Dragon Conjurer 5, page 23
“Mmmmm,” the Ronin sighed. “I liked that a lot.”
“So much,” Elisabeth moaned with exhaustion. “My goodness.”
“I’m glad you ladies enjoyed yourselves,” I chuckled as I pulled out of Ronin, and once she rolled over onto her back, I leaned down to kiss my ladies. “You’re both amazing.”
“I don’t think I can move,” Elisabeth giggled softly.
“I know I don’t want to move.” Ronin smirked. “Does your system’s training program have a time limit?”
“I don’t think so,” I sighed with satisfaction as I lowered my sweaty body deeper into the crystal-clear water.
“Let’s just stay here,” my red-haired lover hummed as she swished her feet daintily in the water.
“Sounds good to me.” A smile spread out across the Japanese girl’s freckled face. “Too bad we don’t have any food.”
“Mmm,” Elisabeth agreed. “I could eat. Dylan wore me out reeeally good.”
“And we could feed our Dragon Conjurer grapes.” Ronin smirked at the idea. “Like the ancient myths of Greek gods.”
“You wanna fan me with big jungle leaves?” I teased, and both girls giggled and nodded immediately.
“We could do that,” Elisabeth chirped and snatched the nearest leaf beside the pool. It was a tiny thing, smaller than her hand, but she waved it gently at me anyway. “How’s this?”
“Aaahh,” I sighed and put on my best posh accent. “So refreshing, thank you, my darling.”
I chuckled at the girls’ blushing faces and sweet smiles while they fell into a fit of giggles, and I waded contentedly around the little pool. I felt energized like I never had before, and my dragons stretched happily under my skin like they had extra energy, too, but it wasn’t in an uncomfortable way this time. Ky’s chill and Goldie’s wind felt like a refreshing spring breeze that was perfectly balanced by Beyblade’s heat. Thor’s electric current was so mild now that it felt like the kind of buzz you got from a couple shots of whisky rather than a car battery hooked directly to my nervous system.
My two lovers drew my attention away from my thoughts as they started proposing more ways to spoil me for the excellent fucking I’d given them, and I listened in once in a while they carried on and on.
“What if we built him a throne of mossy stones?” Ronin devolved into a giggling mess.
“That sounds like way too much work,” Elisabeth laughed. “He is worth the effort, but we should get Nala and Steffi to help us with a tribute that grand.”
I lost track of their ideas eventually, as I noticed I really did feel incredible right now. I thought back to the way my dragons had acted with every touch and kiss of my girls, and the way the elements flowed through my body more intensely right from the beginning. Thor’s lightning had nearly taken my knees out from under me, and Beyblade’s fire had reached a fevered pitch again, and Ky’s ice raced down to my fingers.
But then things had changed.
All that energy shifted from what seemed surface-level to something way deeper. It was like all their powers fused in my core, and had I really seen the plants rustling in a breeze there at the end?
There was no breeze now. Not a single leaf shifted in the firefly-lit air of Steffi’s jungle.
“I’m actually really hungry,” Elisabeth mused. “I wonder if this is what Nick feels like all the time?”
“Probably,” Ronin sighed. “I’m hungry, too. What about you, Dragon Master?”
“Master?” I chuckled at my adoring girls. “I thought I was a Conjurer.”
“You fuck like a master,” the blushing French girl giggled.
“Oh, really?” I grinned at the exotic, dripping wet beauties. “Well, in that case, I order the two of you to get food. My girls have to be well taken care of.”
“Come with us,” Elisabeth pouted.
“You two go on ahead,” I said as I eyed the perfectly still leaves again. “I’ll meet up with you shortly.”
“Are you sure?” Elisabeth said, and a small line of concern pushed itself between her coppery eyebrows.
“Is everything alright?” Ronin asked.
“Yeah, I just need to do something,” I assured them. “I need to talk to Dr. Hastings about my dragons real quick.”
