One for the Money, Two for the Show [.TEMP.]

Jenna flexed wings out wide as she walked toward Soren's mailbox. It frustrated her that she remembered his home so easily, but she had a goal in mind so there was no use attempting to avoid him. There was only so far you could go on an island any how. It was a chilly day for Jenna and to make up for it she wore beige boots that stopped mid way up her calves. The jeans she had conformed to her body in a complimentary manner and she wore a light blue dress shirt to top it off. Her hair was worn down as always though, the blonde hair curling so as to bring more attention toward her face. Jenna was also wearing light make-up, which was unusual since she hadn't been doing so within the past few weeks she had been at the island.

Needless to say, the sylph was looking forward to seeing her long lost friend. This hope though was quickly doused out by her sudden dismay of walking to the door of Soren's house. She was stuck in her emotions and she knew it, and you would think after decades she could figure out her own feelings with a snap of her own fingers. Shaking her head, Jenna's hand reached forward and knocked on the door before her. After she knocked the young woman stepped back and little bit so as to give her wings some room, the wings themselves stretched out once more - putting shadow over a majority of the door before her.

Soren felt like he could run and run and run without stopping. After the more recent Shift, he'd spent several days in a pretty deep slumber. Now that he'd woken up, he was unstoppable. He'd missed a lot of work and that was galling enough without the bigger issue he knew he'd have to deal with sooner or later.

The evidence of the issue sat on the floor in his study, which he was avoiding for the time being.

He leaned his head into the phone so he could open the door without putting down the tablet he was typing into. He had a towel draped around his neck and his sandy hair stood up in damp spikes. In a stark contrast to his normal attire, Soren had donned a black tank top and loose shorts. The tang of sweat clung to his person and he radiated a great deal more heat than usual.

The door swung open and he looked up from his tablet. The person he saw made him pause, mid-sentence. "I'll have to call you back," he said with a beleaguered sigh. As he took the phone away from his ear and stretched out his neck, he asked her, "Here to steal another of my valuables? It'll be difficult for you to top the first heist. I have a new security system."

Her presence just reminded him of the thing in his study, which put him in an ill temper. As lovely as his visitor looked (and there was no denying that, even with his bad mood), he had a feeling he knew what she was coming around for and he was in absolutely no state to oblige her. "Make it quick. You involvement in my life has cost me a family heirloom and a nice boat, as well as several days of work."

Not to mention his peace of mind... How many of those days of sleep had been overcome with dreams of her?

"I wouldn't be so quick to accuse you dumb dragon." Jenna took to calling Soren stupid like a fly took to the shine of florescent light. "I have no need of your things now, you've promised me something and I've come here to make sure you keep that promise." As hard as she was trying to sound irritable though, Jenna couldn't help but feel a slight bit of happiness at seeing Soren. When she had woken up in the hospital after their incident with the strange cat monster, Jenna couldn't help but shake the feeling that something important had happened. It had taken her a full day though to remember exactly what had happened, and while she was facing him now the memory came back in full force.

Quickly the sylph looked away from Soren's eyes, the action making it seem like she was embarrassed which was of course the truth. That embarrassment though was quickly overwhelmed at her annoyance of the phone in his hands. She wasn't sure why she was bothered, but she suspected it had something to do with the fact that he seemed completely unaffected by their previous interaction. "Are you going to take me to see Jonathan or am I going to have to get a tornado to strike at your house directly?" Jenna smiled pleasantly at Soren while she said this - the snarky tone in her voice completely contradicting the expression she held.

He was more miffed that she assumed that he would help her after the fiasco from the boat. Soren shook his head. "Really, now. You've already forgotten our deal, you airhead. Remember: you help me find my torc and I'll get you in contact with Aodhan? Since our little excursion was a complete failure and your help was only marginally effective, I have no real incentive nor inclination to help you out."

His eyes went half-lidded in response to her threat and a trail of smoke exited one of his nostrils. "Even if you saved my life, I could have left you to die out there on that beach, so I don't owe you a damn thing. You destroy my house and you will wish that I had just kicked some sand over you and let you rot." He smiled, just as she had, but his elongated canines only served to add an edge to the threat he had not even bothered to lace with humor.

The were-dragon shook his head again. "But I'm nothing if not a businessman. If you agree to help me with an endeavor that doesn't involve finding trinkets you carelessly tossed into the ocean, I will arrange for you to meet with Aodhan. No more fuck-ups, though, and you're signing a document this time around agreeing to my terms."

Jenna couldn't help but roll her eyes at Soren's reminder that she had indeed not gotten his torc back. At his threat though, Jenna chewed on her tongue - resisting the urge to talk about what happened to the both of them on the beach. What they shared, it was hard for her to forget. At the same time, Cade's image floated through her mind for a moment and Jenna suddenly looked overwhelmingly guilty. She quickly shook the expression away and went back to staring at Soren with just a hint of curiosity.

