Page 99 of His Greatest Treasure

Pride filled me that my mate had such strong fire. He was magnificent.

He breathed it again, and the hag turned to run. Two of her army were incinerated by Alfie’s flames, turning to ash, and the hag’s cloak smoked andhissed as Alfie’s flames burned through all of her protections.

Just as the burst of flame diminished, the man who’d flown on Glimmer’s back appeared. He was covered in blood and sweat, and there was such concentrated grim determination in his face that I flinched at the sight of him.

Below me, I felt Alfie twitch. That man looked like an enemy.

But he faced the retreating hag head-on and swung his sword in one powerful arc. Her head fell from her body and rolled away.

Before the head hit the ground, the man had already turned around and clashed with a lamia who tried to wrap him in their serpent coils.

Alfie took one tentative step forward, not sure whether to go and help or not, but before he could, the lamia jerked to a stop and hung in the air for a second. I watched in horrified fascination as Glimmer in his human form shimmered into sight out of nowhere. He was standing behind the lamia, one claw sliced across the creature’s throat.

The lamia collapsed, dead, and Glimmer stepped over its body towards the man, grinning.

I looked around. In the distance, I could see three of the hag’s army retreating, fleeing for their lives. The rest were around us, dead.

Glimmer looked across to Alfie and asked, “Do you want me to kill those ones?”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the retreating trio.

Alfie shook his huge head from side to side, his long neck swaying.

I slid off his shoulders and became my normal size again. I stayed in my flame form, making sure I burned all of the residual spells off me.

As I was about to speak to my mate, Glimmer walked up to him and pointed at the territory.

“I don’t spend all day building the territory protections up to keep you safe just so you can wander out of them! Get back inside now.”

It was sweet, how Alfie gave a start and then darted back inside the boundary, looking sheepish. I tried to repress my smile as I hurried after him. I wanted to be pressed to his side. My wick longed to be there, inside Alfie’s embrace.

I pushed myself up against his shoulder and he sort of wrapped his form around me, encircling me as best he could in his dragon form.

Alfie gave a shudder and his body began to shrink. I stepped back a little, not wanting to burn him once his scales stopped offering him protection against my flames. He shifted back to his human form and his eyes were fixed on me the whole time.

As soon as he could form words again, he asked, “Are you alright, Blaze? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt, my darling. You protected me.”

He stepped forward and I saw he had blood smeared over his body, along with mud and grime.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be fine. Are you sure you’re not injured? That hag did something nasty to you.”

I shivered at the memory of it and then, suddenly, shivered for an entirely different reason. I looked down to see that Alfie had reached out to me, that his hand had reached for me even in my flame form, that it was inside me and stroking my wick.

I felt it all over my body, a bright, sensuous, tingling sensation.

Nobody had ever touched there before. I didn’t think anybody could. The sensation was both calming and arousing.

“Blaze? What did she do? I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his hand, his fingers gently stroking my wick, the only part of me to stay solid when I became flame. My fire burned around me and his hand was in the centre of it, touching me.

“Your hand…”

Alfie looked down, realised what he’d done, and yanked it back out of my flames.

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