I didn't notice the flames until I managed to peel myself off where I had collapsed against him, my heart beating a wild tattoo, my lungs .struggling to bring much-needed oxygen into my body, while the sound his harsh breathing in my ear as he did the same was strangely comforting. With arms weak and trembling, I pushed myself back, smiling at the look of bemused sat-edness in his dusky green eyes. A flicker at the perimeter of my sight had me looking around us in surprise.
"Wow. You lit the water on fire."
"No, kincsem, it was your passion that did this," he corrected, pulling my boneless body forward to claim another kiss.
One of these days I really was going to have to learn how to control his fire.
"... which more or less means if I don't do what he asked, the committee is going to decide I'm guilty of the murders, even if they know full well I didn't do them. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?"
"No."
I pushed myself back from where I was draped across Drake's chest. We were in bed, my legs having been so useless that he had to carry me there, but I've long maintained that a little he-man attitude is good now and again, especially when it comes to carrying women to bed. "What do you mean, no? No, I couldn't possibly have been responsible for summoning the incubus that killed the two Guardians, or no, you've never in your life heard anything so stupid?"
"No, it is not a ridiculous idea."
His eyes were closed, his voice sleepy, his hands making lazy, drowsy circles on my behind. "You're asleep. You don't know what you're saying." His eyes opened. My fingers curled into his chest hair, tugging on it. "You have to be sleeping, because if you were awake, you'd see how crazy the whole situation is."
He gently untangled my fingers, smoothing them out until my hand lay flat on his chest. "I know you do not wish to admit to the fact, mate, but you do have the power to summon various beings, incubi included."
I stretched across him and pulled the amulet from where it lay with my talisman (I had to remove the latter whenever I made love with Drake, because the smell of the gold distracted him). "This is what summoned them, as you well know."
He shook his head, his eyes closing again. Framed as it was by the whiteness of the pillow, the dark line of his jaw, shadowed with a faint beard, stood out harshly. "The amulet focuses your power, kincsem, but it does not heighten it."
I slithered off him and slid both the amulet and my talisman over my head. "I hate to disillusion you, but the only time men throw themselves at my feet, figuratively or literally, is when I'm wearing this amulet. Everyone is wrong. I can't be summoning incubi without even knowing it."
Drake murmured something sleepily. I looked down at his handsome, hard face with fondness. Poor guy, he'd had a hard day. He might not have been abandoned on the top of a bridge and left to fend for himself, but I knew from a brief chat with P4I that Fiat was doing his best to break the negotiations, and Drake was left with the unenviable role of peacemaker. I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, which curled in a little smile as his arm snaked around to pull me against him. I turned off the light, sinking down into his warmth. Despite my own strenuous day and lack of sleep, I was wide awake.
I mulled over everything Monish had told me about the two women's deaths, thinking over Nora's comments, spending a little time worrying about Jim, praying it wouldn't be so rummy from the treatment that it spoke without knowing it, and finally, wondering how on earth I was going to overcome the stigma of being once again a murder suspect, which I needed to do in order to find a mentor.
I made a few mental notes of things to do the following day: Drake had requested my attendance at an afternoon meeting, there was Jim to get in the morning, the amulet to deliver to Gyorgy, and oh, yes, the little matter of that dratted murder investigation.
I was just drifting off to sleep, my arms around Drake, his soft snoring as reassuring as the heavy thigh draped over my legs, when a distant pounding jerked me awake again.
Drake was off the bed, stalking toward the door before I could so much as brush the hair out of my eyes and clutch the sheet to my chest. I sat frozen for a moment, wondering if something had gone wrong with the dragons. Then I recognized a voice intermixed with Drake's and his bodyguards'.
I snatched up the nearest piece of clothing, which turned out to be Drake's satin bathrobe. Cursing softly, I found my sleeping T-shirt, yanked it over my head, and grabbing the bathrobe, ran out to the living room. Drake was standing in the middle of the room, his hands on his naked hips as Pal tried to wrap a blanket around a sobbing Nora. Istvan, also naked but armed with a wicked-looking pistol, glanced at Drake, then closed the door.
