Dragos Takes A Holiday

Chapter Eight

“Already? That’s amazing.” She touched the blackened letters on the wood wonderingly.

He grinned. “I would have found it eventually, but I got lucky. I used what you gave me and followed the current off the north shore. The wreck is quite a ways out and it’s deep. It’s no wonder nobody has found it before now. There’s only a few submersibles in the world that can dive down that far.”

Pia glanced at him with an inward smile. He always had a vital, powerful presence, but now his dark bronze skin looked burnished, and his gold eyes shone with radiance. “Come inside and tell me all about it. Liam’s gone down for a nap. Eva and Hugh barbequed steaks for lunch, and they set aside plenty for you.”

His expression flared with interest. He propped the plank beside the back door and followed her inside. The interior was much cooler than outside. They had closed up the house and turned on the air condition. While he washed up, Pia piled the steaks on a plate for him and set it on the dining room table in the large, sunlit kitchen.

He thanked her as he sat at the table and began to eat. Pia eased into the seat across from him, and Eva and Hugh came to join them while Dragos told him about his flight and the search in between large bites of the juicy meat.

“By the time I found it, I was getting tired and needed air, so I wasn’t able to stay down for very long.” He sprinkled salt on the steak. “I didn’t have a chance to examine the wreck too closely, but I did notice there was a jagged break toward the back third of the ship, between where the main mast would have been and the rear mast. It would have been a hell of a storm to cause that kind of damage. Poor bastards never had a chance.”

“So there is at least one magic item with the wreck?” Pia asked.

“Yes.” He polished off the last bite with a satisfied sigh. “In fact there are several. I want to go back down, maybe first thing tomorrow morning, and see what I can bring up.”

Pia nodded. “I wish I could come with you.”

Pushing away his plate, he crossed his arms on the table and smiled at her. “You could, at least in a boat. You would have to wait on the surface, but if we took a boat out, I could make a couple of dives to bring things back up.”

She clapped her hands. “Let’s rent one!”

He grinned. “You bet.”

Eva spoke up. “I looked through the brochures the rental agency left. You can rent a boat from them. I’ll give them a call.”

“Great.” Pia looked at Dragos. “So that’s tomorrow morning. What do you want to do this afternoon?”

“You relax, enjoy the sun.” Dragos pushed away from the table and stood. His face turned sharp as a blade. “I’m going to go on the hunt for a big Light Fae male who is not a nice man.”

Pia stood too, quickly. That dangerous face was so sexy it made her knees weak. Sometimes she still wasn’t quite sure of her reactions to Dragos. “I’m coming with you.”

His inky-black eyebrows drew together in a frown. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Well, I do.” She put her hands on her hips. “You know what’s going to happen if we find him. He’s going to be an asshole, and, Dragos, you can’t kill him just because he’s an asshole. You’re not Lord of these islands.”

He regarded her with a dark expression. “Fine. Come on.”

Pia looked at Eva. “We’ll be back later.”

The other woman’s face was full of suppressed amusement. “Have fun.”

Dragos went out the back door to get the plank of wood, which he set on the floor of the backseat of the Mercedes. They took off.

That afternoon Pia developed a healthy respect for how many bars, restaurants, grocery and marina supply stores, and fishing shops could be found in the Bermuda islands. Dragos was single-minded and didn’t tire, and she was determined to keep up with him.

They scored a hit with their perseverance in Hamilton Harbor a couple of hours later. After Dragos parked, they walked along the rows of shops and bars at the edge of the marina.

Almost immediately, Dragos’s nostrils flared. “He’s here. Hold on a minute.”

Dragos had literally been in the Light Fae male’s face last night, so he had to have gotten a good fix on the other male’s scent. Thank God. Pia was hot, tired and thirsty. She just didn’t have a hunter’s drive or instinct. If it had been up to her, she would have quit searching an hour ago.

She stood waiting while he strode back to the SUV. When he returned, he gripped the plank in one hand. Then he led the way unerringly to a bar located at the end of the lane, pushed open the door and strode in.

Bracing herself for whatever came next, Pia followed.

