Dragon's Possession (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 4)

by Isadora Montrose

  Lars’ mission was to get inside the house so that if and when the Russians made their move he could counter it. But Felipe’s woman seemed more frightened than reassured by his presence. She didn’t want to rent him a room. And he didn’t see how he could leave her and her son to face the Russians alone. They were at an impasse. Time for a little of the Lindorm charm. Surely he still had some?

  “You do know,” he continued in English, “That Felipe is dead?”

  “Yes.” Even switching to her native tongue did not loosen her lips. It seemed that she had nothing to add to his bald statement.

  “He had enemies,” Lars informed her.

  She backed up another step and then another. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “But I know nothing of my husband’s affairs. I hadn’t seen him in eight years.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t save you,” he informed her. “The men headed here won’t really give a damn if they torture an ignorant woman.”

  Those hazel eyes were flecked with green and topaz. She opened them very wide as she took in his meaning. Her lips opened and closed but no words came out. Her face lost every scrap of color and she swayed a little.

  “I’m sorry,” he said advancing on her. “But you really are better off with me than those thugs.”

  “Who are you?” Her hands twisted in her pinafore. This time she stood her ground.

  “I am,” he paused to choose his words. Being careful not to lie. “An associate of your late husband. The Council of the Guild of Dragons sent me,” he informed her. “We were looking into Felipe’s affairs. We found out about you by chance, but the Russians are right behind us.”

  “What Russians, what Guild? What do you want?” She forced the words out through trembling lips.

  “I want you to get the hell out of Dodge,” he told her. “You and the kid. You are both sitting ducks in this place.”

  That got a rise out of her. Her color returned and her cheeks pinked. “Impossible,” she said vehemently. “I have nowhere else to go. And if I went, how would I support myself and my son? This house is all I have, and I will not leave it.”

  Lars could see by the stubborn way she set her teeth on her bottom lip that he wasn’t going to win that argument – not this afternoon. He changed tack. “I’ll take a room that faces the street, if you’ve got one.”

  She turned on her heel, and led him up the wooden staircase. He had an excellent view of the ugliest pair of worn-down house slippers he had ever seen. The room was immaculate with a high four-poster double bed, and a suite of matching heavy furniture – wardrobe, chest of drawers and dry sink. It was very clean, but the white chenille bedspread was as shabby as the one he had left behind at the Hotel Vera Cruz.

  Lars opened the blinds, and then the window, as well as the shutters on the outside of the house. The bright afternoon sun blazed through the window. He gave the street a swift once-over. Without haste he closed up the window and blanked it to passersby with blinds and curtains.

  * * *

  “Will it do?” Nicole asked impatiently.

  The big blond dragon raised both his golden brows into incredulous arches. He might have chuckled, but his lips firmed so quickly perhaps she only imagined his amusement. “It’s fine,” he said glancing around indifferently at the heavy rosewood furniture and Aunt Luisa’s framed needlepoint pictures of the saints.

  Nicole remembered that Felipe had spoken many languages and that he had considered his facility with all of them to be part of his dragon talent. She should not be surprised that this Lars Lindorm spoke excellent English. Probably his Spanish was far better than he had pretended. She schooled her face.

  A rattling noise floated up the stairs. Without another word, her new boarder moved. He descended the back stairs two at a time. She trailed behind him, feeling no special urgency. Undoubtedly Dolores had returned from the market. It had taken some convincing to get her to lock the kitchen door behind her, even though she was the one who had told Nicole about the strangers.

  In the fifty plus years that Dolores had worked at the Villa Mendoza, she had never once locked that door at night – let alone during the day. The two of them had had to half-empty a can of lubricant before they could get the old iron key to turn in the equally rusty lock. The key had hung unused on its hook by the back door until it had almost fused into place, and Dolores knew of no other.

  Nicole did not feel like explaining her domestic arrangements to this stranger. Not that he had bothered to ask her permission. He strode into the kitchen where Dolores was unpacking her wicker basket onto the scarred surface of the old kitchen table. Mingled disapproval and astonishment creased her face at the intrusion of a stranger.

  She ignored Lars. “Who is this foreigner?” she demanded.

  “This is Señor Lindorm,” Nicole said. “I have put him in Tia Luisa’s room.”

  Dolores’ reaction was voluble and uncomplimentary. “I suppose he wants his meals too?” she finished up with a scowl.

  Nicole examined her unwanted guest’s chiseled face. If his Spanish was as poor as he had pretended it was, he should not have caught one word in ten of what Dolores had said in her rough Pampas dialect. Yet there was a red stain on both his high cheekbones. But all he said was, “What did she say?”

  “She wants to know if you plan to eat your meals with us,” Nicole said. “Meals are extra.”

  He pulled out his wallet. “What do I owe you for the room?”

  “It depends on how long you stay?” Her tone, if not the words, made it a question.

  “Let’s plan on a week,” he said. “How much?”

  She doubled the price of the room and tripled the board. If he was going to force his unwanted presence into her home, he could damned well pay for the privilege. But he put the money into her hand without a murmur. In cash. All the better, if she and Matt had to go away for a while.

