Dragon Emperor 15: From Human to Dragon to God Page 12

  “How very brazen to sleep with two generations,” Trina whispered.

  “Very,” Marina agreed and rubbed her temples as she frowned in a very human-like gesture.

  Polina chuckled. “It’s bad enough to not know your child’s father, but being unsure which is his father or brother or grandfather?”

  The dryad made a sour face, and Ravi and the other dryads giggled the whole way back to the palace. Alyona shook her head and smiled, but I knew she was considering how awful things were about to get for Sarahi.

  When we finally arrived at the castle, I noticed Aaliyah, Rebecca, Miraya, and Naomi had already returned, but the awkwardness resumed instantly as Lord Calvin looked up from his sofa and saw Sarahi and Niall walk in together.

  “Oh, gods,” he mumbled. “I was afraid of this.”

  “You’re a beast!” Niall thundered. “She came to you looking for me, and you took her into your bed!”

  “You did what?” Nike’s voice was shaky as he and Laika strode in the door behind us with another woman and her teenage son behind her.

  “It was silly,” Calvin said with a dismissive wave. “A foolish mistake. It hasn’t happened since.”

  “She said no more than ten times,” I pointed out, and Nike’s dad growled as he glared at the bird-woman.

  Sarahi’s face was flushed with embarrassment, and Rafferty guided her to one of the sofas to sit down.

  “We still have two women we have to talk to,” Alyona whispered as the family drama continued.

  “Yeah, but confirming the family children may take some time,” I murmured. “Perhaps Nike and I should go talk to the other women. We wouldn’t want to bring someone back here if they don’t have the bloodline, and Nike will be able to tell for sure.”

  “I can stay here and test the children,” my wife agreed. “What if one of them has the bloodline ability?”

  “I think Nike would have mentioned it by now,” I pointed out. “He hasn’t said anything about the kids he’s seen so far, and we only found one daughter. I don’t think bonding with a twelve-year-old would work out so well.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Alyona said and wrapped a raven hair around her finger. “Then you should probably take him before the situation escalates.”

  I turned to see Nike stood between Niall and Calvin as the father and son bellowed insults and clenched their fists.

  “Gods,” I groaned as I walked over and held my hands up. “Alright! That’s it! Niall, you go upstairs to wherever you go. Calvin, you stay down here in the dining hall. Your constant bickering is ridiculous!”

  “Well, he--” Niall started.

  “No!” I thundered and took a step toward the baron. “I have had enough of both of you! Neither of you is right here. There is no winner for your arguments. If you want to win, then do better. Lord Nikolaus and I are going to find the women who left the city. You two are going to stay separated until we get back.”

  They both glared at each other, and I looked over at Laika, who watched them with intent gray eyes and one hand on her broadsword.

  “Respectfully, Lord Evan, why should we do as you say?” Calvin asked with a slight smirk.

  “Because if you don’t, respectfully, I will come back here and show you what a dragon can do,” I growled. “And Laika will let me know the second one of you breaks my rule.”

  “Of course, my lord.” Laika nodded and looked back at the two men.

  “I’ll go,” Niall agreed as he trudged toward the staircase.

  “As will I,” Calvin sneered. “But only because I think it’s a good idea.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I scoffed.

  The two men stalked out of the room, and I looked at Nike to see the relief written all over his face.

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “But our search may have been fruitless. I don’t feel the connection.”

  “Nor do I,” Miraya agreed.

  “Then Nike and I will go find the two women who left,” I said. “We know one left with the bandits, so we should search the desert where we know they like to hide out. The other will be a bit further to travel to, so we’ll go there after that.”

  “The rest of us will stay here and do the testing to see which children belong to the lord and the baron,” Alyona explained. “Even if the child can’t be part of the ceremony, they deserve to know who their father is.”

  “Exactly,” I conceded. “Nike, you ready?”

  “Ready as ever,” he confirmed with a nod.

