The Spark of the Dragon's Heart: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Fantasy Romance (Harem of Fire Book 1)

by Willa Hart

  An undercurrent of something else hit me a second after my happy thoughts. The same tension from the car flared up, so I glanced over at Ryen and Danic. They stared daggers at Kellum, but only for a moment. I blinked and Ryen was back to his usual cheery self. Danic wasn’t quite as in control of his emotions, it seemed.

  I couldn’t quite name the tension in the room — it wasn’t jealousy, exactly…and why would it be? I barely knew these guys. And yet…I felt as if I’d known them my entire life. A taut wire bound us all together and Kellum had plucked it like a guitar.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Rufus mused, blissfully unaware.

  “Yeah, because sending a giant in with a tiny little human totally won’t attract attention,” Ryen said, smirking at his older brother. “I have a better idea. How about I go with her? I don’t know if your memory’s starting to go in your old age, Kellum, but I did major in theater at UCLA. But y’know, no big deal.” Very quickly, he added, all in one breath, “But I’m definitely the best actor out of the three of us, sorry not sorry.”

  Danic snorted. “Went to UCLA because Juilliard turned you down.”

  Ryen bristled, shooting his younger brother a dirty look. Clearly, the Juilliard rejection was a sore point.

  “Whatever. I’m older than any one of the pompous assholes on the admissions board. And you’re trying to deflect, little bro. Neither of you two has starred in a single stage production, have you?”

  “Who cares,” Danic said, cracking his knuckles. “That neighborhood is dangerous. Favor needs someone by her side who can protect her. Sounds like this Enoch jerk can put up one helluva fight when he doesn’t want to get dragged off by a stranger. Act all you want, but when it comes to brawn against brawn, I’m your man, and you both know it.”

  As flattered as I was that the boys were fighting over who would escort me, the strife churned the acid in my stomach. I opened my mouth to assure them they were all wonderful, but Kellum jumped in ahead of me.

  “That’s the last thing we need. We’re not going there to knock heads, we need information. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a chess master, so I know strategy better than either of you. I can get in and out of there with the necessary info in no time.”

  “Sure, waltz into a scuzzy dive bar in your Armani suit and start asking questions about a known scumbag,” Danic sneered. “That won’t tip off anyone.”

  “And a scowling bodybuilder asking around won’t?” Kellum countered. “They’ll peg you for a cop or a bounty hunter in a heartbeat.”

  Rufus caught my gaze and raised a single red eyebrow. I tried not to smile, but when he did, I couldn’t resist. Unlike back at Bertram’s house, I didn’t feel indignant over being left out of the conversation. Quite the opposite, in fact. Listening to them weigh their strengths against each other was — as much as I hated admitting it — kind of fun.

  “Enough,” Kellum finally said, holding up a hand to silence his brothers.

  I didn’t think it would work, but Ryen and Danic stopped talking immediately and turned to face him. Kellum really was a natural leader, and a wise one at that.

  “We’re wasting time. Ryen’s right.”

  Ryen lit up like a Christmas tree, while Danic threw his hands up in frustration. The acid in my stomach magically morphed back into beautiful butterflies, which took me by surprise.

  “Enoch may be a dragon,” Kellum continued, “but we’re not hunting him like a runaway convict — we’re trying to find him. Odds are he’s not there, and Ryen is more than capable of turning any human who threatens Favor to ash. The most important thing is to blend in and, of the three of us, Ryen will do that best.”

  “Hells to the yeah!” Ryen fist-pumped triumphantly, and I couldn’t help laughing at his juvenile display. “A date at a gutter bar. Awesome!”

  “That’s how most of his actual dates start and end,” Danic grumbled as he flopped into a chair. Thankfully, he didn’t look angry, just disappointed.

  “Sore loser,” Ryen teased.

  “Ignore them,” Kellum told me, though that was mighty hard to do. “There’s no reason to expect any violence in the first place. You’re just going to ask a few questions, find out if this woman has seen Enoch lately. San Bernardino can be rough, but it’s not a war zone. Regardless, whatever comes up, he can handle himself. He’s not a one-man army, like Danic, but you’ll be fine.”

