Bloodline World Seven Book Bundle: 7 Books from the Bloodline Awakened Series and Scarlet Dragon Saga

by J. P. Rice

  I could do this all day, I thought, as I leaned to the left. A solid object crashed into the back of my skull. That one got me as I stumbled around the spinning room. I felt the lump on the back of my head and cleared my vision just in time to see a circular table heading for me like a spinning frisbee. It was headed for my knees so I crouched quickly and launched myself off the ground.

  I appeared I would clear the table, but the rotating wooden object clipped my toe, sending me head over heels and toppling back down to the ground. More furniture smashed down on me. Now the pain was starting to build up.

  The onslaught of tables and chairs finally ceased. From under a pile of splintered furniture, I shoved the pieces of wood off me and sat up. The king’s attack had kicked up about a hundred years’ worth of dust in the form of a hazy cloud.

  As the contemporaneous sawdust mingled with several years of uncleaned party mites hanging heavy in the stale air, I had an epiphany. I had been looking at my experience in hell the wrong way.

  Sure, I had been deemed worthy of most of the levels due to bad behavior. But almost all of those deeds were smaller parts of a bigger act. I’d never killed anyone just for the fun of it. The farthest I’d ever gone in that regard had been when I’d shot the lawyer, Mathias, in the foot.

  For me to defeat the king, I needed to do some things that would be considered despicable by most people. But the end result would benefit an entire society of the supernatural. It seemed like I needed to embrace my dark side and use it when necessary to benefit the whole. The cameo visit from the Morrigan had reinforced that point.

  I conjured two fireballs, one for each hand, as I sprang to my feet. A mess of busted tables and chairs fountained into the air, momentarily distracting the king. Perfect. With two quick underhand flicks, both balls were in motion.

  The king quickly detected the ultraviolet green spheroids so I drew two more to each palm. He dodged to the right to avoid the first ball and jumped over the second mass that sped under his sandals and brushed the bottom of his purple robes.

  It was a deft move for an ancient immortal but it gave me the opening I needed. I zinged the other two balls at him before he landed. As the soles of his leather sandals hit the sticky ground, he tried to dive to the right but his feet wouldn’t move. His own sloppiness in not cleaning up after parties had come back to haunt him.

  His foot finally lifted off the floor with the sound of a suction cup being peeled away. The first bright green ball hit him in the right shoulder and jolted his upper body. He twisted to the right, his arms flailed and the momentum pulled his other foot off the ground.

  The second ball made contact and tore through his hip, first breaking the bone, then burrowing into his flesh. He didn’t scream. Not even a little yelp, which was curious. I saw the pile of robes moving gently up and down indicating that he wasn’t dead so I approached cautiously.

  I called on fire. Liquid fire. The only way to kill a sidhe was to shut down every one of their organs. This was my least favorite thing to do.

  The king struggled, his legs flailing from under his tangle of robes. Blood gushed from his wounds, and like the sands of an hourglass, dribbled slowly onto the dirty floor. But for the dear king, his hourglass was running out.

  I neared the king and he still didn’t let out an uncomfortable grunt. His face was hidden under his voluminous robes as he said, “I’ll take your offer now. Thank you.”

  I explained, “That offer went away when you denied it earlier.”

  His voice screeched, “You can’t kill a man who is giving himself up. Why, you’ll be no better than me.”

  King Ballistar had a solid point. A man was only as good as his word. Sure, I’d lied sometimes in the past, but I had promised him the offer of going to an other world. As the two choices seesawed in my head, the purple mass at my feet moved.

  The king sprang to his feet with the quickness of a gazelle, reappearing from under the purple robes with his arms extended at me. Lightning pulsed in his fingertips, begging to be released.

  However, I was prepared for his sneak attack, and a split second before he unleashed an electric hell on me, I blasted him with a strong mist of fire.

  He closed his eyes as I waved my hands up and down, attempting to cover his entire body. The liquid tore through his skin and went on to destroy all his organs. His body turned white, like a pillar of salt, and slumped down under its own weight. A sudden breeze kicked the ashes of the King of Sleepy Willow into the air.

