Which meant he had a shot at getting the Tablet while the gallu fought against the Greek gods and others.
He hated to back out of the fighting, but this was much more important. The Emerald Tablet was as much a threat to their safety, if not more so, than the demons they were battling. This was their best chance to get it back.
At the entrance to the ancient nether realm, Max stopped and allowed Sera to dismount. He manifested his own armor and weapons. He paused as he caught the curious frown on her face while she watched him. “Hard to sneak about in caverns in a dragon’s body.”
“True. You do take up a lot of room.” There was an impish light in her hazel eyes that was so incredibly beguiling. He remembered now why it’d been so hard to leave her. Why he’d carried her to a private room that night they’d first met, instead of sending her on her way.
He’d always been so discriminating about the swans in his life. Never had he taken a human lover. Humans had never appealed to him in any way. He’d been so selective and sparse in his lovers that his brothers had often mocked him for it.
But the night Seraphina had come into that ancient drinking den with her sister tribeswomen, he hadn’t cared what she was. Her bold touch had electrified him and her lips had awakened a part of him that he hadn’t known existed. That alone should have warned him that they were destined to be together.
That the Fates had decreed her as his.
Now …
He dipped his head beneath the crest of her helm so that he could capture her plump lips and drink her in. As always, she answered his passion with enough heat that it made him curse this mission and the fact that they didn’t have a single minute for him to strip that armor from her lush body and savor her the way he wanted to.
But later, he would make damn sure that she knew exactly how much he still craved her. Deepening his kiss for one last taste, he pulled back with an irritated groan and forced himself to attend to the most pressing matter.
Which unfortunately wasn’t the aching need in his swollen groin.
Seraphina felt the absence of his body heat like a physical blow. Her senses were still reeling and unfocused from that incredible kiss. And as she watched him walk in front of her, she had a hard time staying focused on anything other than how undeniably sexy he was. It was much easier to fight with him as a dragon.
No man should look that fine in the flesh.
Biting her lip, she used the pain to focus her thoughts on something other than the way his armor clung to his muscles. The way he moved like a lethal warrior.
Stop it!
She shook her head to clear it. Have you any idea where we’re going? She sent her thoughts to him.
Yes and no. I’m tracking the Tablet. But no, I don’t know the layout here.
You fake it well.
He laughed silently.
She didn’t know why she allowed him to charm her so. He was completely irresistible. And she remained quiet as they snuck through the nether realm, so as not to distract him from his task. It was incredibly dark here. Eerily quiet. No wonder the Sumerians had always described this place as drab and bland.
The dead here decayed into nothing just as they did in their graves. And the only good thing she could say was that they didn’t punish their dead. But neither did they reward them for a life well lived. They merely existed here until they faded away.
How completely tragic. What a dreary, awful place to be sent to for eternity.
Suddenly, Max paused.
Sera tried to peer over his shoulder to see what had his attention, but he was too tall for that.
Wait here.
She wanted to argue, but knew better than to try, so she nodded and stayed put. It was probably for the best. This way she could watch the darkness for someone sneaking up on them. Not that she could see them in the darkness.
But maybe they’d be heavy breathers. Make her job easy.
Not have bathed for a few days …
A few extremely long minutes later that felt like an eternity in hell, she felt a presence behind her. She jerked around, intending to punch the culprit and run.
“It’s me,” Max whispered in her ear. “I got the Tablet.”
“Don’t do that!” She lightly flicked her fingers against his stomach to let him know how little she appreciated his startling a hundred or so years from her life.
He opened his mouth to speak, then went completely still as a voice cut through the darkness with an eerie, deep resonance.
“Well, well. I knew if you thought our numbers were down you’d come. And here Nala thought I was a fool for telling her that.”
Gasping, Seraphina flinched as someone lit a torch in the darkness. Then she wished they hadn’t.
Oh dear gods.
They were surrounded by gallu.
15
Max cursed under his breath as he saw Kessar in the blinding torchlight. An effing trap … and he’d walked right into it. He should have known the Tablet wouldn’t be so easy to find and grab.
How stupid am I?
Well, that didn’t bear thinking about right now. Worse, he’d known the demon wasn’t an idiot. That he’d only have one shot at this and that would be it.
And I blew it.
Good going, jackass.
Not only had he killed himself, he’d killed Sera, too. Yet he refused to be a part of her death. One way or another, he would get her out of this, at least.
Praying for a miracle, he swung around on Sera and gently pushed her into the shadows, hoping this worked, since he was the bigger target they were after. Then he ran, drawing the others away from her location. Okay, not the brightest plan ever, but luckily they were pretty stupid and ran after him with everything they had.
What he didn’t expect was for Sera to run after him, too. And when she turned into a dragon and picked him up to fly him above the demons chasing them, he couldn’t have been more stunned.
At first, he hadn’t even believed it was her. But as he looked over her beautiful red scales and the talons that held him, there was no doubt.
