Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (15 page)

“No, not after you held me. You must have scared the nightmares away.” She smiled at him.

“Then I will hold you in my arms every night and scare off any nightmare that dares to disturb your sleep.” He kissed her forehead. “How about some breakfast?”

“Well, I am hungry.”

“Shocking.” His green eyes sparkling, he rolled off the bed.

Alex shifted her position to get a better look. Logan was wearing a pair of loose sports pants—in black, of course. And that was it. Just as it should be.

“You know,” Alex said, giving him a coy smile as her eyes traced every dip and bulge of muscle on his body. Yum. “You sure know how to distract my troubled mind.”

“Are you staring at me?”

She smirked at him. “Why? Are you feeling self-conscious?”

He lowered onto the bed, his heavy scent burning against her like hot ice. A satisfied smile slid across his mouth. He climbed on top of her. “Tell me all of your troubles, love.” His hands closed around her wrists, pinning her to the bed. “I’ll do my best to distract you,” he whispered against her neck.

Alex stretched against his hold, trying to kiss him. The hard pulse of his aura was every bit as seductive as his body. She wanted to touch him. No, she
had
to touch him, but her hands were trapped. She pushed again, but he didn’t budge. Fine then. She slid her magic over him like a wild river.

“Living dangerously again, Vigilante?”

Her magic crashed and spilled over his sculpted chest, dripping down every ridge of his stomach. “Always.” Her stomach growled, shattering the moment.

Laughing, Logan rolled back off the bed again. “Let’s get you something to eat first.”

* * *

There was an assassin in Alex’s kitchen. It was a good thing he was her assassin.

After throwing on a magenta sport top and a pair of black bolero pants, Alex headed downstairs for breakfast. With every step that she took toward the kitchen, the delicious aroma of breakfast scents grew stronger. Pancakes, eggs, toast. Mmm.

She peeked into the kitchen, inhaling deeply. Logan stood in front of the stove, flipping pancakes with brutal efficiency. Butter sizzled in the pan. The warm, sweet smell of buttermilk pancakes wafted up to her. Scrambled eggs sizzled inside the other pan. A basket full of toast sat beside the plate of stacked pancakes on the cooking island.

That man sure can cook,
Nova commented.

Yeah,
Alex agreed.
I really should learn to cook too.

Well, you can make cereal.

That’s hardly cooking. All I do is open the box, pour it into the bowl, then add milk.

See?
replied Nova.
That’s three whole steps. If that isn’t cooking, I don’t know what is. Add in another step or two, and you’ll be ready for the big leagues.

Alex laughed.
Thanks, Nova. You always know how to cheer me up.

No problem.

Alex just stood there for a few moments, watching him. He still hadn’t put on a shirt. A sexy half-naked assassin making her breakfast. What could be better than that?

“Are you just going to stand there?” he asked, not turning.

“Yes, in fact. I’m enjoying the view.”

A deep chuckle rumbled his chest. “Your pancakes are going to get cold.”

Well, when he put it like that…

Alex joined him at the cooking island. She grabbed one of the plates and loaded it up with pancakes. She cut off a piece and tasted it.

“Wow, that tastes even better than it smells,” she said. “Where did you get this food? I thought we were all out.”

“The commandos dropped bags of groceries off late last night when they returned.”

“I didn’t hear them.”

“You were sleeping.”

Still, she should have heard something. She’d always been a light sleeper, a consequence of her dangerous lifestyle. She must have been more exhausted than she’d thought last night. Or it was that nightmare. It had taken such a strong hold of her that she probably wouldn’t have awoken even if the whole house had come crashing down on top of her.

“Did the commandos by any chance bring along some maple syrup?” she asked Logan.

He pulled a bottle of maple syrup from a drawer below the stove.

“The commandos are awesome,” Alex said, pouring the syrup over her pancakes. The best cure for despair was lots and lots of sugar. And chocolate. But that was a given. “Did you hear Naomi too?”

“She left early this morning,” Logan told her.

Alex shoveled down the pancakes, then added eggs and toast to her plate. She was so hungry. It was almost as though she had actually been fighting last night—as though it had been more than just a dream.

