"Then why did I appear to you?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
Her eyes held such innocence, dark brown and filled to the brim with fire. Her black hair spilled in a straight, sleek wave to her shoulders, as shining and beautiful as silk.
As a dragon he would have found her strange, if he'd have even noticed her at all. As a human he liked the way she smelled, fresh and clean with a hint of something flowery, as though she'd been walking through a garden. Her hair was damp, and for some reason he wanted to press his lips to it.
When he'd been called to the human world long ago, he'd remained in his dragon form, and he'd not had all these thoughts and sensations. The sensations especially startled him.
He touched her cheek, enjoying the feel of her petal-smooth skin. "If a rival mage called me and I came to you instead, he will come looking for you. He might try to kill you."
Fear sparked in her eyes. "Terrific."
"I would not like to see you slain."
"I wouldn't like to see me slain either."
"If you are not my enemy, then I will keep you safe."
"Says the man with no name who broke into my house and assaulted me outside my grandmother's restaurant."
"Seth," he said.
She blinked, her lashes brushing his fingers. "Sorry?"
"Seth. You will call me that."
"The name just came to you, did it?"
"It is not my name, but the sound pleases me."
She stared at him a moment, then said it. "Seth."
The word sounded even better in her voice. He wanted to taste it, especially when her tongue poked between her teeth. He leaned down and licked her parted lips.
Another spark leapt between them, and she gasped. "Why did you do that?"
He felt exhilarated for the first time since he'd landed in this place. "Say it again."
"Why?"
"I want you to."
"No."
She tried to step away, but he cupped his fingers around her face, and she stilled.
"What do I call you?" he asked. "The old one said it." He replayed the scene in his memory. "Carol."
Her name had music, gleaming threads that shone from her as she responded. It wasn't her true name, but close, one given to her by someone very special. He caught the notes of it and wove it back around her.
Carol.
What are you doing?
Seth stopped in surprise. "You felt that?"
"Like something tight in my head? Yes."
A non-mage should not be able to feel a dragon mark. A dragon could bind a lesser being with the flick of a thought, and the lesser being would not know until it was too late. But not only did her mind keep him out, she pushed back so hard he felt his skin depress.
"What are you?" he demanded.
"What do you mean, what am I? The strange one in this room is you, not me."
He reached out to her again, but her thought threads battered him away. "I've never encountered anything like you. You have a flame worthy of a dragon."
"I suppose that's a compliment."
He studied her tall slim body, the resilience of her, the way her flesh curved into shadow beneath the silk robe. He stepped closer, wanting to nuzzle her neck and inhale the goodness of her. The taste of her lips had warmed his skin, and now he was hard with wanting.
A dragon shouldn't want a human, but he did. She was different, he told himself, special enough that he found her interesting. Physically, he was stronger than she was�it would be an easy matter to force her down on the floor and take her.
These were human thoughts that his human body understood, alien to a dragon. This body knew what it wanted, knew how to brush her hair back from her forehead, understood the warmth in her eyes. She wanted this, too, and tried to make herself not want it.
"I'll not hurt you," he whispered.
She stilled under his touch, her skin heating where his fingers brushed it. Her lips parted, red and lush, her breath sweet.
Seth wanted this woman, and he ached with it. Was it one more way she pulled him to her, a witch wanting to be serviced by her slave?
The blood pounding in his veins didn't care. He slid his fingers along her cheek, flicking his thumb softly across her lashes.
"Are all human women as beautiful as you are?"
Her brows quirked in surprise. "Beautiful?"
"That is the word, isn't it? Beautiful, desirable�so many words for wanting."
"You learned a lot of vocabulary in one night."
"My mind seems to know the words."
When he'd flown as fire over this vast and glittering city, he'd felt the lingering pull of the woman called Carol, which had dragged him unerringly to this tall, narrow house squeezed between other tall, narrow houses. Her flame had called to his, and now he was here as though he belonged with her.