  “I’m going to go out the front,” he said. His English was perfect with the faintest American accent. By which Nicole meant that his accent was American but not Midwestern. “But I will come back through the courtyard. Lock up the house. Assume that you are being watched. Where is your son?”

  “He’s still at school. He won’t be home for hours.”

  “He shouldn’t walk home alone. I’ll go with you to fetch him.”

  * * *

  Having Lars Lindorm trailing behind her when Nicole went to pick up her son attracted attention. It could hardly be otherwise. Not when he was so tall. He towered over Nicole who was herself much taller than the other women waiting in front of the school. In moments, whispers and censorious sideways glances began.

  But at least Lars pretended that he was a tourist interested in the architecture of the school buildings. These did indeed date from the nineteenth century, but they had had so many utilitarian alterations and renovations in the twentieth, that they retained very few original features.

  “How old are these gates?” he inquired of Señora Salinas as if he had not understood the insinuation she had murmured into Señora Mandelbaum’s ear.

  Señora Salinas was very conscious of her position in the community. Her husband was an attorney. Her son did not get to play with Matteo Estevan. And she had been known to describe Nicole’s darling as a bastardo. But now she simpered up at Lars and made up a date. He shook his blond head at her as if he could not follow, and turned smiling to the other ladies.

  Someone wrote the date in the dust. Someone else pointed to the stone lintel where the date of the establishment of the school had been carved.

  “Gracias, Señoras,” he said bowing to the group.

  The bell rang and the children streamed out the doors in two lines. Lars Lindorm returned to her elbow.

  “This is Señor Lindorm,” she told Matteo. “My son, Matteo.” Matteo stuck out his hand as he had been taught, eyes riveted by her companion.

  Matt’s dark eyes, which were so like his father’s, sneaked glances at the tall dragon as they set off. He was less
than thrilled when their steps turned towards the Villa Mendoza and away from the town.

  “Mom,” he protested, tugging on her hand. “It’s library day. Did you forget?”

  She had forgotten. “Not today, son, I’m so sorry.” And she was sorry. There was stuff she too needed to look up.

  “Where is the library?” asked Lars in English.

  Matteo gawked at their tall companion. He had long ago come to think of English as a private code between himself his mother. Lars smiled benignly down at the boy. For the first time Nicole saw he too had charm. It chilled her more than his grimness had. Hadn’t that son of a sea biscuit Felipe been thoroughly charming?

  Matt found his tongue. “It’s behind the church, Señor. Not far at all.” Matt had charm too.

  “I don’t like to leave your maid alone in that house.” Lars put a casual hand on the boy’s shoulder and urged him to a slightly brisker pace.

  “But I wanted to see what became of my experiment.” Matteo was indignant. “And I don’t have anything else to read.” He used the argument that always moved his mother. It did not move Lars.

  They continued to amble their way back to the house. Nicole pretended that she was giving Lars a tour of the village. She pointed out the marble fountain in the park they passed, and the old chapel. Eventually she led him to the black wrought-iron grille that protected the narrow alleyway that led to their rear courtyard. It was latched but not locked. Lars frowned at it. He closed it behind them and tested its sturdiness as if he found it wanting.

  “We’re not built to withstand a siege,” Nicole told him tartly.

  “Not even thieves,” he said flatly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What does your son know of his heritage?” Lars asked Nicole quietly as she passed him a plate of Dolores’ pork stew.

  They were seated in the dining room with its heavy furniture of another century. The aunts had inherited it along with the house. It was both ornate and solid. To Nicole, who had grown up in Ohio, where the oldest things in her grandmother’s house had been her mid-century-modern teak furniture, eight years ago it had seemed the epitome of exotic elegance. She had since realized that three-quarters of the houses in Santa Rosa del Pampas had exactly such dark Spanish-style furniture.

  “He knows as little as I do.” Nicole frowned at Lars. “And he needs to know no more.”

  Lars stared at her as if she had two heads. He shook his head slightly. He returned to eating the stew that Dolores had made. His skepticism showed on his face, but he shut up about Felipe, as Matteo slipped into the dining room waving his damp hands at her.

  “Where are you from, Señor?” asked Matt.

  “Sweden.”

  Matt’s feathery black brows snapped together. “Where is that?”

  “It’s part of Europe,” Lars told the boy.

  “Can you show me on a map?”

  “Sure. I’ll Google it for you.”

  “We don’t have the Internet,” Matteo said sadly.

  “That’s okay. I have a satellite link.”

  “Do you mean like Pablo?” Matteo asked. Pablo was a schoolmate. “Mom won’t even let me have an Xbox. Or a Game Boy.” His voice was filled with all the anguish of a seven-year-old denied his heart’s desire.

  Lars chuckled. “When I was your age, lad, I lived on an island so remote we had neither television, nor telephones, and certainly not the Internet.”

  “No telephone?” There was awed disbelief in Matteo’s voice. “No Internet? Not even at the library?”

  “There was no library, though we had plenty of books. But they were all in our house.”

  “No library?” Matteo looked at their visitor as if he had sprouted horns.

  “There was a public library in Helsinki, and we went there a few times a year. My parents always took us to the bookstore whenever we went to a town.” Lars wiped his mouth. “This is very tasty,” he told Nicole.

