Page 1 of The Mating Magic
Chapter 1
Days like this,sometimes he wished he were stilldead.
He was immortal now, a powerful wizard on the council of the Brehon, the wizards who ruled over Otherworlders on earth. It was nice having power and flying as dragon once more instead of sulking in a cave in the afterworld of theshadowlands.
Except for days like this, when he had worked for 30 days straight flying over the earth and aiding dragon shifters. Or punishing them for breaking therules.
And now, just when he wished to return home and rest a little, perhaps take a long bath in the hot springs near his castle, he had Tristan on hiscase.
“Zipline? What is this zipline you reference?” Drustasked.
Tristan, the Silver Wizard, looked with patience at Drust, the ColdFire Wizard. “It is a most amusing pastime forhumans.”
“And why should I be bothered with such matters?” Drust stretched out his wings as he settled on an overhead tree branch. It felt wonderful to rest, after patrolling the earth and overseeing his dragon charges. He finally felt settled in Tir Na-nog, home to theBrehon.
Speaking as a dragon also took some getting used to. But he rather liked it, especially on days like this when Tristan refused to get to thepoint.
“I have no need of entertainment. Or ziplines. Unless you know of a reason I should know,” headded.
“Alligators,” Tristan said serenely. “It’s a zipline over a swamp filled with hungryalligators.”
“So?”
“So right now two of your people plan to zipline over this hungry pool of alligators, and the zipline will break and they will become alligator bait. A nice meal. I do not know if alligators like dining on dragon, but when one is a hungry alligator, I suppose dragon willsuffice.”
Were he in human form, he’d face palm. Instead he stretched out his long neck and blew fire at thesky.
“I understand. But no one said this would be easy when you took the job,” Tristanremarked.
Drust flapped his wings, making Tristan’s shoulder-length hair blow in the breeze. “I didn’t exactly take the job. I wasrecruited.”
Tristan shrugged. “The price one pays for immortality and all thispower.”
“Where are these charges ofmine?”
Tristan waved a hand and image floated in the air of two brunettes who looked to be in their twenties. The shorter one was plump, and had a soft carnation pink mouth and large, woebegone grayeyes.
The taller brunette, hair tied back in a long braid, concentrated as she knelt at the water’s edge. She had eyes green as his beloved forests of home, a shapely figure and a no-nonsense air he immediatelyrecognized.
“Lacey McGuire.” Drust groaned. Not again. “Where arethey?”
“An amusement park in south Florida that was shut down longago.”
“Sounds like an easy assignment.” Then again, with that Lacey, nothing was easy. She was a 25-year-old dragon who broke the rules and had been so adept at doing so he failed to see her misdeeds until Tristan pointed themout.
The Silver Wizard’s mouth curled downward. “Not quite. Do you recall that small vial of the Bloodmoon flower potion you left at Chase’s house lastmonth?”
Drust went still. All the wizards of the Brehon drank the potion every six months to maintain their powerful magick and their immortality. But because he was a new wizard, he required more doses, and kept a small vial to drink every sixweeks.
“The one that wentmissing?”
“One of the girls stole it and is using it to manufacture a potent drug to empower mortal Otherworlders. Dragons, werewolves, all ofthem.”
He stared at Tristan. “The nectar is supposed to be benign in mortalhands.”
“Itis.”
Hope rose up in Drust. “It could beworse.”
