Chapter Seven
Alliah ducked under the swing of his sword and darted close, jabbing him in the solar plexus with a gauntleted fist. Leo spun out of the way with an oof, willing himself not to double over.
His red dragon did not pull her punches. A dribble of blood trickled from a cut on his arm, but he hadn’t managed to land a blow on her. She was so small and swift and savage that he had to relearn everything he knew about combat.
He didn’t want to bruise her. He wanted to bed her. And he was well aware that his sexual urges were offsetting his fighting skills.
If she had sexual urges toward him, she was better at ignoring them in order to cut him down to size.
Several gnomes, waiting for their comrades to report from the other side of the portal, were perched on top of the gateway boulder to watch their sweaty, competitive training session. Heavy betting was going on, and it wasn’t in his favor. Alliah, who barely seemed winded, counseled him on the various Earth devices he would have access to as they battled. Her burned arm did not slow her one whit.
“The electric net—” She danced past a lunge he’d thought for sure would make it to her body. “It shoots like an arrow out of the tube when you—”
Clang! She blocked his second strike with the small shield attached to her forearm. In a flurry of thrusts, she forced him backward toward the portal. He impressed even himself with his dodging capabilities, though he lost his grip on his lattice and it sparkled in the corner of his eye.
Her red lattice was more controlled, casting a faint radiance across her brown skin that he longed to touch. In her short pants and top, he could see so much of that skin, so much of that sexy tracery. He wanted to start at her ankles and lick his way up. But not before he—shit!
Alliah vaulted into the air like she had springs for legs and bopped him in the head with her shield. Wham!
This was getting ridiculous. He’d spent five years as a brawler when one wizard had grown tired of his rebelliousness and conscripted him to a border militia. It had been the best five years of his life, treated as almost an equal by the humans who fought alongside him, until they’d needed money for new armor and sold him. He had skills. It was time to prove it to Alliah, quit going soft on her just because he was sweet on her.
“Pay attention,” she demanded. Ping! Her sword marked him through his pants, close enough to his groin that he knew it was purposeful. Was she telling him to quit thinking with his dick and fight her? “Repeat what I just told you about the nets.”
“Arrows. Shoot. Tube.” He used his superior height and reach to chase her too far away to nick him with her sword. She skimmed to one side, he matched her. Pressed her. Drove her in the direction he wanted her to go. This woman would only respect a person who put in the time and effort. A person who tried harder. “Stops magic, stops movement.”
Her back to the tent, she had nowhere left to escape. She bared her teeth, eyes glinting with excitement at the challenge. “How many shots?”
“Three.” He’d opted not to use a shield since he hadn’t trained with one, but knives he could manage.
One skimmed through the air, ripping into the tent next to her head.
One bounced off the shield when she flicked up her arm to protect her neck.
One dug in the ground between her spread feet.
Alliah’s head shot up, nostrils flared. “In your belt. Tricky.”
“Whatever it takes.” Breathing heavily, they faced off. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You made a hole in my tent. I have to sleep in there.”
“Could have been your head. I have to sleep in there, too.” With her.
“No, you need to be inside Magic’s concealment barrier.”
“Unless we want the wizards to come for us,” he reminded her, and she grinned. He swayed toward her, drawn by that glorious smile, tempted to capture it against his lips.
Instead she raised her shield, pushing against his chest. When had he gotten this close to her? She could disembowel him with a twitch of her arm. His tactics needed work—his battle tactics.
Certain other tactics seemed to be in better repair.
“The goggles,” she prompted. A bead of sweat—finally—dripped from her temple down her cheek. She licked her lips as he continued to watch her.
“As long as the energy lasts, I can see magic and read what powers the wizards can muster.” He inched closer as the shield lowered, removing the last barrier between them. The only thing left was air and convention—the convention that kept dragons on Tarakona apart. The rules against dragons becoming attached to other dragons. The insistence that female dragons never become pregnant.
They weren’t in Tarakona.
Alliah raised her chin. “The breast plates.”
“Fend off several kinds of Tarakonan battle magic.” He had been paying attention to more than her legs. “But the energy doesn’t last as long as the goggles.”
She tilted her face toward his. “Once Gillian, Courtier, and the Silvers come back from meeting with the Dragon Liberation Front, she will improve the devices.”
“We don’t need wizards. We just need each other—our team.” He needed her on her back on that cot inside the tent.
“We might need that one since he’s involved with a silver dragon and they’ve agreed to use her power to help the DLF,” she said dryly. “But you’re right. You and I can handle these particular wizards. Your idea—I agree with it. We should do it.”
