“To aíma tou aímatós mou,” Raven chanted as Tobias stepped across a granite slab that served as the threshold, carved with symbols he couldn’t read. She explained, “It roughly translates to blood of my blood. This place is protected with a blood ward, Gabriel’s and mine. Anyone who crosses the threshold must be touching one of us or be marked with our blood.”
Tobias understood the need for such security. Ever since they’d discovered that their own mother had been part of the coup that resulted in the murder of their oldest sibling and their own exile from Paragon, their lives had been in jeopardy. Only a few short weeks ago, mommy dearest and her sidekick, an evil fairy named Aborella, had sent the captain of the Obsidian Guard to kill them. They’d survived the attack, but none of them were ignorant enough to believe it would be the only one. And that threat was completely separate and distinct from the one Tobias had to now share with Raven and Gabriel concerning his wife’s vampire kin.
Raven closed the gate behind them and a ripple warped the air, tinting everything red for a flash before fading to normal again.
“Whoa,” he said, placing a hand on his stomach at the place where he felt the spell pass through him.
“Yeah, it’s strong. Witch and dragon magic braided together.” She rubbed a hand over the small mound of her lower belly. “Pregnant witch. This little guy has made me about twenty times stronger than usual. No one is getting in here without an invitation.”
“And no one can see us from outside the gate?”
“Or hear us. Or find us. The house isn’t in either of our names. Gabriel has a lawyer friend who set up a trust as owner. There’s no way to trace us. You’re safe here.”
“What exactly did you mean, marked by your blood?”
She flipped over her wrist and showed him a small red tattoo of three wavy lines bisected by an arrow. “We put a drop of our blood in the ink.”
He sucked air in through his teeth. “As a doctor, I have to tell you that is not medically advisable.”
Gabriel strode through the front door and grabbed his suitcase out of his hand. “The only thing that matters is that it’s magically advisable.”
“Hello, brother.” He accepted Gabriel’s hug. “I appreciate your taking me in on such short notice.”
“About that, your message was light on the details. Come inside, have a drink, and tell us why you suddenly had to leave your wife.” Gabriel ushered them inside, depositing Tobias’s bag in the foyer before following Raven into a formal dining room where a tea service fit for royalty was waiting.
Meow. A tortoiseshell cat leaped down from the bookshelf and rubbed against his legs. He reached down and scratched her behind the ears. “Missed you too, Artemis.”
“She’s the best cat, Tobias. Honestly, thank you,” Raven said.
“No. Thank you. It wasn’t like I could keep her.”
“Have some coffee or tea. You look exhausted.” Raven motioned toward the spread.
“You two didn’t have to do all this,” Tobias said. He’d been rushed to leave Chicago and hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so it was a welcome sight.
“We didn’t. Compliments of Juniper and Hazel.” Gabriel poured himself a coffee.
That’s right. Juniper and Hazel were Gabriel’s oreads. Tobias hadn’t ever taken one into his service, but only because he’d gone through a phase where he’d tried to deny who he was. He had no problem with them now.
Raven’s hand landed on his. “Tell us what happened. Did you and Sabrina have a falling-out?”
“No, nothing like that. It turns out that an ancient vampire named Aldrich saw me shift at Sabrina’s coronation.”
There was a collective inhale as Gabriel and Raven digested that news. They knew as well as he did that vampires and shifters had a long, violent history.
“As master, Sabrina can control her coven, and all the Chicago vampires have accepted me. But Aldrich is a member of the Forebears, the vampire council of elders. He’s put a price on my head.” Tobias frowned and mumbled, “All our heads.”
Raven fisted a scone and took a fast, aggressive bite, never breaking eye contact. Her fingers drummed nervously on the table. It took Gabriel longer to connect all the dots.
“Are you saying, brother, that the elder vampires not only know we exist but have explicitly ordered all their kind to… seek out and eliminate any and all dragons that might be among them?”
“More or less. And the words you are looking for are dead or alive.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair. “Well now, I’d thought Mother and Brynhoff trying to kill us and finding out my mate was pregnant with a dragon whelp was all the excitement I could expect this year. It seems I was wrong. The vampires want us dead too. My, my, we are popular.”
Raven shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Tobias. You can stay with us as long as you need to. But what about the others? We haven’t been able to find Rowan or Alexander, let alone your siblings in Europe. How do we warn them?”
“No luck at reaching Rowan then, since I last saw you?” Tobias frowned. When they’d visited Rowan’s last known residence, an older human woman had informed them she was dead. They understood that as a dragon, their sister was certainly not dead, but the box the woman had given them held no clues to where she might be. Inside was a small photo of Rowan with Tobias the last time he’d been to Manhattan and run into her, circa 1977. There were some dried forget-me-not flowers, an unopened box of movie-sized Sno-Caps, and the ticket stub to opening night of Star Wars. The wooden box itself had been decorated with an ornate dragon inlay on the top.
“Nothing in the box is receptive to my magic,” Raven said. “I believe the box and its contents are enchanted so that they cannot be used to find her.”
“Why would she do that?” Tobias asked.
