Damsel Under Stress

When I got downstairs, Owen was already showered and dressed. He was on the phone ordering Chinese food—in Chinese. I shouldn’t have been surprised. As many languages as he could translate, it made sense he might speak a few. I sat on the sofa and allowed myself to admire him. Even with wet hair that looked like it had been toweled halfheartedly but not combed and with his glasses on, he was still gorgeous. I waited for that usual jolt of insecurity to hit me and make me wonder what a guy who looked like that who could tame dragons and then order in Chinese would want with someone like me, but it didn’t come. He’d given me no reason to think he wanted anyone but me. Now, whether or not we could make things work was another story.



“I’m impressed,” I said when he got off the phone.



As I expected, he turned a fetching shade of pink. He leaned against the edge of his desk like he was trying to look casual. “Oh, yeah, well, I do speak a little, and it was easier than making sure I was understood in English.”



“You’re full of surprises. Like whatever that was today with the dragons.”



He brushed his damp hair out of his eyes, then frowned at the moisture left on his hand as if just noticing that his hair was still wet. “Remember when you first came to work at MSI, Rod gave you the grand tour, and when you were in my lab Jake came in with his pants shredded?”



I nodded. I was surprised he remembered it that vividly, considering it was just a vague recollection to me. “Yeah. He was testing a spell, wasn’t he? Something to do with dogs?”



“The spell was supposed to soothe wild animals, only it obviously didn’t work when Jake tried it on the dog that came at him. I’ve been tinkering with it since then to see how it really worked. I’m pretty sure it was a mistranslation on Jake’s part, or maybe he left something out, because it seems to have worked for me.”



“And on something much, much bigger than a stray dog. Do they even make Milk Bones that big? Or does Purina have a Dragon Chow? I know they make just about every other kind of chow because we sold it in our store back home.”



It wasn’t a great joke, but I’d hoped for at least a hint of a smile from him. Instead, he pounded his fist on his desk. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to walk into that trap.”



“Trap?”



“Ari’s trap. You don’t think we accidentally stumbled on a nest of dragons while we were following her, do you?” He stood up and started pacing, the energy that usually bubbled just beneath his calm exterior now all at the surface. “I should have known better. What made me think that after our entire security force has spent more than a week combing the city for her, she’d happen to cross our path? And then I was dumb enough to fall for it and let her lead us into danger.”



“I don’t know that we could have seen that coming.”



He stopped pacing and looked at me. “But you did, didn’t you? I was the one who had to go into that tunnel. You wanted to go the other way. She had me totally fooled. I should know to always listen to you. I bet she sent an illusion for me to follow, right into her trap.”



“I wasn’t totally sure which way she went. I’d lost sight of her. I don’t think either of us could have known, and we couldn’t have risked missing the chance to follow her to their hideout. For all we know, the hideout could have been on the other side of the dragons, and they’re using the dragons as watchdogs.”



That calmed him somewhat. “True. I guess we’ll never really know.”



“Unless we want to do a little more exploring in that area and see if we can find what she might have been heading to, in case it wasn’t a deliberate trap. You already have the dragons eating out of your hand. What other danger are you likely to stumble on down there?” The look on his face made me say, “Okay, scratch that. I don’t want to know. But surely it can’t be anything a pet dragon couldn’t scare away for you. You know, we could have just made a wrong turn and stumbled into the dragons on our own,” I added. “There is such a thing as coincidence.”



He looked lost in thought while he pondered that, but before he could say anything the buzzer from the downstairs door sounded. “That’ll be lunch. I’ll be back in a second,” he said, heading for the front door. He was back not long afterward with a giant paper bag.



“What army were you planning on feeding?” I asked.



“I like to plan on leftovers,” he said. “And I like to make sure I have a couple of favorites I know I’ll like, plus one new thing to try.”