His first instinct had been to hate her, but at the same time the urge welled up in him to protect. Fire dragons, more territorial than most, had the instinct to curl up around what was theirs and keep it safe. They mated for life, fighting and flying side by side with their mates for centuries.
Seth hadn't yet mated, and the need to wrap himself around this woman both worried and exhilarated him.
He leaned to taste her lips again, and her eyes half-closed, her body relaxing.
A thumping sound from the other side of the room made her jump. "That's Lisa."
Seth suppressed a Snarl of disappointment as Carol slid out from under him and hurried toward the door.
The aura coming from the hall outside was strange and heavy and definitely not dragon. Seth went after Carol and held her back.
"That's not a silver dragon. It's not a dragon at all, or a human."
She stopped, worried. "What is it then?"
"It smells�different. Wrong."
A gruff, male voice sounded through the door. "I heard that. Open up, Carol."
Carol exhaled. "It's all right. It's Axel."
She sounded relieved, but the aura Seth sensed was bizarre, like nothing he'd ever encountered. He gestured for Carol to unfasten the locks he didn't know how to work, but he stepped in front of her when she opened the door.
A black-haired, brown-eyed man bulky with muscle stood on the threshold holding a large box. He wore a leather jacket and had his hair pulled back in a short ponytail, but he wasn't human. His aura was similar to that of an incubus, though that wasn't quite right.
"Demon," Seth growled.
"Sort of. I like the term imp, personally, and you can call me Axel. Can I come in? This box is heavy."
Carol opened the door wider. "Of course." The man strode inside and gave Seth a hard look before he dropped the box on the sofa. "Lisa can't leave the kiddies right now, so she sent me. They're teething, and that's bad enough for human children, but these are dragons. Lisa says she knows the fire dragon is here, and will you please look after him until she can figure out why?"
Carol stared. "Look after him? What does she mean, look after him?"
"She said she's not sure what's wrong, but something's bad, and this guy's probably the key. So could you keep an eye on him while she looks into things, and she'll get back to you as soon as she can? She says he won't hurt you." He gave Seth a pointed look. "Will he?"
"Axel, I have a crucial meeting with investors tomorrow morning. I thought Lisa and Caleb would come over and take him somewhere."
Axel shrugged. Seth sent dragon threads toward him, finding an eclectic aura of white, black, and red. "What are you?"
"A friend," Axel returned. "You probably guessed Axel's not my real name, but I don't have to respond to the dragon true-name shit. The only people who can summon me are kiddies with nightmares, or Lisa when she's pissed, and Saba, because I like her. I use Axel because it's easier to pronounce. I think it's Norwegian, and I'm Japanese, but like I say, I embrace all cultures."
"Axel," Carol interrupted sharply. "Tell Lisa I don't have time for this. Maybe you and Malco
lm could take him back to wherever he came from?"
Axel shook his head. "Hey, I'd love to help out, but I have places to go, nightmares to eat. Caleb sent along some clothes. He figured the fire dragon would wear about the same size he does."
"Axel."
Axel lost his good-natured look, and Seth saw in his thought threads the fearsome beast he could become. "We need you, Carol. This is no time to be stubborn." The beast-like nature abruptly faded, and he dug into the box, pulling out a large shirt with writing on it. "Hey, I like this one. Think Caleb would mind if I borrowed it?"
While their attention was focused on the shirt, Seth quietly coalesced into fire and slid out the open doorway. He flowed down the stairwell and out the door below, finding his way out into the night.
In the sloping green space across the street, he felt the presence of the black dragon, Malcolm's mathematically sharp threads touching Seth's. Seth morphed back into solid human form in front of him, ready to fight.
"I know what it's like," Malcolm said. "You feel yourself squeezed through a hole in space, crushed into this form. You resist with all your strength, but your power deserts you. You wake up alone and weak, with a hatred in you so fierce you want to kill whatever you see. And you can't."
The black dragon knew. Malcolm might be bound to the witchling that held him, Seth realized, but he hadn't forgotten the pain of being summoned.
