Dragon's Kiss (The DragonFate Novels Book 2)

by Deborah Cooke

  “It does seem like a big coincidence that he even had it,” Alasdair acknowledged. “He said he had something to do. Maybe I’ll hunt him down.”

  “Don’t use that thing again!”

  “Not a chance. I’ll give you a call.”

  “Thanks!” Kristofer ended the call and stared at his phone for a minute. He tried Theo again with no result, then murmured in old-speak. “Hey, Theo. Where are you?” There was no reply, but he turned to find his mate watching him. “Looks like you were right. The three Pyr who followed me into Fae are missing.”

  She grimaced. “Now we’re up to four Pyr who need to be freed, as well as Kara, if we make our deal. The more we have to free, the less likely it seems that we’ll succeed.”

  At least she was thinking of them as a team.

  She’d spoken softly, as if she didn’t expect a reply, then met his gaze. “What about the book?”

  “It might be the one that a woman has.”

  “A mortal woman?”

  “I think so. There’s a vampire guarding her at an antique shop in Soho. Apparently it’s a refuge.” He searched on his phone and came up with a huge list. “I guess we could go door-to-door.”

  His mate scoffed. “As if vampires would answer and invite us in. And then give us the book they want to defend. I don’t think so.”

  “You’re right. Bad plan. Alasdair is going to try to find out the name of the shop.”

  “The vampire must need a sanctuary to ensure his own safety during the day.”

  “And if all the old stories are right, I’ll guess it’s hard to find.” He considered her. “So, what about this deal?”

  She gave him a twinkling glance. “I think we should do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I might be able to narrow down the list of antique shops that are candidates, or even learn more about the vampires who are supposedly in town.” She smiled at him and he was dazzled by the sight. “Now you need me, which is a much better basis for working together.”

  “I don’t understand. How can you narrow down the list?”

  She picked up his shirt and tossed it to him, ignoring his question. “Hungry, Kris?”

  “Of course. But where are we going?”

  “To the mortuary. Vampires hunt. It should be pretty easy to identify their victims, given that they’ll have no blood left.”

  “They’re just going to let us in to the city mortuary?”

  She smiled wickedly. “I work there.” She pulled a keycard out of a drawer and waved it at him. “Meet New York’s finest mortuary assistant.”

  Kristofer was astonished and tried to hide it. Her smile hinted that he’d failed. “But how is that going to help us find the vampire?”

  “You’ll see. But first we’ll stop to get something to eat, because if we end up back in Fae, the last thing you want to do is eat or drink anything.”

  “Why?”

  “You end up trapped there forever if you do.” She’d already zipped up her jacket, pulled on her boots and opened the door.

  “Not enticing. I’m with you. Let’s eat while we can.” Kristofer grabbed his coat and followed her out the door, hoping she’d explain more.

  She did.

  It was fun to shake Kris’s assumptions. Bree had more startling things to confess than her day job, but they were secrets she held close. He was good at guessing and she wondered how much he’d know about her by the time their ways parted.

  Because they had to part. As soon as Kara was safe, along with the other Pyr lost in Fae, this relationship was done.

  Bree knew she shouldn’t find that a disappointing prospect.

  They got into the elevator together and fortunately, there was no one else. That yellow glow of the firestorm would have been easily noticed and hard to explain. They stood side by side, simmering, watching the floors light.

  “So we have a deal?” he asked, his voice thrumming with sensual intent.

  “I’m in,” Bree said and spared him a glance.

  “Me, too,” he agreed, his smile flashing. She saw his eyes twinkle and his gaze drop to her lips. He started to lean closer, but she was saved by the doors opening in the lobby.

  “We’d better hurry,” she said and strode across the lobby.

  “Isn’t it interesting that I’m the one who should fear your kiss, but you’re the one who’s actually running away,” he mused from behind her.

  Bree pivoted so quickly that her heels nearly slid on the marble floor. “I’m not running. I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too,” he said, eyes gleaming. “But not for breakfast.”

  “You’d have to kiss me,” she said, hearing that her words were breathless.

  He chuckled. “I like that you don’t choose the easy answer.”

  “It’s not easy. It would be insanely complicated,” Bree began, but then he slid his hand into her hair and tugged her closer. The feel of his fingers on her nape, the gentle strength of his hand, the heat of the firestorm, all combined to betray her resolve. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned against him, unable to resist temptation.

  Of course he knew it.

  Oddly enough, she didn’t care. It must have been the satisfaction and admiration lighting his eyes, or his sweet, hot and thorough kiss. When Kris finally lifted his head and made a little growl of satisfaction, Bree was this close to surrendering. He touched his lips to her forehead and sighed. “Fake firestorm, my ass,” he murmured then seized her hand.

  “You let me doubt your belief in it,” Bree accused as they crossed the lobby.

  “I want to build a partnership with you,” he ceded easily. “Don’t shoot.”

  Exasperating, infuriating, enticing and seductive dragon. He had just about nothing in common with the dragon she’d hunted with Siegfried.

  Bree knew she was on a slippery slope, but the worst part was that she didn’t really care.