His dragonswan had saved him … as the dragon she hated.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t travel far in that form. The walls of the cavern narrowed so much that she had to set him down and return to being human or risk losing or breaking her wings.
“Impressive,” he said in an awed tone.
She flexed her arm as if assuring herself that she was “normal” again. “And what you did was wildly stupid. How have you managed to survive for so long?”
“No real idea.” He checked to make sure he still had the Tablet with him, then felt along the glassy walls, trying to pick a way through the domain toward an exit or at least some light. Not even his powers could detect anything. It was so frustrating to be this completely blind.
“Do you still have the Tablet?”
“Yeah. Not that it seems to be doing us any good. And if Kessar captures and bleeds me, it’ll be a lot worse. For everyone … especially me.”
Sera considered that. “He used the Tablet to awaken my tribe. Can you use it to do the same?”
Max hesitated. “How do you mean?”
“Can you reverse whatever he’s done to my tribe and free them again?”
He wasn’t sure he liked where her thoughts were going with this. “Yes, but I fail to see how that could be helpful.” Especially since the Amazons and Katagaria wanted him even more dead than the demons did.
“If you free them, we can drive back the demons, and I’m thinking Nala will know some way out of here.”
“Even if she does, I doubt she’ll help you and I know she won’t help me. I’m the dragon whose head she wants to mount on her wall.”
“I think I can persuade her.”
“I’m not sure I want to bet my life on this.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Fight our way out.”
She scoffed at what he considered an almost legitimate, if not sane, plan.
“You think that’ll work?”
“Did I throw logic at you? No. Why do you want to be mean to me like that?”
She laughed at his teasing tone. “I’m serious, Maxis. I can get them to help us and fight them.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’ll build you a nice funeral pyre.”
He let out a short laugh. “You are all kinds of not funny.”
“Do you have a better option?”
“Sadly, no. At least nothing that wouldn’t get me slapped for proposing it.” He let out a long sigh as he heard the demons closing in on them. They had to decide and move fast or they’d be captured again. “All right. We’ll try this your way with your tribe. But if I get eaten or speared to death … I will not be happy.”
She took a step, then paused. “Any idea where the demons might have taken my tribe?”
He groaned at her question. “None.”
Before she could speak, he pulled her behind him and began hammering the demons with fire again. It terrified her how close they’d come to them while she’d plotted an escape. Had he not been paying attention, the demons would have had them. As it was, they screamed from Max’s attack and fell back, into the darkness.
Max pressed her forward, deeper into the nether realm he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with, wishing he had another way out. Worse, the smell and sight of the damp cavern dredged up long-buried memories he didn’t want or need at this particular time.
In the back of his mind, he saw Dagon as the ancient god walked between their cages, trying to decide who to use next in his inhumane experiments. The young dark-haired prince who took after his father and not his Apollite mother trailed after him.
“I want to be a dragon! You have to make me one! You promised!”
Dagon had glared at the prince. “Stop whining, Linus. I’m doing the best I can. You saw what happened. The last Apollite I merged with a dragon exploded into gory pieces. You really want to risk that?”
Linus had expelled a frustrated breath and stomped his foot like a petulant child. “It’s not fair! I’m a prince. Second in line to the throne. I should have my choice of animals I want to merge with!”
Dagon had passed an irritated glare at the younger man. “You’re lucky your father’s half sister is a goddess whose devoted husband is willing to do this shit for you. So instead of bothering me with your insipid complaining, you should be saying, ‘Thank you, Uncle Dagon, for doing everything you can to save my life and for not merging me with a hyena or a donkey.’”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Dagon turned on him with an evil smirk. “I’m a god of black magick and possessed with a wicked sense of irony and hostility, you really want to push my patience, boy?”
Linus had wisely backed down and left Dagon to pull a lion from its cage toward the room where he performed his grotesque experiments.
Alone, the prince had drifted to Max and Illarion. His gaze tinged by insanity, he’d stared in at them. “You can understand me, can’t you? I know you can. I want to be a dragon, too. Like you. To have your power and strength. Imagine what we could do together … the power of a dragon and the bloodline of a divine prince. We could rule this earth and all the kingdoms and peoples. Then we’d show my father and brother who the real heir should have been.…”
As he wandered off, Illarion had glanced over to Max. Are you going to tell the god what his nephew thinks?
No. Let Dagon merge him with one of us. The best thing that can happen for this world is that Prince Linus explodes and dies. Preferably in a great deal of pain.
Maxis! You can’t do that. We’re supposed to protect human life.
He’s not human, Illy. He’s Apollite and he’s insane.
Even so, I think we need to tell Dagon.
And I think we should stay out of it. No good has ever come from drakomai meddling in the affairs of gods or man. They dragged us into this, and we need to extricate ourselves as quickly and cleanly as possible.
