Elesian Dragon Mates: Dragon Shifter Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Sammie Joyce

  “What do you mean? The vote passed.” Asher didn’t look as happy about this as Rose would have expected, but he was resolute.

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean all of us need to volunteer.” She had originally planned to go with them to fight Hellith, but Hope was sleeping peacefully in her arms, and Rose realized that her first plan probably wasn’t wise.

  “This is going to be dangerous. We don’t know how many of us are coming back. If something goes wrong… Hope can’t lose her parents.”

  “She’s not going to lose anyone. We’ll all be fine.”

  “You think you can force a good outcome just by wishing it hard enough? If that worked, we wouldn’t be doing this in the first place, Asher. We need to think about what we’re going to do if things go wrong down there.”

  Gavin cut over Asher’s protest. “What do you suggest?”

  “I think… I think I should take Hope away, with at least one of you. That way, she’ll be left with at least two parents, if worst comes to worst.”

  “No! None of us is leaving Hope.”

  Rose understood Asher’s wish, but wishing wasn’t going to raise Hope if Hellith killed them all. “Well, we’re certainly not taking her into hell with us. She’ll have to remain behind regardless. So unless you’re suggesting that none of us volunteer, we’ll have to split up.”

  “None of us go, then. We all stay with Hope.” Gavin might be willing to do that, but Rose knew Asher better than that.

  Sure enough, he was shaking his head before Gavin even finished. “We’ll need all the firepower we can get down there. There’s no point in doing this if we don’t throw everything we have at Hellith. It will take everything to kill her.”

  “He’s right,” Mace said quietly. “If we all go, it gives everyone the best chance of survival. If we leave anyone here with Hope, the chances of her losing a parent are actually higher.”

  Rose hadn’t thought of that, but of course, Mace had a good point. Still, the idea of leaving her daughter and not knowing if she’d ever return didn’t sit well with her.

  “I think Rose should stay. The four of us can go.” Jagger may have been originally opposed to going, but now that they were certain this was happening, of course he’d volunteer to step into danger for Rose’s future.

  “I’m not staying here alone!”

  “You wouldn’t be alone, you’d be with Hope.”

  “You know what I mean, Jagger. I can’t just sit back here wondering if any of my mates are coming back. Besides, my necklace is one of the biggest advantages we have.”

  “The necklace works for Annabelle too. I’m certain she will volunteer to go.” Mace’s talent with strategic matters was usually an asset, but right now, Rose wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it.

  “Fine, we all go, then! But we’d better have a good plan for Hope, if things go wrong.”

  “Dane will stay.” Gavin sounded almost as tired as Rose felt, and they hadn’t even started planning on how to actually kill Hellith yet. “He’s already like a father to Rose. Even if all of us die in hell, he’ll still be here. He can raise Hope.”

  The thought of someone else raising Hope was enough to bring tears to Rose’s eyes, but she was the one who insisted that they had to think of contingencies.

  “If that does happen, Hope will need more than someone to raise her. If we all die in attempting to kill Hellith, you can bet that she’s going to be even more determined to escape and destroy what remains of the coven. Hope will need protection.”

  “Dane can take her away.” It looked like it physically hurt Asher to say, but he plowed on. “He can go somewhere where Hellith will never find him.”

  “No, we can’t count on that. If Hellith can escape hell, she can probably find Hope in even the most remote place.” Mace leaned back, clearly thinking hard. “We need some kind of protective enchantments, to hide her identity, should we not return. Hellith will undoubtedly target her—she’s the only witch-dragon hybrid in existence, apart from Hellith. If she doesn’t know who Hope is, she won’t be able to try to kill her.”

  “I can talk to Maria about that. We’ve only just touched on long-term protective enchantments in class, and it’s not exactly Maria’s specialty, but she’ll be able to point me to someone who can teach me more.”

  Rose looked between Asher, Jagger, Mace, and Gavin, who all spoke their agreement. She wondered if she was as pale as they were. Talking about the possibility of not coming home to Hope was more difficult than she’d anticipated, and she’d anticipated it would be pretty brutal.

