Free Her Mad Dragon (Dragon Guard Series Book 15) by Julia Mills

meal was filled with companionable
silence. Calysta loved that they had rekindled their relationships and were now
as close as a family should be. She remembered her own captivity at the hands
of Cleland, his evil coven of wizards, and how many times she’d feared she
might never see those she loved again. Shaking her head and pushing the old memories
to the back of her mind, the Priestess stood and took her dishes to the
dishwasher. “I’m going to go get dressed. Would you mind calling Niall, Della?
Let him know the boys are bringing Maddox in and that he is in a healing sleep
recovering from silver poisoning.”
    “I sure will,” Della answered almost too quickly. Calysta
had seen the way her sister looked at the Elder Healer. It made her wonder if
they might have a love connection. She knew with all certainty that Della
didn’t bear the mark of the dragon on her hip that all of their coven received
from the Goddess on their fiftieth birthday identifying them as a Guardsman’s
mate, for she’d seen her in her bra and panties before the mating ceremony.
    Well, Dell has always been an odd duck, maybe hers is somewhere
else…
    Deciding to focus on her own screwed up love life and leave
her sister to worry about hers, Calysta pulled on her favorite pair of faded
jeans, comfy red T-shirt, and matching red Chuck Taylor’s, put her hair in a
ponytail, and looked in the mirror. A swipe of mascara and a dab of lip gloss
and the Priestess declared herself, “Good enough. I could pick out everything
that’s wrong but I’m thinkin’ I look good for a hundred and eighty-five.”
    Chuckling to herself as she made her way back to the kitchen,
she tried to contact Maddox one more time and wasn’t surprised when she got the
same echoing sound as before. Pushing through the kitchen door, Calysta winked
at Kyra as Della blushed while talking to Niall on the phone.
    “…Okay, we’ll see you there in just a little bit. Thank you
kindly, Niall.” Della disconnected the call and laid the handset on the counter
before turning around. Without any previous preparation, Calysta and Kyra sang,
“Thank you kindly, Niall,” with an overdone southern accent and their hands on
their foreheads, doing their best Scarlett O’Hara impressions.
    Della blushed a bright red and all three witches erupted
with their amusement. It was Kyra who regained her ability to speak first but
was still snickering when she said, “Okay, ladies, let’s get a move on. I
believe we need to see a man about a dragon.”
    “Ha, ha, ha, how did I end up with such a goofy daughter?”
The Priestess teased.
    “It takes one to know one,” Della chuckled as they made
their way to the front door and out into the first rays of the morning sun.
    Their walk to the clinic was uneventful, which made sense
since pretty much everyone was still in bed. They discussed what colors would
be good in the final two rooms that still needed to be painted in Calysta and
Maddox’s house and when the Council would be arriving for the couple’s wiccan
mating ceremony.
    “So is the entire council coming, even old stink face?” Kyra
asked, wrinkling up her nose and shivering with disgust.
    It was true the Council of Earthen Witches was made up of
the oldest and most experienced witches in existence, who had absolutely no
sense of humor. Calysta had taken her seat when she was little more than a
child and had been quite intimidated for many years. Of course, that was before
she realized she was more powerful than all of them combined and that they were
just a bunch of bullies who refused to leave the middle ages. Now, she merely
thought of them as a bunch of old fuddy-duddies she was forced to deal with
every three months for their meetings and unfortunately, when she got
officially mated with the Blessing of the Goddess.
    ‘Old stink face’ as Kyra so colorfully referred to her, was
Agatha Montage. The younger witch had called the elder witch that moniker since
her christening