Dragon's Flame (18 page)

Elon’s pulse beat more sharply beneath his jaw. “How could they have guessed?”

“Taine’s mate suggested it based on something your sister said. Maksim has us looking for attractive, marriageable rulers.”

He was close, so very close. Fisting his free hand, Elon pounded it against his thigh.

Think!

Think! Think! Think!

Against his back he could feel energy building in the egg. It wouldn’t be long now before the phoenix emerged. If they found him before then—

He couldn’t take that risk. If they found him, they might be able to get through his defenses—especially with the charm. “Grab the dragon’s mate. That’ll provide a distraction.”

Through the phone he heard his minion’s breath catch. “How?”

“That’s for you to figure out. But do it and do it quickly. Demonstrate that you have what it takes to rule your kind.”

“And when I have her?”

Elon glanced over his shoulder at the egg. He didn’t trust his minion. Anyone who would betray an oath couldn’t be trusted, but the alliance had been necessary. It had taken years to hunt down the missing pieces of the spell necessary for gaining possession of the phoenix egg, and the last piece had been in his minion’s possession.

“Bring her here,” Elon said. He wouldn’t feel safe until he had control of the charm and the person who could wield it. “But don’t bind her with anything magical.”

* * * *

Saffron pushed away from a library table covered in leather tomes. Who knew there were so many realms, each one containing a multitude of kingdoms? Any one of which could intersect with her world at any given time.

She rolled her shoulders and stood. “Ever thought of computerizing this?”

She hated the frustration that crept into her voice at being absolutely useless, no help at all. None of what was in the journals meant anything to her. Most of it she couldn’t read.

“Can’t make it easy for this information to fall into dangerous hands,” Maksim said evenly, and she wondered if by
dangerous hands
, he meant
human hands
.

Taine closed a book and stacked it on top of eight others. In the middle of the table was a list of thirty-seven possibilities, already too many, more than the astrologist could find coordinates and interception times for before the phoenix would rise from its egg.

Her heart wobbled. They had two hours. Three at the most.

She placed a hand on Taine’s shoulder. He covered it with his, radiating strength and heat and confidence in the face of odds that felt insurmountable.

He was so much more than a gorgeous specimen of masculinity. He was also so much more than human.

Wobble turned into piercing ache. Even if by some miracle they stopped Elon, or whatever protections Elon had in place were strong enough to keep San Diego from going up in flames, she and Taine didn’t have a long-term future together.

She had to face the fact that she wasn’t only going to
get
old, she was going to
look
old. First it’d be old enough to be the same age as his mother, if his mother was human. Then it’d be old enough to be the same age as his grandmother.

How could that work?

It couldn’t.

But they had now. And longer if the sorcerer didn’t burn San Diego to the ground. Even if eventually…

She didn’t want to contemplate eventually.

Eventually reminded her about why she had a rule against falling in love in the first place.

Eventually ultimately equaled pain.

Or death. If her brother hadn’t fallen in love with Shelby, if they hadn’t been fighting—doing another round of breaking-up—he’d still be alive.

She pulled her hand from beneath Taine’s. “I need some fresh air.”

“I’ll go with—“

“No.” As much as she wanted private time together, wanted to know what it meant that he was dragon and she was human, finding and stopping Elon was more important. “I need to clear my head.”

“Okay.” He caught her hand and pulled her down for a kiss she couldn’t let end.

Her lips clung. And then his lips clung.

“The beginning of the end,” Crew muttered a couple of chairs away, and she couldn’t care that she and Taine were being watched.

“I hear you, friend,” Gaige said. “Remember our pact.”

Crew snorted. “As if I’m not going to be reminded daily of the danger and the need to remain vigilant when it comes to the opposite sex.”

Saffron stared into Taine’s eyes though she had the fleeting thought that one of these days karma was going to come around and Crew and Gaige were going to get what they deserved. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

She headed for the door. Gaige told Maksim, “We should stop long enough to give the astrologist our best guess so far.”

