Heart of the Dragon

  "That's better." She settled into the cushions and opened the book. Her fingers smoothed over the first page, and a look of sadness filled her expression. She began reading, despair reflected in her tone, as well.

  He leaned his head back, locked his hands under his neck and closed his eyes. Her melodious voice floated over him, as gentle as a caress. There was something so peaceful about listening to her, as if her voice, despite its melancholy, was a reflection of joy, laughter and love. As if all three were his for the taking, if only he would reach out and grasp them. But he knew they would never be his. Warriors like him were destined to roam life alone. It was the only way to preserve his sanity.

  A cold-blooded killer needed absolute withdrawal.

  Much too quickly, Grace closed the journal with a gentle flip of her wrist and glanced over at him. He worried two fingers over his jaw. "Tell me again where your brother stole the medallion."

  "At a charity gala hosted by Argonauts."

  Again Argonauts, Darius thought, his determination to speak with them increasing. Alex had stolen it, had almost had it stolen from him, and had been followed.

  He frowned as a thought occurred to him. "If you knew someone wanted the necklace," he said to Grace, his voice growing harsher with each word, "why did you even go to Brazil?"

  "Did you not hear the last passage? Alex found the hint of danger exciting. And so--" she jutted out her chin in defiance "--did I."

  He was furious as he leaned toward her, putting them nose to nose. Their breath mingled, swirling together and becoming a single essence. Exactly what he wanted for their bodies. That quickly he lost his fury in a haze of lust. His dragon's blood roared to life, clamoring for her. Aching for her. Frenzied for her.

  "That would-be thief could have found him, could even be the one holding him. Tell me, do you still crave excitement?" he asked softly, menacingly. "Do not think to deny it because I know you do," he added when she opened her mouth to protest. "I sense the need inside you. I sense it pulsing through your veins even now. Such a thing is dangerous for you, but..."

  Her throat constricted, and she gulped.

  Dismay whirled in the turquoise cauldron of her eyes, but he also saw hunger, a tempest of desire. She would never be happy with an ordinary life. She needed adventure, needed her deepest fantasies realized, and though it was irrational, he wanted to be the one to give her those things.

  His gaze swept to her lips. He found himself closing the rest of the distance, a heartbeat away from possessing her mouth with his own. She jackknifed to her feet, turning her back toward him, granting him a tantalizing view of her cascading curls.

  A lovely view to be sure, but not the one he craved.

  "I'm sorry." Grace fingered her lips. Darius hadn't kissed her, had only come within a whisper of her, but still her lips throbbed for him. Of all the things he'd done to her, of all the things he'd made her feel, she feared this the most...this seemingly unquenchable desire she had for him. This need for him, and only him. This consuming ache for his touch that made her forget the only thing she should care about. Her brother.

  But...

  The more time she spent in Darius's presence, the more she saw past his cold, callous mask and into the heart of a vulnerable man. And that made her want him all the more. That scared her all the more. Such intense longing bordered on obsession. No man should have that much power over her. No man should be able to wrap sultry coils around her and consume her every thought.

  Most women dreamt of having such a strong, sensual man at their fingertips. A week ago, she would have been in their ranks, thinking there was nothing more a woman could want than a man who looked at her with undeniable hunger, as if there were no other woman who could make him feel that way. Right now, Grace felt too exposed, too vulnerable.

  "I'm not ready for this," she said. "Not ready for you. Last night, and even in Atlantis, everything seemed surreal. This...doesn't. This is real and in-your-face and can never be undone. I'm just not ready," she said again. "More than that, the timing is horrible. My first concern has to be my brother's welfare. Not my own...desires."

  While she rattled off her list of reasons she shouldn't bed him, Darius's mind formed a list of all the reasons she should. And only one of them mattered. She's mine, he thought. His instincts had tried to warn him, had actually screamed it was so when he last kissed her. This undeniable tug had been between them since the beginning, and it wasn't going away. He admitted as much now. He wouldn't forget his oath, but he would have this woman. Where she was concerned, he could fight his needs no longer.

