Chapter One
“Just leave him behind. He’s not worth it.”
The elderly woman shoving money and trinkets into a rucksack paused long enough to spit the recommendation at Alliah like a fireball. It splashed across her conscience, burning even as it cleansed the dead wood. The dragon in the dungeon was contrary, inclined to violence, and very difficult to access, considering they had no idea where Torren kept the keys.
Torren, their former master, dead by Alliah’s hand.
Now they were free—if they could run fast enough and far enough to escape what was to come.
Alliah fingered the spot on her neck where the pixies on Earth had removed her thrall crystal. The other dragons were preparing to flee, and Maurene, crafty and practical, had headed straight for Torren’s office to ransack it.
“Maurene, he’s a dragon,” Alliah said. Their dead master, Torren, had always thought she had some gift of persuasion. In truth, her only skill had been in persuading Torren, distracting him, from taking out his anger or petulance on the other dragons.
With one exception, and that exception had never settled easily in her gut. “He’s one of us. He deserves a chance at a real life.”
Her plan was to escort the rest of Torren’s dragons through the Earth portal and have the pixies remove their crystals, as well—the tiny, evil pellets of magic that bound Tarakona’s dragonkind in the service of wizards. Unfortunately, the pixies refused to go to Tarakona or she’d have brought them with her.
But the escape window was limited. The wizards in the vicinity would soon realize Torren was deceased, and they would descend on his dragons like locusts on grain.
Fecking wizards.
“You aren’t thinking straight, child.” Maurene was one of the oldest dragons Alliah had ever met. No one knew how many wizards she’d served in her time. “We need you. You’re our guardian. Don’t think we don’t realize what you’ve always done for us.”
Alliah didn’t let her surprise show on her face. She hadn’t realized anyone besides Katia had noticed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You have to lead us to this land without wizards. We have no way to find it without you.” Maurene’s grey hair stuck out at random angles from her head, when she was normally so careful of her appearance.
Torren had insisted upon cleanliness, and complete obedience, in his dragons. Because of the thrall crystals, he’d gotten it from all but one them.
“I can’t leave him. He could starve to death down there. Nobody will be left to take him food and water. The humans surely won’t.” Most dragons succumbed to the thrall crystals. What their wizard commanded, they provided, though it couldn’t change their hearts. A very few, however, managed to resist. Gave their wizards no end of trouble. The dragon in the dungeon was one of those. Torren had gotten him at a bargain price and had been too stubborn to give up on the chance at his own crystal dragon. Thought he could coax him, tame him, the way he had the rest of them.
Pretending to treat them well, giving them cossets and praise, as if they were animals instead of beings just as sentient as he was. Yet at the slightest hint of resistance, he punished them without remorse. Alliah had done everything she could to shoulder that burden. None of them deserved it, but the others deserved it even less than she did.
While she had no regrets that she’d killed Torren, she did regret the taste he’d left in her mouth after she’d flown his body back to the manor house to prove to the dragons he was dead.
Maurene stuffed a handful of papers into her rucksack and rubbed the small of her back. “He won’t starve. The other wizards will figure a way to get to him before that happens. But none of that will matter if they catch us.”
“The other wizards will probably put him down,” Alliah argued, realizing the truth of it even as she said it. Crystal dragons were rare, but that might not protect their uncivil companion any longer. “Other wizards don’t have Torren’s delusions of grandeur. They aren’t trying to take over the world. Many just want to earn a living.”
“You’re going to sacrifice all of us to break into a dungeon and rescue a man who’s going to attack you the minute you unchain him?” Maurene asked, aghast.
“He can try to attack me, but I’m a red,” Alliah reminded her. She was trained in war, in all types of combat. She knew how to command herself, and others, as much as Torren had allowed it. The dragon in the dungeon might be big, but he was a crystal. They knew nothing of fighting.
Maurene gave her a sour grimace. “That applies when you’re in dragon form, not on two legs. Try using that sword of yours to fend off a lightning bolt.”
“He can’t cast lightning. He’s a dragon.” Only wizards could cast spells, using the magic they siphoned from dragons. Dragons themselves could shift into dragons and, well, back into bipeds. They had the power of change and the power of flight—and no power to resist the thrall crystals that ruined their lives.
“Humph.” Maurene finished ransacking Torren’s office and cinched her rucksack. “You might as well sell us to the wizards yourself at this rate. You know the humans from the kitchen are going to run and tell everyone they find. You shouldn’t have brought the body.”
“I didn’t think you would believe me otherwise.” And they wouldn’t have, hence the very logical decision to bring the body. Their thrall crystals would feel no different with Torren dead. “I feared you’d assume it was another of Torren’s loyalty games.”
Maurene stomped to the last place in the office she hadn’t searched, a wardrobe, and yanked it open. Looking over her shoulder, she said, “What’s done is done. Forget that fool in the dungeon. Lead us out of here. Right after I find that purple cloak our dear departed master wore when he was feeling like a ponce. The gold buttons on that ugly thing can feed us for weeks.”
