Chapter Six
Leo fondled his sensitive, shaven jaw for the umpteenth time, marveling at its smoothness after what seemed like a lifetime of hair growth. His matted locks and wiry beard lay in an embarrassingly large circumference around the adjustable height chair Bea had bade him occupy while she tended to his appearance.
“You’re not what I’d call a looker, kiddo, but at least you look better than you did,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. The poncho they’d placed around him had protected him from the worst of the hair, and she’d sent one of the assistants to a shop called Storm’s Creations to fetch clothing his size.
“How can I repay you?” He’d never been gainfully employed. He’d just been imprisoned. What could he offer? How were Tarakonans to fit into Earth society when some of them couldn’t be trusted not to get drunk and destroy property?
“No need.” Another shop assistant, a gnome, began collecting his hairs into a white bag. “With your permission, I’ll sell your hair, which will cover the barber fee plus the clothing.”
“My hair?” He lifted a hand to the short strands on his head, watching the gnome deftly perform his job with a small angular broom. The soft fuzz on the back and sides of Leo’s scalp felt like a kitten. One of his wizards had plied him with baby animals as bribes—the closest he’d ever come to cooperating. Bea had left the hair on top of his head longer, said it was a “hip style.”
Since his hair no longer hung to his hips, he wasn’t sure what she meant, but she and the ladies in the shop seemed immensely pleased with him.
“I sell hair to magical scientists. They can tell a lot from your hair and learn about Tarakona in the process.” She yanked a few of his longer hairs from the scalp. “They like to catalogue DNA, too.” She slid that into a smaller baggie.
“I’m not sure that’s wise,” he hedged. He knew zero about Earth and its magics, but being part of a catalogue—a stable—had not benefitted his life. “Giving people information about me.”
“It’s one of our own, dearie,” she assured him. “The government won’t find out.”
But would wizards like the ones from Tarakona find out—wizards who wanted to extract his magic? Just because someone had told Alliah that type of wizard didn’t exist here didn’t make it true. Portals to other worlds were so rare they were practically myths, and Earth was his first confirmation they existed.
“If it makes you feel any better, Aiden and Nadia, those little blond twins, let Dr. Julia have hair and blood samples, too.”
“Those are the silver dragons?” he asked, intrigued. “And the one, Aiden, grew up here instead of Tarakona?” He, of course, had heard of Nadia Silver, the governor of Valiant Province’s prized weapon she’d used to expand her territory and crack down on rebellions with frightening accuracy. He had not heard that the silver had escaped. Nobody had explained much to him, since he’d been unconscious for two days, and before that he’d been locked in a dungeon.
“Oh, yes, they’re silver. They even glimmer silver when they get excited. But I’m sure I’ve no need to tell you what. What kind of dragon are you?”
“A formerly hairy one, madam,” he said with a smile. Did he want to provide this information to strangers? It might be time to have a long discussion with Alliah. How had she come to end Torren’s life, and what did it have to do with silver dragons and Earth?
And he would apologize for treating her like a whore who’d agreed to dally with him.
Because of his captivity, he’d developed the ability to adapt to changes as if they didn’t affect him in order to maintain whatever control he could. That didn’t mean he enjoyed being adrift.
“Never mind.” Bea patted her gnarled hand on his shoulder again. “You’re some kind of rainbow dragon. It’s glowing all over your skin.”
“What? No.” Leo swiveled his chair, staring at himself in the large mirror. It was true. His dragon tracery was bright with power, iridescent and surging. He clamped down on his emotions to no avail. The magic shone from him like it was begging to be noticed.
Unacceptable. His tracery was one of the things he’d always curbed. Always. Even at certain…climactic moments. He locked it down. Nobody could see it if he didn’t allow it, but now it was free, like he was.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Crystal dragon,” he told Bea grudgingly. Might as well be factual, and Bea seemed harmless. Couldn’t have rumors spreading that he was a rainbow dragon, of all things. Those truly didn’t exist. “My magic involves travel portals.”
“Like the one you used to come here?” she asked, stepping aside for the busy gnome. “Lift up.”
Obediently, Leo lifted one foot and then the other. Even his toes glowed. If this was what his body did after an hour or two of freedom, what would it be like in a day? A year?
What would freedom be like for the rest of his life?
The gnome swept the hair off of Leo’s bare feet and grey pants as well as the floor. The bristles tickled but he allowed it. Better than hot irons applied to the soles of the feet. “Yes, Alliah brought me through a portal. I can’t imagine the power it would have taken to create one that tunneled across worlds.”
As a crystal dragon, he could sense things about portals, read them, perceive where they led. The structure of the Earth to Tarakona portal was like none he’d ever seen, though he’d only had a quick glance at it. Also like no portal he’d ever seen, it floated in midair instead of being cast against a nice, solid surface like a real door.
