Captive Dreams Read online

  “By the gods, I did it,” he groaned. His chest heaved as he fought for breath, but he managed a weak whoop of triumph.

  “Oh damn.” She looked around for help. With any luck she’d be on a soundstage and could complain to the director. But if she wasn’t lucky, and the big body builder with a grand master’s speed really was Mykhayl . . .

  The enormous room didn’t look like any set she’d been shown in New Zealand, not with its frame of green and white marble pillars, marching in pairs along each side. More marble covered the floor in patterns as intricately wrought as any oriental carpet. Murals washed the walls and ceiling in celebration of the green dragon and the white tiger, Torhtremer’s emblems. A rainbow of banners fluttered high above, gradually recovering from the vortex’s winds. Long windows opened one wall to a view of the harbor beyond and the gentle southern hills, curling into a phoenix’s fluid outline under the first rays of sunset.

  No cameras, no lights, no scaffolding to support lights or a wall, no hairstylist fussing about the big guy’s tousled locks . . . Thousands of nicks in the floor looked like the result of centuries of boots, not a set decorator’s polishing.

  “Oh damn,” Corinne said again, rather more forcefully. Panic welled up until she shivered, but she fought it back down. She knew better than to lose control in front of a man.

  Great sconces circled the room, each holding aloft a round golden globe backed by a silver shell. The globes glowed softly now, the traditional sign that a Dragonheart was present. Mykhayl Tibronson, High King of Torhtremer, was the only living Dragonheart: he could summon the Imperial Dragon to life at any time. Still, any lighting designer who’d read all six of her books would know that much.

  “Welcome to Torhtremer,” the big redhead announced hoarsely as he set her down, sliding her over his front as if he didn’t trust his grip. The bilious green of his skin was so unflattering that no actor would tolerate it for a minute. Looking up at him, she fought the increasing conviction that everything was just as genuine as it appeared.

  Corinne swayed, off-balance from shock and the shoe she’d lost. She tried to widen her stance and recover, but her bound ankles couldn’t obey. She squeaked and wobbled helplessly, her hands tugging futilely against their ropes.

  He caught her easily, his strength and size making her feel even more defenseless.

  “Let me go, you bastard!” she snarled instinctively. The amber pendant immediately flared into life, shooting hot stabs of fury into her lungs. She gasped in pain and the pendant cooled instantly.

  “The more you curse me, the greater will be your punishment,” the big redhead remarked, sounding entirely too pleased.

  “What are you talking about?” She angrily kicked off the useless shoe, and he steadied her carefully until she could stand on her own. Even then, he kept a viselike grip on her elbow. Stubbornly she refused to wince.

  “Dragon’s blood and mine thrice soaked the amber. It will magnify any harm you wish on me threefold and turn it back against you.” His skin was losing its unhealthy tint, while his mouth twitched. Damn him, he looked like he enjoyed fencing her in.

  “Oh, come on! Don’t give me that bullshit,” Corinne blustered, finally shaking free of his clutch. “Why would you waste all that effort on a nobody like me?”

  “You’re a sorceress, are you not?” he snorted and swept his hair back from his face, making the huge emerald in his heavy signet ring catch fire. “I’d give a sweeter welcome to a colony of Zemlayan fire ants.”

  “I don’t do magic! I’m just a romance author.” Corinne took a deep breath, trying to ignore the ropes cutting into her skin, and edged farther away from him. His broad chest was swirled with auburn hair and strained the embroidered vest with every breath. Her five feet ten felt fragile next to him until she tried not to shiver. The marble floor was entirely too cold for comfort, her skin was producing goose bumps faster than her lack of clothing could account for, and her stomach was tossing as if to evict that last expense-account dinner.

  “Pray tell, how did an author compel the northern ice fortresses to surrender to a company of women? Or bring a fleet of Amazons from the lost islands to save the Goddess’s shrine from burning? Or . . .” He raised a mocking eyebrow as he eyed her retreat.

  She stayed put to face his unspoken challenge and glared at him. “Those were just stories! They didn’t happen.” But her voice lacked conviction even to her own ears.