  He would be doing himself a favor, he rationalized, if he took her and rid himself of this growing curiosity to know what being with her would be like.

  He wanted to rise and reach out to clasp her by the waist. He forced himself to remain in place, hands at his sides. He would take her, yes. But he would take her when it was she who was desperate for their loving. Not him. Beads of sweat popped onto his brow and dripped from his temples. He fisted his hands in the soft couch cushions.

  Needing a distraction, Darius stood and liberated the journal from between her fingers. She gasped at the sudden loss and spun to glare at him. As she watched, he tossed the little book into a bowl and ignited a fire--with his mouth. He was surprised when the fire quickly dwindled to nothing, and he frowned. The fire should have lasted much longer. His powers must be weaker than he'd realized.

  "Fire flew out of your mouth." Grace gaped. "Fire really and truly flew out of your mouth."

  "Yes."

  "But fire flew out of your mouth."

  "I did tell you I was a dragon."

  "I just didn't expect fire to fly out of your freaking mouth." Grace struggled to form a proper response. Darius really was a dragon. The concept was laughable--or should have been. All of it should have been laughable. Atlantis, misty portals, the gods. Yet she'd skipped right along, accepting every fantastical experience tossed her way.

  But this...She expected her brain to shout it's too much. I can't accept another implausible happening. Surprisingly enough, her mind didn't shout. Her mind welcomed.

  She toyed with the ends of her hair and expelled a breath. When she was a little girl, her father had read her a book every night. His favorite had been the story of a long ago prince who rescued a princess from a fierce dragon. Grace had never liked that story. She'd always wanted the dragon to defeat the puny prince so the princess could sail through the clouds on his back. Now a real, live dragon sat in her living room.

  "What else can you do?" she asked, her voice raspy.

  He merely lifted a brow, a wouldn't-you-like-to-know glint in his eyes.

  "Well?" she demanded.

  "When you are prepared for the answer, perhaps I'll tell you. Until then..." He shrugged.

  "Fine," she huffed. "If you won't tell me about your abilities, at least tell me why you destroyed my brother's journal. I wanted to give it back to him."

  "There can be no record of Atlantis." As he spoke, the blue of his eyes swirled and churned with a life of its own, like the very mist he guarded. "I decided to either destroy the book or destroy you. Perhaps I made the wrong choice."

  She preferred the other Darius, the honey-eyed Darius. The man who made her blood sing and her deepest fantasies cry for him. The man who twisted her into knots.

  "You will obtain the vests now," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Her nose crinkled. "What vests?"

  "The ones you promised to buy for me in the cave. The ones that protect against guns."

  That's right. She had promised him. With a sigh, Grace loped down the hall and into her room. After she booted up the computer--with Darius standing over her the entire time, his hands on either side of her armrests, his chest pressing into her back--she found a site that specialized in guns and other equipment.

  "I like this thing," he said. "This computer."

  With him so near, she had trouble concentrating. "The vests are
two-hundred-and-fifty dollars each," she said, squirming in her seat. Maybe she should turn on the air conditioner. Her skin suddenly felt too tight for her body. "Do you still want to buy one?"

  "One? No. I wish to purchase twenty. For now."

  "Twenty! Where will you get the money? I doubt you brought any with you."

  "I will allow you to pay for them."

  Of course he would. "You want extra large, I take it?" Doing this was probably going to place her on the FBI's most-watched list. But Darius wanted the vests, and what Darius wanted, she would acquire for him. They were helping each other, after all.

  She placed the order and had to use both of her credit cards. She also requested overnight shipping for double the mailing expense. "They'll arrive in the morning."

  "I want to visit the Argonauts," Darius said. "Afterward, we will purchase bullets and you will show me how to use them."

  Such a dictator, she thought, and wondered, foolishly, if he'd be that demanding in bed. She stole a glance at the hard angles of his profile. Oh, yes. He'd be demanding and the knowledge made her shiver. With a gulp, she flipped off her computer and swiveled in her chair, dislodging his hands. "Do you think they know more than they told me?"

