So he had swiped the horses out from under their riders…
The other two were also familiar—Gaia had seen their faces a handful of times, when they had visited Lycania: Prince Azor Dragona and his brother Prince Asher. They both looked feral and primed to kill.
Princess Gaia pressed her hand to her stomach and watched in morbid fascination as Prince Dario spun around to face his father. “Brother!” he thundered. “So we meet again!”
Brother? Gaia wondered, but before she could contemplate the strange language further, Prince Asher lifted Eliaz from the ground by his neck, squeezed his trachea until his windpipe collapsed, and yanked upward with his hand, even as he stomped down on the shadow-walker’s toes. The shade’s head came free from his shoulders, and his corpse slumped to the ground.
At that same moment, Prince Dante flew at Prince Dario!
He didn’t bother to reply or give Prince Dario a warning; he simply lunged at the dragon’s throat, his fangs fully extended.
Prince Dario rotated on a stationary foot, pivoting to the side so quickly, his movement appeared as a blur, and in the same heartbeat, he slashed his sword downward, catching Prince Dante in the thigh. The blade sliced through the dragon’s trousers, and bright-red blood spurted out.
He had clipped the femoral artery.
A pair of dark, leathery wings punched out of Prince Dante’s back, and he flew in reverse, summoning a healing blue fire and coating his leg in the same, cauterizing the otherwise fatal wound.
Prince Dario took advantage of the moment.
He rushed forward, thrusting his blade to attack, but it was met by an instant parry. Someone other than Prince Dante Dragona—Prince Azor—had leaped in front of Dante, his own Tuvalian steel drawn and ready.
Prince Dario and Prince Azor clashed swords; then Dario nicked Azor’s hand. It was a feint—he intended to go for Azor’s gut. The lunge was swift and brutal, but Prince Azor was much too fast. He blocked the blade, disengaged, and went for Prince Dario’s throat.
Prince Dario parried swiftly, but Azor would not let up. He lunged and attacked; he thrusted and slashed, following each powerful offensive with a swift remise.
And then the strangest thing happened…
Prince Dario’s blue eyes rolled up and to the left as if he were listening to his own inner guidance…as if he were consulting a distant memory. “Ah,” he snarled, slowly backing up out of Azor’s reach. “Prince Azor Dragona, my second-born nephew. You are my equal with a sword. Go figure.” He jutted his chin toward the thick, braided chain of leafed copper, silver, and gold wrapped around Prince Azor’s bicep, and turned up his lip in a sardonic smile. “Love the jewelry, boy.” He spat the last word with derision, and then he turned his attention to Kristof, the warlock. “Do something, you worthless bastard! I cannot best this pretty dragon with a blade.”
No sooner had the last word left Prince Dario’s mouth than the warlock hurled what looked like a ring of shimmering silver light across the road and shouted something in Latin.
The ring encircled Prince Azor’s torso; his sword shot out of his hand; and his legs sank three feet deep into the earth, the now muddy soil closing around him like quicksand.
Prince Dario stepped forward and raised his sword to behead Prince Azor, and Gaia screamed, but her cry was unnecessary.
Prince Dante lashed out with his tail.
He twined it around Prince Dario’s neck like a lasso and yanked him backward, sending him streaming through the air, even as Prince Asher Dragona leaped into the middle of the road, summoned a stream of bright-red fire, and set Kristof Nocturne ablaze. “You foolish Warlochian!” Prince Asher spewed, and Kristof began to shriek in agony. The warlock dropped to the ground and tried to roll over, desperate to put out the blaze, but it was all to no avail. “Father!” Prince Asher shouted, projecting his voice above the din of the howling warlock. “The shade on the side of the road, he had a satchel inside his saddle bag, and the satchel is stuffed with a gourd. I think the gourd may contain Prince Dario’s soul.”
Princess Gaia flinched from behind the tree, Asher’s words arresting her ears like a maul striking an anvil: Why had Prince Asher called Prince Dante Father? And what did he mean by Prince Dario’s soul?
Oh, Great Deities!
Well, no wonder…
Brother.
Father.
My second-born nephew.
