Page 2 of Savage (Savage Dragons #1)

Twenty-eight years later.

Kaida watched as the product went down the line. It would mean that until the next set of stores were added into the night, she’d be finished to clean up her mod. It wasn’t really a mess, she usually cleaned as she made her way down the product line, but there were still bits and pieces that needed to be picked up that she’d dropped.

They’d send her the labels about an hour after she was finished putting the first set—one on each of the products that she had in her mod. The last batch had her putting a single label on over seventy-three ramen noodle boxes as well as a lot of other things that she had. Mostly, the noodles, but there were things like cases of green beans, peas, and corn. Once, she had a mod full of Christmas paper and that had been several hundred of the labels with a single one to be put on each box.

“Hey, K.” She hated the shortened version of her name and ignored the man calling her that. “K? Are you finished with your stores? I need some help.”

She turned and looked at him with the powdered donut left overs on his shirt. Mac, his name illuded her for now because she didn’t particularly care for the man. His smiled creeped her out a bit, too. Like he was leering at her or something.

“Kaida. My name is Kaida.” He told her that was his pet name for her. “It’s still Kaida. Not K. or whatever other shortened form of it you come up with. Also, I’m not a pet for you but a woman who has a first name that you can’t seem to remember.”

“Whatever. I’m behind. Can you come up and—” She was shaking her head before he was able to finish. “I know, I know, you’re not supposed to help me out, but I’m going to lose my job if you—”

“The last time I helped you, you’d not even started on your labels. How many are you behind now that you need help.” He told her that he was counting on her to help him, so he’d waited on her. “I’m not going to help you, Mac. Your job is to get your labels out, and if you don’t do it, they’re going to fire you. I’m finished because I don’t screw around waiting for someone to come along and do it for me. Unlike you, I don’t take a break from working until it’s time to go.”

“Come on. We’re friends, and friends do things for one another.” She began cleaning up her mod and ignored him. He was a lazy fucker and thought he should have been fired a year ago. “Just this one time. I’ll be better at getting some out next time you help me.”

“No.” Grabbing her broom, she was startled when it was jerked from her hands and hit with it. “What do you think you’re doing? Get away from me. Stop before you hurt me.”

The next thing she knew, she was waking up in the back of an ambulance. Even then, she didn’t know what had happened. She sat up and looked at all the blood that seemed to be all over her. Looking at the woman who was sitting talking to someone beyond them, she asked what had happened.

“What can you tell me about what had happened?” Kaida replied what had happened right up until waking up a few minutes ago. Just then, realizing that the woman was a cop not a medic. “I have a different version of that from the man who accused you of hitting him.”

“Did you look at the security tapes?” She told her the company was getting them for her now. “Mac has been told before that he can’t beat people into submission to helping him. They put him on my mod because the cameras were set up there after the last time he hit someone. He nearly killed the last person.”

“Like I’m supposed to rely on your word that you were the victim. So get this, on your word alone, I’m going to allow them to take you to the—”

“Margaret? What the hell are you doing interviewing my victim?” She told the man, whom she couldn’t see, that she wasn’t a victim but a perpetrator. “That’s not for you to say. This is mine and—why hasn’t she been sent to the hospital yet? She needs stitches, for Christ sake. Get your ass out of there and let them get her some medical attention.”

In a lot less time than she could count, not only was she being taken away, but there was an IV in her arm and a blood pressure cuff on her other arm. Also, before she could ask for something for pain, her body began to need something more than the aspirin she’d taken an hour before work this morning, she was given enough to take the edge off, they told her.

When she was being unloaded from the ambulance, one of the medics was telling her where she was hurt. Every time he listed a place, it began to hurt badly. Especially the ones on her face. Even her eyes felt like Mac had tired to remove them with her broom.

She didn’t know what was going on for the first hour or so she was there. Her body hurt, and it felt to her like every question started with her doing something wrong. The little shit had better lose his job after this, or she was going to quit. Kaida had been at the warehouse since before it had opened, helping get the shelves hung correctly and the computer system set up in a way that when it did open, every person working would have not just a badge that would clock them in and out but one that would help them with the flow of their jobs too. Just as it had been told to her, it would.

