“Losing you was like losing half of myself.”
“What if something happens to you? You have told me dragons can be killed. Your brother Marius was killed.”
“In rare cases, yes, we can.” He scowled.
“And if that happens, do you expect me to leap onto your funeral pyre and die with you?”
“No, of course not.” A muscle in his jaw twitched.
“What would you want for me if Aborella killed you?”
“I’d want you…” His brow furrowed. “Well, I’d want you to remember me, but I’d want you to carry on. The world needs healers. My brothers would take care of you.” He licked his lips. “I’d want you to find happiness again.”
There it was, the light of understanding flickering in his eyes. “The world needs artists too.”
Their eyes locked and held.
She took his hands in hers. “Pain is an evil taskmaster, a monster who sometimes lives inside us and makes us do things to appease it. I love you, Alexander, and accept all that you are and all that you’ve done. All I ask is that you make peace now with the Great Spirit. Banish the darkness from your soul.
“And know that if I ever do pass into the next world without you, I will still be with you, here.” She touched the space over his heart. “I don’t want the sacrifice of your death to the pain monster. I want the victory of your joy over it. That is how you will honor me.”
“Then promise, here and now, that should anything happen to either of us in the future, the one who remains will carry on,” Alexander said with conviction.
She took his hand in hers. “I promise.”
“I promise too.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Now, enough about dying. When we face Aborella, I plan to win.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling again. The candlelight played along his chest, his stiffly held shoulders. She refused to leave things like this between them.
She rose onto her knees. At first, his mind remained in some faraway place. She waited. Eventually his gaze shifted to her. Slowly she lifted her sleeping gown over her head, allowing the cool air of the cave to caress her skin.
Without warning, he sprang from the bed, took her in his arms, and rolled her onto her back, nothing but long, lean muscle caging her in his embrace. A high-pitched noise escaped her throat as her back hit the mattress. His gaze swept over her face.
Kneeling, he seized her legs and slid her to him until she straddled his hips, with her back on the mattress. His wings rose, strong and fierce behind him, his gaze darkly hungry. What a sight to behold. There was her hunter. There was the man who had stood for her against the white men in the tavern, against her own people before the chief, against her enemies.
“Won’t you share your heat with me, dIneym?”
“Always.”
He leaned over her, nestled between her thighs, and met her mouth with his. The memory of their love dance came back to her with the first stroke of his tongue. His fingers threaded into her hair, and he massaged her neck in time with the rhythm of his kiss. And although he might have started the kiss, she took control, kindling a deep and desperate fire. His hand worked between them, stroking along the outer curve of her breast.
“You made this body from clay?” she said, suddenly realizing that his fingers had, in fact, touched every part of her. It was easy to forget. She felt like herself.
His lips tickled her ear. “I sculpted the totem, which transformed into you. You are flesh, not clay. But yes, I did sculpt you.”
She placed her hand over his as he cupped her breast. “You never thought to change anything?” she said mischievously. “Make these bigger?” She moved his hand down her side to caress her bottom. “This rounder?”
He rose and lifted her with him until he knelt on the bed with her straddling his lap. He shot her a boyish grin. “There is no improving on perfection.”
“You are a wise dIneym. Your wisdom will be rewarded.”
She rose onto her knees and worked his shorts down beneath her. He helped her remove them. His manhood stood proud and thick between them. She wrapped her hand around it and enjoyed the resulting purr of his mating trill. “Maiara, oh goddess…”
“There is one thing,” she said, watching his eyelids droop and his head tip back.
“What’s that?”
“We should make sure this new body works like the old one.”
“An important goal, I agree.” He stroked up her thighs, ran his thumbs along the tangle of nerves at her center. She licked her lips and moaned. “That’s a good sign.” He lowered her until she rested on the mattress in front of him again, then ran his nose along her jaw and down her neck, placing a kiss between her breasts. “You smell like Maiara.”
“What does Maiara smell like?” She laughed.
