Waterfall (Dragon's Fate) by Lacy Danes Page A

don’t know more than I did before; I know less. I am sure that is a scary prospect for you.” His face was soft, and his eyes held a hungry desire unlike anything she’d ever seen between couples she’d known.
    She laid the quill down on the paper, sprinkled the drying powder and turned on the stool to face him.
    He tightened his hold around her torso. “Done?” His eyebrows lifted.
    “For now.” Honestly, she had no idea what she’d written. She touched the front of his shirt, needing to feel him beneath her fingers. His heart beat equally as fast as hers under her trembling palm. “I need to know more.”  
    He pushed up to stand. “Then come.”
    He led her out of the room, down a lengthy hall lined with landscape paintings. The cool stone beneath her feet, combined with the fresh air that drafted through the hall, chilled her through. She shivered.
    Jordan wrapped his arm around her shoulder and hooked her knees with his other hand. He swooped her up. “The house is drafty. I am sorry. Ilmir needs the air movement to remain comfortable. I will keep you warm until we get to the water.”
    Ilmir? Carmen had said Ilmir was Jordan’s brother, the one who had opened the sash at Hudson’s. Possibly for more air movement? But why had he been in her room? She bit her lower lip. She had so many questions for Jordan. He said he would teach her, and she would try to be patient.
    They turned down another long hall. She laid her head on his chest, and his heart beat beneath her ear. The hall decorations turned from landscapes to tapestries. The first was of silver-stitched swirls with elongated tails. The second was copper-stitched in the shape of a triangle with rolling lines inside. “What do the symbols stand for?”
    “They are our symbols of power. Our elements. Come, you shall see.” He stopped in front of another tapestry. This one was stitched in silver with blue gems attached in fluid, swaying curves, giving the effect of water. Water. She shook her head. She never would have thought that at any point in her life she would think of swimming or water and not have her stomach ball into a knot that could sink her. There was no knot now.
    He gently set her on her feet and reached out for her hand. He pulled her to stand directly before him. “Place your hand on the threads.”
    She spread her fingers along the smooth fabric.
    “Grøn vandagame.”
    The fabric before her rippled, and a golden glow filled the space on the wall that the tapestry had hung in. She squinted against the brightness. Was there anything beyond the light?
    “Step in.” Jordan’s hand pressed firmly to the small of her back and urged her forward.
    She squeezed her eyes shut, lifted her foot and stepped into the warm bright light. Her eyelids fluttered, and she concentrated on the elaborate blue-and-gold-tile floor beneath her feet. Jordan entered behind her. She spun about and took in the space she had stepped into.
    In the center of the large room was a pool. The bottom was a warm gold color that sparkled with the light that poured in through the three curved glass windows that graced the ceiling. Iridescent stars made of glass or gems surrounded the windows. Wood alcoves were carved into the walls, and in each niche stood a different statue unlike any she had ever seen. One had many snakelike arms and an oblong, bulbous head. The next one was a fish standing on a tail that was twice its length. It had a large mouth and pointed teeth. Monsters of the sea.
    The next was of a dragon emerging from the crest of a wave. The image of Jordan cresting the wave in the same manner, with smoke billowing from his mouth as he cried out to protect her, came to her mind. They were not statues of sea monsters; the statues simply depicted creatures of the sea.
    She turned to Jordan. “This room is beautiful.”
    “Each of the tapestries in the hall holds behind it a space that instills tranquility and power to each of us. I have never seen my