"And I should give him to you, why?"
"You don't have a choice."
"No, I have a fire dragon. And a Dragon Master. Why do you want them so much? Are you with the Black Lotus gang?"
"The Order of the Black Lotus has inherited the right to the Dragon Master. He is ours."
"You inherited him?" Carol asked in surprise.
"My ancestors imprisoned him, and passed on the task of keeping him. Which is why you will give him to us."
Imprisoned. Seth blinked in shock. The Order hadn't killed the Dragon Master for disobeying them after all. They'd imprisoned him in magic so thick it had broken the bond between the Dragon Master and his dragons.
Which was why this Dragon Master had reached out for Seth of all fire dragons he could have�he'd already known Seth's name.
Seth tightened his grip around Carol's waist and whispered into her ear. "Be ready."
He felt Carol tense, sensed her Dragon Master power pressing around his mind. She looked back at him, her eyes full of fear, not of the men, but of herself.
"Get me out of here. Please."
Seth looked at the Baku. "Axel."
"I'll do what I can," he said cheerfully.
He disappeared with a puff of air and reappeared at the top of the stairs. "Catch me if you can." He popped out again, startling the men gathered there.
The leader didn't pay attention, keeping his cold eyes on Seth and Carol. Shouting sounded above, indicating that Axel was enjoying himself.
Carol pressed her hand on top of Seth's, and he sensed her trying to tap into his dragon fire. "No," he whispered.
She kept pulling at him, likely not even realizing it. Seth jerked his arm from around her and pushed her against the wall. The spark died, but she spun around his thoughts, looking for a weakness.
Seth hissed, letting his body flow into his string of fire. He flew up the stairs, startling the leader and the two men who'd stayed with him. While they focused on him, he sent a string of flame up to Axel, snarling at him in dragon to get Carol and go.
Axel popped into existence again right behind Carol, and she gave a startled scream. He wrapped his arms around her and said, "Hope this works."
"Wait, you hope�" Carol began, then she and Axel were gone.
Seth whizzed around the men of the Black Lotus, who simply stared at him, realizing their weapons were useless. The leader snaked a tendril of magic to Seth, trying to entwine it in his fire.
Seth attempted to solidify into his dragon form and was surprised when it worked. The warehouse was large enough and these men believed in�and feared�dragons.
The leader's face whitened as Seth dove toward him, reaching out with a talon to snare him. The man slapped back with dark magic, and Seth missed, but he followed up with a stream of real fire. Men screamed and dove to the ground, beating flames out of their clothes.
The leader drew himself up, magic swirling around him like a dark cloak. Seth blew his fire again, then let his body flow once more into pure flame.
Seth brushed fire over all the walls, marking them as his. The leader cried out in sudden pain as Seth's fire magic wrapped around him like an iron band. He ran for the door, and Seth streaked flame past him before flying outside himself.
Carol's car still sat shining and whole in the parking lot, but the men of the Black Lotus ignored it as they rushed to their own vehicles and fled.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
Seth found Carol arguing with Axel in her apartment. "I worked hard for that car, Axel. I need it."
"You kids and your obsession for vehicles," Axel growled. "You don't see me with a car."
"I can't pop in and out of wherever I want as handily as you. And what did you mean, I hope this works?"
Axel spotted Seth standing in the middle of the room, and he made for the front door. "Fine I'll go see if I can retrieve your Beemer. I'll leave it in your usual garage all right?"
He paused in the doorway to give Seth a grin and a thumbs-up, then he was gone.
"You're all right?" Seth asked.
"No." She rose shakily. "That was an experience. I'm not even sure what happened, but suddenly I was here."
"Safely. Good." Seth crossed the room and checked the locks, but Axel had magicked them shut behind him. "I don't want you to stay here."
She gave him a confused look. "I live here. What are you talking about?"
"I want to take you far away from here. There are other cities in this human world still, aren't there?"
"Plenty, but I don't want to live in any of them."
"You'd be safer if you let me take you." If he could get her to a place where the Order didn't have a stronghold, he could protect her better.
"What about my grandmother and Shaiming?"
"They can come, too."
Carol went to him. the flame of her wrapping itself around his senses. He knew she'd try to persuade him to leave her alone, but she didn't understand that her brown eyes and flowerlike scent made him want to protect her all the more fiercely.
"Seth, our entire lives are here. Ming Ue's is our home, we can't simply abandon it. The Order wouldn't leave it alone if we went."
"You're stubborn like a dragon."
"If I run away, then they win�the Order and the Dragon Master and whoever else wants to kill me. I refuse to let them bully me; I refuse to give up my life for them."
"At least let me take you to Dragonspace until I can slay everyone in the Order. No one will be able to get to you in my lair in the heart of my territory."
"What do I do while I'm there? Count rocks?"
Seth fell silent. He knew the only way he'd get her away would be to surround her in his fire and drag her to Lisa's, so the silver dragon could open the way to Dragonspace.
The idea was tempting, and he didn't abandon it. Carol held his name, and she could compel him to stop anytime she liked, but if he took her by surprise, he might have a chance.
Carol watched him as though she knew what he was thinking. "Don't even try."
