Red Hot Dragons Steamy 10 Book Collection

by Lisa Daniels

  Meridas appeared equally flummoxed by the apparent organization. “May I… ask your name… sir?”

  “Perryn,” the man said with a little smile. He also had a musical accent, unfamiliar to Evelyn’s ears. “I take it from the captain’s reaction and yours that you have never visited Leavenport before?”

  Meridas and Janus shook their heads mutely, wary, fully aware that if one man could so casually land upon their ship, many more could swarm them in moments. Evelyn caught the smaller forms of other air witches flocking around arriving ships.

  “We’ve never, uh,” Eswick said, clearing his throat, “been to Zamorka before.”

  Perryn’s slack-jawed mouth hung open in a little o. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise! We don’t get many of your type over here.” His green eyes raked the dark-haired, dark-eyed, and darker-skinned crew with some admiration. “No wonder there is so much black hair in your crew! Your colorings are very rare here. Our people would find you exotic, with your accents, and your beautiful dark hair.”

  “Yes,” Eswick said, his brown eyes narrowed in concentration. Evelyn wasn’t sure if she liked Perryn’s observation of them. “We have heard… adverse things about Zamorka.”

  The air witch nodded sagely. “Yes, I know as such. You’ll be safe in Leavenport, and the coastal towns and cities. You don’t want to be heading to the center. That’s where the wild magic is.”

  “Wild magic?” This time one of the scholars spoke. She held a pencil and was eagerly scribbling down every word said. She was huddled in blue robes, and had very short black hair.

  “We can explain more of that later,” he said to her with a faint smile, “if part of your intention of staying at Leavenport is to collect information about wild magic.”

  All in all, the interaction with the Zamorkan witch went absolutely nothing like Evelyn had ever dreamed. They declared they were staying for information-gathering and repairs, estimating a month, maximum, of time, depending on how successful their information-gathering was, and to explore Leavenport, possibly beyond. They were given a dock number, and their ship was able to park near the bottom of the huge docking platform, completely covering one side where normally three smaller ships might have been able to settle in.

  It felt so strange, observing so many air witches casually drifting through the city, some of them even responsible for steering smaller vehicles that could only host a few people at a time. In the Undercity and the Six Isles, they limited flying to only going between above and below, and for the skyship expeditions, because they didn’t have that many air witches. But here, magic was… commonplace.

  However, what wasn’t commonplace, apparently, were the two dragons in their midst, and the life witch. Leavenport had its own scholars, who flocked around Meridas, Janus, and Alex incessantly. Since no one wanted to offend their current magical hosts, they agreed to most of the demands given to them, such as staying in a hotel, allowing themselves to be interviewed, and promising not to go into the wild magic without a thorough understanding of it first.

  Janus seemed to be stressing at all the sidetracking. He obviously wanted their problem back home to be solved as soon as possible, and all this to him merely served as a distraction. If she had been closer to him, she could probably have comforted and assured him, but instead, she just awkwardly sidled up to him just outside the hotel they were presented at, and said, “Don’t worry too much. It may seem like we’re wasting time now, but this should save us time and lives in the long run. Remember, we thought we were going into wild lands. No one expected to find a civilization living and thriving.”

  He gave her a wry smile in return. “I understand that, logically. But I can’t help but feel like we’re wasting time all the same.”

  She wondered if she should do something comforting, like pat him on the back. Would that seem condescending? Like she was trying too hard? Would he even welcome it? She settled instead for holding his shoulder for a couple of seconds. The only other person who seemed even more nervous than Janus was Meridas, who kept glancing around as if expecting them to be assassinated at any moment. “It feels a little strange to me to see so many air witches. And male ones. Why d’you think we don’t have male ones back in the Six Isles?”

  “Simple,” a low voice drawled behind them. They whirled to see a tall, ghost-white male with gray-white hair staring at them through hooded eyes. Barely any muscle seemed to complement his wasted appearance. “The male magic is recessive. If a Zamorkan man mixes with anyone not Zamorkan, any males born to him will have little chance of power. It can happen. It’s just very rare. Zamorkan females, however, are dominant in their genes. The magic originates with them. They say one single woman went deep into the wild magic, and returned with power so vast that it could blot out the sun.” He seemed to be enjoying his unasked-for history lesson to them.

  “Would this be the Red Woman?” Janus asked, and the man blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting the outlanders to know anything about Zamorkan history.

  “Yes. She lived for hundreds of years and had many children, before vanishing to distant lands.” He squinted his eyes suspiciously at them. “One might ask if your trip here has anything to do with the Red Woman.”

  “Yes,” Janus said, while Meridas, now eavesdropping, let out a soft groan. People passed them, many stopping to gape openly at their crop of dark hairs. Seemed people from the Undercity and the Six Isles were really rare. As for Zamorkan colors, they went from blond to red to sheer white. “That’s part of the main reason we’re here.”

  “He might be the enemy,” Meridas hissed between clenched teeth, after dragging Janus away from the stranger. The stranger, however, appeared to hear perfectly.

  “I assume the Conclave’s been giving you issues,” he said. “We have much to discuss, it seems.”

