Dragon Heat

by Allyson James

  Without thought, Lisa brought up her hand and hurled strings of fiery light across the room. The strands wove themselves together to create a glowing web across the curtain. She shot another web of light at the front door, covering it, and willed the lock to click closed. Two would-be customers pulled the door in a puzzled way, peered through the now-smoked glass, then moved on, seeing nothing.

  The proprietor stared at the front door, then at Lisa, then at the front door again. Quietly, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

  Lisa lowered her hand, her breath coming fast, her heart pounding. She felt the fire within her, rising from where she did not know. It terrified her and at the same time it was the most exhilarating thing she'd ever experienced. It was like an orgasm, only ten times better. Her entire body pulsed with pleasure and fierce triumph.

  The two dragons had not moved. If they noticed her bit of magic, they did not take their eyes off one another.

  "So you work for witches, now?" the black dragon said, his voice as cold as darkness.

  "I protect Lisa from all who would harm her." Every one of Caleb's muscles was taut, a warrior ready to strike. "Witches be damned."

  "They want her. They want to harness her power. I am only trying to get to it first."

  "To find the dragon orb?"

  "To scrag the damn witches. Let me have her, and I will free you from them."

  "If you use the orb, you will destroy everything behind you when you try to enter Dragonspace," Caleb said. "Including Lisa."

  "Why do you care?" the black dragon asked evenly. "Think of it, the witches gone, unable to pass your true name on to anyone else—ever. You will be in Dragonspace and you will be free."

  Caleb's hand was iron steady. In spite of the black dragon's power, Caleb was the warrior, the one who knew how to fight and to kill cleanly and precisely. He did not look back at Lisa, but she felt his dragon song touch her. When he answered the black dragon, his voice was calm. "The price is too high."

  "They are witches, Caleb. Remember what they did to Severin."

  Caleb's face drained of color and his eyes blazed with a fury Lisa had never seen in him before. Behind the fury, she sensed sorrow and a vast sadness pulling at his mark on her mind.

  The black dragon used Caleb's distraction. With impossible speed, he knocked the sword aside and curved his hands into claws to lock around Caleb's throat. Lisa, again without thought, shot a ball of light at him with deadly accuracy. The light struck the black dragon's side, propelling him several feet backward. He fell to the floor, on his back, and Caleb, sword raised, went after him.

  In the split second before the sword came down, the black dragon caught the twisting light Lisa had thrown at him in his hands. He laughed and closed his eyes, his face relaxing into pure pleasure just before Caleb drove the sword straight through his gut.

  The black dragon grunted. Blood flowed from the wound in a shining swath against his black jacket. Caleb stood over him, lips drawn back in the fury of the kill. Lisa watched in frozen shock as Caleb yanked the scarlet-stained sword from the wound and stood back to watch the black dragon die.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Except the black dragon didn't die. He lay on the floor and stared up at Caleb, blood running freely from his wound. The dragon was in pain, that was obvious, his face drawn and gray, lines deepening in his face, the silver glow in his eyes dimming.

  Slowly he leveraged himself to his feet, swaying as blood gushed from him to stain the ochre-colored carpet. He leaned against a bronze green statue of a tall bodhisattva and wrapped his arm around his wound.

  "This is another thing the witches did to me," he rasped. "I'll live out my dragon lifespan here and won't die until then, no matter what happens to me." He clenched his teeth against pain, leaning his dark head against the statue. "So poke me with a stick all you want. You won't stop me."

  "No, but I can slice you to ribbons," Caleb said. "And keep you from putting the pieces back together."

  Lisa felt a whisper of strength, then the black dragon launched himself at Caleb, wrapping strong, blood-wet hands around the hilt of the sword. Fire welled into Lisa's palms, shaping a ball of light, which flung itself at the black dragon without her even compelling it.

  The black dragon released the sword and caught the light in his hands. A blue nimbus stretched over his fingers and wrists, and he wrestled with it, struggling to hold it, to conquer it. His face contorted in pain, but when a thin ribbon of power slid into him, his face relaxed into the beatific expression he'd worn before.

