Whooshy was so excited to get started that her bottle bounced.
“Good girl.” Ember sprinkled pixie dust over the bottle to bind Whooshy to the task, pulled the cork, and stepped back.
Behind her, something clinked on the cement.
Whooshy swirled out of the bottle like a freed tornado, which was exactly what she was. She’d caused an F2 in Kansas before a friend of Ember’s had caught her and passed her off to Ember for taming. Ember had worked with Whooshy a lot before she’d thought she could trust her.
Whooshy ambled over the cement, twisting and bending as she strutted because she had a job, and she hopped up on the fountain.
Trash whirled around the edges of the fountain, but Whooshy let them blow away.
So far, so good. Ember kept watching, her hands clasped in front of her chest as she prayed to the Ladies of Magic that this would work. She could imagine how happy Cai would be with her, and Bethany and Willow would be so proud of her that her magic had worked. Beth and Willy’s magic had improved lately, ever since they’d met and mated their dragons, but Ember was still a big ol’ screw-up.
They would all be so happy for her.
Ember could see the air elemental as it meandered across the water, of course. To her, Whooshy looked like a big, cartoon tornado with googly eyes. Natural people would see only the swirl of its winds on the water’s surface or trash and debris it picked up, like a real tornado. Whooshy was careful not to touch the water so that she filled with water and turned into a waterspout.
A waterspout in the middle of the Mojave Desert might invite questions from the naturals.
Whooshy reached the center of the fountain and stretched, becoming taller and skinnier. A light breeze blew from behind Ember, fluttering her clothes. Whooshy must be drawing in air and venting it far above.
The sea monsters poked their heads out of the water and growled at the air elemental that was ruining their fun. The sunlight shone on their fangs and slitted eyes.
The air around the fountain was already noticeably fresher.
Oh my Ladies of Magic, this might work.
Ember narrowed her eyes as she stared at the elemental and the fountain.
The whirlwind in the center was indeed drawing the bubbling gasses emanating from the fountain—Ember saw it as green smoke—up into its funnel and spewing them out the top, at least fifty feet above the ground.
Fresh air flowed inward, blowing Ember’s hair over her shoulders, and she sucked in a deep breath of much better air.
Oh Ladies, this was totally going to work!
The black serpent lifted its nostrils out of the water and sniffed. It shook its head and snarled more loudly, thrashing its tail.
Ember called out, “Whooshy, how are you doing?”
Whooshy bobble-danced, a positive response that meant something like a thumbs-up.
The stink was better, but the odor of rotten eggs still wafted through the air like there was a significant gas leak somewhere. At the very least, it was strong enough that it would worry people but not incapacitate them.
A few more air elementals sucking up the smell might completely take care of the problem.
Ember called, “Whooshy, is there enough room for some other air elementals to help you?”
The vortex bent and swayed, looking around, and then bobble-danced some more.
Ember crouched down and searched through her bag, sorting through the bottles to find some smaller, docile elementals that would follow Whooshy’s lead. Two of them—Nordic and Lee—seemed tailor-made for the job.
Ember yelled to Whooshy, “I’ve got two helpers for you. You’ll work with them and keep them safe, right?”
Whooshy stiffened, practically saluting.
Ember had known Whooshy would be right for this job. She was a strong woman. Or, she was a strong elemental. Whatever.
Everybody was going to be so happy when the fountain was clean and smelled good for the casino’s grand opening in three days.
And Ember’s magic was working perfectly.
She prepped the two junior air elementals, commanding them and binding them to the task with her magic.
Nordic and Lee leaped out of their bottles and took up positions on either side of Whooshy near the ends of the pool.
Thousands of guests would surround the basin and watch the water acrobatics when the fountain was turned on, and the elementals were far enough away from the retaining walls that no one would feel their spinning cyclones.
The sour smell receded further.
Fresh, summer air blew in a light breeze around the fountain. The air elementals’ tails drew lazy designs on the water’s shimmering surface.
The six jewel-toned apparitional sea serpents snarled and swarmed through the water, swimming around the air elementals. When the blue one lunged at Whooshy, she lifted her tornado tail, and the serpent flopped harmlessly beneath her. The black one tried the same trick with Nordic and also failed.
Meanwhile, no smell.
Well, a little smell, but it was about ninety percent gone. A little bit of the gas was wafting down from where the air elementals were sucking it up their chimneys.
Ember clasped her hands in front of her chest, elated. This was working so well.
She scrambled, rummaging through her mammoth purse, and found her cell phone. After a few taps, she said, “Cai, you have to see this. I fixed the fountain out front. It doesn’t smell like sea serpent farts anymore!”
“That’s great, Ember.” His voice, usually so energetic and enthusiastic, sounded exhausted. “I’m in the lobby. I can come out.”
Ember hung up and tossed her phone into her bag.
She was so excited that she walked backward, staring at the pissy sea monsters snapping at the air elementals, who were so blasé about it that they appeared to have their arms crossed while staring into the distance as they lifted their tails away from the serpents’ teeth. They looked for all the world like adults having a conversation while yappy puppies tugged at their pants’ legs.
