Dragon Dreams and Fairy Wings, page 17
Griff’s eyes still held those secrets, those fleeting images, until the moment his climax tore through him. His pupils expanded and chased out everything else, every hint of any other color. Griff bared his teeth and strained against Blaze, as if trying to get closer, deeper, and Blaze whimpered when he felt the hot jets of Griff’s cum inside him.
The howling that followed was otherworldly, and it came from neither Griff nor Blaze. It tore away their solitude, and Blaze found himself holding on to Griff tightly while Griff’s body was jerked back by invisible forces.
The separation of their bodies was uncomfortable, but Blaze ignored the pain as he pulled against whatever force was trying to lift Griff away. “You can’t have him! You can’t!” He used his whole body to keep a hold on Griff as Griff’s feet left the ground.
Blaze ignored the pummeling against his back as he was jerked to his feet. He dug his heels into the ground and curled around Griff, letting his shift come swiftly. As a dragon, he weighed so much more and perhaps stood a better chance of protecting Griff.
Blaze roared and looked for a target for his anger, but there was nothing tangible for him to blast with fire. Jade was battling some sort of dark force, and Grlind had his hands full with daemons—and those, Blaze could do something about.
He let loose a stream of fire even while burrowing his claws into the ground. Blaze said a prayer to the earth, asking for help and protection. Whatever was trying to pull Griff away was powerful, more so than a fairy king or a cranky dragon queen. Even combined, Blaze didn’t think they could do what was being done.
Not when Jade was so strong, and he was struggling. Not when the world had been altered either truly or magically. Not when a goddess appeared and handed him a sword and called Griff son.
Blaze toasted the daemons and hoped that would allow Grlind to help Jade, because he had to concentrate on Griff.
And Griff needed to free his mind of the constraints on it and remember who he truly was.
Blaze turned his head and stared at Griff with one eye, willing him to reach into the depths of his mind for the truth. Whether he’d ever known it or not, it was there. Griff was extraordinary, and it was time for him to realize it. The how, the why, the what, exactly, were things Blaze couldn’t accurately guess at, but he didn’t need to.
He just needed his bonded to break the walls someone had built inside him. Blaze’s paws left the ground as the force tugging at Griff grew stronger.
Please, Griff. Please. Blaze hoped his bonded understood the low rumble. He hoped Griff heard it. The pummeling along Blaze’s back had become harsher, painful, as he’d shifted forms.
Find yourself. Find yourself, my bonded. If I could do it for you, I would.
Griff stared back at him, eyes black, mouth open, face so pale Blaze could see the fine blue veins under the skin.
A hard yank sent him and Griff to the ground again, but Blaze never lost his hold, never unfurled from around Griff.
Not even when the pummeling turned to something sharper, something agonizing. Blaze tried to ignore it, merely grunted and jerked a little, but the pain increased and spread from his spine to his sides, up his neck and down his tail. He was burning inside in a way that wasn’t natural, that had nothing to do with his fire and his powers.
Try as he might, Blaze couldn’t keep back the shriek that had built up in him. He feared he was dying, feared he’d let Griff down, had killed them both by being too weak—whatever was happening to him, he couldn’t fight it off, not while he was keeping Griff from being taken away.
The buzzing in Blaze’s ears had to be a sign of his impending death, the reaper coming for him. Blaze tried to swing his head around and see what was on him. He found himself staring at hundreds of tiny eyes and sparkling wings.
Dragonflies! Shadnay had returned with what looked to be the entire species of dragonflies, and as one, they swooped behind Blaze.
The pain didn’t completely go away, but it decreased significantly as something screeched. Griff was shouting, his words foreign to Blaze, but the intent clear enough. He was inside himself, Blaze suspected, as another strong pull sent them in the direction he didn’t want to go.
The tugging changed suddenly, with Blaze’s arms being jerked sharply while his tail and back legs were pulled in the opposite direction. Whoever was doing it was trying to pull him apart, or enough so that he’d let go of Griff.
