Enticing The Dragon

“Or Torque is the Incinerator.”

* * *

There were things Torque missed about touring with Beast. He enjoyed traveling. Since distance was meaningless to him, he particularly relished journeying across continents and oceans, although he found conventional means of reaching his destination restrictive. After twelve months of seeing his bandmates only occasionally, he could honestly say he was missing them. Even though they could collectively, and individually, bring him to a point where it felt like his head was about to explode, they were his friends. Too much alpha-maleness in one place was usually the problem. On their tour bus Beast was a cocktail of testosterone and shifter genes that meant one wrong look, or a word out of place, and the vehicle was in a constant state of near combustion.

Strangely, it was Torque, the fieriest member of the group when performing, who often acted as the peacemaker offstage. Alongside Ged Taverner, their manager, Torque could defuse a situation with his calm manner and quiet good humor. When Khan, the lead singer, and Diablo, the drummer, were engaged in one of their snarling exchanges, most people stood back. Torque was the one who got between them and made them back down. That was probably something to do with shifter hierarchy.

There were plenty of things he didn’t miss about being on the road. Torque hated being at the mercy of someone else’s schedule, and touring felt like the ultimate restriction on his freedom. Food was always a problem when the band was on tour, both in terms of quality and quantity. Torque ate meat, and plenty of it. Well-done red meat. Everywhere he went, it was the same story. It didn’t matter what country he was in, or what the establishment was. There was always an assumption that he would want salad, or bread, or some other trimming. The only accompaniment he wanted with his meat was more meat. Flame-grilled until it was black. No one ever understood that.

The other disadvantage to touring was the lack of privacy. There had been a time in the past when confidentiality wasn’t an issue, when finding wide-open spaces away from prying eyes was easier. Now, of course, technology presented its own set of problems, taking surveillance to a whole new level. It meant he had to constantly stay one step ahead. But Torque was an expert at keeping secrets. He had been doing it for a very long time.

Unlike some of his bandmates, Torque had no problem with the rock-star lifestyle. Late nights? Parties? Groupies? He could handle anything fame threw his way. Yes, there were aspects of his life he didn’t care to share with his fans, but he had learned how to strike a balance. And having billions of dollars at his disposal...well, that helped him maintain the life he wanted. It helped a lot.

He thought about that as he stood at the edge of his private beach, looking out across Pleasant Bay. When they weren’t touring, the other members of Beast were based in New York, close to their recording studio. Torque owned an apartment in Manhattan, but this was his home. It had nothing to do with the celebrity lifestyle and everything to do with his personal needs. He didn’t want glamour. This tucked-away, luxury Maine property had a perfect addition for anyone seeking the sort of isolation Torque needed. From where he was standing now, he could just about see the outline of his own secluded island.

Maybe it was thinking about his bandmates that had done it, but he was feeling restless. Having his own retreat was all very well. It was here when he needed it, but on this particular evening, his need for company was stronger than the desire for solitude. It was a short walk into the town of Addison, and the regulars in the Pleasant Bay Bar didn’t get starstruck by the presence of one of the world’s most famous men. A few were fans and asked about tours and forthcoming albums. Others clearly had no idea who he was...and didn’t care. Torque found this as refreshing as the beer.

The route from his house into town was one of his favorite walks. The dramatic coastline, with its craggy rocks and wild waves, was on one side and soaring pine forests on the other. It was a landscape from another time, making Torque think of days gone by. Of knights and maidens and heroic deeds. When humans looked beyond the veil of possibility and believed in magic.

It was still early and the Pleasant Bay Bar was quiet. The contrast as he walked from sunlight into shade made him blink. His eyes were extraordinarily sensitive, but they took a moment to adjust. The background music was a country ballad—definitely not one of ours—that suited his mood. Yes, this had been a good idea.

A couple of regulars were engrossed in a card game and didn’t look up as Torque approached the bar. Another guy, whose name he couldn’t remember, nodded a greeting. A few others didn’t even turn their heads. Since there was no sign of Doug, the bartender, Torque leaned on the bar, content to enjoy the atmosphere. It was the complete opposite of many of the places he visited with Beast, lacking the crowds, the noise level, the darkened corners and gimmicks. Torque’s moods were mercurial, but right now laid-back and quaint was what suited him.

Doug appeared from the storeroom at the back. “That’s about it.” The words were addressed over his shoulder to the woman who followed him.

As she emerged fully from the room and Torque got a good look at her, he had the feeling of time standing still. Dressed casually in jeans and a white linen blouse, she was of average height and slender build...and everything about her took his breath away. She had thick golden hair that bounced on her shoulders, an impudent, button nose and full ruby-red lips. Aware that he was staring, and that his interest was being returned by a pair of huge emerald-green eyes, he roused himself from his trance.

“Hi, Doug.” He winced at a greeting that felt lame, mainly because he hadn’t withdrawn his gaze from the bartender’s companion.

Doug didn’t seem to notice. “The usual?” He held up a tankard and Torque nodded. “Did I tell you I’m finally taking that leave of absence so I can go traveling? This is my replacement...”

