Dragon's Flame (11 page)

Out of the corner of her eye, shadows behind the bar made it appear as if there was a trident resting against the mirrored wall an arm’s length away from the blond. She turned her head and the trident was gone.

Saffron huffed out a laugh. Of course the trident was gone. It hadn’t actually been there. But given everything she’d seen since obeying orders and going to IRE HQ, was it any surprise that her imagination was amped up?

They stopped next to an empty booth. She slid in.

Taine’s eyes hooded and she did not want to imagine what would happen if they weren’t separated by the table. “Other side,” she told him.

His slow smile said he knew he was getting to her. He sat and captured her hands. “We’re back to acting professional?”

Her gaze dropped to their hands. “I’m becoming more and more convinced that your definition of professional conduct has almost no resemblance to my definition.”

A shimmer at the corner of her eye, like sun off scales, preceded their waitress’s arrival though there was nothing fish-like about the svelte redhead with the dark green eyes.

Saffron had to wonder what their waitress was doing here when she should be in Hollywood or modeling glamorous, impractical dresses in Rome.

 The redhead said, “The house special today is swordfish steak.”

The lyrical tone of her voice made swordfish sound like the perfect lunch choice. Saffron said, “That works for me.”

“I’ll have the same.” Taine said.

Their waitress moved away.

Two men passed the booth, shimmering at the corner of Saffron’s eye. This time there was an impression of large red scales, like Medieval battle shields.

Her heart thumped faster, harder. Either her imagination was going wild or there was some seriously strange lighting effects in this place. Or…

She leaned forward.

Taine mimicked the action, pressed his lips to hers and entered her mouth with the thrust of his tongue.

Heat speared straight to her sex. Her nipples went instantly tight.

Her tongue twined with his for more than a few heartbeats before she remembered where they were and jerked back. Damnit! How did he keep doing that? Making her forget her rules?

“That’s not what you were after?” he asked, radiating satisfaction.

She was torn between shaking her head or punching him. “The warning on the door should read: Check your grievances, prejudices—and ego before entering.”

He grinned, totally unrepentant. His gaze drifted to their still-joined hands. “It’s not ego to think you were interested in a kiss. It’s confidence. You want me. I want you. Can you deny it?”

“No,” she huffed then risked leaning forward to ask the question she’d intended to ask. She stopped close enough to nearly be whispering against his lips, and damned if she didn’t want to close that infinitesimal distance. “Is this a sorcerers’ hangout?”

“What makes you ask?”

Tell him she was seeing things? Maybe imagining them?

But, then, if this was a sorcerers’ hangout it’d make sense that she was experiencing something magical. He’d told her that spells and charms could alter someone’s perceptions.

“I’m seeing shimmering out of the corner of my eye when people pass, an impression of scales, and there was a trident near the bartender until I looked directly at it.”

He closed that infinitesimal distance, smiled against her lips. “You’re right. This is a place frequented by sorcerers.”

There was a slight purr in his voice and it seemed to vibrate its way right down to her chest and into her breasts before making her nipples ache.

Damnit. He was a walking, talking sex god and she had the orgasmic memories to prove it.

She retreated. The gleam in Taine’s eyes and dip of his gaze to the front of her shirt was accompanied by a flashed smile.

“Check your ego,” she grumbled.

His smile reappeared, slow and sensuous and inviting.

A lesser woman would have pitched forward. She glanced away—with effort—and noticed the sea shells on the shelves holding liquor bottles, realized that the cushions lining the booth’s bench seats had the swirling brown and cream pattern of a nautilus. Even the name of the place was symbolic. The Deep.

“I’m sensing a theme,” she said, and charms would explain the imagined trident, the glimmer that made her think scales when it came to the waitress and the men who’d walked past the booth.

She looked at the bartender and squinted.

Taine carried her hand to his mouth and nibbled on her knuckles, drawing her attention back to him.

“Good thing we stopped for food,” she said, turning her head far enough for the bartender to edge into sight.