Prince Dario’s soul…
Prince Dante was the true sire of both Azor and Asher, and Prince Dario had to be possessed by one of Prince Dante’s brothers, and since the only one who had passed away was his twin, Desmond Dragona—
“Prince Damian, your soul has always been wicked, but I thought I had exorcised it from this kingdom when I placed Matthias Gentry’s spirit in your body. I see I will have to go further this time,” Prince Dante spat.
Princess Gaia felt sick to her stomach. Much like her beloved homeland, Lycania, treachery abounded everywhere. Deceptions were inevitable. She covered her nose to quell the stench of Kristof’s burning flesh, noticing that the warlock had stopped screaming, and Azor was free from the mud—the spell must have broken when the spirit left Kristof’s body.
Prince Dario—no, Prince Damian in Prince Dario’s body—snickered. He dropped into a squat, squared his shoulders to his brother Dante, and the two sons of King Demitri began to circle each other like angry lions, stepping warily to the side in perfect synchronicity. “You are not my better, Prince Dante. Perhaps it is you who will meet your maker this day,” Damian menaced.
Prince Dante laughed softly, and his midnight-blue eyes flashed red with hatred and lethal intent. “No, Prince Damian. Never again.” His voice was a venomous, loathsome whisper. “You forget, you are wearing Prince Dario’s body. While our souls—and our skills—may be matched, albeit differently, the body you inhabit is slower than mine, weaker than mine, and unlike me, you are not capable of shifting.”
Prince Damian’s face grew slack, and his complexion paled.
For the first time, he appeared uncertain.
“But you haven’t fed, brother, nor do you have the time to call your ancient beast in its entirety. Prince Dario’s body will serve me just fine until I can retrieve my own and send Matthias Gentry back to wherever he came from.”
Prince Dante Dragona stretched out his arms. He threw back his head and roared. And his back began to crackle like sparks in a campfire. The scales that commenced to cover his arms, his legs, and his torso were as sapphire as his eyes and faintly iridescent. His tail grew longer, his fangs grew sharper, and his claws curled inward like talons. And then the Prince of Warlochia grew ten feet tall, though he still had the facial features of a man.
Prince Damian didn’t hesitate to strike first.
He took several paces backward, opened his feral jaw in a primitive, grotesque contortion, and licked the tips of his canines. Smoke billowed from the corners of his mouth; his lips turned fiery orange; and deep red flames began to dance like twirling vapors emerging from his throat. And then he heaved the full conflagration at Dante, seeking to scorch him to ash.
Prince Dante’s dragon bathed in the fire and laughed.
He breathed into the flames, as they licked the contours of his body, and exhaled a torch of bright-white heat into the mix. The two infernos swirled together—dancing, swaying, undulating—and then they simply burned out as if extinguished by mystical water.
Prince Damian Dragona vanished from sight.
Great deities!
He had rendered his form invisible, taking Prince Dario’s body with him and vanishing into the morning.
Prince Dante’s sapphire beast roared with fury and singed the air before him with another white arc of flames, only this time, he studied the fire’s pattern closely, appearing to measure its speed and study its direction, ostensibly to try to detect Prince Damian’s presence. Princess Gaia assumed the dragon had chosen white fire for a reason—Prince Dante wanted to locate Prince Damian, but
he did not care to burn Prince Dario to ash.
He spun around in an angry circle, shooting flame, after flame—after flame—all around him, searching feverishly for his evil brother, but Prince Damian was nowhere to be found.
Prince Azor and Prince Asher joined in the search, scouring the forest for at least ten minutes, while Gaia watched, breathless and alert; when all at once, there was a piercing whistle, high above in the sky, and Prince Damian Dragona fell from the air, striking the ground with a thud.
His wrists were hobbled.
His legs were shackled.
And his head was tethered in a wicked-looking contraption that looked like a muzzle, made of Tuvalian steel: Prince Damian’s mouth, nose, and chin were sheathed; his skull was bleeding; and his throat was partially torn out, even as his ankles and wrists were shackled in chains.
