Dragon's Rogue (Wild Dragons Book 1) Page 3

  The place Thorne most wanted to get into, though Blaze had ignored all his phone calls and emails.

  Zane should have been focusing on his surroundings, but his attention was distracted by the woman in the bedroom above him. It was like he could sense her, drifting off to sleep, her breathing slowing, her thoughts fragmenting as they slid into a dream.

  She should have been warm and relaxed, but he kept picking up fear—cold as ice and sharp as glass, tearing her dreams to shreds.

  He found himself wanting to go up there and comfort her.

  Which was crazy. They needed to get this done. In. Out. Get the hell home and have some chocolate lava cake to top off the evening.

  And then kick back and wait for the apocalypse, because he had the sinking feeling they were wasting their time trying to avert it. This trinket they were after probably wasn’t even the Dragonfly Seal. Hell, none of Thorne’s leads had ever panned out. Why should this be different?

  As saviors of humankind, they were the B-team, at best. Probably more like C or D or Q. The Pacific Coast A-team—full-fledged Draken Guardians—hadn’t even been able to handle the Mount St. Helen’s disaster, forty years ago, when another Draken Lord had broken free. Hell, it had wiped them out. If Thorne was right, Vyrkos would be worse. And the Greystone brothers weren’t a team of Draken Guardians. Not even close.

  They weren’t even full Draken. Just three Wild Dragons. Hybrids, with limited powers and not nearly enough firepower to take on a Draken Lord.

  Yet here he was. He’d let down the humans and shifters under his care once. He’d seen their village destroyed greed and cruelty, the bodies left in the ashes.

  His family, who he could have saved, if he’d gotten there in time.

  He’d vowed on their graves that he would never let such a thing happen again.

  He was approaching the display gallery now. He knew from the blueprints Thorne had managed to get that it was an interior room with no windows. An office opened off it, leading to an eight by eight vault that held the most valuable, most dangerous treasures.

  If the Seal was here, that’s where it would be.

  The door to the gallery was just barely ajar. That stopped Zane in his tracks; even believing she was the only person in the house, no way Blaze would leave it open. It was a crazy breach of security.

  He examined the outside of the door. The security system was on; he could feel it. The door being open should have set it off, but somehow it hadn’t. The electric current felt as though it hadn’t been interrupted at all.

  He’d thought only he and his brothers could do that.

  Unease curled in the pit of his stomach. There was something wrong here.

  Slowly, carefully, he pushed the metal door with his fingertips. It slid smoothly open without a sound, making a space just wide enough for him to slip through.

  Concentrating, he pulled the electrical field over him like a cloak, moving through the opening without interrupting the current and setting off the alarm.

  Once inside the gallery, he could see the door to the office was open as well. On the far wall of the office was the door to the vault, and standing in front of it was a dim figure dressed entirely in black.

  A woman.

  She had an electronic device hooked up to the outside of the vault door, running combination codes. The digital readout continually moved, changing faster than the eye could follow. The thief was running her fingers across the front of the vault, almost like she was caressing a lover.

  Damn it all to hell. Someone had nearly beaten him to the Seal.

  Rebel waited for her expensive electronic gadget to find the vault combination, nostalgic for the good old days she’d never known, where top safecrackers cracked the best vaults in the world through sound and feel.

  Electronic locks had ruined all that.

  Normally she would have spent the time wandering through the gallery, feet sinking into the plush midnight-blue carpet, admiring all the juicy treasures in their fancy glass cases and figuring out how she might pocket one or two.

  But knowing those other guys were outside was making her antsy. This vault was tougher than she’d been led to believe, and it was taking too long to breach it. She had to get out before they found her.

  Finally the gadget did its electronic magic, and there was a soft metallic ‘thunk’ as the locking mechanisms disengaged. Rebel pulled the gadget away from the vault lock and stowed it in her vest, then opened the door and stepped into the vault.

