Where Sleeping Dragons Lie (Skeleton Key) Read online

  WHERE SLEEPING DRAGONS LIE

  (Skeleton Key)

  CRISTINA RAYNE

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2016 Cristina Rayne

  Published by Fantastical Press

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  JOIN MY NEWSLETTER

  ALSO BY CRISTINA RAYNE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You know, you’re practically drooling, right?” Briana said with amusement as she watched her friend, Carol, stare down with bright, excited eyes at the book she had brought from her late grandmother’s collection as though the book was the true Book of the Dead.

  “If there weren’t customers milling about, I would be squealing like a little girl seeing a unicorn in her backyard,” Carol joked.

  “From your reaction, I take it Granny Ruth never showed this book to you, either?”

  Some of the excitement dimmed from the older woman’s eyes. “No. She must’ve acquired it right before she—passed. Or rather, I imagine it was a sudden, unexpected find given that she never mentioned that she was hunting for anything even remotely like this beauty.”

  Briana’s eyes once again fell on the old, leather-bound book that Carol was carefully examining with gloved hands. The leather appeared to have darkened over the years, whether naturally or because of the preservation efforts of its previous owners remained to be seen. There were a few cracks along the spine from years of being open and read, though there was thankfully no initial evidence of red rot.

  “The book was on the center shelf in her rare books case,” Briana said. “I must’ve walked by it dozens of times over the past month before I finally noticed it.”

  “Maybe because of the archival sleeve?” Carol offered absently as she carefully opened the book to its title page. “It’s the same type Ruth used for all her rare books, so I wouldn’t think it would particularly catch your eye.” She raised her eyes and looked back at Briana with a flash of grief. “Plus, you’ve had too many things weighing on your mind and heart these days to notice something as innocuous as a new book.”

  Briana shook her head. “But I shouldn’t have had to notice it at all. Granny Ruth always called me the moment she found a book even remotely interesting, but an obvious treasure like this? You haven’t said much about it, but all teasing aside about the drooling, I can see it in your eyes. This book is something special. Even factoring in her heart attack—” She cut herself off, a knot of grief abruptly forming in her throat before she forced it down and shook her head again. “It’s just—strange,” she continued thickly.

  “Hmm…it doesn’t appear to have been oiled by its previous owners. I don’t see even a hint of bleed-through along the spine.” Carol suddenly gasped, and her eyes narrowed. “What—is this?”

  “I know, right?” Briana replied with an excited grin, reaching down with a white-gloved hand to point at a series of strange, fading symbols that were handwritten—or drawn—on what she assumed was the title page. “I figured this was why there wasn’t any kind of title etched in the spine. The writing doesn’t even remotely match any kind of alphabet I’ve ever seen. The whole book is written in it. I might be jumping the gun here, but it reminds me a lot of the Voynich manuscript, only without the strange pictures.”

  Carol looked over at her sharply before carefully opening the book a few pages in. “Don’t tease me like that. I don’t recognize the writing either, but for all we know, this could just be a prank or someone’s old journal written in their own personal cipher.”

  Briana nodded. “I thought so, too. I didn’t want to get you excited for nothing, so I took a few pictures with my phone of blocks of writing from different pages and ran them through a Google image search. The search brought up a lot of pictures of old vellum, handwritten pages, but none of the writing on them even remotely matched these—letters?”

  “I can see why you would hesitate to call them that,” Carol said. “Each line of writing just looks like a stretched out water hose twisted with kinks here and there of various-sized loops surrounded by a random number of dots and diagonal, short lines. The writing in the Voynich manuscript at least had letters that resembled our alphabet.”

  “A water hose, huh,” Briana echoed with a grin. “I was thinking more along the lines of a weirdly embellished EEG line, but a twisted up water hose works, too.”

  The older woman snorted. “You would have water hoses on the brain, too, if you had spent a couple of hours spraying weed killer onto your lawn this morning like I had, but go ahead and laugh at an old woman.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you and all that.”

  A familiar bell abruptly chimed behind her, signaling that a customer had entered the book shop.

  “Oh, shoot,” Carol muttered as she began to take her gloves off. “I forgot I had an appointment this morning. A new client.” Her eyes flitted longingly back down to the book they had been examining.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Briana assured her. “I don’t have any more lectures today, so we can study the book together all day if you can spare the time.”

  Carol still looked torn. “If he weren't so interested in buying my latest acquisition, I would reschedule and close up shop for the rest of the day, but…”

  “Go,” Briana said, giving her back a nudge towards the door. “I’ll call Melody in the meantime and see how soon she can fit us in to have the book carbon dated.”

  “Good idea.”

  Ten minutes later, Briana was just ending her call with Melody when the door suddenly opened to reveal Carol. Surprised, Briana opened her mouth to ask if the older woman had forgotten something before the words froze in her throat when she realized that someone was following Carol into the room.

