Jack shrugged. "There’s always another willing."
"And we can’t go back to the office until things quiet down." I sighed. "Come back to my house."
"We could go to my hotel room? Have a few drinks."
"No, you must come to my house," I demanded and then frowned. Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to drive him back to his hotel while I waited in the lobby?
Logic and reason weren’t my friends right now. It was imperative that he come home with me. I shook my head to clear it, still not understanding the conflicting thoughts boiling through my mind.
"As my Queen commands," he said. We walked back to my car, while I fretted if I remembered to do the dishes or if I left some embarrassing piece of laundry lying around.
He slid his hand into mine, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I gripped it tight and laid my head on his muscled arm while we walked. He was warm and smelled like cinnamon. I liked him and all, but my actions were a little forward. Even as a teenager, I wouldn’t have been this flirty. It was like someone else was controlling my body.
"Did you know the Red Westerns who attacked the embassy?" I asked.
"Vaguely. I knew of them. They were mercenaries."
"Who hired them?"
"I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject," Jack said.
I shook my head. "I don’t have a clue. Do you know if my friend, Jane, is back at work?"
"No, they’ve closed the building for the rest of the week while they investigate. I wish I knew what the drakes were after."
"Wait," I said, remembering what they had said. "Zhang’s paperwork. They were stealing it."
Jack stopped moving, and I didn’t notice until I realized I was pulling him.
"I need to make a call." He let my hand go. "MFIC," he said into the phone.
" What’s going on?"
Jack just cursed and closed his phone after a minute or so.
"Are you sure Niall and Reed are going to survive? Maybe you should—"
"Let them have their bonding time." Jack opened the car door for me. I was surprised he let me drive. "I wish I still had my father around to fight with. Humans have too short of a life."
"I’m sorry," I said, reaching over to hold his hand. "How did you change? Did you dream it first?"
"Nope, I just exploded out of my pants one day."
I refused to acknowledge the innuendo in his tone. "I hope you were outside."
He shook his head. "Parents’ basement. It was in the fifties."
"Ooooh, I bet the carpet wasn’t ever the same." I put the car in gear and headed home. I hope Niall would still pay me for the day. There was a new Kristan Higgins book coming out this week, and I wanted to snag it.
"Neither was our relationship."
"Did they freak?"
He raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, all their screaming and yelling made me too nervous to change back. So, I trashed the room. The more I bellowed, the more the fire grew and I wound up burning down the house."
"Oh no," I said.
"Luckily, no one was hurt. But what saved me from the pitchforks and torches of Suburbia was Reed. He said he had a place in his organization for me. The rest is history."
"Did he teach you to fight?"
"Do I seem violent?" Jack flashed a feral grin at me.
"Well, Niall called you mercenaries. And Westerns are generally built for combat, all that armored plating and breath weapons."
Jack nodded. "Yeah, Reed trained me. I saw my first combat mission in Vietnam. And that’s all I’m going to say about that," he said as I opened my mouth to ask for more details.
"All right, Forest Gump. Are there any other female Westerns?" I asked instead.
"What do you mean other?" He narrowed his eyes at me.
"I am. I mean I think I’m a Western. All I ever see in my dream is my tail, though. It’s spiky."
"You would be the only female Western."
"Do you think Reed would train me in combat like he did with you?"
"Not a chance," Jack said and stared up at my house when we pulled into the driveway.
"Why not? Is it because I didn’t hatch?"
"No, he doesn’t care about that," Jack said, uncoiling his long frame from the car.
"It’s because I’m a woman!" I slammed the door.
"I would imagine it’s because you’re a female not related to him."
"Oh." That took the wind out of my sails. "But I got the impression he didn’t like me."
"He doesn’t like humans."
Figures. Just like all the rest. "So, he’ll only like me when I’m green and scaly?"
Who cares?
I blinked at that. Where did that come from?
"You’re a greenie?" Jack said, trailing a finger down my arm.
