Touch of a Dragon

by Kim Knox

  Fast, hot, aching lust sank through my flesh, and my skin ran with a shiver of goose bumps. Danger and magicians be damned. Sex with Blake. I deserved it. But he’d stepped back and shuttered his hungry desire.

  “Pack while you’re in there.”

  I ignored him.

  The door closed, and I let out a tight breath. How the hell had he found me? My just-dried skin prickled. Had he been following me before the implosion?

  No, I was not thinking about the stranger in my front room. I was getting dressed. Raiding my wardrobe and drawers, I threw clothes onto the smooth sheets of my bed. I sorted through the pile for something to wear and found underwear, a jumper, jeans, and socks. Warmth eased over my skin as I pulled the clothes on, and with them came a scrap of relief.

  What was I going to do? I had a strange man in my front room. A man mixed up with magicians and one I’d thought dead. Shit, I’d seen the connecting blow. He should’ve been dead. Dragging the towel from my hair, I rubbed it over my scalp, my fingers trembling.

  Finally, I had to acknowledge the small rush of relief that Blake wasn’t dead. Did that mean he’d recovered from the blow to his head? I winced. Had he killed Tobias Conrad? I rubbed at own my forehead, my fingers sliding over my temple. They stopped. And I frowned.

  There’d been no evidence of the attack on Blake’s skin, no strike from the bruising, no stain of dried blood. Nothing. My hand dropped away. I hadn’t imagined Tobias’ walking stick hitting him. The awful sound of the crack still echoed through my mind.

  I let out a slow breath. I had to get away until whatever was happening died down and they forgot all about me. My laughter was harsh. Running wasn’t something I did, but, fuck, this warranted it. I pulled a small case from under my bed and dropped it onto the mattress.

  After flipping open the locks, I paused. No, I wasn’t packing. I couldn’t run just yet. I had to know more.

  Chapter Five

  “Ready?”

  I closed the door to my bedroom and glanced at Blake. He stood in the middle of the small sitting room, golden light from the long window forming a halo around his head and the breadth of his shoulders. I ignored the tug low in my belly that demanded I close the distance between us and press my body up against his lean, muscled strength. “No,” I said.

  Blake lifted a shadowed eyebrow. “No?”

  My mouth thinned. I would not be distracted by his harsh beauty. “What happened to the magician?”

  I edged past him, and habit made me click on the Interface for messages. The machine hummed. “Leona Munro, you have three messages.”

  “He left me for dead,” Blake said. He moved on silent feet around the couch and stopped at the narrow window. He twitched the blind and morning light gilded his profile. “You have to pack, Leona. You’re not safe here.”

  “You make me not safe.” I closed the distance between us and reached out to turn his jaw. The touch of my fingers, the light contact of my skin against his, snapped a swift bolt of electricity through my flesh. I breathed past it, pushing down the need to make full body contact. There was a reason I was touching him. “There’s not a mark on you, Blake. I saw that strike. I can see why he left you. You should be dead.”

  He smiled and covered my hand, gently pushing it away. “I get that a lot.”

  I stared at him and backed away before I did something stupid and ravaged his mouth. “I’m sure you do.”

  “Leona Munro—”

  “Yes!” I rapped the acknowledgement at my Interface as it rolled into automatic reminders, and hit the contact on the machine. “Go.”

  “First message.” The computerised voice changed to that of a man’s, heavy and edged with panic. “Leona? Have you left for work? Turn on the news.”

  I winced. My boss, Douglas Vincent. The man I should’ve been reporting to at the gallery after the implosion.

  “Second message.” A pause and the device clicked and whirred. Douglas again. “Leona. It’s six fifty-five. Call me!”

  “He seems…concerned.”

  I stared at Blake. “I should be there right now.”

  “They would’ve told you to go home. You know that.”

  I did. I knew exactly that. I still didn’t want to admit it. Especially not to him.

  “Third message.” A more agitated Douglas. “Damn it, Leona. Call me right now!”

  “Very concerned.”

