Dragon Call

DRAGON CALL

Lunes & Lords

-1-

E.R.
Davis

Copyright © 2006, 2012, 2013 by Emily
Ryan-Davis (E.R. Davis), pseudonym. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition.

Publisher: Emily Ryan-Davis

Cover Designer: Kendra Egert

Model: Jason Aaron Baca

Photographer: Portia Shoa

The right of Emily Ryan-Davis (E.R. Davis) to
be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from
the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

Lunes & Lords Series

DRAGON CALL

-1-

DRAGON DANCE

-2-

DRAGON BOUND

-3-

About the Book

Insomnia does things to a girl’s head, drives
her to perform acts she would have scoffed at if not for a bad case
of desperation. Yoga. Meditation. Getting in touch with her inner
Lune via witchy rituals she doesn’t even realize she’s enacting
until she’s naked in the dark with an aggressive dragon…or two.

Cora Phillips has spent her life denying the
Lune tradition but with two dragons--and their masters--hounding
her with mating claims, her denying days have come to an end. Like
it or not, the dragons have come.

And she doesn’t like it one bit.

Dragon, Called

Cora paced to the door and flung it open.
“Tell me how to talk to it,” she demanded immediately.

Salim didn’t bat an eyelash. “Tell me who
told you how to call it.”

That drew her up short. He reached out and
enfolded her wrist in his hand, the scarf trapped between them.
“You need to address it properly, but there aren’t any words for
it. If you ask again, I’ll show you.”

Opting to proceed with caution, she tugged
her hand away from him. “I’ll think about it.”

“They aren’t about thinking.” He moved into
the apartment, pressing her backward without so much as a single
touch. It was his presence alone, the danger she perceived in the
prospect of touching him at all.

He closed the door, and she felt her stomach
knot up with returning anxiety. She didn’t know what questions he
would ask, or what answers he had already pieced together for
himself. Neither Diane nor Alissa were in the background making
themselves a buffer for her, and her mother wasn’t on speakerphone
anymore. Cora was utterly alone with him—and to her sinking horror,
her body began to sizzle. She couldn’t be near him without her body
responding, so she fled across the room to establish some distance
between them.

Salim, thankfully, did not follow her. He did
watch her go, though, a slight quirk to his eyebrows displaying his
curiosity about her retreat.

“I need some air,” she announced, hoping
fresh air would provide some relief to the stew of anxiety and
arousal bubbling in her stomach.

“You’ll need shoes.” Salim moved to crouch
outside Diane’s ritual circle and made a study of the circle’s
relation to the window. Finding no reason to disagree with his
assessment, she fetched a pair of running shoes. He was still
squinting at the ribbons of sky peeping between buildings when she
finished tying the laces.

She stood up, and suddenly he was in front of
her, catching her face between his hands. She stopped breathing.
Salim tipped her head back, searched her eyes. Anxiety and arousal
reached the critical point and exploded inside. Cora wrapped her
fingers around his wrists and surged up on her toes to mash her
mouth against his, taking advantage of his surprise to push her
tongue past his teeth.

Chapter One

“You’re the
evil
twin!”

“We’re not twins.”

“Facts have nothing to do with it,” Cora
muttered into the hammering beat of an industrial song she didn’t
recognize. Trapped by a crush of bodies, fishnet and velvet limbs
thrashing to the music, she silently cursed her sister Diane. As
the good sister, Cora wouldn’t have hauled Diane off to a day spa
with full-body waxing. She wouldn’t have dreamed of making the
whole affair a mother-daughters outing, either. Only an evil twin
could conceive of that kind of torture, and then top it off with an
excursion to a solstice masquerade so pretentious the air itself
bordered on velveteen.

Cora leaned close to say as much, but
something caught Diane’s attention, and she melted away into the
velvet crowd. Cora tried to follow, but the music surged and the
crowd boiled up with it, pinning her against the padded wall at her
back. She clutched the stem of her wine glass and sought refuge in
the dark and dimpled upholstery, which covered every wall in the
Manhattan flat and transformed the private residence into a hellish
imitation of a nightclub. The wall fabric reflected the strobe
lights, and Cora couldn’t focus her eyes.

She finished her wine and broke away from the
wall to search out a bathroom. Cora had just established herself at
the end of a snaking line when Diane resurfaced. She shouted
something Cora didn’t catch, grabbed her hand and dragged her
through a curtain of synthetic cobweb. They emerged into a kitchen.
Cinnamon and alcohol permeated the air, but the acoustics of the
building’s architecture made the kitchen a small pocket of blessed
quiet. Well, almost-quiet: she could still hear the music, but she
could hear herself think for a change as well.

Inside the kitchen, half a dozen masked
figures stood around a stainless steel island, watching an
attractive Asian man, himself sans mask, lean over a wooden pasta
bowl. A dark shock of hair fell over his eyes, which were intent
upon the bowl’s contents.

“He’s reading their fortunes,” Diane said in
a stage whisper. “Greg Cho. He’s the
best
reader.”

“What’s he reading?” she asked beneath her
breath, noting the lack of palms, tarot cards, and teapots. Those
were the tools diviners used when she still traveled in these
circles. Diane shushed her, and Cora edged closer for a better
view. She glimpsed a half-empty bottle of Goldschlager between
elbows.

As she drew up to the table, a slender man
wearing a spandex cat suit and feathered domino wordlessly reached
for the bottle and poured a measure of liquid into an empty bowl.
He pushed it into Cora’s hands. She accepted it automatically,
glancing down into a swirl of gold flecks and a waft of sharp
cinnamon. On the other side of the cobweb, the music shifted from
metal to house.