The woman at Doug’s side gave Torque a shy smile. It made him want to leap across the bar to get closer to her.

“Hi, I’m Hollie Br...” She caught her breath, bringing a hand up to her throat with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a fan of yours forever. That’s why I can’t even remember my own name. I’m Hollie Brown.”

* * *

That’s why I can’t even remember my own name? Ten minutes later and Hollie could still feel the blush burning her cheeks. How to blow her cover before she even got started. One look from Torque’s unusual eyes and she had almost blurted out her real name. Not that he appeared to have noticed. He was still glancing her way every now and then, but the looks he was giving her didn’t seem suspicious.

He seemed... Now that she gave it some thought, she wasn’t sure how he seemed. Bemused? That might explain the tiny crease at the corner of his mouth when he stared at her. Nervous? How was that even possible? This was a man used to performing before thousands, even tens of thousands, of adoring fans. What was there about this situation that could possibly make him experience the same fumbling awkwardness she was feeling? Even so, his hand shook ever so slightly as he raised his glass to his lips. Most of all, Torque’s expression was that of a man about to step over a boundary into the unknown. It was fear and excitement in equal measures.

Was it possible she was projecting her own emotions at this first meeting on to him? When she told him she had been a fan forever, it was the truth. Her love of Beast had always centered on Torque. For someone as grounded as Hollie, her adoration of a rock star had always been a slight annoyance to her. It almost felt out of character, like something she should have been above. And that starstruck sensation when she had gone to their concerts and seen him onstage? So not me. Even though he had been a speck in the distance, the pull of attraction had been so strong it had brought tears to her eyes.

To come face-to-face with her idol in these circumstances was the ultimate irony. To feel that same attraction up close, while under pressure to do her job...no wonder she was having trouble thinking straight. As she performed the routine tasks behind the bar under Doug’s supervision, her stomach was churning and her hands were clammy.

Hollie had never worked undercover, and once McLain had decided to place Torque under surveillance, things had moved fast. Checking out the area around his home, local agents had come back with information that the owner of Torque’s favorite bar was a former cop. If they could get someone in there, right up close to their target, just for a few days... Someone who could observe a celebrity rock star without arousing his suspicion...

“Have you ever worked in a bar?” McLain’s sharp eyes had narrowed as she studied Hollie’s face.

“I had a summer job when I was studying...” She had caught the trend of her chief’s thoughts and trailed off. “No way.” Blatant insubordination was not her style, but this was out-and-out crazy. “You need an experienced undercover agent.”

“I need someone who knows the Incinerator. You’ve worked this case from the start, Hollie.” Things were serious when McLain used her first name. “You understand everything about our fire starter.” McLain had flipped over a sheet of paper. “This John ‘Torque’ Jones. You also know about him. This is highly sensitive. If we screw this up, the press will be screaming harassment of a superstar and the Incinerator case will become public property. No one else can replicate your intuition about this. I want you to get up close to Torque and find out if there’s a chance he’s our guy.”

Get up close to Torque? Hollie was twenty-eight years old, but that instruction still made her heart rate soar as if she were nineteen and attending her first Beast concert. She told herself those words had nothing to do with why she was here. She was a professional. Catching the deadly arsonist whose trail of destruction had led to billions of dollars’ worth of damage and more than twenty deaths was all that mattered. That was why she had agreed to McLain’s request. For the next few weeks, she wasn’t Agent Hollie Brennan, Chief Fire Investigator. Instead, she was Hollie Brown, bartender.

As she felt Torque’s eyes following her, she thought back to her eighteen-year-old self. How often had she gazed at the image on the cover of Fire and Fury, Beast’s most successful album? It depicted the band in evening dress, all of them looking glamorous as hell and slightly debauched, as though the shot had been taken the morning after a heavy night. While the others were pictured leaning against a whitewashed wall, bow ties hanging loose and hands thrust into dinner jacket pockets, it was always Torque who drew her gaze.

In the picture, he was apart from his bandmates, half sitting, half lying on a set of stone steps. With his flame-red hair tossed over one shoulder, bronzed skin tones and long legs encased in daringly tight black pants, he could have been a fashion model. The black top hat he wore was tilted low, its shadow concealing the upper part of his face, but his beautiful mouth and chiseled jaw were visible. His hands were raised as though his long fingers were strumming an invisible guitar. It was a stunning, iconic image.

The man who tilted his empty glass toward her now with a raised brow wore torn, faded jeans and work boots. His black T-shirt clung lovingly to his biceps and emphasized his dramatic coloring. Even in everyday clothing, Torque was breathtaking. Even with his features that looked like they had been lovingly carved by the hand of a master sculptor, it was still his eyes that drew her attention. Just when they appeared a nondescript gray, the light caught the multicolored moonstone flecks in their depths, making them shimmer like opals in sunlight.

Those eyes watched her again from beneath heavy lids as she refilled his glass. “What brings you to Addison?”

Keep it simple. That was what the veteran undercover agent who had given her an intense induction course had told her. Vince King had coached her in every aspect of the role, going over and over what she needed to know until she was word perfect. Stick to a short, basic story and don’t elaborate.

