Wyoming Dynasty (American Dragons Book 10)

by Aaron Crash

  The barista shrugged. “I slew a bunch of dragons yesterday. Like a bunch. And I love slaying dragons. It’s like an addiction, I think. Sad because now we’re friends with all the rest of the Dragonlords on Earth except for...” She pointed and mouthed Aria’s father while jerking her thumb behind her. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I was considering setting up a Predator type of situation, where I hunt dragons who are being dicks on other worlds.”

  “The most dangerous game.” Mouse nodded with a little too much approval for Steven’s comfort.

  He sighed. “You’re not going to be playing the most dangerous game, Tessa. And you’re not going to become like a Predator. That’s the last thing we need.”

  Quinn nodded. “Well, then, as usual, you have lost me with your very specific cultural wordplay. Since I cannot partake in the banter, I will sit.”

  The elf had tried to be nice to Tessa, but the barista wasn’t making it easy on her. Then again, Tessa had been on duty the night before and was losing it a little.

  “Sorry, Your Highness,” Tessa said.

  “And I was worried about her being too obsequious,” the elf said under her breath.

  Mouse patted her leg. “You should refer to elf stories. That’s what Aria does to deal with our pop culture reference madness.”

  Quinn didn’t respond. She was staring straight ahead. Tessa left them for the kitchen. Steven pulled up an overstuffed easy chair. He was strong enough to move it easily.

  Steven could guess what she was thinking. “Quinn, I’m glad you came, really. Actually, I was going to contact you anyway. We fought the last of the Dragonsouls yesterday. I gave them a way out. They didn’t take it.”

  “So this world is yours?” the elf asked.

  “Ours!” Tessa called from the kitchen. “We’re all in this together!” Her multiple espresso machines hissed and coughed as the wonderful smell of coffee filled the air. She’d bought a couple more, so basically, the kitchen in the ranch house was better equipped than most Starbucks. If they had to do serious cooking, they used the western dining hall.

  “You are sitting in the capital of the Drokharis Empire,” Mouse said. “It stretches around the world—every continent, every city, everyone is now a part of our global kingdom.”

  “Not everyone,” Steven said, sighing. Not Rhakshor Khat, he thought, or his son, Godha. Aria had been close to her brother growing up. That had changed when they’d matured. Godha would inherit the Primacy one day; Aria was sold off to Rhaegen Mulk. That had hurt Aria’s relationship with her family, including sisters and her mother.

  At some point, on the Battle World, Aria had a nightmare where she had to fight a spider, and Steven was forced to fight and kill her father as they fought in Mumbai. The spider had been Zothora, obviously. Steven hoped the other part of the dream wouldn’t come true.

  “So you are the last Dragonlord?” the elf queen asked him.

  Deep in thought, Steven didn’t answer. And Zoey further distracted him. She smiled at him, and he knew she wasn’t listening to a word they were saying. She just liked to be with him, and that made him smile right back.

  “For the love of biscuits, you two.” Mouse shook her head in exasperation. “Look, Quinn, it’s like this. We’ve divided up the continents into twelve basic areas, trying to take into account landmasses, continents, that kind of thing. We have North and South America, that was easy, and we have Australia, so that makes three. The Oceania Alliance are all the islands, basically, from Hawaii on over all the way to India, including Japan. India has its own, but that’s because there’s so many people there. And we threw in Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, and Bangladesh for fun. That’s five. We divided up Africa into two main sections, Saharan and sub-Saharan, so that’s seven.”

  Mouse counted up the Primacies on her fingers. “China, Mongolia, Siberia, basically Asia, so that’s ten. Europe got another one, which includes the British Isles. What am I missing?”

  “Antarctica,” Steven said.

  Mouse winced. “I always forget that one. It’s not like there’s much there. And yeah, so Antarctica makes twelve. Each of the Primacies has a Dragonlord.”

  “Or a Dragonlady!” Tessa called again from the kitchen. “Sexist!”

  “Feminazi!” Mouse shouted back.

  Zoey shook her head. “I’m sorry, Quinn. They are so loud.”

  The elf brushed a strand of wild hair out of Zoey’s face. “It’s all right. I have been in the hush of a palace these past months. I like the life and noise here.”

