As was his habit, he was wearing a pair of loose dojo pants that revealed his pale skin that was covered in tattoos. Not the usual tattoos. These strange symbols held a metallic shimmer as they crawled over his body, changing colors with a dizzying speed.
Few people realized that the symbols held the precious information he’d acquired over the endless years.
Like a portable library.
He was a dragon who understood that wealth didn’t only come in gold and silver. The greatest treasure was knowledge.
Of course, he didn’t ever say no to gold or silver…
Sprawled in the gilded throne that was situated on a raised dais, he gazed down the long room with ivory walls that were inset with arched mirrors. Overhead, the coved ceiling displayed a mural of Aladdin and his lamp that seemed to dance with life in the light from the exquisite Venetian chandelier, while the floor was glossed to a brilliant sheen that emphasized the inlaid ebony.
A beautiful room that was ruined by the sight of the troll with its grotesque features and large tusks protruding from his lower jaw.
He hated dealing with trolls. Who didn’t? It was bad enough they were painfully stupid, but to add insult to injury, they left a stench behind that took days to scrub out of the rugs. They did, however, pay their debts.
If not always in the way Baine desired.
Wrinkling his slender nose, Baine watched as the nasty creature waved his hand toward the half-dressed females who lingered next to the arched gold-and-ivory door.
“Pretty ladies,” the troll rasped. “Much, much pleasure.”
“The debt wasn’t for females,” Baine said, lifting his slender hand to allow flames to dance over his fingers.
Trolls, like most demons, could be killed by dragon-fire.
The idiot looked confused.
“Pretty men? Me can do—”
“Gold, you moron,” he interrupted the ridiculous offer. As if a dragon would need the help of a troll to find sexual partners.
Even now, the women were eyeing him with an open longing that had nothing to do with their position as concubines, and everything to do with the feral sensuality that smoldered in his amber eyes.
“The agreement of the loan was that you repay me in gold.”
The pasty face paled to an ugly shade of ash. It was never wise to piss off a dragon.
“Very well.”
“Wait,” Baine abruptly commanded.
Yaki reluctantly turned back to eye him with a wary expression.
“What?”
“Release the females.”
The troll widened his crimson eyes in shock. “Release them?”
“Do you have a hearing problem?” Baine drawled.
“No, my lord.” The idiot gave a sharp clap of his hand and the smaller troll who was standing near the door hurried to unlock the iron cuffs that were used to hold the women captive. Giving a deep bow, Yaki backed out of the room. “Me go now.”
Baine barely noticed the females who giggled and fluttered near the doorway. Even freed of their chains they sought to capture his attention.
Instead his focus remained locked on the troll who continued to back away. Sneaky bastard.
“You’ll return with my payment.”
Yaki bobbed a deep bow. “Yes, my lord.”
“Soon.”
“Yes, yes. Soon.”
Baine waited until the bastard thought he was on the point of a clean getaway.
“And Yaki?” he murmured ever so softly.
The demon froze in fear. “Me?”
“Yes you, you dolt. If I hear you’re dealing in the slave trade again I’ll have you skinned and roasted for dinner.” He smiled, the fire dancing over his skin. “Understood?”
“Understood,” the troll choked out, no longer trying to hide his terror as he turned and trampled two women as well as his fellow troll on his way out of the door.
Baine snorted, glancing toward the tall, slender male dressed in crisp white shirt and black pants. Char was a half-breed dragon with short silver hair and eyes the color of a thunderstorm.
He’d been given to Baine on the day that Baine had left his father’s lair, and the two had been inseparable since that moment nearly five hundred years ago.
Stepping from the shadows, Char efficiently rid the throne room of the females who were covertly trying to inch in Baine’s direction. Once sure the intruders had been escorted back through the portal to their own world, the servant returned to study Baine with a faint smile.
“How many times must I warn them that I’m not interested in slaves?”
There was a momentary pause, as if Char was recalling a time when one particular slave had entranced Baine. Thankfully, the younger male might be irreverent, mocking, and occasionally defiant, but he was never, ever stupid.
No one mentioned the female who’d once dared to defy him.
Not even Baine’s closest friend.
“Trolls have never been burdened with intelligence,” Char said instead, strolling across the polished floor to stand directly in front of the throne. “And they’re accustomed to dealing with your father, who still clings to the old ways.”
Baine’s lips twitched. His father was definitely old-school.
Pillaging, raping, scorching entire civilizations when the mood took him.
“Do I sense disapproval for my refusal to remain in the Dark Ages?” he murmured.
Char chuckled. Like Baine, he’d shrugged off the chains of the past and embraced the new world.
“The women might have been slaves, but not one of them would have said no if you’d asked them to stay.”
“I don’t need a troll to be my pimp,” Baine growled. “I can have any woman I want.”
Char cocked a brow. “Is that why your harem is empty?”
Sparks flickered over Baine’s skin, his tattoos swirling until he managed to regain control over his temper.
His empty harem was yet another conversational no-no.
“Who’s next?” he snapped, his voice edged with annoyance.
