“You dare to trifle with me, dragon?” she asked.
Pendragon flicked his tail and blinked. ‘I wanted to play with the horse.”
She stared at him and then she lifted her head and sniffed, taking in his scent. “You are not from here. Where is your home?”
“Briton. I am mentor to a young soldier who wants to take his country back from Vortigern.”
The woman tilted her head. “What is this soldier’s name?”
“Uther. He takes my name also. I am called Pendragon.” He said it rather proudly and rattled his scales.
She ignored him, seeming to be in deep thought. “It is written in the wind there will be mighty battles in Briton, but your Uther will not lead them. However, his son will overcome the Saxons swine.”
Pendragon puffed smoke. “How do you know this?”
She raised her arms to the sky and laughed. When she lowered them, she was clad in full warrior armor, a Lorica segmentata covering her shoulders and breasts, and strips of heavy leather hung over a shortened tunic. Slender yet muscular calves were encased in leather strips holding hob-nailed sandals tight to her feet. In one hand she held a spatha and in the other, the spear-like pilus.
“Because I am Epona, goddess of horses and soldiers.” Her eyes blazed sparks of fire. “I will be there.”
The dragon stirred in his sleep and slowly became aware that he was no longer alone in his lair. He opened a cobalt eye to see Tanio and the warlock. He sat up abruptly, banging his head on the hard ceiling.
“Is something the matter with the girl?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” Tanio answered with a look at Michael. “Do you want to explain or shall I?”
“I will,” Michael replied and proceeded to inform Pendragon of all that had taken place. “So you see,” he concluded, “Sophie thinks I conjured up everything. She doesn’t think you are real.”
The dragon snorted, flames shooting out the cave. “Not real? I will visit her again tonight then and the next as well.”
Michael shook his head. “Your visits are keeping the media on high-alert looking for a story. If we’re to find Excalibur, we don’t need reporters following us. Besides,” he added, “she needs to get close enough to touch you, to communicate with you. Then she’ll have to admit you exist.”
The spikes on his head raised with interest. “Can you help her shape shift? She can really see for herself what a dragon is like then.” Memories of Epona shifting to dragon form flashed through his mind. They’d soared over Rome’s hills together, made dragon-love—
“She’d never speak to me again if I even tried that,” Michael said.
“Then what?” Pendragon asked. “She can come out into the street I guess. I’ll not burn her.”
“Your size is a bit intimidating,” Tanio replied. “But perhaps there is a way—“
The dragon’s eyes turned midnight blue. “If what I’m thinking you’re thinking, the answer is no.”
Tanio removed his flaming cape and swirled it over the Pendragon’s head. “I’m afraid the answer is yes, my friend,” he said.
* * * *
Balor looked around the empty warehouse in a drug-invested neighborhood of south Dallas. No one would bother him here. No one would call the police if they heard screaming. No one would question a drugged man being dragged in. Whatever people inhabited the streets and tenements around them would not care.
It was the most perfect place for punishment.
He looked up at the steel girder from which dangled a leather strap, the thick studded collar at its end turned inside out, so that the blunted spikes poked against the neck of the unconscious man who lay naked on the floor.
“You did well, my pet,” he said to Morgan.
She looked up from filing her nails. “He should be coming around soon. I didn’t doze him too much.”
Balor smiled and turned his attention again to Caldwell, still passed out. “I grow weary of waiting.” He gestured to one of the two body-builders he’d recruited from a gay bar. “Throw some water on him.”
Caldwell sputtered as the bucket of cold water sloshed over him and tried to sit up. He fell back, unbalanced, since his hands were bound behind him. “What the hell?” He struggled back into a sitting position and glanced down at himself. “What’s going on? Why am I naked?”
Balor gestured to one of the men who began pulling the loose end of the strap over the girder, forcing Caldwell onto his feet. “You are in need of some discipline.”
“Why?”