  "No, Lisa," Caleb said as more light feathered Lisa's fingertips. "He is feeding off it. Your power helps him."

  But Lisa had no idea how to stop it. A surge shook her from head to foot, and she let off a blast of power toward both men. The light ball caught Caleb in the side and sent the sword flying end over end to shatter a display case on the far side of the room.

  Caleb fell to his knees but didn't go down. The black dragon slumped against the statue, again fighting the white light, trying to control its entry into his body. He managed it, but the effort sent him to the floor with a grunt of pain, and his eyes slid mindlessly closed.

  Lisa pulled her hands apart, praying that the power would stop. Sudden reaction set in and her stomach clenched. She doubled over.

  "Lisa." She looked up at Caleb's worried expression, barely able to see him.

  "Did I hurt you?" she whispered.

  "We need to get you home, Lisa. His minions will come for him."

  She started to laugh, weakly, which turned into another session of dry heaves. Caleb gently helped her to her feet and held her against him. "Did you say minions!" she asked.

  "Come, Lisa, before he calls for help."

  The black dragon lay still and limp on the floor, eyes closed, blood streaming from his wound. The metallic stench of so much blood made her retch again. Whatever power had come from her no longer made her strong and triumphant, and she nearly fell when Caleb tried to help her walk.

  "Lisa," he breathed in her ear then he picked her up and carried her through the curtains and out the back door. He hurried through the rundown alley and back to the main street, where Lisa had to explain to him how to hail a taxi.

  At the same time a cab shot down California street to take Caleb and Lisa home, Saba sped her elderly Toyota into Chinatown and slammed to a halt in the alley behind the antique store. She'd driven here in record time after she'd answered Malcolm's weak-voiced cell phone call informing her he was hurt and needed assistance.

  Without bothering to turn off the car, Saba leapt from it and rushed into the shop through the open back door. People were pulling at the front door, trying to peer in, jiggling the latch and wondering what was going on. Saba nearly stumbled over the body of a middle-aged Chinese woman who obviously worked in the shop. For a moment, her heart stopped, fearing the worst, but a quick check showed her the woman had only fainted.

  She sensed Malcolm on the other side of the counter, under the statue of a bodhisattva, even before she raced around and found him lying motionless and covered with blood. She dropped to her knees and touched his face, her heart banging uncontrollably.

  His breath brushed her fingers, warm with life, then his eyes fluttered open. The silver light had dimmed, but his gaze was no less compelling. "Get me away from here," he rasped.

  He grasped her wrists, smearing blood all over her bare arms. "Oh, Goddess," she whispered. "Did anyone call nine hundred and eleven?"

  "Take me to your home, not the hospital. I command you."

  "Are you stupid? You're bleeding all over the place."

  "I said, I command you, Saba. Get me out of here. I won't die."

  His words and the mark on her mind compelled her to obey. Against her better instincts, she slid her arm around him and helped him get to his feet. He was weak and sagged against her but he was definitely alive. She felt his heart beating strong against her side, his breathi
ng even. Still, she had to help him stagger to the car, parked askew in the alley, and spill him into the seat.

  She hurried to the driver's side, jumped in, and sped off, scaring a few cats and one stray tourist in her mad rush back to Sacramento Street. She drove hurriedly and badly, praying that the police were way too busy to notice her flying through intersections with a bleeding man in the car.

  Malcolm slumped against the door, his hand pressed to his side, blood all over him. He grunted in pain as she careened around corners, but said nothing.

  "What the hell happened?" she snapped at him.

  His face was white, pupils dilating with loss of blood. "Damn golden dragon stuck a sword in me."

  He closed his eyes, resting against the door frame. It occurred to Saba that if he died, she'd be free of him and his mark, but the thought did not diminish her worry and her urgent need to help him. She decided to drive now, question her sanity later.

  At her apartment, she parked more or less legally, then extracted Malcolm from her car and half-carried him up the stairs. Fortunately, she saw none of her neighbors and so avoided awkward questions, but she knew someone must have noticed her dragging a half-dead man into her house.