  There was an odd edge to Blake’s voice, but I ignored it. He could imply what he liked. I was not sleeping with my boss. “What happened today, Blake?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  I’d stopped believing that. “You just happened to find me under a pile of rubble? Convenient.”

  His shoulders tightened, and he turned from the window. Blake’s blunt face was shadowed in the bright backlight. “Here’s what I can tell you. You’re a candidate.”

  I stared at him, waiting for more. And waiting. “That’s it? I’m a candidate. For what? Being blown up?”

  He twitched a smile. “I was as surprised by that as you were.”

  “You could expand on it, y’know, Blake. Something like why I’m a candidate. What I’m a candidate for. Who you are. Why you don’t die.”

  His bleak expression had returned. “This is a trial older than you can imagine.”

  I laughed at him. “What sort of cheesy line is that? With all that’s happened in—what?—the space of a few hours, and ‘a trial older than you can imagine’ is what I’m expected to swallow?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought about thumping him, but it would have no effect. A sudden idea struck me, and I stared at my closed and still-very-locked door. “How did you get into my flat?”

  “Trade secret.”

  My chest ached with held anger. “Everything with you is a secret.” I flopped onto my couch, intent on ignoring him. There would be no moving, no packing until I had more answers. “On,” I said to the screen mounted between my stuffed bookshelves. I glanced up at Blake, holding down a shiver at his dark, implacable presence. He wasn’t...natural. “And I’m not moving from this spot until you tell me more.”

  I looked back to the screen as it flashed into bright life. “News.”

  The channel changed, and aerial shots of the waterfront burst over me. My breath caught, and a trembling hand covered my mouth. River winds had thinned the clouds. The remains of pale foundations scarred the South Bank, rubble and grit staining the dock from a deep blue to a seeping, spreading industrial brown. The red vehicles of the emergency services spotted over the dock complex like blood.

  For months, I’d leaned against the railings in front of the gallery and watched the workers as they’d brought the warehouses back to life. Weather-proofed plans fixed to the barriers had marked them out as apartments, offices, exclusive boutiques. The South Bank was reclaiming its waterfront after years of the fear of being so close to the river and the city of magic only half a mile away on the North Bank peninsula.

  Now it was gone. All gone.

  A crackling voice cut through the whine of the sky cam. “To recap, if you’re just joining us. What you’re witnessing is what is left of the Merrow Dock complex. At six thirty-five this morning, a massive implosion rocked the waterfront.

  “Investigations are underway. Guild masters on the North Bank are denying this was the work of magic.

  “Due to the early hour, casualties are few—”

  “Sound off!” I was not yet ready to deal with who I might have lost. Rubbing a damp hand over my face, I stared up at Blake. “And you still know nothing about it.”

  He expelled an irritated sigh and dropped onto the couch beside me. His leg almost brushed mine, and I fought the urge to shift away from him. He wouldn’t know how uncomfortable he made me. “You’re to be offered a choice. My purpose here is to ensure that you stay alive to make it.”

  Purpose. The word stuck in my mind. Could that be what he was and how he was so indestructible? And dour? And then I coul
dn’t help it; I stared at his mouth, and my gut twisted. Yes, I’d read every one of those magic tomes crowding my shelves. “Are you a golem?”

  Blake blinked. “A golem?”

  “Made of clay—”

  “I know what a golem is.” He loosened his tie and undid the first few buttons of his shirt. Pulling back the material, his mouth thinned before he said, “Satisfied?”

  I stared at the smooth skin, the shadowed trace of his pectorals and tried not to imagine how he would taste under my searching mouth. I trapped my hands under my thighs to stop myself from undoing more buttons. My fingers ached to run—I cut out further insane thoughts. All right, now I was staring too much. I forced my eyes shut. “All right, no medallion.” I swallowed. It didn’t help the sudden dryness to my throat. “Your mouth. Open your mouth.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “You don’t have a maker’s medallion. Doesn’t mean you don’t have an aleph under your tongue.”

  Blake’s jaw tightened. “How much magic have you dabbled in?”

  “None.” His dark eyes burned me and compelled me to add, “Books. I’ve read a lot of books.”

  The fire faded from his gaze. “Just books?”

