Vixen (4 page)

“Anything is particular you want me to focus on?” I ask once I find my voice again.

“You’ve already done far more than I expected. I really do appreciate it. Just do what you came to do.”

So I massage his back. I should probably make conversation, but he doesn’t seem particularly chatty, and I’m too nervous, and besides, I can’t shake what he said earlier.
You can kill me now
. Why did he say that?

Surely it’s a figure of speech.

I can excuse it away, but I can’t forget about it.

It hit me wrong.

Before I know it, a little clock I didn’t even see, hidden away on a shelf, chimes the half hour, and Ion raises up on his elbows with a sigh. “That was the best massage I’ve had in years. Possibly ever. A generous parting gift.” As he’s speaking, he sits up and turns around, so now he’s facing me again, that awful white scar of his glaring at me in a manner that’s almost accusing.

I meet his eyes, instead, but there’s something welling in them that’s sorrowful and resigned.

Ion continues, “I know you’re nervous, so let me assure you. I won’t fight back.”

I’m staring at him, trying to think what he must mean or what he’s getting at, and it’s possible my mouth may have fallen open. Yes, wide open. I try to speak. “I don’t know—”

“I know who you are, daughter of Ram and Ilsa,” Ion continues, shoving a frustrated hand back through his shoulder-length hair and pulling out the low ponytail that’s held it out of my way. “I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember your name. You’re not Wren—she’s the one who married the Scotsman. And you’re not Rilla—she’s married to her studies. You’re the youngest one, the one with the made up name. It starts with a Z, but it’s not anything normal. Not Zora, not Zoe—”

“It was my grandmother’s name,” I explain, though I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. He knows who I am? How? And what does he think I came here to do? “My father’s mother. Zilpha.”

“Zilpha.” Ion nods his head. “Zilpha Melikov. I am gratified to die knowing the name of my assassin. Now get it over with quickly. I’m ready.”

“Assassin?” I’m shocked. Also a bit insulted. Really, am I that horrible at seduction that he mistook my efforts for attempted murder?

I should have studied more than just massage.

“There’s nothing to be gained by denying it.” Ion rises to his feet, and suddenly he’s absurdly tall, towering over me in this tiny room, the scar on his chest shooting daggers at me from eye level. He reaches for his shirt, slips his arms through the sleeves, and starts buttoning. “Will it be easier without looking at your father’s failed attempt?”

“My father?” I repeat dumbly, still trying to sort out why Ion thinks I’m here to kill him, and stranger still, why he seems to want me to.

“He gave me this scar,” Ion traces the main branch with one finger before buttoning his shirt closed, covering it. “It should have killed me, probably would have, but Eudora wanted information from me, and the only way she could get that was by making sure I lived long enough to be able to speak. And once I got to that point, I was too far ashore on this side of the Styx to cross over it the other way.”

“My dad almost killed you?”

“Yes. Doesn’t he boast about it daily?”

“I, uh, oh, no. He’s never mentioned it.”

“Ah, I see.” Ion sits again, which is a relief because at least then he’s not quite so tall. “He wanted you to think his anger toward me was justified. I suppose he’s told you all about the time I almost killed him.”

“Yes. His scar is not as big as yours.”

“It was a fair fight. I wasn’t even trying to start it, although I suppose, under the circumstances, it’s fully understandable he interpreted my actions the way he did.”

I don’t know what Ion’s talking about and I don’t even care that much, not compared to the many other things I’d like clarified, like the part where he thinks I came here to kill him. “I’m not here to kill you.” I purposely meet his eyes as I state the words. I’m trying to read him, but the man is a mystery.

“Then why are you here?”

I look away. No way can I explain this while I’m looking him in the eye. Instead, I look at the glass-fronted cabinet and the little bottle of massage oil labeled
seduction
. No, I don’t dare admit that. “I’m learning how to adjust your back so Jala can have some time off.”

Ion laughs.

His laughter is weird. My mom tried to describe it to me but she couldn’t, and I understand why. It’s not outright malevolent, even though you might expect a diabolical laugh from an evil arch-enemy. It’s almost…straining. It’s like a drowned, distant laughter that wants to reach for the sun but can’t.

Like a laughter that wants to be happy, but there’s too much of something heavy weighing it down. Laughter with its feet encased in concrete blocks of sadness.

What was in that massage oil?

