Dragon Knight (The Collegium Book 3) (15 page)

“Sorry to wake you. Not the best news, but I thought you ought to know. Better than being ambushed.”

“Thanks, Gilda.” Lewis clicked off his phone. He stared at the shadowed ceiling above his bed.

Five o’clock. A bad hour for bad news. Then again, no hour would make this news acceptable.

Gilda Ursu was proving a switched-on chief of demonology. On current showing, she was racing Zhou for the speed and effectiveness of her intelligence gathering. Apparently the first whispers of this rumor had zoomed out from a late night bar here in New York.

Unfortunately, Gilda hadn’t been able to pin down who had said what, and the bar’s security camera had suffered a suspiciously well-timed lapse in recording. But someone had been in New York and they had started a rumor against Lewis. A rumor repeated in Seattle and London, and those were just the places where Gilda’s demonologist connections caught it.

All rumors and only since the Collegium guardians had brought in the four members of the Group of 5 for questioning.

The fifth member of the group had acted fast. But more than that…they had known about the power Lewis had exhibited. Yes, rumor would have run fast through the Collegium. That was why Lewis had accepted the need for the board meeting. But what did that mean? Was the fifth group member also a member of the Collegium?

Lewis flung himself out of bed.

Perhaps the unknown person was merely closely connected to someone at the Collegium?

Lewis had asked that the chief demonologist share with Zhou’s people her information.

“It’s a direct accusation against you,” she’d warned.

“Obviously.”

She hadn’t sounded as if she took offence at his brusqueness. “None of my team believes it, and any one of us will go on record in support of you.”

It wouldn’t be enough.

Lewis dressed quickly. Danger coursed around him. No time to deal with the emotional impact of the rumor Gilda had reported: that he could be so mistrusted. He left his phone on the table by his bed. He’d be back for it, but unlike Gilda, he didn’t trust it for communicating or the chance that it might betray his physical whereabouts.

He translocated from his New York apartment to Gina’s Cape Cod home. The kitchen was gray in the predawn light. With clarity of sight, he detected the wards that protected it. If Gina hadn’t declared him welcome in her home, those wards would have shredded him as he translocated. She was safe, here—from the obvious threats.

The Collegium would involve her in this latest rumor.

He climbed the staircase, debating how to wake her. It felt wrong to walk unannounced through her home. He reached the hallway and passed the guest room he’d used. “Gina,” he tried to pitch his voice to wake but not startle her. “Gina.”

No sound from her room, although the door stood open.

Too creepy to walk in while she slept.

He knocked loudly on the open door. “Gina!”

“What?” She sat up and looked around wildly.

“It’s me.”

“Lewis.” She collapsed back against the pillows, only to sit up instantly. “I overslept?” She clicked on the bedside light and stared at the alarm clock. “What’s wrong?”

He took that as permission to enter and walked over to the window. Looking out, he heard the rustle of her getting out of bed. “Gilda Ursu, the chief demonologist, woke me with a rumor she heard. Thanks to your role as my pretend girlfriend, the rumor will affect you. Apparently the new powers I exhibited yesterday are due to a deal I’ve done with a demon.”

“No! No one could believe that.”

He could just see the line of the horizon and the lights of a boat chugging out in the predawn quiet. “The last president of the Collegium was demon haunted. It makes this a plausible rumor.”

“If people don’t know you.”

Had he come here hoping for the support she gave so generously? Some of the cold, appalled shock melted. “How many people know me? Me, not the president or the commander of the guardians? I burned out my magic and now I have power. This is a clever distraction by the fifth group member. They’ll have time to hide or act while I defend myself and others disobey me, uncertain of my right to preside over the Collegium.”

“It’s clever,” she said slowly. “But not if you can clear your name fast. What would do that?”

“I’m not outing Morag.”

She smiled and hugged his arm. “Morag might agree to go public, but I was thinking of something a little less disturbing to the magical community.”

“Less disturbing than a dragon. That leaves a lot of leeway.”

“We may need it. Fay Olwen banished the last demon. People would take her word for it if she declared you free of demonic taint.”

He stared at Gina.

