Dragos Takes a Holiday (Elder Races #6.5)(9)

She fumbled for a good reply. After all, she didn’t want him to get too cocky. “Dinner by the ocean might increase your chances a bit.”

The sexy, cruel line of his mouth tilted up. He slid one hand to the back of her neck, his fingers pressing lightly. The rasp of calluses against her sensitive skin caused a ripple of sensation to cascade down her body. She licked her lower lip and watched as his gaze fell to track the movement.

Her unsteady lips shaped his name, as she said without sound or air, “Dragos.”

Heat flashed out of his tense body, invisible and volcanic. Slowly his fingers curled around the hair at her nape and clenched into a fist. He held her trapped in a possessive, barbaric hold, but everything he did was possessive and barbaric, and she wouldn’t change him for the world.

On her lap, Liam burbled companionably and tugged at her shirt. It broke the molten spell burning the air between her and Dragos. She blinked down at the baby. For a moment she couldn’t remember why they were on the plane, or where they were going.

Dragos hadn’t loosened his hold on the hair at her nape. He growled very softly, “Tonight.”

She managed a shaken nod. She was going to get so lucky tonight.

No, she meant he was.

Sooo lucky.

The plane’s angle of descent grew steeper, and nearby land magic began to tickle at her senses. Dragos gently disengaged his fingers from her hair as she turned her attention to the peanut. Liam remained sublimely unaffected by the change in air pressure in the cabin, so she nursed him and changed his diaper while Dragos walked toward the front of the plane to talk with Eva and Hugh.

The last few minutes of their flight raced by, and they touched down at the L. F. Wade International Airport. The airport was small and the runways short, so the plane braked hard and taxied briefly until it rolled to a stop. Within moments the ground crew had the mobile stairway wheeled into place, and they disembarked into hot, bright sunshine.

A Mercedes SUV rental waited for them in the parking lot. They brought their car seat and fitted it to one of the bucket seats. Once Liam had been securely strapped in, Eva drove while Hugh rode shotgun, and Dragos, Liam and Pia rode in the back.

The airport was located on St. David’s Island, at the northeast tip of Bermuda. Their house was located on the northwestern tip of the main island, so they drove across the causeway and along S Road. Even though they were on the opposite side of the island, Bermuda was not a large place, and the trip went quickly.

Pia couldn’t see everything fast enough and craned her neck to look around at the intense green foliage and palm trees, the colorful variety of buildings and the glimpses of ocean and sandy beaches as they threaded through the streets.

Dragos lounged at her side, watching the passing scenery too. “Did you know that Bermuda has more than five hundred shipwrecks in the shallow reefs that circle the islands, dating from the 1500s?”

Pia turned to stare at him. “Five hundred?”

He nodded. “And those are only the ones that have been identified. Some are even popular scuba diving sites.”

“The ocean floor must be like a pile of cars in a junkyard. How on earth could you hope to find the Sebille in all of that?”

He rubbed his jaw. “Well, if the Sebille had wrecked in shallow waters, it would have been discovered a long time ago. If it’s out there, it’s going to be deep.”

She blinked. If it had sunk in deep water, it was no wonder nobody had located the ship yet. “Does that mean you won’t be able to find it?”

He shook his head. “There’s no way to know. It does mean finding it will be a challenge.”

She studied his hard features. The frown that had been a part of his visage for so many months had eased, and he looked relaxed, alert and interested in life. She didn’t care about treasure hunting for its own sake, but she was delighted that it had caught Dragos’s interest, and the history of the Sebille had begun to engage her attention almost in spite of herself.

“How are you going to try to find it?” Most professional shipwreck hunters and maritime archaeologists had highly sophisticated and expensive equipment, and a single expedition could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “The first step will be to quarter off the area surrounding the islands. Then I’ll search it systematically by flying low over the water. My magic sense is highly developed. In isolated circumstances, I can sense magic from a couple of miles away. The Sebille might not have been carrying treasure, but with a voyage that important, it would have carried magic items—at the very least an enchanted sextant for navigating in deep water under heavy cloud cover. And if I sense a spark of magic, I can dive for it.”

She tried to imagine diving so deep with all of that water between her and the open air. A shudder tried to take over her limbs. She sternly pushed it down. “Could you dive as deep as the ocean floor?”

He never bothered with machismo swagger, because he didn’t need it. He said simply, “Yes.”

“What will you do if you don’t find anything in the flyovers?”

He shrugged. “Dive anyway until I’ve thoroughly explored each area. I’ll concentrate first on the most likely routes ships sailed from Ireland and expand my radius from there. At that point, if I get serious, I’ll look for primary sources in local records. It would help to talk to Tatiana, but she may not be willing to talk about details of the voyage. There might have been secrets on the ship that she would rather leave unfound.”