"I think so. Come up to my bedroom. I want to show you something."
"Does this involve me taking off my pants?"
"I hope so," I said before my teeth could bite my tongue off.
He leaned in and kissed me and I wrapped my arms around his neck. His mouth was soft and tempting. Little shivers of excitement danced up my spine when he pulled me closer. Saying, Jack kissed like Whoah! would be an understatement. I guess if you had over fifty years to practice anything you’d get to be pretty good.
I wondered how Reed would kiss, though, since he had to be a least a few centuries older. And it was wrong of me to think of Reed and the pole up his posterior while I was necking with Playgirl’s next centerfold. I wanted more. I definitely didn’t want Mr. Meyers coming out and making an embarrassing comment. Or Muffi taking a dump on my driveway. Again. The fact I was thinking about dog poop made me think the kiss wasn’t as good as it could be. But it wasn’t bad.
"What was that for?" I asked, when he finished.
"I wanted to be the first to kiss a Queen."
"I’ve been kissed before," I retorted and yanked my shirt down where it had ridden up. I let us into my house.
"By a dragon?" he challenged.
"Well, no. But you were in human form. It doesn’t count."
"It counted," he said with heat in his voice.
"Okay, okay." I didn’t want to fight with him. "I brought you home to get you out of your wet pants."
"This was the other reason why I kissed you."
"And I appreciate that, but I was just going to give you an old pair of Evan’s that he left the last time he visited."
"Is Evan someone I need to kill?"
"Not kill," I said, thinking about it. "But speak harshly to would be nice. He’s my older brother who has douchebag tendencies."
"I’m the same size as your brother?"
"No. He has a fatter ass and a beer gut." That felt good to say. It made up for the crazy comment he threw around last Christmas. "But you can always belt the pants up."
"I could have also gone back to the hotel. I would have even taken you with me."
"But then I couldn’t show you this." We had climbed up the stairs to the second floor where my bedroom was. I opened the door.
"I’m confused. Isn’t this where you take off your top and we tumble wildly onto the bed."
"Are you a boob man?" Yup, that came out of my mouth. The stupids just wouldn’t stop. I was nervous. Necking in my bedroom with a strange dragon was so not me. Yet here he was and here I was.
"All men are boob men."
"What about legs and tushies?"
"They’re nice, too, especially yours."
I smiled. "I like you, Jack."
"I like you, too. You’re...what the hell is that?" He touched the wall where scorched paper peeled and a pungent acid smell lingered on the burn marks.
"I did that."
"In human form?"
I stared at my shoes. "I think it’s stomach acid. You don’t want to be in the same room with me on taco night at El Mariachi."
"Thanks for the warning." He tapped his finger on it. "As much as I hate to say it, Reed should see this."
"I spi
t stuff all over Kristoff and his gun and it started to dissolve."
"The gun or his hand?"
"Both."
"If you’re about to shift, Reed can take you back to Headquarters for monitoring and tests."
"I've been tested. I was Zhang's personal pin cushion for a year."
"Not these tests. You could be the first female to shift in almost a millennium. Your dance card is going to be pretty full."
"Where is HQ?"
"I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s top secret," Jack drawled, pulling a Men in Black face.
"Yeah, but if you’re taking me there it won’t be a secret to me for long."
"Perhaps not, but the good news is I’m willing to bet Niall will come along for the ride and that’s a win-win on both sides." He grabbed his cell phone and said, "MFIC."
"Do I want to know what that means?" I asked as the voice code dialed the number.
"The last two letters stand for In Charge."
"Right."
I heard Reed’s "Where the hell are you?" through the phone.
"I’m at..." He paused to glance at me. "Can I call you Carolyn?"
"Are you always this formal with the women you kiss?"
"When they want me to take off my pants, I don’t ask too many questions."
Reed said something vile in a language I’m glad I couldn’t understand, but I did make out my name.
"Well?" Jack raised his eyebrows at me.
