Holy Smokes Read online

  “Did I worry you?” I asked him quietly.

  “I was concerned that the others in the room did not know you as I did, and thus would not realize that although you might be a demon lord, you do not have it in you to be evil.”

  I smiled, my heart warmed by the words. The feeling lasted until I saw the nameplate on the doors as they were closed behind us.

  “You’re Caribbean Battiste, the head of the Guild,” I said to the dapper man.

  He bowed slightly before sitting behind the big desk. “I have that honor. And you present the Guild with a very difficult situation, Aisling Grey.”

  “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about all of that business out there, but I knew I could tell you guys I’m not bad until I’m blue in the face, and you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “So you thought you would prove to us that your intentions are pure?” Caribbean asked, steepling his fingers. “But now that you admit it was all a charade, can we not say that you are simply trying to lull us into a false sense of security, and that the danger you pose remains?”

  I held his piercing gaze. “The power I could yield is beyond anything I have as a mere Guardian, or even as a wyvern’s mate. That I do not choose to use it has to show my true intentions.”

  He bowed his head in acknowledgement. “There is that.” He glanced at the screen of the laptop sitting on his left side. “I’m afraid that much as I would enjoy conversing with you, I am very limited in time. What do you wish me to do about the Guardian who banished you?”

  “Nothing. She’s not the problem, nor are any of them—they’re only doing their jobs. What I want from you is help.”

  The tips of his fingers tapped against each other. “What form would this help take?”

  I glanced at Drake. He nodded.

  “I want to end the proscription. Drake has done what he can to find out information about how to end it, but with no luck. Today, another wyvern mentioned to me that he knew a way possible to do that. If he knew that, then the Guardians’ Guild must know as well. I’m not a bad person, Mr. Battiste. I was drawn into the situation partly through my own incompetence, but also through trickery and adverse circumstance. I want to be a Guardian again. I want to kick demonic ass, not have them work for me. I want to just be the simple demon lord, wyvern’s mate, and Guardian that I used to be.”

  Jim snorted.

  “Simple?” Caribbean asked.

  “You know what I mean—demon lord to just one little demon. But most of all, I want this damned dark power to go away and leave me alone!”

  I will never leave. I am as much a part of you as you are a part—

  “I want to be me again!” I said loudly, drowning out the voice. “Can you help me? Please?”

  “No,” he said.

  My heart dropped. My hopes, dreams, everything that was anything to me—Drake excepted—crashed, burned, and turned to ash.

  Caribbean Battiste pressed a button on his desk and stood up as the doors behind us opened. “But I know someone who can.”

  7

  There were dragons everywhere, green dragons, members of the sept gathered to celebrate our still-unachieved marriage. The nightclub that held the party had been reserved just for us; it was owned by a friend of Drake’s, an ilargi (reaper) named Traian, a man with a sweet smile that was at odds with his rather sinister job.

  He was acting as bartender for the evening, Drake obviously not wanting to trust the job to anyone else from outside the sept at a dragon gathering. He nodded to me as I drifted down the bar, smiling at everyone as I hunted for the one man who filled my thoughts.

  Music pulsed in the background, loud enough to mute the conversation around me, but not so loud that it dominated the scene. I smiled to myself as various dragons exited and entered the doors at the far end of the club, the atmosphere inside completely smoke-free. Drake had no doubt given an order that those members who smoked do so outside.

  The main part of the club was given over to the dance floor. Like the rest of the décor, it was black with little twists of silver through it. Along the sides of the dance floor, curved alcoves made inky pools of shadows that made the occupants all but invisible. I shimmied through the crowd of dancers, unintentionally moving to the time of the pulsing music, smiling and nodding at people as they greeted me, but searching the whole time for one person, one man, the one being on this planet to whom I was willing to give everything I had.

  Occasional sounds and glimpses of movement from the alcoves alerted me to the occupants, but none of them had the right feel. It wasn’t until I had shimmied my way to the end of the club that I saw an emerald glimmer from the last alcove.

