A slight pause followed that statement. “Um… to dinner, I assume you mean. Because otherwise, you just propositioned both of us, and as charming as Mrs. P thinks you are, I don’t think even you have the stamina for her.” Sophea’s voice dropped to a whisper. “She may look frail as hell, but man, that old lady is a goer! She’s worn me out with her demands I learn how to hoochie-coo. Did you know that was an actual dance? I thought it was kind of a made-up word, but holy hells, she made me try it.”
Rowan couldn’t keep from laughing. He tried to remind himself that Sophea was the enemy, and that she was clearly putting on an act in order to lull him into believing she was not after the very same thing he was, but at the same time, he found her funny and charming, and actually quite enjoyable.
“Must be my lack of filters,” he said to himself.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself. Why don’t you tell me about how one hoochie-coos over dinner? Shall we say in half an hour?”
“I was kind of hoping you’d be ready to go sooner than that. Mrs. P is—hold on a sec…” Sophea clearly put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, because her demand that Mrs. P stop trying to unhook the drapes was muffled. “Sorry, just a little issue going on here. And on. And on, but we won’t go into that now. How about five minutes?”
He looked at himself in the mirror that was mounted on the wall opposite the bed. He looked like he’d been dragged through a thornbush backward two or three times. “Twenty minutes.”
“Fifteen, and we reserve the right to be nibbling on bread when you show up. I’m famished, and it’ll give Mrs. P something to do with her hands that isn’t illegal. And I didn’t mean that to be a sexual innuendo. Mrs. P has to be ninety if she’s a day.”
He laughed again. “Very well. Fifteen minutes.”
As he hung up, he could hear Sophea saying in a plaintive tone, “No, Mrs. P, I don’t think you can fit that pillow in your bag…”
Rowan set down his phone, wondered what he had done in life to deserve such punishment, then remembered exactly what it was.
The First Dragon had sworn to never let Rowan rest until he’d paid off his danegeld, and clearly, Sophea was the latest in a long line of torments he had to bear. With a sigh, he stumbled into the tiny bathroom, managed to get a fast shower before scraping from his face the worst of its whiskers. He was only two minutes late when he strolled into the hotel restaurant, which occupied the basement level of the hotel.
The room had a close air that was common to all subterranean areas, but the five tables that dotted the room each bore a candle that gave off a warm, golden flicker. Three of the tables were occupied by other patrons, while the fourth was being used by Sophea and Mrs. P. True to her word, Sophea was eating a piece of bread, while shoving a bowl of butter spheres at the old woman.
“How do you know you don’t like it when you haven’t even tried it?” Sophea asked as he approached the table.
“The butter they use in this century is inferior to what I’m used to,” Mrs. P complained, then brightened when her pale eyes turned to him. “Ah, there is your young man. He looks tired. You should take better care of him. I always took exceptional care of my lovers. I made sure their mental states were positive, that they had eaten properly, and had suitable rest so that they were fit for our sexual congresses.”
Sophea cast a glance at him that was half frustration and half amusement. “Sorry I’m taking such poor care of you, Rowan. I’ll be sure to bring you a granola bar and tell you a joke or two tonight when I tuck you into bed.”
“No chocolate?” he asked, joining in with her bantering tone. “I much prefer chocolate over granola bars. Chocolate has aphrodisiac properties, you know.”
Sophea’s cheeks warmed, the bantering tone gone when she fussed with the basket of bread rolls, finally offering him one, but not meeting his eyes. “Ha ha, yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten that. Chocolate for sure.”
He sat down next to her, marveling that a woman who appeared so sophisticated could be so easily rattled by a little flirtatious talk. Not that he had much experience in that area, but still, he liked to think that he could hold up his end of a flirty conversation.
Sophea cleared her throat and made an obvious change of subject. “So, did you see the special of the day is some sort of sausage? It comes with potatoes, and looks really good. I do love me some sausage…”
A horrified look crawled over her face, her cheeks turning pink when she gazed at him.
