by D. R. Rosier
He waved at the door, “Then get out of here Price, I’m busy.”
I suppressed a smile and got out of there. I made my way back outside with my thoughts racing. It shouldn’t be hard to find him, the only question is what happened and is he still alive. I took a portal straight to Terry’s house once I got outside the building, and headed for the master bedroom. I pulled a hair out of his brush, and after some thought put it in my locket.
Okay, maybe I was a stalker girlfriend, but it made me feel better doing it. He’d never be more than a thought away from now on.
I concentrated on the hair to get his location, then tried to connect to his mind, but was bounced back. That never happened before… Well, except for the dragon. Could a dragon have him? How did they even know about me to set up bait? I opened a portal a half mile from Terry’s location which was just outside London and cautiously stepped through.
It was easily within my reach, so I stretched my magic aura in Terry’s direction. He was definitely alive, and someone else was with him. My knees felt weak and I felt a surge of relief go through me that he was alive, but he was still in danger.
Besides the two of them there was a dragon. How? I shrugged and simply walked in that direction. If he was expecting me, there was no way I’d be able to sneak by his magical detection. At least it was another wooded unpopulated area, if there was a fight I didn’t have to worry about collateral damage, such as the city of London and all the crunchy humans that lived there.
My stomach sunk when I saw the man with silver hair. That meant a tougher fight, he’d have magic. Not only that, but hitting a silver dragon with lightning would most likely just charge up his breath weapon. I’d need a different strategy. I felt stupid that the only thing coming to mind was fire.
He growled, “About time, I was getting tired of waiting.”
I shook my head, “How?”
He seemed to understand, “The scout that challenged you and lost, he sent out your scent markers to the rest of us. I was considering hunting you down when to my surprise a man covered in your scent entered the city I was tasked with scouting.”
I snorted, “So you figured if you grabbed him I’d come to you? So let me ask you, have you figured out this world is no danger to you? As long as you don’t attack it I mean.”
He snorted, “I’d like to agree with you, but the fact remains you and your sister have both come out on top when challenged.”
I nodded and said patiently, “That’s where, the unless you attack us part comes in. We aren’t a danger to you because we couldn’t give a shit about your world. I like this one thanks. Plus, we revere life, and only take it in self defense. I know you’re an apex predator and can’t understand that, but for all our sakes you should give a try. You really don’t need to understand it to believe it.”
He asked, “What about these violent humans? Even if what you say is true, witches are only a small part of your population.”
I shrugged, “If you attack here they would be formidable with their technology. As you know, they could never invade your world, even if the witches were willing to open a gate there. Tech won’t work there, they’d be helpless. Our worlds are too different.”
I felt like I was wasting my breath, but he seemed more receptive to me. Were dragon magic users more… disciplined of mind? Maybe they resisted the call of instincts more than others. It would explain Rafe and Caph calling for caution.
Terry was big eyed and the other guy looked freaked out to, and confused. Did they know he was a dragon?
“Do you mind if I send them home?”
He nodded, “They are free to go, hostages are not honorable, I merely needed you to come.”
I opened two portals, one to downtown London, the other to Langley, “Go.”
Neither of them went and I could see the reasons on their stubborn faces. Terry was worried for me, but both of them wanted to stay to find out what happened. I wanted to cry and kick their ass at the same time. If the dragon attacked, they’d die quickly in collateral damage.
I summoned up my succubus power, “Go!”
Their eyes glazed over and they stepped through the portal. Damn it, he was so going to kick my ass, if I lived. I closed the portals and the dragon started to laugh.
“Brave or stupid?” he asked in an amused voice.
I shook my head, “Brave and ignorant. They know nothing of dragons outside of legend.”
He got a curious look on his face, “Do you think there is any truth to the legends?”
I shrugged, “Maybe. It’s certainly possible. Could be some dragons chose the dishonor of banishment over a challenge, and found their way to my world long ago. So, will you choose to fight me as well, or shall we assume we are well matched? I see no point to it.”
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say…
He growled, “The red you killed was a fool, and weak for our kind.”
I raised an eyebrow and tried to use his pride against him, “So… if you’re that sure you could kick my ass, then why scout my world. Just go home, we’ll no doubt continue to cower on our weak magical world and stay away.”
I heard the sound of helicopters approaching.
He asked sounding contemptuous, “You would simply let us leave, truly?”
Huh, he totally took my flip sarcasm as straight talk. But in essence he was correct.
I sighed and said almost plaintively, “What part of defender are you missing. We hit back when attacked, we don’t go looking for trouble. That sound by the way is a group of helicopters, probably human military.”
He looked amused, “So are you worried for my safety then?”
I said bluntly, “No, theirs. Besides, I’m not supposed to be here, I work for the government on the other continent.”
He nodded, “I will weigh your words. We will meet again.”
