by Meg Ripley
But Noah had added to her list of questions; to the things she didn’t understand. And more than that, he’d left her with a longing that kept every nerve ending in her body sensitized, impatiently waiting for a rapturous satiety that wasn’t going to come.
She closed her eyes, trying to force all thoughts of Noah from her mind, but she could still feel his lips against hers; the firm grasp of his hands on her hips; the biting grip of his fingers on her shoulders, the brush of his hard cock against her abdomen. She laid there for an hour, and then another, and even when her body succumbed to exhaustion, he followed her into her dreams, just like he had the past several nights. But this time, there were no nightmares; only fantasies. One after another. Blatant lust. Pure, erotic hunger.
She would have given almost anything for a nightmare.
Upon waking for the umpteenth time that night in desperate need of relief, she did the only thing she could do. She let her fingers wander along her body just the way Noah’s had in her dream, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples, stroking the insides of her thighs and rubbing her clit. She started off slow, but the pressure built quickly. She imagined his fingers there instead of hers; he moved faster, pressing harder while his free hand continued to roam over her body. She could see him there, hovering above her as she reached the precipice and tumbled over, crying out breathlessly into her pillow.
It took the edge off, but nothing more. Her body hadn’t been fooled. It still yearned for the real thing, but it was just going to have to live with disappointment because that was as close to Noah Hunter she was ever going to get again.
Chapter 4
A knock at the door hours later brought Claire abruptly awake. She scrambled out of bed and rushed across the suite.
“Way to go, Claire!” Will whooped as she opened the door and he slid past into her hotel room. “I wasn’t sure you had it in you.”
What was he talking about? she wondered as she closed the door behind him, though the vestiges of sleep still clung to her and it took her mouth a moment to form the question.
“What are you going on about, Will?”
He grabbed her hand and pressed the newspaper he was holding into it, but she recoiled so quickly, the paper fell to the floor. He was jealous, fiercely so, though he was doing his best to cover it up. She didn’t understand why until her eyes caught a glimpse of the paper’s front page. “Billionaire Tycoon Plays Hooky with Mystery Beauty,” the title read, and right below it was an unmistakable picture of her—her naked upper body wrapped in Noah’s arms. At least his back was obscuring her state of undress, but her face was clear as day.
“Oh god,” she moaned in mortification. How long would it be before word got around and every professional in her industry saw her as nothing more than a mindless bimbo?
“Come on, it’s not that bad, is it? So you had a little fun—you’re entitled to let loose every once in a while, you know?”
She didn’t want to be discussing this with Will, particularly not now that she was painfully aware of his own feelings on the matter. Why hadn’t she had the forethought to cover up her hands before she’d opened the door? She knew why; because as much as she wanted to deny it, she’d been hoping it was Noah standing outside her room.
But it wasn’t Noah, and it looked like that was a damn good thing. She’d seriously messed up, gotten herself plastered on the front page of a big city newspaper in a less than flattering position. A friend was exactly what she needed at the moment. What she definitely didn’t need—and shouldn’t want—was a man who apparently had people snapping photographs of him everywhere he went.
And yet, Noah was precisely what she wanted.
She wanted his hands, and his mouth, and every other inch of his body. And even more than that, she wanted to feel that connection to him, to deliberately touch him and feel the depth of his own desire. The curse that had been with her since childhood hadn’t felt like a curse for those few moments with him. It had been nearly overwhelming, both his desire and her own flooding her body, but for once she had also felt something she hadn’t felt in a very long time—home.
But it had all been an enormous mistake. He’d run off, and all she was left with was the humiliation that would no doubt follow her around for some time to come.
“Don’t tell me you fell hard for the guy, Claire,” Will broke into her thoughts, the teasing in his tone replaced with concern.
“No, of course not. We didn’t…I mean, it’s not what it looks like…” she trailed off. Did she really want to be having this conversation with Will?
“Man, it’s worse than I thought. I said to have a good time, not to get yourself emotionally invested in the guy,” he said sympathetically, wrapping his arm around her bare shoulder.
She gritted her teeth, trying not to see what was there, but that wasn’t possible, and she couldn’t just pull away without hurting his feelings.
Jealousy. Will was jealous, and his feelings for her were much deeper than he’d ever let on. Anger. Pity. Fear. All those things that belonged to him swirled in her own head, making the room spin around her.
Just as she was about to pull away, he released her. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief and resisted the urge to put out her arms to steady herself.
She needed to say something, to put an end to this conversation. It was wrong of her to keep Will out when he’d unknowingly shared so much with her, but she needed him to leave even more so because of it.
“Will, I’m fine, really. I just didn’t expect to see myself on the newspaper’s front page, that’s all. I don’t think it’s going to do much for my career, but I’m a grown woman. I’ll survive.”
“If you say so. Do you want to go get some breakfast?” he asked, switching topics more easily than she expected.
“I think I’ll stay in this morning, but thank you for the offer.”
