The Dragon's Mark. Alex Archer

yes. Friend, that remains to be seen.”

      “You wound me, Annja, you really do.”

      She kicked off her shoes, wandered into the living room and dropped onto the couch.

      Garin Braden. Empire builder, artifact hunter, rogue—he had a thousand different faces. The problem was, you never really knew which one you were dealing with, and by the time you did, it was often too late to save yourself. Annja had seen him ruthlessly kill more than one individual and yet had also known him to be charming and tender. She still wasn’t sure just what she felt about him; he was larger than life, with his rakish good looks, thick black hair and piercing gaze, but at the same time he had the heart of a devil.

      “So be wounded,” she said. “Then when you’ve finished feeling sorry for yourself maybe you could tell me what you want.”

      Garin swore under his breath and the sound of his frustration made Annja smile. She wasn’t the only one with mixed feelings, she realized.

      “I am calling,” he said, “to invite you to Paris.”

      Paris? That was a surprise.

      “What for?” she asked.

      “Can’t I just invite you to Paris?”

      “You could, but you know I wouldn’t come, so what’s the real reason?”

      Garin was silent for a moment, and then grudgingly said, “It’s the old man’s birthday.”

      Annja knew there was only one individual Garin could legitimately refer to that way.

      Roux.

      Old was right, she thought. More than five hundred years old, if the truth were told. Garin himself wasn’t that far behind, for only a few decades separated the two men. The same mystical force that had preserved the sword of Joan of Arc, the sword that Annja now carried as her own, had also given the two of them an extended lifetime. One measured in centuries, rather than decades.

      “It’s Roux’s birthday?”

      “I just said that, didn’t I?”

      Yes, yes, he had. Despite Roux’s long life, Annja knew that he wasn’t the type to celebrate birthdays, so that only increased rather than eased her suspicions.

      “You’re going to throw Roux a birthday party?” She couldn’t mask the incredulity in her voice.

      Garin had apparently lost his patience with her for he let loose a stream of curses that could have burned the hair off a pirate’s chest.

      Annja waited him out and then said, “Okay. I’m in. When is it?”

      Still grumbling, he named a date only three days away.

      “Nothing like giving a girl time to think it over,” she said.

      “What? Like you’ve got something else on your social calendar?” Garin shot back and from his tone Annja knew he was rather pleased with himself for that one. Before she could think of a retort, he went on. “I have tickets reserved in your name on the 9:00 p.m. flight out of Kennedy on the twelfth. My driver will pick you at DeGaulle, take you to Roux’s for the party and drive you back to your hotel afterward.”

      And with that, he hung up.

      “Garin? Garin!”

      Hanging up the phone, she went back to putting away the groceries. While doing so she glanced at her calendar. The bare white spaces stared back at her. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself. Given your lifestyle, it is amazing you have any friends at all.

      She had to admit, she’d never been one to stay in one place for long before she’d taken up Joan’s sword, never mind afterward. If she wasn’t headed off to some remote spot to film a new episode of Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable television show she cohosted, then she was off volunteering at some dig site in the back end of nowhere just to satisfy her love of history and her need to feel the thrill of discovery. That didn’t leave much time for friendships, never mind romantic entanglements longer than a few days in length.

      While she occasionally wondered what it would be like to have a normal life, when she really got down to it, she found that she didn’t mind all the craziness. After all, boring was the last thing you could call her life.

      The party was on the thirteenth. On the sixteenth she was due in studio to shoot some green-screen work for her next episode and to wade through the piles of footage she’d brought back from her last trip. Both would be necessary to cut the raw material into a show worth watching, and while she knew the guys in the editing room could do it without her, she preferred to keep an eye on them to help tone down the inevitable “suggestions” her producer, Doug Morrell, was constantly trying to fill their ears with. Doug was a good guy, but he’d be just as happy to have a show revolving around blood-sucking alien chupacabras as he would some ancient civilization most people had never heard of. He’d once gone so far as to produce and distribute a memorial video of her final moments when she’d lost touch with him during a tsunami in India. That fact that she’d called in shortly thereafter, clearly alive and well, had only added fuel to his marketing efforts and had him envisioning a second volume highlighting her “miraculous” survival. If she’d been closer at the time she might have strangled him herself.

      So she’d make the party, but had to be sure to be back in New York by the sixteenth, come hell or high water.

      ANNJA WAS FIVE FEET TEN inches tall with chestnut hair and amber-green eyes. She had an athlete’s build, with smooth rounded muscles and curves in all the right places. Dressed as she was in a pair of jeans, leather boots and a lightweight tank top, she knew she probably made quite a sight rushing helter-skelter through the airport with her long hair flying out behind her, but it just couldn’t be helped. She’d gotten absorbed in research and hadn’t left herself enough time. If she didn’t make it to the gate on time, Garin would never let her forget it.

      As was her usual luck, after convincing her cab driver to set new land-speed records in making it to the airport and then dashing through the terminal after clearing security, she reached the gate only to discover that her flight had been delayed due to a mechanical problem. At least the ticket was for first class, which let her pass the time in the executive lounge while she waited. Once she did board the plane almost an hour later, she popped on her iPod, stretched out and slept through most of the trip, determined to arrive ready to enjoy Roux’s party.

      Garin had a driver and car waiting, just as he’d said he would, and as she relaxed in the backseat and she watched the Paris streets roll by out her window, she had to admit that the whole thing made her feel a bit special.

      Until she remembered just who was waiting for her on the other end.

      It’s for Roux, she reminded herself, for Roux.

      As they drove, she thought about the circumstances that were bringing the three of them—Roux, Annja and Garin—together again. Despite her misgivings, she had to admit to being surprised, pleasantly so, that Garin was going out of his way for Roux; that wasn’t something Garin was particularly known for. Ruthlessness, arrogance, a sense of entitlement ten miles wide—yes, he had more than his share of those qualities. But doing something just because it would make another person happy? Not so much.

      Still, anyone could turn over a new leaf and in the past several months it was obvious that Garin was trying, in his own way, to smooth over some of the damage from the past, so she supposed she had to give him credit. It wasn’t easy for anyone to change, least of all someone so set in their ways as Garin Braden.

      The party they were throwing for Roux was, of course, a surprise. Or rather, Garin was throwing the party, with Annja and Henshaw, Roux’s butler and majordomo, as the only guests. It pained Annja to think that after such a long life they were the only people Roux could claim as friends, but she didn’t consider it too deeply lest she see the glaring similarities with her own life.

      That the party was all Garin’s idea was equally