Bewitching the Dragon

by Jane Kindred

  “Well, don’t get a big head about it. I suspect the blood connection has us both charmed.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You said there was other news besides Carter’s visitor. That you came to talk about something else.”

  “A couple of things, yes.”

  Ione took a biscuit from the tray and scooted into the corner of the sofa, legs crossed toward him beneath the silk skirt so she could look at him directly. “So?”

  “I had hoped to understand how you released the demon. And how you put it back.”

  “I can tell you how I got him to go back, but I’m afraid I have no idea how I released him.” She munched on the biscuit thoughtfully. “Rafe said it was my blood that had called Kur, and I had to cut us both to put him back—my palm to your abs over the tattoo. You don’t remember that?”

  “I...” He put his hand against his jumper where the tattoo was. “The demon’s memories aren’t as clear at the release and the return. There’s... Kur fears sharp things. Perhaps that’s why it’s vague.”

  Ione nodded soberly. “Rhea said he had images of ‘beatings, burning and sharp things’ from the time with ‘the Sorcerer.’ Simon, I guess.”

  Sorcerer. It was an apt term. And the Sorcerer had apparently been tormenting the demon from the beginning. Dev’s stomach turned at the thought. And he’d helped torture the beast without knowing it every time he’d followed Simon’s orders.

  “Your blood,” he said idly, and ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “I bit your lip and tasted blood when I...”

  Ione touched her fingers to her lips and left a fleck of lemon cream behind. Dev couldn’t resist. He leaned close to her and licked it off then kissed her hungrily. “I know it isn’t necessarily the wisest thing,” he whispered against her lips, “but it is definitely what I need.” He rose and swept her up, hiking up her skirt as she wrapped her legs around him. “Is it still what you want?”

  Her jade eyes met his, full of desire. “Yes.”

  She gasped as he slipped his fingers into her knickers from the back and pressed them inside her, warm and wet and ready for him.

  “I want to make you come so many times you can’t count them.” He pumped his fingers inside her and got a head start on the first one.

  Ione draped her arms around his neck and leaned her head against his shoulder and the kitteny sounds began just moments after that as she rocked against his fingers. She moaned into his jumper, biting the fabric, until the pitch of her moans rose to a crescendo and her hips locked on him.

  Dev slipped his fingers out, rewarded with a plaintive mewl, to tug her sweater over her head and unfasten her bra, hoisting her up so he could suck on one of the hard nipples.

  He let the wet point slip from his mouth and whispered against her ear. “One.”

  Chapter 11

  Ione stared up at him, still tingling from head to toe, as he tossed her onto the center of her bed. He’d stripped her as he’d carried her upstairs. Except for her panties—which he was sliding down her thighs.

  She shivered and tried to speak without slurring. “I hope you’re planning to take off that ‘jumper.’”

  Dev cocked his head slightly, slipping one of her legs out of the panties. “Does it bother you to be naked when I’m fully clothed?”

  “Not particularly. It’s just not a very appealing garment. It’s hiding your rather marvelous physique.”

  “I’ll take it off, then.” He lifted the sweatshirt over his head and tossed it aside, revealing the formfitting black T-shirt underneath that made a firm shelf of his pecs. “But I rather enjoy having you on display while I’m not. It makes me imagine we’re in public somewhere and I’ve simply denuded you for my pleasure.”

  Ione squirmed at how wet the suggestion made her. “Pervert.”

  “I did mention that, didn’t I?” He tugged the panties over her other foot. “Nothing too weird. Don’t worry. Just—” he trailed the panties over her skin, tickling her breasts “—enough to make it interesting.” Dev prodded down her lower lip and leaned in as if to kiss her, instead, pushing the panties into her mouth as she reached up to meet him. Ione blinked up at him in surprise, totally unwilling, somehow, to spit them out on her own.

  Dev smiled and pushed her legs apart, kneeling between them fully dressed, and continued his quest to make her lose count with a generous application of his tongue.

  * * *

  Ione had lost all sense of time when she finally collapsed beside Dev against the sheets, sweaty and sticky and thoroughly satisfied. It might have been hours later, or days. She decided she didn’t really care. He had eventually undressed, but not until he’d played with her like a cat with a new catnip toy, teasing her mercilessly, savoring the taste of her on his tongue while she begged him to fuck her. Even after the shirt had come off, giving her the uninterrupted pleasure of his washboard abs, he’d kept his jeans on, open at the fly. Entering her while he had her on the bed on all fours, he’d raised her onto her knees, leaning her back against him so she could watch herself in the mirror as he slowly drove himself into her again and again.

  He seemed to have endless patience, and endless stamina, having finally kicked off his shoes and his jeans to drag her onto his lap, weak from her last orgasm, and pump his hips up into her with impressive speed until he came inside her while holding her wrists behind her back in one broad hand.

  She had never been so thoroughly enjoyed, nor had she so thoroughly enjoyed anyone else. But she had to come back down to earth eventually, and it was while she lay curled against his hip with an arm draped across his chest, humming contentedly as she kissed his bare skin, that he revealed the other bit of news he’d neglected.

  “You’ll probably want to get some rest tonight.”