When a wizard without apprentices died unexpectedly, it was often a free-for-all. A wizard could hijack an unsecured thrall crystal in a dragon much more easily and cheaply than purchasing a dragon straight up. While Alliah would be protected, having shed her crystal, the others wouldn’t.
Including the dragon in the dungeon.
What was she thinking, volunteering to fetch Torren’s dragons while Katia guarded the portal? Their master had used her and her friend Katia, also a red, as bludgeons, not strategists. He’d never realized she and Katia distracted him from hurting the others. Alliah had always dreamed she was capable of more. She had bided her time, counting every single second of her enslavement, until she had the opportunity to rid herself of her master.
Katia hadn’t wanted to kill Torren outright—she was a bit of a softie—but Katia also had a hero complex and thought murder was barbaric.
Alliah, a realist, just wanted to safeguard her companions. The dragon in the dungeon was one of them. Was she up to this task after a life of captivity? What could she achieve now that no wizard was around to tell her what to do? What could any of them achieve?
Small things. Stupid things. Great things. But things they chose for themselves. And that was exactly why she couldn’t leave the dragon in the dungeon to his fate.
“I must try to free the crystal dragon. I’ll draw you a map through the tunnel system in the buried city.” She scuffled through Torren’s desk, coming up with parchment and a quill. The portal to Earth lay in a dilapidated labyrinth beneath Valiant City, and she would need to carefully mark the new security measures they’d created. “Katia is waiting for you. I’ll probably catch up to you, anyway.” Red dragons were the largest and fastest of dragonkind, built for battle and war. The only dragons who flew faster were golds, made of almost pure energy. But Torren’s gold, Virgil, would never leave his adopted family behind.
Maurene swept the purple cloak from the wardrobe with a crow of triumph. She shook it as if Torren was still in it. “I should have run away with Benn and Helen to find the Dragon Liberation Front. But they wouldn’t want an old woman like me slowing them down. I placed my trust in you, girl, and if you fail us, I will find a way to haunt you until the end of your days.”
After another vigorous flap of the cloak, something metal clunked against wood. Alliah and Maurene stared at the ground. An iron key lay upon the parquet floor.
“Dungeon key,” Maurene said in a satisfied tone. “Thought so.”
Alliah raised her eyebrows. “I thought you wanted me to leave him.”
“I was just testing you.” Maurene kicked the key toward Alliah. “I’ve been the one feeding that ornery jackass since the day he arrived. Oh, and if he won’t cooperate, knock him out and carry him. No dragon deserves this life, not even that dirty bastard in the dungeon.”
# # #
Leo glared through his long locks of filthy hair at the small woman who had come to the dungeon to torment him.
“I’m telling you the truth.” She wiggled the key she’d used to unlock the cell door. Her black hair was tightly confined in a sensible coiffure, and she seemed to be unaccompanied. “Torren is dead. I killed him myself.”
“Do you think he hasn’t sent me whores before?” Leo scoffed, his throat rasping. The words hurt since he hadn’t had anything to drink in two days. But that was nothing new.
What was new was that Torren had given her the key.
He couldn’t control the leap of his heart, the surge of energy in his heavy limbs. He wanted to lunge at her, at the key, snatch it, free himself, and…
Probably fall on his face. When threatening to sell him to another wizard hadn’t worked, Torren’s recent strategy had been weakening him into submission. He wouldn’t even allow Leo to bathe since he would have drunk the bathwater.
Eagerly.
And eaten the damn soap.
“Give me some water,” he demanded of the woman.
She released an exasperated breath. Yes, she was very different from the ladies Torren usually sent to seduce Leo. Petite, muscular, crackling with annoyance, and a very good actress. She wore fighting leathers instead of a revealing gown and frowned at him instead of cooing and smiling. “I brought nothing. You’ll have to get something later. We are running out of time.”
“You, maybe. I have all the time in the world.” Leo clanked the manacles on his wrists for emphasis. Sometimes he toyed with the women, and sometimes he rejected them. Right now he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.
She fingered the key and inspected him with sharp, dark eyes. Small yet fearless. He was twice her size. “Do you truly not recognize me?”
“If Torren had sent you to me before, I’d remember. Or were you more naked then? Perhaps that is why I don’t know you.” Whores, luxuries, threats, torture—he remembered everything Torren had done to him, and the wizard before him, and the wizard before her, back to the very first wizard who had purchased him from his parents when he’d come into his variant at puberty and taken dragon form.
He got his revenge in small ways—manipulating the wizards into trying to extract his power and then inflicting searing agony on them, part of his resistance ability. Over and over he convinced them that this time, for certain, he would cooperate.
But he never did.
