Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(35)

“What? Why?”

“Still waiting for it to pick up speed,” he told her. “Any day now. What is it, a POS?”

“What’s a POS?”

“Piece-of-shit car.”

She started to laugh. “It’s a Honda Civic, and it’s a fine car. Very fuel efficient.”

“Well, we know why, don’t we?” Despite his words, he kept to a modest speed until they had left the beach area and came to a main highway. When he accelerated, he held the car’s speed steady at the speed limit.

“What kind of car do you have?” She opened her yogurt. She was starving.

“My favorite is the Bugatti.”

She might have known he would have a car worth over a million dollars. No doubt it did something extravagant like hit the sound barrier in sixty seconds. She started to eat. “How many other cars do you have?”

“Maybe thirty in the whole fleet. I don’t keep track of them all. The ones I drive are the Bugatti or the Hummer. Sometimes the Rolls. My people drive the others.”

“Of course they do,” she said. His people. She shook her head. Such extravagant wealth was unimaginable.

He glanced at her sideways, his lip curled. “What the hell are you eating?”

She wiped the corner of her mouth with a thumb. “Soy yogurt.”

“Is that food? I tried what you bought the other day, the Twizzlers and the cherry Coke Slurpee. I couldn’t get either one out of my mouth fast enough.”

She burst out laughing. “Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was,” he told her in a serious voice. “It was very much that bad.”

“How did you know . . .” Realization dawned. “Oh, the note I left you. I wrote it on the back of a receipt.” She smacked her forehead. “That’s how you tracked me.”

“We got the security footage from the date of the receipt. Between that and your human name you told me in the dream, we had you.”

She sighed, finished her yogurt and opened the package of almonds. “So much for my life of crime.” She offered him the opened package and he shook his head. Headlights came up behind them and stayed a steady distance away. She noticed him looking in the rearview mirror and twisted in her seat. “What is it?”

“We have an escort to the Elven border.” His profile looked hard in the dim reflected light. “How polite of them. What do you want to bet they would offer roadside assistance if we got a flat?”

“Well, you can hardly blame them,” she pointed out. “You did trespass.”

“Yes, and you stole from me,” he said. “And look at how well we’re getting along.”

She was taken aback. She thought back on the overloaded day. They were getting along extraordinarily well. She suspected she ought to be freaked-out by it. Come to think of it, some part of her was.

“Now that you mention it,” she murmured, “you do seem to be running against type a bit. Aren’t you?”

“Of course,” he told her in a silken voice. “Do you think I go from possibly rending to kissing in a day with just anyone who’s stolen from me?”

“I . . . I haven’t had much time to think about it.” She hadn’t had time to think of much of anything.

He held up a finger. “First, you’re the only one who’s ever successfully stolen from me.” He held up another finger. “Second, I am not a forgiving creature. In fact, you’re the only one I’ve ever forgiven before.” He put up a third finger. “And third, I like vengeance. I’m looking forward to ripping apart the person who gave you that charm and who ended up with my penny.”

“Put like that, I should still be running away screaming,” she said. She swallowed and looked out her window at the dark night scenes passing by. “Why is this so different?”

“Remember when I said I wasn’t bored?”

She nodded as she folded the corner of her long-sleeved shirt between her fingers.

“Looking back, I think I’ve been bored for centuries now. That’s a pretty big rut. People rush to give me anything I could want. And if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I can always buy what I want.”

“I can’t imagine,” she murmured.

“Well, I live that way every day. But you’re different. You have been a series of surprises from the first,” said Dragos. “I have never been so angry. Then your note made me laugh out loud. The dream? Big surprise. The ridiculous things you say, the way you smell, the color of your hair in the sunlight, in the moonlight.” He shot her a sidelong glance with that blade-sharp smile of his. “I am very much not bored. I find that’s worth a lot to me, including figuring out how to do new things.”

She turned to look out her window again. Oh great, so she could relax as long as he was entertained? What happened when he got bored with her? Would he forget how he “forgave” her? She bit her lip.

Good thing there were still three caches in New York, with three new identities and more money. Guess she was going back to the city with him after all. She would just have to play along until she found some way to get away.

His hand landed on her knee. She jumped and turned her attention back to him. “Pia,” he said. The smile was gone from his voice. “I want you to listen to me. I’m serious. Do not try to run away when we get back to the city.”