Dragons and Magic

by Blair Babylon

  Every other part of her body, however, wanted him.

  Oh God, he was going to pull away, or laugh at her, or be disgusted by what she was doing. He probably didn’t think of her that way. This was probably just a working relationship for him, and she was nothing more to him than any other maid who was cleaning up the room.

  She’d blown it.

  Bethany opened her eyes, her lips still sealed around Math’s thumb, terrified of what expression she was going to find on his face. She looked up.

  The magic flowing in the golden irises of his eyes cycled faster. His lips parted, and he was breathing harder.

  He wasn’t laughing at her.

  His other hand, the one already near the back of her neck, reached farther into her hair. He crumpled a handful of her thick hair into his fist, and using where he grabbed her as leverage, he rocked her head forward to take more of his thumb into her mouth.

  Bethany closed her eyes. A small moan escaped her throat as the warm meat of his thumb slid on her tongue.

  She couldn’t help herself, and she hummed in her throat, moaning with wanting more of him.

  He pushed her head forward again, shoving his thumb deeper into her mouth and rubbing her tongue.

  When she opened her eyes again, he was watching where his thumb was slipping into her mouth, staring as if mesmerized.

  When he caught her watching him, the molten gold in his irises ran faster, and he popped his thumb out of her mouth and wrenched her head up to look at him.

  His lips crashed on her mouth, and her lips were already open for him when he thrust his tongue inside to tangle with hers.

  One of his hands still grasped her hair in his fist, but his other palm and fingers slid down her neck, over the swell of her breasts, and to her waist to wrap around her and draw her body against his.

  Bethany splayed her fingers on his chest, exploring the contours of his heavy pectorals and rounded shoulders through the thin fabric of his shirt, just as she’d suspected he was hiding under those trim suits he wore. He kissed her thoroughly, lips and tongue caressing hers until she gasped for breath and was pulling at his collar, trying to unbutton the tiny buttons of his dress shirt. When she couldn’t make her fingers work, she yanked at his shirt to pull it out of his pants.

  Math broke off the kiss and pressed her hand against his chest, stopping her. He rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. His eyes were closed, but his arm still wrapped around her waist, crushing her against him. Her elbows were trapped between their two bodies, and the heavy muscles of his chest expanded as he breathed.

  Math whispered, “How old are you, Bethany?”

  “Twenty-two.” She was pretty sure she was right.

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her body thrummed at a fever-pitch with wanting him, and it was a good thing he was holding her wrists in his huge hand. Otherwise, she might have tried to tear his clothes off of him again.

  She shifted toward him, leaning so that her thighs pressed against his muscular legs, and her stomach was against the hard flatness of his torso.

  Except that his stomach wasn’t entirely flat.

  A ridge ran up his stomach under his clothes, evidence of his desire for her.

  Well, at least this wasn’t one-sided. Bethany smiled.

  “So young,” Math sighed.

  “You’re not much older than I am. You can’t be older than twenty-five.”

  “I’m forty-two. Dragons live a long time. Aging slows. Didn’t they teach you that in Magical Biology or Supernatural Sciences?”

  “No.” Frustration welled up in her, that he’d stopped, that she hungered for him and couldn’t have him. “Twenty-two is not that young. I’ve done this before. You are not taking advantage of me.”

  He lifted his head away from her. A rueful smile softened his words. “You’ve kissed your boss before?”

  Bethany flipped her head back, frustration sparking into anger. “No! Of course not!”

  His hand on her back stroked her spine slowly, soothing her. “Of course you haven’t. It’s a spectacularly bad idea.”

  “It didn’t feel like a bad idea,” she muttered.

  “That’s the problem with bad ideas. They always seem like great ideas at the time.”

  She forced her arms to relax, and she pulled away from him. “I should get started on that fountain.”

  “See, that sounds like a good idea, but I think it’s a bad idea. I think you should wait to begin working on that fountain. You should rest before you try it again, and don’t stand too close to it.” His arms dropped away from her, and he stood and stepped back. “I think you should wait until tomorrow morning.”

