by Jody Wallace
“Yes, but it’s the privy bits that…that…” She advanced on him, and for some reason it seemed like a good idea to back away from the predatory gleam that sprang into her blue eyes. “The privy bits are what I’ve missed. And you are a man, Barnabas Collins.”
Her head reached his chin. Her body, while sturdy, was soft and not especially warlike. In their human forms, he could defend himself from her without magic if need be.
“I am a man,” he agreed, continuing to sidestep her. Why was he doing this? He had been filled with the need to take her in his arms and kiss her the moment he’d seen her, and now that she inclined to get cozy, he was fending her off? “Mistress Silver, perhaps it would behoove you to, ah, sweat out some of the intoxicants? If you could wait a day, I assure you this will all become clear.”
“It’s clear already.” She poked him in the chest with a finger. “You, sir, are a man sent to help me. And the main thing I need help with is sex. Tell me, Barnabas. Do you like me?”
“Ah. I don’t know you,” he hedged.
“When you saw me, did your body tell you that we should go to bed together?”
How had she guessed? Had she found a wizard to use her magic and predict that a man would arrive who… No, no. She was simply asking if he felt lustfully toward her. Which he did. But that was better left unsaid. “Ah. You are a lovely woman, but it is my job to protect you. I could hardly—”
“I don’t know if I like you.” She slung an arm across his shoulder, or tried to, as the height differential made it difficult. He supported her at arm’s length, since parts of him were too eager to oblige her pursuit. “I am sorry to say, but my loins are not really throbbing. My buttock is, much to my dismay. And my head. Heavens, my head! And my skin, in this heat. But, as I was saying, you are a man.”
“Ah.” If he kept saying ah to her, she would think he was an acapella singer attempting to warm up for a performance. Cooking he had mastered. Singing he would never master. “I am a man,” he agreed again.
“I have noticed you have a fine figure,” she said, “and your features are handsome. Your dark eyes, in particular, are exceedingly bedroomy, I must say, and your lips…” She trailed off, staring at his mouth. “You have done some kissing with those lips, methinks.”
He knew himself to be of average attractiveness, if tall and fit. But the fact she was staring at his lips, while he was staring at hers, awoke a carnal avarice in him that threatened to drive him to unwise choices.
“Some,” he managed. “And you have a glorious…forehead.”
“Thank you.” She pushed her hair to the side, as if giving him a better view of her fetching brow. The minx. “You must know about romance. Do you like women or men or both?”
“Ah. Women,” he said. Perhaps an acapella performance was in order, after all. It would put her off him and ensure she didn’t do anything she would regret once she became sober.
“Good. Perfect, in fact.” She waggled him by the shoulder, nearly oversetting herself. “I know nothing about men, so you could help me find the one, couldn’t you? The one who likes me, who makes me long for his body against mine?”
Barnabas stopped himself from protesting that he did like her and wiped a hand across his face to conceal his ridiculous disappointment. He had known this woman an hour, and he should have no designs on her virtue. Nor, technically, should she have designs on his. Yet.
“We will discuss it later.” He led her on a weaving path to the center of the landing pad. “Did you say something about a spring-fed waterfall? And a dire need for a bath?” If she tried again to shift and succeeded, it would mean that her intoxication wasn’t that pronounced. He needed to know so he could plan for the next twenty-four hours.
“Oh, I did. I forgot all about that. Seven Sister Springs. It’s near a town called…” Her lips pursed in a delicious moue, and he did not stare at them and imagine what she’d do if he kissed her. Except that, obviously, he did. “Haven. Haven of the Elves.”
“I am not possessed of a vehicle, but if you would consent to transport me, I should like to accompany you.” As his primary goal was to protect her, he hoped she would allow him to stay by her side. He would agree to just about anything. Make himself as amiable as possible. He did have a single talisman from a purple dragon that could…sway her temporarily, if need be…but it was for villains, not the dragon of his dreams.
