by Anna Lowe
Someone tapped on the glass of the phone booth, and she snapped her head up.
“Come on, lady. Finish up.” A man pointed to his watch and held an imaginary phone to his ear, then showed her his cell phone. “My battery is dead.”
He was just a harmless human, but Karen’s gaze quickly swept the street. She’d better get out of sight and on to Plan B — or Plan L or Q or whatever letter she was up to by now. It seemed like she’d spun through the entire alphabet once already and was starting all over again.
“Listen, Kaya, I’d better go.” She checked behind her as she spoke. “Say hi to Trey and take care.”
“I will. And you, too,” Kaya said. “Stay out of trouble, you hear?”
Karen held back a snort. She was neck-deep in trouble. Again.
She hung up, hurried out of the phone booth, and headed down a side alley for the one place in Vegas she figured she would be safe from vampires.
Hopefully.
Possibly.
Maybe.
She threw a last glance over her shoulder and heard her sister’s words echo through her mind. Stay out of trouble, you hear?
Chapter Seven
Tanner checked the reflection in a shop window for anyone tailing him as he walked down Fremont Street, trying to amble like a tourist instead of rushing. Which took just about everything he had because his bear was kicking and screaming and hurrying him along.
Come on, already! Must see my mate!
God, how could the beast be so sure? And how could his mate be a witch?
Only half witch, the bear shot back. Half dragon, too.
He snorted. As if that added up to a good match for a bear.
She’s perfect! the bear said brightly.
She’s trouble.
The bear just shrugged, like that didn’t matter at all. She’s in trouble. We’ll get her out.
Again, how could he be so sure? And what the hell would his clan have to say about that? He was in Vegas to help his family, not to rescue crazy she-dragon witches.
My she-dragon witch, his bear corrected him.
A car horn tooted, and he jerked his head around. Shit, he really needed to pay attention and make sure he wasn’t being followed. Igor Schiller had been furious to find out Karen had escaped, and though all his wrath had been directed at Antoine, you never knew.
Tanner mingled with a crowd then darted down a side street and stood breathlessly in the shadows, checking for any sign of a trace. He’d been careful to park his motorcycle a few blocks away and meander for a good ten minutes, making sure he hadn’t been followed.
No one is following us, his bear insisted. Let’s go already.
With one last look back, he headed into an alley and took a right turn. And there, marked by red flags, gold statues, and upward sweeping Chinese towers on the false front, stood his destination: the Golden Panda.
The sweet-and-sour odor of Chinese cooking wafted down the alley, which made it the last place a vampire would wander into — no juicy steaks, no sizzling grills. Rice, chicken, and soy sauce were not exactly vampire fare. Karen was a goddamned genius.
Of course, she is. His bear grinned.
He licked his lips. It had been a hell of a long day — plus the preceding night when he’d been on duty — and he’d only managed a quick stop at his room in a seedy boarding house before racing out here. A little chop suey sure would hit the spot now.
When he reached the golden statues flanking the door, though, he paused at the scent of shifter. What kind of shifter, he couldn’t tell. Tigers, maybe, like the ones painted on the windows? Dragons? Did Karen have some distant relatives here?
He swung the door open, tensing. What would he do when he saw her? What would he say? And what exactly would he encounter inside?
He ducked past a red velvet curtain and looked around. Six plain tables stood on the left and another six on the right, with a total of five guests at them — three on one side murmuring over a mah-jongg board and two on the other, eating expertly with chopsticks. Giant vases filled with bamboo stalks stood in the corners of the restaurant, and the walls were hung with stylized landscapes marked with bold strokes of calligraphy. Straight ahead was a counter plastered with photographs that illustrated the meals. In short, it was like any other inexpensive Chinese restaurant in any other place.
Except for the giant panda shifter sitting at the register, that is, chewing a stalk of bamboo. By the time Tanner blinked a few times, though, an elderly Asian man with a long, skinny beard sat where the panda had been, holding a slender pipe in place of the bamboo.
Whoa. Had he been imagining things, or had the guy shifted that fast?
The bead curtain separating the order counter from the kitchen parted, and a young woman wearing a Hello Kitty apron stepped out.
“Welcome to the Golden Panda. A drink for the gentlebear?”
Tanner tilted his head. Did pandas have as keen a sense of smell as bears, or could she tell what he was through some other means? He patted his jean pockets and ran a quick hand over his chin. There’d been no time to shave before coming out here, but the scruff he felt was man-scruff, not grizzly hair. Huh. Was it that obvious he was a shifter?
He sniffed the air. The three guests huddled on the right had to be pandas, too. The two on the left with funny mustaches were…primates of some kind. Which stumped him. What kind of primates had hair that spiked straight up from their heads and mustaches that flared out at the sides?
“Um…” He scratched his head, trying to get back on course. “I’d like some dragon soup.”
He felt silly uttering the words like some kind of spy code, but if it meant seeing Karen again…
The woman’s eyes narrowed. She gave him a slow once-over then exchanged a few words with the old man in Chinese.