“Your sister and Drachenburg left around the same time as Naomi,” he said. “The commandos went with them.”

Alex dipped her toast in a glob of maple syrup. “Does being able to hear everything ever get annoying?”

“It’s more useful than it is annoying. I don’t sleep deeply anyway. My training conditioned me to always be alert, even when asleep. It has kept me alive.”

“And I’m glad.” Alex took another pancake. “You make great pancakes.”

“I know,” he said, then flipped a pancake onto his plate. He took a bite.

“It’s almost a shame to eat these standing up in the kitchen.”

“We can bring them to the dining room,” he suggested, taking another pancake.

“Nah, that’s far too much work.”

Laughing, he flipped the last pancake, then turned off the stove. “Marek and Eva are gone too. We have the place to ourselves.”

“Finally, we are alone.” Alex slid her tongue across her lips, licking off the syrup. “What ever are we going to do with ourselves?”

He stepped forward, his eyes burning. “I have the perfect idea.” His hand closed over her wrist.

“Oh?” She arched her back, pressing her chest against his.

He leaned down and whispered, “Come with me.”

He led her out of the kitchen, across the living room to the side room they’d been using for exercise and sparring. He stepped onto the soft blue mats that covered the hardwood floor. Those blue mats sure looked bouncy.

He stopped her in the middle of the room. “Now we train.”

“When you say train,” Alex began.

“I actually mean train.” He smirked at her. “Why? Did you have something else in mind?”

She sighed. “No.” She stretched out her tired muscles, waking them from sleep.

“No weapons today,” he said, peeling off his belt.

They often sparred. Ok, maybe
sparred
wasn’t the right word. When she trained with Logan, neither of them pulled any punches. They fought all-out, hitting hard and fast. And she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Ignoring her full tummy—maybe she shouldn’t have eaten so many pancakes—Alex did one final stretch, then turned to face him. “Ready to have your ass kicked, Slayer?”

He laughed. “Try not to sprain anything, Vigilante. Especially that witty tongue of yours.” He aimed a punch at her head. He sure wasn’t wasting any time.

She ducked, and his fist whistled over her head with inhuman speed. “Like my tongue, do you?” she quipped.

“You have many fine attributes,” he replied.

Somehow, he managed to look her up and down without dropping his guard. He blocked the punch she’d aimed at him, then knocked her across the room.

“You have super speed,” she complained, landing on her feet. “It’s never a fair fight with you.”

“You can shoot magic out of your hands. I think we’re even.”

“But I can’t use my magic in here.”

“Sure you can.”

She glanced at the blue mats. “Do you want me to destroy everything in this room?”

“I only said that you
could
use magic. The fact that you choose not to is entirely on you.”

“And on the crazy assassin who challenged me to this fight,” she muttered. “Fine. Have it your way.” She pushed up her hands, blasting him with ice.

He was too fast. Ice splashed against the back wall. She aimed and fired again. And again. And again. He dodged around her blasts of magic, his aura humming with delight.

Laugh while you can, hotshot.

Alex glanced at the chains hanging down from the high ceiling. Those would do the trick. Charging forward, she bombarded him with magic, fury burning her vision.

“You look upset,” he said, calmly darting around her attacks.

That’s right. Laugh at me. You’re falling right into my trap.

Alex reached up and grabbed one of the chains and swung it around like a lasso. As it coiled around his wrist, she shot a blast of lightning magic across the metal. It wouldn’t hurt him, but it would slow him down. He slouched, dazed for a moment. She coiled the second chain around his other wrist, hitting him with lightning again. Then she welded the links of metal together to seal the deal. He wouldn’t be slipping free of those chains.

He looked up through damp hair, his eyes burning with green fire. “You don’t actually believe this will hold me, do you?”

She smiled. “For now.”

He yanked on the chains. They held. Ha!

She stepped up close to him. “I have you, Slayer. Admit your defeat, and I will release you.”

He pulled again. Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling, but the chains held. Oh God, she hoped they wouldn’t snap.

He glared at her. The look in his eyes scared her, even knowing he wouldn’t hurt her. It was just so dark. So she did what any perfectly sane person would do: she taunted the darkness.

