Hidden Dragons (29 page)

“They’re fine,” Adam reassured her, watching her reactions like the sharp cop he was. “They’re just worried about you. They reported you missing and in danger when their photos of you burned up.”

“Shoot,” she said. “I forgot that might frighten them.”

Her dad was on his elbows, giving her a strange look.

“You gave me the idea,” she said in self-defense. “You burned out your photo so I couldn’t track you through it.”

“I’m aware of that. I hadn’t realized you knew how to do that spell.”

“I fudged it,” she said. “Like I do most things.” The reminder of all the magic he could have taught her but hadn’t ticked her off. Her dad was probably lucky Adam spoke again.

“Fudging aside,” he said. “Your friends own a large isolated property in Westchester. If they’d allow us to take it over, it wouldn’t be a bad place to set up temporary headquarters.”

“They’ll allow it,” Cass predicted, familiar with the cousins’ generosity. “The trick will be convincing them not to turn your stay into a party.”

JOHNNY landed the helicopter on the lawn next to Jin and Bridie’s stone-clad horse stables. Tasteful landscape lighting revealed grass too green for November and perfect enough for a real carpet. Autumn leaves had fallen into the rear garden’s reflecting pool, their colors so pretty Cass wasn’t surprised the cousins had left them there. Beyond that rose the two-story, two-winged house, Jin and Bridie’s “treat” to themselves for making a success of their TV show. Cass had been here a couple times during holiday visits to her gran. The mansion was over-the-top, but so them she couldn’t help but be fond of it.

“I guess we don’t have to worry about roughing it here,” Rick observed.

His tone was dry. When Cass glanced at him questioningly, he turned his head away. She saw he'd rigged a make-do sheath for the sword to secure it on his back. How right it looked on him was uncanny.

“I’ll get these buckles for you, sir,” Carmine said to her father. Her dad had nixed the idea of going to the hospital or summoning a medic. He’d claimed time would heal him better than any professional. Cass was aware he’d used a push of glamour to get his way. She supposed this meant he really was improving.

She
was
slightly troubled by the failure of the pack’s anti-compulsion charms to fend off his influence.

“Go on,” her dad said to her as she watched him being helped to his feet again. “Your friends need to see you’re all right.”

She could have jumped out the door herself, but Nate waited on the grass to help. Shoving aside her wish that he were Rick, she accepted his assistance and thanked him.

Jin and Bridie stood side by side a short distance behind him, wrapped up in warm sweaters. Bridie actually had her hands clutched together at her breast. Jin had painted fresh pink streaks in her short hair—adding a festive note to their welcome. Cass smiled at the sight, loving her friends more than she knew how to say.

As Cass began to walk, Bridie ran to hug her. “I know you don’t really do this,” she said, squeezing her in a tight embrace, “but we were so worried!”

Cass laughed and let her have her way. Just this once, Bridie would survive a stray speck of faerie dust. “I’m fine,” she said. “Sometimes you’ve got to hug.”

Bridie released her and wiped her cheeks. “We’ve got bedrooms ready. And we cleared out a stall in the stables for the you-know-whats.”

The you-know-whats had hopped out of the helicopter and were clustered a little shyly around Cass’s feet.

Jin stared at them openmouthed. “Three . . . Wow. They’re adorable.”

“Jin sent Felipe to the butcher,” Bridie said. “We figured everyone ate red meat.”

Felipe was their gorgeous Brazilian-Japanese stable master and Jin’s live-in lover. He was a human with a Talent for soothing animals. Though he probably was trustworthy, Cass added him to her mental list of staff she planned to compel to keep their mouths shut. Her father needed to conserve his power for healing, and better safe than sorry.

Rick’s alpha seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You’ve told your employees how important it is not to mention we’re staying here?”

“Oh yes,” Bridie assured him. “We have lots of celebrities come for parties. Every six months we require staff to submit to being spelled against gossiping.”

Cass looked at Jin, who was quieter than normal. Of the two very social cousins, she was the most outgoing.

She jerked when she noticed Cass’s eyes on her. “Sorry,” she laughed. “You don’t often catch me speechless, do you? I fixed a special room for your dad to convalesce in. Why don’t I take him there now?”

