“Up ahead,” he grunted.
Cassandra slammed on the brakes, her knuckles were white against the steering wheel. She waited for the gate to lift and release them from inside the garage. Slowly, she pulled out. Edmund could appreciate her apprehension. He looked up through the sunroof in her small sedan. Several cop cars flashed their lights and entered the parking garage as they proceeded down the street.
“Relax.” He could hear her heart thundering as did his own.
“You relax!” She glanced over him at him several times. “Who the hell are you? And why are you following me?”
“Slow down. Unless you want to be having this conversation with a few of Seattle’s finest.”
His first inclination was to swoop down and carry her off. But then he heard her scream. His blood boiled. As the ice dragon reached for his pants, Edmund leapt over the car and tackled him. His dragon came out, his usually cool, controlled, demeanor had vanished with her panic-filled cry.
“And you don’t think they’re going to come looking for me after they find his body splattered on the street?” She put on the brakes again, this time for a stop light.
“Your friend took flight. He’s headed north east.”
Her eyes grew wide as she looked over at him. They traveled down from his face, to his bare chest, if not for the dark interior he was sure she blushed at his nakedness. Her attention returned to the street ahead. “Who are you?”
Her breast rose and fell with her deep breaths. If he reached out to touch her now, he might send her over the edge. “I told you, I’m Edmund St. George.”
“But who are you really?” She took them out of the downtown area, taking an exit leading them further away from the city.
“I’m staying at the hotel about six blocks from here. If you would kindly take me there, I’ll be happy to explain.”
She drove him in silence. Even though he found himself in a strange town, he was able to direct her to the hotel. “Suite 512. You go inside, I’ll meet you up there.”
Seconds ticked by and she didn’t say a word. She avoided eye contact with him. He placed his hands over his manhood, shielding his growing interest in her. Two spots of pink still stained her cheeks. He found it adorable. “After what has happened, I dare say you are safer in my room than you are going back to your own place.”
She snorted in response.
“The choice is yours. I won’t touch you—not unless you ask.”
She looked him in the eye. Confusion swirled in those pretty blue irises behind wire rimmed lenses. Fear mingled with a hint of vanilla tingling his senses. He reached for the door handle, careful to keep himself covered. “You know where to find me.”
He unfolded the long length of his body from her car and strode away, buck naked in her view. He walked around to the back of the hotel where he’d left his patio door unlocked. Glancing around, sure no one would spot him, he allowed his wings to emerge. He lifted himself up onto the patio, retracted his wings, and let himself into the suite.
Inside, he switched on the lights, found a pair of jeans, and secured the patio door.
His shoulder throbbed worse than a tooth ache, his left wing strained for the simple flight up to the fifth story. He rolled back his shoulder, trying to ease the discomfort. His gaze never leaving the door.
He may not know Cassandra Balkan, but he knew her type.
Edmund leaned against the door. He slid a hand down his face. That hadn’t gone at all as he’d planned. Once again, he’d ran into situation thinking he could handle this alone. He should have flown back to Giresun Manor at the island and informed Blake and the others what he’d found.
Blake had enough troubles of his own, or at least according to Bogdan when he’d called the other day. Sigurd had taken the recruit Jacques to hide out a bit after ratting out Margaret’s whereabouts, and then headed to retrieve Emily’s father in Harghita. With Garth in hibernation, Naomi gone, and Olaus tattling to the ancient ones, he would have to take care of this on his own. Or call Bogdan. He’d rather hold off on inflaming the green dragon’s temper until he’d exhausted all other options.
With Blake and Emily headed for the counsel soon, Bogdan was needed at the manor.
Edmund listened, his heart beating with the tempo of the footsteps coming down the hall. His hand turned the knob as Cassandra stood, her hand poised to knock.
“Nice to see you again.” Of course, he hadn’t been prepared to encounter a beauty like Cassandra, either.
“Touch me and you’re a dead dragon.” She waltzed into his room, kicked off her shoes and made herself at home on his couch.
