Where Sleeping Dragons Lie (Skeleton Key) (3 page)

Briana was so focused on
Taron that it was a few seconds before she realized that she had heard the
chiming of the shop’s entrance door bells in the distance. Her eyes darted over
to Carol, and her friend mouthed “I’ll be right back” before heading back out
into the main sales room of the shop.

“Would you—would you be
willing to talk about that ‘incident’?” she asked hopefully.

Taron’s smile was
suddenly all teeth. “Now that depends, Miss Wright,” he said, his tone almost
teasing.

“Right, of course,”
Briana replied with a wry quirk of her lips. “You’re thinking about my refusal
to sell you the book yesterday. Right now, I’m about ninety-eight percent
convinced that the book truly belongs to you. If you can convince me about that
final two percent, then I will be happy to just
return
the book to you.”

He blinked, his features
crinkling with blatant confusion. “You don’t want any payment? Even considering
that the book rightfully belongs to my family, I still wish to compensate you.
I offered you five hundred thousand dollars yesterday. That offer still stands
today.”

It was Briana’s turn to
be utterly taken aback. “I found this book in my late grandmother’s collection.
I have yet to find any acquiring documents for it. My grandmother was a
well-known rare books collector in this area. For all I know, it was donated to
her. I know for a fact that she would’ve been ecstatic to be able to return an
heirloom to you that you so obviously treasure. Taking your money just seems
so—I don’t know—
crass
.”

“I see.” Taron tilted
his head and regarded her slightly for a few long seconds before exchanging a
brief, unreadable glance with his appraiser.

Then, without another
word, he reached a gloved hand over to the book and began to purposely, though still
carefully, turn the yellowed pages until he came to the full-page drawing of
the skeleton key she had been so excited to discover. There was no writing on
the page, no annotations, just the drawing of the skeleton key, itself.

“According to my
ancestor, Beatrice, this key was at the center of that incident. To finally be
able to read a first-hand account of it is worth my family’s entire fortune to
me.”

Briana abruptly gasped
as a momentous thought suddenly occurred to her. “You have it, don’t you? The
key!”

That shark-like grin
once again appeared. “Come have dinner with me tonight at my hotel, and we
shall see if that’s true.”

To say that Briana was
blindsided by the invitation was the understatement of the century. She could
feel the muscles in her face freeze in shock. Then in the next second, she
mentally berated herself in disgust, and it was all she could do to keep her
cheeks from heating up in embarrassment.

Idiot! There’s no way
someone who looks like a Greek god would be interested in you romantically. It
was clear from the moment he first saw the book yesterday that getting his
hands on it was his only goal. But still—

What was the harm of
going? If accepting his invitation meant that she got to spend an evening
eating good food, maybe drink a little wine, all while getting to ogle a
gorgeous man, there was certainly nothing to complain about. Plus, as an added
bonus, he might really have the key in the drawing and be willing to show it to
her, to tell her the story that was allegedly in the book that he had teased so
well, damn him.

“…but I thought Joseph
was coming…”

The faint, muffled sound
of Carol’s voice coupled with the creak of the door behind her opening
instantly shook her out of her thoughts. Crap! She had completely forgotten
about Joseph coming to appraise the book.

She had only a
split-second to process Carol’s words and begin to wonder who her friend was
talking to before Taron suddenly dashed past her and crashed shoulder-first
into the door with a meaty thud, shutting it before it had even opened more
than a few inches.

“What the hell are you
doing
?”
Briana cried, instinctually backing up against the table as the click of Taron
engaging the deadbolt on the door sounded out ominously in the air.

She then violently recoiled
when Taron began to stalk towards her, jamming the small of her back painfully
into the edge of the table and disorienting her long enough for him to grab her
upper arms firmly. Yelling out in alarm, Briana immediately began to struggle
against his hold with all her strength, ignoring the throbbing pain in her back
as she tried to knee him in the balls.

However, she would have
had better luck wrestling a marble statue for all her efforts even phased him.
Taron calmly regarded her with an expression that suspiciously looked like
amusement as he held her imprisoned between his hands at arm’s length,
rendering her attempts to kick him laughably useless.

“Let. Me.
Go
!”
Briana screamed angrily as she redoubled her efforts to try and twist out of
his vise-like grip, but at that point, Taron wasn’t even looking at her any
longer, much less listening to her.

He was glaring in the
direction of the door, his lips curled back into the beginnings of a snarl. The
elegant, English gentleman was gone, and in his place was a man with a dark look
in his already uncanny eyes that looked infinitely more unstable and scary.

A loud
thud
abruptly
sounded out on the other side of the door as though someone had taken a
sledgehammer to it, and Briana froze. Even in a panic, there was no way Carol
would have been able to hit the door with that kind of force.

