The Dragon Master

by Allyson James

  "He's coming," the old woman announced.

  Lights pricked the darkness behind him, followed by a strange squeal and a metallic taint in the air. A vehicle much like the one the fire dragon stood next to halted some distance away, and a large man rose from it.

  A black dragon. The fire dragon's fury boiled over.

  Black dragons were ice-cold creatures who cared for no beings but themselves. The ancient beasts lived inside mountains of stone, pouring over incomprehensible and strange calculations. They were powerful, not because of their fighting strength, but because their minds were sharp as steel.

  The black dragon's human form was as tall as the fire dragon's, but he had a fall of long black hair, and his eyes were silver. He moved with confidence toward the fire dragon, but the fire dragon regarded him with contempt�the black dragon had answered a summons by these humans.

  A woman emerged from the vehicle behind the black dragon. She was small, but her magic burned like a bright-white flame�a witchling. She could have summoned the fire dragon, though he felt no binding threads from her.

  The black dragon cocked his head, looking the fire dragon up and down with his bright eyes.

  "Damn." His voice was soft, almost silken.

  "What's the matter?" the witch behind him asked. "Do you know him?"

  The black dragon shook his head. He held his hand out to the witch, giving her a look that spoke of tenderness. He might be talking to a mate, but dragons and witches didn't mate.

  "He's a fire dragon."

  Give the mighty black dragon ten points.

  The old woman sucked in her breath. "Truly?"

  "What's a fire dragon?" the witch asked.

  "I've never seen one before," the black dragon said. "They are elusive and volatile and don't interact with other dragons. Some dragons think they're only legend."

  "Like the silver dragon?" the witch asked him.

  "Not quite, but almost."

  The old one clasped her hands. "How wonderful. You see, Carol? Dragons always find me, even the rarest of them. I am the luckiest woman in Chinatown."

  The beautiful woman with the deep flame stood tall in front of the old one. "This has gone far enough, Grandmother. I want the police."

  "That would be a bad idea," the black dragon said mildly. "Let me take care of this."

  The fire dragon knew that the black dragon�Malcolm�was the strongest being in this alley, the one he'd have to get past to stay free.

  "Why are you here, black dragon?" he snarled. "In this form, summoned by these mages? Do you belong to them?"

  "I protect them," Malcolm answered.

  "Enslaved." The accusation sounded hollow because the fire dragon knew he'd been enslaved himself.

  "I protect them by choice. Why have you come here?"

  The fire dragon put his fists to his bare neck. "Harnessed. Dragged here. Did you do it?"

  "Not me, but I know what it feels like to be ripped from Dragonspace, believe me. So which of you summoned him? Shaiming?"

  The silent man jumped, then beamed a smile and shook his head.

  "None of us did," the old woman said. "We wouldn't know how. He just showed up in the alley."

  Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "Now that's very interesting."

  Curiosity was a black dragon's weakness. The arrogant creatures could lose a battle because they'd stopped to investigate something trivial.

  Malcolm drew close, and the fire dragon growled, feeling the need to challenge. He drew every ounce of power he had deep inside himself and willed the fire to take over.

  His body heated white-hot, and he felt the triumph that came with the change. Yes!

  The small group collectively gaped as he became living fire, a string of incandescent light that blasted back the darkness of the alley. Malcolm started for him, but the fire dragon sailed out of reach.

  The fire dragon swooped and swirled around the tiny old woman then the lovely, flame-filled young woman at her side. His flame called to hers, and she stared up at him with fear and wonder in her eyes.

  "What are you?" she breathed. She lifted a slim-fingered hand toward him.

  The fire dragon flitted out of reach, sensing that if he touched her, she'd bind him forever.

  The strange human world pulled at him. and he rose in an arrow of flame over the glittering, odd-smelling, alien city.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  He was here.

  The fire dragon�the only dragon powerful enough to help him�was in the human world.

  In his prison, the Dragon Master, Sying, shivered. So close, so close.