“Just a moment, please,” she said, heading toward the kitchen again. The beaded curtain closed behind her, and through it, Tanner swore he saw her body change into a furry, black-and-white form. A panda in a Hello Kitty apron?
He stepped aside as he waited and studied the photographs on one wall. At first, he figured they were nature shots of pandas in the wild, but soon he came to suspect they were vacation shots of some kind. He could just imagine the narrative that might accompany them. There’s Grandpa with the nephews in Sichuan Province…
Below the panda photos was a framed poster that had to have come out of a National Geographic magazine. Mammals of Greater China, it read, with pandas, tigers, and… Tanner leaned in to find out what those mustached monkeys were. The Francois Langur, or Leaf Monkey, is the least studied of subfamily Colobinae…
He shot a glance over to the two men sipping green tea, then back at the poster. Leaf monkeys, huh?
His bear shrugged. As long as they’re not armed with throwing stars, no problem.
“This way.” The woman in the apron returned and pointed him down a side hall.
His heart beat faster as he walked through the narrow space. It smelled of incense and ginger and jasmine tea. All so unfamiliar, so hard to read.
“Hello?” he called, reaching a round room set up for private parties with rich, luxurious decor, unlike that of the front dining room. The only thing that didn’t fit amidst the plush couches around the sides and the bouquet of exotic flowers on the center table was the cheap playpen. Two fluffy panda babies peered out at him with big, round eyes.
The one on the right yawned and blinked its black-ringed eyes, while the other waggled its oversized ears and squeaked.
“Um, hi,” Tanner murmured, looking around.
A dozen rooms with frosted glass panes set in the doors branched out from that central space, and all were closed except one. He stepped over, and his breath caught in his throat.
The room was wallpapered in rich red and gold and hung with tasseled red lamps. Some had dragons printed on them, others tigers, and they all seemed to aim their silent roars at him. But his gaze bounced right past them to Karen, standing at the far side
of the small room.
Karen, dressed in a form-fitting red silk dress with a long row of knot buttons fitted into loops, marking little crosses along her body. Karen, looking at him with wide, dancing eyes that might have been as big as his felt just then. Her hair was done up in a bun, and her arms were crossed, as if she was as unsure where to begin as he was.
“Karen,” he murmured.
“Tanner,” she whispered back.
Just hearing his name on her tongue made the best kind of shiver run down his back. He stepped forward, brushing a lantern with his head.
Karen, he almost said again because suddenly, his mind was blank. Blissfully, innocently blank, like it had been the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her.
Mate, his bear breathed. Mate.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out, and all he could think of was her kiss. The testing little kiss she’d given him the first time they’d met and the heated ones that grew out of that in the blink of an eye. He thought of the hungry kisses of their first night and the desperately confused kiss from a few hours ago. All of them blended together and came roaring at him like a blaze, and just like that, his body was on fire again.
Without realizing it, he erased the distance between them and reached for her, and the look on her face said she would respond with a kiss and not the slap he’d originally feared. But just as his lips brushed over hers — just as their bodies started to mesh — a bang sounded behind him. He whirled, protecting Karen with his body.
A toothless old lady cackled and started lighting the candles set around the room. Candles, like the room needed any more atmosphere or any more heat.
“Eat, eat,” the old lady croaked, beckoning them toward the table.
Oh, he’d like to eat, all right. But dumplings and chow mein were not exactly what he had in mind.
“You must be starving,” Karen murmured, and his head whipped around. Was she serious or teasing? With her, he never could tell.
Her eyes sparkled and danced, but her body was stiff and erect. About as erect as part of him was just from coming so close to her seconds ago.
God, maybe she was a witch. Maybe she was hexing him.
And then it hit him. Grandma Mae said love is magic, didn’t she?
There was good magic and bad magic in the world, just like there were good bears and bad. Maybe he ought to give her a chance.
You definitely need to give her a chance, his bear said. Give us a chance.
He took a deep breath, pulled out a chair for Karen, and hid as much of his faded jeans behind it as he could. There she was, done up like a million bucks, while he looked like some guy off the street.
Her eyes roved over him briefly, and the funny thing was, he could have sworn she didn’t mind one bit.
When she stepped past him to take her seat, her scent brushed his body like a blanket begging him to huddle closer and warm up. It took everything he had to push her chair in instead of tilting it backward and kissing her skin. He circled to the chair across from hers at the tiny table, parking a thousand fantasies in the back of his mind for later — vehemently hoping there would be a later. Fantasies of kissing, sucking, licking the creamy skin just under her ear. Of undoing the bun, threading his fingers through her hair, and pulling her closer. Of touching, sniffing…
He clenched his hands into fists as the old woman banged a tray on the table and poured him a cup of green tea.
“So what will it be?” Karen asked him.
Her nostrils flared, and he wondered if she meant food or something else. And damn did his bear vote for the latter. But he hadn’t come to get carried away all over again. He’d come to…to…um…
“You choose,” he managed, and his voice was husky.
When she licked her lips and looked at him, he almost lost control. One little swipe of the hand and he could knock the table out of the way and pull Karen into his lap, ready to consume.
