by Ann Gimpel
“He willna get far,” Kheladin said.
“Aye, if Preki doesn’t shoot him out of the skies, I will.” Tarika nodded grimly.
Malik rose into the air. Preki spread his wings but apparently changed his mind. Jonathan could almost see the red dragon’s thought processes. He focused his magic and heaved a great burst at Malik’s unprotected underside, splitting him from crotch to breastbone. Malik screamed. His great black wings beat the air once, twice, and then he plummeted to Earth.
Tarika began to chant. Kheladin joined her. At intervals, Britta and Lachlan chimed in. Malik’s form shimmered in the still, dead air of Earth’s future. It developed an iridescent quality just before it vanished.
“What did you do?” Jonathan asked Britta.
“Sent his soul to its rest in Fire Mountain.”
“Aye, and scattered his remains through the ages so no one might stumble upon his carcass and siphon residual power from his bones,” Tarika said. She turned to Preki. “Ye comported yourself admirably.”
The red dragon bowed. “Thank you, First Born.”
“Do ye have a choice of who ye would face next?”
Preki sneered. “Ye mean, who do I chose to kill me?”
“However ye wish to phrase it.” She inclined her head.
“Of course, I pick Kheladin.” Preki raised his snout. “He is young, untried…”
Kheladin breathed fire. “Ye think so?”
“Do ye wish me astride you?” Lachlan asked.
“Nay. I will do this on my own.” The copper dragon drew himself up proudly. Lachlan jumped to the ground. Britta and Jonathan joined him. Kheladin’s green eyes whirled in what looked like anticipation. Jonathan recognized savagery. The dragon was immersed in it. Kheladin wanted Preki’s head on a stake. “Ground or air?” he snarled.
“Open choice,” Preki snarled back. “Too hard for you?”
“Open choice ’tis. We can pick wherever we fight best.”
Fire blasted from Kheladin’s mouth and was met with an even bigger gout from Preki. Smoke filled the air. Jonathan’s lungs burned if he inhaled too deeply. Britta leaned toward the battle, lips skinned back from her teeth. Lachlan moved to her other side. “Doona help him,” he said softly.
“Just a little bit?” Britta turned her golden gaze on Lachlan.
“Nay. He must do this on his own. Kheladin is wise and strong. Believe in him.”
“It goes against the grain to kill one of their own,” Britta murmured, and Jonathan understood she’d been ready to do whatever was needed to make certain Preki’s soul joined Malik’s.
A dragon screamed. Jonathan’s head snapped up. Kheladin spit blood from a gash down one side of his face. Jolts of power—more than seemed possible—flew at him. Shit! “The Morrigan,” Jonathan shrieked at Arianrhod. “She’s helping Preki.”
The goddess hurtled to the crone’s side. Arianrhod slapped wards around her. “What in the goddess’ name do ye think ye’re doing?” Arianrhod screeched.
The Morrigan shrugged. “’Tis the thrill of battle. Sometimes I forget myself. No harm done. Both dragons yet live.”
Yes, but if I wouldn’t have noticed what she was doing and called her off… In that moment, Jonathan recognized it would take years, maybe the entire rest of his lifetime, before he understood the Celtic gods. They lived by a code so different—brutal, bloody, feral—he could only imagine its origins. Britta had been ready to add her magic to the bloodletting too. He shook his head. He had lots of sorting out to do, and here wasn’t the place.
Lachlan moved closer to the fighting. Kheladin trumpeted, twisted, and dove to evade Preki’s magic. Where the dragons’ power collided, sparks filled the air and great, booming noises made Jonathan’s ears ache. Preki screeched a protest and grappled with a foreleg where it hung useless against his chest. Kheladin feinted from side-to-side. In a sudden, bold move, he launched himself at Preki and closed his jaws around the other dragon’s neck. Blood geysered, showering everyone with viscous red-gold drops. The coppery scent filled Jonathan’s nostrils. It smelled like victory.
Maybe I’ve discovered my own feral underpinnings. The thought was electrifying in an odd sort of way.
