The quandary was how to save her. He doubted he could persuade Eileen to willingly enter his protective custody. He didn’t want to force her to go to Rafferty’s home, but he feared for her safety if she didn’t. Magnus would not let this go. Erik wasn’t sure he could beguile Eileen and didn’t want to try.
The best option might be following her and barricading her refuge with a dragonsmoke territory ring.
Assuming he could follow her.
Erik caught up to Eileen when she paused to hail a cab. He reached for the handles of the wooden chest.
“Don’t touch that!” she said, and tugged it from his grip. “You can’t have it.” She backed away from him, holding the wooden chest in front of herself like a shield.
“I’ll just carry it for you. It’s heavy.”
She gave him a scathing glance. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“But you’ll only survive to see tomorrow because of me.”
She hesitated and considered him. “You could be softening me up. It’s a classic con strategy.”
Erik couldn’t hide that he was insulted. His integrity was his most precious possession. “I may be many things, but I am not a con artist.”
She wasn’t persuaded. “Isn’t that exactly what a con artist would say?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just stepped to the curb and waved. A cab came to a halt, but before she could reach for the door handle, Erik grasped it.
“I will see you to safety tonight,” he insisted.
“I don’t think so—” she started to argue, but he interrupted her.
“This cab will go up Park Lane, precisely in the direction of another car. Do you really want to head that way alone, without the only individual who has defended you tonight?” It was insulting that she had to think about it for a moment.
“I suppose you won’t take no for an answer.”
“You suppose correctly.”
Her tone turned fierce. “You’re not spending the night with me, so don’t get any ideas.”
Erik glared at his stubborn mate. “I assure you that any ideas I have, at this point in time, are purely concerned with your survival.”
Eileen studied him, frowned, then got into the cab. She slid across the seat, and Erik got in beside her, leaving an arm’s span between them.
“The Ritz, please,” she said to the driver. He nodded, started the meter, and pulled into the light traffic.
Erik could have been reassured that she wasn’t staying at some small cheap hotel. Little could stop a Slayer bent on destruction, but the greater obstacles presented by a larger hotel—one more concerned with guest security—could only be good.
The problem was that Eileen was lying about staying at the Ritz. He could sense it in her elevated pulse and discomfiture. As much as he admired that she thought on her feet, he didn’t appreciate that she was lying to him.
He did not want to beguile her.
Erik drummed his fingers on his knee in exasperation. He hoped he was able to follow her. Would the firestorm remain as vehement, or would the Great Wyvern play another game with him? Erik would have welcomed a return of his psychic abilities in this moment.
His mate had no issues letting him pay the taxi fare, and Erik suspected it was a ploy to put distance between them again. She alighted with the assistance of the doorman at the Ritz as Erik paid. Eileen was nearly through the hotel doors before Erik caught up with her.
He touched her elbow, disguising the inevitable spark between their bodies. The bright lights over the entranceway ensured that the light didn’t attract much attention. He was still jolted by the desire that shot through him at that small contact and was relieved to see Eileen flush with awareness of him.
“I told you—” she began.
“You have made yourself clear. I am not arguing with you.”
“What, then?” She turned to face him, both hands locked on the handles of the chest.
“Will you give me the wooden chest for safekeeping?” Erik already knew the answer but had to ask.
Eileen smiled. “Be serious.”
Erik exhaled and looked away. Magnus’s scent teased at his senses, making him shiver with dread.
He sensed another Slayer, too, but he must be wrong about the Slayer’s identity. It couldn’t be his old rival Boris Vassily. Boris was dead. Erik had killed Boris himself. There must simply be more Slayers in the vicinity.
It wasn’t the most reassuring observation he could have made.
He realized that Eileen was studying him, and wondered what she saw. “I’ll have one promise from you; then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Why should I make you a promise?”
“Because it’s for your own welfare.” Erik didn’t linger on that, simply gestured to the chest. “You will promise me that you will take that to someone who knows what to do with it, that you won’t keep it in your possession. You will part ways with it first thing in the morning.”
Defiance flashed in her eyes. “Why?”
“Because you stole it, of course. Possession will link you to the crime we witnessed tonight.”
She caught her breath and he could almost hear her thinking. He liked that she was logical. He hoped that his argument was persuasive. Since he couldn’t claim the wooden chest, her passing it along in the morning was the best he could hope for.
“Okay,” she said firmly. “I promise.” She wasn’t lying, to his relief, but meant what she said. She offered her right hand as if they were sealing a deal. “Good night then.”
Erik looked at her hand and wanted more than a handshake.
It was his last chance to make an argument in his own favor.
Erik took her hand slowly, letting his fingers slide across her skin. His hand enveloped hers, securing the fragility of her fingers within his strong grasp. He felt her shiver as keenly as his own. Heat radiated from the point where their palms touched, a glow that awakened every vestige of lust within him. He wanted her and he didn’t hide it, holding her gaze as she stared at him.
She swallowed.
She licked her lips quickly.
She flushed, her gaze dropping to his lips for a heartbeat. He felt his pulse match hers, the two beating in rhythm at their palms, an insistent beat that demanded their surrender. He was stunned that that had happened so soon, then almost overwhelmed by his sense of union with her.
