The wizard grunted and staggered backward with a cry of rage. Catching his balance, he charged toward Brayden once more. Callie cringed as both men fell to the auditorium floor in a fierce struggle. She continued to chant, hoping the spell would penetrate Grigori’s power.
It didn’t. It only incited her brother.
Grigori pinned Brayden to the ground, then waved his hand in front of the firefighter. Brayden coughed then grabbed his throat as if an invisible hand were choking him.
“Stop! Grigori, stop!” Callie ceased her chant and shouted to her brother. He ignored her pleas.
Brayden struggled for air. Callie raised her hands again and tried to break the two men apart. Sparks flashed from her fingers, but nothing penetrated the hold Grigori had on her beloved firefighter. Brayden’s breath became shallow and his skin turned an eerie shade of blue.
Pain speared Callie’s heart. She could feel Brayden slipping away. If she didn’t do something quick, she was going to lose the man she loved.
“Grigori, stop! You’re killing him!”
Brayden shoved at Grigori’s chest. The wizard didn’t budge, keeping his invisible hold on Brayden’s neck. Brayden grabbed his throat and pulled at the empty air. A moment later his hands fell, limp and powerless, to the ground. His body stilled and weak, sporadic breaths lurched from his lungs .
He’s dying! Tears smarted Callie’s eyes. If she wanted to save the man she loved, she’d have to do the unthinkable. “I’m so sorry, Grigori. I love you, but you’ve given me no choice.”
Callie raised her arms one last time, mustered every bit of strength she had and aimed her Magik toward Grigori. Her body shook as energy arced from her fingertips.
Grigori screamed as Callie’s beams sizzled against his skin. The scent of burned flesh filled the air. Callie coughed as bile rose to her throat. Her stomach heaved at the pungent taste but she forced herself to shove it down.
Grigori jerked his head around and his eyes locked with hers. The shock and disbelief cut Callie to the core. Oh, God! He was her brother! Her own flesh and blood.
Callie hesitated, her hands trembling with indecision. In that moment of weakness, contempt flashed across her brother’s features. He turned back toward Brayden and raised his arms...
“No!” Callie gathered her strength, letting the energy flow through her. She closed her eyes and aimed her Magik toward Grigori once again. This time she didn’t hold back.
With one last scream Grigori’s body combusted. It was over within seconds and her brother was dead, only a heap of ash left in his place.
Callie rushed to Brayden and fell down beside him. “Brayden, love? Can you hear me?”
She picked up his wrist. A very shallow pulse told her he was still alive. Barely.
Callie closed her eyes and brushed her lips against his. “I love you, dragon boy. Don’t you dare die on me.” She inhaled sharply then breathed into his mouth. Purple fog entered his body from her essence. Brayden’s body jerked twice as he gasped for air.
Callie sobbed. Thank the Lord! He was still alive.
Brayden coughed and his eyes fluttered. For a heart-wrenching moment Callie thought he was going to succumb once more, then his gaze focused on her. “You … okay?”
Not trusting her voice, Callie nodded.
“Grigori?”
“He’s dead.” Callie hiccupped then buried her head against his chest.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t how you wanted this to end.” He stroked her hair. “There was nothing you could have done. Grigori was never going to change. It was going to either be you or him. I’m just glad it was him.”
“I thought I could bind his negative energy and stop him from doing this, but I didn’t have time. I had to save you. I couldn’t lose you too.”
Brayden pushed up into a sitting position then pulled Callie closer. “You did what you had to, baby. Nobody can fault you for that.” He kissed her cheek. “Let’s go home.”
Callie stood and helped Brayden to his feet. “I’d like that.” She shot one more glance toward the pile of ashes and blinked back the tears. Brayden was right. She hadn’t had a choice, but pain jackknifed through her heart all the same. She hadn’t been able to save her brother. A guttural sob choked her as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. Why, Grigori? Why?
Brayden pushed open the exit door and they stepped out onto the sidewalk.
A large shadow swooped out of the moonlit sky shrieking wildly.
Callie stiffened.
“I’ve got this,” Brayden whispered. He stepped away from her and within seconds morphed into his dragon.
Cyrus shrieked again and swooped toward them. Brayden breathed a bolt of lightning into the air striking Cyrus in the wing. The Chaos dragon squealed and flew back up above the cypress trees.
Callie barely had time to process what was happening when three more dragons soared in from the east, west and south.
For the love of Magick! There’s more? Callie shivered. Would this nightmare ever end?
Brayden snorted and flew up to join them in the sky.
“Let them be on our side. Please let them be on our side,” Callie muttered, searching her mind for a spell that would destroy dragons.
The green dragon from the east opened its mouth. Sand spewed into Cyrus’s eyes, blinding him, even as the yellow dragon from the south exhaled a cloud of foul-smelling gas. Cyrus jerked his head to the side screeching in agony from the onslaught.
Callie covered her face with her sleeve to keep from breathing the fumes. Poison, she was sure.
The red dragon from the west circled twice then roared in outrage. Fire filled the sky like an erupting volcano.
The dragons closed on Cyrus.