  “We’ll fly over there, so we can find the hideout,” I decided. “Then we can approach on foot. I don’t want them to feel threatened.”

  Nike and I waved to my women, and then we walked outside in front of the castle.

  “You don’t think less of me after meeting my family, do you?” Nike wondered without a warning.

  “Nah,” I replied with a shrug. “You aren’t your father or grandfather. You are a better man. If anything, I’m more impressed with you.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “You’re welcome.” I shifted into my dragon form in front of the castle. Several of the citizens were in full view of my transformation, and they gasped and pointed as I took my huge black form. Nike clambered onto my back and grabbed one of the large spikes from my spine, and then I kicked off into the sky.

  We flew over the city walls and into the afternoon sun in silence. I knew flying provided me with a little wind therapy, and I got the feeling Nike felt the same way, so we didn’t speak until we were well into the sands of the desert.

  “There,” Nike said as he pointed a few hundred yards ahead.

  There was a caravan of wagons, and each was accompanied by a lookout who walked along next to it. It was exactly the setup we’d seen several times among bandit tribes, and I flew closer to the ground to use the sand dunes as cover for our approach.

  When we were close enough to walk to them, I landed in the soft, warm sand. Nike slid down my side, and I shifted back into my human form. He started to reach for his sword, but I held out my hand to stop him.

  “We don’t want to scare them,” I reminded him. “We only want to talk to this woman, ah, Vala.”

  “Right,” he agreed and let go of his blade. “Diplomatic approach.”

  I nodded, and we crested the dune to walk toward the caravan. I’d hoped that our obvious appearance without any cover or weapons would ease their minds.

  The gleam of daggers in their hands told me I was dead wrong.

  Chapter 8

  The bandits tore across the sand with the daggers held high, and I groaned in frustration.

  “We can’t kill them!” I told Nike. “Just, like, knock them out!”

  “Great,” he muttered as he clenched his fists.

  The first four bandits split up and attacked us two-on-one. I blocked the first dagger strike with my forearm and threw a right cross into his gut. He doubled over just as his companion took a swipe at me with his blade, and I arched my back to keep my stomach away from the knife. I had impenetrable scales, but I did not have impenetrable skin.

  I grabbed his dagger arm and spun him around into a headlock. He dropped his knife as he tried to claw at my arms wrapped around his throat, but I had already found his pressure points and begun squeezing him into unconsciousness. Within a few seconds, his body went limp, and I dropped him onto the sand before he lost all oxygen.

  “No!” his buddy yelled before he charged me again.

  He swung the dagger at my throat, and I sidestepped the strike and grabbed his wrist. Then I wrenched it around behind him and pressed his face down into the sand.

  “Stop fighting me!” I bellowed. “We only came to talk!”

  “You killed my friend!” he snarled before he coughed and spat sand.

  “He’s not dead,” I said as I pulled his arm higher up his back and dug my knee into his spine. “He’s just asleep. And I don’t plan to change that if you guys will just stop.”

  “Magic!” he sc
reeched. “He has magic!”

  “I’m not even using my magic,” I grunted.

  Then I looked up and saw another two bandits had started toward us, but they held swords, which would be a little more difficult to defend without our own. I had to stop this nonsense before it got out of hand.

  “Sorcerer!” the man under me shrieked. “He’s already taken down one!”

  “I’m not--” I started to growl. “Ugh, never mind.”

  With that, I spun a quick web around the man’s wrists and then rose above him before I sent a wider web across his back to hold him to the ground. He tried to roll out of it, but the web stuck to his side and wrapped him up like a burrito instead.

  Whatever works.

  I looked over to check on Nike just as he landed a haymaker on the second bandit’s temple that knocked him out cold. He was doing just fine.

  I turned back to the next two bandits and decided to end this round a little early. I shot out two sets of webbing that landed at their feet and whipped around their boots. Both of them tumbled into the sand and tried to rip the webs from their feet, but Nike and I jumped on top of them to hold them down while I wrapped another layer of webs around their hands. I added webs to the three who were unconscious, just to be safe, and turned back to face the most recently captured.

