By way of answer, she threw herself against his claws and swore thoroughly, then went abruptly still.
Maybe she was ready to talk about it.
Kristofer glanced down with optimism. She was peering through his claws at him and when he looked at her, she smiled. Her eyes were lit with unexpected triumph and he had a second to think that was a warning.
“Found it,” she whispered with glee and something tickled. She’d discovered the dagger hidden beneath his scales. It was small, though, too small to kill him. She was busy with it, doing something he couldn’t see, but he wasn’t afraid of her, even armed with that dagger.
Kristofer scoffed. “A needle,” he said. “If you really mean to injure me, do your worst.”
“I will,” she vowed with an audacity he already admired.
“Why?”
“Because I made a pledge to bring you down,” she said with heat. “And I keep my promises.”
Kristofer frowned at that, but before he could ask, she forced herself between his talons. He raised one claw to protect his eyes, but she flung herself at his chest, her entire weight behind the blade as it sank into his other shoulder. Kristofer growled and plucked her off him even as his blood ran over his scales. It was just a scratch, although this was becoming tedious. He withdrew the blade with his other claw and flung it down toward the earth, then closed his claws around her, trapping her again. He lifted her before his face, and bent his attention upon her.
“Time to talk,” he said in a low growl.
“Too late to talk,” she countered boldly.
She was magnificent.
Kristofer made her prison a little smaller, tightening his grip around her. The firestorm burned white-hot, sparking and crackling between them, turning his thoughts in a more earthy direction.
Her smile didn’t waver, but she did flush a little more. Her eyes glittered and she ran her tongue over her lips, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“Why attack me? Who demanded such a promise?”
“You might never know,” she replied.
“I may not be immortal, but I’ve got time.”
“Do you?” she asked, tilting her head to watch him. Kristofer became aware of a dawning dizziness. His vision was blurring, which it never did. He couldn’t feel the tip of his tail and glanced toward it.
“The blade was poisoned,” she whispered. She indicated a small pouch hung from her belt and he realized that she’d put something on the blade when she’d recovered it. “Small but powerful. Part of my kit for this mission.”
Mission? What was she talking about?
Kristofer would have argued with her, but his wings stopped beating. He felt his eyelids droop.
She had to be telling the truth.
But she was his destined mate. They had a firestorm. She could deny it or ignore it or argue with him about it. Killing him seemed extreme.
He struggled to keep his grip on her, afraid that he’d lose sight of her.
“An antidote,” he whispered, but she laughed.
“Not a chance. You’re taking this one for Siegfried.”
Siegfried? Who was Siegfried?
Kristofer heard her sword thud against the earth far below. There was an unexpected crack, then a rumble of earth, like a crevasse emanating from the fallen blade. That made no sense either. He saw a glimmer of light far below him, maybe a flash of lightning, then his eyes closed and the poison claimed him. He heard the wind whistle as he spun and dropped out of the sky, helpless to stop himself. He lifted his captive mate above himself, fearing that if he fell on top of her, she’d be crushed to death, no matter what her nature.
She might be misguided, but she was his mate.
Kristofer crashed through something, as if he’d fallen on a building and gone right through the roof. There was earth tumbling down all around, though, and the smell of wet grass. The soil and rock crumbled around him, then stilled. He was surrounded by debris, like he’d become part of an avalanche.
There was music, unexpectedly, although it stopped abruptly. He heard a collective gasp of astonishment, even as he felt the cold steel of his mate’s sword beneath his body. He’d fallen right on top of it. He managed to hide it beneath his scales, even as he felt the shimmer of change coming upon him.
An involuntary shift was never a good sign.
He forced his eyes open to discover that they’d literally crashed a party. A ring of dancers stood around them, apparently astonished. Those gathered to stare wore glittering festive attire and Kristofer blinked when he saw they had wings.
The air was also filled with sparkling red lights.
Like fireflies, but red. He added it to the list of things that made no sense.
The vengeful Valkyrie in his grasp kicked him hard with those boots and he released his grip on her. She was safe, at least. His claws fell to his sides and Kristofer felt the change coming over him, even though he hadn’t summoned it.
He had time to wonder why his mate had betrayed him before everything went dark.
Bree should have felt triumphant.
But looking at the fallen dragon shifter, watching him shift shape involuntarily, made her feel a bit sick. It felt wrong to have injured him, and worse to have ensured that he was Maeve’s captive.
One fight and he’d challenged her expectations.
Such confidence. That had undermined her convictions as much as the fake firestorm.
He’d immediately recognized what she was. That had been a shock.
It was more of one that he hadn’t fled from that truth.
Bree ran a hand through her hair, feeling that this dragon, if he lived, would have shaken her world completely. She’d even tried to protect him from having his soul claimed.
Yet even after she’d stabbed and poisoned him, he’d protected her.
The fact was that the odds had been against her and Bree knew it—and yet, she’d succeeded. The Pyr could have fried her. She probably would have survived his attacks, given her invulnerability to injury, but he hadn’t even tried to hurt her.