“You disappointed me, Alan. I had not thought you so weak that you would lose control in a fencing match with that slip of a girl.” He shook his head. “That loon, Smith, fired you when he found out. We have made no progress on even knowing where to look for the sword. I needed you in that house.”
“I can get back in. I’ll—“
“You will learn to control your temper, Alan. And your first lesson starts now.” He gestured to the man holding the strap. “A little higher, please.”
The leash tugged at the collar as it grew tighter, forcing Caldwell to lift his chin and stretch his neck.
“If you hold very still,” Balor said as he inspected the collar, “those studs won’t dig into your throat too much.” He nodded and the young man secured the leather strap to a bolt in the wall. Balor moved to a cardboard box on a broken-down desk and removed two ping-pong paddles. “It’s odd how these little devices can produce so much pain when used correctly.” He handed one to each of the young men and turned back to Caldwell. “Allow me to introduce your playmates for today. John and Simon.” Balor stepped aside, gesturing for them to move closer.
Grinning, they moved into position behind Caldwell and each administered a sharp slap to his buttocks, alternating their strokes. He flinched, a muscle tightening in his jaw.
“This is stupid,” he gritted out.
“Oh?” Balor asked. “Dear boys, don’t forget the backs of his thighs. Let the
smarting wear off his ass before you strike him again. It’s more painful that way.”
Caldwell closed his eyes as the beatings began and then popped them open quickly as Balor ran his hand down the length of his penis. Caldwell jerked and then grunted in pain as the collar choked him. Still, he tried to writhe his hips away from Balor’s handling of him.
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t like men handling you, do you?” Balor asked with a smile. “And so sad, because John and Simon simply love resistant men. However,” he said with a sigh, “part of this lesson includes controlling your pleasure as well as your pain, so perhaps you won’t object to Morgan handling you?”
She came forward at once, sliding her hands over his chest and arms and sinking to her knees in front of him. She stroked down his belly, cupping his balls as she licked slowly up the length of him. His cock stiffened immediately.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” Balor said jovially. “Do you see how quickly you react to Morgan’s gentle touch while pain is administered from behind?” He nodded to Morgan “Don’t let him come, my pet.” Moving to the box again, he removed a blindfold.
“What the—hell, I don’t need a blindfold!” Caldwell jerked again and then shouted his fury as the collar tightened around his neck.
“Well, not seeing what is happening makes it so much more titillating,” Balor answered. “All your senses will be focused on what you’re feeling. The pain will mix with the pleasure. It will blend into one. And,” he added as he fastened the blindfold over Caldwell, “you won’t really know who’s sucking you off, will you? I believe the boys want a turn too.”
“Absolutely,” John said and reached one hand around to pinch at Caldwell’s nipple. “I’ll be relieving little Morgan very soon…and I know how to keep a man hard for a very long time.”
“And I will take your ass,” Simon said as he paused momentarily in his paddling to run a finger along the crack, making Caldwell shudder. He inserted the tip of his finger. “This will feel so good. Your butt wi
ll be burning, both inside and out. Mmmm. I can’t wait…”
“I will make you pay for this, Baylor,” Caldwell said from behind clenched teeth.
Balor laughed. “I don’t think so, my dear boy. I know exactly which assisted-living center your mother resides in.”
Balor sat down in a rickety chair to watch the proceedings, unzipping his pants and motioning for Morgan to come and serve him. He almost laughed at how totally rigid Caldwell went when John moved around to the front of him, but he was disappointed in how stoically Caldwell stood there, not screaming or cursing or begging, even when Simon began to massage his anus. Balor had to admit to a grudging respect of Caldwell. Perhaps, he’d spare him the reaming. At least for now. He held up his hand to Simon, who looked disappointed but continued his paddling as John sucked Alan’s shaft harder and harder.
