Sinful Magic (35 page)

“Yes. You always did. Until you breathed no more.”

“Where am I?” She looked around, and in the process, she saw that she didn’t have a shadow. She glanced down and saw no body. It was

unsettling.

“Kieran is holding your corporal body now and the two of us are funneling your magic. You opened your third eye and came with me here.”

“My spirit. And this is where we often came, you and I.”

“It’s where we first made love, and where I gave you my gift of fertility.”

Roxy felt the memory stir, shaking off the dust of centuries and emerging warm and real. The dragon taking his man form and then taking her. Such a powerful creature, and yet he’d made her feel like the most special woman in the world. “I loved you. I still love you. I could never love anyone else throughout all of time. I reincarnated but could never

” She’d always been alone. Life after life. There had always been a hole in her, leaving her feeling barren. “I was empty without you, but I didn’t know why.”

“My treasure, you died in my arms, your skin so very fragile by then, your hair gray, but I loved you even more. My magic was powerful, is still powerful, but even I couldn’t reach beyond death or I would have followed you as I wanted to.”

Dyfyr had always called her his treasure, or his love. Clarity filled her mind with more memories of her life with Dyfyr all those centuries ago. “I loved you too much. I was looking for you, life after life. I had sworn I’d find you again.” She remembered that he’d been so distraught, he couldn’t hold his man form and held her in his dragon shape. But Roxy had never feared him; even with his razor-sharp claws and ability to breathe fire, he’d never hurt her. He had cherished her, loved her. His grief as she had been dying cut her as nothing else could. And she’d sworn to find a way to return to him.

The dragon nodded. “My body lies here beneath us, a part of this rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. Waiting for you to find me. And you would have,” he said fiercely. “Each lifetime, I felt you getting closer to allowing the soul memory of me, of us, to surface.”

“Oh Dyfyr, you suffered so long.”

His ruby eyes softened with a golden light. “It doesn’t matter now, my love. Though it was a twisted path, you woke me, and I have you back. I’ve gotten to hold you. Taste you. Feel your body against mine. Even as we’re talking, I feel you in my arms as Kieran holds you.”

This was all so puzzling. “I love Kieran, too.” How was this possible? Was she betraying Dyfyr? Or Kieran?

“We are the same. Kieran became my man form when the spell was done.” His scales rippled, and his tail twitched. “Foolish women had no idea what mayhem they have wrought; they cared only for their own desires.”

Roxy felt his anger. “It was my mother, wasn’t it?”

“And Kieran’s mother, Beth. She could see the Tear Wing Slayer had hidden, in spite of his spell shielding it, because she has dragon blood in her ancestry.” He shook his head in disgust.

Roxy had to ask, “Dyfyr, the Tear, it’s a god killer. Didn’t you know that when you created it?”

The dragon huffed out a breath of flames, searing the gray rock with long black streaks. “You were gone. Gone!” The dragon shuddered and the entire cliff shook. “It was too much to be borne. Even with all my magic, I could not reach you, the one thing I loved beyond reason. I wept with such grief, I created the Tears, infusing them with the magic to allow the other dragons to become mortal.”

“Shhh.” She felt herself moving, drawn to his pain. She wasn’t in her body, but she brushed her spirit or whatever she was against his chest.

He sighed a sound of contentment.

She asked him, “Dyfyr, why didn’t you use the Tear for yourself?”

He turned his head to look at her as she floated around him. “Because you vowed to return one day.”

“You waited for me.” All this time, she’d had love and hadn’t known it. The memories were racing and flying, taking her all the way back to the first time she’d met Dyfyr. “You were in your dragon form when you first saw me. You swooped down and gathered me into your arms. We flew for days as you showed me your world.”

“Oh, my treasure, you saw me. No other human saw me. As you saw the other dragons.”

“But none of them were you,” she said softly. In those days with him, her heart had been won. She remembered her early fear; Dyfyr was huge, how would they have physical relations? Then he showed her his man form, and she went into his arms at once.

She wondered, “Why did you show me your dragon form first? You could have approached me in your man form. You were powerful enough to hide your wings.” She recalled that some dragons did that, took their man form and seduced humans. That must be how Beth had dragon ancestry.

