Jedidiah: Dragon’s Savior – Ménage Erotic Fantasy (Dragon's Savior Book 2) (14 page)

A dragon scale could be used for many things. Cures for one, but they could make a woman have a child with nothing more than a touch of one. The eyes of a dragon, if cooked properly, would make the person who drank the tea from them see the future of not just himself, but whoever he touched as well.

The blood of a dragon could make one live forever, cure any disease, as well as enrich the earth that it fell upon. Ralph had no such plans for the blood of one of these creatures to ever touch the earth. He had a great many plans for every drop of it. He would, in a word, be rich.

The sound behind him made him pause. Hiding behind a tree was difficult with all his equipment, but he was still and quiet as the woman walked into the sunlight. Ralph could not believe the beautiful thing before him.

She was tall, taller than his own six foot frame, but tiny in stature. She had white blonde hair that hung well below her hips, and her eyes, even from the distance between he and her, seemed to be clear blue…like ice, he thought. When she stood still too, looking in his direction, Ralph had the urge not just to run but to run screaming from her. He stood perfectly still, not even breathing hard in the event that she’d see him. But for some reason, Ralph thought she knew just where he was.

A swarm of butterflies—not really the name for a group of them, but it was all he could think of as they hit him—pelted him with their wings as they seemed to come out of nowhere. He moved then, flapping his hands, trying his best to keep them out of his mouth and eyes. The woman laughed then, the sound coming across the distance making him think that she’d done this to him, conjured them up so that they’d attack. When he was fully exposed, the butterflies—a kaleidoscope, he just remembered them being called—disappeared into the tops of the trees.

“So you are the dragon killer.” He’d killed one? This was news to him, but before he could ask her where the body was, she continued. “I’m to visit the king and queen now. What do you think they’ll do should they find out that you are killing their dragons?”

“Reward me?” He doubled over in pain. It felt as if he’d had his belly split open. But when he looked, there was nothing there, not even a wrinkle in his shirt. “What the fuck are you?”

“A witch.” He glanced up at her to see if she was kidding or not. “I’m neither white nor black…something in between, I guess. You, however, are all black: your heart is not good at all.”

“No one is either black or white. There is some gray in all of us.” Her laughter again made him flinch from the expected attack of butterflies. “What do you care if I kill myself a dragon? It’s not like they should be around here anymore. Hell, until a while back, I didn’t even know that they were real.”

“That’s what they were hoping for.” She moved closer and he was lifted up. Not by his legs and body, but by something else. “You are not going to be happy, nor will you live all that long, if you keep on this path. The saviors will kill you.”

She’d not said they might, but that they would. And for some reason, the threat of it scared him a great deal. As he was lowered to the ground, he stood this time. He watched as she moved around him, unable to turn and look at her as she was at his back.

“You said that I was a murderer. Did I actually kill a dragon?” He tried not to sound so excited, but he was. To have killed a great beast all on his own. When she didn’t answer him, he tried to look behind him, but she wasn’t there. When he turned again, she was nearly at his face, right in front of him. “Are you using some kind of mind control on me?”

“You don’t have enough sense to get out of the woods. Me trying to control you would be pointless. And time consuming. I don’t want to mess with you anyway.” He started to tell her not to talk to him that way, but she only laughed at him again. “You are the biggest moron I’ve ever met, and believe me, I’ve met quite a few in my lifetime.”

He thought her to be only about twenty-five, if that much, but he had a feeling she was much older, even older than him. As she sat on the ground, her legs as bare as her feet, she leaned back on her palms and looked at him. Ralph felt the urge to run again.

“You killed a friend of mine. He was old and revered as a dragon. He and I had a wonderful life as friends and you killed him. Or at least you delivered the blow that eventually ended his life. Don’t you feel badly for me?” He didn’t answer her, sensing a trap. “His sister is a good dragon too. Should you have hit her with your iron, you would have messed up the entire lifecycle that is running right now. I, myself, am included in this time frame, yet I find myself reluctant to go and see to it.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. And worse than that, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. As he stood there, feeling exposed, he wondered if she was insane when a great bear moved out of the woods toward them. Ralph could not make his body run or his mouth scream out a warning had he been inclined. There she sat, watching the lumbering creature come at them both. When the bear was behind the woman, facing him, she put out her hand and he touched his nose to her fingers before sitting down on the grass beside her. The woman looked up at him as she rubbed the fur behind the bear’s ear.

“I am neither insane nor am I very magical. I have some magic, a great deal in some areas, but very little in the way of getting you to stop the nonsense that you’re doing right now. I suppose I could kill you, or have bear here do it for me, but like this entire cycle that I was telling you about, you must run your path to cross those of the others or things will not come out in the end. The previous queen told me this.” Sighing heavily, she stood up, the bear now on his hind legs and his large long claws extended to him. With a snap of her fingers, the bear dropped to his feet and stood beside her. “You will not stop this, will you? Your insane pursuit of killing the dragons?”

“I already did, according to you. And where is my magic? The book says that I am to get his magic.” The pack at his back shifted, and he watched as the book he was talking about was suddenly in her hands. “Hey. That’s mine. It was a gift from someone and I want it back.”

“Helena the Black gave it to you. She’s dead, in the event that you’re looking for her to come help you.” The pages turned in the book as the woman stood there looking at it. “You have read this, all of it, even the magical pages?”

“Magical pages?” She showed him pages that he’d not even seen. He started to step toward her and the book, but he stopped when the bear growled. “No, I’ve never seen those pages before. Give me back my book.”

“I think not.” When the book snapped closed, it disappeared. The woman turned and headed back the way she’d come, the bear walking alongside her. When she stopped and turned again, he wanted to whimper, but his throat, like his body, was frozen tight. Her appearance made him think of nightmares he’d had as a child of the monster in the closet coming to life. “You will die if you continue on your way.”

Then, in a heartbeat, she was gone, as was the bear. Ralph dropped to his knees, then to his belly as his head started to turn and spin. Lying there, thinking of what had just happened, all he could really focus on was that it had to be a dream. That nothing, not the woman or the bear, had been there. As his mind began to wrap around what he was trying to convince himself of, he heard her laugh again. She was as real as he was, it appeared.

Ralph decided to lay there for the rest of the night, convincing himself that he was exhausted and needed to rest. He would, he told himself, deal with this in the morning. Closing his eyes, he tried his best not to hear her laughing again as he willed his body to sleep. This was not real, he told himself over and over.

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Dragon’s Savior Series

Asher

Dragon’s Savior Book 1

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Kathi Barton, author of the bestselling series Force of Nature, lives in Nashport, Ohio with her husband Paul. In addition to writing full time Kathi likes to spend time with her eight grandkids, three children and three children-in-laws. She writes to relax and have fun.

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