Eyes widening, Sofia’s mouth quirked up. “Two entire rooms full of chocolate?”
He nodded. “And separated by type. I had no idea that chocolate was such an intricate and diverse food.”
Sofia then got an idea. “Would your chef mind if I made dinner for the two of us in his kitchen?”
Ryluth looked at her as if she were crazy, but he shook his head. “He will not mind any female in his domain.”
“I’ve sent a message to Cassie about some things I would like delivered and will let you know when I have everything. I think you will enjoy it.”
The television shows that Sofia had loved were the ones that showed people cooking food and there were so many ways to prepare foods now than when she had been taken. She had gone online and grabbed the recipes she liked the most and she and Lauren had practiced making many of them, changing some things and making them their own. There were things she could do with chocolate and peppers that ought to please her Dragon.
Wait. What? Hers? Was Ryluth hers? She wasn’t sure, but she knew that she was considering the thought that maybe he could be. It would all depend on what she could find herself doing here on his world. Wushin was beautiful and she wanted to see more of it.
Sofia was delighted that Ryluth finally found his ability to converse, but he still stared at her. It thrilled her on a very important level that she was not put off by it, and, in fact, found it very flattering. She could tell he was attracted and aroused, but he didn’t even touch her. The restraint he showed impressed her no small amount.
“Would it be possible to see more of your world? Have you planned any trips or tours?”
Ryluth shook his head. “We were leaving that up to any of the males the females found attractive enough to ask to show them around. Bax told us it was an excellent way to get to know someone.”
Sofia snickered. The Demon Hunter would know, having traversed the Earth with his witch before getting her to lay with him. Then they had spent days in bed.
“You do not think this was a good idea?” Ryluth asked, seeming unsure, and Sofia could do nothing other than reassure him that it was a brilliant idea.
“Actually, it’s a good idea, and time spent alone, rather than bunched up together looking at tourist sites.” She knew, she’d toured Italy that way and had hated it. Nothing was familiar to her. Florence had seemed more like itself, but still, it was almost unrecognizable to her.
“Where would you like to go?” He asked her, putting his napkin on the table. Evidently, he was finished eating.
“I would like to see the sea. Even on the Demonworld I have not seen it. I never wanted to explore there.”
“I have a home at the sea with a beautiful view. You can even sometimes see the sea dragons out in the water,” his voice had taken on a wistful tone and Sofia was enchanted.
“You like that place,” she said.
He nodded. “I mainly live there. I am only here when I am absolutely needed.
“And, you absolutely need to be here?” She asked, hoping he’d say no so they could go. Another odd thing was for her to want to be alone with a male, but she did want it.
“No,” he said after a moment of thought. “Lennalth can handle anything and he likes being here. I can arrange for us to leave in the morning...” he looked up at her, uncertainty in his eyes. “You would not mind riding a Dragon, would you? If you do mind it will take us at least three days to get there via ground travel.”
Sofia shook her head vigorously. “I would love to ride a Dragon.” She bounced in her hands and found herself lightly clapping her hands, like a child excited for pudding after dinner.
She looked at Ryluth and he was smiling at her, and it was a devastating look coming from him. Yes, he’d smiled at her before, but this... this smile was something completely different. She went still and stared at him, a longing welling up within her, but she didn’t understand it.
She finally broke the spell by putting her napkin on the table as well. “If we are to leave in the morning I need to pack. How long can we stay?”
Ryluth looked disappointed and his smile grew a little less bright. “Does three days sound good? We can extend it if you cannot pull yourself away from the shore.”
She breathed out a sigh of relief that he wasn’t going to press her at that moment. She was too unsure of her feelings at the moment to allow any liberties.
“I will walk you back to your room, Sofia,” he said, once again offering his elbow.
“Thank you, Ryluth. It’s been too long since I have been to the shore.”
“Then I am privileged to be the one to give you your wish.”
Sofia kissed him lightly on the mouth at her door but let herself in alone and leaned against the wood until she heard his feet walk away.
She began undressing and hung the dress up, proud of what she’d done with it. Then she began throwing things into a tote bag that she would need. She looked at the sexy underwear Ava had given her and boldly threw that in and zipped the bag shut before she changed her mind. Then she found her bathing chamber and ran a hot bath with soothing oils. She needed to think.
Chapter Five
Ryluth called for Lennalth and had grown impatient when he was still waiting for the male fifteen minutes later. When he opened his door to the knock, he found his friend in a very untidy state. His hair looked like, hell, like a female had been running her hands through it and his clothes... his clothes were... put on hastily and fastened incorrectly. He was also panting.
“What in the name of all the gods, Lennalth?” Ryluth cursed and pulled him into the room. Once his door was closed he turned on his Captain of the Guard. “Which one, Lennalth? Have you already dishonored her? You know how damned important this is! I didn’t request the females for you to play with.” His frustration was turning what should have been a minor infraction into a huge breach of conduct. He reeled his anger in. “I’m sorry, my friend, but this is far too important to be fucking around with the females.”
