"Disaster follows your every footstep."
I looked up, the card crumpling in my hand as I glared at the back of the man who walked away from me. I shook my fist at him, "Yeah, and its name is Paolo! Leave me alone, will you?"
"Are you still beset with admirers?" a soft, English-accented voice asked.
I smiled at Nora and waved her to a chair. Fiona had opted to meet me on the shady side of the verandah, a favorite spot for all the conference attendees, if the number of tables filled to capacity was any sign to go by. "Hi, Nora. Are you looking for a place to sit? I have an appointment in a few minutes, but you're welcome to share my table."
She nudged a chair out with her foot, carefully balancing a tall glass of iced tea and a plate of fresh fruit. "Thank you. I missed lunch and didn't think I could go until dinner without eating. Where is Jim?"
I explained briefly what had happened at the park.
"I'm so sorry to hear that. Poor Jim. But if the vet is positive he got all the poison out, I am sure Jim's resilience will help the body recover quickly. You might be able to destroy a demon's physical form, but they are heartier than a mortal being."
My stomach growled loudly as she speared a piece of melon. "Sorry," I said, trying not to look like I was starving. I had fallen asleep on Drake's bed—now, I guess, also my bed—after my shower, and I only barely made it to the appointment with Fiona without being late. There hadn't been any time to rustle up something for lunch.
"You're welcome to some," she offered, pushing her plate toward me.
'Thanks, but that's not necessary." I looked at my watch, chewed my lip in thought for a second, then turned around and looked at the doorway leading into the hotel. Zaccheo stood next to the wall, a pitcher of water clutched in his hands, his body tense and quivering slightly in anticipation as if he was waiting at the starting line of a race. I smiled at him and he shot over to me, almost knocking down an elderly couple in his haste.
"You want water?" he asked, holding the pitcher as if it was made of precious gems. "You want more water?"
"No," I said, speaking slowly but firmly. The only way I'd managed to have a conversation with Fiona without him drowning me in ice water was to forbid him to approach me until I signaled I wanted something. He had remained against the wall, ignoring other patrons as he stood poised to race to my side at the merest flick of my finger. "I have to leave in five minutes, but I missed lunch and I'm hungry. Do you think you can find something quickly—"
He was off before I finished the sentence, ice water splashing everywhere as he raced into the hotel.
I turned back to Nora. "You know, I could get used to this amulet."
"Amulet?"
"It's a delivery I have to make." She just looked at me as she ate her fruit, the sunlight glinting off her glasses. I started to explain, but a crash behind me heralded the return of Zaccheo. He skidded to a stop at the table, bumping it hard enough that I grabbed for my water glass and Nora's iced tea to keep them from being knocked over.
"Here is bread and soup and fish and very fine meats and cheese," Zaccheo said, unloading his armful of plates onto the tiny table. "You eat these, yes?"
I looked at the food mounded before me. It looked like he had raided the kitchen's store of conference food, grabbing an uncut baguette, a huge round party plate of cheeses, a similarly large plate of rolled cold cuts bedecked with parsley and olives, and a bowl of a thick, spicy soup. "I will eat one of these. I don't have enough time—or stomach capacity—for all of it/'
His face fell.
"I promise that I'll come back and eat more another time," I said, feeling guilty that the amulet could play him so cruelly. "But right now Til just have this delicious-looking soup. All right?"
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed back his sorrow, but he removed all the extra plates without making me feel any worse.
"How is your search for a mentor going?" Nora asked once the table was cleared and she could put her plate of fruit down again.
"If I say abysmally, would that make you feel sorry enough for me that you'd take me on?" I asked, only half joking.
She smiled and shook her head, chewing a couple of grapes before answering. "It would not. I never make appointments based on pity."
I stifled a sigh with a spoonful of chilled curried seafood soup. "Are you having a good time here? Get lots of applicants for the apprentice spot?"
"I'm having a very nice time. The workshops are very interesting, but I will admit, I'm more intrigued with the non-official events."