Rowan had to stifle a laugh at her embarrassment.
“Oh, balls,” she exclaimed, then slapped a hand over her mouth, her face scrunching up and turning even redder.
He just stared at her, trying hard to hold his laughter, since for some bizarre reason that he had yet to fathom, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But as he watched her, her shoulders heaved, and tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. Finally she could stand it no longer and removed her hand to say in a voice choked with laughter, “Tell me I didn’t just announce how much I loved sausage.”
“You did, you know.” He chuckled, relieved to see that she had a good sense of humor and the ability to laugh at her own innuendo. “Not that I can blame you for it—I like a good bit of sausage myself. Gods, now I’m doing it.”
“I do not understand what you are finding so funny, gel,” Mrs. P said in a voice slightly tinged with annoyance. “One minute you were discussing your man’s testicles, which I assume are pleasant to behold because he is a handsome man, although one doesn’t necessarily follow the other. I had a lover once who was quite comely in the face and figure, and yet he had the most repulsive stones I’d ever seen on a man. Imagine, if you will, a withered plum that has sat on the edge of a frog pond—”
“No, Mrs. P,” Sophea interrupted, shoving a roll at the old lady. “We are not going to hear about your poor boyfriend’s testicles. It’s not pertinent, and I’m sure they were perfectly horrible. Did you look at the menu? You need to eat so you can take the pills your grandson gave me.”
“I don’t have a child, so I don’t see how I could have a grandchild,” Mrs. P told her.
Sophea pointed to her menu.
“Very well,” the old woman said with a sniff. “But I hope you are not this bossy in the bedroom. Men find such things demoralizing, and it makes it difficult for them to raise the sun.”
She buried herself behind the menu while Sophea’s face scrunched up in a delightful manner. “Raise the sun…?”
“Erection, I believe. I could be mistaken, but that’s what I assumed she implied.” He picked up his own menu, and cast a quick glance over it. “I say with all innocence and not the least bit of innuendo that I agree the sausage special sounds like the best choice.”
She snorted a little, but managed to keep from either blushing again or bursting into laughter. She did lean over to help the old woman go over the dinner choices. Rowan watched her as she read the small print, explaining what the various dishes were. The more he was around Sophea, the more she puzzled him. Dragons and their mates could be deceitful just like anyone else, but he wasn’t catching the least whiff of that with her. Instead, she was treating the thief just as if she were a perfectly normal old lady, and Sophea was her caregiver.
He shook his head to himself. He needed to stop being so sympathetic and remember why he was there.
“I think you would enjoy the pasta, but I refuse to ask where they got their olive oil from. I’m sure it’s perfectly fine even if it wasn’t imported from Greece.”
“That shows what you know,” Mrs. P said with a knowing smile. “Take a word from me, gel, and never say that in front of Zeus. He’s always been adamant that the cradle of western civilization is Athens.”
Rowan signaled the sole waiter that they were ready.
“Zeus is a mythical god,” Sophea argued. “So he’s hardly likely to be upset if I say that good olive oil comes from places other than Greece.”
“Wher
e did you get that idea?” Mrs. P asked her, rearranging her silverware into first one arrangement, and then another.
Rowan absently noted that his silverware was missing.
“About the olive oil?”
“No, that Zeus isn’t real.”
“I don’t know, maybe… reality?” Sophea said, pulling Mrs. P’s handbag from the floor, and deftly extracting Rowan’s silverware from it. She hesitated a moment, shot the old woman a telling look, and pulled from the bag a small vase containing a single rosebud. The water was still in the vase.
“You know her better than I do,” Mrs. P said, addressing him. “Is she refusing to admit the truth, or is she just ignorant?”
“Hey!” Sophea said, pausing in the act of buttering another roll. “Let’s keep the name calling to a minimum. And just for the record, Rowan does not know me. We just met on the plane, remember?”
