“Enough talk, you guys,” Lily said, feeling surprisingly bold. “They might have wizards, but I doubt any of them are as well-trained in spells as Bree and I. Our spells can likely overcome any protective spells. And, besides, there’s only one way to find out if a revealing spell will work on this thing.”
She raised her ringed hand, pointed it at the phone, and then uttered the words, “Magicae revelabit,” in a loud voice.
Everyone held their breath, and for a moment nothing happened. And then, just like that, a series of numbers flashed across the screen by itself. The phone was entering the pass code in of its own accord, and a moment later, the lock screen had disappeared to show a welcome screen.
“Yes!” Vance said, fist-pumping the air. “What did we ever do before wizards?”
Lily grinned over at him, a puff of pride filling her chest. It felt good to hear such strong praise from Vance, and it felt even better when he put his hand possessively on the small of her back. She had often felt somewhat out of place here in the dragons’ camp. Bree seemed to have settled in well, but Lily still felt like an outsider. She was still trying to figure out the rhythms and nuances of life in the forest. But, standing here right now, with all of the dragons looking at her in admiration, she felt for perhaps the first time like she truly belonged. The thought made her wonder anew whether there was any way for her to move out here with Vance. Surely, if Bree could work as an Advocate out here, the Advocacy Bureau could find a way to have her work from here, too.
Lily didn’t have long to daydream about her future with Vance, however. Knox was already scrolling through the information on the phone, with a deepening frown on his face. He let out a low whistle as he read, his eyes widening in amazement.
“There’s a lot on here,” Knox said. “I think it’s safe to say that the shifter who had this phone did not think that the pass code could be revealed so easily. He never would have put so much information on here, if he had. There are long lists of the names of those who are leading this group. I don’t recognize any of the names off the top of my head, but if we research the names we might be able to figure out who some of them are. We can also ask our shifter protector friends whether they know any of these guys. They might be more familiar with them than we are. The name lists are only the tip of the iceberg, though. It looks like there’s also quite a bit of information here on different missions. There are reports not only on completed missions but also on missions that are in progress, or missions that are planned. There’s a lot in here.”
“We should make going through it our top priority,” Noah said. The rest of the dragons nodded in agreement.
“I’m willing to stay up all night to go through this stuff,” Owen said fiercely. “If these fools think they stand a chance against us and our good shifter friends, then they’re in for a rude awakening. I’m not going to rest on my laurels until every last one of these fools has been taken down and taught a lesson!”
The other dragons murmured in agreement, but Knox was still frowning.
“I agree with you,” Knox said. “But I don’t think it makes sense for all of us to stay up all night, exhausting ourselves. This phone screen is small. I can already feel my eyes getting tired from reading it. At the most, two of us will be able to read this at a time.”
“Maybe not,” Zeke said. “Let me see that phone.”
Knox raised an eyebrow and handed the phone over. The group watched curiously as Zeke studied the phone from every angle, frowning and nodding occasionally as he did. Finally, he grinned and looked up at Knox.
“I’m pretty sure I can hook this thing up to the printer in my cabin. I can print us all copies of every last bit of information on here, so that we can all easily read and review it, and even make notes on the pages.”
“Zeke, you’re a genius!” Knox said. Lily caught Owen frowning when Knox said this, and she nearly laughed. Owen liked to be the best at everything, and he was no doubt angry that Zeke’s offer to print out information was overshadowing Owen’s valiant offer to stay up all night reviewing that information.
“I don’t think we should all stay up, though,” Knox said. “We need to make sure we always have fresh, rested dragons on guard, in case our enemies try to attack us again. Zeke, after you’ve printed everything, why don’t you and Myles get some rest. Noah, Owen, and Vance can look over the information with me tonight until we’re too tired to think anymore. We’ll share what we’ve learned in the morning, and then the Zeke and Myles can continue going over it, if necessary, while we sleep.”
“I want to stay up and help,” Bree said.
“Yeah, me too,” Lily piped in. After all, they were both Advocates. Sorting through important information quickly was one of their strengths. But Knox was shaking his head no.
“I think it’s better if both of you ladies rest,” he said. “If anything happens and we do get attacked, we could use well-rested wizards on our side. I have an ominous feeling that the enemy is lurking closer than we think.”
Lily was about to protest again, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she was overtaken by a yawn. Vance laughed at her.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m sure everyone appreciates your willingness to look over all of this material, but you’ve had a long, draining day. Your mind will be sharper in the morning, anyway.”
Lily wanted to protest again, but the thought of what a long day she’d had reminded her of the battle she had fought out in the woods with Vance. She felt weak at the thought of it, and she decided it might not be a bad idea to go get some rest for a little while.