'The sightseeing stuff? I wish I had time to take part in some of them. I really want to see the castle, but what with everything going on, I just don't seem to have time. Although I can recommend the Budakeszi Wildlife Park. So long as you don't eat the deer food. Drat, I have to run. It's nice seeing you again, Nora. Good tuck with your apprentice hunt"
'The same to you," she called as I gathered my things and dashed off, stopping only long enough to stuff euros in Zaccheo's hands before running through the inner restaurant to the lobby of the hotel.
I had arranged to meet Theodora Del Arco, a Guardian from Belize, there before we proceeded to her room for the interview. Theodora, a short, elegant woman with waist-length black hair that made me green with envy, told me she preferred a neutral environment to interview applicants, claiming that only in a room that had been cleansed of the imprints of others could she truly judge a person's qualifications.
Ten minutes after our appointment time I asked at the front desk if Theodora had left a message for me. She hadn't. I tried calling her room. There was no answer.
It was the faintest niggle of worry that sent me to the elevators, a niggle that grew steadily in my mind as I walked down the hallway on the seventeenth floor, scanning the room numbers for the one Theodora had mentioned she was in.
'This is ridiculous," I told myself as I turned a corner and headed down another corridor. "What happened to Moa was a fluke. It had nothing to do with me. She died in her sleep, that's what the policewoman said she thought happened. Her heart gave out while she was sleeping, and she died. It was nothing to do with the fact that I've been the one to find bodies before—"
I stopped as I turned another corner. The hallway was filled with people speaking in shocked, hushed voices. A maid's cart had been shoved to the side, a woman in a hotel uniform sitting on a chair in the corner, two of her coworkers crouched around her, offering sympathetic pats on her shoulders while she sobbed into the white hand towel clutched to her mouth. A man in a police uniform stood guard in a doorway, not saying anything to the handful of people gathered, many of whom wore conference badges.
I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them again to count the doors. Yup. It was Theodora's. Sick with fear, I turned, intending to leave before anyone spotted me, only to come face-to-face with a woman who grinned at me with wicked delight.
"Why, Hank, look who's here. It's that Guardian woman. The one the police arrested before, when that other Guardian was killed." Marvabelle's voice scraped along my skin with all the gentleness of poison-tipped barbed wire. "Fancy her being here, too. Right on the scene where yet another Guardian was discovered killed. How very coincidental."
I summoned a weak smile. There really wasn't much else F could do.
15
_This is becoming repetitive," Drake said as I emerged from the local police station.
I squinted at where he leaned against the limo, the sun low in the sky behind him, blinding me so that all I could see was his silhouette. "Tell me about it, You're not the one who keeps getting hauled in by the police."
He held the door to the car open for me. I climbed in, relieved to see we were the only occupants in the rear. Pal and Istvan were in the front seat, Pal giving me a cheery smile before turning to face the front.
"Aisling, I like to think of myself as tolerant, but I must remind you that you now bear a certain responsibility for the welfare of the sept, and thus I would appreciate
it if you could pass the day without attracting the attention of the police."
I leaned back against the soft leather, closing my eyes and wishing for a tiny little moment that I could roll back time to just before I had agreed to courier an aquamanile to Paris. I would never have been involved in the murders there, never have summoned Jim, never have discovered that I was born to be a Guardian, and never have met Drake.
Little flickers of flame teased my fingertips. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Drake kissing them, but he wasn't.
My fingernails were on fire.
I glared at him. "Now what?"
He tried to look innocent, but we both knew he wasn't. "It is a manifestation," he said, picking up my hand and sucking the tip of each finger to extinguish the flames.
"A manifestation?" T pulled my hand from his, not because I wanted him to stop sucking my fingers, but because my body started up its usual clamor to jump him. "Of what, exactly?"
"My fire. It sometimes happens in new mates. You will learn to control it in time, or so I am told."
