You Slay Me

  "What are you going to do?"

  I started, drawn out of my own dark musing by her question. "About Drake?"

  She nodded.

  I leaned back against the wall, wrapping my arms around my knees. I knew what the solution to the prob­lem of the murders was, but as yet, I had no idea how to prove it. "I suppose I'm going to have to have it out with him."

  She sucked her breath in, her blue eyes wide with sur­prise ... and perhaps a smidgen of pleasure. "A chal­lenge? You're going to issue a challenge to him?"

  I nodded. Challenge was a good word for what I wanted to do.

  "How exciting! I've never seen a wyvern challenged."

  "Yes, well, there's a first time for everything. A chal­lenge might suit very well." I slid a glance her way. "It will allow me to reveal the truth."

  "The truth is good," she said with a righteous nod. "I do hope I can help you. May I be your second? Perdy won't approve, but you are my friend. I can't turn my back on you when you're about to undertake something so terrifying as challenging a wyvern."

  A tiny frown grew until my brows were pulled to­gether, the awful suspicion bouncing around my head that there might be something more to a challenge than I had supposed. "Eh—"

  She jumped up from the chair, turning to the cabinet of supplies. "I must cast a spell of clarity over you. Or no, perhaps one of protection would be best?"

  "Protection?" I asked, getting a bit more worried.

  "No one has ever challenged a wyvern and lived," she tossed over her shoulder as she rustled around the shelves. "Protection would be best, although clarity ... Oh, why can't Perdy be here to help me? She would know what to do."

  "Um—"

  She turned around, her arms full of jars of herbs, can­dles, and other supplies. "I'll just whip something up for you just as soon as we return from G & T."

  "We're going to G & T?" I asked, now seriously wor­ried and moving straight into panic land. "What... eh ... what exactly did you mean no one has ever chal­lenged a wyvern and lived? You were talking about something a long time ago, right? Hundreds of years ago?"

  "Goddess, no! Just last year someone challenged one of the wyverns—I believe it was Drake, although I was visiting my mother at the time. Perdy would know. She was still living with Drake then. One of the German mages accused him of stealing a very valuable ring, and challenged him. Drake killed the mage, of course."

  "He did?" I squeaked.

  She set her things down on the table next to the bookcase. "That is the way of dragons. It's one of the reasons Perdy and I have wanted the Venediger to see the True Path, so he would put his foot down about the violence that seems to follow the dragons." She drifted toward the door, her hands doing the usual graceful flutter that ac­companied her conversation. "I'll just go get changed. Will you be ready in twenty minutes or so?"

  I nodded, too dumbstruck to speak. Drake killed a man who challenged him? I stood up slowly and walked to the wardrobe, opening it to look at the face that stared out of the mirror hung on the inside door. My lips stretched into a suitably grim smile. "Out of the frying pan, Aisling, and into the fire ... again."

  "Are you sure this is a good idea? Inspector Proust closed the club down once—what if he comes back?"

  "Perdy won't allow him entrance," Ophelia said, flip­ping a clump of her golden ringlets over her shoulder. Despite my insecurity at the situation, she spoke in a comforting tone of voice as we stood at the top of the three steps that led down to the club proper.

  I looked behind us at the door that led to the street. There was no doorman, not even a bouncer in attendance. "How can she keep him from coming in?"

  "Wards," Ophelia said, tugging my arm as she de­scended into the club. "Didn't you feel them when you came in? Come on, we'll get a table and have Perdy help us with the wording of your challenge."

  I looked around the club as I obediently followed Ophelia. It looked the same as the last time I was there— smoky, crowded, music pulsing at almost a subconscious level. It was also wyvernless.

  Well, almost.

  "Cara," Fiat cried as a group of people between us parted. "I had hoped that I would find you here." ,.

  Ophelia stopped and glanced back at me curiously. I made brief introductions. "A word of warning, Fiat—if you or any of your goon squad even looks like you're thinking of abducting me, I will scream bloody murder. I know for a fact that G & T is a neutral territory, and any­one who violates that neutrality will be in very hot water."

