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“We’ve spent months getting permits, hiring crews, trading in bars of gold and gems for useful currency and still my Castle is not finished, and I can’t find the wretch who cursed me to sleep for so long!” He raged.
Yes, his keep was finally looking something along the lines of where it had once been. But he was not satisfied with how slow everything was moving.
After he’d contacted Merlin Banking Solutions and set them to the task of getting his accounts current, he searched his vaults.
Ransacked. Well, the one’s inside the castle had been. Those buried further in his mountain were too well hidden for normal and Shifter alike.
In his piles of documents and folders, Severino had uncovered several accounts with Merlin Banking Solutions. Some he’d opened long before he’d gone to sleep. Famous among supernaturals for being founded by one of the most powerful Witches in history, despite the normals tales of Wizards, Lutecia Merlin had been a force to be reckoned with.
Her legacy was well-known and respected as were her business practices. She’d further ensured her customers complete satisfaction by keeping the bank in the hands of her descendants. She’d willed her cache of powers would only pass to the next powerful female Witch in her line, blood relatives only. It had been that way for a thousand years far as Rei knew. Like many supernaturals with very long lives, he’d had plenty of funds and time to seek out investment opportunities with the bank.
Of course, his horde of treasure was something he’d kept hidden in different caves across the world. The shallow stashes he’d kept in the caves of Sol Dorado had been stolen. Probably by the same bastard who’d bewitched his slumber.
A soon to be dead bastard, he reminded his Dragon with a grim smile.
The monies and interests he’d placed within Merlin Banking Solutions had apparently been doing well. So well in fact, the bank had insisted on sending an account specialist to bring him up to date.
They were famous for that kind of one on one level of service. And it would have been fine if he wasn’t so damn busy.
“Flaming balls,” he growled between gritted teeth, “I said I want the marble, the same authentic Italian marble to match this vein of gold here, here,” he pointed to a sample he’d had taken from the fireplace in the front sitting room.
“Manuel, go back and tell that blasted Mario that I will bury him in this rubbish if he tries to pass this cheap ceramic knock off as genuine marble again,” he rubbed a hand across his face as Manuel, one of the contractors he’d hired to renovate his castle, scrambled to get out of his office.
Well, it’s comforting to know incompetence and fraud were alive and well even after more than a century asleep, he thought darkly.
A sharp knock on his office door brought his dark head up. Brooding wouldn’t do. He had far too much to do to spend his time lamenting the loss of so many years. After all, he’d spent plenty of time the last few months reading newspapers, watching television, and scrolling the internet.
He was remarkably adept at the first two things, the latter giving him the most trouble. Apparently it was not all his fault, some blasted magic called WIFI was to blame for plenty of his troubles.
He’d missed out on a few true horrors. Large, senseless wars with massive death tolls across the normal and supernatural world. There were good things too though, like the birth of rock and roll, the golden age of Hollywood, and the building of a magical place called Disneyworld.
But he intended to make up for lost time. He was going to finish his castle, take inventory of his net worth, and exact revenge on the nameless bastard who thought to imprison him in sleep and steal his treasure.
That fucker was going to pay, his Dragon enjoyed the current slang and growled the word with satisfying intensity in his mind’s eye.
“Uh, Rei,” the sound of his footm-, er assistant, interrupted his reverie, “I mean Mr. Dorado?”
“You know something, Alameda? These damn merchants today are the same as when I was last awake! All crooks, every last one of them. I swear I am going to have to start inspecting every last nail myself before the men install it,” he tossed his head angrily, pausing as he caught his reflection.
Long hair bound at his nape in a ponytail, no jewels, no pomp, Rei frowned. He missed some of the elaborate style of dress that had been in fashion before he took his overly long nap.
And yet, he grinned wickedly as he took in the midnight black shirt and blue denim that covered the rest of his large frame.
No, he could find no fault with the comfort of his one hundred percent cotton t-shirts and stonewashed denim jeans. Modern normals were quite good at creating comfortable clothing, though he had it on good authority most of their innovations were actually created by Fairies and Sprites. Meddlesome creatures he’d always tried to avoid at all costs.
