Fire Me Up (15 page)

His eyes glittered with heat. "Shall we test that theory
tonight?"

"No," I said quickly, stiffening my knees and backing away
even farther, giving Nora a bright "Will not be having sex with a wyvern tonight
because I'm dedicated to being a Guardian" smile. "Absolutely not. It's
completely and utterly out of the question,"

Drake just smiled. A slow, sensual, thoroughly wicked smile.
One that pretty much told me my goose wasn't just cooked, it was roasted over an
open fire.

I sat more or less mute for the remainder of the lunch while
the four wyverns were sidetracked from the big negotiations to hash out a
territorial dispute that was evidently a roadblock to a formal peace
declaration. Since my input on that was not required, I mentally lectured myself
while I ate csirkemell bazsaiikommal es fekete olivabogyoval (chicken breast
with basil and an olive tapenade), which was one of the most delicious dishes
I'd ever tasted, and pointed out to myself that a renewal of relations with
Drake was not on my list of tasks to be accomplished before the conference was
over. He might be sexy as hell, he might clang my chains like no other man—or
dragon—but he was a complication I didn't need in my life.

Why is it good intentions are always the first thing to go?

An hour later I checked the message board used by some of the
almost two thousand conference attendees to post messages, but didn't see
anything addressed to me.

"Do you think Moa is sick or something?" I asked Jim, pulling
the demon aside so we weren't in the direct flow of traffic. That hour's
workshops had just let out, and the halls of the convention center were suddenly
filled with Mages, oracles, Guardians, and all the assorted other denizens of
the Otherworld as they made a beeline for the bathrooms, checked their
conference programs to decide which workshop they'd go to next, or simply stood
in small groups chatting. I had asked around as soon as Drake released me from
lunch duties, but no one had seen Moa since the evening before, when she and Jim
and I had talked in the dog garden. "She's so professional, it doesn't seem
terribly like her to miss our appointment or change it without first leaving me
word."

"Maybe she's just trying to avoid you," Jim suggested, eyeing
a plate containing a half-eaten sandwich that had been carelessly tossed onto a
table bearing bottles of water. "Maybe you're a social pariah. Maybe word has
gotten out to all Guardian mentors that you've got a badass demon in handsome
dog form and a dragon who practically makes you drool when you look at him."

"I don't drool when I look at Drake." Jim cocked aneyebrow
at me. "I don't! I was just hungry, and that chicken smelled yummy. And thank
you for the lovely vote of confidence, but I don't believe Moa is trying to hide
from me. If she changed her mind about meeting with me, she'd tell me. I think.
Maybe I'll try the front desk and see if she left word for me there."

It wasn't until I had the bright idea of trying the room
number that she'd mentioned earlier that the truth struck me: There was
something about Europe—or rather, me in a European country—that was damned.
Cursed. Bad to the bone, baby.

"What's going on?" Jim and I stopped about twenty feet away
from the door to what I assumed was Moa's room. A small crowd of hotel maids, a
couple of conference attendees, and police officials blocked the hallway.

The person in front of me turned. It was Marvabelle, drat my
luck. "Why, if it isn't Ashley. Hank, look. It's Ashley and that talkin' dawg of
hers."

Hank gave me a weak smile before hurriedly stepping out of
the way to allow two men bearing a stretcher to pass.

"Is someone hurt?" A horrible feeling filled the pit of my
belly, wrestling with the chicken and tapenade and crunchy Chinese noodles that
had been served with lunch. "It's not Moa, is it?"

Marvabelle gave me an odd look. "Now, fancy you knowinI that.
Hank, fancy her knowin' that."

"Oh, god," I said, fighting a bout of nausea as the men
bearing the stretcher reappeared. A heavy black wool blanket was draped over the
person on the stretcher, not in a keep-away-shock sort of way, but in a
covered-head-to-toe way. "She's dead, isn't she? Moa's dead."

