“So is this about Hildy and Carol… or about your family history?” she asked.
Damien turned to find the Jezibaba’s concerned gaze sweeping over his face. It was all he could do not to clutch her to him and seek whatever comfort they could find together.
“As callous as it sounds, the deaths of two young witches is not an important matter in dragon politics. However, if their deaths allow the involved dragons to meet other goals, then they would not hesitate to kill a couple of humans trying to be witches. What I can’t figure out is who’s supplying the magical backing. I also don’t know what the soulless ones have been promised in exchange for their efforts.”
“The question of who will be revealed soon enough. I wouldn’t put it past Nigel to come gloating again. What do the soulless ones want most in the world?” Jezibaba asked as she stepped into the bay window area with him. “Whatever that is, you can bet on it being what they were promised. Bribery is an extremely effective tool.”
Damien shrugged. “The soulless ones want power. They practice the dark arts because they think dragons should rule the world. Dragons and gods—at least some gods—are natural enemies. Most I know detest Morgana The Red. My family feels she tricked my great-grandfather into serving her. After my father died, I stepped up to serve out the remainder of our debt. My cousin Acheron saw my concession to the remainder of our service as a cowardly act. He left our horde and went looking for the power to fight the Goddess. The next time I saw him, he had already given up his soul.”
Jezibaba curled her fingers around the amulet in her pocket. “Don’t they know that not even a dragon can kill a god? Morgana is devious, manipulative, and a constant pain in my ass, but she loves all the world’s creatures as fiercely as Gaia loves the earth itself. Believe me, I’ve looked for faults in her motives. I have never found any outside her enjoyment of my misery every time I’ve had to learn another painful life lesson.”
Damien rubbed his face, thinking hard. “My family’s debt to her is nearly paid. She sent me here to teach without telling me why. I watched over all the students, never confirming Hildy and Carol were the reason until you showed up. Will she blame me for the actions of my cousin and my son against her chosen ones?” Damien asked.
Jezibaba waited for a few heartbeats, but eventually she shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing, but I don’t see how Morgana could possibly count them as your true family. Now what she might do to your cousin or son for their crimes against the children… that I cannot guess. She is far less merciful than I am.”
Damien waved a hand. “The dragons those men were died the moment they gave up their soul. Now each is a slave to the darkness that rules his unnatural life. Becoming really dead would be a good thing in both their cases because then the cycle of real life can start over again.”
“How long ago did all of this happen in your family?” she asked.
Damien smiled at the question. “Dragons count time a bit differently, but I’m sure it was before you were born. Acheron is my age. Lionel is three hundred and sixteen. How old are you?”
Jezibaba smiled as she crossed her arms. “I count time differently too. Let’s just say I’ve outlived three of four generations of my family. To those now living, I’m just their strange Aunt Elenora.”
Damien lifted a hand to her face. “You barely look over thirty in human years.”
Jezibaba snorted. “Thirty plus a few centuries and decades added on to that. You don’t have to be kind, Professor. I know what I see in the mirror, but I like every line and wrinkle. It reminds me that despite the fact I have great-great nieces and nephews, I am actually getting older, which means one day I will leave this world just like every other creature.”
“You continually fascinate me. I would like to hear the full story sometime,” Damien whispered. “But right now, something more demanding pulls on my attention.”
Jezibaba started to nod her chin free of his grip when his mouth covered hers in a perfect alignment of lips. Her hands tugged him closer without prompting and suddenly she was pulled to her toes so his restless hips could rub against the front of her.
Damien took her groan into his mouth as an invitation to explore.
The kiss spun out until he nearly sucked all the breath from her lungs. He wrenched his mouth away finally, spoke to her in dragon, and then lifted her from the floor. Her legs wrapped around him. He braced his feet apart and held her, holding her tight against proof of his desire.
Jezibaba put her forehead against his. When she spoke, she answered him in dragon, telling him it would never work.
“But Elenora… I need you,” Damien said roughly.