“That red dragon. Alliah.” Bea tsked, shaking her head. “She’s not what I’d call a people person. Needs to lighten up, that one.”
Leo’s tracery flashed. His fingers curled into fists, the way they had sometimes when wizards had threatened his life if he didn’t cooperate. “Would you be light if you escaped captivity a few days ago by killing your master and then barely escaped death when you returned to rescue your companions?”
Bea responded with a wink. “Touchy on her behalf, are you?”
“On behalf of anyone so enslaved,” he snapped. But Bea was right. Because Alliah was quite literally his savior, he would correct any who spoke ill of her. No doubt she had a few flaws—humorlessness, solemnity—but he had not known her long enough to weigh them against her miraculous determination.
Neither had anyone on Earth.
But he recognized it. The determination to never be humbled, despite what one had to do to survive. And the rage.
He wanted to kill wizards with that woman.
If he had finally realized his dream of being free, thanks to Alliah Red, he needed a fresh purpose in life, didn’t he?
Shortly thereafter, Leo was clad in Earth garments and off to take the first step toward his new dream.
# # #
“Get out.” Alliah placed the tip of the blade against the stranger’s throat. Who did he think he was, that he could wander into her tent? After she’d settled the other dragons at Aiden Silver’s abode, she’d returned to the portal headquarters to discuss guard duty with Katia and the gnomes.
But the tall, striking human she’d assumed was a very overweening Earthling began to glow with crystal tracery.
“Don’t you know me?” Leo asked, one of his eyebrows quirking.
Alliah blinked. Blinked again. The huge biped who could have been a troll—smelly, hairy, brutish—had transformed into a clean-shaven, wryly grinning, square-jawed paragon of masculinity and lean strength.
She lowered the sword and goggled. The man was built like a warrior with the knowing smile of a trickster. His soft Earth shirt clung to his broad shoulders and muscular torso like a second skin while the thicker blue pants emphasized the strength of his legs and tightness of his ass.
Which she couldn’t help but admire when Leo twirled for her, obviously as taken with his makeover as she was. “Bea provided me with everything I needed to fit in on Earth,” he told her. “All I had to do was sell her my hair.”
“It’s an improvement,” she allowed. She appreciated the brevity of Earth clothing in this climate, though she understood that not everywhere on the planet was hot. However, the short trousers and sleeveless shirts were not protective battle gear. She would need to change into her fighting leathers when she took her turn at guarding the portal.
Which brought up an important topic. What were the dragons going to do to occupy themselves, to earn their keep, now that they inhabited Earth? Would Leo be interested in helping guard the portal or would he want to disappear into the populace, avoiding any and every reminder that Tarakona existed?
The dragon in question had seated himself on the low cot that still boasted a few of his blood stains. No staff to clean up after them; Alliah would need to see to that herself. He glanced up at her, arms draped comfortably over his knees. “I owe you an apology,”
“I’m listening.” As far as she was concerned, there were many things this man could apologize for. It should be interesting to see where he thought he’d misstepped.
“I shouldn’t have assumed you were a pleasure provider in the dungeon. I should have listened to you,” he said, gazing at her with a serious expression. “I had plenty of clues you weren’t like the women Torren had sent before.”
His behavior had led to a more difficult situation than they’d needed to endure. While they’d survived it, it meant he could be tracked and the wizards in question must be dealt with. “I understand why you responded the way you did.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You understand? But I did not treat you with respect, Alliah. I assumed you were playing Torren’s game.”
She waved a hand, unwilling to discuss that aspect of their encounter—or the fact that she’d lain awake last night imagining his hands upon her body. What a person did under duress, while imprisoned and desperate, was not the summation of their character. “Employment as a pleasure provider is a reliable source of income for many on Tarakona. Look at it this way. At least you got to have sex.”
“No sex for you?” Leo’s long fingers threaded together as if he needed something to touch while he was watching her reaction. “Is that not to your liking?”
“You cannot have missed what life is like for female dragons,” Alliah said wryly. His piercing gaze unsettled her. She wasn’t sure it was wise for him to imagine her sex life the way she’d imagined what sex life he might desire in the future, now that he was free. “No wizard is willing to forego our power for the gestation period and the distraction that parenthood would bring.”
He rubbed a thumb against his lower lip, and she jerked her gaze toward her sword, which she busied herself in sheathing. “Is that something you want? Motherhood?”
Alliah shrugged. The blade slid into the sheath with a long metallic rasp. “No. Sex, however…”
She cut herself off like her blade slicing through Torren’s neck. Stop this, Alliah. You are to be his general, and he is no more a pleasure provider than you are.
