Dragon Cipher Read online

  I hesitated, then set my cup down with a clatter. “All right. I’ll say it out loud. Safyr tells me that he is the oldest dragon in the world.”

  “Huh. Well, I suppose it might be possible. Somebody has to be. I know that there are dragons who retire from public life, and go to live at House Argentus, the silver house. I believe some dragons even choose to end themselves when they believe they have lived long enough.”

  “How is it that you know that, when I don’t? I’m Elterian, for goodness’ sake.”

  “It is very private.” Kat spoke almost apologetically. She did not want to step on my toes. She was nicer than that.

  “Well, there’s more.” Was I betraying his trust in telling her this? I knew I was, but I had to know whether he was all he said he was. “Safyr told me that he is so old that he remembers when the Houses were Founded.”

  Kat twitched, as if I had flicked her with a piece of straw. My brother had done that to me when we were small. We’d played together in the street in the low light of the evenings, tossing sticks at each other in mock battles.

  Before the dragons got him.

  She was deadly serious now. “No. That is impossible. The Founders all died. They chose their dream of civilized peace over their own eternal lives. And, I have to say, if he told you this, it changes everything. If he is lying to you to try to get you to like him, then he is not what I thought he was. This cannot be the real thing. A true mate would never tell you a falsehood.” She frowned deeply. “Something has gone very wrong here.”

  My mouth was hanging slightly open in surprise at her vehemence. “Maybe there’s an explanation,” I ventured.

  “There is no excuse for that.” Kat was firm. “I will speak to Cobalt when he gets back. He has always vouched for his friend, always told me that there was more to Safyr than meets the eye. Now I’m beginning to think that all those who say he is a shallow player are right.”

  She was angrier than I was. It was hard to know why. Was it because she knew what it was like to be the mate of a dragon who trusted her beyond life itself?

  I felt everything about me droop. I had been playing some sort of game, in which I thought I would have a chance to escape the realities of my life. I had dreamed of a new sort of existence, in which I would get to be a member of both camps. I wanted to be the revolutionary and the oppressor at the same time.

  What a joke.

  I would never, ever be able to trust a dragon.

  Even if the friend in front of me was a dragon as well. I could trust her, right?

  My head was swirling with the pain of my dashed dreams.

  I lifted my right hand to my temple, just at the same moment that Safyr and Cobalt returned to the apartment. I could hear the sound of the private elevator as they reached us.

  How was I going to navigate this treacherous landscape of promises, lies, and deceit? I’d said that I would help him. But that was before I had known he would stoop so low as to lie to me.

  The worst part is that I was beginning to be sure that I was a liar as well. I’d been dissembling about whether I felt the pull of being his mate.

  And I had been lying to myself about whether there was any chance in the world that we could make our union work.

  Chapter 10: Safyr

  My mind was tangled around itself, filling me with turmoil. It was hard for me to think clearly. This was something that never happened to me. In all the years I had lived, walking through different dimensions, on different lands, my head had stayed as clear as an Elterian mountain dawn.

  That ability to sail through problems, moving under the radar, and yet always coming out on top, was my own particular calling card. I was proud of it.

  Now, with the arrival of this complicated, beautiful Elterian peasant woman into my life, everything had changed. It was as if she reflected myself back to me, but in an infinitely better version. She was everything that I had always longed to embrace in the open, without feeling ashamed of my past mistakes.

  Laurel was as honorable as if she were a blue dragon, not merely a peasant from Caerulean Town. She was straightforward and rational. She wielded magic that was vastly more powerful than she knew.

  And what did I want to use it for?

  Ah, perhaps the real question was whether I was using her?

  I shrank from recognizing that about myself.

  I loved her. I wanted her. And yet I was also hatching a plan that would terrify her. She would never go willingly into the stronghold of the red dragons. She would be paralyzed with fear.

  No, that did her a disservice. She would not be afraid in any way that suggested weakness. There was nothing of that about her.

  But still, she should not have to do it.

  I should not ask her.

  As Cobalt and I entered my apartment, marking the second time ever that I had willingly brought another person into my home, the two women met us in the hallway.

  Something was wrong. I was not so embroiled in my own thoughts that I could not see the pink spots that colored Laurel’s cheeks. Her eyes blazed with some strong emotion. What in the world had Kat been telling her?

  Kat spoke first. She had once been a human, like Laurel, but now she held the authority of a dragon shifter. “Laurel, you should head out with us. Let’s go back to our place. You can see Safyr later to talk this over, after we’ve all had some time to think things through.”

  Laurel looked as if she wanted to speak but she was not sure if she wanted to unleash whatever torrent of words threatened to pour out of her. I could sense an unexpected emotion from her. She was furious. At me?

  Of course it was at me.

  Cobalt stepped smoothly forward to meet his mate. “No, Kat, it’s all right. I know what’s concerning you.”

  He did?

  He went on, dropping a kiss on Kat’s blonde head. “It will be fine. Safyr and I have been talking it over. What he and Laurel need right now is some time to discuss the matter.”

