Free Magic and Mayhem: How To Date A Dragon (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Baba Yaga Saga Book 2) by Donna McDonald Page A

you can die, Nathaniel. Not one minute before, do you hear me? Carol and Hildy are not ready yet. You’re not getting out of helping me finish this torture.”
    His quiet snicker lifted the corner of her mouth. Goddess, they both had nearly lost their sense of humor in the last eight years. Life had been so much easier when all they did was track down magical bad guys for a living.
    Raising magical children? They had proved she was not cut out for motherhood.
    Nathaniel took a long stick and drew a wide casting circle round the cairn. It was wide enough to let a large human land within it. He marked the four corners of the circle with direction symbols then handed her the limb when he was finished with his casting.
    Eyebrows up at his absentmindedness, and his audacity, Jezibaba tossed the limb aside as Nathaniel started a second chant. Latin of course. Warlocks preferred the tongue of the would be conquerors of the English. The ultimate joke though was on the Roman warmongers. Only their language lived on… and it only fell from the tongues of human priests and ancient warlocks. No right-minded person gave it a thought.
    “Dico autem spiritu
    ut honoris causam mea.
    Venit Zenos. Veni ad me.
    Ego pracipio tibi.”
    Jezibaba let out her breath the moment she realized she had been holding it. Nathaniel had called to Zenos and mentioned honor twice. She bit her lip when she noted Nathaniel stood just outside the circle.
    He offered up the chant seven more times before the winds finally answered him. They whipped around and around until the circle began to glow and move with a small tornado in the center of it.
    A larger male, even larger than Damien, appeared inside the rushing wind. The man chanted something himself until the tornado receded enough for him to finish materializing. His bow was habitual. It figured Zenos would be as old school as Nathaniel was. But the smirk twisting his mouth betrayed his true character.
    His hair was flame colored, and at the moment, so was his face. The handsome mage was obviously not pleased to find himself constrained by Nathaniel’s magic. And this was why she’d never given anyone a promise of power over her.
    Zenos had absolutely nothing he could fight with in this circumstance. The mage would either concede with an honest heart to Nathaniel’s request… or the winds would carry off his soul to whatever god or goddess owned the promise locked in the tree agate.
    She watched the legendary mage study his hands, his body, and the circle drawn crudely on the ground. When his gaze lifted, it went immediately to Nathaniel. She doubted he even saw her.
    “Ya saved me when we met, Druid, but I always knew ya would call me back for my death one day. It is the way of things to come full circle, but damn ya for doing so right now. Ya should have seen the two lasses ya pulled me away from. I’d had my sights on them for weeks. Yer a cock blocker… yer are. It’s been a long time, Nathaniel… and I wish it had been longer.”
    Jezibaba narrowed her eyes. Zenos was not at all what she’d expected him to be. He had yet to set off a single one of her inner alarms. Hell, Damien could do it when he frowned at her. She checked inside herself and found no worry at all. Great. Now her instincts were broken—one more failing thing in her arsenal.
    The mage squinted his eyes as he walked to the absolute edge of the circle going toe to toe with her warlock. Nathaniel stood directly in front of him now, unmoving and seemingly unaffected by Zenos’s powerful presence.
    Behind Nathaniel, Jezibaba stiffened instinctively, waiting for the real show to begin. She didn’t have to wait long.
    “Ya look like shriveled up troll shite, Nathaniel. Are ya on the edge of death and expecting me to drag yer ugly arse back from it?” Zenos demanded. “Well, I won’t do it, boy. I won’t. Trust me, ya don’t want the torment that comes from too long a life.”
    When Nathaniel pushed back his cowl and dropped