King Sansabonsom darted after Isis, his sharp teeth bared and his hands poised to rip through her.
“You want to fight the king, hatchling?”
Yes, she did.
“You’ll regret coming back here. Regret not dying when Effiom shot you.”
Isis landed on the ground, still warm from dragon fire, and as naked as the demon who thudded to the earth moments after her.
Earth. Geb. The image of her father’s eaten-through remains flashed in her mind, then her mother’s words of, “Your father did love you girls. I need you to know that. He made me flee because he didn’t want to risk your safety.”
“I’m going to kill you, not as a dragon because I don’t want the taste of your disgusting body in my mouth. I could burn you to death, but dragon fire is too good for a male who usurps powers with his dick then a knife to his lover’s back. Or did you use your claws to slit her throat after you failed to satisfy Queen Taytu in bed?” Her eyes roamed his body before traveling to his flaccid penis and then back up to his face. “No wonder demons have such long hooked fangs and claws. Overcompensation is a bitch, Sansabonsom.”
When she could no longer hear the time dragon’s roars but could feel the cool of Serqet’s mists, she knew her Tyets and sister had wrestled the dragon into submission. What she didn’t know was what was happening with Osiris.
“I’m going to enjoy hacking you open and feasting on your organs.”
“Come have your meal then, demon.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Osiris flew after the asshole who’d shot Isis and killed his baby. He hadn’t been home to protect either of his girls, and he’d nearly lost both. In a way, the Isis who’d survived the attack wasn’t the same woman he’d kissed goodnight and tucked in before heading to his office, to only leave the manor and get himself killed by hordes of demons.
His head began to ache, so he flew faster.
“I said I don’t need your help.”
“I’m not here for you, I’m here for him. He’s my father, too.”
Osiris put more distance between himself and Set’s smaller rock dragon. He didn’t know what his brother intended to do when he caught up to their father, no more than he knew what he would do beyond killing the dragon rider.
His father cut right, a sharp turn he made smoothly, which sent him back in the direction of where the other demons and dragons were fighting. He glimpsed Isis running from that big ass three-headed dragon. His head pounded, even more, when he recalled the canopic jars Isis had given him that contained pieces of his organs. One of the jars, the one with a portion of his heart, had a top with a design of a three-headed dragon. At the time, he hadn’t cared about the significance of the design. Now, as he watched his mate circle the battlefield and galvanize her Tyets with her presence and power, he wished he’d asked.
Now wasn’t the time to think about the odd coincidence. He had a demon to destroy.
“Dad,” Osiris yelled. “Dad, wake up. Wake the hell up.”
“He can’t hear you. He listens only to the time dragon, who takes orders from my king, which makes your father an extension of my will.”
As if to prove his point, the dragon pivoted and swung around, releasing a spray of fire at Osiris. He took the heated blow and returned the favor. The rock dragons exchanged fire attacks like two boxers swapping punches in the middle of the ring. Hitting and getting hit but never backing down.
Osiris moved forward, pressing his spray of fire harder and deeper into his father. The demon kept his body low and hidden behind the large head and shoulders of the rock dragon, which made it impossible for Osiris to get to him at this frontal angle.
He pushed the rock dragon back with this fire, but the demon was smart enough to keep the dragon level with Osiris. The demon also seemed to think that Osiris wouldn’t hurt his father to get to him.
The asshole was wrong. If not for Asir Ombos and his co-conspirators, the dragons wouldn’t have spent a century stranded in the human realm, Geb and the Tyets’ parents would be alive, and Set…
Lightning bolts of pain shot through his head. He couldn’t hear or see anything, but he could feel the heat of the rock dragon’s fire. The spray of focused heat slammed into him as he tried to fight through an unrelenting headache that left him defenseless.
Sharp dragon’s claws sliced at his chest and throat, cutting through a layer of coarse scales.
I haven’t seen the scepters because they aren’t there.
More slashes. Deeper. Deeper.
