Fire Me Up (2 page)

I ignored my smart-mouthed demon as we joined the end of a
queue for taxis. The handful of people ahead of us laughed and chatted gaily,
just as if their world hadn't come to a grinding halt, whereas mine ... I
glanced back at the limo. Drake was overseeing Pal, one of his men, loading the
matched set of luggage in the back of the glossy car. Bustier Woman was speaking
to one of her contingent, suddenly calling for Drake. I narrowed my eyes as he
strolled toward her with the same fluid, coiled power that sent shivers of
delight down my back.

Had Once. Now, of course, it did nothing for me. Nothing at
all.

I sighed. Jim stuck its snout in the bag of the elderly
couple in front of us, saying softly, "That was a pretty pathetic sigh. It had a
lot of meat to it."

"I know," I answered, trying not to grind my teeth as the
woman put her hand on Drake's silk-clad arm, no doubt caressing his wonderful
steely bicep. "It's really bad when you can't even lie convincingly to
yourself."

Jim pulled its head from the bag to look at me, its eyes
opening wide suddenly as it made an odd combination of a bark and a warning.
"Behind you!"

I dropped its leash and spun around in a crouch, half
expecting an attack of some sort, but finding instead that my suitcase had
attracted the attention of three street gypsies, all of whom obviously had the
intention of lightening the load of my possessions."The amulet!" I screeched,
throwing myself on top of the half-opened bag.

The biggest of the thieves, a young man who looked to be
about nineteen, jerked the bag out from underneath me, his accomplices pulling
on the outer flap so that it peeled back like a ripe banana. I lunged toward the
small brown leather amulet bag that was stuffed into my underwear. "Hey! Let go!
Police!" My fingers closed around the bag just as the youngest thief, a girl of
about fifteen or so, grabbed it, but I had not survived my Uncle Damian's wrath
concerning the loss of a valuable antiquity for nothing. I had to save this one
at all costs. I jerked the amulet free just as someone behind me shouted. The
street gypsies snatched up handfuls of my things—pants, shoes, and my cosmetic
case—before racing off in three different directions.

The wind, coming off the nearby Danube, flirted with the
opened suitcase, decided it liked the look of my newly purchased satin undies,
and scooped up several pairs, sending them skittering down the sidewalk. The
elderly couple who had been in front of us helped me gather the remaining
clothes that had been knocked out as the gypsies made their snatch and grab,
repeating soft assurances that I didn't understand. I left Jim to guard the
luggage as I ran down the sidewalk, the amulet still in my hand. I plucked my
underwear from a phone booth, a magazine stand, and a newspaper box. One last
pair, trembling next to a garbage bin, suddenly spun upward in a gust and flew a
few feet down the sidewalk, their flight coming to a swift end as the pink satin
and lace material wrapped itself in a soft caress around a man's leg.

A man's leather-clad leg.

"Oh, god," I moaned, closing my eyes for a second, knowing
exactly who owned that leg. Why me? Why did this sort of thing have to happen to
me? Why couldn't anything in my life ever be simple? When I looked again, Drake
was holding my panties in his hand, his head slowly turning as he scanned the
crowd until he saw me clutching a handful of underwear.

Any thoughts of escaping undetected died in that moment. The
woman who had been about to get into the limo paused and raised a beautifully
arched eyebrow at him, her dark eyes sliding over me in cool consideration. She
was perfect in every way—flawless complexion, hair glossy and straight, her
assets displayed with a confidence I would never be able to match. Beside her,
Drake stood in smoldering sensuality (his natural state), all hard lines and
rugged planes and extremely droolworthy masculinity.

And then there was me, the third person in the tableau. I
knew exactly what Drake and the woman were seeing—a hot, sweaty woman in her
early thirties dressed in a loose T-shirt and worn jeans, hair coming loose from
the scrunchie used in an attempt to tame wild curls, without so much as a single
eyelash having seen the benefit of cosmetics.

