Chapter Four
“Leave a note on the other side that the event horizon is blocked. If she can’t call my phone with that interdimensional comm she was working on, Gillian will understand.” A man’s voice was speaking near-gibberish, and all Leo could smell was flowers.
He wrinkled his face and tried to pry open his eyes, but they stuck as if they’d been sewn shut. Was this some new torture devised by whichever wizard owned him now? With a grunt, he heaved his body to the side and promptly fell several feet onto the hard ground.
Footsteps, hands patting him. “Whoa there, big fella.” Seemed to be the man. His new wizard?
Leo growled. The hands disappeared, but Leo could sense him standing…right…there.
He bared his teeth. He didn’t have to see his opponent to fight, and he felt none of the thrall-induced resistance toward harming his master. Once he could convince his body to work, he would create so much disorder they would sell him to the next wizard and give him a chance to escape.
“I’ll go warn everyone not to use the portal while you two update him,” said a female voice he didn’t recognize.
“I told you he was difficult,” said another. One that he did recognize.
Alliah Red. But she’d ditched him like a woman abandoning an irredeemable lout, as she should have. She’d fled the wizards about to descend upon the manor house, as she should have. What was she doing here, wherever here was?
“He’s just frightened,” the man said soothingly. “He nearly died.”
Alliah harrumphed, doubt evident in her tone. Leo completely understood. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have wasted your amulet on him.”
“It’s no waste.” The man shuffled away, his shoes scraping what seemed to be a rough fabric floor. Leo tried to shift his arms so he could rub at his eyes. “Ma’at’s feather judged him worthy, or the healing wouldn’t have worked. The ka amulet is persnickety.”
He’d been judged worthy? Worthy of what? Finally Leo managed to crack his eyelids. What he saw was not what he’d expected.
He wasn’t in a dungeon. He wasn’t in a cell. He wasn’t chained to a wall. He was sprawled on a canvas cot in a room made of the same canvas. A tent? Not very secure for a prisoner of his size and strength. Alliah, dressed in scanty clothing, stood nearby with her arms crossed. Huge red scars marred the skin of one arm. And a bearded stranger, a man in a riotously colored shirt, short pants, and sandals, was tucking a gold and amber amulet back into the neck of said shirt.
“Where…where am I?” Leo croaked.
“He wakes,” the man said, approaching him. “Well, m’boy, how does it feel to be a free dragon?”
Leo sat up, expecting to feel intense pain somewhere in his body. The last thing he remembered was hurtling across a fish pond and breaking his leg. And after that…
A red dragon blocking the fireball of the white wizard and whisking him away from their dead master’s manor.
“That was you,” he said, his eyes meeting Alliah’s. The satisfaction in them, in the lines of her deceptively delicate face, nearly raised his hackles. But she had every right to feel vindicated.
“That was me,” she agreed, flexing the arm splashed with what he now realized were half-healed burns. “It appears I’m not a whore after all. See what I endured to save your ungrateful ass?”
His mouth opened but no words came out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d offered an authentic thank you to anyone, one not intended to manipulate. He rarely even thanked Maurene, who brought his food and furtively whispered to him about the goings on abovestairs. Kept him from descending into complete madness with her companionship. He hadn’t seen Maurene in…
“How long has it been? Where are the others?” he asked. “Did they escape?”
Alliah raised an eyebrow. Why was she dressed in the equivalent of underwear? Her sleeveless top and short pants were in no way warm enough for the Season of Grey Limbs. Neither were the stranger’s garments. “A thank you would be nice.”
“Thank you,” he managed. It hurt his throat, though he didn’t appear to be suffering from dehydration anymore. “Where’s Maurene?”
“I don’t know at the moment,” Alliah said, obviously taunting him. “Why?”
“Did she escape or not!” Leo bellowed. Alliah didn’t so much as quail but the male stranger stepped quickly away from them. “Or must we traipse into some wizard’s den to free her?”
He hoped it was the white wizard. He would enjoy killing that one. As long as he could prevent the wizard from touching him, his thrall crystal would remain inert.
“You would help someone other than yourself?” Alliah inspected the burn on the back of her forearm as if checking to see if it had healed. “Seems to me you’d rather be a selfish prick.”
Growling, Leo flexed his fingers, imagining them clamped on her shoulders so he could drag her close to him and… Something. How was it he so easily lost his calm with this woman? Keeping his calm, maintaining the upper hand, had been his primary satisfaction during his many imprisonments. That and tricking a wizard, once again, into trying to steal his power.
He would need a new strategy with Alliah.
“Please,” he gritted out, teeth aching. “Please tell me if Maurene is all right.”
