Burned (Dragon Mates Book 3) Read online

  After she was examined silently by the elaborate security system at the front gate, and apparently found to pass muster because the gates opened, she traveled up the winding drive to a house that easily had to cost several million dollars based on the neighborhood. Sure, this sort of wealth she was used to seeing. Most collectors had a lot of money. However, she didn't usually get to go to their houses. Mansions. Estates.

  Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her satchel, walked briskly to the front door, and gathered her nerves again before reaching up to the door to knock. She barely raised her hand to rap the ornate knocker, which was a beautiful bronze dragon head that was a replica of one she knew hung in the Museum of London from an original that had been popular with the elite back in the mid-nineteenth century, when the door swung inward. She jumped a bit as a muscled, attractive man with a very sharp gaze gave her smile and graceful nod.

  "Welcome, Ms. Lambert. Thank you so much for your time in traveling out here to look at Mr. Connolly's newest acquisition. I am Eamon Gallagher, his assistant. Please, come in." He gestured her inside, closing the door behind them and leading her down the short hallway that opened into a spectacular foyer.

  Teagan raised her eyebrows at the spectacular inside of the mansion but managed not to say anything out loud. Holy smokes, this place was drop dead amazing. Nervousness balled up in her again. Old Mr. Connolly had to be loaded. Beyond loaded. He might even be a freaking billionaire. Which meant the book had to be very authentic and therefore very precious. The tightness in her stomach was a combo of excited nerves and nervous excitement. Or something like that.

  Be cool, Teagan, she thought to herself. Don't be a complete geek in front of the collector. Lightly clearing her throat, she asked, "I was told Mr. Connolly would be observing as well?"

  Ahead of her, Eamon nodded, the light picking up a few silvery hairs in his otherwise dark head. Teagan realized with a start that he was older than she'd first assumed. He clearly kept himself in excellent shape. Then again, if this Mr. Connolly had half the eccentricities as many of the collectors she'd worked with in the past, being his assistant was probably a really demanding job that involved a lot of running around.

  "He'll be in the room with us, yes." Eamon turned them down yet another long hallway. He didn't offer any more information than that.

  As they passed a beautiful tapestry that depicted a man on a white horse facing off a fire-breathing dragon, Teagan almost tripped over herself, staring. It was from ancient Ireland, most likely the fourteenth century. Quite well-preserved, it certainly cost a fortune and was likely a key piece of its specific historical era, at least as far as any historian of the time period would be concerned. Such as herself.

  Her nerves and excitement both rose again. Wow, maybe this Mr. Connolly would have other things in his collection that she could see. Not, of course, that she would presume to ask anything like that on her first day on the job for him. So far, she decided that whatever his eccentricities, she would put up with them without a word if it meant she could see anything else from her favorite area of history.

  After two more turns through what was clearly a large, if seemingly empty estate as far as any occupants that she'd yet seen, they came to a set of huge, dark wood double doors that were inlaid with carved characters. She instantly recognized them as being a very old, primitive form of Gaelic known as Ogham. More romantically, it was referred to as the Celtic Tree Alphabet for the stick-like lines that made up the letters. Whoa. This was really cool. She couldn't help her exclamation of surprise. Leaning forward, she began to read silently to herself.

  Eamon took a step back, folding his arms over his chest. "Are you reading that, Ms. Lambert?"

  Teagan started. Oh, shoot. She was letting her geeky side show. Swallowing, she shot him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. This is just—well, certain portions of Irish history are among my interests, and Ogham is one of them. I love it. I'm Irish on my mother's side as well,” she added a bit shyly. “The people, the language, the history—it's all fascinated me since I was little. Anyway," she forced herself to stop babbling, because, good grief, she wasn't here to share her life story, "I've never before seen Ogham letters etched into wooden doors. They're usually carved into stone. These doors didn't come with this house, did they?"

  Eamon shook his head, still regarding her as if she were an interesting specimen of—something. "No, they did not. They were from Mr. Connolly's family's castle in Ireland.”

  Okay, then. The mysterious old Mr. Connolly apparently was from long-ago royalty. Hugely wealthy and titled. Probably a bit pompous, too. Check.