“Careful, darling,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to chafe your wrists.”

He growled and pulled again. Dust snowed down. This was turning into a blizzard. The metal chains clinked as his muscles strained against them. There was just something so unbelievably sexy about him like this. Coming in closer was such a bad idea, but she did it anyway. She couldn’t help herself. She slid her hands across his chest. Her fingers dipped lower, tracing down his stomach and around his broad back. She kissed his jaw, drinking in his scent. His magic always smelled best after a fight.

“Didn’t anyone ever warn you about the dangers of seducing your opponent?” he asked.

“My opponents are usually monsters,” she replied. “So, no. That was never an issue.”

Her adrenaline was still pounding in her ears, lingering on from a fight fueled by pent-up energy, lust, and an insatiable Blood Magic bond. She flicked her tongue against his ear. He grew very still. So perfectly, delectably still. She leaned in to kiss him. She bet he tasted like pancakes with a helping of sweet victory.

A chorus of chuckles punctured the perfect silence. Alex stopped and turned toward the door. Dal and Callum stood in the doorway, their faces lit up with amusement.

“Are we, um, interrupting anything?” Dal laughed.

With painful reluctance, Alex stepped away from Logan. “How long have you two been watching?”

“Long enough to witness some pretty impressive magic.” Callum looked at Logan. “She’s got you nice and tied up.”

Logan gave his right arm a rough tug. The chain split from the ceiling, clinking down onto the floor. The commandos gaped. Logan repeated the motion with his left hand. Damn, he was such a faker.

“Cool,” Dal finally said.

“Kai asked us to help you with some things,” Callum said. “We’ve collected information that will help with your case. I took some magical readings at the sites of the thefts last night, and Dal took a few samples. Tony pulled up lists of everything that was being kept in each of the locations the thief hit. He’s waiting for us now in the dining room.”

“Good.” Logan ripped the welded chains from his wrists.

Alex narrowed her eyes at him. Next time, she’d have to use something stronger to hold him. Like diamond chains.

“Very cool,” Callum commented as Logan tossed down the chains.

“Lead the way,” Alex told them.

The commandos nodded, then they all walked next door to the dining room. Like everything in the house, the dining room was grandiose. Its centerpiece was a long, rectangular cherrywood table. Wood chairs with pale green-and-gold patterned cloth backs and seats were positioned along the sides. Past the table and chairs, wood panels covered the walls from waist level all the way to the floorboards. Above the panels, the walls were white, each one decorated with an enormous gold-framed painting of some supernatural scene. Unicorns, dragons, mages, fairies, ghosts, vampires, and centaurs all featured prominently on the painted canvases. Green and white curtains were drawn up in front of wood-framed windows. Not one, but two chandeliers draped down from the ceiling.

Tony sat at the head of the table, sorting stacks of papers into even bigger piles. He looked up as they entered the room. “We need to go through these lists to figure out what was actually taken.”

Alex pumped her fist in the air. “Yay, homework.”

* * *

Hours later, they had gone through the lists what felt like at least a hundred times, and they still had no idea what had actually been taken. As an added bonus, the lists seemed to get longer and more unhelpful every time they went through them—almost as though by magic.

Callum’s magic readings told Alex what she already knew: the green fire had scorched most of the magic from the scenes. Time had washed away the rest. Dal’s samples had been just as worthless. It wasn’t the commandos’ fault. They were actually competent. It was the fault of that stupid thief, someone whose very existence seemed to defy the laws of magic.

So that left them with just the lists—pages upon pages of magical artifacts. There were just too many magical objects being stored in those buildings. Trying to create connections between objects in a pool of potential hundreds was nearly impossible. Alex had been staring at those lists for so long that her eyes couldn’t even focus anymore.

“I give up,” she said, throwing a stapled stack of papers down on the table. She rubbed her bleary eyes. “We’re never going to figure it out this way. And I’m going insane.”

“We figured out one of the four objects,” Tony said, holding up a picture of a gold crown set with diamonds of every imaginable color.

It was called the Fairy Crown, a magical object that supposedly gave anyone who wore it the power to enchant others.