“She’s fine,” Alliah said with a smirk. “She’s here on Earth. Like you. And relieved of the burden of her thrall crystal.” Her smile widened. “You’ll never believe where yours was.”
Thrall crystals, implanted into dragons soon after they evolved into their variant, were inserted while the dragon was unconscious by a member of the Guild of Thrall Masters. One couldn’t have dragons digging out their own crystals and escaping. Oftentimes only the wizard and dragons who inserted the crystal knew its location, the better to prevent removal. It was rumored the DLF had a method to find them, but Alliah claimed they were on this Earth place, not in Tarakona with the DLF.
He expressed his confusion eloquently, perhaps the beginning of his new strategy. “Wut?”
“It was in your cock,” she said. “How about that? I hear that’s the only useful thing about you.”
“Well, this is a fine howdy-doo,” the stranger observed. “Is there something up with you two? Do we need to call in a counselor?”
Leo resisted the urge to check his cock. He resisted the urge to believe her. Except that every word she’d said to him since the moment they’d met had been true. “No, the part about our location.”
“We traveled through a portal to Earth. On Earth the magic users do not need the power of dragons and can’t access it regardless.” She seemed to relish the words, her face brightening, losing her cynical enjoyment of his bewilderment. “On Earth we can be truly free.”
“I don’t know about that,” the man demurred. “You can be free in the boundaries of Magic, New Mexico, since we have a concealment barrier to keep the rest of the world from learning about us. People on this planet aren’t any more moral and upstanding than people on yours, I’m afraid, and would rather eliminate things that frighten them than try to understand them. I’m John Rocco, by the way. Collector of handy magical devices and lawyer to the supernatural.”
The man extended his hand as if he expected Leo to make contact. Dragons did not voluntarily touch other bipeds since that person might be a wizard seeking their magic. They only touched other dragons.
Like the way he’d touched Alliah in his cell, without her consent, believing her to be another challenge of Torren’s. Since then she had possibly watched a thrall crystal be removed from his cock.
Stifling a groan of mortification, Leo rose to his feet and placed his palm against John Rocco’s. He towered over both the man and Alliah, though the ceiling of the tent was higher still. His body felt better, his joints effortless, his bones normal, his skin cleaner, than it had been in years. He was wearing a pair of thin grey trousers and nothing else. His cock was not suffering any unusual sensations though he appreciated the softness of the trousers against his skin.
John Rocco closed his fingers around Leo’s larger hand and pumped it up and down in some sort of ritual. Was he doing magic? Leo tensed for the sensation of his essence being sucked out of his magical tracery, but nothing happened.
“You can call me Rocky,” the man said. “Everyone does. And I believe your name is Leopold Crystal?”
“Yes,” he said, bemused by his complete change in circumstances. By these people behaving with such consideration though he’d done nothing to earn it—helping him, healing him, Alliah risking her life to save him. “Leo.”
“We need to relocate him to inside the town barrier,” Alliah said, as if he weren’t standing in front of her, trying to find the words to express his indebtedness. As if he were some object, some duty she had to fulfill. Was that why she’d rescued him—duty? And did it matter, since it meant he was free? “It should block any blood trackers like it did for Nadia Silver.”
“Don’t fret. We’ve seen no signs of wizards assaulting the catacombs,” Rocky said. “I have guards on the portal, too. You ladies didn’t think you were alone, did you?”
“Actually, we did,” Alliah said with a dry laugh. “No one saw fit to inform us otherwise.”
Rocky nodded in understanding. “I had some out of town business regarding… Well, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m back, and now we have reinforcements. Six more dragons, eh?”
“We shall see what use my friends are in our defense. I won’t require any of them to perform services that are against their desires.” It was obvious Alliah was the one in charge. She eyed Leo from head to toe, assessing his value, and for the first time in ages, he wished he looked…better. Not like a troll, with his beard and knotted hair competing to see which could outflank the other. “Tell me of these sentries you assigned. I must coordinate them in order to best apportion our forces.”
Spoken like a true battle dragon. A battle dragon no longer burdened by a thrall crystal would be a mighty force of nature. As she had done to him, Leo assessed Alliah right back, staring into her deep brown eyes, and was pleased to see her blink first. Was she thinking, as he was, of their first meeting?
It appeared his magically improved health had also improved something he’d assumed dead forever—a voluntary libido. For he found this powerful woman very attractive, and not just because she’d saved his life and seen his cock. Her self-assurance and sense of purpose, her focus and drive, sparked a recognition in him that burned as hot as the flames of Mount Ruamoko.
He wanted to be like her. He wanted to earn her respect. He wanted to celebrate their freedom with her. And he just wanted her.
