by Riley Storm
Only as the person occupying the entrance to the hallway turned his eyes toward her did she remember that all her magic was gone.
Including the spell that had muffled her movements.
Which meant Galen now knew exactly where she was. And he didn’t look like he was in an overly friendly mood.
A low rumble filled the chamber.
Kyla panicked. Without her magic, she was just a human. Galen was a dragon. He was stronger and faster.
She was so screwed.
Chapter 8
“How dare you defile such a sacred site!” Galen roared as he stomped over to where the puny human mage stood behind one of the statues. “You come in to our house, with our hospitality, and this is how you choose to repay us!”
He stormed around the stone statue of one of his brothers, ready to snatch up the helpless mage and squeeze the life from her.
But she was gone.
“I know why you are here!” he shouted, looking down, noting the footsteps in the dust on the floor. “I know why you have come now, evil mage. You have revealed your wicked ways. Once I am done with you, rest assured that those who sent you will also pay for their sins. This evil will not go unpunished!”
Darting around another pair of statues, he saw a flicker of material as the mage disappeared around yet another. Anger built.
“Was it your Archmage that sent you, I wonder?” he called, stalking the human through the massive cavern, her footsteps in the dust always a dead giveaway as to where she was going.
She was wily though, Galen would give her that. Each time he thought he had her, she disappeared behind another massive statue.
“You don’t truly think we would simply let you come down here, into our most sacred of areas, and defile it?” He roared with angry laughter. “If you thought you could come and kill my sleeping brothers, to end the threat of the dragons while they rest, you are most mistaken, evil mage. Most mistaken.”
“Kill them?”
The startled voice came from off to his right. Galen’s head whipped around and he saw the mage’s head appear from behind a dragon tail. Her black hair bounced wildly as she leveled a finger at him.
“You’re the one planning to kill us!” she shouted back. “I was just trying to figure out where you’d sent all your brothers, why they weren’t here. Stopping any sort of surprise attack on the Guild, that’s why I’m here. I am no murderer!”
“Liar!” Galen roared, charging across the cavern toward the mage. “You lie! Why else would you be down here!”
The mage didn’t answer, likely too busy running for her life, he figured. Galen gave chase, but he realized belatedly that he’d been outmaneuvered. Using his anger against him, the mage had circled around the cavern until she was now closer to the exit than he.
Anger at his own deceit fueled his legs and he raced after her as she flung herself back through the wards, diving over her staff and coming up into a crouch, the top of it leveling at him and glowing green.
Galen didn’t hesitate. He too walked through the wards, immediately calling his powers to him.
But the expected strike never came.
“Fool,” he snarled. “You should have struck when you had the chance!”
A gust of wind caught the mage up in its grip and flung her down the side hallway through which he’d entered, and then up the staircase he’d used to reach the lowest level of Drakon Keep.
As she disappeared up the center of the stairwell, the entire area was bathed in bright green light. Galen, still running along the corridor below, couldn’t see what had happened, but he could guess. The mage had used her magic to dissipate his attack.
He emerged very carefully into the circular staircase, a near mirror copy of the one the mage had used, carefully shielding himself with a swirling oval of wind, moving so fast it turned the view in front of him translucent.
Perhaps halfway up the staircase, the first attack game. Red magic spat out at him, crashing into his shield. The viciously whipping wind tore the spell to shreds and cast out tiny red sparks in all directions.
Galen was no novice to dealing with mages.
His left hand came up and he blasted the area he thought the mage was hiding. A yelp told him he’d gotten it right as she was blown out into a side passageway. Galen charged up after her, continuing his attack, the wind blowing her right into another massive room.
Red energy sliced through his attack and the mage dropped, falling to her feet, long coat settling around her upper shins. The staff she still held glowed brightly, and an answering light appeared in her eyes.
“You will die for what you have done,” he snarled, advancing on the mage.
Galen didn’t fear her. She was no novice, he would give her that, but Galen was an elder dragon. One of the most powerful of his kind. Her powers were but a puff of air next to him.
Gale force winds billowed up out of nowhere, surrounding the two combatants.
“I didn’t do anything,” the mage—he’d stopped thinking of her as a person—snapped at him. “And I don’t wish to hurt you.”
Galen threw his head back and laughed. “Hurt me? Child, I am an elder dragon. You cannot begin to fathom my power. You are but a youngling. A nobody.”
The mage’s lips peeled back. “My name is Kyla Langston,” she growled. “I am the youngest member of the Mage Council ever. I hold the record for the fastest time to complete the Trial of Merlin. I hold the rank of Grandmaster of the Guild and you will treat me with respect!”
Green energy billowed forth from her staff as she thrust it at him, a torrent of energy as wide as he was tall. The jade fire crashed into an invisible barrier ten feet short of Galen.
He chuckled as his own powers countered her magic, tearing it to shreds.
Then the mage took a step forward.
Suddenly, her attack was only nine feet away. Then eight. Galen’s eyes widened as she pushed his defenses back. Her power was incredible!
But he wasn’t done. Not even close.