She grabbed his hair and glared into his silver eyes. “Damn you, my given name sounds like music rolling off your dragon tongue. That still doesn’t mean this is a good idea. I cannot mate with a dragon. I cannot even lie with one. The risk is too great.”
His large hands slid under her dress to cup her thighs. His fingers slid between her legs and somehow found their way past the lace barrier. She hissed as his clever digits stroked her into a passionate frenzy. When he pressed against her clit and stroked down hard with a finger, she surged against him riding the peak he’d forced her to climb. It had been so long.
She covered Damien’s mouth with hers to keep herself from screaming in pleasure, and to keep from begging him for everything he wanted to give. She resisted when he moved his mouth away enough to let him speak.
“Hear me, Witch. I don’t care who you serve, what you are, or how we ended up like this. All that is real to me is that I want the right to do this to you... and to bury myself inside you when I wish. What must I do to prove myself worthy? Dragons are impatient by nature and I’ve used mine up these past few weeks waiting for you to get used to the idea of us.”
Jezibaba groaned as she wilted against his chest, forcing Damien to grip harder to hold her up. There was no getting around a confession, but she’d rather take a knife to the chest.
Maybe she could say nothing and just sleep with him. Maybe nothing bad would happen after all.
Maybe she could lie about her reasons and roast in hell instead of spending her eternity in Morgana’s court.
Jezibaba raised her head and met Damien’s hot gaze. She lifted a hand from his shoulder and tapped his cheek.
“Being part dragon myself, I know exactly how impatient dragons are,” she said softly. “So fuck me if you must indulge your beast, Professor Smoke, but what we have can never be more than casual sex. And whatever I must do to prevent it, no child will come from our union… this I vow.”
When Damien turned loose all at once, she literally fell off him. Luckily, she’d worn flats instead of heels, otherwise she’d have ended up on her ungraceful ass.
Jezibaba backed away, turned her back, and reached under her skirt to straighten her underwear… or what was left of it. The delicate lace was ruined, but she wasn’t dropping her destroyed panties in front of him. She knew better than to visually taunt.
“Not my most graceful dismount from a man,” she said in irritation, hurt for once over being on the receiving end of his fierce glare.
“Explain yourself,” Damien demanded.
Jezibaba snorted. “I owe you no explanation, but what the hell. My family lineage is Wiccan. Our magic takes many forms. Ever hear of The Great Rite, Professor Smoke?”
“Yes. Sacred Sex. That Celtic custom mirrors a form of dragon mating where there is an exchange of the energy that creates fire within us. Dragon mating is an internal uniting through the external connection of bodies. But at its most basic, mating is a creation agreement. This is true for all creatures, not just dragons.”
Jezibaba crossed her arms and rocked on her heels. “When my great-grandmother lived, The Great Rite wasn’t always practiced between couples who were already sworn in union. Sometimes it was a sacred act of creation enacted for a specific purpose. Druidic priests and priestesses were often conceived that way. No one thought of it as infidelity or prom
iscuity. It was only thought of as sacred.”
Damien studied her, wondering how he had not known she was part dragon. When he looked hard enough, an energy matching his radiated off her. It’s like he’d been wearing blinders… or worse, just hadn’t wanted to know. “Is that how you were created?”
“No,” Jezibaba shook her head, “or maybe indirectly. My great-grandmother—long before she accepted my great-grandfather as her husband—was sent by Morgana The Red to lie with a dragon shifted to human form as you are now. My great-grandmother did as she was asked because the Goddess promised to send the most powerful witch ever born into the world through her. The dragon didn’t love her, probably didn’t even like her, but he owed Morgana The Red a favor. So with Morgana’s divine intervention they conceived a child together.”
Damien stared without seeing, his mind trying to take in what Jezibaba was saying.
“Dragons believe breeding with humans is impossible. There’s never been a documented case where it worked to produce a child, not even with those females dragons sometimes kept as mates.”
