Dancing with Dragons

by Lorenda Christensen

  I put both feet firmly on the floor, and stood on my tiptoes to place a chaste kiss against his closed lips.

  “Maybe the entryway isn’t the best place to do this. We should try this somewhere less hazardous to our health,” I said as I slipped the buttons loose on his shirt one by one, taking time to run my knuckles against his skin with every movement.

  When I was finished, I took a moment to admire his broad chest, running my fingers along the slight dip down the center where pectorals met sternum. For a reporter, he was in surprisingly good shape, and I was delighted to find that my touch caused his muscles to tighten in anticipation.

  Feeling a bit more confident that we were both under the same crazy spell, I placed my hand, palm down, right over his heart, loving the unique sensation of soft skin over hard muscle. There was something about touching him that managed to make me feel safe and fearful all at the same time. And I loved it.

  Daniel had grown a bit impatient with my exploration, because suddenly I felt his hands tug on the drawstring of my skirt. The knot held true, and the second jerk was slightly more insistent. By the third, he’d pulled so hard I was sure I heard the material rip.

  Breathing hard, Daniel made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a curse. “What the hell do they make these drawstrings out of? Titanium? Are there special chastity knots they teach you in dressing rooms or something?”

  I matched his mock serious expression. “It’s a sign. The Hindu gods refuse to allow us sexual satisfaction until we find a proper place to partake. Come on.” I pulled his hand from my skirt and led him toward my bedroom, walking with a deliberate twist of my hips to give him something nice to look at. When I felt his hands cup my ass, I knew I’d been successful.

  The feeling of power evaporated, however, when I happened to glance in the mirror installed on the back of the room’s closet door. The reflection caused me to stop short. It was crazy to me that I could forget about my appearance for hours at a time. But now, after a long exhausting day, my hair was a mess, my eyes ringed in dark circles, and my skin blotchy from the heat. The image was shocking, and not in a good way.

  “Hey.”

  Daniel put a hand on each side of my jaw and gently turned my face until all I could see were his deep brown eyes. “I don’t like it when you get sad.”

  “I’m not sad. I’m just...wistful. I really did have a nice head of hair.”

  He leaned down to place a kiss on the tip of my nose. “Don’t you dare do that to yourself. What you have here,” he moved a lock of my hair with his index finger, “on the outside? It’s temporary. Your hair is not at all why I’m attracted to you.”

  He put his hand on my head, and very carefully, very gently ran his fingers through my short locks, taking care to avoid the worst of my injuries. “In fact, I love your hair short like this because it allows me to see more of your face, and gives me access to trace your ear, like this.”

  He bent down and touched the tip of his tongue to my lobe, then used his lips to trace a path up.

  “Gahhh...” I tried to speak, but my brain had short-circuited. Daniel’s breath vibrated across my ear as he laughed.

  “I love your lips.”

  “And I love yours.” He ran a finger lightly along my upper lip, grinning when I pretended to bite. “I love them, not because they’re full and red and infinitely kissable...”

  He stopped talking for a moment to show me just how kissable those lips could be, and by the time we both came up for air I was out of breath, gripping his arm and leaning closer for more.

  “I don’t like your lips just because they’re pretty. I like them because of the words that slide past them, and how they can make me laugh, sometimes even when you don’t speak.”

  I’d never been with a man that could make me melt and laugh at the same time, and I told him so.

  “I like the sound of that.”

  I stepped from his reach for just a moment and cocked a brow as I slid the knot of my skirt’s drawstring free. “See, it’s not as hard as you think it is.”

  His eyes didn’t quite manage to return to my face, his gaze causing warmth to pool in my belly. Daniel’s face was flushed as he took in the sight of me wearing a crop top and panties. The shirt suddenly felt far too restrictive, and I decided that it needed to go. With Daniel’s help, I made short work of the row of metal hooks. Once released, Daniel and I shrugged off our shirts at the same time. We drank in the sight of each other for a moment more, before Daniel moved a hand to his jeans, nimbly popping the top button free.

  It wasn’t long before we were both surrounded with discarded clothing, and wrapped around each other skin to skin. Daniel kissed me again, deep, and I wondered how I’d never noticed all my other partners had been doing it wrong. I nipped at his tongue when he slowed to explore my lower lip, and he answered by wrapping me tight and falling onto the bed.

  And then, with me straddled on top of his stomach, the laughter left both of us, leaving only heat and desire behind.

  It was a long time before either of us managed to sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next day came far too soon for my comfort, except for the pleasure of waking up next to Daniel. My eyes opened slowly, and I took a moment to study his sleeping face, brushing back a stray lock of hair that had fallen against his forehead. I knew the second he woke, because his mouth twisted slowly into a sexy smile.

  I let out the unconscious breath I’d been holding. Last night had been earth-shattering for me, and not just because of the sex. This morning, I felt a thousand pounds lighter. Even though all the problems from yesterday still remained, they didn’t seem to weigh on me like they had before my time with Daniel. Whether that had been his intention or not, I was glad that he’d managed to help me feel a little less alone in the midst of my situation.

