by Celeste Raye
Tears ran down her face then. She was not even thirty years old. She was going to be in a war, and she had no words to say anything at that moment, so she just lifted her face. Their lips met, and she felt desire stroke its heat through her body, making her lean into that kiss.
His hands slid down her shoulders and then rested against the angles of her waist. The heat and weight of his hands felt so right, so perfect. Like they had been made to fit her body; like they had been carved from some magical form to fit her skin and hers alone.
His mouth was demanding that time, all heat and fire. Her whimper was one of desire and need, surrender and love. His fingers slid lower still and then he pulled her closer, his fingers digging into her ass cheeks just a little as he brought her pelvis against his. The feel of him, hard and hot and swollen with lust, made her whimper yet again. Wetness leaked from her core, spreading along her lower lips as he tugged at the gown, lifting it over her head and discarding it. His full lips moved along her neck and then fastened around one of her nipples. That flesh hardened in his mouth, and her hands went to his broad chest before moving upward so her fingers could curl over his broad shoulders.
She managed to tug his shirt over his head and feel his flesh against her fingertips and palms. Pure heat rose from his skin and seeped into hers, and she reveled in that heat, danced closer to it as he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
His hands moved along her body, spreading sensation as well as that heat and her legs parted as his hands delved between her thighs, spread them and sought out her wet and slippery lips and then moved inside her, two fingers opening her tight inner folds as his head ducked lower and his tongue found her tender spot.
She cried out, her words a plea to touch him, to taste him, and he slid his trousers off and reversed himself so that his flesh, that throbbing and hard flesh of his organ, was right above her lips. She took him in, her tongue licking at his head while she swallowed him.
His tongue moved back and forth across her, sending sensation lancing into her body. Her fingers clutched at him even as she let the slightly salty flavor of his member fill her throat and rest on her tongue. Her eyes closed and she shivered, her inner thighs quivering as his fingers and lips and tongue worked together to send her hurtling toward an orgasm.
He moved, changing his position right before she could come. His staff slid into her body, and his fingers went to her flesh as his mouth tasting of her sugary folds, came down on hers. Her groan was muffled by his mouth and her legs wrapped around his waist, her back arching upward and her ass jerking as the orgasm hit, sending spasms running through her as her walls clenched and opened around his pulsing rod.
He twitched, and hot, sticky seed splashed into her body. The feeling of it, so heated and thick as it mingled with her juices, made her cry out again. He braced himself above her and found her mouth a final time, but that time the kiss was soft, gentle, and spoke everything that they had yet to say.
He withdrew slowly and pulled her close. His lips found her forehead and his hands smoothed her hair. He said, “I don’t want you to die.”
She let her head turn so that she could see his face. “I don’t want you to die either. In fact, you better not die. If you die, I swear to God I will find someone who can do some spell that will resurrect you just so I can kick your ass for leaving me.”
His lips trembled. Then laughter poured from his mouth. “That’s…quite the incentive to stay alive.”
“I hope so.” She snuggled into his body. “I meant it when I said I love you. I never should have left the first time.”
He stroked a hand down the span of her ribs. “I was the one who sent you away. Max and I both thought, well, we thought that you and Heather didn’t want to be here.”
“How come you didn’t come to get me like he came to get her?”
“I was afraid you would say no. I could not take that. You have no idea how much of a coward I felt like when you showed back up. I felt like I had somehow let you down, like I should have done just that.”
The candor in his voice struck her to the heart. “If you had come, I would never have come back with you.”
“No?” His hand stilled.
She said, “No. I had to…I had to come here. I had to. I know how that sounds.”
“I understand.”
He did; that was the hell of it. She asked, “Why do you love me?”
“You tried to brain me with a tin can. You held off Orcs with a rock. You laugh like you’ve never known how to cry. You give like you have everything there is to give. You make me crazy. You make me want things I never wanted before. And you kiss me like you’re on fire.”
Her fingers ran down his sternum, along his satiny skin. “I… love you…my God. That’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.” Her heart hurt, it was that full. She whispered, “Maybe having a baby with you isn’t such a terrifying thing to do.”
He said, “We have a very long time.”
Did they? They had Orcs at the door and a world to fend for. They might die, but if they did, at least they would have had this moment. It was enough; really, it was everything.
She snuggled in close to him. Time stood still. There was a future, but it was uncertain. The past, however, was long dead. She was not who she had once been, she was not where she had once been, and she knew in her heart that she would never see that world ever again; she was glad because she did not belong there. She belonged here, and with him.
For however long forever would be.
Chapter Seventeen
Blake and Max stood side by side. The other dragons were standing along the top of the tower’s roof. Below them were the Orcs, so many that they literally darkened the entire ground. Heather and Christy stood behind them, and Blake held one hand out. Christy’s fingers closed around his, and he took a deep breath.
This was what he had been waiting his whole life for. Love, and the only thing standing between him and it were the damn Orcs swarming that ground below.
He said, “Max?’
“Yeah?”
“Ready when you are.”