Usually he enjoyed collection days. What wasn’t to enjoy?
There was money. Gold. Precious gems. And an occasional artifact that was worthy of his library.
But today he was feeling…odd.
As if he had an itch deep inside him that he couldn’t scratch.
“Cava, King of the Rock Clan,” Char answered his question, although his expression was speculative as Baine tapped his fingers on the arm of the massive throne.
“Diamonds, I suppose?” Baine muttered. The orc still owed Baine for services he’d performed nearly four hundred years ago.
Char shrugged. “It’s rumored that he discovered a rare text buried in the mountains. I know how you love your musty books so I told him to bring the manuscript instead of the gems.”
“Good. Send him in…” Baine’s words died on his lips as he abruptly surged to his feet. “Wait.”
Char was instantly at his side. “My lord?”
Baine closed his eyes, allowing his senses to rush toward the portal that had remained open.
There. He sucked in a deep breath, savoring the scent he’d been searching for, for over twenty-five years.
Tart and sweet, like lemonade on a hot summer day.
“It’s her,” he rasped, refusing to accept he could be mistaken. “At last.”
“Is there an intruder?” Char demanded. “Shall I summon the guards?”
“No.” Baine shuddered, feeling as if he was in molting season. And in a way he was. After years of frustration, he was shedding the dreary numbness that’d plagued him and replacing it with a sensation that was vibrantly sensitive to the world.
Yes. He shuddered in ecstasy. This was what it meant to be alive. If he’d been in dragon-form he would have stretched out his wings and roared in exaltation.
“There’s no intruder.”
Char sent him a confused frown. “Then what is it?”
“A long-lost treasu
re,” Baine assured his companion, leaping off the dais and heading toward the nearest door.
“Where are you going?”
“Collect the debts and rid the lair of the riffraff,” Baine commanded, his long strides never faltering. He was on the hunt, and nothing was going to interfere. Not this time. A sudden smile of anticipation curled his lips. “Oh, and have my harem opened.”
CHAPTER TWO
It was close to midnight and Tayla was pulling her nightgown over her head when she felt the first wave of heat prickling over her skin.
What the heck?
Autumn in the Midwest meant chilled nights with a brisk breeze. There was no reason she should feel as if someone had just opened an oven.
Not bothering with a robe to cover her thin eyelet gown, she headed barefoot down the stairs and out the back door to her private garden.
The strange sensation couldn’t be what she feared, she silently reassured herself. Baine was in another dimension. And even if he was in this world, she’d hidden herself behind layers of magic.
He couldn’t track her down.
It was impossible.
Right? Right?
Fiercely battling back the urge to panic, she glanced around the thick shadows. They were far enough from any town to ensure there were no stray lights, and Tayla was an imp, not a vampire, which meant she didn’t have their ability to see in the dark.
“Levet?” she called softly, her toes curling as she hesitantly crossed the terrace that was coated in frost. “Who’s there?”
For a second there was nothing but the distant howl of a coyote. Then a soft, male chuckle drifted through the air.
“As lovely as ever, imp,” a dark voice mocked.
Tayla froze. Shit. Why hadn’t she brought a flashlight with her? Or a flamethrower.
Maybe a small nuclear bomb.
She cleared the lump from her throat, a horrid sense of premonition inching down her spine as a dark shadow detached itself from near the gazebo.
“You’re trespassing on private property,” she said, proud when the words didn’t come out as a terrified squeak. “Show yourself.”
Someone, or something, gave a loud click of their tongue. “You dare to try and command me? Surely you haven’t forgotten the terms of our relationship, have you, imp? I am the master, and you are my slave.”
Her hand lifted to press against her heart that couldn’t find a proper rhythm. It was too fast, too slow, then it forgot to beat at all. Sweat dripped down her brow and she struggled to breathe as another wave of heat threatened to smother her.
“No…this has to be a nightmare.”
“Most females would consider me a fantasy come true, not a nightmare.”
“Then why don’t you go lurk in their gardens?”
“Because it’s you that I want.”
No. No, no, no.
She licked her dry lips. “How did you find me?”
There was another low chuckle. “Did you truly believe you could hide from me forever? You belong to me. This moment was inevitable.”
Oh hell. With a surge of blind panic, Tayla was whirling on her heel and darting back into the house, pausing to close and lock the door behind her.
As if that was going to somehow keep out a full-blooded dragon.
Yeah, and she was going to sprout wings and fly to Mars.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
On the plus side, she did manage to zoom back up the stairs at a speed she would never have thought possible. Heading toward her room, she was forced to skid to halt as Levet suddenly appeared in the middle of the hallway.
“Tayla?” His eyes widened as he took in her wild hair and too-pale face. “Ma belle, what has happened?”
She pressed a hand to the wall as her knees threatened to give way.
Baine.
Was here.
In her garden.
After twenty-five years of hiding, he’d managed to find her.
But how?
“Did you do something?” she blurted out.
The gargoyle frowned in confusion. “Qu'est-ce que?”
“Your magic,” she said.