Opening the mini fridge, he pulled out two bottles of water and offered her one.
“Seriously? After the night I’ve had, and all you’ve got is water?”
“How rude of me. I’ll call room service.” Edmund sat down the waters. He picked up the phone, ordered a bottle of Muscat wine, a plate of fruit, and a couple of steaks-medium rare.
“You’re off your turf, aren’t you?”
“I’m on the hunt.”
“You followed me.”
“I had to ensure our deal would go down.”
“What is it with you dragons and your eggs? You’d think you all would want to protect them and ensure your line continues, but no you’re all out to extinct one another.”
“We’re not all like your partner. Some of us have actually learned to become civilized over the centuries.”
“But you’re still seeking an egg?”
“Yes.” Was all he would say. A half hour later a knock at the door came and their room service arrived.
Three glasses of wine and half a fruit plate later, she watched him finish off the last of his steak. “You have a funny way of trying to make deals. You’re going to have to lie in wait. Who knows what Drake will do now because of your heroics tonight.” She shivered.
Edmund’s fist tightened around his fork as he stabbed a piece of fruit. “Would you have rather I stood by and watched while he forced himself on you?”
Cassandra crossed her legs, tucking them up on the couch. He sat on the other end, finished with his plate, he set it on the end table beside him.
“I can handle Drake. Everything was fine until you marked me. Now thanks to you, Drakes thinks I… He thinks you… I mean that we…” Her face flushed red, more from embarrassment then anger he decided, amused by her sputtering.
“Mated?” He shouldn’t have marked her. He couldn’t stop himself. Being so close to her, she had to feel it, too. She was made for him. A gift from Hera, the goddess of women. His blood still boiled thinking of the ice dragon laying his hands on her.
“I come from a long line of Keepers. I don’t mate with dragons.”
“And I am a dragon. We don’t take kindly when someone tries to steal from us.”
“I haven’t stolen anything from you.” She yawned coming down from her adrenaline high, the last glass of wine he poured for her slipping in her hand. He took it before it fell. “No, but the person you work for has, and you’re going to help me get to her.”
“And why would I do that?” She yawned again.
“Because you’re not safe without me.”
Chapter Four
Cassandra stretched her arms over her head and blinked. Awake. Her mind replaying the previous night. Abruptly, she sat up. She was inside his hotel suite. She patted herself down. Still clothed, except for her shoes. She’d kicked those off on her own free will.
He’d ordered wine and steak and fruit, and after that adrenaline rush of escaping Drake and the parking garage, mixed with the wine, she hadn’t been able to stay awake. The last thing she remembered was him saying he was after Margaret.
Cassandra got to her feet, pushing off the blanket he must have tucked around her sometime after she’d fallen asleep. Her clothes were still all intact, which meant he had been true to his word. Both relief and regret filled her.
Where were her glasses? She squinted, fo
und them on the end table by the couch and slid them on.
How did she ever end up in this kind of situation? Not that she had much of a choice. If Drake thought he had any hold on her, it was nothing compared to what Margaret dangled over her head.
From inside the other room, she heard the shower turn off. A minute later, the bathroom door pushed open, and there stood Edmund. All six -foot plus of him. With water glistening off his broad shoulders and six-pack set of abs that Michelangelo could have chiseled they were so taunt and perfect. His dark wet hair hung at his shoulders.
Her breath whooshed out of her. As if he could sense the warmth spreading through her, one side of his mouth turned up in a lopsided grin.
“Breakfast will arrive in fifteen minutes, unless you’d rather we find a cafe and finish our talk there.”
Cassandra couldn’t take her eyes from him. She absorbed his laid-back manner, the ease with which he smiled, and how he tried to charm her. It would have been working too, if not for the throb in her temple and rising anxiety. “What time is it?”
“After nine.”
For goodness sake, she should have been at the gallery by now. “Thank you for the offer, but I really don’t have the time right now.”
