by Donna Grant
Hal crossed his arms over his chest and studied the man. “So, you’re a Highlander. Where are you from?”
“I—” The stranger squeezed his eyes closed and gave a vicious shake of his head. “—I should know. It’s just out of reach,” he said between clenched teeth, his fury obvious.
After a moment he opened his eyes and lifted his head. “I’ve no memories. Of anything. My name, where I’ve come from, or what I’m doing here.”
Hal rubbed his eyes with this thumb and forefinger. What did it mean for this stranger not to have memories? Would it aid them in the coming weeks? Or hinder them?
“Have you always had the tat on your chest?” Guy asked.
The man parted the jacket he wore and glanced at his bare chest. “I doona think so. Nay, I didna.”
“Though we should wait for Con, I think you have a right to know,” Banan told the stranger.
The man raked his hand through his chin-length brown hair streaked with gold and twisted his lips in a smirk. “I doona believe I’m going to like what you’re about to say.”
“You may no’ know your name or where you came from, but what Banan is about to tell you will at least allow you to know what you are,” Hal said.
“What I am?” the stranger repeated, his dark eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a man.”
Rhys rubbed his hand over his chin and chuckled. “No’ exactly, my friend. What you are is one of us.”
“And I can say with all honesty, it has been hundreds of millennia since once of us was created,” Guy stated.
The stranger looked to each of them before his dark gaze, intense and demanding, came to rest on Hal. “What are you?”
“Immortal and extremely powerful. In short, we’re Kings, but no’ of people. We’re the Dragon Kings.”
“Immortal,” the man repeated, his eyes going distant as if he were remembering something. “I … that doesna bother me as it should.”
Hal and Rhys exchanged glances while Guy began to walk slowly around their newest Dragon King.
“You say you are Dragon Kings?” the man asked intrigued.
Banan shook his head. “Nay, you are a King now as well. You’ll be better off considering yourself one of us from the start.”
“He needs a name,” Guy said. “At least until he remembers his own.”
The stranger gripped his head and growled. “Why can I no’ remember anything?”
Rhys reached for the new King’s sword only to have the stranger move with lightning speed to grab it. The man spun around, his sword raised with the point directed at Rhys as he glared.
Rhys lifted his hands with a half grin full of eagerness and anticipation for battle. “Is that all you have?”
Hal along with Guy and Banan began to close in on their newest member. Not once did he flinch as he looked at each of them.
There was no way he would have been made into a King if he was weak, but by the look gleaming in his dark eyes, he welcomed their attack.
After eons together, Hal and the others didn’t need words to convey what each of them should do. With barely a glance at one another, they attacked.
Hal made a grab for the sword while Banan dived for the man’s legs. Guy rammed a fist into the man’s ribs and Rhys leapt into the air to wrap an arm around the throat of the new King.
With a great roar, the man kept on his feet. Hal managed to knock the sword away, and in that instant the newest King changed.
He was ferocious in his attack, even with four men assaulting him. He didn’t back down. He took all four of them on with purpose and intent clear in his eyes.
Hal had no idea how long they battled. Somehow the newcomer’s jacket was ripped off, the jeans he wore shredded and barely hanging on to his waist.
A few times Hal was thrown off the new King, and each time he was surprised. Not once did the man ever stop or back down.
It wasn’t until Rhys took one of his arms, and Guy the other, that Banan and Hal were able to pin the newcomer to the ground. And still he fought them.
“Easy, friend,” Hal said evenly.
The new King turned his angry gaze to him. “Get. Off. Me.”
“You’re no’ used to being beaten,” Guy said, a trace of awe in his voice.
Banan was the first to release the man, and Hal quickly followed. As one, Guy and Rhys let him up.
The King instantly sat up and lunged for his sword. He wrapped his hand around the pommel and backed up until he hit a wall. His eyes moved to each one of them, waiting to see who would attack next.
“Rhys wanted to look at your sword to see if it could tell us something of who you were,” Guy said.