  I smiled and strolled slowly toward the man waiting there, skirting the small table to stand in front of the dark figure that all but blended into the shadows.

  “Enjoying yourself?” I asked, brushing back an errant tendril of ebony hair that had fallen over Drake’s forehead.

  “Not until this moment,” he answered, his voice smoky with desire. It sent a little shimmer of arousal up my back and arms.

  “Dance with me?”

  He shook his head. There was a candle glowing dimly on the table behind me, throwing just enough light on him for me to see the planes of his face, but his eyes were bright with passion, shining in the darkness like beacons that drew me closer. “We’ve already done that.”

  “What do you want to do, then?” I asked, my skin flushing as his gaze roamed over me. I was wearing a dress he had picked out for me, black, slinky, and backless. The neckline plunged down to my waist, the material clinging to my body in a way that seemed almost to caress my flesh.

  His face was all hard planes, not a line of softness to be found anywhere from the black slashes of his eyebrows, to his arrogant, aquiline nose, and the stubborn line of his jaw. The expression in his eyes, however, was unmistakable. “Do you have to ask?”

  “I suppose not,” I answered, taking the hand he held out. He pulled me forward onto his lap so I was sitting astride him, the material of his pants rough against the flesh of my inner thighs. It was a rather risqué position in public, but I trusted that the shadows were deep enough that no one could see us. I let my fingers dance along his skin as I unbuttoned his silky shirt, reveling in the feeling of him. His hands slid up my bare thighs, curling into my hips to pull me closer to him, until we were nestled together in an intimacy that was only hampered by our clothing…and the environment.

  Drake’s mouth burned along my neck as he kissed a path down my chest, nudging aside the clinging material to reveal my breast.

  “Sweetie,” I said, squirming when he took my nipple in his mouth, laving his tongue over the tip. “Not that I want to stop you, but this is a public place.”

  “No one can see us,” he answered, allowing his dragon fire to lick along my flesh. I arched my back against the sensation, my entire body tightening, as if poised to explode.

  “Someone could come back here to talk to you—”

  “There is no one else. There is only you and me.” His eyes all but burnt my flesh, his pupils narrow little slits against the glittering green.

  My fingers curled into the thick muscles of his shoulders as he slid his hands under my dress, quickly snapping the minuscule satin straps of my underwear, his mouth taking possession of my nipple just as his fingers danced along my sensitive flesh. I sucked in my breath, arching my back again as his fire swept over me, his touch driving the tension within me to a breaking point.

  Around us, people danced, drank, talked…and for all I knew, made love in the darkened alcoves just as Drake was making love to me with his hands and mouth.

  “It’s too much,” I moaned, stopping him just long enough to pull his shirt off, moaning again when I leaned against him, my exposed breasts brushing against the soft hairs on his chest, breathing in the wonderfully spicy dragon scent of him that seemed to sink deep into my bones.

  “There is no such thing as too much when it comes to you, kincs
em,” he murmured as I stroked the wonderful muscles in his chest and arms. I wanted to touch him, all of him, with my hands and mouth and body, my passion driven by the desire to give him as much pleasure as his still-dancing fingers were giving me.

  I kissed him, urging him with my body and mind to what I wanted most…and then he did it. Dragon fire filled me, burning through my heart and soul, lighting my very being on fire until I thought I would explode in a wild conflagration that would destroy us both. The fire poured back from me to him, the cycle complete, filling me with joy so profound it almost drove me to the brink of ecstasy.

  “Take me home,” I all but sobbed, desperate with my need for him, wanting what we had together, frantic to revel in the fire that was shared between us. “Dear god, take me home right now!”

  He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me with him as he fell backwards into pillows that tumbled from our bed to the floor. The material of his pants beneath my thighs melted into steely, hot flesh, flesh that shimmered goldish green for a moment before resolving itself into familiar muscled thighs.

  “You shifted,” I said on a gasp as his penis nudged my sensitive parts. “For a second you shifted, just like you do when you have an orgasm.”