  I realized what he’d done. “Open your mouth, Blake.”

  After a second’s pause, he did as I asked. I leaned in close because I had to make certain he wasn’t a man of clay and false fire. That was the only reason. Just that.

  My hand pressed against his muscled leg, warmth and strength bleeding into my cool skin. I focused. No charms, no folded paper, just perfect curves of white teeth and a deliberately curling tongue. Embarrassment crawled through me as I made myself examine his obviously human mouth.

  The image of the wild animal I’d seen at the dock burst back. Had that been real, or something conjured by the magicians? Anyway, yes, I’d just made a complete idiot of myself.

  Blake closed his mouth with a snap of his teeth, and hint of a smile lurked. “So I’m not a golem?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a relief. You had me worried.”

  I sat back and then remembered to remove my hand from his muscled thigh. “Don’t be facetious.” I pulled at the tangled strands of hair wetting my neck. “So what are you?”

  “I’m the man who”—his fingertip stroked over my neck. My skin burned, shooting sensation to my core—“marked you.”

  I breathed in and breathed out. My heart stopped. “Marked me?”

  “Here.” Blake traced a pattern of fire over my jaw, my throat, slipping beneath my sweater to trace my collarbone. My blood surged, and I leaned into his touch. Need burned within me, and at the edge of it I felt a living...presence writhe beneath my skin.

  “What the—” I jerked back from his exploring fingers and scrambled off the couch. A mirror. I had to see what the bastard had done to me now.

  I skidded into the bathroom and yanked the sweater over my head. There. Curving around my neck in tiny tongues of flame, an image flickered. First teeth, long and sharp, fading back and letting the sinuous curve of a neck twist over my pale skin.

  That too faded, and I let out a slow breath. I was imagining it as I’d imagined Blake’s change. He had obviously brushed me with some sort of contact hallucinogen. That had to be it—

  Until an eye seared up from my skin. Bright. Red. Burning.

  I screamed and staggered back. I hit the solid wall that was Samuel Blake. “What... what have you done to me?”

  “It’s proof of your candidacy.”

  I glared at him through the mirror. “What? Proof that you can pump me full of mind-altering drugs?”

  He stroked my neck, a slow, slow slide of his knuckles against my skin, and watching his hand, watching him rippled a shiver over my flesh. The light, lingering caress slipped through my senses, making me melt. “It’s alive, Leona. A fire wraith. Able to live in you. I prepared you for it. Will seal it in your flesh.”

  Fire wreathed, circling my throat, rolling a hot wave over my clavicle and slipping low over my breastbone. A curl of heat licked my nipple, and I gasped.

  “Accept it.” His voice was a drop of pure heat through my reeling senses. “Accept this, and the rest will be easy.”

  Too little oxygen had my head spinning...but steady breathing was just annoying, not when I could feel like this. “What—” The moving ripple of fire curved under my breast, and I couldn’t speak. I forced my eyes open. “And this is what a fire wraith does?”

  His hand splayed against my stomach, hot and intense. The feel of him enveloped me. His lips brushed my bare shoulder, and the flickers of fire surged beneath his touch. “That would be telling now, wouldn’t it?”

  I pushed back against him. Blake’s hand slid lower, caressing my belly, and his erection rubbed up hard against my backside. The fire within me flared and chased down my spine in a wicked wave, hotter and wilder than the first time he had taken me. I grabbed at the sink, the cold shock against my palms sparking some sense into my brain. “What…what are you doing to me?”

  A low animal growl vibrated against my shoulder blade, followed by the nip of sharp teeth. The sudden pleasure-pain forced a gasp. “This is all you, Leona.” His softly spoken words eased through me.

  “Me?”

  The fire curled around my arse and slid between my legs. My grip on the sink tightened in reflex, and I bit my lip, holding down the moan. Blake’s hand dipped lower, and I ached for him to find the fire curling and twisting within me, for him to use it. Use me.

  “Close your eyes, Leona.”