  Hope was sleeping peacefully, which Rose was grateful for, because she could use some stress relief, and she was sure her mates could too.

  “I’m a little tired. I think I’ll lie down for a bit.”

  They might have believed her if they weren’t also in her head, but it was all too easy for them to pick up on Rose’s real intention. Thank God for that.

  “I’m tired too. Maybe I’ll take a nap with you.” Jagger got up and sauntered through to the bedroom. Rose followed him, but turned back to Gavin, Asher, and Mace. “You coming?”

  Asher swept his arms under her legs and lifted Rose off her feet. She giggled as he carried her through, putting her gently down by the bed. He then undressed at the speed of light. Rose was surprised his clothes weren’t smoking as he tossed them onto the floor. “Ha, gotcha!” He grinned smugly at his brothers, all of whom were only half undressed.

  “Claim your prize, then.” Rose tilted her head up at the perfect angle for him to kiss her. Asher took the hint and captured her lips in a slow, sensuous kiss. Rose leaned into him, letting him take most of her weight, as balancing had suddenly become quite difficult.

  Mace started undoing her pants from behind. Rose stuck her ass out, making it easier for him to loop his arms in front of her and get to the buttons.

  She broke away from Asher’s kiss to breathe just as Mace got her pants off. He surprised her by immediately sticking a finger into her pussy. Rose clenched around him, clutching Asher’s shoulders for support. She swayed slightly, but Asher’s arms around her waist stopped her from toppling over.

  Jagger and Gavin were both watching, stroking their cocks. Even though they were twins, they didn’t look particularly alike, but right now, they seemed almost identical. Their hands moved in time, and even their posture was the same.

  Rose’s attention was drawn away from them by Mace, who added another finger and kept thrusting into her. Her pussy was quickly becoming soaked, and Mace’s finger was making wet, squelching noises as it moved in and out.

  If this kept up, Rose would come before she had Asher’s cock in her, and she didn’t want that. She pulled away from Asher and Mace, stumbling to the bed. She sprawled on top of Gavin, taking his cock into her mouth. With her hand, she started stroking Jagger’s cock. His precome quickly slicked her fingers, making it easy to work him into a frenzy.

  “Bet I can come first,” Jagger panted.

  “Shut up.” Gavin thrust his hips into Rose’s mouth. She would have laughed if her mouth wasn’t full of cock.

  She lost herself in trying to coordinate her movements with Jagger and Gavin. They were both soon thrusting to meet her, and had no more breath to tease each other.

  Jagger did indeed come first, crying out loudly as his cock pulsed hot come all over Rose’s hand. Gavin finished only a few moments later, guiding Rose’s head as he fucked her mouth through the orgasm.

  She pulled away, licking her lips and rolling over onto her back. She looked just in time to see Mace coming, spilling into his own hand. Fuck, why was that so hot?

  She didn’t have much time to think about it because Asher was kissing her again. Someone was fingering her clit, though Rose couldn’t see who. She closed her eyes, concentrating. That was Jagger’s touch.

  “Asher, I’m ready,” she breathed.

  “Ready for my cock, or my tongue?”

  “Both. Always both.”

  Asher
chuckles as he started licking her nipples. They were already hard, and tightened further under his touch. At his urging, Rose spread her legs. Asher pushed slowly into her. Rose didn’t want slow. She was too turned on for that. She wanted hard and fast.

  Asher moaned as she bombarded him with mental images. He grabbed her hips, snapping her up to meet him as he fucked her thoroughly. Rose could barely get in choppy breaths between thrusts, and she loved it.

  Jagger read when she was close, and increased his movements on her clit, going harder and faster, bringing her right up to the edge.

  With a cry, Rose tipped over. Her legs around Asher’s waist contracted, pulling him even deeper into her. Asher moved up and pulled her tongue into his mouth. They kissed for several breathless seconds before he came too.

