by Selena Scott
“He’s still my best friend.” There was murder in Amos’s eyes but Lucy had no idea who it was even for, the Oracle, this Solar guy, or himself. Amos turned to Lucy. “He’s like a brother to me. But when he decided that he couldn’t live under the King’s rule, we had to part ways.” He brought his hand roughly through his hair. “Or risk having to kill one another.”
“Wow, stunner,” the Oracle said in such a way that Lucy knew he already knew that whole story. He leaned back around to see Lucy.
“Anyhow, I just revealed to Amos that I’m a member of that alliance as well. And right now Amos’s DNA is telling him to murder me for treason. Hence, the claws and the, you know, insanely intense anger.” He gestured to Amos’s tight demeanor.
“But basically, he’s grappling with that because he’s ALSO not loyal to the King anymore because of your pretty little ass. And I think that pretty much brings you back up to speed.” The Oracle leaned back in his chair as if he were exhausted.
“You brought her here because you knew how much she would mean to me,” Amos said tightly, putting the pieces together.
The Oracle nodded.
“You knew when you found her that she’s the only thing that would tear me away from guarding the King,” Amos continued.
“And you and the alliance needed Amos out of the way to be able to get to the King,” Lucy cut in.
Again the Oracle nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. You guys got it right on the nose.”
“Wow.” Lucy plunked herself onto the bed. “Wow.”
“Is she even a genetic match for the King?” Amos asked, his voice rising. “Or did you just bring her here to fuck with me and destroy the entire monarchy?”
“Oh no. Trust me. She’d breed strong with the King. But a lot of women would.” He looked her up and down before adding more. “But I have to say, your girl is an especially fertile one. She could mate with a rock and create a hatchling. We SUPER don’t want the King to knock her up. That would be bad news all around.”
Amos growled and threw his hands up in the air. Obviously torn between hating the Oracle and agreeing with his last statement.
The Oracle stood. “Which is why I’m here to help you.”
“How?” Lucy snapped, her nerves pulled tight like a bow string.
“Look, this whole ‘four more years, hide in the realm, and then rescue Zara mess’ you guys have planned is bullshit. It’s gonna get you both killed.”
Again, Lucy’s jaw dropped. “How did you…” she trailed off.
“Oracle,” the Oracle reminded her, pointing at himself. “I see alllllllllllll.” He waved his hands in front of his face. “Sometimes too much. Seriously, you guys need to give it a rest sometimes. Some of us are trying to sleep around here.”
“Jesus Christ,” Amos threw his hands in the air and paced away, obviously trying to put space between him and the Oracle.
“Get to the part about you helping us,” Lucy said.
“Oh, right. Well, basically, the night of the harvest moon, the alliance is going to break into the fortress and create a major distraction that will allow you guys to get through the portal without anybody noticing.”
“What major distraction?” Amos asked, his arms crossed over his chest like a vice.
“Well, we can’t try to assassinate the King while you’re still in this realm because it’ll trigger your super protection bodyguard mode thing you have going on. And we’re not dumb. We know we can’t compete with that. So that’s out.”
“Then what is it?” Lucy asked, totally exasperated.
“We’re gonna kidnap Zara.”
His statement was met with complete silence as Amos and Lucy’s brains whirred, trying to see the plan from different angles.
“What are you gonna do with her?” Lucy asked.
The Oracle’s voice softened a little bit. “Look, she’s a good kid. And she’s been dealt a shit hand. Amos and Solar have known her since we was born, practically.”
Amos nodded, confirming.
“Solar feels like a brother to her. He doesn’t want her to be condemned to being one of the King’s wives. So he wants to kidnap her from here and take her away, someplace that the King can’t get to her.”
“And while he’s at it, he can use her as a bargaining chip,” Amos muttered.
“What do you mean?” the Oracle asked.
“She’s the King’s favorite wife,” Amos said. “Sorry, hatchling.” He flashed her a grin that she had to meet.