  I met his dark gaze in the mirror. The spotlight slashed a white beam over him, carving deep shadows into his face, but his eyes gleamed, and for an instant, I thought I saw a curl of golden fire. I swallowed, fighting the raw desire weaving through my body. “Why? Why can’t I see you?”

  His firm lips twitched. The smile he gave me pushed the hot wave over my sex, and I pulled in a quick gulp of air. “These are rules I must follow.” He held my gaze as he licked the curve of my neck. Tiny strokes of fire curled over my clitoris, and only Blake’s hard hands kept me upright as my legs threatened to fold under me.

  “Now I can strip you and seal the evidence of your candidacy.” He dropped the strap of my bra over my shoulder and nipped the skin. “Or I can wait.” My eyelids fluttered, and the need for him made coherent thinking almost impossible. “Take you when you can no longer stand its lust.” The curve of his lips, touching, tasting me drove the alien heat deep into my flesh. “When you’ll beg me to fuck you, on the stairs, in the street, anywhere, simply to release the pressure.”

  My head dropped. I pictured Blake yanking down my clothes and pushing me against the nearest wall, the nearest café window, his fingers, his cock finding me, feeling the heat of his skin, hearing the low snarls, coming with the sharp bite of his teeth into my flesh. The creature buried within me flared, and the lust, the need for him to bring release to my tormented body soared.

  By all that was unholy... I hated that he’d put the image in my head. This wasn’t me. It was him. It was whatever the fuck he had pushed under my skin.

  “Do you want that, Leona?” He unclipped my bra, and the fabric fell away, the metal hooks tinking as they hit the sink. “Want me to wait?”

  The flickers of heat caressed my sex, teasing and playing, sinking into my pussy, curling against my arse and the thought of lasting any longer without Blake fucking me was practically impossible.

  Still...I wanted to play his game, increase the torment...because he wanted that. I could almost taste it. He needed the raw satisfaction of knowing that I ached for him. “Yes.”

  His sharp intake of breath, the hard press of him against my back, and the tightening grip of his large hands against my body said I’d given the proper answer. “Name the place.”

  He pushed my jeans and panties down, the warm, damp air of the bathroom brushing against my nakedness. He strung a line of quick, hot kisses along my shoulder and used his boot to d
rag my jeans to the floor. I pulled my feet free, stepping on the warm material.

  I didn’t care that he’d stripped me. Shit, the fire wraith within me rejoiced in it. “The coffee shop. On the high street.”

  “You’re a regular.” His hand slipped from my belly in a quick slide over my hip. His knuckles teased my arse, caressing the quick flickers of flame that played with my puckered hole. “I’d make you strip, make you stand in the window, your hands pressed to the glass. The passing world would see you being fucked by me.”

  My heart tightened at the lash of warmth and lust low in my flesh. The metal zip and the rustle of fabric made my breath shallow, the fire-thick beast sinking into my pussy and my arse and easing back from my body in delicious heat.

  Spots of light danced before my closed eyelids.

  “Yes.” I bit out the word. My desire for him swelled, coalescing with his own need that twisted tight within mine. “I want that.”

  Blake teased his cock against my arse and the creature within me surged over every inch of my skin.

  I panted out against the riot of joyful lust. The ache for him to sink into me, to take me, fuck me, burned through my flesh and obsessed my thoughts.

  The blunt head of his cock caressed my wet folds. Blake’s fingers and knuckles taunted me as he gripped his cock.

  With the first push of him into my body, the wraith churned, joining him as he fucked me. His hand eased free, and both hands gripped my hips, holding me firm and steady.

  “You’re such an…unexpected pleasure.”

  The deep strokes increased, grew harder, faster, and the heat of the beast within me wrapped around us, filled me, took Blake, and bound us together in fierce waves of lust.

  I met every thrust, willing him deeper, wanting him, needing him to join with me, the slap of his hips against mine mixing with the low snarls that made my knuckles whiten around the sink. He was twisted magic, beyond human. I’d caught a glimpse of his beast nature, felt the animal power as his raw emotions, lust, and satisfaction burst over my own. I didn’t care. With his creation deep in my flesh, fucking me as he did, I cared only about the promise of the most wild and fearsome release in my life.