Earth Dragon's Kiss (High House Draconis Book 4)

by Riley Storm

  “A message?”

  Jax turned to the speaker. “Queen Kaelyn,” he said respectfully, dipping his head low. “A message. One that portends to all shifters, not just House Draconis.”

  “What kind of message?”

  Jax again dipped his head low to Logan of House Canis.

  “A warning,” he said, his voice carrying evenly to everyone in the room.

  The assembled shifters broke out into murmurs, talking among themselves.

  “Well, go ahead and speak then,” Kaelyn said, waving a hand at him. “You’re here, so you may as well tell us what you came to say. If you’re just making things up, we’ll let Tarryl over there deal with you.”

  Jax swallowed, nodding his head. There wasn’t much that a dragon shifter would hesitate to take on. But an elder Phoenix would give any but the mightiest of his kind pause, and perhaps even them…

  “I wish I could tell you I was here to play a joke,” he said calmly, letting his gaze wash across the Shifter Court. “That would be wonderful. Or even to deliver a message that House Draconis has returned to claim its seats,” he said, again looking at the empty chairs, especially the one in the middle where the King or Queen of House Draconis would sit, if present.

  “But I am here with far more dire news, I am afraid.” His voice rang out clear, strong, buoyed by the presence of his mate.

  “For several years now, House Draconis has been battling an enemy of our people. An ancient enemy, one long thought defeated.”

  He waited for the whispers to grow as they began to grasp an inkling of what he was referring to.

  “The vampires have returned!”

  “Preposterous!” Tarryl shouted, standing up. “My father was there. They are all dead! None survived.”

  “One did,” Jax countered. “And he has spent centuries growing his power. We have fought them, my brothers. I have killed them myself, I have seen their flesh evaporate under the sunlight. But that is not all.”

  He waited for the room to still.

  “The vampires have bred themselves with shifters,” he said, his voice soft, but not quiet. “They have among them members who can shift.”

  If he thought the uproar over his arrival—or his announcement that the vampires had returned—was loud, it came to another level as he revealed this information.

  Jax himself had yet to fight one of the creatures, but all three of his brothers had firsthand knowledge of the demonic creatures, and he believed them.

  “Why are they here?” Kaelyn mused as the clamor died out. “After all this time, why are they here now?”

  “To kill us, I would assume?” Logan volunteered.

  The two leaders of their Houses shrugged, and all eyes once more turned back to Jax.

  “Because,” Jax said, playing the final trump card. “They believe themselves to now be a race of shifters. They aren’t here to kill us. They are here to rule us. All of us,” he added, waving a hand at the assembled Kings and Queen of the various shifter Houses.

  Benjamin, King of House Panthere, was the first to find his voice.

  “I find this all suspect.” He spoke without anger in his voice, which worried Jax.

  He could diffuse anger, but rational disbelief, like he was sensing from Benjamin, would be hardest to dispel.

  “The dragons have been back for several years now. We were all there when Aaric arrived at Logan’s coronation ceremony,” he pointed out. “Yet where have they been since? Why have they not come to any meetings of the Court, or sent out representatives to the other Houses?”

  “They tried,” Tarryl chimed in. “Just the other day, this one came to my House. Because of it, I have had to have the front gate replaced after he broke it in.”

  Eyes turned back to Jax, who shifted uncomfortably. “A mistake on my part, King Tarryl,” he said as apologetically as possible. “I was intent on giving my message and should have tried a different tactic.”

  Before the others could speak, however, he turned to Kaelyn. “Two days ago, I tried to approach your House, my good Queen. Along the way, I was ambushed.”

  “By whom? Are you accusing me of something?” the Queen asked.

  “No,” Jax said hastily. “No, not at all. By vampires. In the broad of daylight,” he said.

  There were mutters from the others. Jax knew he was losing them, he could feel it. His words weren’t enough. The distrust that had grown between the Houses while Draconis slept was too much. Nobody was willing to believe him if the others weren’t.

