Red Hot Dragons Steamy 10 Book Collection

by Lisa Daniels

  Lightning lit the interior of their bungalow home, illuminating the sweet artifacts that had made it theirs and a home after all this time.

  “Really?” he laughed. “The way you were talking earlier, I thought you were going to go full Italian mama on me outside.”

  Her smile widened and she stared at him, wondering if he didn’t, in fact, know how to read her mind.

  “What?”

  “I’ll do the laundry at the pond for as long as I’m able,” she replied slowly.

  His brow furrowed, a look of concern covering his face.

  “Why wouldn’t you be able?”

  “Because at some point, I might have a hard time bending over,” she offered lightly, her pulse racing as she gauged his reaction.

  He didn’t immediately understand.

  “Why? What’s wrong? Are you sick?” he demanded and she giggled.

  “Not yet,” she sighed, putting her own hands over his face. “I want to have a baby, caro.”

  He gaped at her, his green eyes widening with shock.

  “A baby?” he gasped. “What?”

  They were not the words of endorsement she had been hoping for, but before she could recant her statement, his face split into a wide grin of excitement.

  “Of course!” he chortled. “It’s high time we started a family! How long have we been married now?”

  Relief flooded her bones and she laughed. Maybe one day they would find a way to make their marriage real too, but a baby was doable without arousing the attention of Interpol.

  “Yeah?” she asked but she could see he was just as excited for the prospect as she was. It had been weighing on her mind for a while, but of course the idea of having a child while they were on the run was ridiculous, wasn’t it?

  But if the danger had passed…

  “Hell, yes!” Luca laughed, yanking her into a hug. “Of course! I can’t think of anything I want more than to have a baby with you, Teresa.”

  They separated long enough to share a lingering, sweet kiss. When they parted, she looked up at him with twinkling eyes.

  “Maybe we should get you out of these wet clothes,” she murmured and he nodded eagerly.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We have work to do.”

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  The Dragon's Air Witch

  Six Isles’ Witches and Dragons

  Book 2

  By: Lisa Daniels

  Prologue – Serpent Isle’s Fall

  Janus Argent lost his parents two days ago. They resisted the disease for as long as they could, but no cure waited for them. The one thing they insisted upon, however, was getting him out before he, too, became infected.

  Now he stood on the deck of a skyship, watching as his home plummeted into darkness. Everything he’d ever known, everything he ever cared about, lost to that horrible illness that destroyed his family.

  He did nothing but cry himself to sleep for those two days. But now he watched the floating island fall with dry eyes, the skin around his face raw from all the tears.

  Whatever happened next, he knew one thing needed to happen above all else. He needed to stop this illness. He didn’t know how, or if it was even possible, but it had to be halted. Because if he felt this much pain upon losing everything to that awful thing—then he imagined others feeling that same pain.

  Suffering.

  Maybe they all felt like he did. Angry because of what was taken from them. Determined to do something about it.

  Their ship drifted away in the darkness after some time. He didn’t want to be with the others who watched their home fall. He didn’t want to see their tears and feel their pain. He had quite enough of it by himself. The adults told him he’d have a new family to take him in. That he needn’t worry about being alone for long, because people would help him.

  He didn’t want a new family. He just wanted to be left alone.

  No one could replace his parents.

  No one.

  Chapter One –Twenty-Five Years After Serpent Isle’s Fall – Evelyn

  Evelyn hoped no one would ever take the skies away from her. As job occupations went, she could certainly do worse than her current one. For a start, she got to live in the Six Isles, far above the sprawling, grubby Undercity that lay in the floating islands’ shadows. And there was something soothing about having her face to the skies, with the wind caressing her body, as she directed it to move the skyship through the currents.

  The Cloudstalker was a fine old ship, with more than thirty years of service, exchanged between four different captains. She had wanted to find out the ship’s history, from humble beginnings as a barge for ferrying people from below to above, to a merchant ship, trading with isolated floating islands of people who lived so far above that they only functioned on a fraction of the air others were used to. Surviving populations had long since had an air witch’s magic sustain them, otherwise they wouldn’t be around to trade today.

