Magic Games (Dragon Born Serafina Book 2) Read online

  Magic Games

  Dragon Born Serafina: Book 2

  Ella Summers

  MAGIC GAMES

  Dragon Born Serafina

  Book 2

  Copyright © 2015

  Version: 2021.07.28

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  Contents

  Story Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Author’s Note

  Books by Ella Summers

  Reading Order: Dragon Born Series

  About the Author

  Story Summary

  Dragon Born mage Sera Dering was sentenced to death before she was even born. Condemned as an abomination by the world’s supernatural council, she has escaped her fate for twenty-four years by pretending to be human.

  Until now.

  When the council finds out Sera has been hiding her magic, they’re determined to find out why. They send her to New York City to compete in the Magic Games, a series of trials designed to break a mage’s mind and crack her secrets.

  And the fighting pit is only one of her worries. An old enemy is stalking Sera from the shadows, preparing to make his next move. To survive the week, Sera has to put her trust in sexy dragon shifter Kai, the world’s most powerful mage—even knowing he has his own plans for her.

  Magic Games is the second book in the Dragon Born Serafina urban fantasy series.

  1

  Battle of the Elements

  Sera hit the dirt, narrowly missing the fireball tearing through the air toward her. It blasted over her head and crashed into the East River. She barely had time to watch it. She was too busy rolling to avoid the second fireball. Its enraged crackle hissed in her ears as it passed. Yes, enraged. Magic was as alive as any person or monster on this earth, its song as unique as a fingerprint—or a snowflake. Especially magic from that mage. He stared across the field at her, an amused twitch tugging at the corner of his lip.

  As though he’d heard her internal meanderings about snowflakes, he pushed his hands forward to unleash a sphere of sparkling blue light that shot at Sera like a missile. She rolled away, the ground rumbling beneath her as the ice blast hammered down. A million tiny shards shattered. They bit at her body, dissolving through her bare arms, her stretchy sport leggings, and her tank top. She sprang up from the roll, shaking off the remaining ice splinters. They sprinkled down to the grass like crystal tears.

  “Sera, this would be a lot easier if you stayed on your feet,” her opponent said, his lip twitch upgrading to a full-out smirk.

  “Easier for you maybe. To hit me,” she added in an agitated growl.

  “You need to fight back,” he said calmly. Before she could speak, he added quickly, “With magic. We’re practicing magic, not snark. That smart mouth of yours won’t help you defeat your opponents in the Magic Games.”

  He was right. And Sera hated it when Kai Drachenburg was right.

  “Giving up already?” he called out to her.

  In response, she clenched her teeth, reaching for her magic. Lightning flashed in the cloudless sky, and a bolt of crackling purple-gold energy slammed down at Kai. He moved away, calm and agile, easily sidestepping her attack. The lightning bolt crashed against the ground with a resounding boom.

  “Better.” He waved his hand, crystalizing the residual lightning flames to ice. “But not good enough. You’re moving too slow. Instead of puffing out one spell at a time, you need to link your magic into combination attacks. Your spells need to work together, like an orchestra.”

  Said the man rated number one of all elemental mages in the whole world. Magic came easily to him. As for her… Well, she’d spent too many years hiding her magic. Using it was like riding an old, rusty bicycle. With a loose handlebar. And a flat tire.

  And then there were those other times—the times when her magic bubbled and burned beneath the surface, longing to gush out. It was too wild for her to control. Not that she was going to complain to Kai about that. He wouldn’t understand. For him, self-control was simply part of his daily regiment, like brushing his teeth. Or stepping on werewolves.

  “Ok,” Sera said, refocusing.

  She drew her hands together. Soft vibrations rippled across her palms. They grew stronger and spread, flooding her body with magic that tingled and pulsed and popped. Her head burned with magic fever. Her magic wanted out. Now.

  But she held onto it. A sweet and tangy taste—vanilla and cherries—slid across her tongue, flooding her mouth. Her magic was breaking free. She held it back a few more seconds, letting it build up. Then, just as she thought she’d collapse from the strain, her magic burst out of her. A swirling ball of wind exploded from her hands. She hurled it at Kai.

  And this time, he wasn’t fast enough.

  It smacked against his chest, the impact throwing him off his feet. He hit the ground hard but got up immediately. He stared at her, a challenge burning in his eyes.

  Sera didn’t wait. She dipped again into her magic, and a wind barrier burst out of the ground to swallow Kai whole. It spun like a tornado, trapping him inside. Red-orange flames sparked to life atop the lip of the spinning wind funnel. They slid down the sides like a waterfall of fire, setting the wind funnel alight.

  “Let’s see you get out of that,” Sera said softly, more to herself than to him. She brushed off her hands in satisfaction.