"Yes, she is. Killed, they say, by person or persons
unknown." Marvabelle looked me up and down, her eyes glistening with an unholy
delight. The sight of it added to my already nervous state. Someone had killed
Moa? Lovely, elegant Moa? I looked around at the now scattering crowd of people,
the maids standing together in a tight clutch, speaking almost soundlessly, the
police disappearing back into the hotel room. The few remaining GODTAMers
drifted past me. Who on earth could want to kill Moa?

Marvabelle's nasal voice pierced my horrified musings. "It's
said that a woman and a big black dog were the last to see the Guardian alive."

My mouth, which I admit has a tendency to hang open when
people more or less accuse me of being an accessory to murder, if not the
murderer herself, did, in fact, gape slightly for the passing of a few seconds
while I stared in disbelief at Marvabelle.

"The police will detain you for several hours in a small,
windowless room. You will receive a sliver there," a man said as he strolled
past.

"Oh, no, not you again," I growled, glaring at the back of
the head of the blond Diviner named Paolo. I would have followed him and asked
him just what it was he had against me, but at that moment a policewoman stepped
from the hotel room and glanced toward where we stood.

"
The police are going to detain you for several hours— is
that what that man said?" Marvabelle asked at the top of her lungs, shooting a
triumphant glance toward the policewoman. "Could that be because they realize
that you, Aisling Grey, were the very last livin' soul to see that poor Guardian
alive? What is it they say about the last person to see a person before they are
killed, Hank?"

The policewoman pulled out a notebook and riffled through the
pages before snapping it shut and starting toward us.

Hank had the grace to Look ashamed as he sidled past me.
"Come along, Ma. There's that panel on water scrying you wanted to see."

"I'm sure it is somethin' about the last person to see a
murder victim bein' the likeliest person to have killed them," Marvabelle said
as Hank led her away.

Despite the policewoman bearing down on us, I felt obligated
to set Marvabelle straight on a few things. "Look, I've been a murder suspect
before, so it's nothing new and exciting. Been there, done that, figured out who
the real killer was." Jim's cold nose nudged my hand. I turned to face the
policewoman. "Um. Hi. I expect you'd like to talk to me, huh?"

"You are Aisling Grey? You will please to come with me. We
are wishing to question you about the death of the woman named Moa Haraldsson."

I'll say this for Paolo—his interpersonal skills might not
ever enchant me, but he's damned uncanny when it comes to predicting my
immediate future.

By the time the police released Jim and me (the former having
been ordered into silence, since I was not up to explaining to
non-Otherworldians just how I came to have a wisecracking Newfie), a pale moon
shone weakly in the night sky.

"I am so hungry, I could eat a skrat," Jim complained as we
emerged from the depths of the police station. Worn out by the five hours of
questioning, I stopped on the steps outside, sucking the tiny puncture wound on
my thumb. Jim slid a glance at me. "How's the finger?"

"Fine now that Detective Lakatos finally trusted me with a
needle so I could dig the sliver out." I stopped sucking my thumb and looked
around, my stomach growling audibly. "I'm hungry, too. Since we've long since
missed the dinner banquet, I suppose we could stop at a fast-food place before
going back to the hotel. What's a skrat?"

"House spirit. Looks like a wet chicken. You'd think that
Detective Lakatos could have fed us."

I shrugged and started down the stairs. "I didn't expect
food, but a cup of coffee or tea might have been nice."

Jim snickered as I hesitated on the sidewalk, unsure of which
way I'd stand the best chance of finding a taxi. "Maybe she didn't offer
anything because she was Lakatos intolerant. Lactose. Detective Lakatos, Get it?
Ha! I kill me sometimes."

"If only," I said at the same moment a long black limo purred
to a stop beside me. A tinted window slid downward with a soft electric hum.

"Would you, by any chance, be looking for a ride?" Drake
asked.

I made a little face at him. "Why am I not surprised to see
you?"