In the last ten years, she’d seen a lot of people come and go. Especially the management. They thought that with a place as large as it was, fifty-six thousand square foot, they could hide out and do things that were better left at home. Or their car.

She especially loved the rule that there was no smoking on the job. No vaping, either. The place didn’t have the terrible smell of cigarettes to the things. It did, however, sometimes in the summer have a very strong smell of body odor when the breeze from the large fans were working. Sometimes, that alone would make her wish she could hand out the little containers of deodorant to the employees rather than not being able to tell them that they stank.

“Ms. Loren?” She’d only just gotten back from an x-ray when there was another person in her room. She told him that it was her, but she wasn’t feeling up to answering any more questions right now. “I understand. I do. But I need this one question answered. It’s for insurance. Did the management know that Donald MacKenize was a problem before transferring him to your mod?”

“Yes. That’s why they put him on my mod. So that when he got behind, I could catch him up. After that, he started waiting for me to put his labels on the product to be sent out. I told them several times that he’s been in trouble three other times that I know of for beating up a worker and that I wanted double pay if I had to do his work in addition to mine. They thought I was funning them. Do I look like a person with much of a sense of humor? I’m not.” She closed her eyes and laid back on her bed. “I’m really beaten up here, buddy. I’m off tomorrow, but I have to work the day after, so if you’d not mind, I’d like some rest time before my next shift comes up.”

“How long have you worked there?” There was something about his voice that had her resting better than with the sound of hospital workings. After telling him how long, he laughed. “What is your employee number, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Two. It should have been one, but that number was taken when the equipment I was testing failed to print my picture. I’m the only one, other than the big boss, that is still left.” She yawned and heard him chuckle again. “Go away, will you? I have to get stitches soon, and I want this to last. I’ve never felt this relaxed since I was born, I don’t think?”

Another chuckle and she didn’t have the energy to look up to see what he was laughing at. She couldn’t even see him all that well because of the bandages on her eyes and face. He must have been a loon. No one ever thought that she was funny even when she had the jokes explained to her. After another laugh, she was out.

Kaida was being shaken awake sometime later. The room was semi dark and the sounds were different. Asking whomever was in her room what they were doing, she was told that they were getting her blood pressure. She wanted to tell them to be more quiet but she was awake now so it mattered little. She asked the woman the time.

“Just a little after five.” That was usually when she got up so didn’t bitch about being awake. “You’ll get to go home today if you have someone that can stay with you. Is there anyone you want me to call for you?”

“Not unless you can raise the dead, then no.” The girl asked her what she said and she told her that she had no family to speak of. “They’ve all disowned me or written me off long ago. It’s doubtful that I could pick them out of a lineup either.”

“All right then. I’ll let the doctor know.” She started to leave but turned back. “You should call your breakfast in now if you’re ready to eat. They’ll start getting busy when the rest of the patients get up in about an hour.”

Kaida wasn’t all that hungry yet but she knew that skipping meals was as bad as over eating. You were fucked either way. As soon as she hung up the phone, a man came into her room and started barking questions at her. Some point in his lecturing her about how things were going to go, her breakfast arrived and she tossed half of her bagel at him. That got him to shut up.

“What the hell was—” She told him her name and put out her hand to get his name. There was rudeness, she was good at that, then there was just plain being an asshole, which it seemed to her he could have cornered the market on. “Savage. I think one of my cousins said my first name was Tucker.”

“You don’t know your name?” He said it had been a while since anyone called him that. “I see. So you go by Savage. Is that your trademark, Mr. Savage or have you, like Tucker acquired that name from one of your cousins. I do hope that you don’t leave the office too much or you’d be shit out of luck with your mannerisms coming out so pleasantly.”

“You’re not so nice yourself.” She told him that she never said she was. “All right. I’m guessing that now that we have the pleasantries out in the open and you dislike me as much as I do you, but I own the business that you were hurt at and I want to get to the bottom of how it happened.”