"You haven't had a mate before, have you?" I asked, allowing him to pull me close to his side. He smelled good. He felt better. "Jim said that dragons mate for life. So that means you've never had a mate, right? You're new to all this, too?"
"I am familiar with the ways of the dragons," he said, handily avoiding answering my question. Drake was a master at that. "I know what passes between a wyvern and his mate."
"Uh-huh." I wasn't convinced, but I let it pass, "Aren't you going to ask me what the police said?"
"They requested an interview with you because your name was in the Guardian's appointment book. They asked you about your relationship with her. They inquired as to the last time you had seen her. And they confiscated your passport and informed you to not leave the country without first consulting with them."
I pushed myself away from his warm body to stare at him. "Don't tell me—you've suddenly developed Fiat's psychic abilities?"
He looked disgusted. "A green dragon is above the antics of such a lesser being."
"Mmm." I rubbed my forehead, almost too tired to think. "I'd just like to know what's going on. The detective I spoke with said preliminary reports showed Theodora also died in her sleep—a weak heart was said to be the cause. But that makes two Guardians dying just a couple of days apart, a situation that stretches the boundaries of coincidence. Any ideas about what could be happening here?"
Drake shrugged. "I have been consumed by our negotiations. I have not had time to play detective."
"Do you think there's something to play detective about?" I asked.
"I have no idea. It doesn't seem likely that two Guardians should die so quickly, but it seems less likely that their deaths were anything but natural."
I wasn't at all convinced, but since there was little I could do, I let it go and changed the subject. I curled up against him again, welcoming his heat as it sank into my flesh. "Fiat isn't to be trusted, Drake. I meant to tell you this earlier, but what with everything going on, I forgot. He's not at all committed to this peace accord you're trying to hammer out. He spoke to me a few days ago about some battle he's anticipating. It sounded like he meant a battle for supremacy over all the dragon septs." I turned my head and looked up at him. His gaze was steady, no real anger or even surprise visible in his eyes. "You're not concerned about this?"
One eyebrow slowly rose. "About Fiat? No. It is not he who concerns me."
"But he's clearly planning something underhanded, Drake. He's a baddie, in case you haven't noticed. He's going to throw a monkey wrench in the negotiations, if he hasn't already." I stopped for a moment, prodding my tired mind into thinking, "How did things go today, speaking of that?"
"We move forward—slowly."
"Oh. Good. But I'd be a lot happier if you took Fiat's threat a little more seriously. He's bad business, Drake."
"I appreciate your concern, kincsem. It is unnecessary, but it pleases me that you put the welfare of the sept before your own concerns."
I didn't say anything to that. It was just better if I didn't admit that for a good portion of the day I hadn't thought of the green dragons at all. I looked down at my fingernails. They looked perfectly normal, not at all like the sort of fingernails that might spontaneously burst into dragon fire. "What does kincsem mean?*'
"'My treasure.'"
A warm spurt of pleasure mingled with a tiny dash of irritation. I looked up at Drake, admiring his manly profile for a moment or two. "Trust a dragon to use the word treasure as a love name."
He said nothing, just sat there, one arm around me, the other hand resting on his thigh. I looked at his hand. I looked at his thigh. My mind came up with a number of interesting scenarios for investigating the latter. I ignored them. "I want one for you."
"One what?"
"A love name. 'Drake' doesn't lend itself to nicknames. I want a seductive foreign word I can whisper in your ear to make you go wild with passion. What's 'dragon' in Hungarian?"
'*'Dragon.'"
"Poop."
Drake's lips curled into a smile. "Do you wish for me to translate that, too?"
I dug my elbow into his side. "Pass. Give me a sexy Hungarian love name."
He thought for a moment. "Draga."
" 'Dragon' is too mundane." He went stiff at that. "I meant the word, not you guys. Besides, I already call you 'dragon.' t want something fun, Something mushy."
He relaxed, his arm tightening around me. "I did not say 'dragon,' I said draga.'"
