Wicked Wish (Dragon's Gift: The Storm Book 1)

by Veronica Douglas

  “You want me to follow you?”

  She nodded, then led me through the maze, around corners and bends. The little thing seemed to know where she was going, and we didn’t encounter any more impasses.

  Quickly, she zipped ahead and out of sight.

  “Hey! Wait!” I ran after her, but she was gone.

  The maze opened into a giant courtyard dotted with trees and a structure partially concealed by clouds. I called upon the wind and pushed the fog away, revealing a domed conservatory. Its glass windows were opaque with grime, and the inside was filled with bushes and trees and ferns.

  What the heck was this place?

  There was no door to the structure, just an arched opening. I stepped inside, breathing the warm, fragrant air. Alluring—though it made my head spin. The little sprite appeared again.

  “There you are.” I hurried toward her.

  She hovered for a second, then zipped down a flagstone path shrouded in giant ferns and hanging flowers. Unlike the death lilies, these smelled aromatic and inviting. The scents were intoxicating, clouding my mind, and numbing my senses.

  I followed cautiously, carefully avoiding the plants that snaked onto the stones. The flowers seemed to inch closer to me, though I couldn’t tell if it was real or just my paranoia. I could taste the air, which had grown more perfumed. Honeysuckle…

  Something tugged at the edge of my consciousness, but my thoughts moved like molasses. I reached out to touch a fern, missing it by a mile and nearly stumbling. I took a seat on a stone beside the path. I was so tired, and this was the first safe place I had found in the maze. Just a little rest, I told myself, and sucked in the sweet aroma. What was it? I could almost taste it. The air was warm, comforting, like a warm blanket and good book on a cold winter’s day. Was this heaven? Just peacefulness and…scones.

  Wait. What?

  There it was again, a thought trying to form. It felt like a distant memory, ever so faint but there.

  The sprite appeared again. She was so beautiful. And so kind to have brought me to such a marvelous place.

  “Hello, again,” I mumbled.

  The tiny woman flitted onto my hand and pried open my fingers. She reached up to a flower that hung above, tilted it sideways, and poured a viscous liquid into my hand.

  “Honey!” I stared at it with glee. This was definitely a little heaven. Scooping up a blob with my index finger, I raised my hand to my mouth.

  STOP. DANGER.

  The nagging thought burst through my foggy consciousness like a torrent breaking through a dam.

  Danger. Run.

  I jerked my hand back, smearing the gooey honey onto the moss below.

  Get out. Now.

  I stumbled to my feet, trying to gain control of my clumsy movements. A deep fog permeated every corner of my mind. Terror shot through me. What if I forgot what I was I doing? What I needed to do?

  Got to get out of this conservatory…

  Over and over, I repeated it in my head.

  The sprite swooped down in front of me with outstretched arms and snarled, baring a set of tiny jagged teeth.

  Holy shit. I’d summoned a demon sprite. An evil, wicked, little fairy devil…

  Focus. Got to get out of here.

  I drew my energy into my palm. It was sluggish, but I felt it surge through my body. Swiping my arm drunkenly, I shot a burst of wind at the little demon sprite, sending her head over heels into the bushes.

  Panic rising, I pushed through the plants that twisted around me. I swept my arms out in an arc and blew them back with a blast.

  Got to get out of here.

  My legs were so heavy…

  I saw the opening up ahead and plowed forward. Come on. Almost there.

  I burst out into the foggy courtyard and sucked in the cool, fresh air, clearing my mind. My senses returned, but I kept moving, desperate to get as far away from that damned conservatory as I could.

  The courtyard ended at a path that headed into another set of hedges.

  “Damn it!” I shouted. At least my head was clear, and the horrible drugged sensation was fading. I sighed in relief. That was close. I’d have to be more careful and less trusting. Not everyone was a friend.

  I blew the fog away and scanned the courtyard. There weren’t any other options, so I headed into the hedges. Death lilies draped over the manicured bushes. I chopped a few flowers down that reached toward me. Screw this place.

