by Jody Wallace
With a growl, Nadia shoved his shirt up and over his head, straddling his lap and pressing herself against his hardened cock. He returned the favor, deftly managing to unclasp her brassiere along with the blouse. His mouth found her nipple and clamped down before she could do much more than gasp his name.
“Barnabas!” The sensations that speared through her didn’t equal what she knew was to come, but each moment with him was a treasure, a delight. She leaned against the table behind her as he bathed her breasts with attention. How could so much friction arc from her nipple to her core? When he plied both of her nipples with his fingers and kissed his way up her neck, she couldn’t stop herself from grinding her hips against his.
How she wanted him!
How she would miss him.
How she needed a better plan to save him, and this whole town, from destruction.
But first, she would take her pleasure one last time with the man she’d grown to love.
He caught her lips in a steamy kiss that didn’t falter when he stood. Supporting her ass with his strong hands, he thrust her onto the counter and dropped to his knees before her. Dazed, she could only watch as he yanked her shorts and panties over her hiking boots and spread her open like a blooming lily.
“Beautiful.” He parted her folds and slowly licked her from stern to tip, sending luscious swales of sensation all through her. Dragging her to the very edge of the counter, he sucked on her clit as he drove two fingers deep into her.
She cried out at the delicious invasion. Tightening around him, she quivered as he pleasured her, bringing her quickly to a climax.
But she stopped him just in time. “No. I want you inside me.”
Her body thrummed with eagerness as he shoved down his pants and drawers, revealing his hard, seeking cock. Dark curls twined around its root and his warm, full scrotum. She fondled him long enough to make him pant before guiding him into her body.
He entered her slowly, staring into her eyes as he did so. “Nadia Silver,” he whispered. “Don’t give up. I will find a way.”
“Just…go fast,” she said, closing her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see the tenderness on his face, the glimmers of a life she’d never get to lead.
But he wouldn’t let her turn from him. “Look at me.”
She lifted her knees high and yanked him against her. He landed deep, and hard, hissing as he strove to maintain his composure.
He always did that. Slowed down. Waited for her. Satisfied her again and again before taking his release. Could she say always after only four beautiful days?
He reached between them and found that sensitive nub that drove her insane. “Look at me, Nadia.”
When she didn’t, he pinched. Fiercely. She squealed, and her eyes flew open in shock. His dark brown eyes pinned her in place.
“I love you. Understand that.” He kept the pressure on her clit until she was squirming and batting at him, but not convincingly. Her pain threshold approached. Or did it? He smiled and she wriggled away from him, but he trapped her against the countertop. His hips drew back and he began to thrust.
The ache and burn of pain in her clit turned to something else, something sharp and sweet. His remorseless drive, his power over her body, soon returned her to the verge of climax. His other hand guided her hips, kept her from bumping away from him. His fingers pinched her flesh, trapping her. He ruled her completely.
When his cock swelled larger and his pace became frenzied, she knew he was close to his time. With a gasp, he shuddered, spurting his pleasure. And then, when he slowed, he let go of her clit.
Blood rushed back into it, and she screamed. He stroked her off as an orgasm more intense than any she’d ever felt in her life blasted through her. She squeezed his cock with her inner muscles over and over, and he shoved himself as deep as he could go. With a shudder, he groaned against her neck. “I love feeling you come.”
Nadia whimpered and clung to him as the spasms finally trailed off, allowing her to breathe again.
“I love you, too,” she said.
And then she spilled almost all of her magic into him until he crumpled to her brother’s kitchen floor with the force of it. Silver shimmered in a network throughout his mahogany skin, as if he were the dragon, not her. His eyes, when he squinted up at her, gleamed like the moon.
“What have you done?” he managed.
“What I had to do.” Knees week, heart aching, she slid to the floor, kissed him one last time before the visions hit him, and escaped.
She knew how to save him, and now he couldn’t stop her from doing it.
Chapter Ten
Fire.