  An ominous crack splintered the air. A moment later, the burning wind barrier froze solid. A second crack, louder than the first, swallowed the silence. The frozen cocoon shattered, and Kai stepped forward. The icy pebbles dissolved to steam beneath his feet. The heavy vapor wafted and curled in the air around him, hugging him like a suit of armor.

  Sera gaped at him. “How is this even possible?”

  He gave her a smug wink, and the fog armor dissolved. “Practice. Years of practice.”

  “Practice?” she choked out.

  Any other mage could have practiced every second of his life and never been able to do anything like that. Kai didn’t just wield the elements; he bent them to his will. He dominated every fabric of their magic.

  “It’s no wonder everyone’s afraid of you,” she said.

  A smile spread across his lips. “Not you.”

  “I told you before. I’m too dumb to be scared of anyone.”

  “That’s not true, Sera. You just like to pretend that it is. You act tough and prickly so that people leave you alone.”

  “It didn’t work with you.”

  “Maybe dragons like tough and prickly.”

  She grunted in response. In addition to being the master of the elements, Kai was one of very few mages in the world who could shift into a dragon. He was dangerous. She’d had to remind herself of that far too many times over the past several weeks. Her stupid hormones kept getting in the way of common sense.

  “
Could you teach me to do that with my magic?” she asked him, steering the conversation away from dangerous waters.

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “You have the power inside of you. You just need to practice controlling it.”

  “I am trying.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Setting the wind barrier on fire was a good move. A combination like that will work well against most opponents you’ll face.”

  “It didn’t work on you,” she grumbled.

  His shoulders lifted in an easy shrug, and his fitted black t-shirt stretched taut against his chest, showcasing every dip and bulge of muscle. Not that she was looking. Or ogling.

  You’ve been ogling him for the past hour. That’s why he’s kicking your ass, the voice in her head said helpfully.

  I have not been ogling him, she told the voice.

  It snorted. How many people had voices in their head who could snort? She did glare extra hard at Kai, however, just to prove she wasn’t ogling.

  The lift of his dark eyebrows told her he wasn’t fooled either. “Like what you see, sweetheart?”

  “I’ll like what I see when you’re flat on your back.”

  His smile spread wider.

  Argh, not like that! She tried—and failed—to hold back the heat spreading across her cheeks.

  “With my boot pinning you down,” she clarified.

  He walked toward her, his eyes shining like blue glass. And burning with magic.

  “You know, like a wrestling match.” She held her ground, resisting the urge to flee. She was a tough mercenary who killed monsters for a living. She wasn’t afraid of a big, bad mage. Even if he could shift into an even bigger and badder dragon.

  “You have to pin down your opponent…” Her voice trailed. She wasn’t helping matters.

  He stopped in front of her. “Tell me more about these boots.” His deep voice buzzed against her skin, his magic electrifying the air around them. “And what else you’ll be wearing.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at him. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. This is about fighting. You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  “I am helping you,” he replied, his voice low. He looked offended.

  Ok, that was true. For three weeks, ever since that messenger from the Magic Council had showed up on her doorstep, Kai had spent every day training her. And, much as she hated to admit it, she really did need his help. She was so out of her league that it wasn’t even funny.

  When the Council had found out she was an unregistered mage, they’d told her she would be participating in the next Magic Games to have her magic assessed. Well, maybe ‘assessed’ was too nice of a word. The Games weren’t just about the actual fights. That would have been easy; Sera had been fighting monsters since she could walk, after all. The real fight in the Games was on a whole other front. They would try to get inside her head, to crack open her magic, dig out her secrets, and hang them out to dry. And the moment the Magic Council learned Sera’s secret, they would kill her.

  She couldn’t tell Kai that. He was on the Magic Council himself. He knew she was hiding something, but he’d stopped asking what it was. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he cared about her, as he claimed. She hoped…

  No, she couldn’t hope. The day she started hoping and dreaming was the day she started forgetting to check behind her back. Things had already spun too far out of control. The Magic Council knew she was a mage, a fact she’d managed to keep hidden from them for twenty-four years. She’d gotten sloppy.

  This had all started when the guild sent her to do a job for Kai. Well, she’d made a mighty mess of that. She’d allowed her feelings for him—hell, she shouldn’t even be having feelings for him—to get in the way, and she’d used her magic to save him. And it hadn’t been some tiny flicker of fire or a few snow flurries. She’d set a whole freaking stone tower on fire. She’d set off an earthquake under it. And she’d poured her magic into a glyph to teleport them across San Francisco. In short, she’d been as subtle as a stampede of warring centaurs.

  She was so screwed.

  “Sorry,” she told Kai. “My nerves are shot right now.”

