“We will begin again,” he said.
She kept her gaze focused on his crossed forearms that looked very dark against the white silk shirt. The distance across his pectorals was extraordinary. On another man it would be too much. On him, those heavy muscles armored a body long enough to carry them with power and grace.
“Keith blackmailed me into stealing something from you,” she said. “It didn’t matter what it was. He owed some people a lot of money.”
“Gambling debts,” he said.
She lifted her head. He had settled into a hunter’s patience. “You got that far already?”
“We found his bookie. Also dead.”
Icy fingers slid down her spine. She pulled the hoodie closer around her torso. “I dated Keith for a few months. For a little while I thought—it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
He tilted his head. “You thought what?”
“You’re not interested in all that.” Color tinged her cheeks.
“Don’t make assumptions about what I am interested in or what I will think or what I will do. You have no idea what interests me,” he told her. He settled back against the edge of the dining room table and crossed one ankle over the other. “We clear?”
She nodded, her color deepening. She went on, “We’ve already established I was an idiot. Keith came along when I was feeling low, and I fell for his charm. I was . . . indiscreet. I should have known better, and I screwed up.” Her throat closed.
“You said you had broken things off,” he prompted when she fell silent.
She nodded. “I had, a while ago. Then last week he showed up. He was full of this scheme that was going to pay off all his debts and make him rich. Of course by then my rose-colored glasses were gone. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, or him. Then he . . . made me.”
“Blackmail, you said. Over your indiscretions.”
He spoke in a neutral tone. He had throttled the aggression down. She was very aware that he was “managing” her, but he still sounded pitiless. She covered her throat with one hand as he dissected her expression.
“Can we please not talk about that?” She tried to steady her voice. “Please?”
His lids dropped down, hooding his gaze. “Go on with your story.”
“There’s what I know.” She stressed the last word. “There’s what I think, and then there’s what I’ve guessed. Keith was all about his ‘associates.’ People he met through his bookie that he was going to do business with. He was somehow a bigger man in all his stories than he was in real life, know what I mean?”
He nodded, keeping silent.
“Well, I think he was half desperate, half boasting and all-the-way manipulated. He started promising those contacts of his anything he could. His loans had come due. He said he told them he could get them anything they wanted.” She swallowed hard. “And they said, how about something from Cuelebre, then. They gave him a charm that would locate your lair, and Keith came to me.”
“Did they, now.” He hadn’t moved, but he had tensed all over. What radiated off him had her heart pounding.
She licked lips that had gone dry and whispered, “I think Keith told them something about me but not much. He would have wanted to keep me a secret because he wanted to be the big player, and he thought he could control me. He was hoping to set up a repeat business. But I think someone very nasty and Powerful was manipulating him, and now, thanks to me, they’ve got something of yours.”
“They do indeed.” He bared his teeth in that machete smile. “I’ll have to thank you later for that one.”
She whispered, “That charm scared the shit out of me. If I didn’t do what he wanted, I knew Keith would sing like a canary. Would he give me up? In a heartbeat, if it would save his own ass. Then they would come after me. So I was in that damned if you do, damned if you don’t place.”
“Where’s the charm now?” His eyes had gone pure gold, all dragon.
“It disintegrated when I used it.”
His eyes narrowed. “I would have felt my spells fail if it had nullified them, but they were all still in place when I went to investigate.”
She cupped her ear with one hand and rubbed her neck, a stressed, defensive gesture as she remembered the pain from using the charm. He moved closer as that pitiless dragon gaze dissected her face. She whispered, “The charm didn’t nullify anything. Between it and your spells, I felt like I was being ripped apart.”
“Yet you still got through them.”
She didn’t bother to reply. Instead she searched his face. His expression was savage, catapulting her thoughts forward to consequences that were more far-reaching than just her own future. Her lips felt numb. “A charm that Powerful could find anything hidden, couldn’t it?”
“Depending upon the strength of the user, yes.”
Anything hidden. There were things in the world that should never be found, dangerous things, or fragile, and precious creatures whose lives depended upon secrecy. A finding charm as strong as the one Pia had used could slice like a knife through someone’s every defense. She shivered and huddled into herself. Despite her fears and preoccupation for her own safety, this had never been about her.
Dragos frowned as he considered the minefield she had maneuvered in order to get to his hoard, the unknown charm acting in opposition to his spells. The conflict of opposing magics might have killed another person. That elegant citadel inside her mind was probably what had saved her life. Despite her obvious upset, he didn’t think she realized how much danger she had been in.
He wondered if it was her conscience that made her so upset. He was fascinated by the concept of a conscience. He dropped a heavy hand onto her shoulder, gripping the slender bone and sinew. Her body shifted in subtle ways as she leaned into his bracing hold.
He shifted the conversation back to an earlier point. “Hollins might have given you up anyway, before they killed him.”
“No,” she sighed. “He didn’t, which may actually be why they killed him.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“After he blackmailed me, I blackmailed him,” she told him. She squinted at him with one eye. Was that approval gleaming in his gaze? “I wouldn’t give him what I stole unless he read the binding spell I bought yesterday. He would have lost the ability to speak if he tried to talk about me.”