“She’s mine,” Lennalth growled at his king, and Ryluth noticed. He stared at his friend a moment then laughed.
“So, you have found her?”
Lennalth glared at him then nodded. “We were almost there!” He roared at his oldest friend, then wiped his hand down his face.
“Which one?”
“Miene,” Lennalth said, pronouncing her name as Mee-nuh. “She’s the illusionist, working with light. She’s brilliant, she’s beautiful and she is mine.”
Ryluth had to chuckle at the Dragon’s possessiveness. All Dragons were that way, protecting their hoard.
He nodded. “Yes, my friend, she is yours, however are you hers? And, if she is yours there is no dishonor.”
That was the question all Dragons dreaded because of their god’s curse the answer had always been no.
Lennalth deflated and shook his head.
“She’s mine!” Lennalth yelled at Ryluth.
Ryluth’s anger came back full force. “No, she’s horny and you’re available and all too willing! I did not bring them to Wushin to service my dragons, dammit. You must make sure she is yours, FIRST!”
Lennalth’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped and his hurt eyes stared at Ryluth who had stomped over to his desk and picked up a piece of paper. He slapped it on his Captain’s chest.
“You will be too busy over the next few days to think too much on your illusionist. I will be taking Sofia to my home as she wants to see the sea.”
“All for me but not for thee?” Lennalth charged, lethally angry at being denied what he wanted.
“No,” Ryluth turned on his, his eyes just as angry. “Because she asked me. And, no matter how badly I desire her, I will not touch her unless she understands and accepts my mate bond. I will not have her toy with me.”
“Yet you demand I do so!” Lennalth crumpled the paper in the fist he made.
“No, I’m asking you to step back and take a breath. Let her make the next move, but y
ou have to explain everything, including the curse to her.” His tone became reasonable as he explained what Lennalth already knew. “Do not give so much of yourself away in the event she was merely fooling around and doesn’t want what you want. You don’t want to end up like the others.”
That brought Lennalth up short. He took a step back, as if to avoid ‘the others’ altogether. The others, in this case, were dragons who were so heartbroken by the women who had left them that they gave up on living altogether. Others had been left to raise their sons. One of those boys, now only a couple of hundred years old, worked in the Palace, learning the ways of a Dragon Warrior. Dannash always felt he wasn’t good enough since neither of his parents cared enough about him to stick around. Ryluth had spent years working on the Dragon’s self-worth.
“Do you want to end up like that? Giving up on everything? I don’t see that in you, so I don’t know how you hide it if that’s the case.”
“I don’t” Lennalth rasped. “I will do as you say.” Then he walked out of Ryluth’s apartments, duty list in his hand.
Lennalth watched him go and grew worried for his friend. Finer, stronger Dragons than he had thought they had a tight lid on things and had it blow up in their faces.
*****
Early the next morning, Ryluth awakened and hurried to get ready to fly Sofia to his seaside home. He found himself nervous over whether she would like it. He would change anything for her, and then caught himself. The one thing he would not change was himself. She had to accept him, who he was, if this had any chance of working for the long time they had to live. Eternity was an awfully long time to live with someone you couldn’t ever leave.
He pressed forward with determination. These three days would be the best time for Sofia to get to know him, and for him to get to know her. He knew this was not mere lust of infatuation. His Dragon told him who she was to him and he listened. However, she was a Witch, and they had no mating bond at all, so they never had the surety that other races had in their pairings. How did they know? How did they take that chance?
For the Dragons, they had several worlds, mainly the Technomage World, where they could go for release, but in the long years since Coalna’s death, none had found their mate. They had found females they cared deeply for, and who, for a time, cared for them, but they always left, never looked back at their offspring. It was all part of the curse. As much as Ryluth wanted the curse to end, he didn’t want his mate to be the one who would have to die to bring it about. As much as he desired Sofia, wished to sink himself deeply into her soft body and never come out, he did not want her to die to satisfy Threlzin’s wrath towards his people for allowing the Faerie in.
He hadn’t figured a way around that part yet, only thinking of how badly he wanted Sofia in his bed, in his life. It slowed his steps as he approached her room. He stopped in front of her door and shook his head. He would have to tell her. He could not rail at Lennalth for not telling his Female, and turn around and omit a huge part of their story with Sofia because he wanted her so badly. With great dread, he lightly knocked on her door and she opened it, an excited smile on her face, and a black tote bag on her shoulder.
“I would speak with you before we leave,” he said. “It is important and may change your mind on going.”
She looked at him, obvious questions written on her face, but she asked him into her chamber and stepped back, allowing him to walk in.
Ryluth stepped in and she shut the door, then stood quietly, waiting for him. He pointed to the chairs in the small sitting area of her chamber, indicating that they should take a seat. She did so in complete silence.
He sat and tried to get his thoughts in order. He looked over to where Sofia sat so quietly and closed his eyes at the thought of the pain he would experience if she got up and left after he told her what he needed to tell her.
“I —uh —I know that it was not in our invitation to the females we invited here, but we do have an ulterior motive for inviting you here,” he started.
