Chapter 36

"Shall we?"
Dana jumped, sloshing the last drops of her champagne onto her gown. "Beau!" How had he snuck up on her? She set the glass down on the nearest table and shook out her skirt.
Beau's craggy features barely twitched but she was sure he was laughing at her. "Mademoiselle. Shall we dance?"
Dana straightened her spine. Even at her full five foot eleven inches plus heels, she still only came to the tip of his long, slightly hooked nose. Damn! These gargoyles were big. She looked up into Baudoin's greenish-brown eyes and raised one eyebrow. "Under orders from the groom, or did you draw the short straw?"
"Oddly enough, neither," he replied, holding out a hand. "It simply seemed like the thing to do."
What the hell? It was only a dance. Dana could manage that, even if just standing next to him had her dampening her panties. She inclined her chin a fraction of an inch and placed her hand in his.
Dana Logan was pure wildfire but Beau knew better than to let himself be burned again. He led the statuesque beauty onto the dance floor, wishing that the sight and scent of her weren't making him almost too hard to walk, let alone dance.
She was strong and graceful as well as beautiful, with her gold and brown streaked hair and bronze-colored eyes. Her long hair was swept up into an elaborate knot that added several inches to her already impressive height. It was a relief to dance with a woman who was close to his own two meter stature. Being in the US, he automatically converted the number in his head - six and a half feet, give or take - which must have put Dana at just over six feet in her heels. She nestled into him like she belonged in his arms and Beau's body seemed to agree, damn it. His cock strained against his formal trousers as the cinnamon fragrance from her hair teased his nostrils.
"Katie's really happy that the three of you made the trip," she murmured against his shoulder. "She was worried that your clan would be upset with Damien for moving to Philadelphia."
"Katie could have demanded just about anything she wanted and my clan wouldn't have complained," Beau demurred. "She restored one of the missing regalia artifacts. She's given the clan more hope than it has had in decades." He knew Dana had been told about the gargoyles' quest for the magical talismans. It had been against Beau's advice that Damien's new wife had recruited her coven-mates to help in the search but if it worked, he'd be more than happy to eat his words. "Besides, once it becomes obvious to their neighbors that they don't age as normal humans, they'll need to move, anyway. Most of the clan members rotate back to the enclave in Montreal periodically."
"Yeah." Dana nodded. She rested her chin on the shoulder of his dinner jacket. "Know how that goes."
She did? He knew Dana and her brother had to be something, or Bram Logan wouldn't be Damien's new partner on the city's paranormal police unit. Somehow Beau had assumed that they were just mostly human witches like Katie had been.
His feet moved automatically in time to the slow waltz. Dana was a perfect partner, quick and graceful and unexpectedly light on her feet. She followed his movements as perfectly as if they'd been dancing together for years. For just a few moments he gave himself up to the seductive beauty of the music, the simple pleasure of holding an attractive woman in his arms.
They kept dancing until Beau's glance fluttered upward to see all his friends and their partners watching with smirks on their faces. Bram Logan's expression was less amused. Dana's brother watched Beau through narrowed, intense eyes.
"The music ended a minute ago," the bride, pointed out with a suspicious quiver to her voice. "Though I, for one, was enjoying the show. You can keep dancing if you like."
Dana's ivory skin flushed to a rosy peach but she kept her composure. Instead of tittering, or ducking her eyes, she glanced around as regally as a queen, then dropped into a formal curtsy. Beau caught the movement just in time to bow beside her.
"Try the veal, ladies and gents, we'll be here all week," she murmured. Her golden-brown eyes twinkled up at him.
"I need another drink," he grumbled as he moved toward the bar.
"You and me both, big guy," Dana murmured, keeping pace beside him. When they reached the bar, she gave the bartender an engaging grin and ordered a sparkling water with lime. "That was quite a work out."
No kidding. "You dance well," he replied. He wanted - needed - to get away from her before he did something stupid but he'd been raised to be polite.
"So do you." She took a deep swallow.
He watched her long throat work and almost groaned aloud. What would it be like to feel her swallow his... Stop that, he commanded himself. Stop right now. His brain was loud but his cock wasn't listening. He was as hard as granite inside his formal trousers.
"So what is it you do again?" She eased into a chair and Beau was too polite to do anything but sit down beside her.
"I'm in charge of security for the clan compound," he told her. "Damien was my second-in-command before he moved here."
She gave him a rueful grin. "Another cop. Should have figured."
He raised one eyebrow. "How's that?"
"I've spent a good bit of my life being surrounded by my brother's friends. All over-protective. Do you know how hard it is for a girl to have any fun when the biggest, toughest cops in town all treat you like their kid sister? Never mind that as a half-dragon I can more than take care of myself."
"Half-dragon?" That explained the slightly vertical shape of her pupils, he supposed. He hadn't noticed it earlier but he had while they were dancing.
She shrugged. "You didn't know? Sorry. I figured Katie had filled you in. It's only fair since she told the coven you were all gargoyles."
"She wanted your help finding the artifacts." Beau had never - to his knowledge - met a dragon or half-dragon before and the scholarly side of his nature had dozens of questions.
Dana nodded. "Since I'm an antiques dealer, she particularly asked me to help with some research. I haven't found anything yet but I promise you, I am looking."
"Thank you." Beau felt another tiny bit of rubble crumble from the walls he'd built up around his emotions. Why couldn't she have been the feather-headed beauty he'd expected? Finding a woman who appealed to him on so many levels didn't fit into his plans.
Those smooth ivory shoulders shrugged. "It only makes sense for us non-humans to help each other out. We all know how hard it is to exist in the shadows of human society."
"True." He wanted to ask her more, to find out what problems she'd encountered. She looked to be in her early twenties but he was beginning to believe she was older than that - maybe even older than his own fifty-some years. What, he wondered, was the lifespan for a half-dragon? It was safer than thinking about what it would be like to have those long limbs twined around him.