  Any casting director would have killed to put that face on the silver screen: golden eyes under winged eyebrows and a broad forehead, high slanted cheekbones, straight nose and hard chin framing a mouth designed for endless kisses, a thick fall of auburn hair that touched his waist. Any actor who looked like him would have been a star years ago, not an unknown trying for a secondary part in a movie.

  “What you name yourself matters not, only the pleasures you’ll bring me. Now where shall I begin . . .” He began to circle her slowly and she took a quick step back, choking for breath. Maybe reasoning with him would work.

  “It’s a lovely set you’ve got here,” she began, trying to sound as rational as a woman could while wearing only a stretch lace slip that barely covered her behind. Maybe if she didn’t think about what she wasn’t wearing, he wouldn’t, either. Maybe she could still regain the initiative. Yeah, and maybe that cow really did jump over the moon.

  “Truly magnificent and so accurate down to the last detail,” she continued hastily. “I’ll be glad to recommend Peter and Janet hire you for the next movie. Now, if you’ll just untie me and let me go, then we can both forget that this happened.” She smiled at him, as charmingly as she could.

  To her horror, he lifted an eyebrow and began to laugh.

  “Hire me, the High King, to be a traveling player? But perhaps I would, if I could return to you each night.” He eyed the cleavage displayed above her slip’s black lace, while his forefinger traced a lazy path between her breasts.

  “Keep your hands to yourself!” Corinne took a hasty step backwards, which was too much for her hobbled ankles to manage. She tumbled to the floor and automatically rolled to avoid bruising. She wound up facing the dais and its two thrones.

  The smaller throne was silver and carved in the shape of a great white tiger—powerful, elegant, and emphatically female, its sapphire eyes lifeless. A great halberd hung on the wall behind it, its curved blade on the long iron staff strangely reminiscent of an outstretched cat’s claw.

  The larger throne offered a seat between the two forepaws of a great green dragon; the dragon’s body supported the seat with the tail coiled neatly behind. The head loomed over the seat, looking both powerful and omniscient. Its eyes met hers, ancient and inscrutable, filled with an alien curiosity more terrifying than the ropes binding her wrists or the fall through the vortex.

  Three months in New Zealand polishing The Leopard and the Lily’s script had taught Corinne the limits of modern movie making. Nothing in Hollywood’s bag of tricks could make a piece of furniture seem alive while you looked at it. Modern magic added the life later, in an effects shop after the actors had gone home.

  All her earlier nausea rushed back and hit her in the stomach like a bullet train. That was Khyber, the Imperial Dragon, manifesting himself as a throne. She truly was lying in Torhtremer’s throne room, eyeing a beast who could swallow her whole, just as he’d used the sorcerer Hardradda’s bones for toothpicks.

  Which meant she really had caused an ice serpent to emasculate the man standing next to her. To say nothing of the other torments she’d caused him, like that time with the Gray Sorceress. Damn, damn, damn.

  Suddenly her brain was very far removed from the ice-cold body that couldn’t catch a breath of air. Her pulse speeded up and she nearly fainted.

  Then she caught a glimpse of the Great Seal with its dragon and tiger from the corner of her eye, the tiger ready to leap on any enemy.

  The dizziness receded slightly and she fumbled for her sifu’s proverbs before a kung fu tou
rnament. Her heart slowed to deep thuds that seemed as loud as a rock concert. A single breath rasped her lungs, then another and another. She came up on her knees very carefully, still trembling, her eyes never leaving the enigmatic intelligence before her, her brain still barely connected to her body. She had to directly confront the only magic she’d written of but never understood.

  “Khyber, are you frightening my captive?” Mykhayl’s voice, low and rumbling with suppressed laughter, was as infinitely welcome as the marble floor’s increasing warmth.

  The dragon yawned, displaying rows of knife-sharp white teeth. “Merely inspecting what you took so long to retrieve.” His voice was calm and precise with a faint hint of Scotland, like Sean Connery playing a very haughty dragon. Definitely Khyber. Why hadn’t she realized before just how big a thirty-foot dragon really was?

  Corinne bit her lip and tried not to shiver more. Either male would pounce at any sign of weakness.