  Ione traced her finger over the tufts of curls that decorated his pecs. “What makes you say that?”

  Dev placed his hand at the back of her head and leaned in to kiss her hair, breathing in as if memorizing the scent of her. Which should have clued her in that he was about to drop a bombshell, but she was too blissed out to focus on such details.

  “The Covent has decided to convene the Global Conclave to make a determination about your status. They arrive tomorrow.”

  Ione’s finger stopped circling and she raised her head, chin resting on his chest. “They...huh?” Her extremities were still feeling floaty and numb, and her brain was wrapped in a postcoital fog. “Who’s coming where?”

  “Members of the College of Elders. They want to interview you directly.”

  Ione propped herself up on her elbows, arms folded over Dev’s chest. “The College of Elders? Why? I don’t...wait, when did this happen?”

  Dev came up onto his forearms as Ione rolled onto her side. “It’s what I wanted to tell you earlier, but I’m afraid I got a little sidetracked.” He smiled apologetically. “I received the notification as I was heading home from the temple. I was going to drive over here to tell you because I couldn’t get you on the phone, and then I decided on a walk instead because I remembered it wasn’t far and I needed some time to formulate my thoughts around it.”

  She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest. “But why? I don’t understand. You haven’t even made your report yet.” She studied his expression, which was starting to look suspiciously like guilt. “Have you?”

  “No, not the official report.” He sat up fully, definitely looking guilty. “But when I left here yesterday, I may have jumped the gun a little.” Dev swallowed. “I reported the vandalism at the temple—I had to—and I gave them a copy of the note from Nemesis.”

  Though it hadn’t bothered her a moment ago, Ione suddenly felt every bit of her nudity. She drew the extra blanket toward her from the end of the bed and wrapped it around herself like a bath towel.

  “You gave them the
note?” She hugged her arms, suddenly chilled. “You told them about my demon blood?”

  “Not directly, no. But I was obligated to keep them apprised—”

  “You said you’d let me tell them in my own time.”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I said. I said it wasn’t my place to do so. That it was yours. I do have an obligation to keep the Council informed of threats against a member of the Covent that take place on temple grounds.”

  “And you just happened to choose to do your duty after you’d decided I was a conniving slut who’d tricked you into bed.”

  “No. That’s not—”

  “And then you came over here so you could get me to explain how I’d managed to manipulate your demon before I found out about the Conclave.”

  “Now, wait. I don’t believe ‘manipulate’ was the term I used—”

  Ione swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, hugging the blanket to her chest. “You need to go.”

  “Ione—”

  “Get out of my bed.”

  Dev slipped off the bed on the other side and collected his clothes. It was painful to watch him cover everything he’d taken so long to uncover. But it was more painful to realize she’d let herself be blinded by her hormones once again. Dev’s own standing in the Covent was more important to him than any concern for whether he might be instrumental in stripping Ione of hers. No matter how much he obviously enjoyed stripping her of other things.

  “I didn’t send the report out of spite. It wasn’t because I was cross with you when I left here.” His head disappeared for a moment as he pulled on the hoodie. “I want you to understand that I wouldn’t do that.”

  Ione took a breath, feeling like her lungs were on fire. “I could forgive you for spite.”

  Ironically it was his devotion to the very principles that had always been so important to Ione—the insistence on always following the rules to the letter, regardless of the consequences to actual people—that left her feeling betrayed.

  * * *

  The walk back to his car in the temple parking lot seemed endless, far longer than it had taken him to get to Ione’s place. He felt empty and unanchored without the touch of her skin against his, as if he’d lost one of his crucial senses. The air didn’t seem right without the scent of her body in it.

  He knew he was being melodramatic, but he’d never been so affected by a woman before. The truth was he’d never truly been himself with a woman before. Not the way he was with her. She’d seen his uncensored desire. And she’d also seen him at his worst. She’d seen his demon.

  For that matter, it was the way she saw his demon that had affected him so deeply. Never mind the static electricity that seemed to zing and pop between them whenever they touched. She’d treated his demon with kindness, even tenderness. His demon. He’d never even afforded the creature more than mere grudging tolerance, had never given a thought to the demon as a being with feelings, just something to keep under control, like a bad temper or an addiction. And the revelation that Kur had been tormented into joining with Dev had shattered his perception of himself, the self-righteous image he’d maintained all these years as the wronged party.

  In truth, Kur’s memories had been there all along but Dev had refused to see them. Knowing that he’d been an unwitting party to the creature’s torture filled him with conflicting feelings of revulsion and rage. He now felt, dare he say, protective of the demon. In that light, his memories of Ione’s compassion for the creature had touched him more than he’d thought possible.

  I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise, she’d whispered to calm Kur’s fear.

  How could Dev not fall for—? Oh, hell, no. He was not falling for Ione Carlisle. Because that was madness. He hardly knew her. Not to mention the fact that she felt he’d betrayed her trust—and had engaged in quite a bit of extremely intimate sex with her before he’d admitted to it. Damn, he missed being able to blame all of his worst qualities and impulses on the demon. Right, the devil made me do it. That had been Dev’s modus operandi.

