“We’re dragons,” Geer excused.
“If you expect finer manners, perhaps you shouldn’t have run from court,” a beautifully modulated voice told her.
Six feet of noble, teenage arrogance peered down at her.
Cason had stepped out from his hiding spot, between one blink and the next, while she’d traded insults with Geer.
“Cason?” she inquired, more for Geer’s benefit.
Name the cute puppy, and the big, bad dragon might hesitate a moment before killing him.
Cason nodded, giving her a fleeting green-eyed glance, before he moved his gaze onto Geer.
Damn it.
“Relax, sparks. I can see he’s still a little wet behind the ears,” Geer said.
Cason’s muscles bunched up in readiness as he tried to manhandle her behind him and still look like a brick wall in front of Geer.
Touching her was a mistake. Geer growled like he’d changed his mind in an instant about the boy.
“I’m fine,” Elizabeth shouted down her bond at her dragon mate.
She shielded air and floated a couple of feet away from Cason, closer to Geer. She didn’t land, unsure about touching the ground around an unknown earth-lord, even if he was trusted by George.
“Let’s find your friends,” she proposed to Cason, giving him a friendly smile that said no harm had been done.
Geer quickly wrapped an arm around her back, cutting through her air-shield with his own.
Like Daemon, his air was more powerful than hers.
The warmth from Geer’s hand radiated easily through her thin shirt.
It felt nice.
She relaxed and floated back down. One puppy found, two more to go.
“Is that your subtle way of telling me to shield lightning?” she asked Geer.
“You thought a dragon, who you don’t share a claim with, putting his hands on you, was subtle?” Cason asked.
Cason definitely had this intimidating big brother thing down pact. He was still giving Geer a challenging stare.
“Geer isn’t a stranger to me,” she countered, leaving off that he was her mate. That was on a need to know basis.
“The lightning shield is for her protection,” Geer said, removing his hand from her back.
“I can’t use my lightning fully for other means if I’m shielding myself,” she admitted, walking on without a shield.
Geer followed very closely behind her, keeping his body between her and Cason.
“I won’t tell on you for walking around naked if you stop yourself from confessing your lack of shielding when Prince George arrives,” Cason offered.
George did not hold her leash, but it would probably be better than to mention that out loud to the Dogs she wanted to cooperate with her.
“As if I would give George any further excuse to lecture me. He’s a total nag,” she said.
She didn’t need George or Daemon hearing any of this conversation that she was having with Cason—even if it was mostly shared whining about the bossy princes in charge of them all.
It was good friendship, bonding stuff. A mutual griping about upper management.
Geer kept quiet.
The second and third minds that she was hunting for were still moving around. They were close together.
She wondered if Cason would know where his fellow Dogs were hiding—and if he would tell her if she asked?
Geer had stopped to examine the ground, possibly trying to track the others with more inefficient methods.
He ought to be able to do the same as her to track by magic, but he did mention previously that he wasn’t as comfortable using lightning as her.
“I can locate them by their thoughts,” Elizabeth said, tapping herself on the side of her head. “Follow me.”
Cason quickly thought of three things he didn’t want her to know—or possibly anyone else—as soon as she mentioned using the other Dogs’s thoughts to track them.
Yep, Cason was a completely normal teenage boy for a Maerenian noble.
Elizabeth decided to teach Cason a lesson about telepathy as well.
“First of all, Pan is not interested in you that way, although it may be mainly due to her fear of males in general, especially those that she set up like dominoes and knocked over,” Elizabeth said, turning left.
Elizabeth had figured that Pan wasn’t pretending to be a boy because of a true question of sexuality. That had become obvious the few times she’d dipped into Pan’s thoughts and from what Pan had said.
It was mostly Pan hiding her female side because it was frankly dangerous and confining being a dragoness in the Light clan.
That personal reasoning wasn’t something Elizabeth thought Pan would be comfortable with her sharing with Cason.
“Second, if you don’t want a mind reader to know all your deep, dark secrets, the best thing you can do is sing a song. The more annoying, catchy, and repetitive, the better,” she advised.
“You want me to sing?” Cason asked with the offended tone only a growing male—still young enough to remember the embarrassment of his cracking voice—could achieve.
“In your thoughts, Elvis,” she clarified.
Surprisingly, he complied. The jaunty tune he chose was raunchy, like the type you would hear sung in a pub.
She thought nothing of it until he reached the chorus that described paddling a sassy wench over his knee. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that George put him up to it with the song choice.
The two minds she was tracking came closer together as they approached.
She bet they knew they were being tracked, and they were pooling their strengths together.
Feeling like one of the warriors for a moment, she flashed Geer two fingers and pointed in front of them, then circled with one finger.
The remaining Dogs thought to close on their flanks.
Geer smirked. He held up one finger of each hand about a foot apart and breathed out a little fire, swooping from one side to the other and engulfing both of his raised fingers.