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

  Which told her nothing. But she had her suspicions. They were not as innocent as they appeared. They couldn't be, and she hated herself for not realizing it sooner. Worry had clouded her mind, she supposed, but that didn't make it easier to take. "If we leave now, we can be there within the hour."

  "Not quite yet." He leaned down, replacing his palms on the arms of her chair. Her knees bumped his thighs as his gaze traveled all over her. Burning her. Devouring her in a way that should have been illegal. He saw past her clothes, she suspected breathlessly, and saw the hard pebbles of her nipples. "First," he said, "you will bathe. Quickly," he added.

  Blazing red heat stained her cheeks. "Are you saying I--" her mortification was so great she almost couldn't finish her sentence "--stink?"

  "You have dirt smudges here." He ran his fingertip over the side of her mouth. "And here." That finger moved to her chin, and his nostrils flared. "While you are beautiful to me as you are, I thought you might wish to wash."

  He thought she was beautiful? As she was? Grace nearly melted into her seat. Most men found her a little too plump, a little too red and freckly.

  She struggled to form defenses against him, and reminded herself that she wasn't ready to handle such a dangerous man. "I won't take long." Her legs trembling, she pushed up and raced to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut.

  Just in case he entertained any notion of slipping inside, of stripping out of his clothes and getting into the tub with her, of letting the warm, wet water deluge their intertwined, naked bodies, she twisted the lock. She pressed her back against the cool wood, her breathing shallow.

  Damn if she didn't pray Darius would burn the lock away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ALEX CARLYLE was hot and cold at the same time.

  A single guard shoved him inside his newest prison. A single fucking guard because he was too weak to be any real threat. The drugs his captors were pumping through his system were hell on his body. They kept him compliant, groggy and dependent. Kept him uninterested in escape.

  Kept him stupid.

  Or maybe his weakness stemmed from low blood supply. Vampires were allowed to suck from his neck anytime they wanted, as long as they didn't kill him. He almost wished they'd finish the job.

  For months he'd done nothing but breathe and live Atlantis. He had finally acquired the proof he'd wanted of its existence, but he no longer gave a damn.

  He shivered. The room was cold. So cold frost formed every time he breathed. Why, then, did his skin burn? He sank to the hard floor. Another tremor scratched down his spine like long, sharp fingernails.

  A woman was shoved into the cell. The only exit slid shut behind her.

  Alex closed his eyes, too tired to care. Within moments, small, delicate hands grasped his shoulders and gently shook him. His eyelids flickered open, and he found himself staring up into Teira's beautiful, ethereal face.

  "You need me?" she said.

  He'd lost his glasses, but he didn't need them to see that her pale brown eyes were alight with concern. She had the longest lashes he'd ever seen, as light as her waist-length hair. She claimed she was a prisoner, just like he was. The two of them had been "escorted" so many places he didn't know where he was anymore.

  This newest cell was stripped bare, as if someone had recently scraped everything off the walls. "I'm fine," he lied. "Where are we this time?"

  "My home."

  Her home. He inwardly sighed. Somewhere in Atlantis, then. If she was telling the truth. He didn't know yet if he could believe a word out of the woman's gorgeous mouth.

  He didn't know whom he could trust anymore.

  Lately he'd been swindled and double-crossed by everyone he encountered. Every member of his team had betrayed him, willingly giving away his location and his purpose for a few hundred dollars. The guide he'd hired to see him safely through the Amazon had been a paid mercenary. Now he had to contend with Teira.

  She was beautiful, exquisitely and guilelessly so, but beauty often hid a mountain of lies. And she was too concerned for him, too eager to learn about him. Perhaps she'd been sent to seduce the location of the medallion from him, he thought irritably. Why else lock her in a cell with him? He laughed humorlessly. Why else but to fuck the answer out of him.

