Kiss of the Dragon (35 page)

“So the Beauty de Neige is no longer a maid, is she?” The
smirk that twisted her full lips was not attractive, but Carmen was a jealous
woman and she did not like being done in by a naïve girl who had no notion of
how to pleasure a real man. And this dark knight was a real man in every way.
Her eyes flickered over his broad shoulders and down his muscular body to the
leather breeks he wore that molded tightly over his manly parts. She nearly
licked her lips at the thought of what lay beneath. Yea, a well-built man
indeed. “I must admit that I am not particularly surprised. Her ladyship comes
from gypsy stock, after all. It matters not if she was born of noble blood, she
still has the instinct to spread her legs for the right price.” Carmen ignored
the thunderous look the Black Dragon gave her at her insulting words. She
wanted revenge on the lady at the moment and she meant to do her best to get
some. “Tell me, great lord, I am curious. Just how high of a price did you have
to pay to get her into your bed?”

“What do you want?” The icy words came out one by one in
teeth-snapping precision. Draco balled his fist to keep from wrapping his
fingers around Carmen’s slender neck and choking the life out of her.

“What do you want?” She turned his words back upon him as
the tip of her tongue flicked across her lips. She moved a step closer and laid
a hand on his hard chest, running her palm down as she raised her head,
inviting him to kiss her. She had no modesty in her pursuit of men. Very few
men ever turned down her enticement and she had no doubt that she could seduce
this great stubborn nobleman.

“I want to be left alone,” he said through clenched teeth.

With a succulent pout plumping up her already full lips, she
gazed at him from under long, fringed lashes, her pale blue eyes, sparkling
with promises of heated passion and pleasure. “No,” she breathed as her lips
moved closer to his. “I do not believe you. I think you want,” she rose up on
her toes and pressed her breasts to his chest and moved enticingly against him,
“much more than you will admit.”

“Maybe I do, Carmen, but not from you.”

He caught her hand in midair just before it struck his face.
Her eyes flashed fire in a tantrum when she realized that her efforts to seduce
him had come to naught. She opened her mouth to spew out words of hate and
degradation when her attention was caught by something just beyond Draco’s
shoulder. Instead, she went limp against him so that his arms came around her
to hold her up. She took the opportunity to throw her arms around his neck and
began to kiss him passionately. When he would have pulled back, she held him
tighter so that he could not immediately reject her advances.

The outraged roar that filled the air behind him came with
such severity that Draco thought his head might burst from the intensity of it.
Just as he managed to remove the tenuous grip Carmen had on him, the full force
of a large object hitting him in the side threw him some distance through the
air. He hit the ground hard, landing so close to the campfire that his sleeve
caught fire. Instinct demanded he fight back, so with all of his strength he
kicked the offender off, freeing himself so that he could roll away from the
flames. Batting at his arm, he rose swiftly to his feet into a more
advantageous position to defend himself against the unexpected enemy.

Dust rose in a thick cloud as the two large bodies hit the
ground, but both men were on their feet in a blink of an eye, tensed,
positioned, and ready for the fight. Breathing heavily, nostrils flaring like
two enraged bulls, they faced each other.

It took a moment for Draco’s mind to clear after the initial
attack. When the red haze lifted, he realized that it was the giant, Jabulani,
who had assaulted him and who was even now stalking around the clearing. What
he did not understand was why the giant was trying to kill him. Before Draco
could put forth his query, he only had time to brace for the next attack when
Jabulani came at him again, head down charging like a mad bull straight for his
midsection trying to take him down by cutting him in half.

It was a good move, but not good enough. Jabulani met
Draco’s powerful iron fist with his big nose, which effectively dropped him to
the ground. For a moment, he sat there, stunned, his hands covering his nose
while blood seeped between his fingers. Hate-filled eyes looked up at Draco and
then, with a bellow of rage, Jabulani was on his feet, coming at him again.
Draco fended him off with several evasive moves that kept the giant moving in
circles. With every blow, more blood splattered the ground. The sounds of flesh
hitting flesh, grunts and groans filled the morning air as the two circled and
came together to wrestle and pound his opponent. As time passed, it was obvious
that Draco would come out the victor. He finally did no more than defend
himself while Jabulani staggered and nearly fell several times.