"What the hell happened?" I asked as I ran to Nora.
Incoherent and almost hysterical, she was trying to escape Pal. I shoved Drake's bathrobe at him and took the blanket from Pal. Nora's face was bloody and swollen, looking strangely naked without her glasses. Tears streaked her cheeks, while her body was racked by gut-wrenching sobs. I wrapped the blanket around her, aware of the scratches and bite marks visible on her neck and the upper parts of her breasts. She was wearing a simple cotton nightgown, one side of which looked like it had been shredded by a wild animal.
"Shhhh, it's OK, Nora. It's just me," I said, my arms around her as I looked over her shoulder at Drake. He was giving Istvan an order, which resulted in the bodyguard going back to his room, then emerging a few moments later in jeans and shoes, his gun stuck into the front of his belt. Istvan slipped out the door. "No one's going to hurt you here. It's just me and Drake and his men. You're safe here. No one can hurt you."
I managed to get her. onto the couch before her legs collapsed. She clung to me, holding me tight enough to leave bruises. I rocked her, stroking her back like I would a sobbing child. Pal finished his call, spoke quietly with Drake, then ran to his room.
Drake squatted at Nora's feet, careful not to touch her. "Nora, the watch is on its way. Who attacked you?"
She shuddered, her sobs slowing. Her left eye was swelling rapidly, a trickle of blood snaking from her eyebrow to her chin. Her upper lip was split and swollen, blood seeping from who knew how many spots on her mouth. Clearly unable to speak, she stared at Drake out of her good eye, her body shaking nonstop.
"Drake, she's too upset to talk."
"If we know who to look for, we might be able to catch him now, Aisling. To wait would mean he could escape."
"I know, but—"
"I can talk," Nora interrupted, her voice a ragged croak. She leaned into me, little ripples of horror still shaking her. "It was an incubus. He was awful. I didn't summon him. He just showed up. And he wouldn't leave me alone. He .. ." The words dried up as she swallowed hard.
Drake glanced at me, and I knew what he was thinking. "Did he rape you?"
I cringed on Nora's behalf at Drake's blunt question, knowing that there was no nice way to ask such a horrible question.
"No. Not in the sense you mean," she said at lastT her voice as shaky as the rest of her. "He assaulted me and struck me several times, and I believe would have raped me, but J fought him. He beat me, but I would not let him rape me. I broke his nose. He left me after that. I didn't know where to go, where I could go that he couldn't return and find me, but I thought of you, and.. ." She broke down again, clutching the blanket to her face as she sobbed into it.
"You did the right thing," I said soothingly, taking the cold washcloth and bowl of ice that Pal brought. Drake went to answer the abrupt knock at the door. "It was very smart of you to break his nose. And you don't have to worry—no incubus would dare step a smoky toe in here, not with three dragons and one really pissed-off wyvern's mate."
She tried to smile, but her mouth was too swollen. I murmured platitudes while gently cleaning off as much blood from her face as I could. To my surprise, the man whom Drake let in wasn't Monish but Gabriel. The two consulted for a moment, then Gabriel approached carefully, kneeling before Nora.
"This is Gabriel," I told her. She looked a little
wild around the eyes, but nodded when I told her that his sept was known for their healing abilities. "He's very good," I added, showing her the faint line of scar that was all that remained of my knife wound.
"I would be honored to see to your injuries," Gabriel said gently, keeping his hands on his legs, not rushing her. I flashed him a smile of gratitude and shifted a little to give him room.
"No!" Nora said, clutching my arm. "Please ... I hate to be so foolish, but if you could ..."
"I'm not going to leave you," I said firmly. "I'll stay here as long as you want me."
She nodded, swallowing hard. Gabriel gave me a warm look, then proceeded to doctor the worst of Nora's wounds. I was relieved to see that he knew other methods of healing than ones involving his tongue. He pulled from the pocket of his shirt a small silver tube containing a clear gel, which he dabbed on the worst of the injuries. The bleeding stopped immediately, and even the swelling of her eye and lip seemed to go down after he spread a light coat of the ointment on them. Nora tolerated his attentions without a sound until he peeled back the blanket to look at her blood-soaked nightgown. Then she started to panic. "No! I don't want... I can't..."