Jezibaba shrugged. “That is the truth as I know it. However, Morgana found a way to bypass the natural order. The birth of my grandmother nearly killed my great-grandmother, but it still came to pass.”
Damien nodded. “So your grandmother was the first dragon witch then?”
“No, my grandmother turned out to be a healer. It was she who healed my great-grandmother when she came into her powers. After being healed, my great-grandmother married again. My grandmother the healer went on to marry my grandfather, and never told him she wasn’t completely human. In fact, my grandfather died without knowing anything because no life extension powers showed up. This meant my grandmother aged normally. She told my mother about the situation though. My mother was a powerful witch from the moment she was born. Both she and my grandmother thought she was the dragon witch… right up until the day I was born.”
When her tone went soft and her voice faded off, Damien walked to the Jezibaba and turned her to face him. She had been staring at the door and he didn’t want her to leave without finishing. “Tell me what happened when you were born. I want to hear it all.”
She nodded absently. “I only know what I was told by my great-grandmother. Barely out of the womb, apparently I breathed dragon fire on my mother and burned most of her face. My healer grandmother was the only reason the rest of my family didn’t kill me outright. They all but officially declared me a demon for being able to produce dragon fire. My great-grandmother was growing feeble by that point, but she stepped in. She reminded my mother and father that Morgana herself promised the true dragon witch was to become the next keeper of magical balance. It meant my family would be given positions of honor in Morgana’s court in the afterlife.”
Damien let his hands drop when she walked away from him this time. “This is… almost too incredible to believe. Yet I’m riveted by your story. Please continue.”
Jezibaba paced away, walking to the door and back. “My grandmother wove a spell that stopped me from fire breathing. It was very effective. Though unable to create fire now, I am naturally immune to its effects. I always wondered if they had not spellbound me, would I have shifted into a dragon? Beyond that one oddity as a babe though, nothing else of note happened for a good long while, except that I grew and aged much more slowly than humans. My mother grew angrier with every moment I drew breath. She made my life a hell at home and my father often had to get between us.”
“So you stayed with them?” Damien supplied at her pause.
Jezibaba shrugged. “Without proper magic skills, where could I go? My entire family refused to train me because they feared what I might be able to do. I was miserable and my mother was resentful. During that time, I came of age to marry off, but no normal suitors wanted a wife who still looked like a child. Those who asked were horrible men. My father refused to let me go with them. It was his greatest gift to me.”
“How did you get called to be the Jezibaba?” Damien asked.
“I didn’t—not really. When I turned twenty-six, I still looked like a young girl, barely a teenager in appearance. My grandmother wouldn’t cross my mother’s decision not to train me in magic. My great-grandmother was too old to take them both on, so she called Morgana to her just before she died. The Goddess intervened with my family and took me to the Council of Witches herself. They weren’t pleased with me as a prospective either, but they could not send away a witch Morgana had chosen personally.”
“Was life better after that?” Damien asked, hoping it had been.
Jezibaba nodded briefly. “Yes—for a while. I trained with an Archmage named Ambrose, and with the former Jezibaba. That witch wasn’t any keener on me than my own mother had been, but she wanted to retire before she got killed by the job. She handed it over too soon, but the Council of Witches didn’t care. I was the young, naïve, and somewhat malleable protectoress they’d been waiting centuries to twist to their own ends—or so they thought. Things changed rapidly when I hit my thirties.”
Damien crossed his arms to keep from touching her. He could not do so now without making her his. That was clear to him before, but her story cemented it. She was dragon on the inside, no matter what form her body chose.
“The dragon witch I see before me is no one’s pawn. What did it cost you to get to where you are?”
Jezibaba crossed her arms again, pacing away from him.