“I’m fine by the way. Since you didn’t care if I was or not, maybe you should get your information from Mac. His name, in the event that you’d care is Donald MacKenize. His employee number is eight thousand and twenty-three. That’s how many people have been hired and gotten rid of since I’ve been working there. Mostly it’s management. You might want to put that on your to-do list as to why you have such a high turnover. I know but it’s best if you find it. I get into trouble by ‘nosing’ into places that I shouldn’t. Which makes no sense either as I’m the only one that knows how to operate the machine that prints badges.” He asked her why. “Why you ask? That’s another thing you might want to put on that list. Why am I training all your management on how to operate the machinery—including and not limited to the fork lifts and stoles that are used here daily. When they’re out the door a few months later. I don’t teach them to work here. I train them on the operations part but not the management part. That’s where they’re failing. Or someone is.”

“You seem to know a great deal about my business.” She didn’t even blink at the man but let him figure that out for himself. If he could. “All right. How long has Mac worked there before yesterday, and who is his direct report to.”

She gave Savage the answers and more information than he might need or not about both men. Kaida thought that she might know more about the employees there than any one person in Human Resources did. She was good at remembering details and information like that. Anything that she’d read or seen as a matter of fact. Kaida could just remember it.

After three hours she was ready for her lunch and a nap. Her temper wasn’t any less volatile than his was but she was enjoying putting him in his place when he got nasty with her. He was there because he needed her, not the other way around.

“You said that your first name is Kaida. Do you know what it means?” She told him. “Little dragon suits you more than I think the person who named you is aware of.”

“Same as you, Savage.” When he stood up and stretched, she looked away. There was more to him than the owner of the company that she just happened to work for and it had her body tingling in places she’d not thought of in months. “Are you about finished? I need my lunch and to find someone that I can stay with tonight. With the concussion, they don’t want me passing out when I get home alone.”

“You’ll stay with me.”

~*~

Savage was still trying to figure out what made him offer up his home and quiet to the girl. She was ruder than he’d ever come across in a human. It also startled him when the more she bulked at the idea, the more he fought in telling her that she was going to do what he said. Like he actually wanted her to stay in his only breathing space and quiet on this earth.

It wasn’t until he had Kingston talk to her that she finally agreed. Telling her some bullshit about her being under their care because they owned the company and didn’t want her to sue them. Sounded plausible to him, but she was still bitching as they were getting ready to transfer her over to his home.

“You could have just left me at home, you know. I can no more afford to sue you than I can put a downpayment on a house. That’s all I’m working for. A home with a little picket fence around it for me to let Geoffrey out.” It was Kingston that got out of her that it was her only friend and a cat that cared for her. “He seems to think that the apartment that I live in is his, and I’m the persona non grata that he graciously allows to live with him.”

“Cats don’t care for us.” She glanced at him when Kingston laughed. “You’d be wrong about them not liking Savage. All animals love him. I think he has a couple of dogs and three or four outdoor cats hanging around his barn now, too. I think there might have been a squirrel and a couple of snakes that have taken to hanging out at his home.”

“Figures about the snakes.” No more was said as they got her in the car. Since he was the only one who drove, they all had licenses, but he was the one who had the most experience with it. He drove her to his home. It gave him time to think about the twit in the back seat of his car.

She wasn’t just a smart ass but a clever one as well. He thought she could stand toe to toe to any of them and come out the winner. None of them were barred from her sharp tongue or wit either. For whatever reason, he found himself thinking up things to say to her that would get her going. Or to touch the temper that he knew she had.

His cousins decided to stay for dinner. Not that he minded all that much. The house could certainly hold them all for dinner. But like he’d been doing, they seemed to tweak at her to see what she’d say next. Like it was a challenge to see who could get blasted by her first. None of them had, so far, gotten her as angry as he did, and was glad for that.

She begged for a nap, and they all left her to it. As she stepped into the room, he could see her concern or whatever one might encounter upon seeing a room decorated just so. Savage would admit this to no one but he hated the room and most of the house too.

He’d had a decorator come and finish up his home after it was built, and he hated every part of it. The room that she was in, the blue room the woman had called it, didn’t have a spot of blue in it anywhere. And she had thought that it was funny. Not to him. If it was the blue room, then it should be called that because it had too much blue in it. Not devoid of the color on purpose.

