Dragons Prefer Blondes (19 page)

A dragon woman stood above them, holding something that looked like a cattle prod. She had only partially transformed. Her head was human, the rest dragon. Her two partners in crime were still in human form.
Good, easier to kill.

The door leading down to the basement wasn’t protected by magic, but the fact that it was steel meant I couldn’t just kick it down. I thought about it a minute and quietly turned the handle. The damn thing opened.

Thank you.
I looked to the heavens.

Staying back by the door in the shadows, I waited to see what she would do. The female dragon should have caught my scent, but she was too busy thinking of ways to torture the poor women. One of the other dragons looked back toward the door, and I flattened myself against the wall.

I could hear the voice of the female now and was disappointed when I realized it wasn’t Jene. Damn. I thought for sure she was the one running the show. The dragon had red coloring, similar to Jene’s, but I knew it wasn’t her. This one was slightly smaller and didn’t have Jene’s regal stature.

“The Manteros will be pleased with our catch, though I don’t know why they are so interested in these puny beings. I say we have some fun before we turn them over.” She called to one of her cohorts, and he handed her a large syringe.

Crap.
God only knew what was in that thing.

There wasn’t room to draw the crossbow, so I pulled out the plasma gun with one hand and the sword with the other. Even though humans were in danger, I couldn’t shoot the dragons in the back. It went against my personal code.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I didn’t move out of the shadows, but their attention turned toward the door. I used the plasma to shoot the brains out of the dragon on the far right. The goo went everywhere. The women screamed.

“Arrrr,” the female dragon roared.

I couldn’t keep from smiling. “For a dragon, that’s kind of a sissy growl.”

Wrong thing to say. She leapt to the center of the room, going full dragon as she did. Acid shot from her mouth and caught my right arm. The plasma gun dropped from my hand as the poison ate through the nerves and tissue.

I really shouldn’t have given her a warning. I swung the sword up with my left, and she used her claws to deflect it. We fought like that for several minutes. All the while I tried to keep an eye on the third dragon and the women.

That’s why I didn’t see her claw when she used it to shove me to the floor and stand on my chest.

My mind went to strange places. Like the people I would disappoint by dying on the basement floor with a dragon on my chest.

My mother will be so pissed if I die like this. I wasn’t paying attention, and she’ll know it. Same with Master Kanashi. Argh.
I couldn’t breathe.

Her head transformed back into human form, her dark hair waving around her. “You have interfered for the last time, Guardian. Once you’re dead, I’ll be free to take as many humans as I need for my new business. My sister, the lovely Jene, will be able to marry Ginjin with no complications from you. No more Guardian making trouble for us.”

“Sister?” The word croaked out.

Using the sword, I swiped at her ankle. She toppled, and I rolled out of the way. Now I stood above her with my sword over her evil heart.

“I don’t want your stinky dragon prime minister, bitch. I never did.” I jammed the metal into her heart.

“Sharlot!” The dragon standing by the women screamed the name. Then he rushed me and in his anguish didn’t see my sword leave her chest and stab directly into his. The stunned look in his eyes said he hadn’t been ready to die, even for the woman he loved.

He fell on top of her. I kicked him over with my foot and pulled out my sword.

The women in the corner were now all awake, frightened but alive. I hit the comm on my ear and heard nothing but static. Damn.

With the last of my strength I cut the ropes off the woman in front. “Use this to free your friends.” I took the comm off my ear. “Take this outside, away from the house, and push this button.” I showed her where it was. “Tell them where we are and that I’m here.”

She nodded. I’m sure fear still had a tight hold on her voice.

Everything went blurry. “You’re safe,” I told her. “But you need to get out of here. I don’t know if they have more friends.” With that, I faded into oblivion.

CHAPTER 20

I woke up hours later in the healer’s room at home. The wound on my arm was still open, but it didn’t hurt.

“I guess I’m still alive.” My eyes were blurry, but I could see the outline of my sisters.

“Just barely.” Gilly’s voice sounded annoyed.

“You’re one—” I coughed. “To talk.”

