Day of the Dragon Read online

  “Was that Sparkle Bosom’s name?” Thaisa gave a ladylike sniff and adopted an expression of such indifference that it made a little burble of laughter rise within him. Was she jealous? Usually he disliked jealous lovers, since they demanded constant shows of affection, but Thaisa was different. She wasn’t even his lover, and she seemed outraged. Delightfully outraged, her personality just as unique as her appearance.

  “Sparkle Bosom is particularly fitting,” he allowed, remembering the amount of glittery powder Catriona had bedecked herself with. It was one of the reasons why he didn’t regret spending his evening alone. He much preferred a woman who smelled like herself, not like chemicals.

  A woman like Thaisa, who reminded him of a field of carnations nodding gently in a late summer breeze, their spicy scent hanging heavy in the air.

  Thaisa looked confused for a moment, then said, “So, she’s not here?”

  “No.” He kept his lips from twitching with the amusement of watching her trying not to be jealous. Archer was no stranger to mortal females fawning on him—his appearance, he knew, was viewed with favor by them—but he never put much stock in it. He was as he was, and there was little he could do about it. It was much better to just get on with things without worrying about how he appeared to others. “As you see, I am all alone tonight. Other than my cousin Miles.”

  “Oh.” She looked slightly mollified before glancing around. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk to you—”

  “Why?” he interrupted.

  She looked askance for a moment. “Why don’t I have much time?”

  “Yes. Are you here to meet a man?” He cast a glance over at her companion, the one named Bree, who sat with her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her palms, her eyes watching him with obvious amusement. “You are looking for a threesome?”

  “Oooh,” Bree said, looking thoughtful.

  “Hell, no! I don’t share!” Thaisa said, her eyes wide with astonishment. She blushed then, her gaze skittering away from his. “That is to say, I don’t do threesomes. With anyone. Not that…you know…you’d be asking me.”

  “Party pooper,” Bree said, then stood and waved. “Be right back. I see an old friend.” She bumped into Archer while trying to avoid the waitress, scooting around him to weave her way through the crowd. “Whoops, sorry.”

  “Why wouldn’t I ask you?” Archer wondered what Thaisa would say next. He wasn’t entirely sure if he liked the air of the unexpected that clung to her. Unlike Catriona and all the other women Miles rounded up for him, Thaisa and her conversation didn’t follow the normal pattern. Usually women cooed over him, expecting compliments in return, with a light sprinkling of conversation (most of which was overtly flirtatious). But Thaisa…He didn’t know what she’d say next. It left him feeling oddly unbalanced, not a wholly unpleasant experience.

  “Because you’re gorgeous,” she blurted out, her blush darkening. “And I’m…” She waved a hand at her face.

  “Lovely?”

  She made a face at him, her eyes going from embarrassed to angry in a flash. “There’s no need to be patronizing, Mr. My Neck Is Nice.”

  “I wasn’t patronizing you, and your neck is nice,” he said, looking at the long length of it, wanting to nuzzle it all over again. He wondered if she would react to that spot behind her ear that had seemed to give her such delight the night before.

  She took a long breath and lifted her chin as if she wanted to fight him. He liked her chin. He liked how it seemed to take umbrage at the things he said.

  “I think the less said about last night the better.”

  “If you aren’t here to meet a man in order to have a threesome—and I will be honest that they are not something I particularly enjoy—then why do you have limited time?”

  “I have an appointment with someone, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “A man?” he asked, annoyed that he cared so much. What the flower did was nothing to him.

  Except he did want to kiss her.

  “Yes, he happens to be a man,” she said, clearly exasperated. “I don’t know why you’re grilling me about this! It’s nothing to do with you!”

  “You’re the one who brought up last night.” His eyes dipped to her neck, then her breasts. “I have no problem talking about how you enjoyed my attentions.”

  “Gah!” she shouted, slamming her fist on the table. “Dammit, stop pretending to flirt with me!”

