Love Burns (3 page)

“And that’s my cue to exit,” Olivia said quickly, and vanished into the crowd.

Olivia threaded her way through fire and ice dragons, head down so she could avoid the gaze of Ichabod, who had climbed up on a bench and was scanning the crowd. He was tall and had a beak of a nose and a sour, pinched expression. She couldn’t believe her father was trying to marry her off to that man.

Yes she could. Ichabod owned several gold mines, and although her father and his clan were wealthy, they liked to live extremely well. Were they running out of her mother’s money, Olivia wondered, or were they just always greedy for more?

She couldn’t make it to the parking lot from where she was without having to pass by Ichabod. The only place she could hide was the storage building. If she ducked in there for a bit, hopefully Ichabod would move on and she could make a graceful exit.

She was in luck. The back door was unlocked, and she quickly slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her.

Then she began feeling her way down the hallway. It was pitch dark.

She ran right into someone – a very tall, muscular someone – and let out a startled shriek. The man clapped his hand over her mouth and dragged her behind a stack of cardboard boxes. They were crammed into a tight little corner, she couldn’t see a thing, and he was pressing her up against the wall. And her body was suddenly tingling in a highly embarrassing fashion; whoever this guy was, he was a solid wall of muscle.

Am I really that pathetic that I’m turned on by a random burglar?
She had to get away from him.

She bit his hand.

“Ouch!” She heard Calder swear. He pulled his hand away.

Well, that was sort of a relief. At least she wasn’t that much of a pervert; she wasn’t turned on by a random burglar, she was turned on by Calder.

Wait. That was worse. She couldn’t be turned on by Calder. He was a fire dragon and a jerk.

“Calder, what the hell are you doing in here?” she demanded.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I asked you first,” she said with annoyance.

“Keep it down. I’m on a stakeout. Some of the halflings have been breaking in and stealing crates of food and candy from here,” he said.

“Halflings?”

“The Mortensen family. They live on the outskirts of your side of town. They’re half ice dragon, half human. The males all have one blue eye and one brown, and they can’t shift but they can blow some cold air. That’s why they’re called halflings.”

Voices passed by outside, then faded away.

“I’m hiding out from the man my father’s trying to marry me off to,” she whispered. “So you need to get out, because there’s no room in here.”

Olivia’s eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, and she could see Calder looking down at her with amusement.

“Nope. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’d rather me be forced into a marriage to a man who fought on the wrong side of the revolutionary war?” It was true. Ichabod was that old, and he’d fought for Merry Olde England’s dragon troops against the upstart colonists.

“Hey, I didn’t say you had to leave. I’m just not going anywhere.”

Olivia blushed, her cheeks flaming red. “But…we’re squished up against each other. And I can feel…everything.”

It was true. He was rock hard.

“Sorry, can’t help my natural reaction to your comeliness.”

“Comeliness?”

“Yes, you’re nice and soft.”

“Hey!” she said indignantly. Sure, she was well padded; he didn’t need to make fun of her.

“What? I like a woman with some meat on her bones. You’ve got the perfect figure.”

“You’re just having a laugh at my expense,” she said resentfully.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t fake this,” he said, pressing harder against her.

“You stop that right now,” Olivia said, her voice suddenly gone husky with desire.

“Nope. You could take a step back, you know.”

“So could you.” She glared up at him. “I refuse to make concessions for a fire dragon.”

“Back at you, sweetheart. I’m not making room for an ice dragon. No matter how hot she may be.”

“Don’t you flirt with me, you…you…” she spluttered, desperately trying to come up with an appropriately scorching insult.

“Yes? I’m waiting.” He grinned fiercely at her.

There was a rustling sound in the room.

Somebody was sneaking in.

Calder slid away, and she felt suddenly cold and alone without his warmth pressing against her. Then he flipped on a light and she blinked, temporarily blinded, and stepped out from behind the stack of boxes.

A young boy of about twelve years froze, two candy bars clutched in his hand. He had one ice-blue eye and one brown eye.

“Robbie Mortensen, is it?” Calder said. He shook his head. “Why did you only bother to take two candy bars?”

“One’s for me and one’s for my brother.” He stared down at the floor, not meeting Calder’s eyes.

“The owner of the stand said that entire cases of food are disappearing. Thousands of dollars’ worth.”

“Not from me,” Robbie said fearfully.

“He could be saying that just to file fake insurance claims,” Olivia pointed out. “And then set it up so Robbie would be caught.”

Calder nodded. “Very true.” He reached into his pocket.

Robbie cringed, and Olivia tensed. Calder was going to cuff and arrest a young kid for stealing a candy bar? That was just wrong.

Calder pulled out his wallet and held out a twenty dollar bill, and she relaxed again.

“Go to one of the booths and buy yourself and your brother some hot dogs and candy. Don’t come back here again,” he said.

