Even as she told herself that was a bad, bad idea, golden happy warmth was spreading through her, and she got that urge to wrap herself around him and soak up more of it. Again.
Was it magic? Or just that he was so damn sexy?
Blaze, who prided herself on being calm and cool, especially around men, was thiiiis close to throwing herself at him and begging him to ravish her on the front porch.
It was embarrassing—and dangerous.
Good thing he had his hands full already. With a bouquet of flowers and a pizza box.
He’d brought her flowers. No one had brought her flowers… well, ever. She shoved that thought out of her mind and got busy being cynical.
He must want the Dragonfly of Morocco pretty bad, if he was willing to suck up to her this much just to get a look at it. Blaze raised one eyebrow, trying to look badass and get her breathing under control.
“This isn’t a date,” she informed him. “It’s a business appointment.”
“Of course it is.” There went the killer smile. “I’ve heard business associates often bring flowers or small gifts to important meetings. As a sign of respect.”
“You mean, as a sign of sucking up and trying to get a bargain.”
He handed her the bouquet, the smile deepening. “I hope you like tropical flowers.”
Blaze took the flowers. They embraced her with their rich, velvety, sensuous fragrance.
Flowers were impersonal, right? So she should resist the urge to bury her face in them and soak in their exotic scent? And also, to bury her face in the hollow of Zane’s shoulder and soak in his exotic scent.
He held out the box. “And I brought pizza.”
Blaze folded her arms across her chest, despite the flowers. “Business associates do not bring pizza.”
“Depends on the business,” he pointed out. “Those computer software geniuses get pizza all the time, when they’re not playing hopscotch on their indoor playgrounds.”
“Software geeks do not play hopscotch at work.”
“Sure they do. I saw it online. Right next to the rock-climbing wall this software company had in their atrium.”
She was not having dinner with this man. Casual, friendly, datelike dinner. “This is a business appointment to examine one artifact. Which will take ten minutes.”
“Have you eaten?”
Blaze sighed and gave up. “No,” she admitted. “What’s on the pizza?”
“Half pepperoni, half veggie. In case you’re vegetarian.” He paused. “Please tell me you’re not vegetarian.”
That made her laugh, and she spoke without thinking. “Years of dreaming about me, and you don’t even know if I eat meat?”
His eyes grew smoky and intense. “We weren’t eating in my dreams.”
Whoa. That sent shivers right down to her core. “Um, okay.” Damn. His chest somehow looked even bigger and more muscly than it had when she tore his shirt off.
Zane raised his eyebrows and held the pizza box out.
Oh. Right. She was staring. “I guess you’d better come in.”
She needed to get this over with fast. Because Zane Greystone was the kind of trouble she didn’t need. Ripped, yummy, wrong-side-of-the-law trouble with unknown powers and an unknown agenda.
So she really wasn’t sure how she ended up sitting with him at the granite breakfast bar in her kitchen, the flowers in a vase on the counter top, sharing a pizza and wrangling over who got the pepperoni.
“If you didn’t want to eat veggies, you should have gotten all pepperoni and damn the consequences,” she told him, snagging another meat-covered slice out from under his hand.
“I was trying to be thoughtful,” he said. “Impressing you with my attentiveness to your potential needs and desires.”
Blaze almost choked on a pepperoni. She took a sip of water, swallowing hard. This crazy-beautiful man—crazy-beautiful thief, she reminded herself—was trying to impress her?
For the Dragonfly of Morocco, of course. Not because he really cared about her. And even if he did, that was the last thing she needed right now. Someone else to protect and keep out of the line of fire.
Or someone else to betray her. No thank you.
“You’re only going to be here long enough to look over the Dragonfly of Morocco,” she said. “How much impressing did you think you’d need to do?”
He took a slice of veggie pizza, poking dubiously at a piece of roasted zucchini. “You don’t seem very impressed so far, so probably a lot.” His lips quirked, and a slight dimple flashed in his left cheek. Blaze barely resisted the urge to reach out and touch it.
“But why bother?” She didn’t say we’re never going to see each other again, but he answered as if he’d heard it anyway.
“I promised to help you fight Silas and the coven,” he said.
She’d never thought he meant it. “It’s not your battle.”
“I’m making it my battle.” He put the pizza down. “You need someone to protect you.” Before she could tell him she didn’t need protecting, he added softly, “You could use someone on your side.”
An unexpected wave of loneliness washed over Blaze, disarming her completely. It was so long since she’d had anyone on her side. She’d lived alone, keeping people at arm’s length, not wanting to expose them to the danger and uncertainty of her life.
Figuring, if the coven came after her, she’d die alone, too.
She couldn’t afford to let herself believe he really meant what he was saying. She’d been able to handle the loneliness when she thought there was no other choice, but if she let herself believe there was one…
She pushed the pizza box away, and her feelings along with it. “We might as well do this,” she said. “I’ll take you to the artifact room.”
Chapter 20
Zane followed Blaze down the huge curved staircase. She was quiet now; it seemed like his offer to help her with that Silas guy had just widened the chasm between them.
