Heart of the Dragon a-1

by Gena Showalter

  "Fire flew out of your mouth." Grace gaped. "Fire really and truly flew out of your mouth."

  "Yes."

  "But fire flew out of your mouth."

  "I did tell you I was a dragon."

  "I just didn't expect fire to fly out of your freaking mouth." Grace struggled to form a proper response. Darius really was a dragon. The concept was laughable-or should have been. All of it should have been laughable. Atlantis, misty portals, the gods. Yet she'd skipped right along, accepting every fantastical experience tossed her way.

  But this… She expected her brain to shout it's too much. I can't accept another implausible happening .

  Surprisingly enough, her mind didn't shout. Her mind welcomed.

  She toyed with the ends of her hair and expelled a breath. When she was a little girl, her father had read her a book every night. His favorite had been the story of a long ago prince who rescued a princess from a fierce dragon. Grace had never liked that story. She'd always wanted the dragon to defeat the puny prince so the princess could sail through the clouds on his back. A real, live dragon sat in her living room.

  "What else can you do?" she asked, her voice raspy.

  He merely lifted a brow, a wouldn't-you-like-to-know glint in his eyes.

  "Well?" she demanded.

  "When you are prepared for the answer, perhaps I'll tell you. Until then… " He shrugged.

  "Fine," she huffed. "If you won't tell me about your abilities, at least tell me why you destroyed my brother's journal. I wanted to give it back to him."

  "There can be no record of Atlantis." As he spoke, the blue of his eyes swirled and churned with a life of its own, like the very mist he guarded. "I decided to either destroy the book or destroy you. Perhaps I made the wrong choice."

  She preferred the other Darius, the honey-eyed Darius. The man who made her blood sing and her deepest fantasies cry for him. The man who twisted her into knots.

  "You will obtain the vests now," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Her nose crinkled. "What vests?"

  "The ones you promised to buy for me in the cave. The ones that protect against guns."

  That's right. She had promised him. With a sigh, Grace loped down the hall and into her room. After she booted up the computer-with Darius standing over her the entire time, his hands on either side of her armrests, his chest pressing into her back-she found a site that specialized in guns and other equipment.

  "I like this thing," he said. "This computer."

  With him so near, she had trouble concentrating. "The vests are two-hundred-and-fifty dollars each," she said, squirming in her seat. Maybe she should turn on the air conditioner. Her skin suddenly felt too tight for her body. "Do you still want to buy one?"

  "One? No. I wish to purchase twenty. For now."

  "Twenty! Where will you get the money? I doubt you brought any with you."

  "I will allow you to pay for them."

  Of course he would. "You want extra large, I take it?" Doing this was probably going to place her on the FBI's most-watched list. But Darius wanted the vests, and what Darius wanted, she would acquire for him. They were helping each other, after all.

  She placed the order and had to use both of her credit cards. She also requested overnight shipping for double the mailing expense. "They'll arrive in the morning."

  "I want to visit the Argonauts," Darius said. "Afterward, we will purchase bullets and you will show me how to use them."

  Such a dictator, she thought, and wondered, foolishly, if he'd be that demanding in bed. She stole a glance at the hard angles of his profile. Oh, yes. He'd be demanding and the knowledge made her shiver. With a gulp, she flipped off her computer and swiveled in her chair, dislodging his hands. "Do you think they know more than they told me?"

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

  Which told her nothing. "If we leave now, we can be there within the hour."

  "Not quite yet." He leaned down, replacing his palms on the arms of her chair. Her knees bumped his thighs as his gaze traveled all over her. Burning her. Devouring her in a way that should have been illegal. He saw past her clothes, she suspected breathlessly, and saw the hard pebbles of her nipples. "First," he said, "you will bathe. Quickly," he added.

  Blazing red heat stained her cheeks. "Are you saying I-" her mortification was so great she almost couldn't finish her sentence "-stink?"

