Humor brightened his eyes. “Ah, but virgins have always held a special place in a dragon’s heart. Something to do with the meat tasting sweeter.”
And he wasn’t talking about
“Okay, serious question. How much do you weigh and are you a virgin?”
I raised my eyebrow. “That’s two questions, and why would you need to know the second one?”
“Because I make a point of not seducing virgins.”
Meaning he had every intention of seducing me if I wasn’t? My pulse rate danced joyously at the thought.
“Then you’d be the first dragon in history to do so.” I shifted back from Angus and sat on my heels. “Or is it a muerte thing? The bringer of death not taking innocence, or something like that?”
“It’s a personal thing.” He glanced up at the window, and frowned. “I don’t want to seduce anyone who might expect more than just a good time, and virgins tend to get a little clingy with their first lover.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?”
My voice was dry, and he looked back at me briefly. “No. Just consider it a warning.”
I snorted softly. “As if any draman actually
He didn’t answer, and something in the way he was holding himself—a mix of intentness and alert readiness—had tension crawling down my spine. I lowered my voice a little as I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Footsteps, coming this way.”
“Could it be the guy Angus referred to when I first stepped onto the boat?”
He was shaking his head before I’d finished. “There’s at least two men, and their steps are cautious.” He glanced back at me again. “Slip down the stairs to the lower deck. Don’t come up until I say its okay.”
“Damon, I can help—”
“This is what I do,” he said coldly. “Please let me do it without having to worry about you.”
Annoyance flared, but I held it in check, scooting across the floor to the stairs before heading downward. There were four bedrooms here, as well as a large storage area toward the stern. I opened several doors, looking for something I could use as a weapon and finding nothing but wetsuits, flippers, and life jackets. But in the final locker there were several air tanks and a large tool kit. I opened that up, grabbed a heavy-looking wrench, then walked across to the door that led out to a small platform at the back of the boat. I tested the door handle to ensure it was locked, then stepped back into the confines of another locker and waited.
For too long, nothing happened. But the awareness that someone was close began to grow, sending goose bumps crawling across my flesh. The dragon within stirred, her flame surging through my muscles and causing little sparks to leap across my fingertips. I toned it down, trying not to let whoever was outside know that I was here— although if they were full dragon, they’d probably already know. It was only us draman who couldn’t always sense these things.
After a few more minutes, the door handle moved. My heart caught in my throat and my breath came in hitches. The handle inched downward then stopped, and the door rattled softly. It was locked, but I had to wonder if that would stop whomever was on the other side.
A second later I had my answer, with the sound of something jiggling around in the lock. I flexed my fingers then wrapped them tighter around my improvised weapon and waited.
The door began to move, pushed by fingers that were long, brown, and oddly elegant. When the door was fully open, they withdrew. The silence stretched, tearing at my nerves. My heart was beating a million miles an hour and sweat trickled down my spine. I licked my lips and tried to ignore the fact that my hands were shaking.
The nose of a gun appeared. My breath caught again and I briefly closed my eyes, fighting the desire to lash out. It was too soon. I needed to see
Upstairs, there was a thump, and then a curse, the voice dark and dangerous. A stranger’s voice, not Damon’s.
The hand that held the gun appeared. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t about to be rushed by whatever was happening upstairs.
I waited, still not daring to breathe, hoping he had as little sense of me as I was getting of him. An arm appeared. My fingers twitched, my palms sweating against the steel of the wrench. He stepped forward, began to turn around, and I knew I’d run out of time, that at any second he’d realize I was hiding there in the shadows.
I swung the wrench upward rather than down, smashing it into the underside of his wrist, the force of the blow sending the weapon and his arm flying backward. I followed through even as he moved to face me more fully, smacking the wrench into his face. Bone crunched and blood splattered across the walls and my hands. Bile rose but I swallowed hard and swung again, this time hitting him under the chin. His legs collapsed from under him, and he fell face-first onto the floor. I stood back, keeping out of grabbing range even though he was obviously unconscious. My breathing was harsh and tension rippled through me as I waited to see if someone else would come through the door.
No one did, but that didn’t make it any better. I had no idea what was going on above me—or whether there was someone else waiting outside to pounce.
So I continued to stand there, my breathing rapid and my fingers bloody, the knuckles almost white with the force of my grip on the wrench.
No one came. After a few more minutes, my skin began to crawl with awareness, and although I’d heard no sound and could see no one coming down the teak-lined hallway, I knew Damon was near.
“Mercy?”
His voice sounded so close that I jumped. “Where the hell are you?”
“On the platform outside the door. I’m coming in. Don’t hit me.”
“Okay.” But I didn’t relax, keeping the wrench at the ready until he was through the door and it was obvious he was alone. Only then did I lower my weapon. “You okay?”
He half smiled. “There were only three of them, and they were draman rather than dragon. You?”
“Just the one, thank God.” I looked down at the man at my feet. “Should we tie him or something?”
“I’ll need to question them, so yeah. But if they are draman who can flame, then we’ll need to find something a little harder to burn than rope.”
He stepped over the man and walked across to the storage lockers. I dropped my weapon and pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. His pulse was a little rapid, but it was strong enough, and his nose had already stopped bleeding. If there was one good thing about being draman, it was having a dragon’s healing capabilities.
I wiped his blood off my hands, using the ends of his shirt as a towel, then rose and stepped away from him again. Damon came back with what looked like a fishing reel.
“That’s not fireproof,” I commented.
“No.” He raised the man’s hands so that they were behind his head, then tied them together with the fishing line. Then he looped more around the man’s neck and tied it back to his hands. which meant if the stranger struggled in any way, or tried to slip the line, he’d probably end up garroting himself. “You’ll have to keep an eye on our captives until we get out of the harbor.”
“You know how to drive a boat this size?”
“I’ve got one,” he said, and grabbed the man under the shoulders, hauling him as easily as a sack of grain up and over his shoulders. “The sea is a vast place, and sometimes it’s the only way you can get peaceful flying time.”
I followed him up the stairs. He dumped the man he was carrying on the sofa then tied up the other three, all of whom looked a whole lot less bloody than the man I’d confronted. But then, if Death didn’t know how to drop someone without effort, who would?
He turned and faced me. “Stay next to the stairs. Don’t go near any of them. If they start flaming in
I nodded. “Can we get the boat out of the harbor without someone coming after us?”
“We’ll find out soon.” His voice was grim. Then he smiled and touched my cheek lightly. “I doubt there are