  “Oh, life and noise?” Tessa snorted. “Wait until you meet Reggie. She has enough life and noise for everyone.” She came out of the kitchen with their coffees balanced on a silver tray. She set the drinks on the table, then pulled up a footstool to join them.

  Steven picked up his cup of black Americano and sipped it. He would need another pot before he was done because Bud was driving up with Denise and Fimi, who both had started talking about babies of their own. The idea of procreating made Bud break out across his forehead. It was kinda funny to see him with pimples.

  With Silas von Forcade gone, Bud was coming up to put the final touches on their plan. They’d offered to pen a portal for him, but Bud had grown accustomed to the drive. He also wanted to call the new Special Executive Liaison to the Supernatural Community from his car. Robert “Bob” Stains was out, and Bernard “Buster” Lumpkin was in.

  The Lumpkin jokes had come in fast and furious.

  The Supernatural Community Department, or SCD, was in flux with the news of dragons in the world. So far, it was only rumors floating around, and the gossip columns were easy to ignore for most people. Might as well be talking about ghosts. The human casualties in the Zothoric Wars had been chalked up to terrorist activities. That wasn’t far from the truth. Zothora had been a true terrorist with an insatiable appetite.

  Steven knew what the women were drinking: Zoey had her soy chai latte. Mouse had her vanilla latte, extra whipped cream, and Tessa had gone all out with some kind of massive caffeinated sugar drink that had a thousand calories at least.

  That made him smile. The barista was a stress eater. When it came to junk food, though, no one could beat Heridan. Currently, the Prosha was living with Uchiko and Nefri in the northeast corner suite of the perimeter hotel above the pool. Unlike the Prosha and the Shadow Archer, Uchiko was as dutiful as Tessa in the care and feeding of both Sabina and Reggie. She was the Latina Magician’s cariño, after all.

  Quinn sipped her mocha. “Tessa, thank you.” Her voice cracked, and she had to swallow a lump of emotion down.

  “Sure, Quinnie,” the barista said gently.

  Steven saw the compassion in Tessa’s eyes. Ever the empath, she could sense Quinn was having a rough time.

  Mouse might have felt it too, but she wasn’t one to linger on feelings. “Anyway, so, speaking of Dragonladies, Eve Downfyre volunteered to move to the Antarctic. She gave the North American Primacy to Chosen Ben Tozier. Then she took all those women from the Deseret Primacy, and now they’re in some kind of lesbian paradise in the coldest place on Earth. Along with Imogene Summers. You remember Imogene, Quinn? She was on the coast, in what used to be in the PNW Primacy, where your Vankeevra is.”

  “I do not recall her. I apologize,” Quinn said. “Then again, there are so many female Dragonsouls, they are hard to remember.”

  “It’s not a lesbian paradise,” Tessa protested. “Steven goes down there sometimes.”

  “And you always go with him,” Mouse needled her. “Because sometimes you want the fish and sometimes you want the rod.”

  Zoey covered her eyes with her hand. “I love you, Mouse, but sometimes, you’re the most awkward girl ever.”

  “You should’ve seen me when I was drinking. Wasn’t pretty.” Mouse sipped her coffee. “Wasn’t pretty at all.”

  Mouse had been sober since her almost death at the hands of the Terror Trio. They’d repaired the Lookout Mountain Aerie and the sacred pools. Sometimes Ste
ven went there alone to think. A simple Magica Porta and he could go anywhere. For example, Tessa enjoyed the otherworldly Mont-Saint-Michel Aerie in France. And yet, they didn’t travel much. They’d been a little busy with the baby and with enchanting new objects that were going to revolutionize things for the humans.

  Quinn cut through the banter. “So the Dragonlords who stayed are your vassals, ruling the twelve Primacies under your empire.”

  “And the Dragonsouls that left are forging their own way, though they can come back, as long as they let me know.” Steven wasn’t about to let any disgruntled Prime try and mess with him, not after the years of war and running. For the most part, the Primes were happy to take their wives and live on other worlds in peace. They knew how to hide, so if the places were populated, they could blend in.

  “And what of the females?” the elf queen asked. “Did you bring the revolution you promised?”

