American Dragons series Box Set

by Aaron Crash

  Steven held his blade in his right hand, waiting for her to come.

  She was far better at this game than he was, that much was painfully clear, which was why she’d claimed the Slayer Blade as her weapon of choice.

  He dropped his sword.

  That determination in the blonde’s eyes turned into hate, fury even. “Wrong choice, fucker. I’m not going to show you mercy. I’m going to break your fucking skull open.”

  Steven didn’t have much Animus left, but he channeled the little he did have into SerpentGrace once again. Faster than fast, he shot in low, lashing out with his hands. She brought the sword screaming toward him, but he grabbed at her wrists. And then with a lethal agility he spun, using her pinned arms and frantic momentum to drag her across his hips as he flipped her high into the air. It was a judo move called O-goshi, which Aria had taught him, and holy shit did it work like a charm. She thudded down into the weeds, and if she’d been human, that would’ve been game over.

  Despite her current form, though, Mouse was far from human. She was up in a second, her feet fueled by her own SerpentGrace ability as she charged once more.

  But he knew she was going to do that. And he met her charge head-on with a rush of his own. He ran smack into her, dropping his shoulder as they collided. He was bigger, and probably a little more desperate than she was. She bounced off him like a rag doll. But not before he plucked the sword from her hand. He flung it away with a flick of his wrist then sped over to her in a blur.

  Once more she leapt to her feet, and damn if she didn’t come up swinging with her fists. But in this, Steven had the advantage. Maybe he couldn’t take her in a duel with fucking katanas—at least not yet—but he’d been spending a whole lot of time with Aria on his hand-to-hand abilities. And that, combined with his sheer size and strength, gave him the edge. He diverted a jab, bolted left, then shot in low. In a blink he was behind her. He wrapped his arms around her in a bone-breaking bear hug, holding her tight against his chest.

  “I have you,” Steven said, pressing her arms down against her sides even as she struggled uselessly. “I have you. Call this me winning, or call me a cheater for using SerpentGrace, but I have you, Melissa. I have you, and I don’t want to let go of you. Will you let me hold you?”

  She struggled for another second, but then, once it was painfully clear she wouldn’t be able to break free, she simply collapsed in his arms. She went limp. He held her while she sobbed. There was a lifetime of pain in her. Pain from losing her parents. From having to marry Mulk. From her alcoholism and the sheer despair of being part of an Escort that she wouldn’t have chosen for herself. She’d become the spoils of war, a thing to be owned, and not a person.

  Carefully, he turned her around and embraced her, hard at first, until it was clear their fight was over. Her face was pressed into his chest, and her body shook from her sobs. He just let her cry, holding her gently, with as much love and tenderness as he could muster. She was a troubled woman. Oh well. The world was a troubling place, bad enough for humans, but even worse for Dragonsouls.

  Finally, her tears subsided, and she pushed away from him. This time, he let her go. Mouse sniffled and swiped at her nose, eyeing him through red-rimmed eyes. The grasses around them were trampled.

  “You know what my father’s greatest lesson was?” she asked.

  Steven shook his head, never taking his eyes off her. “Tell me.”

  She turned. “He said, ‘Opening yourself up for an attack can invite death, but it can also bring victory.’ It’s what you did, Steven. You dropped your sword. And when you could’ve ended the fight by hitting me with the sword you took from me, you hugged me.”

  “I did.” Steven grinned. “Yeah, I did all that.”

  “And you fucking cheated,” she accused, squinting.

  Steven clenched his jaws. “I won’t play fair. I won’t lose. I’m going to kill Mulk, and then you and I are going to kill the Dragonsoul Prime who murdered your parents. This isn’t a game, Mouse. I’m not playing, and I’ll use every weapon in my arsenal to win—even if it means bending rules or breaking them entirely.”

  “You called me Melissa,” she whispered. “You held me and called me Melissa.”

  “What do you want to be called?” he asked her. “Tell me. Do you want to be Mouse or do you want to be Melissa? Fuck, we could even go with Mel. Who do you want to be?”