  “The inscription,” Eamon continued, still giving her a sharply assessing look, “is copied from some very old standing stones in Ireland, still located on ancestral Connolly property. It's said to be an old family oracle, a puzzle of sorts for family descendants. Would you care to read it out loud?" He sounded almost challenging.

  Oh, crap. Teagan wondered if she'd really messed up, but he lifted his eyebrows up a fraction and gestured at the door. Nodding, Teagan turned back to it and started from the top, translating the words to English as she spoke. “To find the—”

  Eamon abruptly cut her off. "In the original Irish, if you please." His words were clipped.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I—ah, okay. Do you understand ancient Irish?" she asked hesitantly.

  He nodded, again without offering any further explanation. Well, of course he did. The man would hardly ask her to speak it if he didn't understand it. Swallowing again, wondering why the hell she had such serious foot-in-mouth disease right now, Teagan turned back to the door and began to read aloud. In very ancient Irish Gaelic, as directed.

  “To find the key to a dragon's treasure / From the fiery mouth of the clouded mountain / The scorched carmine dragon must emerge / To battle in fearless resolution for his stolen gold / And to claim the heart of his eternal true mate.” The words lilted as Teagan spoke them. “Oh, my gosh, that's very poetic," she added, gazing in even deeper admiration at the writing. “Who knew the ancient scribes of Ogham had it in them?”

  There was a potent moment of silence as Eamon stared at her, his expression completely unreadable. Oh, crap. Teagan almost could have sworn the entire house was listening to her. Well, that wasn't impossible. The owner might have the whole place bugged. Which, being an eccentric collector type, he probably did.

  Maybe this was some sort of test? One she had failed by being too flippant. Oh, freaking crap.

  Before her thoughts could dither themselves into knots, Eamon smiled enigmatically, then reached for the doors. Pushing them wide open, he gestured her forward. Yet when Teagan stepped in, he didn't follow.

  She turned back to look at him. He shook his head, a quietly amused, almost wondering smile now playing on his lips. "Ms. Lambert, I have a sneaking suspicion you can hold your own with Mr. Connolly." As he projected his voice, Eamon's gaze went somewhere behind her shoulder.

  Teagan turned around to see a small yet stunning library. Filled with an elegantly sumptuous yet understated wealth, the library pretty much encapsulated Teagan's deepest fantasies. Naturally, she'd been that girl as a kid. The bookworm, the nerd, the one who found solace in the imaginary worlds of the stories she would read in the books in her own family's library. Not that it was a library like this one. It was shelves scattered throughout her childhood home, stuffed to the gills with books of all kinds. They'd been a very welcome escape for her from the realities of existing in a world in which she didn't look like everyone else around her.

  Swallowing again from sheer nerves, the sound seeming exceedingly loud in what was still an expectant hush, she stared in what was practically lust at this magnificent library filled with what her assessing scholar's eye knew was a veritable treasure trove of books. Old, rare, probably priceless books. Bound in leather, wood, honeyed linen, it smelled like lavish history. Plush and weighty, the air was redolent with the vanilla bean and sweet grass odor of antique paper, woods such as ju
niper and hickory, mossy oak, varying leather scents that brought to mind cardamon and marjoram. They filled the room like a velvet overlay of comfort and delight. It was a cornucopia of intoxicating riches for book conservator like herself.

  Basically, her fantasy come true. She hoped she didn't drool on anything.

  In the center of the room stood a large dark oak desk, piled with scrolls and books and even an old-fashioned quill in an ink pot, although she suspected that was a decoration to go with the ancient ambiance of the place. No one would dare leave actual ink sitting around to be possibly knocked into and spilled on irreplaceable old tomes.

  To the left, set behind the desk, was indeed a wood and mesh privacy screen, unfolded into four parts. Teagan almost immediately felt observed by an unseen someone behind it. Her skin seemed to crackle with a strange yet enjoyable heat that curled over her like a tendril of lazy smoke. A shiver of something she couldn't quite name raced up and down her spine, leaving her close to breathless for a sudden moment.