Inside, the décor was sturdy rather than elegant. Wide windows faced the water. They had been propped open in the heat of the day. Wooden tables dotted the floor, and tall stools lined the bar against the interior wall. Loud music played, the place was crowded, and it smelled of alcohol and fried food.

Pia spotted the Light Fae male right away, leaning against the bar. This time he appeared to be alone.

Despite the noisy, crowded atmosphere, Dragos’s fiery presence drew attention. People fell silent, and the clink of cutlery against dishes ceased.

At the bar, the Light Fae male turned. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of Dragos and Pia. He straightened, and his smile was more of a sneer.

“Get out,” Dragos said. The dragon was in his voice.

Except for the Light Fae male, all the customers rushed for the door. Pia barely had time to move aside. Within seconds the place was empty except for, Dragos, Pia, the Light Fae male, and the bartender and wait staff who moved to one side of the room as they watched nervously.

The scene should have been ridiculous, but somehow it wasn’t. Dragos tossed the plank onto the floor in front of the other man, and the Light Fae male’s sneering smile vanished.

“I located the Sebille.” Dragos strolled toward the other man. “And I’m going to bring up everything I can from it.”

The Light Fae male’s gaze flared as he stared at the plank at his feet. When he looked up again at Dragos, his gaze had turned flat and ugly. He said in a strongly accented voice, “That wreck, and everything on it, is mine. You made a big mistake, and not a healthy one for either you or your pretty companion.”

Pia heaved a sigh. He did not just say that, did he? To Dragos, of all people.

Dragos blurred. He took hold of the Light Fae male in both hands, lifted him in the air and twisted at the waist to slam him into a table so hard the table collapsed, with him on it. Dragos followed him down, kneeling to hold the other man pinned by the throat.

“Aaaand, that’s assault and battery,” Pia muttered.

Did officials in another country have the legal authority to throw the head of an Elder demesne in jail? She didn’t know the answer to that. Not that it necessarily mattered, since the question was purely hypothetical. If it came to that, the authorities couldn’t trap him long enough to put him in jail, and anyway, Dragos would demolish any building with jail cells in it. The whole thing would become a legal snarl that would clog up the Elder tribunal for months and years. No wonder Dragos’s lawyers were so rich. He was a litigator’s wet dream.

She pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off a growing headache. She noticed one of the waitstaff was on the phone, no doubt calling the local police.

The Light Fae male struggled, but he could gain no purchase against the iron hand that gripped him. “Your mistakes are getting worse, my friend,” he hissed. “There are many more of us than there are of you.”

“You dare to threaten me?” Dragos hauled the Light Fae male close to his hard, angry face. “My wife says that I can’t kill you for being an asshole. She has a much kinder heart than I do. If you or any of your men come anywhere near us, I will take you apart. Slowly.”

The Light Fae male’s face purpled. He clawed at Dragos’s hand and spat out a long string of words in the strange language Pia had noticed last night. She didn’t have to understand what he said to know he wasn’t apologizing.

Pia tried smiling at the waitstaff. They stared at her, frozen. She said, “We’ll pay for the damages, of course, and for everybody’s meal.”

Dragos threw the Light Fae male one-handed across the room. He slammed into the wall and slumped to the floor. Then Dragos stood. He was so quick, so inhumanly graceful for his massive size, that just the simple movement of rising to his feet made the skin at the back of Pia’s neck prickle.

It would set a very bad precedent if he had any clue how he affected her when he behaved so badly, so she tried to play it cool. “You’ve had your fun. Are you done now?”

Eyes still glowing with fury, he stretched his neck and nodded. He bent to pick up the plank and said to the bartender, “Send the bill to Cuelebre Enterprises.”

The bartender nodded.

The Light Fae male lifted his head. His expression underwent a drastic transformation. “Draco.”

Finally. Now that the other male had realized who Dragos was, maybe he would grow some sanity and leave them the hell alone.

Dragos reached Pia, his face like a thundercloud. She held the door open for him. Neither one of them said a word until they had walked back to the SUV. He unlocked the doors with the key fob and threw the plank into the backseat again while Pia climbed in the front.

Sirens sounded in the distance. They grew closer rapidly. For a moment neither Pia nor Dragos moved.

She didn’t even try to hold back on the sarcasm. “I think it went well, don’t you?”

