Dragon Mystics: Supernatural Prison #2 Page 9

  “Where the hell are we, Brax?” I tried to dial back the anger, but I was still a little snarly. “Are you just randomly walking or is there some sort of path?”

  He stopped moving, the first break we’d had in ages. “I’m following a scent, something a little different from the forest we’re in. It’s the only thing standing out to use for direction.”

  I hadn’t scented anything, but Braxton was pretty good with those things.

  His features were hard; his jaw would probably break a brick wall if he threw it in that direction. I knew the next words out of his mouth would not be good news.

  “I’m pretty sure I know where we are,” he sighed, running a hand through his black hair so it stood up a little. It kind of freaked me out to see even the slightest falter in confidence from my usually unflappable best friend. “If I’m right, we’re … in big fucking trouble. Jacob told me a little, but he only knows secondhand … and from memory transference.”

  Surely Braxton was kidding me here. I looked around the unusual forest again, and then up to the green sky. Comprehension hit me like a fist to the face, and for the first time the dread was real and heavy.

  “We’re in the undying lands of Faerie!”

  I didn’t ask it as a question, but Braxton nodded anyway.

  Awesome, we were in the lands which had something so rotten in it there had been a mass exodus of a multitude of magical races.

  No worries there. We should be just fine.

  Chapter 7

  Braxton and I were doing our best to ignore the fact that we were probably not on Earth. The jinn hadn’t been kidding when he said I had to prove I was supposed to live. He’d dropkicked my ass right into a pretty big challenge.

  The fey were secretive old bastards about their lands, so I had next to no useful information to ensure the maintenance of our health and safety here. We could only keep moving and deal with whatever came our way. So far we’d managed to stay out of harm’s way. We just had to remain alive long enough for one of the other Compasses to realize we were missing. And hope they could trace us to Faerie land.

  We could be here forever.

  After hiking for about fifteen hours straight, we had to stop and try to get some sleep. We ended up slumping against a rather large tree trunk, covered in a soft moss.

  “I was hoping we’d find somewhere with more space,” Braxton said. I raised my eyebrows wordlessly at him and he grinned. “I’d be able to protect you better if I was in my dragon form; no one gets the drop on him.”

  He looked relaxed with his massive limbs spread out in front of him, but I knew the look in his eyes; he was alert and on guard. I was equally tense. Who knew what creatures still walked this world. But … I was also pretty tired, so I decided to be alert and comfortable at the same time. I let my head drift to the side and rest against his shoulder.

  Which was not exactly the comfortable surface I was looking for.

  Was it too much to ask that I have at least one best friend who was less muscle and more squishy. The quads were all hard planes, which made sleeping on them difficult. My eyes traversed the length of said hard planes and muscles … actually, scratch that last thought. Squishy wasn’t going to work for me after all, I’d just take the shitty sleep.

  I picked at the sticks and rocks littering the ground beside me. “Why do you think the jinn sent us here? Despite these unknown Faerie creatures around us, we haven’t been attacked.”

  Braxton laughed. “You mean yet, we haven’t been attacked yet.”

  My head lifted as he raised his arm and draped it over my shoulders. Now I was more comfortable, able to snuggle into his side.

  “I get the feeling the elemental wanted you out of the way,” he said.

  I sat up straighter as a thought hit me. “How were you able to penetrate the veil of magic the jinn created in the forest clearing?” I hadn’t even stopped to think how lucky I was that he had managed to reach me in time, otherwise I’d be here alone. I shuddered, and Braxton tightened his arm, pulling me back into his heat.

  “When we were separated I kept an eye on you, following you into the forest. I’m not sure why, I just knew something was about to happen. The way you’d been driven from our group … it wasn’t natural.”

  Thinking back, he was probably right about the unnatural part.

  “By the time I reached you, the jinn was already there. I could see you, but couldn’t make it across the barrier. Eventually, I partially shifted and lunged through. My dragon can go where no supernatural has gone before.”

