Witch Darkness Follows (Maeren Series Book 3)
Page 8
George’s boulder slammed into Markus and sent him flying.
If Markus wasn’t hardened by earth and a dragon to boot, he would have been shattered by the impact.
Incredibly, when Markus finally stopped, he shoved the boulder off and brushed at the dust left behind.
George walked right past their circle without checking on them, a nasty smile on his face.
It promised pain that was going to be pounded into the recipient of that grin.
“That’s George,” Elizabeth clarified.
“The dragon killer?” Pan squeaked out. “Is he the one with the earth-sword? I didn’t see it when I checked your belongings.”
Daemon was hot on George’s heels. He threw a smaller rock with his air, pelting his brother on the back of the head with it.
George turned around. Words were exchanged and more painful smiles that sent chills up her arms.
The argument was put on hold as the two dragons from earlier swooped overhead, breathing fire as a distraction.
Both George and Daemon shielded. George chose to let the fire bake his earth-shielded form with a smug look upward as if to say, ‘hotter please.’
One of the dragons dove down to grab a naked, angry Markus from the ground, before they flapped high and hard to escape.
Daemon pelted George with another rock to stop him from interfering.
The fight was over for now.
Pan stood up abruptly, grabbing onto Elizabeth’s body from behind and hiding.
“Are you okay if I drop the circle?” Elizabeth asked.
“Can you leave me here? Alone? I can take care of myself,” Pan said against her back.
“No, we’re not going to desert you in the middle of the Wastes while you are injured. George can heal you, and then, if you still want to go on your own, you can.”
“I don’t need healing,” Pan protested.
That was such a bald faced lie that Elizabeth didn’t even bother to dispute it out loud.
She dropped the circle, seeing no point in putting off the inevitable.
Daemon and George were already coming back for them and they looked like they wanted to talk.
“Turn around,” she ordered her mates. “One of you go and get Pan’s clothes on the ground by our camp. Keep your eyes closed.”
Pan made a squealing noise as she tried to make her body somehow smaller or Elizabeth’s body bigger—both an impossibility.
Pan hid as much of her naked self as she could now that the males were paying attention to them instead of the dragons that left.
Elizabeth was stuck in the middle between all of them with secrets to hide—or more specifically, an innocent dragoness. Being the middle-person was becoming an uncomfortable habit.
She couldn’t run or fight to get out of this one.
Elizabeth was going to have to talk.
Negotiations at Fang Point
How mad were her mates?
Nobody was yelling—yet. They had even followed her request without argument, turning the backs.
Maybe they would be on their best behaviour around the frightened girl dragon. Elizabeth was smart enough to take advantage of the situation to postpone the lecture she was sure she had coming for fighting the dragons.
Like she’d had a choice?
Okay, she had been given a choice. She just wasn’t going to tell her mates that when the time came for discussing it.
"Is that really a female dragon hiding behind your back, kerashemeria? She’s almost bite-sized,” George said.
"That’s because she’s still growing,” Elizabeth said.
"Oh, I didn’t get a good look earlier. Give me a moment to get her clothes. Is she injured?" George asked.
"Yes. She is reluctant to let you touch her." Elizabeth warned him.
Naturally, George would want to heal Pan. He wasn’t as strong as her mother or Jill at healing, but his earth was sufficient, if slower at the task.
“What is your dragon friend’s name?” asked Daemon out loud.
“Pan,” said a more female-sounding voice than earlier. Her body wasn’t the only thing she had been disguising.
“Well, Pan, I am ‘Dae’ and that is my brother, George. We would like to examine your wounds once you are clothed, and then we can discuss what you want to do next.”
Daemon had practically repeated Elizabeth’s proposal.
“Will you let me go, after?” Pan asked. Her grip around Elizabeth eased somewhat.
“Of course, if that is what you wish after I tell you something you could do to help us, if you feel able. We already let the other dragons go, as you saw.”
"It’s an amazing stroke of luck that Pan showed up. I need to discuss our court problems with the dragons and she may be our way in,” Daemon explained to Elizabeth.
"Dae?" Elizabeth echoed.
She would worry about his plans to exploit the girl for her dragon contacts later. Pan had approached them. Perhaps there was something she wanted from them in return, to make it a fairer exchange.
“Dae is my father’s nickname for me. I didn’t want to frighten Pan if she doesn’t recognize me. She looks ready to bolt and we can’t let an injured female run off alone in the Wastes, especially if she is a dragon."
George handed the pile of Pan’s clothes over to Daemon, so he could float them.
Elizabeth snagged the airborne clothing, then insisted on dressing Pan by herself.
She tried to avoid making Pan’s injured-looking shoulder move around too much.
Blood got onto the shirt, but the ragged state of Pan’s clothes probably weren’t worth preserving.
"She needs better clothing,” Elizabeth said.
"Agreed,” George said.
"If this is how the dragons are living, scavenging the Wastes, perhaps it will be a way to negotiate for their help,” Daemon said, still stuck on negotiations.
She couldn’t truly blame him. He had a lot more on his plate than the rest of them.