Agony.
Flashes of magic, explosions, screaming, blood, and death.
The visions seized him in a never-ending convulsion of horror. He couldn’t control it, couldn’t direct it like Nadia had described. Couldn’t backtrack the threads, find a way to circumvent. But he saw that not just Victoria but Shula arrived on fierce, angry dragons, and the battle was between them. Over Nadia. Over Nadia’s prone form.
So something…had changed. He and Nadia had changed it, attacking Shula, and they had changed it for the worse.
Now the magical, unholy fire encompassed everything he could see, and the destruction was devastating. Buildings lay toppled, smoldering, bodies everywhere. Dragons screamed and dove. More dragons and wizards than any small town, no matter how unusual, could withstand. The area was so demolished it no longer resembled Magic, New Mexico. He couldn’t see how the fight had started, and he couldn’t see where it would stop. Until it did.
It stopped with blackness, and he knew he was dead.
Barnabas woke with a curse, his body stiff from laying crumpled on the floor. For how long? By the ache in his muscles, it had been more than minutes. Perhaps hours.
Had he been insensate so long the vision had already come to pass? Would silver magic reveal something an hour in the future? A day?
Blast and damn, he didn’t know.
He rolled to his feet, nearly tripping over the trousers that still encircled his ankles from Nadia’s seduction. Grimly, he dressed in his Tarakonan clothing and sorted through his amulets. The blood tracker was missing. She’d taken it so he couldn’t find her until it was too late. He loaded up on the rest, strapped on his battle bandolier, gathered whatever supplies he thought might help, and jogged outside.
In the dwindling rays of the sun, he noticed Aiden’s vehicle was gone. Nadia had either hidden it from him or driven it instead of flying. It could be either, but the most logical conclusion was that she’d jammed him so full of silver magic she hadn’t had any left for herself. He knew what she thought she was going to do, and he knew it wouldn’t work.
His crystal amulet was not everlasting, but he had no time to requisition a taxi. He clutched it in his palm so hard it nearly cut his flesh and transported to the center of town.
The city was quiet. The lamps on their tall posts twinkled on up and down the street. Dusk fell like a blanket of lilac, and few people remained outdoors to see how beautiful it was.
A beauty that would be crushed by wizards in the near future, thanks to him and Nadia.
Cars cruised up and down the street, and patrons frequented the eating establishments that were still open. Loud music came from the Kokopelli Brewpub. But there was no sign of Aiden’s car or of Nadia.
Barnabas walked briskly to the town center, scanning the square, the parking spaces, and the buildings for any sign of the black vehicle or blond woman. His greatcoat made the temperature nearly unbearable, but it hid is armaments well. The statue by the library that tended toward rude commentary was silent, the library lights off, and no children played in the attractive, xeriscaped central park, stacking river stones into towers. Where had Nadia gone? Clearly the fiery demolition he’d seen in his vision had not yet occurred.
Could he change the future? Or would his actions, his logical response to finding Nadia gone and wanting to save her, help precipitat
e what he’d seen in the vision?
He focused on the crystal amulet. Some wizards were strong enough to calculate amulet contents, and he happened to be one of them. But the assessment was not good.
Nearly empty. He had only been able to afford a single transportation amulet for this journey.
His choices were limited. Wait here or go elsewhere. Walking would take too long and he saw no taxicabs. He used the magic in the amulet to whisk himself to the portal to check for signs of his beloved.
She who had been his reason for striking out in a career as a resistance fighter had become more dear to him than life itself in a matter of days. He would do anything to save her. Including die for her.
And in that sandy, deserted area, surrounded by bushes and trees and twilight, he struck gold. Or silver, as it were.
Aiden’s car was parked haphazardly alongside the road with a note on the windshield requesting that it be delivered to Aiden’s address. The portal itself, over a rise and invisible to the naked eye, was quiescent, but the sand around it told the story of Nadia’s departure.