I felt a hand brush my forehead and the smell of the sea told me it was Claire. “You have to stop scaring the crap out of us,” she said. “I mean, we all live in mortal danger, but you seem to almost get killed at least three times a week.”

“
Almost
being the operative word,” Mira said. “Give the girl a break. You try protecting the world from dragons and see how long you live.”

“Yeah, what she said.” I tried to smile, but the effort hurt. I felt something cool on my arm. My eyes focused, and I saw Dr. Posten, our personal on-call surgeon, on the right. “Hey, aren’t you in the wrong room?”

He smiled at me. “Looks like they have the wound cleaned out, but it’s going to take me a while to sew you up. Don’t suppose you’d ever consider not reinjuring the same arm?”

“What’s the fun in that?”

He nodded to someone over my head, and a mask came down on my face. I tried to shake my head no. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, but before I could think about moving, I was out.

I woke up again several hours later in my bed. When I realized where I was, I snuggled down into the pillows, which made my arm hurt like hell.

I sat straight up. “What the?” It was wrapped from my shoulder to fingers in tape and gauze.

“The tissue on the arm was damaged. It will heal in a couple of days, but you have to keep it covered.” Jake’s voice came out of the darkness.

I flipped the switch on the crystal lamp by the bed.

“Jake, what’s up?”

“I was checking on you.” He stood by the door.

“In the dark?” I moved my legs to the side of the bed.

“I’d just stepped in when you woke up, and you’re not supposed to get up for a couple of days.”

I closed my eyes and tried to get my equilibrium.

“That was a bad one.” His voice was low and sexy.

“Even for me.”

“There wouldn’t have been any shame in calling for backup.” It wasn’t a reprimand; more of a statement.

I shook my head. “I know you won’t believe me, but I actually thought about it. I knew how dangerous she was and that she had the dark magic on her side. There just wasn’t time. She was torturing those women for kicks. I couldn’t let that happen.”

He stared at me for a long time.

“Are you mad at me about something?”

Shrugging, he moved to the bed. “I’m trying hard to get over it. Though you don’t make it easy when you keep putting yourself in these situations.”

I reached out my good hand to him, and he took it.

“Before I left. We . . .”

“Kissed.”

The drugs must have gone to my head, because more than anything I wanted to feel his lips on mine. It was as if he were the only thing that could make me feel whole again.

“I want to do it again. Now. I want you to get over the fact that sometimes I get hurt doing my job. Then I want you to kiss me, hard.”

Measuring me with his eyes, he stepped back. “You’re injured, and I’m not going to take advantage of you. I’m pretty sure you’re high. I don’t do women who do drugs.”

“Shut up. I’m not doing the drugs. They were done to me. And I’m perfectly aware of what I’m saying.”

Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. The words were tumbling out of my mouth at an alarming rate, and I seemed to have no control.

“I mean, I almost died. Are you really going to deny me a simple kiss?”

He sighed. “There’s absolutely nothing simple about kissing you, Alex. In fact, everything about you is complicated. From your extraordinary beauty to your stubbornness, you’re nothing but one big complication.”

He called me pretty.

“I’m sure you’re right, but if I’m pretty, then you should want to kiss me, right?” I reached out a hand again and pulled him onto the bed next to me. “I need it. For, um, healing purposes.”

“That’s lame. And I didn’t call you pretty; I said you are beautiful.”

“Okay. Not sure I get the distinction, but as long as you kiss me, I don’t care.”

He shook his head and looked like he was about to give me a lecture.

I punched his arm. “Besides, you shouldn’t call poor, injured women lame. Are you going to do it or not?” I pouted.

The kiss was tentative at first, as if he didn’t want to hurt me. I slid my arm around his neck and pulled him tighter to me. His lips were like my lifeline, warming my body in every way imaginable.

When his fingers caressed my chin, I suddenly wanted more than a kiss. “I need you,” I whispered against his lips.

He groaned and pulled me tighter. His tongue slipped between my teeth and—

Someone knocked on the door. Before I could answer, it opened. Penny rushed in. “Damn, I’ve been here all night, and you wake up when I finally run out for a snack and—” She stopped short, having just noticed I wasn’t alone. “Hi, Jake.”

