Wish (Scales 'n' Spells 3)

No licking!

Clearing his throat, he stalked the few feet separating them. “Mage, you are well?”

“I’m, uh…” The mage’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two of them, his expression wary. “I don’t…” he stammered, and Warin immediately picked up on the American accent. The mage likely didn’t speak German, so he repeated his question in English.

“Shit, I don’t even know. I’m not hurt. You, uh, recognize me as a mage? I guess the glowing ward is a dead giveaway, yeah,” he said with a shaky laugh.

“And we saw your distress beacon from the air,” Gunter added, looking him over carefully. “You look alright to me. But this isn’t the place to discuss it, I think.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for your help.”

That sounded as if he intended to leave, which was absolutely unacceptable. Where did this mage even come from? It was likely this was the same mage who’d created the seeking spell. What were the odds there was another mage in the area casting spells? Not that good, actually. No, no. This mage wasn’t going anywhere until they had many more answers.

“Mage. Are you of the Valerii?”

The young man blinked up at him as if he couldn’t understand those words. “Sorry? Who?”

“The Valerii. The Ice clan. Do you belong to the Ice clan?” Warin repeated carefully. His English was fine. Was his German accent hard to understand?

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Warin looked over at Gunter, whose eyes had gone wide with surprise. Did he not know about dragons at all? Had he been trying to signal other mages with his distress signal? This was going to be a very interesting conversation if they could keep him from darting off.

North could not take his eyes off the sexy hunk of a man who practically breathed fire on his attackers. His companion with the floppy blond hair and glasses was cute too, but really, it was all about the guy with the romantically long dark hair and broad shoulders. There was something about him, how he managed to look both protective and indignant with only a curl of his full upper lip and a shake of his fist. North half expected to see him pull out a sword and reveal he was wearing a knight’s armor.

But that was all fanciful nonsense.

The two men had come out of nowhere to rescue him, and they hadn’t looked at him like he was a lunatic because he was holding the remnants of a broken mirror in one fist. It was nice not to be treated like a crazy tourist.

He didn’t know what they were talking about with ice and fire clans. Gramps had mentioned something about mages being a part of clans a long time ago, but he didn’t have any interest in mages. North was in Europe hunting dragons, and he had a good lead on a dragon in Germany. Only finding a dragon would get him freedom from his family. They had no interest in mage, wouldn’t believe one. But a dragon was irrefutable.

There was no lingering with the sexy man and his friend. North’s train was leaving in a few hours. His would-be attackers were dispersed for now. It was the perfect time to get back to the hotel, grab his stuff, and head to the train station. He could find a place there to hunker down until his train was boarding. Then he was off to Munich!

“Hey! Um…thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it, but I’ve got a train to catch—EEP!”

The surprised noise escaped North as his knight grabbed a fistful of North’s coat and pulled him close enough that their noses bumped. It took an extra second for the man’s growled words to break through to his brain. North was lost in a deliciously warm scent of spice and…mmm…warm, snuggly man. So close to him, North could now see that his nose was slightly crooked from likely being broken once. He had a hard, angular jaw sprinkled with dark hair. And the fullest, most plush, kissable lips in all the world.

Truly, they were the most perfect lips North had ever seen. They were the kind made for kissing and doing some incredibly wicked, sinful things. How could such a grumpy-looking man have been born with such an amazing mouth?

It was a shame such lips weren’t doing important things like kissing him at that moment, but they were demanding in a low, rumbling voice, “I want my scale back.”

North blinked at him. Scale? He couldn’t possibly be talking about the scale. The gorgeous red dragon scale that had been handed down through his family for generations. Not that scale.

Staring past the ridiculously long eyelashes framing rich, sapphire blue eyes, North finally saw the gold ring outlining his irises. A ring that could only be found on the eyes of a dragon.