She blushed. “Right. Sorry. Do you like cookies?”
He sighed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had one.”
She tried not to stare again. He’d think she was some sort of fool if she didn’t stop. But geez. Never had a cookie? “It’s a sweet,” she offered, not knowing what else to say. “Flat and crispy, with . . . well, these are the ones I like, so they have chocolate chips.”
He was studying her as if she were speaking a foreign language, or at least one he didn’t understand. Speaking of which. . . . Haha. Speaking. It was funny, because she was talking about which language and. . . . Never mind. It was one of those jokes no one else ever understood.
“They’re good,” she said finally. “They taste good. With the tea.”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“You can sit there.” She pointed to the table in front of the window. “I’ll bring the tea.”
Taking two steps, he stared at the table and chairs for a moment, then chose the side facing into the sun, and sat. He kept the sword with him, she noted, not even leaning it against the wall, but bracing it against his leg, one hand holding it loosely. She had no doubt he was as good as his word, and could swing it up and at an attacker’s throat in an instant.
Once they were seated, after he’d sipped his tea with obvious enjoyment, but rejected the cookie after one bite, she studied him over her mug and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Dragan Fiachna,” he said, with a slight dip of his head. “In service to Lord Nicodemus. Though . . .” He paused, and another flash of pain clouded his expression. “I don’t know that he still lives for me to serve in this world.”
“Look. I know you said Mr. Sotiris did something to you—”
“A curse.”
She gave him a blank look.
“Sotiris cursed me and my brothers. Four of us. Though I don’t know about my liege. I believe him too powerful to have been swept up in Sotiris’s magic, but . . . I don’t know if any of them still live.” He seemed lost then, for the first time since he’d opened the stairwell door. It was a foreign expression on such a powerful man.
“I can help you with that,” she offered without thinking. No matter how much she loved reading and role-playing fantasy, she wasn’t sure she believed any of it. But he just looked so sad. Whatever his story, she had to help if she could. “I’m good with computers and the like. If your friends are around, I can find them.”
“If they live.”
“Hey, you’re alive. Why not them? And you say this Nicodemus person has as much magic as Mr. Sotiris, which you say is a lot. So odds are he’s still around too, right?” She didn’t know what the hell she was saying. Magic, for Christ’s sake. She was just as crazy as he was.
“I have to kill him.”
Maeve held her breath. “Kill whom?”
His pretty green eyes—she hadn’t noticed those before—turned in her direction. Green eyes with long black hair and a beautiful face. He’d look right at home on the red carpet. In a tux, like those vampires in all the gossip mags. Oh, yeah. A tux for sure. Focus, Maeve.
“Sotiris, of course,” he was saying, completely casual, as if he wasn’t talking about murdering her employer. Granted Mr. Sotiris was an asshole, but he was the asshole who signed her paycheck for doing a job she loved. Or she’d used to love. She still would if the place wasn’t so damn remote, or if she didn’t have to live here 24/7. Besides, maybe Dragan was speaking figuratively. He couldn’t really mean to kill someone, could he?
“Um. That’s against the law now.”
“Your law has no authority over me,” he said, easily dismissing her cautionary words. “And I doubt Sotiris bothers overmuch with it, either. He cares only for himself and does whatever he wishes, without regard for others.”
That did sound like Mr. Sotiris. But she still felt an obligation—not to her employer, but to Dragan. Whatever had happened to him was very bad, and she didn’t want him to be locked up in jail after . . . everything. Whatever it was. She grimaced at her own thoughts. “Um, look. What if we . . . find your friends first. Maybe they’ve already reached some kind of agreement with Mr. Sotiris. Or maybe . . .” She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t think for one minute that her warrior’s friends—if they existed and if they really were alive somewhere—would have made peace with the bastard who’d kept their friend cruelly captive for who knew how long? But that made her even more determined. They should get out of this house and go find his friends before her boss came back and discovered. . . . Whoa! What’s with this “they” shit, Mae?
Well, of course, she was going to go with him. Hadn’t she just been scolding herself for hiding away from the world, for being stuck in a rut of avoidance? This right here, with Dragan, was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She wasn’t going to hand over her car keys and just wave him good-bye, was she? She had the ridiculous thought that he probably couldn’t even drive. Yeah, because that was the big issue here.
She drew a deep breath. If she walked away from this house, from her job, her life would never be the same. At a minimum, Mr. Sotiris would fire her. And that was assuming he didn’t send the police after her for . . . well, she wasn’t sure for what. Theft? You couldn’t steal an adult person, even if they’d been a statue that morning.
Oh, yeah. She could just hear herself explaining that to the police. She’d be the one locked up, not Dragan. They’d put her in one of those institutions. Someplace peaceful. Maybe close to her family. They could probably swing that. Her family was from Tennessee, but they didn’t exactly sit on a porch and play the banjo. Her parents were both physicians in Nashville, her grandfather a corporate attorney, now retired. Her family knew people.