Eileen caught her breath and her cheeks were red. “He talked about the firestorm,” she said, her words falling in a rush. “What does that mean?”
Erik couldn’t resist the opportunity she offered. She was so close, so soft, so radiant with desire. He was burning and yearning for her touch, consumed with the firestorm’s demand.
She was his mate.
“This is the firestorm,” Erik murmured. He slipped his other hand into the hair at her nape, pulled her closer, and kissed her thoroughly.
Erik’s was a kiss like no other.
Eileen had kissed a lot of men, but Erik’s kiss was more than all of them put together. She couldn’t figure out how it could be both sweet and hot, both gentle and demanding. She couldn’t figure out how this man she knew so little about was able to curl her toes, much less how his touch made her want to peel off her clothes and do the deed right then and right there.
What she did know about Erik should have sent her running. Instead she sensed the strength in him, and admired how he held it in check. She appreciated his choice to be tender, yet knew he could be ferocious. She felt safe, cosseted, appreciated in his presence as she never had before.
That was sexy.
No wonder she was so enflamed.
His kiss wasn’t a surprise. If anything, she’d been waiting for it. She’d seen the glint of intent in his eyes, and guessed what he might do. She was curious herself. The heat that leapt between them—this firestorm—had a way of awakening some primal yearnings.
She’d wanted to kiss him since he’d turned up in her dream.
If he hadn’t initiated the ki
ss, she would have.
And it didn’t disappoint. Eileen closed her eyes, savoring the strength of his fingers in her hair, the slow rhythm of his thumb against her earlobe. His skin was warm, his kiss was firm, and Eileen wanted a lot more contact between them. She was hot, burning with a desire beyond anything she’d ever felt.
She pulled away, more out of awareness that they were necking in a public place than any desire to end the kiss. His eyes were darker in color, his attention fixed upon her. He was so taut, so tightly controlled, that even the slightest quirk of his lips was a hint that she was reaching him. He could have been made of stone—but that kiss proved that there was passion beneath the surface.
She thought of volcanoes and wondered what it would take to make Erik lose control.
Then she wanted to find out.
She recalled her dream, her sense that he was injured and she could heal him. She thought of her sense of recognition in that dream, and wondered whether he was what she had come to England to find. Then she wondered what could have given him such firewalls.
Besides the fact that he had one whopper of a secret.
“Good night, Eileen,” Erik said. He leaned closer, and although she half hoped for another kiss, he brushed his lips across her cheek. The slight touch sent a sizzle through her veins and an inferno over her skin. “I will protect you,” he whispered against her ear, his breath making her gasp. “You may not trust me, but you can trust in that.”
Eileen was ever so tempted to take him home, but she knew better. She inhaled sharply and stepped away from him, pulling her hand from his. “He called you Erik,” she said. “Is that really your name?”
“I am Erik Sorensson.” He opened the door of the hotel for her with a gallantry she was beginning to associate with him. “Leader of the Pyr.”
“Pyr,” Eileen echoed, recalling a long-ago language class. She paused on the threshold to study him. “That’s Greek for fire.”
Erik nodded curtly. “It’s what I am.”
She liked that he didn’t pretend she hadn’t seen what she had seen. All the same, it couldn’t be healthy to get involved with dragons. Eileen wasn’t much for playing with fire.
None of this could be real.
Given the evidence that surrounded her, her mind wasn’t quite ready to accept that assertion, but Eileen struggled to make herself accept what had to be the truth.
She was certain that if she got back to Lynne’s place, back to normalcy and routine, she’d think of a rational explanation for everything that had happened to her tonight. She was sure that in the company of regular people—even sleeping ones—everything would be fine.
Eileen ignored the voice in her thoughts that argued otherwise.
She had to get to Lynne’s.
She forced a prim smile. “Thank you then, Erik, and good night.”
He inclined his head and she spun, marching toward the elevators as if she really did have a room at the hotel. She felt Erik watching her, but by the time she had hit the button for the elevator, she was aware of his absence. She scanned the lobby, already knowing that he was gone.
She told herself not to be disappointed.
It was better this way.
Eileen was still trying to persuade herself of that when she grabbed a cab at the back exit from the hotel. No luck. She was freezing cold, maybe from the shocks she’d had. She tugged her purple sheepskin coat a little closer as the cab raced through quiet back streets. She felt vulnerable in Erik’s absence, which she didn’t like much.
At least she wasn’t raging with desire anymore.
Or not quite as much. It was too easy to think about the way Erik smiled when he was surprised. It was as if a crack had been exposed in his armor. He looked less predatory then, but no less intense. Eileen swallowed as she wondered whether he would smile in bed.
She could make him smile.
Ha. She started to plan how before she caught herself.
But she probably wasn’t ever going to see Erik Sorensson again. It was that simple and it was easier that way. Eileen dug the keys to Lynne’s house out of her pocket.
She couldn’t have seen dragons fighting at the Fonthill-Fergusson Foundation, could she?
