Enticing the Dragon

by Jane Godman

  Hollie’s eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed and her lips slightly parted. Forever. If there was one moment Torque could choose to last that long, it would be this one. He gazed down at her, continuing to thrust slowly, even as the storm subsided and his body softened. Never wanting to break this connection.

  Finally, his movements stilled as the shuddering stopped, his breathing slowed and his racing pulse ebbed. With their lips locked in a kiss, he withdrew and rolled onto his back.

  Hollie rested her head on his chest. “Is it strange, when we have a luxury suite back at the hotel, to think this is the perfect way to spend a night?”

  “Every night with you is perfect.”

  Torque gazed up at the stars, enjoying her warm, sweet weight against him. He had no need of anything except this. Even if he searched for another immortal lifetime, he wouldn’t find the same joy he felt when he looked into her eyes.

  Hollie was his treasure, his dragon hoard, and he would guard the enchantment she brought him the same way he had once guarded a looted treasure from a rival clan.

  * * *

  After the band left Nashville, the next few days seemed to be a blur of big arenas. Hollie felt like she spent the whole time getting on and off the tour bus with barely time to eat, sleep and shower in between.

  “When we get to Dallas, you can take a break,” Ged said, regarding her with sympathy. “We have two performances there, but we have three nights before the first one.”

  Hollie stretched her arms above her head in anticipation. “You mean I get to sleep in a real bed instead of a bunk?”

  Khan flung himself down on the sofa next to her. “And you won’t have to listen to Diablo snoring.”

  The drummer threw a plastic water bottle at him, narrowly missing his head. “Can it, tiger boy.”

  “Is Sarange bringing Karina when she meets us in Dallas?” Hollie asked. She had seen enough of the legendary clashes between Diablo and Khan to know it was best to deflect their attention from each other.

  Khan’s expression changed, becoming one of delight. “Yeah. Can’t wait to see my girls.”

  Torque was asleep on one of the bunks and Hollie had the laptop open. The marathon task of making her way through Torque’s emails still occupied much of her time and she hadn’t found any more messages from Losgadh@ykl.com. Although she had come across a few more items for her Possibilities file, nothing else shouted out to her and made her think it could be from the Incinerator.

  She was so deep in her task she barely noticed the downshifting of the Monster’s engine and only looked up from the screen when the vehicle came to a complete standstill.

  “Where are we?” She looked out the window, but could see only an empty parking lot, surrounded by trees.

  “I asked Rick to find a quiet place to stop.” Ged leaned forward to look out the window. “Somewhere we have a half-decent chance of not being recognized. I want to stretch my legs and grab a burger. There’s a restroom here and a small convenience store.”

  He called out to Rick, the head of the band’s security team who was driving the bus, to give them half an hour. As the others bounded from the bus, Hollie considered joining them and decided against it. She was wearing sweatpants and a Sign of the Beast extralarge tour sweatshirt. Her hair was half in and half out of a braid and she couldn’t find one of her sneakers. Life on tour with a rock band wasn’t as glamorous as she’d once imagined it might be.

  Torque emerged from the bedroom area looking rumpled and confused. And adorable.

  “What’s going on?” Since he placed a hand over his mouth to muffle a yawn, she only just managed to decipher what he was saying.

  “Your friends have made a bid for freedom.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “The last I saw of them, they were running for the hills.”

  He grinned. “Burgers and coffee, huh? You want anything?”

  Hollie considered the question. “Cookies. And soda.” He turned to go. “And ice cream.” He looked slightly alarmed and she laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m stir-crazy, not pregnant.”

  The words hung between them for a moment, filling the atmosphere with a new sentiment. Hollie couldn’t identify it. Was it a simple acknowledgment that a family would never happen for them? It felt like more. For the first time, she experienced a tug of longing for children of her own. Children she would never have. Loving Torque meant she would never be with someone else in the future. Hard on the heels of longing came regret. A deep, profound sorrow that she would never have normality with the man she loved.

  “So, sugar and plenty of it?” Torque broke the loaded silence. She could see her own pain reflected in his eyes.

  How many ways could she fall in love with him, only to be reminded that it couldn’t last? Seeking to lighten her thoughts, she indicated her bare feet. “If I could find my other sneaker, I’d come with you.”

  Torque knelt to retrieve something from under the sofa. “Is this yours?” He held up the shoe she had spent hours searching for.

  Hollie slipped it on. “Lead me to my sugar rush.” Reaching up a hand, she felt her braid and grimaced. “On second thought, let me find something to cover this.”

  Torque slipped his iconic guitar-in-flames hooded sweatshirt over his head. “Will this do?”

  She pulled it on and placed a hand over her heart, batting her eyelashes at him. “Torque, you don’t know what this means to me.”

  He flapped a hand at her. “Let’s go before Ged eats everything in the store.” Snagging another sweatshirt from his bunk as he passed, he tugged it over his head. “Can’t be too careful. You never know who’s watching.”

  They both drew their hoods up as they exited the bus. They had almost reached the store when Torque muttered an exclamation. “Left my cash on the bus. There’s a handful of notes and coins on the table.”