Dragos angled his head and just looked at her. Then he started the engine and drove them back to the house.

When they stepped indoors, Pia tried to shake off the tension that had bunched the muscles between her shoulders. Liam had woken up from his nap and was playing on the floor. As he caught sight of them, he squealed in excitement and crawled toward them.

Dragos scooped him up and sat on one of the couches. Smiling at the baby’s happiness, she joined them.

It took the authorities forty-five minutes to find them. When the knock came at the door, Pia took Liam and grinned at Dragos. “We’re going to go play somewhere else for a while.”

His mouth twitched. Enough time had gone by to allow for his temper to lighten. “Have fun.”

Eva followed Pia and Liam outside, carrying wineglasses and a blanket to spread out on for the baby. They walked down to the beach.

Pia settled on one corner of the blanket. Seagulls hovered over silver-capped waves. The early-evening sun on the water was simply spectacular. She took a deep, satisfying breath of fresh air. “You know, a year ago, I would have stayed in the living room to talk to the police with him, and I would have been all twisted up and anxious about it. Then I realized this stuff doesn’t bother Dragos at all. And I mean, not in the slightest. So why should I get wound up if he doesn’t?”

“You shouldn’t.” Eva kicked one foot over the other and stretched out.

Liam pointed at the seagulls, crowed and flapped his arms. Pia and Eva laughed at his round eyes and excited expression.

Twenty minutes later Dragos strolled onto the beach. He told Eva, “Why don’t you and Hugh take the evening off?”

“You sure?” Eva climbed to her feet. “We haven’t really done anything since we got here.”

Dragos looked at Pia, who nodded. “I’m sure,” he replied. “Just stay close, and stay aware. Let us know if you notice anything that seems off.”

“Will do.” Eva grinned. “Have a good evening.”

“Thanks, you too,” Pia said. Dragos stretched out on the blanket beside her. She handed him her glass of wine while Liam crawled energetically over to climb on his legs. “What did the police have to say?”

“Not much.” He handed the glass back to her, stripped off his T-shirt and stretched out with his arms behind his head. “The Light Fae’s name is Rageon Merrous, and he’s been on their radar for some time. He started showing up on the islands around forty years ago. He’s been linked to the disappearance of a few people and implicated in accidents involving others, but they haven’t actually caught him in a crime, nor have they been able to bring charges against him for anything specific. He was gone from the bar by the time they got there. They’re going to send a police car to patrol this neighborhood while we’re here.”

The sight of his bare chest never failed to bring down the level of her concentration. His physique was simply tremendous. A sprinkle of black hair arrowed down the heavy, powerful muscles in his chest. She laid a hand on the ridged muscles of his warm abdomen and looked out to sea so that she could gain some coherency of mind again. He placed one hand over hers and laced their fingers together.

She asked, “Why does he think the Sebille is his?”

He moved under her hand in a shrug. “Who knows? Maybe he’s a family member of one of the ship’s crew. Maybe he feels he’s entitled to it because he’s been looking for the wreck for so long. Treasure hunters are an obsessive lot, and they can get pretty crazy, especially if they’ve sunk any kind of capital into a serious search.”

“If he’s a family member, does he have a point? I mean, would he have a claim on anything in the wreck?”

“There’s a difference in maritime law regarding salvage versus treasure hunting. Salvage involves recovering property where owners have the right to compensation or return of their property. Treasure hunting is a separate matter, because usually there’s no owner to make a claim on the property.” He shrugged again. “That gets more tangled in Elder law, since so many of us are so long-lived. In this case, though, it’s fairly simple. The one with any potentially legitimate claim is Tatiana as the sponsor of the original expedition. The bottom line is, Merrous doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

She contemplated that for a few moments. “What about Tatiana?”

“If she’s interested in whatever is on that wreck, she can file a petition with the Elder tribunal.” He yawned. “But it’s just as likely she won’t care enough to pay the legal costs.”

She had to smile to herself. Of course he knew so much about treasure rights in maritime law. “So that’s it.”

“Pretty much.” He closed his eyes. “Unless you let me kill him.”