“Anyway,” he continued. “The King would probably do almost anything to get Zara back. It’ll help draw him out.”
The Oracle’s jaw dropped in what seemed to be genuine surprise. “Are you helping make a plan for the rebel alliance? Even I did not see that coming.”
Amos dropped down onto the bed next to Lucy. She could feel the overwhelming tension roll off of him.
“The harvest moon is in two days. Are you guys prepared?” Lucy asked the Oracle.
“We are, especially if Amos isn’t going to block our plans.”
Amos held still, his silence an acquiescence to the Oracle’s words.
“It’ll happen at dinnertime. Be ready to leave.”
“Fine,” Amos snapped. “Get the fuck out of here.”
The Oracle stood and rolled his hand in front of him in a fancy bow. “Pleasure as always.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Amos clenched his jaw as he waited for the big distraction to come. It was two days later and dinner had gone on for twenty minutes already. He could see the harvest moon out the window of the great dining room. The portal was open and the King was ready to mate. Amos’s nerves were a wreck.
The King had chained Lucy’s hand to his own in the traditional consummation night jewelry. The cuff was the same gold of the one around her neck. Lucy sat at the head of the table, next to the King, and Amos could see her disgusted expression from across the hall.
This was torture. The meal was cleared away and Amos was sure he was going to lose his mind. After the dessert course the King was sure to take Lucy back to his chambers. Amos’s fists clenched.
The Oracle caught his eye across the room. He was telling him to calm down. Amos knew that. But then King Dalyer stood up, raising his goblet. Lucy had to stand as well because of the shackle around her wrist. The wives raised their goblets. Their bodyguards, Amos, and the Oracle were the only other people in the room.
Come on, Solar. Amos thought. Any minute now.
The King cleared his throat. “Thank you for being here on this very special consummation night. The night of the harvest moon. This is especially important to me, because the Oracle assures me that this is the night this wife will conceive the most powerful heir my family line has ever known.”
Amos noticed Zara looking queasy. He wished they could have let her in on the secret. But they weren’t sure she wouldn’t have given it away.
“In honor of this special night,” King Dalyer said, his eyes darkening. “I’m instituting primal law.”
Amos’s blood froze. He saw the Oracle’s face go white as a sheet. How the fuck could he not have seen this.
“No!” Zara yelled.
Lucy looked around, totally confused. She didn’t know that primal law meant the King was going to take her right then and there. Publicly. So there was no questioning that she carried his child, the heir to the throne.
The King pushed Lucy to floor, and not expecting it, she easily toppled. Amos felt something come loose inside of him. It was like an egg hatching. Something he’d been incubating for a long time finally came of age. An primal, ancient scream ripped out of his throat and everyone turned to stare at him as he shifted. Immediately full dragon.
King Dalyer looked up. “Amos. I knew you lusted after this woman, but to take it this far…” the King shook his head in fascinated disgust.
He unclipped himself from Lucy who immediately slid away as the King started his disgustingly wet shift.
The wives sc
attered as the King cuffed the dining table to one side. It smashed on the wall of the great hall as the two dragons squared off. The bodyguards lining the walls looked between Amos and King Dalyer in confusion. Two dragons they never thought they’d see fight were whipping their tails at one another and roaring with rage.
Out of the corner of his eye, Amos saw the Oracle usher Lucy and the wives to one end of the great hall. But that was the last thing he noticed about the room before he lunged at the King.
Sorry, ancestors. He was about to destroy the royal line.
His humongous jaw sank into the King’s shoulder and Dalyer gave a roar loud enough to shake the chandeliers. Amos drew back and stomped one of his mighty back legs straight to the King’s chest, flinging him across the room.
The duty inside a few of the bodyguards apparently woke up because suddenly Amos wasn’t facing off just one dragon, he was facing off three. One of them circled around to his blind spot and rose up in flight, trying to immobilize Amos from the air. Amos swung his tail without looking and plunged the vicious spike on the end through the guard’s wing. He didn’t want to kill these men.
