His brow furrowed, not in anger, more questioning. “I don’t seem what?”
“Never mind.” She blushed. “I blame my work, where I take little samples of things and try to figure out what’s inside them. I don’t know you well enough to know what you are or aren’t.”
“Oh, I think you might know more than you know,” he said cryptically. “I’ve shown you more than I’ve ever shown anyone.”
“The garden is amazing. And the waterfall. The wine was amazing.” She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to run her fingers through his tousled hair. “
You
are amazing.”
It wrecked her to consider whatever condition was slowly killing him. She didn’t want to imagine a world without his keen, passionate intensity. From his vague description, she thought his issue might be some sort of neurodegenerative disorder, stealing his ability to feel and move. The symptoms were so contrary to the vibrant man beside her, it simply wasn’t right.
“I’m not amazing.” He caught her hand and held her fingers to his cheek. “I’m cursed. And all the riches and thrills of this place won’t change that.”
She could almost believe the truth of that word. “I was going to say you seem lonely.”
“Another way to say what I said.”
“Maybe you just haven’t found the right someone to be with yet.”
He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss to the pulse point in her wrist. “And maybe I have.”
She knew he must have felt the sudden burst of her blood raging under his lips. “Rave…”
“Piper, would you stay? If I asked you—if I said please and thank you and all the other words people say—would you stay and try to save me as you want to save your friends?” His stony-stormy eyes seemed to swirl with mysterious clouds, hiding lightning in their depths.
“Stay? Here?” She almost stuttered the words. “You mean tonight?”
“I mean stay with me. Forever.” His lips brushed her wrist again, not a kiss this time but with a mocking smile. “Although with me, forever probably won’t be very long.”
Her mind raced even faster than her pulse. Why would he even ask her to stay? She wasn’t anyone, wasn’t any
thing
to him. He could have anyone he asked for. Well, maybe not Esme and Anjali since they’d run away. But anyone else.
But he was here, with her, right now.
She opened her mouth, not sure herself what she was going to say, but he abruptly leaned forward and kissed her, swallowing her response.
“Hold that thought,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He spun off the bed, dropping easily to the floor off the high mattress in another scattering of pillows. The firm globes of his butt flexed as he bent to scoop up a couple of the pillows and toss them back to her with a smile. For someone with a supposedly painful and debilitating condition, he seemed all right at the moment…
She frowned to herself as he padded away to the bedroom’s other doorway and flicked on a light that illuminated the dark marble tiles of a bathroom. He closed the door on her semi-suspicious stare, and she heard the sound of water running.
It wasn’t that she doubted him. Exactly. But she knew he had secrets—she’d already seen some of them—and she couldn’t have uncovered all of them in only a day. Even if she had uncovered all of
him
.
Like the map of tattoos across his body, she suspected there was a lot more to see if she just looked at him in the right light.
She rolled onto her back, staring up at the canopy of the bed. She angled her head a bit to study the carved wood poster holding up the heavy drapes. At first she thought the posters were etched with the standard ivy leaves or some such, but when she looked closer, she realized they were scales. Twining serpents climbed up the poles and snaked across the headboard. No, not snakes. Spines and wings flared over the canopy, and forked tongues seemed to angle down to flicker at her.
No wonder she’d been thinking “here be dragons”.
She didn’t mind scaled things. When she was out in the field taking water samples, she encountered plenty of fish, frogs, and small water snakes, and she liked seeing them since healthy critters usually meant healthy water.
Still, the design seemed strangely sensuous and profane for what was clearly a well-worn antique.
It fit Rave perfectly.
She sighed. What was she going to tell him when he returned? They’d had sex twice and known each other less than one day. That wasn’t enough to base a relationship on, was it? And then there was the whole thing with her missing friends…
She shook her head restlessly against the sheets. She was just going to have to tell him they needed to slow down.
Except she knew he didn’t have that kind of time—
He emerged from the bathroom, striding toward her.
His jaw was set in a determined line, and blood dripped down from the crook of his arm, bright as flames.
