Dragon Born 1: The Shifter's Hoard

by Dante King

  Guess I’ll get to use my new spells even earlier than I thought, I told myself with a smirk.

  “Can you trigger the door remotely?” I asked Carli.

  “I can unlock it, but they’ll still have to open it,” she replied.

  “Do that, then.”

  Carli typed a sequence into her computer, and there was a loud beep.

  As I watched the surveillance, the shifters found the secret entrance, wedged their claws in the door, and shoved it open. Now we could hear them coming down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time as they descended toward our hiding place.

  The trio of shifters reached the door—then stopped, waiting on the other side. All of us tensed, expecting a coordinated attack, but a few moments later came the sound of knocking. As if these three women were delivering a pizza or something like that.

  “It’s open,” I grunted, willing my face to become less draconic. Scales covered my hands and forearms, hallmarks of the greater transformation I barely held at bay. “Go on and enter, if you want to get your asses kicked…”

  The door slowly slid open. “I assure you,” the first bear shifter said, her hands held over her head, “that is not what we desire. My name is—”

  “I don’t care what your name is,” I growled, holding the flames at bay. “State your business or get out.”

  The three shifters shared a look. “Very well,” the one who was clearly the leader said, nodding at her clan sisters. “If you command us to, then we shall.”

  Before I could wrap my head around the idea that I was commanding them, all three of the women dropped to their knees in the doorway. My jaw nearly hit the floor as the trio pressed their foreheads to the cold concrete, adopting postures of complete and total submission.

  “We belong to you, Alpha,” the leader said. “You slew our owner, and now the three of us are your property. It is the old way.”

  To say I was stunned would have been a massive understatement.

  “You’re my what?”

  “I wondered if this would happen,” Soojin said suddenly at my right arm. The older woman cast a thoughtful gaze over the newcomers, like a merchant weighing a gem on a scale to see how much it was worth. “You did kill a high-ranking bear shifter, after all. It’s definitely not typical, but I’ve heard of it happening even these days.”

  “Soojin,” I grunted, disbelief filling my voice, “what are you saying I did?”

  Soojin turned to the trio of bear shifters, still on their knees. “Please, enter,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. “I am one of your Alpha’s mates. Our Alpha doesn’t fully grasp the rules of clanhood yet, so for now you can take your cues from me. His words supercede mine, of course.”

  “Of course,” the trio chorused as they moved to sit on the couch.

  “We are very grateful,” the leader added.

  This must be what going mad feels like, I thought as I watched the three gorgeous, long-haired women settle on the cushions.

  Gripping either side of my head, I whirled on Soojin. “Okay. I’m going to need you to explain this to me. Now.”

  Soojin already knew. From the look on her face, Carli had begun to understand, as well.

  “For centuries, shifter culture involved a near-constant state of war,” Soojin explained, walking through the living room. “Clans would attack each other regularly, hoping to kill high-ranking members of rival clans—in particular, the clan’s Alpha. You see, shifters have an ancient law. When you kill a shifter, you inherit his or her property. Including their mates.”

  The words hit me like a truck. “Their mates,” I repeated, looking at the trio of beauties. “You’re saying these women…”

  “Were mated to the shifter you killed,” Soojin finished for me. “Yes, the shifter you tossed out of the window. He mentioned doing it ‘old school’ when you fought him, so I figure he was aiming to take us by killing you—our Alpha. But you turned the tables on him. As Alpha of your own clan, you can lay claim to anything he owned—his weapons, his spells, and his women. ”

  “Especially his women,” Carli added with a giggle.

  The floor beneath me began to rock like I was on a boat.

  “I think I need to sit down,” I said, looking again at the three bear shifter women arrayed submissively on the couch. All three of these women were mine now? My mates?

  “I understand this must come as a shock,” Soojin said. She led me to the big easy chair in the apartment and let me sit, then gestured for Carli to get me something to drink. “You’re probably wondering why you’ve never heard of such a thing before. After all, if you could take control of someone’s entire clan by killing their Alpha, why wouldn’t it be happening all the time?”

  “Something like that,” I said, the words tasting ashen in my mouth. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that by killing that asshole who’d tried to hurt my women, I’d doubled my stable of babes. My harem had just grown by one hundred percent.

  Soojin nodded like she understood what I was feeling. “The killings led to reprisals, and honor feuds between shifter clans that lasted for decades—sometimes centuries,” she told me. “In order to calm things down, the Council of Wand & Claw instituted a new rule—such high-ranking clan authorities can only be killed in self-defense, or as part of capital punishment. Any other killings are forbidden.”

  I found that hard to believe. “What, no assassinations? No duels? You’re kidding me.”

  “Clan Alphas are… like kings on a chessboard,” Soojin said, grasping for the right metaphor. “They’re never killed—only checkmated. If a clan were to ambush another, putting the Alpha in an unwinnable situation, he would immediately surrender and negotiate terms with the opposing clan. That is the way the supernatural realm has done things for centuries.”

  I looked sideways at the spoils of my war. “That’s not how I’d do them,” I said. The very idea raised my hackles.

  Soojin flashed that enigmatic smile. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said. “And the good news is, you don’t have to.”