  I watched, seriously doubting that any of us were on the same page. Yet if the outcome was going to be that her friends convinced Laurel to stay and talk with me, then I would not interfere. My life’s training at manipulating others would hold true.

  My heart sank as I realized that I was still doing it. I had fallen in love with Laurel with all my heart. But it was as if I had no idea how to interact with people, with anybody at all, without the tricks of my former life. I hated the fact that I could not surrender my destiny to her.

  I would. I swore it to myself. It was the only way we could find happiness together.

  Just as I was about to urge Laurel to go with her friends after all, to take a break from the intensity of my problems, she spoke. She stepped forward and directed her words to me only.

  “I don’t need to retreat from the field,” she said fiercely. “I will stay as long as I need to learn what we are going to do.” She set her burning eyes on Cobalt and Kat. Her expression softened as she regarded her hosts, but her tone was still steely. “You two may go. I will be safe here. I am not saying that I trust Safyr. But I do trust my own abilities. I can handle this.”

  Kat hesitated, not wanting to leave.

  But Cobalt smiled genially at us and ushered his mate out. He was under the impression that my next step was going to be to convince Laurel that our mission was still possible. He thought that all we were discussing was whether Laurel could find the nerve to visit the red dragon’s stronghold.

  He had no idea that my task was simpler and yet far more difficult to achieve. I was not merely concerned with talking her into going somewhere with me. I had to convince her that I was not a monster.

  That was made harder by the fact that I knew I was.

  Once they were gone, Laurel set her feet squarely and confronted me. Her green eyes snapped with anger.

  “You lied to me,” she hissed. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides.

  “Did I?” I asked. I needed to buy myself time to know what Kat had said
to her.

  “How can I believe anything you say? Look at you. Look at your life. You are clearly a professional liar. I don’t understand how they can’t all see it as plain as day.” She actually stamped her foot, there in my hallway, on the soft, antique rug that I had owned for several human lifetimes.

  I spread my hands wide, as if showing her that I had no tricks left. “Tell me what is on your mind. What did Kat say to you that has you so angry?”

  “She confirmed that there are no dragons left from the Age of Chaos. There is nobody as old as you claim to be. She is a dragon now. She would know.” As she told me what was on her mind, a bit of her fury dissipated. Her shoulders relaxed slightly, but she still kept her hands down at her sides.

  Another woman might have been restraining herself from slapping me. Laurel, I knew, was using all her self-possession to keep her magic in check. If she released her hold on her emotions, the result would be more painful than a smack of the hand.

  “And you think that Kat knows better than I do,” I answered mildly.

  “Yes. I mean, what else could I think?” She was gathering her wits now, cloaking herself in her own iron self-control. “Why were you so somber when you came back from talking to Cobalt? What did he say?”

  “It doesn’t matter. If you are not sure you feel comfortable working with me on decoding the magic of the tablet, then we can let it go.” I shrugged. “I’m not just saying that. I really don’t want to talk you into something you don’t want to do.”

  Slowly, she allowed her fingers to uncurl. She was letting herself be distracted by her curiosity. Good.

  “That’s enough trying to manipulate me, you...you dragon.” Her words were clipped and even. “You think that nobody can see through you, but I’m here to tell you that I sure can. Just stop it.”

  For the first time, I was abashed at her acuity. “How is it that you always anticipate where I’m going?”

  “It isn’t hard,” she sniffed. “You seem to think that nobody can understand what is happening in your mind.” Then, as she heard her own words, she jumped slightly. She smoothed the soft skirt of her blue dress, as if she could brush away what she had said.

  “I would think that only the woman who is meant to be my mate could see so clearly into me,” I said. “Wouldn’t you say that?”

  “Never mind. We’ll come back to that.” She pressed on, still not smiling at me. “If you think I can be distracted by whatever you and Cobalt hatched up together, then give it a try.”

  “Oh, my Laurel. You don’t want to hear this, but I will tell you. Cobalt believes that the tablet was forged in a certain mountain on Elter. We think we know where.”

  “Good,” she said. “That means we know where to go to work the magic that is needed to unlock it. That is the least of our problems.” She held up her hand and ticked her fingers as she went on. “I just have the other concerns left of whether you are lying about who you are, and if it is morally wrong to free you from a prison that I know nothing about.” She paused. “Piece of cake, as they say here.”

  “What if it isn’t?”

  “Of course it isn’t, you idiot,” she smiled unexpectedly at me. “You take everything so seriously, for somebody who is supposed to be the world’s greatest party host. Doesn’t anybody ever notice that about you, either?”

  “No.” Heartened by the look on her face, I reached out on an impulse and took her hand. When I did, my throat caught as if I would never draw another easy breath again. It was a sensation that I remembered clearly from last night, when I had held her in my arms on the dance floor.

  And yet it was different this time.

  The more we knew about each other, the stronger our new bond became. We were learning each other as we went, but the fire between us was as old as the universe. Older than I was. It had merely been waiting for us to ignite it.

