The dragon merely smiled. “Dizag said that you had a mouth on you. You certainly don’t disappoint,” he said.
“Well, you do. For as big as you are and your auspicious name, you should be a ruler. By the way, you could use a mint. Your breath is awful,” Lana said.
“I’m not here to impress you, Your Royal Highness,” he said sarcastically. He obviously didn’t mean it as a term of respect. “I’m here to take you to Dizag. He’s been waiting for you. We’ve been taking bets on how long it would take you to get here after you received your message. I must say that I’m in awe. I never thought that a woman could move so quickly.”
“You should never underestimate your opponent,” Lana said, trying to make a plan while she stalled as long as she could. “It could end up costing you your life.”
Xutin ignored her dig. “Let’s get on with this. I haven’t got all day, and we don’t want Dizag to get impatient.”
“Mmm,” Lana said. “As polite as you have been, I think I will decline your invitation. I would rather meet Dizag on my own terms.”
In a very polite voice, tinged with amusement, Xutin said, “I don’t believe that you have a choice. When Dizag issues an invitation, he expects that all invitees comply with his wishes.”
“Well, I guess he will have to be disappointed,” Lana said.
Nick was watching the exchange, but also scanning the area, trying to figure out how to best attack. A fight was inevitable.
Xutin puffed up his chest and moved closer to Lana. He put his claw out toward her as though he was going to try to force her toward the cave. Lana roared and swiped his face with her paw, leaving five long, deep cuts on his face. She leapt back, waiting for her next opportunity to attack.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed at him.
Although Xutin tried to keep his cool, Lana and Nick could see that he was getting angry. Wisps of smoke escaped from his nostrils. That was a sign that he had a full blast of fire built up and was ready to cut loose on them with little warning.
Nick was looking for a way to get the dragon’s belly, as the face and the belly were the only two vulnerable areas. The rest of its body was covered in scales. They could eventually get through the scales with enough attacks in the same area, but Nick was sure that they didn’t have that much time. The belly was the only option.
Lana, who could hear his thoughts, looked at him and nodded. She was in full agreement with him.
Lana and Nick leapt apart to avoid the long blast of fire that Xutin had thrown at them. He whipped around and tried to use his tail to attack Nick. Nick saw it coming and jumped just in time, leaping over the tail as though it were a jump-rope on a playground.
While Xutin’s attention was focused on Nick, Lana managed to move in and leave deep claw marks in Xutin’s belly. Blood spilled from the wounds.
Xutin spun around quickly, trying to grab her, but Lana was very fast, and as a large dragon, he wasn’t as swift or agile. Nick moved in quickly, trying to get another shot at the dragon’s now bleeding abdomen.
Nick was soaring in mid-air when he was caught by something and thrown back down to the ground, hard. He felt as though all of his bones had been rattled. He assessed himself and determined that nothing was broken.
Just as Nick got to his feet, Lana ran up beside him, their sides touching.
Two more loud thumps echoed through the air and shook the earth beneath them, as massive forms landed on the ground around the trio.
Xutin lumbered over to the other two shifters that had joined the fight.
Lana and Nick were facing the three dragons, staring back at the lions with smug expressions on their faces.
“Kerog. Kyrse. Where have you been?” Xutin asked. “Lana and her companion declined Dizag’s invitation, and I was in the middle of persuading them to accept.”
“Looks like you were getting your butt kicked,” Kerog said. “Imagine that. You never could do anything by yourself.”
Xutin faced him. “I’ll deal with you later. Get them and let’s go.”
Realizing they couldn’t fight off three dragons and that they had no choice, Lana said, “Fine. If you want to be that way, I guess we will go meet Dizag. You don’t have to be rude about it.”
Xutin and his crew didn’t seem to notice Nick. All of their attention was on Lana. Nick wasn’t the important individual in this game. He was just more of a nuisance. However, there was no way that he could fight the dragons by himself even if he would, or could, not follow Lana into the cave where Dizag was waiting for them.
As they headed toward the cave, the three dragons poked and prodded Nick, taunting him.
“You couldn’t protect your woman. What kind of man are you if you can’t even take care of your mate?” Kyrse said.
“What kind of warrior are you, if you can’t fight a lion by yourself? You’re just a playground bully. You always have to have someone to back you up because you are too chicken shit to fight on your own,” Nick replied, keeping his voice as even as he possibly could.
Kyrse kicked Nick, leaving a cut in his side and sending him staggering across the path.
Nick had to use every bit of internal strength he had to not fight back. There was no way that he could fight three dragons, and if he made a move, the three of them would tear him apart. He was not the one that Dizag wanted, so if he was killed before they reached their destination, it wouldn’t matter. It was Lana that Dizag wanted.
Taking a deep breath, Nick knew he had to stay calm and collected if he was going to be of any help to Lana.
Lana asked, “Are you okay?”
Nick answered. “Yes. This isn’t going to be fun or easy.”
“I’ve heard that nothing worth doing ever is,” Lana answered back.
Nick was glad to see that she still had her sense of humor. He was in awe of her temerity and ability to stay strong in the face of grave danger. She was certainly not a woman to be reckoned with, and he was glad that she was on his side.