  The vault, like the gallery, was full of tantalizing goodies, but Rebel was a professional. She also didn’t want to waste time and get caught. She blocked all that out and concentrated on the picture she’d memorized. A lead-lined box of ancient wood, about six by eight inches, with two open eyes carved on the lid.

  She scanned the shelves quickly with her penlight. There.

  She pulled the box off the shelf. It tingled under her fingers, as if it were charged with electricity. Open the box, she heard in her mind. Make sure the item is really inside.

  Her hand hesitated on the lid of the box. Surely opening it wasn’t a good idea?

  Open the box.

  That’s right, she thought. Those were the instructions. She was sure of it. You must open the box. You must take the item out.

  She put her hand on the lid of the box and cracked it open.

  Chapter 6

  Oh, hell, it wasn’t the Seal. She was going to open the idol box.

  Zane could see the defensive magic on it from where he stood. This was gonna get ugly…

  He lunged forward, trying to get the box out of her hands before she set it off.

  Too late.

  Thick red dust exploded out of it, enveloping both of them. It prickled against the exposed skin on his face like a thousand fiery needles stabbing into him. Zane coughed and hacked, feeling the dust slither down his throat like dozens of tiny snakes.

  Three seconds later, an alarm went off, shattering the silent house like a scream.

  Lights flashed on in the vault. Zane grabbed for the thief, getting one hand on the box. The woman, still coughing, drove her elbow hard into Zane’s ribs, knocking even more breath out of him and loosening his hold. She twisted away from him, but the box tilted and the heavy gold idol fell to the floor, landing on Zane’s foot.

  Even with his tough skin, that hurt.

  Through eyes streaming from magic dust, Zane caught a glimpse of another very nasty magical rune glowing on the shelf where the box had been. The vault door began to close automatically, as the rune glowed yellow, then red.

  Time to leave.

  The other burglar had the same idea. She dropped the box and bolted for the door, slipping out the narrowing opening. Scooping the velvet pouch that held the idol off the toe of his boot and stuffing it into one of the pockets of his vest, Zane followed, closing his eyes against the blast of light and magic that escaped just before the vault door swung shut.

  Even with his natural immunity to magic, he was glad he wasn’t locked inside the vault with whatever spell that was.

  Another alarm split the night, clashing with the first one in an ear-splitting cacophony. He had to get out now. No time to look for the Seal.

  The burglar was already on her way out of the gallery, dodging and weaving around the displays, still choking on the red dust.

  Zane could feel another runespell on the gallery floor, its magic racing out to surround them and hold them in place until Blaze could get there. The burglar made it out the door just ahead of the spell.

  Damn. That burglar was either an accomplished sorceress, had expensive magical protection, or was the luckiest sucker on the face of the planet.

  A barred gate was descending in the gallery doorway. Zane dove, sliding under it at the last second. The hallway was crisscrossed with moving laser beams, but he paid them no attention. They’d already set off all the alarms; he was blown.

  Zane rolled to his feet and raced for the exit, cloaking him
self as he went.

  Zane! He could hear Tyr’s voice in his head, and sense the what-the-hell-have-you-done-now thoughts underneath.

  Go! Don’t wait for me.

  He could feel Tyr’s hesitation, and then felt his presence receding back toward the workroom and the balcony.

  There was no sign of the other thief. She’d disappeared, leaving Zane to take the blame for her stupidity. Why the hell had she opened the box? Didn’t it occur to her it could be booby-trapped?

  Zane pounded down the hallway. Just as he approached the staircase, he saw a flutter of white fabric as Blaze descended from above. He’d never get back to the workroom without her seeing him; the laser beams would outline his figure, even cloaked.

  He flung himself into the dark corner behind the curve of the staircase. The floor was thick with dust—she should complain to her cleaning service.

  Maybe he’d send them a note.

  He held his breath against a sneeze, waiting for her to run past him down the stairs and continue on to the gallery. But she stopped, freezing on the staircase only a few feet from where he crouched.

