Abandon
Abandon
Book Three of the Half-Blood Club
By
Viola Grace
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Abandon - Book 3 of the Half-blood Club series.
Copyright © 2007 Viola Grace
SERIES ISBN: 1-55410-776-8
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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To anyone with a close group of friends.
You
know,
the ones that you can see every week or once a year, and it is like you were never apart.
Prologue
The half-blood club left
Hookey’s
house, and while Hex magically transported herself home, Jinx asked George for a
ride
.“
Come
on George. Give me a ride and you can have a cookie.”
Melissande
was smiling and George thought about it for a moment.
She obliged and shifted from a svelte woman to an emerald dragon in seconds. Jinx climbed aboard and in moments they were on their way to her home. It was faster than taking her car, and since she had taken a bus to the meeting, much more comfortable.
With her entire body immune to magic, Jinx was unable to transport herself in a speedy and efficient manner. So, the ladies shuttled her where she needed to go.
The lack of magical talent also meant that she was unable to communicate with her trusty steed, unlike anyone with magic that George would transport. The telepathy just didn’t work on Jinx.
In under an hour they were swirling to land in Jinx’s backyard. She, and all of the club members, kept a large open space in their back yards just for George.
“Are you coming in for coffee?” Her dismount should have been easier; she’d had a lot of practice.
“And that cookie that I promised you?”
“You bet. I’ll make it
though,
your coffee can be a little chewy.” The human-formed dragon swept into the house ahead of Jinx, and she shook her head as the domestic ritual was attended to.
She waited in her study, and soon her friend appeared in the doorway with two cups of coffee, Jinx’s was just the way she liked it. George took the chair across the desk from her and looked on expectantly while sipping the dark brew.
As predicted, “So, Jinx, are they ready?”
Graylin
Treel
chewed on her nail and looked at the redhead across from her.
“Of course.
Exactly as requested.”
She twirled one of her curly locks around her fingers and then met her friend’s gaze. “Are you sure that you want to do this? You are setting yourself up here you know.”
“I know. But it is the only way to get the dragon of my choice and not have the council choose one for me. My pedigree is bound to make me very popular, so I need to move quickly.” She straightened and visibly put on a cheerful mien. Her grin looked almost savage. “What exactly did I get?” She propped her chin on her fists and waited.
“You know that this is like a weird house party thing, right? You place an order and a few weeks later I deliver.” Her green eyes were twinkling as she drew out the suspense. George was not known for her patience.
“Just spill it already!”
A giggle escaped her.
“Alright.
You have one hidden flight spell; good for any one creature. A spell to summon transportation and a communication spell for any glass surface. He should pick one of them.” She shrugged. It was the best she could do on short notice. The magic flowed out of her pen and onto the paper in the form of spells. She couldn’t use any of that magic, but she could create it.
It was very frustrating.
“Fantastic. He will be sure to go for the flight spell. There are only a few of them in existence, and
me
and Mom have the other two.” A blinding smile lit her face and she rose to hug Jinx.
Melissande
stood still and accepted the embrace. Her friend’s strength was easily provoked, so she simply kept her own arms loose and relaxed as she returned the hug.
Nothing that would prompt a squeeze.
“You did great, kid.”
Once in a lifetime was enough to be crushed by a dragon. It had taken her weeks to heal. George had been suitably repentant, but it hadn’t cured the bruises.
“I am heading off to Grandma’s house. I should be there tomorrow, George. You have fun, but
be
careful. And come to visit if you get the chance.” Jinx grinned. Telling a dragon to be careful was just too much fun, and so was the face that George made as she returned to dragon form and tapped Jinx with her tail.
The night waited and her friend was flying out to meet it. It was a glorious sight.
Chapter 1
George straightened her hair and took a look at her reflection in the rear-view mirror of her sensible sedan. This was it. Her mate was beyond those doors, whether he knew it or not.
She looked good, she had the spells that she was brokering and the glamour was going to come down while her visit was in process. She had left nothing to chance. Her car screamed that she was there on business, unlike her convertible that echoed her urge for fun. She was ready.
Serious, businesslike and horny.
She sighed and looked at her rear-view mirror again, her reflection smirked at her.
“Sitting here like an idiot isn’t going to get me in there, and won’t get him in anything either.” She shook her head and kept muttering to herself as she turned to the speaker box near the gate and pressed the button.
The gates swung open soundlessly and she drove on without needing to say anything. The way her skin was prickling, there were at least three
scrying
balls trained on her at that moment. The speaker box would simply be a nuisance.
A mundane inconvenience of the modern world.
Her heels clicked and
echoed
on
the slate tiles as she approached the double-doors. The house itself was fantastic.
A gothic-modern combination that managed to be both ornate and spare at the same time.
Dragons loved big houses and
Rikard
was no exception.
The doors swung open as she reached the steps and her feet took her down the well-worn path that would lead to the study. She had been here before.
“Grace? What do you have for me today?” He spoke without turning around so she was able to admire his physique from where she stood. Wide shoulders, narrow hips and a fantastic butt were all in her line of sight. It took her a moment to realize that he had spoken to her. She smiled and shook her head to clear it. She needed to keep herself calm and composed. Well, at least until she had him where she wanted him.