Why was she denying their connection? He’d felt it the first time right here on these stairs, when he kissed her. Strong and unmistakable, like a sudden punch in the gut. She must have felt it too. He stopped on the landing, looking up at the arched window that he’d smashed through on his last visit.
It looked like it had never been broken. There was even a little cobweb in the corner of one of the upper panes, looking as if it had been there for weeks.
Zane shivered. How much power did she have, if she could afford to spend so much of it on a huge restoration spell that was so perfect it even restored the dust and cobwebs?
He said, “I was going to offer to pay to fix that, but I guess you don’t need me to.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “I didn’t want awkward questions about how it got broken, so I fixed it myself.”
Just like that, like it was no big deal. Maybe she didn’t need his help after all.
She’s our mate, his dragon said stubbornly. Mates need each other.
Yeah. Until one of us dies from our respective impossible quests.
Maybe if you do your impossible quests together, we all won’t have to die, his dragon said.
Good point. Zane just wasn’t sure Blaze would be on board with that.
She’d gone silent again, leading him down the hall to her artifact room. He was looking forward to seeing it again. The other night, he’d been so distracted by the other thief in the vault he’d barely looked at the rest of the room. Dragons knew that the things people collected and treasured told you who they were, and he wanted to know who Blaze was.
They entered the room and she flipped the lights on, standing by the door as he walked from display stand to display stand, glass case to glass case, staring at all the treasures.
And falling in love.
She specialized in sculpture, ancient and modern, especially pieces incorporating gems and precious metals. She didn’t have a huge number of objects, but each one was full of life and beauty.
It wa
s breathtaking. A hoard worthy of a dragon.
The pieces were not just beautiful but well-loved, and they fit together in harmony. As he walked around the room, he could feel them responding to his dragon, waking up and starting to sing.
He wondered, suddenly, what she’d think of his hoard. If it would sing to her, and if she would hear and appreciate its song.
He suddenly, desperately wanted to show it to her.
She led him to a locked case in the center of the back wall. “These are my dragonflies.”
Zane was stunned. There were dragonflies of all sizes, made of gold, silver, and semiprecious stones like jade and malachite and lapis lazuli, or translucent stones like amethyst and fluorite. Greens, purples, blues, pinks, and reds shimmered among the precious metals. Some of the pieces were jeweled, some were enameled, and one had wings of gemstones shaved so thin they were almost transparent.
Zane fell in love all over again.
Watching his face, Blaze slowly unlocked the case and opened the doors. Zane lost himself in the song of the dragonflies, running his fingers lightly over them, picking them up and cupping them in his hands, closing his eyes and letting their beauty wash through him.
He could almost feel himself glowing.
He heard a startled intake of breath, and opened his eyes. Shit. He was glowing, and so were the dragonflies. That whole section of the room was lit up, dragonflies shimmering and sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow.
Blaze was staring at him in awe. “What are you?” she breathed.
He smiled at her, high on the dragonflies’ song. “Listen,” he said.
He could tell when she heard it. A smile spread across her face, lighting up her eyes. She looked so beautiful, strong and fragile at the same time, like dragonflies’ wings. And the song made her happy.
He’d made her happy.
They stared at each other, the sound of gold and jewels and shimmering wings washing through them.
Then, slowly, he let the song fade.
Blaze let out her breath. “What was that?” she asked. “Wild magic?”
“Something like that.”
She waited, but her eyes grew guarded when he didn’t tell her anything more. He hated seeing that look, but he couldn’t share his true nature with her yet.
She said, “So, you want me to trust you, but you’re not willing to trust me?”
“It’s not that.” He reached out, touched her lightly on her wrist. The lingering vibration of the song shivered through them.
“It’s not just my secret to tell.” And it was a big one. There weren’t supposed to be any dragons left in this world—not even hybrids like the Wild Dragons. The Draken had made a deal with the Shifter Council, and the Guardians had been the only exception.
If anyone found out about Zane and the others, they’d be hunted down. But he couldn’t explain this to Blaze—at least, not yet.
“Right,” she said. “Your brothers.” But her eyes were dark, and they wouldn’t meet his.
“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I wish I could.”
She nodded, still without looking at him, and reached into the middle of the case to one of the largest pieces. “This is the Dragonfly of Morocco,” she said.
Zane recognized it immediately from the description and drawings Thorne had shown him. There were no photographs—the owners had kept it off the internet and out of the books. How ironic that it had been right here in this case all along—he’d never needed to go in the vault last night at all.
He took it from her now, cradled it in his hands, but he already knew what he would find. He’d listened to all the dragonflies in the case a few minutes ago, heard their songs, and he would have known if one of them was the Seal.
This one wasn’t. None of them were.
Nonetheless, his stomach dropped, and it was hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “It’s exquisite,” he said. “But it’s not the piece we’re looking for.”
But the disappointment settled in his chest, weighing down his heart. If Blaze didn’t have the Dragonfly Seal, then she wasn’t one of the Three.
