The Dream Thief (18 page)

“Alas, dear lady, I don’t yet
have all the details. But…it is a sky-blue diamond of uncommon beauty,” he
improvised. “So uncommon it haunts the dreams of any who’ve seen it. In fact,
it’s said to be so fantastically unique that, if one listens closely enough,
the sound of its singing fills the ears, more dulcet than the music of the
heavenly spheres. It is…ethereal. An opus so haunting it captures souls, grants
infants their first tears, gives wings to lovers, and,” he finished, inspired,
“bankrupts the hearts of honest men.”

“Singing,” sighed the emerald
woman, with another rapturous lift of her bosom.

“A treasure indeed,” drawled one
of the gentlemen guests.

“I’ve a mind to set it in a
necklace for my bride.” Zane leaned back and favored the wife with a look from
under his lashes. “’Twould suit her well, I think. Since I’ve mentioned the
notion, she simply won’t let it rest.”

“Singing,”
exclaimed Hunyadi, with an air
of triumph. “I do remember something now! Certainly I do! Wasn’t there such a
stone in those wild Magyar tales from the Carpathians? Serfs will believe
anything, you know. I am nearly positive they have a saga about something of
the sort, a singing diamond.”

“Yes,” said the elderly man
abruptly, straightening with a creak of his corset. “Yes, I recall it too. I heard
the story as a boy. I can’t quite recall the details…but it had something to do
with the dragon-people of the far mountains. It had to do with the
drákon.
”

Lia dropped her wineglass. It
shattered like a bomb upon the stone floor.

“You knew,” he said, standing
with his back to her, gazing out the tall, glazed window of the bedroom chamber
they’d been assigned.

“No,” she said.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“If I had known,” she said, very
composed, “why wouldn’t I have told you? Why would I have kept it hidden? It
serves no purpose.”

Zane did not answer. His
shoulders were stiff beneath his new indigo waistcoat; she could not tell how
angry he was. If he was.

He had seemed more surprised than
anything else. He’d masked it well, had finished the meal with the suave,
clever polish of a master of deception. A part of her had even admired his
pretense, how he’d continued to flirt with the unbearable wife of their host.
How he’d tried every dish, and complimented every drink, and meticulously
fished out the last of the details of the
drákon
that he could from
these sotted, smug aristocrats.

Diamonds, warfare, lost souls.
The rough fable of her people, presented like a medieval parable with no
bearing on actual fact. She could hardly comprehend it herself.

The dragon-people, yes. It’s a
very old myth. I recollect they’re known for a few things, gemstones primarily.
And like most wicked creatures, they wreak havoc among the peasants— stealing
away the fairest virgins, poaching deer, switching babes in their cradles for
mischief, that sort of thing. They hunt by night but look just like you and me
during the day—just like your fetching young bride, my lord!—but they’re said
to have eyes that phosphoresce and smiles to freeze your very blood….
It had frozen
her
blood.
It had kept her a lump in her needlepoint seat beside the laughing Hunyadi,
unable to speak, unable to eat…because with every word she remembered the
frisson of the dragon that morning in Jászberény, and the smell of alcohol that
had ruptured into flame.

Zane turned his head and fixed
her with a pale yellow look; the glass behind him reflected the fire in the
hearth and her own shape perched upon the bed, her face and gown smeared into
shadows. The bed itself was wide and plush, covered in mink. She’d retreated to
it because it was the farthest distance she could put between them, and still
she felt his heat. Still she felt the pleasure of his voice.

It was a small room, extravagantly
furnished with burled wood and pillows and more of those dangling, colored
lamps. They cast blue and turquoise along the length of his body, as if he
stood at the brink of a dark, deep sea.

“How long have you known?”

“Precisely as long as you have,” she
retorted. “Approximately two and one-half hours. So sorry, it seems my
timepiece was recently incinerated. I suppose it might be a tad longer.”

“Amalia.”

“I didn’t know! I had no idea.
You know my people as well as I. You know what they say in Darkfrith—we are the
last. We are the only. I assure you that if anyone there had
any
idea
there were others like us alive in the world, someone would have done something
about it.”

“Yes,” he agreed, with a faint
lift of his mouth. “I do believe that. But what, my lady, are you not telling
me?”

“Why—nothing.”

“Did you realize,” he said
conversationally, “that when you lie, the most charming spots of pink appear
high on your cheekbones? It’s really quite convenient. Oh…not for you, I
suppose.”

“I did not know of this. I swear
to you, I did not.”

“Very well.” He crossed to her
through the strange shifting light, took a seat close beside her on the bed
before she could protest. The mattress tilted her toward him; she leaned hard
away to keep her balance. “Why don’t you tell me what you did know? What,
snapdragon, you
do
know. I prefer not be led around like bear bait. It’s
really most undignified.”

She dropped her eyes. The shadows
changed; she felt his fingertips graze her cheek and suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“Lia.”

“You said you didn’t want all my
secrets.”