“I see the hawk in your life,” the Asian man
said. His accent was very neutral East Coast. He glanced up at a
woman in red velvet and a leather bodice, devil horns peeking from
her gold-glittered hair. “The hawk is Horus’s symbol, among other
things. Jealousy as well.”

The devil shot a look to her left, eyes
narrowed on a very angelic blonde woman. She didn’t say anything,
but that look gave it all away. Cora watched Greg Cho absorb the
cues that came his way. He ducked his head over the bowl again and
went on. “You’re insecure about the extremity of your opposite
natures.”

“What else?” the devil asked.

He shrugged and pushed the bowl aside.
“Nothing else. Your flakes were very specifically concentrated.
There’s only one message there.”

“Gold flakes?” Cora murmured. “Isn’t that a
little more appropriate for a jock party?”

“Need beer foam residue for that,” Diane
replied.

“But what can be done about her jealousy?”
The blonde, this time.

“You could go to a counselor.”

A murmur of laughter made its way around the
table. Cora ignored it and focused on Greg Cho instead. She didn’t
detect so much as a hint of insincerity or charlatanism in his
manner. Still, he made her uneasy—or, rather, the divination made
her uneasy.

Somebody else pushed a bowl toward him, but
Greg shook his head. “I want to see hers.” He looked directly at
Cora.

His eyes were shockingly intense blue. She
hadn’t expected those eyes, nor had she expected to be singled
out.

“Just observing.” She offered her bowl to
Diane. “You can take it.”

“Not hers, yours,” Greg said.

Cora flushed, realizing everyone in the
kitchen was watching her. Even with her own mask, a gold foil thing
encrusted with faux pearls, she felt exposed.

“Not interested,” she insisted and slid the
bowl onto the table. Some alcohol sloshed over the edge, and
cinnamon blossomed anew.

Greg silently reached for her discard and
pulled it close. Cora frowned.

“Don’t you need permission for that or
something?” she asked sharply. “I said I’m not interested.” She
spent enough time with her monsters in bed and wasn’t about to
welcome them out.

“I am, though.” Greg turned the bowl in his
hands, ignoring the murmurs of interest making their way around the
table.

“Nobody else is, Greg,” Diane interjected.
She moved up to his side and drew a lock of black hair away from
his temple, winding it around her index finger. “We all know where
to find you when we decide we want you.”

“But you never decide you do.” Greg reached
to pour the Goldschlager into a basin set in the island.

“You don’t really want me,” Diane said. “Not
enough. If you did, you’d have me.”

Cora eyed her sister, who even looked the
part of the evil twin, right down to the “seductress” part. She was
torn between dismay at her situation, 31 years old and relying on
her little sister to defend her against the big bad man, and relief
that Diane’s interference worked.

“Yes, I would,” he answered.

“Mmm.” Diane released his hair. Cora glanced
at Greg’s face and into his eyes a second time. Something in them
made her breath skip. Arousal settled itself over wariness.

“Flirt another time, Di. The rest of us need
to convince him to continue reading despite the denial of his
heart’s desire,” a man’s voice interrupted. Cora welcomed the
opportunity to look away from Greg. She placed the voice with an
amused figure garbed in peacock shades and a green-feathered mask.
“I, for example, have deep and pressing concerns that can only be
addressed with the aid of just such a seer as our Mr. Cho.”

“Drink up and give over, then,” Greg said.
The peacock complied. The atmosphere changed tangibly once Greg’s
attention focused elsewhere.

“Drinks are a good idea,” Diane announced,
returning to Cora’s side. “Let’s go convince the bartender that
pink umbrellas really do have a place at this party.”

“You only come to these events to exercise
your persuasive skills.” Happy to put Greg Cho behind her,
literally as well as figuratively, Cora ducked through the cobweb
curtain and into the crowd. The mood had changed since she entered
the kitchen a mere few minutes ago. Trance took center stage, and
instead of thrashing, the partygoers were swaying together in
sinuous tangles of black and jewel tones.

“What was that all about?”

“What, Greg?” Diane sidled up to the bar.
Dark, polished cherry gleamed in strange patterns beneath the
strobes. “He runs a little place in Chinatown. Oriental medicines,
fortunetelling. I think an acupuncturist comes in once a week.”

“So does every other incense-peddler in the
city. How’s that make him the main event tonight?”

“You know how these things go. Every season
has a new novelty.” To the bar service she said, “Two of your
pinkest drinks. With extra umbrellas.”

“And this season it revolves around drunken
fortunetelling.” Cora rolled her eyes. “I’ve been away just long
enough. Everything seems ridiculous all over again.”

“You’ve simply never developed a fine
appreciation for the ridiculous. Your absurd is my high
entertainment.”

“I—”

Diane moved away, calling over her shoulder,
“I see someone I need to talk to. Drink one for me, would you?”

I wish I still understood it
, she
finished silently to herself. Disinterested in Diane’s pink drinks,
she turned away and ran into a muscular chest. She muttered “sorry”
reflexively and tried to retreat, but he slid one arm firmly around
her waist and held her immobile against his body.

“I have the best luck,” he said above her
head.

Cora looked up into Greg’s eyes. Her stomach
lurched. “I apparently have the worst.”

“You will if you push me away without asking
questions first.” His arms tightened. “See that man over there?
With the executioner-style hood and the…good, you do see him.”