It took another couple of minutes to get Will out the door, but by the time she did, her plan for the rest of the morning was well-formed in her mind. Actually, it was simple. There was a decent possibility her newfound fame would hasten the inevitable end of her career. And if she didn’t have much time left, she couldn’t afford to leave any stone unturned.
So, with that thought fresh in her mind, she laid out her clothes and hopped in the shower, trying not to remember the feel of Noah’s hands on her body—and failing miserably. Still, she did her best to stay focused, dressing quickly and hurrying downstairs to hail a cab.
Damon Cross had mentioned the Creag Bruadar, and the name had reverberated in her mind many times since. While she couldn’t be certain there was any significance to it—and it wasn’t a name her uncle had mentioned—she had a vague recollection of the artifact, though she couldn’t yet place it in any particular memory. It might be nothing more than desperation that had her reaching for memories that didn’t exist, but if there was any hope at all, she couldn’t afford to ignore it.
Stealing herself against Damon Cross’s dark, eerie aura, she paid the cab driver and stepped out in front of the White Mesa Animal and Nature Preserve. But it appeared the preserve was closed. There were no cars in the parking lot and no staff members strolling around the property. If it weren’t for the light on inside the front building, barely visible through the glare of the morning’s sun, she would have hailed the cab back and abandoned this foolhardy errand.
She pressed forward, crossing the short walk to the front door and tested the handle, which turned easily. Ignoring the voice in the back of her head that was screaming at her to run, she took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped inside. The soft-colored walls and vibrant green plants that greeted her created a serene environment that contrasted sharply with the turbulence inside her.
“Claire, I’m so glad you decided to come,” Damon’s voice jarred her out of her musings and she spun around to see him striding purposefully toward her from the hallway beyond the reception desk. She resisted the urge to cringe when he grasped her gloved hand in both of his, and instea
d murmured something cordial in greeting in return.
He then led her through the building to his office, located at the far end. Through a wall of glass on the opposite side of the office, she could see that it overlooked the sprawling beauty of the untouched nature preserve.
Inside, slim shelves striped the wall to the right of her, each shelf adorned with artifacts that she would guess spanned the early modern period to the First World War. Outside of a museum, she’d never seen such an extensive collection of relics. Beyond those on the shelf, Grecian statues sat proudly on the desk in their place of honor, several paintings from the Renaissance decorated the wall behind the desk, and seemingly random collections of items were arranged on stands and shelves throughout the rest of the room.
He led her past all these to a long, rectangular display case. There were no other relics near it, suggesting it was the centerpiece of the area, if not of the entire office. And upon closer inspection, she could easily see why. A bronze dagger, possibly from the Qin Dynasty; an arrowhead, perhaps from the Macedonian era; an Olbian bronze coin cast in the shape of a dolphin; and a stone carving she clearly recognized as Kuzuryū.
“That is the stone idol of Kuzuryū I told you about,” he spoke up seconds after her eyes settled on the well-preserved item.
“It’s a fascinating piece, certainly,” she replied, enthusiasm replacing some of her trepidation. “How did you come to have it?”
Damon eyed her strangely, but rather than responding he began to pace back and forth, from one end of the display case to the other. “What I found fascinating was the article on your Iron Age discovery, Claire. Tell me, what else did you discover along with that impressive find?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean? There are further excavations planned, but to the best of my knowledge none have been carried out yet.”
“Yes, well, it will be interesting to see what is unearthed in the near future.”
He moved to stand behind her, leaning in close, much closer than she would like, but he nodded toward the display case then and pointed to another item there.
“This is the Creag Bruadar,” he said, reaching around her to lift it out of the case and then turning it this way and that in front of her.
Though warning bells sounded in her head, she ignored them, distracted by the rock.
“It’s quite magnificent, isn’t it?” Claire replied, though her hands clenched at her sides. It looked familiar, she was certain of it now. She couldn’t place where she’d seen it, only that it had been a part of a collection of relics that were believed to be Celtic in origin when she and her uncle had seen it. The faint glow that had surrounded the rock back then still illuminated the rough edges of it, though the light was dimmer now.
It had been the strange glow that had attracted her to it as a child, finding it far more interesting than the other mundane rocks and dirt-encrusted objects she hadn’t recognized. She couldn’t recall if the haze had begun to appear after she’d touched it back then, but she could now clearly remember the vibration that had tingled its way through her hand and up her arm when she’d picked it up. She’d nearly dropped it, already nervous that her uncle would catch her playing with priceless relics.
“Would you like to hold it?” Damon asked with something that sounded an awful lot like a challenge in his tone as he held out the jagged piece of ancient stone.
Her head jerked up and her eyes met his.
He knew.
It wasn’t possible, and yet there was no other explanation for it. But how much did he know? And what exactly was he going to do with that knowledge?
There was only one way to find out. Her curse—or whatever it was—didn’t give her the ability to read minds, not exactly, but it showed her something deeper. Could it…
She slipped a glove off her hand, ignoring the way her fingers trembled. She didn’t reach for the Creag Bruadar, the very thing she might have been searching for all this time. Instead, she reached out and grasped Damon’s hand. His eyes widened briefly, as if he hadn’t been expecting that, but before he could pull back, she snatched her hand away.