"Oh! I know that word—it means 'darling'!" I glanced up at him. He was smiling. "What sort of a darling? I know that smirk, Drake. It means there's something you're not telling me. Does draga mean hot, sexy studmuffin darling? Manly fleshed, well-endowed darling? Darling man who makes me slobber great big puddles of drool whenever I see him?"
His lips brushed mine. "No, although you may certainly endow the word with those meanings if you desire. In this instance, draga also means expensive."
"Ha!" I laughed. "That's certainly applicable. OK, draga it is."
"For your use, dragam is the correct form of the word. It means 'my darling.'"
"Gotcha, Urn. Drake?"
"Yes?"
"Do you suddenly not find me attractive?"
He turned to look at me at that* his eyes wide with surprise. "What are you talking about?"
I bit my lip, wondering if the lack of sleep was making me wonky. "It's just that usually when you kiss me, I end up a big puddle of jellified Aisling. That last kiss was kind of... anticlimactic. I wondered if maybe that now we were officially mated and all if suddenly the zip had gone out of our relationship. Last night was fun, but the man who gave me that little peck is definitely not the same one who had my body erupting in flames. Literally."
"You think I do not desire you?"
"Well—"
"You think that because I have what I want, I no longer am interested in a physical relationship?"
"That kiss—"
He turned so he could grip me with both hands, his eyes darkening to a deep forest green. "You think that this was all about the chase?"
Lord, I'm a fool sometimes. Still, I felt obligated to point out the obvious. "You're a predatory kind of guy, Drake. I bet you liked the chase."
"I did. But I like the yielding better."
I looked into his eyes, wanting to believe him but suddenly feeling very vulnerable. He sighed a gusty sigh, sliding his hand down my arm until he captured my hand, dragging it over to his groin.
"Tell me I do not desire you."
A blush heated my cheeks. Beneath the soft linen of his pants, he was hard. Fully aroused. For me. 'I’m sorry. Clearly, I'm at a loss with this mate stuff. I apologize."
He accepted my apology with a graceful nod of his head releasing me to sit back against the seat. I gave his happy parts a little pat, then slid my hand over to rest on his thigh. It was a possessive move, but it felt good.
"Aisling?"
/>
"Mmm?" My mind, always willing to indulge in Drake-centered fantasies, went off on a wild tangent involving that pool of warm water that had been featured in my dragon dream.
"I did not kiss you as I would have liked because it is not proper. We are in public." His voice was gruff and oddly stiff. It took a minute to sink in through the lustful fantasies that were developing with startling clarity.
"What?" I asked, twisting out of his embrace to look at him. "Since when have you ever let a little thing like innocent bystanders stop you from kissing me?"
"That was before," he answered, trying to pull me back against his side. I slapped his hands off my arms. "You had not accepted me then. It is not proper for a wyvern to treat his mate in such a manner. It is disrespectful."
I blinked a couple of times, hoping it would clear up my confusion. It didn't help. "So all those times you grabbed me and sucked the tongue right out of my head in front of everyone, great big huge crowds of people, strangers, you didn't give a damn about respecting me?"
Drake pursed his lips. His eyes took on a wary glint.
I poked him in the chest. "Well?"
Heat flickered in his eyes. He jerked me back against him, holding me tight with an iron-hewn arm. "There is no way I can answer that question without making you angry with me. I choose not to answer it."
I dug my elbow into his side until he released me. He must have been expecting me to jump to the other seat, because he looked surprised when I lunged for him, straddling his legs, clasping his head in my hands. "Some rules are meant to be broken, ctragam, and this is one of them."
I kissed him aggressively. I clutched his hair and tugged until he gave me what I wanted, opening his mouth to me, his dragon fire racing through me, leaping back and forth between us until I thought we'd set the limo on fire.
He allowed me to dominate him for a few minutes, my hands sliding from his head to his chest as I sent my tongue forth on a search-and-explore mission. But when I reached down to yank his belt open, he decided he'd had enough.
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