Gabriel gave a low chuckle. “Simple. She wanted you to know she was safe, that she loved you, and that she was disappearing for a while. Everything in that box is about you. She must have thought you would be the only one who might come looking for her.”
“I was the only one who knew where to find her.”
“She probably planned to contact you once her identity was scrubbed,” Raven said.
Tobias groaned. “And now she can’t. I sold the house, shut off the landline, and the hospital has no forwarding address for me.”
“She never had your cell phone?” Gabriel asked.
“No. The last time I saw her, cell phones weren’t a thing.”
Raven exchanged a glance with Tobias. “I’m at a total loss. Without something of Rowan’s that she’s touched recently and hasn’t been charmed against my magic, I can’t do a locator spell. My last hope is to try to use the dress she brought from Paragon, but it’s been so long since she wore it that I don’t have high hopes.”
Gabriel coupled his hands. “Our siblings have stayed hidden this long. There is no reason to believe that will change anytime soon.”
“True,” Tobias said. “Sabrina and her father are wiping the minds of the coven. They mean to convince Aldrich that he didn’t see what he thought he did. If all goes well, this will work itself out and everything will go back to normal.”
Raven poured herself a cup of coffee and slowly stirred in some cream. It was all Tobias could do to restrain himself from lecturing her on the dangers of caffeine to pregnant women. No one said a word over the sound of the clinking spoon. She raised the mug to her lips.
All of a sudden, Raven started to laugh so hard her skin twinkled and the coffee in her mug began to boil. Big rolling bubbles foamed above the rim until she was forced to set it down on the table where it scorched the tablecloth.
“Why are you laughing, Raven?” Gabriel asked.
She stopped, the smile fading from her lips slowly. “Tobias said everything will go back to normal.” She laughed again and leaned back in her chair. “Nothing about you dragon siblings is, was, or ever will be normal.”
Chapter Nine
By Friday Nick had
learned a few things about his latest case. The dead girl had a name: Allison Sumner. And she wasn’t originally from New York but West Virginia where she’d had a troubled home life. Her parents said she’d moved out when she was eighteen, four years ago, and given them no forwarding address. They hadn’t heard from her since. And no, she hadn’t had the tattoo the last time they’d seen her.
She’d been killed the night before she was found. Killed and dumped. It was waste management—two sanitation workers—who’d found her beside the dumpster. No one could tell him about the wounds, although his going hypothesis was that she was part of a body-suspension cult—people who got their jollies from hanging themselves from the ceiling with hooks.
He shook his head. This job never got easier.
“Here ya go. Zelda’s Folly gallery,” the Uber driver said.
It was raining like God had left the spigot on. Giant sheets of water thundered against the windshield and made him feel like they were inside a carwash.
“Wait here while I get my girl,” Nick said.
“I don’t get paid to wait.”
Nick tossed a twenty in the guy’s direction. “There. You’ve been paid.”
The rain on the passenger’s side of the car let up, and a posh elderly woman’s face appeared in the window. Under the sizable protection of a black golf umbrella, she raised her wrinkled knuckles to rap against the passenger-side glass. The driver rolled down the window a crack.
“Mr. Grandstaff.” The woman smiled toward Nick. He got the sense she’d been royalty in a former life, or maybe a ballerina based on that straight back and long neck. All he knew for sure was that there was enough cashmere and pearls adorning her perfect posture to warrant her own security guard, and her gray hair was tamed into a perfect twist at the back of her head. “Miss Valor requests that you join her inside and release this driver. She’s having her personal car brought around to take you both to your destination.”
Nick grabbed the twenty back from the driver.
“Hey!”
“You heard the lady. Take off.” He exited the car and hunched to fit under the umbrella.
“I am Rowan’s personal assistant, Harriet. Mr. Grandstaff, it’s a pleasure.”
“Nick.” He shook her hand.
“Please, come with me.”
He jogged ahead and opened the door for her, thankful for the small awning over the entrance. Harriet shook out the umbrella and angled it carefully beside her. He entered behind her, brushed the mist off his jacket, and realized he was in a different world.
“Oh wow,” he said.
Whoever the artist was liked red. Canvas after canvas showcased the color, some depicting a scene entirely in rose-colored hues, others highlighting one important thing in the painting with a shock of red.
“Do you know Able McKenzie?” Harriet asked.
“I read about him in the New York Times, but I’ve never seen his work up close.”
She folded her hands in front of her hips. “How does it make you feel?”
Crap. He hadn’t expected a pop quiz. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m no art critic, but I guess… it reminds me of blood.”
“Oh?”
“Like this softer one here, that’s like blood as the source of life. And that one over there with the splash of red in that ice-cream cone shape—that looks like poison, like something dangerous. And that one there with the black areas, that’s someone bleeding to death.” He chuckled. Of course they weren’t any of those things. The paintings were abstract. What he’d described as an ice-cream cone was a random grouping of shapes that probably weren’t meant to represent anything at all.
But Harriet was smiling. “Very insightful, Mr. Grandstaff.”
“Was I close?”
She shrugged. “Interpretation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. But that one you pointed to is titled Poisoned Ice Cream.”