He stood in nothing more than a towel, with his arms crossed. A large purple bruise sleeved his shoulder and upper arm. She couldn’t have seen it before, in the dark shadows of her car or the blur of last evening. She walked up to him, tracing the deeply wounded flesh across the bulge of his bicep.
Edmund stood, his hands curled into to fist. She didn’t feel threatened. He wouldn’t touch her. Not unless she asked him.
His gaze locked on her, and he swallowed hard.
She traced the bruise up his shoulder dipping across his pectoral muscle. Warmth spread through her veins as if his heat transferred to her through touching him. Her nerves already stood on end with his constant stare. It startled her when a knock came at the door.
“I’ll just go and get that.” He stepped away, leaving her with a sudden chill in his absence.
She slipped in the bathroom, taking care of nature’s call. Splashing water on her face. “Wake up. He’s a dragon.”
Any twinge of disappointment she may have had become replaced with annoyance.
She shouldn’t have stayed here with him. She lifted her wrist up to the mirror. In the light of the bathroom, she could see the faint outline of his mark on her. A scribbled line, almost like a flame etched below her skin. Faint, but there just the same.
Oh, what was the use? She would never get way. Never repay her family’s debt. She was as much of a prisoner, trapped by her family’s actions, as her mother had become, struggling to recall places and times.
And how so like Drake, to try and manipulate her situation to get exactly what he wanted.
No way, would she allow him to get away with it. Not this time. Not when she had another dragon on her side, willing to stand up for her. That was the price she would pay for them both, hoping to free them all.
Cassandra opened the bathroom door and froze. She peered through the crack, spotting two of Seattle’s finest in uniform. Between them, Edmund’s back blocked everything else from view.
“That was right kind of you to return this. I hadn’t realized I’d lost it.”
“You weren’t there in the evening?” one of the officers asked.
Edmund tilted his head as if thinking it through. “As I said, I had an appointment earlier in the afternoon.”
“Well, then I’m glad we were able to return your phone and wallet.” The two officers started to step out of the suite.
“Before we go, I was wondering… Well…” the other officer held out his note pad. Cassandra opened the door a bit more, leaning forward to see Edmund take the pen and notepad from the officer. He scribbled on the pad and handed back the pen. “No problem.”
She held her breath, counted to ten. After the officers left, she stepped out of the bathroom. “Are you always required to give out autographs when you lose things?”
He shrugged. “Only when you’re famous.”
Really? That’s all he had to say before leaving her and going into the bedroom. Famous or not, she didn’t know why he’d think she’d stand around and wait on him. She slipped on her sandals and slammed the door as she left.
Twenty minutes later, she was back at the gallery. She found Alin sitting in the back, his boot clad feet resting on her desk, and his face in a Motor Cross Magazine. Not at all what one would expect coming into a sophisticated gallery as this.
She sighed heavily to let him know she had entered through the back of the gallery. His head swiveled around. Like Drake, if he’d had any sense, he’d have caught her scent long before she made it to her desk. That, or he couldn’t tear his eyes off the shiny metal cars in the pictures on the pages of his magazines. Every dragon had a weakness, something they collected. For Drake, it was warm fleshed females. For Alin, it was expensive cars.
Cars only he could obtain by appeasing his mistress, Margaret.
“I wouldn’t be showing up here if I were you.”
Cassandra took the two remaining steps to reach her desk. “Where were you yesterday? You said you would get me a latte and then never returned.”
Alin’s square forehead bunched. “Drake sent me on an errand. Said he would tell you.”
Of course. Because Alin did whatever Drake told him. Too bad Alin’s brain wasn’t as big as his build.
Last night’s conversation with Edmund teased her mind. “And of course, you won’t tell me where he sent you.”
Alin plopped one foot down off her desk then the other. “He said if you showed up here, I was to call him.”
Cassandra took a deep breath as she did every time Margaret sent her to make a deal. She had to play it cool with Alin. “Still got his tail stuck up his ass?”
