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Knight’s Challenge by Summer Devon

Miranda muttered a curse. If only Linus were here. He knew the best way to deal with Sarkany. He’d devoted his life to discovering the secrets of Sarkany’s kind. Calm the breathing, she reminded herself and she counted to ten before she opened the door. To avoid meeting his eyes, she looked down at expensive leather boots, black and surprisingly scuffed.

“Come in, if you must,” she said.

“Miranda.” He held out a hand. “So pleased to meet you at last.”

She shook his hot, dry hand. Smooth skin. No scales.

Sarkany. He didn’t even hide his nature. Hungarian for dragon. She could feel his silver eyes on her. That must be why her skin prickled and her heart stuttered. She’d always felt his attention from a distance when entering his presence at city council meetings or charity events they’d both attended, but she’d never looked into his dangerous face. Photos showed him handsome and lean, with near-black hair and sardonic brows above pale grey eyes, irises rimmed with pure black—a dragon’s spellbinding eyes.

“Miranda?” He moved to her sofa and sat, then patted the cushion next to him. She walked to the back of the couch and stood behind him.

“You are not a very good hostess,” he said.

The amusement in his voice, along with the way he treated her apartment as if it were his own, would have infuriated her if she weren’t being so very careful to not allow herself to grow angry. A knight must keep emotion at bay when battling the dragon or she forfeited any advantage.

Miranda followed Linus’s advice and immediately revealed her knowledge of Sarkany’s nature. “May I offer you some sake? I hear it was invented by the Japanese to lure your type when you were being nuisances. I won’t bother warming it. You can heat it yourself.”

He laughed, and shifted on the couch. He looked at her and she didn’t turn away in time. Disaster.

She met his gaze.

At once she forgot her mission, forgot her reason for aggravating him. She’d been using herself as bait and in that second their eyes met, she was caught. What a mistake to fall into the spell of that silver gleam—his power tugged at her. Heavy lust seized her. She gazed back, immobilized by desire. Dear Lord, he’d gotten her too easily, within a minute of entering her house.

The bottomless irises made promises.

Let me stroke you. Do you know what I can do with heat? Can you imagine? Taste me. Let me taste you. Your skin, your mouth, your sex. Heat. Miranda. Take the heat I offer. Thick honey we devour together.

Her body ached to respond and her mouth opened to answer the dragon’s call. She almost leaned to him, over the couch, to that mouth. Silver eyes that created a hunger so strong it made her hands clench and her womb grow heavy.

She had to do something. Something—the sirens used music and the sailors stuffed their ears with wax.

Shut your goddamn eyes. She forced her lids closed.

He laughed. “What a pity. You don’t want to flirt with me? I should feel insulted.” He spoke in a smooth rumble as seductive as those eyes. “Shall we talk business? How much do I need to pay you to stop harassing me? Ah, now I can see the indignation in your face, even with your expressive eyes closed. All right. If you are too noble to take money for yourself, then allow me to contribute to your favorite good cause in your name. Assuming, of course, it isn’t one devoted to destroying me.”

“No, no pay.” She folded her arms over her breasts in case the tingling in her nipples meant they had visibly hardened. “No. We’ll win. If not me, then another member of the guild.”

“Oh, heavens. The guild?” His loud laughter sounded genuine. “I suspected as much, yet still, I’m amazed. It has been so many years. I must say you are hearkening back to the worst of your primitive ancestors, young woman.”

“The guild is strong.” She felt foolish standing, arms crossed, eyes firmly shut.

“Do your members still make oaths in blood? Do you still carry shards of bone?”

She shook her head, but didn’t answer. He couldn’t know Linus insisted she keep the precious small object with her every minute of the day.

“You know it’s all nonsense. The peasants stopped fornicating in the fields to bring forth good crops centuries ago.”

“Okay. Some of it might be nonsense, but I—I know you are a dragon.” Her voice cracked.

“Open your eyes. Do you see any sign of fire? Scales? Claws? You are a superstitious, silly woman. Now that I know what sort of nonsense you’re up to, I can stop wasting time on you. A pity, because I thought you might be more interesting than the usual opponent. You’re just a small dog yapping at my heels.”

“I’ll yap until you go back to your own kind. You are a dragon and don’t care about anything human. You only use us to gain wealth.”

He sniffed. “And how does that make me any different from any other businessman?”

The answer came to her, simple and perfect. A challenge. Dragons were vain creatures and hated to be bested in any contest.

