Immortal Coil (22 page)

Of course, maybe that was just her mind trying to justify how Hunter’s presence made her feel. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to a cold-blooded killer dragon. She wasn’t that kind of girl. She couldn’t be. There had to be something more to him. If only he’d let her in long enough to figure out what that was.

But after the last couple of hours, she didn’t know what she was any more. There was blood on her hands now.
Lots of it.
And if confronted again she knew she would defend herself.

She stretched her wings, reveling in the weightlessness of flight. She could almost imagine her soul was weightless, too.

Miniature houses dotted the landscape, surrounded by a patchwork of yellow and green fields. A narrow road wound through the fields into the villages and disappeared into the horizon. Crisp, fresh air flooded her nostrils. It was beautiful, wondrous. She had never experienced anything like this before, so it had to be one of Hunter’s memories.
A good, non-violent one, at that.

Sudden, sharp pain pierced her chest. She gasped and a burning sensation rippled over her skin. It subsided for a moment, no more than a heartbeat, then flared, hotter and more intense. It zinged through her, igniting sinew and bone.

The acrid scent of smoldering flesh stung her nostrils. She tried to shake the sensation from her body, twisting and turning in the sky with strong beats of her wings. But the fire increased, filling her with hot agony. She was burning from the inside out and there was nothing she could do about it.

Something on her chest cracked and scales fell to the ground.
The soft skin underneath peeled and burst.

She screamed, hearing a roar instead. Fire exploded from her mouth and
smoke poured from her nostrils and yet, in only the way of dreams, she knew the fire and smoke were
hers, not whatever consumed her.

An updraft forced her away from the ground. Her wings trembled and the consuming blaze blurred her vision. But she couldn’t land, not so close to the humans. And yet, each movement, even the minuscule ones to keep aloft, sent sharp agony straight to her heart.

More scales blackened, cracked, and peeled away. She strained forward, desperate to get away and find safety. She refused to be the next to die.

She beat at the air, each stroke more unbearable than the one before. Her breath caught in her throat, the ground below swam in and out of focus, growing darker and darker.
Just a little farther.
She could do it.

The fire pierced her heart and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. All she could feel was pain.
An all-consuming pain.

And then she plummeted toward the earth. The ground hurtled toward her faster and faster. She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to witness that last moment of her life.

But she didn’t hit the ground. There was no excruciating moment as every bone in her body shattered or as her skin and muscles burst from the impact.

She cracked one eye open. The leafy canopy of the twin maples in her mother’s backyard stretched above her. The hammock lay at the base of the one on the left. She’d torn it down when her mother had died, making
Anaea
an orphan at twenty-five. The word ‘orphan’ had weighed on her. It weighed on her now with a profound emptiness. She was alone, estranged from her mother’s
family,
and unacquainted with her father’s. Perhaps that was why she’d been so eager to love John, her husband. But that hadn’t turned out right, either. Not her marriage, or her life, or her—

Strong hands slid up her arms, drawing shivers, and the heat of a body pressed against her back.

Hunter.

Guilt twisted fast and fleeting through her that she’d assume, even want, Hunter to be the man of her dreams and not her college sweetheart, Mark. But something about Hunter inspired a desire within her that Mark never had, regardless that he wasn’t,
spiritly
-speaking, human. Besides, Mark didn’t deserve to bear witness to her too-soon death. Maybe Hunter could just be a fabulous fling. Besides, it wasn’t even real. It was just a dream.

“
Anaea
.”
His lips brushed her neck.

Surely she could allow herself a small fantasy.

He kissed a trail along her jaw, his breath caressing her cheek. Desire burned low within her.

It had been too long since she’d been with a man, and even longer since a man had touched her with passion. All she yearned for was to feel normal and loved again. Just for a moment.

His mouth was tantalizingly close to hers. He flicked his tongue against the edge of her bottom lip. She shivered, straining to turn into him.
Just a little more.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted this until it was offered.

Reaching up, she ran her fingers through his short hair to the back of his head and drew him closer, tentatively touching his lips with hers. They were soft, welcoming, waiting.

She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. This was a dream, her dream. No fantasy lover would refuse her. Here she was whole and well. Here she was anything she wanted to be. And what she was right
now,
was hot for this man.

She pressed her lips against his, needing, burning. He matched her desperate passion, licking and sucking, as she tried to kiss away all her heartache and pain at her husband’s betrayal, her cancer, the deaths by her hands, and her lonely existence. It was all devoured, swirled in a fiery frenzy of breath and lip and tongue.

Capri
rubbed her temples. Police tape had been strung across the room door at the Rest Well Hotel, which meant the
Elmsville
P.D. had beaten her to the scene and she had to go to the police station to finish this cleanup. Hunter was definitely going to pay for leaving such a mess.

Admittedly, she didn’t have anything better to do than work, since she wasn’t interested in the
pahar
or dragon politics. But it had been difficult enough dealing with the detective at the hospital. He hadn’t believed she and her
team were
FBI—most didn’t given that their unit was pretty obscure within the organization. Flashing her badge usually did the trick but this detective had remained skeptical and she’d had to use her earth magic to influence him into releasing control of the investigation and handing over his notes.

Swipe mumbled his power words and made a discreet gesture, casting his magic and removing every trace that a dragon had even been in the hotel room. Less than a hundred years ago not even Swipe had known exactly what he did, but with the advent of forensic sciences they now knew he cleaned up everything: footprints, blood, fingerprints, hairs, and
DNA
.
Anything that could lead to questions and reveal dragon-kind.