  She'd have to make up some convincing story to explain it, because she couldn't afford to be evicted right now. Her on-again off-again programming jobs were off again, and she could fudge the rent long enough to land another freelance project, but not if the landlord thought she was involved in something like gangs or drugs. She'd be out on her butt with nowhere to go, unless she wanted to move across the bay to Berkeley and listen to her father go on about how she should marry a nice Japanese man and keep house for him.

  "You really owe me, Malcolm," she muttered but he didn't seem to hear.

  Once inside the apartment, she locked the door, and Malcolm collapsed. He landed full-length on her carpet, limp, eyes closed. Saba snatched towels from the bathroom and blankets from the bed, knowing she needed to keep him warm.

  At least, that's what you did for humans who'd lost a lot of blood, to keep them from going into shock. For dragons, who the hell knew? She stuffed a pillow under his head and wadded the blankets around him. She tugged his leather coat open then used scissors to cut open the pullover shirt underneath. She unbuttoned and unzipped the fly of his leather pants and eased the waistband open.

  The wound gaped, a wide, deep cut, slashed vertically across the muscles of his abdomen and covered in dried and congealing blood. Pulling the shirt away started the bleeding again, and she snatched up a towel to stem the flow. "I'm not a nurse, damn it," she said. "Or a doctor."

  Malcolm's eyes slid open. "You can heal me. With your magic."

  "No, I can't," Saba almost shouted. "I'm barely an initiate. I can do some rudimentary crystal magic and light candles to help with little things, but I can't heal a wound like this."

  "Yes, you can." He squeezed her wrist, his strength alarming even in his evident state of pain. "You made the talisman for Caleb and not just any initiate could do that. I won't die, but I won't heal instantly, either. I'll lay on my back for weeks waiting to heal, and I don't have time. I haven't the power to speed the healing, but you do."

  "And I tell you, I don't." Saba sat back on her heels, watching the strong man now lying so helpless before her. "When our coven summoned Caleb, I thought my power helped bind him, but I realize now that Donna did it all. We were just there to anchor the circle. My magic sucks and so does Grizelda's. She just has too much of an ego to notice."

  "You're wrong." Malcolm's voice brushed her senses, enticing, dark, like his mark on her mind. "You have power, little witch, but Donna has made you believe you don't. She fears anyone knowing her secrets and desires, so she keeps you at a distance. But I feel the magic in you. You are close to touching your true power. Draw the circle and invoke your deities, and I'll tell you what to do."

  He meant he wanted quick and dirty magic. No purifying herself with a bath, no cleansing her tools, no meditation. It wouldn't work, and she had the sick feeling that she'd have to watch him give in to pain and die. Malcolm was strong, but despite what he claimed, no man could survive a wound like that.

  "You still haven't explained what happened," she said as she gathered, with shaking hands, her bags of salt, the cup and ceremonial knife, her crystals, and a handful of white pillar candles.

  "Caleb, the golden dragon happened," he said. "Protecting Lisa, who he's thoroughly ensnared. I couldn't get through his protections to mark her, but I tasted her power." His voice changed, taking on a note of wonder, even joy. "She has such power, Saba, it flows from her like honey and tastes like nectar of the gods. I tried to control it, to turn it to help me, but I couldn't. I was close, but I couldn't do it."

  Saba traced a circle in salt wide enough to encompass his body. She'd done salt circles in her apartment before, and her carpet glittered here and there with tiny crystals she'd missed when cleaning up. Once the circle was complete, with her inside it, she knelt facing east and lifted her hands.

  She heard Malcolm chuckle.

  "What?" she asked, self-conscious. She'd never performed a ritual in front of anyone before, not wanting something so personal to be witnessed, and frankly, afraid she'd screw it up.

  "You don't do your rites in the nude?" he asked, a teasing light in his silver eyes. "Not sky-clad?"

  Saba let irritation flare to cover her fear. "Oh, please, that is so made up," she growled, then began her chant to the Goddess.