  Rose lay limp on the bed, smiling vaguely up at the ceiling. Yes, this was what she’d needed. Gavin pulled her close to his side, and she snuggled into him, with Asher pressed up against her back.

  She was just getting close to drifting off when Hope started crying. Rose groaned. She loved Hope, but she could have terrible timing.

  Jagger rolled out of bed. “I’ll get her.”

  “I love you.”

  “Bet you only love me for my diaper-changing skills.”

  “You got me there.” Rose winked at him.

  “That’s the only reason Hope loves you too!” Gavin shouted at Jagger’s retreating back.

  A minute later, a dirty diaper came flying through the door and hit Gavin straight in the face.

  The resulting tussle required extensive cleaning spells, as well as Jagger and Gavin being separated and exiled to separate rooms on opposite sides of the basement.

  Asher sentenced Jagger to diaper-changing duty for a month in punishment for his stunt. He whined at Rose, hoping she’d go easy on him, but she’d been splattered by the diaper when he threw it at Gavin, so she wasn’t exactly in a lenient mood.

  Later that day, the coven met again. About three in four people had decided to volunteer. It was split pretty evenly between witches and dragons, and Rose was relieved to find that Dane had decided to stay. He’d heal anyone who was injured when they got back, but Elaine was coming with them, so she would be able to help stabilize severely injured people before leaving hell.

  “We’ll need to experiment.” Maria sat at the head of the table, addressing the room. “We have very little idea of how things might differ in hell from here. We don’t even know if anyone can die in hell. If that’s the case, we’ll have to weaken Hellith there, then bring her here to kill.”

  Unsurprisingly, this pronouncement was met with a storm of protests, but Rose couldn’t find it in her to argue. Maria was probably right. Hell wasn’t the realm of life. People generally only went there after they died, so it made sense that someone couldn’t die there.

  She was mostly quiet, letting the witches and dragons who had the most experience with other realms do the talking. Though Rose had been to two other realms—hell and the strange world between life and death—she hadn’t studied them extensively like some of the other witches. When she’d been there, she had hardly been focusing on collecting information.

  The meeting seemed to go on forever, and Rose didn’t feel like they were making any progress. She recounted her time in both of the worlds she’d visited, as did Jagger, Gavin, Asher, and Mace. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a lot of information to go on.

  “I say we go big.” Asher looked around at the table. “Scorched earth. Make enough explosives to level a planet, and dump them outside Hellith’s cage.”

  “We don’t know if that’ll work.” Wendy looked nervous about speaking out at a table with so many more experienced witches. Rose gave her an encouraging smile, and Wendy continued. “We’ll obviously have to leave once the explosives are set off. Even if we come back afterward to check, all we’ll find is scorched remains. We’ll have no way of knowing if Hellith survived the explosion.”

  “We make it strong enough that nothing can survive,” Asher insisted.

  “No, Wendy’s right. We need to make sure that she really is dead if we’re going to do this.” Mace’s thoughtful face was so hot. Rose banished the thought for later and did her best to concentrate as he continued. “I say we go in with cutting implements or spells. Hack her up into a thousand tiny pieces, burn them, and bury them on different continents.”

  Rose liked the sound of that, but she wasn’t sure if it would work. “Hellith’s cage is big enough that she can avoid implements, and we know that her powers aren’t gone. She still has them—she proved that much when she was fighting us. She may not be able to get out of the cage, but she might well be able to deflect cutting spells.”

  “Which is why we should blow the whole thing up…”

  And so the argument started again. People suggested everything from poisoning to drowning to disemboweling.

  No matter how long they talked, no one theory seemed to gain more support than another. Rose began to despair that they would ever decide on anything.

  After three hours, Maria wisely adjourned the meeting, scheduling another one for the next day.

  Rose was starving, as it was past dinnertime. Hope was being fussy, and Mace volunteered to go back to the basement and put her to sleep. Rose gratefully handed her over and went with most of the rest of the coven to the dining room.

