Lewis: The McCade Dragon –Erotic Paranormal Romance Page 2

  He stood up and went to the sink. He’d just that morning emptied out a large pickle jar. He was drying the pickles so he could deep fry them for the staff. Not even bothering to rinse it out, he held it open while Lyna and Roderick picked the thing up and hung it over the jar. With a sudden popping sound, the creature was inside and the lid closed.

  A blackish cloud moved around the jar staring at him, then eyes first being side by side then one under the other. It was sort of sickening, watching it, and he put a towel over it to hide it from his sight.

  Lewis put the jar and the creature that had meant to kill him on a shelf in the back of the restaurant. It would have killed him, too, if he hadn’t smelled something so vile that it made him ill. He wanted to ask someone what it meant, and he would, but right now, all he could think about was that he might well have died had it not been for the dragons.

  “She made me sick.” The words, not meant to be said just then, slipped from his mouth. He looked at the tiny dragons when they didn’t say anything. “When she was close enough to touch me, I could smell something…I think it was evil. I don’t know how that happened.”

  “Evilness is something that all creatures of black magic, black magic, can smell. I have never heard of a dragon being able to smell such a thing, but you might have gained that ability from Raven.” Lewis pointed out that he’d not seen her yet. “No. But that doesn’t mean that she isn’t protecting you from afar, my lord.”

  She wasn’t even near him and she was already protecting his ass. How stupid would she think he was when she got here? he wondered. Feeling slightly put out, he told everyone that he was fine now and that they should go home. Lewis thought they’d seen enough of his failure for one day. When they were gone, none of them very happy with him he thought, he sat down again.

  “My lord?” He told Warrior that he wasn’t in the mood to talk right now. Yes, I can understand that, but you have nothing to be ashamed of.

  “Don’t I? I nearly got myself killed because I didn’t think before acting.” Warrior pointed out that he had called the dragons. “Yes, to save my ass. I’m not sure this is going to work with this woman, whoever she is. She’s blind and I’m stupid. Stupid enough to nearly get myself killed. What a pair we’re going to make, don’t you think?”

  When Warrior started to speak again, he told him he’d had enough for one day. Going out to his car after locking up, he sat there for several minutes, trying to wrap his mind around his life right now. He had a mate coming soon, probably on her way, and he was, in a way, just as blind as she was.

  Pulling into his drive and entering his house, he could see that the workers had gotten a lot done today. The walls were up in the dining room where he had enlarged it. The windows had arrived for the kitchen just yesterday and they had been put in, and some of the cabinets were already in place. He loved his home even though he was redoing a great deal of it, but he wondered what his mate would think when she got there.

  “Nothing, you moron, she can’t see it.” He was having himself a full out pity party, and hated himself for it. As he wandered around the house, looking at what had been accomplished, he kept going back to how the thing had tricked him. How easy it had been for it to do so. He wondered if Butler thought the same thing, that he was easily duped.

  “Yes, and why wouldn’t he? You’ve had it pointed out to you on several occasions that you’re laid-back. I wonder now if they were all thinking that I’m a fool.” He didn’t really think that, he supposed, but his pity party wouldn’t be complete without him thinking the worst of his family, now would it?

  What is going on in your head? Lewis smiled when he heard the voice of his mother. I swear to you, Lewis, if I wasn’t in bed now and trying to read my new book, I’d come over there and give you a good pop to the head. What is the matter with you?

  I nearly got myself killed today. She said that he hadn’t, so that’s what he should be thinking about. Mom, we’re so close to having this end, and I nearly made it all have to start again.

  Lewis, you didn’t. You used your smarts and called for help. To me, that makes you the smartest man I know. Yes, you could have easily died, but you have to remember something son…you’re immortal. He hadn’t thought of that, and told her. Yes, well, how do you think you got to be so smart? Now, go to sleep and we’ll have breakfast together. You and me. I’m in the middle of a good part, and I’d like to finish this tonight. I love you, son.

  I love you too, Mom. And you are brilliant. She told him she knew that and to hush. Laughing, Lewis headed to his bed and closed his eyes. He was an immortal.

  Chapter 2

  Butler moved about his hovel. He should have known that his son would be fucking around with his plans. He’d been doing so since he’d been found out. He was king, by the gods, and Caelin should have respected his wishes, not tried to thwart them. To have a son that was so much like his mother was something that stuck in his craw like a bad meal. No, worse, it was like having a knife in the belly.

  He looked down at the wound that would fester at times, making him so ill that he couldn’t move out of his own bed. His son had done that. Just threw him to the ground and run him through. The wound even now gave him pains, but at least for the moment, it was no longer seeping out the black goo that he knew was his blood.

  “Damn him to hell.” Getting to the window was no easy feat for him. He’d suffered a great many wounds over the years, and they were coming back to haunt him. The magic that he had gotten easily enough was now in short supply. Not just to him, but to all that were looking for easy pickings. “No one believes in magic as they used to.”

  It was true. Even the kids of the world, they seemed to prefer having their heads stuck deep into some sort of machine rather than looking at the magic that was right there before them. And witches were either no longer around, not much anyway, or they were getting better at hiding from him. He still wanted to find the one that had made him immortal. She took more than she should have when she’d helped him.