"What happened to you?" Seth asked him.
"Witches tore me out of Dragonspace and trapped me here to punish me. I got free, with the help of Lisa, Ming Ue, and my Saba." The harsh silver eyes softened. "Trust them."
"And you? Why should I trust you?"
"Because I've lived eight hundred years in this place and I know how to walk among humans." His gaze flicked briefly over Seth's nakedness. "I'll teach you how to be less conspicuous."
"I've been to this world before."
Malcolm's brows rose. "You have?"
"Long, long ago. But it was very different, and I remained a dragon."
The black dragon shook his head. "The world has changed. You need to learn it all over again."
"Why would you help me? A black dragon is my enemy."
"Because Lisa thinks you're important, and I've learned the hard way to listen to Lisa." Malcolm tossed a wad of fabric at Seth. "I'll teach you how to put these on, and then I'll show you what you've gotten yourself into."
* * *
Chapter Three
In the morning, Carol walked into the offices of Juan Enterprises with burning eyes, an aching head, and a raw throat.
After Seth had vanished, Axel slammed out to go look for him, and Carol made herself go to bed. She'd not slept, starting at every sound, expecting any moment for Seth to manifest in her living room again. She was not sure whether she was afraid he would or whether she wanted him to. The doubt bothered her.
He never did return, and the alarm went off just as Carol finally drifted into slumber.
The office phone was ringing as Carol pushed open the glass door of her suite in a financial district high-rise. The receptionist, Francesca, a fiftysomething woman with sharp-edged red spectacles, answered the phone and held the receiver out to Carol. "It's Lisa Singleton."
Carol switched her briefcase and raincoat to one hand and took the phone in the other.
"Carol�" Lisa's voice came over the phone in a tone of reproach. "I really wish you had kept the fire dragon with you. Malcolm went after him, but Saba hasn't heard from him since one this morning. We need to know why he's here, and what's going on."
Lisa and Carol had been friends since childhood�both of them taken under Ming Ue's wing as babies. Carol's parents had died in a car accident Carol didn't remember, and Lisa's grandmother and Ming Ue had been best friends.
Carol and Lisa had played together, gone to school together, talked about their first boyfriends together. They'd grown apart after college, Lisa pursuing a culinary arts career while Carol had started running Ming Ue's restaurant.
They could always speak their minds to each other, but since Lisa had met Caleb she'd been different in a way Carol hadn't been able to pin down.
"If Malcolm has him, then everything's fine," Carol said. "I have a meeting in five minutes, so I'll have to talk about all this later, all right?"
"Carol, this is more important than Ming Ue's restaurants."
"You're kidding, right? Nothing is more important than Ming Ue's restaurants. I've got to go. I'll call you back and we'll talk dragons all you want."
She cut off Lisa's protesting Carol by leaning over the counter and slamming the phone onto the receiver. Francesca raised her plucked brows as Carol swung her water-spotted raincoat onto the coat rack.
"If she calls back, tell her I can't be disturbed. In fact, don't put anyone through today who wants to talk about dragons�and that includes my grandmother."
She snatched up her briefcase and started for her office, but Francesca sprang from her seat. "Wait, I meant to tell you. There's a man in your office, and he does want to talk about dragons."
Carol's heart skipped a beat. Seth?
She pictured his tall, raw-muscled body, his coarse red hair, his eyes like pools of night. His touch on her face had been gentle, wondering, and when he'd flicked his tongue across her lips, she'd melted in hot response.
If Axel hadn't arrived when he did, what would have happened? She'd lain awake last night wondering about that, too.
Francesca went on apologetically. "He said he was a friend of your grandmother's. He sailed on in and I haven't been able to pry him out."
"That's all right, I'll talk to him. Call me in about ten minutes, all right?"
Under Francesca's surprised look, Carol gripped her briefcase, clicked her way across the gleaming marble floor, and opened her office door.
The man inside wasn't Seth. He was an elderly Chinese man she'd known since childhood as the Junk Man�his real name was Zhen� something.
