Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

H e walked across the darkening desert from the direction of the shallow canyon that cut across the land, where he'd probably descended. He was dressed in his usual black suit and long duster coat, looking utterly comfortable in them. The night was cooling rapidly, but it was still warm for so much clothing.

The man's long black hair was in a neat ponytail, which accentuated the sharp bones of his face. He had dark skin and dark brown eyes that became very black when he forgot he was in human form instead of dragon.

I had to admit that Drake was attractive, and I understood why my half-sister Gabrielle had once made a play for him. She'd then dumped him for Colby, who actually has a sense of humor, as well as a warm heart.

Drake halted about twenty feet from me and waited for me to approach. As I neared him, I saw that he was carrying what looked like a bowling bag. An ordinary, blue canvas bag, made for a single ball, with a yellow starburst stitched into one corner .

I stared at the incongruous bag so hard that I nearly ran into Drake, who had to steady me with a firm hand.

"I need to speak to you, Janet."

I hadn't figured he'd flown out here from the dragon compound for a singalong.

Drake as dragon was satiny black, with no markings at all. When he turned human, his wings became a spreading tattoo on his back, its inked ends rising up his neck to embrace his cheeks.

He was a beautiful dragon and a handsome human, but he'd only stare at anyone who told him so. Drake had no ego about his looks.

About his intellect, on the other hand … Drake believed he was more intelligent than anyone else on the planet. Probably off the planet too, if he thought about it.

"All right, then," I said. "Speak."

Drake frowned, never pleased with my glib tone. "Inside. Where we can be private."

"In the hotel? I have a number of guests at the moment." I spread my arms to indicate we stood on empty land. "There's no one out here."

"That does not mean no one can listen," Drake said. "You or your manager can make certain we aren't overheard inside. Or seen."

He had a point. The desert was quiet, but any number of animals who flew or skittered by might be Changers, and there were other beings who could hide in the dark.

I was intrigued by Drake's need for privacy but still wary. "I need your promise that you won't try to burn down my hotel or destroy anything or anyone in it. I've already had one incident today, and I don't need Cassandra passing out when she receives yet another repair bill. "

Drake lifted his brows, but he didn't ask about the incident. Shit happened at my hotel all the time. If it didn't involve him, he wasn't interested.

"You have my word," Drake said.

I didn't have to ask for a handshake or a contract written in blood to believe him. If Drake vowed to keep his flames to himself, he would. He was the most painfully honorable being I'd ever met, even when he was doing his best to kill me.

"All right, then." I turned away and started walking back to the hotel. Drake followed in utter silence.

The night had cooled, the breeze growing sharper. We could experience some serious wind out here, gusting up to fifty miles per hour on any given day. Drake's long coat didn't seem so foolish as the evening temperature steadily dropped. The bowling bag was still weird, though, unless he'd used it for carrying his clothes. I'd expect Drake to have a fine leather suitcase for that, monogrammed, with a brass lock and a little key.

Amber lights swept the darkness on the other side of the railroad bed. A tow truck had arrived to retrieve the pickup, chains rattling as a man hooked up the tow rig. I wasn't surprised to see the name Hansen blazed on the side of the large red truck. Fremont, my plumber, had a sideline in hauling stranded vehicles to the local garage.

The state troopers and county deputies had departed, leaving Emilio Salas in charge of cleanup. He was laughing about something with Fremont, and when he saw us climbing down the bank, he turned his engaging smile on me.

"Can you believe it, Janet?" he asked. "Jones's grandfather . This truck is stolen, too. Reported missing from an assisted living place in Flagstaff. Apparently, the keys were left in it, so Jones Senior jumped in and took off." Salas shook with more laughter. "Wonder if the sheriff will really lock his old grandad in a jail cell."

"I wouldn't put it past him," I said. Nash didn't tolerate lawbreaking from anyone. Kind of like Drake, who stood silently behind me, uninterested in the weird things humans got up to.

