Mathonwy smiled down at his dragonmate and led her over to the vacated thrones. Bronwyn and Llywelyn were already standing behind the chairs, holding the kingdom’s diadems.
Bronwyn pronounced them the Dragon King and Dragon Queen, and a priest of the Dragon Lords bustled out of the crowd to anoint their foreheads and chests with olive oil blessed in the temple.
Bethany’s face was smooth and solemn as the occasion warranted, but through their bond, Math could feel how thrilled she was at this next step in their adventure together.
Deep satisfaction suffused Mathonwy. His whole life had been a preparation for this, he felt. He could feel how, with his contacts and wide network, they could lead the dragon clan into the next era. Now, with his dragonmate Bethany by his side and the crown in his hoard—he meant, on his head—he felt confident they could take it all on.
Yes, this was for the best.
The crown settled on Math’s brow from behind, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Bronwyn crown Bethany as the Dragon Queen.
At the front of the dais, Arawn and Willow, and then Cai and Ember, walked up the steps to be the first to congratulate them.
He stood and held out his hand to help Bethany to her feet.
She laughed and held his hand, even though they both knew she was fine.
Arawn and Willow slipped in front of the others and were the first to shake their hands.
Willow flapped her arms around Bethany. “You’re going to make such a spectacular queen!”
Arawn shook Math’s hand. “Congratulations!”
Cai and Ember shoehorned in. Ember joined in the group girl-hug going on, while Cai shook with Math. “We’ll hug you when all of these people aren’t around.”
Math asked his oldest friends, “Are you guys okay with this?”
“Of course,” Arawn said, shrugging. “You were the obvious choice.”
Cai laughed at Math. “It was always meant to be you.”
Audience with Their Majesties
AFTER shaking so many hundreds of hands that even Bethany was a little overstimulated, Math gathered her under his arm and signaled to his old buddies plus Willow and Ember, and then all six of them trooped after Bronwyn and Llywelyn to the king’s office.
Llywelyn pressed a key into Math’s hand. “Here, you are. If I may make a suggestion, live at your ducal residence and just keep the royal apartment for when you stay over for state dinners and such. Separate your work and life a little.”
Math nodded.
Bethany grinned.
The rest of them crowded into the small office. Bethany, Willow, and Ember were staring at the bookcases and magical artifacts in cases.
Willow turned around and asked Bronwyn and Llywelyn, “Are one of you a witch?”
Llywelyn said, “I’m a mage. I was inducted into the Half Moon Bay coven.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Bethany said. “Queen Bronwyn is the dragon of you two.”
Queen Bronwyn nodded. “But it’s just Bronwyn, now.”
“Oh, okay.”
The ex-queen sat in the second chair behind the wide desk. “I’ll have to get used to it now, too. It’s been a while.”
Llywelyn smiled at his mate. “It’ll be nice to be just the two of us again.”
Bethany’s mouth worked ahead of her brain. “Do you guys want to come to our handfasting tomorrow?”
Llywelyn’s smile broadened. “We haven’t been to a handfasting in years. Shall we?”
Bronwyn nodded. “We’d love to go. Thank you, dear.”
Llywelyn said, “I imagine the ceremony will quite cement the match for you witches, right?”
“Oh, the mating was enough, surely,” Bethany said, rushing to smooth everything over and made it okay. “But witches like parties, so we’re throwing a handfasting.”
“No, I meant your powers,” Llywelyn said. “Mating the dragon way stabilized your powers, but the handfasting ritual will cement the match so that your powers fully come in.”
“Wait,” Bethany said, peering at the ex-Dragon King. “What kind of a mage are you?”
“I’m an aura mage,” he said. “I read auras. Aura reading is within the healer specialty, but it’s distinct. Someone doesn’t have to be sick for me to read their auras.”
Bethany turned and called out, “Girls, you may want to hear this.”
Willow and Ember had turned away from the artifacts and walked over to the desk.