  Now their little trading group returned from Sitting Cloud, laden with exotic animals and furs. She sat in her little wooden shelter, wrapped up in the warmest furs money could buy, directing the winds into five white sailcloths: three masts, two side wings, which usually the rudder took care of for some easier direction turning, requiring minimal effort to push the ship through the air, thus allowing her to focus instead on keeping the oxygen and pressure bubble around their ship stable. Birds chittered, with their colorful plumages flashing from the cages she could just about see, tucked underdeck next to the stairs that led down.

  “Reckon we should make a tidy fortune with this lot,” Reginald, the captain, said with the kind of voice that carried miles out. Evelyn gave him a smile, keeping her magic operations running in the back of her mind. “We need to stop trading in perishable fruits and vegetables, though. I’ve been losing profit with long runs for those, even with the advanced prices they go for with the nobility.” He folded his heavy, sleeved gray arms. His captain’s helmet was lined with fur and attached like a hood to his jacket, which was covered in a kind of wax to make it waterproof—a blessing if they went through rainclouds.

  “Not many people are willing to go to the little people’s places,” Evelyn said, knowing she sounded arrogant, but convinced of her own ability. “Not many air witches are capable of the endurance it requires. Because they don’t know how to conserve their magic effectively.”

  Reginald smiled, brown eyes sad. “Well… the skies know you’re fantastic with this ship. I just… well… wish this wouldn’t be your last run with us.”

  Evelyn’s expression soured. “I don’t blame you. I’d do it as well.” A part of her still felt bitter he’d agreed, all the same.

  Turned out a witch of her talents had something very keen to buy her off the crew. To the point where the buyer offered sums of money beyond anything they were accustomed to making with several years of hard work. It made sense. The people of the Cloudstalker weren’t getting any younger. Some of them were slower with their reactions in attending to the little emergencies a ship might encounter during long-distance travel. Some wanted retirement, and Evelyn’s former friend, a deckhand by the name of Ufus, had long since decided sailing wasn’t for him.

  “We had to get one last little island run,” he said. “As a… tribute. It will be strange not to see you here.” His eyes traced the etched patterns in the wood around Evelyn. Badly drawn pictures of sky dragons and ships and clouds, with a gradual improvement in them over time. “But I’m sure your parents and grandparents will be delighted.”

  “They are,” Evelyn said, now tugging out a black snarl of hair from her scalp and letting it drift into the currents. “They’re all happy that one of the six noble families has hired me. They’ve already moved location, and when I meet them, they do nothing but babble incessantly about how wonderful their new houses are, how I’ve brought such honor upon them.”

  Her mo
uth twisted. Not like they’d earned any of it themselves, but they gained the rewards of her hard efforts anyway. She was the one who had learned magic, who had discovered her gift for it. She was the one who had to listen to them prattle on about how her purpose was to honor the family, while they spent all their time undercutting taxes and being paid under the table. She was the one who spent sometimes weeks on ships, carefully managing her power through storms and ice sleets and chaos, keeping the crew alive. Then there was that mysterious death of her uncle, the rich one, and the subsequent squabbling of five family members who wanted the money for themselves.

  They deserved nothing. But the rules of the Six Isles dictated that ten percent of her earnings went to her immediate family’s bank anyway.

  She supposed it made sense on a level, though. And she did enjoy her job. It just… it would be nice not to feel like some kind of trade commodity herself.

  All too soon, they touched down upon Dasen Island, ready to unload all the goods. Ready to hand her over to a new, unfamiliar ship, and a new master. At the docks, they were already rooting through the paperwork, and when she got off, she had to watch as her captain formally signed her over and received a writ of money—ensuring the deal was completed.

  People she’d been familiar with—Old Janker and Macius—everyone who’d been sailing the Cloudstalker for decades, waved her goodbye. Reginald gave her a hug, too, with his big bear arms, and her last payment for running with him in a little pouch. Evelyn wondered if the new air witch would get on with the crew so well, or if she’d even be capable of long-distance travels.