Her father was leaning on Carmine. “That’s kind of you,” he said, then added a bit too casually: “Might I ask, is your friend Rhona safe and well?”

“Rhona? She’s fine.” Jin seemed not to hear the carefulness of the question. “We figured it was best not to ask her over and put her or Pip at risk.”

“Of course,” her father said.

“We told her Cass is all right,” Bridie added. “Just that she wasn’t up for visitors.”

Her father inclined his head.

Hm
, Cass thought, but decided solving this mystery wasn’t on her priority list.

~

The gold elf cousins’ mansion was posher than Cass’s penthouse. Rick wasn’t the only wolf to feel out of place. His packmates tiptoed along the expensive rugs for fear of doing damage with their big feet. Even Nate was overawed. Twice Rick caught him slack jawed. The first time was for a probably famous painting of a rearing horse. The second was for the dazzling gold-leafed dome that topped a marble garden room so lush it put him in mind of a tropical oasis. He heard sleepy bird cries up among the palm fronds and smelled orchids. A single one of the fancy wrought iron cafe tables would have cost him a month’s salary.

Roald’s guest room opened onto this undeniably lovely space.

Rick had tagged along here with Cass, though his mental state regarding her was disturbingly conflicted. Surviving the fight with Ceallach had hyped him up of course. He could have bedded her for a week and not gotten enough of her. Unfortunately, he was also uneasy over her apparent willingness to glamour him. He’d put off thinking about it until they rescued Roald, but it was back in his face again. He knew he needed to decide how to handle it.

Just because he loved Cass didn’t mean he’d let her treat him a like a puppet whenever they disagreed, not even if she only did it when she thought it was important. That was no sort of relationship—and no way to keep her respect for him.

Respect seemed more important than ever. At the cave, he’d forgotten their differences. Seeing her at home amidst this luxury dragged them back to the forefront. If he hadn’t had a few more questions to ask her father, he’d have holed up somewhere far from her to think his way through the dilemma.

Because he couldn’t, he followed the little group into Roald’s guest room. He concluded plants aided convalescing. In addition to the proximity of the garden, two French doors led onto a terrace with a view of the beautifully groomed back grounds.

Carmine helped Roald onto the bed, his aptitude for fussing learned from his warmhearted wife. He left once Roald was settled, slapping Rick’s shoulder along the way. When Rick looked at him, he mouthed
Snow White
and wagged his thick eyebrows.

Tony must have spread the news about Rick’s high school crush.

“This is beautiful,” Roald said to Jin, who hovered at the doorway. “My spirit feels refreshed already.”

“I’m glad,” their hostess said. “Shall I open the patio doors or bring more pillows? Perhaps our housekeeper could bring tea.”

“I need nothing more. And I believe my daughter’s friend wishes to speak to me privately.”

“Oh.” She put her hand to her throat. “Of course. I’ll leave you to it. Cass, your usual room is ready.”

Seeming reluctant, Jin left and shut the door. Rick supposed even celebrity interviewers could be dazzled by purebloods. Despite his advanced age, her father didn’t look a day older than forty.

Seeming unaware of the interest he’d attracted, Roald straightened the blanket at his waist. His motions were gingerly, but the cuts and bruises on his face weren’t as bad. He looked at Rick out of two eyes instead of one. “You have more questions for me?”

“A clarification. Ceallach mentioned he was going to bring the dragons to their new mother. I thought they could only be imprinted once.”

“I wondered about that too,” Cass said.

The sound of her voice caused Rick’s spine to tingle all the way to his tailbone. Doing his best to ignore this, he kept his attention on her father.

“Ah.” Sheets rustled as Roald shifted on the bed—perhaps in embarrassment. “Ceallach may have been under the impression Cass couldn’t form that bond with them. Because she’s only half faerie.”

“But I did form it,” Cass said. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have been able to?”

Her father rubbed a fading bruise on his jaw. “In your case, there are . . . other factors in play.”

“What factors?” she pressed.

Her father looked extremely reluctant to answer.

“
Dad
.”

He gave in with a sigh. “It’s because your human half is Maycee. When T’Fain gave her life to form Resurrection, their farm was at the epicenter of her energy nova. The genes of every Maycee there were infused with dragon power. You imprinted the Sevryn clutch because of her.”

