“Harpy, you don’t have to convince me to save your friend’s life. I’m aware of how valuable the news Vaspara carries is. Bring her a male so she may feed.”
Vaspara kept her eyes closed. Actually, she wasn’t sure if she could even open them. Not that it mattered. The others continued to talk about her like she wasn’t there.
“My Goddess,” the harpy began, sounding as polite as Vaspara had ever heard her. “I’m not sure if she can even rally herself to feed on a normal male, but Sorac is the son of a fertility deity. Perhaps he can do something to begin her healing.”
“The firedrake and the succubus are never to see each other again.” The accompanying rattle of chains suggested the Battle Goddess was moving away.
“Sorac is raging. Taryin is already looking strained. If Sorac puts up enough fight—and he won’t stop until he is dead—the djinn will use this distraction to slip the blood witch’s control. Though I suppose you could always order the djinn to kill Sorac and risk a civil war.”
Chains rattled louder and then there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, followed by a moment of silence which in turn was terminated by the sound of a body—Bervicta’s—hitting the wall on the other side of the great hall.
A groan and a curse were followed by the scent of blood. A moment later, she heard Bervicta spit on the floor.
“Taryin, release Sorac before you get us all killed.” The Battle Goddess’s words were hard and cold and utterly surprising. And they only turned more deadly by the word. “Harpy. This is your last warning. Learn your place, or I’ll let the witch have you.”
“I serve at the pleasure of my Goddess,” Bervicta said, the last word ending on a wheeze. She’d likely broken ribs on impact, and at least one had pierced a lung to go by the wet sound of her breaths.
Still unable to use most of her senses, Vaspara couldn’t determine what other injuries the harpy had sustained. She knew her friend was tough and would quickly recover from the damage. But if Bervicta kept defending her and Sorac, the harpy’s luck would run out.
She also knew how stubborn the harpy was. Telling her to stop would do no good.
“And Bervicta,” menace echoed through the vast chamber as the Battle Goddess bit out the words, “if Sorac manages to escape with Vaspara, I will kill you slowly.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“Get out of my sight.” There was another long pause as Vaspara felt the Battle Goddess’s gaze upon her. “And take that burnt piece of meat with you. Return her only after she’s fully healed and able to stand up to some questioning.”
“At once, my Goddess!” The sound of boots announced Bervicta’s approach. Then two hands closed over Vaspara’s wrists, and she was unceremoniously dragged from the chamber. It wasn’t until they turned down two lengths of corridors that Bervicta stopped and lifted her up in her arms.
“I’m sorry for the rough handling, but it seems I’ve tested the Battle Goddess as much as I dare. I’ll take you to Sorac’s old rooms. I’ve already ordered soldiers from my battalion to escort Sorac to you as quickly as possible. He’ll be here soon.”
“Thank you.” She had trouble getting the second word out, her mouth was so dry.
“Save your thanks until after the Battle Goddess has finished her questioning. You may want to punch me more than thank me.”
Vaspara would have laughed, but she didn’t think she had enough breath left in her lungs for that.
They’d almost reached Sorac’s chambers when they heard pounding footsteps running up behind them. Bervicta twisted to face the newcomers, and suddenly Vaspara was being lifted from one set of arms to a larger more powerful set.
“Oh, my beloved. I’m so sorry. I fought and tried to come to you but couldn’t break free.”
“She knows. And she also knows you love her, and she loves you. And back and forth and forth and back. Now get to the kissing and fucking part before we lose her.”
“Set your soldiers to guard the hallway and chambers,” Sorac ordered as he started forward. “You come with us. If you’re in close enough proximity to me when I heal Vaspara, you’ll be healed as well.”
“Don’t waste your energy on me.”
“Vaspara is weak. And this will have to be a long, slow healing. There will be a lot of magic cast off that she won’t be able to absorb, but you might as well put it to good use.”
“Fine. As long as you aren’t trying to form a harem.”
Sorac snorted. “Vaspara is enough for any man.”
“Good. Because while your draklings are cute, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to pop out one of the bleeding eggs first.”
Even just being held in Sorac’s arms helped. Vaspara was nowhere near recovered, but she was able to force her eyelids open. Though only a few blurry shapes took form.
Soft lips brushed the skin above her left eye. It was a relatively undamaged bit of skin. Sorac continued along her brow to her temple and then along her hairline to her ear. His nipping little kisses moved to the column of her neck and everywhere his lips brushed, power washed across her.
But it wasn’t enough. She was desperate for more.
“Soon,” he promised. “Just as soon as I get this armor off you.”
He was even more gentle than his words had implied as he freed her of her armor. And his lovemaking was equally as gentle. By the end of the first round that had her chanting his name as she clung to him, she was already beginning to recover, but Sorac had no plans to stop until he’d healed every scratch.
Chapter 7
Gryton
HIS SENSES WERE ALREADY awake and sending him information before his conscious mind had thoroughly roused. Gryton drew in a deep breath, and the scent of a human tickled his nose. It wasn’t unpleasant. The human servants in the Battle Goddess’s kingdom were required to practice proper hygiene along with the rest of her army.