  A black-haired man dressed in a stylish, black suit sans tie that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a celebrity red carpet event paused behind her friend just a couple of steps beyond the threshold. His age could have been anywhere between late twenties to mid-thirties. His short hair was just a bit longer in front and artfully tousled, and he had about a couple of days’ worth of stubble above his upper lip and along his jawline.

  This was Carol’s new client?

  He turned his head slightly from left to right as he briefly glanced around the room until his gaze abruptly paused, then settled on her, his expression openly curious.

  He was so far afield from the shop’s usual clientele that Briana was thoroughly caught off guard, and it took every ounce of her self-control to keep her expression neutrally friendly when confronted so abruptly by the face of one of the most gorgeous men she had seen in possibly ever.

  “This is Mr. Taron Hildebrand. Excuse us for a moment,” Carol told her absently as she led the striking man to the
series of glass cases that took up the entire back wall of the shop’s examining room.

  The older woman paused in front of a case that contained the rarest books in the shop’s collection. Briana’s heart sped up in a different kind of excitement. The store’s finances had been getting worryingly lean this year no matter how hard Carol had been trying to hide that fact from her, and one big sale could instantly turn that all around.

  Carol was Granny Ruth’s best friend, and over the years of spending countless hours researching and obsessing over the ancient tomes that came in and out of this rare books shop with the two older women, she had become much the same to Briana. Had she not had Carol to lean on and mourn with, Granny Ruth’s abrupt death would have destroyed her. Her friend deserved this windfall and more.

  “I apologize for making you come back here,” Carol said, her voice breaking through Briana’s dark thoughts. “I had a bit of unexpected excitement this morning and didn’t get to transfer the book to one of the viewing cases in my office.”

  “It’s fine,” Mr. Hildebrand assured her in a strong, totally sexy and British-accented bass that seemed to reverberate throughout the room and pleasantly over her senses. “I had hoped for an opportunity to physically examine the book during this meeting.”

  With an internal sigh, Briana carefully closed her grandmother’s mysterious book. It seemed her continuing examination of the book would have to wait, at the very least another hour, until Carol was finished with her appointment.

  “I’ll give you two some privacy.” She carefully picked up the book. “Carol, I’ll just put this in an empty case in your office while I go out for breakfast in the meantime.”

  Briana turned her attention to Carol’s gorgeous new client just as he was turned to look back at her over his shoulder. “Can I offer you some tea, coffee, or juice, Mr. Hilde—”

  Her words cut off in a sharp gasp as his eyes had fallen on the leather book in her still-gloved hands and in the next second, all but lunged towards her with a wild, scary look in his eyes. She instinctually flinched away and took a couple of unconscious steps back until the small of her back bumped into the examining table’s edge.

  As her mind shrieked in warning, Mr. Hildebrand stopped just short of touching distance and then all her frantic mind could focus on was a pair of strangely orange-tinted hazel eyes the color of an ocean sunset regarding her with an intense, laser focus, even while her heart was threatening to beat out of her chest.

  “I’ll pay you five hundred thousand dollars for that book right now without examination,” he offered firmly, both hands raised slightly towards her with fingers flexing as though he longed to just snatch the book away from her.

  Briana swallowed against the knot of fear that had suddenly formed in her throat and exchanged a quick, startled look with Carol, whose frozen, shocked expression probably mirrored her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she replied slowly, struggling not to squirm under that fierce, unnerving gaze, “but this one isn’t currently for sale.”

  After a horribly tense, though brief, moment of silence where even the very air seemed to be holding its breath, the corners of his lips slowly quirked up into a mild grin while those sunset eyes continued to bore into her disconcertingly. “I figured as much, but I had to offer all the same.”

  He took a few steps back until she no longer felt as though her personal space was being invaded, and his expression turned sheepish as he joined his hands together behind his back into a more relaxed pose. “I thought I recognized—well, forgive me. It seems my enthusiasm got the best of me again, and I gave you an unintentional shock. That was terribly rude of me.”

  Gripping her grandmother’s book a bit more tightly, Briana straightened and offered him a small smile of forgiveness even though all her senses were still screaming danger! “That someone can get that excited about a book in this day and age should make us all happy.”

  He chuckled. “Indeed.” He looked over his shoulder and nodded towards Carol, who was currently watching their exchange with anxious eyes, before turning back to Briana. ”Perhaps I’ll have better luck with the volume I initially came to examine. If it’s not too much trouble, I’ll accept a cup of black tea with a dash of cold milk if you have it—or if not, a cup of coffee, black, will be fine.”