Math, Cai, and Arawn sat back in their chairs, watching the witches discuss the witchy things. Bronwyn had likewise settled in her chair.
Bethany told them, “He’s an aura witch. We don’t have an aura witch at the Desert Stars coven, do we?”
“Nope, never even heard of it before.” Willow asked Llywelyn, “And what are you seeing in our auras?”
“That you’re match witches,” Llywelyn said, his eyebrows darting toward the bridge of his nose. “Aren’t you?”
“I’ve never heard that term before,” Ember said. “What do you mean?”
“We often had match witches born into the Half Moon Bay coven,” he said. “And they’re always in trios, like you three.”
“But what’s a match witch?” Bethany asked him. “Like if you strike us, we burn?”
“No, no,” Llywelyn said, leaning forward with his reddened hands clasped on the desk. “Match witches don’t come into their powers before they’ve found their soulmates. It’s only after they’ve found their Ones that they show the full range of their magic powers. You might have noticed that your powers were more controllable when your mates were near you, even before you mated.”
Bethany said, “Like I summoned up the cleaning apparitions just fine when Math was there, but when he wasn’t, I got another dang glitterbomb.”
Willow smacked herself in the head. “And I brewed serpent vitamin potions fine when Arawn was hanging around the kitchen, but when he wasn’t, I brewed a potion that turned him into a humongous chicken.” She glared at Bethany and Ember. “And just to reiterate—”
“Yeah, we know,” Bethany said. “No one screwed the chicken.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “And my elementals behaved themselves in front of Cai, but when he wasn’t there, I got caught in dust devil and encrusted with dirt.”
“Match witches.” Bethany turned to Willow and Ember, who looked just as shocked as she was. “We’re not screw-ups. We’re not lazy or weak. We’re match witches.”
“Match witches,” Ember echoed, wonderingly.
Willow breathed a great sigh of relief. “We’re match witches.”
“And I imagine that after your handfasting ritual tomorrow,” Llywelyn said, “you’ll find yourself in full possession of your witchcraft and magical powers.”
“That seems kind of wrong,” Ember said, frowning a little. “It’s weird that we have to get married or else we don’t get our full witch powers.”
“Hey,” Cai spoke up. “Dragons have to mate or else we fall into senescence and die.”
Ember inclined her head and nodded. “Okay. There is that.”
Bethany could hardly wait for their handfasting the next day.
Later, as they left, Bethany noticed that Math was hanging back while Willow, Ember, and their husbands walked out of the office. When the others were far enough away, Math asked Llywelyn, “It was our mates, wasn’t it? That’s why the scepter didn’t choose us last time, and this time, it would have chosen any of us.”
“Of course,” Llywelyn said. “The scepter was designed to choose a mated pair to rule, not a king or a queen. Occasionally, it’s had to choose a single dragon, but the mating bond matures a dragon and finishes their evolution as a person. It chose Bethany every bit as much as it chose you.”
“What are we supposed to do for the next monarch, though?” Math asked Bronwyn. “The Dragon Scepter is gone.”
The ex-Dragon Queen smiled at Math and Bethany. “I’m sure you’ll figure out something. We’re retired.”
Ember Niamh-Wyvern
EMBER Niamh stood, holding hands with her mate, Cai Wyvern, while the High Priestess of the Desert Stars coven wrapped a white silk ribbon around their joined hands. Golden light from the pitch torches surrounded the circle and bled out into the warm desert night.
They repeated after the priestess, “Maiden, Warrior, Mother, Father, Crone, we invoke thee to bind us to each other.”
Cai smiled down at her, his warm hands holding hers.
But not too warm.
The emerald dragonfire that leaped in his eyes mesmerized her, and he didn’t look away as he repeated the vows like he was reassuring himself as well as her that they would be together throughout their lives.
Ember held onto Cai, praying to the five aspects of the divine that their time together would be happy, secure, and long.
