Page 37 of Wildfire Witch

“Ten?” I giggled, flustered at the very thought. “I’m not trying to out-do Melisande.”

“I know. Selfishly, I hope you stop at Seth and the dragon…Rusty, I think his name was. I’ll even attempt to get along with the egotistical lizard.”

I laughed again, and this time, he joined me. “Thank you, Cer. For real. That’s a lot to ask of you, as my husband,” I said.

We spun a few more times before he responded. “You’ve died forty-six times. I’ve never blamed you, not once, when I felt the pain of your many passings and rebirths. The count will not become forty-seven, I swear it. I give thanks to my past self, who had wanted to immortalize his love for you in the universal language of the fae, because it gave me a way to find my place back at your side. I have known all this time that I would find you again when you needed me most.”

I sniffed, swiping under my eyes. “And you have.” My gratitude overflowed. His devotion had spanned lifetimes, all to save me.

“And I have,” he said with pride. He released me from his tight hold and guided me back to his lips, letting the tangle of our mouths share the depths of his feelings where words weren’t sufficient. My pussy pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and I was already raring to go for another round.

I nipped his sharply pointed ear while he kissed on my neck. “I’m going to climb you like a tree once we land,” I warned him, to a warm chuckle that ghosted over my skin.

“Perhaps we should land, then. There’s a nice forest below us right now. Plenty of privacy?—”

A dragon roared nearby, drowning out the rest of his words with an explosion of sound. We startled apart and, cursing, Ceridor tucked himself away and shoved his clothes back to rights before slowing us to face our pursuer.

A brilliantly scarlet fire dragon arrowed in our direction, pumping a wingspan of nearly thirty feet. He was movingmuchfaster than he seemed, about to overtake us within a couple of minutes or less. When he opened his fanged maw, it was Benedict’s voice that emerged from his throat, magnified to a furious boom.

“I will have my father’s treasure back! The vessel and her phoenix belong to the Fire Brotherhood!”

NIX

Ceridor scoffed.“Foolish of him to challenge a wind fae in his element.”

He looked over his shoulder at me, gesturing to recall the wind holding some of my clothing. I grabbed my panties from midair and shoved them on, soon setting the rest of my clothes to rights too. “Can you keep me elevated separately from you?” I asked.

His silver eyes narrowed. “You will head down into the trees, where it’s safe.”

I shook my head, speaking more urgently as Benedict pushed himself to sprint across the sky towards us. “He’ll be trying to kill me, not necessarily you. A forest fire would do that more easily than him hitting a flying target.”

That seemed to convince him. “You will fall ever so slowly, but yes. Here.” He took me by the hips and held me outside of the bubble of magic protecting us from the wind. It whipped and howled past, threatening to rip me out of his hands for the few moments it took him to construct a second bubble around me.

Instead of letting me go, Ceridor pulled on the air element around us, shooting forward out of Benedict’s range. The dragon’s growl sounded like the roll of thunder behind us. Opening his maw, the back of his throat glowed orange, then white, before a superheated jet of flame shot at us.

Ceridor and I spun out of the way in a dizzying whirl. My breakfast threatened to arrive again, but I swallowed down the sensation. We propelled upward and Benedict ascended smoothly behind us, his flight muscles bulging with the effort.

“You can’t play keep away forever! I know where you’re going! Spells Hollow will know my father’s wrath even if you escape,” Benedict boomed.

Ceridor looked at me with disbelief. “How does he know of Spells Hollow?” he hissed.

“I, uh…” Goddess, that was too much to explain right now. Aodhnait’s well-meaning betrayal seemed like it’d happened weeks ago, even if it’d only been a day.

“No matter. Your secret dies with him,” he stated after a moment. Holding up his hand, his white wood staff spun out of nowhere into his palm. It would’ve been orbiting us somewhere unobtrusive, designed to spin on the wind no matter the elevation.

“Cer, wait, he’s still a dragon,” I protested.

He drew me forward by the shoulder for a quick kiss, before nudging me out of his bubble of magic. We parted and while he shot ahead in a blur of motion, my momentum faltered and I started to fall, an inch a second.

Ceridor was a streak of silver and blue, nearly one with the sky above as he angled straight for Benedict, staff spinning. The dragon’s slitted eyes dilated as the wind reversed course around him. Blades of invisible air slashed at his scales and, unlike Rusty’s tough armor, his were thin enough to pierce. A rain of molten hot blood fell from several cuts opened up along his flanks and neck.

The relatively small wounds only infuriated the dragon further, however. He beat the air into submission, even with Ceridor’s manipulations. Inhaling, he produced another white-hot throat full of flame, though it sputtered to smoke as soon as he breathed out.

I wrapped my fingers around my right hand, touching the symbol that represented my handfasting. Without touching Ceridor, I sought to find my magical connection with him. I closed my eyes and pawed around blindly with my own magic, until I found a cord of pure air motes tethering me to my fae husband.

I didn’t have a wand to write out a spell or alchemical formula. I braced myself for pain, but knew I couldn’t leave Ceridor to fight a fully shifted fire dragon without help. Pulling his air into my palms, I willed my magic to join it.

When I opened my eyes, fire and air were merging and coating my body in sparks that became chains of lightning that wound around my torso and limbs. There was no pain yet, only a harmonious blend of superheated air waiting to answer my command.

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