Prince Ari Dragona flashed into view, fangs extended, his mouth still stained with freshly drawn blood, and he placed a heavy, domineering boot on Prince Damian’s neck. “Look what I found, flying like a demon and cursing up a storm in the air. On his way to which castle, I’m not entirely sure, but fortunately for us, I was invisible—and he was making an ungodly racket. I heard him fifty paces away. He never saw me coming.” He held up a bloody battle axe. “I knocked the wits out of him before he could react, muzzled his dragon, and shackled him in chains. You have Tybalt, the blacksmith, to thank for my being this prepared, although he doesn’t know the reason I needed it.”
Prince Dante breathed a sigh of relief. He reined in his dragon, retracted his scales, and returned to his princely height. Then he placed a grateful hand on Prince Ari’s shoulder and muttered, “Shit…just…shit!” It seemed that was all he could say. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep breaths, staring at the broken, shackled body of the wounded prince. “Perhaps we should heal him a bit, just enough so that Prince Dario’s body doesn’t suffer more damage.”
Ari Dragona smiled. “Yeah, I thought about that, but I figured it could wait at least another hour.” He angled his head to the side and studied Dario’s body more closely. “Or maybe not.”
Prince Azor just shook his head, and Prince Asher paced away.
And that’s when Princess Gaia finally rose from her perch behind the linden tree, her legs more than a little wobbly. She stepped into the road and curtsied in no general direction. “My lords,” she muttered by way of a paltry, shaken greeting.
Prince Asher was at her side in an instant. “Princess Gaia,” he said, lowering his head with deference. “What the hell were you doing with Kristof, Eliaz, and the prince?”
Her body tensed, and she pursed her lips. “It’s a very long story.”
He nodded. “Are you hurt?”
She averted her eyes in shame, glanced down at her tattered dress, and watched in disgrace as Prince Asher’s gaze followed hers, pausing briefly to take in the condition of her ripped, ruined bodice, but to his credit, he did not ask the obvious…
“If you need to be healed…” He spoke in a neutral voice. “Of anything at all…just ask.”
Princess Gaia held up a dismissive hand and shook her head. “No. My wounds are superficial. ’Tis my pride that’s hurt the most.”
Prince Asher reached out and took her hand in his. “That may be so, but I’ve been feeding for almost twenty-one years, and I can tell at a glance that Prince Damian leeched too much of your essence—you are at risk if it’s not replenished.” He placed two gentle fingers on the side of her neck, studying what she knew were open punctures, untreated wounds in the side of her neck.
“Can it wait? Just a while?” she asked, turning her attention to the monster in the road and grimacing. While his skull had been healed and his throat repaired, his wrists and ankles were now broken. For all intents and purposes, the dragon was muzzled, shackled, and hobbled. “Where will you take Prince Damian? What will become of Prince Dario? Was that truly his soul in the gourd?”
“Asher, come here!” Prince Ari called. “You need to hear this, too.”
Prince Asher tugged on Gaia’s hand, causing her to stumble off balance, even as he sidled up behind her, anchored his arm around her waist, and bent to her wounded throat. A stream of intense yet cooling fire bathed her neck and flowed over her shoulders as he concentrated the flame on the punctures. Sixty heartbeats passed—maybe ninety—before the prince released her, turned on his heel, and strolled away like nothing had happened. “What is it, Ari?”
Prince Ari waved him closer, forming a loose semicircle with Prince Dante, Prince Azor, and himself, even as Princess Gaia stood at the outskirts to listen in. “We may have contained one threat, but there is yet another looming. Word travels fast in Dragons Realm. Gossips and chinwags abound. While I was in the Warlochian square, working with the blacksmith on the muzzle, there were whispers about missives sent from Lycania—carrier shifters, as birds of prey, dispatched to Castle Umbras, Castle Warlochia, Castle Commons, and the Warlochian sheriff’s quarters. Rumor has it they became birds of prey to make sure the missives made it, and all four letters were sealed and addressed to Prince Dante Dragona, ruler of Warlochia. Clearly, the Lycanians were desperate to make contact as fast as they could, to garner Father’s immediate attention, no matter where he was. Needless to say, I stopped by the sheriff’s quarters before heading to Forest Dragon. I opened the seal and read the missive and then I burned it so it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Prince Dante’s brow furrowed as he narrowed his gaze on Ari. “What the hell did the missive say?”
