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just didn’t seem to be close enough.
“We should stop this,” Lance whispered
desperately against her lips. “We really should
stop, my girl. We’ve got work to do.”
“You’re right,” Felicity agreed with a
reluctant sigh. “We still need to figure out what
symbol to look for, and then go look for it as
well.”
“Yes, and change our clothes again, it
would seem,” he said with a smirk. “But I would
suggest we do so well away from each other, or
we might not get any work done today at all.”
Felicity laughed at this, and kissed his
cheek before she turned and ran away, back
toward their campsite. She was digging out a set
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of clothes when Lance arrived and grabbed his
own bag to do the same.
Now that it was no longer dark, they
discovered that the campgrounds had a little
bathroom facility that contained showers as well
as toilets, so each of them were able to go into
the proper bathroom and get cleaned up.
Afterwards, they met each other back at their
campsite and settled on top of their bedding to
examine Felicity’s book a little better.
“So, my dear, what have you found in
that book that can tell us where to look?” asked
Lancelot hopefully as he ostentatiously laid his
head upon Felicity’s knee. She smirked and
delved her fingers into his long, golden hair.
“Well, there is a certain symbol that
seems to be prevalent throughout the entire
book,” she said. “See, look. It’s an oval wrapped
around a line. It almost looks like the eye of a
dragon, really. Just like the eye on the book’s
cover. In fact, after studying further, I’ve found
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that the origins actually stem from the tale of
Amaranth herself.”
“Enlighten me, my dear.”
“The oval is actually an orb of
knowledge which is said to have been forged by
the dragons. The line represents a sword, forged
by the giants, and the legend states that it was
the weapon used to cleave that orb in two.”
“Then it certainly must be the symbol we
are looking for,” said Lance. “It couldn’t mean
anything else.”
“It is said that only once the Dragon’s
Eye is healed can the knowledge of the dragon-
mages return to our world. Which means, only
by healing the orb could we ever hope to obtain
the book that Amaranth holds.”
“Wow, that sounds like one tall order
doesn’t it?” said Lance as he glanced past the
book to look into Felicity’s eyes. “This Grimoire
Draconis is worth a lot more than Dervish has
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been letting on. It’s no wonder he wants to
prevent it from being found by anyone else.”
“I wonder why the giants would have
wanted to end dragon-magic in the first place,”
Felicity commented. “They can’t have cleaved
the Eye simply because they wanted ownership
of one tract of land, as the book seems to imply.”
“I have no idea,” Lancelot shrugged, but
then he reached up to tug her toward him.
Felicity chuckled and leaned down to
give Lance a quick kiss, and then she said,
“Anyway, there’s only one way we’re going to
spot something like that. We’re going to have to
fly over top the mountains.”
“What, no climbing?” asked Lance with
a mocking pout as he kissed her again. “How
shall I ever live with my disappointment?”
“Don’t worry, Master Jones, I’m sure we
shall still get to climb something,” she said.
“Just not until we have some idea what it is we’ll
need to climb.”
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Lance chuckled. “How about if I just
climb on you?”
“Naughty boy,” she admonished him.
“It’s work time, remember?”
“Mm, party pooper,” Lance grumbled as
he got to his feet, then helped Felicity up as well.
“Let’s not bother to break camp, though. We
needn’t bother till after our little jaunt, when we
have some idea where to put everything. There’s
no point in carrying all this stuff about the entire
day.”
“You’re probably right,” Felicity agreed.
“That’s good, since we’re going to be
cheating big time by flying in the first place,” he
said with a grin. “For that matter, we could even
pop over and have some lunch in Paris, since we
aren’t following the rules as we had set them
forth.”
“Well sure,” Felicity said as she bat her
eyes up at him. “Maybe even at a five-star
restaurant after we fly over to Nice to do some
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more shopping for the perfect outfits to wear
while we are there. Your treat, of course.”
“Undoubtedly, since I am the one who
has all the money.”
“Don’t rub it in, Lance,” she grumbled as
she moved away to look up into his face. He
easily reached out and brought her back, kissing
her some more.
