The Jade Dragon (4 page)

Once again, she unlocked the courtyard door, stepped out and looked at the barren pond. Yep. He was definitely gone. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw something else that made all the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“Sweet Goddess!” The stone wall surrounding the courtyard was in ruins, but only on the inside. The outside wall stood strong. Amongst the rubble lay a man, naked and unconscious.

Adrenalin kicked in. He was hurt. Thinking nothing of the danger she might be in, she rushed forward and knelt at his side, scraping her knees on the cobblestones. He was laying face down, his cheek on the ground. His hair was wild and long, hiding most of his features. She leaned down close to his mouth to ascertain whether he lived. His breath was soft against her skin. She bolted upright, rocking back on her heels.

“Thank the Goddess!” she said as she looked to the heavens. “Marylebone Coven. Can you hear me? Gregori's escaped. He's in my courtyard. Send help.” She even resorted to manners. “Please.”

Silence.

“Typical,” she muttered bitterly.

Gregori was a big man with wide shoulders. He appeared to be tall, much taller than her, solid and, from what she could see … oh sweet goddess, wet your pants gorgeous. Well, she was strong. There was a daybed in the annex they used as an office next to the Gallery. If she could get him there, she figured that when he awoke, she could try to persuade him to give himself up.

He was weak. His unconscious form told her that. He couldn't even blast his way out of the courtyard with magic, so she figured he wouldn't — couldn't — hurt her.

Not yet, anyway.

She spread out a sheet on the cobblestones and rolled him, with a lot of shoving and pulling and pushing, onto it. Then she gathered the ends of the material at one end between her fists and dragged him across the courtyard, kicking shards of jade out of the way with her slippers. Even with the sheet protecting his body, he was sure to have grazes over his behind and legs.

“It's just as well I lug stone around for a living,” Alanna huffed as she lugged Gregori towards the Gallery. Even more so now that she couldn't use her powers to levitate an object at will. “You're a dead weight!” she grunted, finally making it to the French doors. “I don't know what you did,” she sputtered as she pulled with all her might, taking small backward steps through the Gallery, avoiding precious work by both her sisters and other artists, towards the office. “But I'm not taking any chances. Witches' Oath be damned! Once you're out of the cold and I've got your privates covered — and they're the best bits I've ever seen — I'm going to get hold of Rosa, Beth, Goran, whoever, and spill the beans big time.”

She could do with some magic right now. She'd conjure up a replica dragon, perch it outside and fix those damned courtyard walls. Those without magic wouldn't have a clue. Only Rosa, Beth, Aden, and Goran would notice the difference. At least she needed a way to make Gregori invisible while she came up with a plan.

She tugged steadily towards the small office tucked away out of sight where the sisters could rest, make a drink and take care of administrative matters. The daybed had come in handy on many an occasion. Lugging him upstairs was not an option. She had visions of losing hold and of him tumbling down the stairs, head over ass, to lie in a broken heap at the bottom.

“No. Not a good picture,” she mumbled as she heaved a final time into the office. She studied the daybed and then Gregori. “Not going to happen either,” she mumbled and let the sheet drop and Gregori's head connected with a loud thud on the floor.

Alanna cringed and gnashed her teeth. “Witches' Warts with knobs on!”

• • •

Gregori heard muttering. Disgruntled muttering.

“Damn stupid warlock! What the hell did you have to go and do that for?”

“Damn” and “stupid” in the same sentence didn't sit well in his foggy head. He ought to protest he was neither. He attempted to open his eyes, but they refused to obey. He willed his arm to move. It resisted. He tried to speak. Nothing. Unfortunately, his ears were working. The grunting and swearing continued. If he could talk, he would have been far more explicit in his choice of words, especially the moment his head connected with something hard and unresisting.

“How the hell am I going to explain you to my sisters?”

He likely had a concussion as well as the odd paralysis that prevented him from moving or responding.

“Sorry,” Alanna said. He knew her voice. Her scent.

He would have laughed if he could have. Her apology was belated and only half-hearted
. Don't ever apologize. Never reveal your weaknesses.