“Hi, Pen.” He gave her one very charming smile, and she blushed. It takes a lot to make her turn pink, and she has walked in on myriad situations where I’m concerned.

She motioned to me. “I guess she’s feeling better.”

“Would seem so.” He smirked. “She attacked me and said I had to help her heal faster.”

She giggled. “I had no idea your lips were so powerful, Jake. From the look of her cheeks, she might be right. She’s positively glowing. Maybe you should do it some more.”

Tired of them ignoring me, I decided to chime in. “Trust me, he’s a big bottle of healing potion. Warmed me right up.”

“Okay, that’s TMI.” She grimaced. “I had no idea you two were so—”

“We’ve been playing it cool,” Jake interjected.

“Taking our time,” I added.

“Ah. Okay then.” She gave me a look that said,
Since when do you not share everything with me?
Pen was my go-to girl, but even I needed a few secrets now and then. “So, I should probably go.”

Jake stood up. “No, you stay and look after her. You’ll have a better chance of making her behave. She keeps trying to molest me.”

I kicked out, but my foot missed, and I almost fell off the bed. Jake caught me and set me right. “You”—he pushed me back toward the pillows—“need to take it easy.”

“But—”

“Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow morning.” He put his finger against my lips. I wasn’t so sure about that. My body was screaming for him. But he looked determined to ruin what could be a very good time. “Fine. But I can’t promise Penny will be here to save you the next time. You know how I am; I always get my way.”

He leaned down and kissed my cheek. Then he tweaked my nose. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours. You’d better be asleep.”

I gave a mock salute as he left.

Penny pulled up a chair. “Okay, hottie in a suit is crushing on you, and you don’t say anything to me?”

“You’ve been on Aspen duty, and it really is kind of new. And believe it or not, I think it’s me more crushing on him than the other way around.”

She grunted. “I don’t know, looks even-steven to me.”

I grabbed a pillow and hugged it. “We’ll see. He was right; we’re kind of taking it slow.”

“That’s unusual.”

She had me there. I was known for being impetuous, especially when it came to men. I jumped into relationships, got bored fast, and then ran away at the first possible opportunity if anything became too serious. I never liked the idea of being trapped by any one person for long.

At least I’d been doing that until last year. There was no big moment. I just lost interest in relationships without connection. It’s such a girl thing, but I wanted romance. Like the kind I read about in books. I know it’s fiction, but everyone deserves that kind of love. When I saw what Gilly had found with Arath, I knew it was at least possible.

Several weeks ago when Jake had carried me down to the healers, something changed inside me. His arms circled around me made me feel something I never had before: safe. The idea of feeling protected in someone’s arms was like crack to me. I wanted more, so much so that it freaked me out at the time. I shoved it from my brain, put those feelings on a shelf like I always did.

But part of me did have a thing for Jake. I’d been manipulating us both for a while now, and I didn’t even realize it. I wasn’t in a fake relationship with the man. It was more than real, at least for me. I wasn’t so sure about him.

Kissing him just then made me realize that I had to tell him how I really felt. I couldn’t continue to pretend we were, well, pretending anymore. There was just one problem. Telling him that I cared about him was scarier to me than fighting a gang of dragons. If Jake rejected me, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

“Uh, Earth to boss.” Penny snapped her fingers in my face. “You still with me?”

I smiled at her. “Sorry. What were we talking about?”

“Jake.”

“Oh, yeah. Like I said, it’s new. Not a lot to tell.” It was the truth—we hadn’t even been on a date. The lunch with Aspen and Huff didn’t count, as we were in extreme pretend mode there.

“I promise as soon there are details to share, I will. So tell me what’s going on. First, how are Lourdes and the baby? And are my London girls out of the hospital yet? Have you heard from Master Kanashi and Kyle?”

Penny pulled up a chair and sat down. “Slow down. You know, all of this could wait until you’ve had some rest.”

I frowned at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s see. Angel called, and the two in London are at home recuperating. He made sure they both have full security, and we’re also providing a nurse to stay with them, though the doctors say they are both fine. Helps that they are roomies, so everyone is in one place.