Dragon Her Back Read online

  “Ya-ya-ya.”

  “See you later.” She hung up at the sound of the fax machine kicking in behind her on her lacquered desk credenza.

  When it stopped rolling out the message, she leaned back in her chair for a behind-the-head paper snag. The action was rote and oft repeated. Since her players were international, she received most of her communications via fax or email.

  Her buttoned black suit coat rode up her chest, so the closure strained over her breasts. She liked her work suits just tight enough to accentuate her diminutive positives, while being loose enough for movement, like behind-the-head fax machine snags.

  The print on the paper was weak, as if it had been sent by a fax that needed toner. She could almost imagine it on the other end of the world, the old kind with the waxy rolled-up paper inside. The message started with the usual address and formality.

  Dear Ms. Chen:

  His Excellency, Bo Quan, and his retinue from the Crescent Territory formally request sanctuary with the King to attend the Snow Moon Gala…

  Fuck.

  She wasn’t the swearing type, finding it inarticulate and crass, but all she could think was fuck, fuck, fuck.

  They’d found her.

  She stood and stumbled to the door, the fax crumpled in her hands, as if she needed to hide the words from onlookers.

  From the security cameras.

  From Darius.

  She looked hard at the camera by the concierge stand outside her office, knowing he was likely on the other side of the feed, waiting for her to come out of her office.

  Fuck.

  She stood tall, affecting a poise she didn’t feel, while her mind jumped from one awful scenario to the other.

  Her insides churned like the industrial casino washers stuck on spin cycle. She put her left hand on the doorframe, supporting her weak knees, and tried to focus.

  Calm down, her mind insisted over her hysterical thoughts. Think.

  The name Bo Quan was unknown to her, but the hell-on-earth Crescent Island chain in the remote South China Sea was tattooed on her soul, in tortuous strokes that only someone she’d loved and trusted, could carve.

  Maybe this Crescent Island wasn’t her Crescent Island. She grimaced at the falseness of calling them hers, even in her head. They weren’t hers—never had been—but she most definitely belonged to them.

  She was their property.

  Stop. She made herself pause. Stay in the now.

  Focus.

  They’d left her alone all these years after she’d escaped. Maybe she was overreacting. But, her instincts screamed otherwise, and the urge to tell Darius the truth and run away with him had her balanced forward on the balls of her high-heeled shoes, ready for action.

  Think.

  Darius didn’t need to know—not yet. Not unless they really were coming for her—and by association, him.

  The Snow Moon Gala was Saturday, three days away. She had time.

  It was normal security procedure to vet unknown dragons coming to the sanctuary. One of the analysts could do the search for her. She’d just slide Bo Quan on top of the pile, but first, she needed to get Darius out of the surveillance center so he didn’t know what she was researching.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she said to the woman working the concierge stand.

  Mei walked forward, hoping Darius really was watching her on the security monitors as she crossed the opulent Crown Jewel Casino lobby. Humans checked into the hotel at the counter on her right, and they stood impatiently in short lines while suit-clad bellmen hustled to anticipate their needs. Armed dragon guards in their human forms melded seamlessly through the crowd, with only their small earpieces to give them away.

  Overhead, the pull of real jewels called to her from chandeliers covering the ceilings of the entire first floor. The thousands of precious jewels hummed to her dragon form in what was usually a soothing, opiate-like lullaby.

  Not today.

  Today her skin seemed turned inside out and, the jewels screeched in a jagged cacophony.

  Mei put one three-inch heel in front of the other and wobbled across the Italian marble floor on shaky legs. She avoided the grout lines automatically, knowing the steps to the elevator by heart.

  Suddenly, she smelled Darius in the crowd. He’s here! The internal call from her dragon stopped her in her tracks, confused.

  She looked around the foyer for him, but he was nowhere in sight. She turned her heightened dragon senses outward, searching for the source.

