by Anna Lowe
A camera flashed, but neither of them looked up. Penelope muttered and slunk away, but nothing was interrupting him now, damn it.
Cassandra’s chest expanded in a soul-deep sigh that traveled through her body, into her arms, and over to him.
So good, his dragon agreed. My perfect mate.
Her mouth opened under his, and she tilted her head, pushing closer. And just as he kissed her deeper, desperate to taste more, a dark cloud pushed in at the edge of his consciousness, setting off a dozen warning bells.
Silas snapped his head up, sucking in an angry breath.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” two voices tsked at exactly the same time.
Every muscle in his body coiled, and every hair on the back of his neck stood. He stepped forward, shielding Cassandra as a single word dropped from his downturned lips.
“Drax.”
“Moira,” Cassandra grunted, equally displeased.
Chapter Eleven
If Silas hadn’t held Cassandra back by the elbow, she might have slapped Moira. His hand tightened around hers, reminding her just who that was.
A dragon — two dragons — who could spit fire.
For a moment, Cassandra couldn’t care less. She could sense Silas’s hate for the pair, and she’d seen and heard enough to hate them too. They were at the root of Silas’s late nights and proverbial gray hairs. Both embodied every negative characteristic of dragons that Eloise had warned her of.
“Yes — what do we have here?” Drax puffed on a cigar in flagrant violation of the building’s No Smoking rule. “Consorting with the enemy, Silas?”
Cassandra bared her teeth. So Drax had found out about her witch blood. Apparently, he’d also found out how thin that blood was, because he didn’t show the slightest concern.
“Believe me, I know my enemies,” Silas growled.
His fingers squeezed hers, promising he didn’t mean her.
Cassandra wanted to wipe the smirk off Drax’s face — and off Moira’s too. But who was she kidding? She was just a lowly bartender who couldn’t get her spells right. Moira was a dragon.
A dragon who had slept with Silas. Cassandra blanched, overcome by a wave of disgust. Okay, that might have been a long time ago, but still, it hurt. What had Silas ever seen in Moira?
A sidelong glance reassured her, because Silas looked disgusted too. His fingers flexed, taking the shape of claws, and she softened again. Everyone had a past. The important thing was the future. But, crap — what future did she have with the likes of Drax and Moira staring her down, clearly intent on harm?
Silas stepped farther forward, protecting Cassandra with his body. But she stepped right back into the open with her chin held high.
“Why, Silas. You told me this is a charity event. I can’t imagine what these two are doing here,” she snipped.
Drax uttered a humorless chuckle, and Moira’s lips turned down.
“Actually, I’m in Maui to check on some property.” Drax exhaled a long plume of smoke and leveled a knowing look at Silas.
Cassandra nearly yelped as Silas squeezed her hand, tensing at Drax’s words. His jaw clenched, but otherwise, he held still. Frighteningly still.
Cassandra’s mind raced. What was Drax talking about?
Moira brushed a nonexistent speck of dust off Drax’s lapel and sighed, feigning boredom. “Yes, we thought it was high time to check on Filimore’s properties. Perhaps even develop a few. They’re so underused.”
Cassandra didn’t dare look at Silas, even though she was dying to ask which properties those might be. Koa Point? The neighboring place? Something else?
“Underused? Try peaceful,” Silas growled.
Drax laughed. “Peaceful? You’re going soft, Silas.”
Every muscle in Silas’s hard body tensed, showing he was anything but.
Drax leaned forward. “Better not make yourself too comfortable, my friend.” His lips slithered over friend, making it a threat. “My lawyers are at work, you know.”
“Lawyers. Is that the best you can do?” Silas looked as if he’d like to duke out their disagreements with fists, fangs, or fire.
Cassandra nudged Silas. Drax was purposely baiting him. Didn’t he see that?
But it was too late. Silas’s face was red, and his eyes were glowing — the angry shade of crimson. His pulse pounded visibly at his brow. Shit. Was he about to shift?
