Her Mad Dragon (Dragon Guard Series Book 15) (4 page)

“So, tell me, Mr. MacQueen, which means more…me…or this
chair?” Calysta cooed while giving her best ‘Vanna White’ wave of the hand that
pulled the lapels of her silk robe apart to reveal her gloriously naked body.

With his brain scrambled and most of his blood heading
south, Maddox stammered, “Y…you…m…m...my love.” Racing across the room, the
last word was still on his lips when he slammed his mouth to hers. His hands
roamed her body. She moaned softly, opening to him as only one’s true mate can
do. 

Their tongues slid along one another; the gentle glide
adding to their already explosive connection. Pushing the silk off her
shoulders, he loosened his grip for a split second to let the soft fabric float
to the floor before laying her on his oversized La-Z-Boy and kneeling.

Pulling her beautiful bottom to the edge of the seat, Maddox
looked into her emerald eyes and smiled. Slowly spreading her knees, he leaned
down and kissed up one thigh. Inhaling the succulent scent of her arousal, he
smiled at the proof of the effect he had on her already wetting her curls then
kissed down the other thigh. Mercilessly teasing them both, drawing out his
seduction, the mad dragon was making his way back to Calysta’s center when the
front door swung open and Della, Calysta’s sister, sang, “Anybody home?”

Scrambling to his feet, Maddox threw Calysta’s robe to his
giggling mate and growled, “Where the hell else would we be?”

“Well, I was just…” Della’s words trailed off as a deep
blush covered her cheeks, immediately making its way down her neck.

Refusing to be embarrassed for loving his mate in his own
home, Maddox harrumphed. “You were just what, Della?” His fists were clenched
so tightly at his sides that the crack of his knuckles sounded in the lingering
silence.

With her robe now covering her body and her merriment under
control, Calysta rushed to her sister and took the bags from Della’s hands.
Turning towards the kitchen, his little witch winked at him while speaking to
her sister, “Come on, sweetie, you can tell me what goodies you got us for
supper.”

In Maddox’s head, she teased,
“And you can go take a cold
shower.”
 

“When is she going back to the coven?”
The mad dragon
growled while adjusting his erection away from his zipper and once again cursed
the fact that they were
not
on his mountain with
no one
to
interrupt. Ignoring her joke about the cold shower and heading out the door to
the sounds of Calysta’s laughter in his head, Maddox ignored everyone he
passed.

Lennox appeared at his side with a shit-eating grin on his
face and a spring in his step. The mad dragon knew what was coming and opened
his mouth to head off the mad bomber’s joke, but was a split-second too late.

“How’s life as a domesticated dragon, old man?”

Spinning to his right, he grabbed Lennox by the collar of
his Led Zeppelin shirt and glared. “Shut. The. Hell. Up.”

Throwing his hands up in surrender, the mad bomber chuckled.
“Gotcha old man. No more jokes.”

His words were sincere but the cheeky grin on his face said
every other Guardsman in the lair would know about Maddox’s outburst and more
teasing at his expense was sure to follow. Snatching his hand from his
brethren’s shirt, spinning back to the left, and marching off in a huff, the
mad dragon swore he would find a way to convince Calysta to at least put locks
on their front door.

And get Della her own home…

Arriving at the training pits for his turn at sword practice
with the young Guardsmen-in-Training, Maddox grumbled and growled at every
person who dared to tease him about being ‘domesticated’ and threatened to put
silver in their cornflakes when they asked how it felt to be ‘tamed’.

Does no one have anything else to talk about?

Sharpening his sword, still grumbling to himself about the
advantages of being a recluse, Maddox wiped off his blade and stepped away from
the workbench. The light from the noonday sun momentarily blinded him just as
his dragon jumped to attention and chuffed within the confines of the mad
dragon’s mind at something only the beast could hear. Walking farther into the
barn, the Guardsman shut out the rest of the world and focused on his dragon.

The beast circled the confines of Maddox’s mind on high
alert. He wasn’t angry or defensive; simply on guard. After several tense
moments, his dragon jerked his head to the side and looked directly into the
Guardsman’s mind’s eye. It was the closet the two beings could or would ever
come to actually looking one another in the eye and for most Guardsmen, never
happened.

