Heart Of The Dragon

Her knees weakened and her stomach clenched. Turning, placing her back to the door, she sank to the cold, hard ground. It was true. She had traveled through the mist. She was in Atlantis. With horrible creatures even the gods feared.

Let this be a dream, a dream I’ll awaken from any moment. I promise I won’t complain about anything ever again. I’ll be content.

If the gods heard her, they ignored her.

Wait, she thought, shaking her head. She didn’t believe in ancient Greek gods.

I have to get out of here. She’d wanted danger and fulfillment, yes, but not this. Never this. En route to Brazil, she’d imagined how intrepid she would feel helping Alex, how accomplished she would feel proving or disproving such a well-loved myth.

Well, she’d just proved it—and she felt anything but accomplished.

“Atlantis,” she whispered brokenly, staring over at the bed. The comforter appeared quilted from glass, yet she knew exactly how soft it was. She was in Atlantis, home of minotaurs, Formorians, werewolves and vampires. And so many more creatures her brother hadn’t been able to name them all. Her stomach gave another painful clench.

Just what type of creature was her captor?

She searched her memory. Minotaurs were half bull and half human. While he may have acted like a bull, he had not possessed the physical characteristics of one. Formorians were one-armed and one-legged creatures. Again, he didn’t qualify. Could he be a werewolf or a vampire? Yet neither of those seemed right, either.

With his dragon tattoos, he seemed more like, well, a dragon. Could that be right? Didn’t dragons have scales, a tail and wings? Perhaps he was the only human here. Or perhaps he was a male nymph, a creature so sexual, so potent and virile, he could not be released into human society. That certainly explained her hopelessly powerful reaction to him.

“Darius,” she said, rolling his name across her tongue.

She shivered twice, once in fear and once in something she didn’t want to name, as his image filled her mind. He was a man of contradictions. With his swirling, ice-blue eyes, harsh, demanding tone and rock-solid muscles, he personified everything cold and callous, everything incapable of offering warmth. And yet, when he touched her, she’d felt molten lava run through her veins.

The man reeked of danger, resembling a warrior who lived with no laws but his own. Like the deliciously tantalizing warriors she read about in romance novels. This was no novel, however. This man was real. Raw and primal. Purely masculine. When he spoke, his voice resonated a dark, barely leashed power reminiscent of midnight tempests and exotic, foreign lands. Despite everything, she had been drawn to him in the cave.

Despite everything, she was still drawn to him.

Never, in all of her twenty-four years, had a man stirred such sensuous awareness inside her. That this man did, a man who had threatened her—several times—blew her mind. He’d even tried to slice her in half with that monstrous sword of his. But he didn’t hurt you, her mind whispered. Not once. His touch had been so gentle…almost reverent. At times, she’d thought his gaze was pleading with her to touch him in return.

“You need your head examined, young lady, if you actually find that man attractive.” Her mother’s stern voice reverberated in her mind. “Tattoos, swords. Not to mention the beastly way he carried you over his shoulder. Why, I was horrified.”

Then her aunt Sophie piped in, “Now, Gracie baby, don’t listen to your mother. She hasn’t had a man in years. You should offer him a little some-some. Does Darius have a single, older brother?”

“I truly do need my head examined,” she muttered. Her relatives were taking residence inside her mind, dispensing bits of advice whenever they wanted.

A wave of homesickness hit her in a way she hadn’t experienced since her first week of summer camp all those years ago. Her mother might be reserved and exacting from years of caring for Grace’s sickly father, but she loved and missed her. Her aunt loved her, too, and would have hugged her tight.

She drew her arms around her stomach, trying to mask the hollowness. Where had Darius gone? How long before he returned?

What did he plan to do with her?

Nothing good, that much she suspected.

The air here was warmer than in the cave, but the cold refused to leave her, and she trembled. Her gaze flicked up the jagged walls, to the ceiling. Climbing up might earn her scratched and bloody palms, injuries she’d willingly endure if the crystal ceiling opened wide enough for her to slip through and swim to safety.

She eased to her feet, her legs shaky. First she needed sustenance or she’d collapse—and then she’d never escape.

On top of the dresser was what looked to be a bowl of fruit and a flagon of wine. Drawing in a deep breath of sea-kissed air, she approached. Her mouth watered as she reached out and palmed an apple. Without giving herself time to contemplate the likelihood of poison, she quickly ate—more like inhaled, she thought—the delicious fruit. Then another. And another. Between bites, she sipped the sweet red wine straight from the flagon.

