Page 27 of Dragon's Desire

"Excuse me, Mr. Xander," Kiercy said, "I need to speak with my partner for a moment."

Kiercy pulled Peter aside.

"You can't actually be considering taking him up on this offer," she said.

"I'm not exactly swimming in options here, darling. Legermain's got a lot of toys, half of them stolen from Gil Xander's toy box. We need something to even the odds. Why shouldn't I accept his generous help?"

"Because I don't trust him. Why would he be trying to mass-produce weapons designed to kill witches?" she asked.

"Why would he not? If you didn't realize before, now you have to understand that not all witches are good people. We can't have someone out there frying people's brains with a magical rock and expect to be able to fight him without some help."

"I thought I was helping you."

"You are, but you also can't exactly take on everything yourself, and I'm not going to wait in the car with my thumb up my ass. If you recall, I was the one to pull your ass out of the fire back at the warehouse. I can't fly, but I used a bit of tech to do the next best thing and get you out of there." He threw up his hands. "What do you expect of me?"

"I thought maybe I could expect you not to be such an asshole and jump at the first opportunity to kill more witches."

"Not this again."

"Not what again?"

"You keep acting like every witch hunter out there is after every witch and enjoys the killing part. Someone has to do the hard work of protecting people. And that someone is me right now. We've got a dangerous warlock on the loose who has evaded capture so far. I plan to put an end to this." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to banish the headache that arguing with Kiercy was giving him. "I'm going to accept his help. You need to learn to live with that."

"I can't believe I let you put your disgusting dick in me."

"Disgusting? Wow. You sure didn't think it was when you were practically trying to swallow the whole damn thing."

"Well, you can be certain nothing like that will EVER happen again," she said.

"Oh, I doubt that. You seem to really enjoy yourself there. Screaming my name would usually be a sign of good fun. Or are you just too ashamed to admit you had a good time?"

"Let's call it a temporary lapse in judgment or a mental breakdown, but believe me when I say you and I are done with."

"You can't really expect me to—"

"Yes, I sure can. And I don't have to sit here and watch you get fucking turned on by being offered weapons made to kill me."

"Not to kill you. To kill Legermain."

"He didn't design these to kill Legermain. He designed them to kill witches. He already knows that his stuff hurts good witches as well as bad. And I doubt he's that interested in putting time and resources into figuring out how to fix it."

"Can you just calm down a damn minute and listen to yourself?"

"You know what, you're right."

Peter was surprised and delighted to hear her say that. Maybe he'd finally gotten through to her.

"I should have listened to myself when I said you were a disgusting pig only interested in killing witches and getting your dick wet."

Before he could reply, she turned away from him. Peter reached out and grabbed her arm. She chanted something and searing pain shot through him.

She looked at him and said, "Don't think you ever get to touch me again."

With that, she was gone.

19

KIERCY

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