“Or what dragons you command,” Hal added.
The man glanced at his weapon. Indecision warred across his face before he lowered the sword and moved out of his battle stance. “Each of you have swords?”
Banan chuckled as his lips tilted in a smile. “Oh, aye. We doona carry them as we used to. No’ in this time.”
“What year is it?”
Hal wasn’t at all sure if the stranger was from the present or the past. He was leaning toward the past, which was why he wanted to tread carefully. It was bad enough the new King had no memories—which had never happened before.
“Look at our clothes,” Hal said, and spread his arms wide. “What style of clothing was the last thing you remember?”
“Kilts,” the stranger answered automatically.
“I doona know how far into the future you’ve come, but I believe you are no longer in the same time period as before.”
“He needs a name,” Guy said. “If he can no’ remember his own, we give him another.”
The man’s jaw clenched. “I can no’ remember my own, no matter how hard I try.”
“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Rhys said softly.
No one said anything for several seconds as Rhys’s words seemed to resonate with the newcomer.
“Give me a name,” the man said. “A name worthy of a Dragon King, if that’s what I am.”
Hal grinned. “Look at your tat. Look at your sword. You’re a King. Whether you want it or no’, you are one of us.”
“Tristan,” Banan said, his voice echoing around the cavern. “It’s from Celtic mythology. Our newest King is obviously Scottish. Let’s give him a name worthy of his roots.”
Tristan gave a nod to Banan. “Tristan it is.”
Hal crossed his arms over his chest and regarded him. “Tristan fits. A good, strong name for a resilient, powerful King.”
Tristan licked his lips, a frown marring his forehead. “What year is it?”
“2012,” Hal answered.
For several moments, no one said anything until Banan stepped forward. “You are no’ just immortal, Tristan, or just a King. As a Dragon King, you’ll rule whatever dragons you were given.”
“How will I know what dragons those are?”
“You have to shift,” Rhys said with a wicked grin.
Hal kept his gaze on Tristan as Rhys removed his clothes and shifted into dragon form. Hal didn’t have to look to know a huge yellow dragon stood behind him.
Rhys flicked his long, thin tail where it had a bladelike extension on the end, causing the cave to rumble from the impact.
To give Tristan credit, he didn’t cower, simply stared at Rhys with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.
Hal glanced at Rhys and the series of tendrils that extended from the back of his head. Rhys’s orange dragon eyes, wide and gemlike, watched Tristan. In the next instant, both Banan and Guy had stripped and shifted to their dragon forms.
With all three Kings in dragon form, there wasn’t much room left in the cavern.
Hal pointed to Banan, the dark blue dragon, and to Guy, a dragon of the deepest red. “This is what we are.”
“So you … I mean, we are really dragons?” Tristan asked.
“Nay. We are both dragon and human, no’ fully either one. Just parts o
f both.”
“Why?”
“Dragons ruled this planet long before man ever did. When man was created, so the rulers of the dragons were also given humanity so we could be a part of both worlds. It was meant for us to live in harmony. Which we did. For a time.”
“Where are the dragons now?”
Hal took a deep breath, pain lancing through his chest as he thought of his dragons. “We made them leave to go to another, safer realm when the humans began to hunt them. We tried to make the humans understand that to kill the dragons was to kill themselves and their world, but they didna believe us.”
“Yet, you Kings remained.”
“Aye,” Hal said softly. “We stayed behind to guard the portal. But that is a story for another time. Right now, you need to shift to see what dragons you command, but also to understand the dragon part of you.”
Tristan leaned his sword against the boulder and looked at the three dragons in the cavern. “How?”
Hal was looking forward to shifting almost as much as kissing Cassie again. “Feel your dragon inside you. The first shift might be painful, but the more you do it, the less it hurts. The dragon is a part of you, so it will take nothing to bring him forth. Watch.”
Hal closed his eyes and thought of the dragons he commanded, of how it felt to have the wind beneath his wings as he soared through the sky.