Preki lashed his trapped body furiously, but Kheladin held fast, even when the other dragon maneuvered them into a boulder pile and bashed Kheladin against a huge rock. It took all Jonathan’s self-control not to pull magic to help Kheladin. When he glanced at Lachlan, the mage’s jaw was tight, and he’d balled his hands into fists. Lachlan loved his dragon. “This must be damn near killing him,” Jonathan said to Britta and tilted his head toward Lachlan.
“Aye,” Britta said, “but ’tis nearly over.”
Almost as if her words were prophetic, Preki’s thrashing slowed and then weakened. Kheladin did not let go until his adversary stopped moving. The dragon opened his mouth and dropped the red dragon in the dirt, panting. Preki opened one eye, but it was already glazing over.
“Send him to his rest without me.” Kheladin turned away. Lachlan sprinted to his side, but the dragon shook him off. “I would be alone for a short time, bonded one, to make peace with what I have done.”
“As ye will. Ye were strong and brave. Ye have my utmost respect.” Lachlan bowed to his dragon. The moment was so poignant, it thickened Jonathan’s throat; his eyes glazed with unshed tears.
Britta, Tarika, and Lachlan chanted over Preki’s corpse until the dragon disappeared. Kheladin rejoined them. “Thank you. I dinna think I could both kill him and wish peace for his soul. I hated him while I fought him, and I hate him still.”
“We understand.” Tarika touched snouts with him.
Jonathan turned to Arianrhod and the Morrigan. “What happens next?”
Arianrhod squared her shoulders. “I will escort this one,” she jabbed the Morrigan in the side, “back to our people. She has much to answer for.”
“I go willingly.” The Morrigan smiled. It cut across her face like a scimitar might have. “Let all who are here note my willingness.”
“Kheladin and I will retrieve Maggie, and then we will travel to our own time,” Lachlan said.
“Och aye. We shall join you.” Britta took Jonathan’s hand and squeezed hard.
“In case we lose one another en route,” Lachlan eyed the group, “mayhap we could gather at Mauvreen’s.”
“Done.” Tarika slapped her tail on the ground. “There is room for Kheladin and me there without us having to fold ourselves within our shifter bond mates’ bodies.”
“Hurry.” Kheladin looked pointedly at the place on his back where Lachlan rode. “I miss Maggie.”
Lachlan grinned. “Now ye mention it, so do I.”
“There is much to discuss,” Britta said quietly. “I see questions behind your eyes.”
“We’ll have time for that.” Jonathan drew her into a quick embrace, glorying in the way her body fit perfectly with his, before they joined Tarika on her back.
“Aye, we’ll have time for everything we need.” She pressed her body back against his and moved a hand behind her to cup his sudden erection.
He buried his face in her hair and laughed because she felt so incredible in his arms. “I didn’t realize how closely related death and sex were.”
“Oddly enough, my love, neither did I.”
“Are the two of you ready?” Tarika inquired. The words were pointed, but a fond undercurrent ran beneath them.
“Aye,” Britta said. “More than ready. Let us leave this place.”
Chapter Sixteen
Britta sprawled on Mauvreen’s broad front porch, leaning against Jonathan. They’d burned up more than a day in Earth’s barren future. It was nearing eleven o’clock at night, and the sun had just set. She felt weary, yet deeply pleased because they had won a significant battle. Even if the Morrigan managed to wrest a pardon from the Celts, it would take her years to find, and then train, other humans to do her bidding. The chances of her co-opting dragon shifters again was slim. Brit
ta plucked another piece of crisp bread—Mauvreen had called it a cracker—off a plate, put a bit of cheese on it, and ate hungrily.
The dragons lay on their bellies in the witch’s yard as close to the house as they could get. Britta moved to a lower porch step so she could place her hand on Tarika’s neck and held her cup out to Mary Elma, who was passing out more liquor. They’d spent most of the hour or so since they’d arrived filling the witches in on what had transpired.
“I don’t like it that the Morrigan is still on the loose.” Mary Elma made a sour face. “Arianrhod being with her makes it a little better, but not much.”
“Aye,” Lachlan concurred, “and she is likely to remain loose from the looks of things. I canna see the Celts doing more than slapping her hand and telling her to try to behave better.”