Silas, she cried silently, wrapping her fingers around his, trying to calm him down. She’d never seen Silas so close to losing control.
“Spare yourself the noble effort, cousin,” Drax said, dripping disdain. “Give me the diamond.”
“I don’t have the diamond,” Silas shot back.
Drax grinned and motioned at Cassandra, making her stomach turn. “Then give me the woman.”
“Never!” Silas barked, making the nearest twenty people turn in surprise.
Cassandra turned too, surprised at the vehemence in his voice. A warm rush went through her veins, and she wished she could hold on to that feeling instead of the urgent need to defuse things, fast.
“Is this how you operate?” she sneered at Drax. “Taking whatever — whomever — you want?”
Drax laughed, shooting a look at Moira. “Believe me, they come willingly.”
The she-dragon’s tight features twitched, and Cassandra wished for some poker-playing experience to figure out what the hell that meant.
“Maybe some do, though I can’t imagine why,” Cassandra sniffed. “Others will fight you with every weapon at their disposal. And believe me, that’s when you need to watch out.”
She raised her hands and let her fingers dance in the air at Drax, copying some of the moves she’d seen in Silas’s books. Any self-respecting witch would have groaned at her sloppy version of the turn-into-a-frog spell, but hell. It was pretty damn convincing, even if it would never work. Silas’s eyes went wide, and Moira shuffled back an inch.
A second later, though, the she-dragon collected herself and scowled. “I see this little witch has cast her spell on you, Silas. You could do so much better.”
By better, Moira meant herself, of course. Cassandra almost hurled a retort, but Silas snorted first.
“Be civil, Moira.”
She raised a plucked and painted eyebrow at him. “Oh, I’m not calling her a bitch. But a witch — yes. She’s been playing you all along.”
“The way you played me?” Silas’s voice rose.
Moira winked and leaned closer, allowing the folds of her dress to split and give Silas the full benefit of her meaty boobs.
You and I can still have it all, her flashing eyes seemed to say. Come with me, and you’ll have everything you want.
Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Moira was plotting something behind Drax’s back, for sure. Not that Drax seemed to suspect, judging by his indulgent expression.
“Well, it’s too late now.” Moira sighed theatrically. “She’ll soon have doomed herself.”
Cassandra’s blood went cold. What the hell did Moira mean?
“Moira.” Silas glared. “What have you done?”
She laughed. “It’s not what I’ve done. It’s what she’s done with that spell of hers.”
What spell? Cassandra wanted to shake Moira. She couldn’t extinguish a candle, let alone cast a spell that could influence future events. But then she remembered Eloise’s parting words.
A lure spell, Eloise’s voice ghosted through her mind. I’ve been working on one myself.
An image flashed through Cassandra’s mind. One second, it was there — the scene of a blackened landscape, torn with great blasts of raging fire and shadowed by battling dragons — and then it was gone.
Cassandra clenched her hands into fists before she started shaking. Whatever a lure spell was, it packed a powerful punch.
“Maybe you’re the one who’s doomed,” she forced herself to retort.
Drax sent out another long plume of smoke, silently appraising her. Cassandra wrin
kled her nose as the tendrils wafted in the space between them, moving slowly in the still air. Then she puffed, sending the smoke right back the way it came. Moira put a hand over her mouth and coughed, shooting murderous looks at Cassandra.
But again, Cassandra didn’t care. Dragons might be pretty damn imposing, but they needed to get one thing straight. She was not to be fucked with. One way or another, she’d foil their sinister plans — whatever those might be. Surely, she’d find something among the books in the library. An anti-dragon potion, maybe. A fireproof magic spell.
And, yes. She would look up lure spells the second she returned to the library. But first, she had to end this confrontation before it escalated.
She ignored the urge to retreat and clapped twice.
“Now isn’t that wonderful!” she announced in a loud, clear voice. “You want to make a donation to the Coalition of Maui charities?”