  It was Darius’s scent, only on a human…

  Her dragon leaped along her veins, roaring in her head, so that she forgot the fax and the threat. Her vision blurred as a youngish Korean human woman in fishnets and anime blue shag hair came into view. It was the woman Darius had tried to make her jealous with on Tee’s suggestion. She’d come back, after Mei had threatened her very-human life.

  How dare she! Mei’s dragon’s claws pulsed at the ends of her hands with possessive fury.

  Even though she knew he’d done nothing with her, and she’d managed to act to Darius like she didn’t care, now with her nerves strained, her dragon wanted blood.

  Her!

  When the woman strolled by, she gave Mei a smirk that put her dragon over the edge. Mei grabbed her arm, just managing to keep from ripping it off. She looked hard into the woman’s eyes. “I told you to stay away.”

  A guard caught her eye and walked toward her. “Ms. Chen,” he asked, censor in his voice. “Is there a problem?” Dragons did not ever misbehave in front of humans.

  “No problem,” Mei said smoothly without releasing the woman. “She was just leaving.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” The woman smiled at the guard and cocked an insolent hip.

  Ice started at Mei’s toes, locking her knees and tunneling upward to her gut. Her dragon’s wings pulsed and pushed at her spine, and her fangs grew sharp and deadly in her mouth.

  Under her fingers, the woman’s arm chilled.

  Chapter Three

  “What the?” The human yanked her arm away and looked at the light frost on her skin with wide eyes. “Screw it! You’re crazy!” She ran, taking the faint scent of Darius with her.

  “Ms. Chen,” the guard chastised under his breath. “That was poorly done. I’ll have to report this.”

  Mei fought her dragon for control. It would not do to eat a human in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.

  She dropped her icy hand to her side. “You’re right,” she said to the guard. “You should absolutely report this.”

  The man nodded and put a restraining hand on her arm, which she shrugged off. No one manhandled her. Not ever again.

  She gave him what she hoped was a troubled look. “Please call Darius Dachien. I’ll just wait by the stairs. I’m not sure I can control myself out here with all these humans.”

  While he made the call, she walked toward the stairwell, and when the guard wasn’t looking, she stepped sideways into the women’s bathroom instead. She waited, imagining Darius leaving his office, jogging down the catwalk stairs to the security center’s glass doors, and out into the hallway.

  Now.

  She hurried out of the bathroom and accessed the staff stairwell. Scrunching up her skirt to mid-thigh, she raced up the metal cream stairs. Her daily five a.m. workouts and her dragon strength made the effort easy, and her mind turned back to the fax and the possible threat.

  Three days lead time bordered on rudeness. Had Bo Quan waited to make it harder for her to escape? Or was it a simple ignorance of protocol that sometimes happened with the far-flung dragon folds?

  Mei pulled open the heavy door to the thirtieth floor and heaved a breath into her lungs before straightening her suit. It wouldn’t do to rush in— she needed to be calm, not raise suspicion.

  Assume it’s nothing.

  She used her key card to open the glass door of the Crown Jewel surveillance and security center. Fifty screen-watching analysts lifted their gaze from stud
ying pixelated frames of the casino before returning to their task. They watched the casino floors and the hapless humans who played and lost at life and games. Completely unaware that the top floors of the swanky casino on the Las Vegas Strip housed hundreds of ice, fire, and storm dragons who, under different circumstances, might eat them.

  “Hey, Mei.” Scott, Darius’s second in command, stepped forward with a questioning look on his face.

  “Is Darius here?” She wanted to make sure.

  “No.” He raised his eyebrows. It was well known that Mei avoided Darius. “He just left. I’m surprised you didn’t pass him in the hall.”

  “Oh.” She sighed, trying to sound disappointed. “I came up the stairs.”

  “Motivated, were you?” Scott’s tone was teasing, but alarm ran through her, and she scanned his friendly face for a hint of suspicion.

  Seeing none, she stretched her smile wide. “Exercise.”

  “Not me.” Scott patted his flat stomach. “Natalie keeps us running enough as it is these days.”

