Descended from Dragons: an Urban Fantasy (Moonlight Dragon Book 1) (16 page)

It was total agony, but all I cared about was the demon, which crashed into the same manticore statue I had hid behind earlier. The statue rocked back beneath the impact and then settled with a
thunk
on the floor again.

Hairy, scary Aglasis was nowhere in sight.

"Is it in?" I gasped. "Did you finish the curse?"

Diana nodded slowly, but I wasn't completely sure she'd heard what I'd said. For several seconds after she uttered the last word she stood staring in trepidation at the statue. She wasn't the only one. I kept waiting for the thing to burst into motion and tear us both to shreds.

But as the seconds passed, I dared to loosen the death grip I had on the spear.

"That worked," Diana finally whispered. She pressed her palms to her white cheeks. "I didn't think it would. I thought for certain it would devour our souls and we'd rot for eternity in Hell."

"Jesus, I'm glad you didn't tell me that before we tried it!"

She shrugged. "Would it have changed your mind?"

She had a point.

I glanced at the bloody figure on the floor. "Sorry, Orlaton," I said, not really sorry, and then I called up Lucky and had him smash the manticore statue into a thousand pieces that scattered across the floor.

"I liked that statue," Orlaton muttered.

"I'll give you a hundred dollar credit at Moonlight."

I slumped against the spear. The temperature in the room was back to normal and I was drenched in sweat. My limbs trembled like I'd run a marathon while carrying King Kong on my back. All of me ached. But I couldn't let down my guard yet.

The wards hadn't been hit for a while but I doubted that meant Vagasso had packed up his toys and left. More likely he was waiting on Diana…or planning a way in that wouldn't alert the Oddsmakers that he was a powerful dark spirit.

I looked hopefully to the gargoyle. It had shifted back into Vale and he looked like he'd returned from visiting the place where I'd just sent the demon.

"You put up some fight," I said to him, just to get him to raise his head where he sat slumped on the floor, totally naked.

Unfortunately, I was so exhausted that I was in no position to judge a Chippendale's dance-off much less the attractiveness of a man who'd just vomited out a demon.

"I need a drink," he said roughly.

I snorted. "Shots are on me if we survive this."

He dragged both hands down his face and peered over his fingertips at me. "I'm holding you to that."

I retrieved his clothes from the bathroom and helped him redress. Together, we hobbled like an elderly couple for the door.

"I'll call an ambulance, Orlaton," I said from over my shoulder.

He lay with his head cradled on his arms and seemed to nod.

"No," Diana spoke up. "I'll take care of him." She kneeled beside him and gently laid her hand upon his shoulder. "He's my responsibility. Besides, you don't want to answer to the Oddsmakers for bringing in outside help to clean up family business."

Ah, I'd forgotten about the whole lay low business. Seemed kind of pointless to worry about it now, but I guess Diana still thought she could get out of this without consequence.

She lightly stroked Orlaton's thin hair. "This is my debt, and I will repay it to this young man."

"Orlaton, you okay with this?" I asked him.

"Just get out of my life, Miss Moody," he mumbled, "before you make it any worse."

Gee, nothing like an appreciative audience.

At the front door of Tomes, I brought Vale and I to a stop. He hung on me like another set of clothes and I wasn't doing too hot either. But at least I hadn't just given birth to a monster.

"If Vagasso is out there, this is going to get ugly, fast," I warned him. "Maybe you should stay inside."

He gave me a look. "Are you familiar with the word 'emasculating'?"

"Are
you
familiar with the word 'toast'?"

He tightened the arm that was slung across my shoulders, proving that he might be weak now, but he certainly didn't lack for muscles.

"I want my pound of flesh, too, Moody. If it wasn't for Vagasso and his demon, I'd be the big, strong man in this situation."

"You make it sound so awful," I scoffed. "I've seen you naked and I'm halfway to molesting you. It wasn't all bad, Vale."

He smirked tiredly and his deep brown gaze met mine. "When you put it that way I guess it wasn't."

I could have stood there all day, cracking jokes to make him smile and look at me like that. But there were things that needed doing. Specifically, one dark spirit that needed the heave ho. I propped Vale against the wall near the door.

"Let me see how bad it is," I told him. "It may turn out that I'll take any help I can get. Even help from a beat-up, raggedy-looking gargoyle."

He snorted. "You really know how to build up a guy's ego, Moody."

I shot him a smile, then called up Lucky to hover over my shoulder as I carefully, slowly, cracked open the front door of the bookshop.

What I found outside wasn't at all what I was expecting.

"Palms read, fortunes told! Find out if you're destined to be a lucky winner! Learn your lucky numbers!"