  “I am here to tell you that we must come together,” Jax said, his voice carrying, bringing the room back to silence. “As allies. Together, we can fight them. But the vampires have strength more than I and my brothers alone can fight. If we don’t stand together, then we will lose.”

  Benjamin spoke again. “How come none of the rest of us have had any incidents with these vampires? Why have they not shown themselves to the other Houses? Would we not know about them if they were truly back?”

  Jax didn’t have an answer to that question. He couldn’t understand why either, and so he did the one thing he couldn’t afford to just then.

  He hesitated.

  The room was lost to him at that point, and it was obvious. They didn’t believe him.

  “You lie!” Tarryl shouted, his anger getting the better of him as the others expressed their doubts in murmurs.

  Jax was about to reply when the doors burst open. He spun to see two figures walk inside. On the pavement outside lay the bodies of the shifter guards, though whether dead or unconscious he couldn’t tell.

  His attention was drawn back to the two newcomers. One was tall, gaunt to the point of being uncomfortable to look at, and bald of all hair including eyebrows. Beside him came a child. The taller one held a large umbrella over both of them, protectively.

  If anyone thought to confuse them for father and son, they would be gravely mistaken. The power flowing from the taller one was nearly matched by the young child.

  “It’s him,” Jax said suddenly, realizing who the unknown figure was.

  It was the elder vampire.

  “You should believe your young dragon friend,” the child said as the pair came to a halt.

  The room darkened as shadows crept in from every corner. Jax didn’t even think the elder vampire was consciously calling them to him. They simply came of their own, drawn in by his power.

  The doors clanged close, the weight of the shadow power pushing them back together. With the sun cut off, the hairless vampire twitched his fingers. The umbrella disappeared, and only then did Jax realize it hadn’t been real, but an umbrella conjured from shadow.

  In the middle of the day, the elder vampire had managed to conjure enough power to protect him and the child vampire from the sun.

  We are so fucked.

  “Who are you?” Kaelyn asked, the entire Court on their feet now, recognizing a threat when they saw one.

  After what seemed like an age, the elder vampire spoke.

  “I am Imperator Caesar Flavius Honorius Augustus, final true Imperator of the Roman Empire!”

  35

  His voice crashed out over the assembled shifters like a physical thing, and Sarah had to fight against the automatic urge to kneel. Only the presence of Jax at her side gave her the strength to remain standing against such power.

  A quick glance to her side saw many of the others shaking their heads, throwing off the physical call of dominance that the voice had evoked within them.

  “No wonder he looks so rough,” Jax muttered at her side. “Dude is ancient.”

  She gaped at him, wondering how he could be so blunt with his candor at a time like this, but then she realized it was his way of fighting off the fear he must be feeling. This was the enemy after all. The one he and his brothers had feared the most.

  Now they were trapped in a room with him, nowhere to go, and only Jax was here and able to fight.

  “What do we do?” she asked quietly.
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  Jax just squeezed her hand twice. She fell silent. He had a plan. She could tell. The squeeze was one they shared between them, one of reassurance, without spoken word. Whatever was about to happen, Jax was ready for it.

  “If you are who you say you are,” the female shifter—Kaelyn, Jax had called her—spoke again. “Why are you here then?”

  Shadows erupted from the walls and the tall columns, coming down to slam into the woman, pushing her to the ground.

  “You will address me with the respect I am due!” the vampire shrieked, eyes going wide.

  Shouts and growls erupted from the assembled shifters as they closed ranks around their Queen. Kaelyn, for her part, snarled loudest, and the tiled floor shattered under her palms as she pushed herself first back to her knees, and then with a savage roar, back to her feet.

  “You will use my full title when you speak to me,” the vampire said, his voice calming slightly, though it didn’t do anything for the wide eyes.

  He was insane, Sarah realized. He had to be. No one could live for sixteen centuries and still be right of mind. Over time, his brain had taken in too much, and now he was obsessed with ruling.

