Dragon Heat

by Allyson James

  * * *

  Color-- -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9-

  * * *

  Text Size-- 10-- 11-- 12-- 13-- 14-- 15-- 16-- 17-- 18-- 19-- 20-- 21-- 22-- 23-- 24

  * * *

  Dragon Heat

  By

  Allyson James

  * * *

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  He would do anything to protect her—even turn human…

  "I want you to explain to me how you are human, in my living room, and why," Lisa said.

  "I've been sent here to look after you. To guard you against a black dragon in human form."

  Lisa tried not to be entranced by Caleb's body. She needed to focus on what had happened, but his very blue eyes, his male scent, and the whisper of his golden hair as he turned his head distracted her. He was a dragon, for heaven's sake. He was Caleb, her friend with the grating sense of humor and sardonic observations. Only now he was a blue-eyed hunk of muscle on her living room sofa.

  * * *

  * * *

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196.

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Lid., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  DRAGON HEAT

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / July 2007

  Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Ashley.

  Cover art by Franco Accomero.

  Cover design by George Long.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  ISBN: 978-0-425-21589-0

  BERKLEY SENSATION®

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks go to my editor, Kate Seaver, both for support of this project and for being an all-around terrific editor to work with. Also thanks go to Allison Brandau, assistant editor, for all her help in detail coordination, and to those in production and the art departments for their work on the book and the cover. Thanks to my agent, Bob Mecoy, for his assistance, patience, and knowledge. Special thanks go to the ladies of the Desert Rose, Tucson, and Valley of the Sun Chapters of RWA for their unflagging good spirits and support. And thanks, as always, goes to Forrest, for his help and his caring.

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Malcolm the black dragon preferred the Internet to television. His own brain functioned much like a microprocessor, allowing him to read hundreds of pages of news in a fraction the time it took broadcasters to tell him what was happening around the world. Even being stuck on earth in human form hadn't impaired Malcolm's thinking ability.

  In his apartment on the second floor of a converted house on Octavia Street, he used his television to watch one show and one show only. He recorded the daily episodes of a food show, Dressing for Dinner, then replayed the episodes one after another in the background while he prowled the Internet for information.

  The woman he sought didn't usually appear on the screen, since her job was behind the scenes, but as soon as Lisa Singleton walked onto the set to hand the hostess a forgotten ingredient, Malcolm paused the playback and fixed his entire attention on her.

  He watched, his lips parted, as Lisa stretched out her arm to hand the hostess a bowl of something or other. Lisa had dark red hair and almond-shaped brown eyes, slim limbs and an attractive bosom.

  But that was not what held Malcolm's attention. The young woman radiated power. Not the trivial power of witches, like the trio from San Francisco who were trying to block Malcolm's access to Lisa. Lisa exuded white-hot power—it screamed from her, even through the television airwaves recorded on this box in his apartment. Malcolm intended to get that power and use it to set himself free. The witches were trying to keep him from his goal and had even coerced a golden dragon, a warrior, to watch over her.

  Dragons couldn't exist as dragons in the world of humans, not anymore, because people no longer believed in them. If a dragon wanted to travel from Dragonspace to the human world, he had to have a witch from the Earth world stuff him into a human body. Dragons had enormous power and eons ago had moved freely from world to world doing as they pleased, but times had changed. A dragon had the power of lightning and the brain power ten times a human capacity, and still they'd lost the magic to move among humans at will.

  The golden dragon worried Malcolm a little. Golden dragons were warriors, and while they didn't have the mathematical brains of black dragons, they were very, very good at fighting and excellent killers. The witches had chosen well, and Malcolm would have to watch his step.

  But the witches, mistrusting creatures, had not allowed the warrior dragon to cross into the human world, not wanting to let him loose in San Francisco even in human form. Their mistake, Malcolm's advantage.

  Malcolm scanned the television for another advantage, someone close to Lisa he could make his slave, someone who would do his bidding and bring Lisa to him. He couldn't mark Lisa, not with that raw power flowing from her and his own power diminished, but he could trick her.

  He looked at the rather handsome man on the television screen who stood next to the show's hostess, the male model who helped boost the show's ratings. Brainless, ambitious, full of himself. Perfect.