  “If you’d carried me to her as I asked, I would have returned in a candle’s span.” Mykhayl lifted her upright against him. She gathered her feet under her, desperate for some independence, but reluctantly thankful for his body heat and the support of his strong arm. Her hands were trapped between her back and that iron ridge inside his trousers. She didn’t dare move them.

  “You learned more by performing the spell yourself,” Khyber returned calmly. “And it gave you the freedom to send the other man back to his world with his woman.”

  “But mine is more beautiful, is she not?” Mykhayl bragged as he wrapped his arm around her and lazily stroked her hip. She quivered under the possessive touch and her treacherous nipples beaded. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted, a slow warmth building where her naked neck and shoulders brushed against his satin skin.

  She started to protest but stopped. She’d disappear in a moment down that scaly throat if Mykhayl didn’t protect her.

  “Perhaps she is comely only because you captured her,” Khyber snorted, swirling the banners with a gust of sulfur-laden air. His massive head lifted from the throne and uncoiled to inspect her closely, his reflections rippling through column after column, until she felt surrounded by dragons. Ice stormed through her veins again and she shuddered, her mouth too dry to speak. Her only comfort was the big body behind her, towering over her, while his hand slid over her stomach.

  “Nonsense! You’re simply envious that a mage will grace my bed tonight and not yours,” Mykhayl retorted, still fondling her. Heat followed every slow smooth glide of his fingers over the lace, until she thought she might collapse. Her silk slip and his leather trousers didn’t stop his truly impressive erection from nestling into the crack of her ass. He rolled his hips so that his balls stroked her bound hands. Heat flooded her blood and bones everywhere he touched. She was helpless to stop him, open to anything he wanted, and worse yet, melting in anticipation of his next move.

  “No!” Corinne gasped at the sudden realization of how much self-control she’d lost and tried to jerk away. Her hobbled feet stumbled and she’d have fallen under the dragon’s nose if Mykhayl hadn’t caught her.

  “Foolish wench,” he chuckled, settling her back against him, both hands coming up to hold and tease her in a way that felt totally different from anything that jerk Dylan had ever done. She shuddered when he began to rub against her hands again, her breasts tightening with every wicked touch.

  The silver sconces nearby started to glow, until the three stood in a pool of light as bright as high noon.

  “Mortals.” Khyber sniffed and swung his massive head to consider the two humans from first one side, then the other. His golden eyes were damn near the size of her torso. She refused to consider the size of his teeth. He could swallow her whole.

  “Please,” she got out, wishing her mouth wasn’t so damn dry. “Please untie me!”

  “Indeed? Why should I release my little captive?” Mykhayl plucked her nipples through the silk. A jolt of sheer lust ran down to her core in response.

  Corinne shook, overwhelmed by proximity to a dragon, anxiety over Mykhayl’s intentions, and old nightmares. He probably wouldn’t kill her, but she remembered other times when she’d have welcomed death rather than bondage at a man’s hands.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead as she tried to think. Three enemies in this room: Mykhayl, Khyber, and the ropes. Which one could she dispose of first? How could she escape at least one?

  “Do you really need me bound like a Christmas roast?” Corinne stammered, uncomfortably aware of the blazing brand that ran from Mykhayl’s hand to her breast and straight to her vulva. She tried to think, which was difficult when column after column showed her half-swooning against Mykhayl’s hard body. “Is this how you always persuade a woman to sleep with you?”

  “Your consent isn’t needed, sorceress, only your body.” His voice was idle, but his touch and that blazingly hot bar against her ass were anything but relaxed.

  The Tiger Throne shimmered in the silver sconces, as Mykhayl nuzzled her shoulder. Corinne shuddered in response and made up her mind. If she couldn’t control him or the dragon, then she’d settle for not being helpless.

  “Please take these ropes off me,” she begged, then added, “Your Majesty.”

  “A pitiful plea, sorceress, hardly worth the mention. Perhaps you have something you can offer in exchange for a boon,” he half-growled, half-sighed, pressing himself against her hands.