  Branches twisted and cracked behind me. I stopped and turned. The hedge rustled, then gyrated fiercely.

  Here we go again. I crouched, holding my khanjar loosely, ready to strike.

  When the hedge split open, Damian strode out, two daggers in his hands and a grimace on his face. His torn shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, and his tousled hair gleamed in a ray of sun that cut through the fog. Gods, he was perfect.

  We locked eyes, and he dismissed the daggers into smoke with a flick of his wrist.

  I don’t know why, but I leapt into his arms. “Thank fates you’re okay.”

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he whispered, pulling me close.

  A moment passed—an eternity that I never wanted to end—and we peeled ourselves apart. He set me down, and I turned away, my face burning with heat. “What took you so long?”

  “I got jumped by two gargoyles.” He brushed aside a strand of hair from my face. “What happened to you? Your hair is full of leaves and petals.”

  “Several arguments with a hedge.”

  He traced his thumb along the line of my jaw, and his warm magic trickled across my skin. I winced at first, but then sweet relief flooded through my face. He soothed the forgotten aches in my forehead and cheekbones. My headache departed. I shivered beneath his touch, swaying toward him. “You’re supposed to go down the paths, not through the hedges.”

  “Now you tell me,” I joked. “How’d you find me?”

  His scratches were already healing themselves. His shirt was still ripped, though, and his skin looked tantalizing beneath the tattered fabric. Heat washed over me, and my heart fluttered.

  “I tracked you.” His voice was rough and sexy, and it sent shivers up my legs. “I would’ve found you sooner if it weren’t for those gargoyles. And those carnivorous vines. Not to mention a nest of giant wasps. And that damned hedge that keeps shifting.”

  My mind started working again. “But how? You don’t have anything of mine…do you?”

  Damian had returned my opal necklace after our first trip to the Realm of Air.

  “I don’t need anything to track you.” Damian took a half step closer, his mouth within striking distance of mine. “I can sense you. Feel you.”

  My breath caught in my throat. His heat washed over me in full force, and I inhaled the heady scent of his magic—windswept juniper forests by a raging sea. I ached for his touch and longed to feel his skin against mine.

  Danger.

  Warning bells pinged in my mind, Nix’s warning. I should heed it.

  But Damian pressed his hand to the small of my back, pulling me closer and making my mind fog. His fingers slipped beneath my shirt, grazing the base of my spine. Shivers radiated from his touch, and my skin erupted in goosebumps.

  His dark green eyes, full of secrets and stories untold, penetrated mine as if searching my soul.

  “Neve.” My name sounded like a prayer on his lips.

  Heart racing, resistance crumbling, I wrapped my arms around his neck and rose on tiptoes. A low groan tore from his throat, and he swept me upward, his strong arms around my back. His lips met mine, devouring.

  Time stopped.

  His lips moved skillfully, parting mine to kiss me more deeply. I drank him in, pressing myself closer to the hard plane of his chest. Pleasure flooded me, and I arched my back, wanting no space between us. Wanting to feel all of him. He groaned and pulled me closer, kissing me like it was the end of the world.

  This…this was heaven.

  A deafening crash resounde
d through the hedge behind us. We jumped apart, my head spinning and heart racing, to find a gargoyle fifty paces in front of us, growling and snarling.

  Holy shit.

  The beast shot forward at lightning speed.

  Damian pulled two black, smoking daggers from the ether and hurled them through the air. The gargoyle deflected one, but the other lodged into his shoulder with a hiss. He let out a thunderous roar but didn’t slow.

  His first attack stymied, Damian stepped forward and raised his hand. The gargoyle abruptly staggered, clutched its chest, and crashed sideways into the hedge. I turned to Damian. His eyes had gone black, radiating a dark light.

  What the heck sort of magic was this?

  I backed away as he strode menacingly toward the gargoyle. It struggled against the force of his magic but could not rise. Damian slowly clenched his fist. The creature quaked, then exploded into a flurry of rocks and dust, as if crushed from the inside out.