The dragon of his dreams was smiling winsomely up at him, a sticker in her hair from their tumble down the embankment. He gently tugged it free, letting his thumb touch her soft, glowing cheek.
A tingle of her magic blasted through him, and they both gasped.
Her lips parted in surprise. “What was that?”
He knew, but since he’d lied about being a wizard, he couldn’t tell her. She was receptive to him. Free dragons chose for themselves which wizards they would empower, and she had instinctively empowered him—even during that brief touch.
Her magic fizzed in him, tiny and chaotic, and he held it down with his iron control. Magic given willingly, without a thrall crystal, was stronger. Superior. But hers was contaminated, and using it would not produce the desired results. “Desert climate…static…an aeroplane…”
“Like an airship?” She stared at the sky, but no sluggish blimp marred the bright blue heavens. Luckily for him, a trail of white from one of this world’s airplanes did. “That’s very unlike ours. Where is it going?”
She kept tilting her head until he had to catch her before she tumbled backward. This time he was careful not to let his bare skin touch hers. Her receptiveness to him only further escalated his inappropriate attraction.
“To paradise, I reckon,” she breathed, her eyelashes fluttering. “I’d like to go to paradise, Barnabas. Can you take me?”
“Ah.” He gazed down into her clear blue eyes. He’d never felt so instantly enamored of a woman before, and he didn’t like the loss of control over his urges and emotions. He didn’t like it at all.
But he certainly liked Nadia Silver.
She raised a hand and patted his chest—right over his talismans. “What’s this?”
“Nothing.” He caught her hand in his without thinking, skin against skin. She gripped him tight, as if she’d been waiting for the chance to touch him. Her irises bled silver and her dragon lattice brighter, her magic eager to pour into him. Their fingers tingled. He watched her beautiful face, mesmerized, wondering if she could tell.
He shouldn’t have lied to her about being a wizard. Not even for the short time they’d known each other.
“Nadia…” he began.
“Barnabas,” she sighed. Her eyes fluttered closed and she puffed out a tiny snore.
The dragon of his dreams despised all wizards and had passed out in his arms while holding his hand.
Chapter Four
Nadia’s skull felt as if it had been scraped out by a clumsy, large set of dragon claws. She moaned and pressed a hand over her eyes, afraid of what she was going to see when she opened them.
It wasn’t as if she had forgotten a single thing about what had happened after she’d succumbed to the temptation of frozen margaritas. She’d knocked a man from Tarakona right off the road and then practically mauled him. Most people wouldn’t be pleased to be fondled by a stranger, not even a man sent to help her.
While she had learned much in the romance novels of Earth, that didn’t mean she took everything in the books as suitable advice. It would not please her to be fondled by a stranger, either, and that was another part of why she’d been going about the search for a sex partner all wrong.
With a sigh, Nadia opened her eyes and discovered herself beneath a ceiling fan in a plush bedroom with large windows.
It was not her bedroom in Aiden’s house.
She sat up quickly and just as quickly regretted it. Though her reason seemed to have returned, her head swam from the intoxicants almost as much as it had earlier. Clearly they had not yet sweated themselves from her syste
m, and her magic was contaminated. Like that mattered. What mattered was where the heck was she?
“Hello?” she called out, sliding from the bed. She wore her clothes from earlier today, or yesterday, or whenever it was. It seemed to be night outside. Her hands and legs, she couldn’t help but notice, had been cleansed, revealing bumps and bruises from her tumble. Also, she was starving. “Aiden?”
“Alas, your brother has not arrived.”
From the doorway, Barnabas regarded her with concerned eyes in an angular, handsome face. His black curls lay trim and tight against his head, and his Tarakonan attire had been exchanged for an Earth-friendly dress shirt and trousers. The set of his jaw spoke of stubbornness and dignity, and she’d stepped gleefully all over his dignity when they’d met.