She swatted both of his hands, knocking at the flames with her air.
Cason laughed, seemingly not worried about his friends getting toasted by a dragon.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, both of you,” she coaxed, making her voice extra sweet. “I’ll keep you safe from the big, bad dragon,” she promised, stepping in front of Geer and shoving him back with air.
He flew into Cason, not expecting it, and both of them grunted.
“Get back here!” Geer ordered her.
“Get off of me!” Cason complained, probably shoving Geer.
Two more teenaged earth-lords popped out from the forest on both sides of her during the moment of distraction.
“Hi,” Elizabeth said, waving.
These two weren’t quite as tall as Cason, but they were both more thickly muscled. Their red hair and freckles were identical. Twins?
They weren’t shielded or brandishing arms—that she could see—but Geer still sent a blast of air slamming towards them both, causing them to weave on their feet as they tried to dig into the ground and hang on.
“Stay away from her,” Geer warned them.
The redhead on her left gestured towards Geer.
She heard a thud and another grunt.
The wind weakened.
She turned to Geer and saw two halves of a bolder, split on either side of him.
How in Maeren did he manage that—she wondered—until the other redhead sent another boulder, and she felt Geer using his air to shield and slice the stone.
What had started out feeling more like teasing was rapidly morphing into something more dangerous.
Geer was holding back.
Just like Geer could slice through rock with his air blades, he could as easily slice one of the Dogs in half.
Geer had sliced through a steel bar on Raphael’s locked door to get to her!
“Hey!” Elizabeth shouted, trying to get everyone’s att
ention.
The ground quaked under their feet as the redheads worked together to pull up big chunks of rock and earth—from behind Geer—to throw at him simultaneously.
They didn’t listen to her at all.
Geer’s hands were flying, sending air blades quicker than she could see.
The Dogs were onto his tricks. The rocks split and kept coming, now four large and deadly missiles.
“Kneel!” George’s voice suddenly thundered.
Elizabeth dropped to her knees and saw that the Dogs did the same.
The boulders all fell harmlessly back to the earth with solid thuds.
Her vision was slightly impaired by the flickering lightning of the circle Daemon had thrown over her to protect her from the flying projectiles.
She was tempted to reach out and test it, feeling strangely trapped with someone else’s magic.
The white hot of Daemon’s lightning made her think twice, however, pulling her hand back to fist at her side and slowly standing back up.
The last thing she needed was to get a shock in front of everyone and look like an idiot.
Her mates were already in a mood and nobody wanted to draw the unlucky straw to get their attention first.
Tactical Surrender
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe . . .
“Is this the perimeter, Sam?” George barked at one of the redheads.
Elizabeth sighed quietly in relief. She hadn’t gotten picked on first.
“No, Sir,” the one closest to her reported back. He was Sam, obviously.
“Cason had been captured,” the other redhead explained.
George snapped an angry look at him and then looked over to Cason, standing casually by Geer.
If Cason had pockets on his pants, he would have had his hands in them and been whistling a tune.
She couldn’t check his thoughts, Daemon still encircling her with his protective lightning.
“Does Cas look like a prisoner to you, Reid?” George asked the second redhead.
Twin two was Reid.
“Do you see shackles? Did the dragon use magic to force him to follow?” George asked, continued to badger Reid.
All valid points. Cason looked like he could defend himself, well enough. He wasn’t going to help his fellow Dog out by claiming to be coerced.
“The dragon baited Cas with your witch,” Reid replied.
Oh, now she was getting brought into it!
“George’s witch was covered in lightning, Reid. Not exactly helpless bait,” Cason defended.
Wait a minute. There were too many misunderstandings being thrown around here.
“I’m not George’s witch or helpless,” she finally spoke up.
Everyone swung their gazes toward her.
“You were standing—unshielded—in the middle of a magic throwing contest. It’s the second time in days that you’ve deliberately chosen to face danger instead of protecting yourself,” Daemon said.
His voice was softer in contrast to George’s harsh one towards the Dogs, but the reprimand was no less intended.
She should have kept her mouth shut. It was too late now.
“I had a dragon for a guard,” she said, crossing her arms and giving every single arrogant male gaze back an annoyed glare. “Geer could have used their femurs as toothpicks.”
“Waste of good marrow, milady,” Geer said in a lighthearted tone. “I’d snap their legs in half and suck them clean first before cleaning my teeth.”
He bared his very sharp looking fangs at the Dogs in a mock grin.
Geer was not helping matters.
“Did you accept a claim from this dragon?” Daemon asked more sharply.
“No, I haven’t touched her,” Geer responded.
Smart dragon.
“Of course not,” she said.
Daemon closed the few feet between them and released his circle with a simple wave of his hand.
“Come here,” he told her.
“Raphael is waiting,” she reminded him, nervously debating if she wanted to dip into Daemon’s thoughts.