From behind her, she faintly heard Cai yell across the courtyard, “Hello, Ember! I’m on my way.”
Under Ember’s heel, something brittle crunched.
Ember froze. Uh oh.
Heat blasted her back.
She spun.
Seven tiny, angry fire elementals zoomed out of the glass bottle that was shattered under her shoe. They darted around, brilliant even in the sunshine, and saw her. They coalesced into an attack formation, a second sun in the sky that was falling toward her.
Ember covered her head and turned away, though she knew it was useless. She had captured the Pleiades after a spate of arsons and wildfires had broken out in the Nevada desert. Though they had entered the bottle of their own free will, they were feral imps. She hadn’t tamed them enough, but the Pleiades weren’t so incorrigible that she’d found somewhere to release them. She had hope for them.
But the band of fire elementals was dangerous.
A spark stung the back of her arm, but then something huge, white, and sparkling blotted out the sun.
Tinny squeals echoed through the morning sun as the Pleiades bounced off the enormous dragon wing that had expanded over Ember’s head. She asked, “Cai?”
Fire scorched the sidewalk in front of her nose, and an evil red face smaller than her fist peered at her, upside-down, from over the edge of the dragon’s wing.
The wing lifted, and then Cai’s entire dragon shook like a cat, flinging the fire elementals into the air.
The fiery imps were flung into the sea serpents’ methane and other flammable gasses that were venting through the air elementals.
The sky exploded.
Cai’s dragon wrapped his wings around Ember before the fire and shock wave hit, but the expanding hot air rocked the dragon sideways.
Ember clung to the sharp pebbles on his hide, aware that any one of them could pay off her car.
The crystal dragon slid his head inside the protective
igloo he’d made of his wings around her, his long neck winding around his body.
His skull was huge, of course, because he was a dragon. The bridge of his nose came up to Ember’s waist, and he looked at her over his nostrils.
His eyes were darker than she had remembered, with black veins penetrating the emerald green fire. He blinked, and he didn’t look as haughty, as arrogant, as he had in the past.
When he blinked slowly like that, the dragon looked sad.
Maybe she was anthropomorphizing too much after watching the water dragons laughing at farts.
She laid her hand on his nose.
The dragon closed his eyes and rolled his head toward her like a dog seeking comfort.
“Wyvern,” she asked. “Are you all right?”
Another boom outside rocked the dragon sideways.
He opened his eyes and glanced aside.
“Wyvern?”
He tightened his wings around her and stiffened, bracing himself.
Ember rested her arm on Wyvern’s snout. The diamonds on his skin were sharp on the tender skin of the insides of her arms. When the dragon seemed to settle a little, found herself half-lying on the dragon’s nose, hugging him.
“You don’t look okay,” she told him. “I’m worried about you.”
The dragon sighed a soft trill, crooning, and a wisp of dragonfire trailed from one nostril and dissipated harmlessly against the tent ceiling made of his wings.
It seemed quieter outside, and Ember lifted her head. “Did they stop fighting?”
Wyvern’s eyes slitted open, and he retracted his head from where he had surrounded her with his wings.
The skin of the dragon’s wings parted, revealing the fountain and sky.
Ember gasped.
One of the fire elementals touched off another bubble of sewer gas from the fountain, causing a fire cloud to roll into the air, trailing sooty smoke.
Another one dove into the air elemental Lee, who struggled and turned into a fire whirl.
Lee wrinkled his funnel in disdain and blew the sparking devil high into the sky.
The fire elemental shrilled an evil, cackling laugh and plunged back to the fountain, skimming the surface and setting a trail of methane on fire behind him.
The sea serpents leaped out of the water, splashing and snapping at the fire and air elementals, angry at everything in their paths.
The scarlet sea serpent farted a long trumpet-blast.
One of the Pleiades dove for the methane source, and the red sea monster’s fart lit like a flamethrower had ignited in its butt.
The other sea serpents rolled in the water, tails splashing, laughing their butts off.
The black one tooted and got flamed.
He jumped, an indignant pout on his snout.
The rest of the sea serpents snorted and slapped the water with their tails.
The green one lifted his tail high in the air and putt-putt farted, but Nordic the air elemental stuck his tornado funnel over by him and siphoned the fart gas into the air before a fire elemental could light that fart on fire. Nordic was practically shaking his funnel cloud head in scorn.
One of the Pleiades swooped and caught enough of the gas to light Nordic up into a fire whirl so that he was visible for a brief second. He dunked the point of his vortex into the basin and sucked water into himself, becoming a waterspout before he spewed the water out of his top.
The water rained down over the fountain, extinguishing the Pleiades’ fires momentarily, and the sea serpents ducked under the water’s surface.
Out on the Strip, people stopped and stared at the fire, water, and whirlwind show.
Beside Ember, Cai appeared, and the sun glared down on her and his bare, pale skin.
She flipped her fingers at him and conjured him up some clothes.
“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and ran back toward the casino.