Talons entangled with talons making it impossible for her to see which dragon was attacking and which one was being attacked. Wings flapped. Shrieks and hisses sliced through the night sky.
Callie blinked, and in that split second Cyrus and Brayden, entwined, fell to the earth in a rushing spiral.
Callie craned to see Brayden. Her heart clenched. Moonbeams reflected off his silvery blue scales as he plunged from the sky twisting and turning like a tornado. She couldn’t tell if was falling on purpose or if he was being pulled down.
Please let him be all right. Please let him be all right.
The red dragon joined the plummet hissing and spewing. All she could see was an entangled mass of colorful scales spinning so fast they appeared white.
In the last possible moment before they all slammed into the ground, the red and blue dragons soared away from the spinning vortex.
Cyrus tumbled through the air alone. Within seconds the black dragon hit the earth with a thud, shaking the ground under Callie’s feet.
Brayden glided in beside her and shifted.
“Is he dead too?” Callie asked as soon as Brayden’s mortal form appeared.
“No. He’s just out for a while. Zeke’s sleeping gas will wear off in a few minutes and Cyrus will be escorted back to Jarithia where he’ll remain for the rest of his life. He’ll never be allowed to enter the Earth realm again.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Good.” Callie muttered a quick spell to erase the memory of dragons from any mortal who happened to get a glimpse of the battle in the sky.
“Friends of yours?” Callie asked dryly as a few minutes later she watched the other dragons escort a defeated Cyrus through the clouds past the waxing moon and toward a distant light.
Brayden’s eyes crinkled with a grin. “The Gatekeepers. Cade Blackfoot is the Earth dragon. Zeke Townsend is the Air dragon and Drakor Sinclair is the Fire dragon. You really wouldn’t want to cross Drakor. He’s a loner and can be a real loose cannon.”
“Thank heavens they were on our side.” Callie shuddered.
Brayden pulled her to him. “I’m sure you could have handled them.” His laugh filled the air before he sobered. “You did good, Callie. Real good.”
“I know, sugar.” His lips brushed the top of her head. “You didn’t have a choice. It was either him or me.” Ice frosted his eyes. “Or you. And I sure as blazes wasn’t going to let it be you.”
Emotion squeezed her abdomen at the possessiveness in his voice. Her throat clogged. Being with Brayden felt so … so right. Was that even possible given their races’ history?
“I love you, Brayden.” Callie hugged him tight.
“I know.”
Callie arched a brow. “You do?”
“Yep. ‘Cause if you didn’t then you’d be hugging my dragon instead of me.”
“What do you mean?”
Brayden rubbed her back. “I wasn’t completely honest with you about what would happen to me if you harnessed my power. The Grand One — with his infinite wisdom — cast a spell so when a dragonshifter mates with a sorceress the shifter loses his ability to shift into human form if the sorceress doesn’t truly love him. Pretty clever way to keep our kind separate, don’t you think?”
Callie’s eyes widened. “You mean you made love to me knowing you might not ever be human again.”
“Yep.”
“Why would you take that chance?”
“I love you too much to let anything happen to you. If losing my shifting abilities would keep you safe…” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but she knew it did. It mattered very much. His whole essence hinged on the fact he was a dragonshifter. “Then so be it. You’re my mate, Callie. And dragons mate for life.”
Callie’s lips curved into a smile. She didn’t care what wars her ancestors fought. That was then and this was now. She had found her one true love. What more could she ever want? Besides, their love might just be the bridge that could unite their races once and for all. “Life sounds good to me.”
A DRAGON’S HEART, Book 2 in The Gatekeepers Series, is available now.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tamelia Tumlin has worked with several online publishers, but is now writing exclusively for Steel Magnolia Press. Juggling motherhood, teaching and writing is a challenge, but one she welcomes to pursue her passion.
Her romance novels range from sweet and sassy to dark and dangerous. Titles include:
Catering to the Italian Playboy (Contemporary Category Romance)
A Dragon’s Seduction (Contemporary Fantasy Romance Novella)
Home Is Where the Heart Is (Contemporary Category Romance)
A Time for Healing (Christian Romance)
Her Royal Protégé (Contemporary Romance Novella)
Blind Love (Sweet Paranormal Romance Novella)
Seducing the Night (Spicy Paranormal Romance Novella)
* * *
These books and more are available to purchase direct (and risk-free) from your favorite outlet(s). See the Steel Magnolia Press website at:
www.steelmagnoliapress.com.
THE WARLOCK’S
DAUGHTER
~ BOOK 1 : NO ORDINARY LOVERS ~
Jennifer Blake
1
Carita Grey was not afraid of ghosts or goblins or any other creature of darkness, real or imagined. That was why she was always given the evening errands, such as taking the vicious boxer dog belonging to the widowed aunt with whom she lived for his walk before bedtime or going for the doctor when there was illness in the house. It was why she was out tonight, collecting the flower vase left behind after the decoration of the cemetery for All Saints' Day. It was also the reason she failed to retreat when she saw the stranger sitting on the raised family tomb.