She agreed. Leo let his sword droop beside hers, the tips in the dust next to each other. “You’re glowing.” An aura of red extended so strongly around her that it blazed on the canvas of the tent. Her emotions were high—higher than they’d been during the whole battle. What had changed?
“You are, too.” Her chest heaved. “Crystal dragon.”
“Would you just kiss already!” one of the gnomes hollered. “I got a hundred bucks riding on this!”
“Stan, you’re being ridiculous,” another gnome fussed. “They’re sparring. You read too many of those romance novels. Real life isn’t…”
What the hell. Aiden threw down his sword, scooped Alliah into his arms, and pressed his lips against hers.
# # #
Alliah thought she’d been hiding it better, but every inch of her skin felt as heated as the sun. When Leo quit fighting her, she practically jumped at the chance to get her hands on him.
He grabbed the back of her head, securing her ponytail with his fist, and kissed her until she opened for him. Her arms. Her lips. Her thighs. After all, he was so tall, she simply had to wrap her legs around his waist to keep their heads at a comfortable level for kissing. Otherwise they’d have gotten cricks in their necks, unwise before a battle.
Sex before a battle, however, sounded like a very wise decision to her.
He positioned her head where he wanted it, supporting her ass with his other huge hand. As a dragon, he was tiny, but as a man, he was magnificently strong and virile. His tongue plunged into her mouth, tasting her as he groaned. She grabbed his sweaty shoulders and stifled a groan of her own when their hips lined up just so. His hard cock pressed between her legs. Her bare inner thighs in their tiny Earth trousers chafed against the knife hilts in his belt, reminding her that he was, like her, a warrior.
It turned her on that his speed and stamina rivaled hers as they’d sparred. She’d held back at first, analyzing him, but stretched herself once he’d proven a worthy opponent. Someone had trained him, and surely it hadn’t been a wizard. No wizard would have allowed a crystal dragon with the resistance gift to develop combat skills. A crystal dragon would never need to go to war. That was for red dragons.
But this man could fight. And she knew for a fact he’d had a great deal of practice fucking. She welcomed the evidence of his skill as he palmed the back of her neck with masterful strength. His kisses teased her and aroused her, drawing back, pressing forward, taking charge.
“I wanted you the minute I saw you,” he whispered into her neck.
She tightened her legs around him, aligning their pleasure points. “You thought I was a whore. Someone paid to oblige you.”
He grinned. His crystal lattice glistened like diamonds. “Still wanted you. Especially after I realized who you were.” He bit her neck and she gasped before he continued. “Especially after I realized you were going to fight me.”
She raised an eyebrow, suddenly even more interested. “You want me to fight you?”
He squeezed her ass, sending a flood of lust through her veins. “I like to win, Alliah. I like to win at…something.”
They shared another of those gazes that went deeper than the physical, that delved into every dragon’s history. Some broke. Some bent. Some endured. Some sought solace from others. But some tested every second of their captivity for the chance to spring. “I like to win, too.”
“What does the winner of this fight get?”
She held his head in her hands and kissed him. Eagerly. Voluntarily. Completely of her own accord as a free dragon in a free world, and he kissed her back the same way. “Fucked. Winner gets fucked.”
“In the tent?” Leo suggested. “We have an audience.”
In response, she bit his lip, sucking it into her mouth. She squirmed against him, impatient for the removal of the clothing that would doubtless precede the sex.
As if summoned by their desire, pixies swept out of the sky like a swarm of bees, chirping and zinging about. Behind them, the portal hissed to life. Sand and litter whipped into the air from the magical forces.
Leo dropped Alliah to the ground. They both whirled, swords retrieved, ready to face whatever might emerge. The wizards? Foe or friend? They hadn’t had a chance to prepare, to practice with the Earth weapons, but Alliah knew they’d both fight to the death.
“Fall back,” she ordered the gnomes. “You two, run into the tent and fetch the net cannon and the breast plates.” The gnomes could operate a cannon, if two of them worked together, but she and Leo would have to figure out a way to don the breast plates during battle.
Or she would shift into a red dragon and instantly smash whoever materialized.
Before she had time to do that, Barnabas Courtier, dapper yet unassuming, emerged from the swirl of atmosphere that marked the dimensional gateway. His hand firmly on his top hat so it wouldn’t fly off his head, he was followed by a blond man Alliah assumed was Aiden Silver due to the glowing network on his skin. Last came a group of gnomes dressed in various garments of black like tiny assassins.