  They grabbed a quick breakfast at the twenty-four hour diner Bree liked. After more coffee and that hearty meal, she felt ready for anything. She could have done without the persistent yellow glow of the firestorm between them, and was glad it was too early for many people to be around. That light would definitely attract attention.

  It certainly had hers. She was pretty sure she’d never been so aroused when she went to work.

  Kris strode beside her, and for once, she had to hurry to keep up. “Tell me about being a mortuary assistant.”

  “What about it?”

  “Why, for starters.”

  “Regular hours, good pay, plus the dead tell good stories.”

  He gave her a thoughtful look. “You’re joking about that.

  She didn’t answer because her habitual reply left her feeling exposed with Kris. Most mortals laughed when she said that, like it was a joke. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t talking to a normal mortal. Kris would know the truth soon enough, though, unless she could figure out a way to get rid of him while she did what needed to be done.

  No one had ever watched her do what she was going to do and lived to tell about it.

  She indicated the employee entrance. “It’s a good job. No one messes with you or asks questions. I like it.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’d make a lot of friends at work.” Trust Kris to put his finger right on the thing she liked best. He got a gold star for perceptiveness.

  “No. None.” Bree handed him a pair of latex gloves and a lab coat. The lights were dim and the building was quiet, but she got paper caps for both of them, too. “We’ll be harder to identify if we’re seen,” she told him and he nodded.

  His voice dropped to a whisper. There was a stillness about the place that made Bree want to whisper, too. “What does a mortuary assistant do?”

  “Move bodies around mostly. Some cleaning.”

  He eyed her. “Not of floors.”

  Bree shook her head. “Once in a while I help with weighing organs and other routine jobs, but I prefer to work alone.”

&n
bsp; “And because you listen to cops and coroners, you know about cell phones.”

  “I could know that from watching TV.”

  “Except you don’t have one.”

  “Point to you.” They exchanged a smile that surprised Bree and made her heart skip, then continued down the corridor to the morgue itself. She kept a distance between them because she had to compose herself.

  “What’s the plan, exactly?” Kris asked in that undertone.

  “We have to be quick,” she said. “It’s nearly four and things start to get busy after five.” They went through more locked doors, then the temperature dropped very low. Bree was used to it but she saw Kris shiver.

  She hoped he wasn’t going to barf. Lots of people did. She’d cleaned up after rookie cops more than once. Maybe she wasn’t bothered by death because it was never going to happen to her.

  “You okay with this?” she asked him before opening the door to the morgue.

  Kris nodded. He looked determined, as if he wasn’t looking forward to the task, but not squeamish. Bree could work with that.

  She was glad of the firestorm in that moment. Its heat drove away the persistent chill a little bit. Just inside the door, she logged into a computer to check on recent arrivals. Kris stared at the rows of small stainless doors on the opposite wall intently, then glanced at what she was doing.

  “So you do use a computer,” he teased.

  “When I have to. I’m looking for corpses with exsanguination.”

  “Which is?”

  “Not enough blood to survive, technically, but we’re looking for corpses with none at all.” Bree surveyed the search results. “There are four here.”

  “Because of vampires.”

  She nodded. “But oddly, they all have extensive burns, too.”

  “That wouldn’t account for their lack of blood.”

  “No. There are also half a dozen Jane and John Does. That means they haven’t been identified yet.”

  “I know.” Kris made a face. “Is it because their burns are so extensive?”

  Bree nodded. There was no point in trying to talk to them, even if they had exsanguination. It was horrifying and ineffective to encourage a damaged corpse to talk. “Someone has made notes, noting the similarities with more deaths at the hospital. Three came in through the ER and died there. Another two terminal patients died unexpectedly in the hospice, with a similar lack of blood.”

  “Sounds like an outbreak.”

  “It’s not a very common condition.”

  “Vampires could cause an epidemic.”

  She nodded again. “You’re right. This is more than I would have expected, and they’re the ones that were found.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are ways to dispose of bodies so they aren’t found by the authorities.”

  Kris nodded understanding. “And the other five from the hospital are here?”

  “One is. The others are on their way. The condition has raised some flags, so the coroner will be having a look at them all.”

  “Let’s look first.”

  Bree noted the location of one of the least damaged bodies, which had come in the night before, and led the way. “This one was found at the landfill. He was noticed when a truck that empties Dumpsters delivered its load.”

  “Rotten luck for anyone who was hoping the body might disappear there.”

  Bree agreed. She opened the door and slid out the drawer that was inside. There was a body on it, eyes closed, skin pale. A young man. Maybe thirty. Good looking. Bree turned his throat a little, noting the two tiny puncture marks on the side of his neck. They were small but she could see the bruising around them. The other side of his face was burned, as was a lot of his body. His legs were charred to the bones. She looked at the hand that was still relatively intact, showing Kris that there was black material under his nails.

  “He fought back,” she said quietly.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Kris leaned closer to peer at the man’s throat. “It looks to me like someone was careless if vampires were trying to hide the evidence of what had really killed him. Are the others all burned on the neck?”

