Bonded to the Dragon: The Lick of Fire Collection: Dragon Lovers

by Lockharte, Kara

  “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  She kept looking at the scroll. “Are you offering to fight? There’s no need. This isn’t your battle. Shen always provide safe harbor for everyone, even guests of their enemies, so long as you don’t take up arms against them.”

  “Do you think I came here looking to be safe?”

  “What can you do that two dragons cannot?”

  I glanced out the window and saw the enemy lines, dotted with monsters and smoke.

  It was an army out there.

  Oddly enough, they didn’t scare me. I had chased death for so long, I had no fear of being hurt.

  Hairs rose on the back of my neck.

  Servitude and enslavement, on the other hand…

  “I hear it’s pretty damn hard to kill the Devourer. Also, I owe you for those trees. Really sorry about that.”

  I saw the moment Sophie remembered what I was. I saw a calculation take place. She had to protect her child, and here I was, offering myself. “It’s fine. But if you’re determined to help, I’m going to go out there and talk to my uncle. You can watch my back.”

  I had no idea how I would do that, but I would try. She opened one of the living-room ottomans and pulled out a big piece of wood that was far too long to have fit in the small rectangular space. “Here,” she said.

  “You want me to watch your back with a really big stick,” I said dubiously.

  “It’s an enchanted staff. So long as you’re holding it, you’ll be a ninja.”

  I dropped the staff to the ground. Sophie looked up at me in surprise.

  “Is it going to control my movements? I’ve been piloted before,” I said, thinking of the way the Devourer had taken over my body before I had died. “I don’t enjoy the experience.”

  “Right,” said Sophie, understanding in her eyes. I wondered how much Grant had told her about me. “It’s not like that. It will only do what it’s supposed to do if you let it. Just pick it up and say hello to it.”

  I stared at the staff on the ground, at the intricate vine-like carvings along its surface.

  “Do you have anything else?”

  “Are you an expert at hand-to-hand combat? A sniper? Military service perhaps?”

  “No.”

  “Then no.”

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

  Something thundered outside.

  Sophie placed her hand on her pregnant belly and looked away.

  Fuck it.

  I picked up the staff. “Hi. I’m Val. I don’t like letting anything take over my body, but if you’ll help me fight the bad guys, I’ll let you, so long as you give me back control later.”

  The staff glowed in my hands.

  “I think it agrees,” said Sophie.

  I felt like dropping the thing to the ground again. “Is it…alive?”

  “Think of it like another variant of artificial intelligence.”

  I watched her pull a shimmering gold cloth out of the ottoman. “Are you sure going out there is a good idea?”

  Sophie shook out the golden fabric, which smelled of lemons. “This is standard for a shen fight. You can’t fight without first insulting each other face-to-face in a parley, and then you fight.”

  It sounded like something out of a movie. “You trust him not to try to hurt you in this?”

  “He’s such a stick in the mud about proper shen formalities that there’s no way he would dare. And in any case”—she held the fabric up to her body—“I’ll be just fine.”

  There was a glow from the fabric. She let go of the ends, and the fabric hung there for a moment before molding itself to her body. Then there was a flare of light so bright I had to look away.

  When I looked back, the fabric had wrapped around Sophie and transformed into gleaming gold armor.

  My mouth dropped open.

  “It was a baby-shower gift,” she said almost defensively. “I didn’t expect it to be so shiny. Ugh, I feel like an armored cow.”

  I shook my head. She looked like a fertility war goddess, complete with matching gold boots. “Trust me, you don’t look like an armored cow.”

  Sophie stared ahead, already far away.

  Along the distant tree line, I saw what seemed like a troll with glowing eyes staring back at us. I looked back at Sophie. “Are you sure you need to do this?”

  Sophie shrugged her shoulders back. “I don’t have a choice.”

  She opened the door and stepped outside.

  In the distance, down below across the grassy field, a dark-skinned, older Asian man who kind of looked like he might be Bruce Lee’s hottie grandfather sat on top of an animal that looked like a cross between a dragon and a deer. It had golden antlers and golden scales with a snow-white horselike tail. It stamped the ground and snorted white smoke into the air.

  “You can’t actually expect to fight,” I said.

  “No. I don’t need to. I have a dragon.”

  As if on cue, I heard a dragon roar directly above us. I immediately squelched my primal urge to run and hide from the monster, reminding myself that it was just Grant or Hunter.

  I followed behind Sophie, trying to look fierce.

  A huge black dragon swooped down and landed behind her, its huge claws digging dark gouges in the grassy turf. He lowered his massive head to her, and she rubbed his chin.

  “Uncle.” Sophie’s magically enhanced voice carried across the field. “What brings you here to my part of the world?”

  The old man spat. “I didn’t believe that any honorable shen would defile themselves with serpents, but then again you never were a proper shen, were you?”

  “Oh, were you talking? Because I wasn’t hearing anything except someone passing gas.”

  “You are worse than your father.”

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “Only when I have your child.”

  I clenched my fist, felt a swell of familiar coldness wrapping around me like a comforting blanket.

  My mother had been taken away from me. Look where I had ended up.