He raced away at a speed I could barely register without any warning. It took me a second to realize he could have taken my head off quite easily since I only had a tentative hold on my magic. I should have had a better hold on it. It hadn’t occurred to me for some reason he could attack me before changing into a dragon, without that time to embrace my magic…
I opened a portal back to my apartment and stepped through. I took the time to make myself a breakfast, as it was still very early in the morning. Plus, I was dreading the conversation I was sure was coming with Terry. I wondered if pride would be the reason this relationship didn’t work out. How do you tell a man he was out of his league, like a rodent wanting to watch a lion and tiger fight? I wasn’t thinking about the value of life, or importance, simply the difference in raw power between him and a dragon... and me.
I’d have thought such a difference would make a relationship impossible, but it wasn’t. My mother and Bonnie were proof of that, twenty seven years together and still going strong.
Chapter 11
Worth the risk my ass.
Work had been horribly awkward, Terry gave me the cold shoulder, wouldn’t let me explain, and of course I couldn’t confront him at work because no one knew we were dating. Even if they did, I wouldn’t have made a public spectacle. So I sucked it up, stayed at my desk, and did paperwork. As soon as I could without raising any eyebrows I took off for the day and went home.
There was good news, Cassie was done deploying the new protections, and as far as we knew no more dragons would be able to come here. The ones here could still leave of course, only incoming gates would be targeted. I’d talked the NSA into giving the dragons a couple of days to make a decision explaining my confrontation. I also explained we had an ally of sorts on that world fighting for peace, but I didn’t tell them it was my sister’s mate and a dragon. If they left, good enough, if not we would hunt them down.
To be honest, I didn’t think there was a chance in hell of it happening, peace I mean, but I also understood I was somewhat of a pessimist and always expected the worst. Except for the six scouts though, it hardly mattered whi
ch way it fell. They simply couldn’t attack us anymore. Once we dealt with the scouts, we could decide what to do about magic world, if anything.
In the meantime, Cassie wanted to get together and celebrate. Dinner and maybe a club after. Lia also had a couple of days off and was free tonight, her cabin shift was over. I should be getting ready, but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself over Terry.
I got a little angry about it actually, not at Terry. At least, not more angry at him than I already was. I was angry at myself, I knew this might happen and I needed to get over it. There was a good chance we’d get passed it anyway. Maybe.
I got up and took a shower, and then slipped into curve hugging black dress. It was just conservative enough for dinner, but risqué enough for a club. I slipped on some red high heels along with a ruby and diamond necklace with matching earrings. I looked in the mirror and felt better already.
Not because of how I looked, I wasn’t that shallow, mostly. I was merely looking forward to seeing my sister and Lia, and having a good time.
I opened a portal to the D.C. suburbs, Lia had a two bedroom apartment there when she wasn’t out in the forest. It was the first time I was here, and I had to ring up and get buzzed in, then walk up to the second floor.
I smiled brightly when she answered the door, truly in a great mood for the first time today. She looked gorgeous as usual, but magnified much more being in a dress instead of a ranger uniform. She was in a flowing green dress that clung in all the right places. Subtle sexiness was the best way to describe her.
She returned my smile, “I’m a little nervous about meeting your sister.”
I shook my head, “You don’t have to worry about her liking you, in fact, I may have to worry. I should keep you to myself.”
I stepped a little closer and claimed a kiss, careful not to muss either of us, and it wasn’t easy as the desire for more rang in my body. I broke the kiss reluctantly.
“You ready to go?”
She looked around and grabbed her purse, “Ready.”
I opened a portal back to Chicago. We chose seafood, and we were just a couple of minutes past our reservation time. It wasn’t a problem though, since my sister was already at the table. I snickered when I saw her, she was of course, wearing a little black dress. Style differences, but still…
Lia murmured in my ear, “Two of you, I think I had this dream.”
I mock glared, “I’m not sharing,” and then I backtracked, “Well, at least not with her.”
We both snorted a laugh. I actually would share her, to not do so would be hypocrisy, but there was no way I was sharing her with my own sister, that was just… wrong.
When we got close to the table Cassie said with twinkling eyes, “Nice dress sis, you should put up your hair.”
I grinned, hers was up right now. We used to try to pass as each other when we were younger, but the truth is despite the fact we were spitting images we were completely different. The way we held ourselves always gave it away. We could fake it of course, but frankly it was exhausting being my bubbly sister, and I thought she had just as much trouble being serious for more than ten seconds.
I introduced Lia to them, and Cassie introduced her date Jim. He looked a little older but in reality was a couple of years younger than us. He looked like a college student, no doubt from Cass’s school. We spent some time with small talk and trying to break the ice. Jim seemed like a good guy.
Cassie sighed, “So when can we tell Dawn about the new system?”
I knew where she was coming from, we did have that in common, it wasn’t easy holding secrets from my older sister. We were both actually closer to her than we were to each other, despite being twins.
“As soon as the scout issue is taken care of one way or the other, until then we keep it quiet. If he doesn’t get back to me in a day or two, I’ll go looking for him.”
She nodded. “If you run into trouble… call.”
We dropped the subject then, tonight was about celebrating after all. A chance to forget about all of the crap for a little while and let our hair down.
