"Please, Malcolm," she begged in a whisper.
His broad hands parted the opening of her jeans and slid them and her underwear down her legs. He seemed stronger than ever, his injury forgotten. He cupped her breasts in his palms, running his thumbs across her nipples until they stood up, hard and hungry for him.
He suckled her, nipping a little, his teeth hurting her and feeling marvelous at the same time. He kissed her abdomen, dragging his strong tongue across her navel and down to the swirl of hair that was wet for him.
Saba slid her legs apart, knowing what was coming. Malcolm laid himself between her thighs and licked her, his tongue rough and hot and pleasuring her deeply. She sensed his dragon power binding her even more thoroughly and knew she should fear him, should run as fast as she could to some place in the middle of nowhere where he'd never find her. She knew she was his slave, and against her will, she was rejoicing in the slavery.
He pushed her thighs open and stroked his tongue across her, letting his thumbs move the opening of her labia. He knew exactly how to tantalize her, how to make her squirm against the carpet, the leftover salt grating into her back. She arched her hips, wanting his mouth, and he suckled and nibbled, driving her more and more crazy. She laced her hands in his long hair, silken smooth strands warm with life, and held him against her, wanting him intensely.
His breath heated her skin, her thighs stinging where the stubble on his jaw abraded her. A dragon who had to shave, she thought with an inner laugh, and the laughter made her come.
Saba screamed, trying to muffle the sounds, but she couldn't stop them. She ground her hips upward, wanting his mouth. He kept on suckling her, licking and stroking, not letting up, even as she climaxed.
"Damn you, Malcolm," she moaned.
He pressed harder, making her take all of it, climax and beyond. The feeling spiraled her past the bonds she'd put on her own mind, the admonishment to not look into things she did not understand and not follow the spark of power she sensed inside herself.
He growled softly as he lifted his head from between her legs, his black hair hanging down like a curtain. "I'll teach you. I'll teach you so much, my witch."
Her body shuddered with release, but the release only increased her need. She tried to gather him close, but he lifted himself up and away from her. The bulge in his half-opened pants showed her he had need, too—huge, elongated need pressing the cloth of his briefs—but he closed the zipper over it and buttoned the waistband, in perfect control of himself and his physical desires.
"Please stay," Saba begged. She spread her legs wider so he'd see all of her, wet from her own juices and his mouth. She'd never been so shameless in her life.
Malcolm shook his head. "You're not ready for me, Saba."
"Yes, I am."
"You are not ready for me and what I can do."
Saba shivered, wondering what he meant, not entirely afraid. Malcolm got down on his hands and knees and put his face next to hers. He had done this before, when she'd been tied to the bed, and she realized it was the dragon in him, crouching over the thing that was his—a kill, a treasure, a mate.
"They will try to use you," he said, his breath warm on her lips. "Let them."
"Lisa and Caleb?" she asked. "Or Donna and Grizelda?"
His eyes flickered with hot silver. "If Donna comes near you, I will kill her."
"Lisa and Caleb are all right, then." She felt sleepy and languid, drained from the magic and the sexual climax.
"If Donna comes near you, call my name. I'll not let her have you back."
Saba brushed her thumb across his cheek. "I don't think she wants me back."
"She will once she knows what you can do. She wants the power, she craves it for its own sake. I only want to get home, but she will destroy for the joy of destroying. Lisa knows nothing. The old woman, her grandmother, was too powerful to manipulate, but Lisa is defenseless and ignorant of what she can do. Vulnerable to the likes of your high priestess, Donna." He nearly spit the name, his revulsion tangible.
"You hate her" Saba said, surprised.
"I have been watching her. She is beyond contempt. There's a reason I chose you, Saba, and not the other."
"Grizelda is Donna's toady. She'd never turn."
"That isn't why." Malcolm kissed her, his mouth softening to almost tenderness. He got to his feet, looking down at her, all six foot, six inches of black leather and man. "Lead them to me," he said, then he turned on his heel and left her alone.
