Dragon Cipher Read online

  As his strokes grew faster and more insistent, I knew I was close to release again. I moaned, a low growl escaping my throat like an animal. And, like an animal, he answered the same way. He thrust inside me, then stopped, perfectly still for a moment. When we both froze, I knew that his hard flesh was against the place inside me that only he would ever know. No other man would claim me. It was the one thing I was sure of in life.

  My orgasm spilled from every fiber of my being, from every nerve ending as if I was emanating light. I knew that I was. My fingers each extended, sending tingles from my body into the air around me. I was drowning, but at the same time, I had never been more safe anywhere. I was floating.

  Safyr threw back his head as he pumped his cock into me one more time, then he found his own climax. His seed spilled into me, hot and wet. I felt it as it shot against me. His sticky essence filled me, sliding everywhere with me.

  He slumped against the sheets, already catching his breath. I had nothing to compare it to, but the bedroom athleticism of a dragon shifter impressed me.

  A tiny smile lit my face and I rolled to him and lightly kissed his lips.

  He reached his arm around my back, drawing me to him again. We would never have enough of each other.

  “Laurel, my Laurel,” he whispered into my hair. “That was worth everything.”

  “I hope it was,” I laughed. “But we haven’t risked everything. We’re still fine.”

  He was still. He gently ran his fingers along my back, imparting a deep sense of relaxation to me.

  “We are, my love.” He spoke brusquely. “We are.”

  And there in his bed, in his private apartment in his even more private life, I almost believed him.

  I could have wondered if we would be in time to solve the puzzle of the golden tablet before the worst consequences came to pass. I could have questioned what that terrible outcome might be. I might have even suggested that we do whatever we needed to do to save his soul from the gleamingly beautiful metal in which a spell entrapped it.

  But I did none of those things.

  At least, I did not speak the words aloud.

  Instead, I chose to believe him.

  Almost.

  Chapter 14: Safyr

  We rested, but only briefly. I wanted more than anything to be able to lie there in the safe haven of my own home, holding Laurel through the night. However, we were now burdened with the ticking clock of dark and ancient magic.

  If only I had been able to hold back from making her mine. In bed, at least, if not in claiming her as my mate. That ceremony still awaited us. But how could I be sorry that we had joined our bodies together? It had been amazing. And it had been worth it.

  To me.

  Now, though we had to break the spell of the tablet quickly. That was the price of our lovemaking. My body had led me to this, but my mind was not at all sure it had been wise. I couldn’t say that to Laurel, though, without sounding like a tool.

  Her voice broke into my thoughts. “So what do we need to do? Just tell me, and we’ll get to it.” She stood, with an astounding combination of purpose and grace, and began to pull her blue dress over her head, covering her delectable nakedness. I remembered that she had worn no underwear before, and as I watched her with appreciation, my body began to stir.

  “None of that now,” she said virtuously, grinning wickedly at me.

  I rose from the bed myself, swatting lightly at her ass as I passed her. I found new clothes in my closet for me, but nothing that would even remotely fit her frame. “I wish I had something fresh that I could loan you,” I said. “You are welcome to anything that is mine.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. Let’s just get this done.” She peered at me with unveiled curiosity. “Will this be the first time you’ve been home to Elter in...well, how long?”

  “Yes,” I said shortly. “But I wouldn’t call it home. It has been thousands of years.”

  “So long? You have really stayed away all that time?” She sounded disbelieving or astonished; I wasn’t sure which. “How can you have kept yourself away for so long? Did you not miss your own land, your people?”

  “No, as I said, it is not the home I once knew.”

  Laurel, now dressed, stood and watched me as I pulled a clean shirt over my head. She wound her long hair into a coil, then fashioned it into a low bun, not even needing to look at it to make it perfect. “You are quite a puzzle,” she said after a moment.

  “I know, I know. That is my stock in trade, remember? I’m a man of mystery, a coded message, a cipher.”

  “No, I don’t mean any of that.” She shook her head. “Not the stuff about where you come from, or what you’ve been through. Not the rigmarole about whether your interests are superficial and focused only on momentary pleasures. What I don’t understand is how you are even able to lie to me.”

  I jerked my head up, then tried to pretend I hadn’t. She was too smart for me. The one thing, the tiny detail that I had hoped she would overlook. That was the exact thing she had noticed.

  “What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.

  “Well...there are the House traits that bind Elterian dragons to certain patterns of behavior.” She fidgeted with her fingers in front of her as she brought up something that was obviously awkward for both of us. “You know I don’t like to talk about dragons. And I know you don’t like to talk about our homeland, but this doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Just this one part of all this doesn’t make sense?” Somehow, I hoped that if I could make her smile, she would drop it. She did smile, ruefully. But she did not stop asking questions.

  “Yes, really this is what has been on my mind. You are a dragon of Caerulean House, You and Cobalt are blue dragons. That is, I think you are. I haven’t ever seen you in your dragon form.”

