by Alisa Woods
Leonidas decloaked and shuffled to the back, near the boiler. Using magic, he cleared a space on the floor. He could feel the tomb pulse under the worn bricks that lined the room and formed the original alley outside the Globe. The church would never have taken her body, so he’d brought her here—where they first met.
“You okay?” Leksander asked.
Leonidas had no reply, but he was spared faking one by a pounding on the door.
Leksander magically opened it, and Cinaed lead the way in, flicking worried looks around the room. Guinevere, the Damon witch, quickly followed, with Rosalyn coming in last. Leonidas just stared. He’d seen Rosalyn in every state of dress and undress—her bare skin against his, those tight jeans hugging her bottom, and a slinky black dress and heels—but this… the cream suit and high heels were wildly sexy on their own, but that wasn’t it. She positively glowed. Her eyes were wide and wondering as she swept back her long red hair and carefully crossed the dusty bricked floor. An energy emanated from her now, a sparkle in her eyes that was obvious even in the low light.
Something had changed, and he could easily guess—she was embracing her power.
The room was crowded before Rosalyn, Guinevere, and Cinaed arrived, but now it was downright tight. Rosalyn edged her way toward him, not hesitating to approach the garish bronze dragon lurking in the dark corner of the maintenance room. She gave him a tentative smile.
He was momentarily struck dumb by the warmth of it.
“Is it here?” Guinevere asked from behind her, peering over Rosalyn’s shoulder. “The body, I mean?”
Leonidas physically flinched. The body. But it was probably better to get this over with. He waved his talons over the cleared space on the floor. The bricks shook loose four hundred years of accumulated dirt, crumbling the ancient mortar to dust. His magic lifted them up, rapidly, like a deck of cards spewing forth; only they landed in neat piles, stacked around the edges of Meridi’s tomb.
Rosalyn gasped, but Leonidas was transfixed by the witch who hexed him, not the one trying to set him free. Meridi was just as he’d left her, surrounded by flowers and covered by a white silk burial gown. Not a smidgen of decay had touched her beautiful face, the half not ravaged by the fire. The evidence of his failure was perfectly preserved—burnt hair, cracked lips, blackened hands where she’d tried to claw away the flames that consumed her.
Horror held him captive, stealing his breath.
A sound like stifled crying tore him away. Rosalyn’s cheeks were wet with tracks of tears, and the Damon witch looked grim behind her. Cinaed and Leksander both had tormented looks on their faces, but none of them were responsible for this. It was his alone.
“Do you want me to…” Leksander trailed off, the sorrow in his brother’s eyes almost too difficult to bear.
No, I’ll do it. Leonidas swung his bony-ridged head toward Guinevere, dipping low to keep from banging it on the overhead ducting. Whatever she required from the body, he would have to work the magic to obtain it. He alone had cast the protective spell against the elements. What do you need?
“Um… is there any…” She seemed flummoxed.
“They need blood, my liege,” Cinaed spoke up. “If there’s any. Or a bit of flesh might do.” He seemed even more horrified after the words were out, but at least Leonidas knew what he needed to do now.
He turned back to poor Meridi and her motionless body. His talons glinted in the artificial light of the single bulb in the room. He waved his dragon claws over her grave to swipe away the magic that encased her. He had to hunker down his awkwardly large body to reach her in the dug-out space. Then he stretched out his talon and gently touched the soft, pale skin above the scorched flesh of her hands. He paused, not piercing her. He was defiling her in death, taking from her that final dignity, and he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do it. He’d wronged her, and over all these years, he’d believed the curse was a just and fair punishment. He’d made his peace with it. Now he was trying to wrench free of that fate… and he was certain he did not deserve that salvation.
He had to force himself to remember it wasn’t him alone that would suffer from this curse, as Meridi had intended. Now, with the treaty, the entire mortal world was at risk. Even if the odds were insanely long on breaking the curse, this magic they were about to perform would solidify Rosalyn’s place in the coven. This desecration wouldn’t be for him, but for her… and he couldn’t help thinking that Meridi would want to help a fellow witch, especially one on the outside looking in, desiring nothing more than the full expression of her witch powers.