Her stomach twisted as she imagined what must have been done to Keith. It had been a bad death, Dragos said, and Dragos wasn’t exactly known for being squeamish. Was Keith’s death on her conscience if he had been the one to start the whole damn thing? Or did she start the whole damn thing by opening up her big mouth? The morality of it all was getting too convoluted for her to figure out.
“How did you get past my locks and the wards?”
She closed her eyes and put her hands over her face. What did it matter anymore? “I’m a half-breed. I don’t have much Wyr blood or many abilities. I can’t change into a Wyr form, and I don’t have a lot of Power. I don’t have anything interesting about me.” She pulled her hands away and looked at him. He was staring at her. “What, have I grown two heads?”
“You believe you don’t have anything interesting about you,” he said. “Or that you don’t have much Power.”
She gave him a blank look and a shrug. “Except, I guess, for one stupid parlor trick I was too fucking stupid to keep to myself,” she said. “I showed Keith when we were both drunk and goofing around.”
“What was it?”
“It’s easier to show than tell.” She walked over to the sliding glass door, unlocked it, stepped onto the deck and shut the door again. Outside, the evening had darkened to dusk. Still staring at her, he stalked over and put a fist against the glass as if to break through it. She told him, “Go ahead and lock it again.”
His dark brows lowered in a scowl.
She just looked at him. “Oh, go on. You know you could catch me again if I tried to run.” His gold dragon’s gaze holding hers, he did as she tol
d him.
She opened up the door and stepped back inside. “See?”
He looked at the door and back at her again. “Do it again.” She stepped outside. She walked back in after he locked the door. He said, “I didn’t feel you cast a spell.”
“That’s because I didn’t. It’s just a part of me.” Locks, wards—you name it, and she could walk through it. Nothing could cage her. Nothing, that is, unless it plummeted out of a clear blue sky and sat on her. She dug the heel of her hand into one temple where a headache was starting to throb and sighed. “That’s all I know. That, and again, I’m sorry. I suppose you’ll want to do the rending now.”
He hadn’t moved back when she stepped inside. She was so close she could feel his body heat on her skin. He had a kind of strength and vitality that was a constant shock to the system. She felt small and cold and pale by comparison. Despite the colossal danger this creature represented, she had quite an irrational desire to curl up in his warmth.
He cupped her head. The broad palms and long fingers cradled her skull. Oddly, she didn’t feel afraid and she didn’t resist when he tilted her face up.
The predator bent over her. “You committed a crime,” he said. “And you owe me. Say it.”
What was this? She could gain no hint by searching his face. Her shoulders sagged and her mouth drooped. “What if I don’t want to say it?”
“You will make recompense,” said the Lord of the Wyr. “You will serve me until I deem the debt is paid. Is that clear?”
“No rending?” she asked. Her gaze clung to his. Could she believe him this time, or was this another cruel joke?
He shook his head and smoothed back her hair. “No rending. You told me the truth,” he said. “I could sense it as you talked. You committed a crime, but you were also a victim. This is justice.” He bent his head until his nose just touched the top of hers, inhaling. His voice was much softer as he continued, “But when I go after who orchestrated this? That will be vengeance.”
She shuddered, going limp with relief. Her hands smoothed over the heavy muscles in his chest. She felt encompassed by him, and against all good sense or sanity, she felt safe. Her spine lost its starch. She leaned against him. Just a little. She did it sneakily so he wouldn’t notice. “I don’t like that word ‘serve.’ What would you want me to do?”
“I’ll make use of you somehow,” he said.
“What if I don’t want to do it?” Her head started to lower, a drooping flower on a stalk. His hands guided her to rest on his chest. “I’m not stealing again,” she warned. “So if that’s what you want, we might as well get back to the rending right now.”
Listen to her. Big tough girl.
“There is nothing you could steal that I couldn’t get in any number of other ways. I will not put you in harm’s way.” He kept her head cradled in one hand and put an arm around her. He murmured, “I do not endanger my treasures.”
What did he mean by that? She was mesmerized by his hold in a way that had nothing to do with beguilement. She tried to focus. “I’m not agreeing, mind you,” she grumbled. “I’ll have to think about it.”
But it didn’t sound so bad. It was much better than rending. And she did steal from him, along with telling him too much about herself. She bit her lip. What if he decided to blackmail her too?
“I wasn’t aware that I gave you a choice,” he said. Was that amusement in his voice? “Crime and judgment, remember, not negotiation. You lived in my demesne, you lived by my law. But you go ahead and think about it all the way back to New York.”
A car horn sounded from the street side of the house. She jumped and yanked herself away. He looked at her with his eyebrows raised.
“Oh God,” she said, “that’s the . . . that’s the delivery. I’ll go get it. Be right back.”
She charged for the door to be brought up short by his hand circling her wrist. “I’ll get it,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” she told him. A wild horse galloped in her chest. “I said I would buy you supper, and I will. It’s the least I can do.”
“No.” He brushed past her, long legs eating up the distance to the front door.
Oh damn. She caught him by the arm just before he opened it and tried one last time. “Please, Dragos. Let me do it.”