She caught her lower lip with her teeth and took a deep breath.
“Ma Po Tofu,” she said to the waitress, looking for his okay. “And an order of Beef Broccoli with white rice.”
He gave a tiny nod and told himself she was right. They needed to talk. They needed to figure things out. First things first, right?
And second things… his bear growled inside, picturing a different kind of feast.
The waitress placed a cup of soup in front of him and left the room. He looked at Karen through the curling threads of steam that rose, separated, and met again, and took a deep breath. What to say? Where to start?
Karen, are you a witch? One of the thousand questions in his mind muscled its way to the front, but he didn’t say it. He wasn’t really ready for that one yet.
Karen, do you feel this, too? This unquenchable thirst?
Should he admit it? Shouldn’t he?
Karen, are you my destined mate?
If she wasn’t, he was going crazy, because no woman had ever done this to him before.
“So,” he started slowly, finally pushing a few words through tight lips. “Tell me about that diamond.”
Chapter Eight
Karen hid her trembling fingers in her lap and did her best to meet Tanner’s level gaze. What she really wanted to do was reach out and stroke his skin. A little swipe of the coarse stubble dotting his chin, a tiny brush of a finger over those perfect, slanting eyebrows. Just a little contact to settle her jumpy nerves.
But touching him would only fan the fire blazing inside her, and she knew it. He was so close, so temptingly close. As keyed up for her as she was for him. And damn, he looked even better in faded jeans and a T-shirt than he did in a suit. Freer, more relaxed. Well, maybe not exactly relaxed, given the furrowed brow and dark, searching gaze, but still.
She twisted her fingers together and cleared her throat.
“The diamond?” she asked, positive that was not the question that had been on the tip of his tongue.
He pointed to the middle of his broad chest, and her brain short-circuited for a second. Wow, that was a lot of acreage he had there. And yes, she’d like to touch that spot. In fact, she had touched it — kissed it, too — one incredible night not too long ago.
He kept his thumb on his shirt and said, “The diamond.”
“Oh, that diamond,” she answered, snapping back to the subject. Her words came out barked and bitter as she pictured her precious family heirloom stuck between Elvira’s fake boobs.
Tanner stuck his hands up, signaling something like, Whoa. Just asking. Either she was as transparent as the broth of her soup or the man had a knack for reading her like a book.
“You said it belonged to your family,” he prompted.
She stared down at her bowl, studying the scallion floating in the soup. Wondering if she dared explain. Wondering if she could keep herself together if she did.
He reached over, tipped her chin up gently, and offered her a crooked smile that said, It’ll be okay. It will be all right. Like he really, truly understood all her worries, her insecurities, her fears.
God, the man’s gaze was magic. And his touch… She could float away on it. Float away into the kind of dream she’d never, ever want to end.
“It’s not really dragon soup, is it?” he joked, breaking the tension in the room.
She shook her head and pulled herself together. “Nah. Just hot and sour soup.”
He tilted his head at her. “Do you know the people who run this place?”
An easier topic than everything else they had to cover, thank goodness.
“Distant cousins on my mother’s side.” She said between sips of soup. The dragons of old Europe and those of the Orient had stayed separate for thousands of years, but there’d been occasional mixing, too.
“Your dragon side?” he asked quietly, and she froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth.
Shit, had he figured out what her other half was? She studied the eyes that studied her, dark and deep and, yes, a little wary. The world was full of shifter s
pecies, and though some developed rivalries, most accepted one another. Witches, though, were seen as outsiders — as different, the way vampires were.
Her chin dipped. Did he really want to hear her family history? Shit, it looked like he did. She decided on the short version and resolved to keep emotion out of it.
“My mother is a dragon. Her first mate was a dragon, too, and they had my sister, Kaya.”
Tanner nodded but didn’t say a word. Barely breathed, it seemed.
“But he was killed in a battle, and a few years later, my mom, well… She hooked up with a warlock for a little while. My father.”
Tanner’s inscrutability terrified her, but she plunged on. Surely he wouldn’t reject her for parentage she couldn’t control?
“The dragon half of the family refused to accept him, and eventually, he left.” She forced her voice to be steady as she tried to skip over the bitterest memories. Her mother’s tears, her father’s angry glare when he’d left. The loneliness she’d felt as an outsider in her own family. The only one who’d loved her unconditionally was her mother’s father, the wisest, kindest dragon who’d ever lived. He was the one who’d encouraged summer visits to her father, saying, Family is family and, Who knows? You might learn a thing or two.
And she had learned. A hell of a lot, in fact, though she’d never had the propensity for magic her witchfolk cousins had. Just as she’d never had the full powers of her dragon kin.
Jack of all trades. Her grandfather would smile and pat her head.
She used to tack a few bitter words on under her breath. Master of none. She couldn’t fly, and she was only a second-rate witch. What good was that?
The spoon shook in her hand, so she put it down. Slammed it down, practically, and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the voices that taunted her in her head.
You can’t even fly.
You can’t even do a proper spell.
You’re a mutt, you know that?
Then something warm and strong closed over her hand, and all those thoughts turned tail and fled.