"If I can figure out how to let you go, I will."
"You don't understand. It doesn't matter if you send me back to Dragonspace. I have touched you, mated with you, watched you while you slept. I won't ever be able to untangle myself from you again."
Her dark eyes flicked to his. "Maybe you say that because you're trapped. Maybe it's the true-name thing making you think you want to stay with me."
"It feels real to me."
"But how will you feel when the bond is broken?"
He shrugged. "What if the bond being broken means I can't stay with you? Maybe the magic that brought me here won't let me stay if it's broken."
"Caleb and Malcolm stay."
"They came under different circumstances and were freed by their mates. Can I stay with the one who enslaved me? Or will the magic not let me?"
"You ask difficult questions," Carol said. "I thought getting my MBA was challenging."
He had no idea what that meant, but he understood the gist. "I don't want it to be difficult."
Life was easy as a dragon�his basic emotions were his need to hunt, anger and protectiveness over his territory, joy in the beauty around him. He'd been content with his life.
Humans were completely different, and even though he was only in this shape temporarily, he was flooded with complicated human thoughts and emotions, wants and needs.
Carol might be right that without the true name bond he might not want her any longer. He couldn't imagine that now, as furious as he'd been with her when he'd first encountered her.
He hated being trapped, but if he had to be, he couldn't imagine a better woman to be trapped with.
"I should clean up," Carol was saying. She looked sideways at herself in the long mirror, and Seth studied her, too, her mussed hair, open blouse, and smudged face. Delectable.
"A shower?" Seth asked. He wouldn't mind being wet with her.
"I need to go back to Zhen's and tell them what happened. I want to continue with my training, too, so I don't do something stupid. When we were in the basement, I wanted to tell you to strike again. I could feel it, and it was physical pain to hold it back."
"I don't want you to feel pain."
"Neither do I. That's why I need Zhen."
Seth reached into the tiled shower stall and turned on the water. It gushed out, hot and clear, and the room soon filled with steam.
"That's lucky," Carol said. "I worried that the water would go bad or be shut off indefinitely. Looks like it's fixed."
He didn't follow what she was babbling about, and he didn't care. He pulled off her blouse and started working on her skirt.
Carol tried to back away, but the wall stopped her. "I meant you should find something to wear while I shower and change. I'll be out in a minute."
Seth opened the skirt wide and let it drop down her legs. "That wouldn't be as much fun as washing with you." He scooped his arm around her backside, lifted her off her feet and set her under the stream of water.
Carol gasped in dismay at the bra and panties still on her. "I haven't finished undressing."
"You should finish, then. Malcolm told me humans washed their clothes, anyway."
"Not at the same time as themselves."
"Hmm. Seems like a waste."
Carol unhooked her bra and slid her panties off, dropping them to the bathroom floor with a wet splat. She had to lean against the tile wall and bend over to slide her stockings, equally sopping, from her legs.
Seth folded his arms and enjoyed the view. Carol was tall for a woman, her limbs slender but not bone-thin like her cousin Lumi's. She had soft curves, her waist nipping in above the swell of her hips.
Her wet hair flowed from her forehead in a sable wave to her shoulders. Her breasts were full, the tips dark red, and a twist of black hair peeked from between her legs.
Beautiful.
Seth stepped into the shower with her and closed the glass door.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
Carol admitted that Seth decorated the shower far better than her designer tiles and etched glass doors ever could. Water beaded on his shoulders and arms and darkened the red hair on his chest.
He leaned his head back and let the stream wet his hair, pushing it back from his forehead as he'd watched her do. Droplets clung to his lashes, cheekbones, and parted lips.
The universe had known what it was doing, Carol reflected. His arms were sculpted with muscle, showing nature's perfect design that no gym had any hand in.
Seth was tall enough that Carol just fit under his chin. She couldn't resist leaning her body to his, wrapping her arms around the solid male she knew she was falling in love with.
Carol didn't fall in love. She didn't have time for it. She'd seen her friends in college fall in love and abandon their dreams and goals to marry. She'd also seen them divorce a few years later, with one or more children to take care of and no money with which to do it.
Even Lisa had tangled herself in a bad relationship that had nearly drained her dry before she'd come home to work at Ming Ue's. She'd only found happiness with Caleb, and he was a dragon.
Carol had made it plain that she was about career and drive, not love, marriage, and babies. It worked�men steered clear.
Perhaps it was the fact that she, Lisa, and Saba were magical women, she thought as she soaked up Seth's warmth. As magical women, they could only look for happiness with magical men�dragons in this case.
Not that she thought her situation would end in happiness. Zhen would train her well enough that she'd learn how to let Seth go, and then he'd go.
The throb of pain in her heart surprised her. She tightened her arms around him, realizing she didn't want to let him go.
Seth kissed her again, holding her face in his hands while he tasted her lips. He kissed his way down her throat and began licking her there, chasing water droplets with his tongue.
He liked to lick her, as though she were an exotic taste he couldn't get enough of. She didn't mind his hot tongue on her body, and she turned her head so he could taste more.