Balor looked down at the top of Morgan’s head. She seemed enthusiastic about her work and sometimes he wished she weren’t. He did love subjecting a woman to humiliation and one who wasn’t willing to have him in her mouth was particularly enticing. On the other hand, Morgan was very good at this. Who was he to complain?
His thoughts drifted to the female veterinarian and wondered how uptight she’d be. If she could resist a warlock—Morgan had told him about their argument—she might be colder than fish in the Artic ocean, which would make it extremely enjoyable to make her melt.
Or at least pleasure him as often as he wanted it. She didn’t believe in supernatural beings. She wouldn’t recognize him.
He might just have to pay Sophie Cameron a visit himself.
Chapter Ten
Sophie petted Augustin’s silky muzzle and checked his supply of oats in the trough. “I’m going to have to cut down on those if I can’t get to riding you more,” she said as the horse shook his head. She laughed. “I think you understood that, didn’t you, guy?” With a lingering stroke along his sleek neck, she closed the stall door. “Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.”
She turned on an oldies-rock station as she drove home in the dusky twilight. Oddly enough, some of the bands from her parents’ day were still performing or doing reunion tours. Nostalgia for a time when life was simpler—or so her mother said—nearly overwhelmed her. If her parents hadn’t been killed in a freak train wreck, what would her mother have said about dragons lighting up the night sky? Probably—Sophie’s hands stilled on the steering wheel as Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds began playing. How ironic. She shook her head. In her parents’ day, what with LSD and tripping, dragons may have been a common sight.
Maybe they were even real.
It had been two days since Michael left her office and she hadn’t heard from him nor had she seen the dragon. She should be relieved that he had taken her seriously when she said she was through with all this nonsense about hunting Excalibur.
Especially with him. How could she trust a man who used magic to seduce her in her dreams? And, dear God, she didn’t want to admit it, but that dream had been so good. Even now, she could still taste his kisses, his lips warm, persistent, and demanding. She felt her nipples tighten as she remembered how his mouth had covered them, drawing deep with hard suckles. Heat seared through her as a pleasant throbbing began between her legs. His tongue had been there, like soft velvet, gently laving at her folds, licking in broad, slow strokes until she arched and quivered for him to take her. Dear Lord, she’d shattered in the hardest climax she’d ever had and he hadn’t even entered her. Hadn’t even been there physically.
What else could that be but magic?
Then, as if she’d conjured him herself, he was standing in her driveway when she turned into it. His dark hair blew against his collar in the slight breeze as he stood waiting for her, muscled arms folded across that broad chest, unmoving. She must be imagining him. Sophie blinked, opened her eyes. He was still there.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she stepped out of the car.
He smiled, his dark eyes glistening in the near darkness. “I’ve brought you proof as I said I would. Could we go in?”
Sophie hesitated. The last thing she needed to do was be alone with him in her house..
“Please. This is important,” Michael said. “You’ll be safe with me.”
She looked into those mesmerizing eyes and then quickly away. She certainly didn’t need to be entranced—or whatever magicians called casting a spell these days—by Michael. Still, he had told her he never forced a woman.
“I suppose you can come in, but not for long.”
He smiled, the dimple showing. “Good. Thank you.”
As she started to unlock the door she noticed what looked like a large dog kennel behind her hedge. A low noise, not quite a growl, was coming from it. “What’s that?”
Michael picked it up and pushed the door open. “I’ll show you once we’re inside.”
Sophie shut the door behind him and snapped on a lamp as he set the kennel on the floor. Another low rumble sounded and this time, she saw a faint puff of smoke. She felt her eyes widen as he unlatched the door. It couldn’t be—
A red dragon the size of a large dog lurched through the opening, its cobalt eyes blazing as it swung its head from side to side and slapped its tail resoundingly on the floor.
“That isn’t—”
“Afraid it is,” Michael said and grinned. “Meet Pendragon. In his other form.”
He looked down at the dragon. “He’s promised to be on his best behavior, too.”