He took the choice away from her.
"You look afraid,” Daemon said.
"You look murderous,” she admitted.
Daemon dropped to his knees and pulled her down into his arms. One of his hands tangled itself in her hair, so she had no choice but to meet his lips. Warmth and strength surrounded her once more, tempering her fear.
She bit his lower lip hard enough to wound and sucked at the powerful drops of his blood.
This was real, lightning flickering in her veins as she stole a tiny feed.
Daemon licked her lips back, tasting his power against her skin, then ended their kiss.
He waited for her eyes to flutter open.
“Until George or I tell you otherwise, you will shield yourself or circle,” he said.
“The entire time?” she clarified. The power drain could be significant. “You can’t be serious.”
George scoffed at her response.
“I told you that we should have made her touch her toes for the count of six,” he said.
To her mortification, Geer knew exactly what George meant.
“You won’t be applying yourself to milady’s posterior unless you get permission from our king. She put herself temporarily in his protection when she entered our territory to seek help. Trading custom dictates that the safety of a supplicant be the responsibility of the king until the transaction is completed or refused.”
Daemon didn’t seem to be intimidated by the red tape that Geer was using to bind him.
With Geer unable to acknowledge their bond openly, all he could do was throw up political and cultural barriers.
"She still is in arrears to George. Better you talk with him if you’ve a problem with how we punish our mate, Geer. It can be a group decision,” Daemon said, letting all four of them hear it.
Elizabeth straightened up, slipping Daemon’s hold.
Daemon had included Geer in their telepathic connection naturally, as if he’d always been a part of their group.
Did they even have a group?
Both George and Daemon had been at odds when she left them in the Wastes.
They seemed to have worked those differences out, and now, they were acting as if they were all in a relationship.
Daemon had also mentioned punishment without a blink.
Geer had to keep sticking up for her.
“Let’s get moving,” Geer said.
Or not…? Was Geer really going to let her other mates continue with their plans to punish her?
Daemon stood up, beside her, slipping his hand into hers and pulling her to walk beside him.
It didn’t feel like Daemon was dragging her along, more that he had missed her and wasn’t ready to let go.
"Don’t worry over it too much, sweetheart. George is stubborn, but he can be reasoned with given a chance. You need to explain your actions to him. He had been tasked with capturing you, but that also means you’re his responsibility to keep safe until his duty is completed—although, he won’t be returning you to court,” Daemon explained.
It still didn’t seem fair, but at least, they could put off dealing with it for the moment.
"I am not dealing with George on my own,” Elizabeth said.
Daemon was the more reasonable of her mates. He had to be able to talk George out of his ridiculous notion of punishment.
“Kerashemeria, I can’t believe you make such a fuss over a fake birching. One would think you’ve never had your bottom bared,” George said.
She ignored him, still mad.
“You can stay unshielded when George or I are beside you, but once one of us tells you to circle or shield, or there is any obvious fighting going on, I expect your immediate compliance with defending yourself. You will not hesitate,” Daemon told her out loud.
It let their younger witnesses hear that she was being given a certain set of rules and expected to obey.
S
he had no doubt the Dogs would rat her out if they caught her disobeying Daemon’s demands.
“Do not test your will against ours again, Elizabeth,” George said.
“You know that I usually work alone,” she grumbled.
It made all this team work, and letting others fight battles in front of her, hard to adapt to without some hiccups.
“We’ll be talking about you doing things all alone, later, as well,” Daemon said.
She’d put her foot in her mouth.
“If you’re done, it’s time we get back to my king,” Geer said, dusting himself off as he walked between redheaded Sam and Reid.
They were still kneeling on the ground. Although they eyed the dragon boldly invading their space, neither of them moved an inch without permission.
“Daemon, we’ll catch up after a brief talk about orders if you don’t mind taking care of the negotiations on your own?” George asked.
With a nod, Daemon followed Geer, using air-magic to silently walk behind the dragon.
Elizabeth copied him, surprised at how much magic it took to continuously levitate only an inch off of the ground.
When she had bounded through the forest using air to blow her jumps higher and farther, it hadn’t seemed as draining.
She did have Daemon helping her at that time though, and she hadn’t been trying to focus her power on such a precise area, only under her feet.
Even flying seemed a simpler task than this intricate one.
She bobbed a little up and down as she tried to control the right amount of air to harden between her soles and the ground.
“You should stick to lightning, milady,” Geer commented.
He wasn’t even looking back at them to see her bobbing around.
She guessed he could feel her incompetence as she practiced, which meant Daemon must have noticed as well.
Geer had once complimented her flying.
Why was this so much harder?
“I don’t need to improve my lightning,” she pointed out. She could admit her air needed work.
“Are you sure?” Geer asked. “You don’t seem to be able to hold a shield very long—as impressive as your light show was earlier.”
Witch Darkness Follows (Maeren Series Book 3) Page 29