Chapter 26
Without giving Blaze another glance Thorne turned and strode toward a staircase at the edge of the roof, still limping a bit.
Blaze looked around. “Well, I asked you to put me down on a rooftop,” she said. “Too bad there isn’t a bar.”
Zane was still standing close to her—too close. His warmth was comforting, but the intensity of his gaze was a little unnerving. “You definitely don’t need a bar,” he said. “After all the power you threw at that idol, you need food and rest. You’re tapped out. Come on.”
He wasn’t wrong—the kind of power she’d put into that protective circle had drained every ounce of energy from her body, and she felt slightly nauseated. But Zane hovering over her and deciding what she did and didn’t need was making her hackles rise.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Although I’d still like to drink about a half a bottle of whiskey and pass out.”
If only that would make her problems go away.
“Maybe later. Right now we need to figure out what the hell happened tonight. We’ll get some food for you down in the Batcave.”
“The what, now?”
Zane raised an eyebrow. “I told you I was taking you to our evil lair.”
Which they called the Batcave. That sounded half-cool and half-scary, and would probably be all scary except Blaze was so exhausted, and she had to go somewhere. What she really wanted was just to lie down and sleep for about a million years, whiskey or no.
Zane put his hand protectively on the small of her back. “Come on,” he said. “We better go down.”
She still didn’t want him ordering her around, but privately Blaze had to admit that she felt safer with Zane touching her. She didn’t want to think about what that meant. Not after what had happened in the gallery—before she knew what he was.
He guided her across the dark roof to the narrow, twisting wrought-iron staircase that led down to the balcony below, and in through the French doors Thorne had left open.
Despite her fatigue, Blaze found herself curious to get her first glimpse of a dragon’s lair.
There wasn’t much to see.
The top floor of the house was a huge, dusty ballroom that looked like it hadn’t been used in… well, maybe ever. It was hard to picture the Draken Guardians Zane had described throwing parties, anyway. Who would they invite?
Their steps echoed as they walked across the empty space, with its mahogany bar at one end and chandeliers done up in big cloth bundles to keep the dust off them. The only light came from a couple of dim Art Deco wall sconces.
Outside the ballroom was a grand staircase leading down to a foyer, with hallways branching off to the right and left. It was hushed and quiet, with no signs of life anywhere.
In contrast to the ballroom, this part of the house seemed perfectly kept up. There was an Oriental carpet in pristine condition on the gleaming hardwood floor, and the sconces on the walls gave a warm yellow light. Several expensive-looking antique tables stood against the walls—the kind that would normally hold a vase or sculpture. The tabletops were dustless and looked freshly polished, but there was nothing on them.
Strange, for a man—dragon—who collected art, like Thorne Greystone.
The only thing that could be called a decoration was a gorgeous chandelier. It was surprisingly modern in this old-fashioned space—it looked like an intricate machine turned into an abstract metal sculpture, with Edison bulbs hanging in an artfully random pattern.
Industrial, yet graceful and somehow delicate. Blaze loved it. She stopped to gaze at it while Zane headed for the paneled wall in front of them.
“That’s amazing,” she said, moving to see it from another angle.
“Thanks,” Zane said nonchalantly, touching a button hidden discreetly in the paneled wall. “I made it.”
She stopped in her tracks, turning to face him. “You made that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Dragons have a talent for metalwork.” He pursed his lips and blew out a tiny flame, then gave her a lopsided smile. “Natural welding ability.”
Right. But still… she gave the chandelier one more look. Dragon he might be, but he was also an artist.
A section of the paneling slid open. It was an elevator, the interior of the car decorated in brass and red velvet with gold accents. “Come on,” he said. “Thorne must have taken the other car down.”
“You have two elevators?” she said. “You all don’t like waiting much, do you?”
Zane shrugged. “It’s a long way down. And it depends. If it’s important, I can wait a long time.”
His gaze on her was giving her the shivers. She wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or not.
After a second’s hesitation, Blaze got in the elevator. She didn’t like the idea of being trapped in the very-far-down bowels of a dragon’s lair, but she figured Zane had already saved her life tonight.
