NocC 029 - Kendra Leigh Castle - Taming the Dragon - Harlequin 2012-12 by Nocturne Read Free Book Online Page A

the shop was just...gone.
    More, it was like it had never been there in the first place.
The bookstore she’d walked by was there, and the pastry shop she remembered
being just past it. But there was nothing but an expanse of brick where Morgan
Le Fay’s weird little store had been.
    Kaden hadn’t seemed surprised. That had made exactly one of
them. Unreturned phone calls were one thing. A disappearing store was quite
another.
    “Trickery,” he’d muttered. So she’d gotten take-out from one of
her favorite sandwich places for lunch, because...well, what did one do with a dejected dragon?
    Feed him, apparently, Tess thought as she watched Kaden dig
into his pork lo mein from across her little table. The sandwiches had been such
a big hit that she’d decided to try him on Chinese for dinner. So far, so good.
The man loved food, sex and music, not necessarily in that order.
    She guessed it was fortunate that she loved all of those
things, too...especially when they were happening with him. And he seemed to
have lightened up about the whole “You are my possession” thing, which made
conversation more pleasant. Weird, but pleasant.
    “I’ve never had food like this. In my land, wars would be
fought over such...such...what did you call them?”
    “Noodles.”
    “Noodles,” Kaden agreed, giving them a look he usually reserved
only for her before digging back in. Tess watched him for a few moments, then
shook her head. Between them, sitting among the opened cartons of Chinese food,
was what looked like a silver jewelry box. Which it was, in a way.
    Inside of it was all of Kaden’s treasure.
    According to him, most dragons had small, bespelled boxes so
they could make quick getaways with their hoard. Tess had already looked inside
a dozen times. It continued to contain lots of tiny treasure. Treasure he
insisted they would take to whatever hiding place he selected for them, which
was a thing she had told him numerous times was not happening. Not that he had
listened.
    Not listening seemed to be one of Kaden’s special talents,
right along with the smoke that came out of his mouth on a regular basis.
    The flash of irritation had heat suffusing her skin. Tess
frowned, put down her chopsticks and scratched her forearm. She’d been having
hot flashes ever since yesterday, and sometimes her skin didn’t feel right. Or
her vision. Or her teeth. The reassuring heat of Kaden’s necklace rested against
her skin, and once she’d given her arm a scratch Tess reached up to fiddle with
it.
    It was only when Kaden spoke that she realized he’d been
staring at her.
    “You are...feeling all right?”
    “Yeah. I’m fine.” The way he was looking at her—worried—had her
changing the subject. He probably thought she had human cooties or
something.
    Kaden watched her a moment longer, then dropped his gaze back
to the noodles, his expression pensive. Tess didn’t like to see him troubled.
Kaden seemed like he’d had plenty of that in his life. And her instincts to
soothe him were so strong and omnipresent, she realized, she’d almost stopped
questioning them.
    Her stomach sank. She needed to find Morgan somehow. She had a
lot of questions, and there was nowhere else she could imagine she might get
actual answers that weren’t “Because you are mine.”
    “So I was thinking,” Tess said, poking at her rice with a
chopstick, “about these hunters of yours.”
    Kaden immediately looked wary. “Mmm?”
    “There has to be a way to get them off your back. They’ve been
chasing you for centuries, right? But you’re a dragon! There has to be a way to
stop them, destroy them, defeat them...something.”
    Kaden snorted. “They are not all human. They have
magic-wielders among them, even here, though I think the blood may have become
weaker as it has been diluted over time.”
    “Okay, fine,” Tess said. “You’re still a dragon. You
get...well, big, right? And breathe fire? Grow scales?”
    “Yes,” Kaden said,