Emotion brightened Roald’s eyes. He seemed to plead with his daughter—for what, Rick didn’t understand. Looking at Cass revealed her mouth hung open, her manner taken aback by what he’d revealed.

“But then—” She stopped and continued. “When you married Mom . . .”

“Daughter,” Roald said. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

Cass shut her mouth, though her face struggled. She composed herself and gave her father a steady look. “You know I’ll want the truth at some point.”

“Not tonight. Tonight we can simply be grateful we’re alive.”

Their exchange sounded like family business. Rick waited to question Cass until they’d left her father and were walking down a long hallway.

“Do I need to know what that was about?” he asked.

She stopped, and he did too. Her expression was troubled. “I don’t think so.”

He wanted to take her hands, to feel her warm slender fingers sliding between his own. He could have done it. She wasn’t even a foot away. His flesh stirred between his legs, the unavoidable effect of her nearness and her gaze holding his.

He saw her breasts lift with quickened breaths.

“My usual room is up those stairs,” she said, tipping her head toward them.

The heat in his groin spread to his chest. “I should check on Nate. Make sure he has everything he needs to stand guard over the brood.”

Cass nodded and looked down. “I understand. I’ll . . . catch up with you later.”

As he strode away, arousal thrummed through his body. Rick wondered if Cass did understand. He wasn’t certain he did himself.

He rounded a bend in the corridor, almost bumping into Jin as he did. Their hostess was rearranging calla lilies in a large silver urn.

“Something wrong?” she asked. Her shiny manicured nails matched the pink streaks in her cropped hair. She was pretty with her sun-kissed skin and her twenty-four carat locks, but something about her struck him as too sharp. Was she really one of Cass’s dearest friends? She didn’t seem natural enough for that.

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “This is the way to the stables, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She hesitated, then spoke again. “I forgot to ask. Did you want a separate room from Cass? Body language says a lot, but I don’t want to assume you’re together.”

Rick regarded her without answering. Her slanted elf eyes were also golden, like honey shot through with sun. For just a second, he wondered who the hell was looking out of them. He shook himself and the thought faded, though maybe not his caution. Cass’s friend or not, this female was a slicker operator than he knew how to be comfortable with.

“We’ll sort it out,” he said. “Thank you for making space for us.”

“No problem,” she responded. “Any friend of Cass’s is a friend of mine.”

He nodded curtly and walked away. Probably Cass’s friend thought he was as big an oaf as Carmine claimed.

The stables weren’t far from the back exit. Nicer than many people’s homes, they had thick stone walls, shuttered windows, and brick-lined floors with drains for cleaning. The interior was warm, so they also had central heating. Rick’s wolf preferred the scent of hay and horses to the various perfumes inside the house.

He followed the rise and fall of Nate’s voice to the space that had been cleared for the dragons.

Nate seemed to be telling the trio a bedtime story. Rick grinned over the stall door at the picture they presented. The ponytailed wolf sat on the floor on a blanket, his back propped on a hay bale with the youngsters ranged around him. Auric and Verdi listened with their mouths open. Scarlet had clambered onto Nate’s legs and was having her chin scratched.

“
The Little Tiger Who Saved the Deva?
” Rick teased, recognizing the tale.

The light was low, but he thought Nate blushed. “It’s the cubs’ favorite. These guys wouldn’t settle. They were waking up the horses.”

Auric cheeped at Rick as he stepped into the stall and swung the half-door shut behind him. He crouched to pet all three dragons, who seemed happy to see him. “Anything happen since you’ve been guarding them?”

“Nothing since Bridie—the one with the long gold hair—left us here.”

“Did Adam mention having an actual plan?”

“Only what you’d imagine. We don’t have much chance of finding the second faerie, so we’ll use the dragons to lure her here. Adam figures she and her co-conspirator knew more about Roald le Beau's activities in the Pocket than he realized. They must have split their efforts between him and his daughter, waiting to see where the eggs showed up. Unless the second fae is an idiot, she’s watching everyone close to Cass. Even if the staff don’t gossip, she’ll read the signs that we’re holed up here.”