When his cousins all left an hour later, with the promise of coming back for dinner, he wandered around the house looking into the places that she had commented on. Like the blue room, she had questioned his use of no color in the opening entrance hall. It was all white. Even the vase and flowers that were all plastic or some other shit that she told him that he should be ashamed to call it an entrance. An entrance into what? Hell, she’d asked him.

“The stairs to the second and third floor were, in her words, ‘hooker red’ like the place you’d find in a ‘brothel that handled prostitutes and madams.’ He didn’t know why, but that was all he could see now that it had been pointed out to him. Savage decided that she’d be as good as him when it came to crossword puzzles. There were other references as well.

The front doors were off-center. He’d known that when the place was built and thought that he could live with it. As soon as he could get to a phone, he was going to have that fixed. He didn’t know how much that bothered him until then.

In addition to the front hallway and stairs, there were the rooms that were just off from the room. The library with all the books turned the wrong way as well as no pictures were annoying. He had plenty of them, so why didn’t they get to be hung in his own house. He was going to get onto that as well. Also how the hell did he ever find a book the way that they were. Savage simply ended up buying another copy if he needed a book he knew he had because of that.

The office doors were closed, and he was sure that she’d have something to say about it. He did. Plenty. All the equipment, the printer, the safe, and the terminal were all hidden behind walls. To make it appear as if he didn’t do much work in the room. That was the only thing that the woman had gotten right. He couldn’t work in the room at all. It took him a month in the room to know that he did indeed have a computer. He just had to dig it out of the desk that he hated as much as he was beginning to hate the house.

Savage hadn’t been happy with the house when he’d had it built. There wasn’t anything wrong with it other than it was way too feminine for his tastes, as well as too many things that were not up to his standards. It didn’t help either that he’d fired the decorator before she was finished with it. She had told him that the house needed a woman’s touch, and she was going to be the woman that touched all the shit in the place for him. That, more than anything, had soured him to the place. That and the fact that it was at the wrong angle to the street—his mind seemed to close down when he heard his name being called.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he was standing in the blue room in seconds. Just in time to catch the little dragon before she fell. Shaking his head at her foolishness in trying to get up, she smacked him across the face before he could make her understand that she needed to be more thoughtful in getting around. He asked her what she’d hit him for.

“Because every time I talk to you, you’re yelling at me. Couldn’t you just not this one time? It’s the reason that I didn’t call for you before getting up. I fucking hurt, and I have to pee. Go away if you’re going to yell all the time.” Savage heard the words out of his mouth before he could realize that he’d never once said them to another human being in his life. “I’m sure you’re not sorry, but worried I might be suing you or something. Christ, I have a headache to end all headaches, and I still have to—put me down, you moron. You’ll hurt your back carrying me around like that.”

“Hush. You don’t weigh much more than a dragon’s egg.” He didn’t even know why he’d said that to her, but telling her that he was sorry set him on edge. “If you can manage not falling on your ass long enough to go to the privy, then I’ll take you back to bed when you’re finished.”

“Go away.” He left her to her business and stood in the room waiting. He looked around and thought that this room had all the character of a puppet with no hand. Like the front hall was devoid of color, this one had it all—except blue. He wanted to find a can of paint and fix that before he did anything else. The clearing of her throat had him turning and scooping her up into his arms.

“What were you mumbling about? And if it’s about me, then shut up. I don’t want to feel any more depressed than I am right now.” He asked her if it was the room. “As a matter of fact it does have a bit to do with this room. It’s the ugliest room I’ve ever been in. Who the hell thought that bright green paisley could go well with black and white Poka dots. And who puts vertical blinds on short windows? Someone blind did this room, or you did. You didn’t, did you?”

“No. I actually paid a heartless woman to do this room up and call it blue. There is none. Trust me, I looked hard for it.” She agreed with him as he was putting her on the bed. “I’m sorry that I was barking at you. It’s what you might call my calling card. I don’t like humans.”

“I’m assuming that you are something that isn’t.” He told her that he was a dragon. “Good to know. Do you, by any chance, eat humans for your meals?”

