Sinful Magic (13 page)

But what would happen to his attraction to her after her magic took hold? When sex became a burden?

He’d leave. Even if they were soul mirrors, he’d walk out, just like her father had.

And she’d be left with nothing but her magic.

Sweat poured down Key’s back, his hand and fingers ached, his shoulder burned, but he kept drawing with a fierce urgency. He shoved a dresser out of his way to give himself more room and kept going. The only thing in that room he was aware of was Roxy, each breath she took. Each time she moved in the big king-sized bed where she slept, he and the dragon knew it.

He was in a frenzy, the violence writhing in him, fury rising. He had to draw, kill, or have sex. Touching her blood and her schema had inflamed him. He wanted sex. Wanted Roxy. Craved her. Her scent was imprinted on him.

Stripping off her panties, seeing her revealed to him, her scent

he shuddered, his cock rigid in the sweatpants he’d found on the bed after they’d come out of the shower. For Roxy, there’d been a pair of black yoga pants and tank top she slept in now.

His witch, he thought, yet she didn’t want to bond with him. She didn’t want her magic, feared its power, and he was the one bringing it out in her. How the hell was he going to keep her safe without destroying her? His brother had already hurt her, and that made Key insane with rage.

The dragon shifted restlessly, tapping a claw against his skin. Our treasure. Key blinked. He’d just written the words beneath the first panel he’d drawn; the scene of the dragon carrying a woman.

Dragons were notorious for guarding their treasure. His dragon considered Roxy his treasure.

The thought slipped away as he dropped a piece of sidewalk chalk Ailish had conjured for him, got out another color, and went back to work on the last panel.

Revealing.

Something hit his shoulder. “Key—”

He turned, grabbed the man and threw him into the wall, then crouched between the bed where Roxy was and the intruder. He’d kill—

“Key, goddammit, it’s me.” The voice was whisper-soft and furious.

Snapping up to his full height, Key blinked. Phoenix. He stood close to where Key had shoved the dresser out of the way, his dark eyes angry, and his arms bulging in his leather vest. As the seconds ticked by, his awareness radiated out from where Roxy lay sleeping. Turning his head, he saw Axel standing just inside the door. He had his arms crossed over his bare chest, a sign that he’d used his wings to get to Vegas. It was impossible to get a shirt over wings.

It took him another few seconds to bank the violence, to fully understand that they weren’t going to harm Roxy. He’d always been protective, but the intensity of this rocked him.

“Kieran?” Roxy said behind him. “What’s going on?”

Her voice, the sheer confusion and slight edge ripped through him. He turned to her and felt the dragon sigh. Her eyes were sleepy, her hair a mass of soft waves, and she looked so damned sensual tucked in the bed. His hand twitched around the chalk, he wanted to draw her, capture this look that was uniquely hers. “Axel is here. You go back to sleep, I’ll just be downstairs.”

“You’re leaving?” She sat up, threw back the cream colored covers, and stood up. “I—” her mouth hung open as she caught sight of the walls. Starting from the left, she tracked the images to the last one he’d been working on. “You did this? All this? How long have I been asleep?”

“Three hours.”

She walked around the bed, past him, her sleep-warmed scent hitting him in his gut. No magic, just honey-almond mixed with shampoo and soap. His blood heated, his cock testing the seam of his sweats. Ignoring his erection, he watched Roxy glance at the two other hunters, then back to the first panel. She stopped in front of it, her red hair spilling over her shoulders, her face absorbed with the drawing. A few seconds later, her skin took on a soft glow.

“It’s Dyfyr. Just like your tattoo.”

Key felt the dragon’s chest swell with pride. He had drawn four panels reaching from the floor to seven feet in height in places, the first two on the wall where Roxy stood, and two more on the adjacent wall. Roxy was studying the first panel where Dyfyr flew across the skies, his wings majestic, his ruby eyes gleaming as he carefully cradled a woman in his arms. Key had drawn variations of this as long as he could remember, but he didn’t know why.

She moved to the second panel and her shoulders hunched. “He’s crying. Where’s his lover?”