“You used to ask me that many times over, little treasure. Because I never hid anything from you. I am a dragon, a creature of such power and beauty no mortal could even see me. But you saw me. And you gave me your trust, and your love.”

Roxy felt the shimmers of his love washing over her spirit. The warmth was bright and eternal.

“I cannot save you if Kieran doesn’t let me. His will is strong, and he believes I am trying to hurt you.” The dragon blinked as if perplexed.

She would have laughed at his expression except that too much was at stake. “Is that what you were doing? At the maze and in the gym with your claws?”

“I must get that Tear. The spell that summoned my soul was desperate and flawed.” His eyes glowed. “You would never make such a mistake with magic, my treasure. You wielded your power with care. And you trained our daughters and their daughters until time took you from us. Never would they have done such a thing. Forcing a soul from one being into another? It is an abomination!” His voice rumbled and the cliff trembled.

Her spirit bounced from the ripples of his rage, but it didn’t bother her. His temper felt familiar and safe, as she knew he never hurt the innocent. She rose until she was near his eyes. “What did they do? What did my mother do?” She had to understand it fully.

“I will show you. Come, Roxanne.” He lifted his clawed hand and she settled in the middle. “Look with me, my love.”

Roxy fixed her gaze on the sea churning below them. In seconds, the scene reformed itself. She was looking at a different beach in the moonlight. There were five women wearing flowing dresses in a circle around a lone woman in the center. That woman was naked except for the Dragon Tear hanging from a silver chain between her breasts.

“Kieran’s mother.”

“Yes, and in her hands she has a dragon carved from stone.”

“Symbolic magic,” Roxy said. “The carved statue symbolizes your sleeping body.” She watched the scene.

“Are you sure this will work?” Beth asked.

Gwen answered, “Yes. We will call the soul of the immortal dragon into your unborn child. It’s best to do this with as young a fetus as possible so the dragon doesn’t feel a strong threat and kill it even in his sleep. The dragon will become accustomed, then once the child wakes him, he will grant you immortality for helping him wake.”

Shock made the scene ripple. Her mother promised immortality to Beth? She turned to look at Dyfyr. “That’s not true. You couldn’t grant immortality. You’re a dragon, not a god.”

“You are correct. Or I would have made you immortal. Even our children were not immortal. They lived long, but they eventually died.”

“My mother lied. And she knew it. She knew the story of the Dragon’s Lover. And logically if you couldn’t give your lover immortality, you could not give it to Beth.”

“Indeed. But your mother convinced Beth the minor amount of dragon blood running in her veins made it possible. Many humans believe it. They wish to believe it. Instead of embracing the life they have been gifted with, they waste it searching for magic.”

“You gave me magic.” The rich memory of Dyfyr in his man form spreading her legs and bestowing his magic kiss on her inner thigh enveloped her.

He brushed her spirit with his face. “You gave me your heart.”

Warm from the memory, she turned back to the scene Dyfyr showed her.

Gwen pulled a small silver knife from a pocket and sliced Beth’s thumb. The woman dropped blood onto the statue. Then her mother and the other witches all did the same. The moonlight gleamed off the drops of blood on the dragon statue cradled in Beth’s arms against her breast. The Tear shot beams of colored lights over the scene. Then the five witches stepped back and began to chant:

O Sacred Dragon

Who bestowed the magic kiss

Your heart beat for love

And stilled in brutal grief

With broken magic

And grieving hearts

We cry for our creator

To rise once more

Return our sex magic!

In our fertile mark!

Your body sleeps

In stony slumber

Your goddess swore

To love you eternally

But she cannot find you

Unless you are reborn

Seek this woman

Wearing your Tear

Burrow deep within her

Your soul to be reborn

Sleep within the child

Until your goddess returns

O Beloved Dragon

Who bestowed the magic kiss

Your heart will beat again

Burying the Tear deep

That you may achieve

Final vengeance on your grief!

The scene vanished, the churning sea below returned. Roxy rested in Dyfyr’s claw, stunned and horrified at what her mother had done, at what that spell had done. Her attention caught on trails of smoke rising from Dyfyr’s nostrils.