“Mom says we don’t take charity,” Robbie said, shaking his head.

“Does your mom say you can steal?”

Robbie’s face turned red, and tears spilled down his cheeks. “No. Please don’t tell her.”

“You just helped out the police by exposing a possible case of insurance fraud,” Calder said patiently. “I’m paying you for your work, so it’s not charity.”

Robbie considered that for a moment, then nodded, put the candy bars on a shelf, and turned and ran out of the room.

“That was surprisingly decent of you, for a fire dragon,” Olivia said.

“Thanks. That was surprisingly big of you to admit it, for an ice dragon,” Calder said.

Olivia snorted at that and scowled at him.
Try to be nice to a fire dragon and see what it gets you
, she thought.

Then she looked around. “I can’t leave,” she said. “I need a way to sneak off to my car, but Ichabod Tremaine is lying in wait out there, ready to pounce on me with a public marriage proposal. And if I say no, it’s going to cause huge problems between the various ice dragon clans.”

“Hmm. Actually, I know a way you can safely get from here to your car without him bothering you,” Calder added. “Trust me on this.”

“Why should I?” she asked stubbornly.

“Because you’re desperate?”

“Good point.”

They walked out of the storage room and stepped outside.

As they strolled through the crowd towards the parking lot, Ichabod spotted them and began heading towards them. Olivia stiffened up and started to head the other way, but Calder threw his arm around her shoulder in an affectionate embrace, and then before she could stop him, he bent down and gave her a soft, warm, all-too-brief kiss on the lips.

“What was that?” she gasped.

He gave her an amused smile. “Oh, we fire dragons call it a kiss.”

Everyone was staring at them, so she pasted a bright smile on her face as they walked and said, “You annoying, sulfur-breathed son of a bitch.”

Ichabod was staring at them, though, so she couldn’t shrug Calder’s arm off and slap him silly.

“Ichabod’s not coming any closer, is he? He thinks we’re together. And now I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

“What? Everyone is staring at us!” she protested. It was true. Everybody was staring and murmuring.

He kept walking, pulling her even closer to him. Vromme was staring at them with a puzzled expression.

“Hmmm,” Calder said, frowning at him.

“What?” She glanced at Vromme too.

“Considering our two species are practically at war, there could be worse things than the ice dragon mayor being seen canoodling with the fire dragon Principe,” he said.

“Canoodling?” she scoffed.

“Canoodling. It comes after kissing. It’s a lot of fun. Let me know if you’d like instructions, or even a practical demonstration,” he said.

They reached her car.

“You may safely leave now,” he said.

“But…you...” she spluttered as he opened her door for her. “Now everyone thinks there’s something going on between us. I don’t know if I should thank you or kill you.”

“Well, when you make up your mind, let me know.” He winked at her as she got into her car and drove off.

Olivia pulled up in front of her house. It wasn’t exactly bursting with chocolate-box charm – in fact it was an embarrassingly small, shabby building for a mayor – but there was nothing she could do about it. It was built from concrete blocks, as dragons’ houses almost always were. In theory it shouldn’t be a problem for an ice dragon to live in a flammable house, but the insurance companies had seen enough “mysterious” fires during disputes with fire dragons that unless you wanted to pay sky-high premiums, you lived in a house made of concrete or stone.

She’d used up almost all her money to pay for rent and utilities, and was renting on a month-to-month lease. Once she started getting her paycheck from the city, she’d save up for something nicer, maybe buy a small house in town in a couple of years.

Still, although it was old and needed a fresh coat of paint, a previous tenant had put up cheerful yellow curtains that gave the place a sunshiney feel. It was a place to stay, and more importantly it was a place she could afford – just about – without help from anyone else.

When she’d first arrived back in North Lyndvale, her father had offered, then angrily tried to insist, that she stay at his McMansion.

Was he crazy? Live under his roof? Join his clan? That would just be one more way for him to try to control her.

She quickly took a shower, then sat down at her kitchen counter, opened up her laptop, and started reading over the town calendar of upcoming events. Mayor was, in some ways, a twenty-four hour job, but she found that she really loved it. People came up to her all day long, wherever she went, and expressed their fervent gratitude that things were finally starting to change in North Lyndvale, and that made her feel warm all over. At first she’d apologized to some of the people for the fact that she wasn’t exactly a conventional choice of mayor, but then Ermengarde, the town hall secretary, had told her to stop apologizing because it wasn’t professional. Which was true, so she’d stopped.

The home phone rang, and she grabbed it off the wall. It was her aunt.

“You’re home. So, I hear that you managed to escape from Ichabod,” Nora said.

“Yep, just barely. Calder helped me, of all people.”