  The King’s remains took on a sudden enchantment. They sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow and streaked around the room, zipping out the exit door.

  I didn’t have any time to celebrate the victory because if the King’s army could pull off a victory outside, they would just appoint a new king. I hustled out of the banquet hall and headed down the zig zag path of the hallway. I drew two orange fireballs to my palms and injected them with extra electrical currents.

  I concentrated on the correct path to get out of there.

  I rounded a bend and saw that the door to the kidnapping room was ajar. Without hesitating, I booted it open and rushed inside. I saw the door to the balcony open and peered through it at the battlefield. The first thing I spotted was a purple dragon surround by two black dragons.

  I sprinted for the balcony with reckless abandon to save my noble friend. When I hit the middle of the balcony, I achieved top speed and didn’t slow down. I approached the railing, crouched my knees and launched myself into the air, capturing the attention of the two black dragons.

  I launched the orange fireballs as the two dragons turned to me. The two balls blazed through the air, one headed for each dragon. Neither dragon moved an inch, each ones’ wings moving slowly, allowing them to hover in the air.

  The dragons waited casually for the fireballs. At the last moment, they both opened their mouths. My fireballs quickly disappeared into the gaping jaw of each dragon. The black dragons thought they had solved the problem and turned back to attack the lavender dragon.

  Without warning, one of the black dragon’s heads exploded like a piñata full of red Twizzlers. Two seconds later, the other one’s went off like a stick of dynamite. The overconfident dragons hadn’t realized I’d pulsed the fireballs with a charge that would explode eventually.

  Speaking of overconfidence, I mildly regretted my dangerous move as I looked down at the earth racing toward me. Sometimes, I acted before thinking. These were the types of things Burn had warned me about. This would fall squarely into that category. But I was the hammer, never the nail. I made shit happen in a world where people sat around blaming their problems on everyone else.

  This would be the perfect way to die. Possibly, the most heroic thing I’d ever done. And just like that, it hit me. When it was staring me in the face and never more imminent. When I should have been shitting my pants and pissing myself out of fear. When it couldn’t have been scarier, I was calm. I came to peace with my death. Almost like I’d figured out my role in the world.

  It didn’t matter if I was ranked among the best wizards of all time. Or if I was the chosen one of the Celtic Gods. What mattered was the people’s lives I’d saved or made better through my actions. And yes, I was going to die one day. But how many lives could I improve before that day came?

  I realized that even with all the gifts that had been bestowed upon me, I was special. But in the same regard, I was no different than the anonymous dead father lying face down in the grass below me. I’d helped a lot of people in the past few years, but I was going to die, just like the father. The great equalizer of life. Death didn’t care about how many lives I’d saved. Equal opportunity for all.

  And with those simple thoughts during my plunge to death, I’d accepted my own mortality within the grand scope of the world. I wasn’t going to live forever and I probably wouldn’t save the world. And for the first time, I was fine with that.

  I closed my eyes, the wind rippling against my face and body, and th
ought about what I would miss the most. It wasn’t the magic or hunting down supernaturals or solving mysteries. It was saving families.

  In turn, I was going to miss my family. I was going to miss Burn, Dante and my baby to be. It had taken me a long time to figure it out, probably because I’d come from a broken home, but that’s what life was all about. That was the legacy I would leave, not some campfire stories about how I blew up a demon or killed a dragon. Although those would be pretty cool too.

  I smirked at the cruel mistress known as life. Every person wanted to figure out the meaning of life before they died. If only I’d figured it out a little sooner than mere seconds before my grand demise. C'est la vie.

  In the split second before contact, a single thought entered my empty head. I hoped I’d made the world a better place through my actions. For the longest time, I’d felt like a burden and that the world would have been better off without me.

  Ironically, my soul never felt freer than right now.

  Then I hit the ground.

  It was softer than I’d imagined. It felt like a big beanbag of wrinkled reptilian skin. The earth moved, carrying me with it. My eyelids shot open and the wind caused them to water and blur. Using the back of one hand, I dabbed my eyes and everything slowly came into focus.