The idea of signing a contract with another immortal being gave her memories of the last time she did something of the sort. The consequences was that she almost had her wings cut off. Getting an uncomfortable look on her face, Jenna folded her arms across her chest - finding it easy to look Soren in the eye due to the only small difference in their height. "I'll look at what you have first, then after you explain everything to me and I read this so-called contract I will decide to sign it." Jenna looked surprisingly hard with this, the sylph usually never putting up resistance against something new.

Soren knew he had her. His vivid blue gaze glinted and he said nonchalantly, "Come with me and close the door." He lead the way into the house, bare feet padding against the high-end flooring. The house smelled new, despite the abundance of cases containing treasures that would have out a museum to shame. He favored modern lines in his furniture and decor, though, so the cases certainly existed in stark contrast to the rest of the items in his home.

He led the way down a hallway that might have been familiar to the woman, even if it was transformed since her break-in. A vast array of cameras and security equipment bristled from the walls. Soren walked into his study, past the thing that was giving him so much mental distress, and picked up a laptop and a stack of papers from his desk. He looked at the massive glass form in the middle of his floor, looming over him like a strange art piece.

It looked like the result of a lightning bolt hitting a beach... If a lightning bolt had a tendency to create swirling patterns with iridescent shades of color bleeding through and peeking out from the center of the piece. There were slight hints as to where he and Jenna had been standing, but it might not be noticeable to anybody who did not know where this piece came from since it was, technically, upside-down. Of the colors that seemed to pull through, shades of blue and gold were the predominant ones.

The entire thing had him feeling edgy at best and he said quickly, "More room in the living room. Let's set up in there." He suddenly worried that she would read too much into the sculpture, or figure out where it had come from, so he started to explain the deal (at least, what she needed to know about it) to keep her mind elsewhere. "The deal is this: I show you Aodhan, I even get you two together in the semblance of whatever romantic liaison you desire. In exchange, you help me acquire the heart of fair Martina, who has stolen mine."

It was bullshit, but he was a good enough actor to recite all of that with a moderate amount of credulity. Regardless, Jenna was not in the right place to question it too much. Besides, her motivations might cloud her perspective some.

Jenna followed Soren into his house, angling herself out of politeness so as to not knock anything over on her way in. As they passed by what appeared to her an extremely large piece of glass artwork, Jenna paused to admire it for a moment. As she started to think about how glass was made, it then that Soren directed her to the living room and Jenna frowned curiously looking back at the glass art before following Soren.

As Soren proposed his deal, Jenna stopped in her tracks and looked up at Soren - smelling the lie a mile away. Before she started to laugh though, Jenna took a moment to consider where she had heard that name before. A few minutes passed before Jenna decided to respond - then all of suddenly everything seemed to spark like a light bulb. "You mean that woman in charge of the school on this island?" Jenna looked honestly surprised, curious as to what interaction her old friend had with this woman.

At least she hadn't asked about the glass.

Soren shrugged. "Yes, she is the headmistress. And she's very special." He sat down in a chair that was more comfortable than it looked with all of its straight edges and clean lines. He opened the laptop and started drafting a standard document that outline the specifics of their deal. His fingers practically flew over the keyboard and it was amazing how straight his back remained despite how focused he was on the task before him.

Within a few minutes, he had an acceptable document typed. He sent it to a printer located in his study. "Read over this. It's to the point. You will act as my go-to with tasks related to wooing Martina Kandless. I will make sure you and Aodhan get together to your satisfaction. I have left you a space to indicate how much contact with Aodhan you want me to facilitate. I warn you- I won't be able to get him to sleep with you unless you want me to slip him something in his food."

He stretched his neck and felt a couple satisfying pops. I will be right back. Try not to steal anything." He loped out of the room to go grab the sheet of paper, returning in less than a minute. "Does that look acceptable to you?"

With her wings closing in close to her body, Jenna watched as Soren seemed to soar through writing this document up as if it was an extremely important business procedure. Jenna figured that he considered it that way anyhow and as she took the document from him and glanced over it for a moment - Jenna shuddered as Soren spoke about slipping something into Jonathan's food. "I've really judged you wrongly," she said quietly as Soren briefly excused himself from the room.

It was when he brought the piece of paper back, Jenna took it from his hands and examined the object more thoroughly. She determined that there was no way that Soren was knowledgeable of magic that could really bind her to this, but then again she was finding out recently she did not have as much experience with dragons then she thought she did. Jenna stayed quiet some more, chewing on her lower lip in a manner that suggested that she was deep in thought. After a few minutes passed, Jenna looked back up at Soren with an expression that suggested all kinds of discomfort.

"What ends this contract?" she asked the dragon with a heavy tone in her voice. It annoyed her that Soren thought that she wanted nothing but to take advantage of Jonathan, but she held back her frustrations with that and instead decided to attend to the business at hand.