Fremont ducked out from behind the tow truck, finished hooking up the other vehicle. "Crazy, huh, Janet? This is a beautiful pickup. Hope the old guy didn't damage it too much."

"I'm sure the owner hopes not too. How are things with you?"

Fremont was a genuinely nice guy, with a kindness that was worth far more than Drake's dark attractiveness. Fremont's hair was thinning on top, and his face couldn't be described as more than plain, but his smile was winning. He'd recently fallen for a lady named Flora, a minor witch who worked at my hotel.

"Can't complain." Fremont gave me a modest shrug. "If you see Flora inside, will you tell her I'll be a little late tonight? Have to get this to the impound in Flat Mesa."

"Sure, but can't you text her?" I could never keep track of my own phone, but normal people like Flora and Fremont seemed to manage to.

Fremont grimaced. "Texting is so impersonal, isn't it? We can use devices to connect to people around the world, but it's no substitute for talking face-to-face."

No wonder Flora liked him. "I'll tell her. Good night, Fremont. Salas. "

"Night, Janet." Fremont went back to check his tow connection.

Salas, still beaming, bade me a good night. He sent a quizzical glance at Drake, who stood beside me in total silence. I shook my head to indicate I couldn't explain Drake and started for the hotel. Drake crunched through the gravel behind me.

I started to lead Drake to the back door, to my private suite, but he stopped me. "No. Somewhere your magic mirror won't listen and where Micalerianicum's aura hasn't permeated."

"Mick warded the entire hotel," I said in impatience. "His aura has permeated , as you say, everywhere."

"Not as deeply as in your bedchamber. He is your mate, after all."

It still weirded me out to hear Mick and I referred to as mates . Not partners, lovers, or boyfriend and girlfriend, but mates. Like we were wolves. I supposed one day I'd get used to it.

The turquoise, onyx, and silver ring I wore gave a little throb. Mick had put a bit of his own essence into it, a piece of his true name, something dragons trusted no one with. The ring tingled sometimes, when I thought of him, letting me know he was all right.

"Fine," I said. I didn't really want Drake in the bedroom where Mick and I made sweet love, anyway. "My office."

I led the way through the back door and along the narrow hall past my bedroom and into the hotel itself.

When we emerged into the lobby, I saw with dismay that the Horribles, guests who'd arrived this past Saturday, had filed out of the saloon. The youngest daughter, Allie, who was in her thirties, wobbled in a spin in the middle of the room, nearly crashing into the sculpture of the black stone coyote that stood on its pedestal near the stairs.

"Did you see all those bikers?" she bellowed at her collective family—parents, three grown daughters, and assortment of husbands—who were plopping onto sofas and chairs. "I used to hang out with bikers—remember? And the guy with the square beard who puked all over our living room that one time?" She screamed with laughter. "Way before I met you, honey," she said to a lanky young man with long, thin legs bared by Bermuda shorts.

The husband, instead of greeting this tale with a long-suffering expression, burst out laughing. "You've told me that story a million times."

"Allie puked as much as any of them," her eldest sister Yvonne said. "Especially when she was smoking weed."

"I never did any weed. That was you ." Allie pointed at Yvonne. "Don't you remember?"

"Let's go to the diner," another of the husbands said with restlessness. He hadn't sat still since he'd arrived. "We can tell them all about the thousand bikers surrounding the hotel."

"That guy in the truck almost ran into us," Allie said, her eyes growing wide. "I would have died if he'd gone through the window. I bet I would have died. Mom, do you think I would have died?"

The middle daughter hopped out of her chair, cutting off whatever their rather weary mother was going to say. "If we're going to the diner, we have to change. What do you wear to a small-town diner? Should I wear my jeans? I brought some cowboy boots—oh, wait, no I didn't. Are there any stores still open? I need some cowboy boots. "

"What you have is fine," the mother said firmly. "Come on. Let's go up and see what we can find."