  “Good morning.” His voice was rough with sleep, and it took all my willpower not to snuggle back against him and simply enjoy a lazy day tucked into the bed of a gorgeous man.

  If only I could always wake up to this.

  The thought was sudden and rather startling, but when I prodded at it, I found that I didn’t mind it taking up space in my head.

  I smiled down at his face. “Good morning, yourself.”

  He shifted, propping his head up with his elbow on the pillow. “So. I’ve come to a decision.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” I could tell by the twinkle in his eye that the playful Daniel was up bright and early.

  “I think that it’s rather wasteful of us to be using twice as many sheets as we need, especially when washing them will strain Bangalore’s water supply. What d’ya say? Wanna go green?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” I said as I gave in to temptation and touched the warm expanse of skin peeping out from beneath the bedding.

  “Hmm...” Daniel stretched and rolled over, allowing me access to another part of his body that was up bright and early. I obliged, and leaned closer to his ear.

  “If we’re trying to save water, I really think we should concentrate on our bathing habits. It seems to me that if we showered together—” I paused as his hand reached up to cup my breast, “that would save us both water and time. You can’t go much more green than that.”

  “Carol Jenski, you may just be the smartest woman I’ve ever met.” I groaned as his hand left my nipple to trace the curve of my waist, but I stopped complaining when he pushed me back onto the bed and rose above me.

  Daniel made certain that by the time we hit the shower, we’d sweat enough to make it worth the trouble.

  * * *

  By eight-thirty, I was headed back to the Savitri office complex, Daniel at my side. With a promise to meet me around noon for lunch, he left to speak with a contact who claimed to have a possible connection to one of Savitri’s war generals. While I tried to find a way into Nipa’s file cabinet, Daniel was trying to trace some of the dragon lord’s orders from a different angle, starting with the generals who would h
ave most likely been privy to the most confidential strategies.

  I stepped through the office doors and was surprised to note there were very few people milling about. After glancing at my watch to confirm it was, in fact, nine in the morning, I stopped by Krishnan’s office. Relieved to see him sitting at his desk—I’ll admit that even though I had no good reason, there was a moment during which I’d expected to hear that he’d been eaten—I gave Krishnan’s door a light tap and he gestured for me to enter.

  “Did I accidentally get my days confused and come to work on a Saturday? There’s hardly anyone here.”

  He laughed. “No. You just haven’t been properly introduced to Indian work days. They generally begin a little later than in the United States. But no worries, I just returned from a trip to visit my family for the holiday season in the U.K., and I’m still not fully adjusted either.”

  Krishnan picked up a file from his desk and handed it to me. “These arrived direct from Lady Savitri just this morning. She would like to have them translated to dragonscript and delivered to her office as soon as they’re complete. It’s urgent, so she asks that you work as quickly as possible.”

  Well. I’d expected getting access to Savitri—and her inner office—was going to be much harder than this. I’d planned to volunteer my time to Savitri’s assistant for anything the dragon lord needed, but it had never occurred to me that I’d be taken up on the offer before I’d even gotten around to making it.

  I barely managed to keep my hand from trembling as I took the manila folder, and it took all my will to school my features into a calm expression. It was one thing to work for the dragon lord with Nipa as my human buffer, but quite another to report directly to the dragon herself. “Of course. I’ll start immediately.”

  On the way back to my cubicle, I opened the folder and started to read. Shock had me stopping in my tracks, startling a young woman who’d been trailing me down the hall. I gave her a distracted apology and practically ran back to my desk.

  The first letter—written in old-school shorthand by Nipa—was only two paragraphs long and addressed to one of the generals Daniel had identified as a member of the Indian military who’d shifted his forces to the Pakistani border. The tone of the note was tense and almost angry. Lady Savitri had skipped any sort of formal greeting, no small slight in the dragon world.

  Return your contingent to previous post near Delhi. Do so immediately. I insist upon an explanation for your move to the Pakistan border within twenty-four hours. That explanation will be given in person, as you are formally relieved of duty. Ignoring this missive will be viewed as treason, and will result in your execution.

  Lady Savitri

  I flipped through the folder and found other notes nearly identical to the first, each addressed to the same list of dragons Daniel had scribbled along his map. Lifting my head from the paper to stare blankly at the wall, I tried to process the information.

  Lady Savitri hadn’t ordered the troop movement. In fact, since these letters hadn’t yet been mailed, it appeared that the dragon lord had not even been aware of her generals’ movements until very recently. Had they banded together and decided to start a war without her?

  Based on Daniel’s last count, there were six Indian military companies gathered at the border, led by six different generals. Another two contingents were stationed on the borders of China and Nepal. Every single one of them were less than a day’s dragon-flight away from Lhasa, a main city in the southwest corner of China. From there, it was another day before those dragons could reach Hian-puo’s capital city, and if that happened, China would be officially under the dragons’ control.

  Did Savitri realize she was forty-eight hours away from an international disaster?

  I nibbled on my lower lip, trying to decide what to do. I was terrible at unraveling conspiracies, and I hadn’t a clue where to start to get the rest of the story. Looking at the clock attached to my wall, I could see that there were still three hours until I met Daniel for lunch. If he’d been at our apartment, I could have called him, but he was out tracking down leads, and he hadn’t given me the name or number of the contact he planned to visit.