"I think she would be more comfortable with you applying this," he said softly, handing me a clean square of gauze bandaging that Pal had brought.
Drake was at the door again, this time admitting Monish, who looked heavy-eyed and sleepy.
"Clean around the scratches first, then use the curcain gel."
I did as he ordered, gently dabbing the long, vicious scratches on her chest and breasts, concealing her as best I could from the men. Istva"n returned from his mysterious mission, joining the cluster of Monish and the dragons.
"What exactly is curcain gel?" I asked Gabriel quietly, dabbing it onto a long scratch on Nora's arm. It looked as if the man who attacked her had clawed whatever part he could reach.
He leaned close, his mouth almost touching my ear. "Curcain is a healing enzyme found in some plants. It also occurs in the saliva of the silver dragons."
I looked in horror at the smear of colorless gel on my fingers. "This is dragon spit?" I whispered back.
"A highly concentrated form, yes."
I rubbed on a little more, waiting until I was sure Nora was distracted before asking, "Whose? Yours?"
He just smiled, his dimples flashing. I don't know why it made me feel better to know it was his saliva I was rubbing all over Nora, but it did. Chalk it up to not wanting a strange dragon's saliva all over my friend.
"You're going to be just fine," I told Nora, who sat Muring into the distance, clearly trying to distance herself from everything that was going on. "You're a strong woman. You have power. You aren't a helpless victim. You beat the horrible monster."
Her eyes, still liquid with tears, focused on me as I pulled the remains of her nightgown over her, gently easing the blanket around her. She nodded, her throat working hard.
"Nora? I must ask you some questions now. You understand I would prefer to let you recover in peace, but if we are to locate the being that did this, I must know what happened. Although we cannot be sure of it, since your attacker did not leave any physical evidence behind, it is possible that he is the same being who killed the other Guardians."
Monish's singsong voice was as soft and soothing as Gabriel's had been, but Nora stiffened as he took a seat in the chair next to the couch. She made an effort to pull herself together, though, saying in a low, raw voice that she would do whatever she could to help.
"Did you see the man? Can you give us any description?"
She shook her head. "It was dark, and my glasses . .. I don't see well without them. I saw nothing at all of him, but I know it was a man. He was nude. Large, and very strong."
"No scars or any physical deformities that you could feel?"
"No. Nothing."
"You're quite sure it was an incubus that attacked you? It couldn't have been a zduhacz? Or a UdercV
She shook her head. "No, I would know a zduhacz, and lidercs have a different odor to them. This was an incubus. He smelled of smoke."
Monish made a note on a small notebook he'd pulled from his pocket. "Did he give you his name?"
"No. He said nothing. One moment I was sleeping, the next he was on top of me, biting and clawing."
Monish made a sympathetic face. "You did not summon the incubus?"
"No."
"You did not conduct any spells or incantations that might have drawn one?"
"No," Nora said, a faint line between her brows.
"You did not conduct any rituals at all during the evening hours?"
At the word "ritual" I stiffened. Slowly, Nora's head turned until she was looking at me. ] licked my suddenly dry lips. "She oversaw the apprentice ritual for me earlier," I said, fear twisting my innards. "But I did nothing that would summon an incubus. Nothing! It was just basic stuff, like drawing wards and things like that. Nothing dangerous"
Beyond her, Drake stood watching impassively
"Nora?" Monish's voice was gentle but insistent. "Was there anything that Aisling did that could summon an incubus?"
Her gaze held mine for another few seconds before it dropped to where Monish had covered her hand with his own. "No. There was nothing in the ritual that could have summoned an incubus."
My shoulders slumped with relief. I was about to give her a reassuring hug when she lifted her head and looked at me with eyes that had gone dead with pain. "But it was your name the incubus invoked when he attacked me."