“There’s a second door
behind us! Take her! I’ll distract him!” Mr. Brown ordered, moving around the
table and heading towards the door with the determined, yet resigned, look of a
man knowing he was about to die but wishing to meet his death head-on.

An undeterminable
emotion flickered fleetingly within Taron’s eyes before he nodded curtly
towards the older man, and in the next breath, Briana was lifted and tossed
over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry before she could even think to
struggle. She reflexively clutched at the back of his sports coat as he
sprinted towards the back.

“I really hope this door
leads outside and not a broom closet, or I’m about to cause more trouble for
your friend,” Taron said just as Briana heard the sound of a door splintering
at the same time she felt a small jolt that caused a rock-hard shoulder to dig
painfully up into her stomach.

She immediately began to
kick her legs in renewed panic as the cool morning air hit her face. He had her
outside
! They were in a back alley between several buildings with not a
single soul around.

“Dammit! Put me down,
you asshole!” she screamed, pounding his back like a woman possessed.

Then the world did a
three-sixty as Taron abruptly flipped her body back into a bridal carry. “Here,
hold onto this, please,” he commanded as Briana felt something hard land
heavily onto her stomach.

She had already grabbed
for the object on instinct before her gaze dipped down. She wasn’t at all
surprised to see the leather book that was at the center of all this craziness.

“I’m sorry for scaring
you, but explanations will have to wait,” Taron said with a wry smile as she
looked up at him sharply with half-frightened, half-pissed-off eyes.

What was strange was he
really did sound genuinely sorry. That was the last coherent thought she had before
her mind, as well as her body, completely froze as Taron’s face began
to—change.

What appeared to be the
beginnings of large, oval-shaped and blood-red blisters began to rapidly swell up
to about an inch above the entire surface of his tanned skin as though she were
watching it happen in a time-lapsed video. The large blisters were immediately
followed by the hazel-orange of his eyes changing into a shade that was more
the color of a wildfire under a blinding sun and his pupils stretching out
until they resembled the narrow, vertical pupils of a cat.

Frozen in utter terror
in his arms, Briana watched as, in a matter of a few seconds, his head began to
both grow and change shape, his clothes ripping at the seams when his body also
began to enlarge and contort into a new form. It was only when the pair of huge,
red-membraned wings unfolded from his back and began to spread out to an
impressive diameter and something rough and sharp tightened a bit unpleasantly around
her upper torso and legs that she realized she was being held within the
talons
of an enormous red and black
dragon
.

A dragon that had only
seconds before been a very human man.

With a single, powerful
leap, the dragon shot up to the roof of one of the buildings. He stopped only
long enough to fully extend his leathery wings to what had to be at least a
jaw-dropping span of a hundred feet. Then with a couple of powerful flaps of
those wings, they were airborne, and the force of their rapid ascent brutally
pressing down on her body mercifully made her black out.

It was the stomach-churning
feeling of suddenly freefalling that jolted Briana awake. For a few, terrifying
minutes she had no idea what the hell was going on as something enormous and
roughly textured was pressing powerfully against the back of her head, forcing
her face against a smooth, though hard, curved red surface that was almost hot enough
to scorch her skin.

Then she heard what
sounded like a cross between thunder and the crescendo of a crashing ocean wave
in repeated intervals, and the vivid image of a pair of impossibly large, red
and black leathery wings extended to their full span flashed through her mind.

Dragon.

Taron Hildebrand had shifted
into a freaking dragon before her very eyes, and she was now being carried away
to God-only-knows-where-and-why by said dragon.

A very powerful urge to
giggle at the utter absurdity of her current situation nearly overwhelmed her,
but Briana closed her eyes tightly and took, a few slow, deep breaths in an
effort to stop the hysteria that was threatening to consume her mind. The
last
thing she needed to do right now was to fall into a blubbering mess of fear no
matter how much she wanted to. If she wanted to survive this mother of all shit
storms the universe had just rained on her, she needed her mind to be as clear
and sharp as possible.

Becoming a dragon’s
appetizer was
not
the way she was going to go out, dammit!

Then her entire body
jolted so violently that for a split-second, Briana was afraid her bones would
shatter. Gritting her teeth, she forced her eyes open just as she was pulled
away from where she had been pressed against what she now recognized was the dragon’s
chest. It was then that she got her first good glimpse of the dragon’s body and
realized what she had thought were large blisters forming on his skin were, in
fact, a lattice of shiny
scales
.

A burst of hot, humid
air abruptly washed over her from above, making Briana flinch and finally look
up towards the creature’s head with a mixture of curiosity and dread. His neck
was long, sinewy, and covered with a thicker, more roughly-textured version of
the large red scales on his chest. His head and snout were that of a classic
dragon, reptilian-like, with two long, crimson horns growing from his temples
horizontally and only inches above his skull towards the back of his head. Each
narrow, bony appendage ended in a wickedly sharp, black-tipped point.

