American Dragons series Box Set

by Aaron Crash

  Steven wanted to get excited by the wealth, but he couldn’t find it in him. Not even when he saw the rack of keys that would match the vehicles. They had lost Aria. Nothing would ever be the same. Compared to that, it was hard to celebrate something as inconsequential as a couple of classic cars.

  Tessa parked in an open space, and they got out. A sliding glass door had been cut into the rock wall in front of them.

  Steven had to turn into his partial form to wrench open the crushed trunk to get to their luggage. Once that was done, he changed back, slipped into a pair of jeans, and drew on a sweatshirt. He didn’t bother with shoes—this changing clothes every fifteen minutes business was annoying as hell.

  Tessa walked to the glass doors and stopped. “Look, this is horrible. But you’re right. Once we find the pen, I bet we can magic up a solution. And Aria is tough, you know she is. I don’t think that Ronin is going to kill her, not right away. I don’t know how that whole Escort thing works, but I bet there are rules.”

  “I hope there are.” He drew the barista into an embrace. Holding her, feeling her heat, smelling her hair, made him feel better. They’d only been together a short time, but already, hugging her felt like going home.

  Holding hands, they entered the Aerie through the doors. Unlike the Colorado Springs secret floor, this Aerie had a modern feel to it. Sleek metal furniture with cream-colored cushions sat on a black slate floor, which was warm under his feet. It made sense to have heated floors in a cave. The walls were rock, but the entire front of the living room was a window, showing a dazzling view of Denver and the entire Front Range. At night, the light show would be spectacular.

  The place smelled musty but only for a minute. As they entered, a fan whooshed to life, bringing in the perfume of the pines covering the mountainside. The sounds of water splashing filled the air. Were there fountains somewhere in the Aerie? It seemed so, though he didn’t see them. Some more exploring was definitely in order.

  A huge kitchen sat off to his right with marble countertops and the latest appliances—well, they’d been the latest appliances on the market in the 1990s. To his left was a hallway that likely led to the bedrooms and the bathrooms. In the left corner was a fireplace, which ignited, giving them warmth. In the right corner, a staircase spiraled up into the ceiling. That intrigued him. The sounds of splashing water came from there, above them.

  “Up?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Up,” the barista agreed.

  Steven went first. He climbed the tight metal stairs, which were as sleek and chrome as everything else in the luxury Aerie hidden away on Lookout Mountain.

  The staircase ended in a room that was something out of a fantasy novel. Unlike the room below, this upper room was mostly cave, but it too had windows facing eastward, which must’ve been hidden away by spells. Otherwise, Steven would’ve heard about such a palace outside of Golden.

  The ceiling was tall, about twenty feet high and rough stone. Torches on sconces in the rock walls gave out a warm light. A waterfall of steaming water trickled down the western wall, filling a series of pools, fourteen of them, which could be accessed through steps carved into the stone floor. The placed looked like some kind of spa. The pools themselves were all different sizes, some only big enough for a single person, while the largest was rectangular and could fit fifteen people comfortably. The water in the pools glowed with a warm blue light, which was almost supernatural in appearance.

  A grand fireplace hewed into the rock face itself sat along the northern wall, far bigger than the one on the entry level. Again, flames leapt to life. Running between the big rectangular pool and the eastern-facing window was a thick red carpet covered with furniture: club chairs, sofas, chaises, coffee tables, even a small bar well stocked with liquor. The views of the sunrise would be spectacular.

  The cave was warm, wet, and comfortable. A light mist hung in the air, carrying the smell of sulfurous minerals.

  Tessa went to one of the smaller pools and dipped a hand inside. “It must be fed by natural hot springs,” she murmured.

  “You should get in,” Steven said.

  Tessa sighed. “I couldn’t. We have to find the pen. The Power of the Pen.”

  “Maybe one of us has to be in the pools for it to work. Just go in.”

  She looked troubled for a moment, but then without another word, she undressed, dropping her clothes onto the Drokharis Grimoire she’d been lugging around.

  Steven moved down toward the large pool and the fireplace. The pendant glowed and felt warm in his hand.