  The magic she’d given him had come with a price for them both. Hers could be returned to her, but his, the thing that she’d done to him, would soon take him under. He only had a few more weeks on his immortality, and that was just not enough time for him to do all that he needed. Once he ruled the dragon he’d be immortal like it was, but now, without having all the pieces, his days were numbered. She had put that little part in there when she’d agreed to help him.

  “Well, help was not really what she did for me, now was it?” He laughed a little. “The next time that I see the wench, she’ll pay with more than just her sight, she will. To think that even tied up the way she was, she still did me wrong. Her king; I’m her fucking king.”

  Raven. As black as the bird she was named for. He laughed a little more as he watched the road before him. People were always in such a hurry now. And once they got to wherever they were going, they had to wait again. He thought that when he was king once more, he’d take all the devices that seemed to rule everyone and destroy them. That way they’d only have him to come to when they wanted information. His mind drifted to Raven again.

  Blind now, she should have been easily found. How many blind old women could there be that lived on their magic? None that he could find, nor the idiots that worked for him. Butler wondered if she had died, been killed by someone that she’d double crossed, but he knew she’d be more careful than that. Raven, for all her evilness, was the greatest witch, besides his own wife, that he’d ever known.

  The place he was staying had been abandoned many years ago. He’d been a fool when he’d first happened upon it, making the inside of the place much nicer for himself. Expanding the walls, covering them in the most beautiful of damasks and paintings. The furniture was of the finest woods, beautiful sheens to them. Even the plates that he ate from had been made of gold and silver.

  The house appeared ready to fall down, but once you entered his domain, it looked as if a king had lived there, one su
ch as himself. But no more. Everything that he’d put inside, it was gone. The magic wasn’t there to support such things.

  When his magic had started to deplete, so had the things he’d made. Now he was reduced to having a single nice room, and that too was falling down around his ears. Just last evening his table that he had lorded over by himself had fallen over, taking the little bit of food he’d stolen with it.

  He made his way back to his chair and sat upon it. There wasn’t time for self-pity. There were things going on that he needed to be stopping. The McCades, they were very close to getting what he wanted…to rule the dragon. He wondered where his shifter was.

  “That cost me. Making that thing work for me, it surely did cost me.” He wondered if it had done its job, and if he was even now going to have to start anew to get the pieces that he needed since it had killed one of the McCades. The one he had, the necklace, was going to rule for him. And the sooner they figured that out, the better it would be for them.

  Opening his shirt, he looked at the piece that he’d had for so long that it felt like a part of his body. Since his last wife had been put into her early grave, he’d worn it around his neck so that no one, not a single person, could take it from him. He even bathed with it on him. And that once a week ritual was scary when it was as exposed as he was.

  Calling to the shifter, he was met with nothing. He could have assumed that it had done its job and died, as it was supposed to do, but with his luck, which had been terrible of late, the thing was still trying to find its way to the McCades.

  Butler hadn’t a clue which man it was going to find. All it had to do was go to the sleepy little town, find one of them whose mind it could read, and then kill him. He wasn’t even sure if it would know his mate’s name yet, but the thing could work around that. Just get close, that’s all he needed to do, get close enough to kill the man, then disappear. No one would be the wiser.

  The sudden pain in his belly had him jerking upright and standing. He looked around for the cause of such a pain.

  “Hello, Butler.” The mist before him laughed. He couldn’t make out who it was, but Butler was sure he knew the voice. “Of course you know me. I’m very hurt that you do not recognize me.”

  “Prisane? What are you doing around here? I thought you dead by now.” He had no idea if she could even die, but when she came into focus, all he could do was stare at her. “Christ, woman. That must have surely cost you. You’re as beautiful as you were all those years ago.”

  “You never noticed, so do not try and charm me now. I will not fall to your ways. And magic is mine for the taking, you are right on that, but I have no need to take for me to look as I always have. I am an immortal, like you are not.” He sat down and held his belly so that she’d not notice that he’d sprung a leak again. “You’re dying, Butler. I’m sure you’re well aware of that, but, and it gives me such joy to tell you this, you would have died soon anyway. My children’s children are gathering their magic, the things that should rightfully have been theirs long ago.”

  “You seem so sure about that. What if I told you that I have a plan? You, being a woman, you have no concept of planning the way a man does. So this, like all the other times, it will fail.” He laughed, and the pain nearly took his breath away. “Be gone with you. I have no time for your begging me to stop.”

  “Begging you to stop? Oh no, Butler. I wish for you to go on. To keep trying to stop them. It will give my heart such joy. I know that’s an odd concept, for you to know joy, but I shall have it when you are nothing but dust beneath their feet.” She was suddenly in front of him, and that was when he realized that she was merely an image. “You will die by their hands, and I will come back to live with them.”

  “Nay, I will not be killed by one of my own.” She laughed and touched her fingers to his belly. The pain was much worse than it had ever been, and he screamed loudly. “Why do you torture me so? What have I ever done to you to deserve such treatment?”