He flicked his tongue down her chest and sank to his knees. Carol rested her hands on his shoulders and gritted her teeth as he plied his tongue to her navel, then trailed heated kisses to the tuft of hair between her legs.
Seth ran his hands up the backs of her thighs and leaned in to delve his tongue into her. He was getting practiced at it.
Carol gripped his shoulders, watching her nails slightly indent his skin. At the tiny pain, he licked faster, his tongue an amazing implement of pleasure. He opened his mouth and fastened it to her clit, then he suckled.
Carol cried out in delight. All kinds of wild sensations tingled through her, darkness, bright fire, and dizziness.
"I love it," she heard herself saying. "I love it, Seth."
He ignored her to keep playing. His grip tightened on her legs, not about to let go while he tortured her.
Nothing mattered. She didn't care that an ancient Asian gang was trying to kill her, that there was another Dragon Master trapped in a warehouse basement in SoMa, that she had the power to command dragons.
All that mattered was Seth kneeling at her feet and his magical tongue. She rose on her toes, wanting to thrust herself at him as hard as she could. She was glad he was so strong, because he took her gyrations without flinching.
He drove her crazy. He pleasured her until she spiraled into darkness and cried out as she came. She didn't even blush at the thought of her neighbors hearing.
She pressed Seth into her, wanting him to go on and on. He did for a few minutes, then he rose, his face drawn with longing, and dragged her up to him.
His kiss tasted of her juices coupled with the spice of his mouth. His hands were bruising, his lips just as punishing.
She wanted his fire. It wasn't only the Dragon Master in her craving power, she wanted Seth, all of him.
She fanned her hands out on his back and dug her fingers in, then she opened her mouth and
called to his fire.
It came quickly at first, a hot spark that dove into her and lit her body all the way to her toes. She groaned with it, and Seth echoed her, as heartfelt as he did in climax.
Another spark, and her body was hot as flame.
Seth jerked his mouth away, his eyes fully black, no white showing. "No."
"I want it. Let me have you."
"No!"
Seth shoved her away and stumbled out of the shower, putting as much space between her and himself as he could in the small room.
Carol fell back against the wall, the tiles freezing against her hot skin. "Seth."
He gazed at her in anguish, his stiff penis lifting at a right angle from his body. "Stay away from me."
She could make him do what she wanted. All she had to do was wrap his name around her mind and command him.
The Dragon Master in her started to do it. She sang the notes of his name, each symbol burning the air. Seth slammed his arm against his stomach and doubled over, but he couldn't stop himself taking a step toward her.
She felt his pain, but the Dragon Master didn't care. The fire dragon belonged to her, and she could do with him what she willed. Right now she willed him to finish what he started, to take her over the edge again and again, to pleasure her as much as she demanded.
Seth took another step. He looked up at her, his eyes black wells of rage and anguish.
"It will kill you," he rasped. "Don't make me."
But she was strong, she was a Dragon Master, she was Carol who didn't take shit from anybody and had built her businesses from nothing by being smarter than the men around her.
She kept pulling. Seth gasped for breath, then he reared up, tears of blood welling from his eyes. "No."
He burst into flame, the fire like an orange-red translucent shield across her bathroom. He streamed down under the crack in the door and flowed away.
Carol the Dragon Master growled low in her throat. She latched onto his name in fury and started to drag him back.
Seth, in his male body once more, slammed against the bathroom door from the outside. She heard the crack of his head against the wood, then his grunt of pain.
The small sound slapped Carol to her senses. She gasped and jerked the shower water from hot to cold, uttering a cry at the abrupt chill.
She flung his name away from her, her hands coming up to make the movement through empty air. Go, she screamed in her head. Please, go.
The water turned ice-cold, and Carol shuddered. She snapped off the water and grabbed for a towel at the same time the door opened.
Steam roiled through the room and Seth stood in the middle of it, naked and dripping. "Are you all right?" he asked in a low voice.
"I told you to go."
He stood there stubbornly, not moving.
Carol pressed the towel close around her, her hands shaking. "I wanted to hurt you and keep hurting you until you did my bidding. You can't stay here if I'm going to do that."
"I told you, you can command me wherever I am�in Dragonspace or far away in your world."
"Damn it." Carol pounded the marble counter with her fists. "I don't want this thing in me dictating what I do. I want to get rid of it."
"You can't. It's what you are."
Carol closed her eyes, balling her sore hands. In her life, she'd had to be the calm, cool one, making tough decisions and sacrifices so that the family would survive.
Ming Ue and Shaiming lived by nostalgia, telling stories about the old days and playing mahjong and talking about magic and dragons. Carol had shut out the enticing world of stories and dreams to make it in the real world.
Carol had made it by ignoring her emotions, by being smart but also listening to her instincts. She'd gotten through school and past her first steps in the world of big business by marching to her own music, having her own plan, and not letting anyone stop her. And she'd done it.
I can do the same with this, she thought. She could knuckle down and face it. apply the same cool work ethic she'd applied to growing her small restaurant into something great.