“You are the first to ask me that question, Professor. Once I came into full power, I became ruthless with all magicals. I put three Council members in prison. Two died there. One survives… for now. The rest who are still serving have learned to fear my righteousness. I owe Morgana for that. She sent Emeritus to tame my nature and to teach me what little discipline I have over myself. Sometimes she came herself when I went against what she thought was right. I ended up a powerful pawn of the Goddess and her Consort instead of a malleable protectoress for the Council of the Witches. My history is one irony after the other, but in the end, I am serving the destiny I was created to serve.”
Damien walked to her again. It was like he was chasing her around his space. In a way, he was. “Nothing you’ve told me puts me off you. Why are you so sure we can never belong to each other?”
“My dragon ancestor told my great-grandmother that his deal with Morgana would be forever broken by the very fire she had bargained from him. No one really knows what he meant. But the instincts that have kept me alive all this time say to avoid dragons altogether. I have listened to them.”
“And that includes me?” Damien asked.
Jezibaba shrugged. “My challenge with you is harder. You’re the first dragon I’ve ever wanted. Avoiding dragons was never a problem until I met you.”
Damien put his hands in his pockets to keep them off her. “Dragons outlive all creatures—witches, humans, vampires, and all manner of shifters. Perhaps not your Emeritus, but all others. Maybe if we talked to this mysterious dragon ancestor of yours, he could tell us what he meant. What is your dragon ancestor’s name?”
Jezibaba shook her head fiercely, sending her hair swinging with her dismay. “I don’t know. My great-grandmother died without telling me. Morgana refuses to speak his name. There has been a lot of conspiring to keep his identity a secret.”
Damien snorted. “Dragons and Gods feel the same about secrecy. If you were a dragon shifted into human form, I would simply look at your hereditary mark. It remains on the body to mark the horde a dragon belongs to.”
“A mark?” Jezibaba’s arms slid down her body. “Damn that conniving Goddess. I’ve had the answer all along.”
She tugged the sleeve of her dress but it wouldn’t pull up high enough. Frustrated, she waved a hand and her dress disappeared completely, leaving her in her matching purple lace lingerie and with a furious glare in her gaze as she searched her form.
Feeling Damien’s interested stare, she turned the glare on him. “I’m sorry to torture you so
soon after turning you down, but I needed to get my arms bare in a hurry.” She lifted her left arm and turned to where he could see what she wanted to show him. “Is this the kind of mark you mean?”
Damien stared in shock. “Yes. Put down your arm now,” he ordered sharply. “Never show any dragon again. It is best no one ever know.”
Jezibaba glared harder. “What in the hell are you saying? You just made me tell you the whole damn story. Why are you suddenly reticent about telling me what you know?”
“Because your ancestor is no ordinary dragon,” Damien declared. “He may have been at one time but he is long past that now. Instead of dying, your ancestor chose to… evolve. It is said he can take the form of any creature he chooses. When he chose to disassociate himself from dragonkind, he was mostly forgotten by us. His continued existence is like an urban myth more than reality, but anyone directly serving Morgana The Red knows anything is possible when she’s involved.”
“Sounds like we’re back to the dragons are the superior race thing again.” Rolling her eyes, Jezibaba waved her hand. Her dress instantly covered her again. She fisted hands on her hips. “If my ancestor is not a dragon any longer, what the hell is he then?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. My guess is he’s something like your friend the Phoenix who can shift to any form.”
“Are you saying my hereditary great-grandfather is like Emeritus?” Jezibaba demanded, her voice rising in shock.
Damien nodded. “I can’t say for certain. Evidently, he was still dragon when he interacted with your female ancestor. All I have to go on are myths and legends. He was ex-communicated by the Council of Dragons. No one speaks his name for fear of suffering the same fate.”
Jezibaba snorted in disbelief. If Emeritus knew her ancestor, wouldn’t he have thrown the bastard’s name in her face at least once in the zillion times he lambasted her for things she’d done wrong?
She glared at Damien again. “I don’t care about your Council of Dragons. Do you know my dragon ancestor’s name or not? Just tell me if you do.”
Magic and Mayhem: How To Train A Witch (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Baba Yaga Saga Book 1) Page 8