  All the fight was out of her eyes. Only a sad confusion remained. “I don’t know. I’ve wanted to be free all my life, and now that I am, I don’t know who I am.”

  “I understand,” Steven said. “Three weeks ago, I was human. Now? I’m not. I was given everything I’ve ever wanted ... money, girlfriends, a purpose, and yeah, it was hard, especially when the money was stripped away. But I made a decision. No matter what, I’m Steven Drokharis. I’ll never be Steven Whipp again. And I’m glad. I’m going to live the rest of my life as Steven Drokharis, and goddammit, I’m not going to look back. And like I said, I’m not going to lose.”

  Mouse held herself, arms across her chest. “If I open myself up to you, Steven, it feels like I’m inviting in death ...”

  He nodded but didn’t speak. He’d let her finish her thought.

  “But really,” she continued, “it just might grant me a victory I’ve never thought possible.”

  Steven smiled. “Not just a victory for you, but a victory for us all.”

  The petite blonde slipped up to him. She was trembling, but she was also radiating courage. She took his hand and drew him in for a kiss.

  His lips brushed hers, softly, until she entwined her fingers in his hair. She actually growled. He smelled the heat of her, hot from their fight, and that sweet smell of almonds. She hungrily pushed her mouth against his, until just touching lips wasn’t enough. Her tongue found his, and the suddenness of her passion left him gasping. Lust tingled in his belly while Animus heated his chest. His cock stiffened and throbbed.

  It was a kiss that wanted to be more. For a moment, he thought he would take her there, in the golden meadow, next to their cast-off bokken.

  Mouse broke the kiss and backed up. “Oh, shit, that was intense. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Not even when Mulk and I were at our best. That was a kiss. Now that was a fucking kiss.”

  “Do you want to do more?” Steven asked.

  “Uh, fuck yes, Steven. Jesus. I’m soaking wet. I want you to grab me and fuck the shit out of me, but not yet. I ... I’m not ready.” Mouse colored. “Is that okay?” She went from wanton sex kitten to a girl unsure of everything in her life.

  He didn’t make a move toward her. He only nodded. “I want you to be certain that I’m what you want. Until then, I can wait as long as you need me to. I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t want you to go anywhere either.”

  She let out a breath of relief. “Thank you for that. Thank you. You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

  Steven couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  “Can we hold hands and walk back to the house?” Mouse asked, blushing as though her request were silly.

  “Of course.”

  Just holding hands felt so innocent, especially since the taste of her was still on his tongue, however burnt from his failed attempt at breathing fire.

  Yet, he knew, he’d won her over.

  He’d done a lot of fighting in the past few weeks, but out of all the battles, his fractured sword fight with Mouse felt like it just might be the most important one yet.

  Chapter Twenty

  TESSA STOOD AT THE window with Aria, watching Mouse and Steven walk toward the house, hands clasped, slight smiles adorning their faces. Like puppies in love, those two. It was seriously sweet.

  “Should we hide?” Tessa asked.

  “Why?” Aria was clearly mystified at the thought.

  Liam had already gone to start on lunch. He loved to cook. He said it gave him Animus, but Tessa didn’t see how that was possible. That wasn’t how
the Animus game worked, was it?

  She’d cast a few spells, but the kill from yesterday and her morning loving with Aria had her running near full. After they ate, she was going to pull Steven aside to make sure he had enough.

  But first, she wanted to know about what had happened between Steven and Mouse. She was kind of disappointed when Steven shrugged and said something mysterious about Mouse showing him some fencing moves she’d learned from her father. Mouse couldn’t look her in the eye, and yet something was different about the blonde. She was quiet through lunch, which was raw vegetables, something Liam called a crudité. He’d also put out some fancy lunchmeat and cheese. The whole thing looked pretty simple, and Tessa wondered why he called it “cooking.”

  The Ronin hadn’t turned on a single burner. For Tessa, that certainly wasn’t cooking.