“Are you ready to tell me why you are attempting to beat the
shit out of me?”

Jabulani’s only answer was a snarl and he made another
attempt to overpower Draco. But the Black Dragon of Normandy had been a soldier
for too many years to be outmaneuvered by a less experienced man. He had
learned how to survive in battle as well as on the road between conflicts. Many
of the scars he now carried had been attained not from war but from surviving
the fragile armistice between wars. Draco could not count the number of times
he had had to fight to save his hide. More times than he cared to remember. But
this challenge was not one that he had ever expected to face. He had come in
search of Jabulani, or at the very least to learn what he could about the
attack on the bodyguard who had been with Bianca when she was taken by outlaws
several days before. Not only had he found Jabulani, he was now in a battle of
strength with the huge man. Draco braced himself for one more assault and when
it came, he easily evaded being trampled to death by the great raging man by
spinning to his left.

As Jabulani rushed by, Draco brought his large hand down
forcefully on Jabulani’s back effectively knocking him to the ground where he
lay gasping for breath.

“What goes on here, Jabulani?” Draco demanded breathing
heavily after the battle he had just been through. He placed a large boot atop
the man’s back, putting great pressure on him to keep his face down in the
dust.

“You dare to ask me such a question, you bastard swine!”
Jabulani roared even as his face pressed to the dirt. He twisted his head and
glared fiercely up at Draco, hissing through clenched teeth, “You came here
seeking the pleasure of a gypsy whore only hours after bedding my Beauty. For
that alone, you deserve the worst kind of death.”

Jabulani had completely misinterpreted his reasons for
coming to the Rom encampment. Taken aback by the venomous look with which the
huge man speared him, Draco scowled. He glanced at Carmen who stood in the
background smiling triumphantly at the fight that had nearly maimed him and
nearly killed Jabulani. His mind ran over the incident from beginning to finish
in quick flashes of memory. He understood how the scheming gypsy woman had
managed to make the little performance she had played out look like he had
indeed come here for sexual pursuits. The thought of dishonoring Bianca in such
a loathsome way disgusted him. He had come here for one purpose and he was not
about to let this situation get out of control.

“I have done nothing wrong here. But you, my friend, have
much to answer for.”

“What?!” The change of expression on the battered, bloody
face was almost laughable. He bucked up against Draco’s foot trying to gain his
freedom as he demanded, “Get your damned foot off me and let me up!”

“What goes here? Why do you have Jabulani on the ground,
Draco?” Cynric was suddenly beside his brother looking down at the bloody,
dirt-streaked Jabulani who tried to get to his feet. Cynric glanced at his
brother’s face and found it bruised and bloody but not nearly as bad as the
giant beneath his feet.

“It seems that the man has a death wish. He attacked me
without provocation and I had no choice but to subdue him to get his attention.
Then again, he had the gall to insult my integrity, which in my mind demands
that I teach him a lesson about making snap judgments about a man’s intentions.
This seems to be the only way to get his attention and hold it.”

“You have made your point, great knight. Now have the
courtesy to remove your foot from my back.” Jabulani made the request in a
deep, growling pronouncement.

“I will let you up only when I am sure that you understand
just how far reaching your actions to date have been.” The back beneath his
heel tensed.

With a groan of surrender, Jabulani’s body relaxed.

Draco took the action as a sign that the giant bodyguard was
finally willing to listen to his reprimand. “Your disappearance deeply hurt
Bianca. She thought you had been killed and, on her behalf. I sent out men to
look for you or to at least retrieve your body. When nothing was found, I had
not the heart to diminish her hope by telling her that the searching might be
fruitless. She has been beside herself with worry for you, you great fool. And
then this morning, I find that you have been hiding here in the Rom encampment
all the time. Now what I want to know is why you did not bother letting someone
at Castle Neige know where you were and in what condition. Did you not swear to
the Duke de Neige that you would protect his daughter at all costs?”