His eyes—the deep
oranges and yellows of the irises seemed to swirl in chaotic patterns as though
she was looking deep into the heart of a raging wildfire. Staring into them was
hypnotic,
dangerous
.

Briana jerked back
within the confines of his talon-tipped hands and vigorously shook her head
until the fogginess that had begun to inundate her mind from staring too long
into his eyes dissipated. It was then that she finally noticed she was still
somehow clutching the book with both hands.

The dragon opened his mouth,
revealing a couple of rows of pointy, T. rex-sized teeth, and she was utterly
shocked when a deep, booming voice emerged from within instead of the expected
roar. “I’m setting you down now,” he said with the same British accent he had
as a human, blasting her with another gust of humid air that smelled of fresh
ashes and something akin to the electrical smell of a live wire. “Please don’t
make me chase you.”

Although it was probably
a good sign that his breath didn’t even remotely smell like rotting meat or
even sulfur as she’d half-expected, she wasn’t stupid enough to test his level
of benevolence, especially with the implied threat in his last words.

Only when she felt her
boots settle onto a hard surface did she dare to allow her eyes to flit briefly
around at her surroundings. She had expected to see snow-capped mountains in
the distance, the mouth of a cave, or even a vast, alien forest. The last thing
she expected to see was a close-up of the sides of some very familiar
buildings.

“You brought me to the
roof of a building in the middle of downtown?” she blurted out.

“My hotel,” he said in
all seriousness, his eyes staring down at her keenly as though he expected her
to bolt at any minute.

Briana threw her hands
up in the air, a feeling of both relief and chagrin flooding through her. “That
settles it. This whole crazy day
has
to be a dream. I’m probably
drooling, passed out and facedown, on this weird book right now as we speak. Gorgeous
men who transform into dragons are just too interesting to exist in our little
old boring, mundane world.”

The dragon who was once
Taron nodded. “And we don’t, but that’s an explanation for a later time. I
don’t want to get ahead of myself, especially when you aren’t even convinced
that what’s happening now is real, that
I’m
real and not just a figment
of your imagination.”

A surge of doubt began
to creep into her mind. “This
can’t
be real,” she repeated stubbornly,
hugging the book against her chest tightly. “It makes a hell of a lot more
sense that what just happened is the result of my brain mixing up my memories of
this book along with all the fantasy books and movies I’ve consumed to produce
the most screwed up dream I’ve ever had rather than me standing here talking to
a freaking dragon!”

Taron tilted his head in
a manner so eerily similar to the way he had done it as a man that it sent a
chill up Briana’s spine and regarded her silently for a long moment. “Given how
carelessly you’re treating that book as opposed to how careful you were with it
earlier, I think you really do believe that you’re currently asleep. Well then,
if you are so certain that this is a dream, why not seize the chance for a grand
adventure? After all, what human can say that they have soared the skies with a
firedrake?”

“
Firedrake
?” Her
eyes immediately shot to his muzzle in alarm. “You actually breathe
fire
?”

The toothy grin he shot
her was scary enough to make her take a couple of instinctual steps away from
him. “Would you like a demonstration?” he asked cheekily.

Shrugging with a nonchalance
that she absolutely didn’t feel, Briana replied, “Might as well get the full CG
package. Just—”

She trailed off, not
liking where her thoughts were going. Still, if there was even a remote chance…

Briana swallowed against
the lump of trepidation that had abruptly formed in her throat, and forced
herself to continue, “Just don’t burn anything down.”

His eyes seemed to flash
brighter. “Even if this is only a dream?” he taunted.

She lifted her chin
mulishly. “Even if this is only a dream.”

Taron opened up his
giant maw wide, and a small burst of fire that was more red than orange shot
out about a couple meters before dissipating harmlessly in the air. Briana had
barely felt the temperature around her rise. It had probably been the
equivalent of a human cough.

She was almost sure that
the bastard was laughing at her inside, but she was secretly relieved. The more
they talked, the more she was starting to doubt that she was, in fact,
dreaming. If he was willing to humor her doubts this much, then if it did turn
out that this terrifying but incredible creature indeed existed, maybe she
didn’t have to worry about becoming that dragon snack after all.

“Say I believe that I
really am wide awake and this is all real,” Briana said slowly, “that you’re a
dragon-shifter hunting for this book I found in my grandmother’s collection
only
yesterday
. What reason could you possibly have for scooping me up
and flying me to the roof of your hotel building? My back was turned to the
examining table. You could’ve easily snatched just the book and made a break
for the back door. I somehow doubt it was because you needed someone to carry
it for you while you flew.”

“We might as well sit,”
Taron replied. “The answer to your question is a long one, and we are well
hidden up here from prying eyes from down below.”