  Ryen puffed up his chest and brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder. “Maybe one of these days Danic and I can put that to a test.”

  Danic chuckled, a nice sound I wanted to hear more often. “You like that pretty smile of yours too much for that.”

  “That’s true,” Ryen said, glancing at the two-way mirror and smiling broadly at his reflection. “But you know that makes you sound a little bit like a serial killer, right?”

  “All right, all right,” Kellum interrupted again. “It’s settled. Ryen and Favor will go try to interview Enoch’s lady friend and find out what they can. Rufus can drive us home later, after he fills us in on the case — assuming you’re not expecting Max to come back early.”

  He gave Rufus a quizzical look, but the big man just shrugged. Ryen tossed back the rest of his coffee and held out his hand. For a flash, I thought he wanted me to take it, but just as I started to reach for it, Kellum tossed his keys at Ryen.

  “Ready to get a drink?” he asked me. “I know I sure am. Wait, does that make me sound like an alcoholic? Meh, it’ll be past five by the time we get there. Hey, maybe we should grab dinner first so we can be fashionably late. I know this great little place…”

  I fought a grin as I followed him out the door to Kellum’s SUV. He’d said the last just to prod his brothers, but I secretly hoped he was serious. I probably should have been anxious — going to a dangerous part of L.A. with a man I hardly knew — but I wasn’t in the least. In fact, if I had to define what I was feeling at that moment, I would have said…happy.

  Chapter Seven

  BELEVEDERE BAR.

  At least, that was what I assumed the flashing red neon sign looming over the parking lot had originally read. With every flash, several of the most vital letters remained dark, leaving the word BLEED BAR pulsing ominously every other second. I winced and glanced over at Ryen, who was grinning at the sign as though it was the most entertaining thing he had ever seen in his life.

  “Yeah, that’s not foreboding in the slightest,” he said with a snort.

  “Do you think they did it on purpose?” I asked anxiously.

  “I doubt the people who run this place have the sense of humor for that.”

  Gravel crunched under the SUV’s tires as it rolled to a stop in a makeshift parking space, flanked by a worn-out Jeep and an ancient sedan with a crushed rear bumper. All of the cars in the crowded parking lot were beaters. Kellum’s shiny black SUV stuck out like a fancy, well-manicured thumb among the bruised and battered heaps of steel. We should have taken my Caddy. It would have fit right in.

  “I think this rig might be a little too classy for a joint like this,” I said.

  “No doubt about it. It’s a diamond among lumps of coal.”

  “You do know diamonds are a total scam, right?”

  Ryen laughed outright. “You’re much more cynical than I expected.”

  Not wanting to go into my life history, I simply said, “I’ve seen some shit.”

  “I bet you have,” he said, watching me closely in the flashing red of the sign.

  Ryen seemed softer than his brothers. Not in a physical way — although he was a little shorter than Kellum and slighter than Danic — but rather emotionally.

  Kellum was very serious and matter-of-fact, but Ryen seemed to take life a lot less seriously. He laughed more, smiled more. And his smiles seemed to start at his toes and work their way up. He also wasn’t as hot-tempered as Danic. His happy-go-lucky manner really put me at ease, even in a nerve-wracking situation such as sitting in the parking lot of BLEED BAR.

  Maybe I
was an idiot for ignoring all of my training as a human woman — to be cautious about strange men, especially big men, and especially groups of them — but I didn’t feel the least bit frightened by the Novak brothers. I knew they could be dangerous if they wanted to be. They could tear me to shreds and torch me into dust without breaking a sweat. But I also knew, deep down where it really counted, as clearly as I felt my own heart thump-thump-thumping, they would not do anything to harm me. In fact, they made me feel safer and more secure than I could ever remember. I always felt totally at ease with Max, of course, but it wasn’t the same. His great-nephews made me feel…empowered.

  Ryen, in particular, made it seem as if everything would work out okay. He was funny and outgoing, and sometimes he almost seemed like a normal guy, rather than a mighty dragon closing in on three hundred years old.