He smiled as the door nearest me clicked open. Inside I could
see that Drake was not alone—Gabriel grinned at me from where he sat, next to a
haughty Chuan Ren. "Perhaps you know it is because I would never leave my mate
in a position of vulnerability? Then again, if you did not persist in following
this foolish course of action, you would not have found yourself in such an
untenable position."

I froze outside the limo. "Being a Guardian isn't foolish,
Drake. You're the only one who has a problem with it. And you know full well
that I had nothing to do with Moa's death—"

He waved away my protest. "We will discuss it at a Later
time."

"No, we will not. There is nothing to discuss." I gave him my
best squinty eyes to let him know I meant what I said.

He wasn't at ail impressed. "Come. Join us. We are going to
Klub Fekete Halal. You will enjoy yourself."

"Is that a nightclub?" I asked, following Jim into the limo,
doubling over into an unattractive crouch as I looked for an empty seat. Pretty
much everyone but Fiat and his boys was in the limo, leaving little space for
one gigantic Newfie and me. Pal, sitting next to Drake, shifted over a couple of
inches. "I'll go with you, but you have to promise to feed us. We haven't had
anything to eat since lunch. Um. There doesn't seem to be much space. Maybe I
should sit on the floor with Jim—"

Drake stopped my waffling by pulling me half onto his lap,
the remainder of me squished up against Pal. I thanked my stars that it was him
and not Istvan, who was at that very moment glaring at me, and arranged my arms
and legs so that I was not draped quite so much across Drake.

"The police were not abusive to you, were they?" Gabriel
asked, leaning forward to scan me for signs of police brutality. "They held you
a long time for just a questioning."

"No rubber hoses or hot lights, if that's what you mean,
although they weren't exactly hospitable. The reason it took so long was the
seven male policemen that fell victim to the amulet."

Gabriel looked amused. "Fell victim? Did they... ah..."

"Throw themselves at my feet?" I nodded. "And not just
metaphorically, either. By the time the policewoman who had me brought in got
there, things had pretty much reached critical mass. Most of the policemen in
the station were trying to get an orgy going, while the policewomen stood around
and made what I assumed were snarky comments. Not that I blame them. The men
were acting like dogs."

"But they were under the influence of the amulet, and thus
they were not responsible," Gabriel argued, laughter lighting his gray eyes.

"Mmm." I rubbed the tip of my still sore thumb. "It ended up
all right. The policewoman who spoke English got through with the hotel people
and interviewed me, then let us go."

"Good. I worried on your behalf," Gabriel said, sitting back
with a dazzling smile.

"You have injured yourself, mate?" Drake's voice, hot with
innuendo and desire, swept over me as he examined my thumb.

"Yeah. But it's really that pest Paolo's fault—he predicted
it just before the cops took me away. I'm really going to have to have a talk
with him the next time I see him."

A wicked light entered Drake's eyes, one that had the parts
of me that had never seen the light of day standing up and getting ready to
party. "Would you like me to kiss it for you?"

"Hoo," I said on a breath, too tired, hungry, and exhausted
to fight the attraction that always flared between us. My brain made a
last-ditch attempt to point out that allowing Drake's lips near any part of my
body was a bad idea, but I'd simply been through too much to fight him any more.

Luckily for my good intentions, the presence of others kept
him from doing more than merely caressing the pad of my thumb with his lips. And
tongue.

I don't suppose I need to mention that by the time the limo
pulled up outside a tall glass-and-metal building in a chic area of town, I was
a mere puddle of want and need laced with great huge dollops of desire.

Here's a little tip for those of you seeking entrance at hip
nightclubs: Go with dragons. No doorman in the world will stand in their way.
The line that snaked around the block outside the club meant nothing to the
dragons, and who was I to complain? I walked next to Drake, his hand warm on my
back as we strolled past the waiting crowd as if they weren't even there. I
tried to adopt the elegant, powerful movement that was Drake's natural walk, but
stopped when Jim asked in a loud voice if I had to use the bathroom.