“Not for a long time.” She seemed to act like he was serious, so he let it go. “I’m not a large dragon. I could easily fill out this house with my other self but that would be a waste of time to have to—but to think on that, this house might well be better off being torn down and starting over.”

“You paid someone to build this for you too? Are you a sadist?” She laughed when he did. However, his sounded rusty and out of place to even himself. When he leaned back in the chair again, she really took the time to get a good look at him. He didn’t mind. It gave him the time to look at her, too. “You’re not as young as you appear either, are you?”

“No. Several thousand years older, to be honest. My cousins are all older than I am, but once we reach a certain time in our lives, we no long age. Up until recently, like in the last couple of decades, I didn’t know my first name. I don’t know where they came up with Tucker, but I needed one, and they told me to use it. I only use it when necessary.” She said that she thought Tucker suited him better than Savage. “You don’t know me all that well, though.”

“True.” She looked at him again. “To me, you look like a man that has spent his life being bitter about humans and really could give two shits if one of them killed you or not.” He said that he couldn’t be killed as his dragon at all and that, as his other self, there was only the one way. “Pierced through the heart or losing your head?” He told her. “Yes, well, that would kill me as I’m only a human. Where are your lovely parents in your life? I’m betting that they’re lurking someplace to take advantage of you before they try to kill you off.”

“They’re dead.” She was embarrassed and told him how sorry she was. “They never cared for me and once they realized that I wasn’t the girl they had wanted, then they faded from my life. Or abruptly left my life. I’m not sure which is true. I think they’re the ones that called me Savage in the first place. We were all descendants of the Savage line, and we, back in the beginning, were considered the most savage of all dragons. I guess I still am. All of us are. You’ve met Kingston and Brenin, I think. There is also Cassian. He and Brenin are brothers. They have a sister that they don’t have a lot to do with. Her name is Margo.”

He told her about his family and how they’d been killed along with his sister Lillith. He told her how he’d heard they had died since he’d never known much about them. He wasn’t too sure.

“I could feel their deaths. I guess other shifters can do the same. But I didn’t bond at all with my sister. She’s much older than I am. I didn’t know about her until they were told to me from their attorney. He knew I was out there, and it was several decades before he could find me to give me their wealth.”

“Do you have a lot of that? Wealth, I mean?” He nodded, which seemed fine with her. “I have about twenty grand in the bank. I’m waiting for a house, any house that doesn’t mean fixer-upper to purchase. I’ve been close once or twice but never been able to sign on the dotted line.” She looked around again and asked him if he’d really had this place done the way that it was.

“I did. It’s ugly, I know. Every time I pass one of the rooms that have been left open, I don’t go in but close the door to it. If you think this is all wrong, you should see the master suite. It’s hideous.” Again, the laughter but it seemed less harsh this time. “I was going to go by and feed your cat for you, but all we have on file for you is a post office box number with no forwarding address.”

“That’s all I gave them when I started. I did live with my parents when they were killed, but once I turned eighteen, my uncle had me move out. I was in the middle of my senior year when he did that to me. Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now, and I have myself a nice cozy one bedroom flat that Geoff shares with me.” She laughed. “If he could hear me talking about him, he’d be pissed off. What am I saying? Everything pisses him off. I think he only tolerates me because I buy him food. Otherwise, I don’t think he’d care a fig if I were murdered someday on the way home from work. I guess like it nearly happened.”

“You’ll be happy to know that the place is under new management. Mac has been arrested, and his court date is in a couple of weeks. You were correct in telling us that he’s been up to this for a while. Why they kept letting him work it beyond me.” She told him what she’d heard. “That makes sense, I suppose. His aunty being the wife of the plant manager. They’re all gone as well. Most of the management staff is by the way. None of the employees as yet but that’ll be up to them if they stay or not. Now that I have an idea what was going on, I’ve dug deeper into the paperwork to find out all kinds of things.”

“I only know a few of the employees. There are a few that I don’t understand how got into the door, but perhaps the plant manager’s family is running the show instead of him.” They spoke a bit more until he could see that she needed rest. He was fine with her taking a nap. He felt like he needed one as well.