Half the people in the ballroom stopped in their tracks. Drax frowned.
Cassandra motioned the mayor closer. “Well, that’s wonderful news. Silas, won’t you introduce the mayor to one of New York’s most generous philanthropists?”
Silas’s mouth twitched in a tiny smile. The mayor scurried forward, as did Penelope van Buren. She wound her Coppertoned arm around Drax’s and batted her eyes.
“Penelope van Buren. How do you do?”
If looks could kill, Moira would have been booked for homicide there and then. But what really irked Cassandra was the way Drax reached out to clamp a hand over Silas’s arm. Silas’s bad arm.
“See you soon, baby cousin,” Drax growled.
Cassandra wove her fingers around Silas’s and subtly pulled him away. She didn’t know much about battles, but it seemed like this was a time to make a strategic retreat.
Silas remained silent, but she could swear he was cursing Drax in his mind. So she borrowed a page from the shifter playbook and did the same, focusing all her energy on pushing a thought over to Drax’s mind. The dragon might not have heard her, but it felt good to get her two cents in.
See you never would have been nice, but she figured that was wishful thinking. So she settled for the next best thing, putting as much venom into the thought as she could.
See you soon, asshole.
Chapter Twelve
Cassandra sat very still as Silas accelerated the car down the highway. He held the gearshift so tightly, his knuckles turned white, and his jaw formed a hard line.
Cassandra peeked in the rearview mirror. “You think Drax will follow us?”
She placed a hand on his leg without thinking, because she needed it — that contact, that warmth. The reassurance that somehow, everything would be okay.
Maybe Silas needed it too, because he gently covered her hand with his.
“No, not really. But he is getting bold, coming to Maui like this.”
He gunned the engine, letting the car rush through the night. Traffic was sparse, and Highway 380 was an open road, hushed but for the hum of the vintage car’s purring engine.
“You mean he’s never been here?”
“I guess he’s never deemed it worth his while.”
“And Koa Point? He won’t attack there?”
Silas shook his head. “Dragons never pick a fight on an enemy’s home turf. They prefer to lure each other out.”
Lure. The word stuck in her mind as the tires raced over the even road.
“Plus,” Silas added, “We have our own watch rotation. Hunter’s on duty tonight.”
She gaped. “All night?”
Silas shrugged. “It helps to have a group of shifters all eager to roam in animal form for a few hours.”
So she hadn’t been imagining soft footfalls or distant howls over the past couple of nights.
“So, no attack from Drax,” she concluded.
Silas frowned. “Not at Koa Point, anyway.”
Another silent minute passed, and the air grew so thick with Silas’s anger and frustration, she could have scooped a handful and tossed it at the scenery blurring outside. Silas hit fifty-five, sixty-five, and was heading toward seventy in a forty-five zone. The car felt twice as fast from her vantage point on what ought to be the driver’s side.
Luckily, the right-hand drive setup gave her access to Silas’s left arm. He’d whipped his jacket off on the way to the car, but his shirt still covered his skin. Now that she thought back on it, he’d been wearing long sleeves all week despite balmy temperatures.
“Let me check that,” she said very quietly.
Silas tucked his elbow against his ribs, keeping it out of reach. “It’s fine.”
She put a hand on his leg. “You can’t be strong for everyone all the time.”
“There is no one else.”
The hard edge in his voice made her want to say, There’s me.
“Just a quick look. Please.”
“No need.”
She sighed. “You know, I once talked Eloise’s cat down from a tree, and it didn’t take as much convincing.”
Silas kept his lips sealed for a long minute before answering. “Black cat?”
She threw up her hands. “You’re changing the subject again.”
“Okay,” he murmured.
“Okay — you’re changing the subject?”
He shook his head and slowly swung his elbow out from his side. “Okay, you can check it. If you want.”
Right. Like it was her hobby to examine burns or something. But she played along. “It would make me feel better. And yes.”
