“I’m not really sure. It was all jumbled together,” she answered. Her stomach rumbled loudly.
“Ah, it is time for breakfast,” Nick noted.
He called down to the front desk and ordered breakfast from room service:pancakes and sausage.
Lana wasn’t sure about the flat pieces of bread until he showed her how to pour the sweet syrup over the top.
She seemed to enjoy them. The pancakes and sausage disappeared pretty quickly.
“I need to go back home and get cleaned up. Then, I need to head into the office,” Nick said.
“I know it will be boring for you here, but I can’t take you into the office with me, and that’s where I need to start trying to track Lucy. As soon as I can, I will come back and get you.”
Lana nodded. “What should I do? I can’t just sit here. I came to this world to find my sister.”
“I promise we’ll find her. You don’t know this world, so you don’t know where to go. I promise, as soon as I’m done at the office, I’ll come get you. You should be safe here in the daytime,” Nick said.
He picked up the remote control and showed her how to turn on the television and change channels.
“Although we call this the ‘boob tube’ and the ‘idiot box’ in this world, this is a great way to learn about humans, and how they talk and interact with each other,” Nick said.
Lana nodded.
“Promise me that you will wait here for me. You won’t go anywhere and you won’t open the door to anyone except me. I should be back for you in a couple of hours,” Nick promised.
Lana nodded again.
He kissed her cheek as he walked out the door and looked into her eyes. “We’ll find her.”
Then, he softly shut the door behind him, listening for her to turn the locks.
Something in his belly was telling him that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.
Nick was stuck at the station a lot longer than he thought he would be. He couldn’t keep his thoughts on what he was doing. He wanted nothing more than to get back to the beautiful woman caged inside of the hotel room. He knew that she wouldn’t be happy there, and although she was honorable, he wasn’t sure that she would keep her promise about staying put. Something told him that she would do exactly what she wanted to do. While that was an admirable trait, it was a dangerous trait in this situation.
Finally, after five or six hours, he was able to escape. He drove by a fast food restaurant and ordered some hamburgers, then raced back to the hotel.
Nick knocked on her door, and his heart sank when he received no answer. He managed to break into the room. He searched the bathroom and the closets. There was no sign of Lana.
3
Lana
Lana knew that Nick wanted her to stay in the hotel room. The idea that there were a lot of people around might deter Dizag or his friends from attacking, although Lana was highly doubtful that an audience would prevent them from attacking if they really wanted to.
The fact that there were locks on the door might also help keep her safe, at least in Nick’s mind. Lana doubted this as well. If a dragon shifter wanted to get into a room, no hollow aluminum door would stop him. All it would take is one hard swipe of a giant claw with talons extended, and the door would be shredded.
She flipped through the channels for about an hour, but found television extremely boring. How could people sit in front of this square box and do nothing else but stare at it for hours without going insane?
She shifted to lion form and paced around the room until she was sure that she was going to wear a trail into the carpet. Her thoughts turned to Nick. She asked herself how a man who had so recently come into her life occupied so much of her thoughts. How had someone who she had just met changed her from not caring about ever finding a mate to wanting to feel his touch more than she had ever wanted anything in the world? She closed her eyes and imagined the pressure of his lips against hers and the gentle caress of his hands on her face.
Then, suddenly, she remembered where she was and why she was there. How could a man, even such a man as Nick, make her forget about Lucy?
Lana had to get out of the box, as she thought of it, before she lost her mind. The problem was, she had no idea where to go. She needed fresh air, trees, and freedom. And maybe someone else to talk to besides herself.
In spite of knowing that Nick would be angry, she decided that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She shifted back to human form, put on clothes, and headed downstairs to the lobby. When she asked the desk clerk how she could get to the Paradigm club, he just stared at her blankly.
Lana was about to give up hope that the clerk would even answer her, before he said, “Let me call a cab to take you there.”
“I can walk, if you’ll just give me directions,” Lana insisted.
The clerk smiled at her, although Lana didn’t know if it was kindness or more of a condescending smirk. “You’re new to this town, aren’t you? Walking just isn’t safe, regardless what time of day it is—especially now that we have a killer on the loose.”
The clerk led Lana outside and whistled at one of the yellow monsters. After giving directions to the driver, he shut the passenger door, and the driver zoomed off.
Lana watched as the driver weaved in and out of traffic, making sudden stops and starts, and then whipping around corners at incredible speeds. No wonder the death rate is high here.
Finally, the car braked suddenly to a stop in
