by Marcy Jacks
“I know those other dragons humiliated you.”
Mike snapped his attention back to Tristan.
Tristan held his gaze and didn’t blink once. “They threatened you, nearly put you and Zack to harm. No one ever really forgets what it feels like, but I need you to know, right here and now, that I would never bring you to harm.”
Mike pressed his lips together. He looked away from Tristan and clenched his hands to fists. “Doesn’t it embarrass you though?”
Tristan frowned. “Doesn’t what embarrass me?”
“Me.”
That stunned him. “You? Why would you embarrass me?”
“Because I passed out when I was supposed to be defending my friend. You’ve seen the inside of my apartment, and I clearly worshipped dragons a little too much before the attack. Doesn’t it bother you to have so many humans around you all the time, trying to get in your pants on the off chance you want to fight at a professional level? I get that wanting to get laid is fun, but come on, it has to get old.”
“It does,” Tristan said, “though you haven’t exactly pursued me thus far. I’ve been going after you, and you’ve been playing a firm game of hard to get, so I don’t think you have to worry about me seeing you as some kind of empty-headed gold digger.”
Mike said nothing, but Tristan could feel the relief and happiness his words brought to the other man.
It seemed Tristan had difficulties with making his mate happy. He’d sure been able to put a smile on his face when he was inside him, but ever since then, all he could feel was Mike’s aversion to dragons. His dislike of himself for ever having been a chaser.
Mike scratched the back of his head. “I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this so much. I’ll go with you, if it’ll make the fight more fair. I’ll ask Zack what to do, and even if I can’t figure it out and nothing happens, then at least you’ll be there. You look strong enough that just being there will help.”
Which was exactly what Tristan had been thinking, and he couldn’t have been more pleased that Mike was finally getting with the program.
“All right then. You ever fly with a dragon before?”
Mike looked mildly alarmed. “Uh, no.”
Tristan threaded his fingers together and pushed out, giving them a satisfying crack. “Well, you’re in for a treat now, because I’m about to rock your world.”
With a simple leap up onto the next balcony, he landed on both feet. Mike backed off and laughed nervously.
“I forgot that was an option for you.”
“What?”
“Not using the elevator.”
Tristan held out his hand, excitement bubbling through him, and he felt it rushing through Mike, too.
“I promise I won’t drop you.”
Mike tentatively put his hand into Tristan’s. “You swear?”
With a hard yank, Tristan pulled the other man around to his back, waiting until he was settled before bringing out his wings. “I double dog swear, now try not to squirm or scream too much or that promise doesn’t really count.”
“What? Hey!”
Mike did scream. A lot. He made Tristan’s eardrum vibrate, but that was all right because they were in the air, Tristan’s wings came out, and as he angled them to catch a current of wind, he never felt more alive with the weight of his shrieking mate on his back.
Even if that mate clutched him so tightly only because he thought he would die and kept threatening to kill him.
They were mated, so Mike was eventually going to have to get used to flying with him. It was part of the job description of any human mate.
Not being afraid of heights.
Though, in an evil kind of way, Tristan was enjoying this a little too much.
* * * *
Was this motherfucker liking this?
Mike could swear that was the case, and he also swore he was never going to let this bastard get away with doing this to him ever again.
Jesus, every dip and turn they took left Mike feeling like he was about to fall off the man’s back. It wasn’t like he was tied to him or anything. He could only hold on with his own strength.
Totally dangerous. He couldn’t believe Tristan actually carried Mike back to his condo when he was unconscious. Mike was so glad he’d been passed out and couldn’t remember it because this was hell.
They landed about ten thousand years later, and Mike sank to his knees on a concrete ground that really didn’t feel good for his knees. He might have kissed it if there weren’t so many old and blackened gobs of gum on the ground.
“All right, get up. It wasn’t that bad.”
“I hate you.”
“We were in the air for two minutes. Come on.”
“Two minutes?” Mike stared up at the man. Tristan smiled down at him, those red eyes looking positively evil while he scratched the inside of his ear with his pinky. As though he honestly didn’t see what the big deal was. “If you fell, or screwed up somehow, we would have both died. Mostly me though.”
“I fly all the time. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to you. Come on, they’re starting.”
Mike looked up and around, and he could see it was true. The fight was starting.
That blond chick brought them to a public arena, though it didn’t look like a very good one. The chain link fence was burned in several places and definitely needed a replacement in a few others. A crowd was already gathering up as Tory transformed into his dragon shape, and the two males with blondie did the same.
He needed to figure out her name. Mike wanted to know if he could use it to properly insult her though, not that he actually cared about her.
Tristan grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”
There was a sudden rush of adrenaline and excitement that hit him, and it hit hard, when Tristan grabbed his hand like that. Even as he was being dragged along like a rag doll—fuck this guy was strong—Mike felt it.
Then something else surged into him.
The desire to get back at the pricks who ganged up on Zack. Who would have taken the both of them away to do God only knew what so they could get more powerful in a fight.