Christian was dressed in jeans and flip flops and nothing else. Either he'd found that super-sized bottle of aloe vera or water fey had miraculous, accelerated healing factors because every naked inch I could see of him was perfect and gorgeous.

All the young girls clustered around him seemed to share my opinion.

"Come on, ladies!" he said, grinning at them in a way destined to break hearts. "Come get your tarot read. See if you're destined for romance tonight."

The girls tittered and made flirty comments. A few did as he suggested and gravitated to where Celestina had set up a table in the middle of the street in front of Tomes. The table was decked out with a starry tablecloth and she'd set up six giant glowing star paper lanterns around her table as well as a Bluetooth stereo that was blasting ambient trance. All were hooked up to an extension cord that led back to her shop.

It was quite a production and she'd caught the attention of at least a dozen people already. More were drifting over from nearby Fremont Street, following the monkey that was riding on the back of a black wolf.

"Melanie!" I blurted, incredulous.

In her monkey form she was spinning one of those obnoxious rattlers that idiots handed out on New Year's Eve. In her other hand she whipped a child-sized cowboy hat back and forth as she urged Lev in his wolf shifter form to run around like an excited dog.

I'm sorry, but if a rattle-holding, cowboy hat-wearing monkey on a wolf didn't pique your interest then you must be dead inside.

"What is going on?" I asked aloud. "Am I hallucinating? Did someone slip me crazy pills?"

Christian heard me and turned to grin at me. "Pretty clever, eh?"

"What in the world are you all doing? This looks like a low rent street fair." My eyes rounded. "Vagasso is here!"

Christian waved it off. "Nah, he was here earlier, and we thought we were in big trouble because none of us can stand up to him. But then Celestina came up with the idea of dragging tourists here. She pointed out that Vagasso couldn't afford to use magick in front of them. Not without bringing down major wrath from the Oddsmakers."

"Which he definitely wouldn't want to do before he'd gotten his hands on a demon," I finished. I marveled at my friends' ingenuity. "This is nuts and absolutely awesome."

"Plus, Celestina is making bank off all the business we're drumming up for her," Christian said with a laugh.

Then he sort of forgot about me because a girl in cut-off shorts and a too-tight tank top was gushing to him about how much she loved redheads.

People started to dance because Melanie had jumped off of Lev and was showing off her moves which were pretty impressive for a two foot-tall monkey, but I forced myself to look beyond the festivities and search for signs that Vagasso and his followers were still around.

I looked, searching every shadow and creepy-looking hiding place, but I simply didn't see anything to suggest that they were lying in wait for Vale and me. My friends had truly driven them off.

"Brace yourself," I told Vale when I re-entered Tomes. I kept a straight-face, but the music had drifted inside and I could tell he knew something was up.

He shook his head in disbelief when I helped him outside. "Is this supposed to be the cavalry?"

"Sure. Vegas-style." When he began searching the way I had been earlier, I assured him, "Vagasso's gone. Using magick in front of non-magickals would be a disaster. He's too smart to risk it this early in the game."

"For now," he agreed. "Vagasso doesn't sound like the sort to give up. He'll attempt to summon another demon."

"Unfortunately, I think you're right. Hopefully someone will stop him."

But who was I kidding? I had the awful feeling that I, and maybe my friends, would be the suckers who'd have to do that.

Well, at the moment I was content to pull a Scarlett O'Hara and deal with it tomorrow. I felt like ground dog meat, and I knew Vale shared my pain.

I tightened my arm around his waist. "Would you mind taking a rain check on the shots? I think I'm about to collapse."

I shivered when he turned and murmured into my ear, "You have a sofa I can crash on?"

"I live in a studio. All I have is a bed."

"As long as it's not a twin, that's fine with me."