  “I wasn’t aware I was pretending anything,” he said calmly, enjoying the way her loss of temper made her eyes sparkle with a light that were he a mortal man would make him very wary.

  “You don’t think propositioning Bree and me with a threesome is flirtatious?” She took a deep breath, making her breasts almost overflow the curved front of her dress bodice. He eyed it speculatively, mentally pushing the act of tasting those breasts to the top of a newly formed Things He Wanted to Do to Thaisa List. “You obnoxious, stereotypical, sexist—”

  With an effort that gave him much pleasure to watch her make, she managed to get her temper under control, taking another deep breath that he fully appreciated. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I shouldn’t have called you obnoxious, although men who go around propositioning women…Well, we’ll let that go.”

  It must have cost her a lot, but she rallied a smile. It was ragged, and her eyes still shot daggers at him, but it was a smile, and he gave her full points for it.

  “Although I am short on time, I do need to talk to you about the manuscript you bought. I don’t suppose you’d like to sell it back to Edgar?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “If he thinks he can squeeze more money out of me for it—”

  “It’s not that,” she said, pausing to bite her lower lip. He looked at her lip. He wanted to bite it, too.

  “A situation has arisen, one that I hope you can help me with.” She toyed with a coaster that the waitress had placed on the table, stroking it in a way that had Archer wishing her hands were on him instead. “Evidently Edgar had a change of heart about selling it, and he’s annoyed that I let you have it.”

  “That is his problem,” Archer said, his mind caught up with the idea of just what areas of his body he’d like Thaisa to be stroking at that moment.

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately, it’s also my problem.” She hesitated again, then said quickly, “I don’t suppose you’d like to have just a copy of the manuscript? If you are only interested in the text, that is, although I don’t know if that has much historical value per se. It looked to be an excerpt from a morality tale from the bit I saw. But I’d be happy to pay for photography and a really nice print of it.”

  “The leaf is mine,” he said, idly wondering if he could manage to hold back his fire while kissing her. He didn’t have a lot of experience kissing mortal women—usually he had to forgo that aspect of sex. “I hold what is mine.”

  “I understand that you purchased it fair and square from Edgar, but…well, I don’t like to play the pity card, but I would really appreciate it if you could let me have it back. Naturally, I would return your check to you.”

  He shook his head.

  She looked like she might lose her temper again. Another flush darkened her cheeks, her eyes glinting their mixture of light and dark. “I would be happy to add a…well, I guess you could call it an inconvenience fee, although Edgar doesn’t leave much in the store account, and I have my gran’s rent due next week…but if I could sweeten the pot, so to speak, I would be happy to do so.”

  He let his gaze roll over her. “A negotiation? Hmm. What do you have to offer?”

  She made an abrupt gesture. “A little money. Say…maybe twelve?”

  “Thousands or millions?”

  Her mouth dropped a little. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching across and pushing her chin up, taking the opportunity to rub his thumb over her lower lip, the one she kept biting.

  The one he wanted to taste with an ever growing desire.

>   “Hundred!” she said, batting away his hand, giving him a good glare to boot. He wanted badly to tell her how much he liked watching her be indignant but suspected she wouldn’t take it as the compliment he meant it to be. “I can just barely scrape up twelve hundred if I tell Gran’s people they’ll have to wait a bit…but I think they’d do that.” She thought for a moment. “They like Bree. Maybe if she visited a few times, they wouldn’t kick up a fuss.”

  He shook his head again. “Money is good, but I’d need a lot more than what you’re offering. Do you have anything else to barter?”

  If she had been a dragon, smoke would have been wafting from her nose, he thought as he watched her fight an inner struggle. Ire, fury, anger, and all their variations battled with pride, and something fleeting that made him feel uncomfortable. He lifted his chin, scenting the air, catching just the faintest hint of it.

  “I have…” She stopped, her jaw working a few times, her knuckles white with her grasp on the table. “I have me.”