“We doona know for certain,” Tarika said
“Aye,” Kheladin concurred. “Doona paint the devil on the wall.”
Lachlan grinned, trotted down the steps, and sat next to his dragon. “Guess we’ll just have to wait till one of the Celts shows up and we can grill him—or her.”
“It may not help,” Mary Elma said. “They are notoriously close-mouthed about things. And this is something they would consider, um, delicate.”
Britta nodded thoughtfully. “Ye’re likely correct. They would deem it a Celtic god affair, not to be shared outside their ranks.”
“I’ll get Mother to tell me.” Jonathan drained his mug and handed it to Mary Elma. “Before we left, she told me she’d like to get to know me better.”
“Oooh,” Britta squealed as delight raced through her. “Ye dinna tell me that. Ye must be thrilled.”
Jonathan shrugged. “I haven’t had much opportunity to tell you anything. Maybe thrilled is too big a word, but I am cautiously optimistic. Curious too. I really would like to learn more about her. Who knows? Maybe she could even shed some light on Da.”
“Before I get sidetracked, how does this time travel thing work?” Maggie glanced at her grandmother. “Those two children whose lives I saved, does that mean the raw material to create them will survive across the next half century?”
Mary Elma and Mauvreen exchanged glances. Jonathan leaned forward. Apparently, he was just as interested as Maggie in their answer. Britta was intrigued to hear the witches’ explanation too. She had her own ideas and wondered if they’d jive with whatever Mary Elma and Mauvreen were about to share.
“You always did have a knack for asking hard questions.” Mary Elma sighed.
“People have been trying to understand time travel forever,” Mauvreen cut in. “Just look at all those movies, books, and television shows.”
Maggie made a come along gesture with both hands. “I’m tired, Gran. The simplest explanation—if there is one—will satisfy me.”
Mary Elma took a deep breath. “The Star Trek version of time travel where you can’t move so much as a speck of dust and not end up with a domino effect isn’t true. While I can’t be certain, from the sound of what you told us, it’s unlikely those same two children will be born when the primary timeline—the one we live in—moves forward.”
“Why not?” Jonathan asked.
Mary Elma drew her arched, black brows together. “It is my fond hope the work you did today will mean the forty years of war that group of people told you about never happens. If it doesn’t, humans won’t be forced into living in caves like animals.”
“I think I sort of understand,” Maggie said. “Whatever circumstances drove those children’s parents together to create them likely won’t exist. So their mom and dad may well marry other people. Or have children with other people if they don’t end up getting married.”
“Close enough,” Mary Elma murmured.
“Were the children brother and sister, then?” Kheladin asked. Maggie nodded. “May I?” The dragon inclined his head toward Mary Elma.
“Please.” A smile softened her usually austere features.
“The dragon understanding of time is somewhat different,” Kheladin began. “There are infinite strands of time. The one we visited will continue to its logical conclusion.”
“Do ye mean until Earth simply dies?” Lachlan asked.
“Aye, but if it isna a primary thread, it can fade without disrupting the main time bands where most of Earth’s inhabitants live.” Kheladin took a breath and exhaled steam. “Consider this. If ye returned to the fifteen hundreds, as Lachlan and I did, ye would find just what we found. Our life uninterrupted, where we could visit Lachlan’s castle, hobnob with his kinsmen and with dragons I’d known for centuries. That life is still there. As are other lives if we’d traveled back to the sixteen or seventeen hundreds.”
“So if you’ve lived for hundreds—or thousands,” Maggie looked pointedly at Tarika, “of years, you can travel up or down the time continuum and tap into one of your previous lives, or a future one.”
“’Tis a bit of a simplification,” Tarika said, “but close enough.”
“Fascinating,” Jonathan said. When Britta looked at him, his eyes shone with wonder, and her heart swelled with love. Despite how unfamiliar everything was to him, he’d risen to the challenge with enthusiasm and grace.
She focused her mind voice only for Tarika. “Would ye mind if we left for a bit?”
The dragon trumpeted so loudly, Britta half expected the people she saw walking past Mauvreen’s house to come running. Then she remembered the warding and knew the strolling singles and couples couldn’t see either them or Mauvreen’s actual house. If they looked their way at all, passersby would see only a humble, white cottage with rose bushes planted in front.