  “What are you?” one of the men gasped. “I-- uh, just take it. Whatever you want, okay? You can have our treasure!”

  I stared down at the men who squirmed on their backs with their hands and feet bound with the sticky webs.

  “We don’t want your treasure,” I sighed. “We’re looking for Vala. Word is she was traveling with you.”

  “Even if we knew where Vala was, we wouldn’t tell you,” the other bandit scoffed.

  “So, you do know her?” I pressed, and the bandit in front of me shot his companion a dirty look.

  “We’ve heard of her,” he hedged and looked up at me with defiance. “But we won’t tell you anything else.”

  “We don’t want to hurt her,” I told them as my frustration increased. “We just want to talk, that’s it.”

  “You didn’t just talk to him,” he shot back and glanced at his unconscious friend on the ground.

  “He’s still alive,” I sighed. “As I told your friend over here, I could do much worse if I wanted to.”

  “Because you’re a sorcerer,” the bandit muttered.

  “Because I’m a dragon,” I snarled and took a step closer. “See?”

  I lifted my head and bellowed a column of flames above my head before I looked back down at him with obvious impatience. I felt another surge of power like the one I’d experienced this morning as I called the fire back into my chest, but I couldn’t think about that right now.

  “Oh, gods,” he groaned. “Ohhh, gods.”

  “Okay!” a female voice shouted from inside one of the wagons.

  Nike and I looked up in time to see a woman burst out of the covered carriage with her hands above her head. She was young, maybe in her twenties, but it was obvious she was also pregnant. Her round belly stuck out from behind her large tunic, and her black hair flowed in the desert wind as she strode toward us.

  We walked past the incapacitated bandits, and I held out my hand to introduce myself. This close to her, I could see a smattering of freckles across the young woman’s face, and her eyes were an interesting shade of turquoise that glittered in the sun.

  “Oh, my gods,” Nike muttered. “It’s this one.”

  I turned to my best friend and saw his silver eyes lit up like a fire glowed behind them, and his face was stretched into a wide smile.

  “Nope, I’m not one of anything,” the woman grunted as she looked at my hand with a cold stare. “So, whatever weird thing you have in mind, I’m not the girl for it.”

  “It’s not weird.” I lowered my hand and looped my thumb in my belt. “You already answered our first question, but he just answered the second.”

  “Great, so you don’t need me,” she muttered and looked past us toward the bandits. “Can you let my guys go now?”

  “Your guys?” I arched a suspicious eyebrow. “You run the bandits?”

  “Yeah, so what?” the woman asked as she met my stare with a bold one of her own. “You think I’m scared of some dragon?”

  “You don’t have to be scared, Vala,” Nike cut in and grabbed her hands in his. “We’re here to help you and your child.”

  “We don’t need any help,” she huffed as she pulled her hands away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “It’s Lord Calvin’s child, isn’t it?” I asked in a softer tone.

  “He didn’t really seem like the fatherly type,” Vala spat out. “Yeah, he put this baby in me, but he doesn’t have to do anything, so if that’s why you’re here, you can tell him to continue on his merry little way with all his other women.”

  “I understand you’re angry,” Nike said as he dropped to one knee. “But can’t you feel the power of the child you carry?”

  “Y-You know about that?” she stammered and then narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t told anyone.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he insisted. “I can feel it because the same power courses through my veins.”

  “Okay, Lord Nikolaus, let’s just dial it back a bit,” I interjected with a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t need to tell her everything all at once.”

  “But she carries a child with the light!” Nike argued without taking his eyes off the woman.

  “Yeah, and we don’t even know anything about her,” I pointed out. “Take it easy, brother.”

  “Oh, gods, I’m so sorry,” he said to her with genuine concern. “Tell me all about you, milady.”

