Dancing with Dragons

by Lorenda Christensen

  “You know, Julie, I feel like I know you from somewhere.”

  I forced myself not to cringe as Daniel’s friend searched my face in an effort to jog his memory. Our story was fraying faster than an old lady’s crochet project.

  So I took matters into my own hands. I stuck out my bottom lip.

  “Daniel, honey, I thought you said we’d get to see India.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and did what I was known for. I practically crawled up the front of his body. “What better place to practice the Kama Sutra than in the country where it was invented?”

  I saw Daniel’s eyes go wide in momentary surprise. Then it was my turn to gasp as he placed both hands on my rear and lifted. “Oh trust me, honey, I haven’t forgotten.” He pulled me closer, and I couldn’t help but tighten my grip on his shoulders.

  Balancing my weight on his hips, I leaned back to look him in the eye. He grinned, his smile playful and just a touch mischievous. The familiar heat flared between us, but I fought the urge to back away. If we were going to make this farce believable, I had to be all in. We needed this to be real.

  I let out a loud groan and shifted my legs until my core was firmly pressed against his abdomen. I felt the surprised catch of his breath before strong hands tightened on my hips, pulling me down until my face was level with his. The warm hum of attraction spread through my lower stomach like a switch had been flipped. I would have laughed, but I didn’t think my reaction was funny right now.

  I’d dated at least a dozen men since college, all smart, all handsome. Some of them had even known their way around a woman’s body. But this was the first time I’d repeatedly felt the bite of attraction from someone I wasn’t even sure I liked. Sure, he’d helped me out of a sticky situation, but he’d made it perfectly clear that he was doing it for his own purposes.

  But right now, I couldn’t think about it enough to care. Experimentally, I rubbed my lips over the slight dent at the tip of his chin. The spot that had secretly been taunting me for days. I nipped him lightly, playfully, and he growled.

  And suddenly, we weren’t playing anymore. Daniel’s lips devoured mine in a kiss that was so hot, so intimate, I almost forgot where we were. His tongue traced the contours of my teeth, and I’d just opened my mouth wider to give him better access when someone cleared their throat behind us.

  “I think y’all better get on the plane before you get much further.” Jovan’s voice was close, and unmistakably amused. “Kemoth,” he said, turning to the dragon, “if it’s okay with you, we’ll give these two a proper honeymoon.”

  I heard the translator repeat his words, and with a bored shake of his scaled head, the dragon agreed.

  Breathing hard, I scrambled to get my feet back on the pavement. Daniel let me go, and when I worked up enough nerve to actually look at him, he was running a frustrated hand through his hair. Deciding now wasn’t the time to talk about our near spontaneous combustion, I tucked my chin and hustled to the plane.

  I heard Jovan’s laughing voice as he spoke to Daniel. “It looks like you got over that whole leg-humping aversion. Congratulations.”

  Jim’s knowing smirk made me blush as he helped me aboard, and I scurried for the seat farthest back. Grabbing a magazine from the pouch in front of me, I promptly buried my head within its pages. My chair shifted as Daniel sat beside me, but he didn’t speak. He simply handed me my pain medication and a sealed bottle of water, and settled into the chair. Under the guise of opening the pillbox, I sneaked a glance at him through lowered lashes. His eyes were closed, and the back of his head rested against the chair. So he didn’t want to talk about it. That was just fine by me.

  I swallowed my pills and tucked the bottle of water and medication behind my hip. We’d made it on the plane, and minutes later we were cleared for takeoff.

  Chapter Nine

  Seven hours later, we’d arrived at Bengaluru International Airport. With four and a half hours of time difference between the two cities, we’d arrived in India in the wee hours of the morning, and were greeted by a contingent of sleepy airport staff finishing up the end of their shifts. We’d said a quick goodbye to Jim and Jovan before they headed for the express security line with their press credentials. Daniel hadn’t had time to get me anything other than the basic paperwork in Budapest, so he’d left his credentials in his bag and followed me to the immigration lines reserved for the general public. Still fuzzy from my pills, I plodded slowly behind him.