“That could be remedied,” he murmured. “You’re a free woman, Alliah. You can do whatever you want now.”
“Matters of the flesh are not my concern,” she lied. They were a growing concern, as if her libido wanted to make up for lost time by taking this ferocious yet charming dragon to bed. This man who made her blood burn with his defiance, his resistance to the wizards. But she could tamp it down like she had every other urge or passion she’d experienced since becoming a dragon. “Torren, may his soul be forever tormented, often approached you with bribes and luxuries. So I do understand your failure to believe me.”
Leo’s full lips tightened. “Not lately, he hadn’t.”
“I know. For that I am sorry. You didn’t deserve that.” She’d felt ill will toward him after the trouble he’d given her, but she’d told him the truth—she understood it. And she could forgive. It wasn’t as if he were a wizard, or complicit with wizards.
“None of us deserve that.”
They shared a long gaze of mutual pain. She’d encouraged Torren to bribe the cantankerous crystal dragon instead of hurt him, but in the end he’d resorted to torture and punishment like so many other wizards. And in the end, he’d earned his death. She and Katia had survived Torren by maintaining a pretense of admiration, which had meant he allowed them more leeway. Fawning over the conceited wizard had sickened them both, and they’d spent many a long night whispering to one another about what they’d rather do than praise him.
Alliah’s fantasies had inevitably involved violence, while Katia, to the end, had wondered if he could be convinced to treat them as equals. Her elaborate tales of wizardly awakening would have made fantastic novels.
But they’d done what was needed to survive and ensure the best treatment of their comrades in chains.
“So you did know about me, down there?” Leo finally asked. “Maurene said you were our advocate. Said you pacified Torren when he was in a temper, and the other red, Katia, was so compassionate she softened the asshole up.”
Alliah just nodded. She didn’t require praise for doing the right thing, but Leo’s awareness and his potential for cooperation pleased her. As did his cleanliness, for it would no longer offend her nose to be close to him. While she fully intended to oversee their troops, his skill in communicating with Earth dwellers could be used to their advantage.
“We’re free now,” she told him. “We just need to stay that way.”
“That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about,” Leo said. “The wizards.”
She placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, its pommel a comfort against her callused palm. Leo probably had calluses on his wrists and ankles from the manacles. Nature’s deprecations of their bodies were not healed any more than injuries when they shifted forms. “What about them?”
“We don’t wait for them to come to us. We go to them,” Leo said, a gleam in his dark eyes. “We know they can trace my blood, but we can ensure they never find the portal, never learn about it, if we kill them before they discover it.”
His plan had a certain logic, but it also had a few prominent flaws. Once they entered Tarakona proper and strayed from the safety of the portal, they would be in wizard territory, where magic could overpower many of the tactics Alliah and Leo could bring to bear. Not to mention Leo would be useless in dragon form.
“I’ll consider it,” she told him, unwilling to hand him a win so easily. “Based on what I know of blood trackers, I estimate the wizards could be here anytime.” None of the wizards at the manor had ridden an iron dragon, and none looked rich enough to hire a freelance iron wizard outright. They would need to pool their resources and haggle, plus the time it would take the wizard and dragon to create the amulet.
“The gnomes have spotted them?” Leo rose, cracking his knuckles and lowering his brow. “Let’s not leave Katia alone to face them. I am ready to fight.”
“No signs of the wizards from Torren’s property. Yet. We have a small window of time to decide. I’ve moved the boulder aside to allow the gnomes to switch places with their comrades.” Her initial instinct in how to ensure everyone’s safety was defensive, but with Leo’s eagerness, her brain began spinning more offensive possibilities. Ambushes. Tactics. Troop placement. Factors.
One factor, she couldn’t shift into her dragon form in the catacombs, yet they were the easiest and least exposed place to spring a trap. The gnomes had mapped the whole thing already, and the glowing moss’s allergenic properties provided a perimeter alert.
Second, while Katia might go along with guarding the portal and routing attackers, Alliah’s soft-hearted friend wouldn’t want to murder people outright.
And third, if any wizards survived the ambush, they would return to the catacombs, assuming it was the dragons’ hideout. They wouldn’t stop if they thought there was something to find. That notion would have to be disproven—by guaranteeing the death of any who knew where Torren’s dragons had gone.
If they did this, it would have to be just her and Leo. Perhaps the gnomes. She needed to calculate that resource, as well as Leo’s competence in a fight. How quickly could he learn to use the devices the Earth witch had created? What training did he possess?
She didn’t need to ask if he had a killer’s instinct. She could see it in the gleam of his eye, almost as if he knew what her answer was going to be.
“I have an extra sword,” she said to him. “Do you know how to use it?”
He smiled. “Let me prove it to you, soldier.”