Only the King.
Amos lunged at the King again, but the other two bodyguards got in the way, flinging him backwards. But they were no match for him. Amos burst through their wall and grabbed hold of the King with his front claws.
He picked the older dragon up as if he were a rag doll and tossed him fully into the wall. The great hall shook. King Dalyer stood, a wicked glint in his eyes, and Amos knew what he was going to do before he did it.
The King’s main weapon wasn’t his size or speed. It was the poisonous spikes he could shoot from his mouth.
Amos was prepared to turn his scales to the poison. It couldn’t harm him unless it got in his mouth or eyes. But a sickening second later, he realized that he wasn’t where the King was aiming.
In his vindictiveness, his willingness to completely and utterly destroy an enemy, the King was willing to destroy his own future. He always had been. That viciousness was one of the reasons he had retained the throne for so long as an older dragon with no heir. He used that viciousness now. And aimed the poison at the wives.
At Lucy.
Amos felt the claws of the other dragons dig into him. One set of them on his shoulder and one on his haunches. But the pain meant nothing to him. It was nothing compared to the thing that was exploding inside of him. The worst, most powerful pain he’d ever felt was rising up in him. He felt it come straight from his belly and up out of his throat. He tasted rage, fear, and mortality in what was ripping up through him.
He tasted the pain he wanted the King to feel. But most of all, he tasted his love for Lucy, and everything he would do to protect her. He opened his mouth to roar and a thirty foot long stream of red hot fire exploded out of him. It incinerated the poison darts in midair. It blew a hole through the rock wall beyond. It instantly hiked the temperature in the hall by thirty degrees.
Amos thought only of Lucy as he turned the spray toward the King, ready to extinguish him from the world.
But he heard Lucy cry out from behind him. He shut his mouth on the fire and turned. The roof of the great hall trembled and quaked as it suddenly was being lifted at the corners. At least ten dragons kicked and clawed, crumbling the roof into the great hall.
Amos locked eyes with a midnight blue dragon he recognized well. Solar.
Amos’s job wasn’t to fight anymore. It was to run. With Lucy. He turned on his haunches and realized he could be quicker in his human form. Transforming on the fly, he sprinted across the hall as a human.
Lucy saw him coming and turned to run along his side, gripping his hand. As they passed, Amos watched Solar land beside Zara and toss one of the velvet tapestries around her so his scales wouldn’t hurt her. He picked her up in his humongous arms and lifted off into the air, that part of the plan complete.
Lucy and Amos sprinted out of the great hall and down a narrow corridor. Lucy had no idea how to get to the portal so Amos shouted directions as they went.
He could hear someone else’s footsteps pounding behind him, but when he looked it was just the Oracle.
“Dude, congrats!” the Oracle yelled.
“On what?” Lucy yelled back.
“On the whole true mate thing!”
“What?!” Lucy screeched.
“I summoned fire,” Amos said as they crashed into the nondescript cellar that held the entrance to the portal. He turned to her and ran a hand over her head.
She nodded. “Which you said dragons can only do to protect their true mate.” Her brow furrowed. She whirled and looked at the Oracle. “Which means I’m pregnant?!”
“I told you that you were fertile myrtle,” the Oracle said, grinning at her and holding his arms out for a hug.
Amos and Lucy hugged one another instead.
“Oh my god,” Amos said into her hair over and over again. But then he looked up, glaring into the Oracle’s face.
“You told me that dragons could only get humans pregnant on the harvest moon.”
The Oracle’s mouth dropped open. “And you believed me?! That’s just some shit I told the King to buy the alliance some more time after Lucy got here.”
Amos and Lucy had twin flabbergasted looks pasted across their faces.
The Oracle covered his mouth with one hand. “Holy shit, have you guys been barebacking it because you thought she couldn’t get pregnant? Wow. My bad, you guys. My bad.”
Lucy put her face in her hands and a little half laugh, a half sob came out. “You know, it’s kind of ok.”