  “Will you be there?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately, tomorrow morning is booked with yet another meeting to determine just how much money is missing from the casino accounts.”

  Dammit. “That must be awful, that someone mismanaged your money so badly.”

  “We think it’s worse than that. We think someone is stealing, and if there’s anything a dragon hates, it’s a thief stealing from their hoard.”

  Not in Her Favor

  THE next morning, Bethany stood in front of the fountain, ready to nail her scrubbing spell to the wall.

  The algae-infested fountain boiled slimy gas eruptions into the air like it knew she was coming for it, but she stood farther back this time. If her obituary read, “Murdered by Stinky, Dirty Water,” she would literally die of embarrassment.

  Yes, literally.

  Yes, Bethany had thought that, and she meant it.

  Literally.

  Because sometimes witches came back as liches if the moon and spells were right, and then they had to die again.

  Usually of embarrassment because of something literally like this.

  Bethany resolved that such a mortifying thing was not going to happen to her.

  So, she had her spellcasting notes, her conjuring paper and inks, and a shot of liquid courage in her orange juice that morning.

  After all, her boss wasn’t going to be around. No one was going to know if she was just the slightest bit tipsy on the job.

  Bethany sucked in her breath, raised her ink brush, and dipped it in the pot of black ink.

  Spirals and runes took shape on the paper as she worked, muttering and singing the spells under her breath. The ink pots dipped and were hovering where she needed them when she needed a new color of ink.

  The incantation formed. The power rose within her and funneled onto the paper.

  She could do this. It was all just attitude. Ember was totally right.

  A positive mindset was all she needed.

  She believed that she could make the strongest, suckiest, most voracious algae-eating plecostomus fish in the history of algae-eaters to eat that algae to death.

  She believed it.

  In apparitional spellcasting, you had to name what you wanted because names were powerful magic.

  Rhyming the word plecostomus hadn’t been easy, but she’d worked in “Plecostomus, come flock to us, if it pleases you more,” to draw the algae-sucking fish out of the magical ether.

  Apparitions are notorious sticklers for politeness, so formal language is customary in spells.

  “Look, madam. See, sir. Pence and pennies for your trouble, pounds and dollars for your time.” She drew copper circles on the paper, then stylized loops to symbolize mounds of gold, all of them contained within a circle of arcane runes. “Take shape, acquire form, if you hear my rhyme.”

  The spell was done. The runes looked right.

  Confidence infused her, and she stood straighter as she released the magic from her body and soul with a great rush of breath.

  The paper lifted off from her fingertips, and everything looked good.

  It floated out to the middle of the fountain.

  Bethany could have sworn that coagulated lumps in the sludge followed the progress of the paper drifting through the air.

  Sh
e held her hands aloft, feeding the spell from her power, drawing magic from the ether and the ley lines of the Earth and Cosmos, imbuing the spell with every ounce of magical strength she had.

  She was going to need another fortified orange juice after this. Maybe a protein bar. Or carbo-loading.

  But these algae-suckers were going to be hungry and huge, and they were going to clean this murderous fountain until it was as shiny as a freaking crystal orb.

  The incantation paper spun over the fountain, drawing beams of magic from the sky and ground, and formed a sphere.

  Yes, it was working.

  Magic flowed through Bethany.

  Quite a lot of magic.

  A really huge amount of magic surged from the ground and scraped the ether, generating enormous bolts of energy.

  No.

  No, the spell was getting too big.

  The spinning orb shivered and spun above the fountain as the vast quantities of magic poured into it.

  Bethany planted her feet and leaned against the hurricane, trying to rein the spell in before it did something she hadn’t planned.

  The orb flung itself apart into six gigantic forms.

  Long, slithering bodies glistened in the desert sunlight as they dropped into the grotesque water with sloppy splashes.

  Bethany gasped.