  It was the same thing that he’d done to the thief in the market on Tayir. My legs shook. While we had both dispatched many demons with our weapons and magic, there was something awful about this power. Something savage.

  He turned away from the disintegrated gargoyle and walked back toward me, coming close again. He raised his hand as if to place it on the small of my back. “Where were we?”

  I pulled back, unable to take my gaze from his hand—that hand could extinguish life just as easily as extinguishing a candle. That hand could kill without remorse. What had I gotten myself into? This man was destruction incarnate. Was I ready to be entangled with one of the Fallen?

  I looked up and met his eyes, catching the surprise there. “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Neve,” he murmured.

  “I know.” Did I? I was not ready for this. “We were on our way to the palace. To save Rhiannon. To trap the djinn. That’s where we were.”

  Damian’s expression hardened, regretful, as if he knew the moment was gone. “Right. We better get moving.”

  We stood just short of an intersection in the labyrinth. Damian strode forward and looked around the corner of the hedge, checking both directions. “Right or left?”

  I shrugged. “Right hand rule?”

  “Right it is,” he said, and stepped out.

  In an explosion of leaves and grass, long brass claws erupted from the earth. I screamed, stumbling backward. The claws closed around Damian and dragged him into the ground, leaving nothing but a cavernous black hole in their wake.

  Panting, I stared at the pit, horror opening a chasm in my chest.

  Damian was gone.

  23

  I scrambled forward, clawing at the dirt where Damian had disappeared. With a grating noise, a brass plate slowly closed over the top. I tried to stop it, pulling at the metal lip, but my muscles gave out, and the plates ground closed.

  I staggered to my feet, heart pounding and mind racing.

  “Damn labyrinth!” I hissed, wanting to shriek it to the heavens. But I didn’t need to bring another gargoyle down on my head.

  There was no response from Damian or the hedge.

  It was a trap. Perhaps there was another.

  I began searching the ground nearby. As I brushed away the grass, my hand encountered a sharp metal point protruding from the dirt—the tip of a claw. There were others nearby.

  Same trap, most likely. Perhaps it went to the same place…

  My options weren’t great. I could either continue wandering along through the maze, or—and this was a really terrible idea—I could try to follow Damian down.

  It was dangerous, but I was done running into dead ends.

  Screw this maze, I thought, and stepped deliberately into the middle of the trap. The brass claws erupted around me, raking my skin and tearing my jacket. With a sudden lurch, they tightened and dragged me into the dark earth.

  I rocketed downward, choking on the soil as it cascaded around me.

  Pain streaked through me as I collided against a hard metal framework. Blinded by darkness but with my feet dangling free, I scrabbled for purchase and began feeling around.

  Holy fates. My stomach pitched. I was in some kind of metal cage, swinging back and forth in the air.

  “Damian,” I whispered.

  Nothing. I tried a bit louder. “Damian!”

  “I’m here. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Everything was pitch back. “Where are we?”

  “Not sure. We’re locked up in cages. Or at least I am.”

  “I thought I had lost you.”

  “No, I’m just hanging around.” He paused. “Do an experiment for me. Try to summon your magic.”

  I tried to call the wind. Nothing. I tried blasting a gust from my hand. Nothing. I tugged, but it just wasn’t there. Heck, I even tried to planes-walk. It didn’t work. “I’ve got zilch.”

  “As I thought. We’re in an anti-magic room. You can feel it in the air.”

  I slowed my breathing and sensed the air. It was thick, heavy, and wrong.

  Well, this was a predicament.

  I looked down into the darkness. “I wish I could see.”

  There was a flash, and a soft glowing light popped into view. It split into three small sparks that floated aimlessly around the room, like motes in the sunlight.

  The light didn’t travel far, but I could see a little at least.

  “I thought you couldn’t do magic,” Damian said.

  “It’s not me.” I paused. “It’s like the lights on the ship when the ice devils attacked. Maybe it’s some kind of creature native to this realm?”