  The immigration process took a long time—tourists were rare in India, so the woman at the desk was slow at verifying our documents, but soon we had left the arrivals terminal. The small group of men holding signs for various taxi services was only too glad to see a couple of foreigners, and within minutes we had someone willing to take us to our destination.

  “I’ve have a small apartment rented near Lady Savitri’s residence and offices. We’ll get settled in tonight, and tomorrow I’ll fill you in on the details of what I need you for.”

  I nodded absently, too busy staring out the window of the car to worry much about tomorrow’s plans. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, and already the roads were filled with people. Motorcycles, cars, and what seemed like hundreds of three-wheeled motorized conveyances Daniel referred to as auto-rickshaws—the traffic was a free for all. Our driver navigated the streets with almost careless skill, obviously familiar with the hustle and bustle as he dipped and dodged other commuters with no discernible use of his brakes, and a total disregard for all traffic lights.

  It took us forty minutes of driving to reach the gated community where Daniel had rented a flat. He paid and tipped the driver, and within minutes we were riding the lift up to the sixth floor. We left the elevator and walked down a short hallway, where a young woman looked up from her sweeping to stare at us curiously.

  Daniel opened the door and flipped the wall-mounted switch just inside the entrance. I squinted as the fluorescent lights sparked to life. We stepped inside, and when my eyes finally adjusted, I took a look around. This apartment was furnished with more taste than Daniel’s Budapest home. The floors were all tile, with a small area rug positioned under a glass coffee table in the living room.

  “There are bedrooms here and here,” Daniel said, gesturing to the two doors off each side of the living area. “Take your pick. They both have attached bathrooms. There’s a switch on the wall next to the light that you’ll need to hit for hot water.”

  I peeked into the nearest room, happy to see the neatly made bed with sheets that were all but begging me to slide between them. I turned back to Daniel. “I’ll take this one if that’s okay?”

  “Sure.” He disappeared with the suitcase through the opposite doorway, obviously familiar enough with the place that he had no need to turn on the lights. A moment later he was back, his bare feet padding across the floor as he approached the couch.

  And oh God, even his feet were sexy.

  I had to get a grip on myself.

  “Have you spent much time in India?” During the trip from the airport to the apartment, Daniel had handled everything with a casual ease that spoke of familiarity, and I found myself wondering what his life looked like when he wasn’t smuggling women to and from foreign countries.

  “A little. The Hian-puo trial was a fluke. There are usually only two of us at the paper covering the international stuff. So I’m in and out of here maybe twice a year. I travel a lot for my job.” He propped his feet up on the coffee table and reached for the controls to the wall-mounted air-conditioning unit. When he pushed a button, it came on with a small hum, the blast of cool air welcome in the overly warm room.

  I smiled. “I guess you’d have to. Do you like it? The travel?”

  He seemed to think about it. “Yeah. Most of the time. Sometimes I get tired of moving around, but for the most part I like collecting new experiences.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  Daniel gave me an odd look. “What’s so funny?”

 
I made my way to the couch and sat on the opposite end, curling my feet under my body before facing him. I wanted to believe that we were just having a normal conversation, like two strangers on the bus, but since some of this information wasn’t exactly mine to share, I needed to be sure. “Off the record?”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought I’d enjoy traveling. When Myrna first asked me to help her with the Hian-puo negotiation, it sounded fun. Interesting. I’ve always liked studying languages, so when she offered to introduce me to Richard Green, I was ecstatic. I mean, the guy created dragonscript. To actually use my language skills for something important, and to get to do it with the very person who created the written version? For a language lover like me, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. When the project shifted from Tulsa to China, I’ll confess I didn’t think too much about it. China sounded new and exciting, and I guess I just brushed aside the potential danger of the trip.”