She squinted again, trying to conjure a glimmer at least. Taine said, “You’ve got a limiting immunity or you’d see them clearly.”

That snapped her eyes to his. “What about you?”

“I can see what they’re meant to be.”

“Like the people here are at a costume party?”

He laughed. “That works.”

It kind of bummed her out. It’d be cool to see the magic show. But on the other hand, immunity to sorcerers’ illusions seemed like a good thing. Right?

“So what’s the waitress supposed to be?”

“A siren. Also known as a water nymph.”

“And the bartender?”

“A merman.”

Taine’s cellphone rang, as did several others from the line of booths. He answered, listened, put his phone back in his pocket and said, “We’ll have to eat in the car. There’s a fire.”

“Where?”

“Cleveland National Forest.”

They grabbed their food and left.

Taine hit a switch, activating lights in the front grill and a siren. He peeled away from The Deep, and at first, dodging traffic took all his concentration.

When that was no longer the case, he had to fight against exhaling flame.

Love makes a man stupid
. That was his sole defense.

In The Deep he’d had the perfect opportunity to slip
I’m a dragon
into the conversation, but what had he done? He’d let her believe spells made the bartender and waitress appear as something other than human, when in fact, the beings there had loosened the containment of their magic.

It was a tricky sleight of words that now created a hard place in his chest. What he’d told Saffron wasn’t quite a lie. But it wasn’t the full truth either.

She wasn’t immune to sorcerers’ transformation spells. But she was limited in her ability to see the essence of the beings who’d crammed themselves into a human form.

Instead of,
I can see what they’re meant to be
, he should have told her that they shimmered in human sight but were clearly visible in both human form and native form in the eyes of other supernaturals. That the bartender
was
a merman and the waitress
was
a siren. Which would have led, conveniently, to
and I’m a dragon
.

Instinct had probably been responsible for his taking her to The Deep. The sooner she knew what he was, the sooner she could reciprocate a bond.

He glanced at his mate, felt the swell of a multitude of emotions. Her accepting that supernatural beings might be present in this realm wasn’t a huge leap after watching Kristof and the astrologist at work, and after accepting that a phoenix egg could be pulled into this world through a portal.

But…

Love makes a man stupid
.

On the precipice of the perfect time for revealing what he was, her earlier warning had reared up like a sea serpent prepared to deliver a deadly strike.

I’m not into serious relationships, no matter how good the sex is. It’s casual or it’s not happening.

He didn’t doubt she had feelings for him already. She was his perfect match, the human woman meant to be his mate—if he elected to take a mate in this century. But…

He wanted her to fall in love with the man, not the supernatural being. He’d always be dragon, but once they were bound, it was the man she’d grow old with.

His mate finished her meal. Put the utensils aside and opened his takeout container.

“Not exactly the easiest thing to eat while driving,” she said, using a clean knife and fork to cut his swordfish steak into bite sizes.

She speared a piece, offered it to him. He smiled, the tight knot in his chest eased by a purr. Maybe love didn’t make a man stupid after all.

His mate was worth the effort. And besides, they had a sorcerer to catch and a city to save.

Plumes of smoke soon became visible. A helicopter flew away to get more water as another moved toward the fire.

The closer they got, the more cars streamed past them as those who’d been camping and hiking evacuated.

At the national forest entrance, Taine showed his badge and was allowed to pass. He followed a fire engine to a field that’d become a command center.

Adrenaline permeated Saffron’s scent and his pulse sped. The fire called to his mate. It raged in the distance and she wanted to join the fight.

The flames themselves weren’t visible but he could feel the fire’s strength, its hungry spread. There was a chance the egg was still here. Or if not, some evidence that would lead them to the sorcerer. But even if neither were true, the IRE agents would do what they could to limit the fire’s damage given its magical origins.

“We’ll be here for a while,” he said as somewhere in front of them the fire hit a strand of dry trees and surged in power.

She opened her door. “I’m going to do what I can to help out.”