“Really?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s called Sunday Afternoon in Central Park.”
“Ah, but I had the ice cream thing.”
She sent him a thin smile.
“Mr. Grandstaff…”
“Nick.”
“Nick, I wonder if you might allow me to have a look at your palm.” Harriet held out her hand to him.
“My palm?”
Harriet gave him a wide smile and an encouraging nod. He held out his hand. The woman cradled it between her own and inspected his palm as if it were a map she was trying to read.
Until Rowan’s voice cut through the room. “Put your hand away, Nick. Harriet, you know better.”
Harriet dropped his hand like it was hot. She bowed slightly, turned on her heel, and took off before Nick could even thank her for the umbrella. It didn’t matter. When he saw Rowan, he lost all ability to speak.
She was a vision in red that outshone anything in the gallery, her black hair cascading around the lace trim on her shoulders. A goddess in stilettos. He desperately wanted to touch her. It would be transcendent. He needed to tell her. He needed to break open his soul and use his finest words to woo her into his arms.
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and said, “Hi.”
The dress was worth every penny she’d paid for it and then some. Nick’s stare was a palpable thing that seemed to burn at her neck before tracing its way over her shoulder and around her waist. His mouth hung open, speechless. He was speechless.
Harriet passed her on her way to the office, setting her hand on her forearm to get her attention. “This is a bad idea, Rowan. You’re playing with fire,” she whispered before disappearing into the back room.
Rowan knew what she meant. The more time she spent with Nick, the more likely he was to remember their first meeting and that she’d stolen the Raindrop of Heaven from the Stevensons. He might be a homicide detective, but she was sure his knowing she had committed grand larceny wouldn’t go over well. And if that wasn’t enough to make him hate her and potentially arrest her, ruining her most important identity, she was sure the part where she’d forced him to drink the forget-me-juice would.
She didn’t want him to hate her. At the moment she wasn’t sure what she wanted from him, but it definitely involved him looking at her the way he was right now.
“Hi,” he said.
She gave him a warm smile. “Hello.” When he didn’t say anything else, she added, “Don’t ever let Harriet read your palm.”
“Why not?”
“She thinks she can tell people’s fortunes, and her readings can be disturbing. She’s got a penchant for the morbid.”
“I’m a homicide detective. I deal with morbid every day.”
“Trust me. It’s creepy.”
“If you say so.”
She allowed her gaze to linger on his threads. Perfect clubbing gear. Dark-wash jeans, fitted shirt, jacket. She loved that he wasn’t clean-shaven and wondered what his scruff would feel like against her skin.
He puffed out his chest, smoothing his jacket and flashing her a crooked grin. “What do you think? Will they let me in?”
“I’m not sure. Which club?” She grinned.
He deflated. “Ouch.”
“I’m joking.” She placed a hand gently on his arm and watched his face soften with her touch. His eyelids sank halfway, his stormy gray eyes darkening. Under her skin, her dragon twisted and her heart rate quickened. Odd. It was rare for her inner beast to be so active, but she seemed incredibly interested in this human man. She cleared her throat and removed her hand from his arm, gesturing toward the paintings. “You see blood? I overheard you speaking with Harriet.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah.” He winced. “Is that disturbing to you? I promise I don’t usually see blood everywhere.”
She laughed. “No. Able’s work reminds me of blood as well.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Harriet sees fruit, a broken pomegranate to be exact. Others see flower petals. One art dealer I know swore he thought it was
representative of fire. One of the things I love about Able is he draws out our subconscious biases.”
Nick frowned. “Are you saying you and I have a bias for blood? That’s pretty grim.”
She shrugged. “It’s a grim world.”
For a moment he stared at the paintings, growing uneasy and fidgeting with his pocket. She regretted her last comment. It wasn’t attractive to let her inner darkness out. She should have said she saw fabric, or paint. She did run a gallery after all.
“What happened to you?” he asked evenly.
“What makes you think something happened to me?”
He turned to her. “You see blood because you’ve seen blood. I was a cop—now a homicide detective. It makes sense that I’ve seen blood. But when did you?”
The kindness in his voice was almost her undoing. She could resist his obvious attraction to her and his charming flirtations, but true kindness was too much. It hit too close to something vulnerable inside her, something she kept walled off from the world.
She cast an eye toward the front window. “We should go. Djorji is waiting.”
“Who’s Djorji?”
“My driver.”
“Oh right.” He passed her on the way to the door, using his longer legs and much flatter shoes to his advantage. In a subtle way that made it seem unintentional, he palmed the handle of the umbrella drying in the umbrella stand before opening the door for her and popping it open above her head. He walked her to the car where Djorji stood ready to help her into the back seat.
“You’re pretty smooth with that umbrella,” she said to Nick. “You should save your chivalry for a real date.”
He sighed. “I thought I made it clear this was a real date.”
“I assumed that was an excuse, a cover for us investigating together.” She bent her head and brushed a hand down the front of her dress as if she were smoothing wrinkles that weren’t there.
His heavy hand landed in the curve of her back, and her eyes snapped to his. She allowed him to guide her against his chest.
Manhattan Dragon Page 6