“Like fresh air, pine trees, birch bark.” She stopped laughing and inhaled his smoky scent as he flicked his tongue under her nipple. He kneaded her breasts, toying with the hard nubs at their tips, then trailing his fingers feather soft across her torso and down to her hips. “You feel like Maiara.”
Her back arched against his caress, and her knees drifted farther apart. His lips brushed along her inner thigh. “Alexander, you tease me.” She sighed.
“That sounds like Maiara. Let’s see if you pass the taste test.” His hot breath drifted lower, warming the delicate flesh between her legs. And then his tongue darted up her center and circled her most sensitive flesh. He remembered exactly how to touch her and she moaned, raising her hips and begging for more.
Alexander did not disappoint. She watched his wings work above her as he nibbled and sucked until her entire body felt like a single raw nerve. The jewels beside her glowed brighter, the light dancing like stars above her. With the touch of his fingers, she was floating among those stars, careening into the light like she was one with the sun itself.
“Oh yes, you taste like Maiara,” he whispered. He slid over her, entering her just as she was coming down from her flight. The pressure made the lightning inside her strike again. He rolled her over until she was on top of him, riding him toward the moon once more. Wild and free, she was back in her skin, his heat warming her, sweat breaking out across her chest.
Finally she felt him buck under her. With his head tipped back, she thought her heart might burst from the sight of him letting go. She’d never known a man more worthy of her love. Lightning struck again inside her, and she gave herself over to the blinding light, folding herself against him. Heart-to-heart, face-to-face.
He wrapped his wings around her and stroked her hair down the length of her back. “In my professional opinion, this is your true body. You are Maiara. My Maiara.” He kissed her on the temple.
Limbs still tangled, she had to agree. She finally felt like herself again. Which made her realize something. For over three hundred years, Alexander had remained true to her.
“How long would you have waited for me, Alexander?”
“Until death grew tired of me and either took me in or gave you up.”
Just as she thought.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
After a long night of complex magic, Aborella arrived at Shaman’s Cave and regarded the rocky red landscape. She longed to rest, longed for home, but now was not the time. The heirs were close. She could feel it. The empress would reward her perseverance.
She’d used the enchanted orb to trail Avery almost all the way here until the pulse of magic was cut off abruptly. All was not lost, however. There was another trail, a weaker trail. It took her time and energy to sort it like a single thread from a twist of yarn, but she’d done it.
It all came down to common sense. Alexander, like all dragons, would be drawn to a mountain cave, high enough to be safe from human trespassers and in a place like this where the natural energy made her skin tingle. She’d been Eleanor’s seer for long enough to understand the predilections of her kind.
As the sun edged over the horizon, she flew in the direction her instinct and th
e faint scent of dragon encouraged her to go. Fairies couldn’t make themselves invisible, but they were experts at illusion. She camouflaged herself to match the natural surroundings. Not that she cared if a human saw her. With any luck, she wouldn’t be in this realm long enough to suffer the consequences. Escaping notice would save her time and energy though, and she was already drained from her work to get there.
A tingle passed along her neck. She was close. Very close. She inhaled deeply and caught the scent of smoke and silver. A dragon’s treasure trove. She landed in front of a tall mesa and stared up the red rock. It was there, somewhere, concealed. What she needed was the help of a human.
“Avery,” she sang toward the rock, not in her own voice but in Avery’s father’s. Although she’d pumped the girl full of milkwood root and persuasive enchantments, Avery had been painfully resistant to both. If magic wouldn’t work, she’d have to use illusion. “Avery. Aaaavery.”
A rock skipped down the side of the cliff. That’s it. Take the bait, girl. A little closer.
Aborella raced toward the face that peeked over the edge of a lip in the side of the mountain. Avery’s black hair floated on the morning breeze, her bare toes curled over the rocky crag. She was shocked when Avery sensed her presence. Impossibly, despite her camouflage, Avery looked right at her. The woman’s eyes grew wide and she turned, running toward the side of the mountain.