  Fiat laughed, his blue eyes unreadable. "Ah, cara, you have such fire. You truly are worthy of being a wyvern's mate. Drake doesn't deserve you."

  "No, he doesn't," I said dryly.

  "As for violating the rules of G & T—" He smiled. "—who is there to stop me from doing whatever I desire with you? The Venediger is dead. No one has claimed his tide."

  "We will stop you," Ophelia said suddenly, pushing her way in front of me. "Aisling is my friend. Perdy and I will stop you from harming her."

  Fiat dismissed Ophelia's declaration with a flicker of his eyes. He lifted my chin with one cool finger, taking a long moment to study my face. "So determined, so force­ful. But still mortal."

  "She might be mortal, but she is challenging Drake Vireo," Ophelia trumpeted. "It is not everyone who has the courage to do so."

  As it had the night I had called Drake Puff the Magic Dragon, the entire room went silent.

  Respect dawned in Fiat's eyes as he considered me. "So, the Guardian plans to challenge her mate for control of the sept."

  "No," I said quickly, shaking my head to add empha­sis. "It's not like that—"

  "Yes, she is," Ophelia cut in, waving a hand at me to shut up. "She will challenge him, and when he fails, she will rule in his place."

  "But, I don't want—"

  "Yes, you do," she whispered, turning so Fiat couldn't hear what she was saying. 'That's how a challenge is conducted. Ostensibly it's for control of the sept, but the loser must abide by whatever terms the winner sets. If you make one of the terms that Drake must turn himself in to the police, he will have to do so when you beat him."

  "If I beat him," I pointed out.

  She waved that away. "You will triumph. You will have me and Perdy in your corner."

  I watched as she turned back to Fiat, wondering if I should tell her that I knew the truth about her twin.

  "We are about to formalize the terms of the challenge. If you will excuse us," Ophelia said with lofty arrogance, pushing Fiat aside to stride toward the back of the club.

  "I will see you later, cam," Fiat said, imbuing the words with a dark promise that was echoed in his eyes.

  "Not if I see you first," I murmured, wary of outright insulting him. I was beginning to see the folly in tweak­ing a dragon's tail.

  "This way—Perdy's office is in the back." Ophelia was waiting for me at the entrance to a dark hall that led to the bathrooms. We walked past the bathrooms, turned a corner, and headed for the two leather-studded doors that opened off to either side of the hallway. One of the doors bore black-and-yellow crime scene tape.

  "That's the Venediger's office. Perdy said the police have sealed it, but she has the Venediger's solicitor work­ing on releasing the business papers to her," Ophelia said, nodding to the door on the right. She opened the door opposite. 'This is Perdy's office. It's smaller, but it's— Goddess above, no!"

  I looked at the body hanging in the center of the room, abstractly noting the fact that whoever killed Perdita had used a rough rope as the binding that tied her feet and hands together behind her back. Her body was suspended sideways in midair, the same rough rope wrapped around her waist several times before it was attached to a hook in the black beam that crossed the ceiling.

  "The Third Demon Death," I said, not even looking at the circle drawn beneath the slowly rotating body. I didn't have to. I knew what it would show.

  Ophelia hit the floor in a dead faint.

  18

  1 stood
in the opening to the hallway and searched the club for a familiar face, wishing more than ever that Jim was with me. I needed someone trustworthy, someone who wouldn't take one look at Perdita's dead body and run screaming to the police, but how was I to tell who was who?

  There was a slight anticipatory rustle to the crowd of people drifting around the club as everyone paused and looked at the front entrance. Drake sauntered down the steps in a show of masculine grace, Istvan and Pdl in tight wing formation behind him. I stepped back, into the shadow of the dimly lit hallway, not wanting Drake to see me. He was the last person I wanted to call upon for help with Perdita.

  Even as I scanned for someone familiar, the crowd rip­pled again as Fiat approached Drake with languid grace. The two men exchanged cheek kisses; then Fiat leaned in to say something private to Drake, his hand gesturing to­ward the hall I stood in. Drake lifted his head as if to smell the air. I stepped farther back into the shadows, re­treating to Perdita's office.