She prided herself on being civilized and delivering all the benefits of the empire to the newly conquered kingdoms.
However, whether a human servant bathed had no bearing on his present situation, because there were precisely zero reasons why he should be waking up next to a human. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d surrendered his consciousness to sleep like many mortals or immortals were required to do by their inferior physiology. It usually only happened after he’d been wounded in a battle and he needed to go into a deep meditative state to regain control over his raging fire magic.
But even that wasn’t like actual sleep.
And this most certainly felt like what he’d seen in the minds of others as they woke.
He wondered which of his rivals—it had to be one of the captains playing a jest on him—had gotten the upper hand and somehow bewitched him into mating with a human female. The female was lucky not to get burned to a crisp. If he were to guess, this was some prank of Sorac’s making.
Once he got his hands on the firedrake—
“Hey, you shifted back,” said a husky and strangely familiar voice, though he couldn’t connect a face to it.
He snapped his eyes open and found himself looking into his bedpartner’s gaze. Her eyes were familiar, and so was the sucking sensation drawing his magic away. And that was sufficient to finally trigger his reluctant memory.
The Null.
Why was he sleeping with Erika? What was going on?
There was a suspicious draft along his back from neck to ankles. He was most certainly naked. What had possessed him? He couldn’t remember anything, and now he was looking into the Null’s eyes.
Had they really had sex, and she’d sucked him dry? He remembered the time she’d joked about it. But now it wasn’t humorous. She’d somehow taken his memories along with his magic.
“You don’t remember anything, do you?” She leaned back and looked down at him. “Oh, my God! You’re naked.”
She rolled away from him, and they both leaped to their feet at the same time. Erika stood with one hand over
her eyes and the other trying to block out her non-existent view of his nether regions.
Her reaction would have been comical if he hadn’t had his memory stolen from him.
“Mortal, explain what has happened.” He laced his voice with threat.
She peered between her fingers and then made a pained sound.
“Cover that up.” She waved her hand in the general direction of his waist.
He noticed she was fully clothed. “We didn’t mate?”
“What? Heck no! Why would you think that?”
He gestured at himself to indicate his present state of undress and then added, “I don’t remember anything after Lord Draydrak snatched you up.”
“And you just leaped to the conclusion we had sex and it was so terrible you blocked it like a traumatic event?”
He grimaced. “I thought your powers as a Null may have stolen more than my magic and taken my memories.”
“Well, that wasn’t what happened.” She paused and then glanced in his direction, keeping her gaze on his face.
With a grunt, he called back his protective armor. As it flowed across his body, he turned his attention back to the Null. “Well, what happened then?”
“You turned into a dragon.”
“What!”
“You really don’t remember that?”
“I—” He paused and scoured his mind. He detected no lie in the Null’s thoughts. Now that he knew what he needed to look for, he swiftly found a knot of memories cordoned off from the rest of his mind. It only took a little prod, and then they were merging with the rest of his memories.
He braced himself as they rushed over him, events unfolding at many times the normal pace until he’d experienced everything. After it was over, he released a shaky breath.
“You okay?” Erika asked him.
“No.”
When Lord Draydrak had snatched up Erika and said he was going to kill her, Gryton’s fear and rage had merged into a cold kind of power that burned with purpose. Within heartbeats, the dragon had risen within him and ripped its way through every safeguard and layer of protection he put in place to keep it caged.
The dragon had broken free all because it feared for the Null’s life. But it wasn’t the only one panicked at the thought of Erika’s death. The thought of the Null no longer beside him, nattering in his ear about some nonsense or other, left him feeling empty and aching and horrified. That disturbed him almost as much as the ease with which the dragon was able to circumvent all Gryton’s protections in his moment of weakness.
He closed his eyes as he processed all that had happened in a little over a day.
But he had the dragon’s memories and the emotions it had felt as each event had unfolded.
The memories also clearly showed that Erika liked the dragon. She was more at ease with the beast than with him. But she had no clue of the creature’s mind, the depth of its possessive nature. Or how powerful it truly was. Gryton discovered a new power he possessed, or perhaps it was only an ability the dragon’s ruthlessness could channel. But it could kill with a mere thought, burning away a weaker adversary’s mind from within.
That’s why it hadn’t touched the Null’s thoughts using their soul-link. The beast didn’t want to damage his prized one. That was how the dragon thought of her—his precious one, his dear one, his beautiful weapon.
But the dragon revealed none of these things to the Null. It was waiting for her to finish maturing. But when she did, the dragon had plans. Plans Gryton couldn’t allow it to achieve.
It wished to merge consciousnesses with the Null, to combine their very souls together into one being. Like the Avatars, or like what Anna and Obsidian might grow into given time.
Terror—a sensation he’d never felt until Lord Draydrak snatched up the Null—stirred in his heart and mind again. This time it was at the thought of what would become of Erika’s soul when his dragon managed to seduce her and devoured her soul and merged it with its own.