  She was afraid. He searched her face but saw no signs of the fear that he had scented a moment before, but it had been there, and it troubled him. As much as he enjoyed teasing her to see her temper flare, he didn’t like the idea that someone had scared this delightful little flower.

  “Are you now propositioning me?” he asked, pushing down his fire. What sort of a bastard had frightened her?

  She looked like she wanted to punch him in the face, as she’d tried repeatedly to do the night before. “Yes.”

  “I see. That is an offer much more suitable for such a valuable object.” He didn’t have time to involve himself in a mortal’s dilemma. He had more on this plate than he could handle now, and to even consider finding out who was giving her grief and making them think twice about ever bothering her again was folly, pure folly.

  “Well? Do we have a deal?” She swallowed back her anger and tried to arrange her face into a pleasant expression. “I get the manuscript back, and you get…er…”

  He smiled suddenly, the decision made even before he could debate it. He stood, catching her chin in his hand and tipping her head back, leaning over her to say, “You will grace my bed, flower, and soon, but it not be in exchange for the manuscript. I do not give up what I hold.”

  His lips brushed hers as he spoke. He was going to stop there, not wanting to risk harming her before he knew if she was immortal or not, but then she opened her mouth under his with a soft exhalation, and the next thing he knew he was kissing her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth to taste her, to tease her, to encourage her to taste him. He held his fire back with an iron grip, not wanting to frighten her, but it was a near thing when her tongue made gentle, fleeting little dabs at his. He pulled back then, aware that if she continued, he’d throw her over his shoulder and take her to the nearest bed.

  “You’ll hear from me,” was all he said before turning and stalking down the bar to where Miles sat with three women, extremely aware that his erection was less than happy with him.

  Chapter Six

  “MISS MOORE?”

  A man’s voice slid across the fog that held my brain in a grip of lust, desire, anger, and a bone-chilling fear. “Hmm? Oh, yes, that’s me.”

  “You permit?”

  “Please,” I said, gesturing toward the chair. I tried to drag my mind back from the land of Archer’s lips, and Archer’s gorgeous eyes, and the way Archer’s hair swept back from that little widow’s peak that made my knees go weak, and the touch of his thumb on my lip, and dear God, the way his mouth took possession of mine just like it had a right to charge in and boss my own tongue around. I felt hot, flushed, and ruffled, as if my clothing were two sizes too small. I cleared my throat, squelching down the fear and other feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, and donned my most professional manner. “You must be Mr. Vehar? Have you…uh…been here long?”

  And did he see Archer kiss the wits right out of my head? My cheeks burned with the idea that all the people around us saw Archer give me what was clearly a pity kiss.

  Although it sure didn’t feel like there was a lot of pity in it.

  “I haven’t been here long, no, although my name is not Vehar. I am Poe, Damian Poe, no relation to Edgar Allan.” The man who sat opposite me smiled, his mild blue eyes friendly, his manner that of a politely distant professional, someone like a dentist or a chiropractor. “Mr. Vehar asked that I discuss the job with you, since I have a familiarity with the manuscript.”

  “I see. I’d like to hear about the project.” I looked as attentive as I could.

  He steepled his fingers. “Have you heard of something called the Raisa Medallion?”

  I thought for a moment. “I can’t say that I have.”

  “I would be surprised if you had, to be honest. It is an artifact whose existence has long been in question.” He told me a tale about a precious necklace that had been broken in two, the two halves lost to time. It sounded like something from an old fairy tale, but I let him talk, making a few notes in a small notebook as he did so. “The existence of the medallion has come to the forefront with the uncovering of a recent manuscript.”

  I shifted in my chair, something in the back of my head wanting attention, but I couldn’t pull it forward to look at it.

  “The manuscript is reported to give the details about the medallion, so naturally, there are a number of individuals—both scholars like yourself and private collectors—who are very interested in the information to be found within it.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” I said, intrigued.