  “I’ll tell Dolores you said so. She’s very proud of her cooking.”

  “Justly so. Does she live here?” Lars asked.

  “No,” Nicole said. “She lives with her family on the outskirts of town.”

  “How does she get home?” Lars asked.

  “These days her grandson Enrico comes for her. Her family would like her to stop working, but she won’t quit even though she is not a young woman. She says we need her and what would she do if she was at home all day.” Something in Lars’ blue eyes that made Nicole rush to explain. “I didn’t hire Dolores, and I can’t fire her. She comes with the house.”

  Lars nodded. His eyes rested on Matt and for a moment they clouded, then his face smoothed out and Nicole thought she must have imagined his worry. When the meal was over, Matt helped her to clear the table. Lars paced between the living room and the dining room getting underfoot.

  “What is it?” she finally hissed at him.

  “I wish I knew,” he said softly. “Something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is. When does Dolores’ grandson get here?”

  “In about half an hour.”

  “I’ll walk her out.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “I disagree,” his voice was grim and low. “When do you plan to tell your fireling about his heritage?”

  Nicole scowled at him. “About his father, you mean? Never.”

  “He’s going to be growing into his talent. You have to tell him.”

  Matt came dawdling down the hall on his way upstairs. “I’ll come up to say goodnight when you have brushed your teeth,” she said, patting his shoulder.

  “Señor Lars said he would show me Sweden,” Matteo protested.

  Lars raised his brows at Nicole. She nodded once.

  “I will come up when you are in bed. Five minutes,” Lars said.

  “Put your clothes in the hamper,” she reminded Matteo.

  “Mom!” He ran up the stairs.

  “Thank you,” Nicole said stiffly. “But I’m afraid that you have set yourself up to be bugged. If you let him use your tablet once, he will want to do it over and over.”

  “I don’t mind. He’s a great kid.”

  “Thank you.” Nicole felt herself blossoming under this mild praise. She reminded herself that she knew nothing of Lars Lindorm beyond what he had told her – which could all be true. Yet she was a single mother and she often worried that she was not bringing her son up right.

  “It will be a thousand times harder to explain if you wait until he has his first shift,” Lars said.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “The boy.” Lars’ blue eyes bored into hers. “He should be prepared for his first change – look forward to it, in fact.”

  “I’m not getting it,” she said after a pause. “What do you mean?”

  “What did Felipe tell you about himself?”

  “Almost nothing.” She shrugged. “We weren’t together long.”

  “Define long.”

  “Sixty-three days in total – not all in a row either.”

  Lars eyes were round. “Did you know before you married him that he was a dragon?” he whispered.

  She nodded. “He convinced me that since he had turned me, no one else would want to marry me. I was dumb enough to buy his stupid line.”

  “Didn’t he tell you that your son would be a fireling – and grow up to be a dragon?”

  “Yeah. But like most of the crap that he told me, it wasn’t true. I can assure you that Matt isn’t a reptile – of any kind.”

  “Dragons aren’t reptiles. We’re descended from birds.” She was pleased that Lars’ smooth voice lost some of its seductive allure. She had annoyed him. Good.

  “Whatever.” She dismissed his correction. “Big and scaly – sounds exactly like a reptile to me. Anyway, Matt didn’t get it. Probably because I got away fast enough.”

  Lars shook his head. “That’s not how it works,” he said. “Dragonlings come into their talent at puberty. Around the time he shoo
ts up and his voice drops, Matt will start being able to shift. And there is damn all you can do about it.”

  She pulled him into the dining room and shut the door. “What do you mean?”

  Lars put his hands on her shoulders. It did not occur to her that she found their weight comforting. “Didn’t you wonder why Felipe wanted to marry a girl of sixteen?” he asked.

  “I thought it was obvious,” she snapped. “He was a fricking pervert!”

  “Not exactly. We are a race of males. If they are to have sons, dragon shifters have to transform a woman into a dragoness. And only a virgin can be transformed.”

  “Well, that explains that,” she said in disgust.

  “Explains what?”

  “Why my stepfather sold me to Felipe.”

  “He sold you?”

  She nodded. “He told me we were going to Argentina for a holiday, to visit my mother’s family. I was pretty excited. But Stan had no intention of visiting the Bernals. That was just a lie to keep me quiet. We went from the airport in Buenos Aires directly to Felipe’s apartment.”

  His hands squeezed gently and fell away. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You and me both. Oh, don’t get me wrong. That bastard was charming – right up until I found him getting into my bed.”

  “He raped you?”

  She nodded.

  “Jesus.”

  “He had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  * * *

  Lars walked Dolores out to her grandson’s motor scooter. The elderly woman introduced him proudly to her grandson Enrico, put on a red and black helmet and swung aboard the passenger seat. Enrico waited until she had arranged her long black skirts for modesty. The unlikely pair chugged off into the night. Lars had persuaded Nicole to find the key that locked the gates at both ends of the alley. He locked them and said a word of power to strengthen the locks. Not that an able-bodied man could not easily scale either gate. And for shifters, it was barely more than a ladder.