Instead, he’d evaded her attacks, stolen a kiss that left her humming with desire even though she hadn’t participated, and protected her when they crashed into the Fae mound.
Bree had to consider the inconvenient possibility that this particular dragon wasn’t evil.
He was injured, though. Once he’d hit the earth hard enough to make it jump, he’d opened one eye, then it had closed again. She’d kicked him to break free of his grasp but he’d let her go without a fight. She could have just asked, or wriggled a little. After she’d jumped down, he’d started to shift shape, changing from dragon to man to dragon repeatedly, surrounded by a haze of shimmering blue light the entire time. It looked like he was in distress, though he was still breathing.
Bleeding, too.
Because of her.
Bree reminded herself that she’d kept her word. She’d delivered him. He belonged to Maeve now, and she should be able to leave Fae with Kara.
Where was Maeve? Bree would have expected the Dark Queen to be present at the dragon’s fall, in order to gloat, but there was no sign of her.
On all sides, the Fae chattered about the incident that had destroyed their mound and Bree noticed that the twilight sky of Fae was visible through the broken roof. What had broken the mound over Maeve’s hall? The weight of the dragon falling upon it had certainly been a factor, but it had cracked as soon as her steel sword had landed upon it. What had happened to it anyway? It had to be beneath the dragon and she wondered if she’d be able to reclaim it. She peered at him when he shifted to human form and couldn’t catch a glimpse of the sword.
Maybe it had dissolved. Or been claimed by someone else. Despite its history and importance to her, she’d leave the sword behind willingly if reclaiming it interfered with setting Kara free. That should be done by now.
Where was Kara?
There were already Fae workers climbing up to assess the damage to the dome
and the music had started again. The sparkling wine was flowing from a fountain and they were passing around goblets of it, apparently celebrating her feat. Bree declined a goblet, knowing that consuming anything in this realm would trap her here forever.
She’d changed back to her human form as soon as the Pyr had let her go, and raised her voice now, her hands braced on her hips. “Maeve!” she cried. “Dark Queen of Fae! Show yourself! I have delivered on my promise and demand my reward!”
Maeve didn’t appear. The Fae stopped their revels for a moment to look at her, then the music played more loudly and they began to dance again.
Bree would have shouted, but two Fae warriors had seized her from behind.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Where’s Kara? Where’s Maeve? I kept my end of the bargain. I should get my reward!”
To her dismay, a red string had appeared around her wrist and it burned her skin. It was just like the one that Maeve had bound on her before when she was captured, and it worked the same way. She tried to shift and couldn’t, but that didn’t stop her from trying again and again. She hated the sense of powerlessness and struggled as the Fae warriors escorted her away from the party.
“Where are we going?” she demanded. “I did what I promised to do!”
Maeve couldn’t insist that she make a second deal.
Could she?
“This isn’t fair!” Bree shouted. “I kept my promise!”
She tried to pull away from the Fae warriors, then saw that they were dragging the unconscious dragon shifter behind her. He was in his human form and had a red string on his wrist, too, which she had to think was a bad sign.
Despite herself, she was relieved that he wasn’t dead.
“Let me see Kara!” she cried, fearing that she’d been tricked.
“You don’t make the rules here,” said one warrior, then took a small dagger from the scabbard on his belt. He spun it and flashed a smile at her, like a gunslinger showing off, then sliced open the air right in front of them. There was a flash, like silver lightning, then Bree glimpsed her New York apartment on the other side. The Fae warriors thrust her through the gap, kicking the dragon shifter through the space after her. He rolled across the floor until his back collided with her couch and didn’t move again.
“But what about Kara? What about our bargain?” Bree cried as the Fae warrior used the blade to close the gap between portals. She grabbed for the sides of the slit, but the red string on her wrist burned so hot that she thought she smelled her skin roasting.
How could that be? She was supposed to be impervious to pain. She saw the red shimmer of magick and guessed.
The Fae warrior halted in his task. “Maeve says get the book first,” he said.
“What book? She can’t change the terms,” Bree argued. “Not now. I kept our bargain...”
The Fae warrior smiled and it wasn’t a friendly expression. “Then you’ll get a small reward.” He reached for the string on her wrist and snapped it with one finger. He looked into her eyes, his expression intent. “Get the book,” he whispered.
Before Bree could snatch after him, much less shift shape, he closed the last of the gap, like he’d pulled up a zipper.
There was another flash of light, then the portal was gone. Bree felt for it and walked through where it had been, but it had vanished. The only sign that she had been in Fae was the unconscious guy in her living room, the one with the red string on his wrist.
The hot dragon shifter in her apartment.
The devil, as the expression went, was in the details.
Bree looked at the dragon shifter for a few minutes, wishing that he’d just vanish if she hoped hard enough. No luck there. The sparks of the fake firestorm hadn’t been extinguished, which was a complication she didn’t need. They burned hot and golden, intensifying as she took a step closer to look down at him.
She couldn’t keep her distance, so she didn’t even try.