Turns out Jim was a post grad in theoretical physics, I had no idea my sister was doing anything like that. But to be fair I really stopped keeping track after her fourth major course completion, she’d been in college for seven years now and learned twice as fast as everyone else.
I even learned a few more things about Lia during the meal, thanks to my sister’s exuberance and nosey nature. Lia was born in the U.S., but moved back to Ireland when she was four because of a divorce. Her mother took her and left the country. When she turned eighteen she came back to attend university and got her degree in biology and veterinarian science.
She’d always been attracted to the outdoors, the witch in her I was sure, and got into the forest ranger program. I already knew about much of her life after that.
The food was excellent, and my mood improved with every drink. Witches tended not to get drunk, but I was an expert at stopping and maintaining that first pleasant buzz. I still had the ability to use my magic, and could sober up rather quickly at a moment’s notice.
We finished the meal and all passed on dessert, dancing on a full stomach is just a bad idea. After settling the bill we walked to a nearby club. There was a line but Lia, Cassie, and I were passed through without question, Jim got through as he was with us. The music was loud and pounded through my body, speeding up my heartbeat.
I opened up my power and felt the tide of lust in the room. I took a slight skim of it, to get me in a mood for dancing among other things. I’d wait until it was close to leaving before truly feeding though, less of a wait before Lia and I could… I cut off that line of thought and pulled Lia onto the dance floor. Cassie followed in my wake dragging along Jim.
There was just no talking in a place like this, but we’d done all that at dinner. Just smiles, body language, and dancing. Lia was breathtaking the way her body moved in that dress, and the four of us danced a few songs before taking a break and grabbing a drink. I was having a great time, I’d needed something like this for a while, to break out of the rut my life had become.
It got late before I realized it, losing track of time. After some hugs from Cass and Jim, I took a large skim of life energy from the crowd, my nipples tightened, my heart pounded, and my core tingled and grew damp. When we got outside Lia and I took a portal to her house.
She grinned at me, “I can’t wait to learn that.”
I kissed her softly, my body conforming to hers, “It shouldn’t take long to learn. Portals, lightning, storms, are all pretty eas…”
My voice cut off with a strangled gasp as I felt her hand lift the hem of my dress and graze my wet heat. My eyes widened as she pushed two fingers forcefully between my already swollen silken folds, and curled them hitting the spot that she knew so well. My knees buckled from the intense pleasure that shot through my body, but she pulled me close, held me up, and started to kiss my neck.
She whispered throatily in my ear sending tingles down my spine, “I’ve been dying to do this to you for a while now my Amber. That dress, the way you move, your smile…”
We didn’t move, I couldn’t move, or perhaps just couldn’t summon the will to do so as she pleasured me fast and hard with her fingertips, grinding my sensitive nub with the pad of her thumb every third or fourth thrust of her fingers.
She whispered against my neck, her breath and lips against my skin adding to my pleasure, “You are so sexy, cum for me love.”
My core contracted almost painfully, but then the blissful pleasure broke throughout my body and mind, as I was taken into ecstasy. She smiled and kissed me softly on the lips as I recovered my legs. I took a deep breath and started to kiss her back more hungrily.
“Bed,” I said breathily when we broke the kiss.
Her answering smile was so beautiful. We lost our dresses somewhere between there and her bedroom, and I thoroughly enjoyed taking her to her own wild release amidst the covers.
Afterwards, we took our time and I learned that Lia had picked up some toys in anticipation of my first night at her real home.
When I went to sleep that night, lying against her body, I was filled with happiness and contentment. It was then I realized how hard I was falling for the redheaded woman in my arms, she was amazing. The old familiar fear, the waiting for the other shoe to drop tried to claw its way into my mind, but it failed. I decided it didn’t matter.
If this wasn’t meant to last, I would wring every moment of enjoyment I could out of it before it all blew up in my face. Still, I would do my absolute best to keep her.
Thursday morning we made love again before taking a shower and grabbing breakfast. I was wearing one of her robes since I had no other clothes here. She apparently had questions for me.
Lia asked, “You said storms and portals and the like were easy?”
I frowned thinking back to last night, I guess I had.
“Relatively easy,” I corrected myself, “Most people think witches just wave their hands at something and wish for it. That isn’t the truth at all, but some things are easier than others. Knowledge literally is power for a witch.”
I raised my hands about a foot apart, a small bolt of lightning lit up between them.
“Lightning is easy because it’s easy to understand. It’s simply a polarity difference so strong it equalizes through the air. It’s easy to learn and understand how to do it. But that takes effort, creating the opposite charges.
“Something like growing a flower is much more difficult. If you want to grow a flower you need to understand its makeup and its full lifecycle. Life is infinitely more complex to understand than simple lightning, or folding space, or creating gravity. It isn’t that those are simplistic, just less complicated.”
Lia nodded thoughtfully, “Does that mean Cassie is very strong?”
I grinned, “Exactly, she is scarily good. Most people that aren’t witches don’t understand that and would consider Dawn and I more successful, and her merely a college wastrel. The fact is we’re all proud of her and how strong she is. We can start on Saturday; I think you’ll be able to access your magic then.”