  The years of silent work, of not letting his enemies know he'd stockpiled his power bit by tiny bit, were over. Sying had managed to summon the fire dragon. And just when he'd seen the flame searing the walls beyond his prison, the fire dragon had jerked away and vanished.

  At first Sying had been bewildered, but then he realized what must have happened. Another Dragon Master had intercepted the call and pulled the fire dragon to him.

  Sying sagged against the wall. All the centuries of imprisonment had almost come to an end. And then his key had disappeared.

  He'd thought the ancient Order of the Black Lotus had killed the only Dragon Master left twenty-five years ago.

  The young Chinese woman, her husband, and baby daughter had died, the line ended.

  The Order had survived all these centuries by the power of their demon-god, their members passing secrets from generation to generation. They were thorough and could not have missed another Dragon Master, but it seemed that they had.

  After so many years�failure.

  Sying pressed his hands against the glasslike walls of his prison and closed his eyes.

  When Carol needed to cope, she groomed herself. After she left Ming Ue's, reassured that Malcolm would keep her grandmother and Shaiming safe, she drove home, locked herself into her apartment, and started her ritual.

  She washed her hair, pumiced everything that could be pumiced, trimmed and filed her nails, shaved her legs, exfoliated every inch of skin, and ended by slathering herself with body lotion. She pulled on a Chinese silk robe with red dragons that had belonged to her mother and lounged in the expensive soft chairs in her living room with a hot cup of tea.

  But her grooming ritual hadn't stopped her shakes. What she'd seen in the alley had been unreal and intense, and Carol Juan liked only the real.

  She'd worked her way through Stanford, returning to San Francisco after she'd obtained her MBA to manage Ming Ue's tiny restaurant. She'd grown the business, made Ming Ue's Dim Sum a household name in the city, and opened seven more Asian-Pacific restaurants that were now booming. She was a smart, successful, well-respected businesswoman, and she'd done it all herself.

  Carol knew odd things happened at Ming Ue's, especially after her grandmother had become friends with Caleb and Lisa, and Malcolm and Saba. Ming Ue claimed that Caleb, Lisa, and Malcolm were dragons and that Saba was a powerful witch. Carol went along with it, but she never really believed�until tonight.

  The red-haired man in the alley had radiated power, even she, without her grandmother's interest in the supernatural, had sensed that. She remembered his hard body against hers in the dark, the jolt he'd sent through her. He'd smelled clean and sharp, like wind and rain and dust, as though he'd come from somewhere far from San Francisco.

  And then he'd turned into living flame.

  Carol couldn't deny what she'd seen. She'd been to every Chinese New Year celebration since she'd been born and watched fireworks displays grow more sophisticated each year. But she'd never seen anything like that, and she couldn't pretend that his transformation had been fireworks or special effects.

  When the stream of flame had circled her, she'd smelled again the wind and dust that had clung to his human body. She'd also felt another spark jump between them before he'd torn himself away and disappeared over the city.

  Malcolm had wanted to chase the string of fi
re, but Saba begged him not to. Saba and Malcolm had just become parents of an adorable little girl that kept them jumping, and Saba wanted to get home to her. They'd been out tonight at a nearby restaurant, the first time they'd gone out alone since little Adara had been born, which was why they'd been able to answer Ming Ue's call so quickly.

  Carol picked up the stack of magazines on the table beside her and flipped through the latest issue of San Francisco Magazine. She always felt better looking at the big glossy full-page ads for Ming Ue's restaurants. No photos of stereotyped rooms crammed with Chinese symbols and a plateful of pot stickers, but shots of an upscale restaurant with subtle lighting and discreet decor. The dim sum carts full of Chinese delicacies were pushed by well-dressed young women who were charming, gracious, and intelligent. They had a full menu at each restaurant as well, cooked by nationally recognized chefs.

  At the bottom of the ad was the gold symbol awarded to Carol by the Chinese American business community. She was very proud of that award.