Chapter 10
His mind made up, Rave waited until his pupils had gone from the dragon’s slitted stare to a more human circle before he exited the bathroom. “Piper, there’s something I need to tell you—”
“Oh my god, Rave!”
She bolted from the bed and ran toward him. She’d grabbed a bolster from the bed on the way, and for a second he thought they were going to have some sort of porn-tastic pillow fight. But then she stripped the case and reached for his arm.
“What happened?” She lifted his elbow, catching the stream of blood in the pillow case and wrapping the fabric tight, but not too tight. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“It’s nothing,” he said impatiently. Lately, excising ichor had been like digging for buried treasure, except the treasure was halfway to China and only half a gold coin. He hadn’t expected to find it so fast and close to the surface this time. The iron knife he’d stuck in his arm had melted and shocked him at the same time when it touched the ichor surging wildly just beneath his skin, and he’d been so surprised he cut himself more deeply than he thought.
And then he’d come running to find her.
“It’s not nothing,” she argued. “That’s going to need stitches. You’re not hurt anywhere else?”
“No. I…” What? Cut himself shaving? She wasn’t going to believe that. And anyway, he needed to tell her the truth—more of the truth, at least—if he was going to prepare her to be a solarys.
To save Bale.
He let out a slow breath. “I was checking my blood.” No sense trying to explain ichor right away.
She frowned. “Like glucose monitoring? No test needs that much blood outside of a collection tube.”
“I slipped.” He tried a smile at her.
But she was having none of it. “Who is your doctor? If we need to get you seen—”
“Nobody needs to see me.” Except her. She was going to save his liege and give the Nox Incendi a stay of execution.
Her expression softened. “It must be hard for you. Admitting you need help in this when you have so much power everywhere else.”
He shook his head. “I can say it. I need your help, Piper. My people will find your friends, but I need you to help me.”
She looked up at him, her dark eyes luminous above the jade of her sweater. “I’m here for you.”
So simple, so naïve. No wonder dragons ate innocents.
He was going to tear her world apart to save his.
“Come with me.” He wiped the worst of the gore from his arm and tossed the pillow case away before reaching for her clothes.
“Rave. You need to keep pressure on that—”
He unfolded his bare arm toward her, flexing just enough to show her the ragged edges of the careless cut he’d made.
The edges already knitting together.
She closed her eyes. Then looked again. “What?” Her voice was faint.
“I know you have questions.” He handed her clothing over. “But it will be easier to just show you. Will you come?”
She didn’t answer but she got dressed, casting sidelong glances his way as he did the same, yanking on his jeans, t-shirt, and boots.
He took her down deep to his laboratory. In the elevator, she lifted his arm in her hands, turning it under the light. The filaments of new flesh webbing the wound were tenuous, stretching with her tentative exploration, but there was no more blood.
She made a soft sound of confusion but didn’t otherwise speak.
He didn’t blame her.
His own mind was racing with how he would explain, how he would win her cooperation. And what he would do if the first two failed.
As they walked into his lab, she made another sound and rocked back in her clogs. She was a scientist too, of course, so he knew she’d recognize some of the equipment. But many of his tools and processes had been taken from the ancient alchemists, and the alembics, crucibles, mortars, and cast-iron cauldron had a distinctly medieval cast.
Not to mention the knightly suit of steel armor.
With the giant bite taken out of it.
Her gaze went around and around before settling back on him.
“What is this place?”
“Where I’m trying to cure this disease.”
“You’re a casino mafia boss
and
a doctor? And an
Antiques Roadshow
fan?”
He grunted. “None of those. I’m…” The truth beat inside him with powerful wings. But he’d restrained that beast for a long time. “I’m the closest to an answer that I’ve ever been. Because of you.” He guided her toward the work bench.
He handed her the crystal flask with Bale’s moribund ichor lumped at the bottom. He tried to see it with her untaught eyes, and even so he thought it must seem like what it was: death. “There is a substance in my blood that used to look something like this. Not quite this ominous, but nearly.”
She raised the flask to the light, turning it slowly. “Some sort of heavy metal contaminant?”