It was no good. I couldn't compete. I was outclassed and I
knew it, but I still had my dignity—what was left of it after my underwear was
spread out along the front of the Keleti station ten minutes after my arrival.
Raising my chin, I marched forward to Drake, firmly squelching the cheers of
delight that several unmentionable parts of my body were sending up.

"I believe those are mine," I told him holding out my hand
for the underwear.

Heat flared deep in his emerald eyes, but I looked down at
his hand, refusing to be drawn into that trap. I knew well the power of his
desire.

"You have excellent taste in undergarments." he said, his
voice a little rough around the edges as he placed the item in my hand.
"Victoria's Secret?"

"No," I said, allowing my eyes to meet his for a moment. I
swear a tiny little wisp of smoke curled out of one of his nostrils. "Naughty
Nellie's House of Knickers. Portland, Oregon. Thank you. Good-bye."

He inclined his head as I spun around, ignoring the
disdainful arched brows of the woman and marching back to where Jim sat next to
my ravaged suitcase. The taxi rank was empty, the elderly couple evidently
having snagged a taxi while I was retrieving my undies.

"Don't say it," I warned Jim as I squatted next to the
suitcase, transferring to it my collected lingerie and the amulet. A taxi pulled
up beside me as I double-checked the zipper, wondering what the street gypsies
had done with the evidently useless lock I'd used to secure the bag. "Just don't
say it, OK?"

"Me? I'm not saying anything."

I waited. I'd lived with Jim for a little over a month now.
It was virtually impossible for the demon to let something as mortifyingly
embarrassing as having my underwear scattered on my former lover go without
comment,

"But if I was going to say something, it would be something
along the lines of 'Smooth move, Ex-Lax!'"

The limo passed us with a gentle, expensive purr of its
engine, the tinted windows thankfully keeping the sight of Drake's no doubt
politely amused face from my view. I didn't have to see him to know he was
looking at me, though. I could feel it. There was just something about being the
object of a dragon's regard that left the hair on the back of my neck standing
on end.

"No talking in the taxi," I reminded Jim in an undertone as I
pulled a Hungarian phrase book out of my bag's side pocket, riffling through the
book until I came to the section on transportation. I leaned down next to the
open taxi window to tell the driver where I wanted to go. "Let's see ... Where
is the post office, please. Where is the bus station, please. Where is an
Internet cafe, please. Oh, for heaven's sake, you'd think it would have a simple
'Please take me to the blah-blah hotel,' but no, that would be just way too
convenient."

"I do not know of a Hotel Blah-Blah, but perhaps it is new?"
the taxi driver asked in accented English. French-accented English.

Both my book and my jaw dropped as I peered into the recesses
of the cab. The driver was a dark-haired man of middling age with a friendly
smile that delighted me down to my toenails. "Rene! What—you're—but this is—you
were in Paris—"

"You da man," Jim drawled, shoving me out of the way so it
could put its paws on the door and stick its nose into the taxi, giving Rene a
couple of good swipes with its tongue. "Thank god you're here. She's falling to
pieces, and we've only been in the country a couple of hours."

"Jim! It is a pleasure to see you again. Thank you for the
postcard from the Oregon coast. I didn't know you could write."

Jim shot me a nasty look. "I can't, not after one of my toes
went missing. I dictated and Aisling wrote for me."

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it as Rene leaned out
through the window to reach back and open the door of the taxi. "This doesn't
make sense. You're a Paris taxi driver. This is Budapest. The two aren't even
remotely close. Something here does not compute."

Jim leaped into the car. I stood on the sidewalk clutching my
luggage, the phrase book fluttering at my feet. Rene grinned, got out of the
taxi, and gently pried my fingers off the handle of the suitcase before taking
it to the trunk. "My cousin Bela, he is a taxi driver most discreet here in
Budapest. But his stone of kidneys erupted, causing him much pain, so he is
unable to drive for the next two weeks. I am here to fill in for him. "

"Fill in?" I asked, grabbing my phrase book and allowing him
to shoo me into the car. Jim had its head out the far window, great big ropes of
drool thankfully dribbling outside rather than down its chest, as they usually
did. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say that you and your family take a vacation
during the month of August? Why are you spending your vacation time working?"