The door closed softly behind him, and only then did Saba begin to shake.
* * *
Chapter Nine
Caleb paced Lisa's living room as afternoon died into darkness, his dragon self restless. His instinct to fight and kill pulled at him, but his human self was weaponless, nearly powerless, wondering what the hell to do. Out there in the kaleidoscope of sound and color that was San Francisco the black dragon lurked, along with the dragon orb and witches who knew more what was going on than he did. Caleb had stuck the black dragon through with a sword and he still lived, and Lisa's magic was ripping her apart from the inside out.
Lisa lay curled on the red sofa in her living room, her auburn hair flowing across the black throw pillows. Her white face made her brown eyes enormous, the arm that was tucked behind her head looked so fragile. A glass of blood-red wine rested on the coffee table in front of her, the only thing she'd been able to ingest since they'd arrived home hours ago. He sent musical thought-threads to her, trying to soothe and heal her, but in his agitation, the music sounded like jangled chords.
"Please stop looking at me like you're scared, too," Lisa said as he paced by her for the hundredth time. "I didn't think you were afraid of anything."
Caleb sat on the sofa next to her, drawing her feet into his lap. They were too cold and he rubbed them gently, trying to stroke warmth into them. "I understand now why Donna didn't want me to become human."
"Why?"
"As a dragon, I have enormous powers, but only on the other side of the door. My magic is limited here, and I can't protect you as well as I could if I were a dragon. But if I am a dragon, I can't be here to help you."
"So you're screwed either way," Lisa said. "I'm sorry."
"If I knew what your magic was, I would know better what to do. You have dragon magic, but it isn't exactly the same as dragon magic. It feels different. It feels ancient and yet not. It's a beautiful power, but deadly, too." He reached for her hand and traced her fingers, remembering how they'd flared with raw magic.
She drew a breath. "I can't control it. I just acted instinctively, and now I feel like shit."
"I couldn't kill the black dragon." The words made him bleak.
"You weren't to know the sword wouldn't work. He didn't seem much affected by the magic I threw at him either. We could have captured him if I hadn't gotten sick," she finished glumly.
"I protect you first. It is not a choice."
She smiled. "My knight in shining armor. No, I forgot, you eat those."
Caleb didn't laugh. He knew Lisa feared the power inside her, but she didn't have Caleb's experience with magic and knowledge of what untamed power could do. She was in a whirlpool of danger, and this place, filled with lucky magic, was the only island of calm.
"The black dragon wants your magic," Caleb said. "He tried to drag it into him. He knows what it is, and he thinks you are the key to the dragon orb. We must find out why and where this orb is. I thought I would find out in Chinatown with the friends of Li Na, but they did not know. Either Ming Ue truly knows nothing about it or she is a very good and subtle magician."
"I'd never heard of the dragon orb, either, Caleb." Lisa stroked his broad fingers. "Grandma Li Na told me many stories about old China and dragons, but she never mentioned an orb or that I'd have this power. She dropped cryptic hints but that's all, and I didn't pay any attention at the time."
"Perhaps there are clues in this apartment that she left you. I did not know her long, but she wa
s very magical. She must have known you would come into your powers once she was gone and left you a message of some kind."
Lisa shook her head. "I went through everything after she died. I didn't find anything I didn't either already know about, or anything odd. No orb, for instance, no stashes of books on magic or dragons, no letter saying, 'Dear Lisa, Here's everything you need to know about the strange power you can sometimes use.' "
Caleb drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them. She tasted so fine, like flowers after rain, strong and fragile at the same time.
"We need the witches," he said. "I don't trust them, and I don't like them, but they know better what's going on. It might be fun to shake information out of them."
Anger entered Lisa's eyes. "Not if they try to hurt you again, singing your true name or whatever they did. I don't like or trust anyone trying to enslave you."