“Yea, Lord Draco. And that is what I have done.” Draco eased
his foot up off Jabulani’s back letting the man sit up, but he watched him with
a wary eye.

“Explain yourself.”

“The day her ladyship and I left the castle to ride to meet
you, we were attacked by highwaymen. I fought to keep her safe but I was
knocked from my horse and rendered unconscious. Those who sought to do harm to
my Beauty must have thought me dead for when I awoke sometime later, I lay on
the side of the trail alone. My lady was gone, as were my weapons and my
horse.”

Draco could tell by the bitterness in his voice that
Jabulani would never forgive himself for his failure that day.

“When I was able, I tracked the outlaws to the glade where
they planned to ambush you. I watched as they tied my lady and sat her in the
middle of the trail as bait in a trap. I watched you arrive and the sequence of
events that followed. I vowed that if you failed to rescue Beauty I would
charge the ruffians and butcher every one of them. But you took charge and did
the rescuing yourself. You succeeded where I had not.”

His derisive laugh brought some of the boundless humor he
was well known for back to the bodyguard’s face. “But even as you snatched my
Beauty from the clutches of the villain who dared to strike at her, the bastards
escaped the righteous justice that they deserved. My duty was to follow them
and seek revenge for what they had done. And in truth, I believe that my Beauty
is still in danger. I lost the outlaw’s trail when it merged with the road to
the castle. It is my belief that whoever tried to harm my Beauty resides within
the walls of Castle Neige.

“That is why I have been hiding here among the Rom.”
Jabulani stood and gazed around the camp in the early morning light that
filtered through the thick growth of trees. “I am safe here among my people. No
Rom would ever betray one of his own. They keep their secrets well.”

His gaze followed Carmen as the little dancer edged away and
melted into the crowd. He had been watching her since the first night she had
danced at the castle and had tried to seduce Lord Draco. He knew that she was
capable of many things but hoped that she had not betrayed her people’s trust.
The crowd that had gathered during the fight began to thin as many of the band
wandered away. The excitement was over. The gypsies returned to their mundane
tasks, leaving the three men to sort out the mystery as best they could with
what information was available to them.

“The villain that masterminded the attack on the Lady Bianca
is unaware that I survived. I have the anonymity to pursue the villain and, at
the present time, I am very close to finding out his true identity.”

“You have uncovered a plot against Bianca’s life?” Draco
could scarcely give credence to such a thing. But then as he thought back to
the ambush in the woods, it began to make sense. At the time, he had thought he
was the intended target. But apparently, someone had such animosity for Bianca
that they had gone so far as to hire assassins to do away with the Beauty de
Neige.

“Yea, it is so. But I have not yet discovered a name or a
face to give you, though I have a thought or two on who it could be.” While he
spoke, a young gypsy woman came forward with a bowl of water and a rag. She
offered both timidly to Lord Draco.

“Thank you, Lina.” Jabulani took the woman’s hand and pulled
her forward. “I would introduce my wife to you, Great Dragon. This is Lina.
Curtsy to the lord, Lina. He is a great warrior and champion of the King of
France.” The young woman dropped to her knees and murmured a greeting so low
that it was impossible to discern what she said. Then Jabulani urged her to her
feet and pulled her to him, holding her tight to his side, dropping a kiss on
her soft hair. The olive-skinned young beauty clung to him as if he might
disappear. She was so tiny that Jabulani’s huge arm around her shoulders nearly
hid her from the other men. And it was evident the giant man loved his small
wife deeply. That Bianca had never mentioned her bodyguard having a wife should
not have bothered Draco, but it did. It showed him that they were very much
strangers. That thought disconcerted him more than he cared to admit,
especially after what they had shared. As Draco watched the couple before him,
a sense of envy enveloped him. He realized that he might never know such
closeness. Even if his feelings for Bianca were great, he could never admit
them.