by Aidy Award
Oh. “You do?”
“Yes, little flame.” He brushed his lips across her in a gentle caress.
“We are good for each other.” Ace’s breath tickled across the back of her neck. He turned her in his arms and kissed her eyes, her nose, and her lips. “I needed someone who can match the fiery passion for life and love and pretty much absolutely everything in the whole universe. I don't know how the White Witch found you, but we are perfectly matched, we make sense.”
“I know we have a war to fight, but,” He ran a thumb over her bottom lip, then replaced his thumb with his mouth and kissed her with a soft passion. “I can’t resist you.”
Much more of their touching and fondling and she’d forget about the shadow, the demons, the Organization and the war. He was the one who was irresistible.
A knock sounded from the door breaking into the warm world they were creating for themselves. Ace sighed. “That’s probably someone come to fetch us for Kady’s get together. Do you want to go or stay and work on your new theory?”
“If I say I want to hang out with my sister to do some experimenting with her magic, will you be upset? I’m not that good at relationship stuff. Not that I’m assuming we’re in a relationship. Crap. Sorry. I – never mind.” How come when they were in the heat of the moment, she'd been powerful sex goddess and now that they were standing here talking, she was awkward nerd girl again?
Ace grabbed her head with both hands and tugged her into another kiss. When she was sure she wasn’t going to be able to breath ever again, he pulled away. “You never have to apologize for being who you are or what you want with me. I see you, Ashmiza.”
Gulp.
Ace released her, crossed and opened the door, even though he was bare butt naked. Kady and Neo stood there, the same evening night streaming in.
“Sorry we're back so soon, but Kady won’t let us leave until—” Neo frowned at Ace as he noticed his state of undress.
“Wait. What time is it? How long have you been gone?” The sky outside hadn’t changed. She and Ace had been wrapped up in each other for hours. The sun should be coming up in sky.
“Uh, about fifteen seconds,” Kady said.
Time, See What’s Become of Me
Ash
“Too soon? I was hoping you hadn't gotten to the sexy times yet, but I see you work fast.” Kady held her hand up covering her eyes from Ace's nakedness.
“No effing way.” Ash's brain clicked into supercomputing mode. She'd experienced hours, they'd only been gone a few seconds. There were two variables. The house that already defied the laws of physics and her magic.
Kady came into the ship and looked directly into Ash’s eyes, while also holding her discarded shirt up to her. “What way? You’ve figured out something big, haven’t you?”
“I need to do some experiments. Are you and Neo in a good enough state to do some more magic? But along with us?” She waved her hand in a circle indicated herself and Neo.
“Yes. Of course.” Kady didn't hesitate but did throw a sidelong glance at Ash's naked lover. “As long as Ace puts some clothes on. What do you need us to do?”
Ash had so much energy and enthusiasm for this new idea, she forgot for a minute to be worried to ask anyone else for their help, or that they might think she was weird and crazy and refuse. Maybe that wasn’t her norm anymore. Maybe not when she was with her…family.
A place inside that had been empty and dark for a long time wasn’t anymore. Today it had filled in little by little with each interaction with Ace, Kady and Neo, Ellie and Apollo, and even Jerko. Oh, and those gnomes she’d sort of not yet met.
She didn’t want to say it out loud, it was too scary. But in a place inside her mind that she didn't dare venture very often, the ideas of family and home were shining bright.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She grabbed her lover, she liked that word, by the hand and dragged them all outside into the garden.
“Hold on. Clothes, please. Clothes.” Kady wiggled her nose and suddenly Ace had on a new shirt and trousers that matched a pretty red dress that Ash was now wearing. Ooh. Another trick to learn.
A man with a cowboy hat by his side and pretty dark-haired woman with her hair up in bun were resting under a copse of trees along with the blue-haired women she’d met earlier. Some other people, and uh, some huge wolves were setting up picnic tables and blankets with pillows for Kady’s event later tonight.