“We’re baaaaaa-aaaaack!” a gnome sang out. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”
“Who are you?” Leo demanded, a fierce frown marring his smooth-shaven face. He didn’t try to protect her or stupidly block her fighting radius, she was pleased to see. He knew her worth.
But his aggressiveness was unnecessary.
Barnabas swept his hat from his head and offered Leo a cultured bow. “The Honorable Barnabas Courtier, at your service, good sir. And you might be?”
“Wizard,” Leo growled. “What do you want?”
Had she not told Leo the name of the DLF wizard on their side? No, she distinctly remembered telling him, yet his hostility hadn’t abated.
“I don’t believe you are a wizard,” Barnabas said. The man had a habit of taking things literally. It was as if his many, many years of schooling had educated the jokes and nuance out of him.
“Stand down,” she ordered Leo, bumping him roughly with her shoulder, the one that wasn’t burned. “There is no threat here.”
He grunted. Glared. “With a wizard, there is always a threat.”
“I beg your pardon.” Barnabas held out his arms, showing empty palms. If he wore talismans, they were tucked into his greatcoat. “I am a member of the Dragon Liberation Front. If you would like me to don gloves to reassure you I have no intentions of stealing your power, I will, but I ask that you not request that of me. This climate is not suitable for such clothing.”
“Courtier’s not going to hurt a fly.” Aiden Silver strode toward Alliah and Leo, his amiable smile belying the fact that a sword was pointed at his gut. “You must be the crystal dragon. Welcome to Earth.”
He offered his hand in the traditional greeting. Alliah shook it first, to show Leo how it was done, and raised an eyebrow at him. If the man hoped to continue what they’d started up against the tent, he would behave in a civilized fashion with their allies.
Grumbling, Leo sheathed his sword and copied her gesture with Aiden. “Aiden Silver. The dragon who grew up free.”
“I did.” Aiden’s amiable expression turned serious. “Now I’m ready to help free the rest of our kind. I hid from the world too long, worried only about myself and my sister.”
“Speaking of which, where are Nadia and Gillian?” Alliah asked. If either of the women were in jeopardy, the men would not be casually removing their outer layers of clothing. They would be drumming up troops and attack plans.
“Setting up another diversion for intruders with Katia’s help,” Aiden said. The pixies converged on him, a blue halo of clicks and giggles around his head. Some landed on his shoulders while some hovered. “Something about that lake in the first chamber of the labyrinth. I don’t always understand Gillian’s science talk.”
“We do need to discuss the approaching wizards,” Barnabas informed them. “I have it on good authority that their blood tracker is functional and they were spotted in the warrens. There are five of them and four dragons—one white, one red, one brown, one blue.”
“The warrens are above the catacombs,” Alliah recalled. She’d memorized the layout of Valiant City as part of her rescue scheme. “They’re closing in.”
“And we need to let them,” Leo added, finally calming enough to quit glaring at Barnabas. “Disengage the traps. Alliah and I have a plan.”
“And I have another plan,” Barnabas said, flipping his hat. To Alliah’s surprise, the brim of the hat widened, providing him greater protection from the sun. He placed the odd garment back on his head. “I’m going to transfigure the portal to only allow persons with the proper tokens to use it. Then we will no longer need to risk blocking it with a boulder.”
“How do you intend to do that?” Alliah asked. The last she heard, he was no expert in crystal magic and was just delving into Nadia’s silver power of foretelling. Perhaps the two of them had learned something useful in a vision.
“With these.” Barnabas pulled a handful of crystal amulets from his shirt collar. They glistened with the stored power of Tarakonan dragons.
“How many of my kindred did you have to drain to get those?” Leo challenged. “Did you hurt them? Give them the ague?”
“I purchased these from freelancers, of course.” Barnabas neatly folded his greatcoat and fitted it into a carpetbag. “I only patronize ethical wizards and dragons. The DLF doesn’t… hasn’t recruited a crystal dragon. Yet.”
“Don’t even consider it,” Leo said. “My magic is my own. It goes to no wizard. Ever.”
“I’m sure I won’t need it,” Barnabas assured him and retrieved a velvet pouch full of small crystals from the carpetbag. “If you gnomes would accept these tokens before you leave for your guard duties?”
“They to eat?” one asked, putting it to his mouth.
Barnabas blinked. “I suppose that would be one way to ensure you didn’t lose it until, well, it passed through, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just keep them secure on the outside of your body. They’ll allow you to exploit the portal on your return journey. I’m quite positive this is going to work, and after today our troubles will be at an end.”