“Stop!” Aborella commanded, but her hold over the woman failed again, leaving her only one option. A curse flew from Aborella’s fingertips like a lit match and buried itself in the back of Avery’s head, a worm in an apple, just before Avery disappeared. A smile spread the fairy’s lips.
“Found you. Time to come out and play.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maiara woke to the sound of a scream. She rolled from the bed and landed on her feet, pulling on the clothes she’d worn the night before at record speed. But when she reached for the door, Alexander’s hand landed on hers. He brought a finger to his lips.
Wings spread, he leaned his ear against the door.
“Help!” Avery cried, in a strangled, muffled voice that sent a chill through Maiara.
Alexander opened the door and they both rushed into the main room. Avery lay on the floor in front of his protective ward, holding her head. Tobias was already there, examining her.
“What’s going on?” Alexander asked.
“Aborella,” Avery whimpered.
Tobias pointed at the entrance to the cave. At first he couldn’t see what Tobias did, but then the fairy-shaped outline against the sky became more evident.
“Aborella, show yourself!” he demanded.
Her illusion melted away. Like something out of his worst nightmares, the dark purple fairy loomed outside the barrier, her pointed teeth filling an exaggerated grin.
Maiara’s heart flooded with rage as she looked upon the fairy. This was the demon responsible for the wendigo, the one she’d vowed to kill. Alexander’s wings extended and his talons sprouted from his knuckles.
All that rage needed somewhere to go. Maiara raced to the block of knives on the kitchen counter, drew the largest one, and threw. There was a gasp as the sharp steel coasted over Avery’s head, past Tobias’s cheek and lodged in Aborella’s gut. A buzzing had started in her head that sounded like a swarm of bees but could have been the voices of all those who had died by the fairy’s hand, calling to her from the Land of Lost Souls.
The block was in her hands. She hurled one blade after another, her limbs moving at a speed she’d never thought possible. Each landed in the fairy, who cursed and flailed, backing toward the edge. But when the block was empty and Maiara cast it aside, the fairy stood taller and pulled the largest one from her bleeding purple gut.
“You know better.” Aborella launched the knife back at Maiara, who ducked, only to see the blade dissolve in the wards at the cave entrance.
“Steel can’t hurt her,” Alexander said.
“What can?”
“Holy Hades. She’s found us.” Gabriel arrived behind them, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“My head!” Avery pressed the heels of her palms against her temples. Raven emerged from the second bedroom with the egg in her arms and whispered to Tobias, who was desperately trying to soothe her sister.
“What kills fairies?” Maiara asked louder.
Gabriel answered in a whisper. “The books say iron, but I have never tested the theory.”
“Careful, brother,” Alexander murmured. “She can’t see us or reach us, but she can hear us.”
Maiara searched the cave for something—anything—made of iron. Her eyes fell on the fireplace poker. Was it iron? It looked as if it was.
Avery’s screams echoed through the cave.
“Tobias, what’s wrong with her?” Raven asked.
“She’s crushing me. She’s hurting me!” Blood fell in fat drops from her nose and splattered on the stone.
“Tobias?” Raven asked.
“I don’t know,” Tobias said. “This isn’t medical, it’s—”
“Please, oh God, please make it stop,” Avery begged. Blood was flowing from her ears now.
Maiara placed her hands on Avery’s head and reached out with her Midew powers. “This is dark magic.”
Gabriel stepped to the barrier and positioned himself across from Aborella. “Release her, or I will tear your heart from your chest, you filthy, scum-sucking insect.”
Aborella’s wings flapped as rapidly as a hummingbird’s, and she rose until she was hovering above him. “Invite me inside and we can talk about it.”
“The only invitation you’ll get from me is to hell, you evil parasite.”
“Oh, Gabriel, you always did have a way of buttering me up with your sweet words. How I’ve missed our witty banter. But save your breath. When I return you to your mother’s side, you’ll need it.”
