All Fired Up: Book 1 of the Jezibaba Saga
All Fired Up
Book 1 of the Jezibaba Saga
Donna McDonald
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Copyright © 2018 by Donna McDonald
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.
This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.
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Cover by Renee George
Edited by Madison Kamer and MYST Partners
Created with Vellum
Contents
Introduction
Book Description
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Excerpt: Not Fairy Common
Book Description
Chapter 1
Excerpt: Matchmaker Abduction
More About The Aliens In Kilts Series
Chapter 1
Other Books By This Author
About the Author
Introduction
This is a new series and can be read alone, but for maximum enjoyment of all the characters and situations in All Fired Up, you may want to read the original series that inspired this one.
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Book 1 of the Jezibaba Saga starts at the point where Elenora has left her original Jezibaba role featured in the Baba Yaga Saga series. In All Fired Up, the infamous dragon-witch is in the process of retiring from her 300 year career as the Jezibaba witch protectress, but no one in her life seems to want to let her.
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Also, Elenora and Damien are already a couple at the start of the new Jezibaba Saga, but they not yet ‘officially’ mated by dragon law. Elenora doesn’t care if they ever become an official couple while Damien is hotly determined to make sure it happens.
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If you want to read the trilogy of stories leading up to this one and that reveals how the Jezibaba became a dragon-witch, please visit my website here for more information.
Book Description
She’s the Jezibaba—not the Jezibooboo—well, at least most of the time.
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The infamous dragon-witch is flying in to make her second debut in a brand new, shiny, hilarious mini-series that’s part of the Love Spells collection!
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Jezibaba—aka Elenora the reluctant Dragoness—is tucked into her beach house and enjoying her retirement. After hundreds of years of protecting the nutbag magical community, she deserves a little peace and quiet. Right?
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Wrong… What she doesn’t deserve is her dragon lover announcing their mating to all of dragonkind. Those crazy flying freaks consider her to be Damien’s pet human which is really not working for her. The chaos she calls her life has her all fired up again. Retirement will have to wait. Something has to be done before her inner dragon decides to get involved and the witch hits the fan.
Prologue
Once upon a time—in a place where magic was revered and cherished—a special witch named Elenora was born. Unfortunately for the child, her family was shitty times ten and the hereditary witches were jealous of her specialness. They did not want Elenora to be the dragon-witch of the prophecy.
To keep her magical powers from developing and growing larger than theirs, her mother and grandmother both refused to train Elenora in magic. Only her great-grandmother—the chosen one who began the prophecy—cared about what happened to her. Before her great-grandmother died and left this plane of existence, she prayed to Morgana the Red and asked her to rescue Elenora from her shitty family.
And so the Goddess Morgana did.
Grateful for any chance to thrive and practice magic, Elenora accepted the gift of being saved. In return, she swore her fidelity to Goddess Morgana and served as the Jezibaba, the head honcho witch protectress of the magical community for over 300 years. Her job came with many perks such as a magical posse of savvy warlocks led by the ever-faithful Nathaniel who was another “gift” from Morgana.
In those three hundred years, the Jezibaba made friends and enemies, though more often than not it was hard to tell one group from the other.
Twenty years ago, in the middle of babysitting two young witches predicted to be her future replacements, Elenora fell in love with their school headmaster dragon, Damien Smoke, who woke the beast that had been sleeping inside her. This fulfilled the dragon-witch prophecy of her family but the pain of shifting from human into the big red beast is definitely at the top of the shittier part of the deal list.
Then just when she thought her life couldn’t get any stranger, she met a horribly rude mage named Zenos who claimed to be her great-grandfather on her dragon side. Oh… and he also claimed her big red dragon used to be his. There was also something about Morgana tricking him too, but neither her goddess nor the mage are talking about the past. What she did find out is that Zenos became an immortal Bennu/Firebird/Phoenix when he lost his dragon. Apparently, she and Zenos are the only two creatures in the whole world who think that was a terrible deal.
Sound as confusing as a crone chanting? It is. Two decades have passed and she’s still coming to terms with her fate being in the hands of all manner of creatures she isn’t allowed to kill. Life sure gets boring when you have to be nice all the time.
What Damien wants is for their future is to be able to play Lord and Lady Dragon of his lair. She doesn’t need permission from the stuck-up dragons on the Dragon Council to do that. Despite her aggravation though, she’s promised to go before the Dragon Council with him.
