Page 27 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

CHARLIE

I set the bowl on the table in front of Essa, then stepped back as if I were feeding some dangerous beast or making an offering to a goddess.

Now that I thought about it, neither analogy was too far off…

She stared down at it. “What is this?”

“Cereal,” I said. “Honey O’s. With milk.”

She just looked at me. I cleared my throat.

“I mean, I can cook,” I said, a little defensively. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have bought some eggs and bacon and...”

She arched an eyebrow. Her face… God, I loved that face. Even when she was angry, and cold, and?—

“If you knew I was coming, perhaps you wouldn’t have been here with another woman,” she said.

That one hit me like a bullet. I winced. “That… no. She’s nothing to me.”

“Nothing. So, the two of you have never…?” The implication hung in the air.

“Well… we have… I mean, we were... That was Kitty Rowley. Her ID was in my flight bag, that’s how I had the documents to pose as a reporter when I crashed in Maethalia,” I explained.

Essa nodded slowly. “So that’s your fiancée?”

I winced again. “ Former . Former fiancée. We broke up.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, her voice so cold I was surprised I couldn’t see her breath.

“You know why, Essa,” I sighed. “Because of you. Because every beat of my heart is for you. Every breath is for you. Because I would die to prove the way I feel for you.”

One corner of her lips quirked into a dark half-smile. “You might,” she said.

I frowned, confused. “Might show you?”

“Might die,” she said, picking up the spoon. She took a bite of her cereal. Her eyes went big, and she pointed to the bowl with her spoon. “So good!” she said through a mouth full of O’s. Then she shoveled another bite in.

The next wonder I showed Essa was the shower.

She’d asked for a bath, but my little bachelor’s apartment didn’t offer anything so luxurious as a tub. Still, when I turned on the water in the cramped glass shower enclosure, I might as well have been showing her a three-headed dragon.

She gasped. Clapped. Shook her head in amazement.

“How does the water stay hot? Necromancy?”

Maethalians believed burning fossil fuels was a form of necromancy, since the energy was derived from dead beings. If that was the case, I supposed natural gas fit the bill, too.

“Sure. Necromancy,” I said.

She bit a fingernail. “I shouldn’t use it…”

Necromancy was considered a great evil in Maethalia, something that would one day bring about the demise of the age. She and I had discussed it before, and I was in no mood to argue about it.

I shrugged. “It’s up to you. I just thought you might not want to wander around the greatest city on earth smelling of dragons.”

She glared at me. “First of all, dragons smell wonderful.”

“Sure,” I said. “If you like fireplace soot.”

“...And second, I don’t smell like one.”

I leaned ever so slightly closer to her and inhaled. She did not smell like a dragon. She smelled vaguely sweet and floral. And more than that, she smelled like herself . It stirred longing in me—until she socked me in the chest.

“Ow,” I said, laughing and rubbing the spot where her fist hit. “You don’t smell bad .”

She glared at me. “And you claim you’re not a poet,” she said, underlining her sarcasm with another nudge that backed me out of the doorway.

She slammed it in my face, but it rebounded back open—the latch on that door never worked well.

So, I saw through the crack as she slipped her shoulders out of the dress, then let it fall to the floor.

My eyes traced up her surprisingly muscled legs to the round curve of her ass, the arch of her back, the honey-colored plaits of her hair, before she disappeared behind the shower door.

Steam rendered her form a shapely blur, but I could still see her behind the glass, her back arching as she shampooed her hair.

Involuntarily, my hand went to my pants.

I was hard as a railroad spike, aching. I leaned against the doorframe and slipped my hand into my waistband.

Better to take care of myself, I thought. Then I could leave her alone if she really hated me. Otherwise, not touching her was going to be torture.

My hand worked faster and faster as my eyes hungrily drank in her every curve behind the steamed glass. Faster, and my teeth went on edge. Faster, and fire was rising in me, building up for an explosion. My eyes closed.

There came a clunk , and the hiss of the shower stopped. I wheeled away from the crack in the door, my hand clamped on myself, aching and throbbing with near release.

“A towel?” she called from beyond the door.

Muttering a curse, I grabbed the one I’d left folded on the bed and passed it through the door.

The ache was already radiating through my groin, into my belly.

I should just throw open the door. Rip the towel away. Lay her down on the bed and…

The bathroom door creaked open, and I turned to find Essa looking radiant in her towel. The scarred skin where her missing arm ended just below her elbow was pink from the warm water. Her face was flushed from the heat. God, I envied every drop of water that got to trace its way down her body…

In her hand, she held her dagger.

“Just in case you got any ideas,” she said, brandishing the weapon.

I sat down on the bed heavily, shifting to ease the discomfort in my pants.

“Ideas about what?” I said.

She gave me a sharp look that said she didn’t buy my feigned innocence in the least.

“Now, how do we find Prelate Kortoi?” she asked, taking a comb from my dresser and running it through her long hair.

I tried to think, but the sight of the beads of water tracing down her skin again distracted me. I turned my attention to the carpet and cleared my throat.

“I’ve been thinking about that. He was at the presidential mansion yesterday morning, but that doesn’t mean he’s there now.

And even if he were, we can’t just waltz in there and take him out.

The place is too heavily guarded. Any attack is going to take planning and coordination.

So, step one, we have to find out exactly where he’s going to be and when. Get his schedule and itinerary.”

“How do we do that?” she asked.

“I know someone. A woman who works as a secretary in the State Department. She’d know. Or she could find out.”

“Another woman friend?” The Irska of the Skrathan gave me a dragon’s glare.

I put my hands up defensively. “Just an acquaintance. I swear.”

She relented. “Fine. Where do we find her?”

“On a Saturday? Only one place. The Cat’s Meow. It’s a club over on the west side. Leave it to me. I’ll find her and?—”

“And I’ll come.”

I sighed. “Essa…”

“Why do you say my name like that?” she demanded.

“Like what?”

“It’s like…” she shook her head. “Never mind.”

A moment passed as we gazed at one another. It felt like the tension between us was a tightrope, and balancing on it like an acrobat was everything that had happened in Maethalia. Every beautiful moment. Every kiss. Every lie.

“It’s too risky for you to go to a place like the Cat’s Meow,” I said quietly. “It’s the biggest dance hall in Ironberg. If you were somehow recognized…”

She brandished her dagger. “Listen well, Poet. I don’t trust you. And I’m not letting you out of my sight until Kortoi’s blood is on this blade. Where you go, I go.”

God, she was so damned bossy. It might have been hot—if she weren’t about to puncture my lung with that meat-sticker. Obviously, there was no arguing with her.

“Fine, you can come,” I said. “But you’re going to need a dress.”

“This is an Admite dress,” she protested, holding up the dress she’d been wearing.

I gave the thrift shop gown a once-over. It was simple, casual, and serviceable, but it was nothing fancy.

“It’s a nice dress,” I told her. “But not for the Meow. Let’s go.”