  “How’s she doing?” she asked, sincerely interested in Scott and his wife’s new baby. Babies were a precious gift among the dragons. At one time, she’d believed she would have a child of her own. It had been her life’s ambition.

  “Awesome.” Scott smiled, his eyes shiny with emotion and pride. “Let me show you.” He pulled out his phone and showed Mei five pictures in rapid succession of baby Natalie dressed in pink and cooing at the camera.

  Mei touched the screen with her fingertip, remembering the soft skin and smell of the little girl when Scott had brought her to work. “She’s getting so big.”

  Scott’s chest swelled with unconcealed love. “Best thing we’ve ever done.” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “What did you need?”

  Mei forced her thoughts back to the present. “I’ve got a group of international whales requesting to come to the Snow Moon Gala. I need to get backgrounds and verify their allegiance to the king.”

  “Sure, what’s the name and location?” Scott was an excellent analyst, and she knew he’d need little more to be able tell her more about Quan.

  “Bo Quan of the Crescent Territories.” She handed him the crumpled fax. “I’m not sure where he lives, but it’s a Chinese name.”

  “No problem,” Scott said. “Will tomorrow be okay? It’s midnight over there.”

  Mei wanted answers now, but waking up the dragon contingent on the other side of the globe would definitely get back to Darius and the king.

  “First thing in the morning?”

  Scott nodded. “I’ll send it down.”

  “Thanks.” Mei exited through the glass doors, pivoted to the left, and then slammed straight into Darius.

  “Whoa!” Darius grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

  The momentary contact with him sent her thoughts scattering. Darius. Darius. Her dragon practically danced under her skin.

  All that was uniquely him came into sharp focus. The faint smell of the soap he wore, woodsy and fresh, the keen narrowing of his dark eyes, the solidness of his chest, the ghostly imprint of where his hands had touched her shoulders.

  “Darius.” She stepped back and stared, as if star-struck, into his pleased face.

  He stood a half-foot taller than her. His dark hair was military tidy, and his skin looked healthy and tan at his throat above his suit shirt, even though he spent hours at his computers.

  He said something, but she couldn’t hear the words.

  “What?” she asked. This was why she avoided him. She became mute and deaf when he was around.

  “Heard you got a little rough with a human?”

  Rough? Please. “Just bumped into her.” She looked him straight in the eye, but then took a necessary step back.

  Darius looked amused, like he knew she was lying. “The guard seemed quite upset. Said you were worried about losing control of your dragon. He said you asked for me specifically?”

  “Please.” She put an incredulous spin on the one word. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m sorry he bothered you.” She took another step back.

  “I’m glad to see you.” He stepped forward, crowding her against the wall with an angled stance that cut off her retreat.

  “Nice to see you, too,” she said politely, feeling like a jackrabbit facing down a wolf.

  He leaned so close that she could see the dark specks in his pale blue eyes near his pupils. “Did you need something?”

  “No.”

  “No?” His lips were so close to hers, she could feel the single puff of air that followed the word. A sinking sensation spun her head, and her knees bent, so she had to lean her shoulder against the wall for support.

  Darius reached out and caught her hand. The heat of his fingers rubbed friction against her cold skin. She jerked away and slid along the slick painted wall, but he held tightly until she looked up at his face. Then he released her. “It’s been a few months since we’ve bumped into each other. I like it. I like it a lot.”

  Mei pulled her tingling fingers to her side and fisted them. “Well, I don’t.”

  “I want to ask you on a date,” he said, as if not hearing her rebuff.

  “A date?” It was such a departure from his usual, assertive style that her mouth opened in shock. In all the years he’d been trying to wear her down, he’d never asked her on a date. Demanded she go with him, hundreds of times, but asked…no.

  “Your choice, whatever you want. I’ll even go see one of those chick flicks everyone is talking about.”

  “Everyone?”

  “You know, on the internet and all.”