  She felt it too. She did not take her hand away, but I could feel her heartbeat quicken.

  “What am I supposed to do next?” She spoke in a low, engrossed tone. She was not asking me. “As I told Kat, I’m not sure that I trust you. I do trust myself, though.”

  “Maybe those will turn out to be the same thing.”

  She raised her other hand, holding it open for me to take. “Maybe.”

  When I pulled her into my arms, I felt as though I was becoming complete for the first time in my long life. She was everything I had been missing. The curve of her back under my fingers was filling me with a heat, a desire, that burned through my heart.

  She lifted her face to me, her mouth lifting into a small smile. She was conservative rather than anxious. A woman with so much magic was dangerous in her own right. She guarded against making her own missteps, as she had last night in the club.

  When I lowered my lips to hers, I whispered a promise. “I will tell you the truth.”

  She lifted her arms to encircle my neck. Her fingers twined into my hair, pulling me down to her. “You will when you are ready,” she murmured.

  “How do you know?” I pulled her closer, running my hands lower, down her back to her perfect, firm ass. I brought her closer to me, reveling in the feeling of her feminine body against my hardness.

  “Because I know. I know you. I don’t know anything about who you really are, but I can still feel your spirit as if it were my own.”

  And with that half-admission that we were meant to be mates, she leaned into me with passion.

  I brought my mouth to hers, kissing her with all the longing that I had been holding inside me since the moment I saw her. Her lips under mine were soft and sweet.

  Chapter 11: Laurel

  The touch of Safyr’s mouth on mine was intoxicating. His breath was warm against my neck as he moved his head lower to kiss me there. Where his lips touched me, I felt as if I might be branded by fire. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

  It had hardly seemed necessary to tell Safyr that I had never been with anybody else before. The difference in our age and experience was so obvious that I did not need to call attention to it.

  I had grown up so sure that I was different from all the other peasants because of my abilities. None of my peers in Caerulean town had been able to wield magic at all. When I reached maturity, I ran my own herb shop on a side street, developing my skills as best as I could. That only drew the attention of the dragons. A tentative truce with them had allowed me to come here, but that was not enough to make me comfortable with all that was happening to me.

  Nothing in the world could have prepared me for this moment.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I whispered as Safyr continued to drop small kisses along my my throat. “This is like nothing that I’ve ever experienced before.”

  He must have felt me tense up, because he loosened his arms and drew back a little. “You don’t need to say anything. Or prove anything. Just let it be.”

  “That seems like an awfully big risk, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” he said seriously. “With great risks come great rewards. What would it be like if we could find happiness together forever?”

  “That might be a taller order than I can comprehend right now,” I admitted. “Maybe I need to learn not to think so far ahead.” It was true. I was here, alone, with a man who was making me ache with desire.

  What if all I needed to do was to let it happen?

  Safyr ducked his head, catching my eye. He wanted to see if I was sure about this.

  “Whatever it is that you aren’t telling me, I don’t think I’m afraid of you. Not exactly.” I wondered if I was saying too much.

  “You needn’t be. Now that I’ve found you, my sole purpose in life is to keep you safe.”

  “Safe isn’t enough,” I answered tartly. “There’s also the problem with keeping secrets. I would never want to be kept in a golden cage.”

  His face twisted in a rueful kind of pain. “Nor would I.”

  The agony that underlay his answer made me look up sharply. N
ow I was the one searching his face, looking for clues about how he was really feeling.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” My voice trailed off as I broke off the eye contact. Looking right at him was too intense. I couldn’t do it for long. And yet it was all I wanted to do.

  I wanted to do everything with him.

  He had stepped back so that he was no longer touching me. He would not continue with this unless he knew for certain that I wanted to.

  Oh, I did.

  I raised my right hand and touched his arm. He was strong and tanned, as if he spent his days outside, casting nets in the Florida sunshine. I had an inkling that every part of him would be as physically perfect. Perhaps it was time to allow myself to find out.

  I moved toward him with a new sense of purpose. I was ready. As I pressed my body against his, his muscular arms encircled me again. This time, we both moved more urgently. As his mouth came down on mine, I bit his lip, making him kiss me even harder. His tongue slipped into my mouth, exploring, tasting.

  I moaned at the pleasure of his touch, and at the exquisite sense that I was allowing something new to happen to me.

  Safyr’s hands slipped under my skirt, raising the blue fabric up so he could run his hands over my body. As he caressed my ass, he found only bare skin. Through our kisses, he smiled.

  “No underwear for hedge witches, huh?”

  I snorted. “It isn’t exactly a career policy. It was just that when I was getting dressed for the club last night, I wanted to make the dress look right. No lines, you know.”

  “If I’d known that you had nothing on under this dress, I would have had a much harder time sleeping next to you on the couch last night.”

  “Harder?” I chuckled. “Wait, you stayed in the living room with me all night?”

  “Of course,” he said. Now his lips were moving along my collarbones. I let my head fall back as I tried to catch my breath. It was beyond what I could do. The room was becoming impossibly hot for me.