"Pleased to meet you," I said and held out my hand. "Although after I had your tongue in my mouth, handshaking seems rather anticlimactic."
"There was a climax?" Jack flinched at another blast from Reed in the same language. "No, sir, I didn’t call you to chat about that. I called to tell you her breath weapon has manifested. No, sir I’m not shitting you." He rolled his eyes. "I told you she was a Queen." He winced again and closed the phone. "They’re coming right over."
"They?"
"Niall, too. He was upset you didn’t tell him about this." Jack motioned to the wall.
"It’s a bit embarrassing."
"Yes, but the fact it didn’t do this..." He peeled a rancid burnt strip of yellow daisies off the wall. "...to your esophagus means your internal organs are already changing."
I clutched my stomach in awe. It was happening, really happening.
Wind rattled around the house and dust kicked up, splattering against my windows. We peered out. "Looks like they decided to fly," he said.
"That was quick. My neighbors are going to have a field day with this. Is the National Examiner still paying a thousand dollars a shot for dragon pictures?"
Jack frowned at me. "Unless you want your camera shoved somewhere inconvenient, I wouldn’t take a picture of Reed."
"Aren’t they going to be naked when they switch back?"
"You’re a pervert."
"I just don’t think Evan left that many clothes behind. And y’all aren’t going to fit in my pants."
"No, they won’t be naked." He pulled me away from the window. "Dragon magic allows them to shift their clothes, too."
"Wait a minute! If you could magic up clothes, why did we have to come back here to change?"
Jack shrugged. "Can’t blame a guy for trying."
I slugged him in the arm. "Pig."
"You seemed receptive."
He had a point. "My neighbors aren’t really understanding about the weird," I said, changing the subject. "I bought this house really cheap because it’s supposed to be haunted."
"Ghosts don’t exist," he told me.
"Then why do the walls of the bedroom down the hall drip blood that spells out ‘help me’?"
Jack blinked. "Is it doing that right now?"
"Probably not. But it is about twenty degrees cooler in there."
"Was someone murdered here?" he asked and walked out into the hallway.
"It’s open," I called down the stairs at the knocking. "We’re in the ghost room," I said and followed him in.
If Jack was a cat, his ears would be back. As it was, he stood in the doorway his hand blocking me from coming in.
"It’s just cold and sometimes words appear. It’s freaky, but not dangerous." Then, because my mouth can’t help it, I said, "Don’t be such a wuss."
He turned to me, and over his shoulder I saw the writing on the walls again in drippy blood.
"The blood always disappears after a while." When I stepped in, Jack put his hands on my shoulders to stop me. "Sometimes the ghost talks to me, but I don’t know what she’s saying."
Reed and Niall crested the stairs. I turned in time to see both of them lift their heads up and scent the air. Recognition filled their eyes. Reed bounded toward the room, and Jack whirled with me in his arms.
"Where is she?" Reed snarled. "I smell her."
"Hey, I took a shower this morning," I said.
"Look at the wall," Jack said to him, shielding my face in his chest.
I wiggled. I didn’t want to cuddle now, especially when Reed spat guttural curses in his draconic tongue.
"Oh no," Niall said softly. It sounded like his heart was breaking.
"You guys are seriously freaking me out," I said. Cold washed over me, and I shook like a dog trying to get dry. "What the hell is wrong?" My teeth chattered.
"Reed’s sister," Jack said.
"My daughter," Niall said.
"Was stolen from her nest centuries ago," Reed said. Jack let me lift my head off him to watch Reed circle the room. "She was barely hatched. She’s here. I can sense her."
"Who stole her?" I asked.
Niall’s voice was a shaky whisper. "We never found out. But it was someone who had an intimate knowledge of the lair." He touched the bloody words with trembling fingers.
"What’s it say?" I asked. I didn’t like to see him look so sad. Niall was above human emotions. To see tears pricking at the corner of his eyes gutted me.
"It says, I was sacrificed."