Power pulsed from Max. The younger dragons, the ones who had inherited magic, began to cast the spells too. Blake changed, his wings coming out and his body growing larger. Scales burst through his skin. Fire, heated in his veins, ran along his throat.
The Orcs came, and the dragons and the humans met them with fire and steel.
Christy, armed with a short and sharp sword, took to his back. He let her guide him. His heart, that fiery thing, beat faster in his chest. The wind his wings made sent a few of the smaller Orcs flying backward, and she was off his back, the sword glinting in the sunlight.
A half-dozen Orcs rushed at him, and Blake let his fire hold them off. Christy was right there, the weapon she held cutting through another Orc that had somehow managed to come up on one flank without his noticing. She shouted, “Watch out,” and he ducked just as a club came hurtling toward him. He batted it away, and his claws seized an Orc that was rushing up behind her.
Max was fighting to his right. Heather, along with other women, were dragging the humans who had already been wounded, back toward the castle walls. The witches were busy trying to hold the Orcs off with their spells. Marlene, who was powerful, was in front and blue fire crackled off her hands as she cast a spell that sent several Orcs rushing at them into the air and then over a cliff. The sound of steel hitting steel and flesh was loud in the air.
Magic crackled and burned. The sky went black and then white. Thunder rolled, the aftermath of their combined powers causing havoc with the weather. A hard rain began to fall. His skin was soaked, but he ignored that. An Orc had Christy pinned to the ground, and he grabbed it up, snapping its spine in half before throwing it over the cliff and to its death.
In his veins flowed the blood of a knight who had fought hard battles. His skills had been honed over centuries. He fought hard, and he fought for the woman lying on the ground
, covered in mud and blood and who got to her feet and then threw the sword at something to his right. She shouted, “Turn!”
He did. Her sword had missed, and the dozens of Orcs coming at him were coming fast and hard with one, a huge male, very close to him. His tail lashed out and swept them back. Marlene’s spell hit them the same time his tail did, and they died, their screams holding agony.
He grinned and managed to take flight, his back claws grabbing Christy and lifting her off the ground just as a battalion of the Orcs swarmed into the spot where they had been standing.
He dropped her by the walls and shouted, “Help Heather and the others!”
He went back into the fray. He threw fire at a troop made up of at least ten of the Orcs, and then he roared in pain as something sharp and vicious slid against the skin of his back foot. An Orc he had thought dead was very much alive, seriously wounded, but alive, and it had just stabbed him!
He spun, blood flowing, but before he could kill the damned thing, Christy was there. She screamed, “Get off him, you rotten sonofabitch!” Then she brought down the club she had picked up from the dirt and cracked it right into the Orcs head.
He muttered, “Well it’s dead now.”
Christy shouted, “You’re hurt!”
He called back, “I’ll heal, and I told you to stay with the others!”
In response, she pointed past his shoulder. He turned and found himself in the midst of a swarm of the Orcs. Christy joined in, using an Orc club to kill several, something that amused him despite the grimness of the situation. Max was there then, breathing fire and using his teeth to help keep the two of them alive.
The ground became even more slippery with blood, and then they were all racing for the castle walls to help a group of humans, fighting with swords and knives and farm implements, to escape death at the hands of a large number of the enemy.
The sun came out but was quickly obscured by clouds swirling and dark with more rain. The rain felt good on his face and body, and he paused for a moment.
Christy was helping to drag a wounded witch to the doorway of the castle and as he watched, fear came in again. What if she died here today? How would he live with that, and without her? He had to get her off the field. The O
Orcs were still coming, swarming over the lip of the cliff and threatening to take the outer walls. How many of the damned things were there?
The rain came down harder, and he changed, running for the walls where he took a sword. He needed to be in the thick of it, to feel steel in his hands and to stand before the walls that his father had helped to erect, to be the wall before the woman that he loved. Blood was still seeping from the wound he had received from the Orc, and he looked down and saw it but knew he would heal. It was a clean gash and already knitting together thanks to his dragon blood.
The sword sang in the air and came down on a club held by a grunting Orc. His teeth clenched and he lifted a foot, kicking the Orc dead in the chest before burying the blade in its heart.
Christy had a little trickle of blood coming from her forehead and he shouted, “You’re hurt!”
She looked at him, and he saw that she did not even know. He groaned, changed, and then caught her up as well as the man she had been trying to take to the walls. He lifted them both up and over and said, “You’re bleeding. Stay here. I mean it!”
He flew back over the wall to grab more of the wounded and deposit them where they could get care. On his fifth trip over, he spotted Max and knew he was in trouble. He had somehow gotten trapped, his back to the wall, and while he was still fighting, it was easy to see that he was tiring. Blake soared in, his fire destroying some of the Orcs trying to kill Max and then they stood there, together, two mighty dragons, fighting hard against their ancient enemy.
When they were fairly clear, Max shouted, “Where’s Heather?”
“I don’t know!”
Max swore and lifted off. Magic crackled and burned, and Blake ducked then went right as a fleeing Orc leaped toward him, and the magic caught it, frying its bones and skins to a crisp.