  Because shifters took his empire away from him. He’s spent all this time planning his revenge. He’s probably imagined this scene thousands of times. It’s not going as he thought, and he can’t handle the break from reality. They have to be careful, or he might lash out at all of them with his power.

  She started to speak, to tell Jax this, but she saw his own eyes tightening. He too saw the truth of it all. Her mate was a bright one, and she shouldn’t forget that.

  “I will forgive you this transgression,” the vampire, Honorius, said. “For you have yet to meet me, and I accept the shock that I am alive is probably great. After all, your ancestors thought they killed me many years ago.”

  “My father did kill you,” one of the shifters—the one who seemed to hate Jax the most—snarled, a shimmery glow appearing around his body and burning off the shadows nearest to him.

  “He tried,” Honorius said, glancing at the man. “Yes, the fires of the phoenix burned me greatly. But I did not die. My son sacrificed himself to save me. Poor Constantinus. But I have returned!” he cried. “I am back, and with me, I bring my family. My great, great family,” he said, laying a hand on the child vampire’s shoulder.

  “Together with my greatest general Tiberius, we have risen from the ashes and come here, to this town, to the seat of modern shifter power. From here, I will be Imperator once more, and the empire shall spread to the farthest reaches of the earth. You will all bow before me,” he said, and the shadows darkened the room even further.

  “Kneel or you will die!” the child shouted.

  The room was nearly dark, and Sarah was having a harder time seeing the far side of the room. Only the one shifter, the phoenix, was shedding any light, his glow burning the shadows before they could touch him.

  Everyone else, even she and Jax, felt the oppressive pressure of the darkness as it weighed upon them, calling to them to kneel.

  So tense was everything, that she nearly missed the rumbling in the ground around her.

  “I will never bow to you,” Jax growled as he stood tall, spine straight as he defied the elder vampire.

  “Yes,” the elder vampire said, turning to look Jax square on. “You will.”

  The shadows swooped in around them, and Sarah knew she couldn’t resist much longer. Her body ached and fear coursed through her veins.

  Jax wavered, and she saw his knee bend. Gasping in dismay, she fell to the ground with him.

  The rumbling intensified.

  “I told you,” the elder vampire cackled. “You will all bow.”

  She saw Jax’s face twitch, and suddenly she wondered just who had bent Jax’s knee. The vampire’s will…or Jax himself.

  The ground trembled, and blackened earth ripped free from the floor of the Court chambers as Jax lifted his arms to the sky. Jax stood now, and she gasped as liquid copper flowed across his face and down his arms.

  “And I told you,” Jax roared. “That I will never bow to you!”

  The last thing she saw before the earth enveloped her was the front doors smashing open and a trio of figures appearing, led by a figure whose fire burned so brightly it hurled the shadows back at their owners.

  The other dragons had arrived.

  Here we go again, she thought wryly, knowing Jax would fight better with her safe. She wished him well, not upset about his method for keeping her protected this time.

  Then Sarah was swallowed up by the ground.

  36

  Shadows rushed in at him, and Jax prepared for their onslaught as Honorius’ eyes went wide, revealing the white around his pupils, a sign of more than just anger.

  The ancient vampire wasn’t in his right mind.

  Jax grunted and winced as shadows hammered at his armor like a physical thing. The blows were blunted, but still, they hit like a sledgehammer.

  Then they were gone, burned back as a bright shimmery flame rushed out from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Tarryl with his hands outstretched, flames of purest brightness rushing forth.

  Behind the vampires came Jax’s brothers, led by Aaric, his flames a living thing, harsher, fierier than the pure light of the phoenix, yet shriveling up the shadows just the same.

  Jax grinned. The fight was on now.

  He took a step forward. And another. Reaching into the earthen defenses he’d called forth to protect the Court members, he pulled his hand back. With it, forged from the very onyx material itself was a giant two-handed battle axe.

