Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  He nodded, and Moira led him out of the office and down the hall, coaching herself the whole way.

  Just because he’s a spoiled rich boy doesn’t meant that he might not have real problems. Keep an open mind and don’t jump to conclusions. You know how that causes problems. Be compassionate. Maybe he’s really in trouble. This is your job after all—helping people. It’s more than a job, too. It’s a destiny. Stop complaining!

  Moira opened the door to her office with a slightly more genuine smile for the man behind her, gesturing for him to go inside. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Princeton?”

  Chapter Four

  Grady

  He was completely disoriented.

  The moment that Grady laid eyes on the redhead whose office he was now in, all his thoughts had been jumbled and his words thick with the desire that tugged at him. He didn’t have a clear recollection of what he’d said after informing the disdainful blonde of the origin of his shoes, but he had a vague notion that having to ask the redhead her name again hadn’t scored him any points. She had been professional, but the flicker of annoyance on her face had been obvious, even if it was brief. There was little he could do about that, other than explain that he’d been so busy staring at her that he’d hardly heard a word exchanged between them.

  Now he was sitting across from her, supposedly to tell her about the security problems he’d been having, and all that he could think about was how enchanting her emerald eyes were, how soft her skin seemed, how much he wanted to tangle his fingers in her red waves, and how lush her body looked beneath her fitted jeans and blouse. His throat was tight and his fingers dug into the muscles of his thighs as he sat across from her desk, attempting to appear like a calm, professional man here on business, instead of revealing himself as the aroused teenager he suddenly was.

  Women never affected him this way, but he couldn’t seem to get ahold of himself.

  “Mr. Princeton?” Moira prompted him again, a curious look on her face as he sat there, having not answered her simple question. “You did have a case you wanted us to look into?”

  “Yes,” Grady said, forcing himself to stop watching her full lips and instead look somewhere behind her. “Yes, I do. I own a consulting company, and I have a vault that holds a large investment in gold, as well as some family valuables and paperwork. That vault has been compromised, and I can’t tell how.”

  Moira opened up her laptop, clicking at the mouse for a moment before beginning to type. “All right. You suspect a break in?”

  “I know there’s been a break in. Over two hundred thousand dollars is missing.”

  Moira looked up at him in alarm. “Good God.”

  “Well,” he said, waving a hand in what he hoped was a casual manner. “It’s not all that much money, but it is rather annoying.” He tried to underplay the situation, not wanting her to think that she should refer him to a larger agency or be put off about helping him. He was suddenly desperate to make sure that she was the person who would help him with this case, and he didn’t want to take any chances that she might not feel the same way. “I just need a little help figuring out where it’s gone. I don’t necessarily need the money back, but I don’t want to let the situation slide.”

  “You don’t need the money back?”

  “Well, I’d like it back obviously,” he said, chuckling a bit. “But no, that’s not the point really.”

  “Not the point,” Moira repeated, looking at her computer screen. “Of course not.”

  “See,” he continued, still speaking a touch too fast, betraying the way that she had immediately gotten under his skin. “I know that someone is tampering with the vault, but the cameras aren’t picking up anything at all, and none of the extra security measures I’ve taken have deterred the person—or people—responsible. I accused my accountant this morning, but he denied it and suggested I bring in a third party. That’s why I’m here.”

  Moira turned away from her laptop, folding her hands on the desk as she studied him. “Why did you choose us?”

  He didn’t quite know how to answer that question. His instincts were responsible for a lot of his success in business, and he often followed his gut, taking risks and offering deals that, logically, didn’t always make sense. But he would get a good feeling and then act on it. That’s what had happened when he had begun to research security agencies in Boston. He’d seen Connolly Security and just knew that was the one he wanted to go with.

  “Your reputation preceded you,” he said, answering vaguely rather than trying to explain the way he’d felt when he looked at their website.

  “I see,” Moira said. “You know someone who’s worked with us.”

  “Isn’t talking about that a privacy issue?” he asked, once again hedging, but offering a smile as he did so.

  She smiled back, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, it would be. So what you’re telling me is that you need someone to figure out what’s happening at your company vault, and you’d like to work with us, right?”

  “I’d like to work with you,” Grady said, looking directly into her eyes again. She really was gorgeous, with energy emanating from her that elevated her pretty features to new levels of desirability. He wanted to spend hours just looking at her face before he even began to explore the rest of her. He wanted to skim his fingers along the line of her jaw and trace the fullness of her bottom lip with one of his nails. He wanted to drag his hands through her hair and kiss each of her sparkling eyes. He wanted to brush his nose against hers and slide his hands…

  “Mr. Princeton?”

  There was a hint of exasperation in her voice as she said his name this time.

  He blinked at her, realizing she’d responded to him but that he’d been too caught up in his oddly-innocent fantasies of exploring her face with his fingers and lips. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “I said that we’d be happy to take your case,” the woman said, though her tone was less than convincing. “And that you’ll be working with me personally. I have some paperwork for us to go over, some prices to talk about, and then, perhaps, you can show me the area that I’ll be investigating.”