  Tessa answered. “The women can do whatever they want. Some have stayed in the Dragonlord harems, some have gone south to Eve Downfyre’s—"

  “Lesbian paradise,” Mouse cut her off.

  “It’s not that!” the barista insisted. “The bottom line is that women aren’t being forced to marry, and to be single isn’t seen as a bad thing. Some have become Ronin in their own right. Others are petitioning to join Steven’s Escort. But he’s really choosey and busy and kinda running at maximum effort at this point.”

  “I’m not choosey. I’m just busy.” Steven wasn’t going to lie. Taking care of the ten women in the Infinity Ranch took some doing. No, there were thirteen, if you included the Three Widows. Sixteen if you included the Three Queens in Australia who visited often now that portals could bring them across the world in seconds, though they’d come to learn that portal lag was just as painful as jet lag.

  Quinn started to hum Reggie’s song. “That melody, what is that haunting melody? It suddenly appeared in my mind.”

  Mouse bounced up. “Yeah, I don’t do this next part well. So, I’m gonna go.” And with that, she took her coffee and retreated out the door, nearly running.

  The door to the north garden opened. Sabina’s eyes glowed green, which was good...and bad.

  The Latina Magician walked over, barefoot, in pink sweatpants and a pink sweatshirt. Reggie was a pink bundle held against her skin. Sabina’s hair was black and wild around her head. If Tessa had circles under her eyes, Sabina had squares. Her whole face seemed squished.

  She came over and slid Reggie into Steven’s arms. “I’m going to shower. Tell the elf she can hold our daughter if she washes her hands.” She then turned and walked right out the back door without saying hello to anyone else.

  Tessa winced. “Yeah, Sabina isn’t sleeping much either, even when Reggie does manage to grab a few hours in a row.”

  At her name, the baby gurgled, and Steven adjusted her. He stared down into his daughter’s face and she stared back. Two and half months old, she was far more aware than most babies. Her eyes were huge on her cute face, a light blue, almost gray. She had black fluff on her head.

  She yawned so much her little body shook and then she snuggled in next to her father. She wouldn’t sleep, but she would lie quietly, listening, relaxed, and emanating massive amounts of Animus. She was a Drokharis after all.

  Steven’s heart melted. He loved little Reggie so much, it made his heart ache. He was grateful for every battle, every hardship, for every moment when their fate had hung in the balance. Their eventual victory was a gift he could give to his daughter—a safer world in a vast universe, not secure exactly, but far better than it had been.

  Quinn leaned over to look at the baby. She stood up. “I shouldn’t have come. You are busy, and I will be in the way.”

  Zoey and Tessa stood as well.

  “No,” the barista protested, “we love having you here, Quinn. And it’s not like it wouldn’t be chaotic if you weren’t here. You are welcome. Always.”

  The bear girl nodded. “Yeah, Quinn, we love you. And you’re hurting, we can see that. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Steven saw a look of fear flash across Quinn’s face. She then hardened herself and scoffed. “With you human things? I am an eternal queen of the Lyra. I will find my own way. I enjoyed my walk here, and I wish to walk more. I’ll expect you to have a room ready for me in your perimeter hotel.”

  The elf left through the side door and walked up the path.

  They all sat back down. Tessa shook her head. “She’s in a bad way. Really bad. I don’t know if I can help her.”

  “We can help her,” Zoey said. “We can do anything as long as we do it together.”

  “Spoken like someone who loves her pack.” She reached and touched the bear girl’s hair.

  Zoey took Tessa’s hand and kissed it. She then settled it back into the barista’s lap. “I love you, Tessa, but I don’t feel like being touched right now.”

  This was new for Zoey. She was speaking her mind more and more, and it definitely had something to do with the freedom ring on her finger. She was coming home to herself.

  Steven thought about what the bear girl had said. He wasn’t so sure they could help Quinnestri. Fighting demons was one thing. Counseling a troubled elven monarch? That felt like an impossible task.

  Chapter Five

  THAT NIGHT, THEY ATE in the western dining hall. Windows showed views of the Wayne Manor on one side and the vast yellow plains on the other. Clouds drifted through the blue sky as the sun inched down toward the horizon.