On the other hand, if they didn’t get caught, or if Sotiris didn’t bother to chase them, there was the intriguing idea that at least some magic was real. Dragan believed it was. And she had to admit that, on the face of it, the facts were on his side. What if it was real? Even if no one had true power any more, if the ability had died off long ago, the possibility that it had ever existed would be amazing. And if Dragan’s existence was a leftover piece of that magic? This road trip might be her only chance at the kind of adventure she’d been reading about all her life. The kind she’d dreamt about.
Damn. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this. “I just have one question.”
Chapter Two
Manhattan, New York, NY
SOTIRIS CURSED SILENTLY as he rode the elevator down thirty- two floors to the lobby of his very elegant and expensive Manhattan high-rise apartment. At the time, the height had seemed to make sense, offering a splendid view from his penthouse condominium. He could stand at any of his windows and gaze down at the tiny ant-like forms of the common people scurrying along the crowded sidewalks far below. Far below him, where they belonged.
The damn elevator doors opened again, this time to admit a large group of people whose appearance was similar enough that he dismissed them as a family, as they shuffled into the elevator, moving a few inches this way or that before finally settling in one place. He wanted to shove them all out and send the damn box straight to the lobby. He could do it. The smallest touch of magic, a whispered spell, and he’d be out of the building and speeding away from this infernal city with its crowds and its traffic.
He hadn’t considered the possibility that the hideaway he’d built upstate in the most remote area of the Finger Lakes, where there was no estate smaller than ten acres, would be a refuge from the constant noise of Manhattan. He usually thrived on that noise and its energy, but the people, the throngs of humans sweating and crowding every inch of the city, including the damn elevator—he needed to take a break from that on occasion.
But that wasn’t why he was hurrying there now. Something was wrong. It stroked his nerves, echoed in his very
bones like the voice of doom. He thought of the many magical artifacts stored at that house. Not only the statuary with Dragan’s stone prison, but the artifacts in his office and too many of the other rooms to count. His mind raced, trying to pin down the sensation. What had gone wrong? The girl had been ordered not to enter the statuary, but unlike his office, the room was never locked. Had she finally gotten too nosey? After all, he’d hired her in large part because of her specific knowledge of antiques in general, and oddities specifically. It made sense that the kind of curious mind which would lead one to pursue such a unique specialty would also drive one to explore once in a while. But she’d been so meticulous all this time, so diligent in following his orders, and doing the work she’d been hired for. If she had entered the statuary chamber, then why now? And why would it matter? What the fuck had gone wrong?
Two minutes later, though it felt like an eternity, the elevator’s golden doors opened on the ground floor. He shoved his way out, ignoring the scandalized glances, the muttered imprecations. He didn’t care about people or their opinions. Striding across the veined marble floor, he acknowledged the doorman’s silent signal that his car was waiting. And then finally, finally, he was behind the wheel of his Mercedes-Maybach sedan. A sleek dragon of a car that shut out the noise of the world and flew on silent wings at his command, his beast was as black as a moonless night on the moor.
His breath froze in his chest at that thought from the old world, leaving him with a single name that flashed to the forefront of his mind—Dragan. Was it possible? Was that the whisper of disaster that had him racing northward?
“Call the girl,” he ordered the vehicle, then waited as the call went through. He never called her by name. Sometimes it required focused thought to remember what it was. She was simply “the girl,” or nothing at all. She did her job and stayed out of the way. He listened as his call began to ring at the Finger Lake house. And ring. And ring.
But even then, he denied the possibility. Dragan couldn’t have gained his freedom, not after all this time. Sotiris had searched the world over to get hold of that damn statue. He hadn’t been searching for Dragan specifically, but for all of the warriors he’d cursed thousands of years and an entire universe in the past. The four of them had served his mortal enemy, Nicodemus Katsaros, and had been treasured by him above all others. It had been the greatest spell casting of Sotiris’s life when he’d stolen the four of them away on the very precipice of battle, trapping them in stone and hurling them into the winds of time where Katsaros would never find them. The fact that Katsaros had never stopped looking for them had been the sweetest part of Sotiris’s victory—the knowledge that his enemy would spend every moment of his life in a fruitless pursuit.
As added insurance, Sotiris had searched, too, wanting to be certain Katsaros would never succeed in recovering his warriors. He’d never found Damian, but that hadn’t surprised him, since the big blond warrior had been and still was inextricably tied to Katsaros’s magic. He had found the other two warriors, but not in time. He’d had Kato within his grasp, but lost him by a hair’s breadth when his curse had been broken. He’d located Gabriel long ago, but the damn Japanese mobster who’d owned him had refused to sell. The man had possessed just enough power, boosted by ties to the ancestral lands where he lived, to enforce his refusal. Sotiris had been willing to wait after that, knowing the human mobster would eventually die and Gabriel would be his.
But Gabriel had been freed before that could happen, and being a vampire, he’d chosen to serve Raphael, the powerful vampire lord who dominated all of North America. Which, in a way, denied him to Nicodemus Katsaros. It wasn’t fully satisfactory, but it was no fairytale ending for his enemy, either.
That had left Dragan, the winged warrior who’d been in Sotiris’s possession for more than a century, safely hidden away in his remote lake house. He was the one warrior whom Katsaros would never recover.