What strategy did he need to make that happen?
“I can fight,” he told her. He’d taught himself first, before his five years in a border militia. As a result he fought dirty and hard. He did other things dirty and hard, too—but would fucking be different now that he was free? “That would be a service very much in line with my desires. Shall I list my other desires?”
“No,” Alliah said, the corner of her mouth twitching. “I only need portal guardians at this time.”
“Coordinating my sentries won’t be easy.” Rocky withdrew a thin metallic rectangle from his pocket, one that boasted a picture on one side, and started swiping his finger across the smooth surface. “The pixies won’t go to Tarakona. Aiden couldn’t translate why. They were my first choice. Since time was of the essence, I was forced to employ gnomes. The gargoyle is on vacation, the werewolves were busy, and besides, there’s a full moon soon.”
“Are these gnomes not fighters?” Alliah frowned. “We need fighters, perhaps ones immune to magic like the trolls in Tarakona. The wizards may not have arrived yet, but they will. Not to mention the others in Tarakona who know of this land.”
“Gnomes are experts in stealth and mayhem,” Rocky said. “They have some minor battle abilities.”
“Such as?” Alliah asked, tapping her fingers on her arm.
Rocky scuffed the back of his head ruefully. “They conjure feces and throw it at their opponents.”
Alliah’s full lips tightened. “I see. Are they immune to magic?”
“The only beings I know who are routinely immune to magic are a few giant species, but it’s been so long since we’ve met any, who knows?” Rocky said. “With humans the dominant species on this planet, a lot of our truths are buried in myths and hearsay. Supposedly they eat dragons.”
She cracked a smile, and it transformed her face from hardened to somewhat less hardened. The woman definitely didn’t have laugh lines. But then, neither did Leo. Perhaps they could carve a few together. “I doubt they would attempt such a thing after I shift into a dragon.”
“According to legend, they’re bigger than you realize,” Rocky said. “But enough about the giants. The gnomes have been doing a sufficient job, sidetracking any Tarakonans who venture into the catacombs. All stealthy-like. Sometimes subtlety is as useful as bludgeoning people over the head with defensive measures that would make them curious, if they are anything like humans on this planet.”
“It is true that dissuasion would be more effective than outright battle,” Alliah agreed, “though I find myself longing to bite the head off of a wizard or two.”
And now she did present them with a full-fledged smile, her white teeth gleaming. The vicious beauty of it nearly took Leo aback, and his pulse leapt as if he were a young man experiencing his first crush.
“That’s awfully murderous of you,” Rocky observed. “As a lawyer, I can’t really condone breaking too many laws outright, you know.”
“They have it coming,” Leo defended her. A woman after his own heart. One who would not suffer a wizard to live. Had she possessed his ability to prevent a wizard from draining her magic, no doubt she would have been in the jail cell alongside him, rebelling against the yoke of the thrall. It wasn’t as if the crystal didn’t influence him—he had partially obeyed his masters and never managed to escape. But his refusal to bleed magic for them had meant his usefulness was negligible…which had led him to Torren, which had led him to this very moment. “They are enslavers. All of them.”
“There are few who aren’t,” Alliah corrected. “I would be sure to segregate the benign ones from the ones who should be missing a head.”
They met each other’s gazes and shared a bloodthirsty smile. Rocky cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s my understanding that Barnabas Courtier from your Dragon Liberation Front is one of these good wizards. Alliah, may I remind you that you allowed him to access your power and—”
“No one is using my magic,” Leo interrupted. “Ever.”
“For our gain, though?” Alliah asked, cocking her head to one side. She seemed intrigued by his declaration but not disturbed. “Such as to reengineer the portal that delivered you to this place. Courtier went off to research how he could—”
“Ever,” Leo repeated. “I will fight alongside you against those who would enslave us, and gladly, Alliah Red. But I will not suffer the touch of a wizard.”
It seemed that Alliah was about to argue when a flock of translucent blue bugs poured into the tent. Frantic peeps and chirps echoed around the enclosure as the insects converged on Rocky.
“Hold on, hold on, I’m not Aiden,” Rocky protested. One of the bugs—no, not a bug, it was a small humanoid with wings like a dragonfly—landed on his ear and issued a series of clicks that anyone could recognize were urgent.
“Pixies,” Alliah said to him quietly. “They are the ones who removed the thrall crystals, but I cannot understand a blasted thing they say.”
Obviously Rocky could understand enough of it that his ruddy face turned a shade of pale. “Alliah, we’ve got to go. Your dragon friends are rampaging through the town of Magic, and if we don’t get them in order, they’re going to be banned.”