  Just one day left until the Magic Games. One day to figure out how to survive the Magic Council’s mind games.

  “You have been helping me.” She reached toward him—but dropped her hand to her side before it made contact. Touching was a bad idea. “And I really appreciate it.”

  According to Kai, they had cracked him back when he’d been in the Games. Him. Kai Drachenburg, the world’s most powerful mage. The man who turned into an enormous dragon. The man who stomped on werewolves and toppled armored military tanks. The man with more self-control than anyone she’d ever met. If his mind hadn’t held up, how could she entertain even a glimmer of hope that hers would? She pushed the thoughts from her head. They would only paralyze her.

  “Sera,” he said, setting his hands on her shoulders.

  A tingle of magic lingered on his fingertips, the soothing vibrations rippling across her skin. Whatever he was doing, she wished he would keep doing it. Forever.

  See? Touching is bad.

  She shifted her weight to put some distance between them. He didn’t try to hold onto her; his hands just rolled off her shoulders. Sera had to admit she was disappointed—even knowing that touching was bad. Touching led to kissing. And kissing Kai cracked her self-control faster than anything the Architect of the Magic Games could throw at her.

  “You spent years killing supernatural beasts, using no magic whatsoever,” he told her.

  “That’s not true. Sometimes I cheated.” She gave him a half-smile. “When no one was looking.”

  “Very well. Using minimal magic and only when no one was there to see it,” he said. “How often did that even happen?”

  “How often did I use my magic? Almost never,” she admitted. The monsters she’d faced in battle were nothing next to the beasts that sat on the Magic Council—those mages, vampires, fairies, and ghosts who had labeled her kind abominations and sentenced them to extinction.

  “Your magic is beautiful,” Kai said.

  He rubbed two of his fingers together, sampling the magic in the air. Her magic. And his. They’d become entwined, just as they always did whenever he was within ten feet of her. She could tell her hands not to touch Kai, but ever since that incident in the burning tower—no, basically ever since she’d met Kai—she’d had no luck whatsoever reining in her duplicitous magic. It had decided that it liked his magic. Like really liked it. Right now it was purring like a winged cat in heat.

  Get a grip, she told it. So now she was talking to the voice in her head and to her magic. If that wasn’t crazy, she didn’t know what was.

  “Would you like to take a break from training? I’m sensing that you’re…” Kai’s gaze slid up her body. “…distracted.”

  “Keep your shirt on. I’m fine.”

  He looked at her, clearly perplexed. “My shirt?”

  “It’s an expression,” she told him. And apparently one that German dragons didn’t know. Or he was just being coy.

  “So it has nothing to do with actual articles of clothing?” His puzzlement melted to amusement. “Or the removal thereof?” He stepped closer.

  She backed up, matching him stride for stride, trying to maintain a safe minimal distance. Whatever that distance was. Jupiter might be far enough away.

  “No,” she croaked out. “No clothing.”

  His grin widened. Shit.

  “Uh, I mean it has nothing to do with clothing,” she spluttered. “It means stay calm.”

  “You’re not calm,” he said, gliding to a smooth stop. “You’re nervous.” His smile waned.

  “Of course I’m nervous. A dragon is looking at me like he wants to eat me for dinner.”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t be nervous around me.”

  “Then maybe you should stop trying to make me nervous.”

  “I’m not…” He
stopped, looking up. Like he was actually chewing that over. A few moments later, his gaze returned to her. “Am I?”

  “Yes, you get a kick out of intimidating people,” she said, then, realizing she was being unfair, added, “Maybe it’s so engrained that you don’t realize you’re doing it.”

  The dark glint in his eyes told her she’d said the wrong thing. Usually, she didn’t trip over her tongue like this. It was those damn Games. The stress of them was throwing her off her game—and they hadn’t even started. What would she do when she entered the fighting pit? When the Magic Council threw every weapon in their mind-frying arsenal at her? Her pitiful twenty-four years was nothing compared to their centuries of research and experience. They’d been breaking mages for centuries.

  “I’m sorry,” she told Kai. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He looked at her, his expression guarded. “It was never my intention to intimidate you.”

  “What was your intention?” she asked.

  Smooth. Real smooth, the voice taunted.

  Shut up, she told it. But it was right. She was mangling everything.

  “I think I’ve made my intentions clear, Sera,” Kai said.

  Heat flooded her as she remembered the kisses they’d shared. They had made out on his desk, and they’d have done a whole lot more than that if his secretary hadn’t walked in on them. Sera pushed thoughts of Kai’s hands sliding down her body—of his magic caressing hers—out of her head. She turned away from him. It was hard not thinking about those things when he was right in front of her.