Or so Sotiris had thought. And he hated this timing. It was too convenient for his enemies, too damn suspicious by half. It was as if the fates had reached out and slapped him down, telling him if he wanted the prize, he’d have to work for it. But, damn it, there was a hell of a lot more at stake with Dragan than simply denying his ancient enemy the final prize. If Dragan was gone, then the plans Sotiris had spent years putting in place would be in jeopardy, too.
“Fuck.” He pushed the Maybach to its highest speed and raced northward.
MAEVE IGNORED THE ringing of her phone as she met the warrior’s gorgeous green gaze. Whoever was calling could wait. It couldn’t possibly be more important than dealing with a thousand-year-old statue come to life.
“One question,” she repeated, steeling her courage. “What happened to your wings?” She winced. People didn’t have wings. He’d think she was nuts. On the other hand, if he didn’t know what she was talking about, then obviously he wasn’t her warrior, or anyone else’s. He was some sort of imposter, probably a criminal, and she’d do well to—
“They only manifest when I use magic, and then, only if I need them. Mostly in war, or in defense of those to whom I’m bound by love or honor.”
She blinked in surprise. “They’re real?” she asked in a tiny whisper.
He shrugged. “Real enough.”
“How? I mean, you look human.”
“I am human.” He made an equivocating gesture. “Mostly. The magic is an inheritance of sorts. Passed from father to second-born son as far back as my ancestors have ruled.” He paused, his face creasing in thought. “It’s possible that the place where I was born no longer exists, if it ever did in this world. Sotiris’s curse cast us into the uncertain sands of time, as we were encased in stone. Which means, even if my brother warriors survived to gain their freedom, there’s no guarantee that they live in this world.” He stared through the window at the endless vista of trees and water, letting it hold his gaze for a long time, as if his brothers might reveal themselves if he only searched hard enough.
“Do they hurt?” she asked finally, troubled again by the sadness in his voice. “Your wings, I mean.”
He turned to her with a half-smile. “I’m accustomed to it. But they were never meant to be manifested for thousands of years. My back, as Sotiris would say, hurts like a bitch.”
“He said that to you?” Maeve’s employer had never struck her as a compassionate man.
“Oh, yes, but not the way you think. He meant it as a taunt.”
“Bastard,” she muttered. “I never did like him.”
“And yet you’ve worked for him for . . . some years. I don’t know precisely how long you’ve been here. Time passes oddly when one is locked in a stone prison.”
“Almost three years,” she supplied. “But I rarely see him when he’s here. He prefers to communicate through email, or the occasional handwritten note.”
“You don’t mind spending so much time alone?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t used to. I like the work, and when I became too lonely, I would go visit my family for a few days.” She chuckled. “I was always eager for my solitude after that.” She frowned and leaned back to snag her cell from the countertop. “That reminds me. I always call my mom after lunch, and I’m late. She worries if I don’t—”
Fear tore through her as she glanced down at the text message on her phone, stealing her breath as she stood and kicked the chair over behind her. Dragan was on his feet before the chair hit the floor, hands clenched as he searched the room and windows, looking for danger, his eyes meeting hers when he found nothing. “What is it?” he asked, his gaze breaking away from her to search once more.
“It’s him,” she said, already reaching around the table to pull him after her and out of the kitchen. “He must know . . . would he have felt your curse break? Does he know you’re free?”
“Possibly.” Dragan switched her grip on his hand, wrapping his
fingers around hers instead, his hold firm, his skin slightly rough, as he pulled her to the front window. He frowned. “I don’t see him.”
“No, no. He texted me.” She held up the phone in frustration. “My phone rang earlier. I didn’t answer, because we were talking. But it must have been him. He texted when I didn’t answer.” She showed him Sotiris’s message, which expressed a tepid concern for her well-being, and said he was on his way.
Dragan looked up from reading it. “How long before he arrives?”
“Um . . .” She pulled up the full message. “It doesn’t say when he left the city, but give me a minute.” She freed her hand from his, surprised at the reluctance she felt in doing so. But there was no time to think about it, not with Sotiris bearing down on them, and she needed two hands for this. “I can locate his phone,” she said, thumbs flying over her screen.
“A spell?” he asked absently as he watched what she was doing.
“I wish. No, it’s an app. An application. Um, technology. I’ll explain later,” she said hurriedly. Sotiris was far enough away that the hills hadn’t fucked with his signal, which was a good sign. But distance didn’t matter for what she was doing. As long as he could call her, she could track him. “There,” she said, pointing at the blinking cursor. “That’s . . .” She zoomed in on the location and breathed a sigh of relief. “He must have just left Manhattan. That means we have at least two hours, maybe more. It depends on traffic and how fast he’s driving.”
He gave her a tight look. “This is good news, but still, my magic is drained, my body is weaker than it should be, and Sotiris is a truly powerful sorcerer.”
She gave him a gentle shove to get him moving up the stairs. “You think I plan to spend the next two hours getting ready to stand and fight? I’m a computer nerd, buddy, not a tough ass warrior like you.”
He hurried upward, taking her hand again to pull her with him. “I don’t know what this ‘nerd’ is. Does it mean you have no weapons?”
The Stone Warriors: Dragan Page 3