  Ophelia moaned as I patted her cheeks in the approved "vague assistance to woman who has fainted" manner.

  "Perdy?" she mumbled, her eyelashes fluttering.

  "No, it's just me," I said, looking up when the door opened. "And Drake and Fiat, and Pal and Istvan, and I think that's Renaldo and another one of Fiat's bullies in the hall, although it's a little hard to see with everyone in the way."

  The two wyverns stood silent in the doorway, both staring with apparent surprise at Perdita's body as it slowly turned.

  "Who?" Ophelia shrieked, pushing me back as she got to her feet. She pointed a finger at Drake, huge tears rolling down her cheeks as she stabbed the air in front of him. "It's him! He killed Perdy! He killed her just as he killed the others! He killed my ... my ..." She dissolved into heart-wrenching sobs, her hands covering her face.

  I helped her to a chair, glancing back at the two men who blocked the doorway. "Unless you want everyone in the club to troop in here and have a look, I suggest you set your men as guards at the end of the hall and close the door."

  Drake nodded at his men, who immediately left. Fiat was slower to send his men off. but eventually he did. The door closed with a soft click that was the only sound in the room. Ophelia was sobbing silently into her hands, her body shaking as she wept. I squatted next to her, of­fering what comfort I could.

  Drake circled Perdita's body, his bright green eyes not­ing everything, I was sure. Fiat leaned back against the door as if keeping intruders out, but his eyes gave him away. They were coolly speculative ... the eyes of someone truly surprised by what he saw before him.

  I cleared my throat, the noise unusually loud in the close confines of the room. "Drake, you've been accused of murdering Perdita. Did you do it?"

  His gaze met mine over the slowly rotating body. "No more than I killed Aurora or the Venediger."

  I smiled a sad little smile. Why had I expected I would get a straight answer out of him? I turned to Fiat. "You haven't been accused, but you were here when Ophelia and 1 arrived, so you had opportunity. Did you kill her?"

  "I do not kill women," Fiat said stiffly. His shoulders made an odd sort of jerky motion of denial. "Well, not often do I kill them."

  "How reassuring that is. Can I ask another question?"

  "If it would please you," Fiat answered.

  I stood up and yelled at the top of my lungs, "WHY CAN'T ANY OF YOU DRAGONS ANSWER A SIM­PLE QUESTION WHEN IT'S ASKED?"

  I'll be the first one to admit that I might have been showing a wee bit of stress what with people trying to kidnap me, and arrest me for murder, and steal things from me, but is that any reason for Drake to march over and slap me as if I were hysterical?

  "Oh! You are going to be so sorry you did that," I snarled, making a fist and swinging it. Fiat plucked me off Drake, but not before I got in a really solid right jab to Drake's nose. "No one hits me, no one!" I yelled as Fiat dragged me backwards. Drake gingerly touched his nose, staring in patent surprise at the blood smeared across his fingertips.

  "If I were you," Fiat said softly in my ear, "I would run."

  Drake's roar of anger shattered the only two windows in the office. It also summoned both his and Fiat's men, all four of whom burst into the room just as Drake started toward me.

  I didn't wait around to debate the issue. I ran. Straight through the men at the door, across the hall, and into the Venediger's office, trailing bits of crime scene tape be­hind me as I whirled around and locked the door a hair­breadth before Drake reached it.

  It took him all of five seconds to kick it open. I backed away as he stalked into the room, pausing only to close the door behind him.

  "Look," I said, my hands up in self-protection stance number seven. "I know you're a bit pissed right now, but—"

  He was on me before I could even scream. One second he was at the door; the next he was fifteen feet across the room, dragging me up against his chest. For one brilliant, crystalline moment in time, I stared deep into Drake's eyes and beheld the dragon within.

  My resistance melted into a river of passion.

  I opened my mouth to remind him that he couldn't kill me without killing himself, but it wasn't death Drake had on his mind. He slammed his mouth against mine, his tongue not waiting for an invitation to come visiting; it just shoved its way into my mouth and took immediate possession, stroking, teasing, tasting every last square inch of my mouth, forcing me to submit. I fought him, not because I wasn't suddenly just as aroused and filled with desire as he was, but because I wanted him to know right from the start I would never again submit.