She’d been right; he was dark, but there were two sides to him, both black as night. She could see nothing else, but her whole body quaked in fear. Forcing her feet to move, she took a step back, and then another as the corners of his lips turned up in a sinister smile.
“What…are you?” she asked, surprised she’d been able to form the words.
“I was worried that might be the way of it. You see, Claire, it matters less what I am, and more what you are. You are a threat; a very dangerous one.”
“A threat to you? I don’t understand.”
She really didn’t. What kind of threat could she pose to anyone? It was him who was the threat if he did, in fact, know what she was, and the murderous look in his eyes told her she was definitely the one in danger.
Terror rose high in her throat, but she forced it down and glanced toward the door, trying to calculate the likelihood she’d make it there. No, even if she caught him by surprise, she wouldn’t make it far before his long legs overtook her. She scanned the room looking for something she could use to defend herself, because she was certain now he meant to kill her.
“Did you know that not so many centuries ago you would have been beheaded, or burned at the stake for being what you are?” He took a step away from her as he spoke, reaching toward the drawer of the desk.
This was it. It wasn’t much of a lead, but she couldn’t risk waiting for another. She turned on her heel and dashed toward the door, but she didn’t even make it five steps before he was striding in front to cut her off. She had to brace her hands against his chest to stop herself from colliding into him.
“You’re not a witch, Claire; I know that,” he spoke as calmly as if they were sitting down to afternoon tea as he backed her up against the wall next to the door. “But you see things other humans cannot. People have been tried and executed for much less.”
“I’ve done nothing to you.”
He shook his head, looking at her with a sympathetic expression, though his eyes were cold as ice. “If you hadn’t stumbled upon that shrine, Claire, maybe we could have come to…an understanding, but not now. You know too much. You’re a risk to me now; to my kind.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He ignored her, pulling a long, lethal looking weapon out from behind his back instead.
“This,” he began in the same deceptively calm tone, “is an executioner’s sword, the one used to execute Christenze Jensens in 1621. She was a nice girl; not as pretty as you, Claire, but she saw too much, just like you. It was a shame I had to kill her. But what do you think?” he asked, turning the sword over in his hand, “Do you suppose it’s as sharp now as it was then?”
She couldn’t speak. What was she supposed to say? Sharp or not, she had no doubt the sword would be lethal. With her back against the wall, she could do nothing to stop him when he raised the sword and grazed the tip of it across her neck. The razor-sharp blade cut through her skin like butter, and the sting of it brought tears to her eyes.
“Just let me go, Damon,” she pleaded, knowing it was futile.
He moved lower, slowly swiping the blade across her chest, deeper this time, drawing blood instantly.
She cried out and tried to bat the blade away, but knew immediately it was a foolish mistake. The blade cut deep into her hand and she let out a shriek as blood filled the gash and welled over. She clutched the injured hand to her breast as she fought against the panic that had already begun to take over.
Perhaps she couldn’t stop him, but she wouldn’t cower and beg. There was no use. She’d seen the man’s soul and it was black; devoid of mercy. There would be no plea that would detour him from his goal.
Forcing her trembling, injured hand to her side, she squared her shoulders, tilted her head up and met his eyes. If he was going to kill her, then he was going to stare into her eyes as
he did it. Whether or not he ever felt remorse for what he was about to do, he would never forget her face.
He drew his arm back and she held her breath, trying not to see the blade he held steady in his hand. Her whole body shook and she desperately wanted to close her eyes, but she didn’t. She stared back at him, seeing out the corner of her eye as his shoulder flexed in preparation for what it was about to do.
Another movement caught her attention, this one from the wall of windows across the room. But before she could turn her head in its direction, a dark figure crashed through the panes, sending shards of glass sprinkling through the air, catching the morning sunlight like prisms.
Through the center of the kaleidoscope of color, something dark appeared. No, it wasn’t just dark, it was black. A brilliant, iridescent black. It was an arm, but much larger than any arm she’d ever seen before, covered in armor that looked shockingly like scales. A clawed hand extended from the enormous extremity and wrapped itself around Damon’s torso. In a blur, he disappeared out the broken window, the seventeenth century sword clattering to the ground in his wake.
It happened so fast, she’d scarcely taken more than a breath and she was standing alone in Damon’s office. She waited to feel the black claw wrap itself around her, too, but it didn’t come. She forced herself toward the window to peer out, perhaps to determine whether she’d imagined it all. But her breath caught in her throat. It hadn’t been her imagination at all.
The arm, the claw…the appendages belonged to something straight out of myths and folklore. A massive, fierce-looking creature that stood taller than the building’s height, covered from head to toe in the scales she’d seen on its arm, scales that were as brilliant as polished obsidian.
A polished obsidian dragon.
There was no sign of Damon Cross, and she wondered if the dragon had eaten him, but her focus didn’t remain on the abhorrent thought for long. There, standing not ten yards from the black beast was another mythical creature. It stood just as tall as the first, and its body was covered with armor-like scales, but its coloring was different—a mottled mix of black and forest green.