She might as well trust him a little further.
The doors slid shut, and the elevator moved silently down.
Zane’s overwhelming presence filled the tiny space. The ancient elemental power she’d sensed in him at Jean-Claude’s party made sense now. So did the singing gold.
A dragon. She’d made hot, passionate love to a dragon on the couch of her gallery. She still felt the echoes of that connection, the way their bodies had literally moved in harmony.
And now he seemed to think that meant—what? She was his?
“Zane,” she said. “About before. In the gallery…”
His brows lowered. “It wasn’t a mistake, if that’s what you were going to say.”
Maybe not to him, but he didn’t get to decide how she felt—about that, or anything else.
“We don’t even know each other.”
“I know you.”
Despite herself, the memories came flooding back. How she’d felt in the gallery. Those other memories—Zane’s memories—that kissing him had somehow allowed her to see.
His dreams. “I know you think you do,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you get to decide things for me. Where I go, what risks I take, what I need—”
“It’s obvious what you need right now. You used a dangerous amount of magic, and you can barely stand up.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“But I do worry,” he said quietly. “I’m a dragon.”
“And dragons are natural worrywarts?”
He gave a soft huff of air. “Dragons are protective of… all their treasures.” He turned to face her, trailing one finger ever so lightly down the side of her face. His voice grew low and husky. “One might even say… possessive.”
She fought the urge to lean in to him, to just let him take care of everything. The last thing she needed was a possessive dragon trying to monitor her every move—and yet, a part of her just wanted to wrap herself around him and never let go.
She made herself step back. “I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not a possession.”
“Yeah.” He turned away, facing the elevator door again. “Tell that to my dragon.”
“He thinks I belong to him?” Fear lent an edge to her voice, and she grasped the brass rail attached to the elevator wall. Maybe it had been a bad move, to come down here with him.
There was a silence. “He thinks you’re a treasure.”
That took her words away. A treasure. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be treasured.
Blinking back tears, she stood in the elevator and watched the numbers descend, not knowing what to say.
Zane wished with everything in him that he could hear Blaze’s thoughts, the way she’d heard him speaking in her mind when he was in dragon form. He’d been shocked by that—he’d only ever been able to talk to other dragons with mind-speech, and even then, only those he was close to.
He couldn’t hear her mental voice, unfortunately, and right now he’d give half his hoard to know what she was feeling. He could smell that she was still a little bit afraid, though she was hiding it well.
He didn’t want her to be afraid. He wanted her like she’d been back up on the roof before Thorne came, leaning on him and letting him give her strength.
She’d seen his beast, before she’d really gotten a chance to know him. He’d dreamed of her loving him as a man. He’d never dared to dream of her loving his dragon.
In saving her life tonight, in showing her what he really was, he might have doomed any chance of there being anything between them.
The ride ended too soon, and the elevator doors opened straight into the Batcave. Tyr and Thorne were already there, watching the monitors.
Blaze took two steps out of the elevator and stopped, staring around the room like it was a movie set.
It was kind of overwhelming. Zane started to put his hand on her back to usher her into the room, and then dropped it. He didn’t want to scare her more by acting too possessive.
She’s ours, his dragon muttered.
Give her a chance to get used to us.
She walked around the room slowly, looking at the monitors at the different work stations. She stopped at one, drawing in her breath with a soft gasp.
It showed an immense cavern, dimly lit by glowing spheres of light. Around the perimeter, stalactites extended down from the ceiling like dragons’ teeth, and forests of stalagmites grew from the floor.
In the center was what looked like a frozen lake, extending into the dim distance, the surface smooth as glass. But underneath the ‘ice’ was a huge, shadowy figure.
A dragon.
Sleeping.
Blaze walked slowly forward, unable to take her eyes off the scene. “Is that him?” she asked. “Vyrkos?”
“The Draken Lord himself,” Thorne said, turning in his chair to look at her.
“Damn,” Blaze breathed, reaching out to touch the screen lightly. “He’s real.”
She looked so stunned, Zane wanted to hug her up and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t think she’d let him do that right now.
Maybe not ever.