As they entered the arena, pushing through the crowd of onlookers, Mike couldn’t wait to get in there, and he wasn’t being dragged anymore so much as he was running inside with Tristan.
Zack was already up in his tower. He spotted them immediately, and his look of confusion immediately turned to something much more pleased as he waved at them, gesturing for Mike to get up there with him.
“Go on then, make sure you send me lots of energy.” Tristan grabbed Mike by the back of the head, pulling him in and kissing him on the mouth. It was soft and warm, the sort of kiss that made Mike forget where he was for a second.
He didn’t want to push Tristan away this time. Even though so many eyes were on him, could see what he was doing, maybe even thought he was just another dragon chaser.
He wanted to kiss this man forever.
Of course they had to stop, but as Tristan pulled away, his red eyes half lidded, there was a pleased expression on his face as he brushed his thumb across his lower lip. “I needed that.”
“For the energy?”
“For luck,” Tristan said, and he immediately began pulling off his clothes.
He didn’t hand them to Mike, but Mike took them anyway, not willing to let the man’s clothes be on the ground where anyone could go through the pockets. Mike didn’t see Tory’s clothes, which meant Zack had taken them and was protecting them, but on the other side of the arena, he could see the clothes of the two dragons in a messy pile by the chain fence. It seemed blondie wasn’t even willing to help out her own team even that much. How was she supposed to feed enough energy to two dragons?
“Thanks,” Tristan said.
“Yeah, any time. When this is over and after you win, you think you and I could maybe talk?”
He didn’t like how he’d behaved, letting his own insecurities get the better of him. Mike
especially didn’t like that he’d treated Tristan so poorly because of it.
Tristan winked at him. “Absolutely. Now, let me kick their asses for you. I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
He had?
Mike didn’t get the chance to say anything else as Tristan rushed to join Tory in the middle of the ring, making it two for two now as he started to transform.
Shit! He needed to get into the tower!
But as he started to climb the ladder to get in, he saw the blond woman climbing down.
Over the cheering of the crowd, she shouted at the bored looking referee, and it took Mike a second before he realized what she was saying.
“They can’t do that! They just got here! We already agreed to the fight!”
The ref suddenly went from bored to alarmed, but it didn’t take Mike long to realize the booing from the crowd wasn’t because they were pissed off another dragon came to join the fight.
They wanted to see a two-on-two dragon fight now that the option was here.
The referee knew it, and so did blondie.
In fact, she seemed to be taking the booing and jeering harder than the ref, who looked barely twenty and didn’t seem to know what to do before finally standing on his own, exposed tower.
“If the contestants would like to come to an agreement before the fight can commence, I will allow for a five minute intermission.”
That just made the crowd even angrier.
Mike loved it.
It was almost like being back in a professional arena. There was an energy that went around as people prepared to watch a sport.
Then it clicked with him.
Was this what it was like? This energy he felt just from being in a crowd of onlookers, was this same feeling what he was supposed to pass on to Tristan?
“You coming up?”
Mike looked up just to see Zack staring down at him, his head upside down from Mike’s point of view. He already knew they were going to get the fight they wanted, so he grabbed Zack’s hand and let the other man help him into the tower.
It was the first time Mike would be standing in one of these as a dragon’s mate, and he couldn’t wait to give Tristan everything he needed.
Chapter Nine
“We’re going to kick their asses,” Zack said, his hands clenched, his grin bright and showing off the whites of his teeth. His hands were clenched, and he almost looked as though he was getting ready to jump into the ring himself, instead of offering support.
Mike felt that energy, and it rushed into him.
He looked out into the arena through the window. Mike didn’t know about other towers, but this one was kind of dirty, and it looked like Zack had wiped down the window with his sleeve so they would at least be able to see out of it for the fight.
Blondie went back into her tower, apparently giving up on the idea that she was going to get what she wanted here.
The crowd won. It usually did.
“All right, so how do I do this?”
Zack blinked, looking over at him. “What? How do you mean?”
Tristan spread his wings and roared. Mike didn’t have the time to go over all the details. “I mean, how do I do this. What do I have to do to make Tristan stronger?”
“I thought you would know?”
He was freaking out. “I don’t know! You’ve done this before so I thought you would be able to walk me through it.”
Zack shook his head, and they both looked out into the arena, the crowd cheering as the dragons rushed each other. A heavy boom sounded when their large bodies made contact.
“I don’t know how I do it. I don’t even know how to describe it. You just feel it when it happens.”
That was precisely the sort of vague answer he didn’t want to have. Mike needed something a little more solid than that. But it seemed like that was all he was going to get because Zack couldn’t bring himself to look at Mike anymore. His sole focus was now onto the fight. He didn’t take his eyes off it.
Off of Tory, to be precise.
Mike watched him for a moment, and he listened to the crowd. He finally looked out at Tristan as the dragon jumped onto the back of his opponent. Whatever move he was trying to pull didn’t work, because the next thing Mike knew, Tristan was flipped around onto his back and was being pinned down while claws and teeth scraped and slashed at each other.