“Yes, what?” he grunted as she gingerly removed his cuff links and folded back his sleeve.
“It was a black cat.”
Really, she just wanted to distract him, and it worked.
“See? It’s fine,” he grunted.
It didn’t look as ghastly as she feared — more pink than puckered or scabbed — but Silas had failed to hide a couple of telltale winces and the twitch in his jaw.
“I’ll put something on it when we get home,” she said, letting him off easy.
He looked at her, and oops, she caught the slipup too. Koa Point wasn’t home. Not for her, anyway.
Silas’s eyes shone, making it far too easy to dream.
A second later — or maybe a minute — she dragged her gaze back to the blurring asphalt of the road and cursed his stubbornness.
But truthfully, that stubbornness was part of what fascinated her. That tenacity — it was all part of a complex man she found herself more and more attracted to. Silas moved something in her that no other man ever had — not the handful of chiseled athletes, not the wealthy businessmen, not even the cute construction-worker types she’d met over the years. She’d listened dutifully to their problems and woes, but she’d never wanted to help a man so badly. Which was ironic, because Silas didn’t want help. But then again, what man ever did?
She snorted. If she were honest with herself, she didn’t just want to help Silas. She just wanted him, period. For days, her body had been yearning for his, and the out-of-nowhere kiss back at the gala had ignited a bonfire. Jesus, what had she been thinking?
She knotted her hands tightly and took a deep breath. Maybe if she helped Silas get through the problems of the present, they could have a stab at a future together.
“Drax mentioned an uncle and some property. What’s that about?” She looked straight ahead, in case looking at Silas and asking at the same time was too much an invasion of his comfort zone.
Silas bared his teeth and formed a few silent curses. “Drax’s uncle is my uncle. Our great-uncle, really. Filimore.”
“The one who died in New York?” Her eyes went wide.
“One who was murdered in New York,” Silas grunted. “Drax poisoned him. I’m sure of that.”
Her mind raced. Eloise had fallen victim to a dragon attack. Silas’s uncle too. Apparently, Drax didn’t let anything stop him — not even his own kin.
“His uncle…your uncle…” She thought it through.
Silas
made a face. “Drax is my third cousin on my mother’s side. His line is older than ours by almost a generation, though.”
“Ours?”
“Kai and I. We’re first cousins.”
She did her best to map the family tree in her mind, putting Drax way out on a crooked branch and Kai closer to the center with Silas.
“How long do dragons live?” she whispered, trying to recall what she’d read.
Silas flexed the fingers of his right hand over the steering wheel. “A couple of hundred years.” Then he shook his head ruefully. “If they die of natural causes, that is.”
Cassandra remembered hearing that Kai was thirty-one, which had to put Silas in roughly the same age range. Neither of them had ever mentioned parents, siblings, or other cousins. How much warring went on in the dragon world? Were family sizes naturally small?
So many questions. So few answers. Should she venture there tonight? She decided to focus on Drax for the time being. And dang, even that was a lot to swallow.
“Drax mentioned property,” she said, leaving the sentence open-ended for Silas to fill in.
The Mercedes whizzed under a set of streetlights, and she caught a brief glimpse of Silas’s tight features and deep frown bathed in yellow light.
Another minute passed by, and still, he didn’t answer. Should she push him? Shouldn’t she?
“Silas,” she whispered, running her fingers lightly over the fabric of his slacks. Begging him to unwind just a tiny little bit. “Are you really going to solve this on your own?”
He gripped the gearshift harder. “Honestly? That was the plan.”
She wanted to scream. Didn’t he know asking for help wasn’t an admission of weakness? That many hands made light work?
“Well, if you won’t tell me, at least talk to the others. Kai is your cousin. The other guys are PIs. Dawn is a policewoman. Tessa is supersmart, and Nina is good at thinking outside the box. Any of them could help you figure things out. Did you ever hear of two heads being better than one?”