21
“I think this officially has been the longest day in my existence," I told Drake an hour later. "Do you have some sort of mystical dragon power that would allow you to turn back the clock so I could do the whole day over?"
"No. You need to sleep. You have black smudges under your eyes."
His thumb brushed over my cheek in a caress so gentle it almost brought me to my knees. "So do you. Good night."
"Good night. Sleep well, kincsem."
I closed the door of the fourth, previously unused, room in Drake's suite and paused to listen. Nora had resisted taking anything to make her sleep, but I said nothing when Gabriel dropped a pale golden powder into the tea Pal had made for her. She needed sleep as much as the rest of us.
The only sound in the room was of Nora's deep breathing. I crept along the edge of her bed to the roll-away the hotel staff had hastily brought up at Drake's demand, using the moonlight to avoid banging my toes or shins into the few pieces of furniture that were scattered around the room.
The bed was cold. And lumpy. I turned on my side, trying to find a comfortable position, mentally grumbling to myself that Drake's bed was never cold or uncomfortable, immediately riddled with guilt for thinking churlish thoughts. It wasn't Nora's fault she had been attacked, and since she was quite sure the incubus had snarled my name at her before he beat her up, it was the least I could do to stay with her through the night.
I fell asleep fingering the amulet, trying to work out the connection between it and the attacks. There had to be one. It had to be acting as a beacon or something, causing me to unconsciously summon a vile, lust-riddled incubus.
Nora was still sleeping very heavily when I dragged myself out of bed. I mumbled a good morning to Pal, who looked less than his usual perky self, and I was a bit surprised when Istv&n, who had been scarfing down breakfast, leaped up to open the door to Drake's room.
"What gives?" I asked, too tired and sleep muzzled to phrase the question in politer tones.
He looked surprised. "Is proper."
I frowned up at him. "You've never opened a door for me before. Why are you doing it now?"
"You get off bridge."
I counted to five. "You put me on that damned bridge."
He nodded. "Is good you got off."
"I will never understand you," I told him, then went in to take a shower and get dressed for the day. Drake was up and about as well, having showered and dressed, and apparently just f
inished shaving with a wickedly sharp-looking straightedge razor
"How is Nora?"
"Asleep. No nocturnal visitors. Not that I expected any, but there weren't, in case you were going to ask."
Drake caught me as I reached in to turn on the shower, turning me so I faced the lights above the mirror. "You need more sleep, mate. You should go back to bed. Forget your appointments this morning."
I rallied a smile and kissed his now stubbleless chin. "Thanks for the concern, but I can't. Too much to do, especially now."
His brows pulled together as his fingers slid along the chain to the amulet. "I do not like you wearing this."
'That's one of the things I'm going to be taking care of today. What lime did you say the afternoon gig is?"
His fingers caressed my lips for a moment. "'Gig.' You speak English, and yet sometimes I have difficulty understanding you. Four o'clock."
"Gotcha. Good luck with Fiat and the others."
News of the attack on Nora had evidently gotten out. The people I saw in the hallways and conference rooms were quiet and subdued, many of them watching me, some covertly, from the corners of their eyes, others openly. I avoided the buffet setup, grabbing only a cup of coffee and a muffin, scanning the ballroom for the face I wanted to see. I found him in the corner, in consultation with a white-haired middle-aged man in a colorful red suit.
"Good morning, Monish." I set my coffee and muffin at his table, smiling at the third occupant. "I hope you got some sleep."
"Ah, Aisling. I was speaking to Dr. Kostich about you. This is Aisling Grey, sir."
The man rose, bowing over my hand in an old-fashioned way. "Monish Lakshmanan has informed me of the happenings earlier this morning. He assures me that he has the matter well in hand and that there will be no further attacks on any woman." The man's eyes, a pale blue that reminded me of Easter eggs, narrowed as his hands traced a symbol in the air before me. I realized with horror that whatever he had done had frozen me into a block, leaving me unable to move, unable to blink or draw a breath, stopping even my heart. "I trust he does not speak false, Aisling Grey."