Torren claimed no other wizard would put up with Leo’s defiance. That he was Leo’s last chance. Since Leo had been tossed aside by more wizards than he had fingers and toes, he had his doubts, but it was true that Torren had owned longer than any other.
“Cease this nonsense.” The woman frowned at him. “I’m one of his red dragons, you idiot. I’m not a pleasure provider.”
He discreetly eased his chains into position. She was so close—nearly close enough to grab. But he didn’t telegraph his intentions through his body, remaining slumped against the wall behind his bunk. He was a master at projecting attitudes he didn’t feel, at influencing situations despite being in chains. “Pleasure provider. Nice name for a whore.”
She didn’t so much as flinch. But she did allow a burst of her power, her fire, to ripple across her luscious brown skin. Would that fire scorch him if he took her to bed? The magical network glowed in the dimness of his cell, as his pure crystal network would glow if he let it. He had control of that, as well. “I take no insult in being called a whore. At least whores are free.”
“You’re actually a dragon,” he said, faking disinterest, but in reality, it was intriguing. All the women Torren had sent before had been human. He hadn’t been willing to allow a dragon female to breed, since pregnancy negated their powers, and their usefulness, for the duration of it. Children of dragons were no more likely to become dragons when they hit puberty than any of the rest of their trimorphic species, so female dragons were generally not allowed to bear offspring.
“No shit. I’m Alliah Red.”
“His pet,” Leo spat. Torren’s favorites, his mighty red warriors, Alliah and Katia. Leo had heard so many paeans to their cooperativeness that he’d loathed them the entire three years he’d been stuck in Torren’s dungeon.
If that was who she was, he hated her, no matter what Maurene claimed she did for the other dragons.
“His pet who cut off his head.” Alliah flashed him a hard grin. He could almost believe this fierce woman was a warrior. Could almost believe she spoke the truth, having no use for subterfuge. But subterfuge was how Leo managed to stay alive. “His body is in the courtyard. Being covered by snow as the local wizards no doubt converge. You know they will, dragon. Will you stay here to greet them, or will you come with me and the others?”
For the first time, a hint of doubt entered Leo’s mind. This woman stood with a straight spine, an unbowed manner, and an aura of seething rage that couldn’t be feigned. It was one that drew him, for he shared that rage himself. He just hid it better. “What about Maurene?”
Impatiently, she gestured toward the endless stairs that led to the surface. Torren had worked Maurene, his brown dragon, nearly to death to create this dungeon, deep below the manor house. “A few ran off to the Dragon Liberation Front, but Maurene and Virgil are leading the others to a portal to another world. One that has no wizards.”
“That…isn’t possible.” Did she think he, a crystal dragon, would be fooled by such a tale? Though he hadn’t participated in much portal creation due to his ability to prevent wizards from draining him, there were no worlds without wizards. Such a fantasy was for baby dragons, ones who’d just come into their variant and still felt hope.
She shrugged. “It’s a story of some length, and there’s no time for me to prove it.”
“I am not stopping you from unlocking my chains.” He flapped one wrist so the iron rings of his chain would clank. “I am not stopping you from giving me the key and letting me do it myself.”
“I don’t fancy having to render you unconscious when you attack me and then lugging your mangy carcass up the stairs,” she said. “I need a promise of your cooperation.”
Ah, there it was. A promise of cooperation. This was another elaborate scheme. She was doubtless enchanted with purple magic, bearing a talisman that would transform his agreement with her into an agreement with Torren. Their master was desperate to suck the crystal magic from Leo’s veins in order to create portals. Not even his precious Alliah could zoom him across Tarakona in the blink of an eye, but a portal could.
A portal could go anywhere. But not to this fictional wizardless world she described. Did they think his imprisonment had turned his brains to mush?
“And that’s it?” he asked, hunching his shoulders as if afraid. In this position his beard reached halfway down his chest. “You just don’t want me to attack you?”
Most of the pleasure providers Torren sent were sweetly assertive, pushing him down and riding him in hopes it would soften him up for the wizard. Alliah obviously had different instructions, which meant he should behave differently as well, if he was to pitch Torren’s latest offer back into his face.
Should he wait until he sated himself? He’d never fucked a dragon before. And he wouldn’t mind seeing her pitiless face soften with ecstasy.
“Close enough.” She bared her teeth at him, like a dragon, which roiled his blood. “I want you to come to the courtyard, get on my back, and escape. Can you please be obtuse more quickly, because we have many stairs to climb and you do not appear to be in the best shape.”
He’d thought he had no ego left to sting, but her words struck him somewhere painful. She lacked charm or powers of seduction. And that was what made her façade almost believable.
“Very well,” he lied. So it was to be a hate fuck. He would give her pleasure beyond her wildest dreams, and then he would have her tell Torren to go bugger himself. “Unchain me, Alliah Red.”
The moment she stepped forward, light and silent on the dank floor of his cell, he sprang.