  Well, the joke was on her. Teira wasn't his type. He preferred women who wore too much makeup, and tight clothes over their even tighter, surgically enhanced bodies. He preferred women who screwed hard and left the same night without a qualm--if they didn't speak to him in the meantime, even better.

  Women who looked like Teira terrified him. Instead of makeup and tight clothes, they wore an air of innocence, a marry-me-and-give-me-babies kind of wholesomeness that unnerved him.

  He'd spent too many years caring for his sick father, too afraid to leave the house in case he was needed. He stayed as far away from wholesome women as he could. Just the thought of being permanently grounded made him nauseous. His captors should have locked him up with a slutty-looking brunette. Then he might have talked.

  His jaw clenched. He never should have acquired that damn medallion.

  What had Grace done with it? And why the hell had he sent it to her? He hadn't meant to involve her; he simply hadn't realized the extent of the danger until it was too late. He didn't know what he'd do if she were hurt. There were only three people he gave a shit about, and Grace was at the top of the list. His mom and Aunt Sophie claimed a close second and third.

  Teira gave him another gentle shake. Her fingers were like ice, and he noticed her teeth were chattering.

  "What do you want?" he barked.

  She flinched but didn't back away. "You need me?" she asked again. Her soft voice floated over him, as lilting as a spring breeze. Her English wasn't very good, but she'd managed to learn the basics--and quite quickly, too. How convenient.

  "I'm fine," he repeated.

  "I help warm you."

  "I don't need your goddamn help. Go to your side of the cell and leave me alone."

  Her innocent features dimmed as she scooted away.

  He fought a wave of disappointment. He would never tell her, would never admit it aloud, but he liked her nearness. Dirt might streak the smoothness of her skin, but she still smelled as exotic as a summer storm. The scent comforted him--but scared him, too. She was not his type, but he often found himself gazing at her, yearning to hold her, to touch her.

  As if she sensed his inner longings, she moved back to him and smoothed her trembling fingertips over his forehead, down his nose and along his jaw, her touch light. "Why will you not let me help?" she asked.

  He sighed, savoring her caress even while he knew he should make her stop. Cameras were probably hidden everywhere, and he didn't wan
t anyone to think he'd finally caved where this woman was concerned.

  "Do you have a syringe? Do you have whatever the hell they're giving me?"

  "No."

  "Then you can't help me."

  She began tracing strange symbols over his cheek. An intense concentration settled over her features.

  His tremors gradually slowed, and his coldness receded. His muscles relaxed.

  "Feel better?" she asked, a trace of weakness to the words.

  He managed to give her an indifferent frown and lift his shoulders in a shrug. What symbols had she drawn and what did they mean? And how in God's name had they helped him? He was too stubborn to ask.

  "Why you not like me?" she whispered, biting her lower lip.

  "I like you just fine." He wouldn't admit that he would have died without her. His captors, the same men who had chased him through the jungle, then plucked him from one location to the other, had been brutal. He'd been beaten, drugged and nearly drained, and shuddered with each memory. Always Teira was there, waiting for him, comforting him. Holding him with her quiet strength and dignity.

  "Why do they have you locked in here?" he asked her, wishing immediately that he could snatch the words back. He didn't want to watch her features cloud with deceit as she spun a web of lies. He knew why she was here. Didn't he?

  Softly, gently, she lay beside him and wrapped one arm around his waist. The woman craved bodily contact like no one else he'd ever met, as if she'd been denied it most of her life. And he'd be lying if he said her little body didn't feel good curled up next to him.

  "They kill my man and all of his army. I try to...what is the word?" Her brow scrunched as she searched her mind.

  He gazed deeply into her eyes. They were as devoid of duplicity as always. "Defeat them?"

  "Yes," she said. "Defeat them. I try and defeat them."

  Whether he believed her story or not, he didn't like the thought of her being tied to another man. And he liked even less that he cared. "I didn't know you were married."

  She looked away from him, past him, over his shoulder. Sorrow and grief radiated from her, and when she next spoke, her pain was like a living thing. "The union end too quickly."