“You’re right. You aren’t any different, are you?” She tried to imitate his amused indifference. “I mean, you’re just exactly like any regular old idiot of a human.”

He chuckled again. “You know, I’ve changed my mind. You are still rather intriguing.” Her heart sank at his next words. “I can see your game, of course. Baiting me is an old trick.”

The couch creaked as he stood and only a stir in the air and his voice told her he moved closer. He walked silently. “But I don’t mind playing. Tell me the terms of your challenge. If you win, I’ll vanish. Not into the hills, mind you, I’m not ready to rejoin the rocks. I enjoy life as a human too much at the moment. But I’ll leave your city.”

Life as a human. He’d admitted his real nature. She tamped down a wave of panic. An authentic dragon stood next to her and she was expected to face the danger—and not run away screaming. She exhaled carefully before asking, “And if you win?”

“If I win, you stop playing the role of nuisance ants at my happy summer picnic of a life. And you play another role for me. You’ll be my treasure.”

The Dragons’ Demon by Marie Harte

“Talk about utterly stupid,” Eve muttered as she sped on her Harley toward Valley Green Park.

She loved her brothers, but honestly, they played too much when they should have been taking inventory of the souls needing saving. Their particular job, in the hierarchy of the Ethereal, was to assess and beguile those on the brink of Decision. To test those whose souls who teetered between eventually going to heaven and going to hell. Existence in either plane was the goal, because living in limbo screwed with the balance of everything.

Though no one soul was ever wholly good or wholly evil, one temperament or the other weighed predominantly in every creature. Even in the self-possessing dragons.
She grimaced and increased her speed. The dragons, like many of the mythical creatures purported to exist at one time or another on Earth, were, in fact, real. They lived buried in the deeper recesses of the world—in the lower realm near the demons—closer to the Earth’s core which provided the necessary heat for their precious eggs to survive.

Unlike the humans, dragons knew about the realities of hell and heaven, and remained free to live in whatever realm they chose. Many often took the form of humans to roam above ground, in the middle realm—in the Ordinary. Like her brothers, they lived for mischief, and for anything that glittered. Partial to gold, they also had appetites far exceeding that of a normal human. They took what they wanted when they wanted, and answered to no one, that she knew of.

And the angels thought they were the favored race….

That her brothers had whisked the egg away from its nest, from its precious heat, meant one of three things. One, they had misjudged the egg’s ability to survive without its birthing fire. Two, they had seriously conned her—which didn’t mesh considering she’d heard that dragon’s angered roar in the bar. Three, and this option seriously sucked, they knew something she didn’t, like that the egg had already hatched.

Imagining a baby dragon making a meal of the greater Philly area, she whipped her bike onto one of the main graveled parking lots of the park and made a left down the wide running/biking trail. Luckily, the lateness of the hour, as well as the steady drizzle of rain, had forced many outdoor nuts inside. The few that still ran stared at her in disbelief as she roared by.

Great. Now she’d have to hurry the rescue so the police wouldn’t be on her ass. So unfair. And all to right a wrong.

Huffing and cursing her brothers again, she stopped when she saw a marker denoting the number six.

She parked and leapt off the bike, swearing when she realized she still needed to cross the river. Not deep, it would nevertheless be cold despite the late summer night. Seeing a ridge of rocks, she raced across the slippery surface with the preternatural agility of her kind and hurried into the woods on the other side.

Once there, she stilled, listening, and felt a pulse that didn’t belong in the Ordinary. Climbing several feet over the small finger of land, she found a tiny, contained blue glow, and within, a round object with the blue, gold and red markings described by her brothers. This egg, however, was the size of an ostrich egg, much, much smaller than the typical dragon eggs she’d seen.

“What the hell?”

Staring down at it, she cocked her head, hearing a strange, haunting sound. Unearthly welcome and a powerful joy sent shockwaves throughout the woods caging the small egg. Trees creaked, wind howled, and the water near them swirled, rising in direct proportion to the rising volume of dragonsong.

Enamored and utterly moved, Eve slowly dropped to her knees and took the egg in her hands, dousing the small fire with a nod. The minute she touched the egg’s smooth, polished surface, her body lit with ecstasy—a feeling not unlike that she received when she’d made a successful sway.

I’m keeping you.