Just like Meridi herself.
Leonidas slashed her beautiful skin with his talon, dipping it in her blood.
It came away glistening red, still preserved through the centuries as if waiting for this moment. He rose from his crouch, Meridi’s blood literally on his hands. A tremor shook every scale in his body with that thought.
What now? he asked Guinevere, although he pushed the words to everyone.
Rosalyn’s beautiful blue eyes were still rimmed in tears.
He could scarce look at her.
Guinevere appeared grim, but she edged forward, a hand on Rosalyn’s back, urging her as well. “All three of your essences, your blood, must mingle. It must be painted on your body, Leonidas, and then Rosalyn will have to say the incantation. The two essences—the long-dead girl’s and Rosalyn’s—will do battle for the right to claim you as their own. Rosalyn will have to fight to break you free of your bond to the curse by binding you to her. She may not… in the end, you may be bound together. You must wish for it, strongly, Leonidas. Or the magic will not work. Even then…”
Even then it may not work. Understood. He dropped his head lower and leaned forward a little, drawn to Rosalyn. Are you sure, Rosalyn? Then he pushed his next thoughts just to her. Don’t worry about being bound to me. I’ll soon be dead, regardless. If you don’t wish this, I can find another way to win you into the coven—
He was cut off by her soft hand landing on his scaly face. “Shut up. We have a spell to cast.” The strength of it, the shine in her eyes, nearly immobilized him. But then she thrust out her arm and shoved up the sleeve of her suit, baring her flesh for him to pierce.
Sweet mother of magic… if he thought it was bad to dip his talons into Meridi’s flesh…
He hovered his talon over her arm, staring at it and hardly believing he would actually do this. Without lifting his gaze, he sent a panicked thought to Cinaed. Hold her!
He sprung to her side, bracing her.
Rosalyn tensed.
Leonidas made quick work of it, but the flinch of her arm and the clench of her fist made the slicing pain of it rip through him as well. The crimson of her blood welled up, mixing with Meridi’s on his talon. He quickly lifted that free and gently wrapped his other talons around the thinness of her arm so he could direct his healing magic there. The runes skittered down to his hand, but her wound was healed in an instant.
He stepped back from her, avoiding her gaze. Using the same talon coated now with both Rosalyn’s and Meridi’s blood, he slashed his own wrist, drenching it and mixing the three.
Where do I paint the blood? he asked Guinevere, not bothering with healing his wound—it would do so on its own soon enough.
“Anywhere,” she said, face ashen. Then she hurried out, “Somewhere Rosalyn can reach.”
He slathered the blood on his face, wiping the talon clean and leaving his guilt in red stripes across his cheeks. Then he lowered his head to where Rosalyn could reach, holding his razor-sharp talons back out of the way. When he finally met her gaze again, her eyes were wide, and she seemed to shake, even with Cinaed holding her up. She braced herself away from the blue dragon, pushing back his hands and reaching for Leonidas’s face.
Her fingers were soft on his face, her eyes gazing with wonder into his. Her magic sparked where they touched, rushing the first blush of pleasure he’d felt in what seemed like forever. His wyvern surged
deep inside him, wanting control of his mind so he could seize her and ravage her….
Leonidas almost pulled away.
He would not risk her.
Fuck the treaty. Fuck the world. Screw anything and everything this spell might accomplish… he would not allow his beast to take her. Only that surge of anger and passion—of love—was able to lock the beast securely in his dungeon inside Leonidas’s mind. With that under control, and only under that circumstance, he could stay.
Guinevere lurked behind Rosalyn, whispering the spell words to her. They were some form of ancient language, one Leonidas wasn’t familiar with. Not dragontongue, which all dragons were born able to understand. Nor fae, which he would be able to decipher. This must be some mixture of ancient tongues that leaked into the witching community at some point—as far as he knew, witches didn’t have their own language, but borrowed from others.
