Tianna Xander (8 page)

“Why don’t we find out, little one?” Damek held out his hand and waited for her to take it.

With a small smile, May reached out and laced her fingers with his. “I’m never going to hear the end of this, you know.”

Damek frowned. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“My sisters always teased me that the man I would end up falling for would be built like Mr. Universe.” May tilted her head and gave him a grin. “Apparently, they were right.”

“So, you’ve fallen for me?” Damek couldn’t help his smile. Gods, he was the luckiest dragon on the face of the Earth. Who could want more than May with her laughing brown eyes and hair the color of the richest, most-fertile soil?

He watched as she released his hand and stretched, her full breasts pressing against the bodice of her dress as she raised her arms in the air and arched her back. His throat went dry at the vision of her lush curves moving so sensuously in front of him. All of the blood rushed from his brain and headed south as he watched his mate just being herself.

One of the workers he recognized ran up and handed him a radio. “Glad to have you back, sir.”

The radio crackled when he turned it on. A voice came through, sounding excited and a little panicked. “Get some equipment up here. There’s a cave with ancient art and some kind of strange writing.”

Everyone scrambled to the side of the mountain. It didn’t seem to matter that it would take them an hour or more to get where they wanted to go. Excited, some men hurried to their vehicles while some took off on foot.

“What is it?” May asked as he hurried her toward a truck. “What’s going on?”

“Plants aren’t the only thing we’ve been looking for.” Opening the back door, he waited until she sat down, helped her with her seatbelt, and then hurried around to open the door on the other side. “Get your butt over here and drive, Waverly,” he yelled as he climbed into the backseat of the crew cab four-wheel drive. “Follow everyone else up the mountain.”

“What have you been looking for other than plants?” May asked when he moved close, his leg brushing hers.

“Legend has it that there are ancients imprisoned in various parts of the world. We’ve been sponsoring archaeological digs in locations we think are likely places.”

“Why Alaska?”

“Even in ancient times, there weren’t many people who would brave the wilds of this place.” He reached out to take her hand, needing the contact. “We’ve been looking here, Greenland, Siberia, both of the poles, the Sahara, and the jungles of both Africa and Peru.”

“Wow. You’ve been busy.”

“Yes, well, what price can you put on a dragon’s life?” He shook his head with a sigh. “If even only one of the legends turn out to be true, and we are able to free one soul from an eternity of incarceration, it will be worth every penny spent and every day lost.”

They came to a stop behind a line of vehicles in front of a sheer cliff face. Bingham, his on-site archaeologist and research assistant opened the door. “You won’t believe this.” His face was red, his eyes bright with excitement. “I think we’ve found something.” He pointed to what appeared to be the entrance to a cave. “We found that stone archway.” He swallowed. “And that’s exactly what it is. It’s a stone archway leading into a large cavern.”

Damek climbed out of the truck, turned, and helped May from the vehicle as Bingham practically danced next to him.

“I didn’t know you were on your way. I called the nearest dragon to the site. Tony Saladino and his wife were nearby on a cruise.” He twisted his fingers together. “I hope you don’t mind. I called Delfavaro and asked who was the closest. I couldn’t read the language on the walls, and I thought perhaps he could.”

“He is here?” Damek closed the door perhaps a little more forcefully than he should have.

Damek wasn’t upset that Tony might already be here. What irked him was that Bingham had called Drake before he called the man who signed his paychecks.

Bingham swallowed, looking worried. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I just thought—”

“Forget it,” Damek interrupted. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Where is he?”

“In the cavern.” Bingham paced next to him as Damek headed toward the cave. “The funny thing is, a six-foot thick clear sheet of ice covered the entrance. We drilled through that easily enough. It was what we found inside that we thought required a dragon.”

Damek stopped at the entrance and turned his attention to his assistant. “And that was what?”

Bingham ran his finger beneath his collar and cleared his throat. “There is a lot of strange writing on the wall and a large, very large, circle of stone encased in ice.”

“Why is it strange?” He frowned at the archaeologist. “One would expect to find ancient carvings near a find, and ice in a cave in Alaska shouldn’t be surprising at all.”

“You don’t understand, sir. We have made every effort to cut through the ice and we can’t. The temperature in the cavern ranges between forty and fifty degrees, yet the ice surrounding the sphere doesn’t melt. We have ruined three diamond-tipped drill bits, trying to drill through the ice to see what’s inside.”

“You’re saying it’s protected by magic.”

“Yes, sir.” He stood up straight as though awaiting censure or perhaps the loss of his job. “The language is ancient enough that I can’t read it. Even Tony can’t read it. Once we learned of your arrival, we thought it prudent to wait for you. Perhaps you can read it.”

Damek felt the walls of the cave, his fingers tingling as he passed through the entrance. There was magic here, all right.
Ancient magic
. He hadn’t felt power like this in eons. This was the work of a sorcerer.

Unlike mages, sorcerers wanted control. They couldn’t and
wouldn’t
take less than second best. Each of them felt as though they deserved to rule the world. The only problem with that was, there was usually more than one. They all couldn’t rule, so they felt no one should.

That was why he and the other ancient dragons set out to imprison the sorcerers. In some cases, they imprisoned the dragons instead. Over the years, the sorcerers became adept at hiding in plain sight while the dragons hid as humans.

Now, the attacks on May and her sisters made sense. The sorcerers were obviously tired of playing the waiting game and had decided to resume their old chess match with a few new players.
The Flowers sisters.