“But the people,” Ember said, holding on and running. “Someone will get hurt.”
“The barricades between the casino and the Strip will keep them away. The courtyard is closed for three more days.”
Ember felt bad for the yucky stinky snakes. “I don’t like this. Those Pleiades are little jerks. The serpents might get scorched.”
“If one of those serpents gets turned into barbecued sushi, it would serve them right,” Cai muttered.
“But if it’s barbecued, it’s not sushi. Wait, not the point. We can’t let the serpents get hurt!”
Cai said, “Maybe the fire elementals will chase those apparitions away. If they die, we would probably have a couple of tons of rotting fish in front of the casino. If they disapparate, they’ll disappear, and it might take care of our sea-monster problem. Can you set some more fire elementals on them? Just to flambé them a little?”
From the fountain, a great jet of fire blasted from one of the sea serpents’ butts, and the splashing and honking sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Ember said, “I don’t think that would do any good.”
They jogged to a stop in front of the casino.
Cai looked back at the fountain, frowning. When he looked back at her, his eyes looked different than they had a week before.
His eyes had always been gorgeous with green glitter and fire that flowed through his irises and drained into his pupils like black holes, but darkness was invading the outer rims. Blackness encroached, forming trails and rivulets in the emerald lakes, just like in Wyvern’s eyes. She asked him, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” but his tone was distracted.
When she looked at him more closely, beyond his messy hair falling over his forehead and the darkness invading his eyes, his skin was pale under his tan. His hand rested on his flat stomach like he had a stomachache.
She said, “You don’t look okay.”
Cai stepped closer to her and trailed his fingers down her arm, taking her hand in his.
The flesh of his hand was scorching hot. “Cai—”
He said, “We need to talk. Can you come upstairs for a few minutes?”
Ember nodded.
Half A Confession
IN the elevator, Cai intertwined Ember’s fingers through his. The cool softness of her skin sucked the fire out of his palm and fingers, but dragonfire was consuming him, burning him from the inside, out.
The skin on his back felt a little raw, too, like a barely pink sunburn. The fire elementals had dive-bombed Wyvern as he’d protected Ember. Though the dragon’s tough, diamond-encrusted hide was impervious to most natural flames, the magical fire of the elementals had singed him a little.
Staying away from Ember hadn’t delayed the mating fever at all. It had just made him miss her more.
“Your hand feels like you have a fever,” Ember said, her sweet voice cooling his ear.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
He was lost, and he was dying.
The elevator climbed to the penthouse. The doors remained closed forever. The numbers above them lit, extinguished, lit, extinguished.
He needed to get back to his den before he collapsed.
Cai shook his head.
Not den.
His room. His home.
It was just a hotel room. It was nothing.
Cave.
Wyvern was sick and restless in his head. Dragonish terms invaded Cai’s thoughts.
Hoard.
Take the woman and stay with her.
Defend.
Be with her and cover her skin with gold.
Growl.
Destroy everything that opposes.
Want.
Touch her skin and lap the coolness from her body.
Need.
Take her.
Keep her.
Mate.
Cai drew a deep breath, keeping his dragon at bay.
When they’d been out by the fountain, he’d kept a tight rein on Wyvern, worried that the dragon would carry Ember off to the cave in the mountains.
Cai kept a ver
y tight hold on his dragon in the elevator. Jeez, if he transformed, he would smash Ember against the wall, and then the elevator would explode.
The elevator doors parted, opening to sunlight and the table in the vestibule of the penthouse, where the table held an enormous vase of long-stemmed, dark red irises and bright blue Delphinium spears, the vibrant colors of House Wyvern. He led her over the gold-veined marble floor and hesitated before the dark red, velvet curtains surrounding the columned doorways that led to other rooms.
The living room, to talk?
He should.
Cai should tell Ember more about fated mates, that she was his fated mate, and he should get down on one knee and hold out the pocketful of diamonds that rattled near his leg in lieu of a ring.
In the living room, he walked through fire that immolated his flesh toward the couch and the seating arrangement in the living room, holding Ember’s hand.
“Cai? What’s up, baby? Are you okay?” she asked.
He stalked past the couch and through the door to the dark bedroom, the curtains drawn against the daylight, where he spun her in his arms and pressed her against the wall. Her delicious body curved against his, a luscious feast for him, if only he could get her to say yes.
Cai needed her to say yes to everything.
The problem was that he couldn’t quite speak.
His parched throat could not move. Fire filled his lungs as he breathed. He managed to croak, “Ember.”
Her fingers climbed his neck and slid into his hair, cooling those scant inches of skin where she touched him.
He closed his eyes, feeling the cool relief.
She said, “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“I like you,” he whispered.
Her palm pressed against his forehead, and he closed his eyes, reveling in the coolness of it.
She said, “Honey, I think you’ve got the flu or something.”
“Or something,” he admitted. “But I like you.”
A soft weight settled on his shoulders, and her fingers stroked the back of his neck. He kept his eyes closed, feeling the flower petals of her skin against his.
Dragons and Fire Page 13