  "You have dirt smudges here." He ran his fingertip over the side of her mouth. "And here." That finger moved to her chin, and his nostrils flared. "While you are beautiful to me as you are, I thought you might wish to wash."

  He thought she was beautiful? As she was? Grace nearly melted into her seat. Most men found her a little too plump, a little too red and freckly.

  She struggled to form defenses against him, and reminded herself that she wasn't ready to handle such a dangerous man. "I won't take long." Her legs trembling, she pushed up and raced to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut.

  Just in case he entertained any notion of slipping inside, of stripping out of his clothes and getting into the tub with her, of letting the warm, wet water deluge their intertwined, naked bodies, she twisted the lock. She pressed her back against the cool wood, her breathing shallow.

  Damn if she didn't pray Darius would burn the lock away.

  CHAPTER 13

  Alex Carlyle was hot and cold at the same time.

  A single guard shoved him inside his newest prison. A single fucking guard because he was too weak to be any real threat. The drugs his captors were pumping through his system were hell on his body. They kept him compliant, groggy and dependent. Kept him uninterested in escape.

  Kept him stupid.

  Or maybe his weakness stemmed from low blood supply. Vampires were allowed to suck from his neck anytime they wanted, as long as they didn't kill him. He almost wished they'd finish the job.

  For months he'd done nothing but breathe and live Atlantis. He had acquired the proof he'd wanted of its existence, but he no longer gave a damn.

  He shivered. The room was cold. So cold frost formed every time he breathed. Why, then, did his skin burn? He sank to the hard floor. Another tremor scratched down his spine like long, sharp fingernails.

  A woman was shoved into the cell. The only exit slid shut behind her.

  Alex closed his eyes, too tired to care. Within moments, small, delicate hands grasped his shoulders and gently shook him. His eyelids flickered open, and he found himself staring up into Teira's beautiful, ethereal face.

  "You need me?" she said.

  He'd lost his glasses, but he didn't need them to see that her pale brown eyes were alight with concern. She had the longest lashes he'd ever seen, as light as her waist-length hair. She claimed she was a prisoner, just like he was. The two of them had been "escorted" so many places he didn't know where he was anymore.

  This newest cell was stripped bare, as if someone had recently scraped everything off the walls. "I'm fine," he lied. "Where are we this time?"

  "My home."

  Her home. He inwardly sighed. That told him nothing. She'd never mentioned where she lived, and he hadn't asked because he didn't know yet if he believed a word out of the woman's gorgeous mouth.

  He didn't know whom he could trust anymore.

  Lately he'd been swindled and double-crossed by everyone he encountered. Every member of his team had betrayed him, willingly giving away his location and his purpose for a few hundred dollars. The guide he'd hired to see him safely through the Amazon had been a paid mercenary. Now he had to contend with Teira.

  She was beautiful, exquisitely and guilelessly so, but beauty often hid a mountain of lies. And she was too concerned for him, too eager to learn about him. Perhaps she'd been sent to seduce the location of the medallion from him, he thought irritably. Why else lock her in a cell with him? He laughed humorlessly. Why else but to fuck the answer out of him.

  Well, the joke was on her. Teira wasn't his type. He preferred women
who wore too much makeup, and tight clothes over their even tighter, surgically enhanced bodies. He preferred women who screwed hard and left the same night without a qualm-if they didn't speak to him in the meantime, even better.

  Women who looked like Teira terrified him. Instead of makeup and tight clothes, they wore an air of innocence, a marry-me-and-give-me-babies kind of wholesomeness that unnerved him.

  He'd spent too many years caring for his sick father, too afraid to leave the house in case he was needed. He stayed as far away from wholesome women as he could. Just the thought of being permanently grounded made him nauseous. His captors should have locked him up with a slutty-looking brunette. Then he might have talked.

  His jaw clenched. He never should have acquired that damn medallion.