She’d braided her hair before sleeping, but wisps had escaped and framed her oval face. Her eyes and lips were soft with sleep, even as indignant energy hummed around her.

“Fay.” He considered the idea, before laughing. “Those who’d like to use the rumor to discredit me will hate me bringing Fay back. In breaking her oath-ties to the Collegium, she showed the emptiness of their control over magic users. Gina, your idea is genius.”

“So kiss me.”

Gina couldn’t believe those words had escaped her, but then the change in Lewis from icy hurt and distance to genuine amusement resonated through to her bones. He’d been hurt and he’d come to her. To warn her of what was happening, or had he come to her as a friend?

She’d helped him. That felt good. That felt great.

He tasted of mint toothpaste and his arms around her were hard with relief.

A slippery satin robe over a thin chemise soon fell away. It slid down her shoulders to her arms, revealing her upper breasts.

Lewis broke the kiss to pull back a fraction. He stared at her breasts, at the excited points of her nipples pushing up the satin. He cupped one breast, rubbing the nipple with his thumb.

“Yesss.” The word had less meaning than the sound of her satisfied yet aching sigh.

Lewis tugged at her chemise. Her breasts were full, making the fit snug. The neckline of the chemise pulled down, popping her nipples free, then supporting their flaunting eagerness with a tight pressure beneath.

He groaned, backed up to the window seat and sat down, pulling her over him so that her nipples were tantalizingly available to his mouth.

The warm, wet wash of his tongue brought her to the edge. She was so ready. Her hips jerked, pelvis tilting, instinctively seeking ultimate completion. Another lick, another impotent thrust. She moaned. Her hands were on his shoulders, steadying her before her wobbly knees collapsed.

He sucked at her nipples, driving her crazy as his hands, large and strong, squeezed her butt, slid down her thighs and returned.

“I won’t come, not just from…my breasts are…Lewis!”

He proved her wrong. Her orgasm wasn’t the most shattering, but it was exquisite, and he watched her through it. The dawn light showed color burning over his cheekbones and the passion-stern, exciting line of his mouth.

She dove at his mouth as her orgasm eased, kissing and teasing until he set her down on the window seat and stood himself. That put an interesting bulge at her eye level. She shuddered and stretched in sensual anticipation.

He swore and stepped back. “We don’t have time, not now. But if you could see yourself. You’re an erotic painting, part shadow, all woman. Your breasts.” His hands shaped empty air. “Your body. I’d lose hours loving you.”

She shivered at the dark promise and longing in his low voice. “Please.”

“Not now.” His voice was raw. “I can’t afford to be distracted and you…you’re more distraction than anything the Group of 5 devised.”

The oblique reminder of why he was in her bedroom cleared some of her passionate haze. “The accusation against you. You need to contact Fay Olwen. Do you want me to find her phone number?” Online, Gina could find most things—which made the fifth group member’s hidden identity all the more frustrating.

“I have her card.” Lewis extracted a card from his wallet. “You said you had burn phones? I left my phone in New York so no one could track my translocation to here.”

“Burn phone. Of course.” He carried another woman’s card in his wallet? Gina readjusted her chemise and reached for her robe.

He beat her to the spill of satin on the floor and held the robe for her. “I need to call Fay in the next couple of minutes or she’ll call me. She visited the Collegium a fortnight ago with her own problems and left the bespelled card for me. She understands what it is to be isolated within the Collegium.”

Gina turned in his arms, leaving her robe untied, and kissed him briefly on the mouth. “You’re not alone. I’ll get that phone.”

He followed her to her office and accepted one of the five burn phones she had in a cupboard. His call to Fay connected instantly.

As tempted as she was to stay and listen, Gina made herself leave. She needed to dress, and she needed to show that she wasn’t jealous of Fay, a mage accorded a rare note of respect when Lewis spoke of her.

Gina would never be as powerful as Fay. “And I’m all right with that.”

She showered swiftly, applied minimal make-up and dressed in chambray shirt, jeans and boots to match Lewis’s practical attire. She tied her hair in a high, jaunty ponytail.
If you don’t feel perky, fake it.