I cleared my throat and said as casually as I could, "It's not a twin."

~~~~~

Back at my place. Door locked, Open sign off.

Since his clothes were still damp and I'd already seen him naked, Vale opted to sleep in the nude.

I pointed out that I wasn't that kind of girl and I told him he had to leave and go book a room in a hotel.

Yeah, right.

I shucked my own clothes and climbed right in beside him.

And almost immediately passed out.

A stroke along my shoulder woke me up again, though.

"I concede," I whispered. "You're definitely some kind of stud if you still have energy after all we've been through."

"Let's just say a certain sexy sorceress is giving me my second wind," he murmured as he kissed my shoulder.

"Is that what that is? Thought it was your wand."

I rolled over to face him. In the dim lighting coming in from the back window he didn't look like a man who'd been fighting a demon and had barely escaped with his life. I reached up and brushed his wavy hair from his eyes. I loved his eyes. So serious and thoughtful. Nothing like the eyes of the guys I met at bars who couldn't focus for longer than a few minutes on anything that wasn't sports.

Vale was deep, magickal deep, and right now I wanted to drown in him.

His fingers brushed over my cheek. His lips followed, lightly tasting me. When he breathed against my mouth, I shivered and parted my lips for him. The first touch of his tongue to mine made my entire body sing.

He kissed me slowly, like a man who was in no hurry. Like one who believed we had all the time in the world and that magickal monsters weren't waiting for us on the horizon. I fell under his spell, my movements unhurried, only my heart and my lungs racing with rising urgency.

As he kissed down my neck, my hands found his unruly hair. I did what I'd wanted to do since I first saw him in the Chinese mirror. I buried my fingers in those lush waves and pulled, making him groan.

He tossed the sheet off the bed and moved over me. I savored the press of his muscular body as he held me down. Even in this form he was strong and I needed that. In this bed I wanted to be a woman, not a powerful sorceress.

He teased me, smiling when I groaned and begged him, but he wasn't cruel. When he finally slid inside me his groan was as loud and relieved as mine. I clutched his ass with both hands as he moved in me. The bed rocked gently, and then not so gently.

"Vale," I breathed into his ear, my desperation reaching its limit.

I wished in that moment that I was a witch and knew a spell to keep him with me always. Then all thoughts dissolved in an explosion of light, and silence, and ecstasy.

Above me, Vale drove hard against me one final time and then followed me over the edge with a rushed breath of pleasure.

"Moody," was the last thing I heard him say before I fell asleep.

Moody. Because I was his.

~~~~~

I forgot to put up the wards, which was dangerous and foolish. But the only fallout was Melanie slipping into Moonlight and scaring the bejeesus out of me when she launched herself onto the bed.

I sat up with a gasp and looked to the sunlit mattress beside me. She hadn't crushed Vale because Vale was gone. The scent of him lingered, though, and it took all my willpower not to drop face-first onto the sheets and fill my lungs with it.

"You are a naughty girl," Melanie teased, wagging her finger at me. "I love it! How was he? Does he growl? I bet he growls."

I burst into laughter. "I will neither confirm nor deny anything. My lips are sealed."

"Spoilsport!" She flopped onto her back beside me. "Was he nice?" she asked in a softer voice.

I smiled at the ceiling. My skin still held the memory of him. "Yeah, Melly. He was nice."

I heard her sigh with contentment.

"How's Christian?" I asked, giving her a nudge in the ribs.

"I will neither confirm nor deny anything."

I hit her with a pillow for that. She shifted into her monkey and jumped on my head.

We giggled and played for a bit because hey, we'd survived something pretty awful and come out relatively unscathed. We were allowed it. And because maybe in the back of our minds we knew it wasn't over.

"Vale must have left before the sun came up," I told Melanie after she'd changed back and we lay there again. "The weird curse is gone."

"Guess he didn't want you groping his statue while he couldn't stop you."

"That comment is creepy and potentially accurate."

Melanie giggled. "Well, Christian said he's talked his mother into moving out of Vegas. He wants her far away from Vagasso."

"That's smart. He doesn't worry that Vagasso will go after him, too?"

I felt the sheets moved as Melanie shrugged. "I guess he's found something worth sticking around for. Ha ha! I made it sound like it's me, but we're not anything serious, Anne. We're only having fun."

"Nothing wrong with that."

I yawned sleepily. I'd probably slept a good five or six hours, but I wouldn't have minded a few more. Still, for all I'd been through, I felt pretty good.

"Vagasso's going to try for another demon," I mused aloud.

"Yeah. Probably. We should warn the Oddsmakers. They totally need to know the details."

That woke me up. "That's not high on my list of Things to Do in Las Vegas, Melly."

"Mine neither, but I think we should. And then maybe we can let them know that you're not, you know, a threat or anything."

Melanie was right, but I wasn't happy about it. I'd gone on a very public bender with my sorcery. There was a pretty good chance the Oddsmakers had noticed. They'd want to talk to me about it. They'd want to know about Lucky. Hopefully, that would be all they wanted of me.

But I didn't like the odds.

Dread wanted to steal over me, but I refused to let it ruin my day. I had my bestie beside me and my other friends were safe. Concentrate on that, I told myself, and I did.

Melanie and I watched the shadows of the tree in the backyard twitch across the ceiling. It was another blustery day in the city. Not my favorite kind of weather. But you'd better believe I would take a windy day in Vegas over a windless day in Hell.

Continue for a sneak peek of Hunting Down Dragons, Moonlight Dragon Book 2…