But true to his most irritating nature, Illarion hadn’t listened. He’d told Dagon of the prince’s illustrious plans. And to protect his nephew from them, Dagon had lied and told Linus and his father that he didn’t want to risk merging the prince with the dragons. Rather, Linus’s elder brother, Eumon, had been crossed with them, and Linus with the wolves.
An even more dangerous concoction and not the safer alternative Dagon had imagined. Since the merging heightened the essence of both species, it’d taken the ambition of the Apollite prince and crossed it with the extraordinary cunning and bloodthirsty ruthlessness that marked the wolves.
By trying to save his sons, Lycaon had damned them all.
Thus proving that even the gods and kings could be stupidly blind when it came to family and wanting to do their best for them. Feelings forever got in the way of common sense and blinded the most intelligent of beings.
And because of that, Max and Sera were about to be eaten by gallu.
Max groaned in frustration. His entire life had been screwed by the gods messing with things they should have left alone. And that included his mother and her fascination with his father. But for one horny afternoon, he wouldn’t have even been conceived.
Right now, Max would have been deeply grateful had his father kept it in his pants and not gone dallying with the bitch who spawned him. How much alcohol had his mother plied him with, anyway?
Irritated about it, Max gently grabbed Sera back from the way they were headed, and pulled her down an offshoot. He had no idea where this led. But it seemed a bit safer than the way they’d been going.
All the powers he had and not a one could help them out of this. What then was the use?
“It’ll be all right, Max.”
He hesitated at her encouraging tone. “I’m glad you still have your optimism. Mine slammed into a wall a while back. I think it now has a concussion.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Since when?”
“Always.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Do you know why I chose you that night in the drinking den?”
“I was the only sober male in the room?”
She laughed. “No. In that room full of warriors, you stood out as the most fierce. While they clumped together for protection and safety, you stood alone. Fearless. Defiant. It was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. You were everything I’d always wanted to be, but never had the courage for.”
Max paused as her words struck a tender place in his heart that left him feeling strangely vulnerable. No one had ever said anything so kind to him. Oddly enough, he’d never felt particularly heroic. Most days, he just felt lost and adrift. He barely got through them.
But he wanted to be a hero for her.
“Oh Seramia … you are far braver than I.”
“How do you figure?”
“Your biggest fear has always been the dragons who killed your family. Of them coming back to slaughter what you love. Instead of hiding and running, you taught yourself to fight them and confront them. Any time the call went out for battle, you were the first one saddled and ready. And when the Fates tied your life to the very thing you despised most, you accepted it and allowed me into your home, all the while you waited for my betrayal.”
“That wasn’t courage. What I did to you was so wrong. I blamed you for what other dragons did. Instead of judging you by your actions and heart, I judged you by theirs and by my own fear.”
“You were human. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Seraphina swallowed against the tears choking her. She still didn’t know how he could accept her for who and what she was. Maybe that was the dragon heart inside him. It enabled him to see the world so differently at times. Clearer. More concisely.
She envied him that ability. To her, everyone and everything was viewed through a veil of hazy suspicion. And he was right. Trust had never come easily to her. There had been too many women in her tribe who’d tried to pull her down and lie about her to Nala
so that they could replace her as champion. Even Nala, lying about Max to hurt them both.
Sera had never known who to trust, except herself.
Until now.
In all her life, he was the only one she could have faith in. Her dragon had never sought to betray her.
“So how do we get out of this, Max?”
Max paused as a radical idea hit him. Really radical. The kind that would either save them or damn the entire world. Too bad he didn’t know which and wouldn’t be able to tell until he pulled the switch.
Then it would be too late.
But then that was life. Sometimes you had to take that leap and pray.
Skidding to a stop, he pulled Sera against him. Just in case the worst happened. If he had to die, he wanted it to be with her in his arms. He just hoped she didn’t pay for one of his stupid mistakes.
“Max?”
He didn’t respond, rather he used his powers to access the Tablet and speak an ancient language he hadn’t used since the day he’d slain his mother for her last betrayal.
Seraphina could barely breathe as Maxis formed a tight wall of protective muscle around her. She knew he was doing this to keep her safe, but at the moment she just wanted to draw an unencumbered breath. His heartbeat pounded beneath her cheek as a strange light began to illuminate around them.
She had no idea what he was doing until white smoke began billowing out of the floor and walls. Iridescent and translucent, it was beautiful, and swayed as if it were dancing. The gallu drew up short as if mesmerized by the rhythmic movements. The mist began to spiral and form larger shapes.
Pausing, Namtar cursed at the demons. Then he urged them to disperse. “Run! It’s the liliti!”
But it was too late. The liliti descended on them with a hungry vengeance, like piranha who hadn’t eaten in decades.
When they came toward Max, he let out a burst of fire that drove them back. Moving in the opposite direction, he pulled Sera after him.
“That was horrifying!”
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