Willow Tiamat
WILLOW Tiamat clung to the hands of her dragon, Arawn, as they recited their vows, “I pledge you my life, my heart, and my honor.”
Sapphire blue fire rushed through Arawn’s eyes in the firelight. His hands around hers were tight like he was afraid to let her go.
Willow wasn’t afraid. The mating bond that connected them was strong and sure, and Willow felt it so deep in her soul. She could feel the determination in Arawn’s heart that they would be together and stay together and never let fate drive them apart again.
He was so serious about it that he had flown to Desert Stars every night that she had stayed there with Bethany while they’d been planning the ceremony to be with her. They hadn’t spent a night or more than a few hours apart since they’d mated.
And now, as the coven’s magic flowed through them, that mating bond rooted deeper in her soul, and she could feel that Arawn’s side had strengthened, too.
Which was good.
Their connection would feed magical energy to the tiny speck of a dragonling that was growing in her womb.
Bethany Aura Draco
BETHANY Aura Draco clutched the hands of her husband and mate, Mathonwy Draco, King of the New Wales Dragon Clan and Duke of Draco, as they recited the words of the priestess, “For all the days of our lives, now and into the land of forever.”
The golden fire in his eyes burned for her, and he held her hands as the priestess bound them together.
Match witches.
Bethany still couldn’t believe that all this time, they were match witches.
As a matter of fact, as the handfasting drew to a close, she felt the mating bond with Math grow stronger, more vibrant, and it tapped into the wellspring of her powers.
Her magic surged through her and through Math, who smiled.
Yeah, he felt it, too.
She just bet that the other girls had felt the power surge, too.
Bethany grinned at her dragon, and Mathonwy leaned down to kiss her to conclude the handfasting.
When his lips touched hers, Bethany’s powers snapped into place, and she was whole.
Blair Babylon Books
~
Dragons & Fire
is the final book in the
Dragons & Witches series.
Hope you enjoyed them!
If you haven’t read them all,
check out all 3 books!
CLICK HERE
to go to Blair Babylon’s Website.
CLICK HERE TO SEE WORKING STIFF!
Rox was standing in Cash Amsberg’s corner office in the law firm again, listening to him rant, again.
If he hadn’t been so damn sexy, she might have had to put a stop to this. But he was, so she just ranted along with him.
It was kind of their thing.
At least Rox wouldn’t get fired from this law firm for being a “hothead.” She wasn’t a hothead. She was a Southern belle with a fiery temper, a tradition harkening back to the founding of Virginia. She would have done well in bygone eras, stamping her foot beneath her flowing hoop skirts and cursing like “Fiddle-dee-dee!”
Except for maybe that last part. Rox enjoyed a good cussin’ when the situation called for it. Not that the situation called for it too often. But sometimes, she went biblical on people who desperately needed to be told that she would smite them and salt the Earth.
Cash Amsberg pointed to a sentence in the contract, stabbing at the thick sheaf of paper with his finger. “What the bloody hell could Monty mean by this section? He must have known we would strike it off. It’s not even a negotiating point. There’s no way we would let Gina Watson sign this. Why would he even suggest such a thing?”
They were standing on the same side of Cash’s mahogany desk. He leaned over the contract, bracing both hands on the edge. Windows broke open the walls on two sides of the room. The afternoon California sun blazed in, glaring on the scarlet design of the Oriental rug covering most of the floor. Cash’s enormous diploma from Yale Law School hung above the couches at the back end of the office.
Dark bookcases packed with leather-bound books lined the other two walls. The books were mostly for show because the law firm had done all their research via LexisNexis for years, but Rox had caught Cash reading the hard copies late at night sometimes, rubbing his eyes.