"Hurry back," one of the husbands said in a suggestive tone as the women all rushed the staircase, bumping into each other in their haste.

The father of the family, a slender man with gray hair and a trim white beard, lolled back in his chair, eyes closed. A soft snore emitted from his lips.

As I led the way to my office, the three husbands stared in blatant envy at the elegantly dressed Drake, who ignored them completely.

Cassandra sat behind the reception counter, pretending to study her laptop, but the tightening of the lines around her eyes betrayed her annoyance with our guests.

We'd labeled the family "The Horribles" about five minutes into their stay. They were ordinary humans, nothing magical about them, but I worried they'd scare away all our supernatural customers who came to the Crossroads for a little peace. The Horribles had arrived for the weekend but soon professed love for the out-of-the-way hotel in the out-of-the-way town and decided to stay for a week. Sadly, we'd had the room, and Cassandra did not want to turn down a lucrative opportunity.

I gave Cassandra Fremont's message to pass to Flora if she saw our maid before I did. Cassandra nodded and greeted Drake politely. He returned the greeting with as much cordiality. Cassandra was one human Drake respected.

I ushered Drake into my office, removed the shard of magic mirror that sat on my desk, and took it out to Cassandra. "He wants to be private," I whispered to her when she gave me a look of amazement .

"Not fair!" the mirror wailed. "Drake's so pretty."

"Deal with it," I told the mirror, returned to the office, and shut the door.

Mick and I had taken shards of the original mirror, which hung broken in its frame in the saloon, to use as communication devices. More reliable than a satellite phone, though only to those it was bound to. Mick and I had awakened the magic mirror one night, and it had latched on to us. Mirrors were very, very powerful talismans, but I still debated whether us stumbling upon it had been good luck or bad.

I couldn't trust that the mirror wouldn't broadcast whatever Drake said to me to other magical people in the building. A handy thing if Drake put me in danger, but the mirror also might decide to let others eavesdrop just to be a pain in the ass.

Drake moved to the long window and closed the slats of the wooden shutter, blotting out the brightening moonlight. I turned on the lamp on my desk, illuminating my closed laptop and the photo of my dad, stiff and unsmiling, in its silver frame. Pete Begay hated having his picture taken. He'd only let me snap that one because he loved me.

"What's this all about?" I asked Drake.

Drake turned to the desk and set the bag on top of it. I was right—it was a bowling bag, one large enough for a single ball and accessories, zipped shut.

"I need you to keep this for me," he said.

"Your favorite ball?" Nervous laughter bubbled inside me. I couldn't imagine Drake donning bowling shoes and tearing up the lanes in Santa Fe.

"It is not a ball," Drake said tightly. "It is an item of great delicacy. "

Better and better. Why couldn't a powerful dragon like Drake take care of something fragile? My suspicions rose. He would only come to me if he couldn't trust other dragons—or anyone else, for that matter—about this.

I couldn't take the suspense anymore. I undid the wide zipper and peered inside the bag.

Tucked into the foam recess meant to hold a heavy bowling ball was an oval object made of what looked like jade. Its color was pale, with only a hint of green. Bands of gold encircled the white jade piece, and tiny green jewels were embedded where the bands intersected. I hoped they were simply sparkling green stones, but I suspected that they were real emeralds.

"You're trusting me with a Fabergé egg?" I asked. "A really big one." The original Fabergé eggs were about the size of ostrich eggs. This was a foot in diameter and eighteen inches tall. "Is this from your hoard?" I had a worrying thought. "Or did you steal it from someone else's?"

Dragons could fight each other to the death over a small necklace, Mick had once told me. I didn't need to get between dragons battling over a trinket.

"It is not a Fabergé egg." Drake was losing patience with me. "It has nothing to do with a deceased Czarist Russian jeweler. This is a dragon egg. It needs to stay somewhere safe, and this is the most secure place on earth I could think of."