  What had Grace done with it? And why the hell had he sent it to her? He hadn't meant to involve her; he simply hadn't realized the extent of the danger until it was too late. He didn't know what he'd do if she were hurt. There were only three people he gave a shit about, and Grace was at the top of the list. His mom and Aunt Sophie claimed a close second and third.

  Teira gave him another gentle shake. Her fingers were like ice, and he noticed her teeth were chattering.

  "What do you want?" he barked.

  She flinched but didn't back away. "You need me?" she asked again. Her soft voice floated over him, as lilting as a spring breeze. Her English wasn't very good, but she'd managed to learn the basics-and quite quickly, too. How convenient.

  "I'm fine," he repeated.

  "I help warm you."

  "I don't need your goddamn help. Go to your side of the cell and leave me alone."

  Her innocent features dimmed as she scooted away.

  He fought a wave of disappointment. He would never tell her, would never admit it aloud, but he liked her nearness. Dirt might streak the smoothness of her skin, but she still smelled as exotic as a summer storm. The scent comforted him-but scared him, too. She was not his type, but he often found himself gazing at her, yearning to hold her, to touch her.

  As if she sensed his inner longings, she moved back to him and smoothed her trembling fingertips over his forehead, down his nose and along his jaw, her touch light. "Why will you not let me help?" she asked.

  He sighed, savoring her caress even while he knew he should make her stop. Cameras were probably hidden everywhere, and he didn't want anyone to think he'd finally caved where this woman was concerned.

  "Do you have a syringe? Do you have whatever the hell they're giving me?"

  "No."

  "Then you can't help me."

  She began tracing strange symbols over his cheek. An intense concentration settled over her features.

  His tremors gradually slowed, and his coldness receded. His muscles relaxed.

  "Feel better?" she asked, a trace of weakness to the words.

  He managed to give her an indifferent frown and lift his shoulders in a shrug. What symbols had she drawn and what did they mean? And how in God's name had they helped him? He was too stubborn to ask.

  "Why you not like me?" she whispered, biting her lower lip.

  "I like you just fine." He wouldn't admit that he would have died without her. His captors, the same men who had chased him through the jungle, then plucked him from one location to the other, had been brutal. He'd been beaten, drugged and nearly drained, and shuddered with each memory. Always Teira was there, waiting for him, comforting him. Holding him with her quiet strength and dignity.

  "Why do they have you locked in here?" he asked her, wishing immediately that he could snatch the words back. He didn't want to watch her features cloud with deceit as she spun a web of lies. He knew why she was here. Didn't he?

  Softly, gently, she lay beside him and wrapped one arm around his waist. The woman craved bodily contact like no one else he'd ever met, as if she'd been denied it most of her life. And he'd be lying if he said her little body didn't feel good curled up next to him.

  "They kill my man and all of his army. I try to… what is the word?" Her brow scrunched as she searched her mind.

  He gazed deeply into her eyes. They were as devoid of duplicity as always. "Defeat them?"

  "Yes," she said. "Defeat them. I try and defeat them."

  Whether he believed her story or not, he didn't like the thought of her being tied to another man. And he liked even less that he cared. "I didn't know you were married."

  She looked away from him, past him, over his shoulder. Sorrow and grief radiated from her, and when she next spoke, her pain was like a living thing. "The union end too quickly."

  He found himself reaching out to her for the first time. He wrapped his fingers around her palm and gave a light squeeze. "Why did they kill him?"

  "To control the mist he guarded and steal his wealth. Even here, in this cell, they removed the jewels from the walls. I miss him," she added softly.

  To control the mist he guarded … Alex had known she was from Atlantis, though he had failed to realize she was the wife of a Guardian. Or rather, former wife. God, he felt stupid. Of course she would be kept alive. She would know things about the mist that no one else knew.

  He studied Teira's face with fresh eyes, taking in the elegant slope of her nose and the perfect curve of her pale brows. "How long has your-" Alex couldn't bring himself to say husband "-has he been gone?"

  "Weeks now. So many weeks." Reaching up, Teira traced the seam of his lips. "You help me escape?"