  Despite some lingering misgivings about leaving her friend alone with Mr. Hildebrand, Briana nodded. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  Carol’s bookshop had a small coffee and cappuccino bar in the front to cater to both the casual browser fresh off the street and the serious rare book collectors that had become regular buyers over the years. As she waited for Carol’s part-timer, Misty, to prepare a cup of black tea to order, Briana’s pulse still continued to race even though it was several minutes after that initial shock.

  In that split-second when Taron Hildebrand had shot towards her, she imagined that sudden burst of terror she had experienced was the same terror a rabbit felt in the face of an unexpected viper’s strike. Maybe that’s why her heart still couldn’t be calmed. His alarming behavior, on top of being observed with such uncanny eyes, had triggered all the warning bells in her mind. Was she a complete idiot to ignore them for the sake of being polite to a new client and a desperately needed lucrative sale?

  The sound of a door creaking open had her neck instantly craning towards the back of the shop. Although she shouldn’t have been, Briana was still surprised to see Mr. Hildebrand hurrying back into the sales room with an anxious-looking Carol a few steps behind. His cell phone was pressed against his left ear, drawing her eyes to the slight frown and intense expression darkening his eyes. He gave her a curt, distracted nod as he passed the coffee counter on his way to the shop’s exit.

  The sound of the bells on the entrance door clanging were still echoing in the shop as Briana turned to Carol with a bewildered look. “What happened?”

  Carol sighed. “Just plain old rotten luck, I would guess. I had just placed the book he came to examine on the table when he suddenly received a phone call. I could tell he was irritated with the interruption, the way the muscles in his face kind of hardened, but he answered it immediately, nonetheless.”

  “Something work related?” Briana hazarded.

  “Probably. He hung up rather quickly and apologized for having to cut his appointment short. Then he headed towards the door, telling me over his shoulder he’d call and reschedule.”

  “Tea?” Misty offered with a wry grin, setting the steaming cup of black tea she had been preparing for their wayward guest in front of Briana.

  “Sure.” She picked up the teacup and gestured towards the back with her free hand. “I hate that your potential buyer flaked out on us, but I’m really dying to get back to examining Granny Ruth’s book. Breakfast can wait. Do you think Joseph would be willing to drive up to meet with us tomorrow morning? If anyone has a chance of knowing anything about that strange writing, it would be him.”

  Carol snorted. “That man would drive through a tornado blocking the road if he knew a prize such as that intriguing book awaited him on the other side.”

  “Stupid question, right,” Briana said with a grin. “Speaking of, Mr. Hildebrand seemed just as passionate. I can’t believe he’s never come sniffing around here or some of the local auctions before today. Did he just move into the area or was he referred by one of the regulars? That’s not the kind of man that I would forget seeing, especially in our circles.”

  “Yes, he certainly was handsome,” Carol replied with a chuckle. “Terrance referred him, said he was from New York City. I suppose he ran into Mr. Hildebrand during his last trip to the east coast, but I don’t know for sure. You know Terrance. He can talk about a book without interruption for days, but when it comes to everything else, he’s always short on details.”

  “Well, if he came all this way just to buy one of your books, then I think we’ll be seeing him pretty soon, hopefully after Joseph examines the mystery book.” Briana shook her head as she
stepped into Carol’s office to retrieve the book in question. “Offering us five hundred grand after a single glimpse—that’s just crazy.”

  “Or calculating. I could swear that he actually recognized it.”

  Briana frowned. “With no writing anywhere on the exterior? It looks like a thousand other old, hand-bound leather books. I never would’ve given it a second glance if I didn’t know Granny’s cases like the back of my hand and realized it didn’t belong.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I had planned on leaving it here overnight, but maybe I should take it with me back home after all. Although he was drool worthy, Mr. Hildebrand gave off some really strange vibes. I mean, my heart nearly tore out of my chest when he came at me so suddenly.”

  Looking troubled, Carol slowly nodded. “I didn’t want to say—I thought it was just me, but—yes, I think that would be best.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Carol! You won’t believe what I just found in the—” Briana called out excitedly as she pushed open the bookshop door to the sound of bells before stopping mid-phrase when she realized that her friend had visitors.

  At the sound of her voice, the two men standing at the reception counter in the center of the shop, one gray-haired and dressed in a standard gray business suit and the taller, black-haired one in a more casual charcoal-colored sports coat and black slacks, turned to look over at her. Briana instantly froze a step inside the shop, her hand still clenched around the brass doorknob and the other contracting tightly around the strap of her oversized shoulder bag. She stared mutely at the taller man, at Taron Hildebrand, who regarded her with an opaque expression in his eyes.

  “I’m—sorry,” Briana forced out past the huge knot of surprise that had instantly formed in her throat. “I didn’t realize you were with clients.”

  Her pulse began to race when Mr. Hildebrand turned around completely and started to walk towards her, a smile forming on his full lips. “Just the person I was hoping to meet with this morning.” He reached out a hand. “Once again, my name is Taron Hildebrand.”