He was probably disgusted with her. He had made that clear when he’d kept her at arm’s length. Which was unfortunate, for she found him exceedingly attractive. Granted, her loins had yet to throb, but for the first time she had found herself wanting to kiss someone.
Yet she would never do anything to someone without their consent. She had existed most of her life without consent and would never impose a smidgen of that on another.
“I am still somewhat contaminated,” she warned him. “You’d best stay over there. May I ask where we are?”
“I have procured accommodations at the Middlebury Inn. The clerks were most obliging,” he said, remaining politely in the doorway. “You were right that the good folk in this town are used to dealing with outsiders. They have been very helpful.”
“Oh, this town is full of shifters, witches, gargoyles, pixies, phoenixes, other kinds of dragon, elves—I have a vague recollection I mentioned the elves. The town protects them and keeps them safe in a way that Tarakona could sorely use.” She eased her legs off the side of the bed and stood, testing her balance. Swoopy. But the ache in her head was disappearing in the gentle breeze of the ceiling fan. “I believe I owe you an apology.”
“You do not,” he said immediately, straightening. “Though I apologize for having to, ah, transport you bodily to this establishment. I was very careful not to bump your head.”
“You carried me?” She inspected his shoulders and arms, which were flattered by the lean fit of the pinstriped shirt, and imagined him shirtless. Because she was a terrible, randy little dragon. “Dragons are not light.” Their bones were denser than wizards or humans to allow for magic storage and shapeshifting.
He smiled at her, and goodness, how it transformed him—from stern to heart-stopping. “I am not weak.”
“I see.” She had thought any reminder of Tarakona would displease her, but Barnabas’s appearance, his accent, his mannerisms, enticed her like the world’s most comfortable bedding. Familiar. Safe. But still a bed, with what often took place in beds between amorous persons. “And how long has it been?”
“It is nearly time for the evening meal.” His expression grew more serious. “We should talk. There are things you need to know.”
As the saying went, nothing good ever came of a declaration that talking needed to happen. “About what?”
What needed to happen was eating an entire buffet and a trip to that natural springs near Haven. The idea of bathing at sunset with Barnabas Collins struck her as the best idea she’d had since coming to Earth. Would she be able to shift yet? Or would she be trapped in this room with him for the whole night while she waited out her idiocy with the margaritas?
He pinched between his eyes briefly as if he had a headache. “About wizards.”
She might be contaminated and swoopy, but she’d never lose her common sense in that area. “I know everything I need to know about those foul creatures. Their abilities corrupt them.”
“Most magic is beneficial.”
While some dragons fantasized about good wizards, she had only ever belonged to Victoria. Victoria, needless to say, was not a good wizard. The governor of Valiant Province might not specialize in murderous rampages, but her ambitions soured any accomplishments. Nadia scanned the floor and located her shoes. “In this world, they’ve replicated many of our so-called conveniences with technology. Granted, the healing isn’t up to green dragon standard, but it’s worth the freedom.”
“Do you not wish, at all, that you could use your power however you desire?”
“What dragon doesn’t?” she said, gesturing too wildly, which caused her to stagger. This contamination was getting tiresome. “But that is not the natural order of things, is it? No being should have so much power. Thus, we were split apart by our gods, to keep any one variant from dominating the others. Yet wizards, blast them, found a way to warp all the power for themselves anyway.”
“An obliging wizard could—”
“A wizard would use my own power on me to entrap me again. And worse.”
He seemed uncomfortable with the conversation and her vehemence. He was a member of the DLF and probably thought some wizards could be trusted. Humans like Barnabas didn’t understand. They saw the benefits of dragon magic and wanted a way around the consequences. But there wasn’t one.
“Let’s not argue, Barnabas.” She reached for his hand, but he busied himself with a menu from a side table. “When I arrived a week ago, I was so happy to be away from Tarakona. Now that you’re here, I realize it bolsters me somewhat to have befriended a kindred spirit from my homeland.”