  “I’m not that far off,” he growled, biting my neck. “I want you, Aisling. I need you. I cannot live without you. You are mine, my treasure, my love, and no one will ever take you away from me.”

  “Never,” I swore, trying to twist to reach him, reach the part of him that I desperately needed burning deep within me.

  “No. Not tonight. This night is for you,” he growled, his fire licking along my skin. He spun me around, moving so that I was facedown on the blankets, his body covering my back. My breasts, sensitized by his dragon fire, rubbed against the cool of the silk pillows as he parted my legs, entering me just enough to leave my body hanging on the edge of anticipation.

  “Drake!” I yelled, pounding the pillows, helpless to pull him into me as I wanted.

  “I do not wish to harm you.”

  “The doctor said it was perfectly safe to do anything that was comfortable, and if you don’t finish this in the next few seconds, I’m going to die of sexual frustration, and then you’ll have to explain to everyone why I’m dead with a tremendous scowl on my face!”

  His growl matched mine as he lunged forward, his fire filling me even as his body did, the combination of the two pushing me into a deep well of rapture that seemed to consume me. The world condensed to the moment, the sound of his body meeting mine, of the growls of pleasure that came from deep within his chest, his breathing as ragged and fast as mine.

  “I love you, Aisling.” Strong, tanned fingers splayed on the pillows next to my head changed into blue claws, the flesh of his arm shimmering into iridescent scales as fire burst up in a ring around us. I took his fire into me and returned it with a shout of completion that he picked up and continued, our bodies and souls and hearts burning as one for a bright, endless moment that would live in my memory for eternity.

  And then I woke up.

  “Goddamn it!” I swore, as soon as I realized the space next to me was cold and empty. I punched Drake’s pillow, wanting to scream to the heavens. My body still hummed with the aftershocks of the pleasure he’d given me…but had it been real? Or just a figment of my disturbed mind? “Damn it! Damn him!”

  A thump sounded against the door connecting to the opulent bathroom that Jim had claimed as its bedroom.

  “What?”

  “You OK?” Jim’s voice asked, muffled.

  “No! Oh…hell!”

  “Abaddon.”

  “Hell!” I yelled, and punched Drake’s pillow again.

  “Can I come in, or are you and Drake gettin’ it on?”

  “He’s not here, the bastard!”

  The bathroom door opened, and Jim’s face peered into the room, an almost comical expression of wariness on its face. “What happened? You guys were all lovey-dovey last night. I thought Drake was happy about the baby?”

  “He is, although he’s not happy I refused to let the doctor tell us the gender,” I snarled, pulling up the sheet and rubbing my arms as I glanced at the clock. It was just barely morning, my skin still tingling as if in response to Drake’s fire. I shook my head at my foolishness—of course our lovemaking hadn’t been real. I couldn’t share Drake’s fire. If the scene melting from a club to our bedroom hadn’t been a clue, the fact that I could share his fire should have raised all sorts of red flags in my head. What was worse was that, if he had to resort to a dream rather than making love to me in person, it meant he wasn’t here. Sometime during the night while I was sleeping, he’d left me. “God damn him!”

  “Well, if that’s all you’re going to say, I might as well go back to bed,” Jim said, padding over to give my arm a quick swipe with its tongue. I patted its head, reminding myself that it wasn’t fair to take my bad humor out on Jim.

  “You didn’t happen to hear Drake leave last night? He told me to go to bed because I was tired out after the long day, but if something happened and he had to go take care of a sept member or beat Chuan Ren’s head in or something, he would have told me.”

  Jim cocked its head at something on the floor. “Looks like he decided you and the baby needed your sleep. There’s a letter.”

  I pushed Jim aside to pick up the creamy envelope bearing the sept emblem, ripping it open to read the note inside.

  “You’ve been hanging around sailors too much,” Jim said a minute later as the blue streak I was swearing came to an end. “Although I liked the bit about stinky, slimy weasel poop.”