They approached the foreboding looking cave. As expected, it was quite a bit larger than all of the other caves. That gave the dragons more room to move around inside.
The opening looked like a giant maw that intended to swallow them up. Perhaps that was actually an accurate description, since he fully expected that once he and Lana entered, they wouldn’t ever leave. He was no fool. He was going to fight, but didn’t really expect to win. There were already at least four dragons against two lions. That was not the greatest of odds.
There seemed to be an invisible shield of darkness at the front of the cave. As they entered, Nick felt the temperature drop significantly. A feeling of complete darkness and emptiness enveloped him.
Herded by the two dragons behind them, Lana and Nick followed Xutin into the deepening darkness. Icy fingers seemed to invade Nick’s body and touch his soul. He imagined that the grim figure of Thanatos stood by with his scythe, appraising Nick, and waiting to collect his essence when they were killed.
Nick shook his head. I’m getting fanciful. I need to focus and see if we can at least rescue her mother and father before anything happens.
He saw Lana glance at him. She must have read his thoughts. She rubbed her head against his quickly.
“Isn’t that cute,” Kyrse said.
Deep inside the cave, Nick spotted the light of several torches. Dizag was sitting at a makeshift throne to one side. He was in his human form, looking triumphant.
“Lana, it is so good to see you again,” he said.
Ignoring him, Lana looked around. There were several cages along the wet, dank walls. In one of those cages were Lana’s parents. They were bloodied and bruised. They hadn’t been imprisoned as long as the others had, so they weren’t as emaciated.
At first, they didn’t notice Lana and Nick as they came in. They were huddled in the corner together. Lana’s father, Clarence, had his arms wrapped around Lana’s mother, Sara. Her head was pressed against her husband’s chest. His head was res
ting on Sara’s. It was hard to tell where one of them began and the other ended.
Before Dizag or the others could stop her, Lana ran over to the cage. “Mother, Father. Are you alright?”
As though they were in a daze, it took a few minutes for them to respond. Then, slowly, they both raised their heads, in unison.
Sara stood at her daughter for a few seconds as though she didn’t register who she was seeing.
Then, she whispered, “Lana, no.” She slumped to the floor, passed out cold.
15
Nick
Nick watched the exchange between Lana and her parents. He was mentally smacking himself, as he knew that Dizag would have some kind of trap, and he and Lana walked right into it. He was just so desperate to help Lana save her parents that he hadn’t taken the time to come up with a plan that didn’t involve a direct route to Dizag’s lair.
He should have studied the maps of the area and found a different way to approach the caves, instead of following the exact path that Dizag had left for them.
The least that they could have done was to give Dizag a run for his money. They would have still ended up in the same place, but at least it would have been a challenge for Dizag and his henchmen. Instead, he and Lana had handed themselves over as sacrifices. The thought rankled Nick and he growled softly to himself.
Xutin heard him and looked over at him. The dragon knew he was frustrated and took pleasure in that knowledge.
Nick turned his attention back toward Lana. She was standing in front of the cage staring at her parents. Her father had managed to get her mother back on her feet. Sara ran to the bars and reached her hands out. Lana put one of her huge paws in her mother’s hand.
“Why did you come, Lana? He just wants to kill you. Why are you here?” Sara asked, frantically. “You should have left us here and rallied the kingdom to come back stronger.”
“I had to come, Mother. You know that I wouldn’t leave you as a prisoner to this monster without trying to do something to help you. You are the ones who have to come back and rebuild,” Lana replied.
“Oh, Lana,” her mother moaned.
Dizag stood up and walked over. “What a touching family reunion. It almost makes me miss my dear old mom and dear old dad. Makes me almost regret killing them.”
Lana whirled around to face him. “You murdered your own parents? Why in the world would you do something so heinous? It is code in all shifter kingdoms to honor the elders.”
Dizag shrugged. “They got in my way. I had plans. Vardok wanted me to come and serve him in his army, and my parents refused to let me go. I was fifteen and had the right to make up my own mind. I knew that Vardok had a policy of destroying anything that got in his way, so I figured I might as well start early. When Vardok heard what I had done, he was so impressed that he promoted me to leader of a troop.”
Nick was amazed at how matter of fact and nonchalant Dizag sounded as he talked about murdering his parents. It was as though they never had any importance to him at all.
“I waited until they were asleep in human form and cut their throats. They died together, which is what they would want,” Dizag said, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. “They never knew what happened to them. I wasn’t so bad that I would want them to suffer.”
He said that as though that made his crime any less awful. “I didn’t kill any of my siblings. I figured they could find their own way. If their way got into mine, I would take care of them later,” Dizag said, as if it made up for his other deeds.
The nature versus nurture argument was one that had always fascinated Nick. Were people born evil or were they made evil by their circumstances? The way Dizag was talking, he was an evil seed since he first popped out of his egg.
While Dizag was regaling Lana with the details of the patricide he committed and how he had carefully planned out his evil intentions, Nick studied the surroundings. There had to be a way that he and Lana could beat the dragons.
