Master of Dragons (12 page)

“You really are immune to magic, aren't you?” His wide mouth curled into a snarl. “Let's see how you do with a fist.”

She ducked, but he was ready for her this time, and he clipped her jaw hard. Stars exploded behind her eyes as she tasted blood. He was faster than she'd thought.

Another blurring blow, this one a stunning backhand. She tried to jerk back, but her belly threw her balance too far forward. She felt herself start to fall. Gamal's mailed hands clamped over her upper arms and jerked her upright. Her fingers curled into fists, nails cutting into her palms.

No, not nails. Claws. Her hands had partially transformed.

Quick as thought, Diana slashed those curving talons down the captain's face, laying open his cheeks in ten parallel furrows. Blood spurted. He reeled back with a roar of surprised pain, groping blindly for the sword he'd sheathed in order to hit her. “You little bitch!”

A metallic rattle, and Diana found herself staring down the gleaming blade. Gamal's bloody face snarled at her over it. “You don't have to be in one piece, either. All I need is the contents of that fat belly.”

She flashed her claws at him and bared her teeth. “You're not getting my baby, traitor.”

“We'll see.” He lunged.

 

Kel! Llyr! Once
again, Nineva tried to force her magical cry past the barrier. Again, she felt her magic hit it and die.

One of the warriors lunged, his sword darting at her heart. She parried and jumped back, simultaneously throwing a quick look at the queen.

The woman might be enormously pregnant, but she was surprisingly agile. She jerked aside from the sword the captain sought to jab into her shoulder, though she staggered a little, off balance from her precious burden.

Luckily, the traitors apparently wanted to take them both alive, but it was only a matter of time before sheer numbers overwhelmed them. Nineva was good with a sword and reasonably powerful with magic, but she couldn't hold off six Sidhe fighters.

She had to get a message through that barrier. It was the only chance they had.

The Mark throbbed on her breast as she reached deep, drawing on all the magic she had, gathering it into one solid blast. If this failed, she was finished. And the queen wouldn't have a prayer.

KEL! We're under attack!
She felt the barrier shatter as her spell punched through it.

The captain whirled, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a grimace of pure rage. “She got through! Kill them!”

Oh, hell.

 

Kel fought the
urge to fidget as the Grimoire droned on through an explanation of the physics of Merlin's Wards. Now that Llyr had finished questioning him, he wanted to find Nineva before she got into trouble. Which, God knew, she was more than capable of—

Kel!…under attack!
The mental voice was faint and garbled, but the raw fear in it was unmistakable.

“Nineva!” Kel jolted out of his chair and headed for the door at a dead run. “Something's wrong!” Between one step and the next, he was armored.

Magic flared behind him, and the others rose to chase at his heels. He didn't even glance back as he threw open the door and charged into the corridor. The steps of those behind him grew loud and rattling as they conjured armor of their own.
Nineva?

Nothing. Kel stopped short in frustration, his sword naked in his hand as he scanned the empty hallway. There were literally dozens of rooms she could be in. “Where the hell
is
she?”

Behind him, Llyr cursed like a dockworker. “I'm not sensing Diana either. She was in the conservatory.” The king shoved past with a flash of iridescent plate as he broke into a run. Kel shot after him, his heart pounding, his mouth brassy with an unaccustomed taste: fear.

Fear for a girl he barely knew.

 

In the depths
of his mind, Creag tried to fight the spell that held him. His body remained stubbornly paralyzed, though he could hear his king racing down the corridor outside. In his fear for his queen, Llyr hadn't even realized that his bodyguard hadn't followed him. Neither had any of the others.

Yet Creag knew he should be leading the way, protecting Llyr Galatyn. Doing his duty.

If it hadn't been for that bastard Gamal…Creag had suspected nothing when the captain called him aside before they'd left the palace. The man's hand had landed on his shoulder, and evil had poured into his mind like a waterfall of sewage, drowning him in stinking darkness, stealing his will.

And where had Gamal gotten such power?

Now that evil rolled from Creag in a wave of dark magic. He cast his will outward, trying to erect a mystical barrier to absorb it.

Nothing happened.

Instead, the blast of evil slammed into the book that lay open on the table. The Grimoire made a strangled sound of protest before slamming shut.

In the depths of his mind, Creag cursed in despair and rage as his body walked over to pick it up. He heard himself speak, his voice so rasping he barely recognized it. “Open the wards, Grimoire.”