He felt his own dragon tattoo writhe on his chest a second before the shift took him. When Hal next looked at Tristan, it was through his dragon eyes of emerald green.
“Does the color matter?” Tristan asked.
Hal nodded his head, waiting for him to shift so they could communicate through each other’s minds as dragons did.
“So whatever color I am will determine what dragons I am King of?”
Again Hal nodded.
Tristan removed his jeans and faced them, his eyes closed. Hal, Rhys, Banan, and Guy all watched Tristan intently.
To have a new King, it was almost too much to comprehend. First the Silvers moving, now this.
So many Kings were lost in the battle with the humans, leaving dragons without a ruler. Hal and the others had stepped in as needed, but it wasn’t the same as each dragon having its own King.
It had been eons since they’d had to train a King to shift. Hal just hoped he’d done it correctly.
The thought had barely flitted through his head before he saw Tristan’s tattoo move. Tristan gave a shout as his bones popped and he shifted from human to … an amber-colored dragon.
“Shite,” Rhys’s voice said in Hal’s head.
Hal couldn’t form words. The Ambers hadn’t had a King in so long, they had forgotten when he was lost. Their King had been killed before the war, and for them to have one now was … miraculous.
“What the hell,” Tristan said as he shook his huge head.
Hal looked over their newest Dragon King. He had a stocky body with scales the color of polished amber. His long tail had a stinger on the end. Each of his four limbs had five digits that ended in long claws. Enormous amber-colored wings flapped, stirring the air around them.
Bladelike bony plates sprouted from the dragon’s chin, and bony knobs surrounded his nostrils while hooded, apple green eyes watched them.
“Impressive,” Banan said.
Hal grinned. “Verra.”
“I can hear your voices in my head, but your mouth isna moving,” Tristan said.
Rhys chuckled. “Did you no’ hear the powerful part, lad? We are dragons. We have magic. And no need to speak with our mouths.”
A smile pulled at Tristan’s mouth. “I think I’m going to like being a King.” Tristan turned his head to look at one wing, and then the other. A moment later he was flapping both. “Can we fly?”
Guy laughed and beat his own wings. “Oh, aye. No’ that we’re able to do it as we used to, but we most certainly can.”
One by one they shifted back to their human forms and dressed.
Hal was fastening his jeans when Tristan asked, “Why the sword?”
“The sword is part of you,” Rhys said. “It’s the part given to us as humans. It’s also the only way a King can kill another King in human form.”
Tristan frowned. “I thought you said we were immortal.”
“Ah, but all immortals can be killed somehow,” Hal said. “For us, nothing a human does can kill us. It might wound us, but we’ll heal. The only way we can die is by a King using the sword when we’re human—”
“—Or battling each other as dragons,” Guy finished.
“So other Kings have been killed?” Tristan asked.
Banan sighed loudly. “Unfortunately. The King of the Ambers was killed long, long ago in a battle.”
“Why was I made into a King?”
Rhys’s aqua-ringed dark blue eyes swung to Tristan. “A verra good question, one I hope Con might be able to answer.”
“Con?”
“Constantine,” Hal answered. “He’s the King of the Kings and ruler of the Golds.”
Tristan rubbed his dragon tattoo—absently or not, Hal wasn’t sure. The dragon tats did move. It was a way they distinguished a King from a human.
Hal listened with half an ear as they told Tristan how they leapfrogged through time and always had to stay near Dreagan. Hal followed as they walked Tristan out of one cavern and into another where the Silvers were caged.
“Why?” was all Tristan asked as he looked at the Silvers.
“Ulrik, their King, commanded them to destroy mankind,” Banan said.
“That sounds verra neat and tidy. How much more is there to the story?”
Hal was impressed at how Tristan’s mind worked. Hal and Ulrik had been close friends, which was why Ulrik’s betrayal hurt so badly.