He blinked. Untaught, maybe, but not stupid. “Something like that.”
“You tried chelation? The proper binding agent would depend on the pollutant, of course.” She trailed off. “But if you’ve been studying this, I’m sure you tried everything already.”
“I thought I had,” he said. “I admit, I hadn’t considered binding and extraction.” Removing the ichor entirely would kill the dragon.
But maybe it would save the man.
He shook his head. A dragon-shifter was nothing without his beast. “Chelation won’t work. The substance is actually a key component of our blood.”
“Our?”
Shit. This was already getting complicated. He didn’t want to expose the existence of the rest of the Nox Incendi if he didn’t have to.
But she’d at least be meeting Bale.
If she was to become the king’s mate.
Rave’s dragon lashed inside him, but he forced it down, as he’d done time and time again for the good of the tribe. “My brother suffers from the same disorder, although his case is more advanced than mine.”
Piper lowered the flask and met his gaze. “What do you think I can do? My expertise is water quality, which is a health issue, but not with direct human applications.”
Well, he wasn’t human anyway. He swallowed that response. “I told you when we were together last night I felt…different. More alive.”
Her lips twisted wryly to one side. “I thought it was a come-on.”
He scowled at her. “I’d be so unoriginal?”
“Well, sorry, I didn’t know you then.”
As if she did now.
He choked on that thought too. “It was a real change. Watch.” He unfurled his arm in front of her, displaying the nearly healed cut. “Compared to the sample in the beaker, my blood was almost as compromised. But now—” He revealed the scalpel in his other hand.
“Rave!” She jolted toward him.
So bold. He hadn’t expected her to react that quickly, so he cut with more urgency than precision. Tracing the line he’d made before, but not so deep, he released the ichor.
The dragon responded to the wound even faster than Piper. Translucent, rainbowed ichor flowed up into the wound, sparking.
Piper jumped back with a yelp. The scalpel melted, and he dropped it before his fingers singed.
The ichor sank back below his skin, with a hiss and a faint whiff of scorched metal. The fresh cut bled for a moment before sealing over.
Piper didn’t try to staunch the bleeding this time.
A twinge of disappointment made him tighten his jaw. He’d shocked her… But then he saw she was staring hard at the wound, brow furrowed in concentration.
“It’s real,” she murmured. “Not a special effect.”
Hell. Wait until she saw the dragon…
“It’s real.”
“What do you call it?”
“Ichor. It’s an inherited trait with my tribe.” As soon as he said tribe, he realized he was revealing too much, but she seemed to take the word as given.
“Everyone who inherits the…ichor eventually suffers the degeneration?”
He hesitated. “Yes. The malady is called petralys.”
“Petra,” she muttered. “Means stone. The initial sample looked like it’s turning to stone.”
“It is.” He’d been over this himself a thousand times—more than a thousand—but for some reason, this time it didn’t feel hopeless. Other dragonkin had tried to help, but he’d always been alone in this task. Not anymore. He saw the wheels turning behind her dark, thoughtful eyes.
“So what made you suspect having sex with me would cure you?”
He stiffened. Was that a thread of hurt in her voice? “Nothing. I didn’t know there’d be any effect. I…I was drawn to you. And we… Only later, when I took a sample of my blood, I saw the change.”
“Mm-hmm. So you decided today to see if you could replicate the results.”
Oh, that was definitely a note of censure.
And he knew it was only going to get worse.
“We can help each other,” he reminded her. “We both have something the other needs.”
She glanced away from him then back. “Right. So you find my friends, and I help you and your brother. You have a security team, and I have… What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wondered if it was merely your presence. But the decaying ichor in the flask isn’t reacting.”
“Maybe I have to be in contact with it.” She averted her gaze. “We touched. A lot.”
The dragon roared a challenge. It would never let her touch another.
Rave managed to restrain the sound, only shook his head curtly. “Except in the rare instances of me slashing myself open, the ichor is confined by my flesh, rather like the sample is contained in the crystal. It didn’t need to have direct physical contact to react to you.”