He sensed the city's great barrier thin directly over his head. A dimensional gateway opened before his eyes, growing in a heartbeat from a tiny point to a rippling oval. With a mental howl of hopelessness, Creag stepped through.

He found himself in a stone room lined with torches where warriors in barbaric black armor waited for him. A man whose dark hair was tied with animal fangs stepped forward and took the book from his hands. He gave Creag a vicious grin. “Kill him.”

When one of the fighters swung an axe at his head, Creag couldn't even duck.

 

As they ran
for the conservatory's doors, Llyr flung both hands wide. Kel felt the sizzle of his magic, but the doors remained stubbornly closed.

“Blocked. Some kind of spell.” The Dragon's Mark appeared on the iridescent surface of Llyr's armor, tail lashing in rage as it swam over his body. He swung his sword like a baseball bat. The blade thundered against the thick wood, but the door didn't even vibrate. Llyr growled a desperate Sidhe curse.

Kel reached for his own magic, and his sword became a massive battleaxe in his hands. He sent his power blazing into the weapon and chopped at the door with all his strength.

Axe and sword hit at the same time, both glowing as if from a god's forge. The doors didn't so much open as disintegrate, caught between the opposing magical forces of the blades and the enemy's shield. Kel flung himself through the opening as the spell barrier vanished.

Nineva was surrounded by warriors in the malachite armor of Llyr's bodyguard. Two lay at her feet, dead in a lake of blood. Her sword flashed as she wheeled and chopped, trying to fight her way through to Diana Galatyn. The queen was backed into a corner by a man in the horsehair crest of a captain of the guard.

“Gamal!” Llyr roared.

The man glanced at the charging king and lunged, driving his sword straight into Diana's belly. She gasped in pain as she stared down at the blade, buried halfway to the hilt.

Llyr's scream of anguish made the hair stand on Kel's neck. The king swung his sword as his wife went down. The captain's head went flying.

Roaring in fury, Kel shot into the group of men that had surrounded Nineva. One man fell before his axe, cut in two. Arthur drove Excalibur through the chest of a second, while a third died shrieking, incinerated by one of Morgana's spells.

Nineva rammed her blade into the final bodyguard's chest and left it there as she raced to Diana's side.

“Change!” Llyr cradled his wife's bleeding body. His voice was broken with tears he didn't seem to notice. “You can heal yourself!”

“Not yet,” Diana panted, writhing in agony. “C-section! Save the baby!”

“Let me heal her!” Nineva laid her hands on the queen's swollen, bloody belly. “I can save them.”

“Werewolf,” Diana gasped. “I'm…resistant to magic. You've got to…get the baby out! Then you can heal him…and I can change…”

Nineva looked up at Llyr, her eyes painfully wide. “I don't know how to do a C-section!”

“I do.” Guinevere conjured a dagger. “Hold her, Llyr. And pray.”

 

Varza opened her
eyes and cursed in disgust. It was a good thing she'd had the foresight to leave her former body in Gamal's bed. If she hadn't had it to retreat to, everything could have been lost.

She flung the covers aside and sat up, naked. A gesture clothed her in the appropriate court garb, and she rolled to her slippered feet. Careful to keep her gait casual and unhurried despite her screaming anxiety, she strolled from the room and headed down the jeweled marble corridor of the Morven palace.

She needed to leave the palace, and quickly. Once she was beyond its heavy wards, she could gate back to the fortress unnoticed.

If she tried to simply punch through them, Llyr would realize she'd been involved in the attempt on his wife. He might not be able to prevent her escape, but a few well-placed spells would tell him entirely too much about what he was dealing with.

As it was, Llyr would believe his palace guard was riddled with treason. There might be a way she could use that assumption later.

A female Sidhe nodded her head, and Varza gave her a sunny smile despite her simmering anger.

She'd thoroughly underestimated the Avatar and the wolf bitch. The princess was considerably more powerful than she'd believed possible, considering Semira's weakness.

Then there was the werewolf. Varza had known she couldn't transform without killing the baby, but she hadn't realized the bitch could still create claws.

Well, it doesn't matter now,
Varza thought in grim pleasure.
At least I cost her the brat.

Unfortunately, that meant the sacrifice she'd had in mind was off the table. But as long as Creag had escaped with Merlin's Grimoire, there was always the alternate plan.

 

The baby was
dying. The captain's thrust had pierced his tiny side, just over one hip.

His mother whined, a high-pitched canine sound of distress. She'd assumed wolf form the moment Gwen had pulled her son from her body, thus healing the wounds that otherwise would have killed her.