I need to think straight and pull myself together. My family’s nemesis thinks I’m here to kill him. Maybe I should be making plans to escape, but I feel the need to clear my name first. I don’t want Ion coming after me for vengeance when I never wanted to kill him in the first place.

Ion has stopped laughing. “Do you really expect me to believe that’s all?”

“I didn’t bring any swords,” I remind him. “I’m essentially—” I stop mid-sentence, before I admit out loud that I’m defenseless.

I don’t need Ion to know that, even if he already promised not to fight back. My parents don’t trust him. I shouldn’t, either.

Fortunately, Ion fills the gap in the conversation. “You don’t need swords to kill me. You’re a dragon. Plunge your talons into my heart. I kept expecting you to when you were giving me my massage, but maybe you’re not the type to stab a man in the back.”

“I’m not the type to assassinate anyone, either.”

“Then why are you here?”

I bite my lip, look at the bottle of massage oil, and blink rapidly. Oh, this has gone downhill so very, very quickly. I should give up on ever seducing anyone. Maybe I could be a nun, but I’m not even Catholic.

Ion looks in the direction I’m looking. “What is it?” He rises to his feet and takes a step closer to the cabinet.

No, no, no, please don’t let him see which bottle I used. Please don’t let him realize that seal had never been broken until now, because if he does, the jig will be up, and this will have been the shortest, most pathetic failure of a seduction in the history of failed seductions, which I obviously should have read up on before coming here, so I’d know which pitfalls to avoid.

Pitfall number one:
don’t cause your target to mistakenly believe you’ve come to murder him.

Seriously, that’s got to be higher on the list than
don’t break the guy you’re trying to woo
.

And here I thought the first kiss was going to be the most awkward part. I’ll be lucky if I can get within a foot of his lips.

I’ve got to salvage this. But how?

Ion gives the cabinet a cursory once-over, then turns to face me. “You’re looking for something. Is that it? Some artifact of dragon lore, some relic of our shared history, a key to unlock the mystery of our kind?”

I grin, super relieved he came up with a believable excuse for me. I mean, me finding a mate is kind of like unlocking the mystery of our kind, isn’t it? It totally makes sense. “Yes.” I throw up my hands in what’s supposed to look like resignation, like he caught me in the act. “That’s it. I’m looking for something.” I nod and close my eyes. Thank you, Ion. That was a close one.

“What is it you’re looking for?”

My eyes pop open. What
am
I looking for? A mate, but I can’t tell him that. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” He takes a step closer to me. Why does he seem so much taller the closer he stands to me? I almost prefer the distant, tiny figure standing on the balcony, remote and not-so-threatening.

This close-up version takes my breath away. “Because then you’ll know what it is, and you’ll guess why it’s important, and we’ll lose our advantage.” I’m totally bluffing, but doesn’t it sound like it fits?

Ion smiles a half smile like he can’t decide whether to believe me or not, and he looks a bit like any guy my age, except seriously cute. “You’re really not here to kill me?”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” I’m only halfway being sarcastic, on account of what he said earlier, which I haven’t had time to analyze and I’m not sure I want to.

“So, where do you want to start looking?” Ion asks.

It takes me a second, but I realize he’s offering to help me look for the mysterious artifact. This is perfect, because it means I get to spend more time with him and hopefully make some progress on my nearly-woefully-derailed seduction. I throw my hands into the air again. “It could be anywhere. I don’t know where you keep it. I don’t know anything about this place. Why don’t we start with a tour?”

“Good plan.” Ion slips his jacket back on, opens the door for me, follows me through, and then offers me his elbow like an usher at a formal wedding. Or, you know, like a gentleman. Yes, gentlemen used to do that, probably somewhere back in Ion’s lifetime.

It’s also quite polite of him to help me search for whatever it is I’m supposed to be stealing from him. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m here as a burglar, and while I don’t like being misconstrued, it’s not as bad as being thought an assassin, so I’ll gladly take the role. Anyway, it gets me what I want, which is more time with Ion.

It seems almost a bit too handy that he’s so willing to help me, but I’m sure he has his reasons…like finding whatever artifact I’m looking for, so he can hide it before I get my hands on it, or something. Who knows what he’s thinking? But since the artifact is only an excuse, I don’t care if he wants to learn of its importance before I can use it against him.

If it buys me more time, I’m all for it.

We head down the hallway and pass a closed door.