  “You will.” A warmth spread throughout my body at the idea. I could not wait to fly with her. When the time was right, I would make her a dragon too. We would mate in flight, wrapped around each other as we felt the clouds wisping past us. She did not know yet how fiercely dragons made love to each other.

  “So, you follow the ideals of House Caeruleus. Just as the red dragons at the club last night were vicious and aggressive, because those are the qualities of their House. You and Cobalt are bound by honor.” Her tone hardened slightly. “Well, he is. I’ve seen it.”

  “Ah, thank you,” I said ironically.

  She brushed my sarcasm aside. “And why are you not? How is it that you are able to hide your true nature from everybody you know? Such subterfuge should be impossible for you.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, does it?” I was only buying time now.

  “Oh, all right.” She finally decided to give up, making a face at me. “You aren’t going to tell me anything, are you?” I knew that her retreat from this topic was temporary. She would return to it when she wished to.

  Unexpectedly, I found that I wanted to confide in her. “I tell people that I am a half-breed, you know. That my mother was a Caerulean dragon, but my father was a green. They think that explains the ways in which I seem odd to them.”

  “Is that true?”

  “No, of course not.” I ran my hand through my hair, hoping to smooth it, but having the opposite effect. “My parents were both blue dragons. I’m the farthest thing possible from a half breed. Our lineage was pure and powerful. In those days, that meant a lot.”

  “Would mixed heritage be something a dragon might feel embarrassed about?”

  “Yes, I think so. Now, perhaps, but definitely in my time. We were always striving for perfection, you know. For total, unsullied purity, in our magic and in our minds.”

  “That doesn’t sound so different from today’s dragons,” she mused. “And it sounds very stuck-up and tiresome.”

  “Well, we were both of those things. The world was very different then.”

  “Was it so bad there that you had to choose to live here?”

/>   “I had to come here after I made my own world too hot to hold me. Anyway, as you have observed, I am not bound at all by the restrictions that affect most blue dragons. I have my own ways, and I’ll not apologize for it.”

  “I feel the same way.” And instead of shrinking from my admission, she seemed heartened by it. We were kindred spirits after all.

  With a start, she broke away from our exchange.

  “I wish we could stand here all day, but we have work to do.” She frowned at me. “Why is that I’m the one who keeps reminding us that we need to move on the magical code-breaking portion of our day? Shouldn’t you be more motivated?”

  “Ha. There is no chance I would forget. My life hangs in the balance.”

  “Wait, what?” Her green eyes were round and clear as she waited for my answer.

  Regret seized me. I had not meant to say that out loud. “How is that you keep startling these truths from me?” I brushed past her to the living room.

  Laurel followed me down the hall, still sputtering. “Do you mean to say that’s what was on your mind when we made love just now? You’re serious? You’re saying that if we don’t break open the magic of the golden tablet, then you will…” She couldn’t complete her sentence, but she stared mutely at me until I did.

  “Yes, I will die.”

  “What are you talking about? You are immortal. Dragons cannot die. More’s the pity, I’ve thought sometimes.” She rubbed her hand over her lips irritably.

  “I’ve thought the same thing, many times. But this magic has a hold on me in a way that dragons do not see any more.” I flashed her a toothy smile, trying to maintain my momentum. “No matter. We will solve the code of the tablet and we will be just fine. No problem.”

  “You’re insane,” she huffed. “Or...or a dragon, or something.”

  “Both.”

  She stood at my shoulder, looking intently at the tablet, which still hung on the wall. “So where do we need to take it?” As she spoke, she reached for it. She checked with a glance at me, and I did not stop her from extending out her hand to feel the magical object.

  When her fingers touched the metal of the tablet, I shivered uncontrollably. It was as if her hands were running up and down my soul, touching and learning every part of me. It was intimate, sexual, and caring. She had dipped her hand into the river that made up my immortal self. The teasing sensuality of it was punctuated by intense discomfort at allowing her to know me.

  It was hard to speak, but I choked out my answer. “Ah, that’s the part I didn’t really want to tell you.” I raised my hand to my brow in simultaneous pain and pleasure.

  “Most parts of this you haven’t wanted to tell me. It hasn’t stopped me from asking. But you are just wasting time if you make me ask more than once.”

  She held the tablet in her hands gingerly, but with a professional care as well. She was a witch, not an amateur. Her life was built on the study of magical artifacts and how they worked.

  “No, it hasn’t stopped you, has it?” I regarded her with a kind of awe. Laurel was a force of nature. I didn’t know if anybody could prevent her from running with an idea once she had it.

  “So?”

  “So we need to take it, if Cobalt and I are correct, to the heart of the stronghold of the red dragons.”

  Laurel stepped back in shock. She did not come close to dropping the tablet, as I feared she might. It was still safely in her hands. She looked nearer to clobbering me with it.

  “That’s a hard no from me. Are you serious? That is the last place in the world where I would go.”

  “Yes, I know that.” I waited. The touch of her skin on the tablet was generating a buzz in my ears that made it hard to think.