Chapter 14
My girls and I let ourselves drip dry in the cooling air of the darkened jungle before we pulled on our clothes, and I stopped in the control room to cancel the holographic jungle simulation on our way to the door.
“I’ll see you two beauties in a little bit.” I kissed Ronin and Elisabeth and then pulled the training room door open for my ladies.
“See you soon,” Elisabeth cooed, and she looped her arm through Ronin’s arm as they strolled off toward the cafeteria. “Come on, I bet Nick has dragged everyone down to the cafeteria by now.”
“You don’t think they’re up in your suite?” Ronin asked.
“Probably not,” Elisabeth giggled. “He probably wants to keep his secret stash of goodies in the kitchen safe from Doppelganger and Kit.”
“That’s a good point.” Ronin nodded. “They have quite an appetite themselves, they just don’t make it as obvious.”
I shook my head as I watched my girls walk away together for another moment before I turned to make my way toward the cadet medical testing area. I had no idea what Dr. Hastings’ daily schedule was like, but since the medical center was technically closer than the monster areas, I figured it was worth checking for her there first.
I pushed the main door to the medical area open and stood awkwardly for a moment as scientists in white coats passed by me without a second glance. After several long seconds, a short, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses looked up at me and walked over.
“Mr. Cooper, right?” the man in the white coat asked.
“Uh, yeah.” I nodded and glanced around the room. “Is Dr. Hastings available? There’s been a development with my dragons I wanted to ask her about.”
“She’s down in the basements working on something.” The balding man furrowed his brow. “But, seeing as you’re her primary research subject, I suppose we could probably interrupt and see if she has a few moments.”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I added, even though I was anxious to ask the sexy doctor about the intense reactions my dragons gave off and the sensation of my own increased power during my jungle adventure. “I don’t want to bug her if she’s doing something important…”
“No, no, not at all.” The bald scientist pushed his glasses up on his nose as he shook his head forcefully. “Dr. Hastings said you and your dragons are a top priority.”
“‘Top priority’?” I murmured softly.
“Mmhmm,” the scientist hummed as he walked out into the hallway. “I’m Dr. Godfrey, by the way. It’s a pleasure to officially meet you.”
“You, too.” I followed Dr. Godfrey toward the elevator.
“Your arrival back in October stirred things up quite a bit,” the bald man said with childlike excitement, and he pressed the elevator button to bring us down to the basements. “It’s been fascinating to observe your progress.”
“Happy to help,” I recited my usual response for when I didn’t know what else to say to the excited scientists. I was genuinely happy to be helping the world and saving people from monsters, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever really get used to all the attention or praise.
“Good, very good,” Dr. Godfrey said as the doors opened again. “Right this way. Dr. Hastings is in monster exam room five.”
“Great,” I murmured and followed the man in the white coat as he strolled quickly down the hall.
“Dr. Hastings?” Dr. Godfrey knocked on the door before he opened it enough to stick his bald head in.
“What is it, Harold?” Dr. Hastings’ voice reached me from inside the medical exam room, and I could hear the slight irritation in her tone at being interrupted.
“Mr. Cooper is in need of a word with you,” the bald man answered.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Dr. Hastings’ tone turned expectant. “Is he with you?”
“Yes.” Dr. Godfrey ushered me forward with a wave of his hand. “He said he wanted to talk to you about a new development with his dragons, so I brought him right down to you.”
“Excellent.” The platinum-blonde scientist smiled brightly at me as I stepped through the open door. “Very good, Harold, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The bald man pushed his glasses up his nose again before he dismissed himself.
I could see him mentally patting himself on the back at his job well done, and I chuckled softly as the door closed behind me.
“Mr. Cooper, how are you?” Dr. Hastings asked while she leaned back down over her subject on the metal examination table between us.
The good doctor’s platinum-blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head, and her glasses were perched precariously on the end of her nose.
