Page 46 of Red Dragon’s Flame

True. “Well, I don’t breathe it, but yeah. I am kinda fiery.”

It moved its head closer to her, its giant eyes gleaming, and nosed her gently. The scales on its—his—head were tiny and softer than she expected. He huffed out a little trail of flame, and it ran up her arm.

“That tickles!”

The dragon gave a huff of breath.

“Gold has feelings?”

The dragon gave a little fiery snort of disgust. He dipped his head toward the gold, and she picked some up.

The gold hummed—and the dragon hummed with it. A slow cascade of notes, that seemed to spread all through her body, echoed faintly by all the rest of the treasure in the room.

Something warm expanded inside her chest, something that felt like happiness and home. The sound died out slowly, like the last notes of a choir.

“That was so cool,” Devon breathed. “What does—I mean, does the gold do that all the time?”

Only for people it likes. The voice was Mikah’s, and the dragon gave her one more affectionate nudge with its huge head before it shimmered and disappeared—and Mikah was there in its place.

Still dressed, somehow, even after turning into a naked dragon. That was cool, but also disappointing, because Mikah naked would be…

She dragged her attention back to Mikah clothed. “So, the gold likes me, or the dragon?”

“Both. And I’ll have you know that gold and dragons are picky about who they like.”

The warmth in her chest grew a little. “I feel honored.” She said it lightly, but she really meant it.

Mikah seemed to understand, because he smiled and held her eyes with his, until that thing that had happened between them in the bedroom at his friend’s penthouse happened again. The air between them seemed to shimmer with heat, and something more.

Something special.

It made Devon a little breathless. “So is that what you wanted to show me?” she asked. “Because it was awesome.”

“I’m glad. But actually, it wasn’t. That was just a bonus. What I wanted to show you is over there. And you’re gonna love it.”

He pointed behind him—to the empty side of the cavern.

Chapter 21

Devon looked at the big expanse of nothingness. She didn’t want to hurt Mikah’s feelings, but she couldn’t keep her sense of humor from bubbling to the surface. “Um… it’s a very nice cave. Did you make it all by yourself?”

Mikah gave a snort of laughter. “Funny assassin. Wait until you see how cool I really am.”

He went to a workbench at the side of the treasure trove, that held all kinds of fascinating gears and wires and parts of things. He picked up two flat disks that looked to be made of gold. One had a bunch of flat jeweled things set into it that looked like control buttons. The other had only one.

He opened his shirt and stuck the first one right against his skin, where it stuck. The second one he brought over to her. She could see him eyeing her shirt like he was thinking about opening it and sticking the thing on her, but was being a gentleman again.

She was kind of tired of him being a gentleman. “Go ahead,” she said, a challenge in her eyes.

Holding her gaze, he slowly unbuttoned her shirt partway, and then slid his hand with the disc on it inside. He pressed it against her upper breast, and she felt a small charge that must be magic.

They both waited to see what her fire magic thought of that, but apparently it didn’t object. He withdrew his hand… slowly.

He said to her, “This is an experiment I’ve been working on for a while. My disk is the controller, and the other one is for participants. You’re the first.”

“Really?” That pleased her. He was sharing something that was special to him, that no one else had ever seen.