Chills went down his back, while his chest was warm. He caught a whiff of dark chocolate. Her magic! Did she realize? She was using magic. A shimmer rose to her skin. Only witch hunters could see the shimmer on a witch; mortals couldn’t. “How do you know the woman is the dragon’s lover?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Because his heart beats, and he holds her like a treasure.”

Key couldn’t stop himself and walked closer until he stood by her left shoulder. He looked into her eyes. “How do you know his heart beats?”

She closed her eyes for a second.

Her scent swirled around him, the chocolate sliding into his veins, firing his bloodlust.

Then she opened them and said, “I feel him.”

Stunned, he realized that she was magically connecting with the dragon in him, with Dyfyr, through the drawings.

She turned back to the wall. “But now he’s crying, curling up in this remote, barren place, his tears crystallizing with his grief. Oh,” she lifted her hand, placing it on the chalk dragon’s head, “I hear him. Earlier it was just a hum

but now I can hear him.”

The need for her blood ate through his veins, cramped his gut. But he couldn’t look away, captivated by the way she stood there, her gaze on the dragon, drawing in her lower lip, her body loosening and filling with magic. “What’s he saying?”

Her eyes slid closed and she said,

The dragon soars across the skies

And sees below all those lives

He wonders anew why they go on

Lives so fragile and time so short

They cannot see him

In his fiery glory

Not his eyes of gleaming rubies

Or his scales of timeless beauty

A strange sensation, what is this?

Looking down, he is captivated

Gold of hair and fair of skin

With eyes that truly see him.

His silent heart begins to beat

To know a want he can’t resist

He swoops down low to claim his love

They soar along in tremendous passion

Time is cruel and takes his woman

But his heart beats on

Each strike more brutal

And wishes that he, too, was mortal

He falls to the land and cries the tears

His heart stops beating and to stone he turns

Leaving his tears as a gift

Of mortality to the wounded souls

Stone he will stay

No life beating in his chest

Until the woman bearing the fertile mark

Wakes his heart with her touch

Key had to touch her before he burst into flames from dual cravings for her blood and sex. The growing need to finish their bond felt like a pressure on his soul. He settled his hands on her bare shoulders and felt the gentle stirring of her magic. All his life, he’d been suspicious of fertility magic, but this felt like a sweet and sensual kiss over his skin. And he wanted more.

She leaned back against him. “He stopped his heart and turned to stone, rather than feel the loss. He loved her, truly loved her.”

The contact, the feel of her body against his, calmed the burn swelling his veins. He knew she was so caught up in the dragon she didn’t realize she was leaning against him. He focused on her story. “So that’s where the Dragon Tear came from.”

Roxy looked at him. “The same Tear Liam was going on about?”

He clenched his jaw at the memory of what Liam had done to her. “Yes. My mother gave it to me when she died. She said it was the only remaining Tear—”

“The other dragons must have used all the other tears to become mortal, leaving only the one,” Roxy filled in.

He rubbed his thumbs over the skin of her shoulders. “Guess so. And I became the guardian of the last Tear. My mother wore it until it killed her. Drained the life out of her.”

She frowned. “Why didn’t she tell you more? Liam says I can wake the dragon. Did she tell you that? Did she know?”

“No.” Blood-deep anger simmered and threatened. He took a breath and felt Roxy’s skin beneath his hands. What would she think if she knew what he was? A real live Frankenstein, a magic monster. He added, “I was only thirteen, and she refused to believe she was going to die until the very end.” And then she was mad at him for it. He shook his head. “It was a powerful delusion, maybe from wearing the Tear.”

Phoenix broke in, “Now we know why it strips immortality. Dragons are extinct

the tears destroyed an entire species.”

“Except for one,” Key said. “Dyfyr is alive and sleeping in me.”

“Apparently, that Tear has quite a history,” Axel said. “Phoenix, come look at this.”

Key turned with Roxy to see the two remaining panels. The first panel had a large man, large by mortal standards, climbing treacherous cliffs over a churning sea. His gold-colored hair blew in a harsh wind, and from his closed fist, a rainbow of colors arced outward.

Key’s chest tightened. He knew what was in the mortal’s fist—the Dragon Tear. It was the size of the end of Key’s little finger, shaped in a perfect teardrop. The extremely hard, almost unbreakable outer shell changed colors as the liquid sealed inside moved and shifted, catching the light and reflecting stunning rainbow shades. The Dragon Tear was the ultimate prism.