“I like Maine. I thought it would be a nice place to spend the summer.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. Although I’m a fan, I’m not a stalker.”

She’d seen his smile on her TV and laptop, on the pages of magazines, on the huge LED screens at the back of the stage at concerts. Now she was experiencing its full force across a distance of a few feet. As her knees turned to Jell-O, she gripped the edge of the bar to keep herself upright.

“Good. I don’t want any more of those.”

So Torque had a stalker. His words implied there was more than one. Could the Incinerator be an obsessive fan? Torque was well-known for his fiery onstage antics. Were the arson attacks a sick tribute?

Or was Hollie, already a Torque fan herself, now feeling the hit of his attractiveness close up, reluctant to accept that he could be the man they were looking for? Whatever the truth turned out to be, she needed to take care. She had come here to unmask a fire-wielding killer. After only minutes in Torque’s company, she was already in danger of getting burned.

Chapter 2 (#ub0a70ffd-419d-5b95-b0df-04f9d2bf7ed4)

Days of yore. Torque liked that phrase. It was all-encompassing, conjuring up images of chivalrous knights in armor on white chargers, maidens in distress and, of course, the obligatory dragon who terrorized the neighborhood by demanding a regular blood or virgin sacrifice.

Except legend didn’t always get its facts straight. Sometimes the maidens did the rescuing, the knights were the ones who terrorized and the dragons were in charge of chivalry. To Torque, yore was more than just a nostalgic word for describing a bygone era. It summed up a time when the veil between worlds had been thinner. When the line between magic and mundane was blurred. When mortals had accepted the evidence of their hearts and their souls. Science had brought humankind a long way. Its benefits were far-reaching, but it had closed down many of those instincts. People looked with suspicion upon the very things that had once sustained them. Witches were cast out, charms and spells were frowned upon, alchemy faded into insignificance.

And dragons? What of those unique creatures who, most people would say, had only ever existed in legend? Even the believers, the humans who truly wanted dragons to have been real, would shake their heads sadly and mourn their loss, holding on to them through their games, paintings and stories.

It was better this way, of course. The last of the true dragons had died out five hundred years ago, spending his last days on a remote island in the South China Sea. Now only the dragon-shifters—a unique breed of half human, half dragon beings—remained. If the world ever discovered their existence? Torque clenched his jaw hard. Not on my watch. He had no desire to end his days in a cage, poked and prodded in the name of research. Even worse would be to become an exhibit in the name of entertainment, paraded and ogled like an elephant in a circus.

Torque was a dragon-shifter, but he no longer bore any responsibility to the others of his kind. His leadership had been brought to an abrupt end and the world had moved on from the days of dragon clans and oaths of fealty. He was the last of his kin. The mighty Cumhachdach had been wiped out by powerful magic, his own life saved only because the sorceress who killed his clan had chosen to torture him by keeping him alive. There had been a time, once... He shook his head, clearing it of any lingering thoughts as he unfurled his huge wings and took to the skies. Once might as well be never. These days, his only loyalty was to himself.

He swooped over his private island, blending easily with the night sky. As he flew lower over the dense forest, his scales changed color to match the tones of the trees. Camouflage was the dragon version of invisibility. Had he ventured into a city skyline, he would have become concrete gray. When he passed over an ocean in daylight, he was the exact blue of the waves below him and the sky above.

Torque’s eyes scanned the landscape, homing in on a tiny creature moving in grass and the tilt of a bird’s wing many miles away. His ears isolated individual sounds, locating rustling leaves and human voices along the coast. Dragon senses were the keenest of all, but on this night he was distracted by his human emotions. Feelings he barely understood were pulling at the edges of his consciousness, forcing his attention away from the beauty of the landscape.

After centuries of being alone—and liking it that way—he had felt something deep inside him stirring. And he knew why. All it had taken was a pair of green eyes, a shy smile and an enticing figure. It wasn’t as if he lived a hermit’s life as a human. He was a rock star. Temptation came his way and he didn’t turn it down. Beast worked hard and played harder. Although the dynamics had changed now that Khan, lead singer and former party-animal-in-chief, had become a happily married man.

Torque knew why his emotions were in turmoil. The Pleasant Bay Bar’s new employee had shaken him so much he couldn’t think of anything but her. Hollie Brown was undeniably good to look at, and she had admitted that she was a fan. A plume of white smoke rose from his nostrils into the night sky as he snorted. He encountered fans all the time. His head wouldn’t be turned by nothing more than a pretty face.

No, this was about something deeper and far more dangerous. Throughout the many centuries of his existence, Torque had never considered the possibility of taking a mate. Dragons mated for life and so did shifters. Fortunately, his mortal persona wasn’t bound by the same constraints. When it came to his sex life, Torque preferred to be guided by his human genetics. They had served him well...up to now.

Now, suddenly, his instincts were telling him things were changing. It was crazy on so many levels. He knew nothing about Hollie. But he knew everything he needed. As soon as he had looked into her eyes, he had recognized two things. The first was that she was his. As if that wasn’t earth-shattering enough, the second was that she wasn’t who she claimed to be.