  Corinne closed her eyes, his fat balls behind their leather veil rolling into her palms until her fingers instinctively, involuntarily stroked them. If she was very lucky, none of the dew between her thighs showed underneath her incredibly short slip.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer a complaisant, willing woman, Your Majesty?” she managed, forcing herself to look up at him. This was not how she’d ever written a seduction scene. “Not one who would weep and wail every time you came near?”

  Mykhayl smiled down at her, hunger and excitement boldly apparent. “Your words begin to excite me, sorceress. Perhaps I’ll lash you to my bed that I may hear you beg more.”

  The evidence that he spoke the truth was unmistakable. Corinne gulped, uncomfortably aware of how her nipples had grown under his greedy gaze. “Look, I swear that I will do anything you want while I’m here, as long as you don’t tie me. Please!”

  Mykhayl threw back his head and laughed. “My rod leaps at the sound of your pleas, sorceress. And you have yet to learn the full measure of my revenge.”

  If she didn’t get free soon, she was going to beg him to take her. What else could she try?

  “Does raping a helpless woman make you hard?”

  His golden eyes flickered at that.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to hear me beg for more?” She wet her lips, wishing that her nipples weren’t such hard buds. This had to work. “I swear that I’ll be an eager bed partner if you’ll untie me.”

  “An oath is binding on a sorceress who gives it freely,” Khyber remarked, resting his chin on a forepaw to study her better.

  Corinne stared at the enormous green dragon. Why on earth was he helping her win this argument? She kept silent.

  “She has earned any punishment that I care to mete out,” Mykhayl reminded Khyber. Damn, some of his fingers had found her slip’s hem. Her pulse pounded harder and she prayed for escape.

  “Her magic is servant to her words, so long as she commands it or gives oath. You can always bind her, if you want to hear her pleas again.” Khyber yawned, showing some viciously sharp teeth and setting Corinne’s hair to fluttering. Her stomach clenched. “Do you mean to take her hence or use her here where I can watch?”

  Mykhayl frowned at the dragon, then shrugged.

  “I accept your given word, sorceress. You’ll moan in my bed soon enough.” He stepped away from her and cut her wrists and ankles free with a slender dirk.

  Corinne shook the circulation back into her hands and managed to keep her balance without assistance from Mykhayl.

  A surreptitious glance
showed her that the Dragon Throne now looked like just an ordinary piece of furniture, while the Tiger Throne’s silver shone as bright as the sconces. She frowned, not comforted at all. She was in Torhtremer at the mercy of a justifiably furious High King. Hopefully, he’d never find out exactly why she’d made the ice serpent bite him.

  Mykhayl swatted her ass and she jumped with a small shriek. Nobody’d ever dared to do that before, not even Dylan. “What the hell!” She swung at him, but he caught her wrist and pulled her close.

  “Spitting at your master, already?” he purred, boldly running his hand up her hip under the slip. She gasped and glared at him.

  “No more words for me? Do you think to avoid swearing another oath by keeping your lips sealed?” He laughed at her outrage and bent his head to hers. The masses of auburn hair tumbled down like a veil when his lips touched her temple.

  Corinne started to jerk away but caught herself. She froze, fighting the tremors of nervous anticipation, while his warm mouth traveled down her cheek.

  His hand caught her chin, tilting it up to meet him. “You little minx, I wish to taste what my strength and cunning has captured. Show me the delights of a willing sorceress.”

  Her tongue ran out over her lips and then retreated. She closed her eyes against the lust in his and waited, not quite daring to breathe. But his long callused fingers stroked her face slowly, tracing the muscles and tendons and pushing back her hair. She forgot to worry about his mouth, while she wondered which pulse he would set on fire next.

  He stroked his tongue over her lips softly, like the first scout of an advancing army. Her body stilled in anticipation.

  The kiss, when it finally came, seized her like springtime’s rush into the Arctic tundra. His lips covered hers and his tongue surged into her fiercely. Her sigh opened her mouth even more to his assault. She moaned and clutched at his shoulders as he ravaged her mouth, sending heat flooding down to her toes.

  One last thought flashed past before her wits vanished: he didn’t kiss like an older brother.