He put his hands to her shoulders and nudged her back into the living room. “Something is not right. I can feel it. You are not going out there,” he said. He had turned into a stone-cold killer. His Power revved like fighter plane powering up. “It’s not safe.”
How did this get so messed up? She wrung her hands. He not so much walked outside as flowed, that great magnificent body of his turning into a weapon.
A sound sliced the air. Dragos spun backward, his legs buckling. It all happened too fast. She caught up a heartbeat later. She stared at Dragos, who had collapsed on the walk. A dozen tall Elves stepped out of various hiding places, from behind her Honda, the nondescript Ford idling at the curb and nearby shrubbery. They held weapons trained on the sprawled figure. Six-foot longbows.
She launched toward Dragos, who was lying on his back. Darkness appeared on one white-clad shoulder. It began to spread. She fell to her knees beside him.
“You shot him!” she shouted. She stared at the stern-eyed Elves encircling them. “Do you know who he is?”
One of them stepped forward. He was a silver-haired male, beautiful in the way that all Elves are, with a gracious light that somehow made all other creatures leaden by comparison. Despite his slender build, he not only looked powerful, he carried more Power than anybody else in the clearing except for Dragos.
“We know who he is,” said the Elf. He stared down at Dragos, his beautiful face cold. “Wyrm.”
She turned back to Dragos. Even though he lay wounded, he looked utterly without fear, his raptor’s stare turning from the Elves to focus on her. She tore open his shirt to stare at the bleeding hole over his left breast. Her uneven breathing sounded loud in her ears.
“I don’t get it. None of you are carrying guns. Where’s the arrow?” she asked. She tore off her hoodie and pressed it to the wound.
“Elven magic,” Dragos responded through gritted teeth.
“No simple arrow could mark him,” said the Elf. “But this one has already melted into his body. It will continue to release poison into his bloodstream for a number of days.”
“What did you do!” she shouted. Her face contorted. She clenched her fists and started to her feet. Dragos grabbed her wrist.
“Pia,” he said when she fought against his hold. “It would take a lot more than this to kill me.”
“We have disabled him,” the Elf told her.
“You don’t understand,” she told Dragos. “I called them. It’s my fault.” She tried to pry his fingers open. It was like trying to pry open a steel shackle. She looked up at the Elf.
He had shifted his attention to Dragos. “You entered our lands without permission. Treaties have been broken. There will be consequences. For now, the poison will keep you from changing into the Great Beast. Since we have clipped your wings, we will give you twelve hours to get beyond our borders. If you are not gone by then, there will be more than twelve of us who will come for you.”
“I broke his law,” Pia said. “He was just coming after me.”
“His law is not our law,” said the Elf. “And he broke ours. Wyrm, release your hold on the female.”
“She is mine.” Dragos bared his teeth, gold eyes flaring to lava. His growl shivered through the ground at her knees, and long fingers clenched on her wrist. He tensed and began to rise.
The other Elves sighted down their longbows at him. “You will release her now or forfeit the twelve hours’ grace,” their leader said.
Pia flung her free hand out at the Elves, fingers spread and palm out. “Stop!” She leaned over Dragos. Bending close to that feral face was one of the braver things she had done in her life. Some instinct she could not have verbalized had her gentli
ng her voice. “Dragos,” she murmured. Calm and quiet, like she would speak to a wounded animal. “Can you look at me, please? You know how normal people say ‘please.’ Pay attention to me, not them.”
That lava gaze turned to her, burning and alien. He may not be able to change, but he was immersed in the dragon.
“Thank you,” she breathed. She dropped her free arm and stroked at his black hair. Dragos tracked the movement and then looked at her face. “I know you’re very angry, but I promise you, this is not worth fighting over,” she whispered. She tugged just a little at the inky ends. Inspiration struck. “And you promised me you wouldn’t put me in harm’s way. Just a few minutes ago. Remember?”
His dangerous face clenched. “You’re mine,” he told her.
For a blistering instant, she had no idea what to say to that. Then hey, another lightbulb moment came along and she was on a roll. “Letting go of my wrist doesn’t change a thing,” she murmured. She mimicked what he had done to her earlier and stroked a finger down the side of his face, then laid her hand against his cheek. “Please.”
His fingers loosened and he let her pull away.
She got to her unsteady feet, somehow managed to stay upright and turned to face the Elven leader, who gave her a slight bow. He stared at her. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Interior alarm bells started to ring, but all the lightbulbs had left her high and dry. She shook her head and said, “We’ve never met.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you before. You look—” The Elf’s sea-colored gaze widened. “You look exactly like—”
Dragos curled a hand around her ankle.
“Yeah, I look like Greta Garbo,” she interrupted in a loud voice. A pulse of dread dampened her skin. Shut up, Elf. “I get that a lot.”
“My lady, I am so honored to meet you,” the Elven leader breathed. He bowed low to her, his previous generic respect turned to reverence. When he straightened, his face was alight with joy. “You have no idea how we hoped and prayed that something of your mother still remained in this world.”
All the other Elves stared at them, their faces alight with curiosity. She scowled at the Elven leader. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she told him.
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