  Malcolm smiled grimly. He turned off the television and shut down his computers. Light played on the black dragon tattoo encircling his bicep, his dragon
essence. He swirled his black leather jacket over his shoulders and left his apartment to make his way downtown to the studio where the show was taped.

  It was only a matter of time.

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Lisa was late.

  Behind the spare bedroom door, Caleb's dragon rumbling turned to irritated growls. Out there in San Francisco lurked a black dragon, one who stalked Lisa. Every moment she was out of this apartment the black dragon could be luring Lisa to him, coercing her, trapping her, pulling her out of Caleb's reach.

  Watch over her, the witches who'd enslaved him had told him. Easy for them to say. Caleb couldn't move past the door that separated Lisa's apartment from Dragonspace, though there was a small area in which he could touch Lisa and she could touch him. If he could get past the damn door Caleb could follow Lisa everywhere and make sure the black dragon, who'd been exiled here in human form long ago, never came near her.

  Black dragons were not necessarily evil, but they were coldly neutral. They were the most ancient of dragonkind, and because they were old, they were very, very smart. Their intelligence could bend steel, sharpen air, penetrate all things with a single, deadly thrust, because the black dragons knew exactly which tiny part of you was most vulnerable and exactly how to get to it. No trial and error, they knew. And you had no hope of surviving.

  Against this, the three witches had set Caleb as guardian, but wouldn't give him the magic to get through the door because they didn't trust him. Witches had done so much evil to him over the centuries, and now when he actually liked the task they'd given him, they refused to make it easier. He could only mutter and fume while the beautiful afternoon he saw through the windows of Lisa's apartment faded, and still Lisa did not return home.

  The sun had set, the June day over, when the key at last rattled in the lock. The heavy walnut door swung inward, bearing Lisa and three bags of groceries.

  "Lisa-ling. About time." Caleb growled to hide his relief.

  "I told you taping would run late." Lisa swung the grocery bags on the breakfast bar, lifted the red curls from her forehead, and kicked off her shoes with a heartfelt sigh. "There were leftover ingredients that would expire before we tape again, so I brought them home."

  "Anything for me?"

  As he spoke, Caleb wove the musical strands of his thoughts through hers as much as he could, relaxing her and taking the edge off his presence. Because of Caleb's magic, Lisa had easily weathered the idea that reality folded in the spare bedroom of the apartment she'd inherited from her grandmother Li Na, allowing Caleb to look through the door from Dragonspace.

  The witches had sent Caleb to befriend Li Na before her passing, to see if she knew anything about the elusive dragon orb and to learn all about Lisa. Li Na never mentioned the orb, but she talked much about Lisa. When Caleb finally met Lisa, he already knew her history and what pleased and displeased her, and it was easy to string his thoughts through hers.

  Bags rattled as Lisa emptied them in the small alcove kitchen. "Five pounds of shrimp, a couple of rib-eye steaks, five heads of romaine lettuce, a few ounces of foie gras and three pounds of shitake mushrooms."

  "I'll take the shrimp."

  "No, you won't, glutton. I might invite my grandmother's friend Ming Ue over and cook up a feast."

  "Don't give me the mushrooms," Caleb said, disguising his thought-twining with banter. "Why humans eat fungus baffles me."

  Lisa laughed with her silver, sweet laughter, folded up the bags, and padded back out of the kitchen. The Chinese wind chimes laced with black and red string in the living room jingled faintly with her passing. "You can have the steaks. I'll save them for you."

  Their strands of thoughts connected without Lisa realizing it. Caleb could not read her mind like a telepath, but a part of his thoughts could be part of hers. Except that Caleb never could put his mark fully on Lisa. He did not know why, but a small section of her mind was always closed to him, no matter how much he poked and prodded.

  "Good," he said, coiling his tail around him. "Sit down with me now and tell me every detail of what happened to you today."

  Lisa moved across the gold and white medallion carpet of the living room, clad in a button-up blouse and a skirt that left her legs bare. Her red hair was gathered in a tail at the nape of her neck. Lisa's mother was half-Chinese and her father was of Scottish descent, a combination that had given her dark, copper-colored hair, almond-shaped brown eyes, and pale skin.

  Caleb studied the curve of her legs, an inner part of him reflecting that her body pleased him. He liked watching her move because she did so with effortless grace. He was always surprised that with the pain inside her, she could still smile and be as beautiful as she was.