  “I’ll go back for it while you order what we want.” Hollie was already running back toward the bus as she spoke.

  She clambered quickly up the steps, dashing into the living area. As she snatched up the money Torque had mentioned, the laptop pinged with an incoming email. Her attention was instantly caught by the address... Losgadh@ykl.com.

  Holding her breath, she read the message.

  Look close into the shadows, mo dragon. Your maiden of gold and emeralds will be the sacrifice.

  She was moving fast, on her way back to Torque, when the vehicle was rocked from side to side by an explosion. Staggering from the impact, Hollie emerged from the central living area to see flames engulfing the driver’s cab and licking their way along toward the kitchen.

  Her fire investigator instincts kicked in. It looked like a firebomb had been thrown in through the driver’s window. Turning back, she headed along the bunk-lined corridor toward the emergency exit in the rear of the bus. Before she reached it, there was a sound of glass smashing. An orange ball of flame filled the area that Ged used as his office.

  Hollie was trapped in the middle of the bus and all the exits were blocked.

  Chapter 11

  Torque was at the counter of the convenience store when he heard the noise. He knew all the sounds fire could make, and this was the unmistakable whumphing of a firebomb being thrown. Instantly, the hair on the back of his neck prickled and he ran outside.

  Rick had been Beast’s head of security since the band became famous. Torque often wondered if he knew they were shifters. He figured the big, long-suffering guy at least knew there was something very unusual about the rock stars he guarded. Since Ged paid Rick well for his discretion, there were no questions asked on either side.

  Rick’s specialty was protecting the band’s privacy. Instinctively, he had parked the bus under a clump of trees, as far as possible from any prying eyes inside the store. Now Torque watched in horror as flames began to pour from both the front and rear windows.

 
“Hollie!” He raised a hand, signaling to the others to follow him.

  Breaking into a run, Torque shifted, his feet pounding the tarmac. He could hear his friends behind him. As his dragon muscles burst through, his clothing tore from his body. By the time he reached the bus, he was already in dragon form, his giant wings unfurling.

  Hovering a few feet above the burning vehicle, he hooked his claws into one end of the metal roof, rolling it back like the lid of a tin can. Throwing the torn metal aside, he lowered his head to get a better view of the interior of the bus. The driver’s cab was fully alight and the rear appeared to have recently started to burn.

  Hollie was in the living area, in the center section. Crouching low to avoid the smoke, she appeared unharmed and was crawling toward the fire extinguisher. Conscious of the need to move fast before the fire reached the bus’s gas tanks, Torque landed beside the vehicle. Raising one mighty claw, he ripped a hole in the side of the bus. Shifting back, he stepped through the jagged gap.

  “Torque.” Hollie leaped up and closed the space between them. “We don’t have long.”

  He could tell his beloved scientist had already analyzed the situation. “Let’s get out of here.” He lifted her through the opening, handing her to Ged, who was waiting on the asphalt.

  Getting away from the bus fast was Torque’s first priority. He would worry about his nakedness and any possible witnesses later. They headed for the cover of the trees with the rest of the band following, making it just as the bus blew up. Flames spiked and black smoke billowed. Glass and metal rained down onto the parking lot.

  “I didn’t get your ice cream,” Torque said as he pulled Hollie down onto the grass with him.

  She stared at him for a moment, her eyes huge and round; then she started to laugh. At first he thought she must be in shock, but her amusement was genuine. He raised questioning brows at her. Shaking her head, she pointed at the bus. “It’s just as well it blew up. I can’t imagine what my fire investigation colleagues would make of the way you casually ripped that bus apart to get me out.” She became serious. “But I’m very glad you did.”

  “Did you see who did it?”

  “No, I didn’t see anything.”

  Torque turned to look at his friends. “You guys?”

  “Nothing.” Khan looked disgusted. “Whoever did it got away fast.”

  That was one of the many things racing around in Torque’s head, but he decided to deal with the practicalities first. “This is one of those times when it will be impossible to avoid the human forces of law and order. I’m guessing the cashier has already called them. First, we need to discover if there is security camera footage of the parking lot.” He grimaced. “It would be useful to see who did this, but I don’t want anyone to get hold of film of me shifting.”

  “I’ll go check that out before the cops get here.” Khan left the trees and headed toward the store.

  “Meanwhile, maybe Rick could find me something to wear?” Torque asked Ged. “It isn’t the first time one of us has unexpectedly lost all our clothing, but the circumstances have often been different.”

  Ged laughed. Beast’s hell-raising exploits were legendary and Rick had often been called upon to extricate one, or more, of them from a difficult situation. “Rick can do that while he arranges alternative transport for the rest of the tour. Dev, Finglas, come with me. You can keep a lookout for the cops.”

  When they’d gone, Hollie turned to Torque. “This is not quite the same atmosphere as last time you were naked in the woods.”

  Although she made an attempt at humor, he could see the panic in her eyes. It mirrored his own alarm. Twice the Incinerator had come close to killing her. If Torque hadn’t been a dragon-shifter, Hollie would have died in that blazing bus.