Footwear was another story. Looking down at his feet he sighed. There were no more shoemakers in every town or village, but rather widely manufactured products readily available. A blessing and a curse.
Sneakers were not to his liking, but he found his hand-sewn, leather ankle boots fit quite fine indeed. Dragons were creatures of luxury after all and Rei was a King in his own right.
“Excuse me, Rei? Mr. Dorado, uh I have to tell you something?”
Rei rolled his eyes, having learned the gesture from Severino Alameda himself. His young assistant simply could not get the hang of calling Rei sire, no matter how he’d tried to instill a sense of order into the young man.
Like any sensible Dragon, he’d decided against eating the boy. Accepting his shortcomings in a gracious manner, Rei was trying to move on from the break with the natural pecking order of his household.
Still, there were days he could do without the young man’s unending questions. Like now when he’d almost identified the strange residue he’d found on the other side of the mountain, outside his secret cavern.
It was definitely evidence of a spell. He’d recognized the anointed oils and several herbs, but there was one he failed to name. Overall, it looked like the person who placed it there was not trying to lull him to bed for a long nap but was trying to keep him there. Forever. A prisoner.
“Yes?” He looked up from his newly refinished Louis XIV desk.
Both desk and matching chair had been reinforced with titanium rods to hold his bulk and withstand the force of his slamming his hands down on the detailed wood as he was known to do.
Mastering technology had not come easy. and he’d had to pay in the form of several writing apparatuses. Not his fault technology was so damned irritating. If he could find the dolt who’d so-called revolutionized it all he’d toast the fucker.
Beware here be Dragons, he thought with a wicked grin.
“The specialist from Merlin Banking Solutions is here,” Severino stated while efficiently blocking Rei’s view of the man he’d been waiting months for.
“Well, where is he? Let the confounded man in, Alameda,” he ordered with another impatient roll of his eyes.
“Uh, well, the thing is, Rei. Um, it’s not exactly a he, actually,” his young assistant swallowed.
That was another thing the foolish boy did to tempt his Dragon’s ire. He didn’t quite yet grasp that Rei was a predator and the young man’s physical reactions made him appear a little too much like easy game.
What was he saying? Alameda did not relish the title of footman, he did not act subservient in the least, he wanted to work regular hours, and he insisted on his living quarters being off limits to Rei. Conditions that Rei agreed to and yet he couldn’t fathom why.
Maybe it was out of some sort of misplaced loyalty. At any rate, the grandfather was much more agreeable. He’d been happy to educate his rather annoying grandson on proper conduct.
The young man was simply too dense to understand he was at the mercy of a rather powerful Dragon Shifter. But he did have his uses, such as getting their internet up and running and dealing with the locals.
Still, Rei found his thoughts would wander whenever he’d start these longwinded speeches of his. Was it lunch time yet? He did so enjoy lunch!
He looked at his administrative assistant. Pshaw, whatever he wanted to be called, Rei would always see him as a footman. Anyway, his secretary, was something that now required a salary, benefits, and a thing called a 401K. Rei had not been happy, but it was modern times. Everyone adjusted.
“Well?”
“Well what,” Rei asked. Damn my mind wandered again.
“I said the account specialist is a she. You know, a woman,” Severino muttered the word as if it were a curse. Might as well be one since Rei had banned all females save his cook and housekeeper from the premises.
His ears perked at the use of the words to describe the banking specialist. The last time he was awake women were not largely active in any kind of business. Certainly not in this part of the world and not in banking of all things.
His frown deepened. He had no time to explain things to a delicate female. No time at all to cater to her fragile senses. Not to mention he was still smarting from the betrayal of his last lover.
Plus, Rei was still trying to discover who it was that had tampered with his rest. It was that whole debacle with Tricia that left him open for whoever his mystery attacker was! No. No women in his castle. He couldn’t do that and keep watch over some dainty woman. This would not do!
“Send her away,” he said.
“Um, but-”
“Alameda. Send. Her. Away. And tell them to send a man,” he spoke without looking up, taking the sudden silence for his assistant’s acquiescence.