  Mei could hardly believe the conversation. Darius was the manliest man, or dragon, she knew. What was going on? Was he getting all mushy brained because his dragon form was waning?

  She scanned his face, looking for the telltale pallor that waning male dragons displayed. He looked hale and hearty, the faint muscle tenseness at the corner of his eyes the only hint that this new genteel approach was a stretch for him.

  “I’ve been reading up on how to court a lady.” He shuffled his feet. “I apologize for being an ass before, it’s just—” He bit off the word and smiled instead. “Never mind. I’m hoping we can start fresh.”

  There was no starting fresh for them. She ached with the truth of it. Especially now when the Crescent group might have found her.

  But if he was waning, she couldn’t let him lose his dragon form. It was a fate worse than death for their people. She shook her head against the conundrum: kill him now with her past or kill him later by not completing their bond.

  “Are you waning?” She reached a hand to him, feeling the high thread count of his expensive suit under her fingers.

  Darius stepped back as if she’d slapped him. “Would that make you go on a date with me?”

  She dropped her hand. “Now isn’t a good time for this,” she managed with a shaky voice and turned toward the open hallway, making no attempt to hide her rush to get away from him.

  “Fine. You know where this is headed if you continue to deny our bond.” He caught up with her and put his palm under her right forearm, so anyone seeing them would think they walked together. “I’ll take your pity.”

  “Please.” At the elevator, she pushed the button and listened for the sounds of mechanical escape. “This isn’t a good time for this.”

  Bing. The elevator car rose to their floor, and the door whooshed open.

  “It’s just a date, Mei.”

  She jumped in as if fleeing for her life. Worry and regret filled her as the doors closed on his frustrated face. If he was waning, how long did he have?

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Mei walked through an early morning drizzle to work. Overnight, an unusual rainstorm had blown in from the desert, calling her dragon from the apartment to fly with the clouds and soar on the wet currents.

  After hunting, she’d returned to the top of their apartment building with barely enough time to shower
and change for work. She was centered and calm in a way she’d not been able to manage before. She was ready for whatever the day, and Bo Quan et al., had to throw at her.

  The Crown Jewel lobby looked especially gilded when she stepped inside. The chandeliers and sconces shone golden light around the lobby, casting an angelic glow over the early morning crowd. Walking into her office, she hung up her raincoat and purse and saw another white gift lying on her desk.

  She heaved a heavy sigh, froze, and smelled the air again.

  What was that smell?

  Something dead. It smelled awful, pungent and rotting.

  Using her dragon senses, she located the offending odor at her waste bin. She hurried to it and hefted the can, nearly gagging on the gasp through her mouth.

  Fish—very dead fish. In Darius’s present from yesterday.

  She didn’t know whether to be touched or insulted. What kind of idiot sent someone fish with no warning that the gift was perishable? She yanked the trashcan liner out, tied the plastic bag tight, and put it outside her office door.

  “Have housekeeping take that away, please,” she said to her assistant.

  “Yes, Ms. Chen,” the woman said. “Scott said to let you know he had something for you when you came in. He wanted to give it to you in person.”

  “Thank you.” The words were automatic and smooth, but underneath, fear displaced her tranquil peace.

  Everything came into sharp focus at once. The slight flicker of the lights behind her, the shuffle of human feet trudging over the lobby floor, the ring of the phone at the front desk, all sounded deafening to her suddenly sensitive ears.

  She withdrew to her office and shut the door, suddenly loath to know what Scott had found and would only give to her in person. If Bo Quan were a protocol-ignorant bumpkin, Scott would have left the report on her desk. Probably with “no problem” scrawled on the corner in the red ink he favored.

  The fact that he hadn’t, and he wanted to talk to her in person, meant Bo Quan was a threat. Fuck. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her vision swam.

  Suddenly, she couldn’t get enough air. Sinking into her chair, she bent over her knees until her vision narrowed, and all she could see was a single dust bunny housekeeping had missed under her desk.