Mike’s heart raced in his throat.
He could almost feel the burning of those claws against his own skin. If he could, he would take those injuries onto himself to make Tristan even stronger.
Zack looked ready to jump out of his skin, though he occasionally yelled expletives and shouts of support.
Mike thought of every game he’d ever watched. He felt the energy of the crowd right now and knew he had to push some of that toward his mate.
Whenever he saw the mouthpieces examining the fights afterward, using their special thermal lenses, it was clear that the majority of the energy the dragons needed from their lovers and mates came when they were doing the most cheering. So that’s what he did. Mike allowed himself to get lost in it. He shouted and raised his fists. He soaked up that energy from the crowd into himself, and he gave it all to the other man.
All to him.
Mike gave Tristan everything he had and would take all of his hurt if he could.
He stopped paying attention to what was happening with Tory and Zack. They had their own battles to fight, and Mike wasn’t about to let himself get distracted.
Tristan flipped himself around and tackled the other dragon. Mike honestly couldn’t tell the dragons apart based on their forms. They were inky black with smooth heads. They looked like Alien, only without that terrifying double mouth thing.
Still, as much as Mike loved to see Tristan knock that ugly fucker to the ground, he noticed his stomach suddenly hurt when Tristan did that.
Didn’t matter. He would deal with it later. So long as Tristan won, as long as he got back as those dickheads for their part in trying to kidnap him and Zack, he didn’t care.
The dragon opened that wide mouth and bit down hard on Tristan’s shoulder. Mike definitely felt that. He gasped at the sudden heat, clutching at his shoulder.
Oh shit. If this was what he thought it was…
Then good. Mike steeled himself. He wasn’t going to let this get the better of him. He would take all of Tristan’s pain if it meant keeping the other man in the fight. If Mike could be in Tristan’s place he would be kicking the ass of that prick for what he’d tried to do. Since he couldn’t physically fight, this was the next best thing and he was going to take it.
“Come on, Tristan! Kick his ass!”
He and Zack played off each other. They soaked it in from the crowd. Some people were jumping up on the fence for a better view. They were recording on their phones, but all Mike could see was a silvery thread connecting him to Tristan. He pushed all of his support through it, all the strength he had, and as if it was a straw, he sucked back any pain Tristan might be feeling just so the other male would keep going.
Keep fighting. Never give in.
Not until he had that dragon pinned, teeth around his throat, ready to bite down if the male kept on fighting.
Mike, gasping for breath as though he’d been in the ring himself, thought he could see that Alien-looking dragon through Tristan’s eyes.
He could see him through Tristan’s eyes.
He saw fear there, and Mike still wanted him punished. He wanted him dead.
Unfortunately, the other dragon tapped his wings in a way that made the referee blow his whistle and stand, making the hand gestures to show that Tristan’s opponent had given up. Immediately, Tristan pulled his teeth away from the other male and backed off. He didn’t have to do anything else as the dragon transformed back into his human shape, and so did Tristan. Even in a shady arena like this, the rules were the rules, and if Tristan did anything he wasn’t supposed to, he would risk forfeiting the match to his
opponents.
Mike’s shoulder killed. He gripped at it, as though that would somehow stop the pulsing or the burning. Of course it didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from trying anyway.
He had to admit, it felt pretty damn good to watch that jerk limp away, back to his tower where the blonde bitch was shrieking so loudly he could hear her from across the arena in her tower.
Even Zack stopped cheering on Tory as he took notice.
They looked at each other.
“I don’t think she’s cheering on her dragon.”
Mike shook his head. “No, it sounds like she’s threatening to not have sex with him anymore.”
“What a terrible punishment that would be.”
They laughed at each other. There wasn’t anything they could do but to laugh. What else was there when Tory pretty much has his own match in the bag?
Even before the fight was totally over, as Tory pinned the dragon down and the referee started to count and the crowd went nuts, Mike couldn’t believe that he’d actually participated in a dragon fight. Not only that, but he’d participated and felt as though he’d actually helped in some way.
Being in the tower, being the lover of a dragon and giving his energy and strength during a fight, as much as he’d studied it, watched all the videos and read all the blogs, the real thing was nothing like how he’d imagined it.
It was so much better.
Now that it was done, he felt nothing but the rush of pleasure that came with doing something good, with winning the fight and even being a little bit responsible for it.
Tory made the other dragon tap out. Mike wished he could have done more, but the surge of cheers for Tory for winning the match, along with the booing that came from those who had placed bets on his opponent, made the tower Mike and Zack stood in shake.
They looked at each other, both laughing nervously.
Yeah, it was definitely a different perspective when they were in here, looking down on the fighters as participants.
Mike turned back to look at Tristan. His cheeks were dirty, his shoulder a little bloody, but he looked happy. He looked like he was on top of the world as he smiled up at Mike.