  Still pitching his voice so that he could be heard beyond Teagan, Eamon said, "Mr. Connolly, the conservator from the Bernal Center is here. May I present Teagan Lambert.” In an oddly bland tone, he continued, “She just read the inscription on the door to me. In the ancient Irish. Out loud.” He turned to her and gestured toward the screen. “Ms. Lambert, Mr. Ash Connolly would like to discuss the progress you are making on his book at the Center.”

  Teagan looked back at the screen. Silence and no movement came from that direction. After a long moment, she cautiously ventured, "Um...hello.”

  Almost holding her breath, half afraid whoever the man was wouldn't step out and half afraid he would, she waited. Aside from her own slightly rapid breathing, there was no sound in the small library.

  Before she could do more than take in those few immediate impressions, there was sudden movement from behind the screen. A man walked around it. No, he strode around it as if yanked by a cord, heading directly toward her. Eamon sucked in a quick breath, as if startled. Teagan, however, couldn't take her eyes off the approaching Mr. Connolly. Oh, holy freaking moly. He wasn't old. Maybe eccentric. But definitely not old.

  Whoa.

  His face. The left side of it was young, not much older than Teagan, and drop-dead gorgeous. Russety-brown hair shot through with darker streaks of molasses, strong, arresting features that begged to be on a billboard selling power and money and sex, thick eyebrows that were both expressive and strong at once. And his eyes. Vivid forest green, they were touched by odd flecks of brighter green that almost seemed to—glow? Brilliant, intense, his eyes fixed on her as he came toward her.

  But then there was the right side of his face. A pitted landscape of shiny burn scars was etched into it, twisting the flesh. Although his right eye shone through as clearly as his left, it peered out from beneath the scant remains of the thick, dark eyebrow that obviously had once matched his left one. The pain of whatever had burned him must have been awful, Teagan thought in some far-off, hazy corner of her mind as she stared at him. It must have been a horrible, terrible thing that occurred.

  The closer he got, she realized he was taller than she. That was nice. So was—oh. Wow. Wow.

  Her gaze, which for some reason had decided to travel down his body, had snagged on the collar of his button-down shirt. The top two buttons were open. They revealed a tantalizing glimpse of his hard chest beneath it. A chest that was just so...manly. So defined. So wildly sexy.

  Teagan's lower lip very slightly parted from the upper one as a sudden, totally crazy image whipped through her mind.

  The image of her licking him in that very spot. Tasting the dark, delicious salt of his sweat as she lightly touched her tongue to the hard planes of his body.

  H-holy crap. What was wrong with her?

  Making her jump because she'd forgotten he was there, Eamon said from the doorway, “I imagine you can both handle things from here. Call me if you need me, Mr. Connolly." Something in his voice sounded almost—amused.

  Without another word, Eamon withdrew, shutting the doors behind him. Leaving Teagan alone with the man stalking toward her like she was dinner. She felt the color flooding into her features, making her freckles pop out like beacons, as she gaped at his mesmerizing face.

  A face, she abruptly realized with a deeply shocked jolt of recognition, she knew.

  The mystery man from the other night. The one she hadn't been able to get out of her mind ever since their encounter. “You!” she gasped. Then she just stared at him with dropped jaw.

  “Well,” the definitely not-old Mr. Ash Connolly said in that rich baritone voice, a darkness edging it as his stunning green eyes fixed on her. “My sword-wielding attacker. Back to finish the job?”

  6

  Ash's slightly ragged breath shivered apart the stillness of his library. He didn't take his gaze away from the woman, who stared at him with her mouth open. Just as she had the other night, she looked utterly astonished.

  The bizarre force that had propelled him out from behind his screen, almost charging forth to meet this woman, still pushed at him. It was insanity, pure and simple. It had to be. Why the hell else would he want a beautiful woman to see his ravaged face so clearly? Especially one who had already reacted to it so badly once before?

  It was his dragon that pushed at him, snorting tendrils of smoke and flame into Ash's mind. Making him feel heated and deliriously on edge everywhere. Urging him to get closer to her. The woman. To get next to her, so close that the intoxicating scent of her skin could envelop him.

