That meant I had my wings and could fly, even if I couldn’t yet completely shift into my full dragon form or use dragonfire.
But it was a start. And at this point, I was willing to take any wins I could.
Chapter 10
The next morning, trying not to make any noise, I slipped out onto the front porch of the farmhouse.
I loved having the early mornings to myself. And I planned to use them to continue practicing my shifting.
After I’d shown the guardsmen what I could do, Rayce had made me promise not to fly beyond the confines of the field. In fact, he’d set a whole slew of parameters to try to keep me safe.
That was fine with me. I was absolutely willing to stay safe while I practiced. Sometimes I wondered if I would have been quite so compliant if my guardsmen had found me when I was younger.
Or if anyone but Rayce had been the alpha.
It really was lucky for all of us that they’d found me when they had.
My mind turned again to the fact that I would eventually have to give two of my guardsmen up. I thought about that fact more often than I liked, wishing I didn’t have to accept it.
Wishing we could simply keep living as we were—the four of us together.
They hadn’t shown any signs of the kind of jealousy I would have expected from human males. They were a unit, and they shared a common goal: protecting me.
And we were all focused on helping me become worthy of being a dragonsrealm queen.
I had no idea how I would choose among them when the time came.
In fact, the mere thought of it worried me so much that I hadn’t even been able to begin opening my heart to any of them.
I cared about them, sure. And I was certain I could love them—any of them. All of them. And that made my heart ache in anticipation of losing all but one of them.
But…
I stopped in the middle of the practice field, hit by a thought.
Why choose?
Why should we have to change a relationship that was working for us? Why should I be required to give any of my guardsmen up?
The tradition required the queen to choose one of her guardsmen—or someone, anyway—as her consort. And then she was supposed to be with only that consort.
So what?
Right?
Or was that even the correct question at all?
Was this practice somehow encoded into dragonsrealm law? Or was it merely a tradition?
I thought back to the conversations I’d had about it.
Tradition was the word that Rayce had used. And he was generally precise in his choice of language. So much so that I’d gotten tired of him being persnickety about words when he was teaching me dragonsrealm protocol.
And although traditions were powerful—perhaps even more so among dragon shifters than among most humans—they were not immutable law.
Traditions can be changed.
Doing so didn’t even require any kind of royal proclamation. Not technically.
A slow smile spread across my face. I would have to discuss with Rayce what the reasoning was behind the tradition was. He always seemed to know that stuff.
But I didn’t want to know so I could decide whether or not to change the tradition. I was determined to change it. I wanted to know so we could come up with reasonable explanations for flouting the conventions.
The easiest explanation will be that I didn’t grow up in the dragonsrealm, so I do things a little differently from the queens who came before me.
I headed back toward the house, moving slowly so I could gather my thoughts before I approached my guardsmen with my new plan.
Of course, anyone who had spent any time among humans would know that growing up among them would have made me even less likely than your average dragon shifter to accept a relationship involving four men and one woman.
Still, there had to be a way around it.
I wasn’t going to give up my connections to my Queen’s Guard.
I wasn’t going to choose just one of them.
I was going to choose all of them.
I was dashing toward the house, laughing aloud, when the sky above me split open with a crack like thunder, and two giant, silver dragons burst into being right in front of me.
Chapter 11
I was already running toward the house, so I put on another burst of speed.
My instincts told me to shift, to take off into the air, but both the dragons in front of me were in their full dragon form. I had no idea how to do that—and even less idea how to combat it when they did it.
So instead, I screamed, calling out for my guardsmen.
They burst from the farmhouse door already half shifted, leaping into the air and completing their changes.
They’d been so busy trying to help me figure out how to access my dragon form that this was the first time I’d seen their dragon shapes.
They were glorious.
As dragons from the same clan, as Smoaks, they shared clan markings—a circle surrounding a flame with a single curlicue rising up from it, imprinted on their wings as infants—a little like tattoos. But more than that, they shared the same family coloring.
No matter how different their human forms were from one another, in their dragon shapes, there was no denying that these three were related.
At first glance, their scales were a shimmery black, like velvet—but when they caught the rays of the rising sun, those scales turned blue and purple and silver.
And even in their dragon forms, I would never mistake one of them for anyone else. Their relative sizes were the same—Draven the largest, Rayce the smallest—as were their attitudes. Rayce was clearly the leader, taking point as the three of them arrowed toward the attacking dragons.
There was something wrong, though.
