Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,74

like her ears were bleeding.

“And then for whatever reason he had you believing, you decided you needed to disappear. Which of course he promised to help you do. The Nightmare Warlock cast up a whole lot of magic and you vanished.” He grew quiet again before his words took on a razor’s edge. “For fifty fucking years.”

Anna flinched and straightened as if she’d been struck.

He turned his head toward her, just enough to glance back at her over his broad shoulder. She froze again.

“He fed you all kinds of lines, didn’t he? About needing to cover your tracks and stay hidden. Especially from the likes of me.” Now he turned around fully, and pinned her with the entire weight of his gaze. “And you believed every word.”

Yes. It was true. All of it.

Anna had no idea where she got the courage to reply. “He… did tell me I needed to hide.” And yeah, it was mostly from you. She tried to look away, to stare at the floor. It felt like he were reading her, ripping open her internal book of pages and scouring each and every word.

She could feel magic all around her. She wasn’t stupid; she knew that if he was a dragon and this was his home, she stood no chance of defeating him in any capacity. Not in battle, not in escape, not even in a struggle of wills. Not here.

A dragon’s abode, no matter what or where it was, became a part of his “den,” and as such, it expanded his power. A dragon’s den was not only warded from the outside world, it was bespelled within. If he’d wanted to, he could have knocked her out with a single word. Sent her flying into the wall with another. And there were other things he could do too… sexual things. Pleasurable things. Things she couldn’t help but think of in the wake of her bizarre attraction to him.

She’d known a dragon or two in her life. The fact was, if he was one, then really he was being considerate. Generous, even. Dragons were not known for their social graces, especially not black dragons. And she just knew that he was a black dragon.

Still, she couldn’t pull her eyes away from his when she wanted to. He held her in his sway, very literally. Damn, she thought helplessly. Being caught in the gravitational pull of that gaze was doing crazy things to her. Give me a break!

Anna suddenly felt a little dizzy. Her captor’s expression became enigmatic, his eyes flashed beneath the chandelier lights, and then he was turning away from her again.

Anna rubbed her flushed face with a cold hand, and then dropped her hand to stare at the white marble beneath their boots. She licked her lips and closed her eyes. “But… it wasn’t just Antares that Sterling warned me away from,” she said softly, wanting to give him something, anything, in exchange for his mercy. She wanted to show him she could be reasonable. Appease the dragon. “He showed me a whole new world. One with… unimaginable things, deadly things. Lots of them. And he made it clear that some of them would do deadly things in order to get their hands on… well, on me. Because of my gift.”

Her captor was silent for a stretch before he said, “He was right about that.”

Annaleia swallowed hard and said, “I know.” Then she grew brave and asked, “Are you really a dragon?” She kept her head down in case he decided to prove it by transforming. She might take it in stride if he did, but she couldn’t be certain, not just then. She wasn’t quite up to par.

“I am.” She heard his boots cross the floor. Then she heard the gentle clinking of glass and ice cubes. “Leia… why don’t you come here and have a seat?”

She looked up again to find him standing behind one of the sofas in the room, and in each hand he held a drink. One of the drinks, she recognized. “Rosemary-gin,” she whispered, suddenly feeling light-headed again.

“If I remember right, it’s your favorite… At least it was once.” The look on his face told her he absolutely knew for a fact that he remembered right. Which was more evidence he was telling the truth about being Antares.

No one else in the world knew she liked rosemary-ginger cocktails. In fact, she’d never seen anyone else in the world drink one, much less make one. But Ares used to