Right between her thighs.
“Three brand new spells.
If I may?”
She gestured to the sofa and coffee table. At his nod, she took a seat and drew the scrolls out of her bag.
The parchment crackled as she handled it. The spells looked ornate and ancient, but that was part of Jinx’s magic. She could write a spell with a ball-point pen on a post-it note, but when she blew on it to set the spell, it would transform into a scroll fit for the most white-haired wizard.
With care and dexterity she rolled out the scrolls and fastened them down. She had done this often enough in the last few years. It had become Jinx’s main source of income in
under
two months after the first ‘made to order’ spells had come on the market.
The magical community had money, and the club was willing to profit from it.
Hex got the ideas, Jinx wrote the spells,
Hookey
did the functionality tests and George was the front man. They did take custom orders, but normally Hex had come up with an idea for a new spell months earlier.
Rikard
turned from his contemplation of the world outside the window and a businesslike wave crossed over his features, settling the light bronze features into a foreboding shape. The icicle blue eyes went with his dark gold hair, and George wondered idly if he had been born in
Norway
as one of the
“What have you brought today?” He pointed to the scroll that she knew he would gravitate to.
“A spell to keep dragons in flight and launch from being seen by human eyes…or devices.
It is one of only a handful in existence so far.” She let him peruse it. Until her seal was affixed to the bottom of the spell, it would not stick in the mind of the reader. They may be able to try it for a second, but the words would fade.
“The next one to it is a spell to summon transportation, wherever the user happens to be.” She paused and smiled. “The most appropriate use would be while hiking or travelling alone.”
“The final spell is a communication spell that works with any reflective surface.
Even your microwave.”
She smiled again and left him to his perusal. Every few seconds she checked her watch; it was less than five minutes now until the dropping of the glamour.
She tried to let him have his time to focus on the product as all good salespersons should. She gracefully rose from the couch and wandered over to the same window that he had been staring out earlier.
The yard was well maintained and extended to the forest half a mile beyond. Being a dragon,
Rikard
had purchased the hills and mountains behind his property to keep his horde. There was no way that he would have not made sure that they were accessible to him at the time of purchase.
The garden sprawled in orderly bands of ten meter stretches of blooming flowers. They formed a sort of sunbeam pattern originating at the house.
Oddly symbolic, and very optimistic.
It was a pattern usually found in males who were trying to impress a female. From her research, he was single, and aside from an occasional excursion for sex, he wasn’t stalking any one woman in particular.
She felt her nipples come to attention within the confines of her bra. It would only be a few minutes and the hunt would begin. She almost jumped out of her skin when he spoke.
“Where do you find these fantastic spells? I have never seen anything like this that could be applied not only to modern man but modern equipment.” He shook his head and his hair flipped and gleamed invitingly in the light streaming through the window. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that you had just made these up.”
She laughed; it was practiced. “That is impossible. No new spells have been written for centuries. I simply have access to some
grimoires
that are not public knowledge.” Her voice stayed light; it had taken a dozen or more experiences with this same question to get her response believable.
“In all my centuries of life, I have never seen this type of spell. Nor have I heard of any books of the type you describe.”
She smiled at him in a condescending manner, “Not all of the Archives were taken by the councils immediately. Some lived well into their twenties before becoming slaves to the Magus or Warlock councils. Who knows how many original spells are still to be discovered?”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It was an odd gesture as dragons did not grow facial hair unless they had humans in their bloodline. “I suppose you are right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
George turned rapidly back to the window to stifle her laughter. The reason that no one thought of it, was that it was the first spell that the first abducted Archive had written. She had duped a warlock into reading it, and thereafter hidden her personal writings and those of all Archives who would come after.
The Archives knew their history. It became the first thing that they wrote when their talent came, and Jinx had shared this information as well as the personal journals that she had Hex find for her. It was a fascinating history and one well worth remembering.
A tingling sensation started in her skin and George knew it was time. She kept her back to
Rikard
as he came to the sudden awareness that she was a dragon. She held perfectly still, but her senses were on overdrive.
She could feel his power skating along her skin. He was much older than he had let on. In truth, even her mother hadn’t known how old he was. That fact alone frightened her. It meant that the time that
Arabel
had met him, he had hidden his power from her. It was a strange thing for a dragon to do, and a difficult one.
Now he was hiding nothing, and that was the most chilling thing of all.
His footsteps sounded behind her. She deliberately did not look over her shoulder. Without touching her, he leaned in and exhaled along the line of her neck.
From left to right, he scented her, breathing her in as if to memorize her.
A shiver ran through her as his own aura enveloped her, she dug her nails into her palms to keep from reaching for him.
“Strange. You smell like a dragon.” His tongue darted out to the side of her neck and she almost moaned, “You taste like a dragon. But up until just now I was willing to bet that you were a regular mage.”
Suddenly, he spun her, then gripped her by the upper arm and pulled her up to face him. “Are you truly what you seem to be?”
She swallowed. “Do you see me as a dragon?
With power, an aura of flight and the wild night dancing in my soul?”
She dreaded and embraced this moment. It was now or never.
“I see you as mine.” That was the end of polite conversation for some time as his mouth took hers in a wild joining that set her blood on fire.