  Huh? I couldn’t lie—the moment Soojin mentioned that an Alpha could lose their women, I immediately feared such a thing could happen to me. The thought of handing Soojin, Carli, or anyone else over to another man didn’t just raise my hackles—it filled me with a rage so blinding I could break things.

  No one touched my girls. No one.

  “The ritual,” Soojin said with a smile, holding up the book. “Once it’s complete, our clan will be like no other clan in the supernatural realm. The women who serve in the Dragon’s Hoard are unable to be unbound from their master—even your death wouldn’t release us from your service. And we’d never be able to betray you, either.”

  “According to the book,” Carli added, “just the thought of turning against you or having sex with someone else would cause us physical pain. ‘Like dragon’s fire burning beneath the skin’, the book says. Sounds kinda patriarchal, but—I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” the Raiju shifter giggled, rubbing her stomach. “So I’m cool with it.”

  Untouchable. My girls would be completely safe. As long as I finished the ritual.

  “You three,” I said, rising from the couch.

  The bear shifters gave a start, as if unused to being addressed in this fashion. “Yes, Alpha?” the leader asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “You want to join me, right?” I glanced around the living room, taking in the sight of the intricate ritual design across the floor. There were just enough spokes on the wheel for everyone to sit around it—for everyone currently in Carli’s hideout to be bound to me, body and soul.

  I didn’t know these bear shifters from Adam. I didn’t trust them. But if they went through the ritual with the rest of us, their loyalty would be without question.

  And I’d have doubled the size of the team I was taking with me to save the thunderbird.

  All three of them nodded. “Of course, Alpha.”

  “Are you okay with signing o
nto this ritual, then? I know you all heard Soojin and Carli talking about it. You’re going to be stuck with me, and you’ll have to do everything I say. Even if it’s mean, or not what you want.”

  The three looked at each other as if they’d just learned their new master had a second head.

  “That is… how we live, Alpha,” the leader said, a little taken aback. “The ritual you speak of has already taken place in our hearts.”

  “Perfect,” I said, taking my seat at the head of the sigil. “No time to lose, then. Riley’s scanner will have the auction’s location narrowed down soon. We need to get going—which means that if I’m going to fight beside you, I need to trust you completely. All of you.”

  The bear shifters looked down at the sigil, each shrugging in turn. “Very well, Alpha.”

  “What are your names?” I asked.

  The lead shifter, whose skin was a chestnut-color and her hair a dark brown, was the first to speak. “My name is Alicia,” she said.

  “I’m Nadine,” said the bear shifter with golden-wheat skin and tawny-brown hair.

  “And I’m Gisele,” said the woman with pale skin and ash-blonde hair that was almost white.

  “Good to have you all aboard,” I said with a smile.

  Both Soojin and Carli looked totally comfortable with this, taking their respective places with grace. There was one other person in the apartment, however, whose temperature I needed to take.

  “Riley,” I said, looking the gorgeous young mage up and down. “Are you willing to go through this ritual with the rest of us?”

  The mage stared at the sigil, nibbling her bottom lip. Nothing had really changed—except now she knew that once we were done, she’d never be able to go back. No doubt whatever happened in the ritual would bind us so closely that she’d end up in my bed—and she was only eighteen. Riley had her whole life ahead of her. Would she be satisfied serving one man for her entire life? Maybe even bearing his children?

  I saw all those thoughts flicker behind Riley’s eyes as she met mine, looking at me with an appraising gaze. At the scales on my arms, the muscles of my chest. The massive, draconic bulge in my pants.

  Then I saw her smile. And I knew that for her, I was enough. The Dragon was more than enough.

  “Oh, fine,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “I really, really want to see where all this is going. You’re flipping over so many tables in the supernatural realm, and you don’t even know it yet!”

  I came up and slipped my hands around her waist, carrying her into the circle.

  “You’re damned right,” I grunted, placing her in her seat. “Now be a good little girl and help Soojin and Carli get this thing started.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Riley blurted.

  You could have heard a pin drop in the apartments.

  Riley’s face flushed so crimson it could have doubled as a stop sign. “I mean… oh shit… you asshole…”

  “You’re in luck,” I said, giving her a smirk. “I like that. Actually, I really like it.”

  “Oh,” Riley said. “I’ll have to… do it more often, then?”

  She glanced around as if expecting to be chastised. The problem with that idea was, she sat in the middle of my harem. All of whom considered worshipping me second nature.

  “Sure,” Soojin said with a shrug. “If that gets Derek going, then totally.”

  “Whatever our Alpha wishes you to call him,” Alicia the lead bear shifter said formally, “is the term of authority one should use.”

  “Ohmigosh, you people are crazy,” Riley said, looking like she wasn’t sure whether she was blushing harder at herself or us. “Alright, let’s do this before I lose my nerve! Go ahead and start the ritual, Soojin!”

  The ritual itself turned out to be much less complicated than we expected. Soojin recited a phrase from the book, then all of us followed along as best as we could. The intent of the lines seemed to be more important than their exact pronunciation. Slowly, as we moved from page to page, an aura of magic filled the room, thickening everything.