Avery fell forward onto her belly, howling in a pool of her own blood.
“The mind is a terrible thing to waste, don’t you think?” Aborella seethed. “If you don’t give me what I want, my curse will crush Avery’s skull. You know I can do it.” She landed and paced outside the barrier. “Invite me in or prepare to watch her head explode.”
Avery screamed again and kept screaming, drawing everyone’s attention to her. Everyone but Maiara, whose gaze stayed locked on Aborella. The fairy stared straight at Avery, despite the barrier. She wasn’t blinking.
Maiara could stand no more. She drew the poker from the rack as if it were a sword. With a warrior’s cry, she bolted toward the mouth of the cave, sprang off Alexander’s chair, and launched herself into the air and through the wards. Shock filled Aborella’s eyes as Maiara descended from above and drove the iron straight through the fairy’s heart. Both of them toppled over the side of the cliff.
People often said their life flashed before their eyes in extreme circumstances. For Raven, nothing flashed. On the contrary, time seemed to slow and show her the world in a series of snapshots.
Maiara leaped into the air in a feat of athleticism that shocked Raven, passed through the magical wards, and landed a blow to Aborella’s heart with an iron poker that Raven hadn’t even realized the healer was holding.
Aborella shuffled backward under the weight of the tiny but fierce woman who drove the iron through up to her fists. Raven cried out in horror as both Maiara and Aborella toppled over the side of the cliff.
Before Raven could even think of a levitation spell, Alexander was over the edge, folding his wings and diving out of sight. She held her breath. Seconds ticked by. And then a cheer broke her lips when Alexander shot into the sky with Maiara, bloody iron still gripped in her clutches, in his arms.
Avery started coughing like she had something caught in her throat. “Avery?” Raven searched her brain for a spell that would counter the curse, but without knowing specifically which curse Aborella had used, she wasn’t sure how to help her sister.
With a gut-wrenching
heave, a spark flew from Avery’s mouth.
“Raven!” Tobias exclaimed.
“Excindo!” Raven stomped on it. The spark dissipated into dust. She placed a hand on Avery’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Avery’s terrified gaze met hers. The bleeding had abated, but her eyes were wild. “The pain is gone.” She stared at her bloody hands. “Oh God, Raven, what’s happening?”
Tobias glared at Gabriel. “Are you ready to finish this?”
Gabriel’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “Now while she’s weak.”
Raven stepped toward Gabriel, cradling the egg. “Don’t you dare do anything stupid. Your wife and your baby need you.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” Gabriel placed a kiss upon her forehead. The two men stripped as they spoke, scales already shingling up their arms.
“If something happens to me, tell Sabrina I love her,” Tobias said.
Raven prayed to every god she’d ever believed in that she wouldn’t need to make that call.
The wet crack of bones accompanied a brief, deep slurping like drawing slime through a straw and then the snap of an overstretched rubber band. Gabriel’s black dragon, tinged in green with a vicious-looking barb on his tail followed Tobias’s silver-blue one out the mouth of the cave.
“Be careful,” Raven pleaded. A moment later they’d joined Maiara and Alexander in the fray.
Beyond the wards, the three dragons tumbled through the air with Aborella in a flurry of talons, wings, and crackling magic. The iron hadn’t slowed her down. Black lightning flew from Aborella’s hand and knocked Tobias out of the sky. Raven frowned. Aborella was too strong. Too powerful.
Turning back toward Avery, Raven shook her sister by her shoulder. Avery’s terrified, tear-filled gaze locked on hers. “Listen to me. I promise you that after this is over, you can crumble. You can cry all day, eat ice cream until you puke, and watch Netflix until your eyes bleed. But right now I need to see the Avery Tanglewood who was strong enough to stare into the face of my cancer and still show up every day. I need the Avery who kept Mom alive when Dad left her.”
The Dragon of Sedona Page 24