"What help?" George asked.
"Father wants me to ask the dragons to help take back the throne. With the other clans backing Phillip and William, we have to reevaluate old enemies,” Daemon explained.
“Make the dragons our allies? You’re mad!" George shouted along their connection.
"I agree that’s crazy. You hunt them. Dragons are supposed to have long memories and even longer grudges,” Elizabeth reminded Daemon.
"I’m the carrot. If the dragons refuse me, then your mother has the stick to force them. Earth has brought the dragons to their knees once before,” Daemon said.
A sense of wrongness suddenly creeped over her.
The dragons were being treated like animals, trained to guard the royals, not equals.
Was that really how Daemon saw someone like Pan?
Elizabeth felt a strong need to protect the girl, even if she had to cross her mate. It wouldn’t be the first time Daemon and her had come down on opposite sides.
The thing that bothered her was her mother supporting Daemon’s plan. What role had her mother agreed to play?
“Pan’s ready,” Elizabeth said out loud, ready to get Pan the help she needed. The girl was in pain.
“Lie down on your back,” George ordered Pan, although he kept his voice soft.
"What else did you plan with my mother? I’m still surprised she didn’t bury you on sight,” Elizabeth said to Daemon, carrying on her private conversation with him.
Multitasking was routine to her.
“I don’t really need healing. The injury is minor. I’ll shift and heal it myself later,” Pan said, eyeing George warily as she peered around Elizabeth’s body.
Both Daemon and George had turned around once Elizabeth told them Pan was ready. They did look intimidating, standing together.
This really wouldn't do.
There had been a lot of blood. Pan had barely been able to move her shoulder.
Wounds were best healed by magic when they were fresh, especially if
it was being done by someone weaker in healing, like George.
Elizabeth moved to the side, opening up the way for George to get closer.
“Hello, Pan,” George said, approaching carefully. Pan took a step back and he stopped, dropping to his knees. “I can help you transform and then you can heal yourself, instead.”
“I’m in too much pain,” Pan admitted.
George muttered a soft, Maerenian curse.
“Did you know earth has an affinity for dragons? Before the clan wars, some dragons chose to live with earth-lords and earth-witches due to the special bond formed by their magics.”
He reached out a hand to Pan, not closing his fingers over her hand when she gently touched him.
“Can you feel it?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back, letting more of her hand slide over his big, rough palm.
Pan looked at his eyes, seemingly as caught in the deep blue as Elizabeth had been on occasion.
He looked so earnest, almost vulnerable, as he waited for Pan to either accept or reject him.
“Elizabeth will shock me into another dimension if I so much as break one of your fingernails, dragonling,” George said.
Pan plopped herself down on the ground.
“I’m a blue-fire dragoness, not a baby dragonling, your dusty, old lordship.”
“Well, I’m sure blue dragonesses aren’t babies about getting their battle wounds mended,” George said, never dropping his gaze.
Pan seemed enthralled. Perhaps there really was something between earth-magic and dragons.
“Where are you injured?” George asked.
“My right shoulder, at the back. My wing was torn. It had partly healed when I transformed, but then fighting with Markus reopened the wound.”
“Where else?” George asked, knee walking his way around Pan, so he could examine her back.
“The rest are minor.”
George grunted at her. His hands were already assessing her shoulder, under the clothes.
Pan didn’t seem surprised at his touch. The dragons must not have many gifted healers, like Jill, who could heal without being so hands on.
“I’ll heal your shoulder the hard way, and then we’ll see if you can transform to heal the rest yourself. I’d prefer we get away from here before you change, so you can sleep off the drain.”
"Do dragons have to use a lot of magic to transform?" Elizabeth asked.
"It’s similar to pulling out a familiar, except dragons wear theirs on the outside. If she is healing as well, then it will be a considerable drain on her magic,” George answered.
"Let George take care of Pan,” Daemon said.
Warm hands came up behind Elizabeth, while she watched Pan stiffen under George’s touch.
She didn’t think Pan was tensing with fear. Rather, Pan was likely feeling the painful effects of a magical healing that were impossible to mask without a drugging potion.
“I’ve chased you across dimensions, faced our parents alone, and fought off dragons to keep you safe. Please, could you let me feed a little to keep up my strength?” Daemon whispered in Elizabeth’s ear, his hands holding her shoulders.
She leaned her head back and looked upside down at him.
The look in his eyes near took her breath away. He wanted her, was so hungry, it made her blood fire up just meeting his gaze.
“I’m not priming in front of a kid,” she said, using lightning. “Can you feed without it?”
“Of course, but I can prime you in your mind. We can sit on the ground—with you between my legs—and I’ll kiss you in our thoughts, while I draw what I need from your body. I know George probably fed quite heavily earlier with all of the circle work he did, so I’ll only take a nip.”
“Will you fall asleep again without it?” she asked.
She had agreed to pull Daemon over from the human realm to the Wastes, so refusing to feed him now would be incongruous.
“No. That was due to the transport-spell drain. Don’t you always arrive in Maeren unconscious, when you are brought from the human realm due to the magic drain?”