“You mean you don’t want me to rub
anything else today?” he inquired with a grin. “I
never did finish rubbing, you know.”
“Lance!” Felicity protested as each of his
hands slid down toward one of her butt cheeks,
and his lips trailed down her throat, leaving hot,
searing kisses along the way. “Come on, it’s
almost noon already, you lecherous wizard. We
should be working on—um, on the—the other
adventure, not the one you wanted on the train.”
“Damn. I hate it when you’re right, my
dear,” he growled as he bit the side of her neck
and held her really close for a moment before he
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let go. “But you sure are building up the list of
things you’re making me wait till later to do.”
“Somehow, I can’t bring myself to feel
guilty at the moment. Let’s go.”
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TWENTY-SEVEN
With wands held aloft, and a veiling
charm concealing them nicely, Felicity and
Lancelot floated high above the mountain range
in search of the dragon’s eye symbol. So far,
they’d been at it for roughly an hour, and so far,
they hadn’t managed to turn up anything.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Lancelot
pointed out finally. “Do you have any idea
which way we ought to go next, my dear?”
Felicity glanced over at him, and he
smiled. The wind was blowing her unruly hair in
every conceivable direction. The veiling charm
that she’d wrapped around herself cast a blue
sheen over her that
made her seem almost to
sparkle as the shards of energy snapped and
sparked.
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Lance wanted to kiss her, but he knew
that was a bad idea. He could just see it if they
forgot to keep their wands up and plummeted to
the depths below right in the middle of a good
snog. That would be foolish, indeed.
“I have often found that the best place to
hide something is right under the very noses of
those from which you wish it to be hidden,”
Felicity pointed out. “I think if we head south,
and a bit to the east, we’ll spot something soon
enough.”
“Yes, I see,” he chuckled. “So, what
you’re saying is, the best place to hide
something from the Romans would have been
somewhere in Rome itself? That makes perfect
sense.”
“Of course it does,” Felicity said with a
grin. “I’ve done it myself on many occasions.”
“Did you really?” Lancelot inquired with
a raised brow.
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“Oh, yes, especially if I didn’t want my
aunt to find it,” she chuckled. “She always takes
the most difficult path to anything, so of course
she didn’t notice a thing.”
“I’m going to have to keep that in mind
for future reference,” Lance teased her.
“Oh damn, I just gave up one of my best
kept secrets,” Felicity pretended to groan as she
hit herself on the forehead. “I suppose I’d better
never try to hide anything from you now.”
“No, you had better not, my dear,” he
agreed. “Because if you did, I would be sure to
find it.”
“Wow, then I suppose when we get back
to the museum I’ll have my work cut out for me
finding new places for the things I’ve hidden
there already.”
“Oh ho, that sounds like a challenge!”
Lancelot answered with bravado. But then
something off to the side caught his eye. “Wait
a moment, what was that? Circle back around,
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my lovely, and look over there. Do you see that,
there on the face of that cliff? It looks very much
like a large oval with the area that might once
have been a line scratched out.”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” Felicity
agreed. “But I don’t see any sort of caves or
entrances anywhere. It looks like solid rock.”
“I cannot say from up here for sure,” said
Lancelot. “But I do believe it’s well worth a
closer look.”
“I quite agree,” Felicity said.
“But first, we should go and collect our
things and set up a camp here. We can look for
possible ways in, or any other clues that might
be helpful, once we’re settled in.”
“This place looks pretty secluded. There
are no trails in or anything,” Felicity said. “It’s
completely surrounded by dense forest, so I
doubt that anybody would disturb us here.”
“Hmm, that sounds promising,” Lance
commented with a suggestive grin.
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“Stop that, you naughty boy,” Felicity
said as she flitted over and swatted his backside
yet again.
“Another swat, my dear?” Lancelot
laughed. “I’m going to have to invest in a scroll
or two of vellum just to keep track.”
“Well, you did say you had the funds,”
she reminded him with a sweet smile. “I’m sure
you could afford it.”