  “Got in deeper than you expected, huh?”

  I gave him a wry smile. “Well, being at the top of Lord Relobu’s most wanted list wasn’t the plan, for sure.” I paused for a moment, unwilling to ruin a relatively peaceful evening, but I didn’t feel comfortable pretending Richard hadn’t been a big part of my reasons behind joining the team.

  “I did it mostly for him, you know.”

  “Richard?”

  “Yeah. A few months before Myrna’s assignment, I’d read an article in one of our magazines about how he’d been instrumental in making Relobu Enterprises the go-to company for natural resources. The company had started with zero stake in the region’s oil business, and within two years, Relobu owned about seventy-five percent of the pipelines in Texas and eight percent of Oklahoma’s. Their growth was simply unprecedented.”

  “He wouldn’t have managed to do it without the help of Relobu’s deep pockets.”

  “True. But many people wouldn’t have managed it at all, even with all the money in the world. The article went on to talk about his early career with DRACIM, and how he’d created the entire dragonscript language when he was still a teenager.”

  “You were dazzled.”

  I nodded. “Yep. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes, too.”

  Daniel smiled. “Glass of wine?”

  “Sure.”

  He went into the kitchen, and I stared out the window, lost in my thoughts. Daniel had hit the nail on the head. With only his looks and a biography, Richard had seemed like the perfect man. And when we’d met and it seemed the interest was mutual, I’d jumped at the opportunity to get to know him better. He’d been so different from the men I’d dated before.

  For one, he’d had his own money. And even as a dragonspeaker—a career not exactly at the top of the prestige scale—he’d run in circles I’d only just been able to see, much less been a part of. He’d been polite, and polished, and the consummate gentleman. So what if he’d expected me to spend a few minutes alone at a party or two? Or told me, gently of course, that I likely wouldn’t understand some of the business dealings he’d wrestled with during the course of his day.

  Daniel returned and handed me a glass. “What’s on your mind?”

  “At the hospital, were you really there just to ask me about this translation project?”

  Daniel sighed. “Yes and no. I didn’t need you for your part in the events of the dragon council. Lady Adelaida had been pretty open to questions from the human press about exactly why Hian-puo was on trial. And while she didn’t just hand us a list of all the people involved with the China trip, she didn’t try very hard to hide the information either. It took Jim and me about three hours to get all the names together.

  “The trial gave us more than enough information on the weapon and how Hian-puo had gotten his hands on it. Myrna had been pretty detailed in her testimony on how your team had managed to track down its location and tie possession back to the Chinese dragon lord. But since the point of the trial was to prove Hian-puo’s guilt, nobody was asking what the plans were to prevent another bomb being created, or what would ultimately happen to the one that had been confiscated.

  “Jim made a formal request to both Relobu and Adelaida’s offices for this information, but he was shot down. I approached DRACIM with the same result. I got the feeling that Myrna’s Emory was against DRACIM’s involvement in the project from the beginning, and he wasn’t in the mood to do us any favors.”

  “Emory’s never in the mood to do much, unless it involves eating or sucking up to powerful people. Myrna hated working for him.”

  “I can totally see why. Anyway, with none of the three agencies willing to speak with us, Jim and I had decided to try to hit you up for information first thing the next morning.”

  “But instead, Myrna and I were attacked by Hian-puo’s dragon, and I ended up in the hospital.”

  Daniel nodded. “By the time you woke up, the bomb had gone off in Tulsa, and we had other things to worry about.”

  “Well, in that case, I guess I should be thanking you for not automatically assuming I had something to do with sneaking it out of the country.”

  He smiled. “Don’t thank me. It’s my job to look at people and read between the lines. And while you’re not exactly fond of working near dragons, you don’t hate them. You don’t really fear them either.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I would go that far. I seem to be a crazy-dragon magnet. If there’s an insane, human-killing dragon within fifty miles, they’re sure to head straight for me.”