We all know you take orders from Isis, at work and in bed. Does she ever permit you to be on top? Or maybe she shifts and fucks you with her tail while you’re in human form.
Blood oozed from his wounds. He couldn’t feel the pain of his injuries, though, the hammering in his head made it impossible to feel anything else.
You asked me to spy on my mate and to steal the scepters.
Osiris wanted to shout his agony, to rage against the pain and his memories, to crawl back into his casket and forget who’d put him there.
You’re such a disappointment, Osiris. I should’ve known you couldn’t be trusted to do what needed doing. Ten years and nothing but a worthless hatchling to show for your time with Isis.
Slashes to his eyes had him seeing blood but little else. He blinked, hard and fast, knowing, if he didn’t get himself together, the demon and the rock dragon would kill him. He wouldn’t leave his mate again.
Isis has turned you against us. If she doesn’t know where the scepters are then she’s no use to us at all.
The rock dragon latched onto as much of Osiris’s throat as he could fit into his mouth. He bit and squeezed, and Osiris was lost to the horrific memories of his death… and betrayal.
Hanif.
Edjo.
Set.
Demons lie and betray. But I guess you know all about that.
Sounds and images consumed his mind. Osiris’s anger, fear, and fire. The demons’ teeth, claws, and frenzy when they swarmed him. Biting and cutting until they broke through his tough hide. Using their iron teeth and feet to open his wounds for their greedy mouths. Of Set turning his back on Osiris and flying away.
His brother had left him to die. Set had cared more about getting his hands on the Scepters of Nebty and stealing the dragon throne than Osiris’s life and the life of Isis and Asim.
He’d loved Set despite his faults. Loved him because they were brothers and bonds of blood were supposed to be forever. The fog that had clouded his mind since his resurrection began to fade as each piece of his mental puzzle shifted into their awful place.
Coming back to himself, Osiris began to struggle and fight. He had to get the damn dragon’s teeth out of his neck. But he’d left himself vulnerable for too long to easily counter Asir, who was unyielding in his effort to tear out Osiris’s throat.
Using his wings, Osiris smashed them against Asir’s sides. The smaller rock dragon didn’t release him, but he did shift, which meant Osiris’s wings hurt.
He cracked him again, with more force. As a rock dragon, he knew where his kind was most vulnerable, which weren’t the sides. Although that’s where Osiris concentrated the force of his winged attack.
Every time he struck Asir in his sides, the rock dragon shifted and lowered his wings to protect himself. The demon roared commands at Asir, which the dragon ignored when Osiris hit him, short jabs which did damage over time.
Osiris struck again, and Asir’s wings dropped completely to his sides, blocking his attack. The demon sneered, as if the insensible Osiris Asir fought, a few minutes ago, was the same one pitted against him now. With a speed that came with being the Dragon Queen’s resurrected king, Osiris raised his wings and slammed them against the small holes under Asir’s straight-back horns.
His ears. The weakest part of a rock dragon’s body.
Asir’s howl of pain had him releasing Osiris’s neck. He whacked his ears again, with a thunderous force that sent th
e demon over the side of the dragon. Whipping out his long tail, he grabbed the falling demon before he could take flight.
The demon fought, hacking at Osiris with his clawed hands and iron teeth. He may have fallen to two hordes of demons, but one demon had no chance of breaking through his fortified exoskeleton.
With his clawed feet, Osiris shoved against Asir, slashing his chest and cracking scales.
The other rock dragon roared and charged.
Slam. Set’s full-body attack shoved Asir through the air. The sound of bones breaking matched the speed at which the younger rock dragon had connected. Set flew after Asir, fire his follow-up assault. Father and son engaged in a brutal battle. Makara would weep if she saw this, her heart broken over how the males she loved had turned on each other.
Osiris wouldn’t have killed his father, but it appeared as if Set intended to. His brother’s actions made no sense. Why would Set intervene in Osiris’s fight after what he’d done to him? He hadn’t owned up to his betrayal, no less apologized. Not that an apology could excuse his behavior.
Father and son deserved each other, and neither was worthy of Makara’s kind heart.