Feeding off his anger at underestimating the mage’s strength, Galen renewed his barrier. The mage stopped advancing, though brilliant fire continued to pour forth from her staff, a never-ending stream.
“How well do you multi-task?” Galen challenged, and half a dozen barely-visible specters detached themselves from the hurricane-like walls of winds that surrounded the two combatants, spiraling in at the mage.
He grinned, waiting for her to turn her attention away from him. His two-pronged attack would be too much for her, he was sure of it.
The mage tilted her head at him in arrogant dismissal. “Really?” she called over the winds.
Her left hand, the one free of the staff, whirled around her head. As it did, a line of red about as thick as a rope began to uncoil from it. Galen watched in astonishment as she flicked the rope left, right, around and back. The mage wielded it like a whip, and each strike sliced one of his wind specters in half, dissipating the magic within.
But the mage wasn’t done there. She snapped the magic whip out behind her, and in the same beat the magic striking against his shield stopped. Instantly the whip turned green and she snapped it out at him.
Galen was caught by surprise and could only watch as the thin rope-like strand of magic sliced through his defenses with ease, shattering them.
“Yield!” the mage shouted.
“Why?” he yelled. “I am just getting started!”
The wall of storm winds around them collapsed into hundreds of specters, the whirling of air as they moved independently starting to sound like a haunted shriek as they closed in on the mage.
Galen charged as well. More wind came to him, as easily as did breathing. He didn’t just control the element, but as an elder dragon, he started to become one with it. He moved lighter on his feet, and weapons came to hand, a shield and sword, harder than steel, yet as light as the very air they were made of.
He struck with all this might.
Despite h
er ongoing battle with the specters, the mage was somehow aware of his approach. She brought her staff up into his path. It erupted in brilliant red light just before he struck it.
The explosion of magic flung Galen back across the chamber as it continued to expand, shredding all of the specters as it went.
He bounced twice, getting to his feet slowly, the mage doing the same.
“You will respect me,” she growled, lifting her head, staff pulsing with red light.
Galen snarled, remembering how he’d found her among his kin, his ancestors, ready to kill them all.
“I don’t respect murderers,” he snarled.
Wind swirled around his hands as he called it to him once more.
“I am not a murderer!” the mage shouted. “I didn’t touch them. Get that through your head!”
Red fire rushed at him. Galen thrust his fists forward, his own magic howling forth to meet it, and he started forward.
Red fire met shrieking wind and the two magics tore themselves to pieces in the middle of the chamber. The backblast whipped at his hair and sent her coat billowing out behind her. Light flickered across the chamber, the red fire casting all sorts of crazed shadows.
Galen took one step forward again. The mage noted this, and, gritting her teeth, she shuffled her feet closer to him.
He grinned widely and then took another step, imposing his will on his magic, and thus on her.
But the mage countered. For every step he neared her, she didn’t back away. Instead, she came closer. Her eyes were wide, but she wasn’t panicked. Wasn’t scared. Their magic battled each other to a standstill.
Galen had never seen anything like it before. It shouldn’t be possible!
“How are you doing this?” he asked, astonished at her strength as she came forward yet again.
“My name is Kyla Langston!” the mage shouted. “And you will show me some respect!”
She took a step forward without waiting for him this time. And another. Galen did the same, until the two of them were less than five feet apart. The space between them was a deadly battleground of magic that hurt his ears with the noise as they clashed, the sound so intense.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead, but still Galen did not waver. He could see the mage set her jaw. Each time one of them upped the power, the other matched it.
The mage was breathing hard now, but Galen was feeling his own body weaken. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. But he didn’t have to. With every passing second now, both of them were losing strength, tapping into their reserves.
Galen took a half-step toward the mage, intending to end the fight.
But she growled and suddenly her magic renewed in strength as she found another gear, and he was pushed back two steps.
“Impressive,” he rumbled, a begrudging respect for the mage rising in him. She didn’t quit. She didn’t run. There was no fear in her, at least not of him.
It wasn’t what Galen expected from a murderer. Then again, he rarely expected an assassin to look as good as she did, though he tried not to let himself think of her that way. She was a dangerous opponent, her skills to be respected.
He found himself staring into her eyes over the magic conflagration that burned between them. They were such an unusual shade of gray, so very dark and yet here now, in the glow of their battle, they seemed to glow brighter, like the silver of the moon almost.
Both parties were leaning into their attacks now. Galen never knew which one of them collapsed first, but the magic suddenly vanished in a spatter of sparks and a weak gust of wind. The sudden lack of pressure to lean against sent them falling forward.
He grabbed at her as they collided, twisting so that he would hit the ground first, not wanting to crush her beneath his obvious size advantage.
They bounced off the ground twice before collapsing into a pile, gasping for breath, trying to recover from their duel.
Galen suddenly found himself mere inches away from her face, his eyes still locked on those eyes as the light faded from them, returning them back to the gray he’d first seen.
“You have my respect, Kyla Langston,” he said gravely, noting once again that she was quite lovely, even for a mage.
