Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) by Kelly Lucille Read Free Book Online Page A

her eye and she lost her breath.  From her immersion in the
Doc’s machine, she knew that some of the artists displayed were well-known and
coveted.  However, the dragon was not art that she recognized and she had to
stop and admire the fierceness of the creature and the incredible colors
shooting through the landscape.  The fierceness of the dragon drew her in, even
if he was crushing armies of sword-wielding knights beneath his talons.
    “You like my dragon?” 
The dark voice surprised her so much that she was clutching her heart and
jumping back.  Nearly into the painting.  She caught her breath at her second
look of Lucan Warrung.
    “You scared me.”
    “I can see that.”
    She cleared her voice
and dropped her hands to her side.  When he did nothing but stare at her, she
answered his original question.  “I do like the painting.”
    “Really?  Most people
find it gruesome.”
    She looked again.  “I
suppose it is, and bloody, ruthless, and frightening.  But it is also fiercely
beautiful and . . .” she stopped herself, remembering how speaking without
thinking had alienated Kira.
    “Don’t stop now.  I am
intrigued.  Finish what you were going to say.”  Danika heard the dry bite of
sarcasm in his words and she raised her chin a little at the challenge.
    “Well, from what I
learned of dragons from my studies, I think a dragon should be all those
things, so that is also truth.  And, however harsh it might be, truth has its
own beauty.”
    He studied her a moment
longer and then turned and presented his arm.  “Come.”
    Danika blew out a
breath and tentatively took his arm, making sure to stay on his sleeve.  He
started walking in the opposite direction she had been heading.  “We don’t go
to the dining room?”
    “You are to dine with
me, and I do not dine in the public room.”
    “I see.”
    “Where is Kira? She
should have helped you change and escorted you.”
    “Kira was wonderful, but
I hurt her and she ran away.”  She started talking faster.  “I have nothing to
change into anyway.”
    He stopped and looked
down at her, his eyes going cold.  “You hurt her?”
    “I touched her arm
accidentally and when I touch people on their bare skin, I get memories,
impressions, and sometimes events of the person I read.”
    “So you are a
truthsayer, a Bruha, and a reader?”
    She shrugged and looked
away.  “With Kira I saw things that had been done to her, and a woman whispering
terrible hurtful things from the shadows.  Kira mentioned someone, and from her
reaction, I knew it was the whisperer.  I asked her about it without thinking,
and she asked me how I knew.”
    “And you had to tell
her the truth.”
    “Yes.  It hurt her that
I knew her past.”
    “I imagine it did.”  He
opened a shiny double door made of steel that was ten feet high and looked like
it could withstand a siege. 
    Danika blinked at the
ragged scrapes and burns across its surface while she walked past.  Running her
hands over some of the more ragged edges, she stopped to study them.  She
turned back to him when she felt Lucan watching her.  “Did you fight a battle?”
    “The pirates did not
want to give up their place here.”  He shrugged his massive shoulders.  “I
persuaded them they would be happier relocating elsewhere.”
    Danika looked from him
to the fire-pitted steel.  “Did you use your dragon?”
    He barked out a laugh, but
fell silent almost immediately.  Danika turned to see he had dropped an
impenetrable wall down over his emotions.  It was so all-inclusive that it felt
as if the temperature had dropped along with that shield.  She did not realize
she had moved until she stood close before him, her eyes drawn to touch the
mystery of him, much as she had the door.  But she remembered what Captain
Tyber had said about touching and used her eyes instead.
    Taking in the harsh
planes of his face, she drew an invisible line across the precise cut of his
cheek bones.  His