After a few minutes, Swipe blew out a long breath.
“Done.”

“Good.” She wanted to get this over with. Facing Mr. Annoying Detective a second time would require even more magic than usual, since meeting him twice in such a short period made things more complicated. It would make her headache worse and the painkiller she’d taken half an hour ago still hadn’t kicked in. Damn that her soul magic didn’t seem to heal earth-magic-induced headaches.

They left the hotel and drove to the
Elmsville
police station. Swipe parked the company’s black SUV at the curb and
Capri
got out. She checked her badge and sidearm.

“Shooting won’t make this simpler,” Swipe said in his new southern drawl. The green drake was trying on a Texan identity this time, but his turns of phrase kept revealing his
Old World
background.

“No, but it would make me feel better.”

He barked a laugh and flashed her some teeth. “Don’t take too long.”

She showed a hint of teeth back at him. “Look who’s talking.” His job could take much longer than hers, depending on how much evidence had been collected.

Swipe shrugged and headed into the building to get as close as he could to the evidence locker to work his magic. At least he looked the part of an FBI special agent: mid-thirties, blond, well-built, and always wearing a suit. If anyone stopped him he could talk his way out of the situation. Gig, the other member of their team, was another issue altogether. He always looked like he’d just woken up in his jeans and t-shirt for the third day in a row. And as much as she begged him to cut his mane of black hair, she found the shag charming—which she wasn’t going to admit to anyone.

Thank goodness she hadn’t needed his earth magic ability to communicate with technology on the assignment and had left him at Court. Hopefully that would mean one less thing that could go wrong.

After a moment to ensure her temper was in check, she climbed the concrete steps to the front door, entered, and strode across the small foyer to the officer at the reception desk. He was middle-aged, probably near
retirement,
and the type most likely in
Capri
’s experience to question her presence. And there were always questions. How could the FBI know of anything so fast? What
was
her jurisdiction and the nature of her team, and why had no one ever really heard of her? It got worse if the investigation dragged on, which, with the mess Hunter had left, was growing more likely by the minute.

“Yes?” The cop sounded bored.

Bored was good. She could work with bored.

She flashed her identification. “I’d like to talk to the detective in charge of the investigation at the Rest Well Hotel.”

He stared at her. She got that a lot. She knew she looked professional in her suit, particularly if she offset the color with her strawberry blond hair and blue eyes. But the fact that she was stuck in a body not quite five feet tall made everyone think she was a child—usually Swipe’s if they arrived together. Maybe she should add some gray to her hair.

And maybe everyone else should just live with it.

“The detective, please.”
She
subvocalized
her power word and slid a thread of magic into his mind. The lady will stop bothering you if you page the detective in charge. It’s easy.
A simple phone call.
Besides, no one wanted to be on the bad side of the FBI.

She fortified her magic by forcing a smile and the man picked up the phone.

“You can wait on the bench.” He nodded at an uncomfortable steel beam intended to be a bench running across the back of the lobby.

“Thanks.”

He had a ten-second conversation with someone on the phone before hanging up and staring at his computer, an obvious show of ignoring her.

Fine, as long as whoever controlled her case showed up. Boy, did she ever want to blame Hunter. But Gig was right. Having to take that woman’s body must have been an act of desperation, since, speaking from personal experience, a human female’s strength was not an advantage in a sword fight. And Hunter’s human didn’t look healthy. Not that the dead ever did look healthy, but his seemed particularly worse for wear. His soul magic was probably working overtime healing whatever was wrong with him and that likely didn’t help his situation either.

The door to the station’s inner sanctum opened and her heart leapt in her chest. It wasn’t Mr. Annoying Detective. It was Eric.

She swallowed at the constriction in her throat. Logic dictated it couldn’t be him. Their affair had been two human lifetimes ago. She’d snuck into Eric’s funeral when old age had taken him. But the man’s face, his square jaw, his eyes...

“I’m Detective Miller. What can I do for you, Special Agent?”

Those eyes still haunted her. The way he’d looked at her when she’d had to follow
Regis’s
laws and leave within the appointed time frame. Above all else, dragon-kind had to be kept a secret. It still hurt so much. And yet she still considered herself a part of the younger generation who insisted on living in the humans’ realm. For centuries now, humans had blithely lived next door to dragons. Their favorite teacher, trusted accountant, and even lover could be a drake, and since there were too many of them, Regis couldn’t stop them.

But she’d never take a human lover again. Not after Eric.

“Special Agent?”
Miller’s eyes narrowed.

“Jones,” she croaked out, then mentally jerked herself back together and thrust a thread of magic into his mind. “I’ll be taking over the investigation of the Rest Well Hotel.” Life will be easier. No messy murder investigation.

“Dan mentioned something about you. What did you say your unit was?”

She pushed harder into his mind, cursing Dan. The obnoxious detective from earlier was still making her job difficult. Her unit’s name didn’t matter. They were legitimate—it helped to have a drake involved in the creation of the FBI—but their unit was so small most hadn’t heard of them so naming names usually didn’t help.

“I’ll need your notes,” she said, trying to steer him back on topic.

“Sure.” But he didn’t sound certain.

She concentrated on her magic, but flashes of passionate nights with Eric flitted through her mind. The two men sounded so much alike. If she closed her eyes she could imagine herself wrapped in her Eric’s embrace again.