He did not appreciate the shudder she offered in response to his mention of slipping things into Aodhan's food. "Honestly, woman! You act as though you've never done something that falls into a moral gray area before! " He looked pointedly at her.

Soren didn't care if she was uncomfortable- she made him uncomfortable. She'd managed to break through his cool public persona when she stole his torc. He leaned back in the chair, managing to look quite at ease despite his posture remaining absolutely perfect.

He watched her mull things over, biting on a very sensuous lower lip- his eyes flashed amber and he remembered that her theft ultimately led to the sinking of Freyr. He shrugged nonchalantly at her question. "Both parties are satisfied with their part. I'm not expecting a whole lot from you, Emma. Just a bit of assistance in this little matter."

Soren rose to his feet and took the contract from her. "It's up to you, of course. Maybe I overestimated your desire to see Aodhan. I'll have to let him know next time I see him. If he doesn't disappear again. You know he does tend to do that." He picked up a pen from a nearby table and tapped it pensively against his chin, appearing to review the document he'd so recently typed.

Jenna snapped a glare at Soren at his minor exclamation, "I've spent a little bit of a longer time on this earth to know things you suggest never go the way any one wants." Jenna took that moment to stare at Soren, expecting him to stand up and challenge her in some manner. As he used the name she had when they first met, Jenna shifted her weight on the leg that was closer to Soren - not realizing that her subconscious was trying to get her body closer to his. It was almost like some strange desire to feel his fire once more.

Not realizing her thoughts, Jenna got distracted as he grabbed the contract from her - and immediately got annoyed with the man. "If anything you seem to underestimate me," she bit out at him, grabbing the contact back from him and taking the pen as well - her hand briefly brushing up against the area where the pen had been tapping. "I will agree to this, not because you ask me so nicely. I wish to see Jonathan again, his presence will be a better welcome than yours ever was." Jenna gave Soren a challenging looking once more as she moved to the nearest table to bend over and sign the contract - her wings getting dangerously close to some of the items in the room.

Soren shook his head- he was no spring chicken, by any means. After a point, age stopped mattering so much. Those that took such stock in numbers wound up attaining a hubris that Soren delighted in exploiting. Aodhan had such hubris. "Well, keep on being a Negative Nancy. Some of us enjoy having some optimism about our goals," he said loftily, dismissing the subject and trying to ignore the fact that she'd gotten a little closer.

It bothered him that he was bothered by this. Any other woman could climb all over him or smother him with kisses and he would feel about as much emotion as if he'd been given a box full of paper clips by a secret admirer.

Jenna rose to the bait and he stared at her blankly as she accused him of underestimating her. He rubbed his chin, considering the fact that he'd felt a pang of something unpleasant each time she said Aodhan's name. He grinned the moment she turned to sign the contract, though, moving to save a vase from being knocked over by one of her wings.

He also took a moment to admire the view. The vase was the only thing she was in danger of knocking over and breaking. All of his other valuables were in very heavy cases- cases that were museum-grade and climate controlled. After placing the vase on a different table. Soren then reached around Jenna to pick up the contract, brushing up against her wings gently as he did so. "I'll take that," he murmured quietly, amusement tilting the last word.

The moment he was away, he started to chuckle. He signed the document with a flourish and began to laugh wholeheartedly. "You certainly weren't kidding when you said you wanted to see that scaly old lizard again." He collapsed into one of the chairs, a leg slung over an armrest and generally sitting askew. "You would have run into him had you stuck around the island and waited for a bit. Your Jonathan is working as some kind of help at the school. Why else would I show up in this backwater place? For the investment opportunities?!" He sobered some. "I did sign the document. I will arrange a meeting between you two. If there's anything I can do to make your goals with Aodhan more attainable, then say so."

Jenna ignored some of Soren's teasing when she signed the document. It was only when he moved around her, brushing up against her wings that Jenna jumped in surprise at the contact. Shaking her head for a moment from the shiver, the woman stared at Soren incredulously as he started to laugh. The look of irritation looking more obvious by the second. Refusing to be baited by him for the moment, Jenna turned the dragon with a flourish - the air in the living room seeming to wrap around her for a moment. "I do not need your assistance anymore. I will find this Martina woman you spoke of and ask her where he is since she in charge of this school."

As she said this, Jenna hesitated for a moment as she realized that it was most likely getting close to midnight. Would the woman be in the school and if she was - would she even be able to get into the school? Recalling that she had been in the school only once when Cade was showing her around...

Jenna stopped her thoughts before they lead to anything else, shaking her head as if she was thinking about a lot more than she should. Ignoring the document, Jenna started to make her way to Soren's door. "Find me at the tavern if you need assistance with this woman, otherwise I have no need of you anymore." With her tone sounding harsh, Jenna opened up the door and slammed it behind her - starting into the skies with speed toward the school.