  Jax swung it forward with a mighty roar, the earthen weapon cleaving shadows in half, sending them pulsing backward as his magic countered that of the vampire.

  Then the Nacht child stepped forward, putting himself between Jax and the elder. One dead vampire was as good as another in his opinion, and Jax focused his attention.

  A blast of fire slammed into Honorius’ back, and the elder vampire spun to deal with the other vampires. Magic forces flashed back and forth, but Jax kept his eyes on the child. He hated the idea of killing someone so young, but he knew this was no human any longer. The vampires had killed that person long ago.

  Now, Jax would finally set the body free to join the soul. His axe slashed through more shadows and he gained another step and a half before the pressure resumed. But then his axe came along the backstroke, and suddenly he was free to rush forward again.

  The child vampire leapt at him then, twin blades of black extending from both hands as he tried to strike before Jax could whip his axe back around.

  He almost made it. In fact, he would have made it, if Jax hadn’t been hoping the much smaller vampire would try just such a tactic. Instead of trying to block the attack, he welcomed it, spreading his arms wide with a mighty grin.

  The vampire had a split second to realize it was a trap before foot-long metal spikes erupted from Jax’s front side and arms, all pointed directly at the oncoming vampire.

  Shadows swirled and propelled the vampire up and over Jax in a wild, uncontrolled arc. The vampire landed right at the floor of a rather enraged Queen of the bear shifters. The diminutive woman picked up the vampire before he could gather his senses, whirled him around by the foot and slammed him down into the tiles, smashing his head against them.

  Kaelyn wasn’t done there. She whipped her arm around again, repeating the motion three times in total before shadows gathered and sent her flying back into the stone thrones so hard they cracked. Her fellow Ursidae shifters rushed to her side, interposing themselves between the vampire and their injured Queen.

  Still, she had bought Jax more than enough time with her actions, and he leapt at the vampire now, tackling the creature to the ground, his fists slamming into its ribs with blinding speed, hitting it a dozen times before their clothing had even settled from the movement.

  “Enough!” the vampire shouted, thrusting both hands i
nto Jax’s midsection.

  The creature’s strength was tremendous and, aided by its command of the black shadow magic, Jax hurtled back across the chamber, smashing off a support column and cartwheeling sideways before smashing to the ground, destroying a wooden pew-like bench as he landed.

  “Brother!” he heard Aaric shout through the haze, and the fire dragon rushed to his side, a sphere of flames protecting them from a sudden hail of shadow lances, the vampires’ follow-up attack.

  “I am okay,” Jax growled, getting to his feet. “You help Valla and Victor with crazy-eyes.” He looked across the room at the child vampire. “This one is mine.”

  Aaric almost protested, but one look at the set of Jax’s face changed his mind. “Fight well, brother.”

  “And you,” Jax said, heading straight for his foe.

  Behind him, he heard a roar and the temperature in the room went up as Aaric renewed his attack on Honorius. Jax paid that no attention, however; his focus was elsewhere. He noted Tarryl had moved all of the other shifters behind him, where he was keeping a protective shield over them.

  This was no fight for the other races, and though the phoenix’s powers would help in this battle, it would all be for naught if the others perished. Their strength would be needed to deal with the lesser vampires. The rest of the army of the Nacht.

  This fight was up to the dragons.

  “Pathetic,” the vampire snapped in its high-pitched voice. “Do you know who I am? I am—”

  A cloud of loose dirt rose up in a ball around the vampire, drowning its words as it whipped around and around in a shrieking ball, blasting through the standing air of the Court chamber.

  “No,” Jax replied. “And I don’t care.”

  The shadows soon tore apart the little globe, but Jax was already sending his thoughts outward, to the ground he’d called up through the floor of the chamber.

  Then he flicked his mind to the vampire, who had made the mistake of walking onto that patch of earth. The ground liquefied, sinking the vampire up to his stomach. Almost immediately, shadows darted in like pointed fingers, slashing at the earth, working to free its master.