As usual though, all good deeds seem to turn to evil when everyone discovers the former Jezibaba is involved. There are rumors of the Council of Witches being aligned with the disgruntled Flame Horde dragons. Judging from the scathing hate rolling off the super-bitchy Selene of the Flame Horde—who’s next in line to lead the freaking Dragon Council—a whole bunch of trouble is definitely in the works.
She always thought dragon politics were bad, but it turns out they’re even worse than witch politics. It also doesn’t help that the evil Flame Horde dragoness absolutely HATES Damien’s mother, Celeste. Apparently, Damien’s father robbed the she-dragon cradle in mating Damien’s mother. Even though the dragon stud went to dragon heaven over five hundred years ago, the scorned Flame Horde dragoness is still holding her grudge.
Honestly? All of this stupid dragon drama is making her alleged retirement seem like just some big joke Gaia and the Ancient Ones are playing on her. Right now she has a true hot mess of a life.
One thing is for certain though, you can bet your best spell that if the Goddess Morgana ever mentions another gift, no matter how alluring and tempting, Elenora will say, “Blessed be, but no, Goddess—just no.”
And she is determined to believe that the rest of her unbelievable life story is still being written. The struggle to keep cool while writing her new destiny might be her greatest challenge to date when so many dragons get all fired up.
1
“Why are you cooking yourself in the sun? Redheads burn easily in Gaia’s plane of existence.”
Elenora rolled over on her beach towel and stared up at the giant woman casting a tall shadow over her. “I cast a spell that keeps sunburn from happening. It lasts nearly a whole day, but I only come out here in the early mornings. I sneak out when Damien sleeps in. It gives me a chance to be alone.”
“Well, cast a spell for me this morning. I need a comfortable place to sit—one where sand won’t find its way into places it doesn’t belong.”
“As you wish, Goddess,” Elenora answered with a barely hidden grin.
Elenora climbed to her feet, pulled a compact wand from her snug bikini top, and waved it in the ocean-scented air. She chanted in the delightfully rhythmic language of magic. Moments later, a shaded cabana appeared complete with lawn chairs and ice-cold drinks. She watched with great curiosity as a subdued Morgana walked under the cabana’s protection and sunk down into the first chair. The woman stretched out her nine-foot-tall glowing body and slumped in the chair until her shiny, golden toga draped the ground.
Tucking her wand back into her top, Elenora reached down to the towel she’d been lying on and retrieved her swimsuit cover-up. Only after she was a bit more presentable did she wander over to the lawn chairs herself.
“Should I kneel to greet you properly?” Elenora asked.
Morgana shook her head. “No. This is not that kind of a visit. Just pour me one of those refreshing drinks you conjured up.”
Lifting one eyebrow at the far less haughty and strangely pleasant tone the goddess was using with her, Elenora wandered to the other chair and sat. She took her time pouring drinks for both of them. She lifted the two glasses and handed one to Morgana the Red. “What shall we drink to today?”
Morgana took the drink from Elenora’s hand. “Let’s drink to honesty. I came to ask you a question.”
“As you wish,” Elenora said, taking a nervous sip. “I will answer as honestly as I can. I always do.”
“Do you hate me, Elenora?”
Elenora laughed and received a glare for it. At least that much seemed normal. “Would it matter to you if I did? I’ve hated you plenty over the three hundred years we’ve known each other and you never seemed to mind before.”
Snorting, Morgana lifted her drink to her mouth and sipped. “Which means the answer is yes—you do hate me. I suppose I knew that already. This drink is very good, by the way.”
“Thank you,” Elenora said lightly. “And I didn’t really answer your question. I was being flippant. You are my goddess and I serve you willingly. Love and hate don’t enter into my thinking.”
“Ah, yes. You see yourself in my everlasting service,” Morgana repeated wryly. She leaned back in the chair and looked out at the ocean. “Gaia’s world is very beautiful, isn’t it? The ocean may well be one of her most outstanding achievements. Magicals like you are her second greatest. The rest of us though—all the gods and goddesses other than her—we’re nothing more than caretakers of her creations. We forget that sometimes. The Great Mother is the real artist of this world.”
Elenora shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me, Morgana. I honor and respect you. You’ve always taken good care of me. Yes, we’ve had our differences, but I cannot say you have not blessed me over and over again. You’ve taken care of those I’ve asked you to as well. Isn’t that all I have a right to expect in exchange for my service to you?”
Her goddess went on talking as if she hadn’t heard the explanation. Elenora’s confusion—and concern—doubled as she listened.