  She held herself very still, as if sensing his presence and trying to pinpoint where he was. Zane pinched his nose to keep the sneeze in and concentrated on his magical cloaking power. You don’t see me. You don’t sense me. I’m not here.

  He could sense her, though. The beat of her heart, the warmth of her blood, the scent of her skin. She took a tentative step downward, and Zane dared to exhale in relief.

  Too soon.

  A furry dark shadow launched itself off the stair rail with a yowl, right into Zane’s face. He gasped, breathed in a noseful of dust and cat hair, and let out an explosive sneeze.

  The cat clung to his ski mask, its claws scrabbling against his skin. Zane heard Blaze reciting a spell, and felt the invisible cords of a magical net descending around him.

  He yanked the cat off his face and tossed it to the ground, spitting and snarling. Brushing away the net spell, he vaulted over the stair rail and wrapped his arms around Blaze, pinning her arms so she couldn’t try anything nastier.

  “Nice try, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear.

  She struggled in his grasp, but he wasn’t human and she was no match for his strength, which seemed to infuriate her. She began another incantation, and he swung her around, gripped the back of her neck and pressed his mouth to hers, stifling her words.

  The moment their lips touched, he forgot everything else. She tasted of lavender and honey, sweetness and sunshine. He drank her in heedlessly, desperately, like a man dying of thirst drinks cold, sparkling water.

  She fizzed in his veins.

  He felt her gasp, stealing his breath, and then her lips parted under his. A mass of sweet, hot memories tumbled through his mind—fragments of all the dreams he’d ever had about her. Candlelight and wild heat and warmth and love. Hands touching, lips caressing. Fields and wildflowers and flights under the stars.

  Zane! It was Tyr’s mental voice, sounding anxious. Zane, what’s happening? I’m coming in!

  Reality came crashing back. No! I’m coming out!

  He released the witch and she stared at him from wide blue-green eyes, stunned. Before she could move or speak, he ran up two steps, leaped up onto the stair rail, and dove through the high vaulted window behind the stairway, shards of glass sparkling like falling stars as he fell through the darkness.

  Blaze ran up to the landing, automatically casting a simple spell to protect her bare feet from the glass splinters on the floor. She put her hands on the windowsill and leaned out, feeling like she’d been speared through the heart.

  She pressed her hand to her still-throbbing lips. One moment the thief had kissed her like his heart was on fire, filling her head with images and dreams, strange yet familiar.

  And the next moment, he’d leaped to his death.

  She scanned the terrace below, dreading what she would see, but there was nothing there. The outside lights shone on the flagstones, four stories down. They were blank and undisturbed, except by bits of glass glinting in the light. She twisted and looked up, but above there were no ropes, no ledges he could have grabbed onto. Nothing.

  Her intruder had vanished into the night.

  Chapter 7

  Zane flew through the starry night, a dragon blue as a summer sky. He was cloaked again, hidden from the eyes of anyone who might look up and see him. If they looked at just the right angle, at the right moment, it might have seemed as though a cloud passed over the moon.

  That was all.

  Behind him, he could hear the flapping of Tyr’s wings as he tried to catch up. Zane’s dragon was bigger than Tyr’s, though, and he soon left his brother behind.

  Zane? What the hell? You okay? Did the witch beat you up, or what? Slow down, for fuck’s sake!

  Zane ignored him, stretching his wings and catching an updraft to get away from all the questions. He didn’t know what to say, or what to think. Or what to feel.

  He’d gone looking for the Dragonfly Seal, and had found the woman of his dreams. Rogue witch, dabbler in dark powers, adversary to his mission.

  Human.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh, get drunk, or just let out a huge gout of fire and burn half of North Portland to slag.

  When he fantasized about one day meeting his dream woman, he’d always imagined she was another Wild Dragon. Maybe even a rogue Draken, willing to defy convention and upbringing to mate with an outcast.