The ground above them shook and a roar from overhead got them scrambling.
“The King,” Amos said, tugging Lucy toward the portal.
“Amos,” the Oracle said. “You’re gonna have to destroy the portal once you’re through.”
“What? I can’t do that! That would destroy the tie between the two realms.”
“Trust me. There’s another one. And if the King gets down here before it’s destroyed he’s gonna come through. And there are more women he could successfully breed with on earth. He can’t get through.”
Amos raked his hand through his hair as the ground shook again. The King was almost there.
“How do I destroy it?” he asked the Oracle.
“With your love fire, baby.” The Oracle grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “I’ll come and find you guys soon. You won’t have to stay on earth forever if you don’t want to raise your little guy there.”
They heard a roar right outside the door and Lucy quickly hugged the Oracle before Amos grabbed her around the waist and launched them through the blackhole.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
This time was decidedly not as bad, Lucy realized. She was snuggled up against Amos’s chest and she didn’t think she was coming face to face with death. She was going home, back to earth. And the thought was enough to comfort her through the debilitating nothingness of going through the portal.
They landed with a thud on the floor of the abandoned subway station. Amos shielded her body with his. But as soon as they landed he was transforming back into his dragon form to summon the fire that was going to destroy the portal. Right before he opened his mighty mouth, a small little bundle flew through, hitting Lucy gently on the belly.
Then Amos was roaring and lighting up the long dingy track with a fireball that trumped his first. The inky black portal exploded like an oil fire over the ocean. For a second, it almost looked like the portal was going to consume the fire, but Amos kept it coming. Suddenly, the portal collapsed in on itself.
And then air was just the air. Dingy and singed from the fire. Lucy looked down at the bundle in her arms and chuckled when she realized what it was. Amos transformed back into his human form and came to help her stand.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked.
“The Oracle threw his shoes and pants through the portal for you.”
Confusedly Amos looked dow
n at his naked body. “Wow, that was actually pretty nice of him.” He grabbed the pants and tugged them on. “Wait, did I run through the fortress completely naked just now?”
Lucy bit her lip and tried not to smile. “Yup.”
He tied on the shoes and took Lucy’s hand. This time she led the way.
“Are you gonna teach me how to be human?” he asked, overwhelmed with the thought of trying to fit in to the human world until the Oracle came to retrieve them.
“Never,” she said, looking back at him through the dark. “I love your dragon way too much.”
EPILOGUE
Lucy rolled her eyes as she heard the downstairs broomstick bang against her floor again. She knew it would only be a matter of minutes before Ms. Tisdale came stomping up the stairs to yell again. They used to be such good friends before Lucy ever went to the dragon realm. But now…
Bang. Bang. Bang. Ms. Tisdale rattled the door on the hinges and Lucy shot Amos a meaningful look over her shoulder. He gingerly gathered up the tiny dragon making all the noise and carried him to their bedroom, shutting the door.
Lucy opened the door to their apartment. “Yes, Ms. Tisdale?”
“Lucy, you know I like children,” she started without preamble. “And god knows I like that husband of yours. So helpful around here with all the repairs.”
Lucy struggled not to roll her eyes. Ms. Tisdale certainly liked to WATCH Amos do repairs. “Uh huh,” she said, already knowing what came next.
“But your boy is just too loud. He bangs my ceiling day and night. And that yell! Goodness, it’s like a lion roaring up here.”
“A dragon,” Lucy corrected.
“Excuse me?”
“When he’s roaring it’s because he’s being a dragon.”
“Sure, of course, I’m sure he has a beautiful imagination. Dear, I say this from the bottom of my heart. But sometimes he’s such a little monster.”
Lucy sucked her lips in and tried not to laugh. “Ms. Tisdale, you have no idea.”
Lucy said goodbye and shut the door on Ms. Tisdale. She went back and flung open the door to their bedroom. Two year old Drake came barreling across the hardwood floors straight to his mama’s arms.