He lowered and folded up
his body onto the ground more gracefully and quietly than she thought a
creature that large should be able to manage. He stretched out his arms before
him, reminding her more of a cat settling down for a rest than anything
reptilian.

“You look like a dragon
guarding his treasure hoard,” Briana couldn’t resist saying, slowly lowering
herself to sit on the cool concrete while never once taking her eyes off the curved,
black talons at the end of his digits that were about the length of her torso.

She imagined one
downward swipe could easily slice her in half from head to toe like warm
butter. Yet—she really didn’t think she had to worry about that. Other than
lunging at her back at the book shop and keeping her from kicking him where it
counts, Taron hadn’t behaved even remotely threateningly to her in the least.
The fact that she was thinking about him as “Taron” and not “the dragon” was
rather telling, as well.

“A building is quite a
big keepsake to hoard,” he quipped. “Unless you mean yourself, but how many
stories of dragons have you read that have them hoarding humans?”

“Maybe a damsel or two,
but I wouldn’t be surprised if those kinds of stories also existed,” Briana
replied wryly. She then added with a wary frown, “You
aren’t
planning on
adding me to your collection, are you?”

Taron lowered his head
until there was only about a foot of space between her and his snout, making
her involuntarily flinch and her pulse speed up in sudden alarm.

“Would you honestly
believe me if I said no?”

Swallowing thickly,
Briana slowly shook her head. “I would be crazy not to have some small measure
of doubt.”

He pulled his head back
and grinned that toothy grin that made something primal in her brain shudder. “Good.
That means you have great survival instincts. You may soon need them.”

“Why?” she demanded
suspiciously.

“I suppose that’s as
good a place to start explaining myself as any. You recall that the shop owner
was about to bring someone into the room where we were examining Beatrice’s
book?”

Briana nodded. “Yeah. I
thought it was Joseph, an appraiser from our circle. He works for an auction
house in Dallas. I had invited him to come take a look at the book this morning,
but from Carol’s words—it was someone
you
knew, wasn’t it? Is that why
you charged the door like a crazed linebacker?”

Taron’s eyes narrowed. “Oh,
I knew him
very
well. That he’s here in this world at all right now
makes me both hopeful and fearful.

“In this world…” Briana
repeated, her words trailing off at the implications.

“Of course. Did I not
say that it was true that there are no dragons native to
this
world?”

“Then—how are
you
here?”

“According to you, a
dream,” he replied with a deep chuckle that made the air noticeably vibrate
around her.

Briana scowled. She
hated to admit it, but Taron did have a point. Not even she had dreams this
convoluted and vivid. It really would be stupid to continue to delude herself.

“Fine. Laugh all you
want,” she growled, “but even
you
have to admit that me dreaming
everything that just happened made more sense than me landing right smack in
the middle of a fairytale.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed
amiably, his tone somewhat mollifying her rising irritation.

“So?” she asked, looking
up at him expectantly.

Taron tilted his head
curiously at her before abruptly nodding. “Right. We were talking about the unexpected
visitor in the shop…”

“...and how you came to
this world,” Briana reminded him, cringing inwardly at how ludicrous that
sounded.

“The answers to both
questions are interconnected,” he said. “While I wish I had the time to explain
the prologue to this tale more thoroughly, I’m afraid the person we left behind
at the shop won’t give us that luxury. Even so, I can’t in all good conscious
ask you to help me any further without giving you at least a truncated version
of the story.”

“Though you didn’t
exactly
ask
when you threw me over your shoulder like a sack of
potatoes,” Briana said dryly. “So that’s why you didn’t shift back into a man
once you had me up here. You’re running from that person. You want to be able
to fly away without having to waste time shifting.”

“I
am
sorry about
that,” Taron replied, sounding genuinely contrite, “but I didn’t expect Cabak
to track me to this city so quickly. Never mind the book, there was no way in
hell that I was going to let that bloody bastard discover your existence. We’re
both extremely lucky that I got to you first.”

“
Me
?” Briana
exclaimed in bewilderment. “What the hell do I have to do with any of this? It’s
not like I could read anything in that book if that’s what he was after.”

“Maybe nothing or
everything,” he replied grimly. “The point is that Cabak would have snuffed out
your life the moment he caught your scent.”

Briana instantly jumped
to her feet. “Scent? Wait! Don’t tell me we just left my friend Carol alone
with another dragon-shifter—no, that isn’t important—with a potential
killer
!”

“Harold would have made
sure she, at least, made it to safety,” he assured her firmly.

Frantic with worry, it
took her a long moment to remember that Harold was Taron’s so-called appraiser.
“Don’t tell me your appraiser can shift into a dragon, too!”

Just how many dragons
were now running around the world pretending to be human?

“No, just a very capable
human.”

Looking around, Briana
spotted the building’s rooftop door and started to step towards it. “I need to
go back, anyway—hey!”