The eight-foot-long metal table between us was covered end to end with the snake-like body of some monster I’d never encountered before. It had two stubby arms like a T-Rex with three curled fingers, and long, walrus-like tusks protruded from its wide snout like some kind of wolf-sized, frilled lizard. The creature looked amphibious with a slime green body and smooth skin like an eel. It had wide eyes the size of tennis balls that were milky white from either blindness or the fact that the beast was clearly dead. Its chest cavity was flayed open wide, and Dr. Hastings had her hands wrist-deep in the beast’s internal organs that were a sickly grayish-green color.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” I asked as I looked over the odd creature. “This seems… like a large project.”
“Not at all, just a bit of research.” Dr. Hastings nodded her head at the lizard-dinosaur thing on the table. “Are you familiar with the Gowrow, Mr. Cooper?”
“I can’t say that I am.” I shook my head and pointed a finger at the milky white eyes that bulged out from the beast’s disproportionately large head. “Are they blind?”
“No, that’s a side effect of the formaldehyde,” Dr. Hastings explained as she leaned in close and yanked a globular organ from the monster’s chest. Then she held the grayish mass up to the light for a moment. “Perfect specimen.”
“What’s that?” I asked with genuine curiosity.
“The Gowrow’s spleen.” The sexy scientist grinned as she laid the slimy, squash-sized organ in a metal pan on the table beside her. “This is actually an adolescent. The Gowrow can grow to be twenty feet long.”
“Twenty feet?” I looked at the seven-foot-long creature on the table and tried to imagine it nearly three times the size it was. “Damn.”
“Exactly, that’s why this specimen was such an amazing find.” The platinum-blonde nodded and stripped off her latex exam gloves to drop them in the metal trash can in the corner. “Now, Dr. Godfrey said you wanted to share a new development with your dragons?”
“Uh, yeah, something strange happened during a… uh… training session.” I fumbled for the words and suddenly realized it was going to be difficult to explain what had happened without flat out telling the doctor I was having amazing sex with more than one girl at the same time.
“Don’t be shy, Mr. Cooper,” Dr. Hastings murmured as she pulled her glasses off and folded them in her hand. “Was it a new level of mental connection with your dragons?”
“Uh, maybe, sort of,” I said, and a wave of warmth flushed over my body as I remembered the sensations my dragons gave off with every touch and kiss Ronin and Elisabeth had given me. “It was more, uh-- well, it’s hard to explain.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Cooper, take your time.” Dr. Hastings pulled two metal chairs away from the wall and gestured for me to have a seat. “What were you doing when this began?”
“Well…” I took a deep breath and figured I would give her as much of the truth as I could manage. “I guess I could actually start with this morning. Let’s start there, instead. This morning, my dragons were really agitated to the point that it was painful. Thor was sending electric shocks down my back that made my toes go all pins-and-needles, and I thought I was going to get frostbite on my fingers from Ky’s ice.”
“Really?” The doctor uncrossed and recrossed her legs in the most Basic Instinct move I’d ever seen in real life. Then she pulled a notepad from the pocket of her white lab coat, and as she stooped forward to take a few notes, I realized I could see just a whisper of her cleavage. “That does sound serious.”
“Uh-huh,” I forced my mouth closed before I could drool all over the monster exam room floor. “This happened just before the ranking ceremony.”
“You did not appear distressed when you received your new Third Rank uniform,” Dr. Hastings replied. “Did you find some means of relieving this agitation?”
“Yeah, I had to,” I explained. “It felt like the dragons were getting claustrophobic, or something. Like they needed to get out of the tattoos and breathe, so Nick and I went out to the grounds, and I let them run for a while.”
“And that seemed to help,” Dr. Hastings surmised.
“Yeah, they all seemed really happy to be out in the fresh air, and they played for a while together.” I nodded.
“Excellent, have you noticed any developments with your connection to them outside of their tattoos?” Dr. Hastings asked, and she chewed thoughtfully on the corner of her bottom lip as she scribbled more details in her notepad.
“Well, the connection I have with Goldie and her hearing is stronger,” I said. “I was immediately hearing through her ears as soon as I summoned her, but it took me a bit to notice. Once I focused on her, I could tell we were already connected.”