Being around this many people and some definitely supernatural beings didn’t bother her at all like it normally would. They weren’t going to judge or sneer. Like Ace said. They saw her. They got her. She got them too.
More of the walls around her heart crumbled and for the first time she felt like she could breath.
Ash guided their group to the middle of the grassy area, wanting some room to try her magic out. Ninsy came over too, and waved over the cowboy and the other woman, who looked so familiar and at the same time, Ash was sure she’d never seen her before.
She had beautiful midnight black skin and wore that distinctive fifties cat-eye look.
No. It couldn’t be.
“Flerken?”
The woman sidled right up to Ash, rubbed their shoulders together and laid her head on Ash’s shoulder. “Hello, mistress Ashmiza.”
Holy. Fucking. Schrödinger.
The handsome cowboy bounded up to their group and curled himself around Kady’s arm. “Mistress Kaden. Did you meet the new familiar?”
Kady patted the young man on the head. “Not yet, Percy.” She turned to Ash and smiled. “Seems our parents made sure we both had someone to watch out for us.”
A quick flash of magic shimmered over the cowboy and in an instant, he’d shrunk into a hedgehog the size of her hand and scurried around them in the grass.
“Mistress, do you mind?” Flerken asked.
Mind? She didn't even know what Flerken was asking. “No? Not at all. Do what you need to do.”
That same flash of magic burst forth from Flerken and soon a black cat was chasing the hedgehog back toward the house.
“Don’t eat anyone, Flerkie,” Ninsy called after them.
Okay then. One more box of weird to check off on today's list. Ash’s mind wandered toward contemplating how shapeshifting also violated the law of conservation and if she should write a whole new book about supernatural physics. Ace and Jerko's dragon forms were much bigger than either man, and Percy and Flerkie’s forms were much smaller than their man and woman.
Nope. She had other theoretical physics problems to sort out right now. She’d tuck that one away for another day.
“Ash-ling, what would you like us to do? What have you figured out?” Ace pulled her back to the moment.
Right. Ash explained to the group in as close to layman’s terms as she could about the properties of light and how BEC had been observed to slow the speed of light. Then she talked about the properties of plasma and what it could do in a superheated state.
Everyone except for Ace had a blank look on their face. She really needed a copy of those popular board books that explained quantum physics for babies.
“Let’s try this. I think the shadow is made up of something like light, even the demons. But let’s pretend they're human. Kady’s magic is like thick mud. They can get through it, but it slows them down and it takes a lot of energy, and they don’t really want to do it.”
“Interesting,” Kady said. “What does yours do?”
“Imagine I can take that mud and freeze it, except really I'm making super super hot. Nothing trying to move in it will be able to break free. Everything stops. Gets stuck.”
Kady gasped. “We could trap the shadow demons. Permanently.”
“I think so. But I don’t have any experience with combining what we can do. I think I understand how to do the stopping but need some practice to combine it with yours to see if we can turn it into at least a semi-permanent trap.”
Magic was already flowing around them a
nd Kady’s eyes sparkled. “Then let’s do it.”
Kady grabbed Neo’s hand, and Ash held out her hand behind her, following suit, reaching for Ace. He grasped hers right away and their touch sent a zing of pleasure through her. each of their touches gave her. She looked back and he nodded, bringing her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
Kady and Ash worked together for hours bringing up the scarlet swirls and sparkles of their magic, combining it over and over. Each time they got closer to creating the trap for the shadow demons, but not quite getting it. Kady would bring up her bubble of glowing light, which would hold them. But Ash needed to then freeze the time inside the field with her electricity.
She hadn’t explained to anyone there that she’d realized her magic stopped time and that if they could do that, they could stop the shadow warriors. Each try making the force field, she would watch closely to see if anything inside was moving.
First a bug flew right through. Then a baseball from some boys playing nearby. After that they asked the boys to help them by throwing their ball through the magic as part of the test.