"I'll call Zhen," she said carefully. "I'll go back and resume his training, and if he wants me to play forty-five games of mahjong to master myself, I'll do it. I don't care what it takes, I'll beat this thing, and then you won't have to look so afraid of me."
She opened her eyes and found herself talking to empty steam.
"Seth?" She hurried out of the bathroom, clenching the towel. Seth was dressing in the living room.
The afternoon had waned into night, and the room was dark except for the streetlights wavering in the windows. She watched Seth fasten the jeans over his bare backside and pull on another shirt, this one a much-washed camouflage-patterned T-shirt.
"Did you hear? I said I'd go back to Zhen and get a hold of this thing. Then I can let you go and we'll both be safe."
His skeptical look stopped her. "You can't change what you are," he repeated.
"I know. I can't change that I'm Chinese either, no matter how many people think Juan is a Spanish name. I've learned to not try to pretend my ancestry away in order to fit in. I can do the same with this."
He only straightened the shirt on his body and found another pair of shoes that Axel had left for him. "You are right to go back to Zhen."
"Where are you going?"
"To look into a few things."
"What things?"
Seth shrugged and Carol's throat tightened. She'd told him to stay away from her, hadn't she? "Be careful," she said.
"I will try to stay out of danger."
He came to her and turned her face up to his. He smelled of the shower and his own clean scent, of the lovemaking they'd stopped so abruptly.
He kissed her, and the hunger in her reached for the spark.
Seth stepped away, his eyes haunted, then he unlocked the door and walked out without looking back.
Seth sent a trickle of his dragon fire into the locks to do them up from the outside, then he walked down the stairs and out of the building.
His heart beat hard from the interrupted encounter. Carol had stopped herself�his lady was strong�but for how long? Sooner or later, she wouldn't be able to resist the pull of his fire, and then she'd pay the price. Perhaps if she mastered the magic in her, like she said she would, she might be able to take his fire without consequence, but for now, it was best he stayed apart from her.
He walked into the night that was filled with people still cleaning up after the earthquake. Things were slowly returning to normal: lights on in the houses, cars sliding up and down the street instead of clogging it. Seth made for the park across the street and the man he'd seen waiting for him from Carol's apartment window.
Malcolm wore his usual black raincoat, and his silver eyes were pale smudges in the darkness.
"What do you want?" Seth asked him irritably.
Malcolm raised his brows. "I'm trying to help you, but if you'd prefer I left you alone, fine."
Seth waved it away, not yet having mastered the human technique of apology. "You went to the Dragon Archive."
"I did. I had my assistant, Metz, do some research on Dragon Masters, and by the time I got there, he'd turned up some interesting material."
"What interesting material?"
Malcolm peered at him. "What's the matter with you? Has something happened?"
Seth stroked a hand through his wet hair, feeling the bite of winter wind. "Can we go somewhere warm to talk, or do we have to skulk in the dark?"
Malcolm frowned, his dragon irritation evident in his black and silver thought threads. He led the way out of the park and down a street until they came to a small, noisy place filled with people and smelling of alcohol.
All the tables were filled, but somehow people melted out of Malcolm's way, and the two dragons sat at a table in the corner. Seth tasted the foaming drink a tight-skirted girl set in front of him and liked its tangy bite.
"Beer," Malcolm grunted. "You get used to it."<
br />
Seth took another sip and waited for Malcolm to get to his point.
"This Dragon Master we're facing is called Sying, and he's two thousand years old."
Seth had already suspected that. He waited for Malcolm to continue.
"Two thousand years ago, during the Han dynasty, a Dragon Master called Sying was imprisoned in a column of magic that looks like glass. The Order of the Black Lotus performed the spell."
Seth thought of the column on its side under the rubble, Sying's faint pleas for help. "Why?"
"Apparently, because he wouldn't do the Order's bidding. They wanted their god to be made manifest. They wanted the Dragon Master, using his powers and that of dragons, to accomplish this task."
Seth didn't answer. Memories came flooding back to him.
Malcolm gave him a hard look. "This Dragon Master, Sying, had the ability to command five dragons at once: three goldens, a black dragon, and a fire dragon." He sat back, watchful.
"Yes," Seth answered. He remembered the three snarling, always fighting golden dragons miserable in their captivity. The black dragon had been coldly arrogant, keeping himself away from the others. Seth had pointedly ignored them.
Seth had been special anyway, kept apart, the subject of speculation by the other dragons.
"You?" Malcolm asked with brows raised.
Seth nodded. "I don't remember everything. I know Sying tried to kill or banish the Order's demon-god once he'd summoned it. I thought they'd killed Sying, because I woke up free one day;"
"Apparently, they imprisoned him instead. And now this Sying has called you back. For what purpose?"
Black dragons had to have a logical answer for everything. "He begged me to free him. Isn't that enough?"
"Not where the Order of the Black Lotus is concerned. Why hasn't Sying summoned you before? It's been, what, two thousand years?"
"Maybe he couldn't. Maybe he just now got his power back."
"Could be. I'd like to ask him. Also, I'd like to know how he managed to get rid of the Order's demon-god." Malcolm gave Seth another pointed look.
The Dragon Master Page 15