Maddox’s beast narrowed his large blue eyes until only the
center of his elliptical pupils could be seen. Slowly nodding his huge head,
the dragon pushed the thought of an intruder into the mad dragon’s mind at the
precise moment the sensation of someone trying to access Maddox’s thoughts
pricked at his senses.

Throwing up his mental shields, the mad dragon focused all
his enhanced vision and perception on the almost indiscernible trail of magic
the intruder left in his wake. Following the ribbon of light, apprehension at
who or what they would find filled man and beast alike. Both beings fought
against the need to draw blood first, ask questions later, concentrating
instead on identification. Maddox had just begun to lower a small section of
the wall he’d built within his mind when the remnants of a conversation floated
through his mind.

“But hoo dae Ah knoo whit's real? How kin Ah be sure?”
It was Kyran with his thick Scottish brogue and ability to ask the hard
questions, but he wasn’t talking to Maddox, or at least that’s how it felt.

The mad dragon waited for the other party to answer, wanted
to answer himself but knew he needed to find out who his old friend was in
contact with before making his presence known. Holding his breath and counting
the seconds, Maddox grasped at the fraying thread of his patience. When no
answer came the mad dragon decided to speak, to tell Kyran to trust him, but
stopped short when a low growl that quickly grew into a roar made both man and
beast cringe against the abrasive intrusion and push back with a snarl of their
own.

Magic beat against magic. Maddox’s skull pulsed with the
outrageous amount of power raging through it. He literally pictured his brain
exploding from the pressure but refused to relent. His dragon roared and took a
step forward. He lowered his huge head, positioning the fierce battle horns
that grew in length and width as they ascended from between his eyes across his
brow and over his head in the direction of the intruder.

The imposing growl continued for what seemed like an
eternity but was less than ten seconds before shutting off as unexpectedly as
it had started. Echoing silence left in the wake of the retreating growl was
immediately filled with,
“Ullmhú le haghaidh cath. Tá sé ar fad fíor.”

Barely recognizing Kyran’s threatening tone, two things
became immediately clear; the Phantom was talking to himself and more
importantly, thought he was engaged in battle. Needing to talk his brethren off
the ledge before the Phantom hurt either himself or another, Maddox commanded
,
“Stand down,
deartháir.
The battle is over.”

Silence was the only answer. Maddox could tell he was still
there but the feeling was strange, so unlike Kyran, but still recognizable with
the addition of his voice. It was obvious the Phantom was engaged in a
tug-of-war for his sanity. One that unfortunately, the delusions were winning.
In that moment, Maddox vowed to do whatever it took to bring his brethren home,
to save him if at all possible. The only alternative was destroying one of his
kin, one with whom he’d been so close and fought so many battles. It would be
the mad dragon’s very last resort. It was simply unacceptable on every level to
even contemplate.

“Kyran, stand down. Return to your post.”
Maddox
again commanded.

This time his orders were met with a low snarl of,
“Ye ur
nae Maddox.”

“Yes, brother A'm. Staun doon 'n' come home.”
 Maddox
spoke as he had when they’d known each other all those years ago, praying Kyran
would recognize him.

“NOOOOO,”
burst through his mind. Both man and dragon
held on to the connection to their brethren with their combined strength. They
pushed white healing magic against Kyran’s barrage of tainted magic, fear, and
anger, praying to make him see reason. The sheer power of the Phantom beat
against the wall of magic Maddox threw at him. Sparks flew. A loud rumble shook
their minds. The mad dragon felt Kyran’s strength waning so he doubled his
effort, but he was no match for the black dragon in his current state.

Once again, fearing the tricks his mind was playing on him,
Kyran cut their connection, erasing all trace of their communication. There was
no trail, no footprint, not even a spark of light showing where he’d been or
where he’d gone. All that remained in Maddox’s mind was a pounding that rivaled
ten jack hammers and a migraine making even the slightest ray of light feel
like a blade to his brain.