  The pattern of the pools was familiar. It took him a second, but then he recognized the Draco constellation. The St. Vrain Aerie had mosaics of the stars, and the Colorado Springs Aerie had the constellation on the floor, and so it seemed appropriate that the Lookout Mountain palace would have the pools in that same shape.

  Steven walked to the head of the constellation, which was also the largest pool. He gazed down into the blue-tinged water. In the bottom of the pool lights glowed. Radiant sapphires were scattered across the bottom. He put his junk cell phone on the stone and then walked down steps into the water.

  “Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?’ Tessa asked from her tub.

  “I’m so sick of changing,” Steven said absently, gaze fixed unwaveringly on the gems.

  The water was hot at first, uncomfortably so, but then Steven wished it were hotter. His tolerance for heat had increased exponentially. Now, he would’ve relished sleeping in a bed surrounded by the body heat of his Escort.

  His Escort. Down by one. But not for long. He would get Aria back. Somehow. But first, the pen. He continued to walk until he was forced to swim. The bottom dropped away, and while he thought the sapphires were on the bottom, they were actually just floating there.

  How deep was the pool? It seemed bottomless. For some reason, he thought of the three strange doors at the St. Vrain Aerie.

  The sapphires moved to form a circle around him. They then began to spin, slowly at first, but faster by the second.

  Tessa saw the strange swirling gems under him. “Steven, are you okay?”

  He didn’t know. But he didn’t respond. He was soon caught in a whirlpool, treading water in the center as the water frothed around him, driven into a frenzy by the gems. The water gathered around him, pushing in against his body as it lifted him up, up, up, away from the pool below. The water and jewels spun around him like a tornado, and he was at the heart of it, hanging suspended in dripping clothes. The noise was incredible, making it hard to think.

  The swirling waters continued to pick up in speed, tugging and pulling at his pendant until it was ripped from his neck with a sudden sharp jerk. Instead of flying off into the vortex, however, it rose, levitating above him. The steel chain melted away, as did the housing, and all that was left was the hunk of topaz. And then, in a flash, the topaz lengthened and shimmered, becoming pen-shaped. Morphing, finally, into a quill. A couple of the sapphires rose out of the whirlpool and connected themselves to the topaz quill. They became a single crystal feather poking up from the tail end of the pen.

  The voice of Stefan Drokharis boomed through the cave. “MY SON. GATHER YOUR ESCORT. ACQUIRE YOUR HOARD. BUILD YOUR AERIES. FINISH MY WORK. AND BRING REVOLUTION TO THIS WEARY WORLD. IT IS YOUR DESTINY. LET NOTHING STOP YOU!”

  Tessa screamed, “Steven, what’s happening!” Her voice seemed distant and quiet in the maelstrom of noise and power.

  The hurricane around him parted, and he saw that all of the water, from every pool, was swirling in the air—and Tessa had been caught up in it as well. She floated in midair, just like him, and her eyes were twin suns in her face. She cried out, writhing.

  Steven didn’t know how he could help her, but it was obvious she was in pain.

  Acting on instinct, he reached out and touched the pen. The minute he did the heat in his chest exploded, and his body was enveloped in a roaring blaze. His clothes turned to ash in the conflagration. Oran
ge flames licked up and down his body, and his hair turned to smoke. His skin fried, crisped, sloughed away. He was being cooked alive in the inferno, every nerve howling in agony. A scream tore its way from his mouth but died quickly as magic fire poured in, filling his throat, his lungs, his belly.

  Some part of him knew this was necessary. That in order to unlock his final transformation he would need such suffering. Aria wasn’t around to ask, but this excruciating agony would be worth the price if it gave him the power to save her, so he steeled himself. He endured, soaking up the pain like a sponge.

  Right when he thought his sanity would snap, the fire vanished, replaced by soothing blue waters once more. The world seemed to shift around him, and he dropped, splashing down into the pool as the cool waters caressed his mangled, charbroiled body. The same force that had held him aloft now drew him down, down, down, through the depths of the pool, which was far deeper than he could ever have imagined. Below was a doorway. But to where?