  Not a human witch with no past, a dark present, and an uncertain future.

  How could they ever be together? But if they weren’t destined for each other, why the dreams?

  A hundred years of hope, dissipating to nothing in the darkness of the night.

  He rode the current all the way to the river before circling back. Even in dragon form, the skin of his face and throat were still prickling from the red dust.

  Magical tracking dust, to be exact. It turned invisible once it touched skin, and was impossible to wash off by normal means. It was like the tracking residue that the CIA put on their top priority targets on TV—except it was powered by magic, not technology.

  Blaze could track him anywhere he went—for weeks, if not months. If he were human.

  But he was a dragon, and he had defenses against nearly every type of magic. It took only a few minutes of concentrated thought for him to burn the magic from his hide, and from inside his body where he’d inhaled it.

  From inside his blood.

  He continued circling over downtown Portland as he rid himself of Blaze’s magic. She might not have activated the tracking spell yet, but if she did, he intended the trail to end right where he was—in the sky, a thousand feet above the city.

  He had every intention of seeing her again, but until he knew what she was involved in, he wasn’t bringing her home to the ‘family.’

  Thorne had enough on his plate without Zane leading a dark sorceress straight to their lair.

  Satisfied that he’d burned away every speck of the tracking dust, Zane banked and headed back toward the ridge. He only wished he could burn the witch out of his system so easily.

  The dragons’ house was built into the side of the ridge—not unlike Blaze’s house, except about a hundred years older. Humans thought it had been built by one of the first men to make his fortune in Portland—and it had, in a way. One of the first Draken Guardians had built a mansion on top of the cave system he’d lived in for a thousand years.

  Before there were any humans here but scattered tribes of Native Americans, who knew better than to come near the caves on the ridge.

  But times changed, and dragons changed with them. Those who couldn’t adapt had gone back to the Dragonlands years ago, to fight their petty wars and annoy each other.

  Only the Guardians had stayed. And the Wild Dragons, with their human blood, stayed too. They stayed, and spawned their young, remaining hidden until humans needed them.

  When he landed Tyr
was standing on the roof, hands on his hips. Zane came in fast, diving toward the roof with wings furled, and then dropped his hindquarters at the last minute and backwinged to slow himself down, like a duck coming in for a water landing.

  Grit and dead leaves swirled across the roof in the wind from his wings. Tyr made a quick circular gesture with one hand and the debris detoured around him, as if he were enclosed in a bubble.

  Show-off.

  Tyr started in before Zane even had a chance to Change back to human.

  “What the hell happened? How did you manage to set off the alarm? Why did you jump out the fucking window? Because, not stealthy at all. Did the witch see you? Did you get the Seal?”

  Zane knew Tyr was worried about him. And they were all stressed out to the max, because time was running out and their mission so far had been an epic fail.

  Even so, he was in no mood.

  Zane blew a puff of fire at his brother. Unfortunately, Tyr’s shield kept that away from him too. Not that that tiny bit of fire would hurt either of them, but it would have burned Tyr’s clothes off, which would have been funny.

  Tyr shot him the finger.

  Zane contemplated just staying in dragon form. Flying back to Blaze’s house. Plucking her out of her bedroom and flying away with her in his claws, like the dragons did in the bad old days. Taking her back to his lair under the ridge and tormenting her with wild sex, keeping her on the edge until she told him everything about the idol and the spell in a frenzy of climactic desire.

  And then giving her about six hundred orgasms, so that she never wanted to leave him.

  Because life always turned out like the dreams, right?

  Belatedly, Zane realized that Tyr was still yelling at him. About what a dick he was, because Tyr had his back, and then he fucking just flew away and he could be bleeding from magical wounds and he didn’t even care that Tyr was worried about him, which he’d never do again because Zane was an ungrateful fuck.

  And he was asking again if Zane got the Seal.

  Six hundred orgasms, Zane thought. And we’re not coming out of the cave for a thousand years.