The Dragon's Hunt

by Jane Kindred

  “So this is real, then. This isn’t just more compulsive lying?”

  Leo—or Leo’s id—gave her a dramatic sigh. “If I said I was lying about being a compulsive liar, would you believe me? So many layers of meta. And so boring. When we could be having fun.” He gestured with his hips, and Rhea almost made the mistake of looking down again but caught herself. Leo laughed good-naturedly. “Come on. You don’t really think I’m dangerous like he told you? He’s a puritanical child. I’d never do anything Leo isn’t capable of doing himself. He’s repressed and he expects me to sit here all night, a slave to his tight little repressed ass, just because he’s afraid to be his authentic self.”

  Rhea leaned back against the cabinet. If this was an act, it was Oscar worthy. It also didn’t seem like a dissociative episode. Not that she was any judge. But she’d seen magic before, and this had the air of a magical transformation.

  “Have you made up your mind about me?” Leo smiled up at her.

  “If you mean have I made up my mind about whether you’re telling me the truth—”

  “No, I mean, have you made up your mind about whether you’re going to satisfy your curiosity? He won’t remember any of this tomorrow. You could have your way with me. But be gentle. Technically, I’m a virgin.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “And neither do you, according to you. If you’re never allowed free rein when you’re in control of the—what did you call it?”

  “The hamr and líkamr. Appearance and form. The skin, if you like.”

  “So if you’re never in control of the skin, how do you know you’re any good?”

  Leo laughed, the rich, deep laugh that made her loins tingle. “Because, darling, I’m the one with the hard-on. Trust me, I know how to use it.” He gyrated his hips again, making Rhea suck in her breath involuntarily. “Ha, I knew it. You want me. Come on. You don’t even have to let me go. Just come closer. Please,” he added, and that one little word sounded sincere.

  Rhea gritted her teeth. “I’m not coming over there, so you can forget it.”

  “Why?” He growled the word in frustration. “I’m not trying to trick you. I just want a little kiss. A taste of your lips. Just to satisfy what we’re both feeling. What do I have to do to convince you I’m sincere?”

  “You’re not sincere. You think this is a game.”

  “Rhea. A hard-on is not a game.” He sighed, head back against the headrest once more. “It’s not as if I could pretend to have one.” He had a point. One that didn’t bear examining.

  “I think my hanging out here while your soul is supposedly off skipping the light fandango was a bad idea. You’re going to spend the entire time trying to manipulate me into letting you go, and I’m going to spend the entire time being super annoyed.” Rhea took her coat from the rack. “I agreed to observe your transformation to validate your claim that you have a dissociative disorder, and I’ve done that.” She pulled the coat on. “So good luck to you.”

  As she started through the curtain, Leo’s voice stopped her. “Did you tattoo me?” He sounded surprised.

  Rhea turned, adjusting her collar, to see him studying what he’d called the allrune on his right forearm. “You asked me to touch it up. You don’t remember?”

  “I tend to ignore Leo the Dull. He spends his time studying chemistry or something. It’s a snooze fest.”

  “Molecular biology.” Rhea shrugged when he looked up at her with a look of curiosity. “That’s what you said. You dropped out of the molecular biology graduate program at NAU.”

  “NAU.”

  “Northern Arizona University. In Flagstaff. Where you met Theia.”

  “Theia.” Leo’s eyes registered sudden recognition. “That’s why you look so familiar to me. You’re Theia Dawn’s sister.”

  The usual irritation at having someone make the connection prickled on her skin. “And that, I presume, is why you’re sitting there sporting your misplaced ‘admiration’ for me.”

  His eyes seemed to go a shade darker, and he leaned forward sharply, jerking against the restraints with such ferocity that she jumped back even though she was several feet away. “Don’t do that,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare stand there and try to tell me I don’t know my own feelings.”

  “I wasn’t exactly talking about your feelings.”

  “Desire. That’s my purview. I know all about desire, and I’m not some stupid animal ruled by my prick who’ll just wave it at anybody with tits.”

  Rhea’s face went hot. “I didn’t say you were an animal, and I don’t appreciate the way you’re talking to me. Being Leo’s id—”

  “Munr.”

  “Whatever—doesn’t give you a free pass to be an asshole.”

  Leo looked taken aback. “I’m an asshole?”

  “Yeah, you are. Pretty much.”

  “You’re the one who just accused me of being attracted to you because you look like your sister. I’d say you’re the asshole.”

  Rhea flicked the hair out of her eyes in frustration. “How does that make me an asshole? You dated my sister! When you walked in here two days ago, it was because you thought I was Theia. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that your interest in me—your desire—is misplaced.”

  “I’d show you how misplaced it is if you weren’t such a chicken.”

  As Rhea opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, the realization struck her that she’d been drawn into an argument with a man’s id, and she burst out laughing.

  Leo glowered at her. “What’s so damn funny?”

  “This...” She lifted her arms, encompassing the room, the evening, the two of them. “I can’t believe I’m arguing with you about the sincerity of your hard-on.”

  His glower wavered, curving upward into a slight smirk. “I’d have to concede that it’s a first in my experience.”