  I would never let anyone take Sophie’s child from her.

  Sophie’s face changed to that of a cold, implacable goddess. She withdrew the sword from her sheath, and it shimmered with a red flame. “You are not worthy of my time.”

  The old man’s face was one of horror. “You disrespectful snake whore. That’s alien magic. You corrupted the purity of our line.”

  “No. I’m saving it.”

  She thrust the sword into the ground. A magical wave pulsed forth.

  At the same time, the old man did the same with his staff.

  The dragon roared behind us, an echoing, terrifying sound that seemed to resonate off Sophie’s armor. I felt a pulse of power in response from the staff I held.

  A nearly translucent red bubble stretched upward, surrounding us, protecting us. It was similar in…magical feeling to the protective ward Titania’s magic had produced. Against it, the enemy lobbed fire, bullets, and dark, liquid-like things that splattered against it and hissed with smoke.

  And then I saw him. Grant was white fire in dragon form, zipping, dodging, hovering in midair, disappearing in thick black clouds roiling with arcane lightning. He tore and burned and slashed through the dark-winged things with too many teeth. I heard his defiant roar, even from so far away.

  Sophie turned her head to the side. “Mack and Jack,” she hollered. “It’s time to come out and play.”

  The ground began to shake.

  I looked up and saw not one massive stone Chinese lion, but two. They smashed into the enemy troops, tossing bodies into the air as if they were dolls.

  And the freakiest thing of all?

  There was no screaming, no cries, no sounds at all from any of the enemy.

  11

  Things that had once been human pressed against the bubble ward. Something had happened to them, their empty-socketed eyes glowing with an odd light.

  Spidery fi
ngers far too long to be human held spinning, fiery things, like magic chainsaws that shrieked against the ward.

  Warm magic burst from the bo, flowing through me, alive, like green vines. I trembled with panic and opened my hands to drop the staff to the ground, but it was too late. Invisible vines and tendrils of magic speared into me.

  And suddenly, I was more.

  I sensed my own magic surge forth, trying to meet the magic of the staff, but there was that strange barrier inside me.

  Still, I knew I could take them all and then some. “Get back to the house, Sophie. Let me deal with any stragglers that break through the ward.”

  I heard Sophie yell her thanks, but I didn’t stay to see if she listened; battle was calling, and the staff had to go.

  The hordes outside pressed against the ward wall.

  I paced the semi visible wall, which pulsed like living glass, watching humanoid zombie things snap their sharp teeth.

  Something about them reminded me of the Devourer’s minions, but Sophie had said that there was no chance of that.

  I heard something cracking, like stone breaking. Too far from me, I saw a spark of light pushing through the barrier. I ran toward it.

  A stick-thin zombie thing fell through the opening, falling to the ground, and then another.

  They picked themselves up. Slowly, like seeds unfurling into growing plants, the zombies grew bigger and bigger with each step.

  Crap.

  I followed the weapon’s instinct and paused to watch and assess.

  Whereas the things outside the ward were skinny as scarecrows, the thing that lumbered toward me was a massive, hulking hairless gray troll, as tall as the giant Foo dogs and as wide as an SUV. Its eye sockets glowed red, and it howled with serrated yellow teeth. Smoke trailed in its footsteps as it left dark footprints in the grass.

  Wait—they weren’t footprints. They were killing the grass.

  Were they somehow sucking magic from the land?

  The bo shimmered, transforming itself into a sword. I heard a gong, and then to my surprise, a fire snapped forth from the edge of the sword.

  A flaming fucking sword? I yelled, “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

  The troll roared and ran at me.

  I angled the sword and let the magic take me.

  * * *

  The magic sword made me faster and stronger than I’d ever been. I sliced through the trolls, cutting them down until the ground grew slick with their black blood.

  And still they poured through the crack in the ward.

  The sword was controlling me, but this body was getting tired. I reached for my magic, for that cold well of stillness I knew was inside me.

  Blocked.

  Sweat poured down my face, and my hands grew slippery. Beyond me, I heard another cracking in the shield.

  I saw the giant stone lions, still loose and rampaging.

  Massive claws and heads with far too many eyes and teeth kept falling from the sky, victims of the two dragons soaring far above us.

  How were there so many of them?

  Something huge and massive shrugged itself through the crack. It was as tall as a two-story house, with a roughly humanoid face, but its head was pockmarked with eyes all over its scalp. Its body was strangely shaped, and it walked on two thick legs while six hairy bristling arms wielded maces the size of me.

  A spider troll?

  I wiped wet gunk from my eyes. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  It staggered toward Sophie’s house.

  I sliced at a monster in my way, the blade cutting through it like butter. “Hey, asshole! I’m over here!”

  I sprinted at the thing, my lungs, my legs, everything feeling like it was on fire, and not in the good way like fucking a dragon, but in the oh-my-god-I’m-gonna-die way.

  And then pain punched my back so hard I fell, sprawling to the ground.

  My vision went red, and for the first time in a long time, I felt true, actual pain. Nothing I had done to myself at Titania’s had ever been as excruciating as this.