Gryton told himself it wasn’t because he cared for Erika that he wished to protect her from the dragon. He would do the same for any Null in order to prevent the dragon from combining two of the greatest powers in the universe into one deadly, near undefeatable force.
A Null was immune to magical attack, but that wasn’t the weapon the dragon was bringing to bear against Erika. It was being charming. And, strangely, Gryton detected no falsehoods in the dragon’s memories. It really did like her in an honest, uncomplicated way. But Gryton knew it wouldn’t stop there.
The dragon’s every thought was tinted with possessiveness.
It thought of Erika as ‘mine’ as clearly as if the dragon had scent marked her for all to smell.
“Hey, Hot Stuff. Are you okay?”
He opened his eyes and glowered at her. “I’ll be fine as soon as you stop feeding on me.”
Her eyes widened and then narrowed again. “If I was feeding, it was because you were feeling antsy about something. I assume it’s the whole ‘shifting into dragon form’ that’s got you all riled up.”
She didn’t know how close she’d come to hitting upon the truth.
“We’ll talk more about this later. We’re about to get company.” Though in truth, Gryton had no plans to share any of his fears with her. He’d battle the dragon alone as he always had. Eventually, he’d win. Or die trying.
Chapter 8
Erika
THE AVATARS IN THE company of Major Resnick and the rest of the team arrived before Erika could get to the meat of the matter with Gryton. But she’d soon shoved her questions about the dragon aside for later and had begun doing what she could to smooth things over before the dragon decided he needed to put in another appearance.
As much as she liked the dragon, she’d gotten the impression from Gryton that the dragon wouldn’t be as cute and cozy with others as it had been with her. But luckily, things went relatively smoothly.
Lillian and Gregory had been tracking the dragon and had looped Resnick and the team in on the tracking spell. They’d watched and determined it would be better to allow the dragon to calm. Once the dragon had gone to sleep and reverted to Gryton, they’d waited long enough to determine that it was indeed Gryton in command before landing at a safe distance and approaching on foot.
Erika was still a little out of sorts. She couldn’t place why. It wasn’t because of Gryton. Though waking up with a naked Hot Stuff and then learning her reaction had been observed was embarrassing enough. But that wasn’t it. It was the dreams before that. The ones she couldn’t remember.
There’d been a voice...
The voice of the dragon, but she didn’t know if it was more than just a dream.
With a headshake, Erika wandered back over to Gryton where he was having a discussion with Gregory while Lillian and Major Resnick relayed everything that had occurred to Command.
She’d learned they were now on the tip of the southern continent instead of its northern shore, where Lord Draydrak’s island was only a short distance offshore. But now it would be a long flight back.
Gregory circled his son, studying him. “You should shift back to your dragon form.”
Gryton snorted. “Do you want another disaster? Because that is how you will get one.”
“If you keep hiding from your dragon nature, it will only grow stronger until it one day has mastery over you.”
“That is what I’m trying to stop from happening.”
“If you want to maintain control, then you need to learn to both surrender to the dragon and still maintain command over it.”
“And how am I supposed to achieve two such polar opposites in the same moment?”
But Erika felt Gryton turning over his father’s words. He knew his sire was telling the truth.
“And it will be safer for Erika if you fly her back,” Gregory explained. “We flew here on gargoyle back but used a portal spell to cut down the distance. Otherwise, it would have been a three-day flight.”
�
�Then it will be a three-day flight.”
“We don’t have three days. There is no way the Lady of Battles won’t have felt something when the dragon woke. She might not know what has occurred, but she’ll know a new power has arisen. She will begin waking her sleeping army and prepare to move upon the Earth.”
“Let her have the Earth. The humans are enough of a threat they might even destroy a good chunk of her army, weakening her to give you an easier victory.”
“The humans are our allies.” The growl that accompanied the words told Erika that Gregory was tiring of his son’s negativity.
“Your allies.”
“Yours, too. Unless you plan to never see your Null again.”
Erika thought Gryton would whoop with delight at that, but he didn’t. He glanced over his shoulder to study her. For once she couldn’t read him—she noticed she was having trouble with that after he’d shifted back—but he looked unhappy about his father’s words.
Could it be he was growing attached to her? And it wasn’t just the dragon?
“Fine. I’ll tolerate working with the humans on one condition.”
“Yes?” His father asked, a look of bemusement on his face.
“You’ll kill me if the dragon poses a danger to the Null.”
“After what I saw, I’m fairly sure she is safe from the dragon.”
“If I agree to continue to aid you, I want you to look into the dragon’s mind as you did mine and then do what you must if the beast is too dangerous to allow to live.”
Clearly, the big gargoyle was taken aback by his son’s words, and Erika could understand why. Gryton was a survivor. Survive at all costs seemed to be his modus operandi. And yet here he was, telling his father to kill him if Gryton lost control and the dragon was too dangerous to allow to live.
“My son, I promise I won’t allow you or the dragon to harm our allies. And that you would ask this of me, tells me you have grown a great deal in a short time. That you care for another—the very thing you see as a weakness—will be your strength.”
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 184