Alin stood, towering a head taller than she. He rolled up the magazine and pointed it at her. “You’re a traitor. Margaret doesn’t like traitors.”
“Who says? Drake? Did he also tell you he almost blew my deal yesterday? Is Margaret going to like that?”
She had him there. His eyes shifted with concentration on what she said. She could almost hear the cogs turning in his wee brain. She liked Alin, almost felt sorry for him. If this wasn’t so serious she’d distract him, send him for another latte, but this time he would not be easy to manipulate. Even if she could smell the coffee and rum on his breath.
“Drake didn’t say nothing about no deal. Just you gone and hooked up with another dragon.”
A famous one at that, she mused, wondering what else Edmund St. George hadn’t told her. She’d Google him later, as she researched all her clients for Margaret before concluding a deal.
“Just because I won’t spread my legs for him, doesn’t mean I’ve gone and opened for business with anyone else.”
Alin’s eye contact faltered and he looked down at her and shrugged. “You’re still carrying his mark. You make Drake angry.”
“He’ll get over it. For once Drake is learning he can’t have everything he wants.” He obviously expected her to fawn over him and become one of his horde, but not this girl. Not even in his dreams.
Alin’s nostrils flared. “You need to leave. Let Drake cool off.”
She placed her hands on her hips, allowing the anger to rise and stamp out any fear threatening to expose her intentions. “I’m not about to let Drake blow this deal for me. It’s big Alin. Really big.”
“And the mark?”
“Insurance. To make sure I don’t welsh on the deal,” she lied, hoping it was more than that. Knowing it wasn’t.
She’d put him in a bad place. Alin twisted his magazine in his hands, the paper stressing about to tear. “You need to go. Not safe for you here.”
She placed her hand on his. “I’ll go, but you have to promise when Drake cools down, comes to his senses, you’ll arrange for Margaret to contact me.”
Alin nodded.
She stretched up on her tip toes and kissed the dragon on the cheek.
As she turned to leave he said, “He’s waiting for you at your apartment.”
Chapter Five
Waiting for Cassandra to come out of the gallery hadn’t been enough time for Edmund to cool off. She strutted out like a woman on the warpath. Her eyes narrowed on him. If looks could kill, she would have struck him a mighty blow.
He held out the vanilla latte.
She snatched it from his hands. “You can stop following me.”
Edmund’s jaw began to tick, a sign of his frustration. The rest of his body remained the epitome of relaxation. He leaned against the building. “I’ve been searching for too long to walk away from you.”
Didn’t she know wherever she went, he could find her?
He shouldn’t have marked her. He’d gotten excited, eager at his discovery.
“You’re just going to have to wait. Drake’s got his scales in a flush. It’ll take a bit for him to cool them off again.”
“Then it is not safe for you to return to your place. We can wait at mine.”
Cassandra opened her mouth, then shut it.
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. Last night she’d fallen asleep against him. Her head slipping down and resting on his lap as a pillow. He’d ran his hands through those silky strands of her dark hair. Throughout the night he’d listened to her cute little noises, imagining what she would sound like in the heat of their mating.
“So, you were spying on me too?”
Edmund’s smile faltered. A large thunderstorm cloud loomed against the buildings in the distance. The dark underbelly cast a gloomy shadow while morning sun illuminated the whiteness of the cloud directly above. “I think it is best we take our leave, don’t you?”
“You were spying on me!” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have any idea how messed up things are because of you? I can’t even go in and work at my own studio. My gallery.” She turned her back to him and paced the room to calm her racing pulse before rounding on him again. “And now, thanks to you and Drake, I can’t even go home to my own apartment. Plus, who knows what Drake has told Margaret. Drake won’t rest until he makes me part of his disgusting horde. And if he can’t have me, then he’ll make sure no one else does. Margaret won’t stand in his way if she thinks I’ve betrayed her and then my family…” She grabbed his cotton shirt. “My family.”
Her Dragon's Treasure Page 2