  Lisa sat on the sofa and stretched out her legs, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "I don't have time for television tonight. I'm going out."

  Caleb lifted his head in sudden suspicion. "You have just arrived home, you brought food, and you are tired. Why should you go out again?"

  She fixed her coffee-brown eyes on him, the tendrils of her thoughts floating from his grasp. "I'm going to a restaurant, Mr. Nosy. With a man."

  Caleb sensed her sudden increase in body heat all the way across the room. Something was wrong. "With what man?"

  "None of your business."

  Another bad sign. His dragon magic could make Lisa tell him anything without her wondering why he wanted to know. "You are my friend, and I am interested in every detail of your life. What is the name of this man?"

  Lisa folded her arms, digging her toes into the carpet. "It's Greg Shaw, if you must know, from the show."

  Caleb thought about the dark-haired male model who hogged the lights and oozed all over the hostess Hazeltine Conant on Dressing for Dinner. A flicker of fire left his mouth. "Why in the name of the gods would you go out with ton?"

  "Oh, he's harmless. It's been a long time since I've been out, and I deserve a little pampering." She sighed, the bantering tone leaving her voice. "I'm lonely, Caleb."

  Her sadness tugged his heart, but Caleb rushed at the chink in her argument. "You can't be lonely. You have me."

  She sent him a faint smile. "That's not what I mean. There are some things I need that you can't give me."

  "Like what?" He thought a moment, wondering what he could offer a human woman. "In my lair, I have rubies as large as strawberries, diamonds that remember the warmth of the mountains, not like the cold stuff you have here. I'll give you whatever jewels you want."

  Her eyes widened, but she shook her head. "That's sweet, but no."

  "What can he possibly give you that I can't?" Caleb curled his talons, leaving faint gouges on the hardwood floor. "I provide interesting conversation and companionship, I warm the apartment on cold nights…"

  Lisa sprang from the couch, crossed to the space outside his door and reached in to stroke his nose. He liked when she touched him, her hands warm against his scales.

  "I know you do. But humans need something more than a pet, Caleb. We need someone who needs us, do you understand what I mean?"

  He tilted his head so she could rub along his jaw and ignored her jab about a pet. "Dragons don't need anyone. We are solitary creatures."

  "Uh huh. So why are you always here watching television with me?"

  He rumbled under his breath. "I like you."

  As she rubbed between his eyes, massaging him where she knew he liked it best, her whole body moved, loose and sensuous under her human clothes. She smelled of the smoky scent of cooking and the fresh tang of vegetables layered over her own sweet musk and fine silver scent.

  "If dragons are solitary creatures," she countered, "how do you make more dragons?"

  Caleb answered while he tried again to tangle the music of their thoughts. "A female dragon wants a male only when she's ready to mate. When she gives her mating call, the male dragon is compelled to answer. And then, it's a week of constant mating. In the air, on the ground, everywhere. Noth
ing but continuous, tail-banging mating. The male dragon nearly always dies. And if he doesn't die, the female dragon turns around when she's done and kills him."

  "Golly," Lisa said, eyes wide.

  "I have mated twice and survived both times. Females will always pursue a golden, because we are the strongest, the handsomest, the most virile of all dragonkind."

  "Yes, I know, you've told me about twenty times. But do you understand what I mean? You need to be with dragons sometimes, and I sometimes need to be with a human."

  Caleb nudged her with his nose to urge her to continue with the rubbing. The more he thought about what she said, the more he didn't like it. Envisioning a human male wanting to mate with his Lisa—touching her body with his hands, kissing her mouth, skimming her clothes from her—made the rumble inside him build to full-blown anger. There was something about the anger he didn't recognize and that puzzled him. He only knew he considered Lisa his, and he didn't want a man pawing at her.

  "Television is better," he growled.

  "It's not the same for humans, Caleb," she said, sounding sad. "We spend much of our lives looking for someone to be with, and we don't always get it right. Maybe I need someone to take me to a fancy restaurant in a fancy car once in a while. I need something for me."

  Caleb had heard the story, in detail, of Lisa's divorce: how Lisa had come home early one afternoon after getting fired from a food editor job to find her husband Philip in bed with their young landlady and her best friend. The three of them had been licking each other's skin, and when Lisa froze in the doorway, Lisa's husband had said, "What's the matter with you? Take off your clothes and join us."