  The smell of the fresh bread hit her. Then she dipped a stalk of broccoli into a cream sauce, which brought out every bit of flavor in the vegetable possible. It was a creamy, crunchy experience. Wow. Who knew that raw vegetables could taste so good? Then, the bread ... Holy crap. And after that came the dry cuts of various spicy meats, but the best part? The cheese. Liam said he had a line on French imports, and that the cheese came from shops in Paris. Fromageries. Those were entire stores dedicated to one thing: the wonder and glory that is cheese.

  The rest of the afternoon passed slowly—leisurely almost—which felt both wrong and amazing. Tessa made calls to check on Steven’s mother and her family. So far, everything was okay. No sign of Mulk or any of his vassals. Bud, though, continued to ghost them. What was that about?

  Then later, when Steven was alone, Tessa pulled him out of the house. She fucked his brains out in the fields, on a blanket, underneath a sky that flowed with clouds. Every time she got too hot, a cloud would cover the sun, and the minute she got a little chilly, Steven would kiss her, make love to her harder, or a cloud would drift away to let the sun shine down on her skin.

  Sex out under the sky had always been one of her favorite things in the world. Her mind would drift to all of the countless people who had enjoyed each other out in the open on the Earth. That was at least a hundred thousand years of screwing. She felt connected to all those people, just as she felt connected to Steven.

  When he finished inside of her, both of their skin glowing and sweating, she gripped his hips. “Stay in me,” she whispered.

  “Gladly.”

  “This is nice,” she murmured, “just the two of us. I love Aria, don’t get me wrong, but being alone with you feels special. I love you, Steven. I love you like I’ve loved no one else ever. It’s kind of scary for me.”

  Steven kissed her ear, then nibbled playfully on the lobe. “It’s not scary for me,” he said after a time. “It’s a dream come true. And I’ll always be with you. I feel it happening as well ... this ... bond. It feels unbreakable.”

  “And that doesn’t freak you out any?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  He paused. He was up on his elbows, keeping his weight off her so she could breathe. He was so caring and kind. “No,” he finally said. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. To love someone and have them love me back, no matter what.”

  Tessa melted. She’d known a lot of people with commitment issues, and she had a little of that. To be with someone so sure of their feelings was something amazing to witness.

  Eventually, they napped, falling asleep right there under the shining sun. Once they woke up, she headed off to read over the Drokharis Grimoire, just as she’d done a thousand times before. There were more than just spells in there—there were histories. Lore. Poetry. It felt like reading Tolkien, except this fantasy was all real, and all hers. That night, Liam barbecued steaks on his grill along with whole bulbs of garlic and Brussels sprouts. He even had a deep-fat fryer where he fried up potato strips. Toss in a salad and thick potato rolls, sweet and fluffy, it was the perfect meal.

  “Well, we’re certainly not going to starve,” Tessa said, patting her swollen stomach once they’d finished. Aria and Mouse agreed from their seats at his huge wooden dining room table. Steven, though, sat with the grimoire on his lap, reading a section over and over. He touched the mysterious blank space. There should’ve been words there, but there weren’t.

  Liam led them outside to a bonfire, ready to burn, surrounded by comfortable folding chairs. Once lit, the fire sent sparks up into the dark and cold sky. Stars washed over the heavens. And there, shining down on them, was the Draco constellation, so important for their adventures.

  On a little cart, Liam had provided graham crackers, European chocolate bars, and a bagful of good ol’-fashioned marshmallows.

  “S’mores!” Tessa squealed.

  Firelight painted Aria’s frown. “What is this s’more dish you speak of?”

  Mouse rolled her eyes. “It’s not really a dish. It’s like a dessert. S’more is short for give me some more. You’ll see why. Even I like s’mores, and I mostly drink booze.” She paused, lips pursed into a thin line, and glanced at Steven. “Or I did.”

  “Give-me-some-mores?” Aria asked. “It sounds very American.”

  “Totally. Like apple pie,” Steven said. He was already extending his roasting fork.

  “Fancy,” Tessa said. “We generally used coat hangers. Like we did with the hot dogs on the first night of our run.”

  They had to teach Aria to roast her marshmallows because she kept burning them to a lump of smoldering char. “This seems like a lot of work. If I were in India, we would have servants do this for us.”