  Gritting his teeth, Ash willed himself to focus. She was a beautiful woman, yes. That was all. He hadn't been near a beautiful woman in far too long. His hormones still existed. That was all this was. Just a purely hormonal response to a gorgeous, curvaceous, fascinating woman.

  His dragon roared in his mind.

  The woman—Teagan, he let her name whisper through his mind—still just stared at him with wide eyes. Her face was so white, the freckles so pronounced on it, he thought she might be about to pass out. A nervous swallow drew his gaze to her smooth throat, where her pulse beat with hard thumps.

  He knew his scars were on clear display for her. Even so, she didn't run screaming or literally exclaim in horror the way she had the other night. He'd shocked himself by stepping out into the light of the library, clearly visible to her. Yet he'd also felt oddly compelled to do so. Beyond his opening comment, though, he wasn't sure what else to say. The woman's mere presence was making him speechless. Which was unheard of for him.

  He'd clearly lost his touch with the ladies.

  The silence lengthened into sharp awkwardness. After another excruciatingly stretched out moment, during which the woman’s beautiful chocolate-brown eyes stared back at his, she finally inclined her head in a short, jerky nod. “Oh, my g-god. H-hello,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, shaking like a leaf. “I'm, ah, from the Bernal Center? I'm the one working on your book? The damaged one? Y-yes. That's me. That's why I'm here. In your home.” He could hear the sheer nerves directing her babbling voice. “I never meant to—I didn't mean to be so awful the other night. And of course I'm not going to attack you again, that would be—oh, my god. I'm shutting up now.”

  She cut off her blathering by visibly clamping her lips tightly down. Her face abruptly flamed red, making the unique scatter of freckles all over her skin burst into deeper color. Ash couldn't help staring back, utterly taken by their intricate, unique artistry all across her equally glorious face.

  For some bizarre reason, he wanted to—to lick the woman. To trace those beautiful markings on her skin with his tongue so lightly that she would gasp and tremble from his touch. Trace them, and mark them as his.

  Mark her as his.

  The thought so rattled him that he instead opened his mouth and said in an almost icy tone, “I gathered that from when my assistant introduced you. As for the other night, it's already forgotten. Completely.”

  Almost im
mediately, he felt a correspondingly sharp snap of regret at the embarrassment and even trepidation he saw in the beauty's expression. Ah, damn him. It wasn't in his nature to be overbearing, sharp, or worse yet, intimidating. Generally speaking, Ash was a courteous man. Yet right now, he couldn't seem to help his barbed reaction. Seeing the bizarrely intriguing woman again brought such an incredible rush of conflicted feelings raging around inside him it seemed his only recourse was to channel them into a self-protective anger.

  It sure was a hell of a lot better than displaying his painful inner weaknesses to her instead.

  “Of course.” Her voice wavered. “So, I have images of the repairs I've done on your other book. Um, let me get them out.” She moved toward the table, fumbling inside her satchel. Carefully removing a tablet, she set it down with as much care as if it were a delicate baby bird. She fussed over it, turning it on with such focus he knew she was simply trying to gather her wits about her.

  Then she turned toward him in a nervous haste, knocking the small, heavy wooden bookstand on the corner of the table to the ground. It thunked onto the carpet. She stopped dead in her tracks, so quickly that she stumbled over her own feet. Her simultaneously horror-stricken and embarrassed face went that stunning rosy red again. It accentuated her classic features, the high planes of her cheeks, the proud sweep of her nose, the sweet rich brown of her eyes.

  Damn, she was incredibly beautiful, despite her clumsiness. In fact, that made her even more endearing. Ash frowned as he thought that. Endearing? Really? Why did he keep thinking such things?

  She saw his expression and apparently thought it was meant for her graceless move.

  “I'm s-so sorry about that!” she gasped, reaching down to grab up the bookstand and put it back on the table with a trembling hand. “It was a mistake, I didn't mean to—”

  Ash chuckled, then laughed with sudden delight. He had it now. It felt comfortable to be around her. Her sheer lack of either horror at his features, or the sort of transparent seductive attitude most women had had when they were around him back before he got burned, was truly refreshing. His dragon bellowed inside of him in approval. Even in a sort of possessive gratification.