  The glare and the heat weren’t so bad because they had used Magica Incanto to enchant the glass to give it a tint. Or they could remove it completely to create an indoor/outdoor space, since there was an outdoor living room on the western edge with couches, a grill, a bar, and lots of shade and windbreaks. You needed windbreaks in Wyoming.

  The dining room had big rectangular wooden tables that matched the rough-hewn table back in the main house. The chairs were all large, with nice soft cushions. A fireplace dominated the north wall and there were nice easy chairs facing it.

  The kitchen lay to the south of the dining room. Another kitchen was connected to the breakfast café on the eastern side. Haru had taken over the meals, and that was just fine, since he was a man who liked to eat. And he was fully human once more. While others of the Onari Guard had restarted the Dragonskin rituals, Haru had relaxed into his role as the cook. All that time standing, chopping, and cooking had helped him lose a bit of weight. However, Heridan wasn’t helping with that. She was a terrible influence on Haru, always tempting him with junk food or demanding he prepare something disgustingly unhealthy for the two of them to enjoy. He wasn’t the only one the Prosha was corrupting. Having a demon around did have its drawbacks.

  Bud’s BMW was parked outside near their vehicles. They still had the battered old Ford Bronco II from the 1980s, the Orange Crush, as well as the rusted Suburban from Montana that Tessa had dubbed the Poupon. Near them sat Jeeves, their Cadillac Escalade. And yes, they still had the jet at the Cheyenne Airport. However, they were thinking of selling it cheap, since portal spells made air travel obsolete.

  They had added five new motorcycles to their inventory. On the southern part of the perimeter hotel, they’d created a garage so Steven could work on the bikes. He was installing a new kind of battery in one of Bill Dubé’s KillaCycles, a custom motorcycle made just for Steven. He’d made a breakthrough in the last couple of weeks.

  In the end, it wasn’t just a new kind of battery. This was new technology that would change the world. And he had a factory in rural Nebraska making a bunch of them. Another factory in Mississippi was creating something else, small versions of Icharaam’s Orbs. Those two things were just a couple of the topics they were supposed to discuss that night.

  The western dining room doubled as their new conference room. They had full video conferencing, the best phones, the whole package. No cable or fiber optic for Steven, either—he’d put their own geosynchronous satellite over
the ranch using SpaceFlight, and they got every channel and service there ever was. The internet speed screamed like a banshee. Aside from the occasional life-or-death struggle, things were good for the lord of Dragonkind.

  Haru had grilled steaks out in the western outdoor area. With the meat, they had baked potatoes, green beans fried in bacon, and a huge wedge of iceberg lettuce covered in more bacon bits and blue cheese dressing. Uchiko made her amazing peach cobbler for dessert—August on the Great Plains meant peaches from the Palisades in Colorado.

  After dinner, Bud’s girls, Denise and Fimi, left with Abby Free and some of Steven’s other wives to go swim in the pool. And to drink cocktails. Abby Free did like her sweet umbrella drinks.

  Bud remained with Steven. Aria, Tessa, and Mouse of course weren’t going to miss a planning meeting, though Tessa looked like she’d either pass out or freak out at any minute. She needed sleep, a lot of it, and a break from the world of babies.

  Skylar Blacke stayed, since she liked a good business meeting.

  And since business meetings meant scheming, Chastity Virtue and Prudence Pride Wayne were there.

  Liam Strider strolled in from his own Magica Porta spell. He didn’t live on Gaia Alpha anymore, but that was a whole other story. He grabbed the last of the peach cobbler and ate it with Haru’s homemade vanilla ice cream.

  The Yellow Ronin’s eyes widened as he took the first bite. “Haru, you’ve outdone yourself on this one. Is that goat cheese?”

  “Just a little,” the chubby ninja admitted, blushing.

  “It’s superb.”

  Haru grinned. That praise meant something. Liam was quite the chef himself.

  As for Quinnestri?

  Steven was surprised to see her come to the meeting. She was settled in the southeastern suite of the perimeter hotel...as settled as she could be.

  “Where’s the Morta Clique?” Mouse asked.

  Steven sighed. “Don’t call them that.”

  But it was too late. The Morta Clique included Heridan, Nefri, Uchiko, and sometimes Aria. It was a bad name for them since Uchiko had an Animus core. As for them being a clique? That part was totally true.