“What?”
“You can’t murder three hundred people overnight in a city of a few thousand and expect there won’t be ripples, Rosalia. Whatever they’re doing, it’s big. They might have gotten away with a dozen or two, but the entire guild? Even the mages are pissed at the king, and he won’t be able to exterminate them so easily.”
If it were anyone but Adriano, she would have questioned the wisdom in sharing even a scrap of information about the mirror.
But this was her childhood friend who had stood up to bullies alongside her, tended her scraped knees, and sat alone for countless days mourning the loss of their family.
“Remember the heist that went sideways?”
He nodded.
“It’s all connected. King Gregarus hired us for that little job, and the item I retrieved for them is an enchanted, or should I say, a cursed mirror. It’s called the Devil’s Eyeglass.”
By the time she relayed the remaining details to Adriano, he’d gotten into his special stash of Ilyrian brandy and poured a generous glass for both of them. She took hers gratefully and tipped the honeyed contents into her mouth, though she wished most of all that Lacherra had served it to them from Hadrian’s special stores.
There would never be a finer bartender in the city.
Adriano topped off their glasses. “What do you need from me?”
Rosalia let the brandy roll through her mouth, savoring before each swallow. She’d definitely wasted her time in elven country to have traveled so far and neglected to have even a sip of their famed nectars. “Nothing.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I may not be a thief, but I can help you. I can provide information at the very least. What do you need from me?”
“I won’t have you involved in this. Enough people close to me have died, and I won’t have you be the next one.”
“That’s a decision I can make for myself. You know…when I was told they’d picked you up for murdering Frederico, I…found a guard willing to smuggle you out of the jail. Told him you were my woman and innocent. I don’t think he cared about the latter, only that I was willing to pay him half a year’s salary to leave the right doors open for your escape.”
“If the king or his spymaster found out you were involved—”
“You say it as if you’d have had a choice about my participation. Anyway, I would have gone with you. I’d planned on it, but something went wrong, and the wagon departed hours ahead of schedule. I was ready to leave all of this shit behind if it meant you’d go on living and dancing. Now I see you need another kind of help from me.”
“Yeah? What kind?”
He leaned forward, eyes glittering with enthusiasm. “I know how to get you in to see Bishop Roma. If anyone in Enimura knows more information about your relics, it’ll be him, and there won’t be anyone else more eager to stop that mirror from seeing use.”
9
Magnificence Personified
Since Adriano didn’t have duty the next day, they spent the night reminiscing and drinking until sunrise, but it didn’t matter since there was a nearby sewer entrance and the Rat Ways provided a secure route back to the hoard. Dreading the inevitable confrontation between herself and the weredragon, she took her time in the tunnels, familiarizing herself with a new route back to Xavier’s den.
During that time, she thought of her friend and his brilliant ideas.
Adriano had a thief’s devious and cunning mind, but he lacked a thief’s inclination to steal from others. Despite his upbringing, he was straight as an arrow, growing out of criminal habits during his teens. Then his mother had died of the Blue Pulse during an epidemic that had swept throughout the city, and he’d gone off to join the King’s Navy.
Despite the distance, he’d courted her, always returning with unique gifts from distant places visited by whatever ship carried him. He’d written her frequently, and she’d loved him.
But that love had never been for anything more than a friend, Rosalia unable to think of him as a potential husband or the father of her future children—not that she planned to have children anytime soon, contrary to Xavier’s plan.
Children weren’t in the cards for Rosalia. What she wanted, what she truly desired, was freedom, and that couldn’t come until she recovered the mirror she’d foolishly handed over to the crown.
At the end of a meandering hour of wandering alone with her thoughts through the sewer tunnels, the entrance to Xavier’s lair loomed before her. She touched the magical trigger hidden in the wall and activated the secret door. Stone scraped against stone and rumbled, then she descended into the subterranean home.
Her pulse raced. At any moment, she expected Xavier to swoop in and demand to know where she’d been. Instead, she found a note on her pillow in familiar lines of elegant script.
Rosa,
I will be opening early and staying late this evening. Far too much work remains incomplete due to my absence in Ilyria, and many of my clients are unaccustomed to waiting. We will talk soon.
Truly yours,
Xavier
Denied her opportunity for confrontation, she crawled into bed and slept for hours, rousing a little after the fourth chime of the afternoon. And since Adriano had asked her to give him a couple days to dredge up whatever information he could about the gemstones, she didn’t want to risk another immediate visit into the city to see him.
She snooped around the hoard instead, traveling deeper through rooms she’d left unexplored previously, though she’d come to the conclusion that the majority of them held treasures of some kind, from paintings to marble busts and enchanted gadgets.
And then she found it, after barging behind a curtained alcove in Xavier’s personal chambers to discover a spiral staircase leading up a level into the mother of all bathing houses.