  Carol tossed the magazine aside, hands still shaking. Her teacup was empty so she went back to the kitchen and brewed herself another pot of crisp oolong tea infused with orange blossom petals.

  As she replaced the metal canister in the cupboard, her living room exploded with incandescent light. The tea canister crashed to the floor, spilling black leaves and white petals across her clean tiles.

  A shaft of white-hot flame was rising from her living room carpet to the ceiling, then the flame condensed before her eyes into a living, naked man with fire-red hair and intense black eyes.

  Carol stared at him from the kitchen door, heart racing in fear. Again something inside her reached to him, like a faint music she couldn't quite catch.

  "Why did you summon me?" he demanded.

  "I told you, I didn't."

  "Liar." His voice grated as he came to her. "Who are you?"

  "This is my house. Who the hell are you?"

  He cocked his head, studying her with eyes both volatile and curious. He'd done that before, and she realized he reminded her of Malcolm, who often looked at people as though he were learning them, sizing them up.

  She pictured the comforting shape of the phone hanging in the kitchen and her cell phone in the bedroom next to her bed. This man had grown tense around Malcolm, the only one he'd backed down from.

  His hand closed around her wrist as though he'd read her thoughts. "Do not summon the black dragon again. I will kill him this time."

  "Kill him? You can't kill Malcolm."

  "He is a no match for a fire dragon."

  She fought the hysteria that welled up inside her. "What is a fire dragon? I don't even believe in dragons."

  "They exist. Fire dragons are the most powerful and magical of all the great dragons."

  "Now you sound like Caleb."

  "What is a Caleb?"

  "A golden dragon, if you believe my grandmother. He says golden dragons are the most powerful." She'd always thought the golden-haired man's declaration was some kind of running joke between himself, Malcolm, and Ming Ue.

  "A golden. How many others have you enslaved? How many can you hold at one time?"

  "Why do you keep saying enslaved? They're not slaves. They're friends."

  The man scowled. "Mages and dragons are not friends. Mages envy the power of dragons and seek to bind their magic for their own use."

  Carol tried to pull out of his grip, but he was too strong. "No one has enslaved anyone. You are the one who followed me home and broke into my house. I don't know who or what you are or why you're here, but I didn't have anything to do with it, and neither did my grandmother."

  He pressed closer. "You are strong with your power, maybe even a Dragon Master. Why else would I have ended up in a magical place?"

  "Magical place? You mean San Francisco?"

  "The dark space marked with dragon and mage magic. You and the old woman and the man came from it."

  "Ming Ue's Dim Sum is a magical place?" She wanted to laugh. "Wait until I tell my investors."

  "Are they mages, too?"

  Another hysterical laugh bubbled to her lips. "I hope not. I'd never convince them I could turn grandmother's restaurant around if they were." She drew a breath. "There's someone else I could call to sort this out. Grandmother always asks for her advice�claims she's a silver dragon or something."

  His fingers bit down. "A lie. There are no silver dragons�they are legend."

  "In that case, you'd have nothing to worry about. Please let me call her."

  He gave her a skeptical look. "If you can summon a silver dragon, then you are indeed powerful."

  "I don't know about summoning. I was just going to ask her to come over."

  He abruptly released her and stepped back. "Ask her then. I want to witness it."

  Carol rubbed her wrist where he'd crushed it and thought rapidly. Lisa was not a physically strong woman, but she seemed to have a way of putting everything right. Caleb, her husband, would likely come with her, and he was, like Malcolm, a large man of reassuring bulk.

  The man gazed at the marks on her wrist with a puzzled expression. "I hurt you."

  "It's what happens when you grab people and push them around."

  "I did not think a Dragon Master would be so fragile." He sounded stunned.

  "I guess I'm happy you didn't break my arm. Stay there while I get my phone and call Lisa."

  He watched her, still casually naked like he didn't notice it.