“Et crimini, et solemnus, tri kyrios o doulos o agapi,” Rosalyn repeated after Guinevere’s whispered incantation. Rosalyn’s eyes were fixed on his, her hands warm on his face, sparking magic. The fervor in her eyes transfixed him. “Escapandi deno, escapandi pagida, pote illuminae,” she went on. “Dominus omni perpetuum captiva.” Then she closed her eyes, and the crackle of magic along his skin intensified. “Dominus. Captiva,” she whispered, her voice hushed as the pulsing strength of her magic grew. The three mixed sources of blood on his face, stripes of atonement, heated with it. “Dominus. Captiva. Dominus. Captiva.” His skin warmed, and the blood started to wisp into smoke, lifting from his face.
Leonidas felt something stir inside him, a great churning desire that heated him from the inside out—as if all the dragonfire in his blood was boiling in resonance with Rosalyn’s powerful witch magic.
“Dominus. Captiva.” She breathed the words on his face, incantations of fire, only her breath was cool compared to the raging heat of his body.
She grimaced and flinched but held fast to him.
He watched helplessly as she fought some kind of internal war. His body was responding, but only with more dragonfire, fighting her magic by burning clean and bright and hot…
Rosalyn gritted her teeth, eyes still closed, and hissed through them, “Dominus, captiva!” But then she gasped and yanked her hands-free. Leonidas felt that disconnect like a great emptying, as though something had reached down inside him and ripped something out. But when he looked down, his wyvern form was still in place. If he had been in human form, the weakness of the breaking separation would have dropped him to his knees, but instead, he just roughly braced a talon-filled hand against the ancient boiler, his head drooping on his long, serpentine neck nearly to the floor.
When he looked up, Rosalyn was sobbing. “No, I’m fine!” Leksander had her hands in his—the angry red burns on her palms carved out Leonidas’s chest. His brother was healing her, pressing his hands to hers, but seeing him touch her, whispering in her ear soft words of comfort while she just shook her head, fresh tears streaming down her face…
It surged up Leonidas’s wyvern so suddenly, he actually lunged for her. He could only watch in a daze as his beast took over, blind raging jealousy trying to rip her from his brother’s arms. Cinaed shifted suddenly, a wall of blue dragon flesh smashing into him and a face full of claws slashing across his vision. His wyvern started a roar, but it was cut off by Cinaed’s claws sharp on his neck, biting hard. The pain snapped Leonidas back into his right mind, slamming his reason back into control. He let himself go limp in Cinaed’s hold, offering himself up for his friend and the loyal right hand of the king of the House of Smoke.
To end it quickly, before Leonidas could endanger her again.
Cinaed’s hold tightened, gushing Leonidas’s blood over his talons, but Cinaed’s eyes were wild and harrowed. He had Leonidas on the ground, unmoving. Leksander had whisked Rosalyn away to the far side of the room. He and Guinevere stood guard, protecting her.
Cinaed released him and stepped back.
Leonidas had no will to rise from the floor.
The spell hadn’t worked. He was trapped forever in this form. He was a hair’s breadth from being the menace he’d always feared.
End it, he begged Cinaed. Do it now. I won’t fight you, Cinaed.
“My liege.” His voice was a torment.
He was right. It was too much to ask of him. Besides, his brother was the one for the task.
Leksander, he called to his brother while he still lay on the floor. Send the others away. Come take me while I’m weak.
“No.” But Leksander’s voice was shaken.
You promised. Leonidas forced himself to his feet, which scraped the ancient bricks as he rose. It was too close. Too close, this time, my brother.
But Leksander was whispering something in angry bursts with the Damon witch. She was shaking her head.
“Let me go!” Rosalyn was insisting, railing against his hold on her.
Leksander’s gaze met Leonidas’s across the room. His brother was trying to wordlessly tell him something with that pained look in his blue eyes. It took a long moment for Leonidas to piece it together.