It had to be the most beautiful showering room in all of Saudonia, as spacious as Xavier’s bedrooms but outfitted with golden fixtures and ivory stone tiles, probably rivaling anything found in the royal palace. Wishing she’d discovered it sooner, she tested a few knobs and counted the numerous fixtures spraying water before padding barefoot toward a deep basin large enough to seat a dozen people. It put the glorious hot spring of the other hoard to shame.
Was there any better way to spend an afternoon?
Five minutes later, Rosalia stood beneath the pounding spray of three shower fixtures, billowing curls of steam filling the room with white mist. She tilted her head down, exposing the back of her neck to the pressure raining from above.
“Room for one more?” Xavier’s voice echoed against the marble.
Startled by his arrival, Rosalia scrambled to the side, tore a towel from the adjacent hook, and draped it against her chest. “You’re violating the privacy of my shower,” she said, startled by the stiff tone of her voice.
Xavier appeared equally taken aback, blinking at her before lightly quipping back, “You’ve also been in my shower long enough to wash an entire squad of city watchmen. Did I not give you free rein to use the other bath?”
“You did, but I wanted this shower.”
Dark brows raised, the weredragon’s incredulous expression lingering a mere second before turning to stone. “This one is mine.”
“If it means so much to you, maybe I’ll make enough room to share,” she shot back.
“How kind of you to offer.”
He shoved the robes back from his shoulders and stepped inside beneath the spray, exposing the beauty of his masculine form and those lean, hard muscles. She scrambled aside and made room for him under the enormous umbrella fixture, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Couldn’t stop looking at what had to be the most gorgeous, perfect man in all existence.
Her willpower simply wasn’t made to resist that kind of lure.
It’s only a body. Only a male body.
The delicious kind of male body she wanted to touch and kiss. Steaming water sluiced over a marvelous canvas of fair skin accented by the occasional scar across his ri
bs and chest. Despite the number of them, they didn’t detract from his beauty, only enhancing it because she wouldn’t have him any other way.
To top it all off, her observant gaze repeatedly darted back to Xavier of its own volition. Not only was he cut like a marble statue, but the tattoos she’d only glimpsed from afar shone like liquid gold and opal ink against his skin, each one written in magical elvish script.
And then there was the long and proud length jutting up toward his navel. She sucked in a breath and feigned indifference.
I’m not looking. I’m not looking.
He popped up one brow and glanced at her, revealing a smug tilt to the corner of his delectable mouth. It took all of her self-control to resist kissing him. “See something that interests you?”
Rosalia abruptly turned away. Cocky bastard.
“Barely anything worthy of note,” she shot back.
“Judging from the length of your stare, I’d assumed it was the only thing of note.”
Damn him.
He turned his back on her and hogged the shower, basking beneath the spray while humid mist bathed his body in a thick and steamy fog. The hotter her showers, the more she loved them. It didn’t surprise her that a weredragon should like his water just shy of boiling too.
Distracted by his presence, she watched him work the soap into lather and sweep suds over his chest without concern for her presence. His long hair had been plastered against his back, but it wasn’t enough to conceal the muscles shifting beneath his skin. Suppressing the urge to grab two handfuls of his bare, deliciously tight and shapely ass, she stepped forward into the direct spray and rinsed the soap from her hair.
Xavier chuckled. “I never took you to be the bashful sort. This is twice you can’t bear to look at me when only hours ago, you couldn’t keep your hands off me.” Somehow, he spoke with the conversational tone of a weather mage discussing a predicted storm front.
She wanted to throttle him. “I’m not bashful.”
He glanced to the right, revealing his features in profile. “Then what was that with the towel?”
“I’m not in the habit of strange men walking in on me. It startled me. A sensible person would announce their arrival and wait their damned turn instead of intruding on someone else’s shower without invitation.”
“Most people wouldn’t invite themselves to the personal bath of their host when they have private quarters of their own,” he shot back.
He had her there, though most people weren’t thieves with flexible boundaries regarding ownership of property. An insidious little voice whispered that Xavier knew what he’d been getting into when he invited a burglar into his home.
Silence fell between them for a while despite the naughty and vivid images dancing through her head of Xavier shoving her against the wall. She envisioned him parting her thighs to either side of his lean hips while her back slid over the tiles. Her body yearned for it, and the dull ache between her thighs became an unrelenting and desperate throb when she imagined him thrusting into her, the heat of him scorching through her like a living inferno.
Maybe it wouldn’t be his cock. She’d already experienced his skillful fingers the evening they’d shared a cabin aboard the Opal Destiny. That had been a night of absolute torment lying beside him and listening to his every quiet breath, breathing in the rich scent of dragon and elf while pretending there wasn’t something intimate about laying mere inches away from him in only a chemise after he’d stroked her to a mind-melting orgasm.
Rosalia fumbled her soap bar, the slippery thing flying from her hands and shooting across the floor.
Gods, I need to get out of here before I do something foolish. Accepting that as her cue from the gods to hurry away with her dignity and well-being intact, she rinsed thoroughly and whipped the same towel around her body. She hurried away into the adjoining room where she’d left her garments.