Nineva rested a comforting arm on her furry back as Llyr cradled the little body in his big hands. His face went fierce with concentration as he sent his magic pouring into his son.

Unlike his mother, the baby was not resistant to spells. Llyr had said he wouldn't gain that immunity until he became a werewolf at puberty.

As Nineva, Kel, and the Magekind watched, breath held, the edges of the horrific injury began to spark, then knit closed. The tiny prince jerked convulsively, then sucked in a breath.

And began to wail, a healthy, full-bodied cry of pure wrath.

Llyr looked up, tears in his opalescent eyes as he looked at the wolf. His relieved smile trembled. “He's got his mother's temper.”

Nineva sensed magic foam through the wolf. The next instant, the queen sat beside her, whole again, though her dress still showed the bloody rent across its full skirts. Like her husband, she had unashamed tears running down her cheeks as she reached for her son. With a gesture, Llyr banished the blood from the small, naked body and handed him to his wife.

“Hello, Prince Dearg Andrew,” she breathed, cuddling him against her chest. The baby waved his fists, crying lustily. He might be a month premature, but it barely showed. He'd have been a very big baby if he'd gone to term.

A sizzle of power drew Nineva's attention to one of his tiny biceps. A small, intricate dragon glowed against the smooth skin there. Cachamwri's Mark.

She'd helped save the Heir to Heroes.

The queen cooed
to her son, cupping his tiny, dark-haired head in one hand. He calmed, his tears ceasing as he stared up at her. Her lovely face shone with joy. “You look just like your daddy, Dearg Andrew. Yes, you do.”

“Dearg Andrew?” Guinevere asked.

The queen looked up and gave her a small smile. “We named him for his grandfathers, Dearg Galatyn and Andrew London.”

The baby gazed around at the circle of faces that surrounded him, his huge eyes already milky with opalescence and flecked with magic. His ears formed tiny, delicate points. Nineva thought she saw his father in the shape of his nose and chin, his mother in the bow of his mouth. “He's beautiful,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” The queen looked up at her, tears brightening that silver gaze. “Thank you for everything.” To Llyr, she added, “The princess fought to rescue me the entire time. Six guards trying to cut her down, and she was more worried about me than herself.”

The smile Llyr turned on her made Nineva's heart ache, it reminded her so much of her father's. “You have the gratitude of the Two Kingdoms, Princess Nineva. Anything in my power to give you, you need only ask.”

“I…,” she began, only to discover speaking was beyond her. Finally she choked out, “Thank you.”

The queen reached out and took Guinevere's hand. “And thank you, Gwen. I know it couldn't have been easy cutting me like that, but if you hadn't, I don't know how long I would have been able to keep from transforming.” Her eyes went bleak. “And if I'd transformed, we'd have lost Dearg Andrew.”

“You wouldn't have transformed. Even if you'd died.” Llyr's voice cracked on the last word. Clearing his throat, he looked around at Arthur, Morgana, Kel, Guinevere, and Nineva. “We owe you everything. And we will not forget.”

But the spirit of delighted relief shattered ten minutes later when Llyr suddenly remembered his final bodyguard. The man wasn't with them, nor was he among the fallen.

When Llyr and Arthur hurried back to the Round Table chamber, they found that the man had disappeared.

Worse, so had Merlin's Grimoire. Arthur summoned Grim over and over, but the book didn't respond. In desperation, he called on every vampire and witch in Avalon to search by eye and magic, but the book was nowhere to be found.

There was only one possible conclusion.

“We were suckered!” Arthur said grimly. “They diverted us with the attack while the bastard took Grim.”

 

He assigned a
complement of Knights of the Round Table and a pair of witches to guard Diana, Llyr, and their son as they returned to their kingdom. Morgana volunteered to go along and help with the investigation into how the rebels had gotten to the palace guard.

Nineva suspected it must have galled Llyr to accept outside help, but he didn't hesitate. His family obviously meant far more to him than his pride.

Llyr told them he planned another deep and ruthless magical scan on the guards of all his palaces to ensure there were no more traitors among them. Once that was taken care of, he planned to help the Magekind conduct another search for both the Sword of Semira and Merlin's Grimoire.

Nineva's role in all this, everyone agreed, was to do whatever was necessary to strengthen Semira. It was obvious that wherever the sword was, Grim wouldn't be far.

“We've got to find that book,” Arthur told Kel and Nineva. “I don't know what those bastards intend to do with him, but I'd just as soon not find out.”