A mere bump on the head was the least of his concerns. His physical body wasn't working, and — he checked momentarily — neither was his magic. Clearly, his mind was intact. He could hear and feel everything that was happening. Not unlike his imprisonment in the dragon. The cynic in him was both amused and irritated. It was fitting, he supposed, that his final prison should take the form of a small, lethal dragon of Marylebone.

• • •

Gregori groaned and Alanna discovered he had a voice. “Stop that noise!”

“Noise! What noise?” Her patient winced. She picked up a small wooden box she'd dropped on the floor, and dropped it again. “Do you mean a noise like that?”

Thank the Goddess she'd thought to cover his naked body with a blanket. Looking at all that bare, masculine flesh was doing things to her and her associated thoughts were positively indecent. Surely it was inappropriate to lust after a semi-conscious naked man. Normally she would have made a joke about it — probably to her sisters — but they weren't here. Gregori squinted up at her from between thick dark lashes for a second and then his eyes closed.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?

“That's the one,” he muttered, frown lines marring the beauty of his features.

He scowled and Alanna thought,
that's better. Not so handsome now
. “Just trying to be helpful,” Alanna pried the box open. The lid fell back with a loud clunk.

Gregori winced. “I don't see how.”

“That's because your eyes are closed.”

“I'm having trouble opening them,” her patient admitted.

“I'm trying to work out how to treat you,” Alanna retorted.

“Water would help,” he rasped.

“Lucky for you we have some.”

Frustration etched the fatigue lines under his eyes; it only added to the allure of the creature on the floor. She turned to the small kitchen bench where they made coffee, tea, and the like throughout the day while working in the Gallery, found a glass and filled it straight from the tap.

She knelt beside him, slid a hand under his neck to lift his head and held the glass to his lips. His eyes drifted open. He raised a hand to shade them, as if the light in the room was too bright. Which it likely was, as she'd switched on the main overhead light in the windowless room and it was shining down, directly above them.

He sipped the water and then took the glass from her and rested it on his chest. “Who are you?” His voice was hoarse, barely audible, as if he found it difficult to speak.

“Don't you know?” Alanna withdrew her hand from his neck and sat back in disbelief. How could he not know who she was? She was the keeper of his imprisonment, after all.

“Stop playing with me,” he grunted and attempted to sit up, the water sloshing in the glass. He fell back with a grunt, but his eyes remained open and Alanna was grateful to note his pupils were not large or unfocused. No lasting damage, then.

“Believe me, you'd know if I was playing with you,” Alanna reached into the wooden box and fumbled through its contents. Rosa made herbal remedies and the box, handcrafted by one of their regular clients, housed a number of them. “I'm looking for something to ease the scrapes and cuts on your body and something for your head.”

He reached behind to feel the back of his skull. His palm came away with traces of blood on the skin. His eyes flared wide open. “Dragons' Blood,” he exclaimed. “You tried to kill me!”

Alanna rolled her eyes. “Don't be an idiot. If I'd wanted to kill you, I could have done it while you were unconscious in the courtyard. You may not have noticed, but you're no longer the size of a small dragon. I had to drag you in here by myself and believe me, it wasn't easy.”

“Why the hell didn't you just magic me here instead of dragging me through the studio?”

Alanna shot him a disbelieving stare. “As if you don't already know.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Why? What's it to you? Besides, I'm the one who should be asking questions. Like, why were you encased in the dragon and now that you're out, what's going to happen next?”

He'd love to know the answers to her questions, too. “I'm more interested in your answers.”

“We're at an impasse then.”

Gregori scowled. “I don't have time to play games.” He tried to rise, but his body refused to respond. Inside, he shook with a strange weakness, even though he hadn't actually moved.

Alanna took the water from him and once again supported his head so he could drink. “You're dehydrated. Your lips are all cracked and dry.” Gregori glared at her and she congratulated herself on sounding reasonable when, inwardly, she was shaking like a leaf. His hand reached up and gripped hers as she held the glass to his lips. This time he drank like a man parched in a waterless desert.