Blaze threw his head back and burned everything he could reach. He knew Jade and Grlind were out of range, and the dragonflies were behind him. Griff was still in his clutches, and Blaze’s fire might have done no good at all, but it helped him in some way he couldn’t name. Blaze drew strength from the fire, from his anger and pain and fear. He curled into a tighter ball around Griff and rolled with him, protecting his bonded from his own weight.
It hurt terribly. Whatever had been done to his back was a physical wound, not a psychic one. Blaze knew that much. The dragonflies swarmed over him and Griff, a cloud of darkness and glittery wings trying to keep them safe.
Griff was still speaking, words that sounded ancient and unlike anything Blaze had ever heard. He was dimly aware of shouts and thunder, of Grlind’s deep voice, of the answering yell from Jade and the buzz-buzz-buzz of the dragonflies.
That outside force pulling at him started up again, curling over his forearms and tail with icy talons that sank into his flesh. It was worse than before, the cold sucking away his internal fire in steady increments.
Griff vibrated in his arms, like a mighty bell rung, a sound leaving him that was both musical and eerie.
Days, weeks, years, centuries and more flashed through Blaze’s mind. Something was changing, a new power swelling, emerging in the battle. He tried to cover Griff’s head better, but Griff shook harder, and heat poured off him into Blaze.
It took a moment for Blaze to realize the new heat chased away the icy cold that had been filling him. It chased it away and restoked his own fire. The pain along Blaze’s back ebbed to nothing more than a faint ache, and he felt stronger than he could ever remember being.
And Griff looked at him, then smiled and stroked Blaze’s muzzle and spoke in that unknown tongue.
Blaze didn’t let go of him, but Griff was free, standing in front of him and turning away from Blaze.
Blaze bellowed and tried to snatch him up again but failed when Griff spun aside. Griff glanced at him and shook his head. Trust me.
Blaze heard it as clear as could be in his head. He wavered, but when it came down to it, he did trust Griff and he trusted the bond between them.
And everything around them was chaos and bizarre and scary as all Hades. Griff was love and safety and home.
Blaze bobbed his head and moved to stand at Griff’s side—which was where he should be, not covering Griff as if Griff were weak. Blaze got that now, and Griff seemed to have found some missing part of himself.
As soon as Blaze thought it, Griff flung his arms up and out. Flames and ice came at them, but between Blaze’s own fire and Griff doing something magical that deflected several of the would-be weapons, he and Griff averted the attack.
Blaze recognized the fire of his kind. While he couldn’t see the dragon firing at them, he knew it definitely was a dragon. Someone had used a powerful cloaking spell to hide behind, and he had a feeling he knew which dragon was trying to fry him and Griff. The ice, he had no clue as to who could manipulate such a thing. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, either.
Griff pulled down his hands and in them were thin, beautiful pieces of material. They shimmered with pastels and silver threads, and mesmerized Blaze for a few seconds, which almost resulted in him getting a nasty ice ball to the head.
He ducked and blew flames out to protect himself and Griff.
Griff shook the material out, then wrapped it around his shoulders.
It was then that Blaze understood what he was seeing. Wings. Griff had his wings.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Magic pulsed through Griff as if he were merely a vessel or conduit. Griff had felt it beginning when he was making love to Blaze. It had filled him to capacity and forced him to open his mind to it or be obliterated by the force of it.
Griff had given over after an internal struggle that had terrified him almost as much as the external struggle around them.
Then it had come—the knowledge of who he was—son of Ahndwa and the former Love fairy king, Xelscior, who had vanished long ago.
And who hadn’t only been a fairy himself. Dark magic ran through Griff’s veins, along with the power of a goddess. Xelscior’s contribution to Griff’s existence wasn’t pure.
Even a goddess can fall for a bad boy. Griff would have been amused had he not been on the verge of losing his sanity. Too many things were happening in his mind. Visions, memories—his own, from this life and ones before, some he didn’t believe were his at any point—mysterious words and images worked through him. Griff stopped fighting and let the magic take over.