Chapter Thirteen

May followed the two men into the cave. She circled the giant sphere and studied it with a critical eye. “This can’t be natural.” Reaching out, she touched the clear layer that surrounded it. “Definitely not natural.” It was ice, yet it wasn’t ice. It was cold, frozen, but the people to the left of her couldn’t drill through it and the people to the right of her couldn’t break it with a chisel and sledge hammer.

Looking around, May searched for her sister Tansy and her mate. She saw them after a moment. They had been on the other side of the large sphere. What they had been doing was anyone’s guess.

“May!” Tansy rushed over and gave her a hug. “What are you doing here?” Backing up, Tansy held her at arm’s length and studied her. “You look different.
Why
do you look different?”

“I have no idea.”

Damek stopped talking to the man he’d called Bingham, walked to her side and wrapped his arm around her. “Is everything all right, little one? I saw you touch the sphere. Did it harm you?” He kissed her temple and pulled her into his embrace.

“Uh, no. I’m okay.” May tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t have it.

“Congratulations, May.” Tansy grinned as she looked at Damek.

“Don’t even say it, Tansy,” May warned. The last thing she wanted or needed to hear right now was her sister’s ribbing about her choice in men.

“What do you think, Tony?” Damek pulled her with him as he circled the sphere.

It was almost as though he wanted the entire company that surrounded them to know she belonged to him.

It made May want to smile. It was funny how possessive these dragons could be.

“It’s definitely ice, but it’s charged with magic.” Tony studied it, dragging his hand over it as they walked. “My heat can melt it a bit, but the sphere refreezes as soon as I stop.”

“What if we tried together?” Tansy suggested. “Maybe we could make a difference, then. The only question I have is, should we?” She tilted her head as she stared at the large, round granite and ice globe. “Can
anyone
here read that weird writing?” Tansy pointed at the carvings on the wall to her right. “It’s obvious it’s some sort of language, but what does it say?”

Damek released May and wandered over to the wall almost absently. “It’s in the ancient language. There aren’t many dragons alive today who can even read this. It was written by the water dragon.” Reaching out, he moved his fingers along the carvings. “He knew he was under attack. He cast a spell to counteract that of the sorcerers who would imprison him.”

With a frown, he read the message written so long ago. “Magic within, magic without, pure of heart a dragon’s dream. Heat the orb, chant the words, break the heart and part the seam.” He grew silent for a minute, his fingers tracing the carvings as he read. Kneeling down, he studied the writing for a minute before he turned to May. “Do you have your cell phone?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Why?”

“You’re going to need it. We need your sisters to chant this while Tony and your sister heat the ice.” He studied the orb for a minute. “And while they heat it, we need to try to crack it. I’ll concentrate on cracking the stone. You concentrate on giving life to the water dragon trapped inside.”

“I can’t bring dead things back to life. That’s Jasmine.” Shaking her head, she backed away, holding her hands out. “Don’t look at me.”

Damek stepped close, grasped her upper arms, and looked into her eyes. “You don’t have to bring him back from the dead, little one. He isn’t dead. He is merely dormant inside that shell. The spell he cast put him in a type of stasis. With you and your sisters chanting, he will gather power from you and the water as the ice melts.” He took a deep breath. “At least that’s how it
should
work. He’s been this way for several thousand years. He may not wake at all.”

“Great. So no pressure, huh?” May looked up at the large chunk of ice and bit her lip. “We’ll have to get everyone on a conference call. It could take a while.”

Damek looked up at the sphere. “Well, he’s waited at least twenty-thousand years. What could another hour or so hurt?”

Twenty-thousand years? May couldn’t conceive of a creature that old. What if he wasn’t like the modern dragons? What if he wanted to fly around eating people like the dragons of legend? They would all be responsible for releasing him on the world.

“May,” Damek whispered as he moved closer. “The water dragon is much like the Earth dragon. He reveres life. He carved this so someone could save him someday. He gave his life to protect something. What, I don’t know. The writing on the cave wall only speaks of saving the last of something. We must free him to find out what it is.” He told her the words they all must chant and left her and Tansy to call their sisters.

It didn’t take nearly as long to get her sisters on the phone as May expected. Apparently, word got around that there was some major find and they had all stayed by the phones at Drake’s home. They didn’t even need a conference call. Each sister had an extension. May turned her phone to the speaker and, with Damek’s help, taught them what to chant.

With Tony and Tansy on opposite sides of the sphere and she and Damek taking an opposite side as well, she began the chant before leaving her sisters to it while she concentrated on helping the water dragon grow stronger. Heat surrounded them as Tansy and her mate released their fire. May concentrated on finding the life force within the sphere and magnified it while Damek used his power of Earth to crack the granite inside.

As the granite cracked, the outer layer of ice gave way. Water moved up from the floor where it began to puddle and entered the crack. May forced her power into the water as it seeped through the cracks in the stone and ice. The longer Tony and Tansy heated it, the more cracks marred the surface, looking like spider webs. Damek did similar damage to the inner layer of stone.

The water dragon, or whatever was inside the circle of stone continued to suck the water from the melted ice through the cracks until, with a burst of light, the stone and ice fell from around the being imprisoned inside.

The dragon was large, it huddled, its wings wrapped around itself as it clutched something to its chest. Wrinkled and gray, it continued to draw water from the melting ice.

“Keep heating the ice. He needs water,” Damek said as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “You’ll know when to quit. He’ll start recuperating quicker as he utilizes the water in the ice on his own.” Damek bent to look into the dragon’s face. “The reason they encased him in stone was to keep him from using the ice to strengthen himself. The reason for the ice was to keep anyone else from finding him.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine the torment he would have been in if he hadn’t put himself to sleep.”