  Steven found himself gasping, thrashing his arms madly as he suffocated. He needed to breathe. His skin had mostly flaked away, to reveal muscle, and he yelled out in shock and fear.

  He regretted that. Water flooded into his mouth and filled his lungs, just as the fire had done moments before. As intolerably painful as the fire had been, the water was almost worse, and he was suddenly sure he was going to drown. He must’ve done something wrong. This wasn’t right ...

  Only it was. He pressed his eyes closed.

  When he opened them again—almost against his own will—he found himself floating in a universe of stars and nebulas. A comet streaked by him. All of reality was there for him to see, and the power there, the throbbing power of life itself, felt so close. That celestial power enveloped him, wrapped around him like a second skin.

  His heart stopped. He felt it stop. He was dead, floating in the middle of creation, and he knew there wasn’t just one set of worlds in the universe, but an infinite number of realities.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath, and it felt like the first breath he’d ever taken. An impossible memory filled him, of being held by his mother. His father was smiling even as tears streamed down his cheeks to fill his beard.

  His heart thumped to life. First one beat, then another, then another. He was reborn. And his destiny wasn’t just to conquer his own Primacy on one little bit of rock floating through space. Fate had chosen him to do so much more ... but the extent of it seemed fuzzy. Hazy. He reached out an arm, fingers straining as though he could grasp his destiny in his hand. But no, it was too far away, and getting farther by the moment.

  “Steven!” Tessa called to him from an impossible distance. “Where are you? Don’t leave me, dammit. Don’t leave me alone!”

  He swam up through the empty space until he found himself swimming through water. Those gems, he realized in a flash of inspiration, weren’t sapphires. No, they were stars. But then, they too were gone and he was back in the pool, kicking upward, arms pumping, until he burst from the water. He had skin again. That was good, and the pain was blissfully absent. He paddled to the side and clutched the stone, heart thudding like mad inside his chest.

  Tessa ran and dove into the water. She clutched him. Her skin felt so good on his. He found rock under his feet. He stood and held her.

  “I thought you were gone forever,” she sobbed in his arms. “I can’t lose you. I can’t. You’ve become a part of me. I felt that. Before. When the water ... Steven ... what happened?” She cupped his head. “Where’s your hair?”

  He touched his bald scalp. “Uh, burned away I guess.”

  But he didn’t care about that. He’d never been more turned on in his life. He parted her legs and found himself inside Tessa. She kissed him, savagely. Both gasped at the sudden heat. He gently but firmly pushed her to the side of the pool and slammed his sex into hers, harder and harder. She came, whining in his ear. He’d never heard her make those sounds before.

  His own bliss was one stroke away, and he gave himself to the pleasure. The Animus between them could’ve powered New York City for a year.

  Spent, they climbed from the pool to lie by the fire. They held each other. Steven knew everything had changed. Between them. And inside their souls.

  The sacred pools of the Drokharis clan had given them powers even they did not fully understand. Not yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ARIA WOKE LYING IN a bed surrounded by statues. Some were ancient, obviously Greek in origin, while others were from some modern artist, who had used a mixture of stone and paint. There were even some female figures welded out of metal.

  The noon sun was muted by the thick curtains as well as the clouds outside. A few fat flakes of snow fell against the pane, but since this was Colorado, that could mean anything. It could snow four feet, or in fifteen minutes, the storm could blow out to the Kansas prairie. The temperature could skyrocket thirty degrees in an hour.

  Where was she? The last thing she remembered was being scooped up by the yellow dragon after he had hit her with his ElectroArc Exhalant. Where was Steven? Was Tessa okay?

  Aria’s bare feet hit the hardwood floor. She was dressed in a red silk gown. Where had that come from?

  She heard classical music being played on a piano. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but following the music seemed like the next logical course of action. She left the bizarre room full of statues and entered a hallway where every inch of wall space was filled with paintings. She recognized the work of a few artists. A Jackson Pollock, a Picasso, a van Gogh, their work was undeniable. She paused. There were a few other cubist paintings she was unfamiliar with.