“You’ll
discover that lying is just one of my many nefarious skills. We have that much
in common. Lia,” he said again, amusement threading his tone, “good heavens,
must I torture you for an answer? It’s a simple question, my lady: what do you
know?”

“Every
night,” she said finally, very slow, “I dream. In my dreams…things happen.
Random things. Things that come true.”

His
head tilted. “Is that a common Gift among the
drákon
?”

“No.”
Her lips pursed. “Apparently none of my Gifts are very common.”

“Naturally
not. What do you dream of this diamond?”

“That
you will find it—that we find it.”

“And?”

“That’s
all. We find it. You give it to my mother. You’re rich.”

His finger tapped her cheek.
“That’s the end of it?”

She pulled away from him, unable
to bear his casual touch. “That morning in Jászberény, standing on the street
after the fire…I thought I felt the presence of another
drákon.
Watching
us. Watching me. I didn’t tell you because I thought it wasn’t real, that I was
merely fatigued. I thought I was imagining it.”

He sat back. “But you weren’t.”

“No.”

“Dear me.”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a long while.
Firelight licked up his stockings in whispers and crackles and threw hot gold
off the silver buckles of his shoes. In time, he heaved a sigh. “This rather
changes things, my heart. The stakes have been raised. If it is your delightful
kinfolk who wish you harm, you’ve become quite a liability.”

“Why
would they wish me harm?”

“I’ve really no idea. All I know
is it’s bloody hard to fight smoke. Believe me, I’ve tried. Sixty thousand
pounds won’t do me a damned bit of good from the cold, dark beyond.”

“I don’t want you to fight them!”

“But then who will protect you,”
he asked smoothly, “the next time around? Who else knows their secrets as I do?
Who else here knows that they must be able to see to Turn? Who else here knows
the usefulness of hoods and blindfolds and a solid bullet to the gut? Who else
knows how to steal through shadows, and capture singing diamonds, and share
riddles with all the other animals? Who else is a mere human, a mortal man,
with knives and pistols and blood on his hands, and the knowledge of how to
defeat a mighty dragon in flight?”

She stared back at him, mute.

“Perhaps
they wish to kill
you,
” she said.

“Perhaps,” he agreed, nonchalant.
“But I really rather doubt it. You make a nice, shining target—a pretty maid, a
dragon-maid, encroaching on their land and their traditions. Oh, yes, I also
know how your kind admire their traditions. I’d wager you’re shattering all
sorts
of worthy rules right now. It’s not even England, it’s middle Europe. We haven’t
seen a real water closet in days. I can’t imagine the laws of the
drákon
out here are much more enlightened than your own.”

“Do you want me to go?” she
asked, very still.

“Not especially. But if you mean
to stay, I’m afraid there would be a price. I don’t work for free, love.
Everyone knows that.”

He smiled at her, a dangerous
smile, a thief’s smile, warmed by firelight and the dark timbre of his voice.

Her own voice came very thin.
“What is the price?”

“Only this,” he said, and leaned
across the bed to cover her mouth with his.

CHAPTER TEN

I
t wasn’t like her dreams. It was
softer, and warmer, and tasted of the Madeira they’d finished with the end of
supper, and of him. She kept her eyes open, because for the first time—this
very first time— she wanted to see him. She wanted to see his face.

He’d gotten a faint sunburn from
his days outside that crinkled color along the edges of his eyes; his hair had
blown long and wild in a handsome streaked ruff down his shoulders. She knew
his face, she knew his expressions, she knew the slow heat of his look whenever
he turned his head and caught her studying him. She knew the squared cut of his
jaw, and the shadow of his beard before he shaved, the pure lines of his nose
and chin and those sensual lips.

But she did not know him like
this: his brows a dark serious slash, every lash satin. His skin a golden gleam
with the light, his queue a fall of shifting colors. He kissed her slowly, so
slowly, as though he wanted to taste her as she was tasting him, as though they
weren’t seated together on the bed with only inches between them, and every man
and woman in the villa believing they were wed.

His hand came up. She felt the
brush of his palm sliding from her temple to her eyelids, blocking out the
light.

“Close your eyes,” he murmured.
“Lia-heart. Close your eyes.”

A thousand dreams, a thousand
hushed commands. She did as he said, and his hand moved to cradle her cheek,
her neck, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw as his lips stroked back and
forth, making delicious friction. She felt the unhurried, familiar heat begin
to pulse through her body. She felt her heart racing and the animal in her, the
dragon, stretching and singing
I want
through her blood. When his tongue
found hers, she dug her fingers into the mink. When he brought up his other
hand to push his fingers through her hair, she took a gasping breath against
his mouth, all she could inhale, and he stole it back from her with a low,
masculine sound in his throat.

That was her hand touching his
shoulder. Those were her fingertips discovering the angles of his cheekbones,
the heavy rope of his hair, a plait that she held and used to bring him closer,
because she could, because she knew he wanted her to.