Kel glanced at Nineva. “We'll do our best.”

“You'd better,” Arthur said.

 

Exhausted, Nineva and
Kel trudged back to his hillside home. “I really need a long, hot soak,” she told him, rolling her aching shoulders. Even after removing the blood and sweat of combat with a spell, she felt grimy and dispirited.

The enemy had won yet again.

Quiet compassion lit Kel's eyes as he studied her face. “I think we can manage a bath.”

He was as good as his word. As soon as they walked into the house, he guided her down a hallway that led to a set of winding stairs.

Emerging through an arched stone doorway, Nineva gazed around, her brows lifted. “You
bathe
in here?” The sprawling stone chamber was big enough to echo, easily five stories of arching limestone walls supported by thick pillars carved with dragons.

“Well, yeah.” Kel shrugged his shoulders. “I use it in dragon form, too, so it has to be big.”

In the center of the space lay a vast pool, surrounded by a jungle's worth of plants—ferns, orchids, and towering palms that thrived in the humid, magical air. Tendrils of steam curled from the water's surface, which danced and roiled from the waterfall that spilled into the pool's center from somewhere overhead.

Glancing up the length of tumbling water, Nineva spotted the first blue light of dawn streaming through a cavernous skylight. Probably the entrance Kel used in dragon form. “Damn. You never do anything halfway, do you?”

“Now, what would be the fun in that?” He gave her a wicked little smile, all teeth and dishonorable intentions. “Want to get naked?”

“Actually, yeah.” The steaming water looked like just the thing for her aching muscles and sweaty flesh.

Warm air brushed her nipples. Nineva looked down and realized her armor had vanished, leaving her body pale and naked. Her blond hair caressed her bare shoulders as she turned to look at him. “Thanks.” Her glance became an appreciative stare.

His armor had disappeared, too. He stood in the streaming dawn light like a dream of a god, shadows pooling beneath firm muscle, his cock hardening under her gaze. His eyes gleamed like a pair of rubies caught in a spotlight as his smile flashed white. “My pleasure.”

Nineva was contemplating that luscious cock when he caught her by the hand and gently tugged her toward the water. “Come on. There's some stairs down into the pool over here.”

The stone floor felt surprisingly warm and smooth underfoot as they crossed to the pool, and the humid air smelled of orchids and even more exotic Mageverse flora. Beneath that was a trace of something faintly musky and magical that struck her as oddly familiar. After a moment, Nineva identified it: the lingering scent of Kel's dragon form.

He eyed her as he guided her down the steps into the pool. “You're frowning.”

Water closed around her ankles, frothing gently from the waterfall. “It's nothing.” But it was disconcerting to realize that no matter what he looked like, he wasn't really human.

It was equally disconcerting to realize she cared. After all, his Draconian nature was the reason they were together. It wasn't as if there could be anything more between them than magical sex.

Nineva thought of the love in Llyr's eyes as he gazed at his wife and baby. Something about the memory sent a little jab of pain through her. She pulled her hand from Kel's. “I'm going to swim.”

 

He watched Nineva
throw herself forward in a long, flat dive. His cock twitched in appreciation as her lithe little body disappeared underwater with a neat splash. She surfaced a moment later, long legs kicking, smooth, pale backside working as her graceful arms cut through the water in fast, hard strokes.

Kel's mind flashed back to the instant he'd seen her surrounded by warriors, her expression grim and determined as she fought to save the queen. If he and Llyr had been a moment later, they'd have lost them both.

His heart squeezed painfully at the thought—and not because the Dark One invasion would have become a virtual certainty. The idea of Nineva, helpless and surrounded by enemies…

The intensity of his reaction was vaguely alarming.
Get a grip, Kel. You're not having a romance here. This is business.

Nineva picked up the pace, swimming even faster. As if she was trying to get away from him.

And dammit, that hurt, too.

With an impatient growl at himself, he dove into the water and began to swim for the opposite side of the pool.

What the hell was he getting wrapped around the axle about? She was only using him for sex to power her precious goddess. It was very good sex, true—maybe the best he'd ever had, though only Cachamwri knew why. He'd certainly had more experienced lovers.

Though none of them had ever touched him the way she had. Why else had he panicked when he'd realized she was under attack?

Yeah, she'd gotten to him, all right.

You're setting yourself up for a fall,
Kel thought grimly, lengthening his strokes, propelling himself through the warm water with hard kicks.
You're going to convince yourself you're in love with that girl, and she's going to dump your scaly ass the minute she gets her goddess out of that sword. Then she's going to marry some Sidhe prince and live happily ever after while you eat your heart out.