  Escape. How wonderful the word sounded. How terrifying. He'd lost track of time and didn't even know how long he'd been imprisoned. A day? A year? At first, he'd tried numerous times to flee, but he'd always been unsuccessful.

  He rolled onto his back, and the action made his bones ache. He groaned. Teira wasted no time tucking her head into the hollow of his neck and placing her leg over his.

  "You are lonely like me," she said. "I know you are."

  She fit perfectly against him. Too perfectly. As if she'd been made specifically to match his body curve for curve. And he was lonely. He stared up at the flat ceiling. What was he going to do with this woman? Was she a heartless bitch who only wanted the medallion and was willing to sell her body to get it? Or was she as innocent as she appeared?

  "Tell me about you."

  She'd made the same request a thousand times before. It wouldn't hurt to give her some information about himself, he decided. Nothing important, just a tidbit or two. He wouldn't mention Grace, of course. He didn't dare. His love for his sister could be used against him, and that he wouldn't allow.

  "I'm twenty-nine years old," he told Teira. He placed his hands on her head and sifted his fingers through her hair. Not only did the strands look like pearly moonlight, they felt like it, too. "I've always had a passion for fast cars." And even faster women, but he didn't disclose that part. "I've never been married, and I don't have children. I live in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan."

  "Man-hat-tan," she said, testing the word on her tongue. "Tell me more."

  He didn't mention the crime or the pollution but gave her the details he knew she craved. "No matter what time of day or night, crowds of people wander the streets as far as the eye can see. Buildings stretch up to the sky. Shops and bakeries never close. It's a place where every desire can be indulged."

  "My people rarely stray to the surface, but your Man-hat-tan sounds like a place we would enjoy."

  "Tell me about your home."

  Dreamy remembrance clouded her eyes, making the gold darken to chocolate. She snuggled deeper into his side. "We are inside a dragon palace, though you cannot tell by this cell. Outside, the sea flows all around. Flowers of every color bloom. There are many temples of worship," she said, slipping into her native tongue, "but most of us have forgotten them because we ourselves have been forgotten."

  "I'm sorry." While he was coming to understand some of her language, he wasn't close to fluent. "I only understood a little of what you said."

  "I say I w
ish I could show you."

  No, she'd said more than that, but he let it go. How wonderful it would be to trek through Atlantis. If he met the inhabitants, studied the homes, wandered the streets and inundated himself within the culture, he could write a book about his experiences. He could-Alex shuddered when he realized he was diving back into his old pattern of thought.

  "I wish I had the power to help you understand my language," Teira said. "But my powers are not strong enough to cast a spell." She paused, traced her fingertips over his jaw. "Who is Grace?"

  Horrified, he leapt up and away from her as if she were the devil's handmaiden come to claim him. He swayed as a wave of dizziness hit him, wincing as a sharp pain lanced through his temples. He stumbled to the pitcher of water in the corner and sipped. When he felt more steadied, he glared over at Teira. "Where did you hear that name?"

  She was trembling as she sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. "You said while you sleep."

  "Don't ever say her name again. Not ever. Understand?"

  "I am sorry. I never mean to upset you. I simply-"

  The door opened.

  Dirt flung in every direction as three men stalked inside. One carried a small table, one a chair and the third a platter of food. Soon a fourth man joined them, cradling a semiautomatic in his hands. He pointed the gun at Alex and grinned, daring him to move. Their arrival meant he'd have his drugs, so he was incapable of fear.

  Teira's trembling increased. Every day these same men brought him food, a simple meal of bread, cheese and water. Every day they escorted Teira from the room, leaving him to eat alone. And every day she fought them, scratching and screaming. Alex had always assumed her resistance was an act, that they were taking her away to find out what she'd learned from him that day, but as he looked at her, really looked at her this time, he saw the signs of true terror. Her already pale skin became pallid, revealing the faint trace of veins beneath. Her eyes became impossibly round, and she pressed her lips together-to keep from whimpering?