  "You can woo me," I said against his lips as I grabbed the front of his dark green shirt, literally ripping it right off his body. "You can court me, you can seduce me, but you will never force me into submission again. What happened in the dream was a fantasy, a figment of our imaginations. This is real, and on my terms."

  He growled into my mouth as he grabbed my thighs,

  hauling me up until I locked my legs around his waist. I grabbed his hair, pulling on it as I gave him a taste of his own treatment, plundering his mouth as he had plundered mine. He tasted spicy, hot, like he had been drinking Dragon's Blood. He lunged to the wall behind me, smashing me between his body and the cool wooden pan­eling, his teeth nipping at my tender flesh as he buried his face in my breasts.

  "Gold," he breathed as he licked the rise of one breast. I had just enough presence of mind to remember the Eye tucked into the lining of my bra.

  "No! Not here!" I cried as his head dipped to the val­ley between my breasts. He brought his head up, the dragon talisman clenched between his teeth. I took it back, replacing it with an offering of my lips as I tucked the jade back into my bra, shivering at the look of molten desire in his eyes.

  He jerked my dress up, his fingers hot and hard on my thighs as he shredded my underwear. I flexed my legs around his hips, squirming when his fingers parted me, testing me, teasing me, absorbing the burn his touch had started and building it to an inferno of desire, arousal, and consuming need. I dragged my nails across his back as he tormented me with his body.

  "You're mine," he ground out through clenched teeth, the heated tip of him edging into me.

  "Not even close. You, however are mine, mine, mine." I grabbed his hair and arched myself against him, desper­ate to feel him within me, desperate for his heat, his fire, his hunger. My soul burned for the touch of his; my body wept tears of passion that only he could stop.

  "Mine," he snarled as he lunged, pinning me against the wall as his body became the invader, spreading me, impaling me, touching me in a way that no mortal man could. His fire swept through me as I moved against him, reveling in the feeling of his body moving in mine, em­bracing the conflagration of our souls, riding great waves of fire that spiraled around us, fusing us, firing us, bind­ing us together until we exploded together in a million dancing sparks. Drake's eyes opened wide as ecstacy overtook him, and for a moment, for the breathless, end­less length of time it takes to pass fr
om one second to an­other, his form shimmered between Drake the man and Drake the dragon. His lips closed on my collarbone, and I jerked against him as a fire hotter than anything I'd felt yet burned the skin beneath his mouth. I moved against him, spun into another orgasm, my body tightening around his until he arched his back and roared his triumph to the heavens.

  "We are sick people," I said later, after breath had re­turned to my lungs and reason to my mind. I unlocked my legs and slid down his thighs, various and sundry parts of me making me aware that Drake liked to play harder than I was used to.

  "Sick?"

  I straightened my poppy dress before managing to gather enough courage to look him in the eye. "What else would you call having this sort of a reaction to finding a dead body?"

  His eyes were hot, remnants of his dragon fire still vis­ible as his gaze licked down my body. "I would call it fated. It was inevitable that we would mate again."

  I fussed with brushing out the newly made wrinkles in my dress. "Yeah, well, I have another word for it, but as it's not complimentary to either of us, I'll keep it to my­self."

  He retrieved the shirt I had torn off him, giving it an odd look. Luckily only a few of the buttons were ripped off. "I take it this means you love me."

  I goggled at him, a good old-fashioned "What the hell are you talking about?" goggle. "Not even close, dragon boy!"

  One ebony eyebrow rose as he turned to retrieve his tie. I flinched when I saw the scoring my nails had left on his back.

  "You said you engage in sex only with men you love. You refused me in the last dream. Thus, you must now be in love with me."

  My face flushed as I adjusted my upper story, which had been dislodged in his quest for gold. "What happened a few minutes ago was an exception to the rule. It was purely a physical reaction to the stress of finding Perdita's body. Life asserting itself in the face of death and all that. I'm sure psychiatrists have a name for it."