Bad Blood by Lucienne Diver

Author:Lucienne Diver [Diver, Lucienne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2011-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

“Huh?” I asked cleverly.

She gave a half-bow from her chair. “I am a direct descendent of Liu Lei.”

“I’m sure that should mean something to me, but I have to confess—”

“Damn Eurocentric country,” Lau said, back to her irascible self as she cut me off. “Liu Lei, the dragon tamer.”

Clear as mud. “Um.”

Lau rolled her eyes. “Reader’s Digest version—Liu Lei, born during the Xia Dynasty with the ability to tame and ride dragons, given charge of King Kong Jia’s four beasts. Unfortunately, one died in his care. Not his fault; if it’s a dragon’s time to go, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. His dishonor was being too cowardly to come forward. Anyway, the family fell out of royal favor,” which I guessed was a euphemism for was forced to flee the country, “but the ability continued to breed true.”

She hadn’t laughed at me—well, okay, she had. Still, I was pretty sure if I laughed back I’d be donkey dust. I looked at Armani to see how he was taking things. Shell-shocked might be understating matters.

“So, you’re a dragon tamer,” I asked, just for clarification.

Lau huffed, sensing the skepticism behind the question. “More like guardian these days. Most of the creatures have their heads in the sand, hoping we’re just an evolutionary mistake that will pass like all the rest. They have a different conception of time, being immortal and all. Meanwhile, they dream of fat prey and no men around to hunt them into extinction.”

“How do you know what they dream?”

“Who do you think spins the fantasies that lull them to sleep? It’s what we do, speak to them in pictures, soothe them mind-to-mind.”

“Uh huh.” I took a seat of my own. “So, ah, where’s this dragon you’re watching?” It was well past breakfast, but I wasn’t sure how many more impossible things I could take. Maybe the caffeine and sugar deprivation actually helped in that department.

Armani cut in before she could answer. “Hold up. What the hell kind of drugs did you give her?”

Great, we were back to that. Feel the love.

“Underground,” Lau said, ignoring him. “Earthquakes are the dragon rolling over.”

I was afraid I was going to break our tentative rapport by bringing up, oh, I don’t know, tectonic plates and a little thing called geology, but Armani beat me to it.

“You’re both insane. Helen, I’m getting you checked out. You,” he said, pointing to me, “are staying right here.”

“Nick,” Lau said, making me bristle at the use of Armani’s first name. “Sit. Before we start talking about crazy, why don’t we let Ms. Gorgonzola here speak?”

So much for rapport.

“Listen, b—” I caught the word before it actually left my mouth, “—babe, you’re starting to tick me off, so unless that dragon of yours is ready to play second, you might not want to issue me a challenge.”

Armani growled to get us back on track.

“Fine. I’m just saying you’ve already seen what I can do. So far, Ms. Dragon Whisperer is all talk.

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