  But the surroundings—the bed, the statues, the paintings—told her she was in a mansion, somewhere. There were any number of rooms off the hallway, and each was full of artwork, from other statues to huge murals which sat on the floor in large baroque frames. The place smelled like lemons and leather, the signature odor of the yellow dragon. It was his Aerie, obviously, and his Hoard was art, which wasn’t exactly strange for a Dragonsoul, but it certainly wasn’t normal. She didn’t see any signs of gold or other precious metals and gems.

  She stopped at the top of a sweeping staircase. Below, in a room crowded with more art and musical instruments, a big blond man sat at a grand piano, playing it with the skill of a world-class concert pianist. The man had a long, golden beard and his chest hair was that same gold tangle. He was shirtless. His bottom half was covered in jeans and cowboy boots.

  He stopped playing. “So, you’re awake.”

  “Where are my friends?” Aria asked. She’d healed some after her long sleep, but she still felt weak and bruised. The memory of being electrocuted made her shudder.

  “I don’t know where your friends are,” the blond man said with a slight shrug. “You are here for one simple reason. When Rhaegen Mulk or his pet Edgar Vale come for me, to punish me for my failure, I will give you over to them. So we don’t need to talk any. Go back to your room. You won’t be able to leave. While spells have fallen out of fashion among our kind, I have kept up the practice.” He faltered, eyes flashing. “For obvious reasons.”

  “Which are?” Aria asked. She was intrigued in spite of herself.

  “As a Ronin Dragonsoul, my life is in danger most days. Every little edge I can find, I will use.” He then returned to the keys, playing a piece by Rachmaninoff, Six Moments Musicaux Opus 16 No. 4.

  Aria descended the stairs and stood next to the piano. “Where am I?”

  “My Cherry Creek Aerie,” the man said, obviously annoyed.

  “And what’s your name?” Aria asked.

  He sighed and lifted his hands from the keyboard. “Does it matter? You don’t care. I don’t care. So let’s go with Liam Strider. It will work as well as any. But what’s in a name?”

  “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Aria murmured.

  “I have one of the original texts of the play,” Liam replied. “As you can see, I find the finer things
in life worth the sorrow of our heartbeats.”

  He sat quietly, not looking at her. She stood by the polished piano, awkward. Most men would’ve been staring at her dressed in the skimpy scarlet silk. This Ronin truly was a mystery.

  The mansion was silent. “Where is your Escort?” she asked. “Or your vassals?”

  “I played that game for a bit,” the mystery dragon muttered. “But I found such things tiresome after a while. This is much easier.”

  “If you like being alone, why did you agree to help Mulk and Vale?” Aria asked.

  “Another edge,” he offered. “I do the local Prime a favor, and he leaves me be. But Vale didn’t tell me the whole story. He didn’t mention you, nor did he say that the target was a Dragonsoul with remarkable power. This new Dragonsoul will disrupt this once peaceful Primacy. I have already been in contact with movers.” He next grin was wistful. “And I had such high hopes for Denver. But few will survive the coming fury, that I am quite sure of.”

  The doorbell chimed.

  Liam raised two fingers and mouthed two words, “Magica Divino.” He stood. He was close to seven feet tall, lean, and striking. He moved like a panther, all power and deadly grace. “And that is Edgar Vale now. Alone. Strange. But with you gone, I can return to my quiet life. Not that moving is quiet.” He sighed.

  Aria thought about making a run for it, but she could feel the power of the yellow dragon’s spells. Steven had shaken the strange Ronin, and that made Aria smile. She had been right about how powerful her mate was.

  When Liam opened the door, the stench of rancid meat swept in. Edgar Vale, gripping the Slayer Blade, drove the sword into the Ronin’s chest. The yellow dragon stumbled back, shock evident on his face, but already he was turning into his Homo Draconis form.

  Edgar’s face was as gray as a dead man’s. The pink around his eyes was diseased. He shrieked crazily, “Screwed the pooch, Liam. Fucked up royally. I didn’t want the bitch, I wanted the bastard!” He shoved the yellow back. Edgar sprouted scales, a terrible mottled green color to cover his gray skin. He took the Slayer Blade and stabbed himself through his side. He didn’t want to put it down. He stuck it into his own body to hold onto it.