I need to say goodbye. Leonidas flicked his gaze to Rosalyn and back to Leksander.
His brother gave him a very small nod, imperceptible to the struggling young witch in his arms, the one he was holding back from trying again to break a curse that could not be broken. Leksander would have to remove Rosalyn from the room and have her safely away before he could attempt to destroy Leonidas. They would need a warded room and a failsafe plan to keep him contained, just in case Leksander failed. Rosalyn would need to be far from all of it.
Leonidas needed to send her away.
He sent a thought to every mind in the room. I need a moment alone with Rosalyn.
The shock of that thought stilled everyone.
The room was dead silent.
Rosalyn broke it by saying, “You heard him. Everyone out.”
Then everyone spoke at once. “Rosalyn, you don’t think—” “My liege!”
Leksander’s voice broke through, his voice in her ear as he was still holding fast to her. “You can just leave with me now—”
“No!” Her shout in the small boiler room silenced them. “I’ll be fine.” She struggled away from Leksander, and he finally let her go. Then she stared straight at Leonidas in his wyvern form. His eyes were that brilliant blue again—the flashing bronze from before was gone. “He won’t hurt me. You can all wait outside if you like.”
There was such sadness in Leonidas’s eyes, it was breaking her heart.
She had failed him.
She kept her gaze fixed on his eyes, so human against the gnarled dragon of his face. The others shuffled toward the door. Aunt Gwen was still protesting, but Leksander was reassuring her, saying the danger had passed now that the spell wasn’t bringing out Leonidas’s beast anymore.
Rosalyn’s heart was still breaking.
She wasn’t good enough.
Not strong enough. Not experienced enough as a witch. Maybe she hadn’t been committed enough during the spell, holding back too much or something. But those were things she could fix. She would try harder next time. Work more at becoming a better witch. They could take the blood with them—
The door slid shut behind her.
They were alone.
She lurched forward, needing to touch that magically-warm dragon-scale skin of his. Her hands were still smeared with their combined blood, just as his face was. But as she got closer, he leaned back, lifting his head out of reach.
“I just need more practice—” she started.
And you’ll have it. His thoughts rang in her head. Leksander talked to your father. Silas will accept you into the coven. You have a home there now.
But somehow that seemed so wrong. They should be still trying to break the curse! She’d wanted nothing more than to be a witch and rejoin the witching community—she’d wanted it as long as she could remember—but not like this! Not by giving up. Not by
failing a man who had done nothing but kindnesses for her from the first moment she met him. Whose love for her had doomed him to this state!
“I want to cure you, Leonidas.” The words were half choked. She lurched toward him again, touching the broad expanse of his chest even though he wouldn’t let her reach his face. That familiar spark, the aching pleasure, pulsed through her, but it couldn’t calm her racing heart. His scales were so warm, and she could feel the rapid pounding of his heart. “I can get better, I swear. We just have to try again!” Her voice was hiking up, and the desperation was setting every nerve ending alight. Why was he fighting her on this?
You can’t cure me, Rosalyn. No one can. But you’re beautiful for trying. I only wish I’d had a chance to know you better before loving you—but that was probably hopeless.
“This is not hopeless!” She brought her other hand to his chest, but now they were curling up into fists. She wanted to pound some sense into him.
He leaned into her a little, but really he was just bending his head down on that long neck to peer into her eyes. It was hopeless from the start. Everything about you, Rosalyn, right down to the fact that you’re fighting me now, that you won’t give up, that you’re too damn stubborn to know this isn’t going to work… He tipped his face toward her, brushing her cheek with his blood-smeared one. It was a soft nuzzle that was achingly gentle and horribly sad all at once. She released his chest and grabbed his head, taking care to avoid the needle-sharp teeth, but holding his cheek to hers. She closed her eyes against the tears threatening to burst out. Even now, in your foolish bravery, here in the room alone with me… I would have fallen in love with you no matter what, Rosalyn. And gladly. To have this, even for a moment…