The next frame showed the man burying the Tear in the side of the cliff, and as he placed it in the hole and let go, massive gold wings sprang out on his back, and he grew larger, stronger, more powerful. And not human, or mortal. His gold eyes burned red, and his face was stamped with fury.

Phoenix strode to the wall and said, “That’s Wing Slayer. The first panel has to be when he disguised himself as mortal when he lived on earth centuries ago.”

Axel asked, “That’s the Tear in his hand, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Key was stunned as he grasped the scenes. “Wing Slayer had it? Why?”

Axel turned to look at the drawing of Wing Slayer, then back to Key. “Wing Slayer is half demon from his mother’s side, and half god from his father’s. He lived in the Underworld with his mother, and when he began resembling his father, both in some powers and in looks, his mother cast him out. Neither the gods nor the demons wanted him, and he was essentially alone. He chose to live on Earth, but if he’d been discovered by a witch, he’d have been banished for being half demon. This drawing depicts how Wing Slayer disguised his immortal god and demon sides with that Tear. Just carrying it unbroken allowed Wing Slayer to appear mortal.”

Key processed that information. “I guess as long as he carried it unbroken, it just drained his immortality temporarily. The problem is that if the Tear had broken on Wing Slayer, it would have turned him into a mortal permanently. It still could—”

“And then Asmodeus can kill him easily,” Axel said. “It is a true god-killer.” The hawk turned his commanding gaze on Key. “Where is the Tear now?”

Before this, Key had told only Phoenix, but Axel was his leader. “It’s at the club in the archway between the club and the warehouse. In the gargoyle.”

Surprise blanked Axel’s face. “How long have you hidden it there?”

Key understood his shock since Axel of Evil was his club. “When your mom and I designed the archways with the gargoyles and dragons, I had one specially made. I hide the Tear there off and on. When I’m out of town, I always put it there.”

Finally he nodded. “That works.”

“Asmodeus has to be behind Liam trying to get that Tear. The demon and Wing Slayer have been at war over Earth ever since they both realized their power was tied to it. Killing off Wing Slayer would remove the biggest obstacle in Asmodeus’s way. With that Tear, the demon could finally kill his rival.”

Axel narrowed his eyes as he glanced back at the drawings. “Wing Slayer was hiding the Tear. I’m betting Asmodeus was trying to get it even then, and Wing Slayer must have used his god-power to shield the hiding place so the demon couldn’t get it.” Turning, he added, “Wing Slayer was banished from Earth by a witch who found out he was half demon. Since he was carrying that Tear, there’s only one way the witch could have known—Asmodeus somehow revealed it to her.”

“Demons suck,” Phoenix said. “But it looks like the god was one step ahead of the demon and made sure he couldn’t get the Tear.” Turning to Key, he asked, “But if Wing Slayer shielded it, how did your mother find it?”

Key remembered the story. “She was descended from a dragon. The story of this Tear was passed down in her family, and it became her obsession. That’s probably why the Tear took longer to kill her than it would have a mortal without dragon blood. It also allowed her to see through the magic Wing Slayer used to shield the Tear.”

Axel grimaced. “Once your mother moved it from its hiding place, the Tear became visible to Asmodeus.”

It made sense. “And that’s how my dad came into my mom’s life. He was already rogue and sent by Asmodeus to get the Tear. My mother didn’t know about witch hunters. He convinced her that he loved her, trying to seduce her into giving up the Tear. But she loved the Tear more than him. The Tear wouldn’t allow him to take it from her by force.” He left off the part about how his father used him, breaking his bones and burning him with cigarettes.

Phoenix’s voice pulled him back. “How did you draw this if you didn’t know any of it?”

Key shrugged, more comfortable with his art than his memories. “Before Roxy, my frenzied drawing has always been linked to witch murders and Liam. Since I thought he was dead, I figured it was some kind of guilt or manifestation of my bloodlust. But he’s alive, so I must have been drawing his witch kills. No idea why. But this

” Key looked around. “I’ve always drawn Dyfyr, that’s not new, but Wing Slayer is. Liam said Roxy can wake the dragon, maybe it’s the dragon beginning to wake, and he’s revealing information.”