The cave was very large, with extremely high ceilings. That gave the dragons some room to fly and maneuver. However, the fact that they were in a cave would also limit their ability to fight. They needed to be able to spread their wings out and spit fire. Fire, along with talons and tail, was their main weapon. The dragons would have to be careful.
The fact that there was more than one dragon actually benefited the lion shifters, Nick thought. If they tried to take flight, they would only get in each other’s way. One dragon might be able to fly, although there would be limitations.
Another factor that worked in Nick’s and Lana’s favor was that the cave would limit the dragons’ ability to use fire. There were four of them, and they took up a great deal of space. If they weren’t extremely careful, the dragons would end up roasting each other.
Nick was starting to feel a bit more hopeful, because as long as they stayed in the cave, he and Lana would actually have a fighting chance. They were still outnumbered and would also be limited with space, but it was better than fighting in the open.
His attention returned to Lana, who looked horrified as Dizag continued to boast about his attack on his parents. He was telling her how he terrorized both of his parents since the moment he was hatched, which was another one of the reasons that Vardok noticed him. Several times, as a young dragon, he would escape from home and head into the bigger villages, bullying the shifters who lived there.
“You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Lana asked. “You're proud of the fact that you are an evil monster who can’t do anything in life besides hurt others.”
Dizag puffed up his chest. “You bet I am. People fear me. Everyone fears the name of Dizag. I am powerful. I have the power to give life or take life. I have the power to make people scream in anguish or walk away without even knowing who I am. I am mighty. You, and people who think like you, are pathetic and weak.”
Lana shook her head. “I thought I had heard it all. You are even worse than the horror movies that the mundane humans watch in their world.
Dizag took that as a compliment and smiled big. “I am, aren’t I?”
Deciding that their little gab session was done, Dizag strutted back to his throne.
“I’m so glad that you guys decided to come,” he said.
He looked at Nick as though noticing him for the first time. “You are the detective that has been trying to find me in that other world. Tracking down every little bit of a clue that I left behind, which always ended up nowhere. I thought it was a great game.”
Nick bit back the words he wanted to spit at Dizag. He wasn’t going to engage this monster in his sick game.
“I really think that this is going to be even more fun than I thought.”
Dizag got off his perch and walked over to Lana. He touched her face and said, “I’m going to have so much fun with you. I really enjoyed Lucy. She was so in love with me and refused to believe that I was my true self at first. When she did, she put up a hell of a fight, which made it all that much more fun for me. I still don’t know if I completely broke her, but watching me torture you might send her over the edge. Oh, yes, I will have so much fun with you.”
“Over my dead body,” Lana growled at him.
“Well, that is always an alternative,” Dizag said. “Although I would be extremely disappointed if that was how it turned out.”
Trying to distract the dragon shifter, Nick asked, “Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of this whole thing?”
Dizag turned his attention toward Nick.
“Well, Detective, we have an imposter sitting on the throne. She is a dragon shifter, to be sure, but she doesn’t belong there. She murdered Vardok and stole his kingdom,” Dizag explained.
“He married her. That made her the queen when he died,” Lana said.
“True, but she murdered him. She is nothing but trash,” Dizag spit out. “Me and several of Vardok’s other warriors escaped when she was rounding up all of Vardok’s people to punish them. I was not going t
o be taken by someone as weak as she is. All of us who escaped got together to formulate a plan.”
“And what is this plan?” Nick asked.
“We decided to attack all of the other, weaker kingdoms. Once we destroy them, we increase our might. Then, we can attack Alix and avenge Vardok.”
“Why not simply attack her now and go after her directly?” Lana asked.
“She’s too well guarded at the moment. There are many dragon shifters who are afraid to join us because she is powerful. Her family, who rules the other dragon kingdom, is also powerful. However, once everyone sees us destroying everything in the shifter realm, the other dragon shifters will fall in line with us. Together we will take back what is rightfully ours,” Dizag said.
“Wow. You have completely lost your mind, haven’t you?” Lana said. “You really think that this idiotic plan of yours will work?”
“I know it will. As you can see, we have already started. The shifters will be so afraid of us, that they won’t fight back and we will conquer everyone and everything. I was destined to be king,” Dizag said.
Lana looked over at Nick and said, “I think he has gone stark raving mad.”
Dizag said, with an exaggerated whisper in Lana’s ear, “Every shifter in the world will bow down to me, starting with you.”
Lana started laughing hysterically. It caught everyone off guard. The dragons and her parents looked at her as though she were the one who had gone completely insane.
She looked right in Dizag’s eyes and said, “You are an idiot. You have gone completely insane and your stupid plan will never work.”
Lana continued laughing and didn’t see Xutin approaching her. He reached out a huge claw and slapped Lana across her face. The blow knocked her completely off of her feet. His talons cut huge scratches on the same part of her face that had just healed from the burn.
Lana flew across the cave and hit the wall, slumping down to the floor. As the loud thud from her body echoed around the cave, her mother screamed, “Lana! No!”
Detective Lion Shifter (A Paranormal Night Club Book 3) Page 9