“Oh, no,” she said strongly, twisting at the waist to scowl at him. “You cannot put that on me. You know as well as I do, you can’t kill somebody just because they’re an asshole. We’ve heard some hearsay and a lot of suspicion, but we don’t know if Merrous has actually done anything wrong. If he becomes a real problem, then one way or another we’ll take care of him. Until then, all of this is just male posturing and hot air.”

His smile was lazy and relaxed. “Fair enough.”

Liam had managed to climb on top of Dragos’s legs. Now he crawled up his father’s torso, his small face determined. As Liam kneed Dragos in the crotch, Dragos jackknifed onto his side, laughing, and they dropped the subject for the evening.

After a while Pia went up to the house to collect snacks and another bottle of wine for dinner, and they stayed out on the beach to watch the sunset. She nursed the baby, who fell asleep on her. She, in turn, curled against Dragos’s chest, while he put his arms around her. When she tilted her head back to smile at him, he covered her mouth with his and kissed her with a slow, leisurely thoroughness that never failed to heat her blood.

Happy, she thought. I’m too happy.

She banished that traitorous thought firmly and eventually fell asleep.

She woke sometime later to movement. Dragos had wrapped her and the baby in the blanket and carried them up the path to the house. She yawned and mumbled, “Stuff on the beach.”

“We’ll get it in the morning,” he said quietly.

He carried them through the shadowed, empty house and laid them gently on the bed. Then he gathered up Liam’s small, sleeping form to carry him to his crib in the other bedroom. Pia yawned again so widely her jaw popped and pushed off the bed to go to the bathroom, wash up and brush her teeth. On the way back to bed, she peeled off her clothes and let them drop to the floor. Those could be picked up in the morning too.

A few minutes later, Dragos joined her. She rolled toward him as he slid under the covers. He was naked too, and she sighed as she came up against his long, muscled body. The comfort of nestling skin to skin with him was indescribable. She needed it as much as she needed air, or food. She rubbed her face against the warm skin of his chest while he ran his hands down the curves of her body and caressed her breasts. He let out a quiet hiss when she stroked his large, hard erection and the tight, full sac underneath.

She gave herself over to languid instinct and slid down the sheets while he rolled onto his back and stroked her hair. By now they knew how this dance would go, but instead of familiarity breeding boredom, it fueled the excitement.

She knew what would happen when she put her mouth on him. She knew what he tasted like, and she craved it. She craved him. It was an incomparably sweet ache that leavened every part of her day. She lived her life in a state of constant questioning.

Where will he be next? When will I see him again? In the living room? In the kitchen? Will we have time to shower together in the morning?

How can I bear to be apart from him for an entire day?

Sometimes they didn’t manage it, and they came together in a heated rush at lunchtime. Then they created a fire that burned so beautifully.

That was how she felt then, as she opened her mouth and took him in. She sucked on the broad head of his penis, swirling her tongue around the small slit at the tip. He swore, a low, rapid stream of unintelligible words, while his body turned rigid.

It hurts, it hurts, she wanted to tell him. But she had lost the capacity for telepathy. A tear slipped down her cheek from the ache of it. She opened her throat and took him all in. He pumped into her mouth, hips flexing. She could not get close enough, could not take him in deeply enough.

When he grasped her head in both hands and pulled her away, she made a needy sound and tried to pull him back to her. He refused, hauled her bodily up the bed and came between her knees. Then she understood what he wanted, and she welcomed him greedily.

“I can’t ever get enough of you,” he whispered against her mouth as he positioned the tip of his cock at her opening.

“Me neither. Hurry.” She gripped the back of his neck.

He pierced her, drew back and pierced her again, and that was the thing she needed, as they came together in the most intimate dance of all. She lifted her hips to meet his thrusts, flexing inside in the way she knew would bring him the most pleasure.

He gasped, shook his head and quickened the rhythm. Then he leaned on one arm and slid a hand between them. She was so ready, she climaxed as soon as he touched her. A high, thin whine came out of her, and she shook all over as the exquisite ripples conquered her body.

He thrust harder and quicker, once, twice, and then he arched his back as his own climax came. She held her breath so that she could feel everything as the hard, thick length of him pulsed inside of her.

There. There. Such sweet, beautiful fire.