Dragon's Blood (The Dragon's Gift Trilogy #2)

“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” Drystan said roughly as he pulled her against him. He kissed her hard, one hand in her hair while the other clung to her shapely waist. He was naked as the day he was born, his cock growing hard as her curves pressed against him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care that the others were watching. He was just thrilled to have his mate back.

“If we were alone,” he panted against her lips, “I would tear your clothes off and take you right here in the grass.”

“Unfortunately, you are not alone, and I would prefer if you refrained for now,” Catriona said in an acid voice. She threw a set of clothes at Drystan—they’d each packed a bag and carried it around their necks as they flew—and he caught them with one hand while he continued to kiss Dareena. “You might want to put those on before the others get here.”

“That won’t be for a few hours,” Drystan pointed out, more to heckle Catriona than anything else. But he released Dareena and pulled on his clothes while his siblings dressed as well.

“Thank you for the clothes, brother,” Alistair said, clapping Drystan on the back. “I was getting a bit itchy, sitting nude in the grass.”

Drystan laughed as he embraced his youngest brother. “Itchiness is the least you’ve had to endure,” he said. “I nearly lost my mind when I received your arm in a box today.”

Alistair looked horrified. “I’d forgotten all about Arolas’s promise to send it on. That must have been terrible for you!”

Drystan snorted. “Typical of you to worry about how I would feel,” he said, shaking his head. “You are the one who had a limb severed and was forced to live with that horrible spell for so long. I can’t imagine how traumatic the experience was.”

“It was awful,” Alistair admitted, “but having Dareena with me made it bearable.” He put an arm around their mate and kissed the top of her forehead. “Without her power as the Dragon’s Gift, I might not have survived. Did you know she’s learned to heal, and fight, with her elven magic?”

“I heard,” Drystan said, grinning down at Dareena. “You’ve become quite formidable, haven’t you?”

“Not as formidable as my three dragons,” Dareena said, smiling.

Catriona glanced over Dareena’s shoulder, back to where their father was lying. “We should cover him up,” she said, pulling a cloak out of her bag. “It seems undignified to leave him there like that.”

The mood of their party sobered instantly. The three of them approached their father’s prone form, and as they got closer, a tightness squeezed inside Drystan’s chest. Unpleasant tingles spread across his skin, and he could only imagine this was the influence of those horrible bracelets.

“It seems cruel to subject him to these,” Alistair said softly as Catriona draped the cloak across their father. “And yet, if we do not, he will simply shift back and try to kill us all.”

Drystan sighed. “Perhaps we should do some research and see if anything can be done about his mental state,” he said. “Has anyone ever heard of dragon sickness being cured?”

“No,” Catriona said sorrowfully. “But perhaps there might be some bit of magic that can help.”

“The elves specialize in healing,” Dareena said thoughtfully. “I didn’t think to look and see if there were any books on treating dragons, though, and when Alistair grew ill, the elves didn’t seem to know what to do. I can ask Basilla about it when she arrives.”

“The warlocks have the largest library of the three kingdoms,” Lucyan pointed out. “If we can conquer them, we might be able to find answers there.”

Drystan laughed harshly. “That is no mean feat,” he said. “The warlocks are the strongest kingdom right now—they have not suffered casualties from the war like we have, or the elves.”

“Perhaps the elves will be willing to band together with us,” Dareena suggested. “Basilla seems to think the warlock envoy—who is lying unconscious outside Dragomir’s lair, by the way—was using some kind of spell to addle the elven king and make him more susceptible to suggestion. Now that he is free, and his children have made their position clear, he may be open to considering an alliance.”

“Either way, we must do something about those bastards,” Lucyan growled, “including finding a way to shield ourselves from their magical spying.”

Drystan and Lucyan shifted back into dragon form and took Dareena back up the mountain while Catriona stayed behind to guard their father. As promised, the warlock still lay there, unconscious, surrounded by several bags of treasure. The brothers shifted back to human form, and the three of them entered the cave to take stock of their recovered wealth.

“By the gods,” Lucyan said, his eyes shining with awe as they beheld the mountains of gold and valuables. “This is far more than we anticipated. We could have easily paid the elves their ransom and had five years’ worth of taxes left over.”

“I have a feeling this hoard has been around a lot longer than Father,” Drystan said as he hefted a giant ruby in the palm of his hand. “Our predecessors must have been hiding gold here for years, and Father decided to bring the rest over here.” He shook his head. “With these funds, we could hire a mercenary army from across the sea to wipe out our enemies.”

“If the people find out about all this gold, they will be furious about the tax increases,” Dareena pointed out.

Lucyan snorted. “We are not going to tell them about this,” he said. “Hell, they don’t even know that the treasure has gone missing in the first place. If they had, Drystan might have lost his head, dragon or not. There would have been an uprising.”

“It’s going to be very difficult to hide the truth about this now,” Dareena countered. “People are bound to notice when they see a group of soldiers carting back sacks full of gold, and the soldiers won’t keep silent. I think we ought to give something back to the people of Dragonfell, especially since there is still so much unrest,” Dareena said. “I think a two-year tax holiday should do the trick.”

Drystan winced. “The council will have an apoplexy if I suggest it,” he said. “They nearly mutinied against me when I gave a tax break to the soldiers.”

Dareena shrugged. “If we truly have as much gold as you say we do, you should be able to give them a token of your appreciation to mollify them.”

Lucyan nodded. “She’s right. A sack or two of gold for each council member will barely put a dent in our coffers.”

“It is a good idea,” Drystan said. Hooves approached in the distance, and he knew the squadron of soldiers he’d sent out were not far off. “Let’s get this treasure back to the Keep,” he said, picking up one of the empty sacks the warlocks had left behind. “The sooner we finish up here, the sooner we can get back.”

“And celebrate,” Dareena said, winking at him. She bent to pick up a sack of her own, giving Drystan a fantastic view of her luscious rear. Drystan’s blood heated, and he and Alistair turned to one of the piles of gold and began shoveling it into the bags. If that wasn’t a good enough motivator for them to get this done as fast as possible, he didn’t know what was.





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