  “You know how I hate dragons. I loathe them. I despise their arrogance and their selfishness. And their love of power. And their inhuman treatment of my people. And then you ask me to go to the place where all those qualities are at their very worst, their most concentrated? The stronghold of House Rubellus? I might as well just walk into the open mouth of a dragon while he breathed fire.” Her hand had gone to her throat, as if she was trying to help her breath come easier. The other hand held the table securely. She knew her business.

  Business. That was what this was.

  “I know you don’t want to. But we must. And it needs to be now.” I held my breath as I watched her. Come on, Laurel, come on.

  She squared her shoulders and somehow stood a few inches taller. It did not matter that her hair was loosely coiled into a hasty bun, or that her dress was now a day old, rumpled and smelling of her. It did not matter that she no longer wore any makeup, nor did she wear shoes.

  She looked like a warrior.

  Laurel was a revolutionary amongst peasants. She was used to fighting. Her life had been spent undermining dragons and defying them. Only she knew what it had cost her to say goodbye to all the family and friends she had ever known, as they were ushered away by dragons when they grew old enough.

  She did hate dragons. I bit my tongue, trying not to tell her that I knew full well that her hatred was born of fear.

  I hated my kind as well, not so much because I feared them, but because I could never forgive myself for the mess I’d made of Elter.

  Laurel was going to agree. She would go to the place where everything she despised was at its strongest. And she would do it to try to save me.

  “Yes.” Her tone was even. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 15: Laurel

  Once I had the tablet in my hands, it all happened quickly. I could see that Safyr was exquisitely uncomfortable at the sensation of my hands on the metal surface of the enchanted object.

  “Are you sure that this is ok for you?” I leaned toward him, wondering if I should wrap the thing in a cloth or something. Part of me wanted to be solicitous, but another, more devilish part of me wanted him to feel a little bit of torture after all he was putting me through.

  Not a lot, but maybe just a little bit of discomfort might be good for him.

  At the sight of the scowl on his face, I readjusted my expectations of how long I could reasonably handle such a powerful magical thing without causing him harm. No matter how strong a dragon he was, he could not hold out indefinitely against the sensory assault the tablet was putting him through.

  I nodded at him. “I understand. It’s not just you, either. I think that if I hold this thing too long, I will go mad as well. No matter how many layers of cloth I might wrap it in. How have you been able to cart this around with you for so many years? It must have nearly driven you insane.”

  “Nearly,” he grunted. “I hate the damn thing, but I’ve had no choice.”

  “Didn’t you say that it was your own choice to imprison yourself? It was a sort of penance?”

  He sent me a dark look. “That was a long time ago.”

  As he spoke, he caught my hand and led me to the set of wide French doors that opened onto a balcony. He bustled me outside, then shut the doors carefully.

  Then, without even glancing at me, he began to strip his clothing off and fold it neatly in a pile on a lounge chair.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. “I mean, I can see perfectly well what you are doing, but it is broad daylight.”

  “I know what time it is,” he answered. “In fact, I’m sure it’s lunchtime. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, and we worked up quite an appetite. I’m starving.”

  “You’re going to shift into your dragon form right now, out here, aren’t you? Were you thinking we would stop for some takeout along the way?”

  “You’re funny. No, we need to hurry. If you want, we can buzz a deli in Miami when we get back, just for fun.”

  “No we can’t. Don’t be absurd.”

  “Well maybe not Miami, but here on this little island, we could. You have to remember that it is mostly dragon shifters. Those who aren’t dragons would quickly find a way to forget something so mind-boggling as that.”

  I flushed with emotio
n. “Did you think I could ever forget that we are surrounded by dragons?” Fear and anger warred within me.

  “Of course not.” He paused, then looked right at me. His eyes searched my face. “Before we go, tell me the names of your parents. And your brother. Those that the dragons killed to make their magic. Tell me their names and I will remember them as we fly.”

  “As we fly back to the land where all that happened? Where your people did that. I’ll be on the back of a dragon, working for the side of those I loathe.” My bitterness twisted my mouth as I forced out the words.

  “Yes.”

  “My mother was named Rosemary. She worked with herbs a bit, not as much as I do. My father was Loch. My brother’s name was Tanner.” I looked down at my hands in the bright sun, spreading my fingers out. I had my mother’s slim hands. I didn’t remember everything about her, but I knew that much. The blazing heat above us made everything seem exposed and far too much in the present. “Tanner was older than I, so he was taken by the dragons while I was still too young to fight back.”

  Safyr answered gravely, “And when you did fight back, you did so on behalf of all of the peasants of our world, not just your family. You are a brave woman. You take care of your own.”

  With those words, he set the last piece of his clothing down and stood, stretching his arms up to the sky. He was completely naked. It was riveting. My eyes traced down his strong, broad back to his narrow hips and his firm, muscular thighs. I did not miss any parts in between.

  His eyes were bright with suppressed laughter as I ogled him, but underneath his mirth there was sadness and steel. He hoisted himself over the balcony railing with ease, and dropped silently into the air. Even though I knew what he was about to do, it was unnerving to watch.