Seth made his thought threads innocent, but he couldn't let the idea go. He wanted her safe with a franticness he'd never experienced before.
"Then stay here while I slay your enemies," he said.
"Slay? What's this talk about slaying?"
Seth growled, the dragon in him chafing to fly out and finish them off. "You'd rather wait for them to slay you?"
"They could have killed me in that basement. I have to wonder why they didn't."
"Fear. They weren't sure what a Dragon Master could do, or what you'd make me do."
"No, it didn't feel like that. They were waiting, yes, but not to fight. It's like they wondered what I'd do with the other Dragon Master."
Seth slowed his thoughts, bringing them back from bloodlust. "Why would you want to do anything with the other Dragon Master?"
"I don't know. Interesting, don't you think?"
Seth moved to the other side of the room and looked out the window. The electricity had been restored in this building already, so the air was warm against the cold that seeped through the window glass.
Outside people hurried back and forth, calling out to each other, or stopping to talk in little groups. They were still putting things together after the earthquake, coming together to commiserate. Humans did that sometimes�clumped together for safety and comfort, somewhat like baby dragons did. It's something adult dragons would never do, except fire dragons and then only with their mates.
He realized that part of the protectiveness he felt for Carol was not of a slave bound to its master, but of a dragon caring for his mate. His thought of tucking her in his lair was exactly what a fire dragon did when the female was ready to have her clutch. The male guarded her against the world while the female curled around her eggs.
Never in his wildest dreams would Seth have thought of a human being as mate. Malcolm had taken a human, but she was a witch, plus Malcolm said that Saba had been given a magical gi
ft from the silver dragon�she could bear Malcolm children in the human way and her lifespan would increase to match his. Their children, half dragon, would be magical, too.
Carol as a Dragon Master should in theory be able to control the silver dragon herself. No one seemed to understand Carol's magic or its untapped potential, not even the old man Zhen.
"Seth;" Carol gasped behind him. "Your tattoo."
Seth looked over his shoulder, but he couldn't see the flame tattoo from that angle. "What about it?"
"It's different. It's bigger."
Seth went into the bathroom and examined his back in the full-length mirror. The flame that outlined his buttocks was thicker and reached higher up his back.
"Why did that happen?" she asked, staring at him in the mirror.
Her face was smudged from the dirty basement, her hair in disarray. She'd changed, too, from the pristine, elegant woman he'd found in the alley behind Ming Ue's two nights ago. She looked stronger, more able to take frightening things in stride, more accepting of the magical and bizarre.
"I don't know." Seth answered her. He reached out and brushed the dirt from her face.
Carol caught sight of her reflection in dismay. "Oh, God, look at me. I'm a mess."
He clasped her hands. "I like you a mess."
"Don't start with the compliments. I don't think I can take it right now."
"I'm a dragon who never wanted to meet a human woman." He touched her chin. "And I can't stay away from you."
"Because I hold your name."
"Maybe that's it." He didn't think so as he leaned to kiss her lips.
"Tell me about dragons," she said softly.
Right now? He wanted to snarl. "Why?"
"I think I need to know more about them. If the other Dragon Master gets free, and I do need to use the powers�I'd feel better if I were prepared, is all."
"Malcolm knows more than I do," he said, touching her lower lip. "Black dragons have a damn library all about dragons."
"So black dragons like information. What do fire dragons like?"
"Solitude. Beauty." Seth thought of the scent of dry air and acacia floating across the vast desert stillness of his home. "Flying, hunting. Peace."
"I'd give you all that back if I could."
"You will."
"You have confidence in me. Zhen tried to teach me how to let you go, using drugged tea and mahjong tiles. I could almost do it." She paused, her gaze going remote. "I had no trouble calling to Malcolm and Caleb and then turning them loose. But you I couldn't. The more I tried to let go, the more I called you to me. That's why you appeared in Zhen's back room. I wanted you so much." She trailed off.
"You want my dragon fire."
The worry and despair in her eyes almost undid him. "What does that mean? Why doesn't your fire burn me, by the way? You're living flame, but you don't burn."
"I can burn if I choose, but I choose not to hurt you."
"But if you did�"
"You would burn to a cinder."
Her brows drew together. "So why should I crave your fire? Maybe deep down I really want to get burned?"
He shook his head. "My flame form is not my dragon fire. It's just another form I can take, like the silver dragon can become a string of lights."
"Now I'm really confused."
Seth leaned his bare buttocks against the counter and didn't miss how Carol's gaze moved to regard them in the mirror.
"My dragon fire is my magic." he said. "It's the essence that makes me a fire dragon, and it's more powerful than what any other dragon possesses. The silver dragon can do more with her magic than I can with mine, but my fire is a concentration of pure energy. I could destroy the world with it if I wanted to."
"Oh." Carol's lips parted. "Which explains why the other Dragon Master wants it so much. I wonder if the Order wants him to have it or is trying to keep it away from him."
"My fire is why you woke and called me to you," Seth said.
"And why I don't want to let you go?"
He nodded, feeling the rough ends of his hair on his neck. "You crave my fire and have been trying to draw it into yourself from the first. You aren't strong enough yet, but soon you'll be able to pull it in from me and I won't be able to stop you."