His ruby eyes glittered. “Do you see the flaw in the spell?”

“Final vengeance on your grief.” She thought the spell through. “I’m your grief. I’m the reason you cried that Tear. They spelled the Tear to find and kill me. That’s why the Tear locked on to me, then following the spell, it buried deep and began binding with my life force. How stupid!” She was outraged on multiple levels.

He stared at her. “They wanted me to destroy the Tear. They meant for the Tear to symbolize my grief, and that once you woke me, I would destroy it as final vengeance on my grief.”

“Why did my mother do it?”

“She was playing goddess. She spent the next several years trying to call the soul of my lover from Summerland. Eventually she became pregnant with you. She believed that you’d wake me, and I’d return all their power.”

“But you can’t, can you?”

“No. Again they operated on flawed logic. There were fertility witches present when the demon witches cast their dark spell to bind the captured witch hunters as their familiars. You know the rest: Asmodeus arrived and twisted the spell into a blood and sex curse, and the fertility witches were cursed, too. I cannot undo that. The solution is soul mirrors—finding the other half of your soul as you and Kieran have done. Gwen was desperate when she did the spell. And desperation made her foolish.”

“You said you can save me, if Kieran allows you to. By clawing out the Tear?”

He nodded. “Kieran must allow me to fully emerge in him and trust that we will not kill you.”

“We?” Roxy tried to grasp it. “You have to work together?”

“We do work together. We have killed rogues and saved witches. Kieran trusts me fully in the heat of battle. It’s only with those he loves he fears what we are together.” He lifted his clawed hand, caressing her spirit. “Kieran suffered such cruelty by the man who should have loved him. He fears that if he doesn’t control both of us, we will kill without conscience.” Flames slithered out the sides of Dyfyr’s mouth. “Like that bastard who sired him.”

Roxy hurt for Kieran. “You shielded him.” She knew Dyfyr, he loved children. Being a creature of true power and magic, he detested bullies who picked on the weak to make themselves feel strong.

“I would have woken fully if I could have for that boy and killed his father myself. But alas, I was trapped in my own magic. But Kieran is enough a part of me that I could pull him away from the pain, and I could give him strength.” He nuzzled his head against her spirit. “You must get him to trust me and trust himself. Together we will get that Tear out of you.”

Roxy’s entire spirit shuddered at the memory of Kieran’s rage when the claws came out at the maze. He’d bashed his hands against the cement wall in his fury. The idea of hurting someone he loved was unbearable to him. “He won’t like it, Dyfyr. I don’t know if he can do it. Can you just force him when he’s asleep or something?”

“You saw what happened when I tried. His will is strong, as it should be,” Dyfyr said with gruff approval. “He loves you, and even asleep, his mind will not allow you to be hurt. You must convince him to trust himself, and to trust my magic. As long as you have your chakras open, I can connect with them and use my magic to separate the Tear from your life force and get it out of you. Our combined magic will heal the wound.”

Suspicion and worry for him began to swirl. “And then what happens to the Tear? Wing Slayer couldn’t destroy it, how will you?”

Dyfyr tilted his head, reading her as he always did. “I will be fine, little treasure. I am simply going to magically call the Tear back to me, and it will make me mortal, but it won’t hurt Key. Just be sure to keep your chakras open until I am finished. No matter what happens, you must keep your chakras open.”

“But what of you then?” Panic welled within her. “You won’t die, will you? Please, Dyfyr, I have only just found you!”

“No, love, I won’t die. I will live as long as Kieran lives. Once my immortality is gone, I will be fully merged into his life force.”

“Will I still see you?” She felt such a strong connection with him. “Like I see you now? Will you still have your magic?”

“Sweet treasure, yes. I will not leave you. But you must think, Roxanne. What would happen now if Kieran died while I am immortal?”

She stared at Dyfyr’s ruby eyes. “I guess

your soul would leave?” Would it go back to where his body was beneath them? “But wait, the spell! They needed that Tear, because it’s part of you, in order to draw your soul to Kieran. Beth wore the Tear, and Kieran was inside her when they did the spell.” The answer hit her so hard, she felt her spirit shake.