  Those were not plecostomus fish.

  They weren’t fish at all.

  One of them reared its enormous, red-scaled head out of the fountain’s pool and grinned at her with a mouthful of white, terrifying fangs.

  Those were sea serpents.

  Bethany had conjured sea serpents.

  A small part of her brain was pretty darn impressed with the fact that she’d conjured a legendary-class apparition, but a much larger part of her brain was freaking out because there were sea monsters in the casino’s fountain.

  And the angel investors were due to arrive in two weeks.

  She had to get the sea monsters out of the fountain before Math saw them. She had to send them back to the ether and summon some plecostomus algae-eaters tomorrow. There was no way she would have enough magic in her for another spell today.

  Bethany flipped open her conjuring pad and tried drawing a new spell, but the ink pots had run dry, a metaphor for the fact that she’d drained herself conjuring sea serpents.

  A bright green serpent flung itself out of the water, breaching like a whale, and splashed down into the slimy ooze with a slurp.

  Bethany stepped back.

  A scarlet serpent leaped into the air and dove after the green one, its maw gaping open, teeth shining in the sunlight. Mossy tendrils hung from the row of ebony spines running down its back.

  The two serpents coiled around each other, fighting and roaring. Their screams blasted through the air.

  “No!” Bethany ran toward the fountain, hands outstretched. “No, no! Stop fighting! No fighting!”

  The sea monsters writhed in the slimy pond, struggling mightily.

  “Stop that!” she shouted at them.

  Two more serpents lunged into the fray, and the other two swam around the melee, hissing and looking for an opening to attack the others.

  Bethany jumped up on one of the fountain’s retaining walls and yelled, “I said, stop that!”

  Feeble sparks shot from her palms.

  And hit the sea monsters.

  Which got their attention.

  They flinched and turned toward her—eyes rolling, teeth flashing and snapping—and swam toward her.

  “Holy magic!” She jumped off the concrete wall and ran.

  They couldn’t get out of the water. They were sea serpents. If she ran beyond their reach, she would be safe.

  Bethany poured all her energy into her legs and sprinted as fast as she could.

  Splashing slapped the concrete behind her.

  Bethany chanced a look over her shoulder.

  The sea serpents had crawled out of the fountain and were rolling over the cement, using their coils and tails like tanks to chase her.

  She leaned forward and ran, yelling “Math!”

  The serpents’ scales crunched on the cement, grinding together with a mechanical shriek as they rolled. Their red eyes glared as they pursued.

  They were gaining on her, fast.

  Bethany screamed, “Math! Help me!” and ran as fast as she could, pistoning her legs and arms.

  Ahead of her, Math was sprinting out of the casino doors. His eyes widened as he looked past her. “Bethany! Get down! Dive!”

  Bethany jumped for the ground, rolling.

  Math leaped into the air, his body snapping apart.

  An enormous, golden dragon took his place and flew over her, its wings sparkling and beating the air.

  Bethany tumbled on the cement and skidded to a stop. She looked back.

  The nearest sea monster reached for her with a long, floppy tentacle. The tip of it lashed her ankle, stinging her like a jellyfish. “Ouch!”

  The gold dragon landed between her and the serpent, flapping its wings and towering over the sea monsters, who cowered. Its black-gold talons sliced the jellyfish arm still flipping at Bethany and trying to sting her again as she scrambled backward. The dismembered limb writhed on the cement.

  The golden dragon trumpeted an enormous cacophony of sound like an elephant and a choir of angels, screaming.

  The sea monsters reared, blown back by the roar.

  The golden dragon released a precise stream of fire as narrow as a laser beam, swiping across the serpents. Where the fire struck their flailing bodies, steam hissed into the air and smelled like burnt fish.

  The serpents slithered back into the fountain as fast as their coils could carry them, slipping back into the muck with nary a ripple.

  The gold dragon roared again, his voice reverberating from the cement and glass casinos around them.