  “But you’ve dealt with other dragons, and you’ve had no problems. The China team had two dragons as part of the security detail. Plus, your roommate is supposedly dating a dragon, and it doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “That’s...different.” I’d first known Trian as a human, so while the thought of him turning into a dragon was more than mildly disturbing from an intellectual standpoint, I couldn’t see myself hating him for being something he’d been all along.

  “And that’s exactly what I mean. Nine times out of ten, humans assume dragons are the bad guys. But you don’t. Which is why I can’t see you deliberately assisting someone with a weapon that kills dragons indiscriminately.”

  He had a point. The pair of Relobu’s dragons with us for security purposes on the China trip had been nothing but polite. In fact...”I rode from China to Budapest on dragonback.”

  Daniel’s head came up. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. Richard and Myrna took our only plane to try and intercept the bomb. Myrna’s clothes had been royally screwed up from Hian-puo’s shenanigans, and she already had a request from Relobu to testify against Hian-puo at the dragon council. So Richard sent me, express delivery, to hook her up with some court-appropriate outfits. It was actually kind of fun.”

  “I’ll bet.” Daniel looked at me with a new glimmer of respect.

  “Anyway...” I studied my nails, suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that we were in this apartment alone, especially considering our pre-flight, not-so-pretend make-out session in Budapest. “You were going to tell me about India. And about why you need a translator.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “How familiar are you with Lady Savitri?”

  “Not very. I know she rules over India, Nepal, and Pakistan but she didn’t make it to Hian-puo’s trial. I’ve never even seen a photo of her, but I’ve heard she’s smaller than the other dragon lords, and she’s light gray. I understand that she doesn’t socialize with the other dragon nations much, but prefers to stay in Bangalore and tend to her own dragons.”

  He nodded. “Yes. And it’s always been assumed that her relative lack of interest in expanding her territory is what kept Hian-puo from commissioning the bioweapon sooner. Had his territory been closer to one of the more forceful dragon monarchs, I have no doubt we would have seen a scheme like the Tulsa bombing much sooner. Savitri has retaliated viciously when her dragons were attacked while in her own territory, but otherwise, she’s ignored Hian-puo’s activities in the
rest of the world.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I bet that doesn’t make her very popular with the other dragon lords.” From Myrna’s work stories, it was clear that a lack of communication was seen as an insult.

  “It doesn’t. But they respect her. She may be small, but she’s one of the most deadly dragons alive. She’s a dragon of the venom variety, and her particular brand of poison is just as deadly to dragons as to humans. Even a drop of the stuff can eat straight through their scales. That, coupled with her more than acceptable combat skills, means she could easily defeat most of the reigning dragon lords without blinking.”

  Daniel shifted on the couch.

  “For the most part, they allow Lady Savitri her quirks. Lately, the dragon lords have had their hands full dealing with Hian-puo. He’s been crazy for as long as anyone can remember. And his conviction at trial hasn’t solved things. The council has removed Hian-puo from power, but now they have a bunch of dragons with no clear leader, and several high-ranking generals who are already pressing their case to succeed their old ruler.”

  “Won’t the existing dragon council vote on a replacement?” From what little I’d understood at the trial, Lord Relobu and Lady Adelaida had plans for the council to interview the pool of Hian-puo subjects willing and able to take over for their fallen ruler.

  “That’s what they’re telling everyone.” Daniel picked up his suitcase and laid it on the bed before unzipping the side pocket and extracting a manila folder filled with the notes I’d crinkled in his friend’s apartment in Budapest. He rifled through the mess and pulled out a single sheet. “But look at this.”

  I leaned closer. “Did you get this out of the garbage or something?” The stained piece of paper was in bad shape, and unidentifiable bits of junk had adhered to the surface. Most of the writing was illegible, but in the far left corner were some words in dragonscript I could make out. “Phase one to commence November 5?” I looked at Daniel. “That’s next week. What operation?”