“Yes, I heard about that too. Ugh. That must have been dreadful, having to let that man put his hands all over you.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Dreadful,” Olivia echoed, imagining Calder’s hands wandering all over her, and blushing at the thought.

“Well, at least it’s over.” The disgust in Nora’s voice was evident.

“Yeah, thank goodness. Anyway. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t keep avoiding Ichabod forever.”

“I know,” Nora said sympathetically. “I’m doing everything I can to try to convince your father that he can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. You’ve got your mother’s independent streak. Maybe he’ll come around.”

After she hung up, her phone rang several times with her father’s ring-tone, and she ignored it.

A few hours later, as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard a crash from downstairs, and she sat up quickly, heart pounding.

It sounded like someone was in her house and had knocked something over. Maybe the vase on the small table by the door. Why would anyone bother breaking into her house? She didn’t live in a wealthy neighborhood, and she didn’t have anything worth stealing. Break-ins were just about unheard of in both North and South Lyndvale. There was plenty of vandalism currently, and there were open flare-ups between fire and ice dragons, but burglary just wasn’t done around here.

Except tonight, apparently.

She reached into her nightstand and grabbed her pistol. After the weird attack by the fire dragon a few days ago, she had purchased the gun and kept it by her bedside. It had silver-coated bullets. She knew how to shoot; wherever they’d lived, her mother had taken her to the shooting range.

She heard floorboards creaking. Screw it, she wasn’t going to sit there and cower in the dark waiting for the creep to come to her.

She tiptoed quietly downstairs. She didn’t have room to shift inside the house, but the silver-coated bullets would take care of her prowler, whether it was fire or ice.

There in her living room was a dark, bulky figure moving stealthily towards the stairway.

From the top of the staircase, she pointed her gun at the man and fired, hitting him in the shoulder. He let out a scream of rage and partially shifted, using his claws to rip the bullet out of his shoulder. The silver would have burned him like a red-hot poker, and he would have died within minutes if he hadn’t got it out.

She could hear a sizzling sound coming from the wound, and he shouted out curses in a foreign accent that she didn’t recognize. Still cursing, he ran for the door, crouched over. She fired again and missed, and then he was out the front door.

Once outside, he shifted, and his enormous form spread out across her front lawn. He thrust his snaky neck forward so his head was almost through the doorway, and sent a blast of flame into the living room. She was able to dodge it, but her sofa and coffee table burst into flames. She responded with an ice blast, quickly extinguishing her furniture.

Outside her house, she heard a loud shout. The dragon must have woken her neighbors when he shifted. He quickly flapped his wings and flew off, slicing through the night and disappearing into the treeline.

She groaned. She lived next door to Ermengarde.

Olivia wouldn’t have called 9-1-1, because she was in her father’s jurisdiction and she didn’t want him to know about it, but Ermengarde definitely would.

She sank down on her doorstep to wait.

So, another dragon attack. Were they related? The first dragon that attacked her hadn’t even been in Nevada. She’d assumed at the time that it was a random attack. But she had told a lot of people where she was going, so in theory someone could have sent the dragon to find her. But why? She had no money, nobody would inherit anything, and she hadn’t been mayor at the time of the first attack, so it couldn’t be political.

Now that she was mayor, another dragon had broken into her house. Could he have simply been a burglar? And where the hell was he from? What was that accent?

She saw Ermengarde hurrying over, in her pajamas…carrying a frying pan. Ermengarde was a heavy-set human woman in her sixties, a widow, and she was wearing pink pajamas and fluffy bunny slippers with ears.

“No need to run, Ermengarde, I’m fine,” Olivia called out. “The burglar is gone now.”

“Sorry I couldn’t get here faster,” Ermengarde panted, slowing down. “I had to call the centurions first. And then I had to find my slippers. And arm myself.”

“What were you planning on doing with that frying pan?” Olivia asked skeptically. “Were you going to make him breakfast?”

“Of course not. I would never make breakfast for a burglar. I was going to bash his head in,” Ermengarde said, waving the frying pan around.

Of course, the dragon would have fried her where she stood, but at least Ermengarde meant well. She sank down on the front steps next to Olivia, to wait for the centurions to arrive. Far off in the distance, sirens wailed.

To Olivia’s surprise, she saw a giant fire dragon flapping through the sky in her direction – and she could tell by the size and shape that it wasn’t the one that had just tried to roast her. Its wings sliced the air, creating buffeting downdrafts that whipped up dust from Olivia’s tiny front yard and ruffled her hair. It hovered for a moment, swinging its massive head on its serpentlike neck to take in the scene laid out below it. Then it folded its wings, swooping towards the earth frighteningly fast before suddenly unfurling its wings again and landing in her front yard with a loud thud.

Its scales were a gorgeous, polished crimson, except on its head and tail and claws, where they tapered away to the matte black of cinders. Its wings were rich membranes of shot silk, their scarlet seeming the black-red of blood in the silvery light.