“Fay will meet me at the Collegium at seven a.m.,” Lewis said as Gina tracked him to the kitchen. “Thanks for the phone.”

“Keep it.” She wondered if they were going to discuss that kiss, her orgasm, or just stare at each other across the kitchen table. “Coffee?”

“We could get that in New York if you’re ready to go?”

Go? Oh, translocation.

He walked slowly around the table. A smile sparked in his eyes. To translocate them, he had to hold her. He put his hands at her waist. She put hers at his shoulders. He kissed her, and when she surfaced, they were in his New York apartment.

“I want to make love to you, Gina. Soon.”

She could taste him on her lips, feel the warm strength of him under her hands. “Real soon.”

“Yes.” A promise sealed with a kiss. Then he was all business, checking the time and organizing their schedule. “There’s a bakery a block out of the way of the direct route to the Collegium. We have time to pick up coffee and muffins.”

Gina wasn’t surprised to arrive at the steps of the Collegium one minute before seven o’clock. Lewis had everything scheduled. The coffee had been worth the detour, mellow yet strong, and he carried a box piled high with muffins. He’d even finished his coffee a hundred meters back, leaving his right hand free to shake hands in greeting.

Fay Olwen met them on the steps, moving out of a crowd of people disgorged from the subway. Beside her stalked a man Lewis’s height, but leaner. And more dangerous-looking. “Steve Jekyll, my fiancé,” Fay introduced him to Gina.

“Good to meet you.” Light brown eyes assessed her unsmilingly.

“Shall we?” Lewis gestured to the Collegium’s entrance.

Gina threw her coffee cup in a trash can and started up the steps. The other three moved with a daunting level of alertness and power. Some people had questioned a mage of Fay’s ability falling for a were, but having seen Steve, Gina didn’t. As a were he mightn’t have magic, but anyone who thought that made him less of a threat was an idiot. Fay had chosen a partner who matched her guardian-trained level of menace.

Unlike the mismatch of Gina and Lewis.

As the four of them walked up the steps and into the foyer of the Collegium, Gina was well aware that she was by far the least lethal of the four.

But that doesn’t mean I’m a pushover.
Her house witchery magic stirred, agitated, and she had to coil it in before it whipped through the foyer, pushing out the stale air and old magics in a first stage spring clean.

Although, it would be kind of appropriate. What was the current Collegium restructure but an attempt to clean house?

At the desk, the receptionist was just settling into her shift. She was puttering around, sipping a mug of coffee. She choked at the sight of the four of them and hurriedly put down the mug. “Ugh. Good morning, President Bennett.” Her gaze skittered over them. “Ms. Olwen.”

As Lewis returned the greeting, elevator doors chimed and three opened, delivering a crowd of tired, grumpy and curious mages to the foyer.

Gina recognized seven from the board meeting. Either they hadn’t slept, had returned to work early, or were here because Lewis had summoned them.

Kora was among them. The commander of the guardians had purplish circles under her eyes, suggesting that she was one of the sleepless ones.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here without some sort of confrontation,” Steve murmured. The were seemed only mildly interested, even when eight guardians entered from a side door.

“This isn’t a confrontation,” Lewis said. “This is a statement.” He raised his voice. “The Collegium is currently in pursuit of an unnamed individual who is employing mages and mundane methods to destabilize regions throughout the world for their own benefit. Previously, this individual worked with four others, whom we have captured and questioned. Now, in an attempt to distract us and evade capture, this individual has started a rumor that the power I demonstrated yesterday in containing eleven mages’ magic must be the result of a gift from a demon.”

“Which is patently ridiculous.” A woman in her sixties, gray-haired and grim, who’d been present at the board meeting, strode forward. “As chief demonologist, I can tell you no demon of that degree of power could be summoned and its bindings sustained by someone lacking years of demonology experience. Lewis simply could not have done it, and hasn’t done so. I and my team,” a gesture encompassed six people at her back, “have studied Lewis and there is no shadow of demonic presence around him.”

“But to stop this insane rumor before it spreads,” Lewis firmly regained control of the gathering. “I’ve requested Fay Olwen, whom you all know as a powerful demonologist and independent of the Collegium, to confirm my demon-free status.”