Each time Kady brought up the swirls of her magic, and Ash would add her sparkles to it. Not once was she able to stop the time inside. “Great Jean Gray, why can’t I get this.”
She let go of Ace's hands and threw her arms in the air, frustrated and exhausted.
Ninsy stood up, walked over and poked Ash in the chest. “Because you’re only using your skin-deep magic. The kind we all have. But you two girls are something special. Not everyone can draw on soul magic. So, start using it.”
To Ash magic was magic. She was already using more of it than she even knew existed.
“Soul magic. No, that’s not the problem. Souls are a psychological construct of humans needing to hold their own mortality at bay.” Except maybe during soul deep sex with supernatural partners, her brain reminded her. “Magic may have been written off as fantasy by the science community until now, but it operates in the same way as other matter and is subject to the laws of physics. Or at least some of those laws.”
Ninsy folded her arms and turned her hair from blue to red. “Oh really? How is it then that your sister is creating this matter? I don’t think she’s keeping a particle accelerator under her skirt.”
“You don’t make plasma with a particle—” Oh. That was not Ninsy’s point.
Ash couldn’t explain how Kady’s magic created the effect it did, and certainly didn’t understand how she’d stopped time this evening when she’d been with Ace.
What made her think, that a woman who had magic as an everyday part of her life, for Edward Condon’s sake, wouldn’t understand how it worked better than Ash did.
“Aha. There you go.” Ninsy clapped. “Now you’re opening your heart. We’ve been waiting on that for – wait how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Ninsy looked at her watch and tapped it. “We’ve been waiting on you to let your heart back out into the world for at least twenty-eight years, although it feels like a couple of centuries longer. No magic without that.”
“Who is we?”
“Your name isn’t dragon’s heart for nothing.” Ninsy never seemed to answer a question, and everything she said raised even more.”
Ace broke into their conversation. “Ashmiza means dragon’s heart?”
Ninsy looked at him like he was stupid. But something in his eyes told Ash that the answer was very important to him.
“No, Ejderhaninkalbi, her last name, does.”
Ace grinned, grabbed her, dipped her, and kissed her right in front of everyone gathering in the garden. “You have my dragon’s heart, little flame. Forever and always.”
His words brought the tingle of magic as it sparkled to the surface over her skin.
“There you go, Ashmiza. There’s your soul magic.” Ninsy pointed and shouted.
Ash looked from Ace to the twinkling magic hanging in the air around him. It wasn’t just hers. Ace’s black-colored magic was shimmering in and around hers.
“Try your spell again, Ash.” Kady brought up her bubble of magic and held it steady waiting for Ash to join her.
Ace stood her back on her feet, but didn’t let go of her, which was good because she wasn’t entirely sure she could stand on her own after his searing kiss.
She took a deep breath and pushed her magic into Kady’s. Then she nodded to the boy on one side and he threw the ball. This time instead of sailing through, something strange happened. The ball landed on the ground on the other side, but the image of it was also still inside the swirls of magic. What they could see was still moving from one side to the other, but in slow motion.
Ellie, who stood a few feet away studied the image as it moved. “Ash. Does your soul magic slow the speed of light?”
That girl was smart, and someone needed to make sure she got some quality STEM education. Maybe now that Ash was here, she could help mentor the young lady. “I think that Kady’s does some of that because of the way it partially behaves like BEC. But I think mine can stop time.”
She nodded at her and rubbed his fingers over the small of her throat in an adorable thinking movement. “Try it again. You’re close now.”
Ash nodded to the boy near her and he prepared to toss the ball again.
“Wait just a minute. Ashmiza’s only got half her soul magic going. Ninsy shook her finger at Ash
Ash looked at Ace and shrugged.
Ninsy rolled her eyes. “What does your first name mean?”
Ash wrinkled her nose. “Umm. The powdery residue left after the burning of a substance?”