Rene grinned at me as he slid into the driver's seat,
carefully buckling the seat belt. I hurried to do the same. I'd ridden with Rene
and knew that there was nothing he loved more than driving through cities in a
manner that left passengers flung around the interior of the car if they weren't
strapped in. "Heiri, my wife and the little ones are in Normandy. It is hot
there, Aisling, very hot. And the children, they will have sand rashes and
sunburns and stomachs upset from too much ice cream and candy, and my wife will
be without her wits trying to control them. Me, I prefer Budapest and tourists
to that horror."

I slumped back against the hot faux-leather upholstery as
Rene eased us into the busy traffic. "Welt, I'm profoundly grateful that you're
here. I've had a hell of a day."

"Ahem," Jim said, pulling its head in the window to give me a
glare.

"Sorry. Heck of a day. First there were thieves trying to
steal the item I'm couriering, and then—"

"Drake's in Budapest," Jim told Rene before sticking its head
back out the window. "She had a meltdown seeing him with another babe."

I pinched the thick fur of Jim's haunch as Rene sucked in his
breath. "Drake? The wyvern of the green dragons?"

"One and the same, and I did not have a meltdown." I gnawed
my lower lip for a couple of seconds, absently admiring the lovely architecture
in the row of historic white stone buildings we were passing. "You don't happen
to know why he's here, do you, Rene? It's kind of an odd twist of fate that he,
you, and Jim and I are all here at the same time."

Rene's eyes met mine for a moment in his rearview mirror. He
gave one of his effortless but expressive French shrugs. "You never know with
fate, hern. Perhaps it is Trying to tell you something. For you and your mate to
be in the same city after you left him most cruelly—"

"He's not my mate. I'm his," I said sourly, watching the city
slide past us. This was only my second time abroad, and part of me was utterly
thrilled at being in such a beautiful city. We passed historic buildings, small
leafy green squares surrounded by the ubiquitous black wrought-iron fences,
streets filled with stores and shoppers, a couple of pedestrian arcades, and
more churches than you could shake a stick at. It was all lovely, and I made a
mental note to try to squeeze into my busy schedule a little time to see the
sights. "And I didn't leave Drake cruelly. I explained to him why being a
wyvern's mate didn't fit in with my plans. Just for the record, he didn't even
try to stop me. Nor did he call me and beg me to come back to him. Not that I
wanted to, but just in case you were wondering, he didn't. So fate can just go
take a flying leap where that whole issue is concerned."

Rene's brown eyes flashed in the mirror again.

"He didn't even e-mail me," I groused, feeling ashamed even
as the words left my lips. I had had four long weeks to come to grips with the
fact that life evidently had ideas for me that I wasn't ready to accept, one of
which was that I'd been born the mate of a wyvern, the head of one of the four
dragon septs. The other was a talent I was more willing to allow into my
life—assuming I could find someone to mentor me in learning Guardian skills.

"You want a little cheese with that whine?" Jim pulled its
head in long enough to ask.

"Rene is a friend. I'm allowed to complain a little to a
friend. You are a furry demon. Put your head back out the window and don't get
any bugs up your nose because I don't have the money or time to take you to the
vet."

"See what I mean?" Jim asked Rene. "Meltdown."

"'What hotel am I taking you to?" Rene asked quickly. He'd
been around Jim, too. He knew just how much the demon dog could get on my
nerves.

'The Thermal Hotel Danu. It's on Margaret Island. It's
supposed to be a big conference hotel with all sorts of bennies."

"Bennies?"

"Benefits. Services. Amenities. You know, stuff like
world-class masseuses, parkland surrounding the hotel with walking and jogging
paths, saunas, thermal baths, and something the hotel brochure called an
amusement bath. I can't wait to see what that is."

"Ah. I know the Hotel Danu. It is very expensive, very chic."
One of Rene's eyebrows rose as his reflection looked at me. I yelped and pointed
out the front window. The taxi swerved to avoid colliding with another car,
throwing Jim onto my lap before the vehicle settled down, "It is not like you to
stay in such a place, yes?"