"Saba might help us." He glanced at the armband glittering with the runes Saba had scratched on it. "My enslavement was my own fault."
"How do you figure that?" Lisa's limbs had already started to warm, anger on his behalf flushing her skin. "How did they get your name?"
He shrugged. "I was very young, only a few hundred years old, and I heard my first mating call. I and another golden answered it, and I fought him and won, but he hurt me greatly. You remember what I told you about female dragons, how they try to kill their mates when they're finished. I had to fight to get away from her, and I was already injured. I fell into a canyon and lay there, almost dead, when a witch who'd made her way from this world into Dragonspace to steal dragon magic found me."
Lisa laced her hand through his, watching him with concerned eyes. "What happened?"
"I was in too much pain to see or even speak, and she offered to heal me. She needed the secret of my true name to do it, and I gave it to her."
He shuddered with memories as he told Lisa the rest of the tale. Overjoyed that she had a tame dragon, weak and bound to her magic, the witch used him in every hideous way she could. He'd once heard that witches followed a creed to do no harm to others, but he decided that by "others" they did not mean "dragons."
The witch who enslaved Caleb enjoyed testing the limits of what she could make him do. If he refused, she tortured him until he begged to die. She siphoned off his magic or made him use it to help her in everything from a rain spell to outright murder. His only hope had lain in the knowledge that dragons lived far longer than witches, and her small human life, no matter how hard she tried to prolong it, would soon end.
Except that the witch who had enslaved him passed the secret of his name to her followers. They built a cult around Caleb and his powers, calling him and using him whenever they wished. He could not kill them—that restriction was built into the enslavement. The sign of the golden dragon became feared, but Caleb only wished for his slavery to end.
And then, about five hundred years ago, the calls stopped. Caleb learned that magic, witches, and dragons had passed into legend in Lisa's world. Machines and the mind prevailed, and magic and dragons were forgotten, which was fine as far as Caleb was concerned. But just when he'd hoped that all the witches who'd known his name were dead and gone, Donna the high priestess and her ragtag coven had summoned him out of sleep and commanded him to watch over Lisa. Donna knew the ancient ways, and she knew what she could do to Caleb if he refused.
Lisa listened quietly, her hand in his. "We must get you free of them," she said when he finished. "For once and for all."
He leaned to press a kiss to her forehead. "Humans don't concern themselves in the affairs of dragons."
Her brown eyes were stern. "You are my friend, Caleb. I'm concerning myself. If their power over you won't let you hurt them, maybe we can find a spell or something to make them forget your name. Would that work?"
"I don't know. I can't cast spells on them, either. The first witch knew what she was doing."
Lisa sat up. "Well, then we'll consult other witches. Maybe Ming Ue knows some. I never realized she had so much knowledge about magic and dragons, and she might have connections. Or maybe Saba knows the answer. She helped you with the armband. If we get her away from the other two, perhaps she will see reason." She took on a determined look, the power in her rising. "And if she doesn't see reason, there's no restriction that says I can't harm the witches."
She was so beautiful, her face filled with indignation on his behalf, her lovely body quivering as she spoke. She cared about him, which was a new sensation to Caleb.
He put his fingers under her chin and kissed her. Her lips moved in response, soft as down under his. As she had in Lumi's shop doorway, she slid her arms around his neck, letting her fingers drift under his hair to massage his nape, while she softly swept her tongue into his mouth.
She tasted like the wine she'd drunk and sweet spice. He wished he had centuries of time to explore the attraction he felt for her. He wanted nothing more than to lay with her on this sofa, or on her bed, learning her body with his hands and his mouth, understanding what it was to mate with her, to be with her.
Lisa pulled gently away. She ran her thumb across his lower lip, wiping away moisture. "We should be talking about finding the witches."
"I want to kiss you for three days."
Pink crept into her cheeks. "That might be fun." She sat up again. "First things first. How do we find Saba?"
