Like, really naked. Not even shoes.
And the cement floor was cold, dammit.
Ravi wasn’t normally body shy, but he’d prefer pants in this situation. Was it too much to ask for pants?
“He’s beautiful,” the unknown Jaeggi mage (henceforth known as Jerk Face) noted to Thomas. The leer on his face was particularly disgusting. Like he owned Ravi, somehow. “Why are the dragons always so beautiful?”
“It was part of our ancestors’ downfall, that beauty. But I don’t blame you for enjoying it. He’ll be yours, after all.” Thomas sneered at Ravi as if he were to be blamed for the war.
Ravi sneered back. “That was all you, man. All your family’s fault. If you can’t take no for an answer, that’s totally on your own heads.”
“Kaiser Jaeggi was seduced beyond reason,” Thomas snapped back, his face turning red with anger.
“Have you ever noticed how the abuser always points fingers at someone else? It’s never their fault. They’re never the issue. They always blame someone else when they get out of control.” Ravi glared back. Five hundred years might have made this old history, but the pain of the losses he’d suffered was still there. It would always, at some level, be there. And arguing with these idiots did no good, he knew that. But Ravi couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“And your ancestors’ way of dealing with heartbreak was to kill millions of innocent people, so excuse me if I’m not really interested in showing sympathy!”
Thomas looked ready to belt him in the mouth for that, but he restrained himself with obvious effort, his fists clenching at his sides. “Well. It’s all water under the bridge at this point, isn’t it? I do think it’s poetic justice, however.”
Ravi eyed the other mage suspiciously. Why did the man smell like that? Jaeggi mages always smelled weird, their magic fractured. But this man had the smell of good magic wrapped around him. Well, good in the sense that it smelled like normal magic, but it had overtones of something malignant. If that made sense. His dragon did not like the smell of it.
And Ravi didn’t like where this was going.
“I don’t know about poetic justice or whatever, but I have this burning question that really needs an answer. Why am I naked?”
Thomas ignored his perfectly valid question, going off on a maniacal sort of rant. “Poetic justice, dragon, because for once the tables will be turned. Instead of a dragon using mages, a mage will be able to use you.”
Now that, Ravi couldn’t let stand.
“Excuse you very much, dragons use mages? The hell! Do you know how precious our mages are to us? The amount of trouble and pain we’ll suffer to safeguard them? You’re seriously unhinged if you think I’d ever use a mage for my own ends! And what the hell do you mean, you’re going to use me? I have no magic to give you, and I gotta tell you, hostages never pan out well. For any side.”
Jerk Face tsked at him. And, for some reason, started undoing his pants. “You do have magic, dragon. Of your own sort.”
“Uh, last I checked, I really did not. I mean, I can let people borrow dragon’s breath, that’s about it.” Ravi eyed him warily as the man undid his zipper. “Okay, I was going to let this slide. Because I know you Jaeggi are weird and don’t get out much, I figured maybe I would let this go. But I find I really can’t. Why the hell are you pulling your dick out in the middle of a conversation?”
Jerk Face kept his hand around his own dick and started stroking. “We told you, we will use you for our own ends.”
Ravi wasn’t the type to be slow on the uptake. Usually. But in this case, he was really hoping he was wrong.
“Use me as in rape me? Dude. Are you stupid? Like, literally, having sex with me will do absolutely nothing for your magic mojo. You understand that, right? Or has it been so long since you’ve been around dragons you’ve literally forgotten how this works?”
With a chiding tsk, Thomas corrected, “Not have sex with you. Well, that too. Which I’m sure Moritz will enjoy thoroughly.”
Moritz grinned lecherously. Considering he was well into his sixties, with a craggy face and a bulldog nose, the expression looked really creepy. And wrong on so many levels that it sent goose bumps racing up and down Ravi’s skin.
You know what? Ravi didn’t care that he’d learned the man’s name. He’d remain Jerk Face.
“He’ll bond with you,” Thomas continued calmly. Like they were discussing something banal—the weather, more news at five. Nothing interesting here, folks.
Ravi stared at them, eyes wide, a man waiting for the punchline to a very bad joke.
It didn’t come.
His mouth worked, and eventually he croaked out, “Excuse you?”
“He’ll bond with you,” Thomas repeated, amused at his reaction.
Seriously, all the man was missing was a cigar dangling out of his mouth and a Scotch that he could idly swirl in one hand.
Ravi kept staring at them. They’d lost their god-given minds. Like, there was no other explanation. How did they expect this to work? No, seriously, how did they even think this would work? It was sick and wrong, what they were trying. Ravi was alarmed and disgusted at being their victim. But…but what they wanted to do wouldn’t get them the result they wanted.
He lifted up one leg and in lieu of a hand, pointed his foot at Jerk Face. “Hold up there, horny. You two gotta explain this to me, because I’m not following. Seriously not following. You think fucking me is going to somehow magically bond us?”
Thomas indicated Jerk Face with an eloquent wave of the hand. “He is oiled with a potion that will call to your dragon instincts.”
“Really? I gotta say, it’s working. My dragon is screaming for me to run. Capital letters, bolded, italicized, the works.” Ravi surreptitiously eyed the pole above his head. Just how much could he maneuver?
A frown flickered over Jerk Face’s face. “Your dragon can scent me strongly, recognizes me.”
“Uhhh…no. Sorry, I know you probably worked very hard on the potion, but you smell malignant to me. Like bad news. Like you doused yourself in all the wrong elements. You are not smelling like sugar and spice and everything nice. Quite the opposite. And consent is sexy, haven’t you ever heard that? You’re, like, anti-sexy right now.”
Thomas waved Jerk Face on impatiently. “He’s arguing to buy time. It will work fine.”
“Bonding takes words,” Ravi said, overriding him, impatient and desperate to convince them to drop it. “You know those things that we’re using right now? Those. Words. It requires spell words on both our parts, and intent, and magic. Not to mention a hell of a lot of trust and love. Potions are absolutely not involved. Well, I mean, the special sauce lube, because, duh. But oiling yourself up like a Turkish wrestler does nada for me. I mean, seriously, man, did you even take a shower this morning? I can smell you from here, and the BO is not pretty.”
It worked, a little. Jerk Face stopped working his dick, and he might have deflated a bit. He looked uncertainly between Ravi and Thomas.
“It’s true that he should be enthralled on some level, eager for me to come closer. He’s not exhibiting any of those signs.”
Thomas was also frowning, the first kernel of doubt seeping in. “That’s just his rational mind throwing up objections, though.”