They were back to square one. The Seals might never be found.
And if she wasn’t one of the Three, was she even really his mate? Or was Thorne right, and the Three were a myth, or a prophecy that could never apply to Wild Dragons?
Blaze’s face had fallen too. She wanted to help, he realized. Somehow, they’d gone from adversaries to… he didn’t know what. But prophecy or not, he wanted it to be more. “I don’t suppose you have any other dragonflies?” he said hopefully.
Blaze shook her head. “Just a cheap music box my mother gave me,” she said. “It’s pretty, but it’s not magical. At least, not that I ever knew. It’s not even valuable.”
He knew he was grasping at straws, but he had to check every possibility. He couldn’t go back to Thorne and Tyr empty-handed. They were running out of time.
And he wanted so badly for her to be the one.
“Can I see it?”
Blaze hesitated, and he held his breath. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
Chapter 21
Blaze hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, then closed the door and leaned against it, panting. And not from exertion.
She was insane, leaving a thief alone in her artifact room, with her dragonfly display case open. He could dump it all into a sack and walk away.
But somehow, she knew he wouldn’t. He could have claimed the Dragonfly of Morocco was this magical Seal he was looking for, but he hadn’t. And he hadn’t been faking the devastation in his eyes when he realized the thing he’d been seeking wasn’t there.
This was really important to him. As important as protecting the idol was to her. And she could tell his fear of failing at his mission ate away at him, just as the fear of not being able to keep the idol out of Silas’s hands ate away at her.
Maybe even more. She wished, suddenly, that he would tell her what he needed. What he was. Confide in her.
She went over to her bedside table and picked up the music box. This couldn’t possibly be what he was looking for, but she found herself desperately hoping that it could be, even though it would kill her to give it up.
Because she knew what it was like, to give your life to a lost cause.
She went back downstairs. Zane was still in front of the display cabinet, touching first one dragonfly, then another. There was a small, faraway smile on his face, and she felt like she’d caught him in a private moment.
He looked up as she came in the room, and smiled at her. A real smile, his eyes holding hers, making her feel safe and shivery at the same time.
“Here’s the music box.” She went across and held it out to him. “Like I said, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
He took it and opened it up, the tinkling sound of the music filling the room, sounding fake and tinny after the music he’d called from the gold.
He held the box for a moment, his fingertips touching the dragonfly inside it, his eyes going unfocused as he felt its energy.
She found herself holding her breath, and then letting it out in disappointment as he shook his head slightly.
He looked up and smiled at her. “It’s not the Seal, but it’s not nothing. You love it. You’ve spent a lot of time holding it, and it makes you happy.”
He could tell that just by holding it? Suddenly, she found herself blinking back tears. “My mother gave it to me,” she said. “Right before… right before I left our coven. Before I took the idol from Silas and had to leave.”
Her voice got husky as she tried to keep it steady. “The idol destroyed them,” she said. “It killed my mother. Thinking about them usually makes me sad, so I try not to. But this…” she reached out and stroked the dragonfly, “somehow, the memories that come to me when I hold this are always happy ones.”
He nodded, then closed the box. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
She nodded briefly, and then t
ook a deep breath, pushing all thoughts of the past away. Dwelling on it didn’t help. She’d learned that a long damn time ago.
“So are you going to tell me why this dragonfly you’re looking for is so important?” she asked instead. “Or is that not your secret to tell, either?”
That came out snarkier than she intended. She was still on edge from thinking about her parents, that was all. Why should she care if he confided in her?
He gazed at her, his eyes delving into her soul, and she felt a hint of the dragonflies’ song trembling in her belly. Zane handed her the music box, but he didn’t drop his hand. Instead, he brushed it over her cheek, very gently, like dragonfly wings.
She almost grasped his hand and held onto it. But she didn’t.
Then he said, “Once upon a time…”
Blaze shook her head. “I want the truth,” she said. “Not a fairy tale.”
He held her gaze. “It might as well be a fairy tale. You won’t believe it.”
It wasn’t just something to say. He really didn’t think she’d believe him.
But then, there were a lot of people who wouldn’t believe her story either. “Okay,” she said. “Bring it on. Does it have a wolf in it? I like wolves. And please don’t make the witch the bad guy. I’m so over that.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling now. “No bad witches,” he said. “No wolves, either, but it has dragons. Which are way cooler. And it has magic, and courage, and tragedy.”
“And happily ever after?” She suspected that would be a no, but it would be nice if somebody’s story had a happily ever after. Hers sure as hell wasn’t going to.
“Don’t know,” he said. “This might be one of those choose your own adventures.” He led her over to the couch that sat against one wall, where she gave her clients tea and bargained like hell for every piece she sold.
They sat down, and Blaze set the music box on the side table. When she turned around again, Zane took her hand and held it in both of his. The urge to pull it away fought with that now-familiar but still disturbing urge to curl up against him and bask in his warmth. Caught between desires, she did neither. She just sat there, fingers curved around his, and listened.
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