“Agreed,” Maksim said and Saffron hesitated, then left the library and the house.

Outside, she breathed in the scent of flowers as her gaze traveled along the expensive sports cars lining the curvy driveway.

Porsche. Lamborghini. Jaguar. Maserati—this one red instead of yellow like the one that’d led to her meeting Taine. And those were the cars she recognized.

If Sabra were here, she’d be trying to cage a ride in each and every one of them. She’d want to go somewhere and see for herself what the cars could do in zero to sixty.

Saffron pulled her phone from her pocket, rolled it in her hand. The urge to call her twin was intense but as soon as Sabra heard her voice, she’d ask
what’s wrong
.

She texted instead.
Thinking about you. Love you.

Her phone pinged with an immediate response, meaning Sabra was on break.
Love you back
.

Saffron blinked rapidly, refusing to give in to tears.

Their mother and stepfather would be out on the boat. This was the day they usually sailed.

If she called, just because she needed to hear her mother’s voice before the phoenix egg hatched, just because she wanted to say
I love you
, that’d set her mother to worrying. And her mother wouldn’t let go of that worry.

She brushed her thumb across the face of the phone. Couldn’t
not
make contact but she needed to say something safe.

Finally she texted.
Working and thinking about the beach. Bet the sailing is great today
.

Her mother responded immediately.
It is. Wish you were here :)

It brought a smile, accompanied by a burn in her throat. It intensified the need to hear a familiar voice, to be grounded in her own reality. Not this one, with a house full of supernatural beings.

Pacing alongside the sports cars, she called Analia.

“Wondered when I’d hear from you,” Lia said. “Remember that fire at the fair?”

Saffron bit her lip, remembering Taine’s breathing fire in the shower, and Gaige’s cryptic comment at the fair.

Spontaneous combustion,
he’d claimed.
Everything is under control, for now.

“I remember,” she said, wondering if the fire had been Taine’s doing.

 “It led to a frenzy of buying and a couple of fistfights. Actual fistfights, like Walmart at Christmas time. Rumor was that obviously the guy whose charms got burned was selling something powerful and someone or something wanted to stop him.”

“I doubt he was. The IRE agents would have hauled him out of there and confiscated the charms.”

A long silence was followed by, “Excuse me? Am I talking to Saffron Greene, someone who has never gone so far as to actually say
I believe in magic
?”

“Maybe I’m evolving. So okay, I believe in magic.”

The statement was met with another long silence. Then, Lia in suspicion mode. “Okay. What gives?”

Deflecting, Saffron said, “Tell me you didn’t go back and drop a grand on that charm to attract a supernatural mate.”

“Nice try. I went back but someone had already snagged it. And now I repeat, what gives?”

Saffron stopped next to the red Maserati and risked setting off a car alarm by stroking the smooth curve of the hood. “I hooked up with Taine.”

The words somehow tumbled out, and once they were said, she couldn’t convince herself that she really, really, really hadn’t meant to bring Taine up.

“Mr. Got Fire?”

“Yes.”

“Now let me guess, the woman who can run straight into a fire, had hot, sweaty, you-light-up-my-world sex but is now running scared. Why does that sound familiar?”

Saffron’s hand tightened on the phone. “That’s not me.”

“Okay. So you’re evolving? First
I believe in magic
? Now
, I believe I’m in love and we’re going to walk into the sunset together
?”

“Maybe the first part of that. Not the second part.”

Lia huffed out an oh-too-familiar impatient sigh. “That’s because you want the
no pain
guarantee when it comes to love. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to risk the lows if you want the highs. Otherwise it’s all flat-lining.”

Saffron’s heart spasmed. “That’s what Dashon used to say.
I’d rather be riding a roller-coaster than flat-lining
. And look at where that got him. If he and Shelby hadn’t been fighting—”

“You don’t know he was thinking about her that day. And it’s not like they screamed or threw punches and dishes when they fought.”