He was blond and Bree knew his eyes were vivid blue. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his tight T-shirt revealing the definition of his muscles. His jeans fit in all the right places, and she surveyed him with admiration. He wasn’t bulked up like a body builder, but strong from doing physical labor. She knew he was athletic and graceful, at ease in his own skin and aware of his abilities—in either form. His jaw was square and his lips firm, and her own lips burned in memory of that kiss.
He knew what she was and he’d willingly kissed her. He wasn’t stupid. He was brave then, maybe even fearless, because of his faith in the firestorm.
It was kind of nice that he was idealistic like that.
Even though it made Bree feel like she’d made a colossal mistake.
But that was crazy. He was a dragon and she knew as much as she needed to know about their true nature. She’d known it for fifteen hundred years and wasn’t going to forget the truth in ten minutes of a fake firestorm. Magick was completely untrustworthy. Experience was the best measure. She knew.
Bree looked him over again and her resolve melted.
If only he hadn’t been tall. It was ridiculously shallow, but Bree hated when men were shorter than her. They didn’t feel like worthy companions then: they felt like subordinates. Minions. She and Kara were both tall and they’d joked for years that it would take a tall Viking warrior, towering over them, to steal their hearts.
And now she’d found one, in exactly the wrong time and place.
Or had she? Was that just the influence of this phony firestorm?
Bree fought her sense that she had betrayed the Pyr. He deserved it. His kind all deserved it.
But her heart argued otherwise.
Maybe he’d enchanted her and made her doubt what she knew to be true. Maybe his wickedness had a veneer of charm. Maybe the magick was messing with her convictions.
She shouldn’t be swayed by his good looks. Beauty is as beauty does and all that.
Except he’d protected her.
Bree insisted to herself that she’d done the right thing. She’d done it for Kara—but she found that hard to believe when she looked at his fallen and still body.
Maeve clearly believed that Bree had failed. The inescapable fact was that his entrapment was only half done. The poison on that blade had been potent, strong enough to sedate a Pyr warrior but not strong enough to kill him.
Bree knew who Maeve would expect to finish the job.
She had, after all, promised him to Maeve in exchange for Kara.
She could have responded to his kiss. She could have claimed his soul right then and there. She’d had the perfect opportunity.
But she hadn’t taken it. She just hadn’t been able to do it.
Would Maeve add more conditions every time Bree failed? There was an incentive to get it done.
In the mortal realm, in his mortal form, there were possibilities for finishing him off. He was in her apartment and no one knew as much but Bree. She had good knives in the kitchen. She could strangle him. She knew a lot about death by unnatural means, given her day job. There would be questions, though, and complications if a corpse was found in her apartment. Bree wasn’t quite ready to move on and make yet another false identity.
What book were the Fae talking about, though? Did this Pyr know anything about the book Maeve wanted? Was that why she’d been sent back with him?
It seemed foolish to kill him before she knew for sure.
Find my book, Maeve commanded in her thoughts.
Bree straightened and looked around her apartment. It was empty except for her and the wounded Pyr. “What book?” she asked, but there was no reply.
The wind chime moved, tinkling faintly, as if a breeze had swept through the still apartment. Bree went to the window, but it was securely closed and locked, just the way she’d left it. The wind chime stilled.
Someone else might have thought she was losing her mind.
Bree knew that Maeve was screwing with her.
She bit back a curse and spun to s
urvey her apartment, which now featured a gorgeous guy passed out on the rug. Of course, she’d been going on vacation. Her packed bag was still at the door, the fridge was empty and the heat had been turned down. How much time had passed? It was dark outside the windows and the city sounded as if it was late. The big clock on the wall said 2:30. She’d guess AM but she wasn’t sure of the day. She hung up her jacket and took off her boots, needing to do something.
Her gaze lingered on her unwelcome guest. He had to know something about the book. Maybe he even had it. That could be the reason they’d both been allowed to leave Fae—and it was obvious who would pay the price if Bree failed to follow the command of the Dark Queen.
Kara.
Bree needed a coffee, badly. Instead, she got the first aid kit from her closet. She dropped to her knees beside the injured Pyr, squared her shoulders, then pushed off his jacket. She watched the firestorm brighten. It was like candlelight when she sat this distance away from him, a hue of light that made everyone look good. She studied him, watching the firestorm gild his features, feeling glorious temptation, then shook her head.
This desire made her no better than a dragon, wanting her pleasure and not caring about much else. It would have been a lot simpler if Maeve had extinguished the spell—but then the dragon shifter might have just left the scene.
That kiss had left her curious, too.
What would it be like if she’d kissed him back?
No. Bree wasn’t going there. She wasn’t going to harvest his soul and bind him to her forever. No way. The sooner he was awake and healing, the sooner she could get the book from him and save Kara.
She reached to clean the wound on the side of his nose and the false firestorm flared between them, blinding her with its brilliance. The surge of desire went from her fingertip straight to her belly, then headed south from there, feeding the slow burn she was already struggling to ignore.
Her dragon warrior smiled slowly, his firm lips curving in a most fascinating way. His breathing changed as he awakened: he stretched a little and flexed, and Bree was transfixed.
Dragon's Kiss (The DragonFate Novels Book 2) Page 6