Footprints, smallish but adult, wandered around the area as if Nadia had been unsure where it was, exactly, before disappearing from existence as if wiped by a giant eraser. Nadia had taken her attempt to save Magic, New Mexico, on a path that was going to lead to even more death and destruction.
He hadn’t seen Magic in his blackout vision. He’d seen Valiant City, home to the other end of the portal. Home to Her Grace Victoria the Valiant and her dragon stable. Home to hundreds of thousands of innocent people who had no way to survive a war between wizards.
What unexpected, illogical thing could he do now? He was one wizard up against two armies of dragons. He had no militia. He had a collection of half-used amulets, a slightly broken heart, and a missing dragon.
# # #
Nadia expected the smell of rot and slime in the catacombs beneath Valiant City, where the gateway to Earth lay forgotten. Nevertheless, it jabbed into her sinuses like a moist knife the moment she stepped through the portal.
Dank, subterranean air swirled around her as the magic subsided. When she’d dashed recklessly away from Barnabas in an attempt to reach Victoria’s palace before Victoria destroyed Magic, she’d failed to dress for the climate. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and stumbled toward the archway that led out of the crumbling portal room. Whatever society had built this labyrinth had clearly been crushed and forgotten. She’d never had the merest clue that any ruins lay beneath Valiant City until Aiden’s secret message had directed her how to find the thrall crystal and the portal.
As she was a dragon, the phosphorescent molds provided enough glow to light her way to the surface. The labyrinth was a maze of manmade and natural caverns, though mostly manmade, which was good, as it meant for a smoother floor. If she could reach the palace before Victoria came after her, she could stop the rampage.
She had a shot of it working. A good shot, she surmised. After all, since her deepest, dearest wish was to be free, wasn’t galloping straight back into Victoria’s grasp the most illogical thing she could do?
Except that she was sacrificing her deepest, dearest wish to ensure the survival of the Honorable Barnabas Courtier, Wizard of the DLF, and a town of magical folks she barely knew.
When the green-glowing moss in the portal room thinned, even Nadia’s sharp sight strained in the clammy blackness. Reluctantly, she trailed a hand along the dirty wall. Right, right, left, right, right, straight, left, straight was the reversal of the corridors and caverns that had led her here on the Night of the Grape. She was approaching the last straight, almost to the surface, when she heard the voices.
“This way, your Grace. Do watch that rubble.” Fliss. And the “Your Grace” had to be…
“I will order these corridors blocked and destroyed once we have retrieved my treasure.” Victoria’s rich drawl froze Nadia in her tracks. Her heart choked her like a fist to the throat. This was it. Her three weeks of freedom were almost at an end. She’d never see Barnabas again—but he would be alive. “It feels completely oppressive down here, and I do not like the possibility of an invasion from underneath my own city. What is this Earth place like?”
“Hot,” Fliss said. Someone sneezed as if punctuating her sentence. “Sandy. Polluted. Humans are dominant. Their evolved species remain in hiding. We can have the scholars prepare a threat assessment.”
“It’s a wonder that our esteemed scholars didn’t know about these ruins if they know so much about Earth.” A different wizard. How many were there? Barnabas had only spotted Victoria and Shula in his vision. The voices and footsteps echoed wildly, and Nadia could not yet see any light. They were in the large entry cavern with the shallow lake, hence the strange echoes.
“If you collapse these tunnels, it will destabilize the buildings and streets above here,” another voice offered. Strangely, she also heard another sneeze. “It’s nowhere near the palace, of course, but it is within the city limits.”
Now she could see torchlight. Unless using magic, human and wizard eyes had no hope of penetrating the darkness down here. The occasional crack that broke through was no help after the sun set.
“The human warrens are above us?” Victoria asked. She quit speaking for a moment to give a hearty sneeze herself. Nadia’s nose wrinkled, but she had no urge to cough or sneeze. “They can rebuild. They’re like ants that way. We will give notice, of course, since they are our loyal subjects. They’ll understand it’s for everyone’s defense.”