Lance laughed heartily as they headed
back toward camp. “That I can, my darling. That
I can.”
They packed up all of their belongings,
and once again used their wands to locate the eye
symbol, unpacking everything just outside the
line of trees in a little clearing they found at the
base of the mountain.
“Felicity Lake, this is getting to be all
kinds of ridiculous,” Lance exclaimed about an
hour later. He still had not figured out how to
erect the tent he’d been trying to put up. It fell
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over for the fourth time, and he growled in
exasperation.
Felicity had stood dutifully watching the
first three attempts, but turned away for this
fourth one, busying herself with arranging some
of the other gear in a more orderly array.
It didn’t particularly need any arranging,
she just didn’t want Lance to catch her
chuckling. Of course, he was not the least bit
fooled by her ploy.
Now she composed her face into some
semblance of complacency, and turned around
again. Still, she damned herself for having never
been very good at the game of poker as a small
smirk graced her lips.
“Yes, I suppose you could use a few
pointers on the fine art of tent erection,” she
conceded. “But I didn’t want to offer any more
advice without asking first, after that last attempt
to do so.”
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“What was wrong with the last attempt?”
Lance wanted to know.
“Nothing, of course, except that you
never did light the fire,” she pointed out.
“Yes I did,” he said as he turned and
drew her into his arms. His lips came down to
graze the side of her neck as he added, “I
distinctly remember having heard it light.”
“Lance!” Felicity gasped, and her face
went crimson at this comment. She could hear
her heart pounding in her ears. Her breath
quickly sped up even faster than it had done
upon the occasion in question.
“Mm, I see you know exactly what I’m
talking about, my pretty little bookworm,”
Lance teased her in a whisper, feather-light
against the shell of her ear. “Surely you must
have read something somewhere about the
physical effects of sexual arousal on the female
anatomy—”
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“Stop it!” Felicity gasped, but she could
barely get out the words. Firstly because that
would have required that she had enough air to
utter them, and secondly because it would have
required that she had not just deposited her
tongue straight down his throat.
Lance groaned, both in victory and
amusement, as he crushed her against him. His
hands slid down her arms to cup her arse as he
brought her up to meet his height a bit better.
The two fell down on top of the
unpitched tent, uncaring of where they landed at
that moment. Lance made sure to cushion
Felicity’s head before he rolled on top of her.
“Has anyone ever made you this hot
before, Felicity?” he asked huskily. “Or perhaps
not? Tell me, has
the whole thing always been
purely academic?”
“Shut up, Lance!” she grumbled as he bit
at her lips, then trailed little bites all down the
column of her throat. He stopped when he
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reached the base, and stayed there to suckle for
a while.
“The question is not merely rhetorical,
my sweet,” he mentioned as his hands began to
roam over her body, stoking her already roaring
fire up to a fever pitch. “I was trying to decide
just how much of a ravishing I was going to
attempt.”
Felicity laughed at this, and the sound of
it seemed quite airy in her breathlessness. “Um,
mostly academic, I’m sorry to admit,” she
finally managed to say. “No one has ever gotten
my knickers down, if that’s what you mean.”
“Damn!” he grumbled as he laced his
fingers through her hair. He smoothed one hand
down to her belly, and used it to slide her shirt
upwards.
“Lance!” Felicity gasped, and his fingers
slid along her silky skin, up from her belly and
along the side of her still-covered breast, making
her tremble with need.
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“Mm, and what about this lovely bit of
lace? Has anybody ever got past there?” When
Lance smoothed a finger along the inner edge of
her cute little black bra, Felicity sucked in a hot
breath.
“Only just,” she blushed, remembering
Jane’s brother. “He didn’t quite manage to touch
the goods before I got away from him though.”
“Mm, sweet,” Lance said, his gorgeous
green eyes darkening as he looked up into hers.
“Untasted candy is always the best kind. I find I
don’t like to share my goodies.”
“Lance!” Felicity gasped again, both
because of his blatant statement, and because his
fingers had slid beneath the lacy exterior and