  They ended up looking at all the flagged corpses. They were all burned extensively, except for the one that had arrived from the hospice. Several of them had their throats ripped open. None of the others had visible twin punctures, often because that skin was burned or missing.

  The one from the hospice was a young woman who looked like she was sleeping. Her skin was pale from the absence of blood and she was a bit too thin, a sign that she’d been sick. Her expression was serene, though, and there were no marks or bruising on her neck.

  “More than one vampire?” Kris suggested.

  “Perish the thought,” Bree said, but it was a definite possibility. She returned to the young man and gave Kris a hot look.

  This was the tricky bit. She had to shift shape, but Kris had seen her other form before. She also had to use an old charm, one which shouldn’t be revealed to mortals. It was arcane knowledge, shared by the old man, entrusted to her. One look at Kris revealed that he wasn’t going anywhere, and if anyone was going to witness this, she supposed a dragon shifter knowledgeable of the old traditions was the best candidate.

  She tried to evict him all the same. “You shouldn’t watch this.” Her tone was stern.

  He smiled. “Then you shouldn’t have brought me.”

  Bree considered the corpse. “We need to both hear whatever he says, in case only one of us understands him, but I don’t want you to see how I do this.”

  Kris folded his arms across his chest, held her gaze, and to her astonishment, quoted a familiar verse in Old Norse.

  His pronunciation was perfect.

  “For the twelfth I know, if on a tree

  I see a corpse swinging from a halter,

  I can so grave and in runes depict,

  that the man shall walk,

  and with me converse.”

  His mate was shocked, so shocked that she couldn’t hide her reaction.

  Kristofer was glad he could keep her on her toes, just a little bit.

  She caught her breath and paled a little. “You know the Hávamál.” Her voice was soft, a little bit breathless, which was even more sexy than her usual tones.

  Hávamál or The Sayings of the High One were part of the Prose Edda, a medieval collection of the stories of the Norse gods, compiled in Iceland. Kristofer had quoted part of Odin’s instruction for the uses of runes.

  “It was my father’s favorite,” he said with a shrug. “He recited it all the time.”

  “That’s why he was interested in the Valkyries,” she whispered.

  “Not just that. He knew all the stories.” Kristofer missed his father then with the intensity that still seized him sometimes. “He was the best one to have around on a stormy night. It seemed there was always another story for him to tell.”

  “He had them memorized.”

  “It was his thing. He couldn’t read or write.”

  “Then how did he know the stories?”

  “His father taught them to him. A lot of people memorized stories in those days. You must remember.” She studied the corpse. “He said the rhymes made it easier.”

  She nodded, apparently uncertain of how to proceed. “And you know Old Norse.”

  “Not really. I have some of the verses memorized, because he taught me that, but it’s more the sequence of sounds than that actual meanings. The Norwegian I speak is modern.”

  She swallowed but didn’t look up. “Then I’ll guess that you know about runes.”

  He chose not to tell her—yet—that he read them. “Maybe you’re Ragnila.”

  She didn’t even seem to hear him.

  Kristofer smiled. “Go on. I’d like to see necromancy in action.”

  She hesitated, eying him.

  “Who am I going to tell? And you said we had to hurry.”

  As if to reinforce his warning, there
was a sound from elsewhere in the building, like a door closing. His mate nodded briskly and raised her hands. In the blink of an eye, she’d shifted shape. There was no blue shimmer of light as there would have been with a Pyr changing form. She just changed with remarkable speed. The change wasn’t as dramatic: she became an augmented version of herself, instead of taking a completely different form.

  It was still impressive.

  Kristofer couldn’t help but stare. Her dark wings rose high behind her. Her dark turtleneck was replaced by a sleeveless hauberk of chain mail and a leather jerkin marked with runes. There was a tattoo on the back of her left arm that he hadn’t noticed in her human form—but the long sleeve of her sweater had probably covered it. It was like a winged sword, extending from wrist to elbow, and he wondered if it was a mark of her nature. Her hair was longer and moved with a life of its own, flowing in a breeze he couldn’t detect.

  And those eyes. There couldn’t be any doubt about her nature when Kristofer looked into her eyes. In her Valkyrie form, they glittered with a shifting mix of hues and light. They shone with all the hues of a turbulent sea, a thousand shades silver and grey, with flashes of green. Dangerous. Treacherous.

  Gorgeous.

  What a mate. His heart thundered and his gaze fell to her lips again, the firestorm turning his thoughts in a predictable direction.

  She raised a hand and marked a rune on the corpse’s forehead with her fingertip. It glimmered red, as if she’d written it in blood, and he knew it. She whispered something in Old Norse and Kristofer wished he’d listened more to his dad so he could have recognized the words and learned the charm. Then she leaned down and exhaled over the mark. It writhed on the corpse’s skin for a moment, as if it had come to life, then the corpse opened his eyes. They were brown and bloodshot, like he’d been drinking heavily.

  “Lady mercy,” the dead man said, his voice rough.

  She’d awakened the dead. With that act, Kristofer guessed who his mate might be. She could be the leader of the twenty-seven Valkyries, the one who knew Odin’s secret charms best, the one who had given the wisdom of the runes to a dragon slayer as a token of her love and admiration.