“You understand that I cannot allow this to happen,” the man told me, his eyes so bright, it was like they were made up of mercury.
Desperately, I tried to split my focus and will him away, but I knew even before trying that would not work. For some reason, this man was immune to me, a truly horrifying thought.
“I will deal with you as soon as I stop your cohorts,” he said, then turned on his heel and strode off into the night.
Panicking, I shifted the push from dancing to sleeping. I knew that wouldn’t last for long, but it should buy me enough time to get the band out of the house, and make our escape before the big, bad dragons woke up and found out they’d been robbed.
Just who the hell was that man? He didn’t look like a dragon, so he couldn’t be that demigod that Andrew was so interested in ... could he?
I sang a few more words, pushing sleep hard, and had the satisfaction of seeing the dancers slowly drop to their collective knees before toppling gently over to the side. There were one or two holdouts, but an extra push dropped them and the demon dog Jim.
“Now, just stay there!” I muttered as I leaped down off the stage and raced for the house. Halfway there, the sounds of crashing could be heard, followed by shouts and a couple of screams.
“Dammit, they’re beating him up,” I swore, pausing long enough to kick off my heels so I could run faster. I didn’t even notice the gravel when I dashed across it to the stone of a verandah, flinging myself through an opened French door, and directly onto a warm wall that reeled back a step when I hit it.
“Hoorf,” I gasped, my breath having been knocked out of me. Two hands came up to steady me when I rebounded off the wall, which turned out to be the man immune to my particular charms. There was a faint hint of a smile around his eyes and mouth, but it took me a minute before I could get air back into my lungs enough to say, “Are you all right?”
The look of amusement deepened. “Oddly, I was about to ask you the same thing. Do you need to sit down? You are bright red.”
“Just the exertion of running to keep the band from hurting you.” I looked around the room. It was dimly lit, but clearly empty. “Where ... uh ... did you happen to see ... um ...”
“Your friends are in the hallway.” The expression in his lovely silver-gray eyes hardened. “They did not succeed in your plan.”
“It was not my plan,” I said quickly without thinking, then scooted backward until his hands fell from my arms. I edged around him and headed for the interior door.
He was at the door before I could blink, his back to it, his arms crossed, a slight frown pulling down two chocolate brown eyebrows. I swear his eyes were darker than they had been a moment ago. “It matters not who originated the plan. You cannot deny that you deliberately bespelled my chi—my dragonkin in order to steal from them.”
I thought of denying it, but I’ve never been a good liar, and besides, he’d seen me in action. So instead, I crossed my own arms, and stepped up until I was a scant inch away from him. “I have no intention of denying it. Your dragonkin are rich. They can afford to lose a little without too much discomfort.”
“That point is moot. Dragons do not take kindly to being robbed, no matter how many riches they possess.” He leaned forward slightly so that his arms brushed against mine. An odd little jolt of awareness made me suddenly feel very hot. “We guard what is ours. You would do well to remember that, songbird.”
I lifted my chin. I hate it when people try to intimidate me. “I’m a siren, not a bird. And I wasn’t trying to take anything from your precious dragons ... although you don’t look like a dragon. Aren’t you supposed to have weird eyes?”
His eyebrows rose a fraction. “Weird?”
“You know ... elongated pupils, kind of catlike. Only you don’t have that.”
He blinked and suddenly, his pupils were long vertical stripes in his eyes.
“Holy shit!” Instinctively, I bolted, running through the door into a hallway, where I stumbled and almost fell over one of the three bodies lying prone on the floor. “Oh my god, you killed them!”
The dragon man was at my side, fortunately with his pupils back to normal, perfectly round black circles swimming in a sea of silver. “They are not dead. They are sleeping.”
“What did you do to them?” I asked, stooping to check the pulse of the nearest person, who just happened to be Rina.
He shrugged. “I am the First Dragon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, and shook off the hand he put on my arm.
“It means I am the First Dragon.”
“Let go of me.”