  Rhea returned the smirk. “I thought you didn’t have any experience. Except you obviously remember Theia.”

  “But I didn’t sleep with Theia.” That he had no memory of it now didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t, but the admission was more satisfying than it ought to be. “At any rate, when Leo isn’t boring me into a coma, I can retain some of his memories, but I can’t recall ever having such an argument with anyone. You’d think I’d remember being tattooed, though.” He glanced down, his gaze drawn to the other arm. “Are you going to do this one, too?”

  “I was.”

  He looked up. “But you’re not now?”

  “No, I—He’s working it off. I mean, you’re working it off. So I may do the next one. If I let you stay.”

  “And you don’t know if you’re going to let me stay.” Leo nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fair. Just once, I’d like to remember getting tattooed, though.”

  “I’ll talk to him about it. He said he might want another new one.” She was starting to talk about Leo in the third person, but it seemed easier to treat them as two different people. “Might be a good way to pass the time while you’re locked up.”

  “So you are letting me stay.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you are.” Leo looked smug. “And what about you? Are you sticking around? Going to keep that coat on?”

  “Maybe. Going to keep that hard-on?”

  Leo laughed in that incredibly sexy way Rhea was starting to want to keep being the cause of, the sort of laughter one would describe as being genuinely “tickled.” Not to mention the throaty richness of the sound he made. He also closed his eyes when he did it. It was probably a good thing he was tied up. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if he were able to reach out and touch her right now.

  “So what is it with those tattoos, anyway?” She folded her arms, still wearing the coat, maybe subconsc
iously—or not so subconsciously—trying to keep herself closed to him. “They look older than you.”

  Leo opened his eyes, the smile slightly less joyful. “They’ve been there as long as I can remember.”

  “But you don’t remember all that much from the times you’re not in control of the skin.”

  “True. But I also don’t remember a time when the marks weren’t there.”

  “This soul-splitting-off thing with the other Leo—”

  “Leo the Dull.” His blue eyes twinkled.

  “Okay, Leo the Dull going off to do whatever and leaving you here in restraints—how long has that been going on?”

  The smile faded as he pondered the question. “I guess I don’t remember a time before that either.”

  “Not even when you were a kid? This was going on back then?”

  “I—don’t remember being a child. I suppose that’s a bit peculiar, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it only happened after puberty. If it’s a dissociative disorder, that might make sense. Maybe something traumatic happened to you around the time you got the tattoos.”

  “Except it’s not a disorder. I told you that was bullshit Leo the Dull made up to explain me away. It’s Leo’s self-righteous hugr going off to be self-righteous without me.”

  “That’s how you see it, anyway.” She realized she was leaning toward the mental illness hypothesis after all.

  “And you’re back to analyzing me.”

  “Maybe I am. You’re right, I am. Sorry.”

  “I’m not objecting. I just find it interesting. Because it means you find me interesting.” He grinned broadly. “Which I can’t imagine is something I share with Leo the Dull.”

  “Or maybe I find your tattoos interesting. It is kinda my thing after all.” But she did find Leo interesting, with or without his hugr. “They’ve been there as long as you can remember, and they’re home jobs with significant fading—at least the two on your forearms. The other one looks professional.”

  “The other one?”

  “On your upper arm.” He was staring at her blankly. “The Midgard Serpent.” He’d worn the long-sleeved Henley today, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. What he couldn’t see, apparently, he wasn’t aware of.

  Leo’s face clouded. “He’s marked me with the serpent? That son of a bitch.”

  “What’s the significance of the serpent?” She’d noted it with some trepidation. Serpents seemed to be intimately bound up with the Carlisle sisters’ lives. It all went back to the Lilith blood.

  “The Midgard Serpent—Jörmungandr—it’s supposed to bring about Ragnarök. The twilight of the gods. The end of the world. Jörmungandr rules the waters surrounding the visible world. It’s a sea serpent. A dragon.”

  Of course it was a dragon. It was always dragons.

  Rhea sat on the stool once more, rolling it closer to the chair. “So why is it significant that he marked you with it?” It was no use trying not to differentiate between the two of them. “Is he trying to end you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’d love to. But that’s not it. It’s a way of containing my energy just as Jörmungandr contains the world. I assume it encircles my arm and swallows its tail?”

  “I only glanced at it, but, yeah, I think so.” She pondered for a moment. “Do you want to see it?”

  Leo’s eyes danced with amusement. “I don’t see how you’re going to be able to get my shirt off without undoing the restraints. Or are you planning to cut the shirt off me?” He looked hopeful.

  “Yeah, nice try.” Rhea wheeled the stool up next to him and pulled down the right shoulder of the stretchy fabric, baring his upper arm. “Take a look.”

  Leo’s breath was warm against her hand as he stretched his neck to see the tattoo. “Can you pull it down a little more?”

  As she did, her hand brushed the ink, and the vision from the allrune came back to her, only far more forcefully and in vivid detail. Where her earliest visions had encompassed a series of images answering a question in the client’s mind, the ones she’d had without the client’s awareness were more like impressions, a peak into memories or desires swirling about inside the person’s head. But this...this was like actually being there.