Fay spoke out strongly. “There is no demon taint around Lewis or his girlfriend, Gina Sidhe.”

Gina jolted. She hadn’t considered that people might think she was the demon’s conduit to Lewis, even though that was precisely what had happened with the previous Collegium president and his lover. If Gina could have struck her forehead with the flat of her hand in a
doh
moment, she would have. This was why Lewis had worried how the rumor would affect her as well as him.

A glimmer of sympathy flickered across Fay’s face before she looked away from Gina back to their audience. “I can accept that you’re all nervous after the debacle with my father a month ago, but Lewis is known, respected and an honorable man. I’m shocked that he had to call me in to counter this rumor. The statement of the chief demonologist and your own knowledge of Lewis, whom you elected as president, should have been enough.”

Well, that was telling them.

Gina stared at the crowd, watching expressions of bafflement, shame and even anger cross people’s faces.

“I had never heard the rumor. What utter rubbish!” A middle-aged Englishman, portly in an expensive suit, hurried across from a small group at a collection of chairs, leaving behind a suitcase and carry-on. He patted Lewis a couple of times on the back. “You and a demon, unthinkable.”

“For heaven’s sake, Martin, none of us believe such trash. Don’t make yourself special.” Neville of all people, the troublesome geomage from the board meeting, answered the challenge. “I don’t like change. Geological change is either glacially slow or cataclysmic. Lewis, your new power unsettles things, but not liking more change doesn’t mean we’re stupid enough to believe that you’d do a deal with a demon. Good grief! That you had to respond, and respond so strongly, to a stupid rumor is a shame on us.”

He paused for breath and no one interrupted. “After Richard,” Fay’s father and Lewis’s presidential predecessor, “we’re running scared of demons, afraid of their presence undetected in the Collegium, but running scared makes us just as much the demons’ plaything as if they were actually here. I say, enough!”

Gilda, the woman who’d phoned Lewis with the rumor and who was also the chief demonologist, nodded thoughtfully. “I agree.”

Kora stood with the guardians. “We will serve.” The Collegium’s motto and purpose. “We’ll find who started this rumor.”

People murmured and shuffled. There was a sense of anticlimax, and yet, if Lewis hadn’t tackled the rumor of his demonic dealings strongly and openly, would it have undermined him and the Collegium? Since they had the expressions of support Lewis needed, it was better to downplay the whole thing.

Gina took the box of muffins from him. “If everyone is now satisfied about the obvious—that you are the most trustworthy man here—then I’d like breakfast.”

“So would I. Or lunch. Or whatever time my stomach thinks it is.” Steve took the box from her and started for the elevators. The crowd of mages parted before him.

Fay grinned faintly and followed her fiancé.

“Thank you, everyone,” Lewis said. “If you hear any other rumors, please report them to Zhou and his team.” With a nod to the chief forecaster, Lewis put a hand to the small of Gina’s back and guided her after Fay and Steve.

The doors of the elevator closed out the curious faces of those watching, but technological and magical surveillance remained, and none of the four spoke till they were inside Lewis’s inner office with the door firmly closed.

“Thank you,” Lewis said to Fay.

“No problem. Although I’m not sure my support really made much difference. I don’t have friends within the Collegium.”

“You have respect and fear, though.” Steve grinned at her, sharing some private joke. “Close enough.”

She smiled back and chose an apple muffin.

The two of them were comfortable together in a way that proclaimed their intimacy without making a show of it. Steve had stood close to Fay in the elevator, his hand brushing her hip. She obviously relaxed at his touch and teasing.

Fay Olwen was a legend in the magical world. She was one of the strongest mages anyone could remember. Certainly the first to ever have the power to break her oath-ties to the Collegium. And personally, she’d had the character to challenge her own father, to free the Collegium of demonic possession, and then, turn her back on the only world she’d ever known, the world of magic, to partner a were and enter his world where magic wasn’t used.

Yet Fay, even with lines of tiredness at the corner of her eyes, radiated happiness, and the lean, watchful man lounging in the chair beside her was the obvious cause.

