Dragos Takes A Holiday [6.50] Elder Races (3 page)

She angled her head and looked at Dragos. “What are we going to do if he doesn’t change back into his human form, and he keeps growing at this rate?”

He stretched his legs out, loosened his tie and scratched his jaw. Even though it was just midday, a new growth of beard shadowed his lean cheeks. He kept his inky-black hair cut uncompromisingly short, and the formality of his dark suit highlighted the richness of his copper skin and intelligent, gold eyes.

In the last year, Pia had gone from living at the edge of Wyr society to being catapulted directly to the top. She had met any number of Powerful creatures in the different Elder Races from all over the world, but none of them, to her mind, had Dragos’s sheer physicality. Standing just under seven feet tall and weighing close to three hundred pounds, he towered over the largest of his sentinels, and his dragon form was the size of a Cessna jet.

His handsomeness had a brutality that never failed to cause her breath to catch at the back of her throat. Not even tiredness could dim the Power and energy that boiled from him. He was as strong as the earth, and whenever she laid eyes on him she felt her soul winging out of her body, arrowing straight toward him.

He sighed. “I should be able to coax him back into his human form, but I don’t think he’ll be able to stay that way. His human form has no capacity to eat meat. If he follows the pattern of other Wyr children with large animal forms, he’ll need to shift back periodically to his dragon form in order to feed.”

“We’re going to need a bigger skyscraper.” She rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Part of me can’t believe I just said that.”

Dragos’s cell phone buzzed. His gold gaze flashed with irritation. Without glancing at the screen, he thumbed the phone on and said into it, “No.” After he hung up, he looked at her, his expression turning rueful. “I think it’s time we talk again about moving up north.”

Resigned, she nodded. Dragos owned a country estate just outside of Carthage, in northern New York. Well technically, since they were married now and nobody had breathed a word to her about a prenup, she supposed she was part owner, too. The mansion had fifty rooms, a separate house for an estate manager, and it was surrounded by two hundred and fifty acres of rolling, forested hills.

They had gone to the estate for their honeymoon and had stayed in the estate manager’s house, which had four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a family room with a fireplace that overlooked a lake. She loved that house. She had given birth to Liam in that house. She didn’t feel any affinity whatsoever for the palatial mansion.

Still, she knew she wasn’t being entirely rational. Just the sheer size of the place had intimidated her when she first saw it, but she might like it more if she spent some time there. After all, she had once felt funny about Cuelebre Tower and the penthouse, and familiarity had gone a long way to making her comfortable here.

She sighed. “He’s going to need the space, isn’t he? Especially when he learns to fly.”

“Yes, he will. The place up north is more private, with lots of greenery and open space.” He paused thoughtfully. “We can make it more secure too.”

“Two hundred and fifty acres would be a hell of a backyard for him to play in,” she murmured.

Pia had always followed her mother’s advice and stayed in the city, which was densely populated and easier to hide in. She had never seriously considered moving to the country, but now as she poked at the idea, she realized that two hundred and fifty acres would be a hell of a backyard for her to play in too, and her Wyr form approved. It approved most strenuously.

“We can get to the city in a couple of hours if we fly in.” Dragos angled his head, considering it. “That’s not so bad. When you’re stuck in traffic here, it can take a couple of hours just to get across town. I could have a complete office complex built on the property.”

She put a hand on his leg. His hand sewn Armani suit was made of lightweight woven wool that stretched taut over the thick, powerful muscle of his thigh. “We would need more than just the office complex. There will need to be living space for security and staff, and for the sentinels, because they’ll be flying back and forth. As spacious as that mansion is, it’s no Cuelebre Tower. We can’t all live there, nor would I want to try.”

He rubbed her back, his clever fingers following the curve and hollow of her spine. “We could build along the lake. There’s plenty of space to spread out. None of us would need to feel crowded.”

She broached another subject hesitantly. “I would want to redecorate the main house. Maybe even do some renovations.”

“You should,” he told her, smiling. “Hell, you can bulldoze the place if you want, and start over from scratch.”