  “You’re right, he says he didn’t want to disturb my rest, the bastard,” I growled, wrapping a sheet around me as I stormed into the bathroom.

  Jim, wisely, stayed where it was.

  I emerged a few minutes later wearing my favorite bathrobe, a soft, comfy velvet garment that made me think of Victorian dressing gowns, but which Drake disliked because he said it covered up too much flesh. I buttoned it now with defiance as I marched to the closet that contained my clothes. “He says he had to go help someone in a desperate situation. Who, exactly, he refuses to say. He doesn’t know when he’s going to be back, but suggests we put off the wedding for a few days. The rotter! How dare he just zoom off and not tell me where he’s going, or who he’s going to help, or what exactly he’s up to!”

  “Yeah, how dare he go out and be all heroic and stuff when you want him here slobbering over your big boobs.”

  I shot the demon a look that warned of retribution. “Leave my boobs out of this. They have nothing to do with this extraordinary lack of trust that Drake is exhibiting by doing this. The rat! I thought we were to the point where we shared everything. He’s not supposed to keep secrets from me! Lord knows, he makes me tell him everything!”

  “Everything?” Jim asked, raising one doggy eyebrow.

  I froze as I thought over a few facts I’d decided to keep to myself. I’d told Drake that I had seen Gabriel, but I hadn’t recounted the entire conversation, not wanting Drake to get so annoyed that he went after Gabriel. That could be excused as a desire to keep any more of the dragon septs from warring with us, but the fact that I’d downplayed to him the involvement the dark power had in my life was less easily explained away. He knew it spoke to me, he knew I could easily wield it, but until the previous day’s demonstration at the Guardians’ Guild, I don’t think he fully realized just how much power I had at my fingertips.

  Admit it—you love me.

  I swore under my breath as I thought over what effect that realization might have had on him. Had he been so disquieted, felt so threatened because I had more impact using the dark power than his own dragon fire that he left me on a flimsy pretense? I ran over the events of the past evening, mentally shaking my head. He’d been quietly pleased when the ultrasound had proven beyond all doubts that the next generation of green dragons was a half-year away. He had treated me with his usual blend of courtesy and
arrogance, laying down a series of ridiculous laws ranging from me not being allowed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds to an outright refusal to let me keep the meeting with the blue dragons.

  Things were a bit dicey for a short while when I told him what I thought of his silly rules, but by the time he’d escorted me upstairs to our room, we’d come to a compromise whereby he’d stop being unnecessarily protective, and I wouldn’t light his hair on fire while he slept.

  Then he slipped away during the night without a word and sent me the most erotic dream of my life.

  “Damn him,” I said, banging my forehead gently on the closet door.

  8

  “Cara!”

  I turned at the familiar voice that called down at me, looking with a dispassionate eye at the man who walked to ward us.

  “That him?” Uncle Damian asked, giving Fiat the same jaded eye.

  “Yup.”

  “Looks like a porn star.”

  “Do I wanna ask how he knows what a porn star looks like?” Jim asked Rene.

  “I do not think so, my friend. Aisling, I have my little companion with me, if there is any trouble with the blue wyvern,” Rene said, touching my arm as he patted the breast of his jacket. “Him, I do not trust farther than I can spit.”

  “How on earth did you get a gun smuggled into England?” I asked, surprised.

  He gave his trademark Gallic shrug. “I did not travel by conventional means.”

  “I don’t think I want to know,” Uncle Damian muttered, shooting me an odd look.

  I smiled and tried to look as normal as possible, which, given that I was standing on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, surrounded by my uncle, a daimon, and my demon dog, wasn’t very successful. “Oh, Traci!”

  The demon steward popped into view in front of me holding a cup of coffee and a croissant. Its startled expression changed to one of resignation that morphed almost instantly to irritation. “My lord Aisling. I wondered when you were going to summon me. The situation is most urgent, I assure you. If you had just warned me ahead of time that you would be summoning me, I would have had the paperwork in my possession—”