  Her new masters strode up to her. They were a strange, motley group. Two men from noble families—ones who could shift into dragons. Meridas Dasenson, tall and solid in his own right. Responsible for putting forth mechanisms to halt the Creeping Rot, a disease that devastated magic users.

  Then there was the hard-faced witch behind him with short dark hair and a streak of yellow in it. Alex of the Undercity. The little prodigy, the Life Witch, servant of Meridas. The third one, Evelyn recognized with a start of surprise, even fright.

  Janus Ruthe. A noble from Ruthen Isle.

  I knew I was being hired by Meridas… but why is he here?

  Ruthen Isle was well known as a high-tax nightmare. Anyone planning to trade there needed to pay ridiculous fees, yet those on Ruthen were the only ones who traded in certain goods in the Six Isles. The kind of goods that destroyed people’s lives down in the Undercity, and that a few of the upper class took until their own destructions. Yet this son of one of the richest families in the Isles was standing here, clearly a part of the group picking her up.

  “Greetings,” Meridas said, sticking out a hand for her to shake. She took it dubiously, not feeling a particular inclination to be friendly. “I’m Meridas. This is Alex. This is Janus. Glad to have you on board.”

  “Thanks,” Evelyn said, swallowing down her impulse to snap at him. “I’ve heard about your exploits. I’ve also heard about… you.” Her gaze slid to Alex.

  The life witch’s mouth twitched upwards, though it appeared condescending. “I’ve heard about you, too. Apparently, you’re one of the best for long-distance traveling in the Six Isles.”

  This Alex clearly had the mannerisms of the Undercity, yet Evelyn found her attitude now slightly more interesting. She had a faint trace of the boroughs in her accent. “You heard that, did you? Glad to know some people are paying attention to me.”

  “You had the highest marks in the practical exams. My tutor’s showing me all the witches who were trained up here. Meridas, here, meanwhile, was seeing who he could buy out of the sky…” Alex raised her eyebrows at Meridas, who gave a rather guilty-sounding cough, in Evelyn’s opinion.

  “You’re about to have a wonderful time with us,” Alex continued, still wearing a wry smile upon her face. “You get to come with us to Zamorka.”

  Blinking rapidly, Evelyn’s brain refused to register what she’d just heard.

  “What?”

  “That was my reaction, too,” Janus said from next to her.

  Zamorka? The place across the sea where demons and curses originated?

  That Zamorka? “You’re joking, right? We’re not traveling there.”

  “Unfortunately, we are.” Alex rubbed behind her ear. “Time to find out if those rumors have any weight behind them, I suppose.”

  Chapter Two – Janus

  He hated having to go to other people to ask for help. Janus enjoyed the reputation Ruthen Isle generated. Intolerant of the lazy. Hard workers who managed to scrimp and scrape from a beginning of nothing to wealth and riches. While people like Meridas lived comfortably under the wings of their relatives, even with the fall of Serpent Isle, he had nothing. He’d been a ward to the childless Gevard Ruthe instead, and Gevard had him working from day one.

  At least, until a few months ago.

  When it all went wrong.

  It’d been galling to even ask for help, but Meridas and his little life witch were the only ones on board with the whole situation. The only ones actively trying to stop the Creeping Rot from killing them, and to find a way to make sure it never re-emerged. The thought of approaching Meridas in the court still burned a sense of humiliation in him. People seeing it with their own eyes. The proud son of Ruthen Isle, crawling to someone else for assistance.

  But sky take them all. His pride wasn’t worth more loss.

  Though he’d been tempted just to let it all slip past him, anyway.

  Right now, he and Meridas walked outside to inspect the brand-new ship lodged in the sky port. It stood out, even among the other vessels. Most vessels were smaller and had much less storage space under the deck. The Elegant looked like it’d comfortably house a crew of twenty for many weeks—which, coincidentally, would be the size they planned to take with them. “Thanks for helping us fund the trip,” Meridas said with his hands tucked into his pockets. “Even with the data we’ve collected about the Creeping Rot so far, many people have an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude. Even less actually want to attempt what we’re planning...”