That thought was a little too overwhelming. “I don’t know if we need to go quite that far.”

Dragos stroked a loose strand of hair away from her face. “But do we both believe that we need to make the move?”

She looked down. The weight of Liam’s body lay draped along the back of her neck and shoulders, and his slender, graceful white legs and tail curled around her, just underneath her collarbones. While it seemed like it might be an awkward position, he didn’t appear to mind at all. In fact he seemed perfectly comfortable, and he was sound asleep.

He was not a perfect white, but more of an ivory hue. His hide had the same iridescent sheen that Dragos’s did, but he had gotten his pale coloring from her. She wondered what people would think when they saw him. She put a hand lightly on one of his forelegs, and he stretched, flexing his paws, and sighed.

“Yes, we need to move. But we won’t have time to start building or redecorating until July. First we’ve got to get through all of the inter-demesne functions surrounding the summer solstice, and Graydon needs his vacation.”

“Agreed.” He gave her a lopsided smile that eased his harsh features and banished the tiredness from his expression. “In the meantime, is it too much upheaval if we consider taking a long weekend away?”

She loved him so much, with all of her heart. She loved his harsh side and needed his ruthlessness, because she knew he would always provide for her and Liam, and protect them with every ounce of his considerable power. But when he smiled at her like that, everything inside of her brightened, until she felt like she floated in a sea of light, and she grew weightless and dizzy with delight.

She peeked at him between her lashes. “I don’t know, Dragos, this is awfully sudden. Where would you want to go?”

He tugged at a strand of her hair behind her ear, and her gaze fell to his wrist. It had been a year since she had sewn a lock of her braided hair around his wrist, and he still wore it. He had done something to protect it, and it shone with an extra sparkle of Power.

“You said you’ve never been to Bermuda or the Caribbean.” He angled his head, watching her expression. “How would you like to go there? I think it would be fun to do some treasure hunting. We can go swimming and soak up some sunshine, and go out to eat. I could use a break before we plunge into all of the summer solstice activities, even if it’s a short one, and I’ll bet you could too.”

She smiled. “I would really love to get away.”

“How soon could you be ready to go?”

She tilted her head, and her smile turned into a grin. “Is fifteen minutes soon enough?”

“Really. Fifteen minutes.” His gold eyes narrowed suddenly. “Those books. That conversation. You little Machiavellian, you set me up.”

She closed one eye and held her thumb and forefinger close together. “Maybe a teensy, weensy bit. Actually, I just presented you with opportunities.”

He laughed. “Is that what you call it? I should know by now to expect this kind of thing from the thief who stole from my hoard.”

Her eyes rounded. “You’re never going to get over it, are you? I only stole one time, and it was just a penny!”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am of that,” said Dragos. “Because you’re pretty lousy at it. The gods only know what kind of trouble you would have gotten yourself into, if you had kept up your life of crime.”

Her tone of voice turned aggrieved. “That is completely untrue. I was absolutely excellent at stealing
the very one time
I did it. I was not quite so excellent at the getaway.”

“You have a point,” he admitted.

She grew serious. “While everybody else has a vacation scheduled, you need and deserve a break more than anybody. But you’re so driven, I knew you would have a hard time disconnecting from work unless you had something else to focus on, so I went to the library to do some research. When I found new books about ships that had disappeared, I thought if I could interest you in some treasure hunting, it would be a good way for you to stop and smell the roses—or, in your case, search for some shiny sparklies.”

His eyes flashed with an acquisitive gleam. “It’s been a long time since I’ve found a good stash of treasure.”

“I know.”

“And you are wiser and far kinder than I deserve,” he said quietly. He leaned forward to kiss her. Her eyelids fluttered shut as his warm, hard lips caressed hers. “And so damn sneaky.”

“That’s one of the things you love best about me,” she reminded him.

His whisper turned into a low growl. “Damn right.”

“What do you have to do to get ready to leave?” She stroked his face.

“Pack. I’ve already talked to Graydon, and he’s good with us leaving. The jet is in the hangar, so I just need to make a phone call. While we’re getting ready, I’ll have Kris find us a good place to stay. What about you?”