He pulled her against him, didn’t give her a chance to utter the word
professional
before his lips took hers and his tongue thrust and twined with hers. If they’d been in the dragon realm, he’d have unfurled his wings, clutched his mate to his chest and carried her to a remote ledge where the only danger she’d face would be collapsing as a result of lovemaking.

Every instinct demanded he keep her safe. Every instinct demanded he keep her with him—duty be damned. But in this love made him smarter, not stupid.

His arms tightened around her. He savored the press of her body to his. He inhaled her scent and the want he found there gave him added strength.

Touching his forehead to hers, he stared into her eyes and said, “The interest on that borrowed shirt keeps accumulating.”

If they’d been alone, her sultry laugh would have resulted in the loss of clothing. “When we’re done here, I’ll pay up.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise.”

He gave her a hard kiss. Released her and watched her walk away.

Only when she disappeared behind a newly arrived fire engine did he go in search of Crew.

He found Crew with Maksim and Gaige.

Crew’s eyebrows raised. “Everything still under control? I’m not seeing the little mate.”

Taine snorted. His mate would lay Crew out with a punch if she heard herself referred to that way. “Saffron is aiding the human firefighters. Any leads?”

Crew grinned. “So you don’t want to discuss the issue of control?”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

“Unless his mate knows we’re all visitors to her realm, it’s just as well she isn’t with us,” Maksim said, putting enough edge into his voice to remind them that they had more serious matters to concentrate on.

“She doesn’t know,” Taine said, heart beating a little faster. It hadn’t occurred to him that unless he was willing to allow other males to use their glamour on her, keeping the truth of what he was hidden from Saffron would be impossible if he used his fire to fight fire.

His earlier conclusion might have been right after all.
Love makes a man stupid
.

And dangerous to others. Gaige was a friend. Maksim was his boss and someone he greatly admired. But if either of them attempted to use their magic on Saffron…

Taine held his breath, smothering the fire in his throat rather than exhaling smoke or flame. Gaige said, “I paid a visit to the astrologist. Given what’s at stake, client confidentiality isn’t an issue for him. In the last two or three years he hasn’t done a prediction as to where any of the djinn realms would intersect this one. But he agreed to go back through his records and ask others in his trade.”

A chopper flew over their heads. Taine felt another hungry surge as the fire gained ground. “The astrologist said we might have forty-eight hours before San Diego burned.”

“I think it’s safe to assume we’ve got considerably less,” Maksim said. “Kellen and Kristof are working their way to the point of origin. They’ll get a dirt sample and get it to the astrologist for a new reading. I’ve got tech-savvy people looking at social media in the hopes of spotting something, ideally the sorcerer leaving with the egg. The rest of us will do what we can to minimize this destruction.”

Few beings trumped fey glamour when it came to moving among humans unhindered. Flanked by Gaige and Maksim, Taine and Crew joined a unit of firefighters driving toward the blaze.

With a look back, Taine caught a glimpse of Saffron. At least this time, the fire that would build inside him as a result of their separation would be put to good use instead of leading to destroyed sports cars or his being banished from this realm.

Chapter 9

Hours later Saffron glanced up at the sound of another crew rolling in. In eighteen minutes it’d be three a.m.

The firefighters coming through the food tent were exhausted but jubilant. They had one hundred percent containment. It was a miracle in dry conditions and after years of drought—or it was magic.

That word still had the power to speed her heart. Given Sabra’s fascination with tarot cards and belief in charms, there’d been plenty of exposure to the idea that magic existed, but it’d never featured prominently in Saffron’s thoughts until Taine.

And there was another word that had the power to speed her heart, and wet her panties, and cause her chest to tighten with worry, then a hint of panic.

He was out there somewhere, close to the fire. In danger, a danger she understood.

The way he said
sorcerer
, always with a hint of aggravation, made her fairly certain he wasn’t one. But he must be able to wield some type of magic. It seemed like that’d be a requirement for joining Supernatural Ops and being an IRE agent.