  Malcolm guided her through the ritual, which Saba had never heard of or read in any Wiccan text she'd ever gotten her hands on. He had her lay amethysts in his cupped hands, then she placed her own hands over them, and together they charged the stones. She felt his dragon power, the fire element, seeping into the amethysts, melding with her own earth element. Saba was half-Japanese, and the mountains that formed the backbone of Japan were in her blood even though she'd never seen them outside of pictures. The snow-covered cone of Fuji-san figured in several silk paintings that hung in her apartment now, the mountain itself calling to her from across the world. One day she would travel to Japan and see for herself the mountain that had been revered by her people for centuries.

  Malcolm's fire magic and her earth magic continued infusing the amethysts, the power building until she worried the crystals would shatter with it. Malcolm instructed her to clean the wound with the water from the chalice, which she did, and then to pile the amethysts on the wound.

  He flinched as the first stones touched his skin, gritting his teeth against pain. She circled the wound with the stones then built a small pyre of them over it. The amethysts radiated so much energy that the air around them glowed purple. Malcolm's face contorted as pain took him, but when Saba reached to move the stones, thinking they hurt him too much, he told her sharply to continue the ritual.

  Saba laced her hands through his and placed them over the stones, chanting the words he told her to. The stones rocked with fire and Earth magic, combining with water magic from the chalice that cleansed the wound and with the air magic of her breath repeating words. He began to speak with her, his rolling, baritone syllables combining with her lighter ones.

  Magic cascaded through her, and Saba gasped with it. She'd only come close to feeling like this once, during her dedication rite, when she'd felt the true presence of the male and female divine with her. She'd never felt so powerful, or so loved, before or since.

  The power that coursed through her now was similar, but brighter, sharper like steel. It was Malcolm's power, the fire magic of the dragon that witches had been taught to both fear and covet. Dragon magic could kill them, but properly harnessed, it could propel them to heights they never dreamed of reaching.

  Malcolm was giving her his magic freely, for his own benefit of course, but he was letting her take it and use it and enjoy it. Tears ran down her face with the beauty of the power. Was this what Donna felt when she performed her high priestess rituals—that she could do anything, tou
ch anything, see anything, be anything?

  A blue glow infused the circle, and the candle flames leapt high. His magic, hers, the crystals, the words, the energy of the circle, all rushed toward a spiral of ecstasy.

  They broke together, his shout mixing with hers, the feeling more powerful than anything sexual. The apex of magic held for one glittering moment, strong as steel, stretching until Saba thought she'd break with it.

  And then, just as suddenly, the power spiraled down, the amethysts slowly lost their glow, and the flames of the candles relaxed into small flickers.

  Malcolm lay back, breathing hard, releasing her fingers. Her hands aching, Saba brushed the amethysts from his abdomen, letting the stones clink to the carpet. The blue light that had enclosed the circle slowly faded, her mundane apartment returning to focus.

  Beneath the stones, his wound had closed. All that was left of the bloody mess was clean skin creased with a white scar about four inches long.

  Saba stared in astonishment. Malcolm sat up, touching the scar, seemingly healthy and whole again, none the worse for wear.

  "I did it," Saba said, then her heart staccatoed as she realized what she'd said. "I did it!" Her cry rang with triumph.

  "Of course you did." Malcolm slanted her a dark smile, his eyes strong and sensual. "I knew you had the power, my witch."

  He snaked his hand through her hair and drew her head back, kissing her deeply. She laughed, loving the rough feel of his tongue in her mouth. He eased her to the floor, breaking the salt circle, letting the residual power flow to the floor and down through the foundations of the building to the earth.

  He laid her down, his heavy body covering hers, kissing her mouth, the power between them still tangible. "I knew you could do it," he whispered, his silver eyes filling her vision. "You have power deep inside you, and I am going to give you a gift for letting me share it."

  "A gift?" Her lips barely formed the words.

  Malcolm stripped her cropped shirt and bra from her, and lowered his mouth to suckle her breast. As he had the night he'd first put his mark on her, he demanded nothing from her. That night he'd pleasured her again and again until she'd dived into sleep, and she'd woken in the morning to find her hands and feet unbound and Malcolm gone.