“The problem is that gods and goddesses see too much, Elenora. I try not to be more unkind than is necessary with my interventions, but toughness just comes with being a deity. Did you know that in the time of the Ancient Ones I was a magical like you?”
“Are you saying you weren’t always a goddess?”
“No, but we’re talking thousands of years ago, not a few decades,” Morgana said dryly.
“How did you become who you are?”
“Like the father of Zenos, and many others with the same fate who have come after us, I was one of the first chosen to ascend. It was only after I made my choice to not to go with the rest of the chosen to the in-between that I realized I would be involved with Gaia’s creatures all the time if I stayed in my grove and this close to her plane of existence. That choice has been more of a trial than I could ever explain to you, but it’s been a good life as well.”
“Wow,” Elenora blurted out before she could stop herself. “You knew the father of Zenos. That’s hard to imagine.”
Morgana rolled her eyes. “Is that all you heard of my revelation? I was around long before that particular Ancient was.”
Elenora shrugged. “Sorry, but my dragon side still vexes me. What was his father like?”
Morgana sighed. “He was like all dragons and you’re missing the bigger picture here, Elenora.”
“If you say so...” Elenora sipped her drink and wish she’d put some rum in it. Morgana wasn’t making any sense and the goddess had mostly ruined her quiet morning watching the sunrise.
Morgana leaned forward in her chair and pulled her clothing from the sand. “This is not easy for me, Elenora, but it must be done to aid your progression. I wish your view of your service to me to end in its current form. From this day forward, you are completely free to decline any request I make of you. And when you pass on from Gaia’s realm, your soul may choose its own eternal resting place among whatever creatures you wish. Just know that if you wish to come to my grove for your afterlife, you will always have a place there.”
Elenora felt her forehead wrinkle. “Now I’m confused more than ever. Are you completely severing our relationship?”
“No, Elenora. I am merely changing it for the good of us both—well, the whole world actually. I was trying to remain humble.”
Elenora chewed her lip in thought. “Goddess Morgana, you saved my life when I was a child and gave me a life I would never have had without you. You will never be able to release me from the devotion and gratitude I feel towards you. You’ve been…” she stopped, looking for the right word. “You’ve been my caretaker as I have been caretaker to all magicals in Gaia’s realm. Serving you is the reason I still breathe.”
“No, it’s not,” Morgana said firmly, setting down her drink. “You were meant for much more than serving me and I’ve kept you from that part of your fate for my own selfish reasons. I have a new witch protectress who relishes the work you used to do. I had other plans for you myself, Elenora, but I don’t have the right to coerce you into doing my bidding anymore. The only favor I expect you to complete after today is to help Leelu as you promised. When she is free of her mother’s curse, so are you.”
“Of course, I will help free the fairy from her curse. I gave you my word,” Elenora said.
Morgana nodded. “I know. That is why I now give you mine. Make your own decisions. Live your own life. I wish you to think more kindly of our connection to each other.” She pushed herself upright in the chair. “Now I need to get back. I left a sated Bennu sleeping in my bed. I don’t want him to know I snuck out to see you.”
“Why?” Elenora demanded, before quietly admitting that she’d done the same leaving Damien.
Morgana stood and looked around. “Because Emeritus said I should leave you alone and let you find your own way, but in the end, I couldn’t. I wanted to tell you in person that you were now free to do whatever you needed to do. Go with my blessing and use all the gifts I have given you over the years. My last piece of advice is that you make peace with the dragon within you as soon as you can. You can’t live happily with so much unresolved. You’ve let over ten years pass already. Stop running and face your inner beast.”
“Why must I accept the beast, Morgana? I lived three hundred years without it. Most days I even forget I have a dragon in me—at least outside of my bed.”
Morgana rolled her eyes at the droll joke. “You must accept your inner dragon because it’s the right thing to do. The creature is part of you, Elenora, no matter how it got there. For once in your life, stop being stubborn. Promise me you’ll accept your dragon. You need it and it needs you.”
Elenora lowered her head to look at the sand while she considered what her goddess was asking of her, but when she raised her gaze again, Morgana was already gone. She had no idea if she’d ever see her goddess again. It had sounded like she wouldn’t. What had she done to make Morgana want to put so much distance between them?
When a wave of intense sadness washed over her, she sent the cabana away and transported back to her bedroom. Removing her clothing, she slid back into bed and curled herself around her dragon lover’s big warm human body. He pulled her under one of his massive arms and held tight. Allowing Damien’s physical possession of her was the closest she could come today to doing what Morgana had asked.