It illuminated every part of him. Griff felt like he could conquer anyone and anything that got in his way, though he knew that wasn’t so. It was the discovery of a new strength, a secret embedded in his soul and bound by magic and a curse and fear itself.
Griff had to envision himself prying layer after layer of deceit away until he reached the epitome of who and what he was.
Son of a goddess, son of a dark fairy.
A combination that would ensure he’d be feared and perhaps even hunted.
And someone had likely done both.
It’d been a mighty hand that had swatted him down. Mightier than a dragon or normal magical being.
There was an oddly familiar tinge to the icy cold tendrils of magic in the air. The fire was from a dragon—and one he’d bet he knew. The cold…that was from someone else.
Someone stronger.
Someone he should recognize.
Griff would bet whoever was lobbing the deadly balls of ice at him and Blaze was the same person who had snatched his wings.
And that would take power. “Dark power,” he murmured as he deflected another round of fire and ice.
Beside him, Blaze roared, and shadow figures shrieked before dissipating into gray wisps of steam.
Griff raised his hands up and called to the magic in him. He called to Ahndwa. As he did, his past replayed—he’d been bespelled and bound by a curse for so long, and when he’d begun to free himself of it, when he’d realized that he didn’t fit in with his frolic and never would, he’d sought to leave. By finding a mate in another frolic, he’d have been out of the control of Artaxis—
Griff shuddered. Artaxis, his half-brother, his king and his would-be lover. Griff had never understood exactly why he had been so reluctant to give himself to Artaxis, but now he did. To some fairies, blood ties didn’t preclude one from becoming a sexual partner, although it did for Griff. But did Artaxis know of their relation?
Griff had no answer for that. He saw himself leaving the frolic, felt his intent to be free because he didn’t belong with them—and he saw it then, a tear in the fabric separating the worlds, the magical from the plain, a violent rend that shouldn’t have existed.
From it came a blurred shape, and it seemed to stop as if surprised. Griff supposed that he wasn’t expected, or at least not at that moment. He had left his frolic earlier than he’d told Artaxis he would, mainly because he’d been so eager to get away. So either he’d been about to be ambushed, or he’d come along when he shouldn’t have. Either way, the end result had been the same.
That blurred form coalesced more clearly into a deep red shape, then again into the frame of a tall, thickly muscled man. He was beautiful, with very refined features and uptilted eyes. Griff barely got to see him before the man struck him with a wave of magic that had almost killed Griff. He heard cackling, laughter and a joyful promise to rip away his wings.
The agony had been so sharp that Griff had screamed and screamed and passed out, and he still didn’t know who the man was who’d hurt him.
But he shivered as he realized the same man was there now. Someone strong enough to pass between the worlds, someone cruel enough to rip away his wings.
And twisted enough to hand them back to Griff now.
Griff had snatched them from the ether and nearly wept with the mixture of joy and fear—fear the wings would be snatched away from him before he could do more than touch their silky warmth.
Before the fear could paralyze him, the wings pulsed and a voice whispered to him, It is I who have given your wings back to you, not he who took them. Ahndwa’s voice, telling him she’d taken what had been stolen from him, and she who returned them to him.
Griff lifted the wings and barely had to maneuver them at all before they were where they belonged. Pleasure, bright and beautiful, sang through his veins as his wings found their home again.
Beside him, Blaze bellowed, but it sounded more like a song than a raging protest.
Griff caressed Blaze with one wing and one hand. Sparkling currents of affection passed between him and his bonded even as another round of assaults began.
“We will not lose,” Griff vowed.
“Gods, your wings are gorgeous,” Jade rasped from behind Griff.
Griff swirled his hands, sending back the projectiles coming toward them. He spared a glance for Jade. “They are.” He was maybe a little vain about his wings. They were like no other fairy’s, and now he knew why.
Because he was the son of Ahndwa and blessed by the goddess. But even a demigod needed help, and friends.