  Grady mentally checked out of the rest of his work day, fighting to keep the wide grin off his face. “Sounds great. I’ll clear my schedule.”

  Those were words that never crossed Grady’s lips, given that he was such a workaholic that he had time for little else in his day. But there was no hesitation as he spoke. He would gladly cancel the rest of his day—the rest of his week—for the chance to spend a few hours with Moira and figure out what it was about her that affected him so strongly.

  Although he had begun his morning infuriated with what was happening at his company’s vault, he was suddenly very glad for the fact that someone was tampering with his belongings. He couldn’t imagine continuing to live in the same city as a woman who looked like Moira and not knowing her. The chance to get to know her very, very well was worth more than a few hundred thousand dollars.

  “Very good,” Moira said, oblivious to his train of thought as she stood up and walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a packet of paperwork. “Then let’s go over our policies.”

  Chapter Five

  Moira

  “No, thank you,” Moira said, for what seemed like the twelfth time at least since she had arrived at Grady’s office. He continued to offer her everything from trays of cheese and crackers to sparkling water to wine to foreign chocolates. It seemed that he had access to an endless supply of delicacies, but all Moira wanted to do was look at the vault and try to figure out what the security team had been missing. She knew that the instant dislike she’d felt for Grady wasn’t really fair and that she was prejudging him based on his obvious wealth, but he was unfortunately living up to the stereotype in her mind, talking too much about himself, mentioning his money far too often, and pushing the supposed finer things in life on her, as though she couldn’t go more than twenty minutes without a bite of Irish ch
eese or a sample of ham and melon straight from Spain.

  She briefly wondered what he might think if he knew that the night before she had been flying around the city in the form of a fire-red dragon, whose tail alone had enough power to knock over the building that housed his livelihood.

  The thought put a small smile on her face, not because she had any desire to wipe out his building, but because the way he was treating her made it seem as though he considered her delicate and in need of pampering. It would never happen, but she would love the opportunity to show him just how powerful she was.

  “No,” she said again, shaking her head as he walked back into his office with a coffee cup in hand, motioning to ask her if she wanted any. “I’d really just like to get down to business, Mr. Princeton. I’m here to figure out what’s going on with your security, not to sample your food and drink.”

  “Call me Grady,” he said, setting the coffee cup down on his desk and giving her what she knew was a warm smile. “And sorry. I’m hovering. I can be a micromanager. But”—he gestured around the grand office with a bit of a smirk—“obviously it works for me.”

  For a moment, his smile had been almost boyish and his manner less pretentious, but that last line erased the little bit of comradery that flickered momentarily. “Yes,” she said dryly. “All of your success.”

  Her tone went right over his head, because his smile only widened and he lifted a shoulder with mock humility. “Well, your words. I won’t argue.”

  Moira wondered if the man realized how he came across, but then dismissed the thought. She wasn’t there to engage on a personal level. She just needed a chance to look at the vault, and then hopefully the case would be as easily solved and brought to a close as her morning case had been.

  “Will we get to work then?” she asked, once again trying to prompt him to actually take her to the site she was concerned about. He seemed to be in no apparent hurry, which seemed strange to Moira, given his own admission that he was a micromanager. “It’s getting late in the afternoon,” she added. “I don’t want to keep you after hours.”

  “Oh, there are no such thing as work hours for me,” Grady told her, pushing away from his desk and setting down the cup of coffee that he’d just taken a sip from. “I’m here pretty much all the time. That’s how it has to be if you want the kind of success I have.”

  Again, he seemed fond of mentioning his own success, and it was just enough to get under her skin. “Yes, well, those of us who are less successful do often limit ourselves to work hours.” She smiled to ease any bite that he might feel in her words, but then moved toward the door, giving him little choice but to lead her out of the office and toward the vault.

  He walked with her to the elevator, and they both stood facing the sleek doors in silence as they waited to enter. Subtly, Moira cut her eyes over to Grady, observing him as discreetly as possible. It was really too bad that he was so fond of himself and his success, because he was a very handsome man. He had a face that made you want to just keep looking, and perhaps if his incredible business success ever waned, he could break into the world of modeling and do plenty well for himself, even though he was probably in his thirties. Under different circumstances, where he wasn’t a client and also wasn’t a self-congratulatory rich boy, she’d be very interested in spending time with him. While she waited for her mate to be assigned to her, she considered herself to be more than free to explore the attentions of other men, and he was an excellent candidate…until he opened his mouth.

  “After you,” he said, touching the back of her arm as the elevator doors slid open. A surprising jolt of electricity moved through Moira as he touched her, and she stepped into the elevator, mentally shaking her head at herself for being so susceptible to his physical charms even though she was so turned off by his personality.

  This could be a sign that you need to go on a date or two, she thought, her inner voice wry. Get out there a little more, Moira. That might keep you from tingling just because a cute guy you don’t even like touches you.