He was in the thick of it now, battling to not just hold back the seemingly never-ending tide of the Orcs, but to keep the ones already on the plateau that the castle sat upon from being able to breach the walls and enter the castle.
The lightning zigged and zagged, singing the ground. The odor was horrific. He was tiring, and he knew it, but he had to keep going. The sun faded away and night came in, and still, they fought. The humans were exhausted, and he was too. He and Max were fighting together, but they were practically holding each other up. Marlene had run out of strength an hour before and while fresh power was being thrown, it was a younger and weaker power, and it was barely enough to hold back the tide.
Christy was beside him. He saw her sweeping in, and then something so odd happened, he actually stopped fighting for a moment. She was breathing fire!
Heather stepped up beside Max and fire blew out of her hands. That’s when Blake realized that Christy had not breathed it but somehow created it. He managed to fight off a few Orcs that got close enough to kill with his fire and then his legs went weak.
He needed rest. He also needed to figure out just what the hell was making that fire that the two women were throwing at the Orcs.
Aura, so tired she was panting, dropped down beside them. “They retreated, but only for now. They’ve stopped climbing. Maybe the losses have caused them to need to regroup.”
Max groaned out, “They do retreat. Look.”
Blake nodded wearily. “They do. Let’s get back inside and prepare in case they have some kind of plan to breach the walls.”
Christy climbed up on his back, and he battled his way up to the top of the walls and then over. They landed in the courtyard, and he changed then staggered forward a few steps. Christy staggered along beside him, and he wrapped an arm around her neck. Her shoulder helped to steady his, and his steadied hers as they limped into the castle.
Food waited, and the wounded lined the walls. Blake managed to get them both on a bench and then he took her face into his hands. A bit of plaster and poultice was on her forehead, and he asked, “Are you all right?”
“I got hit with a rock. Irony I guess. In fact, I am pretty sure the bastard that I threw it was one of the ones I threw rocks at the day you found me.”
He found he could still smile. “Ouch.”
Marlene said, “Here, eat.”
She put bowls into their hands, and he looked into it. “What the hell is this?”
“Pesto. It’s good. I see she put meat in it that time.”
Blake ate a bite and shrugged. “Not bad. Could use something though. Hey, how did you do it? That fire thing?”
She grinned at him. “You’ll remember that when I came back, I had a purse with me? It was full of stuff from my world. Like, you know, the basics. Coffee, for one. Hair products for another. We just made flames by lighting some of my hair products on fire.”
He roared laughing and this hand dropped to her knee. “That’s resourceful.” It also gave him an idea. Fire was the best defense against the Orcs. They had used it too, back in the olden days. They had lit pitch on fire and poured it over the walls. They did not like to do it because it killed all the flora and was dangerous to livestock and wild animals alike.
But still, fire was their best defense.
Christy leaned against him and yawned widely. “Do you think they are up to something?”
“The Orcs? Absolutely.” He yawned too. “We need rest before they put whatever it is into motion too.”
She asked, “Do we have time to rest?”
“I doubt it.” He watched her lean down to survey his leg where the Orc had gashed him.
She said, “Oh it’s just a scratch.” It had not been just a scratch, but he decided not to tell her that.
She nestled closer, and he let his head fall back. His eyes were heavy and his body tired. The food helped, as did the strong tea that was presse
d into his hand. He could smell coffee, and he asked, a little sleepily, “Are you using up your supply?”
“I can get more.”
He didn’t answer that because a huge yawn cracked his face and his hand gripped her more tightly, but he tumbled into sleep anyway.
Chapter Eighteen
Christy slid quietly out from under Blake’s arm. He was sound asleep, and she knew he needed the rest, so she walked softly across the floor and to Max and Heather. She asked, “What do we do now?”
Max was also asleep, and Heather glanced at him then carefully stood and gestured for her to follow her. They met Marlene in the kitchen as well as some of the other witches and a few humans who had been busy helping to tend the wounded.
There was much to do still, but right now there was a need for rest. Marlene passed around bowls of soup, a rich, clear broth that tasted delicious and went down smoothly. Christy asked, “Do you think the Orcs are coming back?”
Marlene said, “Yes, and they will do it soon, tonight. I can sense them. The dragons need to sleep. They’ve spent a lot of energy, and they have to have some of it just to survive the next attack.”
One of the humans whispered, “I think we need the pitch. Max is against it and Blake too, but it’s our last chance at a defense.”
Christy and Heather gave each other a long look. “What is that?”
Marlene explained. “They boil the pitch from trees and then pour it onto the enemy.”
Christy recoiled. That was horrible! She said, “Is there...I mean I am not at all against killing those things, but that…” Her chest went thick with horror. “That’s pretty extreme.”
Marlene said, “Oh I agree. It’s like medieval napalm, and it’s bad for the environment too. I think we need something else.”
The human shuffled their feet. Nobody would meet Christy’s eyes nor Heather’s. Christy asked, “What is it?”