She let Vance lead her toward her cabin while the rest of the dragons all started talking at once, asking Knox questions about whether he thought the information on the phone was reliable or whether they would be attacked again soon. Lily tried to listen to Knox’s answers for as long as she could as they walked away, but it didn’t take long for the voices around the fire pit to become too jumbled and distant for her to understand. With a sigh, she followed Vance into her cabin and made her way to the bedroom, where she started taking off her clothes that were dirty and worn from hiking. She and Vance had been in such a hurry to talk to Knox when they got back that neither one of them had bothered changing, and Lily was realizing for the first time what a mess she was. She glanced up at the full sized mirror that hung on the wall of the bedroom, and she saw her dirt-streaked face staring solemnly back at her. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, but it was dirty and greasy as well, and the bun was a mess, with tendrils hanging down at every angle. She couldn’t believe how big the bags under her eyes were, and she let out a long sigh. She definitely needed sleep. But she needed a shower even more. There was no way she could happily go to bed as dirty as she was right now.
She looked up to see Vance staring at her, and she suddenly felt self-conscious.
“I look like a wreck,” she said apologetically. “I think I’m going to take a shower before bed.”
He smiled at her, a sweet tenderness in his eyes as he did. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “A few streaks of dirt on your face doesn’t take anything away from that at all.”
Lily blushed and looked down at her feet. “Well, be that as it may,” she said. “I’m still going to shower. I don’t want to climb into bed like this.”
Vance nodded. “You’ll feel better, anyway, if you take a nice hot shower. Why don’t you go hop in and I’ll make you some herbal tea. I know we stocked this cabin with peppermint.”
Lily nodded, and Vance disappeared back into the front room of the small cabin to prepare the tea. She quickly finished stripping off her clothes, throwing them in a pile near the door of the room. She let out another sigh when she realized how much work it was going to take to clean all the dirt off. There were no washing machines out here in the Redwoods. Everything had to be cleaned by hand, and those dirt crusted clothes were going to take quite a bit of scrubbing.
Lily would worry about that later, though. For now, she wante
d to relax under a nice hot stream of water. She went into the bathroom and turned the showerhead all the way to the hot side, waiting to step into the shower until the water heated up and steam slowly began filling the bathroom.
When she first arrived here at the dragons’ base camp, Lily had thought it extremely odd that there was running water in these cabins. They were so remote, and it seemed impossible that pipes reached all the way out here. When she had asked Bree how the dragons had managed this, Bree had shrugged and said. “They have connections.”
Lily still hadn’t learned what those connections were, but after today she was beginning to feel as though the base camp wasn’t quite as remote as she had felt when she first arrived here. Yes, it was a difficult place to reach unless you had the benefit of dragon’s wings. Hiking in would take days and days. But difficult was not the same things as impossible, as Lily had clearly seen today. After all, the two shifters who attacked them had made it in. Were there more out there right now, lurking in the shadows just outside of camp?
Lily shuddered, and tried to push the thought from her mind. Everything today had turned out fine, after all. And there were several powerful dragons here at camp. It would be difficult to surprise them at their base, and even more difficult to overcome them. Even wizards would not be enough to guarantee victory. After all, the dragons had Bree and Lily on their sides, and Lily was a damn good spell-caster if she did say so herself.
With a long, resigned sigh, Lily started shampooing her hair and then lathering soap all over her body. The hot water felt like heaven, and Lily smiled as the dirt and grime of the day was washed off her body. She was glad, now, that Knox and Vance had both insisted that she get some rest. The idea of falling into a nice soft bed was more and more appealing by the second.
And yet, Lily was not ready to sleep just yet. She let the hot water continue to run over her long after the dirt and soap was all washed away. The steam felt soothing, and Lily had not realized until just that moment how much she needed to feel soothed. The day had not been an easy one. The beginning had not been too bad. Hiking around with Vance and testing the vaults had been fun. But the attack in the woods had shaken her to her core. She had been in such shock that she had not been able to even process at first the fact that she had nearly died. A few more seconds, and the bear’s teeth would have been at her throat. She was lucky that her reflexes had kicked in, and that she’d been able to ward off the bear with a fire spell. Not only that, she was lucky Vance had been with her, too. She wasn’t sure she would have had the strength to continue pushing back the bear on her own, even with her powerful spells. Vance had demolished the bear in the nick of time, and Lily shuddered again, thinking of what might have happened if he hadn’t been there to step in. Lily had certainly not expected to come so close to death during her summer vacation, but she had to admit that she felt a little proud. She was hanging with dragons, and she was still alive. Not many wizards she knew could say that they had done battle with a dragon by their side, and Lily chuckled thinking that, if nothing else, no one could ever again say that she was just a boring, unadventurous Advocate.
Just as Lily was about to turn off the water and start drying off, Vance appeared and stood next to the shower. He himself was still quite dirty, although it looked like he had washed his hands and face.
“Tea’s ready,” he said with a smile. “Looks like you’ve been able to relax a bit in here.”
Lily smiled back at him. She regretted now that she had treated him so harshly for the way he had flown her in to the Redwoods that first day. She knew now that she had never truly been in danger. Vance was not the type of man to take risks with someone else’s life, and he was fiercely protective of those who were on the side of good along with his clan. She studied his handsome face as it gazed back at hers, and she was overcome with happiness at the knowledge that he was hers. In many ways, they were still getting to know each other, and yet, she felt almost as though she had known him all her life. There had always been a part of her heart that had belonged to him, and now that she had found him she felt truly at peace for the first time in her life. As she watched him, she was filled with the desire to hold him close and to feel his arms around her. She needed sleep and he needed to get back to the fire pit to consult with Knox. But all of that could wait, Lily decided. They had not truly had a moment of calm together since the attack in the woods, and they needed one.