Levet shook his head, giving a wave of his hand to fill the hallway with a floating ball of light.
“Ma belle, you’re not making any sense.”
She forced herself to pause and take a deep breath, trying to clear her fractured thoughts.
She wrapped her arms around her waist as she trembled with…what? Fear, certainly. Annoyance. And was that excitement? Oh, rats.
“Could your magic interfere with a disguise spell?” she demanded.
“Of course not—” Levet’s startled words were cut short as his wings fluttered and his tail twitched. “Oh.”
Tayla grimaced. She didn’t like the sound of that ‘oh.’
“What does that mean?”
Levet didn’t answer. Instead he countered with his own question. “Tell me what has you so upset.”
She would never have told him if she’d been in her right mind. She didn’t ever talk about her past. After all, sharing could be dangerous. Not only to herself, but also to the person who she might be foolish enough to tell.
They might very well be tortured for any information of her whereabouts.
Dramatic? Maybe. But she didn’t want to take any chances.
Now she found the words tumbling from her lips before she could censor them.
“Twenty-five years ago I was working at my father’s jewelry store in Las Vegas when a group of trolls burst through the back door and kidnapped me.”
“Trolls? In the middle of Vegas?” Levet appeared oddly confused. “That was unusually bold for the creatures.”
“Not really.” She shrugged, trying, as always, to block the memories of the horrid night. “They must have seen I was there alone. I couldn’t have fought off one, let alone three.”
Levet managed to look even more confused. “You were there alone?”
“Yes. My father had a shipment of gems coming in so he took the guards with him,” she explained. At the time she’d been surprised by her father’s insistence that he take the entire staff with him, but later she had to assume he must have suspected there was going to be trouble that night. “He’d only been gone a few minutes when the bastards came into the shop and tossed me into a box made of iron.”
Levet hissed in anger. “I know those boxes. Only mine was silver.” He shivered. “They were slavers?”
She nodded, startled by the gargoyle’s confession. Clearly they had more in common than she realized.
“They weren’t actually in the trade, but they supplied the…”
“Merchandise,” Levet finished for her.
She shuddered. At the time she’d thought nothing could terrify her more than being hauled to a smelly camp hidden in the middle of the Mojave Desert. She’d been bathed in fine oils and dressed in a tiny bit of satin so she could be bartered off to the highest bidder.
But there was worse to come.
“Yes, but they didn’t put me in the auction,” she admitted. “Instead they offered me as a prize to a dragon.”
“A dragon.” Levet blinked. And blinked. “Do you mean a real dragon?”
Another shiver raced through her. She’d been as shocked as the gargoyle when she’d been tossed through a portal and landed in a tangled heap in the middle of a shadowed cavern. Remaining on her knees with her head bowed, Tayla had fearfully peered through her tangled hair at the lethal creature who’d studied her with a blatant hunger.
She’d immediately known it had to be a dragon even though she’d never actually seen one in person. But despite the humanoid form with thick black hair and a brutally carved face, there could be no mistaking the sizzling power that had threatened to grind her bones into dust. Or the tendrils of smoke that curled from the flared nostrils.
At the time she had no idea if he intended to eat her or force her into his bed, but without warning, another male had entered the room.
Not just a male, but another dragon, she’d swiftly realized.
This one, however, was…
Words had failed her, as she’d taken in the stark, unimaginable beauty of his lean face that had been framed by glossy black hair. His features were finely chiseled, with a hawkish nose and angular cheekbones. His brow was wide, intelligent, and his lips beautiful, but hinting at a cruelty that’d made her shiver. His eyes had been faintly slanted and smoldered with an amber fire that’d slid over her with a barely concealed contempt.
It was only when she’d unconsciously risen to her feet that his eyes had narrowed, the disapproval searing away as he’d allowed his gaze to roam down her tense body.
To Tayla, it’d felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Her breath was wrenched from her lungs and her entire body tingled with an awareness she didn’t understand.
With a slow, purposeful stride he’d crossed the cavern to stand directly in front of her. He was wearing a loose pair of linen pants that’d fallen low on his hips, revealing the mesmerizing tattoos that had moved in strange patterns over his pale skin. Halting directly in front of her, his hand had reached out to cup her chin so he could study her with a blazing intensity.
And then he’d said one word.
“Mine.”
She jerked herself out of the past.
“A real dragon,” she managed to choke out, wishing she could forget the absolute sense of rightness that’d filled her at his possessive claim.
“Baine.”
Tayla studied the small gargoyle in shock. “You know him?”
Levet gave a dismissive wave of one clawed hand. “We have mutual friends, although we have never been formally introduced. What did the monster do to you?”
“Nothing,” she said.
It was true. He had done nothing more than lean down and brush a burning kiss over her lips. But it’d felt like…everything.
She was still reeling from his touch when the older dragon had stood and shoved aside the heavy throne he’d been seated on. There had been a short but angry conversation between the two males in a language she didn’t understand, although she’d managed to work out that the dragon closest to her was named Baine, and that the older dragon was his father, Synge.