No, Shelby was all about tears and
if you really loved me, you’d…

“We’ve had this conversation before.” There was exasperation in Lia’s tone. “Not that I was crazy about Shelby. You know that. There were at least a half-dozen other girls I’d rather have seen him with, including me. Mostly me. But she was his choice. And just because he died doesn’t mean it was a mistake to truly, deeply love someone. If anything it points out how important it is to have the courage to do it when you’ve got the chance to. I bet if we held a séance, not that either of us is up for that, Dashon would agree. And damn—I need to hang up. But just go for it. Run toward Taine, not away. I’d give anything to have someone who looked at me the way he was looking at you in my life. Now seriously, I’ve got to hang up before I’m in trouble.”

Saffron pocketed her phone and went inside.

Not ready to return to the library, she went to Taine’s cubicle.

Everywhere she looked, there were dragons. She shook her head. She must have been in denial before, to see this and not suspect, especially after concluding that portals existed.

She ran her finger down the stack of gold coins. Lifted the snow globe.

Her nipples tightened and her folds grew slick at seeing the dragon doing the virgin. Hell yeah it was kinky, but having been with a dragon…

With Taine, because it wasn’t just about the sex. It
was
hot, sweaty, light-up-her-world sex. But if it was just sex, her rules would have stuck.

Would the highs with Taine be worth the lows?

Yeah. For the first time in her adult life, she thought they would be.

She shook the globe then set it down on his desk. Turned to see Anders entering the room.

Could the guy’s lips get any thinner? Could his expression turn any more condemning?

His gaze latched onto the globe and she had her answer. The look in his eyes went well beyond disapproval. Taine hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the gnome was all about chastity belts and titanium cock cages.

Saffron headed for the door. Anders flung a red-and-blue marble at her.

Instinctively she thrust her hand out.

The marble hit her palm and exploded over her, shimmering and becoming a net of woven magic that was heavy enough to drop her to the floor.

She fought to free herself and the net tightened, immobilizing her limbs. She attempted to shout but the magic at her neck became a noose that silenced her with the threat of strangulation.

Her pulse bounded. Her breath, when the noose around her neck finally loosened, was harsh and ragged.

“You should have kept your legs closed,” Anders said. “The only thing that’s saving you from the punishment you deserve is that you don’t belong to one of the fey.”

He picked up the globe and slammed it down. The glass and the figurines inside shattered.

He turned away from the debris then lifted and draped her over his shoulder. “Why—“

“No talking,” he said and the net tightened at her throat.

She struggled and the net immobilized her.

He carried her out of the bullpen, hurried down the hall and into what had to be the evidence room, then dropped her onto the floor near his desk.

Pain radiated through her shoulders and along her spine.

He muttered, “Nothing magical,” then jerked a green lab coat off the back of a chair before pulling scissors from a desk drawer.

He cut strips from the coat. Knelt next to her, hovered a forefinger over her chin. “From the top of her head to here, release.”

The weave disappeared. She opened her mouth to shout and had that shout silenced with brutal efficiency by the magic at her throat.

Anders gagged her, tying a strip of lab coat so tightly around her head that it cut into the corners of her mouth.

She tasted blood. He hovered his forefinger below her wrists. “From her chin to here, release.”

The magic disappeared. She tried to move her fingers but they remained locked against her thighs.

Frowning, as if touching her repulsed him, Anders grasped her forearms and moved them inward, then bound her wrists together.

Hope flared and she grabbed onto it. With her arms in front of her, given enough time, she could get free.

He lowered the net again, smart enough to tie her ankles together but stay out of range of a kick. Or maybe he believed he had her cowed.

She wasn’t, but he had the advantage. For now.

At his command the rest of the net peeled away. And with the lack of contact, shrunk so it once again looked like a large, red-and-blue marble.

Anders picked it up, put it in a desk drawer than returned to crouch at her shoulder. He grasped the silver necklace chain and tugged Shanna’s charm from beneath Saffron’s shirt.