“And you mine, Galen Drakon,” she said, her eyes never wavering from his.
They fell silent for a moment.
Galen wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline from the fight, or some other deep-seated desire that provoked his next action, and he would never quite be able to figure it out either.
His mind was too busy being burned by fire to figure it out as he leaned up and kissed her.
Chapter 9
What. The. Fuck?
Kyla’s brain was firing like mad, all sorts of thoughts racing through it. Yet even as her mind tried to sort things out, her body was reacting.
She leaned into Galen, into the kiss. Something about it burned like the fire they’d just been trying to kill each other with. It scorched her lips and stole the breath from her lungs. She ached for him, her anger turned to arousal in an instant.
Without thinking, she slid completely on top, one leg to either side while straddling the dragon king. Her hips ground against him, and she could feel the bulge between his legs.
Kyla needed that. Needed him. Her entire body was ready, heat blasting between her legs in an unexpected furnace.
Nor was she alone. Galen’s growl of desire sent goosebumps down her spine, and he continued to make sounds as she rubbed her crotch against his, like an animal in heat, in desperate need of him inside her.
Strong hands locked on her shoulders. The world spun briefly and then Galen was on top of her, their lips still locked in frantic passion. She felt her back arch up toward him as one hand pawed at her breasts, feeling them through her clothing. His touch was like a brand, searing her skin even through the material.
She was his, right then and there. Completely and totally. Galen could have done anything to her that he wanted and she would have simply drooled and asked for more. Her body was burning to his touch, and when his hand slipped between her legs, she writhed, unable to stay still as he found her mound through her pants and teased her.
The combination of the fight, the kiss, and now his touch was frying her brain. She couldn’t react even if she’d wanted to, and so she just lay there, letting him kiss her and please her. Every so often, their lips would part enough for a moan to slip from her mouth, but that was all.
Then she moved her head to the left. Galen went to the right, and their front teeth accidentally clicked against one another. It was a tiny thing, one that happened all the time with new partners as each learned how the other worked, and what to do. It was nothing, and she opened her eyes to share a laugh with him over it.
Galen’s eyes opened too, and suddenly they looked upon each other for the first time since the kiss had started.
Memories poured back in, and her brain suddenly worked again, like a movie going from slow motion to full speed again. What she was doing hit her like a freight train.
Galen was much the same. His eyes went wide in shock. Air swirled around him and he flung himself up and off her, landing upright nearly ten feet away as he stared, like her, still trying to fully comprehend what had happened between them.
She saw his eyes cloud over with anger, and the moment between them had passed. He was ready to resume the fight. He wanted to kill her.
Kyla got to her feet, eyes flicking over the dragon king warily. She was weakened, her strength stolen from her. It would take time before she could duel the dragon again. He, however, still had his supernatural strength. If Galen wanted, he could rip her apart limb from limb here in the chamber, where nobody would hear her scream, and now there wasn’t anything she could do to stop him.
“You need to go,” Galen said, practically shaking with fury. “Now.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?” Galen snarled. “Not done your mission yet?”
She shook her h
ead. “No. Too tired. Couldn’t open a portal home even if my life depended on it.”
Galen’s lips pulled back, but he didn’t say anything. Kyla waited for him to say that her life did depend on it, but the heavy-handed threat never came.
“You may stay the night,” he snapped, seemingly in disbelief of what he was saying. “But you must never speak of this fight, or…” he trailed off. “Or.”
She knew what he meant, though why he seemed to care so much about that was beyond her. Why would she tell anyone what she’d done anyway? It made no sense for Kyla to speak of it. Her peers would only ridicule her at best, or ostracize her and call her a traitor at worst, thinking that she’d been seduced by a shifter.
As if.
“Not a problem,” she assured him. “I don’t ever want to think about…about it.”
That was going to be impossible of course. Her body still burned from where he’d touched her, and the scrape of his stubble against her lips would have the skin tingling for hours, she was sure. No, forgetting this encounter entirely wasn’t something that Kyla expected to happen.
“Out,” Galen growled, gesturing at the door.
Nodding, she got to her feet, shuffling across the room to get her staff. Leaning on that, she steadied herself and headed for the door. Galen followed behind her, saying nothing.
They reached the top of the stairs. The room was near identical. Galen pressed a brick on the wall and the floor slowly rose back up to place. As it did, the wall panel opened, and Kyla, at his prodding, walked back out into the corridor.
“What are you waiting for?” he growled when she paused after emerging into the main corridor.
“I’m lost,” she admitted uncomfortably. “Which way?”
“Lost?” he asked, sounding extremely surprised.
“Yes.”
“How can you be lost? You knew where to find the cavern. That means you know our layout. Now back to your room, enough games.”
Kyla spun on him. “Listen, Galen. King Galen. Mr. Drakon. Whatever you want me to call you so that you realize I’m serious. I do not know the layout of Drakon Keep. I have never been here before. I did not know that the cavern below existed. I found it by accident. I ducked into the other corridor to avoid someone walking in the halls. I sensed the magic, and found my way down there. That’s it.”