By the time she stepped to the edge of the wall, she felt stronger, more in control. She gripped two small ledges and hoisted herself up, balancing her feet on the sharp ebony. Up, up she scaled. She’d once climbed the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska—not her favorite memory since she’d frozen her butt off—but at least she knew how to climb properly. She dared a peek down, gulped, and thought lovingly of the harness she had used on Devil’s Thumb.

She reached the top, and her palms were indeed bruised and raw, throbbing. Using all of her might, she pushed and clawed at the crystal. “Come on,” she said. “Open for me. Please open for me.” Hope curdled in her stomach as the damn thing remained firmly closed. Near tears, she maneuvered her way down to the lowest outcropping and hopped to the floor.

She shoved her hair out of her face and took stock of her options. There weren’t many since she was stuck in this room. She could passively accept whatever Darius had planned for her, or she could fight him.

No deliberation was required. “I’ll fight,” she said, resolved.

By whatever means necessary, she had to get home, had to find and warn her brother about the dangers of the mist—if it wasn’t too late already. An image of Alex popped into her mind. His dark red hair artfully arranged around his pale face; his body lying motionless in a coffin.

She pressed her lips together, refusing to consider the possibility a moment longer. Alex was alive and well. He was. How else would he have sent her his journal and the medallion? Stamps were not sold in the afterlife.

Her gaze scanned the room again, this time looking for a weapon. There were no knickknacks. No logs in the hearth. The only item that might work was the bowl holding the fruit, but Grace wasn’t sure how much damage she could do to Darius’s fat (okay, sexy) head with a surprisingly flexible bowl.

Disappointment swam through her. What the hell could she do to escape? Make a trip cord of the sheets? She blinked. Hey, that wasn’t a bad idea. She raced over to the bed. When she lifted the silky linen, her palms ached sharply.

Despite the pain, she tied each end on either side of the sliding doors. Darius might look indomitable, but he was as vulnerable to mishap as everyone else. Even the myths of old spoke of every creature, be they human or god, as being fallible. Or in this case, fallable.

Though she lived in New York now, Grace had grown up in a little town in South Carolina, a place known for its friendliness and politeness to strangers. She’d been taught to never purposely hurt another human being. Yet she couldn’t stop a slow smile of anticipation as she studied the sheet.

Darius was about to take a tumble.

Literally.

DARIUS STALKED into the dining hall. He paused only a moment when he realized he no longer saw colors, but once again saw merely black-and-white. He inhaled a disappointed breath. When he realized he smelled nothing, he stilled. Even his newly developed sense of smell had deserted him.

Until now, he hadn’t realized just how much he missed those things.

This was Grace’s doing, of course. In her presence, his defenses had crumbled and his senses had come alive. Now that there was distance between them, he had reverted to his old ways. What kind of power did she wield that she could so control his perceptions? A muscle ticked in his jaw.

Thankfully his men had not waited for his return. They had already adjourned to the training arena as he’d ordered. Though they were several rooms over the sounds of their grunts and groans filled the air.

Lips drawn tight, Darius moved to the immense wall of windows at the back of the room. He gripped the ledge above his head and leaned forward. As high upon the cliffs as this palace sat, he was granted a spectacular view of the city below. The Inner City. Where creatures were able to relax and intermingle. Even vampires, though he did not spy the masses his men had encountered.

Crowds of Sirens, centaurs, cyclops, griffins, and female dragons ventured from shops and strolled the streets as merchants peddled their wares. Several female nymphs frolicked in a nearby waterfall. How happy they appeared, how carefree.

He craved that same peace for himself.

With a growl, he pushed himself from the ledge and paced to the edge of the table, where he gripped the end with so much force the fire resistant wood-stone snapped. He had to get himself under control before he approached the woman—Grace—again. There were too many emotions churning inside him: desire, tenderness, fury.

He stabbed and pounded at the tenderness; he kicked and shoved at the desire. They proved most resilient, hanging on to him with a viselike grip. The lushness of her beauty could charm the strongest of warriors from his vows.

By the gods, if he experienced these sensations simply from holding her wrists, from gazing into her vibrant eyes, what would he feel if he actually palmed her full, lush breasts? What would he feel if he actually parted her luscious thighs and sank the thickness of his erection inside her? His tormented moan became a roar and echoed from the crystal above. Were he ever to have that woman naked and under him—he might perish from an overload of sensation.

He almost laughed. He, a bloodthirsty warrior who was thought to possess no heart and had felt nothing more than detached acceptance for three hundred years, was agonizing over one small woman. If only he hadn’t smelled her sweetness, a subtle fragrance of flowers and sunshine. If only he hadn’t caressed the silkiness of her skin.

If only he didn’t want more.

What was it about her that defeated centuries of safeguards? he wondered. If he figured out the answer to that, he could easily resist her.