  It was true, dragons were resistant to most magic, with protections the rest of us could only dream of. Yeah … I still couldn’t really think of myself as a dragon. I’d shifted once, and who even knew if I could do it again. My dragon raised her head then, snarling little wisps of smoke, which trailed around her. She was definitely flipping me off … it was so bizarre how I could internally see the movements of my shifter animals. Truth be told, it was something I really treasured.

  Tilting my head so Braxton could see my face, I smiled. “Despite the fact we seem to be stuck in the ass end of Faerie land, I’m really glad you’re here.”

  He was staring down at me, the weird undying light of the sky highlighting every dark facet of his beauty. “You have no idea how relieved I am to be here,” he said. “If you’d disappeared on me, well, right now there’d be a fire dragon ripping apart the sanctuary.”

  Snorts of laughter shook me. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have destroyed the mystics, marked, and their little world.”

  I expected him to laugh with me, but there was not a trace of mirth in his expression. “You have no idea what I would do to keep you safe, Jessa. No idea.”

  I was sure the awed shock registered on my face, just for a moment, before I managed to control my features. That was without a doubt the hottest thing I’d ever heard. The surge of attraction which blasted through me every time Braxton was close was getting worse, clawing through my body, leaving jagged rips in my heart and soul.

  I blurted, “I’m tearing up the friend contract.”

  Fuck. Me.

  I really should learn to think before I speak.

  A flash of surprise crossed Braxton’s face this time, soon to be replaced with the heat of a thousand suns. “Be very sure about what you want, Jessa.” His husky voice was a low growl which turned my insides to liquid. “You’ve been a long time without sex, so right now it’s like being hungry and going to a buffet.”

  He was calling himself a buffet … oh my.

  Squeezing my thighs together to hold back my urges, I suddenly felt like the neediest supernatural in the world. As in, I needed to be butt naked and claiming myself a dragon shifter.

  “… there is no going back,” he said.

  I realized that in my roar of desire I’d missed some of what Braxton had said.

  I didn’t want to ask him to repeat it, so I had to guess. No going back … did he mean that once the sexual relationship ran its course we wouldn’t be friends any longer? Surely not – there was no way that would happen.

  A half grin lit his features. “Get that look off your face, sweetheart. There is not a single scenario that would result in us not being best friends.”

  Relief.

  Except … there was a scenario. What if one of us found a mate while we were together and the other wouldn’t let go?

  Thinking it through, I was sure that even if I found a true mate, I’d still choose Braxton. I didn’t care what a true mate bond felt like, I was stronger than that. Plus my relationship with Braxton and the other Compasses was pretty close to mated relationships anyway. We ate, slept, and played together. We made joint decisions and consulted each other for the important things. We were a pack and a family. The only thing that I didn’t share with them was sex, but in every other way I was hogging those four morsels of deliciousness to myself. We all knew other members of our community thought I was banging all of them, but I‘d never given a single
fuck what others thought.

  It just didn’t feel like it was enough anymore, not with Braxton. I wanted more.

  The dragon shifter seemed to be following along with my thought processes. Probably the emotions were showing themselves clearly on my face. “Sleep on it, Jess,” he said. “I know what I want, now it’s time for you to decide.”

  He knew what he wanted? Shit, while I had been slowly coming to the conclusion that he was attracted to me, the serious nature of his tone … spoke of much more than a quick dalliance.

  “You want me?” I braved the words and asked the big question.

  I waited breathlessly for his reply.

  A slow grin, followed by dimples, assaulted me. “Fuck … more than anything.” His words crashed into my heart, giving it what felt like wings. Then he leaned forward and the air between us shifted to full throttle again. I could practically see the sparks.

  His full lips descended, pressing softly to the corner of my mouth. Gentle was not in his nature, but somehow it was the most tender touch I’d ever experienced. That tantalizing taste of Braxton was enough to have me clawing my hands into the ground to stop myself from yanking him into me.

  As he pulled back, I swallowed down my scream of protest. I wanted more. More, more, more.