“Excellent, have you noticed any more characteristics of this connection?” Dr. Hastings asked.
“When I’m hearing through Goldie’s ears, there’s a little bit of an echo,” I recalled. “It’s almost like the sounds are coming through a little tunnel, but I haven’t had a whole lot of opportunity to explore the connection more than that. Only enough to see that, if I focus enough, I can differentiate between what I’m hearing and what she’s hearing.”
“Very good, see if you can focus more on this auditory meshing of your minds the next time you summon Goldie.” Dr. Hastings’ pen raced across her notepad. “What about the tether you mentioned between yourself and Ky?”
“It was stronger this morning.” I nodded again and thought back to the silvery thread between myself and my ice dragon. “And it’s got an anchor point now.”
“An anchor point, now that’s interesting.” The doctor smiled at me, and her gray eyes seemed to twinkle with more than scientific interest. “Where is it?”
“Here on my shoulder.” I lifted my left hand and pointed at the spot on the outermost edge of my collarbone near where Ky’s head currently curled up under my skin.
“Fascinating,” Dr. Hastings hummed as she stood from her chair and leaned forward to touch her fingertips to my shoulder. “Where exactly is Ky in relation to this specific point?”
“Uh, h-he’s here,” I fumbled, as I gently took her hand to move it a little to the side. Her skin was silky smooth, and her eyes flicked to mine for the briefest second before I released her hand, and Ky wriggled like a dog getting its head scratched.
“Here?” Dr. Hastings asked quietly and kept her fingers in place.
“Yep.” I nodded as calmly as possible.
“I feel a strange coldness,” she observed.
“Yeah, Ky and Beyblade give off some energy like that,” I explained.
“So, if I were to touch Beyblade… I would feel heat?” Dr. Hastings asked.
“Uh-huh,” I croaked and gestured to my torso. “His tattoo is… well, he’s all over, actually. From my neck to uh… lower.”
The scientist’s gray eyes gleamed with amusement as she glanced at my lower abdomen, but then she smiled and straightened up.
“Well, I think Ky’s anchor point is relatively close to his head, then,” Dr. Hastings concluded, and she sat down in her chair to make another note. “What about Beyblade and Thor? Have you found any connections with them, yet?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I tried to connect with them both, but there was nothing.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Cooper, I’m sure that will develop with more time and practice.” Dr. Hastings leaned forward and patted my thigh. “These developments are all remarkable, though. Is there anything else of note you’d like to share with me?”
“Yes… there actually is,” I admitted, and I tried to sound very casual as I realized we were getting to the more difficult part. “Something happened while Ronin, Elisabeth, and I were in the training room just now.”
“Were your dragons still in your tattoos or had you summoned them?” Dr. Hastings asked.
“They were in my tattoos,” I answered.
“And then what happened?” Dr. Hastings prompted.
“Well… Elisabeth brushed up against Ky’s tattoo, and there was this super intense rush of cold down my arm,” I explained, and my body went hot at the memory. “The same thing happened with Goldie, and my other dragons, too. Feverish heat from Beyblade, and electric currents from Thor. But it wasn’t really the same as usual. Not even the same as what happened this morning.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Hastings murmured as she scribbled a note down on her pad. “And was this a constant sensation, or did you find something in particular initiated the occurrence several times over?”
“It, uh, it wasn’t constant, no.” I hesitated again, and my heart started to race as I felt the doctor start to work out the specifics of the situation.
“Right.” The fashionable cougar smirked at me and pursed her lips a moment. “Were these instances of reaction from your dragons triggered by a more… recreational situation?”
“You could say that,” I chuckled and rubbed my hand over the back of my neck nervously. “The details there probably aren’t important, honestly. Just… I was with the two women, and my dragons were acting up a bit more than they have before. I noticed this, but I was… not too concerned with it in the moment. And then shit got weirder, and it felt like their powers were… mine?”