“I am honored you would consider me a friend.”
“If my brother sent you, then you are a friend,” she said, not admitting what a lie that was. If Aiden had sent a wizard, for example, she would not have trusted his judgment. After all, she and Aiden been apart for nearly twenty years. Though he’d devoted his adult years to rescuing her, she didn’t know him anymore. He might have sketchy judgment about some things, even if he had managed to plot her way out of captivity.
“The threat you were under isn’t gone.” He snapped the menu shut and faced her. This close, she could smell a hint of Earth soap, which meant he had washed. She had not. “We should discuss food. The more you activate your digestion, the sooner you will be cleansed of…”
“Of my contamination?” she asked with a wry smile. “I have sorely learned that lesson. I suppose here is as good as anywhere to recover. Do you have money?” Aiden had given her access to his funds, which should be sufficient for anything that didn’t involve extravagant jewelry and vacations.
He dipped his head. Elegance defined everything he did, every movement, every word, and she found herself wanting to see him ruffled. Or was that the alcohol talking? How much did contamination warp her natural desires?
How much would it warp his?
“I do have funds, thank you.” He handed her the leather-bound folder he’d been toying with. “I have also taken the liberty of collecting the menu from the Middlebury Inn downstairs should you wish to eat in private. I do not have a change of clothing for you, but that could be arranged.”
“Let us eat here and get to know one another better.”
“As you wish,” he said.
“You should order yourself something to drink,” she urged with a small smile. “Since we’ll be spending the evening in. I recommend the margaritas.”
At least he smiled back. “I think not.”
His standoffishness vexed her. A bit. She wanted—she didn’t know what she wanted. But his company pleased her. A companion from whom she didn’t need to hide anything was a relief. Not to mention, he was as unfamiliar of their surroundings as she was.
She had a friend now. They could learn about Earth and fulminate about Tarakona together. Aiden wasn’t much of a talker, not that he’d hung around long enough to introduce her to anything but his bank account and house. Blast him, too.
They chose many items from the menu, Barnabas assuring her there was no need to be frugal. She had a quick pop in the shower while they waited for the bellboy to deliver a cart full of fragrance and steam.
The rest of the evening was spent in harmonious conversat
ion. She demonstrated the marvels of Earth television, and he described the DLF’s operations. The more they spoke, the closer she felt to him, and the more she wanted…more. She knew it was her loneliness talking, and perhaps the alcohol, which seemed determined to never leave. Yet Barnabas remained formal, almost stately, and her contaminated body eventually gave out on her.
She slept.
# # #
The next day, Nadia was stunned to discover that the contamination had not fully relinquished her. Granted, it hadn’t been twenty-four hours, but she’d assumed that number was exaggerated. Barnabas, who’d spent the night on the pull-out bed in the living area of their suite, told her it was to be expected. And that was why dragons should not drink. It trapped them in their human forms, like the ague, and apparently pushed them to develop inappropriate crushes on people who just wanted to help.
Was her drunkenness why Barnabas seemed more staid than the night before, less willing to laugh at her jokes? He hadn’t seemed judgmental last night, but over breakfast he was so solemn. Or perhaps he wasn’t a morning person.
“Have some of this tea,” she urged. “It will wake you up.”
“I’m alert, thank you,” he assured her. “I simply wish to discuss our preparations to keep you safe.”
“We are safe here.” She waved a waffle at him. “Aiden promised.”
“There are other things we need to consider,” he insisted, spreading marmalade on his toast.
Bother. What would loosen him up?
Perhaps nothing. He refilled her orange juice and regarded her seriously. “It is of great importance that we plot what we are going to do next. Your future is—”
“Tomorrow.” Nadia rose from the dinette table and stared out the big bay window. The future. The future. It lay ahead of her like a broad sweep of the heavens with nothing in it to stop her. “This is a whole new world, Barnabas. Look.”