“It was Ulrik’s retaliation for humans hunting the dragons,” Guy answered. “Ulrik was betrayed by his woman, a human. She helped her people kill dragons, so Ulrik went to war.”
“Despite Con telling him no’ to,” Banan said.
Hal leaned a hand on the metal bars around the Silvers. “Ulrik had no idea he was betrayed. We discovered it.”
“And ended it,” Guy stated harshly.
Hal glanced at Guy. “Aye. We ended it. We killed Ulrik’s woman before he had a chance to know what was happening.”
“That only propelled Ulrik,” Rhys said. “His woman’s death, along with her betrayal set him on a path he wouldna move from. He wanted war, but Con forbade it. So along with killing humans, he came after us.”
Hal gave a small grunt as he pushed away from the bars. “War. Admit we all thought of joining Ulrik in his hunt of the humans.” Hal’s gaze caught Tristan’s. “The humans were killing dragons, the dragons we were supposed to protect.”
“Just as we were supposed to protect the humans,” Guy added softly.
Banan scrubbed a hand down his face. “Ulrik’s actions damned him. He went against Con’s orders, and even when Con demanded he halt, Ulrik was relentless in his destruction of humans.”
“What happened?” Tristan asked.
Hal looked at the ground, memories he wanted to forget rising in his mind. “Con had only one choice. He stripped Ulrik of his sword and his powers as well as his ability to talk to his dragons. We captured the Silvers we could, and used our magic to make them sleep.”
“Ulrik is still a King,” Banan said. “He’ll always be a King. But even if his dragons were to wake, he couldna talk to them as a King does, or shift into dragon form. So he goes through each day, all the while we watch him. We’re always watching him.”
The events of that day so long ago hadn’t been spoken about in ages. Despite the time that had passed, Hal couldn’t forget how Ulrik had gone into a rage when he’d discovered what his friends had done to his woman. And her betrayal.
Hal wasn’t sure what hurt Ulrik the most. No matter how many times he and the others had tried to speak to him, no one had been able to get through to Ulrik.
It was as if a switch
had been thrown in Ulrik, altering him forever from the great King he had been, to a killer.
Hal couldn’t help but wonder if he would have done things differently from Ulrik. If it had been his woman who had been killed, his woman who had betrayed him, would he have had the strength to do as Con demanded?
An image of Cassie filled Hal’s mind, and he honestly couldn’t answer his own question.
Tristan shifted in the silence that followed. “How many more Kings are there?”
Rhys flashed a bright grin, happy to change the subject. “More than you think, but no’ as many as there should be.”
“That’s no’ an answer.”
“Get used to it,” Hal told him. “That’s all you’ll get from Rhys.”
A few moments later, Banan and Guy led Tristan away to the main house to show him his room. Hal’s thoughts turned to another. Cassie. He knew better than to let himself think of her, but he couldn’t help it.
“I warned you to guard yourself.”
Hal swung his gaze to Rhys. “Meaning what?”
“Cassie. You’re thinking of her. Why? You’ve never been so attracted to a human before, no’ like this.”
“I know.” Hal rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s all I can think about. She’s all I want, all I care about. I can no’ explain it. All I know is that something has changed.”
“Aye, just as the Silvers moved. But what has changed? More important, what is it affecting?”
Hal frowned as he realized the impact of Rhys’s words. “You doona think our dragon magic has been touched, do you?”
“I doona know,” Rhys said with a shrug. “We’ve no’ had to fight in either human or dragon form in many centuries. We spar, aye, but it isna the same.”
“Nay, no’ even close. We are Kings, though, the strongest of the strong. Ulrik’s power to shift was taken from him thousands of years ago. We’ve made sure he’s harmless.”
Rhys slowly shook his head. “I’m no’ as sure of that as I used to be.”
Hal watched his friend walk out of the caves, and all Hal could think about was keeping Cassie from any danger that might be coming their way.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Cassie blinked and found herself looking at the pale taupe wall she was in the process of painting.