"Here? In this house?" I shivered into Jack’s death grip. "No wonder it was so cheap." Ack! Carolyn shut up! "Sorry," I whispered.
"This house didn’t exist all those years ago. We should find out what was in this spot," Jack said.
"It says, My blood fueled the ritual." Niall’s voice broke.
"What ritual?" I whispered.
"It says, To end the dragons."
"And then it says, Guard Carolyn." Reed was holding it together on anger alone. "Why? Why are you so special?"
I was glad to see the rage wasn’t directed at me, but rather inward.
The room was a blast of cold and more writing appeared.
"Arianna," Niall whispered. "My daughter."
The ghost had responded to his words and the temperature made my breath a cold vapor.
"Bury my bones in our sacred place." Jack read as the words in a Cyrillic and brutal language darted across the wall. And then the room’s temperature rose back to normal and the bloody message slowly faded.
"Raze the building," Reed said.
What? I held on to the door frame, as if to protect it from their wrath. "This is my home," I protested.
"I’ll buy you another one," he said. Black scales appeared over his suit, molded for a moment against the flex of muscles on a near-perfect chest.
"I’m sorry, my dear," Niall said. "If my child is buried here, we must return her bones so she can be at peace. You were drawn to this house for a reason. Her will could have persuaded the owners to sell to you at such a low price."
I swallowed and turned away from Reed’s perfection. Maybe it was her I saw in my dreams at night and not myself. "What color was she?"
"She was green," Niall said.
Disappointment hit me like a fist in the gut. That’s all this was then. A ghost of a dragon had been controlling my thoughts, flying in my dreams because she was trapped within the walls of my house. I was no more a dragon than Jane was.
I blinked back tears. This wasn’t about me. Right now, it was about finding Niall’s daught
er and giving her soul peace.
"Just let me gather a few things first." Things I couldn’t replace. My scrapbooks, my notes for my journal, my laptop and files were what I would need to take with me. I pulled out a suitcase and filled it with seven of my favorite outfits, then grabbed another suitcase and filled it with books. Maybe I would use this as an excuse to get an e-reader. I might even hit Niall up for a raise to cover the cost. I emptied the clothes out of the first suitcase and crammed more books in.
Where was I going to go?
My knees wobbled at the seriousness of the situation and I sat on the floor before I fell down. This was my home. It was my island of independence from my parents and obnoxious brother.
"Isn’t there another way?" I asked, but no one was listening to me.
Dragons took what they wanted. And humans let them.
Defeated, I thumbed through a copy of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I escaped to Barsoom for a few minutes and when I came back to Earth I was centered.
Reed found me sniffling over another pile of books. "What are you doing?" He had recovered his composure and government-spook detachment.
"Nothing." I wiped my hand over my eyes. "I just can’t decide which ones to take and I’ve run out of suitcases."
"Carolyn." Reed sank down on one knee next to me. "My sister is buried in an unhallowed grave under this house."
"No wonder she was haunting me." I hiccupped and tried to stop another rush of tears. I wasn’t a dragon. I had just been possessed by one. "Where will I go now? I don’t want to live with my parents. Or..." A shudder ripped through me. "My brother."
Reed pulled me to my feet. "I will not see you homeless and destitute. All that you have will be restored. Now, come on."
I don’t know why, but I believed him. His hand in mine felt right.
We stared at each other. His face registered shock. He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. It was better than Jack’s kiss. "I will make this up to you." His voice rang as if he was saying a vow to me.
"How many freaking books do you have?" Jack said, coming back from depositing a load in the car.
Reed sprang away from me as if I zotted him with a cattle prod. I had a moment to miss his touch before my attention went to my bookshelf.
"I’ve got an idea," I said and tore my pillows out of their cases. I stuffed each one full of books. I didn’t have any clothes, but my book collection was safe. That was all that mattered, now that Reed said he would find me another place to live. The tension eased a bit from my pounding head.
The Queen's Wings: Book 1 of The Emerging Queens Series Page 4