He ran his hand through his hair, a sign that he was perilously close to losing his cool. She’d only seen him do that a few times, once when a Taiwanese film director had insisted that Cash play golf with him. Cash had appeared to be in good humor and had shot a perfectly respectable ninety-two, but he had returned to their hotel and ranted about The Damned Scottish Game for half an hour. Rox had laughed at his tantrum until he started chuckling about how his ball had gone into the water three times on the seventh hole.
Rox flapped her hands at her sides, narrowly missing Cash’s broad shoulder. “I cannot believe that he would even try such a dick move. That’s why I put a red flag sticky on it, so you would see that part first. Does he think we’re redneck idiots?” She emphasized redneck with her Southern accent to camp it up.
Cash scowled. “He must think we’re idiots. He must think we’re all idiots, every one of us, if he thought no one here would catch this.” Cash’s upper-crust British accent made them sound like the King of England conversing with a redneck colonist.
When Cash got all heated up like this, he literally got hot under the collar, and the subtle cologne that he wore—sandalwood and cinnamon and vanilla—crept out of his sharp designer suit and crisp white shirt. She tried not to lean in to catch a whiff, but she could just smell it when he was having a good rant. She could almost taste the vanilla on her tongue, as if she had her mouth pressed to his neck.
“This is one of Valerie’s contracts,” Rox reminded him.
Cash ran a hand through his hair. “Surely Monty doesn’t think that Valerie wouldn’t have caught this. Was he counting on her illness throwing us in such disarray?”
“This came in the very morning that Val had her stroke. I don’t see how Monty could have known that that was gonna happen. He’s still an asshole of the first degree, both for thinking that Valerie and her paralegals would miss this and for trying to do this to Watson. I mean, these frickin’ autobiography rights have nothing to do with the movie. It’s just a jackass rights grab.”
“This is egregious,” Cash muttered, his British accent turning more clipped. “Monty has gone senile or something. Call Patty. Mention it in passing. See what you can get out of her.”
Patty was Monty’s paralegal at his law firm. She was in Rox’s lunch bunch of girls who ate meals and went to movies together sometimes, mostly chick flicks. Rox went with them when she could escape from workaholic Cash, who liked to work through meals, and nights, and other appointments.
He shook his head. “Perhaps she can give us some insight into his thought processes, such that they are.”
Rox refrained from rolling her eyes and nearly sprained an eyebrow from the effort. “I don’t think Patty is going to do any industrial spying for us, not after you didn’t call her the next day, or ever again.”
“She didn�
�t care,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss that.
“Oh, I assure you, she cared,” Rox told him.
Cash raised an eyebrow at her. He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Did she?”
“Oh, yeah.” Rox had heard from Patty about what an asswipe her boss was for weeks, and Rox hadn’t disagreed, not when she knew that ghosting was Cash’s favorite modus operandi to end relationships. He took women out on a couple of dates, screwed them a few times, maybe kept up the appearance of something that was becoming substantial for a few weeks, and then dissipated into thin air, poof. He became unreachable, untextable, untouchable. As far as the women could figure out, he might as well have turned into a ghost, even if they worked in the same office and saw him every day.
Which was one of the many, many reasons why Rox would never date him.
One of many, many, many reasons.
Other women looked far, far up at Cash’s brilliant, intense green eyes, the dark blond streaks in his auburn hair and his pale scruff of beard, and the hard lines of his cheekbones and jaw line.
They dropped their panties even before he took off his perfectly cut suit and silk shirt to reveal his broad, rounded shoulders, those chiseled abs like cobblestones on his flat stomach, and the deep vee of his obliques that pointed below his tight boxer-briefs.
They were lost before he whispered to them in that cultured, sexy accent and far before they saw the top-of-the-line Mercedes Maybach that he drove to his rumored enormous, manicured estate in the foothills. No one had ever been there, but everyone said that his house was huge without any evidence whatsoever.
Yep, Cash was several inches over six feet tall, emerald-eyed, ripped, gorgeous, his tailored suit clinging to his athletic body, sporting a British accent, and loaded.
Dragons and Fire Page 19
