Page 15 of Tease Me

Maybe this was the beginning of his life flashing before his eyes. Or perhaps the First Dragon was reviewing Steele’s short one hundred and forty-four years of life to determine if he was worthy of the afterlife.

“What the hell are we supposed to do with him now?” A deep voice filled with the resonance of an alpha, a power like he’d never felt before rang through Steele’s ears.

The voice had the ring of more than an alpha. Jakob’s voice could command any green dragon to do his bidding. Match, the alpha of alphas had even more power. Neither compared to the pure power in this dragon’s voice.

Holy alpha of all. He was hearing the voice of... the First Dragon. A flood of adrenaline tsunamied through him, prickling at every sense he had.

He was pulled from the total darkness into a shaded forest, where the trees grew taller than he’d ever seen, and the earth below was warm and fertile. This place was warm and comforting, like home. Again, he didn’t really understand where he was or how he was there. He only knew he wanted to stay. Everything in him said this was the green dragon afterlife. Paradise.

Through a mist, a dragon with scales every color of the rainbow and a gash through one of his wings appeared, circling Steele, looking him up and down, growling between breaths, snorting smoke and wisps of flame.

He should have fought harder. Killed more demon dragons. Protected Fleur. His body didn’t seem to exist, yet he had the feeling he was being measured and weighed.

“Well, aren’t you a dumbass?” The voice boomed through the forest and shook Steele to his core. The sound had gone directly into his head and bored into his skull.

“Yes, I’m talking to you, dumbass. You fucked my plans right up by going and dying. Inanna practically served your true mate up on a platter for you and what do you do? You fucking die before you can claim her.”

Steele didn’t know how to respond to that. Sorry didn’t quite cover it.

A woman, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, soft and warm, ghosted through the misty veil and clung to the dragon’s front leg. “Don’t be so hard on the boy. He found her, didn’t he, all the way across the ocean. We didn’t exactly make it easy. Poor youngling was so close to claiming her. He’d already gained his power.”

She smiled at Steele and the adrenaline inside subsided. Her power wrapped him in the smell of fresh baked bread, a crackling fire, and love. Home. She was the very essence of this place.

“He didn’t find her, your gift to her sucked him in. You practically placed a blinking neon I’m-your-mate sign above her head.” The dragon snuffled the woman’s hair and his fury subsided for the moment.

Or, less than a moment. He glared at Steele and snorted. “He never should have taken the shard of his soul off. Then he could have claimed her right away. But, no. He left himself vulnerable, just like Jakob.”

The First Dragon pointed a talon at Steele. “Those pieces of shit Galla Dragons almost stole his dragon-forsaken soul.”

The woman in white patted the dragon’s cheek. “He is young. Younger than Jakob, and it was your idea to give them their powers before they claimed their mates.”

That must be what had happened when Steele put his shard back on after the party. Those powers had helped him destroy half a dozen demon dragons.

They hadn’t helped him stay with Fleur.

The dragon flapped its wings in a way that Steele recognized was like throwing his hands in the air. “They weren’t supposed to wait. Powers, claim, mate, dragon babies, victory. Seems pretty damn clear to me. Being young is even more reason he shouldn’t have died. He had another four or five hundred years. The dumbass. Do you know how many Galla Dragons he could have defeated in four centuries?”

The woman in white grinned like she found his rampage at Steele cute. “Then you’ll just have to send him back.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that? He’s dead. D. E. A. D. Dead.” The First Dragon paced in front of Steele, his scales rippling, sending showers of red, blue, gold, and green sparks through the air.

“Use the girl.”

Girl? Steele glanced around but saw only more trees. Did she mean Fleur?

Steele knew Fleur was something special. More than the half of her that was flower nymph. But, he hadn’t been able to tell what she was. He had scented something in her that cried out shifter, but it was so deep, he wasn’t sure.

Maybe he was wrong. Could she be a necromancer? Those dark powers weren’t right. Fleur was love and light.

The dragon shook his head. “The flower? She’s a witch. She can’t have them.”

The woman in white countered him with a confident nod. “Let her use the gifts we bestowed upon her father, and his father before him, and his father before him.”

There were legends told to every dragon warrior about how the First Dragon’s mate, the White Witch had given gifts, special powers to each of their children.

Steele received the gift of dragon’s breath, a healing touch, from his father, who’d gotten it from his father, and so on up the line to the first green dragon son who’d been given the gift by his mother.

This woman, who felt like a mother to him, was...she was the mother of all dragons. The White Witch.

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