Making his excuses to the trainees, Maddox walked home
through the dense woods to avoid as much light as possible, snuck into the
large wooden doors hidden by the bushes just under the library window, and
stole away to his basement. Thankfully, his dragon worked double time to cure
his headache and by the time he stumbled down the stairs and onto his old comfy
couch, his vision had cleared and his head no longer beat like the drumline at
a college football game.

It was right then and there that he decided he could no
longer wait. It was time to find Kyran. Thinking back to all he’d heard while
his mind was connected to his old friend’s, the mad dragon tried to draw a few
conclusions. Whatever had happened to his friend had somehow caused him to
retreat to the past; specifically, their former battles. The black dragon’s
torture had been traumatic enough to take him to a very dark event in their
combined histories, one Maddox did
not
want to relive but knew was
inescapable.

The next few days were spent searching through his old
journals and those he’d kept from his fallen brethren, for every detail, from
every perspective of their bloody battle all those years ago. There had to be
some clue pointing to where Kyran was hiding out and if it pertained to that
particular battle, Maddox knew it was somewhere in all the thousands of pages
before him.

Tons of reading and more secrets from his mate later, the
mad dragon finally figured out where Kyran had to be holed up. The only one of
their rendezvous points from that particular battle that made sense as a hidey
hole was on the far side of the coast, opposite the inlet, in one of the caves
naturally camouflaged by the ebb and flow of the tide.

At the beginning of his rescue mission, everything went as
planned. Maddox had awoken in the dead of the night, kissed Calysta on the
forehead, and tip-toed out of the room It was a feat in and of itself
considering he was old, big, and seriously out of practice when it came to
sneaking about. Walking as softly as a six-foot-three-inch two-hundred-and
thirty-pound man can while avoiding waking his mate or her bothersome sister,
the mad dragon made his way through the house and down the stairs between the
kitchen and laundry room. Once in the basement, he’d gathered his pack and
sword before heading out into the calm, dark night.

After securing a horse from the stables, because there was
less of a chance of Kyran thinking a horse was a threat than a motorcycle,
Maddox headed towards the coast with the hopes of bringing an old friend home.
During his ride, he went over every contingency he could concoct to make sure
there were no surprises. Thoughts that he was on a fool’s errand and that he
should’ve at least let Calysta know where he would be nagged at his conscience,
but the need to retain the independence he’d had for so many years won out.
Maddox pressed on, sure he was doing the right thing and had every base
covered.

Reaching the bottom of Dark Mountain, as it had been called
for as long as he could remember, the mad dragon tied his horse to a tree far
from the hazards of the sea and scouted the area for signs of the Phantom. It had
taken several hours and the sun was high in the sky when Maddox finally
followed a trail of broken shells and trampled weeds to a path leading between
the jetties, over the rocks, and up the most treacherous side of the crag.  

Everything was still going smoothly. He hadn’t actually
‘felt’ Kyran’s presence but tried to remain positive. Reaching the highest
ledge, which led to the biggest, deepest cave in the mountain, Maddox climbed
the vines to the far corner of the outcropping leading onto the mouth of the
cavern. Once secure on the ledge, he used the overgrown foliage for cover,
opened his enhanced senses as wide as they would go, and searched for the black
dragon.

Everything seemed normal; no disturbances, no sign of Kyran.
He was about to give up and search another cave when the mad dragon saw
unexplainable ‘dark’ patches
throughout the fissure with his inner
sight. It was as if someone was preventing him from ‘seeing’ what was really
there. The magic felt foreign, almost manmade, but still organic at its base.

Moving out into the open, hoping to draw his old friend into
the light, Maddox crept towards the mouth of the cave. One step over the
threshold and the crack of a branch being broken by the heal of a boot
somewhere over his shoulder had Maddox doing a one-eighty with his sword at the
ready.

A quick moving shadow to his left was the only warning he
got before a crudely carved club the size of his forearm came crashing down on
his head. Stumbling to stay on his feet with stars dancing in front of his eyes
and blood wetting his forehead, Maddox swung blindly with his broadsword
screaming, “Dammit all to hell, Kyran! What the fuck did you do that for?”