  “There was another message. It came through just before the bus caught fire. It said you should look into the shadows and your maiden of gold and emerald would be the sacrifice.” Hollie shivered as she spoke. “He, or she, must have been following us. That blaze wasn’t started remotely.”

  Torque forced himself to concentrate. He had been so focused on his concern at what had just happened to Hollie, so wrapped up in the terror of losing her, that he was barely able to think straight. He had convinced himself that this attack was about her, but what if it wasn’t?

  “What if he thought it was me on the bus?” He was thinking out loud, the words racing ahead of his thoughts.

  “What do you mean?” Hollie asked.

  “You were wearing my sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. Okay, you are a lot shorter than me. But if he wasn’t close, he’d have seen a figure who looked like me getting back on the bus. Alone.”

  Comprehension dawned on Hollie’s face. “So we don’t know if the target of the attack was me or you.”

  It didn’t matter to Torque. An attack on Hollie was an attack on him. She meant more to him than his own life. He had to stop this monster from taking control and paralyzing him with terror. Torque knew what fear could do. It could be a knife in his gut slowly twisting deeper, or a hammer pounding inside his head. Fear could shackle him...or it could drive him forward.

  He drew Hollie into his arms, feeling her begin to relax as she rested her head on his shoulder. Drawing strength from her at the same time as he comforted her, he knew what he had to do. If Teine was out there, he had to find her. And he knew where to start his search.

  * * *

  Hollie was growing accustomed to her own capacity for dealing with the highs and lows of this new life. Her body amazed her with its capacity for absorbing shock and moving on. She suspected Torque’s presence had something to do with that. He was her comfort blanket. After he had rescued her from the bus, her insides felt icy, her stomach muscles tightly contracted. Inside her chest, her heart had been an explosion waiting to happen, while her skin had been clammy, her breathing fast and hard.

  Torque only had to place an arm around her and those physical symptoms receded. Within minutes, the horror had receded. It wasn’t gone, but she was able to dig into her own reserves of strength and deal with it.

  The practical aftermath of the bus fire was surprisingly calm. Hollie quickly learned that the members of Beast had the experience and the resources to deal with anything that came their way. Khan had discovered that there were no security cameras on the secluded area of the parking lot where Torque had shifted. That was fortunate because it meant they weren’t facing a situation where the police might stumble across the biggest scandal of the century. Scrap that. A man shifting to become a dragon in rural Texas would be the biggest story of all time. Add in the fact that the man concerned was John “Torque” Jones, legendary guitarist with mega rock band Beast, and the world would go wild. Luckily, the cashier hadn’t witnessed the incident because he had been calling 911 at the time Torque shifted.

  At the same time, it was unfortunate that there was no CCTV. If they had been able to get their hands on any film before the police arrived, they might have been able to see who was responsible for the attack. The cashier confirmed that no one had been into the rest stop convenience store in the half hour prior to Beast’s arrival. Rick was adamant that, even though he had chosen a secluded location, there were no other vehicles in the parking lot when he arrived.

  “If someone was following us, how did they approach the bus within minutes of us stopping if they didn’t pull into the parking lot?” Torque asked. That was the puzzle to which they needed to find a solution.

  Rick explained to the cashier that one of the band had been sleeping naked when the bus caught fire. The guy was a Beast fan and he had been overawed by the whole situation. The sweatpants and T-shirt he had donated were stretched taut over Torque’s muscles, but at least he was covered up. As he and Hollie explored the trees behind where the bus had been parked, there was no longer a risk of him stumbling naked upon a hiker or dog-walker.

 
; It didn’t take them long to find a dirt track that ran parallel to the road leading into the parking lot.

  “There.” Hollie pointed to evidence of recent tire tracks. “If the Incinerator was following the bus and saw us pull off the highway into the rest stop, he could have driven down here.”

  There was a line of trees and shrubs between the track and the parking lot. As they pushed through knee-high, scrubby grass, Torque gestured to a flattened section. “Looks like he stopped right over there.”

  From the place he indicated, the whole rest stop area, including the location where the bus had been parked, could be observed.

  They stood in silence for a few minutes, surveying the wreckage of the Monster. It was no longer recognizable as a vehicle. Chunks of smoldering metal lay strewn across the asphalt, and the air was thick with the smell of burning gas, oil and plastic. Some of the debris was still on fire, while acrid smoke rose in black plumes from other parts.

  “He was just waiting for a chance, wasn’t he?” Hollie said.

  “Looks that way.”

  She looked back at the fresh tire tracks in the dirt. “If Teine did this, would she need to follow us in a car?”

  Torque’s expression was grim. “She has magic powers, but they are limited. Teine can’t transport herself from one place to another. In that sense, she is as restricted in her means of travel as a human. But this?” He indicated the destruction on the parking lot. “This is the action of a human. I don’t know what to think anymore, but maybe that’s what she wants. Teine is good at screwing with people’s minds.”

  Two police cruisers pulled into the parking lot, ending the opportunity for further conversation. Torque turned to look at Hollie. “This is your call. If you talk to the police about what just happened, your colleagues in the FBI will find out where you are. I can make sure the police get all the information they need without telling them you were involved. No one needs to know you were on that bus.”