"I don't know. When I needed to contact the witches, I had a calling ritual, but now that Donna's severed Saba from the coven, it might not summon her any longer. I don't want Donna to know I'm calling Saba in any case. She lives here, in San Francisco, but I don't know where."
Lisa gestured to the armband. "Does that tell you anything?"
Caleb fingered it, feeling soft gold and the warm scratches of the runes. "The letters are part of the spell. Perhaps if I concentrate on it long enough, Or turn back into a dragon in Dragonspace and sink my thoughts into it, I can trace the magic back to her physical location."
"Or you could look her up in the phone book."
Caleb stopped in midthought. He knew about phone books from their ads on television, but it had never occurred to him to consult it. Another indication he didn't know much about the practical side of being human.
Lisa swung herself from the sofa, looking much stronger, and rummaged in the drawer of the end table. "Do you know her last name?"
"No."
Lisa hefted a large, supple paper book, then looked at it thoughtfully and set it on the table. "We'll try the Internet. There can't be that many Sabas in San Francisco."
She sat down at a desk across the room and turned on the computer, one of the few possessions of her own she'd brought to the apartment. Caleb fingered the book, opening it at random and looking at the list of names marching down the page in tiny type. So many names. If the black dragon used the orb and began the destruction Donna feared, all those names would be of people who no longer existed.
"Here we go," Lisa said. Caleb closed the book and went to her, looking over her shoulder at a softly lit screen. "I've found three Sabas with addresses in San Francisco. I hope she lives in the city, not down the bay somewhere, but I suppose we can search all those towns, too."
"How do we know which one is her?" Caleb asked. He leaned over to look more closely at the screen, which let him glimpse the soft swell of Lisa's breasts inside her loose shirt. She smelled good, like soap and Lisa. He touched a kiss to her neck where her warm red hair swirled.
She smiled. "Stop that. Which do you think it is?"
Caleb studied the three names, able to read the letters, but human names were meaningless to him. These weren't their true names, they were the names they gave other people to identify them. True names sang. These names were merely lines on a screen.
"Saba Watanabe," Lisa read. "Watanabe is a Japanese name. Is Saba of Japanese descent?"
"She is Asian," Caleb said, interest rising. "That may be her."
"It's an address in SoMa," Lisa said, using the nickname t
hat meant the district south of Market Street in downtown. She tapped her finger on the white device she called a mouse and a map appeared on the screen with a small star near the middle. "If Saba Watanabe is the right person, she's there." She touched the screen. "Scary, isn't it?"
"How do I get to this place?"
"I'll drive you."
He placed his hands on her shoulders. "No. I want you to stay here. This is the safest place for you." He sensed again the maelstrom of danger, with Li Na's apartment the calm in the storm.
"You want me to turn you loose in San Francisco?" Lisa asked, brown eyes wide. "I'm imagining all kinds of strange and potentially hazardous problems."
"Give me this map and explain how to get there. I will be fine, Lisa. I fly from one side of Dragonspace to the other in a heartbeat and never get lost."
"Yes, but do they have militant gay bars in Dragonspace?" Lisa murmured.
He bent down to catch her words. "What?"
"All right, I'll print out the map, but we're going together. I don't want you running off exploring or chasing after the black dragon or trying to find the orb on your own. It's dangerous."
"It is more dangerous for you. If you leave this apartment, the black dragon will be able to track you. He's tasted your magic, and he'll be able to use it to find you. Here you are protected, both by my mark and the remnants of Li Na's magic."
"Yes," Lisa argued, "but Greg was here, minion of the black dragon, remember? He knows where I live, and I'm willing to bet the black dragon does too. Donna and Grizelda and Saba know as well, for that matter. Everyone knows where I am."
"And while you're here, they can't touch you. Have you wondered why the black dragon simply hasn't come here? He knows you are protected with strong magics. But once he's healed himself of the wound I gave him, he'll be waiting for you to come out."
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