“I need to finish packing Liam’s stuff, but that won’t take more than five or ten minutes. I would like to take Hugh and Eva so they can babysit.”

He cocked his head. “We’ll go out to dinner somewhere by the beach.”

She beamed at him. “You mean we’ll go on a date?”

He smiled. “Just as soon as we can get out of here.”

Chapter Three

Since Liam restricted her movements, Dragos helped her pack the baby’s things. While he changed out of his suit into khaki pants and a black knit shirt and packed, she called Eva and Hugh.

Eva laughed. “Girl, you got some scary mojo.”

“I just know my husband.” Pia felt too excited to be smug.

Eva and Hugh soon showed up at the penthouse.

They stared in shocked silence at the sleeping baby dragon draped around Pia’s neck. Pia smiled as she held a finger to her lips and silently warned them to be quiet. Nodding and grinning broadly, they took charge of the luggage.

Dragos made phone calls, while Pia raided his supply of organic beef jerky in the kitchen. She wanted to have lots of snacks in her purse, in case Liam woke with the same kind of desperate hunger as he’d shown earlier.

Dragos strode into the kitchen and looked at her and Liam. “If people caught sight of him in his Wyr form, it would start a riot, and we would never get out of here. Let’s take the private elevator down to the parking garage.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said with relief.

Liam never stirred as they rode down the elevator or climbed into the waiting limo with Eva and Hugh. Pia eased him off her shoulders and into the car seat, and after some finagling managed to get him strapped in. During the ride to the airport they talked in quiet voices. Dragos’s phone buzzed, and Pia twitched. He wasn’t going to get much of a break if he kept answering phone calls and text messages.

He checked the screen of his iPhone and smiled. “Kris found us a place to stay. It’s a house on Cambridge Beach Bay.”

He handed the phone to Pia, and she scrolled through the images. The rental was a historic, peach-colored villa with a veranda that faced the ocean, and it had eight bedrooms and five baths, private gardens and a barbeque pit. Two grocery stores were a five minutes’ walk away, and restaurants, shops, and boat rentals were all in close proximity. Even better, it had a terraced path to the beach framed by flowering bushes and palm trees.

She caught a glimpse of the astronomical price tag on the webpage. The cost for renting the villa for a week was close to ten thousand dollars.

The number danced in front of her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was no need to hyperventilate. Dragos deposited twice that amount each month into a personal account for her, just for incidentals. She bought herself and Peanut anything she wanted, and she still had serious money left over, enough to dump into a fast-growing, hefty savings account. The point was, they could easily afford the rental.

“Forget about me,” she told Eva. “Dragos’s assistant has some serious mojo.” She turned to Dragos. “This is amazing. How did he get it at such short notice?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Kris implied there was a last-minute cancellation.”

Or Dragos paid the other vacationers to change their plans. She paused to listen to her internal radar. Did she feel funny about that?

Nope. Her internal radar felt quite serene today. The others would have gotten a deal they couldn’t refuse, and Dragos got to take a much-needed break. Plus, beach! The water looked so lovely.

Dragos continued. “We’ve got the house for up to a week if we want it. The manager of the property will stock the fridge with plenty of food and drinks, and is setting up a crib for the length of our stay. We don’t have to do anything when we arrive. We can just relax and do whatever we want.”

Absorbed in looking at the photos, she said, “What I want to know is, why don’t we have a private island?”

She had meant to be facetious, but Dragos’s expression turned thoughtful. “Good question. I’ll have to look into that.”

Her head snapped up, and she stared at him with wide eyes. He gave her a completely serious look in return. Wordless, she faced forward.

Hugh’s shoulders shook, and Eva snickered into her hand.

Dragos gently eased his phone out of her lax hands. She watched him sidelong as he turned it off.

***

The flight was short, just over two hours long. Eva and Hugh sat at the front of the cabin, talking and playing chess. Dragos and Pia settled with Liam on one of the two couches toward the back of the plane.