  “Your dragon is rising, Jessa.” Braxton’s voice went even lower, but I barely registered it in my need. “Calm yourself, babe.”

  The fire started in my center; my gut burned. Rising in plumes were the flames of my desire, my need. My dragon wanted Braxton and I had no idea why. My eyes locked on his with an animalistic intensity. His irises were no longer my favorite blue color. They had threads of yellow, threads of his dragon, as if our beasts were trying to get to each other.

  “What’s happening?” My voice was harsher than usual. “I’m not sure I can control her.”

  Braxton growled, loud in the cloying silence of the forest. “I know the feeling.”

  I jumped to my feet. “We have to go.” I had to start moving again, I had to escape the emotions. Braxton must have understood my desire. Gracefully, he unfolded his lengthy limbs and rose to his giant height.

  “Stay close,” he said.

  My heart skipped a beat. He didn’t have to worry, I didn’t have the strength to pull my dragon from his scent and heat … even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  We trekked for a long time, the daylight never waning, and since there was no way to tell time, we could only guess at how long we’d been in Faerie. We didn’t touch each other; it felt unnatural and I knew it couldn’t last much longer. I needed to decide what I wanted, because something told me we were already past the point of no return, that our relationship would never be the same no matter what I chose.

  A branch smacked me in the face, distracting me from my endless thoughts. Shit, I am so sick of this forest. I was about five minutes from throwing a tantrum that would make any two year old proud, when finally something changed.

  Braxton sensed it first, but I wasn’t far behind. The random noises were different. We were now being followed, in a stalking-our-ass kind of way.

  Braxton reached out and captured my hand. “Move,” he said, his voice a snap of emotion.

  It was the first touch since the whole almost-tearing-his-clothes-from-his-body incident, and it felt right to be in contact again. It wasn’t natural for us to hold back.

  We were flying along now. Braxton was a speed demon when he hauled ass. His bulk cut through the greenery, making the journey far more comfortable for me. On the other hand, he was covered in many nasty-looking cuts and bruises. I was thankful he was a fast healer; within an hour most of the damage would be gone.

  But that only worked if you stopped getting damaged.

  Trees crashed to our right, far closer than before. And as I caught sight of what chased us, it gave me a moment’s pause. Sweet baby ogres. Faerie was now actively trying to kill us. The creatures were as large as a grizzly bear, but with the dexterity of a monkey as they swung through the closely-knit tree line. The worst was the humanoid face peeking out from the masses of thick black fur coating its head.

  Braxton and I were at a disadvantage in this terrain, unable to shift to our large animals, and we couldn’t use the trees the way this massive bear-monkey was.

  “What do you want to do?” I spoke around my clenched jaw.

  Braxton’s grip tightened on my hand. “We’re almost free of this forest. They’re coming in from all sides, but I think we’ll make it out before they reach us.”

  All sides … that was freaking great.

  I was not stopping, that was for sure. Thank the gods it would be pretty rare for a supernatural to do the whole “trip over a fallen log” cliché of just about every horror and action movie. Even though we were moving at super-speeds, for our senses it was slow enough that we wouldn’t miss anything in our trail. Plus, Braxton was nailing the whole bulldozing-all-obstacles in our path thing.

  I still couldn’t see a break in the tree line to indicate we were almost out of this greenery. I was just wondering if Braxton was mistaken, when we suddenly burst free from the jungle.

  Weird. Major weirdness.

  Normally a forest started to thin before reaching the end, but this had just cut off. The outer tree line was just as dense as the rest of the jungle had been. In front of us I could see a long expanse of thick-grained sand, a dark watermelon color. The briny quality Braxton had been scenting was very strong now, and I could hear the crashing of water in the distance. We were still moving, the warmth of the shifting sand soothing on my ravaged feet. I wished I had time to truly admire the beauty. This world thrummed with magic, the colors unparalleled with anything I’d seen on Earth, serene and beautiful, but it had a sense of being off, and it was hard to pinpoint exactly what the problem was.