  The magic sword I still held forced me upward, forced my arms to find the blade stuck in my lower back.

  I ripped the dagger out with a scream and threw it, slamming into a troll’s eye.

  Another troll came at me and hit my spine so hard my teeth rattled.

  I fell, slipping in the mud. My vision dimmed and my heart thundered, the blood in my veins pumping frantically. My heart had beat fast before, but not like this. Primal fear seethed through me, twisting needles of panic into my flesh that made my hands tremble.

  Fuck. I couldn’t die now! I had to survive, had to finish this and see this through. What would happen to Sophie and her child if I died? Even if I was resurrected, would I end up back in Titania’s clutches?

  Fuck. It would be just my luck to die today.

  Something smacked into the back of my head. White lights exploded into my vision. I fell forward into the puddle of mud, and blood and viscous guts filled my mouth and nose. I rolled over.

  Despite blurred vision, my sword arm sprung up, blocking the immense blow of a mace, the force of the blow rattling my bones.

  It went dark.

  Flame, white-hot, burst over me, flashing nearly all the colors of the rainbow.

  I blinked, trying to get my vision back, scrambling to my feet.

  And then I saw it.

  A massive white dragon the size of an airplane.

  I had never seen Grant up close in full-on dragon form before. Each scale shimmered and sparkled, pearlescent and tinged with gold. Blue electricity crackled around him.

  Grant swung his head toward me. His eyes were huge, and full of magic and intelligence.

  And he winked at me.

  Grant. It was Grant.

  Not that I hadn’t known that, but something in my mind couldn’t reconcile this creature from stories with the man I had just been kissing earlier this morning.

  Four bolts of force shot down from the sky, sizzling the ground with magic.

  A massive glowing net pinned the dragon to the ground.

  “No!”

  There was another blinding brilliance of light concentrated on Grant’s prone form.

  I screamed, staggering to my feet, even as I knew that all my efforts were helpless.

  That couldn’t be the end of Grant.

  The sword took over. I couldn’t see, but I knew it was working me, using me to cut down the monsters in my way. Fear seized me because part of me already knew it would be too late. I was always too late.

  A blinding light blinked into existence in front of me.

  The spider troll roared and tried to smash the light with his enormous mace.

  Hands shot from the light, dimming as it caught the mace in his hands.

  The mace exploded.

  We went flying backward.

  I scrambled to my feet, only to see the light—Grant with a glowing sword, slicing the troll’s arms off limb by limb, until all that was left was the head.

  The head went flying.

  Grant turned and waved at the crack in the ward.

  The ward sealed itself shut.

  I blinked.

  Grant was suddenly there, less than an arm’s length away.

  At first glance, I had thought the armor to be that of a fairy-tale knight. But up close, I realized it was more like some fancy space armor, like in some online game. Swirling almost-invisible designs crawled over the pearl-like plates of his white armor, tinged with gold.

  Something in my chest went tight, and my skin flushed hot.

  He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen.

  And he was staring at me as if I were something he couldn’t figure out.

  It had to be because I was covered in mud, gore, and sweat, or because he had seen me fighting, wielding the sword like I knew how to use it.

  That had to be it.

  Because if it wasn’t…

  I shut down that thought. No. That was the
path toward certain heartbreak.

  Grant smiled, and fuck if I didn’t instantly feel like I was a hundred times lighter.

  I shook my head, trying to stop being dazzled by his fancy armor. “What is it with you and the color white?”

  He took a step forward. “I told you. It’s what I am. I’m a combat mage, specialty in the forward position. Designed to attract attention on the battlefield because I’m bright and shiny.”

  I wanted to fall into the blue pools of his eyes. “You are definitely shiny.”

  His eyes darkened. “What are you doing out here, Val?”

  I almost felt relieved because now I could pick a fight with him. And that was so much easier than…whatever had been on the verge of happening. “Picking oranges, drinking wine, having a picnic. What else would I be doing?”

  He ignored my sarcasm. “I didn’t know you could fight like that.” He glanced at the sword in my hand. “A shen sword. Right.”

  “It’s amazing, the things that Sophie lets me borrow.”

  It startled me when he reached for my free hand.

  And shocked me even more when he kissed it.

  I yanked my hand back. “That’s disgusting! It’s been splashed with zombie troll guts!”

  He burst into laughter at the look on my face. “Okay, that was worth it.”

  He turned his head and coughed, and fire shot out of his mouth. “There, happy? That’ll take care of any germs.”

  “Always got an answer for everything.”

  “No, not everything.”

  With a sudden unstoppable movement, he kissed me. The world the battle, the monsters, all of it fell away, leaving just him, me and…impossibly, love.

  It was hopeless. Completely hopeless. I was totally in love with him.

  Grant broke away from the kiss and pressed something into my palm. I knew what it was the moment it touched my flesh.

  My ring?

  I stared at Grant in surprise.

  “I want you to survive this. You’ll need all your strength.”

  I put the ring on. For the first time, I felt completely in control of myself. I looked at him, with tears of happiness welling into my eyes.

  The future seemed bright and warm.

  I had no words. “I—”