Something about the two dragons attacking my Queen’s Guard.
Two.
Oh, hell.
Dragon squadrons always included at least three dragons.
At the same moment I realized it, I saw Rayce twist around to fly on his back, scanning the sky for the third dragon.
Of course. Rayce knows what he’s doing. That’s why he’s the leader.
I had barely enough time to register a sigh of relief when the third dragon burst out of the dragonsrealm, virtually on top of Rayce.
The new dragon was enormous, at least as big as Draven, and horrific scars crisscrossed his wings, remnants of battles long past.
The dragon inhaled an enormous breath and used his wings to stall his flight. He hovered in the air for just a second, long enough to blow an enormous plume of fire toward Rayce.
My heart practically stopped, but the instant Rayce saw the dragon, he began moving into a twist and a dive, managing to escape the bulk of the flames being shot his direction.
But not all of them.
One single flame lashed out farther than the rest, striking the very center of Rayce’s left wing.
When the fire hit Rayce, I felt it.
It was as if the fire had lanced through my own skin. When Rayce screamed, so did I.
As he tumbled toward the ground, I reached the porch and stumbled, falling to my knees.
In that moment, time seemed to slow down. For the first time, I truly understood the bonds between a Dragon Queen and her Queen’s Guard.
And I was not about to let these interlopers win, these guardsmen of the usurper who had stolen everything from me, including my parents, my childhood protector, my very future.
“No!” I shouted, forcing myself to stand again. When I righted myself, so did Rayce.
I checked on my other two guardsmen. Draven and Lanzo were locked in battle with the other two dragons but were not otherwise in any immediate danger.
It was as if my body knew what to do. Even though I’d never done it before. Even though I’d never even considered what I was about to do.
As I inhaled, I pulled in all the power of my Queen’s Guard. Rayce’s calm deliberation,
Draven’s enormous grace and strength, Lanzo’s magic and cunning.
Raising my arms above my head, I let my wings unfurl behind me. Taking all the power I had gained from my guardsmen, I rolled it up into a single, swirling ball in my chest and then expelled it from me in one giant exhale.
But what came out of me wasn’t dragonfire.
It was air.
Air that I’d laced with more magic than any one dragon should have been able to contain.
Instead of burning their skin with fire, this blast burned the dragons’ souls with magic.
With what sounded like a single cry that echoed across at least two realms, the attacking dragons fell to the ground, then shrank into their human forms, left writhing on the ground.
I wasn’t done. I wanted them to disintegrate, to melt into the ground. To disappear forever. I strode toward them as they cowered from me.
“You should fear me,” I announced, my voice deep and heavy with the magic I controlled. “You—and all like you—will bow before me.”
I circled my hand above my head, gathering my magic to me to strike at them again, only to be stopped by someone grabbing my arm.
I spun around, prepared to incinerate whoever dared touch me—until I realized it was Rayce in his human form, with his burned arm held in tightly against his side.
He’d grabbed me with his other hand but doing so was clearly causing him pain. As was looking at me. He blinked, turning his face from what I suddenly realized was a bright white light emanating from me.
I reached out one hand and cupped his cheek with it, letting the magic within me flow into him, healing his arm and soothing his pain.
As I did so, the light I was emitting dimmed, and I came back to myself.
“You okay now?” Rayce asked.
I nodded. “You?”
“Much better.”
But I was still angry when I turned back to face our attackers.
Luckily, my response had made enough of an impression on them that they didn’t attempt any moves against any of us. I didn’t know if I could replicate what I’d just done, but I was glad I wasn’t going to have to.
The three men cowering on the ground stared at me with enormous eyes.
“You have two choices,” I announced. “You can either swear your fealty to me as your rightful queen, or I can send your head back to Nico as a warning that I am coming back to retake my kingdom.”
I paused, raising my hand above my head.
“Which will it be?”
Chapter 12
“You’re a Dragon of Air,” Lanzo said in tones of disbelief. “I thought those were a myth.”
“That explains why we weren’t able to teach you to use your dragonfire,” Rayce said. “You don’t have any.”
“And edged weapons will never be your forte,” Draven added. “In your human form, you’ll do better with bows and arrows. Any kind of ranged weapons, really.”
“Your magic skills are going to be off the charts, though.” Lanzo gazed at me proudly.
“Guys,” I said. “I’m still me. Nothing’s really changed.”