Spikes rose along the dragon’s spine and he slanted a look at Michael and then he sighed, wisps of smoke curling upward. He extended a gold-tipped claw toward Sophie. “I am here to help you find Excalibur,” he said in perfect English.
The room started to swirl around Sophie in various shades of grey. Reeling, she tried to hold on to some semblance of sanity. The last thing she remembered was Michael leaping toward her and catching her in his strong arms.
* * * *
“You didn’t have to scare her out of her wits!” Michael said as he eased Sophie onto the sofa.
Pendragon snorted, sparks filling the air, fizzling before they reached the carpet, thanks to the warlock’s quick hand-spell. He was not happy being in small dragon form and he didn’t like being chastised.
“You wanted her to get to know me. What am I supposed to do? Stand here and look like some stupid animal?” He raised his spikes. “I am the head-dragon of Britain! Even Caesar gave me a wide berth. I remember—“
“Not now,” Michael replied, his eyes on Sophie as he gently stroked her face, speaking softly in Gaelic to her.
Pendragon rattled his scales in response and turned his attention to the girl. She looked so much like her ancestor. His Epona. The Roman goddess’s blood flowed in the veins of this human, yet Sophie Cameron had none of the warrior qualities Epona possessed. The girl had fainted when he merely spoke to her! And he had been ever so polite, careful not to knock anything over with his tail or rip her rug to shreds with his claws, or set anything on fire, just as Tanio had requested. Was it too much to ask that this mortal carry on a simple conversation with him? By Mithras! How could he help the girl if she was going to swoon whenever he spoke? A descendant of Epona’s should be made of sterner stuff… He paused. This woman probably had his blood flowing in her veins, too, since Epona had chosen to have their only child in her human form.
This simply would not do. A female with dragon blood, whether she was able to shift or not, needed to be taught about her birthright. Of course, that bloody warlock would probably object, judging from how tenderly he was coddling the awakening woman, but then, why would he have to know?
Pendragon understood now why Brighid had sent him. He would definitely protect the human. She was, after all, a granddaughter—centuries removed—in his genealogy, but he would do more.
Sophie Cameron might be the last of his kind.
* * * *
Sophie rubbed her bleary eyes as she sat down at her desk the next morning to revie
w her list of patients for the day. Not getting sleep at night was taking its toll, but how could she possibly sleep with a talking dragon in her home?
“Coffee?” Morgan asked in a chirpy tone.
“Please. Make it strong.” Sophie scanned down the calendar. Thank goodness she had only routine appointments for this morning. The afternoon looked light as well. Maybe she could get Allison to cover for her. She really needed able to clear her head and think.
“Here you are,” Morgan said as she set down the cup of steaming brew. “Chicory-flavored.”
“Thanks.” Sophie took a grateful sip. She was getting used to the strong, slightly bitter taste of chicory. She needed all the help she could get this morning.
“You’re welcome.” Morgan laid down the morning newspaper. “The interview you did with that newspaper reporter is in here. I thought you might want to read it.”
Sophie glanced down at it as Morgan left to answer the phone. That interview seemed so long ago, although it has only been three weeks or so. Back then, life was still semi-normal. Sure, a dragon had been sighted, but she had still clung to the idea that it was some sort of technical gadgetry that had created it. Little did she know she was going to have it living with her.
Sophie scratched at an itch behind her ear absently as she skimmed the article. The young reporter had actually quoted her accurately. She almost smiled at how insistent she had been that the dragon could not be real. Ha. She knew better now.
Pushing the newspaper aside, she rubbed her temples. What in the world was she going to do? Michael had stayed late to help her get acquainted with Pendragon. He’d even offered to spend the night on the sofa.
As if that would help. The idea of a half-clothed warlock—or maybe even a naked one—how did she know what he slept in?—was too much mind-overload. Or, she thought giddily, the idea of a virile, good-looking, muscular male on her sofa was too much hormone-overload. Way too much.
The Immortals II: Michael Page 11