  The elevator doors slid closed, and Moira exchanged glances with Grady. He had this way of looking at her that she didn’t quite understand, but it was very intent, like he was trying to understand her better. She didn’t know why he should be so intrigued, and it only added to her wariness around him. As a woman who perpetually carried the secret of her supernatural origins, she didn’t like anyone to pay attention to her too closely.

  “So,” Moira said, trying to clear the thick air between them as the elevator descended slowly. “You said that you have a security team in place. I’ll want access to them, of course. And access to review the footage from the two weeks before the first theft up until today’s footage. From our brief conversations so far, my impression is that you may have every right to suspect someone on the security team. They would be in the best position to cover up the break in. Anyone else would have to be working around the security team, and that’s less likely.”

  Grady nodded. “It seems like an inside job, yes. That’s why I accused my accountant this morning actually. But he’s either innocent or an excellent actor, and if you know Harrison, you know he’s not a good actor.”

  “I’ll want to talk to him anyway,” Moira said, tucking her wayward hair behind her ear, even though the flame-red wave just popped right back out again. “I’ll want to get a list of people actually. If it is an inside job, the way I suspect it is, then hopefully it will be easy to determine where the glitch is taking place.”

  “Well, I’d like you to take your time and be thorough.”

  Moira felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as he spoke, his implication that what she was saying suggested she would rather be quick than get it right. She knew herself to be someone who took most things in stride. Easy going. Laidback. Go with the flow. But this man irked her almost every time he opened his mouth, and she didn’t know why she was suddenly experiencing Eamon-levels of inner angst.

  “I’m very good at my job,” Moira said, stepping out of the elevator ahead of him and looking back over her shoulder as he followed. “I will be more than thorough. But I also expect that whatever trick your security team has implemented to cover up the breaches that have occurred will be very easy to spot…to the trained eye.”

  “You could be right,” Grady allowed, but he didn’t sound all that confident and assertive.

  It would have continued to bother her, but Moira suddenly noticed where they were. Grady’s office, which she had spent the last twenty minutes in, was at the top of a Boston skyscraper and had a series of glass windows for walls. The elevator he had led her to had taken them down the sixteen floors to the ground level, then down another two levels to land them where they were now—a long, dimly-lit hallway that seemed to lead to nowhere.

  The walls were cast in iron, and the ceiling was stark white, sporting just the iridescent lights that gave the whole space an eerie glow. It was like she had stepped into a dungeon, and what had first alerted her to the fact wasn’t the visual experience, but the tingle that she felt go up her spine. It was a different tingle than the one she’d felt when Grady had touched her arm. This was a tingle of alarm, one that was so instinctive that it tremored in her core, forcing her to fight against her automatic instinct to transition into her dragon form to get ready for whatever fight was coming.

  She whirled on Grady, her eyes flashing with a warning and with betrayal. Her finely-tuned senses were alerting her to a powerful danger, and she suddenly realized that she had followed a man, who had put her off from the moment she met him, into a dark, secluded, underground area, where she was, at least in theory, completely at his mercy. She was stronger than him, faster than him, and a better fighter than him, but he had no way of knowing that, and as the elevator doors slid closed behind him, she was convinced by the sizzle in the air around her that his intentions were anything but good.

  “You’re making a very bad mistake,” she said, her voice low and dark as her muscle
s tensed, ready to fight against him if he tried to lock her up down here. “My colleagues know where I am, and I’m a lot stronger than you think.”

  A mask of sheer confusion fell over his handsome face. “What are you talking about?” He glanced over her as she stood, ready to fight. “What are you doing?”

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Investigating the thefts I told you about?”

  “I can’t believe I fell for it,” Moira said, suddenly piecing everything together. “Thefts from a vault under high security that aren’t being picked up on the video footage. What kind of bullshit story is that? You insisted on working with me specifically. You said you wanted it to take a long time. You stalled bringing me down here. Now here I am, and you think I’m at your mercy in this underground dungeon to nowhere?”

  His mouth had dropped open, his hands lifting as he took a step back from her. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re crazy.”

  “Do you always call women who defend themselves against creeps like you crazy? Maybe you think all strong women are crazy.”

  Moira went after him, not even stopping to consider that she might be wrong. She knew that feeling that was gliding over her skin—it was the feeling of danger. Her supernatural senses were more attuned to it than any human’s could ever be. She recognized it, and she wasn’t about to stand there and let him get any further in whatever plan he’d had in mind when he’d brought her down here alone. He had no idea who he’d taken on when he decided to mess with her.

  “Moira, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Grady said firmly, taking another step back and pressing the elevator button. “But I don’t like what you’re implying, and I’m going upstairs. We can talk about this more when I have a witness present.”

  Her eyes narrowed as he pushed the button to call for the elevator, her worldview suddenly brought into question as he made absolutely no attempt to hurry her further down the creepy corridor or to keep her at his mercy. What kind of captor retreated from the situation and tried to get a witness to help clear up the situation?