“Why?”
“Because after seeing this, goddess knows what you’ll do to me,” I snapped, gesturing at my three unconscious bandmates.
He took hold of my arm again, and not being one to stand being manhandled, I punched him in the chest. “Let go!”
“I wish to escort you out to my kin. I do not think you will go unless I assist you,” he said, and looked down to where my fist was still against his chest.
It was a very nice chest. Or at least, the part that I could see through his crisp white shirt was nice.
“Wait, First Dragon like ... like Aisling mentioned? You’re the god?”
“Demigod, as my son’s mate would be the first to mention.”
I cleared my throat and, gathering unto me every last bit of energy I could pull from the surroundings, walloped him with a compulsion that would have dropped a horse.
He didn’t budge. He simply lifted one eyebrow and said in a mildly interested voice, “You wish me to do something? Ah, leave the house. That is my plan, as well. Let us go.”
“Dammit! That was my best push,” I said as he took me by my elbow and steered me toward the French doors. “Just my luck to get a god.”
“I wasn’t aware you had me,” he said, pausing when we got to the edge of the verandah. He glanced down at my bare feet and, without another word, swung me up in his arms and carried me across the stretch of gravel.
“Hey! Oh. Thank you. I ... uh ... ditched my shoes because I thought the guys were beating ... uh ...” I didn’t want to go on. I’d already made a big enough fool of myself. Besides, I had bigger worries. I had to get the band out of that house and into the van before the other dragons came out of my push.
“Because you thought I was being harmed?” He deposited me where I’d kicked off my shoes, which I hastily put on. “That is very noble of you, but it does not negate the fact that you attempted to steal from dragonkin.”
“Look, Mr.—er—First Dragon ...” I stopped, unable to keep from asking, “What is your name?”
He just looked at me with those gorgeous eyes. After about ten seconds, he answered, “First Dragon.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s what you are, but what’s your name?”
“First Dragon,” he repeated.
“You don’t have a real name?”
“It is a name. It is what I am called. I am the First Dragon.”
I gawked at him a minute, then asked, “You had a mother, right?”
“Most beings do, even demigods,” he agreed, and with a hand on my lower back, gave me a gentle push toward the part of the garden where the dragons still slept.
“Right. So what did she call you?”
He said nothing for a few moments, clearly thinking. “Ah. I see what you are after. Yes, she had a different name for me.”
I waited, but he just kept the pressure on my back so that I was moving forward.
“And that name was?”
He shot me a curious look. “Why do you wish to know?”
“Because, silly me, I like to know who I’m talking to. And yes, I know, you’re the First Dragon, but that’s what you are, not who you are, if you get me.”
“Hmm.” He seemed to think about that while he hustled me toward the side garden. “That is an interesting statement. I am not sure that it is true, but I am willing to discuss it with you at a late
r time. Regretfully, I see your spell has not yet broken.”
We emerged from the hedge opening to find the garden full of prone bodies. I will admit to taking a moment of pride at the fact that the push had held so many dragons for so long, but that pride soon fizzled.
The First Dragon (dammit, what was his name?) surveyed the sleeping dragons for a few seconds, then suddenly clapped his hands together, the resulting sound making me stagger to the side a couple of steps.
“Criminy,” I said, rubbing at my ears, which were ringing from the noise. Before us, the people began to stir, slowly sitting up and getting to their feet with murmurs of confusion. “You could have warned me before you did that.”
The dragon slid me a look before turning to the dragons gathered. “You have been asleep, victim to a group of thieves. This woman bespelled you. Her companions are in the hall, bound and awaiting your justice.”
“Oh, no,” I groaned, trying to pull away my arm when the First Dragon took me by it and marched me forward.
“This woman is a siren.”
“What is—Jim, dammit, get out of my way, I almost tripped over you.” Aisling stumbled forward, steadied almost immediately by a tall man with black hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. “What is a siren, exactly? Why were we on the ground? What was that noise? What in Pete’s name happened? Oh, wait a sec, let me check in with the nanny.”