  “I have half a mind not to agree to what you’re planning, either,” Janus said, examining the Elegant’s sleek, black exterior and five sails with an appreciative eye. “But it’s equally obvious that unless we do something to break the pattern of disaster we’re seeing, then at some point, there won’t be six islands. There’ll be craters in the Undercity instead.”

  “You don’t strike me as someone who cares about that,” Meridas said lightly, watching a crew member scuttle onboard with a crate of food. “Your island doesn’t really carry a reputation of warmth.”

  “Yes, well… generally we don’t have people dropping dead,” Janus said. He closed his eyes, seeing his adoptive father and mother both lying in bed together, refusing to be separated. His adoptive father screaming at him to leave, before he got infected as well.

  That image haunted him, because he remembered one other set of parents who didn’t want him infected, either.

  He hadn’t forgotten that promise he made to himself back then. And watching the Ruthes succumb to the same accursed disease made him yet more adamant to do something. To do whatever it took.

  Janus needed a way to fix the mess before it got worse.

  “I am, at least, self-interested enough not to want another island to fall,” Janus said with a tight smile. “My fortunes are there. And you’re the only one offering to do something about it.”

  “True,” Meridas said. “I was most surprised when you threw all that money at me, though.”

  “I thought it might grab your attention.”

  Truthfully, he’d wanted to buy the life witch off Meridas, but a few well-placed spies told him that they were a couple. Meridas wouldn’t sell his lover for anything. Plus, one little life witch couldn’t bring back the dead or heal all the rapidly dying magic users in time. No, they needed preventive measures. And this… trip, ludicrous as it was, might provide ans
wers they sorely needed.

  Or kill them all.

  “At least we’ll be in relative comfort when we travel. This is a fine ship of yours, Janus.”

  “I doubt we’ll keep it for very long, given where we’re going,” Janus said with a snort. “Doesn’t help that half the crew are scholars. People who haven’t seen a day of physical work in their lives.”

  “That’s because their work is with the mind,” Meridas said rather dryly, but didn’t make any real effort to contradict him. “With a life witch on board, we hope that if anyone does fall sick, she’ll be able to tend to them fast enough with such a small crew. And we have two air witches in our crew, both renowned for their long-distance skills.”

  “What about their fighting?”

  At this, Meridas shrugged. “I’m the dragon, here. I’ll do the fighting.”

  “Not alone, you won’t,” Janus said with a grin. “And I bet I’ll fight a cursing sight better than you, you overpainted fop.”

  A noise behind them caused their attention to shift elsewhere, and they turned to see the brand-new hire, the surly-looking air witch with long, curly black hair and eyes the color of coals. She did have a rather striking manner about her, and that hair of hers seemed to explode in thick curls—more volume in it than he’d ever seen in his entire life.

  “Fancy-looking ship,” she said in her cultured voice, wrapping around her like the winds she controlled. “And much bigger than my former one. Can’t be more than a year old, surely?”

  “The last of the wooden timbers were placed just four months ago,” Janus said, nodding towards her. “It was intended to be a family traveling ship, but we ended up losing a few members of said family. Might as well use it for something else.”

  “Oh, hmm.” She blinked rapidly at his statement. “Right. I knew about the, uh, blockade to Ruthen Island, but not why...”

  “Now you know.”

  The dark-robed woman stepped up the gangplank onto the huge ship, clearly intending to inspect it. Janus and Meridas followed, observing as she went to the air witch alcove, complete with a small chamber for the off-duty witch to sleep in, and the finest, softest seating arrangements, along with a shelf of books and a small service bell if she wanted to get food or drink without leaving the confines of the alcove. Crew members bowed to Janus, though he knew none of them—he only paid an accountant, who then filtered the money to the hired crew. The captain was supposed to be some rugged expert that his father had trusted, but since he didn’t really travel on skyships, he didn’t have a lot of interaction with said captain.