Gina glanced at Lewis.

Fay was proof that the most disciplined and controlled of guardians could find happiness in love.

“Sven told me about your new power,” Fay said.

Chad Price, the bodyguard PA currently on duty, knocked at the door. He carried four coffees on a plastic tray and the downward tilt of his mouth indicated displeasure with the duty he found himself undertaking.

“Thank you.” Lewis’s words were a dismissal.

The door closed with a small bang. Possibly the worst thing for Chad was that no one cared. Fay sipped her coffee and watched Lewis, Steve finished a blueberry muffin and chose a cherry one, and Gina ate a delicious mocha muffin.

Lewis finished his savory muffin and answered Fay’s question. “I briefly outlined the situation for the board, yesterday. Having burned out my magic, I’ve found a new way of seeing the world. Instead of magic appearing as gold threads, it is layers of silver energy. As I pull and move through that silver world, things happen in the physical world.”

“Dangerous,” Steve said neutrally.

Gina froze a moment as she sipped her coffee. She hadn’t considered just how dangerous the Deeper Path would be without Morag’s guidance.

“Very,” Lewis said succinctly. “It’s not magic, yet I’m not sure that it’s a way of seeing the world accessible to people who haven’t seen the golden threads of magic. I’m treating it cautiously.”

Fay nodded. “People will be curious.”

“I’ve said I’m willing to answer questions.”

“Would you be willing to teach it?” Steve asked.

“I hope no one burns out their magic.” Lewis’s instant and emphatic response revealed how much losing his magic had affected him. He took a sip of coffee while everyone pretended they hadn’t noticed the crack in his armor. “I would teach them what little I know if they showed an interest and aptitude for it.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want anyone to burn out their magic on purpose to acquire this other way of moving through the world, but I don’t think burning out one’s magic is so easy to do.”

Fay and Steve exchanged an unreadable look. Then Steve nodded.

Fay leaned forward. “Two weeks ago, Lewis, I came here to tell you of a rogue mage enchanting weres.”

“That’s not possible,” Gina exclaimed.

“The woman found an ancient spell, cobbled together a very shaky enchantment and managed it. But at a price. She was untrained in magic and suffered significant abuse. In attempting to resist the abuse, she burned out her magic. She lacked the trips and containments we learn as we’re taught by family and mentors. Her magic is gone.”

“I won’t teach a rogue mage this new power,” Lewis said.

“She wouldn’t agree even if you offered. Narelle wants no more power,” Fay responded.

“For a woman who enslaved people, she’s pathetically and desperately remorseful.” Steve’s dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “But the point is that other mages of natural, untaught talent could burn out their magic, making it possible to attain this new power.”

“No,” Gina said.

Fay and Steve stared at her.

She realized that they wouldn’t expect her to be an expert on Lewis’s experience. Morag, after all, had been carefully excised from the explanation of his new power. The Deeper Path hadn’t been mentioned as such. She chose her words carefully. “Lewis is incredibly controlled. I doubt an untrained mage could match his self-discipline and I suspect it’s that quality of control and alertness that lets Lewis see this silver energy.”

Fay put her coffee cup down. “Could I do it?”

Steve went predatorily still. But he didn’t utter a protest.

“You have more magic than I did,” Lewis said. “I’d hate to think what burning that out would cost you.”

“So would I.” Steve took her hand.

She turned her fingers to return the clasp.

Lewis stared at their joined hands. “And I don’t think you have the necessary detachment any more. You’re too tightly bound to Steve. I think it’s more than magic that I burned out.”

Fay blushed and glanced uncomfortably at Gina. “But…”

Given her hopes and their lovemaking that morning, it hurt, but Gina beat Lewis to the answer. “I’m only Lewis’s pretend girlfriend. I’m an excuse for him to hide from the Collegium.”

“Oh.” Fay appeared even more discomforted. “I truly thought…none of my business.”

“I have feelings for Gina,” Lewis said. “But the silver sight came first.”

Gina stared at him. “What did you say?”

“Our cue to go.” Steve sounded amused. He and Fay stood. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

They went. Gina barely noticed.

Then Lewis locked the door behind them.