Anyway, the whole thing was ridiculous. Dragons didn't mate for life. Hell, they barely mated for a single season—just long enough to fertilize the female's eggs.

True, a dragon couple could get pretty passionate for that season, but it didn't last. Unlike with humans, love wasn't a survival mechanism for dragons, since a Draconian female was fully capable of providing for her fledglings by herself. She didn't need a male to do the hunting for her while she devoted all her time to rearing their young.

Up until Gawain had fallen for Lark, Kel had half-suspected love was a mass human delusion—an invention of poets and romance novelists. Then his best friend had formed a Truebond with the woman he loved, and for one shining moment, Kel had shared their psychic link.

And it had been incredible. Far more intense than the comfortable link he and Gawain had shared for so many centuries.

The two had Truebonded so Lark could keep Gawain alive while another knight ran him through with Kel's sword form. At the time, it had been the only way to free Kel from the blade and rescue Arthur.

Kel had experienced their love in all its pure, shining intensity, but there'd been no place for him in it. He'd had to leave the link while Lark fought to save her lover.

For the first time in centuries, he'd been truly alone. Ever since, he'd been haunted by that taste of perfect love. Love he knew he'd never experience firsthand.

Reaching the shallows on the opposite side of the pool, Kel braced his feet on the bottom and stood, swiping strands of wet cobalt hair from his face.

When he turned, he saw Nineva floating on her back at the other end of the pool. Her lovely bare breasts broke the surface, nipples pink and beaded by the cool air. He stared, watching the slow, lazy kick of her long legs. His cock hardened again in a fierce rush.

He could have her now. He could swim over there, and she'd let him take that lush, tempting body of hers in the name of her goddess. He could fuck her in every way he wanted.

But that was the most he'd get from her. There'd be no Truebond union of hearts and souls, no end to the loneliness that had dogged him. There never would be.

His lips tightened, and he hit the water again, stroking hard toward her. If all he could have of her—of anyone—was sex…Well, so be it. He'd take what he could get.

 

Nineva heard the
pool churning with his approach. She lowered her feet to tread water and started to pivot to face him.

Big hands caught her arms before she could turn, pulling her around and into those brawny arms. His body felt deliciously hard, his cock rigid against her belly as his mouth came down over hers, wet and hungry and demanding.

It was a ravishing kiss, a kiss that took and gave no quarter. A kiss that stole the breath from her lungs in one ruthless draw. Her heart leaped in her chest as he pumped his tongue deep into her mouth in long, suggestive strokes.

One hand cupped her bare ass, pulling her tight against the beefy rigidity of his cock. The long fingers of the other sought out her breast, thumbing and teasing her nipple until sweet fire ran through her blood.

Nineva gasped against his possessive lips. He made a low growling sound and angled his head to press slow, burning kisses along her jaw and down her throat. It felt so deliciously overwhelming, her wary heart whispered a protest. Surely some quick, anonymous sex would be so much safer. “Kel! What're you…what are you doing?”

“What do you think?” He lifted her, bending her backward over his arm as he nibbled and bit his way lower and lower. “Feeding your goddess.”

Gasping, Nineva wrapped both hands in the wet silk of his hair. His teeth scraped skillfully over her nipple. Pleasure curled through her in such luscious throbs, she lost the will to protest. “Sweet Semira…,” she moaned, as he licked and swirled and tasted.

“Like that?”

She could only moan.

He laughed, throaty and deep. “Yeah, you like it.” The hand under her ass shifted, probed; slipped between her soft lips and into her rapidly dampening core. A finger circled her clit, then eased deep into her sex. “You like that, too?”

“God, yeah!” Nineva threw back her head and gasped as he pumped the finger in, then out. Slow and teasing.

“Of course you do—I'm good.” A hard note entered Kel's deep voice. “Remember that. I may not be human, or Sidhe, or whatever the hell it is you think you want, but I know what you need.”

Then, as if she weighed no more than a rag doll in his arms, he started toward the edge of the pool. He stepped out of the water like Neptune rising from the sea, as water streamed from them. Panting, Nineva clung to his shoulders, looking into those crimson eyes of his. They looked feral, hungry, maybe a little pissed.
What the hell did I do to set him off?

And can I do it more often?

Kel lowered her to her bare feet, then grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her roughly around. One hand closed over the back of her neck and started pushing her down to her knees. “What now?”