  I looked down at a mound of black dragon flesh underneath me and grabbed on tightly, sinking my fingers into one of the wrinkles. The evil dragon thrashed around, trying to lose me, but I dug into the hot skin on its back and got ready for the rodeo. The dragon dipped and dived before going into a barrel roll.

  When the dragon went upside down, I hung on for dear life as I dangled from the back of the beast, my two trembling hands saving me from instant death. The dragon completed the roll and I sighed in relief. I leaned to the side to see around the dragon’s thick neck and noticed Pembrooke and Alayna headed straight for me.

  A plume of flames shot out of Pembrooke’s mouth and I leaned back behind the dragon’s neck. An instant rush of heat and rippling energy blasted me in the face as the dragon screamed a song of agony. Nothing sounded as desperate as the wailing moans of a dying dragon. It grated against your soul.

  As the dragon turned its head to the side, I could see and smell the burnt flesh on its profile. Some of the melted skin hung down from its chin like thick whiskers from a beard. The dragon’s wings stopped beating and we started to drop like a boulder. Not again.

  I didn’t have any time for further contemplation of my life because Alayna’s voice cut through the sounds of battle. She called, “Move to the right.”

  I slid along the jiggly flesh of the dragon to position myself near its right wing. Pembrooke swooped in and Alayna held out her little arm for me to grab onto. I swiped at her hand and missed as the black dragon and I plummeted.

  Pembrooke looped back around. Judging by the rate at which I was falling, this would be the final attempt. The orange dragon cut down his speed, which made my heart race but would also make it easier to grab onto Alayna’s hand.

  He tilted his wings forward to cause a little more resistance to help with the endeavor. I zeroed in on Alayna’s dainty hand and my eyes never left it. The dead dragon continued to drop as I got up on my knees and reached my hand out.

  The wind whipped through my hair as Pembrooke approached. My hand hit Alayna’s and it yanked me back off the black dragon who hit the ground with a nasty thud. I started to slip, and right before I fell, Alayna’s nails dug into my fingers and drew blood.

  The dragon flew off to the side of the battle field and landed. I scoped out the scene to see where I could help. When I scanned the area, it appeared that the battle was all but over. The black dragon was the final one from his side, besides the two that I could have unleashed on Pittsburgh with the return potion.

  A smattering of sidhe warriors ran away in disgrace, disappearing into the horizon. Another group darted off into the forest. I spun around a few times and realized that all the king’s men were dead or had retreated.

  The dullahans and combined faerie armies celebrated victory. The dwarves banged their swords off their shields and the pixies buzzed with glee. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d helped, but it was these people who’d taken back their land. They deserved all the praise for the willingness to lay down their lives.

  Alayna got down from Pembrooke and kneeled down. She pulled two handfuls of grass and soil out of the ground and massaged them in her palm. Her lips moved, but she was only mouthing words and I wasn’t a great lip reader. I also wasn’t a genius, but I had a pretty good hunch that Alayna was lifting the curse on the crops that she had set more than five hundred years ago.

  A flash of lightning cut through the cloudless sky. The former queen rose to her feet. The glittery rainbow-colored enchantment that had come from the king floated over the battlefield and settled above Alayna. I ran over to help protect her from the king’s spirit.

  When I got about halfway to her, the shimmering magic formed into the shape of a butterfly and grew in size. The colors swirled within the wings until they finally settled on a rich magenta. As I looked closer, I realized that it wasn’t a butterfly, but just a pair of wings.

  The wings began to beat and floated down close to the ground. They flew up to Alayna, danced in front of her for a few moments and then went around behind the former queen. Her shirt stretched and frayed, then finally tore away, falling harmlessly to the ground.

  In an amazing act of magic that I couldn’t explain, her hideous scars started to heal, smooth skin replacing the old wounds. The wings, which resembled the honorary pair in my backyard, floated up to her back. As they neared her pale flesh, sparks jumped from her back to the wings.