  The bear-monkey-people things burst from the forest. I didn’t so much see as hear their massive bulk hit the ground. They didn’t sound as if they were as agile on the sand, there were many thumps and noises of collisions echoing toward us. Braxton was practically flying along the beach, his strength lifting me to keep pace.

  “I’m going to shift,” he said. I could hear him clearly, despite our rapid trajectory. No wind, the land was eerily calm.

  And that was why Braxton was running and not fighting, he was trying to gain enough space between us and our pursuers to shift. Normally my dragon quad never ran from a fight, it wasn’t in his nature, but his priority was protecting me. He flung me forward before grinding to a halt, covering my flank. I just barely stayed on my feet, and spun away from the water line, turning to find Braxton had shed his jeans and was about to shift into his dragon.

  I forced myself not to stare at the double perfection of Braxton ass. His perfect, sun kissed, tightly muscled … shit.

  The horror coming at us from the trees helped to cool the raging torrent of my hormones. Twenty of the beasts – did they call for a freaking family reunion or something? – were galloping across the sand. I couldn’t see any wings on their mishmash of features, so we might have flight as an advantage. I felt the pull as Braxton gathered his energy – strong, almost visible in waves around him.

  He never even had to bend forward or drop to all fours. His shift was so fast that one moment he stood six and half feet of muscled male and the next he was fifteen feet tall of powerful dragon. His black and blue scales glistened under the sunless green sky.

  The creatures must have had at least half a brain. As Braxton tilted back his snout filled with razor sharp teeth and roared to the sky, they skidded to a halt. About fifty yards separated us from them, just enough distance that they were safe from Braxton’s flames which would strip the flesh from their bodies in seconds.

  I edged myself closer to the dragon’s tail; somehow I knew he wanted me as close as possible. A thump sounded behind us. I spun around and my heart dropped, pretty much ending up at my feet.

  Crap, shit, ass.

  “Brax!” I shouted, alread
y sprinting, and in about five agile steps I was moving along the thickly scaled tail and up onto his broad back.

  The dragon snorted but didn’t eat me, so he wasn’t taken by surprise. Maybe he’d also seen the creatures which were dragging themselves from the water. Not only were we facing mutant bear-monkeys, but behind us came the serpents – shaped like water dragons, but on a dinosaur scale, and there were literally hundreds of them.

  I settled into the groove just behind the dragon’s wing joints. Those powerful appendages thrust outwards and within a few swift beats we were airborne. It wasn’t the first time I had flown with Braxton, but generally he lined his hide with a saddle so the scales wouldn’t rip my skin to pieces. The armor plating of his skin was smooth, but the impenetrable strength and immoveable nature of them made them hell on my skin.

  As we ascended, the view from below became startling clear. The fey might have left Faerie land, along with many of the demi-fey, but those which had stayed behind were giant and scary, bad ass mothers.

  “What’s the plan, Brax?”

  He couldn’t answer me, but I was hoping he’d be able to mime or play friggin’ charades or something, because I had no idea what we should be doing.

  Where should we go? How did one escape from this land? No one ever spoke of it. I wasn’t sure if Jacob even knew. Sometimes he went off and had clandestine garden parties with other fey, but wasn’t allowed to share too many of their “ancient secrets” and we didn’t push him. I could only hope he had spoken to his brothers a little more, giving Braxton some insight.

  So far we were clear; nothing followed us into the air. However a battle was about to take place on the sand. The water dragons had not been emerging just for us, and a pissing contest was about to erupt. They didn’t want the bear-monkeys on their sand. Which was great for us and as long as nothing was in the air.

  A blur whooshed past us. Okay, note to self: don’t speak or think here. Faerie land had an asshole sense of humor. My head snapped to the side as I tried to see what was coming at us. Braxton was doing the same; his large eyes and advanced sight would be picking up far more than I could. Another blur flew by, this time much closer. I shot to my feet, both hands resting on the scaled back so I could keep my balance. If I had to fight I needed to be up and ready.