She felt it, heard herself think it, realized she meant it…and knew she was utterly screwed. Demons and dragons didn’t mix. And what the hell was she thinking wanting to keep Carmaron’s precious young? Dragons weren’t pets. They were malevolent, vicious killers with an appetite for destruction. Pleasant, to her way of thinking, but they had a thing against siding with Ethereal forces.

An appetite for destruction…. When the sky suddenly darkened and a shadow covered her, she didn’t flinch, expecting the worst.

Cradling the egg against her chest, she glanced up. What looked in shadow like a winged angel suddenly showed itself for a furious, fire-breathing dragon. In a human male’s body with large, expansive black wings, Ranton, commander of the dragon legion, made an impressive entrance as he lowered to the ground.

He wore black jeans and boots and a clingy black T-shirt through which his wings commandeered wind. His dark black hair and blazing red eyes sat in a face that any woman would consider handsome. Roughly hewn cheekbones and a strong nose complemented thickly lashed eyes and a stubborn chin. He could have passed for a giant human, save for the fifteen-foot expanse of wings and the red flames of anger burning in his gaze.

Seven feet of enraged male glowered down at her, more ferocious than even the demons of war. “I’ve come for what’s mine,” he growled, flame curling in his eyes, in his hands and sputtering from his mouth. His fingers elongated into talons as his flesh hardened into black scales, obscuring his clothing. Impressive, beautiful even, but for the fact he meant to do her some serious harm.

Don’t do it. The egg’s safe now, give him back. But Eve found it impossible to listen to her inner voice of reason. She sighed as she pooled her power, prepared to defend her tie to the new life against her chest with her every fiber of her being. To the torturous bowels of hell, or, God forbid, the starry heights of heaven. “Of course you have. Well, Ranton? Bring it on. I’m ready.”

Wings of Change by Bianca D’Arc

Lucia had never ridden on a dragon’s back before. Today was indeed a day of firsts. Linea flew beautifully and if not for the dire situation, Lucia would have enjoyed her first flight immensely. The dragon was poetry in motion beneath her, and the strong man holding her by the waist made her feel warm and cared for in a way she hadn’t experienced since losing her family all those years ago.

They set down in the tavern yard, the pale green dragon followed closely by the stunning silver beast named Tor. Everyone had heard tales about the royal Ice Dragon who’d been raised by the queen. Lucia strongly suspected the lovely woman riding on the silver dragon was the queen herself.

Jumping down from the dragon’s back into Marcus’s strong arms, Lucia tried to suppress the little thrill of attraction she felt for the handsome knight. This was no time to start dreaming impossible dreams. Reynor had to come first. His life was at stake here. She led the way into the large tavern—empty now, so early in the day. Part of the old city, the main room had been built on a scale to hold two or three dragons, if they wished to hear some music and join in the merriment of an evening with their knights.

But for the past few days, Reynor had become a full-time resident. Nobody questioned it at first, though they saw to it he had plenty of water. Dragons could go a few days without eating, but everyone knew they enjoyed sweets like melons and bushels of apples, so he had all he could want within easy reach.

Only Lucia would dare go close enough to serve the dragons. She liked them a great deal and had no fear of them, so whenever a dragon deigned to visit the tavern, Lucia was elected to serve them. She didn’t mind it at all. In fact, she looked forward to such occasions.

“Lucy, what have you done?” Rey’s deep voice shivered through her mind.

“I did what I had to do. I brought help.” She stood before the shimmering blue dragon, unafraid, with her hands perched on her hips, as if daring him to argue. When he only sighed in defeat and lowered his head to the ground, she walked forward and crouched beside him. “I don’t want to see you crippled…or dead, Rey. You’re too special for me to allow it. Please forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive. You have a good heart, Lucy.”

The queen went immediately to the dragon’s left wing. The area near the joint had swollen to three times its normal size and the wound was badly inflamed. Reynor spread his wing at the queen’s gentle urging, though not without a great deal of pain. Lucia stayed by his head, stroking his scales soothingly while the other woman worked.

A man she’d seen only a few times before crouched down next to the dragon on the other side, touching the scaled head and looking deep into Reynor’s jeweled eyes. Remorse shone clearly on the knight’s face. Remorse, fear…and love. Lucia backed off, seeing the two reunited as they should be.

As she moved back, she faltered, but strong arms caught her against a hard chest. Sir Marcus held her waist, tucking her under his chin, her back to his warm, hard front. He gentled her when she would have struggled out of his hold.