“What’s that?” I gesture back at the room we didn’t enter. Maybe it’s something entirely insignificant, like a janitor’s closet or a powder room, but if I’m going to keep up the façade of looking for something, I should at least act concerned that we passed it by.

“That’s my private study.”

“Can we go in?”

“It’s private.”

“But that’s the most logical place for you to hide an artifact.”

“Is it?” Ion has paused in the hallway, but he’s not moving any closer to the door. He makes a face like he’s weighing a decision.

I want to go inside his private study. I mean, it’s
private
, right? Which means there are personal things in there, things nobody else gets to see, which if I get to see them will give me a connection to Ion that nobody else has. It’s a major rung on the ladder of seduction, I’m quite sure. I
need
to go in there.

“I don’t even go in there very often,” Ion admits, the volume gone from his voice, as though it’s been tugged away to some distant place.

“Please can I see?”

He meets my eyes.

Oh, his eyes are so dreamy and silvery green. There’s not a gemstone in the world so lovely.

Ion clears his throat. “You can take your contacts out now. I know who you are.”

“How do you know I wear contacts?”

“I saw you when you were spying on me from the woods yesterday. You didn’t have them in then. Besides, every dragon has jewel-toned eyes.”

I’m tempted to ask him how he knows that was me in the woods, since he could only have seen me for, at most, a second or two. Likewise, I’m curious why he happened to step out at that precise moment, if he somehow sensed me looking at him, or if he’s just the brooding type who stands on random balconies and looks out windows a lot.

But I don’t know how to phrase the question, and I’m too nervous with him standing so close to me, waiting patiently for me to remove my contacts.

I reach up and pinch the lenses from my eyes, tucking them away in a spare contact lens case I keep in my purse (which I grabbed from the massage room on our way out—after all, it has my cell phone in it. You don’t think I’m going to explore this castle with my family’s arch-nemesis dragon without a means of calling for help, do you?). I blink up at Ion, able to see him perfectly clearly for the first time up close.

And he is even more handsome.

“Beautiful,” he whispers.

The word sends a delighted quiver trembling through me. Ion thinks my eyes are beautiful?

I’m doing this. I’m actually doing this.

It’s working.

“All right, the study.” Ion backtracks toward the door, as though just by looking in his eyes I’ve convinced him.

The hinges creak slightly as he opens the door, and when he switches on the light, the bulb pops and goes dead. In that single flashing instant I saw a room covered in dust and cobwebs. He wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t go in very often.

More like, ever.

“Just a moment. Here—can you hold the door open? I need the light from the hallway to look for the candles.” Ion runs his hand down my arm, finds my fingers, and directs them to the doorknob.

I miss his touch when he darts away to a cabinet, rummaging until he’s found matches and a candle on a brass candleholder. He strikes one of these, and the tiny flame illumines his face, which was already gently lit by the glow from his eyes.

Ion blows out the match, hands the candle to me, and then finds another in an identical holder, which he lights from my candle. We are two warm circles of light in an otherwise dark room.

“Let the door go gently, so the rush of air doesn’t snuff out the candles,” Ion instructs me.

I do so, and now we’re alone in this interior room. There’s a massive desk on one side, and bookshelves along three walls and the corners of a fourth, which otherwise is composed of a large, ornate fireplace. A large family portrait occupies the place of honor above the mantel.

I shield my candle’s flame with my hand as I walk over to see the picture. “Who is this?” I ask before I’m even close enough for my tiny flame to illumine the portrait.

“Those are my people. The last of my kingdom.”

A tiny gasp escapes my lips. “It’s the Romanovs—the Russian royal family.” I recognize the famed martyrs of Russian royal history, having brushed up on all things Russian in preparation for this trip.

“I know your father and grandfather are the functioning kings of their kingdoms,” Ion acknowledges, “but we did things differently here in Russia. Heads of other kingdoms wanted to intermarry with ours, but dragons and humans cannot marry. Not to mention, dragons don't age. There was a time when the world understood and accepted this fact, but that time was passing away, even here. We couldn’t have kings and queens who ruled forever.”

As he speaks, Ion looks at the picture wistfully, and I can’t help but wonder what memories he’s recalling. He continues, “Rather than snub our neighbors or grow increasingly obsolete, the dragon rulers chose instead to appoint a new family to rule Russia—a family, not of dragons, but entirely human. They chose the most noble and faithful of their citizens, and essentially switched places. The dragons became servants to the royals, protecting them, and thereby being protected by them.”