As Set had done him, Osiris turned his back on his brother and left him to his fate.
“It wasn’t my fault. Your brother gave me the gun and told me to steal the scepters and shoot your mate.”
The demon no longer screamed and cursed Osiris, or wasted his energy trying to free himself from his unbreakable grip. A dragon’s tail could attack like the lacerating sting of a whip or smash like the driving blow of a tank.
“Did he also tell you to shoot Isis in her pregnant stomach three times, or was that all your sick idea?”
Osiris tightened his tail around the demon, crushing bones in his contemptible body as he flew to his destination. Thrace was a small nation between Nebty and the Demon Kingdom. On their way to Kumi, Isis made a pit stop and dropped off three unhappy fairies with a promise to return them to their parents after the battle.
The Yumboe had cried and flittered around Isis with their sad faces and droopy wings. The sun dragon had shifted into her hybrid form, kissed them on the forehead, and given the fairies her most motherly warning to, “Stay here and don’t follow. When I return, I expect to hear you’ve been on your best behavior.”
Osiris stopped at the tallest mountain in Thrace. The females he sought were there, sharing a twenty-four by forty-eight-foot nest. About two dozen young fought over a dead snake, while their mothers watched on.
Ferynore, a harpy with the body of an eagle, slate-black feathers, black tail with three gray bands, stared up at an approaching Osiris through the gray eyes of a human female. Bare breasts hung from the harpy’s human-looking chest, bronzed from her time on the mountain and in the sun. Her blonde hair, long and frizzy, blew in the wind his wings created.
“What have you, mate to Dragon Queen Isis?”
“A gift for watching the fairies.”
Ferynore raised one of her wings and pulled back a lock of her unruly hair. On her head slept the Yumboe, peaceful and out of trouble. Isis would be happy they finally followed her orders and stayed put.
“No need for gift. Dragons came back. Get rid of Demon King. Enough for us harpies. His hordes ate many of our babies. But no more now that dragons are back.”
The other mothers nodded. He saw, within their eyes, the same loss he’d seen in Isis’s whenever they talked about Asim.
The demon renewed his efforts to free himself, but only screamed in agony when his broken bones protested the movement.
“No, no, no. Don’t leave me with them. Don’t. Don’t.”
Osiris lowered his tail to the nest of harpies and dropped the demon inside. With a slash from neck to waist, he sliced the demon open. A shallow cut that split tough burnished skin but not deep enough to kill the demon or puncture his organs. Four more slices, two across his clavicle and two at his hips. The demon’s skin, with the help of Osiris’s claw, was peeled back.
“I told you. I told you. It wasn’t me. She didn’t die. It was all your brother. He made me do it.”
Yeah, Set was guilty. Isis had, somehow, figured it out and tried to spare him the pain of knowing his brother was a power-hungry bastard capable of treachery and murder. This demon was just as culpable as Set in Asim’s death. Her murder.
“All for us.” Ferynore hopped to the petrified demon, whose black eyes ran wet with tears. “All for us,” she repeated in a voice that summoned the harpy mothers.
They crowded around the crying and shuttering demon.
“All for us,” the harpies said in unison. The chicks came forward, squeezing between bird legs and feet. “All for you,” the mothers said, nudging their young forward.
Osiris stayed there long enough to see more than a dozen chicks hop onto the demon responsible for so many deaths.
“All for us,” the chicks said, then attacked the demon’s insides, yanking and fighting over intestines the way they had the dead snake’s savaged body.
“We thankful,” he heard Ferynore say, as he turned away from the harpies’ meal and toward Kumi.
Osiris heard nothing from the demon. Perhaps one of the harpies had already devoured his tongue. The demon’s death wouldn’t ease the pain in his heart over losing his hatchling. But, as a male and father, Osiris felt relieved at having avenged his daughter in a way befitting an eater of children.
Osiris darted through the sky to reach Kumi, as swiftly as possible. When he finally got there, he didn’t see his brother or father. Where in the hell had they gone? And what in the world were the Tyets doing?