  Ice-cold air rushed up at her as she plunged toward the frozen ground, and the force of the impact knocked the air from her lungs. Blood made a spattered trail in the snow ahead of her—her blood. She struggled to stand, fumbling headlong toward the frozen thicket while the groans of the dying and the clash and thud of conflict sounded on the hill behind her.

  Her feet were becoming numb as her boots sank into the snow, the creak and crunch of her weight compressing it the only evidence she was still touching it and not floating above the ground. Her chest ached, her lungs having trouble taking in air, and blood was flowing from a hole between her ribs. Blood and sweat ran into her eyes, and she collapsed into the snow and muck and mud, a yard from the covering trees. And from within them came the howling and snarling of wolves.

  “What the hell was that?” Leo’s growl penetrated the vision, tearing her out of the icy snowbank and grim daylight into the warmth of the heated shop and artificial light.

  Rhea broke her grip on Leo’s arm and staggered backward off the stool. “What was what?”

  “Don’t give me that. What just happened? Are you going to pretend you didn’t see any of that?”

  Rhea was still trying to catch her breath without showing she was doing it. “Why, what did you see?”

  “Snow and blood and a pack of wolves.”

  “Have you ever seen this before? Do you...remember any of it?”

  “Why would I have seen it?”

  “Because it’s your memory. Your reading.” Rhea sighed. “I wasn’t trying to get a reading. It’s an ability I have—I read tattoos. I’ve been trying to avoid doing it lately, especially when the person hasn’t asked for a reading. But when I get anywhere near your tattoos...it just sort of happens.”

  He scrutinized her face, maybe trying for a reading himself. “It happened with Leo? I mean, when he was occupying the skin?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “And what did he say about it? Is it something that happened to us?”

  “He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. I don’t know if he saw it. Sometimes it’s like that, especially if the person hasn’t asked for a reading.” Rhea paused. “It’s not always a memory. It could be a premonition.”

  “So I may be stabbed and eaten by wolves in my future?” Leo scowled. “Do it again. I want to see more.”

  Rhea kept her distance. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”

  “Why? It’s not as though seeing something is going to make it happen. I want to know what’s going on, where the wolves are, who stabbed me.” He gestured with his head. “Come over here and do it again.” He seemed to realize his tone wasn’t being appreciated. “Please.”

  Rhea sighed. “I can’t guarantee it will be the same vision. I don’t even know if it is a premonition. I’m still trying to get a handle on this ability, which is why I haven’t been doing it lately.” His sleeve had slipped back up over his shoulder, and Rhea pulled it down again. The amber-resin-and-spice scent he’d exuded before rolled off him in waves, a personal pheromone designed just for her. Rhea bit her lip and let her hand move down the firm musculature toward the knotted pattern of the snake.

  This time, there was no snow, no blood, no fighting. Only Leo’s body under hers, hard and hot...and naked. They were both naked, in this very chair, and Leo was bound to it while Rhea straddled his lap, full of him, riding him, moaning as he pumped his hips into her, grasping for his mouth with hers as the beating of their hearts and their rapid breathing rose toward a crescendo. She arched her back and tilted her hips deeper into his
lap, feet off the ground and hands gripping the chair behind her as Leo dipped his head and closed the heat of his mouth over her breast, sucking the nipple in roughly against his teeth. And with a melodic shout, she—

  “Holy fuck.” Rhea sprang back so forcefully she slammed into the cabinet behind her and hit her head on the corner of the shelf above it.

  Leo’s eyes were on her, warm with amusement and desire. And his erection, she couldn’t help noticing, was back with a vengeance. “Well, that was different. Was that your future or mine?”

  “I...” Rhea shook her head, trying to form words, her face giving off heat like a radiant coil. She managed, finally, four small words in a breathless rush—“I have to go”—and darted past him through the curtain.

  Chapter 7

  A clock tower in the distance struck seven as predawn light reached the back of the shop, and the locks, right on schedule, clicked open. Leo yawned and rubbed his wrists after working the buckles out of the restraints, disappointed that Rhea had left sometime during the night. He wondered idly if his presence in the building would actually be a deterrent to vandals. He’d kept his cell phone within reach, but would his alter ego bother to call Rhea if he heard someone outside? For all Leo knew, he was the sort of person who would cheer them on.

  Leo frowned. God, he hoped his alter ego wasn’t a neo-Nazi. Could that be the source of the tattoos? No. He refused to accept the idea that he could harbor something so antithetical to his own morality. Rhea had said he was an ass, but she hadn’t said anything about him being a neo-Nazi ass.

  As long as he was sleeping here—assuming he hadn’t done something reprehensible last night and Rhea was still letting him stay—he might as well make himself useful. After checking downstairs to make sure there was no new graffiti, he found more cleaning supplies in the bathroom and gave all the counters a good scrubbing, along with the bathroom tile and the wood floors in the rest of the shop. There was no shower, but he managed to give himself a decent sponge bath before changing into his other clothes. He wrinkled his nose as he sniff-checked the T-shirt. He was going to have to find a laundromat soon.