The dragon shimmered and then turned into Calder – stark naked in the moonlight. He was broad-chested and had the thighs of a Greek god. His thick cock dangled from a nest of dark curls, and Olivia had to struggle to tear her gaze away from him.

“Oh, my,” Ermengarde whispered.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen better,” Olivia muttered.

Ermengarde stared at her. “You have? When?”

“Okay, never,” Olivia sighed as Calder hurried over.

She stood up as he hurried up the front steps. Ermengarde just sat there, shamelessly staring at him in admiration.

“What are you doing here?” Olivia asked. The wail of a police siren grew closer. She could see flashing blue lights heading her way.

“I heard reports of an attack at your address on the police scanner. I came to see if you were all right.”

“How did you know it was me?”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “I obviously need to know where the mayor lives. I mean, I’m Principe.”

“Stalker.” But she couldn’t help but feel secretly pleased.

He walked into her house, and she and Ermengarde followed him in.

“What a butt…” Ermengarde said admiringly, and then caught Olivia’s look and finished “…head. The burglar, I mean. What a butthead. Oh my, is it hot in here or is it just me?”

“It’s actually freezing, because everything’s covered with ice,” Olivia said, looking with dismay at her fire- and frost-ruined sofa and armchair.

“So what happened?” Calder asked.

“Beats me. I heard a guy rummaging around downstairs, so I got my gun and shot him in the shoulder.”

She could hear patrol cars pulling up in front of the house now.

Calder knelt down and grabbed a dragon scale off the floor. He held it up and examined it critically. “Odd. That’s an unusual color pattern.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Teague’s enraged voice thundered from the doorway. He stalked into the room with another centurion following him, a man named Lionel. “This man is naked in my unmarried daughter’s house. I pronounce death!” and he whipped out his sidearm.

Calder stared at him fearlessly.

“Hey!” Olivia yelled. She jumped in front of Calder. “He didn’t attack me, and he’s naked because he shifted and flew here. Not that it’s any of your damn business. But if you end up shooting him rather than issuing a sky challenge, I swear I will publicly call you out for cowardice.”

Quinton flinched. “I am within my legal rights to defend your honor.” But his gun wavered. Being accused of cowardice would be devastating politically.

“Shoot him!” he ordered Lionel.

“Do you need your men to defend your daughter’s honor too?” Calder said scornfully.

“He’s right, sir, with all due respect,” Lionel said. “We can’t shoot him. She just told you that he didn’t attack her. If you feel that the family honor has been tarnished, it’s up to you to issue a sky challenge.”

“You’re fired,” Teague snapped.

Lionel nodded abruptly and turned and walked out, his back stiff with anger.

“Well, that was just rude,” Ermengarde said indignantly.

“You’re fired too,” he barked.

“You can’t fire her, because she works for the town council, not you. And firing him was a mistake,” Olivia informed her father. “You’re unpopular enough as it is. Lionel is very well liked.”

“I’m still waiting for my sky challenge,” Calder said as Teague stalked over to him. “Come on, what do you say? It’s a beautiful night for a flight – and a roasting.”

Teague glared at him and snatched the dragon scale out of his hand.

“Excuse me, that’s evidence,” Calder said coldly. “It’s a very unusual color. I haven’t seen it before. We can run it through our database and see where it came from.”

“It’s
my
evidence,” Teague said. “The crime happened on ice dragon territory.”

Calder scowled, but there was no way he could argue with that.

Then he shrugged. “So, about that sky challenge…”

Teague pretended he hadn’t heard Calder.
Of course he did; Calder could fry his scaly hide,
Olivia thought scornfully.

“You’ll need to come back to my place tonight,” Teague said to Olivia. “Pack your bags.”

“She can stay with me!” Ermengarde piped up.

“Not safe,” Teague said coldly.

“I’m not staying with you.” Olivia shook her head. “I’ll stay with Aunt Nora.”

“I’m ordering you—” He saw the look on her face. “Fine. Be like that. You’re as stubborn and stupid as your mother was.”

“You mean when she objected to you using her as a punching bag?” Olivia said bitterly.

Calder flashed Teague a look of disgust, and Teague’s face went red.

“Olivia, how dare you discuss private family matters in front of a fire dragon?”

“Insult my mother, and I will defend her,” said Olivia icily. “Every time.”

“Very well. Then I will defend myself. It’s no secret that I was drinking then. After your mother took you from me, I stopped drinking. And I haven’t touched a drop since.”

As far as Olivia knew, that was true. However, she’d never forget what he’d put them through back then. The threats, the insults, the dishes hurled at her mother’s head, and his furious fists, pounding into her mother, always in places that were hidden by clothing. He’d planned that, hadn’t he? So how drunk could he have been?