She hadn’t thought about it before, but it was true that she always ‘woke up’ in Maeren.
She had thought it was instantaneous, but now, she wondered if all of these times she had been lying naked and unconscious for a time before waking in Maeren.
"You didn’t know?" Daemon asked.
"No wonder my mother went mad every time it happened,” Elizabeth replied.
"I’m surprised she let powerful witchlings stay in the human realm. What exactly was so dangerous in Maeren that it was worth the risks?" Daemon asked.
"Didn’t my mother tell you when you had your talk?" Elizabeth asked instead of answering him.
Her mother must have kept this secret—their oldest, darkest one.
"There were other things we prioritized, like the dragon that attacked you when you were playing with a group of rogue demons,” Daemon angrily replied.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and silently cursed.
George might have let that go, but Daemon sounded like he was only getting warmed up on a lecture.
“Do you want to feed or not?” she asked Daemon to distract him.
She looked back over to Pan and George.
Pan had to be in pain, but she was leaning into George’s touch, her own eyes closed and her face almost tranquil.
There was nobody to stop Daemon from prodding her for answers.
“I’ll feed,” Daemon replied.
Thank goodness. His appetite may have saved her a lecture.
He gently tugged her down as he took a seat on the ground. His longer limbs surrounded her, his bigger body feeling warm with his magic.
She wiggled backwards to sit between his knees, her neck bent just right.
His hot breath washed over one of George’s bites, bringing the nerve endings to life.
He had barely touched her. Already she felt her magic priming for him.
“The other side is less marked,” she commented, trying to keep the desire for his bite out of her voice.
He licked George’s mark. “I’ll feed there, too, if you want.”
“Uh, not what I meant,” she said, holding herself still. She was not going to moan.
Daemon sucked on the bite. Fire sparked with its power around the mark as her magic surged to meet his lips.
He kept his word. His hands held her shoulders in a demure fashion, but the carnal heat from his magic teased her body out of sight.
Warmth danced over her skin to steal a gasp of surprised pleasure from her.
"Two can play that game!" Elizabeth said.
She may not have fire, but lightning let her imagination go wild.
The feel of her lips, then her teeth nipping his chest. Finally, her tongue sticking out to trace whorls around his dark, taut nipples as her fingers slipped down towards his pants.
His fangs slid into her neck at the same time as his tantalizing fire reached between her thighs.
Just like that, her body clenched in a quick, mini-release.
The fire licked with teasing warmth at her centre, teasing her into almost thrusting her hips up in invitation.
"This restraint sucks worse than you! Feed properly!” Elizabeth ordered him.
Had he felt her climax? How embarrassingly quick it had been.
She let her head fall back on Daemon’s chest, grabbing fistfuls of his hair to hold him to her, so he wouldn’t pull away too quickly.
Daemon needed to feed deeper. He’d gotten her primed for it, so he may as well take advantage.
Fire danced along her wrists in mock restraints.
Daemon grumbled against her neck, an almost growl, softened by his mouth being latched onto her. He took the deeper draws she’d encouraged.
The feeding intensity only ramped up her primed state. She needed a distraction. They weren’t going to be able to bring this to a proper finish, with Pan and George so close to them.
"What else did you talk about with my mother?" Elizabeth suddenly asked him.
Daemon groaned against her neck, still pulling blood, his hands tightening on her shoulders.
She rubbed her fingers along his scalp in soothing a massage. The draws on her neck slowed.
Daemon took his time to finish, delicately sipping.
His answer took her by surprise when he finally gave it.
"A childhood crush on a pretty little witch that followed her sister to martial arts class and used her lightning to hide. She would slip out into my mother’s courtyard to tickle the koi."
Daemon had seen her as a child.
She could picture the exact scene he was describing.
"You always knew?" she asked.
Her heart raced with the implications.
"You were mine, a secret happiness removed from all of the dangers and troubles in Maeren. Until one day, you suddenly showed up, offering your wrist at the tasting ball for any vampire that dared ask."
She hadn’t been his, but his possessive tone implied she’d practically cheated on him.
Didn’t he realize that it was too late to claim sole rights to her blood?
"I fed George, then and now,” Elizabeth said.
"I know. This is Maeren, not the human realm. I expect you’ll have to offer George your wrist again before this is through. I don’t have to like it, but I can’t punish you for it, either."
"What gives you the right to punish me at all? Your claim is kaput."
Daemon traced his left hand over the shoulder that he had placed his claim on the first time, slowly pulling his fangs out of her neck.
"You are going to give me permission. This time I won’t hide anything from you. I will hold you to your choices. I want you, love. I told you when I claimed you the first time that you had always been mine."
She swallowed hard, knowing he could read every tumultuous thought in her head if he wanted.
Some things were easier to think than to say out loud. Some things she wasn’t ready to discuss, like all of the mates that she knew had tasted her blood.
It wasn’t just George that Daemon would have to contend with now.
"So, my mother sent you here to court me?" Elizabeth asked, trying to lighten the mood.