  She kept tabs on Mace’s thoughts, checking on Hope through him. Halfway through eating, his mind suddenly went blank. Rose assumed he was just trying to shield her from having to hear a crying baby in her head while she was trying to eat, and didn’t think anything of it.

  Chapter Four

  “Shh, it’s okay.” Mace jiggled Hope up and down as he walked back and forth. Surely, she’d get tired of screaming soon. “Why don’t you sleep, hm, baby girl? A nice sleep sounds perfect.”

  He tried to lay her down in her crib, but that only increased the volume level until he was sure his ears might start bleeding. “Okay, no sleep for now. You just want to torture Daddy, hm?”

  Mace carefully closed his mind, not wanting to have Rose distracted with his attempts to put Hope to bed. She had enough to worry about. Once Hope was asleep, he’d open communications with her and his brothers again.

  Just as Hope gave a particularly loud scream, the blanket in her crib caught fire, whooshing to light faster than Mace would have believed possible.

  “Fuck!” He put Hope down on the couch and ran to the crib. Fortunately, dragons were immune to fire, so Mace was able to pick up the blanket with his hands. He used a cushion to smother the flames. Neither the cushion nor the blanket survived, but at least the fire was out.

  Hope was screaming more loudly than ever. Mace picked her up again, just in time to shield her from flying glass as a vase shattered.

  “What the hell?” Mace muttered. He stared at Hope. “Are you doing this?”

  Witch and dragon powers usually only manifested at eighteen, but Hope was hardly typical. If her powers were manifesting now, she wouldn’t have control over them. They would explode out when she was upset.

  Mace grabbed a spare blanket and swaddled Hope firmly in it, rocking her with increasing anxiety. “Please, go to sleep, go to sleep before you bring the roof down…”

  Finally, Hope’s cries faded, and her eyes drifted shut.

  Thank God.

  Mace removed all scorched cloth from the crib and settled her down with spare blankets. He knew he should call Rose and his brothers, but he hesitated.

  He could feel Rose’s mind. She was stressed about the thing with Hellith already. No one had any idea how to kill her, and everyone was just getting even more frustrated trying to guess. Did Mace really want to add to her worries?

  “We’ll just keep this between you and me, baby girl. How does that sound?”

  Hope slept on peacefully.

  Mace knew he couldn’t keep this from Rose forever, but he could at least delay until he’d found some kind of solution. His first
thought was to talk to Asher, but if he told any of his brothers, they would surely burden Rose with this new worry, and he didn’t want that.

  Hope was still very young. Of course she couldn’t control her powers yet. Babies had no control of their emotions. As they grew, they learned control. Hope would learn to control her powers as time went on. It would be part of her development.

  Mace knew he was guessing, but it made sense. He just needed to keep any accidents from Rose and his brothers until Hope learned control.

  Of course, he’d have to keep his thoughts closed off from them, which would be more troublesome. Mace wasn’t particularly good at keeping parts of his mind closed off. He only knew how to close the whole thing. If he was going to pull this off, he’d need to learn, and quickly.

  First things first, though. The whole basement reeked of smoke. Mace checked on Hope once more before hurrying through the mansion to one of the supply closets. This particular closet held items invested with magic that anyone could use.

  Mace looked through the labels for something that could help him.

  “Ha, there you are.” He picked up an empty bowl labeled “air purification”. The instructions said to put some water in it and leave it in the area for ten minutes.

  The spell worked just as it said. Within ten minutes of putting the bowl and water on the table in the basement, all traces of smoke were gone. Mace threw away all the burned fabric and cleaned up the broken glass. Perfect.

  He finished just in time. Rose, Jagger, Gavin, and Asher came back to the basement, looking tense and miserable.

  “Where were you?” Rose stepped close to Mace, and he put an arm around her. “Why didn’t you come to dinner?”

  “I was busy with Hope. I’ll grab something from the kitchens later.”

  “Is she doing okay?”

  “She is now—though she wasn’t happy earlier. I got her to sleep in the end, though.”