  “You need ask? My goddess, Butler, you were beyond cruel to me. You beat me, badly, and on our wedded night even. Then you threw me down the stairs when I did not come to you again. Over and over I was treated with pain and ridicule. You are a monster. Now more than ever. But what did you think would happen, Butler? That I would come to you willingly? That I would just turn over all that I was without a fight?” She threw back her head and laughed. “I gave myself a son from our union. One that even now plots your demise. And he will help to kill you; if not him, then he has someone that will.”

  “You think this, yet you come here to beg.” She told him she had not begged him for anything. “No, perhaps not yet, but you shall. I will have our son at my mercy, and I will end his life. You should have given him over to me, Prisane. It was wrong of you to raise him without my guiding hand. He is...well, he is now nothing more than a bastard son to me.”

  “Yet he is your only son. I took care of that too, did I not?” He hated her then. Butler always had, but at this moment, had she really been there, he would have killed her. “You cannot kill me anymore than you could have long ago. Not only am I smarter than you, but I am stronger.”

  With a wave of her hands, his home took on the appearance of something grand. The tapestries on the walls were the ones he’d stolen off the very walls in her castle so long ago that they were mere rags now. The grand chairs were sitting atop a dais, just as beautiful as they’d been long ago. And when he looked at the table set before him, a long wooden plank of a thing, he could see golden goblets, trenchers made of the finest woods. Even silverware that had not been used when he’d been in the castle gleamed on the table next to the finest of linens.

  Food appeared then. Large platters of turkey and ham, vegetables that he knew were as fresh as they could be. Tankers of fine mead and wines. Even cookies, his favorite, were laid at each place setting, and his mouth watered for just a taste.

  Then the men and women appeared, their faces blurred enough that he couldn’t make them out. Their laughter rang through the room; joy was being had, and he could see that there were so many of them that he couldn’t count them past ten. Butler looked at his wife of long ago.

  “See them there, Butler? My family. They are happy. Together and rich beyond even what you were when you came to my castle. It will rise again, this I promise you, and when it does, when they are all together, no one will think of you, thank you for giving life to my son. They will raise their glasses to me and all that I have given them.” He told her she lied. “You know as well as I that I cannot lie. Not to you or anyone. I am a great white witch, and you are nothing.”

  The room returned to its former slobbery. He sat down again, his body drained a bit more from the loss of it all. And when Prisane laughed he looked at her and saw something that he’d never seen before. She was wearing all the jewels.

  “How is that possible?” She touched the ring on her finger, the necklace at her throat. “You cannot have those. They were sold off, long ago.”

  “You see what I want you to see, Butler. This will be the last time that you see them all together too. For, very soon now, you will meet with the family and you will die. Die as you should have long ago.”

  After she was gone, he sat there staring at nothing. And there wasn’t anything, either. His castle, the one that he’d made, was now gone. All the magic that he’d used had been taken when she left. Cursing her, yelling out that he was going to destroy her, weakened him, and he made his way to the ticking on the floor. Even his bed was gone. Butler needed to rest, then he was going to find the McCades and kill them himself.

  Waking in the middle of the night, he laid there for several moments, afeared that Prisane had returned to take more from him. But there was nothing about that he could see, so he sat up slowly. There was a small bit of light coming from the room next to him, and he dreaded going to see what it could be. It would be his luck that he’d left a candle burning, and even now his home was going up in flames.

  The li
ttle light wasn’t a candle, but magic. Getting closer to it, he knew that whoever had left the note had known that he could not read. As he made out the pictures drawn there, he touched his fingers to the corner of it, only to move it closer when it came to life. Stepping back, he watched the shifter he’d sent being destroyed.

  There was no hope for the thing. Whoever had bottled it up, they had known what they were about. And the magic that had destroyed it, powerful magic, had snuffed out the life that he’d given it, and he knew a kind of fear that he’d not felt in decades. Then the voice started speaking to him.

  “The next time you send someone to do your dirty work, you should be more careful of what they smell like.” He didn’t know what that meant, but waited. “Evil, your kind, has a scent to it, and that is what gave your magic away.”

  Evil had no scent, at least not that he’d ever been aware of, but when the message that had been left disappeared along with the light, the room that he was in simply vanished. He found himself standing in the middle of a field with the house, now nothing more than splinters of wood and dirt, lying about.

  Butler wanted to sob. To just lay his head down and cry like a small child. He could not go on like this much longer, he knew this, but if he didn’t go forward, finish this job, he’d be destroyed, just as she had warned him he would. But there was something that she didn’t know, that no one knew, save him. He had a piece to the set, and he wasn’t going to give it up for anything.

  ~~~

  Raven leaned against the large tree and smiled. The fact that it was raining didn’t bother her; the grasses and other creatures of the land needed it. She even enjoyed it falling upon her face, cleansing away the dirt and grime from walking as far as she had.

  A car would have made it quicker to get to Ohio, but she couldn’t drive. A plane would have worked should she have wanted to be there in less than an hour, yet she enjoyed walking, and it was a good way for her to gather some of the things that she would need someday. With her heightened sense of smell, she could find more herbs than someone that could see. She only hoped that her mate, whoever he was, didn’t mind that she wanted a room to herself, a place that she could keep up with her magic.