  Granted, over the course of my life I’d rarely encountered normalcy. The event that separated me from my parents, the years of hopping around the state of Oregon from one temporary home to the next, the discovery of my living relatives and the dragon world they inhabited — all of it was well outside the realm of normal by anyone’s standards.

  Since moving to California and getting acquainted with the reality of the world Max and Shirley lived in, I had been shaken to the core many, many times. Over and over again I was forced to confront my assumptions, my beliefs about the universe and the way it was “supposed” to operate. It was easy to feel out of place sometimes, being a comparatively fragile human dwarfed by the vast and ancient realm of dragons and dragon keepers and mages and…well, all of it.

  But sitting next to Ryen in the parking lot of a seedy bar felt a little like sitting in front of a warm, cozy fire. He made me feel at home, even though I was about as far away as I’d been since moving to L.A.

  “Favor?”

  “Huh?” I shook myself from my reverie and focused on him.

  “I asked if you had any more questions about how this is going to go down.”

  “Oh. No, I think we covered it all on the way here. Except one thing. Did you really study acting at UCLA?”

  The neon lit up his adorable smirk. “Why would I make that up? If I was going to lie about it, I’d have gone with Juilliard. Much more prestigious.”

  “It’s just that acting seems like such an odd choice for a dragon.”

  “What would you expect a dragon to study? Pyrotechnics? Aerodynamics? Underwater basket-weaving?”

  I was grateful for the dim lighting or he might have seen my blush. The conversation felt like more than just playful banter. It felt like flirting. I reminded myself we had a job to do and to not read too much into the way he was smiling at me.

  “I don’t have a clue,” I answered, then changed the subject out of desperation. “Anyway, I think I’m ready. You prepped me pretty well on how to act when we get in there. I don’t think it’s going to be anything like the high school production of Grease I was in back in the day, but—”

  “Grease? Really?” He seemed really excited.

  “Yeah, I know. A little raunchy for high schoolers, right?” I chuckled.

  “Definitely. I can’t imagine that went over well with the parents.”

  “Don’t worry, the school board insisted on changing some of the lyrics and dialogue so our pure, innocent minds wouldn’t be corrupted.

  “What role did you play? Sandy?”

  I shook my head.

  “Rizzo? Oh god, you were Rizzo, weren’t you? You’d make a great Rizzo.”

  “Uh uh.”

  “Frenchy? Please tell me you at least got to play Frenchy.”

  I’d been so proud of being cast in the play, but now I was a little worried he’d judge me as lacking and take me right back to Aunt Shirley’s. I shrugged and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

  “You’re overestimating my theatrical talent, Ryen. I was just a Pink Lady.”

  He smiled so sweetly my insides turned to jelly.

  “Aw, that’s cool. Could’ve been worse. You could have been Patty Simcox.”

  We bother shuddered, then he grabbed his door handle.

  “Let’s go, Ms. Streep.”

  As we closed on the ratty front door of the Belevedere Bar, my nerves amped up to eleven. Ryen offered his arm and I gratefully hooked mine through it. When a thrill shot through my body, I reminded myself we were just pretending to be a couple. Now anxiety swirled around inside my gut mixed with a hint of sadness thrown in for good measure.

  Ryen held the door for me, never letting go of my arm, and the moment we crossed the threshold, things got weird. All conversation dulled to relative silence. Only an old Eagles song could be heard playing in the background. Every head swiveled our way, every pair of eyes fixed on us. A chill rolled down my spine. Ryen seemed to sense it and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze.

  I half-expected every patron to drop what they were doing, grab the closest pool stick, and beat us to a pulp, as if we were in some old honky-tonk movie. But to my eternal relief, after a brief stare-down, everyone turned back to what they were doing.

  I heaved a sigh. Crisis averted. Ryen seemed unruffled. Cool as a cucumber. At least that made one of us.

  We moved slowly through the crowded bar, both of us peering around nonchalantly, taking in all of our surroundings. The place was surprisingly full, considering its location on the desolate outskirts of town. Maybe there weren’t very many options for folks living far out in the desert.