The gentleman was not particularly threatening. He was, in fact, immensely polite, rising to his feet with lithe grace, sweeping off his high silk hat, executing his bow with all the polish of a courtier before a queen. Nor was there anything to distress her in the way he looked: his handsome features and tall, broad form were too pleasing, if anything. Still, there was something about him as he stood there in the light of the rising moon with the white marble sepulchers of New Orleans' City of the Dead gleaming around him that set alarm bells clanging in her mind. That was even before he spoke.
“What kept you, chère?” he said. “I've been waiting for hours.”
Carita felt the rich tone of his voice, with its shading of familiarity and wry humor, vibrate deep inside her. It set off a rush of fierce longing that expanded, crowding out thought, heating her heart, weighting her lower body while her mind swam with the euphoric intoxication. The sensation was like nothing she had ever known, a consuming flame of purest concupiscence. Startled, unbelieving, she was defenseless against it.
The man's rigorously sculpted features softened. He transferred his hat to the same hand which held his cane, then reached out to her. As he moved forward, his long cape billowed to expose the red silk lining inside the dark folds. It made him look, for an instant, like a hawk swooping down on its prey.
“No!” she said on a quick gasp. Shuddering at the effort, she stepped backward beyond any possibility of physical contact.
He stopped and let his hand drop to his side. A waiting stillness settled over him while he regarded her with distracted care, as if listening to her panicked breathing, absorbing her reluctance. Beyond the brick and wrought iron cemetery fence, a carriage rattled past at a slow pace and faded into the night.
As quiet closed in on them once more, he said simply, “Why?”
“You—you must be mistaken in who I am, sir.” She clasped her hands tightly together at her waist under the slits of her short velvet cloak.
His mouth, sensual in its chiseled curves, exquisitely tender in the tucked corners, curved in amusement. He said, “Oh, I don't believe so.”
“Well, I certainly don't know you! And if you will permit me to pass, I have to retrieve—”
“Renfrey.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My name. You did not know it.”
The tenderness of his voice was like a caress. Carita did her best to ignore it. With great firmness, she said, “Yes, well, but your saying so can hardly be called an acceptable introduction, can it? As I was saying, there is a vase behind you left by my Aunt Berthe that I must—”
“It’s worthless. I wouldn't trouble myself over it.” The words were judicious and dismissive. He paused, then said in intent demand, “How are you called?”
“Carita. It's odd, I know, but was an endearment my father used, so had special meaning to my mother before—” She halted, amazed at herself for saying so much when she had meant to say nothing at all.
“Before she died?” he finished gently. “I was reading the engraving on her tomb, I think, just now.”
Carita looked beyond him to where a bouquet of wilting chrysanthemums and wild ageratum tied with black ribbon streamers lay on the couch-like foundation of the family resting place. There were roses there, also—a huge mass of late fall blooms. How fresh they looked, as if just cut. She didn't remember her aunt bringing them. Who had?
She gave the man before her an inquiring frown. At that moment, a luna moth of enormous size fluttered from the ranks of tombs. Pale gold, ethereal, it drifted about their heads, then settled on Renfrey's broad, black-clad shoulder like a gentle, moon-dusted ghost.
And abruptly Carita's every sense was exquisitely alive.
How delightful the night was; she had hardly noticed before. Moonlight glinting on the dark and shiny leaves of the evergreen magnolia just beyond where they stood gave them the look of black crystal. The marble mausoleums and memorials that surrounded them were smoothly graceful and touched with peace, while the planes and angles of their shadows were velvet-edged and inviting.
She could smell the delicious scent of the roses on her mother's tomb, and from some nearby garden sweet olive drenched the air with its
honeyed seduction. She identified the mustiness of decay on the withering seed pods of the magnolia, caught the dry herbal mustiness of the lantana where it grew against a headstone. The scents of parched grass and old bones hovered near.
In the mausoleum just over there, a mouse scuffled, making a nest. At the wrought iron fence, a stray cat, gray with night, weaved in and out between the palings; he had not yet detected the mouse.
The wind on her face had currents of coolness and warmth, of spice and sweetness, as if some portions of it had traveled from the snow-capped Andes while others had last drifted through nutmeg groves or over the heated sugar cane fields of a Caribbean isle. The brush of it against her skin was a languid, inciting caress. The breeze sighed through the row of cedars not far away and clattered in the magnolia leaves. It tinkled a wind chime left hanging in a distant marble tomb's doorway, and the faint, minor sound was like the passing of a soul.
A wisp of pale hair, turned platinum-and-gilt by moonlight, loosened from her chignon and blew around her face in shining filaments. As Carita caught it back with one hand, holding it, she wondered if her eyes were as night-black as those of the man who watched her.
“Your mother,” he said softly, “how did she die?”
“How?” she answered almost at random in her distraction. “She was killed by an excess of loving.”
“You mean she met death in childbirth?” He tilted his head as he waited for her answer. At the movement, the great luna moth lifted from his cape and meandered into the darkness. Without its soft presence, they were incredibly alone.
“So many do, don't they?” she answered. “They are here, lying all around us so quiet and still, many with the tiny babe at their side or enclosed within their bones. But no. My mother was loved too well. Her heart could not sustain it; it just—stopped.”
Forbidden Lovers Boxed Set Page 32