  No, not magic. Magic was for mages. This was something deeper than magic.

  Soojin handed me the book and had me read a few lines, after which each woman repeated a phrase. I wondered how they knew all of this, then I realized I was no longer reading from the book—the lines appeared in my head, like a billboard or a teleprompter.

  The book sat in the center of the sigil, forgotten. Soojin began to sing, and suddenly, all of us knew the words.

  I took Soojin and Carli’s hands, and they took the hands of the women next to them. In this way, we formed a circle around the strange symbol—a knot of clan members. The foundation of my empire, the way a building’s foundation can hold an edifice even larger than the Celesta.

  As we chanted, music filled the apartment. A wind blew through the cave, making a mess of the bear shifters’ hair and causing them to giggle. Our voices rose higher and higher, reaching a crescendo that would do… what, exactly?

  Make me the Dragon? Give me the power?

  Open the path, I thought, the world around me beginning to shimmer.

  All the voices abruptly fell away—save for Soojin’s, who repeated the final line with the solemn intonation of a woman committing bodies to burial.

  As soon as the last syllable left her lips, she leaned over and planted a kiss on my forehead, cool and soothing compared to the unbearable heat that had suddenly engulfed me.

  As her lips touched me, the world was ripped away. And suddenly, none of us were sitting in Carli’s living room any longer.

  Chapter 26

  I floated in an endless void, speckled with the stars of another galaxy.

  The starscape surrounding me looked exactly like the sky as seen through the chambers of the Council of Wand & Claw—that otherworldly sky that resembled no night as ever seen on Earth. Galaxies swirled around my waist, stars blinking on and off in the distance like signal flares.

  I floated without form, without a body, for what felt like eons, unable to remember who I was or where I’d been.

  Thoughts came slowly. I remembered my women first, of course, and only later the ritual we’d been taking part in.

  Dimly, I wondered if all that had happened long ago—or if it was yet to come.

  Had I been sent into the future or the past by the Dragon’s ritual? Did time even matter?

  The first change came when I noticed the constellations.

  For time immemorial, I stared at the array of stars above my head, noticing no pattern or symbolism in their spread. Then I began to see the forms of animals floating in the void. The bear, the lion, the wolf.

  I reached out my hands, and each flared to life. The constellation of the bear became an image of a snarling grizzly, defending its cubs from the huntsman. The wolf became a dire wolf, a lone Alpha roaming the forests. I kept on going, reaching for constellations until the sky above me was full of shifters.

  No, not the shifters. The forms which gave the shifters power.

  This, I understood, was the realm where the Council of Wand & Claw truly took place. The fount that gave the supernatural world its power was this realm—filled with the spirits of the shifters, one for each type.

  If there’s shifters here, my formless form thought, then everything else must be here too. Like mages…

  As I thought it, I saw them. Like a puzzle whose solution only seems obvious once you’ve understood the contours of its pieces, I picked out seven spires in the far distance. Somehow, I knew each represented a school of magery, though the names of those schools were as foreign to me as the language of a country halfway around the world.

  I saw them all, mages and shifters alike. Except for the one which animated me.

  Where was the Dragon?

  The more I turned, the more I saw that this realm was not perfect. A shadow spread around its edges, like mold growing in the cracks of shower stall. Something dark moved within the underbelly of supernatural society. Whatever it was di
dn’t have the power to threaten it yet—but it would eventually if someone didn’t do something.

  If I didn’t do something.

  Just then, a great blaze erupted on the horizon. I saw the constellation to which I had been blind—it lay between the others, both part of them and apart at the same time. It threatened to swallow them all at any moment, so powerful that the others couldn’t even fully comprehend its majesty.

  The Dragon. Heading straight for me.

  At the last moment, I realized this creature didn’t mean to embrace me. The dragon’s great maw opened, a galaxy’s worth of flames cascading from its mouth as it sought to annihilate me! The creature roared loud enough to crack planets, its rage deep and unfathomable.

  This must have been the test Soojin mentioned. If I wanted to truly inherit the mantle of the Dragon, I had to beat the Dragon itself. The legendary monster.

  Dimly, I knew that none of this was really happening. But that didn’t make it any less true. This was a battle for my soul, and the result would affect the entire future of the supernatural realm.

  More important than that, without a victory here, I’d never be able to claim my girls forever.

  So I threw myself at the Dragon, gaining form as I thought it. I became a massive, Kaiju-sized version of the Dragon Sigil itself, slamming a scaled fist into the creature’s face. The Dragon barely reacted—other than to slam a tail made of stars at me, knocking me off balance.

  Good God! This thing was so strong!

  I threw myself at it again and again. Hitting it was like slamming my knuckles into a brick wall. The Dragon roared with laughter as it shrugged off my attacks, as if the fact of my being unworthy to defeat it inflamed its sense of humor.

  “Pathetic vessel,” the Dragon snarled, starshine erupting from its eyes. “You have neither the skill nor the wisdom to claim my mantle!”

  Holy shit, it can talk, I thought, dodging to the side as the Dragon clawed at my eyes. I didn’t even think Carli’s Raiju was capable of such a thing.