“Yes, he’s real,” Thorne said. “Thanks for noticing. And for doing whatever it was you two did tonight that rattled his cage.”
“Don’t start in on her, Thorne,” Zane said, glaring at his brother. “Can’t you see she’s exhausted?”
“I’m okay,” she insisted, but she was swaying on her feet. Zane shook his head and steered her over to the table, pulling out a chair for her and shoving piles of papers aside to make a space in front of her.
“I can get you food. Or something to drink?” He felt the overwhelming need to take care of her, whether she wanted him to or not.
To show her there was nothing to be afraid of.
Except Vyrkos and the end of the world as they knew it.
“I—not right now,” she said. “I still feel a little sick. If I could just sit for a minute…”
She was still clutching the idol, he realized. It seemed dormant now, but he didn’t like seeing her holding it. It could come back to life at any time. Gently, he took it out of her hands and set it on the table.
He touched Blaze briefly on the shoulder and then went over to the monitoring screens. “What have we got?” he asked.
Thorne showed him the results from earlier. Zane looked through the screenshots, and noticed the centers of the disturbance. Blaze’s house. The lair. And the tomb.
All at the same moment. He checked the time stamp. Just after he and Blaze had finished making love, when the idol had gone berserk.
“Everything’s settled down now,” Tyr said. “But we’ve lost another two percent integrity on the tomb.”
“Dammit.” Zane ran his fingers through his hair. He had one eye on Blaze, who was staring straight ahead now, eyes glazed. He could see the last bits of her energy fading.
Quickly, he told his brothers about the idol coming to life and the fight with the coven.
Thorne said, “We should never have given that thing back to her. We should have locked it up with the other dangerous artifacts.”
“I think you’re missing the point,” Zane said. “What set it off?”
“Proximity to the coven, probably,” Thorne said. “They must have been right outside, and they’ve already established a link to it. We may be able to sever that, if we have time to focus on it.”
“That would be great,” Zane said, glancing at Blaze. “But they weren’t there the other night, and the same thing happened.”
“You were there,” Tyr said. “Maybe it just doesn’t like you.”
Zane almost resisted giving him the finger.
“Could be the other woman, too,” Thorne said. “She was there both times.”
“What woman?” Zane stared at Thorne. “You mean the thief? She wasn’t there tonight.”
“Yes she was,” Thorne said. “She was outside on the balcony. She got blown off when you two smashed through the doors. I barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground. Broke my foot crash-landing after I caught her, too.”
Zane stared at him. “And you let her go?” Damn. How the hell would they ever find her again?
Thorne ran his fingers through his hair, looking uncomfortable. “She was unconscious,” he said testily. “I saw that there were people still in the house, so I flew back up to try to catch them. They were just disappearing into the magical portal. When I got back down to the ground, she was gone.”
Zane blew out his breath. “That makes things more complicated,” he said, “but it still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Which is what?”
“We didn’t find the Seal. All of this mayhem happened because of that damn idol.”
“True.”
“So how come every time the idol goes ballistic, it affects the integrity of the tomb?”
Thorne stopped and stared at him. So did Tyr. Then they slowly turned their heads to look at Blaze.
Zane walked over to Blaze, sitting down next to her. “Hey,” he said. She started, as if she’d been lost in a trance.
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I really am drained.”
“Listen,” he said, nodding toward the idol. “When that thing was talking, tell me what you heard.”
Blaze wrinkled her forehead in concentration, then repeated the words back. Zane nodded. “At any point, did you hear its voice change?”
She frowned again. “Yes. It almost sounded like two people, saying the same thing in unison. Except the second one…” She broke off and shivered.
“What about the second one?”
“It seemed older. More powerful. More… evil.”
“Yeah. The first voice was talking to the coven. To you, and the others.” He paused. “But I’m pretty sure the second voice was talking to me.”
Blaze looked at the idol on the table, and then at him. “Why you?”
“Because I’m a dragon. And that second voice—I’m pretty damn sure it was a Draken Lord.” He turned to his brothers. “Somehow, that idol is linked to Vyrkos. And it’s using the coven to try to break him out of his tomb.”