  Carol didn't like men who made her want to step back�or worse, step toward them. She liked men in buttoned-up suits on the other side of a negotiation table with her in charge. She'd built up her portfolio and her power by never giving an inch and never being intimidated by sex or sexual attraction. Men she worked with might have been sexless androids for all she let herself notice them.

  This man wasn't about to be a blank. He had a powerful presence, and not simply because he was tall and well-sculpted.

  Carol wrenched her gaze away from him long enough to scuttle into the bedroom and grab her cell phone. She punched Lisa's number as she walked back out, silently begging Lisa to pick up.

  The man had moved to the window and pulled back the blind to look out over the city. Her view from Russian Hill was to be envied, her apartment taking up the top floor of a tall, elegant house that overlooked glittering city lights. The dragon-man was staring out as though the sight dismayed him.

  He half-turned from her, showing her a tight backside and a black tattoo of a flame stretching across his hips and up the small of his back. The sight mesmerized her until she realized that anyone passing outside could look up and see him standing naked in the window.

  She slammed the blinds closed just as Lisa's voice mail answered. "Hello, I'm not here, but please leave a message."

  "Lisa, it's Carol. I'm at home, and I have a problem. A dragon problem."

  The man regarded her with suspicion as she clicked off. "With that device, you summon dragons?"

  "Why do you keep talking about summoning?"

  He snatched the phone from her and before her eyes crushed it down to its circuitry. Bits of black plastic rained from his fingers down to the carpet.

  "Damn it, what did you do that for? I had a hundred contacts on that phone�I need it."

  The fire dragon glanced at his blood-coated fingers in surprise. He dropped the last pieces of phone and held up his hand, staring at the scarlet liquid as though he'd never seen blood before.

  "So fragile." He looked at her with stark fear in his eyes. "Why did you do this to me?"

  "I didn't do anything to you."

  He caught her by the shoulders, his blood seeping into the white of the robe. "Why have you made me so weak?"

  "You're not weak, believe me. You're ten times stronger than I am."

  He curved his warm body over hers, but his touch softened and his thumbs caressed her through the silk.

  "This weakness. It makes me afraid."

  Carol
should be the one afraid of this very strange man who'd appeared out of nowhere. But she sensed his confusion, a waning of incredible strength with fear. He could be rough, like he'd been in the alley, or hold himself back as he did now, his touch almost gentle.

  He tilted his head again to look at her, his tangle of red hair brushing his neck. His dark eyes took in everything, and deep inside them was the spark that had jumped between them before.

  "You need to wash off your hand," she said.

  He looked at his fingers again. The blood had started drying, but the plastic pieces had left a mess of cuts. "It is not so painful now."

  "You still need to clean it."

  She took him by the unhurt hand and towed him into the kitchen. She snapped on the water in the sink and stuck his bloody hand under the cold flow. "Just rub it clean�don't use soap yet."

  He stared at the faucet. "What magic is this?"

  "There is no magic in this house, and none in me, all right?"

  "You are wrong, mage. The flame is inside you. You burn with it."

  Carol wanted to retort that of course she didn't, but she kept silent. She'd felt the spark when he'd leaned against her in the alley, a stirring of something she didn't understand.

  Carol had always been a realistic person, but she'd learned to not deny what her instincts told her. Her instincts told her now that he was powerful but responded to her for some reason.

  "What am I supposed to call you?" she asked.

  The water rushed over his fingers, dissolving and washing away the blood. "A name like your black dragon has given himself? What is it�Malcolm! That isn't his true name."

  "It's true enough for me."

  Carol snapped off the water. Most of the blood had gone, and she dabbed the water from his hands with her kitchen towel.

  His grip tightened on her hands through the fabric, this time not crushing. "If you were the mage who summoned me, you'd know my true name. You'd sing it with glee."

  She blinked up at him with her dark eyes as she continued to wipe off his hands with the cloth. He liked her touch, competent but gentle.

  "Obviously, I don't know your name then," she said.