  The people inside could have been in any bare-bones tavern across the country. Blue collar workers, if I had to guess, who wouldn’t be shy about punching the next guy in the nose if he said something offensive. A rough and tumble crowd. No stockbrokers or hipsters in sight.

  It struck me as odd that a guy — a dragon no less — like Enoch, who came from a long line of stuck-up Bel Air snobs, would trek all the way out to San Bernardino to get his kicks. I hadn’t lived in Cali for long, but even I knew the town was notorious for its criminal element. Enoch could literally go anywhere in the world — between his money, power, and, oh yeah, his ability to fly! — so why this place?

  Maybe it really was all about a girl. Rufus had described Enoch’s lady friend, Crystal, as a six-foot-tall ginger in her early forties. She’d stand out in a crowd, even if she wasn’t working behind the bar.

  Crystal was built like an old-time movie starlet. Ivory skin, a pretty face with nice cheekbones, boobs out to there, and hips that kept every man’s attention as she walked away. Her bright red hair spilled over her left shoulder in a messy braid. Her bottom half was clad in skin-tight, acid-wash mom jeans, and she wore a slightly undersized black tank top above. The plunging neckline showed off her ample cleavage. Judging by the overflowing tip jar on the back counter, her outfit had been chosen with great care.

  She looked as if she’d be most comfortable driving to a heavy metal concert on the back of a motorcycle. Hard, with a soft side she kept under wraps. Like a flower, but a prickly one — a cactus flower, perhaps. I liked her instantly.

  Two spots opened up at the bar as we approached and Ryen snagged them before anyone else could. The place was hopping and the deafening noise of folks winding down after a hard day at work made it impossible to strike up a conversation with Crystal, so Ryen ordered a couple of beers and gave her a handsome tip.

  “She’ll remember that,” he explained after she’d moved on to the next customer. “Hopefully it will grease the information wheels later on.”

  Being new to the P.I. game, I filed the tip away for future use.

  “Max has been training you in the ways of being a dragon keeper, huh?” Ryen asked as he sipped his beer.

  I made a face. “Training,” I scoffed, complete with air quotes. “Seems all I ever do is answer phone calls and run errands. Don’t get me wrong, Uncle Max talks endlessly about the history of dragons — along with just about anything else that has a story — but all that stuff gets pretty confusing. He keeps telling me to be patient, that I’
m learning a lot every day, but it doesn’t feel like I’m making any progress at all. In fact, I don’t really understand what he’s talking about half the time.”

  Ryen frowned. “Wait. Didn’t he teach you telepathy?”

  I took my own sip as I shook my head. “Nope. It just…happened. I had no idea I could even do it.”

  “That’s impressive,” he said, giving me a curious look.

  “Why? Can’t all keepers do it?”

  “I honestly don’t know if any keeper could project his or her thoughts to three different dragons at the same time. Especially not on their first try. Like I said, impressive.”

  I reveled in his praise and wanted to keep him thinking nice things about me, even if I didn’t have control over my supposed powers.

  “I can do other stuff too,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the beer label.

  “Like what?”

  I peeked up at him, unsure if I should tell him. Maybe it was all in my imagination and he’d laugh at me. Then I met his gaze and knew that would never happen.

  “I can tell when a dragon is lying or holding something back. Not all dragons, but some, and not all the time. I can’t read minds or anything — it’s just a feeling. Like…” I couldn’t find the word.

  “Instinct?” Ryen suggested.

  “Yes, exactly. Sometimes it’s stronger than others. That’s if it’s a thing at all. Maybe I’m just good at reading people or something.”

  “Never minimize your abilities, Favor,” he said with a gravity that surprised me. “You never know how they might change and develop over time. I mean, you weren’t able to do that before today, right?”

  I shook my head and returned my focus to my beer label. Maybe all the weird shit going on was me coming into whatever powers a dragon keeper has. I didn’t know, but I’d ask Max as soon as he got back.

  For the next half hour, Ryen and I chatted about less serious things, such as our picks for the Oscars, who our favorite college sports teams were — Go Ducks! — and my personal favorite: If we were stuck on a desert island, what was the one fruit we’d want to have for the rest of our lives? I picked cherries, he picked dragon fruit.