“Be at ease, little dragon tamer.” His words whispered over her hair. “You’ve done a beautiful thing by bringing us here. It is a debt we can never repay.”

She settled back against him. Sir Kaden lay on the floor, hugging the dragon’s neck hard as the queen set about her work. The glow of magic in the air was undeniable. Lucia hadn’t seen it since she was a child, but she recognized the subtle scent of ozone and the tingle of strong magic.

When she’d realized how badly Rey was hurt, Lucia had been tempted to try to use the magic talisman given to her when she escaped her homeland all those years ago, but she was too afraid. For one thing, the precious gift was only to be used in the most dire of circumstances, when all other hopes had failed. Such was the credo of her line. For another, Lucia had never used magic before, though she knew some of her family had once been potent healers. They’d been killed before she could learn or even discover if she had the ability.

Still, Reynor was a special being and she’d felt desperate as she watched him grow weaker. Unable to stand by and watch him die, she’d done what was necessary to get help for him. The queen was reputed to be a strong dragon healer, though Lucia could see Reynor’s eyes cloud with agony as the woman worked. He twitched with pain, but his knight held him and comforted him as best he could.

“I only wish I’d gone to the castle sooner.” Her words whispered out on a tragic sigh. She became aware of the green dragon’s head looming next to them. Linea, it seemed, refused to be left outside.

“Will he be all right? Marcus, do you know?” In her agitation, the female dragon was broadcasting her worries to Lucia as well.

“The queen has said nothing yet, but she doesn’t look too worried to me,” Marcus replied. “Judging from her expression I’d say he’ll live, though whether he’ll ever fly properly again is in the hands of the Mother, I’ll wager.”

“It always was,” Linea answered. “The injury was bad enough in the first place, but now those two fools have let it get out of hand!” The dragon seemed infuriated if the twitching of her tail was any indication.

“May I ask…” Lucia’s words were a hesitant whisper. “How did it happen?”

“It was stupid, really.” Marcus’s hands tightened on her waist, fingers digging into her hips before he seemed to realize what he was doing and released her. “Have you heard about the fighting on the border?” When she nodded, he continued, “We were involved in a skirmish the last time out. Sometimes with these kinds of engagements, you get caught low, within range of ground weapons. It happens.” He shrugged. “I saw Rey dodge an arrow. He lost altitude and came within sword distance of a group of cavalry. In such instances, the knight can engage with his own weapons, which Kaden did—and very well too—until one got past his guard and a wild swing took a chunk out of Reynor’s wing, down near the joint. It’s one of the few places not well protected by scale—it needs to be flexible, you see. A freak of luck for the adversary, though Rey’s blast of flame took care of him and his horse soon enough. Still, Rey barely stayed aloft and we had to practically tow him back here. The queen saw to him that night, but the kind of healing he needs is tricky. It’s not simply a matter of sewing together something that was torn. A wedge of his wing was actually cut out.”

Tears flowed down Lucia’s face as she heard the tale, watching the beautiful young queen try to banish the raging infection. Turning in Marcus’s loose embrace, Lucia sobbed against the man’s chest. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t help herself. Rey was so special. He was such a good and kind dragon. She couldn’t imagine him crippled for life. It was too painful to contemplate.

“I’m sorry.” She sniffled as strong arms settled around her. She wasn’t above accepting comfort from Sir Marcus. Men of his station never looked twice at her now that she was a serving wench, though once upon a time…

But fairy tales wouldn’t put food in her belly. She’d learned that the hard way when all she’d ever known was cruelly ripped from her grasp. She didn’t have much faith in people, but the knights she’d seen in Draconia had begun to make her think maybejust maybethere were a few good men left in the world. It was her friendship with the dragons that started her thinking about the men they chose as partners. Surely such noble, magical creatures could see into the hearts of the men they chose to fight alongside.

Lucia dried her tears and cautioned herself to restrain her emotions. Coming apart at the seams did nobody any good. She straightened away from the knight, averting her eyes in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Sir Marcus. Please excuse my behavior.”

He tipped her chin up until her eyes met his. She was mortified. She just knew her face was blotchy and her eyes were probably red. Oh, why did she have to look like a watery hag when faced with masculine perfection given life?

“You are a puzzle, madam. You look like a tavern girl, but you speak like a lady.”

She read curiosity in his lovely eyes. Curiosity and a flicker of interest? Surely not.

“The riddle is easily solved, sir. I am a tavern girl now, but I was once a lady.”