  The wings sank into Alayna’s back and she stepped forward from the impact. She bit her lip, but the look of pain quickly faded, forming into a smile. A few wing beats lifted her off the ground and she squealed in glee, rising ten feet in the air within a few moments.

  I looked around at the cost of removing a king. Supernatural bodies were littered about and the gagging stench was already being blown around.

  The ground shook as Pembrooke took a running start to launch himself in the air. The quaking made my knees buckle and blurred the gruesome images of the battlefield. The orange dragon lifted off and flew next to Alayna. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her so happy as she raced alongside her old friend. It was impossible to put everything back in the bottle once the contents were spilled. But for that brief moment in time, Alayna had her old life back. The shame of being a pixie with clipped wings was no longer. She had her wings again.

  Chapter 32

  I slinked into Jonathan’s office with my heart racing, unsure of how this meeting was going to go. He was sitting at his desk talking on the phone and motioning to me to sit down. He didn’t appear angry, but from what I had seen recently, it could change in a moment. As I sat there fidgeting in the comfortable chair, I thought about the last week.

  My trip to hell seemed like it had been ten years ago. I’d learned to embrace the behaviors that helped keep the city safe. There were necessary evils in the world that I was learning to accept. I still had lingering concerns about Belphegor and Lucifer coming after me.

  The vampires and werewolves hadn’t come to any kind of truce. I looked at the man in front of me who’d started this whole mess. I’d heard rumors that Octavius, the alpha wolf, was ready to go to war over the King’s Mountain massacre as it had become known. I planned to get involved to squash the beef and keep the city as safe as possible, so I’d set up an appointment with Octavius through his assistant.

  Jonathan still had issues involving the vampires from Philly. The Larimores had a pact with all the other clans in Philly that if one was attacked, it would be treated as an attack on all. Like a U.N. Article Five deal.

  I stared at Jonathan as he spoke without a care in the world. He seemed like he was talking to an old friend and kept twirling the phone cord around his finger. As he reveled in his own bliss,
it was as if he had no clue that he had pulled the pin on the grenade. An impending and inevitable explosion was on the way. The only question was which war would come first, an intra-vampire war or the battle with the wolf shifters?

  I’d come to the Purple House straight from the coronation of the Rosendales. Hail, Rosendales. Mirera and Fetterman had been crowned at a lovely ceremony in Sleepy Willow. The Rhyming Red Cap had been named Head Viceroy of the island in return for his support in the great battle.

  They were already working on a way to revitalize and clean up the other world. It would be a long process, but now that the crop curse had been lifted, they could clean up all the corruption associated with food delivery.

  The Rosendales had insisted that I take over as king, but I had my own city to take care of. I had a slight inkling that Alayna would like to reclaim her old post, but she had turned down the offer too. I settled for having an entire other world as an ally. In the grand scheme of this crazy game of supernatural posturing I found myself involved in, that meant a great deal.

  Alayna still hadn’t totally warmed up to me again, but it was just a matter of time. I’d fixed my screw-up, but that didn’t erase the mistake completely.

  A new ally known as the Sphinx was staying at my house. She’d told me that the two black dragons had flown away as soon as they had materialized in Pittsburgh. So I had that to worry about now. I hoped it wasn’t a male and female for breeding purposes. The Rosendales had kept the Dragon Horn in case the two obsidian dragons found a way back to Sleepy Willow. We assumed that all the other evil dragons had perished in the battle, but a few of them could have escaped in the commotion.

  Artoise was still on the loose. That son of a bitch. So much for his empty promise of returning to Clara Spiritus in two weeks. I planned to have Blodeuwedd track him down with the services of her avian friends.

  I still hadn’t recovered fully from the gunshots. The pain was gone, but the itch had spread to my arms and chest. The cold sweats were still prevalent and my memory had gone to shit. It felt as if another person was running around inside me. Not as bad as the demon implant, but it still scared the shit out of me. I’d even mentioned it to Jonathan during our brief phone call to set up our meeting and joked that I felt like a vampire.