Gods, she hated that woman. Pretending to be beneficent and motivated by the best interests of her subjects when in reality all she wanted was power. Rage built in Nadia like fire magic, and in her anger, she accidentally kicked a rock.
Not only had she never been taught physical combat but she’d never been taught sneaking. The rock clattered across the floor and echoed as much as the footsteps.
“What was that?” Victoria said.
Nadia trotted into the cavern and swallowed down the tears. “It’s me.”
Across the cavern, Victoria and Fliss led an impressive array of wizards with dragons in tow. Not many reds, she noticed, though Barnabas had specified a great deal of fire in his vision. Good. That meant she was subverting it.
Victoria sneezed. Again. And pointed at Nadia. “Fetch her.”
“Not even going to say hello?” Nadia asked, rubbing her cold arms. “Rude.”
She would soon be implanted with another thrall crystal, but that only meant Victoria could steal her power, not her soul or her vocal cords. Victoria would no doubt subject her to so much ague in the upcoming months that she wouldn’t be able to form words, so she had to express herself while she could.
The two burly soldiers latched onto Nadia’s arms and practically dragged her across the cavern. She let her legs go limp, just to make it harder on them, though she’d initially been planning to march right up to Victoria and punch her in the nose. The thrall crystal would also prevent her from harming her wizard.
“What in the Goddess’s name are you wearing, girl? Are you hurt?” Victoria demanded. She ran her hands up and down Nadia’s arms and legs, inspecting her prize for damage. She had on her enchanted leather battle armor but not her crested helmet.
“A bit.” Nadia tilted her head as if considering. “I find that it hurts to come back here and look at your face when I thought I’d never see it again.”
Victoria inhaled with indignation and then sneezed. “Hells. What is going on down here? Have you brought back germs from the polluted planet?”
“I hope so,” Nadia said. “And I hope it makes you sick and you die.”
Her backtalk was not unknown to the wizards and the stable, but they’d never heard her like this. Several gasped. And, unsurprisingly at this point, someone sneezed.
“I can render you mute, you know.” Victoria grasped Nadia’s chin and tilted her face from one side to the other. Torchlight gleamed around them, flickering yello
w and red, dancing on the cavern walls like demons. Nadia refused to cry. She certainly did know about being rendered mute. Her entire twenty-first year had been spent that way. “Do you want me to do that again?”
“I want you to fuck off,” Nadia answered sweetly. She was too angry to shiver now. “I’m only here to stop you from killing people on Earth, which I know you intended to do. Like the savage you are.”
Victoria’s watery blue eyes blazed at her, and her lips thinned. “And this, my friends, is why dragons can never, ever run around loose. They become sickly, obtuse, and impertinent.” She patted Nadia’s cheek, not very gently, and gestured at someone with a handkerchief. “I don’t think she has enough magic in her to fight it. Implant her.”
“You can’t measure that unless I let you,” Nadia snarled. A free dragon made her own decisions about who could access her magic. “I’m not your toy.”
Victoria just smiled. “You will be soon, dearling. Patience.”
A wizard in green, fur-trimmed robes shuffled forward. Robes were only traditional wizard garb when wizards felt like wearing them, but robes were plenty warm. “Your Grace, some would argue that this particular dragon should be…disposed of. That silver magic is unholy, and that is why silvers are so rare. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps she is why we are going to conquer Tarakona,” Victoria interrupted. “I do not concern myself with the rantings of a few extremists whom I’ve already dealt with, thanks to Commander Fliss. You will do as I say, or you will be banished like Shula. Is that what you want?”
The green wizard’s hood fell back, exposing a pale, anxious face. “No, Your Grace. But we need to return aboveground for the ceremony. It’s a delicate one, and the air here is too full of old magic. Can’t you smell it?”
“Is that what that is?” Victoria blew her nose. “I thought I was allergic to dreariness.”