  One of the sparks drifted over and illuminated Damian’s cage in soft light. It dangled over the black, cavernous space. Damian’s wings were visible.

  “Damian, your wings…”

  They were too large for the cage and poked through the brass bars.

  “I know.” He shifted them awkwardly. “They’re always there—I just normally banish them with magic.”

  “How the heck are we gonna get out of here?”

  “I’m working on it.” He pulled out what appeared to be a lock picking kit from his bag and started fiddling with the large padlock on the door. “Give me a moment.”

  I peered into the darkness and shuddered. “Fates. I wonder what’s down there?”

  As I said it, one of the bobbing lights began slowly dropping downward.

  There was no bottom to the chamber, just a roiling bank of fog. The spark drifted over the clouds. Were there dark shapes writhing below? Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Maybe it was snakes.

  With our luck, my money was on snakes.

  “Damian?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t drop the picks.”

  “Noted.”

  An abrupt clang reverberated through the room as a brightly lit doorway opened in the side of the chamber above.

  Two hawk-headed avians burst forth, carried aloft by their broad wings. Each wielded a long pike with a sharp point and a sinister hook.

  “We’ve got company!” I shouted.

  “Can’t stop, almost there.”

  The avians surged through the air, closing the distance between us. One thrust his pike through the bars of Damian’s cage, piercing his wing. He braced and grunted in pain but didn’t stop working the lock.

  Dread crept up my spine as the guard pulled his blood-soaked pike free for a second thrust. We were in an anti-magic room. Damian couldn’t heal here.

  A screech echoed above me, and I spun. The second avian rocketed downward and jammed his pike through the bars of my cage. I drew my khanjar, using the hooked blade to deflect the blow. He tried to catch my arm with the pike’s wicked hook, but I dove right, avoiding it.

  “Got it. Hold on!” Damian reached to pull the padlock free, but the hawk-headed guard thrust his pike through the bars, aiming for Damian’s chest. He dodged to the side and grasped the shaft as it grazed him. Pulling the pike forward, he grabbed the guard by a tuft of feathers and vic
iously slammed its head against the brass cage, over and over, until it lost consciousness and tumbled into the mist below.

  In an instant, Damian bolted to the door of the cage and flung the padlock off. Pike in hand, he burst into the air, his iridescent black wings shimmering in the dim light.

  The other guard dodged my blade and withdrew his pike. He spun to strike Damian, who dodged inside the guard’s reach. They came together in a violent flurry of wings and tumbled in free fall into the mist.

  I jumped forward, clutching the brass bars of my cage. “Damian!”

  There was a moment of stillness, then Damian came hurtling up out of the roiling clouds below. A black tentacle lashed at his feet, but he rocketed up. Its quarry out of reach, it slipped slowly back into the mist.

  My skin chilled. “What the heck was that?”

  Damian alighted against my cage, causing it to sway gently at the end of the chain. He held on with a single hand, leaned back casually, and smiled. “Don’t go down there.”

  “Noted.”

  He pulled the lock picks out of his pocket and set to work. Blood stained his shirt, leaking from several grievous wounds. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine once we get out of this room. Are you hurt?”

  “A few minor cuts and scratches. Get me out of here, and I’ll be just dandy.”

  “Almost there…” The padlock opened with a click, and he tossed it into the abyss below.

  “I can’t fly in here. Not without my magic.” I eyed his bloody wounds and torn wings, doubtful of his strength. “Can you carry me?”

  “Of course.”

  Without warning, he scooped me up in a single arm and leapt into the air. I yelped as we hurtled through the darkness. I was used to flying by now, but only under my own power and control. Not like this.

  Sensing my concern, Damian tightened his grip, his muscles flexing beneath his bloody shirt, his wings surging power. The anti-magic room had stripped away the scent of his magic, leaving me with only the scent of him. Sandalwood and sweat. It unleashed a storm within me, and heat flared in my center.

  Shit, no.

  This was not happening.