Sofia nodded. “Yes, you need females for breeding in the hopes of mating them,” she stated, as if this was basic knowledge.
“It’s not just that,” he tried to get out his explanation, but it was sticking in his throat. “We have had females come and bear children for us, but they always leave, they never stay to raise their young, or give a mating a try.”
Sofia gasped. It was clear that the thought of abandoning a child of hers was beyond her acceptance.
“A very long time ago, the Faerie came to our world, allowed in by a traitor, and they killed the mate of our god, Threlzin. He was so furious, so enraged that he cursed my people. He killed an entire line of Dragons, the family of the traitor. Then he aged all of the mates, and within seconds they became their chronological age, as if they had never had the blessing of living on a regenerative world. Then he told us that we would pay for this sin for a very long time, and that we would never know love, never know true caring until one of us, one day, found a female such has his mate, and she died as had his mate. Only then would his anger be appeased.”
Sofia sat staring at him and Ryluth began to fidget after a minute of it. He had a memory of being called before his father for a childhood prank and his father silently considering him before speaking.
“What were the exact words your God spoke?” She asked quietly.
Ryluth’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t... I don’t understand?”
“Tell me exactly, the words of this curse,” she demanded once again.
Ryluth was amazed to discover, he didn’t know the exact words.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “The scroll of the event is at my home.”
She smiled at him and Ryluth found himself clinging to the promise in it.
“Then we should go there.”
*****
There was another Dragon, Dannash, on the roof where Ryluth turned into a Dragon and Dannash showed her how to seat herself on Ryluth’s neck, and how to hang on to the spines. He showed her how to carry her bag and she felt secure that she would make the trip in safety. Ryluth had good reason to make sure he didn’t drop her.
“It will take a few hours, my lady,” Dannash said, after satisfying himself that she was on safely. “I wish you good journey.”
Sofia smiled at him and thought he seemed so young to her, but knew that he was probably as old as she was.
With a signal from the young Dragon, Ryluth swept off the roof and then began to climb up high enough to avoid even the tallest trees, but low enough that Sofia could see all of the country they flew over. This world was beautiful to her. She saw small towns and farms, and they were all tended. It was not like the Demonworld had become before the emancipation, with so much of that world being abandoned simply because there were hardly any Demons, true Demons left. Most of the world had been Demis at that point. When Cassie and Krys had brought back the Demons from Era where they had hidden for over a thousand years, there were more Demons than there had been when Siletha wiped them out.
She saw other Dragons in flight, and it awed her. She could not believe that she was flying on a Dragon. She had surrounded herself in a bubble of air so that she would not be buffeted by the winds or cooled by the high altitude. In this manner, she enjoyed the entire ride.
Ryluth flew and she was able to see and appreciate the beauty of his world. His main palace was in a valley of a mountainous region that was heavily forested. She realized, after an hour of flight, that she didn’t see other towns or even houses. If she had not seen other dragons in flight, she would have thought she and Ryluth were the only people existing.
When sight of the sea came up she had gasped and taken in a deep breath. She could smell the salt air and she relaxed. She closed her eyes until she felt Ryluth dip down and realized he had come up on the coast and was taking her close to the water. She hooted in laughter as he scared the gull like birds flying along the beach. They were much larger than the birds on Earth, but jus
t as loud. They sent Ryluth loud protests when he flew through them, and her Dragon retorted with a trumpet of his own.
It was glorious.
He landed on the beach below a large cave on the coast, up on the cliff. She stepped down on to his wings and stepped exactly where Dannash had shown her. She felt Ryluth’s shifting magic as she stood on the beach, watching the waves come into shore. He watched as she dropped her bag, stuck out her arms and turned in a circle.
“This is marvelous!” She cried out, then ran up to the water, allowing it to play at her feet.
“Ryluth!” she yelled to him. “The water is perfect!” She had worn a pair of comfortable capris and a t-shirt she’d gotten while still on Earth. She waded in up to her ankles and she suddenly felt Ryluth right behind her and she turned her head and he was right there, snatching a kiss from her.
“You’re magnificent,” he said, a huge smile on his face.
Sofia felt heat fill her face, but she smiled at him.
“This is so beautiful. I don’t know how you ever leave it.”
“I prefer this place over all of the others here. I can relax here.”
She looked back to the cliffs and it reminded her of a beach she had visited when a witch named Sunny had wanted to visit her childhood home at some place called Monterey that had a beach much like this one. She had to be honest, she wasn’t even sure where on Earth it was, but it had been beautiful and Sofia had enjoyed her day there.
“I love it!” she shouted, throwing her hands in the air and running up and down the beach in sheer joy. She finally fell onto the sand laughing and trying to catch her breath.
Ryluth came and stood over her, a huge smile on his face. The smile she thought made him look so devastatingly handsome and a definite gleam in his deep amethyst eyes.
“You really love the beach, don’t you?” He asked as he sat down beside her.
Sofia thought a moment and then told him the truth. “I feel free here.”
The Air Witch's Dragon Page 6