  “It is, I’m told, quite unique. Our belief is that the manuscript contains clues as to where to find the two pieces of the medallion.”

  Another ping went off in the back of my head. This time, I recognized it for what it was. I wondered if Edgar’s leaf was from the same manuscript? It was hard to stretch coincidence to two such ancient leaves being discovered at the same time.

  “We’re hoping you can help us,” Damian said, smiling in a friendly, guileless manner.

  “I will certainly do my best.”

  “Excellent.” He stood, and moved around to pull my chair out for me. Slowly, I got to my feet, mildly flustered by the action. “Perhaps you would care to look at a facsimile of the manuscript?”

  “Facsimile?” I asked, frowning. Although it wasn’t unknown at all to work off such things, most scholars worth their weight wanted the real thing to study, since there were so many minute clues on the vellum itself, things that couldn’t be duplicated by photos.

  “Yes. I have a copy here,” he said, pulling a sheet from his pocket. “You will see that it is mostly in ciphered code, which we are unable to break.”

  I glanced at the page, my eyes widening. “That’s…that’s the document? Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure,” he said, taking my arm and guiding me toward the door.

  I didn’t want to make a scene by demanding he let go of me, but neither did I wish to be hustled off. For one thing, Bree was floating around somewhere in the club, and for another, the worry that had been my constant companion suddenly kicked up to high, making me pull back when he reached the door. “I’m sorry, I can’t go with you right now. I have a friend here—”

  “She’s waiting in the car for you,” Damian said, his nice eyes shining with a light that I didn’t really like.

  Panic flared to life within my belly, and I twisted my hand out of his grasp, but at that moment, three men who had been lurking at the end of the bar moved over to form a semicircle behind me, effectively blocking me off from the rest of the club.

  “Whoa, now,” I said and, realizing I couldn’t get past them, turned to make a dash for the parking lot, but Damian grabbed me by one arm while another man, one who reminded me of a linebacker, grabbed the other. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, trying desperately to get away from what I worried was now an outright abduction.

  A fourth man joined us as I was m
ore or less frog-marched out to the car. “Astul! Damian! My dear Miss Moore, you have my profound apologies for this harsh treatment.”

  The voice that reached me as I was tossed into the back of a waiting limo was as smooth as melted chocolate, and just as rich.

  “You…oof…God’s wounds, get off of me!”

  “Sorry,” a breathy voice said in my ear. The weight that had squashed me onto the floor suddenly lifted when Bree rolled off me. “This is my first kidnapping, and I didn’t know they were going to throw me in. Whatever happened to people luring you into a van filled with candy?”

  I pushed my hair—which had come down from a simple French twist in the violence of my abduction and subsequent struggle—out of my face and got to my knees, hands immediately helping me onto the seat as the car jumped forward.

  “I can see I will be having quite a talk later with Damian and Astul about their method of treating ladies. Are you harmed? No? Excellent. And you?” The man with the beautiful voice assisted Bree onto the seat next to me. “I can only offer the both of you my most profound apologies for my tribe’s overly enthusiastic attempt to fulfill my request for your company.”

  I opened my mouth to lambaste the man who’d hired me, but did a double take when I got a good look at him. He had a familiar widow’s peak, familiar jawline, familiar cheekbones…basically, familiar everything, with the exception of his hair and his eyes. Where Archer’s were gorgeous frosted blue, this man’s were a pale green, like moss caught in a piece of ice. “What…uh…who…”

  “Hey, look, dragons.” Bree looked at the two men opposite us, the duplicitous Damian, at whom I leveled a really quality glare, and a second man with no apparent signs of a neck and arms so beefy they could barely cross over a massive chest.

  “Bree,” I said with a warning in my voice, pulling her back next to me when she would have gone to sit on the other side of the limo, scooting over until I had her pinned between the car wall and myself, the better to keep her away from the bad men. “Now is not the time for that.”