“Oh, you Ejderha girl are were too smart for my own good.” Ninsy made a face at her. “Ashmiza. What does Ashmiza mean?”
Ash shook her head, but then stopped and thought for a moment. A new song popped into her head, this time it was the theme song from Animaniacs. It helped her think and the answer simply popped into her head. It had been buried deep inside for twenty-eight years. But she knew her name and what it meant. “Ashmiza means creative one who glows with intelligence.”
“That’s it.” Ninsy walked away and sat down at a picnic table, apparently satisfied with the answer and done with her business.
Ace ran his hand over her hair. “You do glow with intelligence, my love. The magic inside of you needs both head and heart.”
Ash wrapped her free arm around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. Enough of being the hero, it was her turn to rescue him.
She bullied her way into a long deep kiss with him, nipping at his lip like he’d done to her and dueling with his tongue. When she’d thoroughly won her battle for his desire, as evidenced by his low, deep, growly groan, she let him go. “You're right, whole-hearted, whole souled.”
Ace's eyes glowed with their new found love. “Whole hearted, whole souled. I’ve been afraid that I would hurt you, that joining my soul with its darkness with your brilliant light would destroy you. But I know now that I could never harm you, my true mate, by giving my whole self to you.”
A fiery heat grew inside Ash’s body, running up and down her spine, over her skin and shot out into the shield of Kady’s magic.
The world around them shimmered with the light of her soul magic.
I Love Your Chubby
Ace
Ace had already claimed his mate. Or at least he thought he had.
Then a very strange woman named Ninsy, had gone and butted in and shown him what a dumbass he was for thinking he could ever get away with holding any part of himself back.
Head and heart, heart and soul. Together they were all made whole.
Even as he'd claimed his mate, he'd kept the smallest, but vital part of himself back. He hadn't meant to, but he realized now that he hadn't forgotten to give her his soul shard. He'd been guarding that last bit of himself from her. He was both scared she would never truly accept a flawed Black Demon Dragon Warrior from Hell, and that the dark mar on his soul would destroy her.
/> He should have known better. Now, he would make it official. Ace would give her his soul shard, place the gift from the White Witch and the First Dragon that gave him the gift of shifting and the belief in love, around her neck, and claim her once again.
Once Ash had opened up herself to him come into her magic abilities fully, everyone had all been awed by her power. To be able to stop time, or even slow it down was beyond anything he'd ever imagined an elemental witch could do. But the use of it was exhausting her.
She stood in the garden of the gnomes and literally wavered on her feet. He exchanged a look with Neo and as one unit they marched across to their mates. Neo picked up Kady and threw her over his shoulder and Ace lifted Ash into his arms, carrying her like the princess she was to him.
“Wait, what are you doing? Kady and I have more work to do.” Her protest was weak, and she snuggled into Ace’s shoulder.
He nodded to where Neo was also carrying Kady away. “You both need to rest and rejuvenate. Wearing yourself out will not help us capture the shadow demons or defeat the Cult.”
They hadn’t yet figured out what they would do with the shadow demon warriors once they had them captured in Kady and Ash’s trap. But at least the threat to Rogue, the supernatural community, and mankind would be over. The Brotherhood still had the mission to help Kurjerkwad redeem his own dark soul, but since his fit early today, Ace thought for the first time that may actually be feasible.
He knew exactly what he'd do then. He'd take his beautiful mate back to the countryside in Germany where the Black Dragon Wyr was headquartered and hole up in a cottage of their own and make lots and lots of babies with her.
Bringing her home would give the rest of his brethren hope that they too could find a curvy luscious mate for themselves.
Ace took her back to the house, ducking to get through the doorway. Inside the tingle of magic zipped through the rooms and instead of a ceiling that his head brushed against, and the sterile environment of the lab, they were six-meter vaulted ceilings. There was also a roaring fireplace in a living room filled with overstuffed comfy looking furniture, a cozy kitchen with an island, and a loft filled with shelves of books.