Aisling pulled a small walkie-talkie out of her pocket and moved off a few feet, speaking into it.
“Told you she didn’t smell right,” Jim said, shaking itself so that black hair and slobber flew everywhere.
The First Dragon had been having a little chat with a couple of the men, and all of them suddenly turned and headed for the house, leaving me stranded in a sea of dragons who were becoming increasingly annoyed.
“A siren?” The dark-haired woman named May frowned. “Isn’t that the women who lured sailors onto rocks so they’d drown?”
“Sirens are from Greek mythology,” a boy of about thirteen or fourteen said, pushing his way through the dragons to consider me with soft brown eyes. His scrutiny was so impassionate, I felt a bit like a bug pinned to a board. “I read about them last year. They lured men to their death by making them wreck their ships.”
“We don’t do that anymore,” I said indignantly, all the while trying to back up surreptitiously. The band needed my help, and I had a feeling the people before me weren’t going to take kindly to my role. “That’s so eighteenth century. Or so the only other siren I’ve ever met said, and she should know. She was an old lady then. She’s probably dead now.”
I was lying, but if there was one thing I’d discovered since finding out what I was, it was that you didn’t rat out your fellow sirens. Not that I’d met more than the one.
I backed up a couple more steps.
“You put us to sleep?” Aisling asked, returning to the fold. She was frowning, and I began to think of a way to escape. I hated to leave the band behind, but this caper was their idea, not mine, and I was sure they would think nothing about sacrificing me for a chance at escape. “How? Did you use a glamour? I didn’t feel one. Ysolde, you’re the expert with magic—did you feel a glamour?”
A slight woman with long blond hair emerged. She was as tall as the teen, who continued to examine me just like I was some sort of curiosity, and shook her head. “I didn’t feel anything other than the fact that Baltic and I had a great time dancing.”
“We had a wonderful time, too,” Aisling said, and others around her murmured.
I took another step back.
“Which is odd, when you think about it,” she continued, turning her frown to me. “Since Drake hates dancing in public.”
“You wouldn’t know that the way you guys tango all around the house while you’re wearing skimpy outfits,” Jim said, giving Aisling a wink. “The last time he dipped you, I thought your boobs were going to pop out of that low-cut dress.”
Her cheeks pinkened a little. “I said in public. Dancing in one’s own home is perfectly normal. And the next time the Latin urge hits Drake, you are to look away, and yes, that’s an order.”
I took two steps back.
“Aw, man, you know how to take the fun out of spying,” the demon said before turning to me. “Hey, she’s getting away!”
I turned and bolted, flinging behind me a compulsion for everyone to look at something in the opposite direction. It would distract them for only a second or two, but that might be long enough to escape around the house to the van.
As it turns out, it wasn’t.
“Hrnff!” I grunted when, halfway around the side of the house and heading for the drive where the van was parked, I was tackled from behind. It felt like someone had thrown a piano at me, and when I crawled forward from underneath my attacker, I found May glaring at me from narrowed eyes, one hand holding firmly to the back of my dress. “Damn, girl. You could have just yelled stop.”
May released me long enough for me to get to my feet, wipe the grass from my face, and brush the dirt off my front. “Do you really think you can get away? Some of the most powerful dragons in Europe are here, right now, at this house. Running away is just going to make them angrier than they already are, and I can assure you that they’re pretty well at the top of the anger meter.”
“Of course they are. It would be asking too much of fate for anything else,” I said with a sigh, resigning myself to capture when Aisling and a handful of other people ran over to us. At Aisling’s orders, two men grabbed my arms and frog-marched me toward the house.
“We got her,” Jim announced, walking ahead of me into the house. The room I’d entered before was now full of people, all of whom were furious. “She tried to bolt, but man, May has a pair of legs on her. She had Vicky here spittin’ worms in no time.”