  “Lady?” Vala chuckled as she seemed to resume her tough exterior. “Listen, I only know of one Lord Nikolaus who would come after me from Lord Calvin’s court, so you must be his grandson, and I’m not spilling my guts to you. And I’m not going back to that bastard, either, so don’t try to convince me. I’m good where I am.”

  “And what about when it’s time to have the baby?” I wondered. “Can these guys help you with that?”

  “We can make it to a village by then,” she said, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.

  “How long?” I pushed for more information. “Until the baby is due?”

  “Uh…” Vala trailed off and looked down to her stomach. “Any day now.”

  “Then we have to go,” I decided. “We’ll get you to the castle, use their doctors, and we’ll go from there.”

  “I told you, I don’t want to go!” she exclaimed.

  “I understand that,” I assured her. “But I also understand that thousands of lives depend on us, especially that child. We need your help.”

  Vala stared at me, and I met her gaze with complete confidence. I didn’t want her to feel as though I had anything to hide, but I wasn’t sure how to convey that to her. She was certainly hiding something from us, and I didn’t trust her like Nike seemed to, but we had to get her back to Leyte.

  “Why would thousands of lives depend on me or my baby?” she finally asked, and I saw a shadow of disbelief and uncertainty flicker in her turquoise eyes.

  “I swear to you, we’ll explain everything soon,” Nike promised. “But for now, you need to trust us to get you back to Leyte safely. Can you do that?”

  Vala hesitated again, and her eyes swiveled between Nike’s pleading form and my confident one before she finally nodded her head.

  “Okay,” she agreed as Nike rose to his feet with a smile. “Will you release my men?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “I’ll do it now if they promise to stop attacking us. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Vala nodded and looked toward the other bandits. “We’re officially in a truce. No fighting!”

  The men groaned but didn’t argue, and I walked over to remove the web bindings before they stood up and joined her at the wagons.

  “Are you sure you want to go with some dragon guy?
” one of the men asked her in a gruff voice with suspicious eyes on me and Nike.

  “It’s not him,” she advised. “It’s Lord Nikolaus. He’s known for his honor and valor, and he made a promise to me. I know he’ll keep it.”

  Nike’s cheeks darkened a shade, and I punched him lightly on the arm as Vala said her goodbyes.

  “What do we do while you’re gone?” another bandit asked her. “Will you come back?”

  “Make something of yourselves, boys,” she commanded. “I don’t know when or if I’ll return, but I know we can all do better than we have been.”

  They stared at her in shock, but she whirled around to us and put her hands on her hips.

  “You good with flying?” I asked.

  “Uh, I don’t have wings,” she snorted.

  “Get ready,” I chuckled.

  I stepped back and transformed into my dragon body, and the bandits’ mouths dropped open at the sight of my huge form towering over their wagons.

  “I’m supposed to ride you?” Vala’s eyes were wide with disbelief as she looked up and down my long body.

  “It’s easier than it sounds,” Nike reassured her. “I’ll help you up.”

  He gingerly lifted the pregnant woman onto my back as I flattened my belly against the sand to shorten the distance. Once she was on my spine, she wrapped her arms and legs around one of my spikes, and I could feel her trembling against my scales while Nike climbed up behind her.

  “I’ll go easy,” I soothed her. “Just hold on.”

  “I don’t think I can hold on any tighter,” she grumbled.

  I laughed as I lifted my body from the ground and flapped my wings to take us into the sky. As we soared higher and higher, I could feel the shaking of Vala’s nerves slowing down, and then she screeched a laugh of pure joy.

  “It’s amazing, right?” I called out over the wind.

  “Absolutely wonderful!” she yelled back.

  I avoided any crazy acrobatics since putting her into labor didn’t seem like the best idea, but I made sure she enjoyed the ride. When we finally landed in Leyte, it was nearly dinner time, and I could smell the mixture of spices that floated in the air above the palace.