Rowan studied Sophea. He liked her face. It was what people referred to as heart-shaped, but softened, so her chin didn’t look pointy. Her eyes were deep set, but with a little tilt that belied her mixed ancestry. Her hair was a rich shade of brown that reminded him of the chocolate they’d just been mentioning—it hung to her shoulders, a rippling curtain of silk that drew him like no other woman’s hair had.
For a moment, the idea of her straddling him, her hair teasing his naked flesh, flashed through his head, but he quickly stifled such inappropriate thoughts and tried to remember what the conversation was about.
“Er… do I have something on my face?” Sophea asked, becoming aware of his scrutiny.
“Eh? Ah, no. My apologies for staring. I was considering what I knew of you and why you would try to make us think that Zeus wasn’t a real person.”
She gawked at him, and it was so genuine, he had a niggle of suspicion that she wasn’t faking her reaction. “Oh, come on, now. You’re not going to start with that weird stuff that the others are doing, are you?”
“What weird stuff?”
She nodded toward Mrs. P. “She told me she knew who my husband was despite the fact that Jian had only come to the U.S. once, and then he was killed. And she said some pretty odd things about him. She said he was a dragon.” She gave a short laugh. “A dragon! Have you ever heard anything that crazy? It’s right up there with insisting that a mythical Greek god is alive.”
“The Greek pantheon are demigods, not full gods, I believe,” Rowan answered, wondering what she had to gain by refusing to admit the obvious. She must know that he wasn’t fooled. Perhaps if he made it absolutely clear that he knew just who and what she was, she’d drop the pretense. He had a feeling he’d like her a whole lot more if she stopped pretending.
She snorted. “Right, of course they are. Because why wouldn’t they be?”
“Just as you are a dragon’s mate. A red dragon’s mate, one whom the silver wyvern says was not tainted by demons.” He met her gaze squarely, hoping she could read the sincerity in his eyes. “I understand what you are doing, but you should know that the act isn’t necessary. I have no fight with the dragonkin… quite the opposite, actually, since I’ve been engaged to help them, not to mention my history with the First Dragon.”
She stared at him for the count of eight, then gave a little shake of her head. “And you look so very sane. Sadly, you’re just as cracked as the rest. Well, fine, be that way. If you guys want to insist that the unreal is real, you go right ahead. But I’m just going to ignore it.”
“Why are you…” He stopped, and looked at Mrs. P.
She shrugged. “She is as she is. I cannot change it.”
“Are you saying she’s telling the truth?”
“Hey!” Sophea said, indignation causing her lips to thin. “I’m sitting right here, you know.”
“Possibly,” Mrs. P said, just as if Sophea had not spoken. “It’s difficult to tell, and really, I don’t see that it matters.”
“I have the horrible feeling that one of you is calling me a liar,” Sophea said through apparently gritted teeth.
“If she is telling the truth…” Rowan fully considered this previous suspicion. If that was the case, then it changed everything. Or did it?
“Yoo hoo!” Mrs. P, obviously tired of the conversation, dipped her knobby fingers into her water glass, and flicked the water at a middle-aged man sitting by himself at the table next to them. “You there, in the blue. Yes, you. Do you like older women?”
“You’re about to get a swift kick to the shin, buster,” Sophea told Rowan. “How dare you imply I’d lie? I never lie! It’s a personal policy of mine, one that I started when I was a little girl at the orphanage and had to be nice to people who might want to adopt me. Do you have any idea the sorts of people who want to adopt plump half-Asian girls? Let me tell you, they aren’t the cream of the crop.”
Mrs. P leaned out of her chair at a perilous angle, the better to speak to the now-startled man at the next table. “You look like you have lots of energy. Limber, too.”
“Er…” the man said, glancing around as if for help, but the other few people in the dining room were focused on their own affairs.
“Everyone lies at some point or other,” Rowan told Sophea. He wasn’t sure what to believe about her now. Either she was a very good actress or she was as innocent as she professed. But even if she was the latter, would she stay that way for very long once she knew the truth about what Mrs. P had in her possession?
“I don’t,” Sophea insisted.