“Come here,” Lily said, beckoning him toward the shower with her finger. “You’re dirty, too. Let me clean you off.”
A smile broke out across Vance’s face. “If you insist,” he said. He stepped back to kick off his clothes, leaving them in a dirty heap on the bathroom floor. Then he gently crowded into the shower to join Lily under the steaming water. As the water washed over his hair and skin, Lily reached for the shampoo that she had just been using. She squeezed a little bit out onto her hands, and then began massaging it into his hair. He closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure as she worked, and Lily felt a delicious thrill of desire run through her own body as she watched him responding to her touch.
When she had finished working all the shampoo into his hair, he threw his head back under the water to wash away all of the lather. Lily watched him as he did, admiring his body openly. The water had washed away much of the dirt now, and she could clearly see that his deeply tanned skin was covered with angry red scratches. Here and there she could even see a deeper gash. The fight in the woods had not left him completely unscathed. Yet somehow, the marks only made him appear even sexier to her. They reminded her that he was a warrior, and that he had fought for her.
His biceps flexed as he rubbed the water through the top of his head, and Lily let her eyes slide over his broad shoulders and chest, down to his perfectly sculpted six pack. She took in his powerful thighs and calves, and then let her gaze move back to his large dick, which was standing erect now between his legs. She shivered with delight at the sight of it, and at the knowledge that he was already turned on and ready for her. She moved her eyes back up to his face for a moment to see that he was done washing his hair. He was studying her now, with a heat in his expression that took Lily’s breath away.
Without a word, she reached for the bar of soap. She stepped behind him and moved the soap in tiny, firm circles across his shoulders and back, working up a soapy lather as she slowly began inching downward. She lathered up the small of his back, then rubbed the bar against his firm ass with determined strokes. He sighed with satisfaction at the movement, and she felt another thrill go through her own body.
She continued down, rubbing circles through any of the grime of the day that still remained on the back of his legs. She was bent low, her hair falling in long, wet tendrils around her face. Here, crowded into the shower with Vance, the rest of the world felt so wonderfully far away.
Lily stood and moved around to Vance’s front. He had his eyes closed, and he kept them that way as she began to clean his chest and arms. She moved with slow deliberate motions as she descended once again, cleaning his ribs, stomach, and hips. She did not touch his erection yet. She was saving that for last. With purposeful movements she continued on toward his legs, lathering up the front of his thighs, his knees, and his calves, and delighting in the way he would occasionally let out a soft moan.
When she was finally satisfied with her work on his legs, she stood once again, and turned her attention back to his dick, which was standing stiff and hard as a rock. With steady hands, she moved the soap between his legs, and then began rubbing it across his erection. With one hand, she held his thick shaft firmly. With the other, she moved the soap in firm, small circles. She felt him trembling as she worked, taking her time and rubbing across first the top and then the bottom so that no spot on his manhood was left untouched.
When she was finally satisfied that she had teased every spot she possibly could, she set the soap aside and took his erection in both hands. She moved her hands back and forth across it, rubbing away
all the soap and feeling herself tremble every time Vance shuddered. His moans grew more frequent and intense, and Lily smiled when she thought of how his pleasure was coming from her.
He had been content for some time to let Lily have her way with him, but now, he seemed to want more. He reached up and grabbed Lily’s breasts firmly, one in each hand. The motion surprised her, and a squeal of surprise and delight escaped her lips as his strong palms covered her breasts. His thumbs flicked across her nipples, and she could feel hot moisture oozing from between her legs—moisture that was definitely not coming from the shower itself. Lily’s body was responding to Vance’s touch, and he was responding to hers. Desire was building, hot and impatient, in both of them, and Lily began to feel as though she might explode from the intensity if she did not find a release soon.
Luckily, Vance seemed to share her desperation. With strong hands, he reached down to move her own hands away from his erection. Then he pushed her up against the back wall of the shower. The water did not reach there, but the steam was strong and floated by Lily’s face in curling wisps. Lily closed her eyes again, breathing in deeply and enjoying every sensation that was filling her. The moist air, Vance’s firm hand, and then, his erection reaching and poking against her soft entrance.
He moved quickly, hungrily. He took her face in his palms, and slipped his tongue into her mouth just seconds before he slipped his large shaft between her legs. She squeezed her eyes tighter as he filled her, pushing against her inner walls and bringing a whole new warmth and fire to her body. The medley of wonderful sensations washed over her. The heat, the moisture, the pressure. It was all almost too wonderful for her to bear. She could hardly believe that she was lucky enough to experience this.
His hips moved against hers as he thrust into her. There was an urgency in his movements now, as though he needed her to know how badly he wanted this, too. The rapid movements caused the pressure in Lily’s core to grow, and the flames burning inside of her intensified. Her body began to tingle, and she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter as the wonderful mixture of sensations washed over her.
Summer and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 2) Page 11