Griff shouted for Grlind, and he held out a hand to Jade. “Form a circle. Blaze, shift. You can still use your fire, right?”
Jade threw a mighty gust of wind and hail toward their invisible attackers at the same time Blaze shifted.
Griff didn’t have to give orders. As one, the four of them joined hands and formed their circle. “We have given, and taken, honored and worshipped. We have served and will serve. We have joined together now as one.”
The rest of the words were of an old tongue, one carried through lifetimes. Griff heard his bonded and their friends repeating the words, then saying them along with Griff.
Their souls had met before, had fought beside one another, had laughed and cried with each other before. The pieces of their pasts bound them together for eternity, and Griff knew they’d fought noble causes every time they’d lived. Some they had won, some they had lost.
This time, they would prevail. “Name them,” Griff demanded, his heart racing. “Name them, and they will show themselves.”
“Bonny,” Blaze growled. “Come forth!”
Griff saw it as if from an aerial view. His eyes saw something else, the world in shades of magic, in life and death. His thoughts were combined with Blaze’s, Jade’s and Grlind’s. For now, they were as one. Their mind’s eye saw the dragon queen ripped from the veil separating the worlds—something that shouldn’t be possible.
Yet it was.
It would take a great power to move back and forth between the worlds.
A dark power to assault the son of a goddess.
A bitter soul to harm an innocent. Griff wasn’t even sure who’s thoughts they were, he only knew he heard them clearly.
But he knew without a doubt who it was when Ahndwa spoke to them. One cast aside for trying to murder his own child. I hid you in plain sight, and even Artaxis did not know of your nature. Had Artaxis not appealed to the goddess Hetrexa to save you, you would have died when your wings were taken. Artaxis remembers none of that. Hetrexa saved you, and in doing so, had to alter his memories to save him as well. He would not have hesitated to go after the one who hurt you.
Griff was relieved to learn that Artaxis was innocent, and puzzled by Artaxis’s protectiveness, but then again, Artaxis was his king. He was strangely unhurt learning who had tried to destroy him.
Griff didn’t hesitate at all to call out his father’s name. “Xelscior!”
Bonny screamed and shifted, turning into a magnificent dragon. She came at them in full fury, her roar shaking the ground and her fire exploding all around them as Jade called forth the wind to fan the flames away.
“Xelscior! Stop hiding like a coward!” Griff pulled at the magic he and his circle wielded, drawing from it, pushing, tugging, trying to force the dark fairy to appear. For one moment, he considered whether he was wrong, but Ahndwa whispered in his ear and Griff knew he was right. Xelscior was very powerful, however, and he resisted being brought forth.
“Ahndwa, help us,” Griff cried out, his entire body aching from the strain of trying to pull Xelscior to them.
I cannot. I am bound by a promise and must do no more to help you. Xelscior was once bound by his word, but he has given up his soul for power—and that is why he seeks your soul, Griff. You are the one true son. Artaxis may be Xelscior’s son, but it is only in name. Do not give up. Ahndwa sounded sincere and regretful, which was great but didn’t help at all.
“We will not lose,” Blaze murmured, then repeated loudly. He squeezed Griff’s hand. “Xelscior, come forth!”
Bonny screeched, coming off more like a giant rat than a dragon, but her furious display was eclipsed by the shout from Griff, Blaze, Grlind and Jade, calling out Xelscior. Their voices combined into a great, otherworldly sound that carried with it voices from lifetimes past.
Xelscior came through the fabric, shouting and leading a band of daemons and dragons.
The battle had truly begun.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Xelscior’s skin was a mottled red and gray, unlike any fairy Blaze had ever seen before. That Griff resembled the man was indisputable, but whereas Griff’s features carried a lightness to them, Xelscior’s were somehow tinged with evil. Of course, that could have just been Blaze’s imagination. He didn’t really have time to study the man, what with all the damned creatures coming at him and his friends—and Griff, who was glowing like a star in their midst.