A gigantic mist, well over a hundred-feet-tall hovered in the sky and was surrounded by the Tyets and Nephthys. They focused their dragon magic on the mist. Shadow and yellow energy were dosed around the mist, forming additional layers and, presumably, strengthening Serqet’s magic.
“Who’s in there?” he asked Nephthys.
“The time dragon. Isis wanted us to capture him.”
The last he’d seen of his mate, Isis had been avoiding blasts from the three-headed dragon.
“Where is she?”
His heart began to race when the moon dragon cast her eyes downward and shook her head.
“She shifted into her hybrid form so she could fight Sansabonsom.”
“Isis did what?”
“She wants to fight him. I know, I know. You don’t have to say it. She could’ve done that as a dragon.”
“For a woman who never fought as a child, she’s making up for it now.”
“I know. We must let Isis defeat the Demon King her way. Don’t interfere, Osiris. This is her battle. Her blood to spill and the demon’s life to take. She’s our queen, and we must respect her right to be a bullheaded, bloodthirsty mother dragon.” Nephthys shook her head again. “She’s going to kick Sansabonsom’s ass.”
The moon dragon left him and the Tyets and flew toward the ground.
“I want front row seats. Are you coming, brother?”
“Hell yes.”
Chapter 20
Sansabonsom scanned his surroundings and grew angrier the longer he took in his home. Dead demons, burned beyond recognition, lay in misshapen heaps on the ground and in smoldering trees. Blood soaked the dirt, wetting his hooked feet every cautious step he took.
The sun dragon stalked him with her red eyes. Effiom had described her to him, but he’d never seen a dragon in human form. This couldn’t be what they looked like when they shifted, dragon features mixed with a human body. It had to be the scepters doing, godly magic responsible for the creation of the unnatural female before him.
Isis had proven an unexpected opponent, willing to go through hundreds of his demons to get to him. Neither Nut nor Geb had dared to enter his kingdom, but this hatchling had, which made Sansabonsom lust for her death and blood even more.
Her temerity had him seething, his jaw tight from anger and teeth aching to devour her flesh. He’d begin with the wings that c
ut him, then take the hand and finger that taunted. Her face would be next. He could already see the track of incisions he’d leave, from temple to jaw and up to her lips. He’d pull her lips into his mouth, chewing them and then forcing her mouth to part so he could snack on her tongue until none of it remained.
Sansabonsom’s eyes lingered on her breasts, larger than a demon female’s. They would make for a scrumptious meal. He’d keep the nipples, though. The demon didn’t believe in collecting anything other than power. But he’d make an exception for that singular body part. His mouth watered at the thought and his member twitched.
Taking himself in hand, Sansabonsom looked the Dragon Queen right in the eye and stroked himself. She did nothing for him sexually, but the delicious thought of having her under him, screaming her pain and begging him to stop as he consumed her, one body part at a time, was enough to have a demon spurting his seed. Which he did, the dragon’s loathsome glare all the stimulation he needed.
He laughed and raised his sticky hand out to her. “Want a lick, baby queen, or are you ready to die?”
Instead of taking the bait, the way he thought she would, the female dared to throw her head back and laugh. She kept laughing, loud, uproarious, and uncaring that he’d cursed her in three languages.
He flew toward her. When he reached the dragon, he would turn her howls of laughter into tears of pain. No one mocked King Sansabonsom and lived.
Ten-foot wings snapped in the air. The sound was known to evoke fear in demons’ prey.
Her chuckles continued, the sound enraging him.
He growled and closed the distance between them. Claws glistened in the moonlight. Fangs extended to deadly points.
He swiped out at the laughing dragon. Her smiling face his target. He swiped… and missed.
What?
A forceful knee strike to his forehead sent him stumbling back.
Isis hovered above him. How had she moved so quickly, and without him seeing her?
“Come here.”
He lunged for her, leaping into the air to only feel a knee to his face. Spitting blood and broken teeth at her, he flew after Isis again.
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