He didn’t like being separated from her.
Sitting next to her on the bed, flirting hard with her while playing it cool, and trying not to actually ravage her body, had taken more restraint than he expected. And the arousal rolling off her in waves had almost undone him. If he were successful in seducing her, he would, of course, be bedding her along the way. The right time and the right place were the only questions. But this nervous twitch, this need to be back in her presence, sweetly tormented by her attraction to him, her succumbing to his dragon pheromones… that was dangerous for him.
He needed her to want him.
He did not need to desire her in return.
Lucian reached the meeting room, striding past the assemblage of couches and toward the large circular table that was inscribed with the same dragon symbol he and his brothers had etched in their skin nearly from the moment of their birth. The other dragons who joined the House of Smoke from one clan or another gained theirs when they pledged fealty to the king and queen.
His brother, Leksander, was already at the meeting room, hands braced against the table, scowling at the dragon emblem of their House.
“Leonidas says we have company,” Lucian said, dragging his brother’s attention from his brooding. “What do we know?”
Leksander scowled at the dragon for a moment longer then peered at him with his ice blue eyes. The runes on his neck were twitching—the fae was strongest in him of the three brothers. He was the picture of the halfling progenitor of their House, the original son of the Queen of the Summer Court and the King of the Dragon Houses whose portrait still hung in the royal couple’s lair. Leksander sometimes seemed more fae than dragon, possessing more rounded cheeks of his great, great, ten-times-over fae grandmother. It made him exceptional at controlling demons, which was one reason why Lucian sent him out to search for those that might be haunting Seattle. It also might be why his brother was obsessed with a certain angeling. It was, at times, hard to tell the fae from the fallen—they were less different than they pretended, in spite of being enemies.
“We know that Zephan is annoyed,” Leksander answered, straightening up. He ran a hand through his short-cut hair. “And we know there are more demons in Seattle than there should be.”
Lucian snarled. “Halflings? Or full-blooded demons? What are we dealing with here?”
Leksander shook his head and dropped his gaze back to the dragon emblem, tapping it absently with one finger. “Only halflings, as far as I could detect. I’m not sure what to make of it. As soon as I would catch a whiff, it was gone. As if they were there one moment and then banished the next.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know,” Leksander said. “But the fae have all manner of magic of which we have no knowledge whatsoever. I would put nothing past them in terms of trickery, and they are an insidious lot. This could be something in the planning for many decades. Or it could be some lark they dreamed up days ago.”
“I don’t recall ever sensing demon in the city, even before the troubles.”
Leksander gave him an indulgent look. “Neither do I and yet I spend no time in the human realm. Or as little as possible. And you spend even less, my brother.”
Lucian scowled. He was used to taking crap from Leonidas—but he and Leksander had a mutual agreement, unspoken but holding for decades, to not mention each other’s respective obsessions. Leksander for a woman he can never have, and Lucian for the one he lost. “Well, even our extremely promiscuous brother, who likes to dip into the human female population with astounding regularity, claims he has never encountered demons in Seattle.”
“With his nose buried in female charms, do you really expect him to scent a demon?”
He had a point. “Still, I suspect this is a new phenomenon. What manner of demons did you find? Mine was destroyed in the heat of the moment before I could think to sense its class.”
“That’s unfortunate.” But Leksander didn’t seem overly critical about it. “The scents I followed during my patrol were not strong enough to get a good read. Just soot and sulfur and a sense of the dark arts that conjured them. They had the stink of fae, that’s all I know.”
“Well, then, we’ll simply call Zephan to account for it.”
Leksander snorted—as if calling the fae to account for anything was simple—but he nodded his agreement. Lucian flicked his fingers toward control panel on the wall, sending a tiny spell of activation. The broad circular light panel that shone down on the meeting table slid back into a recessed panel in the ceiling, and the portal opened above them. It was one of the many strategic access points in the keep, ways for the dragons of the House of Smoke to easily enter and leave, en masse.