Tarika snorted steam. “Kheladin and I made a wager on how long it would take you to ask. And if ye’d be the first or Lachlan.”
“Ask what?” Jonathan crab-walked over, sat beside Britta, and draped an arm around her shoulders.
She felt her face heat. “I told Tarika that ye and I might leave for a bit.”
“Brilliant.” He leaped to his feet and drew her upright. “What are we waiting for?”
“Maybe to tell your loved ones good-bye?” Mauvreen joined them. “And to plan when we will meet next.”
“I won.” Kheladin’s jaws opened, exposing double rows of razor sharp teeth.
Britta looked from one dragon to the other. “Before we go, which of you bet on whom?”
“Simple enough.” Kheladin’s eyes whirled faster. “I bet ye’d be the first to leave, and ye’d do so afore the middle of the night. Tarika bet on Lachlan.”
“Is that so?” Britta put her hands on her hips. “So ye deduced my flesh would be weaker than his?”
Kheladin rolled his shoulders; scales clanked. “Turns out I was right.”
Jonathan laughed. It was infectious; Britta found it impossible to be angry with the dragons. “Next time,” she patted Tarika’s side, “bet on me, eh? Your verra own dragon shifter.”
“I’ll consider it…bond mate.” The dragon winked.
Mary Elma upended the bottle of scotch, drank, and set it on the porch with a clunk. “All four of you could use a few days without the likes of us. It’s Wednesday. Let’s find one another at the Callanish Stones on Sunday at sunset. They’re fascinating, and I’d like to spend more time there.”
“In the meantime,” Mauvreen gazed fondly at the dragons, “maybe we could trade witch knowledge for dragon lore.”
“’Twould take far more than a few days,” Tarika said, blowing smoke skyward.
“Well, we’ll do the best we can.” Mary Elma smiled warmly. She turned toward Maggie, Lachlan, Jonathan, and Britta. “Off with the bunch of you now. Try to get past the first blush of your obsession with one another so we can concentrate on the next part when we regroup.”
“What might that be?” Maggie asked, eying her grandmother.
“Why getting rid of the Morrigan once and for all. Mauvreen and I have been talking. We have some ideas, but I’m sure our dragon friends will add to them.”<
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Maggie snorted. “I know that look, Gran. Your eyes are actually twinkling.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, my dear.”
Britta walked into Jonathan’s open arms and said, “We can leave now, afore the conversation gets any thicker.”
“Grand idea.”
She tapped into the magic to return them to his house.
•●•
Jonathan’s arms were still around Britta as his living room formed around them. He lowered his head and kissed her. She opened her mouth to his questing tongue, licking, nibbling, sucking. His cock hardened and pressed uncomfortably against the front of his trousers. He ran his hands down her backside and drew her as close to his body as he could. Her hips thrust against him, and she moaned. He felt the points of her nipples pebble against his chest.
He broke their kiss and looked at her. At first her eyes were closed, but they fluttered open, and her amazing golden gaze snared him. “You are so beautiful.” He moved a hand from her backside and smoothed hair away from her face.
“So are you.” She ran her tongue down the side of his face and snaked it around the bottom of his ear. Hot and cold shivers cascaded through his body. “I was verra proud of you today.”
“But I didn’t do much of anything,” he protested, still unable to tear his gaze from the perfection of her face.
“Och, but ye did. Ye have good instincts. ’Twas ye who first noticed the Morrigan helping Preki when he fought Kheladin.” She paused for a beat. “And ye moved beyond your awe of Arianrhod pretty damned fast.”
He shrugged, feeling self-conscious. “Blood calls to blood, I guess. Once I got over being angry with her, there wasn’t much standing in the way.” He traced the line of her jaw with a finger. “I don’t want to talk about her. I want to talk about us. You were brave today too. You charged into the fray without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Aye, but I was born to combat, and I’ve had years to hone my skills with Tarika.” She swallowed hard and drew back a little. “I’m not ashamed to tell you, I was frightened for my dragon. Once I knew she was shackled with iron, it turned my verra blood to ice. I’ve always seen her as invincible. That she’d been captured shook me to my core.”