“I did not, at any point, have worms in my mouth,” I told the demon, and tried to look as if I had done nothing wrong. It was particularly difficult given that Andrew, Cassius, and Rina were now seated on a long sofa, their hands tied behind their backs. All three looked like they wanted to murder someone, and I had a bad, bad feeling I knew who they blamed. “Hello. Glad to see you awake.”
Rina snarled something in Russian that I was thankful I didn’t understand. Andrew held my gaze with his for a few seconds, then looked away. Cassius started spouting abuse and profanity until the green-eyed dragon snapped an order.
“There’s no need to find duct tape,” I said wearily, then gave them all a weak smile. Before anyone knew what I was doing, I turned to Cassius and sang a couple of lines from a popular dance tune, giving him a push to be compliant.
It was as if I’d dropped a bomb in the room. Andrew and Rina leaped up and tried to run for the French doors.
“She’s singing again!” Aisling yelled, clapping her hands over her ears, while at the same time the green-eyed dragon shouted, “The thieves are escaping. Gabriel, stop them!”
All of the dragons began yelling at once, running around like mad people, shouting orders and making demands to stop the thieves, to stop me, and, most of all, to not listen to my song. I stood now silent in the center of the madness, and looked across the room at the only person who wasn’t moving.
One side of his mouth quirked up for a moment. It was an annoyingly smug gesture but, at the same time, tugged at something inside of me. I couldn’t help it—I gave him a little smile in return.
And then I was thrown into a room in the basement, and told to behave myself, or else the consequences would be dire.
I slumped against the rough cement wall, uncaring that I was going to make my pretty red dress filthy with decades of dust. “Great. This is just how I planned this day to end—alone, in a basement, with a house full of powerful immortals all calling for my head on a platter.”
“Could be worse,” a muffled voice said. I turned to see a shadow in the middle of the light at the bottom edge of the door. A heavy snuffling sound followed. “You could be in the mortal jai
l where your buddies are. Drake called the cops on them, and they just hauled them off. So count your blessings, babe. You still have us!”
I slumped all the way to the floor. Doom, doom, doom.
Chapter Four
“What are you doing here?”
The First Dragon closed the door of the room in which the siren was being held captive, and turned to evaluate her environment. Although perfectly clean, the chamber was clearly used as a storage facility, as it was partially filled with wooden packing crates. A small metal-frame bed had been placed in a corner, along with a round table and an uncomfortable-looking chair.
The last was occupied by the siren, whose face bore a fierce scowl.
“You aren’t here to let me go, are you?” she continued, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that allowed him to fully appreciate the curves contained therein.
“Why would I do that?” he asked. “You tried to steal from my kin.”
Her shoulders twitched. “I didn’t steal anything. I just sang a couple of songs.”
“Which allowed your friends to steal.”
“Yeah, well, they aren’t my friends.” She looked away, studying the crate nearest her. “I just work with them. And before you get all judgmental, no, I do not consider helping thieves as my career. It’s just something I have to do.”
“Why?” he asked, seating himself on the corner of the small bed. It was highly uncomfortable.
She eyed him with distrust. “You want to know my life story? You? A demigod?”
“So far as I know, there is nothing that says I cannot be interested in the lives of mortals.”
Her shoulders twitched again. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Wherever you feel your story begins.”
Her lips curled in a delightful smile. He felt an answering smile on his own lips, and for a moment, he reveled in the emotion. It had been a long time since he had shared a simple joy with anyone.
“You really are different from other men, you know that?” She tipped her head to the side and gave him a visual once-over. “You don’t say anything I expect you to say. You want my story? OK, I’ll give it to you short and sweet: my parents dumped me as soon as they realized I wasn’t normal. I spent some time in the foster system, running away pretty frequently because the families I got were horrible. I lived for a few weeks at a zoo, hiding in the buildings and eating the stashes of snacks the workers left. Then I ended up finally at the home of a woman who knew what I was. She was kind of Wiccan-lite, and knew that sirens were more or less outlawed in the Otherworld.”