  Outside on the sidewalk, naturals strolled by with a disinterested glance at the noise because their minds would not process a golden dragon battling sea serpents on the Las Vegas Strip. A few wolfie types and a day-going vampire paused to watch the dragon before they looked around themselves and melted back into the pedestrian pace.

  The gold dragon folded its wings against its back and twisted, looking back at her.

  Dragons ate young maidens, didn’t they?

  The way that Math talked about his dragon made it sound like something other, something wild and unconstrained, not civilized like the man he was.

  Maybe Bethany should run.

  And yet—

  And yet this was Math Draco, the guy who thought making a move was patting a bed, who had given her a keycard to his room rather than drag her inside, and who had said before he kissed her that if she told him to, he would back up and walk away.

  Math wouldn’t hurt her.

  Bethany rose to her knees, then struggled to her feet, keeping her weight off the one that the sea serpent’s tentacle had stung.

  The wind whipped her dark hair around her head as she watched the dragon pad in a circle to turn and face her, his giant, eagle-taloned feet scraping the cement.

  Harsh sunlight gleamed on his skin, throwing shards of mirror-glare on the casino’s white façade.

  The dragon stalked toward her, its reptilian body swaying as it moved, beautiful and terrifying.

  Bethany stood her ground, hoping Math’s intelligence controlled the dragon that towered above her, blotting out the sun. Its cool shadow spread over the wide courtyard and stretched toward the casino, protecting her skin from the harsh sunlight.

  The dragon bent his long neck, peering down at her with his glittering, golden eyes.

  Bethany’s legs trembled.

  Maybe she should have run away when she’d had the chance.

  His head lowered toward her, trailing wisps of smoke from his nostrils.

  This was it. Bethany was going to be dragon lunch.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Her muscles clenched, and she hoped that getting chewed
wouldn’t hurt too much.

  Still a better death than being gassed by rogue algae slime. Less stinky.

  Sunlight warmed her face.

  Bethany opened her eyes.

  The dragon had laid its head on the cement beside her, stretched out. His legs were bent where he was crouching. He’d rolled his head to the side to watch her.

  His skull was the size of an SUV.

  Surviving another day seemed like a great idea, and she was glad it had happened.

  His gigantic head had softly overlapping scales, and his beaded skin was the glittering metal of Math’s eyes.

  She reached her arm straight out from her shoulder, settled her hand on his forehead, and stroked his scales.

  Yes, beaded skin. Her first impression had been correct. The dragon wasn’t scaly or slimy, but his beaded skin was warm to her touch.

  Tendrils of fire escaped his lips, curling in the warm sunlight. She kept her arm back from those, though the golden fire appeared magical, not ordinary.

  Her fingers wandered over his face and traced his pale horns that curved back over his head and neck. Hard muscle wrapped his neck and shoulders under his steel-woven skin. He was a machine built for flight and war.

  Bethany touched him with both hands, stroking him. “You are beautiful, aren’t you?”

  He was still watching her, though his eyelids drooped when she said that.

  Beyond his neck, his strong, lean body looked more like a well-balanced Komodo dragon than a pear-shaped Tyrannosaur, and his wings fit tightly against his spine and tail. Clear crystals like diamonds encrusted the delicate bones of his wings and lined his spine between them.

  She whispered, “I never realized dragons were so beautiful.”

  The dragon relaxed, his body settling closer to the ground, and his eyes closed.

  He flickered out of existence.

  She jumped back. “Math?”

  Math Draco, the man, was crouched on the cement, holding himself on his fingertips and toes. His tanned skin gleamed in the sun, not unlike his dragon’s skin.

  But there was a whole lot of skin.

  Because he was naked.

  Bethany got an eyeful of his strong, muscular shoulders and back that tapered to his slim waist, ripped thighs and striated calves, and dimples on the small of his back. A vibrant black and gold tattoo marked his right shoulder and curled down his back and around his ribs. When she craned her neck, she could see it was a winged, snake-like dragon.