He ran a junk shop in one of the back alleys of Chinatown, and he and Ming Ue had been friends since the mists of time. Carol's cousin Lumi, who owned a bicycle shop, often bought bicycle parts from the Junk Man or sold parts to him.
Zhen sat upright on one of the chairs in front of Carol's desk in his usual garb of old-fashioned dark gray trousers and a Chinese jacket of the same fabric. His face was a mass of wrinkles, and a gray-white braid hung down his back.
He got to his feet as Carol walked in, his usual smile absent. "I have much to say to you, Li Mei. Please, it is very important."
"No one calls me that any more," Carol said without closing the door. Her grandmother had given Carol the nickname Li Mei when she was very small, which roughly translated to pretty little plum blossom.
Carol hadn't minded mind being called Li Mei by her grandmother or Ming Ue's friends, but when she'd left for college, she'd adamantly insisted on Carol. She'd learned early that Americans in business were far more comfortable dealing with other Americans, and were happy when the young Chinese woman who turned up at meetings spoke with no accent and introduced herself as plain Carol.
"I would not have come, but it is too important," Zhen said, clasping his gnarled hands. "You are in very great danger."
Carol tried a smile. "I'm sorry. Zhen, but I'm expecting people this morning for a very important meeting. Come to Ming Ue's tonight and have tea. You're an old friend, and it will be nice to have you join in the celebration."
Zhen didn't change expression. He flicked his fingers, and the door behind her slammed shut.
Carol swung around and tried to open it, but the door wouldn't budge. She rattled the knob. "Francesca!"
"She can no longer hear you."
Carol turned back. Zhen looked the same as always, a faded old man with oil-stained fingers and serviceable clothing, but a faint light seemed to glow around him.
"Stop this," Carol snapped. "I've had enough for one day."
Zhen glanced at her immaculate desk, then all the pens in her pe
n tray suddenly shot into the air, whirled around each other, and coalesced into the pattern of a blossom.
A forgotten childhood memory tapped her, of herself very small, playing under Zhen's worktable while he and her grandmother talked. Zhen had sent a handful of hex nuts dancing through the air, making her laugh.
"How did you do that?"
She reached out and gently touched one of the pens. It quivered, then the entire arrangement collapsed back to her desk.
"These are minor tricks," Zhen said. "Trifles to amuse children. What you face Li Mei, is far more dangerous, deadly dangerous."
"Why, because a naked man who can turn into fire is following me around? He's gone anyway. Malcolm has him."
He shook his head. "Child, you are a bigger fool than I thought you were."
"I beg your pardon?" Carol said, affronted.
"I know you think of me as only Zhen the Junk Man, while you are the grand Carol with the MBA from Stanford. Your grandmother is so proud of you for that. But what you may learn from a school is nothing to the wisdom of real life."
"I do know real life," Carol countered. "When I took over Ming Ue's, it was a struggling neighborhood restaurant. We barely had enough to make ends meet, and Shaiming and I washed dishes at a bigger restaurant to bring in extra money�on top of working all day at Ming Ue's. Don't tell me I don't know about real life."
Zhen pursed his lips. "This is not what I meant. You know much about money and profits, but you know so little about truth. Why do you think a fire dragon, a magical and mystical being, came to you, of all people?"
"I keep saying I haven't the faintest idea why he came to me, and no one seems to believe me." She gave a short laugh. "I used to think I was the only sane one while everyone else was crazy, but now I'm thinking it's the other way around."
"No, I'm afraid you are very sane. But you must stop being sane and come with us into the world of magic and dragons, where things don't fit into the neat entries in a ledger. If you don't, it might be the death of you."
"And everyone is saying dire things about danger and death."
"Because it is so."
The clock on her desk clicked to nine, and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered. "Zhen, I really, really I have to go. This meeting is the most important one of my life. You wait here, and I promise I'll come back and talk to you when I'm finished. I'll have Francesca make you tea�real oolong tea. All right?"
The Dragon Master Page 3