Her gaze fell to the wooden chest of teeth, teeth big enough to be dragon teeth, and her conviction of what was and what was not possible wavered.
Had Teresa really been shot twice, shot dead, right before her eyes? Eileen closed her eyes and saw Teresa bleeding, the foundation’s vault burning, the security guard’s blood on the wall.
Eileen felt herself begin to shake. She was more than cold; she was chilled to her very marrow. In the middle of the night, alone in the back of a cab in a foreign city, was precisely the wrong time and place to review her adventure.
But she couldn’t push the images from her mind. Her coat even smelled a bit like smoke, and that box nudged against her ankles.
Leaving Erik behind suddenly didn’t seem like a very good choice.
Chapter 4
The cab finally pulled onto Lynne’s street and Eileen shoved her notebook back into her satchel. She pointed out the house, paid her fare, and rummaged for her keys. On this particular night, she was glad that the cabdriver waited—it was very courteous of him—and waved to him once she had unlocked the door.
She tried to move quietly, since she assumed that everyone would be asleep. There was a light on at the top of the stairs, and Lynne called out, “That you, Eileen?”
“Me.” She locked the door. “The dead bolt is locked.”
“Thanks. There’s a pot of herbal tea in the kitchen. It might still be hot.”
“Thanks, Lynne. Good night.”
The light snicked off, leaving the orange glow of the night-light at the top of the stairs. Didn’t it figure that Lynne had waited up for her? Eileen smiled with affection, knowing that Lynne’s two daughters would destroy her sister’s sleep for years once they became teenagers.
The rhythm of Lynne’s house was wonderfully normal. Eileen stood for a moment and savored it. The dragons under her nieces’ beds and lurking in their closets were utterly fictional.
There was something to be said for that.
Eileen got a cup of tea—it was warm—and hauled her stuff up to the spare bedroom. That room faced the street. Eileen turned on the light by the bed, then reached to close the drapes.
A large black sedan was easing down the street. It paused directly in front of the house, its brake lights glowing red against the night.
Like embers in a fire.
Like dragon eyes in the night.
Eileen closed the drapes fast and leaned back against the wall. Her heart was pumping and her breath came quickly. That was Magnus’s car. She knew it.
And he knew exactly where she was.
Eileen’s gaze fell on the wooden chest. What would he do to get it? She saw Teresa’s bleeding body in her mind’s eye and began to tremble. Violence could happen again. She was in her sister’s house, with her sister and her nieces and her brother-in-law sleeping just across the hall. She caught her breath at their vulnerability.
Erik had said she could trust him to protect her.
Did she dare?
Eileen peeked around the edge of the drapes, but the big sedan was gone. The street was empty, right to the end of the block in either direction.
She knew she hadn’t imagined the car.
And she didn’t imagine for a minute that Magnus was gone for good.
She needed a plan.
Erik followed Eileen’s cab, lured by the heat of the firestorm. He settled on the roof of the small house in Notting Hill where she had taken refuge and settled to the task of breathing dragonsmoke. He had a niggling sense of Magnus’s presence and didn’t like it one bit.
Erik sent his smoke cascading over the shingles, down over the eaves, breathing an endless stream. He wove it around the house, ensnaring the building in a protective cocoon.
The dragonsmoke was a territory ma
rk, one that could not be breached by another Pyr or Slayer without Erik’s express permission. It was also invisible to humans. Erik breathed slowly and deeply, exhaling an unbroken ribbon to protect his mate for the night. He created a barrier of smoke, thicker and deeper than was strictly necessary, but he could not stop.
Erik was afraid.
He felt Magnus retreat, but knew the Slayer had not gone far. Magnus was simply awaiting his moment. Erik wanted to ensure that there never was such a moment. He sensed other Slayers as well, and knew there would be a long line of candidates anxious to prevent the successful completion of Erik’s firestorm.
The easiest way to accomplish that was always to slaughter the prospective human mate. Erik hated that Magnus had Eileen’s scent.
He hoped that Eileen would keep her promise, and that her relinquishing the Dragon’s Teeth to anyone else would make her more safe.
With the firestorm burning hot, though, he didn’t truly believe it. He wasn’t convinced that Eileen would keep her promise, or that if she did, it would be in the way he expected. His mate in this incarnation was far less predictable than she had once been.
And even Louisa had surprised him.
Erik breathed dragonsmoke until it resonated with the crystalline ping of a secure territory mark. He closed his eyes and breathed some more, reinforcing what he had done well beyond what was reasonable or necessary.
“More is better?” a woman asked, amusement in her tone.
Erik gritted his teeth at the familiarity of that voice. A chat with the Wyvern, as infuriating as she could be, was the last way he would have chosen to end the evening’s festivities.
Erik opened his eyes to find Sophie, the Wyvern, in her human form. She leaned against the chimney, her feet braced on the ridgepole, her blond hair flicking in the wind. She smiled.
“I have no problems with that philosophy,” he said, knowing he sounded as irked as he was.
Sophie folded her arms across her chest and Erik had the sense that she knew something he didn’t. “What if it’s not enough?”
“I’ll breathe more.”
Kiss of Fate Page 6