“I don't think you're going anywhere for now.” Which was a pity because she didn't want him here when Beth arrived in an hour or so. She pulled her hand from his grip and went to the bench to refill his glass. Her back to him, she shut her eyes and heaved in a steadying breath. “You're weak, hungry and disoriented from however long Marylebone locked you in stone.”

She turned around to find him standing, towering over her, his tall solid frame looking as if he'd just left a gym, his body muscled like an Olympian. The blanket lay crumpled on the floor. She could see all of him once more and oh, he really was the embodiment of every wet dream she'd ever had. Her eyes widened and she backed away. His presence took over the small confines of the room. Her hand curled around her throat.

“Witches' Warts.” She pressed herself against the bench and took a sip of the water herself, trying not to think about his lips having touched the rim only moments before.

Those delicious lips, now a little less dry, tilted into what some would call a smile. She thought it more like a smirk. “Luckily you don't have any warts to speak of.” He reached out for the glass, but she held it tight against her sternum as if it would protect her from him. “None visible anyway.”

“Whereas,” Alanna looked him up and down, “I can see all of yours.”

He laughed. He had a sense of humor and no modesty whatsoever. Then his laughter morphed into a dry cough. He reached out and tugged the glass out of her hand, water spilling over her skin and down her baggy top, highlighting the fact she hadn't put a bra on. His eyes dilated and it wasn't because he was concussed.

“I'm ravenous.” He emptied the glass and stepped forward and she scooted out of his way, trying to avoid him.

But then he refilled the glass and drank again. Alanna blinked, clearing her vision and shuffled sideways to put more distance between them.

“I'll find you something to eat.” She shot out of the room and up the stairs to her flat, confident he was too weak to follow. If luck was on her side, by the time she returned with some food — she thought the fridge held juice and a chunk of moldy cheese — he would be gone. A missing warlock would be easier to explain than a heavily muscled, naked one in the office.

She took a precious minute rifling through her wardrobe to find something that might cover those bits on his body she found the most distracting. Thank the Goddess she was tallish, she thought, as she clutched a baggy shirt she often wore for sculpting and a pair of jeans she had never got around to trimming the hems on.

She shot out of the bedroom and slammed into a wall of muscle, nearly flattening her nose. She heard a loud “oomph” before realizing it was her.

Strong hands grasped her. “Steady,” the wall said.

“You're proving detrimental to my health,” she grumbled as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I've already ruined my back dragging you through the Gallery.”

“You're young and vital. You'll recover.”

“I'm not so sure,” she mumbled as she struggled to push herself away from him. There wasn't a single hair on the smooth wall of muscle and her lips were centimeters from connecting with his skin. She was suddenly very hungry and wondered if he'd notice if her tongue just snuck out for a wee taste. This warlock was dangerous enough for Marylebone to encase him in stone and here she was wanting to smash her face against his chest and lick him up like an ice cream. She wondered briefly what flavor he would be. Certainly not vanilla. Certainly nothing as bland as that.

She shoved the clothing she carried into his arms. “Put these on. Staring at all that nakedness is giving me a migraine.”

Goran Thoreaux, apprentice Dragon to Marylebone, had found himself, very inconveniently, Earthbound in Raven's Creek because of Alanna and her sister Beth's magical mayhem. He stood in the doorway looking out onto the river streaming past the rear of the yard and inhaled the morning air. It was crispy fresh, but the dew on the ground was disappearing fast. It was going to be another scorcher of a day. He tilted his head, closed his eyes and tried to sense exactly why he felt this unease in his soul. He might be Earthbound, but he hadn't lost his wit or his power.

He searched, using his minds' eye for answers as to why he felt this odd uncertainty. His first concern was for Beth, the youngest of the Greenwood witches, who lived next door in Clematis Cottage, but he knew without going deep that all was well in her world. He couldn't help the upward tilt of his mouth as his sharp hearing zoned in on her while she tinkered about in her kitchen, humming as she worked.