  “And that would take out all the fun!” Tessa showed the Indian woman how to sandwich the marshmallow and a single strip of chocolate between two graham crackers.

  Aria took a tentative bite. Then she ate three s’mores in quick succession. “I would like some more.”

  They all laughed.

  “And that’s where we get the name,” Steven said, shooting her a wink. Then he got down to business. “Liam, tell us what you might know about the lost volumes of my father’s complete spell book. We think it might give us an edge against Mulk. And tell us about this ancient dragon you know. It seems he’s involved in this some way.”

  “May I see the book?” Liam asked, extending one hand.

  Steven hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and handed the Ronin the grimoire.

  Liam touched the book reverently, tracing his fingers over the leather binding and the runes set into the cover. “I can’t believe I’m holding Stefan’s grimoire. In life, he wouldn’t even let me see it. But here I sit, touching it.” He fell silent. They were quiet as he read. The fire popped and flooded the field around them with light. The house windows twinkled. The stars sparkled.

  Finally, the Ronin spoke. “So, there is a missing passage here.” He tapped the section with a slim finger. “I’m wondering why.”

  Steven sighed. “I tried using the topaz pen to write it in. It was the key, literally, that helped us to write the grimoire in the first place.”

  “Can I see it?” Liam asked.

  Steven showed him where the pen was tucked in a sheath of leather in the spine of the ancient tome.

  “Maybe it’s like moon letters,” Tessa said. “You know, like from The Hobbit.”

  Mouse grumbled. “First Harry Potter, and now hobbits. Y’all are such dorks.”

  “Queen of the dorks,” Tessa said proudly. She might deny it, but she couldn’t help but like Mouse’s return to sarcasm. Having her be so quiet and passive made Tessa a little nervous.

  Liam pulled the pen out, and it immediately ignited in a flash of rainbow colors. The glowing topaz pen settled down onto the page, scrawling furiously. Tessa and Steven, the group’s Magicians, crowded around him.

  The words on the page glowed in the same rainbow colors.

  Tessa watched in wonder. They’d been destined to find the Yellow Ronin, it seemed.

  The pen had responded to his touch. Steven sat, smiling.

  She read the scrawl
:

  The friends of old

  The comrades of new

  Two lost pages of ancient lore

  Forgotten in the fires to be read no more

  One to be found in a mind lost to time

  One to be found in a heart without rhyme

  “What does it say?” Aria asked.

  Tessa read the words out loud.

  Mouse didn’t just sigh but rolled her eyes. “Of course it just had to be a fucking cryptic poem. And of course it had to rhyme. Isn’t this some Hogwarts shit right there.”

  Liam stood and dropped the grimoire onto his chair. “It was me. I touched the pen. It wrote the words. Stefan wanted you to find me. This is ... After what I did to you ... after all that happened ...” He paced back and forth in front of the fire and restlessly thrust a hand through his hair.

  Tessa could feel his torment, but it wasn’t just about his past sins. No, something else was bothering Liam, and it was tearing him apart.

  “Liam, what’s wrong? You know what it means, don’t you?” Tessa asked.

  “Mathaal. Yes, I know, Tessa. I know. A mind lost to time. He somehow hid the spell book with Mathaal.”

  “Old Matchstick,” Steven whispered. “That’s Mathaal. That’s the ancient Dragonsoul you talked about earlier. He’s the one who might’ve cast the spell to stop you from seeing the truth about my father’s murder.”

  “Why does he scare you, Liam?” Tessa asked. Though maybe she could understand. Just that name, Mathaal, put fear in her heart. She didn’t know why.

  Liam turned toward them. His face was a mask of terror.

  “No, couldn’t be,” Mouse said. “Mathaal is just a myth. He can’t be real. All of the old Dragonsouls are long dead.”

  “Not him.” Liam’s tone was deadly serious. “He’s very much alive, though I suppose he’d be better off dead. This world would be better with him gone. His name was Mathaal when he ruled a Primacy that covered most of this continent, and that was before it was colonized by the Europeans. But then he started to fail, and his power faded, and he became Old Matchstick. A legend. A curse. Perhaps a warning for all who would live too long.”