Prince Ari sighed and nodded. “The scribe was cryptic enough—again, they made allowances, lest the missives fall into the wrong hands—but the underlying message was abundantly clear: King Thaon Percy is being held captive in Thieves. He is to be executed on Sunday. The Lycanians asked their friends in the south to take heed of these precarious circumstances: If there’s any assistance we can provide, it will be seen as an act of loyalty. If we can’t help them save their king, they will be sorely disappointed.”
Prince Dante snorted and closed his eyes. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. “So the missive was a cry for help, wrapped in a warning. It was more or less a demand.”
Prince Ari nodded again, this time with much more certainty. “Yes, it was thinly veiled: We have an alliance. Do something now. Or we will once again be enemies, and all bets are off.”
“And don’t overlook the subterfuge,” Prince Azor chimed in. “Looks like they alerted half the Realm, but ignored Castle Dragon, knowing damn well how suspicious that would look if one of the missives made its way to King Demitri.”
“Yes,” Asher said, “but these weren’t just any birds. They were Lycanian shifters with human reasoning. They would’ve made sure the missives reached the desired targets without error.”
Prince Dante swept his hand through his hair, and his striking features looked weary. “They’re demanding the assistance and protection of an immortal dragon. They want me, not King Demitri, to call forth my beast and transform…fully. And if I do not save King Thaon in time, we will once again be at war with a race of powerful, bloodthirsty shifters with more seaworthy vessels than the Realm has humans.” He glanced absently in the direction of Castle Dragon. “King Demitri knows nothing about our covert alliance with Lycania, nor would he smile upon my shifting…and I’ve never done it before. I would have to feed on a dozen sacrifices to achieve it, an indulgence I was saving for Sunday.” He flashed an apologetic smile at Princess Gaia and frowned. “Princess, I mean your race no disrespect, but I don’t have time for courtesies. As it stands, you should not be here; you should not be hearing any of this; and I will have to erase your memories before we leave this forest.”
Princess Gaia resisted the urge to take a defensive step back, feeling wholly overwhelmed, although she understood the stakes—and the politics—quite clearly: Prince Dante Dragona was the biological father of Ari, Azor, and Asher; the prince of Umbras wasn’t Prince Damian at all, but someo
ne named Matthias Gentry, parading around in Prince Damian’s body; and Prince Dante, who was indeed King Demitri’s eldest son, was planning to usurp his father…to sit on the throne of Castle Dragon and rule the whole of the Realm.
And he was planning to stage his coup on Sunday.
Yet and still, there were lesser subversions that mattered more than such overt rebellion: Prince Dario was…gone, but he wasn’t yet lost. Gaia’s father was in peril, but he may yet be saved. And Dragons Realm was in turmoil, but it was brimming with possibility for Prince Dante and his sons, as well as Princess Gaia. She might yet rise to a more noble position than first-whore, above a Sklavos Ahavi and a harem of Blood Slaves.
“My prince.” She spoke deliberately and with eloquence, despite her inner trepidation. “I know you will do what you must, but first, hear me out. I can be trusted, my lord. I was raised in clandestine circles, and I know how to hold my tongue. Beyond that, I’ve visited Thieves more times than I can count. I’ve stayed at the palace of the ruler, Gideon, son of War, and I have a very good idea of where the legionnaires would hold my father.” She considered her next words for about half a second before diving in with both feet. “As much as it pains me to say this, I am aware that a beautiful female is a most effective weapon, and I have considerable skill with herbal preparations, concoctions that induce both sleep and delirium. I know how to mix a witches’ tonic, the poison that can end one’s life swiftly. Undoubtedly, Castle Dragon has an impressive apothecary. With that in mind, I may be able to distract…or eliminate…King Demitri, while you—and your dragon—assist my homeland. If it means my father’s life, if it means helping Prince Dario, if it means being of assistance to you, as my liege, in exchange for my elevation—or my freedom—in Dragons Realm, then you have another ally. Point being: I may be of greater assistance to you with my mind…and my memories…unaltered.”
Prince Dante Dragona studied her closely, as if weighing the truth of her words, and truth be told, as an immortal dragon, he could probably read her every thought.