  “So now what, Kur?” He spoke aloud to the demon, though it wasn’t necessary. “What the devil do we do now?” A heavy sigh reverberated deep within him. He echoed it with one of his own.

  As Dev neared the temple, Kur’s hackles seemed to rise inside him. The murky sense of something off about the place was stronger than ever.

  The moment Dev stepped onto the car park, the fetid smell of death assaulted him. Something dark and hulking swung before the doors of the temple, and Dev gagged and covered his nose. Nemesis had apparently upped his or her game. The carcass this time appeared to be that of a several-days-rotting dog, strung up from the overhang above the entryway by a noose. Flies buzzed about it, and the desiccated thorax was wriggling with maggots.

  This was beyond simple disposal. He’d have to call the local animal control. And, possibly, law enforcement, because this was getting serious. The note had been attached this time with a stick driven into the eye socket of the crushed skull. Dev was barely able to read it without losing his gorge.

  This temple remains defiled. Purify it, or we will be forced to take matters into our own hands.

  The smell seemed to cling to him as he took refuge in his car to ring the authorities. But with his finger poised over his mobile to enter the American emergency digits, Dev realized the temple’s glamour would make ringing the authorities pointless. Anyone who came to investigate would drive in circles and eventually decide it had been a prank and give up.

  With a sigh and a lurch of his stomach, Dev headed back to the temple entrance, ducking around the obscene thing, and unlocked the door. Ione had procured a bin bag from the cellar for the cat. The dog’s carcass was considerably larger, but he thought it would fit in one.

  Downstairs, he found the gardening supplies and fetched a couple of the bags, plus a pair of garden shears and some long gloves, and headed back up. He took pictures from every angle to document the crime before he cut the dog down. Grabbing it in his arms so it wouldn’t hit the stone pavement and burst, making a worse mess, took tremendous willpower. He’d bagged the corpse and tied the plastic handles around the neck beforehand, but it didn’t make hugging the horrid thing any less unpleasant. He slipped the other bag over the top and managed to stuff it all into this second layer of plastic, tying it off as tightly as he could. There was an industrial rubbish bin around the side of the property that someone must haul to the dump on a weekly basis. It would have to do.

  Dev peeled off the gloves and tossed them in after. He’d have to buy the temple a new pair. He glanced down at the jumper and grimaced. It seemed Ione was going to get her wish. The dreaded jumper was going in, too. Not that she’d give a damn what he wore now. Still, it gave him a bit of grim satisfaction to see it go. He sent the pictures with a quick account to the members of the Conclave and the Leadership Council, but he could at least spare Ione having to see it.

  As he drove away from the temple, the sense of uneasiness receded. Though he knew it was only the negative energy of Nemesis’s actions combined with the presence of the rotting animal carcass, he was beginning to dislike the otherwise beautiful and peaceful edifice intensely.

  * * *

  Ione received the summons to appear before the Conclave first thing Tuesday morning. The last time a conclave had been convened in Sedona it had been to censure Rafe for his unorthodox views on the crossing of shades. That was when Carter had arrived in town as part of the regional convention. Ione herself had filed the report that had set that conclave into motion, and she’d had plenty of opportunities to regret it since—not least because it had brought Carter here.

  The Global Conclave, however, was serious business. The outcome of such a convention was generally disgrace and banishment. It was just such a conclave that had expelled Ione’s distant ancestor for her demon blood. Of course
, that had been in the Middle Ages, so perhaps the current Council’s directives were more lenient. But somehow Ione doubted it.

  She’d dressed as conservatively as she could in a much staider clerical-style jacket—no pinstripes this time—and with her hair in an unassuming ponytail.

  When she arrived at the temple, they were already assembled, only three officials necessary for this level of judgment, the ceremonial chairs placed on the dais before the altar. As Ione approached, she was careful not to acknowledge Dev standing off to the side of the sacristy with so much as a glance.

  She stopped in front of the dais and bowed her head to the authority of the College of Elders.

  The female elder in the center addressed Ione with a thick French accent. “This Conclave, so ordained by the College of Elders of the Global Coventry, consisting of myself, Elder Clémence Dupre, and my colleagues, Elders Florien Grimaud and Théo Guerry, is now in session. Dione Margery Carlisle, is it your intent today to speak the truth before this Conclave?” For once, someone had gotten the pronunciation of her given name spot-on.

  She answered without a tremor in her voice, though her knees felt like they might give out at any moment. “I pledge my troth to the Covent and swear to speak nothing but the truth, in the name of the Threefold Goddess and before all assembled.”

  “Then the Conclave shall hear you.”

  Ione raised her head in acknowledgment and waited.

  Florien, to Clémence’s left, spoke first. “This Conclave is troubled by the reports that have come from this Coventry. We would be willing to allow Assayer Gideon’s investigation to conclude in its natural course, but the two incidents at the temple itself over the past few days are a grave indicator that your presence here continues to be a source—if not the source—of this trouble for the Covent.”

  “Two incidents?” Ione couldn’t help but speak out of turn. “I’m sorry, Elder Grimaud, but I’m aware of only one attack, on Saturday morning.”

  “You were not made aware of what took place here last night?”