Page 9 of A Kiss of Flame
“So, that’s three thefts and four things?” Barith continued to press, reaching for his ale.
Levian was momentarily distracted as the dragon twisted to the other side of the tub, his muscles taut and flexed. She’d never been shy about admiring his physique, though her mouth did feel uncharacteristically drier than usual. She’d been so busy the last few months that she’d not thought much about satisfying any need beyond the most basic, and she’d even let a few of those slip. Levian couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a lover. She squeaked in horror when she realized it had been nearly two years.
“Ye alright, Vi?” Barith asked as he turned back around.
Levian’s face heated, and she waved him off. “Fine,” she mumbled. “Just remembering something I’ve forgotten to do.”
Barith took a few gulps from his ale, and Levian cleared her throat, regaining focus. “There were two more thefts,” she continued, “though both were unsuccessful.”
“Abigail?” Barith guessed. Levian nodded, and he genuinely chuckled, a sound that soothed something deep within her. “I bet she was more than a wee bit angry.”
Levian smirked. “They’re lucky they escaped with their limbs intact.”
Barith snorted into his mug. “Aye. They’re lucky their maimed bodies didnae end up buried under Henry’s rose garden.”
She laughed in agreement. Henry was Abigail’s body man—intense, quiet, and deadly efficient—with an uncanny ability to grow the most beautiful roses. No doubt he would have gladly buried the bodies beneath his rose garden if he’d gotten the chance.
“Abigail managed to fend them off,” she told him. “They escaped, unfortunately. But I know there were two of them, and they wore black masks.”
Barith leaned back in the bath, stretching his long legs and propping a foot on the tub’s edge. He swirled his fingers absentmindedly through the water, looking far more relaxed now than when he’d arrived. Her gaze lingered over his damp, very muscled chest, and Levian cursed herself. If she was lusting after Barith, of all people, she was clearly very sex deprived.
“She knew what they were after?” Barith asked.
Levian let out a steadying breath of irritation. “I went to see her after I found out,” she told him. “As far as I know, I’m the only one she told about the attempted theft aside from Henry.”
Barith grunted. “Except now ye’ve told me—and I know ye already told Carvatticus.”
Levian rolled her eyes. “Car knows Abigail as well as we do and knows how to keep his mouth shut. I assume you can, too?”
The dragon scowled. “Of course, I can keep a bloody secret.”
“Then may I continue?” she retorted.
He grunted in response—as if grunts and growls were another language all their own.
“Car doesn’t know what they tried to steal,” she elaborated.
That perked him up. “Aye?” he grumbled smugly. “What was it?”
She nodded, fighting back the urge to roll her eyes at Barith’s evident excitement that he was about to discover something Car didn’t. “It was rubble,” she told him. “A piece of stone from the temple in Celaria.” The old capital city of the Dökk, or the Star-Touched City as it translated from the old fae. “The one destroyed during the Abyssal attack.”
Barith inhaled sharply, his chest expanding above the water. When he exhaled, he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “A book, a ring, somethin’ some mage had that ye don’t know about, a Dökk blade, and a piece of old rock from Celaria,” he recalled, shaking his head. “Sounds like a bunch of masked idiots either hired by some insane collector or tryin’ to make their fortune on the black market.”
Levian pursed her lips with frustration. Barith really could be thick-headed sometimes. “I don’t think they are just some ‘masked idiots’stealing for fame and fortune,” she snapped. “I don’t know how all the pieces fit yet, but I’ll figure it out. I can feel?—”
“—it in your bones,” he finished for her. “Aye. I’ve heard ye say it before.”
“Well,” she retorted haughtily, flattening a nonexistent wrinkle in her robe. “It’s true.”
“And Council doesnae know you’re huntin’ these bloody thieves?” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes.
“I work better alone,” she insisted, avoiding meeting his gaze. “You know that.”
He snorted. “Youthinkye do. I knowthat. But this is serious, Vi. If these thieves have the guts to steal from Abigail and live to talk about it, you shouldn’t be chasing them on your own. You’re a damn good mage, but we both know it’s dangerous and ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” she defended, popping up from her seat.
“Dammit, Levian!” he seethed, embers flickering from his mouth and nostrils, landing with hisses in the water. Barith’s entire body was tense, his skin flushed red, but he took a deep breath and leaned away from her, sending water sloshing over the opposite side of the tub behind him.