From where he stood on the porch behind us, Carsten said, “That’s not true. Everything has changed.” He was the latest addition to my unit of guardsmen, the one dragon sent to attack us who had chosen to join us. In the end, the other two had decided not to swear loyalty to me.
I wished that I had made different threats when I was in the throes of the air magic.
But one of the things that Fenwick had impressed upon me over and over again was that a queen had to follow through whenever she made a promise or threat.
I had sworn to send their heads to Nico as a warning.
So that was what had done—behead them.
I wouldn’t let any of my guardsmen do it for me, either.
I didn’t have any scruples about using my magic to complete the grisly task, though.
Rayce brought the men to kneel before me. I called the magic to me and forged a blade of air, cold and sharp and biting. And then I gritted my teeth and struck the two dragons as quickly as I could.
It was a fast death, at least.
Rayce had reached out to some potential allies, and they had agreed to deliver the gruesome message for us.
“We’re definitely at war now,” he observed mildly as we stood on the porch and watched his contacts disappear from the human realm into dragonsrealm.
I looped my arm through his and rested my head on his shoulder. “Then we will simply have to find a way to win.”
My other two guardsmen stepped up behind us. Carsten watched us warily—eventually, I’d have to see if I could bind him to me, too.
We would have to move soon to take the dragonsrealm from Nico.
But for now, I simply breathed in everything my three guardsmen offered—their devotion, their loyalty, their strength.
Even something that might eventually become love.
For all of us.
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About the Author
USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.)
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Matteo’s Beast
Bokerah Brumley
Matteo’s Beast © 2020 Bokerah Brumley
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Hatred Caves
The Barren
High in the Far Mountains, a Dragon shifted in his cave, trying to alleviate the pain in his firebox. His sides barely grazed the edges of the cavern, though, still larger than the great hall in Rivenbourne castle.
Rivenbourne was the only town still tolerant of mythical beasts—tolerant, but not friendly. Their understanding would not last another generation.
Dragons required Dragon-friends. Bonded friendships kept hearts large and fireboxes stoked. But the men in the town had lost sight of the fantastical, and the beauty within conjuring faded into disfavor. Magic became something to abhor. How much the world of men missed. He feared what that meant for the few left of his kind.
Dragon sighed, the sound reverberating through his lair. Loneliness bloated him already. He missed his companion, and the purge replayed in his memory over and over. The screams would not soon be forgotten.
“Hello?” The Mage of Rivenbourne appeared at the mouth of the dim cavern, her staff held high over her head to light her way. Carefully, she hopped over the freshwater stream between them and drove her staff into the loose soil.
“You risk much,” he spoke to her in Dragon mind-speak, “for little gain.”
She stopped by his side and laid her hand over Dragon’s heart. Her sorrow scented the air in the cavern. She regretted her part in the death of his human. “I risk as much as you did for me.”
Dragon did not answer. He’d lost his companion in the battle. His death had been honorable, self-sacrificing, but his bravery had sealed Dragon’s eventual fate… unless another could be located.
The Mage smooth
ed her hand over the scales that covered his heart, as though she could feel the pain that already built within. “I’ll find another Dragon-friend to take the place of the one you lost,” the she-mage declared. “Worthy of your esteemed companionship, Dragon.”
”I hope it as easy as you believe. Dragon-friends are fewer and fewer.”
“Since I am not worthy of becoming your companion,” she said, “I will see this task completed.”
“You would have made a fine Dragon-friend, but—”
She stroked his chin. “But I bear too many bloodstains on my hands.”
“The Forger of Beasts wills it.”
“It is not good for Dragon to be alone. I vow to do this.”
“You will die first,” Dragon countered. “You will perish before you can keep this oath.”
How could the sorcerer keep her promise? He’d outlived so many Dragon-friends. His most recent died defending the she-mage as she fought in a war waged on magics of all kinds.
“I swear to you, I will not.”
Dragon grumbled under his breath.
“May I have the tooth I came for, Dragon? I will return to the village.”
“They will drive you out.”
“I will don a new face.”
“Why should I sacrifice a bit a dragon’s ivory on a fool’s errand?”
“The horn will be the way you can identify your new companion.”
Using his tongue, Dragon worked a tooth forward and back until it popped out of its place and landed at the mage’s feet. Then he snorted, a burst of flame flaring in his nostril. “Take your prize and leave, witch.”
She pressed closer still. “How long will you last without companionship?”
Sorrow slipped between his scales, and he shuddered. “Time is cruel to our kind.”
Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology Page 31