"What happens then?" She backed up a step, sliding her arms across her abdomen. "What happens when I take your dragon fire, whatever it is? Does that leave you without it?"
"If you were fire dragon it would leave me fused with you, bound absolutely. Fire dragons do that when they mate, but we're born with the capacity to endure it. With you�" He drew his finger down her cheek, as always reveling in her softness. "It will burn you up from the inside out if you're not ready. It will kill you."
Her eyes widened. "Then I won't do it. I have no desire to burn to a crisp, thank you very much."
"You can't help it. The Dragon Master in you wants to command it, just like the other Dragon Master wants it to get himself free of that column thing. Dragon fire is the whole reason I was sucked here from Dragonspace."
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes." He'd never been more certain of anything in his life. "You want my fire. A bit of it jumps to you every time we mate."
"I noticed that." She drew a shuddering breath. "I thought it was just a great orgasm."
"I try to keep my fire from you always, but when I mate with you, I lose some of my control." He reached for her across the small bathroom and touched her cool, bare shoulders. "It is intense mating with you, and I am buried in the joy of it."
"But if you ever lost hold of this dragon fire, then I'd be toast? Literally?"
"I would never, ever hurt you." He moved his thumbs over her collarbone. "You wield my true name, which would make me work hard not to harm you, even if I hated you. Something in me always holds back the dragon fire, even if a spark escapes."
"Not the best reassurance you could give me."
"I like mating with you. I like how your body moves under mine, how hot your skin gets, how you taste. My dragon fire craves you, but I won't let you pull it into you. The bond protects you."
She started to push him away, but then her fingers curled on his shoulders and held him in place. She lifted on her tiptoes and brushed a kiss to his lips, then paused as though waiting to see what would happen.
His dragon fire trembled inside him, but Seth quieted it.
"I can't seem to stop wanting you, Seth," she whispered. "I'm not a sexy woman, not the kind that men chase. They think I'm cold and too focused on money. But I'm not, not really. I made money because I had to, because Grandmother and Shaiming would have had nothing if I hadn't. But all everyone sees is overachiever Carol, hard as nails and cold as ice."
"You aren't hard," he said, kissing her very soft and very warm neck. "I am."
She dissolved into laughter. "Seth, damn it, don't do that."
"Don't do what? Want you?"
"Make me laugh while I'm pouring my heart out."
Seth touched her chest, feeling her heart beating swiftly. "It's still in place."
"I can't believe someone like you likes to touch me," she said in wonder. She cupped his cheek. "I never thought I'd let a man get close to me�never thought one would want to. Except you're not a man, you're a dragon."
"A male dragon."
He took her hand and guided it to his very erect penis. She grasped him readily, and he closed his eyes in pleasure.
She touched him gently, her fingers exploring as before, as though she found him fascinating. She dipped her hand to his balls and lifted them in her palm.
He couldn't stand it. He lifted her until her face was even with his and let his kiss press her against the cream-colored wall.
When he broke the kiss she reached for him, her eyes half-closed. He kissed her again, drawing her lower lip between his teeth.
She stroked his face, her soft body moving against his hard one, his staff thick between them. "Axel will be back soon."
; Seth didn't care about Axel. He dipped his head and nibbled down her neck, slowly easing her to stand on her feet again. "Let me feel you," he whispered.
"Aren't you feeling me already?"
"All of you. Why are you always in clothes?"
"I was going to ask you why you're always out of them."
Seth opened the buttons of her shirt. "They're annoying. I can change faster if they aren't in the way." He pushed the shirt from her shoulders and tugged at her bra. "At least stop wearing this."
"How about if I quit wearing underwear altogether?"
He sensed she was joking, but he remained serious. "That would be best. Then if I want to do this�" He slid her skirt up her thighs, finding the bare skin of her legs and the barrier of her panties. "It would be easier."
"I couldn't possibly go to board meetings without my underwear."
"Why not?"
She pretended to contemplate. "I suppose if my investors knew I was pantyless, they might be less disparaging about my profit-and-loss statements. Most of them are men and try to look down my blouse anyway."
Seth pinned her to the wall again. "If they ever do again, tell them you are mine."
"I don't think it would be easy explaining my dragon boyfriend."
Seth kissed her, letting the heat of her mouth dissolve his tension. He wanted all of her. The touching and kissing only satisfied him so much.
He left off his teasing and leaned over her. "I can't ever have what I want with you."
She gave him a startled look. "What do you want?"
"Everything. I want my life to be all around you, all about you. I don't know why I wish this. You aren't dragon, and this world is like hell to me." He balled his fist on wall. "Why?"
"I don't know." She didn't move, but he felt the rapid rise and fall of her chest. "I wish I wasn't so tangled up in you. I want you to be able to leave, to not hate me for holding you. And I want to wake up and be Carol again, going to my office and running my restaurants. I don't want to know about dragons or Dragon Masters, or the Order of the Black Lotus. I want my life back."
"I want to fly free again." He unclenched his hand and rubbed his thumb over her chin. "We both want what we can't have."
The Dragon Master Page 14