  I briefly considered calling Myrna, but she was likely asleep, or still busy trying to handle the recent dragon-human eruptions plaguing Tulsa. Calling Trian would be a good choice, since he was the most experienced with combat-related stratagem. But he was also Lord Relobu’s hunter of choice to track me down and drag me back to face trial for something I didn’t do, and I wasn’t quite ready to go that route.

  No, until I got more information, or Savitri’s troops actually attacked, there wasn’t much I could do.

  No, the only option I had was to do as Lady Savitri asked and convert the letters into dragonscript and deliver them to her office.

  I’d just bent over the first with notebook and pen in hand when Benaki slammed through the double doors, a large leather satchel slung across his wide chest. He didn’t even pause to look over the office. Instead he headed directly toward Savitri’s door, passing my cubicle in a flash of maroon.

  That dragon scared the crap out of me. I hunched back over my desk with the pen and started praying he’d be gone by the time I had to deliver the letters.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky. I finished up the final missive and Benaki still hadn’t reappeared.

  Cursing my rotten luck, I briefly considered handing the pages back to Krishnan for delivery. But my curiosity about what was going on behind those closed doors was stronger than my fear of ugly looks from Benaki. I hoped that seeing Savitri’s face when I handed her the letters would give me a clue as to her part in this mess.

  Was she worried? Or simply furious? Did she have a plan in place to stop the armies if they did indeed try to invade? Or was she actually just having me write these notes so she’d have plausible deniability if the other dragon lords managed to put together a defense before she had enough dragon-power to take over their territories as well?

  My head was spinning with possibilities as I walked down the hall. Where was Daniel? My calm, rational, take charge...whatever he was... when I needed him?

  And to top it all off, we had to add Benaki into the mix? The dragon who had once “accidentally” broken a guy’s arm and then tried to pretend the man had just tripped.

  Great. Just fantastic.

  I forced myself to remember Benaki’s scar. The one Lady Savitri had given him as punishment for his “accident.” Savitri wouldn’t let me be hurt.

  I shivered. Actually, the only guarantee I had was that Benaki would be punished after the fact, not that he wouldn’t hurt me in the first place. Not exactly the same thing.

  Regardless, I needed to suck it up and do what I needed to do. If I could learn something that would help stop a war, then to me, it was worth a broken arm.

  My decision didn’t stop me from being terrified. I was half afraid people could hear the sound of my knees knocking together. But I clutched the letters to my chest and headed to the enormous closed door at the end of the room, pressing the button to activate the door opener. The thick wooden panels swung open with a groan.

  As I stepped into Lady Savitri’s private work space, I had to stop and gape. It was nothing like the dank, dark dungeon I’d expected. Hian-puo’s castle had been full of old statues, weaponry, and hanging tapestries embroidered with gold thread that matched his gold-plated everything else. If he’d been going for feudal King Midas, he’d hit the nail on the head with the gaudy ornaments.

  But Savitri’s private workspace was surprisingly sparse and open. There wasn’t a desk or furniture of any kind, except for a small human-sized chair—likely for Nipa—placed directly across from a wooden beam that served as the dragon lord’s perch.

  The ceilings were so high that I could barely see them, and the entire office was lit only by sunlight from outside. I’d heard that dragons as a rule possessed excellent night vision, and I briefly wondered what Nipa did if she ever had to work lat
e.

  With potted plants tucked into every other corner, the room felt more like a football-field-sized outdoor patio than a business office. In fact, there were no panes of glass in the windows at all, and I felt a warm breeze ruffle what little hair was left on the crown of my head. Lady Savitri took full advantage of the tropical Bangalore climate.

  Based on the curling ivy hugging wide stone columns, and the bushes of flowers peeking over the window frames, it appeared there was a garden just outside. A wide, dragon-sized opening, paved in stone and leading into the jungle confirmed my suspicions.

  As I moved closer, I could hear the voices of Savitri and Benaki. I wasn’t near enough to understand their words, but based on her tone, the dragon lord was furious. They argued for another minute or so, and I’d almost worked up the courage to step fully outside and interrupt when Benaki appeared in the garden doorway as if he were heading back to the human office space.

  Savitri appeared behind him immediately, and I was shocked at her next words. “You will die for this. No one ignores my orders.”

  She caught sight of me. “Julie, fetch the dragon guards at the front gate.”

  I looked back and forth between the two dragons, and decided leaving the room was an excellent idea. I bobbed my head to show her I’d understood, and had half turned for the door when Benaki stepped toward me, claws out.

  “No.”

  I froze. Without a choice of furniture to cower behind, I felt terribly exposed. Trust my luck to plunk me right down in the middle of a deadly dragon argument. I looked to Savitri, unsure of what to do. Benaki was close enough to slice me open with his claws if I made a move toward the door.

  At Benaki’s words, Savitri had growled, and now her teeth were in full view. I could hear the rug beneath her feet rip as her exposed claws dug into the thick weave when she shifted.