“Not even a white lie to keep from hurting someone’s feelings?”
“Not even then. I’d find some other way to get around being hurtful.”
Mrs. P leaned so far out of her chair that Sophea had to grab her to keep her from toppling to the floor. “What’s your name, handsome?”
“Edvard,” the man said in a pronounced Scandinavian accent. He scooted his chair a little farther away from Mrs. P and tried to focus on his meal.
“So you’re telling me in all honesty—because you never prevaricate—that you are not a red dragon?” Rowan asked, the twisting conversation making him feel like he was a dog chasing its own tail.
“Edvard is a nice name. I bet a handsome, limber fellow like you would like to make a crisp, new American dollar, hmm?”
“Of course I’m not—” Mrs. P’s words must have registered with Sophea because she suddenly stopped speaking and gave an outraged, “Mrs. P! You are not to solicit others. I thought we had that clear earlier at the L.A. airport when you tried to sit on that young man’s lap.”
“My beau does not mind, if that is what you are thinking,” Mrs. P said, and pulled a dollar bill from her pocket, which she waggled at the unfortunate Edvard. “He only cares about his world, not this one. I will be faithful to him there, but here, anything goes.”
Rowan couldn’t help but admire the old woman’s moxie as she waggled two tufted white cotton ball eyebrows at the unwary diner.
“Please, behave yourself,” Sophea said, pulling Mrs. P’s chair a bit closer to her. “If you harass that poor man, we’ll have to have dinner in our room. It’s much nicer to have it here with Rowan, even if he did call me a big fat liar.”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Rowan protested. “I did not call you a big fat anything—for the record, I happen to like women with curves, and in fact, think you are quite attractive—and I didn’t call you a liar. I simply asked Mrs. P if she thought you were… er…”
“Telling the truth,” Sophea finished triumphantly. “Which is another way of saying a liar. Well, I’m not, as I said. So you can just move on, and Mrs. P, so help me, if I catch you trying to seduce anyone else, I will march straight upstairs and take everything out of your luggage and give the stuff back to their rightful owners.”
Mrs. P stopped blowing kisses to Edvard and gave Sophea a sour look. “You have no sense of fun. I hope your man takes care of your needs so that you aren’t so cranky all the time.”
Sophea gaped at her for a few seconds before transferring her astou
nded expression to Rowan.
He gave her a smile, and without realizing it, said, “Let me know if you need cheering up.”
“I… you…” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you just proposition me?”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Apparently I did. Or rather, my mouth did. Wholly without permission, I should add. I’m desperately tired, you see, and I think I’m at that stage where my brain has given up the ghost and is allowing me to say whatever I want without consideration of whether it’s appropriate or not. I humbly apologize, and hope you will forgive a sleep-deprived man for a careless thought.”
Sophea, to his surprise, did not continue glaring at him, nor did she read him the riot act that he deserved. Instead, a curious expression crossed her face, part amusement and part a wistful something that suddenly made him want to be heroic. “Apology accepted. I’m a bit jet-laggy, myself, and I know how it can be when your mouth runs off with you. And actually, you didn’t say anything offensive. At least, that part wasn’t offensive. The whole thing about me lying is another point.”
“You really don’t know that you’re a dragon’s mate?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“How can I be a dragon’s mate when my husband wasn’t a dragon?” Sophea asked with another little shake of her head. She gestured toward herself. “He was perfectly human-shaped. As am I. I know I’m not any great shakes so far as looks go—thank you for the compliment, by the way—but do I look like a giant scaly she-beast?”
He was silent for a moment, trying to prod his almost-numb brain into working. If she was telling the truth, and she didn’t know… He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “There is a test.”
“A test to see if I’m a scaly beast or not?” she asked, looking skeptical.
“Yes.” He took up the paper check that would allow them to sign for the meal, and dipped one corner of it into the candle in the center of the table.
“Really?” Sophea eyed the burning paper with evident worry. “It’s not going to be a Spanish Inquisition sort of—aiiieee!”