  “Who are you?” Janus asked, while Meridas made an ominous hissing noise in the back of his throat, which was noticed by Alex.

  “Someone interested in stopping the Conclave as much as you,” he replied. He handed something to Janus, bowed, then walked away, ignoring their calls for him to return. The paper he handed showed an address and a time. Tomorrow at seven. The Doppelganger Inn.

  Well, Evelyn thought. This whole situation got weirder and weirder.

  Chapter Six – Janus

  Trouble could wait. Right now, Janus wanted to spend time unwinding, and pretending he wasn’t nearly as stressed as he was. Which proved hard, given that the Creeping Rot threat trickled in the back of his mind like a sandglass running out of granules. Any moment, Ruthen Island’s core might become infected, initiating mass evacuations. By the time they made it back, it might be entirely possible that every single island had fallen, and the Creeping Rot had instead spread through the Undercity populace, leaving them with no thriving country to return to.

  And now they were staying in some unknown city, with everyone being poked and prodded by far more powerful hosts. Currently, Janus sat in the atrium of the hotel in his serpent form, and Zamorkans were pouring in by the dozen, exclaiming in delight at the sight of a long, white dragon curled up, with huge feathery wings furled into himself. He just wanted the excuse to shift, because emotions became duller in dragon form, and it was easier to regard everything in a logical manner. Not to say he couldn’t feel emotions. Dragons certainly could panic and rage. But right now, in the shafts of sunlight that streamed from the open top of the atrium, filtering through some of the greenery lining the tiered floors, he could relax.

  And let the Zamorkans treat him like some kind of exotic exhibit. Two red-haired children darted in close to his snout, giggling. Out of detached amusement, he unfurled his forked tongue and licked one of them all up the body, and the little boy fell back, squealing, while their friends behind them laughed.

  His parents would be furious to see him here now. Wasting time. Sitting here, doing nothing, when he could be using that spare time constructively, towards something that earned money, reputation, or luxury.


  When Evelyn strode into the atrium from the far-left entrance into his vision, with her black hair bouncing, her long, yellow dress rippling like the winds she controlled, and her dark eyes so large that they seemed like windows to the soul, he shifted back into human form.

  Much to the disappointment of the Zamorkan children, who had apparently been daring each other to try and climb onto his back. What was it about Evelyn that fascinated him, exactly? Perhaps her calm demeanor. Perhaps that she didn’t seem too open to talking about herself. Sure, he knew about her family and the expectations heaped upon her, but about her, personally?

  Not enough. “What are you doing here?” he said by way of greeting, brushing down his collared button shirt. Transforming with clothes required a little more energy, but was worth the effort of expending, since he didn’t want people seeing him walk around naked.

  “Looking for you,” she said frankly. “Luckily you weren’t hard to find. You’ve got the local population hysterical with happiness at the thought of encountering a dragon. Nice form, by the way.” She flicked him a smile, which he returned more thinly.

  “Well, we must do everything in our power to make our hosts enjoy our time spent here,” he said, walking towards her and holding out an arm imperiously. A tiny surge of delight shot through him when she looped her arm with his, but he kept his expression neutral as they walked over to the atrium’s bar, laden with drinks and foods, including a selection of sandwich fillings in metal containers, and cakes. “I’m not too keen on the idea of irritating thousands of witches.”

  “Me neither,” Evelyn said. “They all act oblivious, though, when I ask them what they know about whoever could have dragged us into the black forest.”

  “I doubt they’re ready to give up all their secrets,” he said, now pausing at the stand, so they could select the food they wanted. She opted for some kind of vegetable filling, he went for beef and cheese, which they wrapped up in foil and placed on top of a grill with flames flickering underneath. They continued their relaxed conversation, and Janus found himself imagining how his parents would have reacted if he’d brought her home to see them. Didn’t matter they were dead. It felt… nice, somehow, to picture them alive and healthy, meeting for the first time someone he… liked? Did he like her?

  He pursed his lips, watching her eat her sandwich. Enough, it seemed, to, well, picture his mother barking at Evelyn, asking about her background and her family.

  “Yes, yes, I’ve spoken to your mother in court. Very good woman. Tad on the poor side, but nothing we can’t fix. Heard you’re a renowned air witch. Best in the Six Isles. Yes, my son here’s been talking about you...”

  “What are you thinking about?” Evelyn asked, interrupting his thoughts and the heavy weight on his lips as they curved upwards, but without happiness.

  “I was… just thinking about how my mother would have reacted to you. If I introduced you to her.”

  Her dark eyes softened. “Ah. That explains the sad smile, then.” She wiped her mouth, giving him a knowing one in return. “Lady Ruthe scared me, honestly, the few times I did see her.”

  “Yeah, she would have,” Janus replied, now warring with some conflicting emotions within. Something deep and hollow opened up somewhere in his guts, and it gnawed away, leaving a kind of… depression afterward. He chewed on his melted cheese and beef roll, hoping the tastes might divert him from too much dwelling.

  They hadn’t deserved to go out like that. After all their hard work, their time improving Ruthen Island to be one of the most powerful of the Six Isles, second only to the king’s isle itself—and they’d died. They would have been childless as well, if not for the orphaned dragon boy they adopted after the fall of Serpent Isle.