Xavier’s wet footfalls slapped the floor behind her seconds later. “That was certainly interesting.” He’d wrapped a towel around his midsection, at last finding the modesty to put the blasted thing away where it wouldn’t practically be swinging in her face, even if the sight alone made her mouth water and her body buzz with desire.
“Indeed. Don’t think I plan to let you have this entire room to yourself.”
Xavier rolled his eyes. “You’ve certainly become comfortable with living in my hoard.”
She grinned up at him. “Wasn’t that the point? You did tell me to treat this place as if it were my home too. The way I see it, that includes sharing this lovely little treasure with your student.”
When he stepped closer, his eyes drank her in, lingering over the swells of her breasts under the towel. “What do you plan to share with me in return?”
“I have nothing to sh—”
His mouth covered hers, the force of it domineering and confident, the tip of his tongue skimming past her lips and demanding entrance. Caught completely by surprise, she yielded control to him and moaned, arching up to him automatically. He deepened the kiss, devouring her soft cries and quickening breaths. He tasted like brandy and cinnamon, raw heat and sweetness infusing his tongue.
One more kiss.
Just one more. Rosalia melted into him, squeezing a broad shoulder in one hand and circling the other arm behind his back. Her towel slipped and her bare breasts crushed against his chiseled chest, hard nipples skimming over tattooed skin.
Dammit. No matter how much she tried to refuse him, no matter how much she wanted to be furious about his indifference and lies, there was something absolutely addictive about him.
It took her several moments to gather her wits and resist him. She pushed both palms against his chest and turned her face, only for Xavier to seek her lips again and reclaim them.
Rosalia succumbed a second time, letting his tongue thrust within her mouth the way she wanted it between her legs, dancing against the tender sweet spot he’d manipulated with such endless skill a few nights ago.
And then she remembered how he’d been keeping the truth from her. It wasn’t her he saw. He saw her womb. Her potential to bear him strong weredragon sons to help his dying race.
She shoved him again and stepped back to gaze into his bewildered face. His eyes were wild with hunger, smoldering and green, the inner flame she’d noticed the first time in the Emporium rekindled. It was so damned beautiful it hurt her to gaze at him overlong. Everything about Xavier Bane was magnificence personified.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Rosalia secured the towel around her body again. “We have a lovely teacher and student relationship that I’d prefer not to lose.”
He growled and stepped forward, reaching after her. “Who says we have to lose it?”
“I say. Especially if you can’t be one hundred percent honest with me.” She evaded another grab, backpedaling.
“What are you on about? When have I ever hidden anything? I’ve told you the truth about who and what I am from the very beginning. I’ve told you every secret.”
Every secret but the one that mattered most. She drew in a breath and tried to control the turbulent war her nerves were waging in her gut. “Your interest has nothing to do with me and everything to do with making a baby. Creating an heir. You want me because I’m the first female magical creature you’ve encountered in years you believe capable of surviving a weredragon pregnancy. That’s why you looked for me when I came of age, because you knew a half-djinn was around to provide what you wanted.”
He stopped cold. The playful warmth in his eyes vanished. “Where did you get that?”
“From you.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped. He glared across the arm’s length of distance between them, jaw working furiously before he said in a quiet voice, “I thought I noticed your scent at my desk, but I didn’t want to believe you’d snoop through my personal belongings.”
“You invited me to research the Legacy!” exploded out of her, echoing words bouncing back to her
. “I didn’t have to snoop far when you left the blasted journal on the desk. When did you plan to tell me you had greater plans for me than recovering the Eyeglass?”
A few moments of sullen silence passed, the sound of her own pulse deafening. Xavier ended eye contact first. “When I returned from Ilyria. Last night.”
“How can I even believe you now that you’ve been caught?”
“Did I not tell you prior to my departure that we would speak when I returned?”
“It could have been any topic. How can I trust anything you say after this betrayal, after these plans regarding my own body?”
“Ro—”
“I’m here for one reason and one alone. To learn from you until the time comes to reclaim the artifact. Then we part ways. I don’t have any interest in laying your eggs or becoming some dragon broodmare.”
Xavier’s gaze jerked toward her again and his expression iced over, colder than stone. Finally, he dipped his chin in a curt nod and strode away. Long after he was gone, his parting expression cut like a hot knife between the ribs, sizzling where her heart belonged.
Setting him straight about their relationship had seemed reasonable, but his absence left only misery. Whatever sense of empowerment she’d gained fled with her dragon shifter host.
10
The Soul of Avarae
Xavier stripped down to the waist and entered the forge. His draconic immunity to fire didn’t protect him from dripping with sweat from hours of prolonged exposure in his elven body, but it did allow him to work without safety gear. Tropical heat was the preferred climate of the rainbow dragon, not the arid environment necessary for working metal.
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 7
