone, hard hat, safety goggles, and the rest of my PPE—like any of that would do any good against that monster.

  I emerged from the office to find dozens of people in fatigues streaming out of every corner. They blockaded the passage running for the exit. I had to wait for the deluge to pass before I slotted in to follow them.

  The blast door at the far end stood open. Each person propped it open for the person behind. It slammed shut after me and I thundered up the stairs. I was on my way to what would probably be the biggest acquisition of my career.

  I burst onto the roof and raced for the nearest chopper. Acquisitions people hopped into their helicopters and the vehicles lifted off en masse. I strapped myself in and we soared over London.

  Seven or eight news agency choppers and several more black military birds already crowded the skies. Three of them hovered over Big Ben while SOU guys abseiled to the street.