  “We needed an heir,” his new father had explained quite candidly to Janus. “And out of all the children we could have picked, we wanted one to be a dragon. Something old and noble and powerful to take the place of the child we could never have.”

  In an attempt to ignore the wallowing emptiness in his gut region, he dredged words out of his throat. “I do think she would have liked you. The same might not be said of you to her. I could think of worse women to show to her, though.” He crept out a hand towards her, wondering if she’d take the bait or just watch it like it was some kind of alien creature moving across the table.

  Her own hand went on top of his, the fingers lightly trailing his knuckles. “I do know that my own family, of course, would probably have a heart attack in their excitement if they knew I was personally associating with members of the Ruthe family. The only family above you in status, I think, is the royals. Which is a shame. I wouldn’t mind if you were dirt poor. It’d be amusing listening to my mother attempt to be nice but not quite hide her disapproval at my life choices.”

  “You live to aggravate your parents, do you?” he replied, smiling. Her hand felt so warm on top of his.

  “Who doesn’t?” she grinned, before doing an overly dramatic roll of her eyes. “At least yours didn’t make you feel like a cow fattened for slaughter, did they?”

  “Fattened, perhaps,” he said, flipping his palm upward and stroking the underside of her own hand. She reacted with a tiny shiver, which in turn zapped something through his own stomach that somewhat abated the hollowness inside.

  “You know, at this rate, you might be the one to break the terms of the bet,” she said, lips parting slightly so that the tip of her tongue could be seen resting over her bottom teeth. “If you’re going to continue to get this friendly.”

  “It’s not my fault you allow me to be this friendly,” he replied, not ceasing in his stroking motion upon her. He noticed little hairs on her arm raising slightly, and inhaled deeply to catch that windblown scent of hers. “But perhaps an unknown city isn’t the best place to continue… exploring the limits of our bet.”

  “Who cares?” She grabbed his hand hard. “I sure as damnation don’t know what’s happening tomorrow or the next day. Maybe we should go right now and explore our new rooms. See if they’re… up to standard.”

  “Sure,” he said with a confident smirk. “But I’d like to finish my food first.”

  * * *

  If nothing else, the unknown city did have some beautifully designed suites. They enjoyed a dark brown and orange color scheme, with lush, patterned drawers, a wardrobe, and a dressing table for women. There was also an entrance to a small but opulent bathroom, with the tub connected to a boiler that heated up the water. Evelyn seemed quite taken with the red-sheeted, four-poster bed, and so was Janus—but for other reasons.

  He noted the way her attention kept flitting to the bed, and sometimes to his lips, as if daring him to kiss her. But no. He didn’t plan to be the one to lose this bet. But he did intend to see how far the two of them intended to go. Another useful thing the room had as well—and he’d checked discreetly in one of the drawers—condoms.

  How thoughtful of their hosts. “How far do you intend to go with me?” he asked her. Nothing wrong with being direct. She preferred directness herself, which Janus wasn’t always sure he appreciated.

  In response, she began to peel off that rippling dress of hers, as if casually planning to change into her pajamas.

  “Depends if you plan to do something about this, or if you’re going to just watch like an idiot,” she said, now checking the same drawers he had. “Hmm… I wonder if this happens to be their love suite or something?”

  “Have to make those baby Zamorkans somehow,” he said, though he couldn’t quite control the desire in his voice when looking at her. He expected to be the one in control of this situation, but it seemed Evelyn had other ideas.

  “Did I mention to you that it’s been a while…?” She patted at her white brassiere, with matching colored underwear. “What goods do you have hiding under those clothes?”

  “This.” Grinning, he popped the buttons off his own top, but kept his pants on. For now. He quickly checked himself out, trying not to make it obvious
, since he wanted to make sure he didn’t have anything out of place, or too much flab around his middle. Not that he needed to worry. Her eyes were wide and the pupils blown. He also didn’t hear any breathing from her. He allowed a confident smirk to plaster over his lips, before sauntering up to her and placing his hands upon the small of her back.

  That caused her to start breathing again, but faster, and he felt her blood thumping erratically under her skin as he pulled her close. Sure, they might be on a life-or-death mission in an unknown country. Sure, he might be killed at that place where the man wanted him and Meridas to go. There were far too many variables for him to adequately plan for, so he wanted to take control of at least something in his life.

  And with someone as attractive as this…. someone who certainly seemed to know her own mind, what she wanted, and who she wanted it from. That kind of confidence ignited a fire in him, a feeling to best her, somehow, in a field she enjoyed.

  And well… it’d be fun to see which one of them cracked first. He moved his hands up her body, sliding his fingers under the strap of her brassiere, but not sliding it off. He continued the tease, reveling in her warmth pressed against his chest, in how his growing erection prodded at his pants and against her stomach.

  Neither of them kissed. Both had their lips open in knowing smiles, but neither intended to be the one to lose the bet. He continued running his hands over her body, and relished every touch of her own hands. However, she got a little impatient, for her right palm slipped into his pants and grasped at his almost fully formed erection, clearly wanting to speed things up.