Even so he began to grow frustrated. The voices in his mind palace had described wielding his abilities without his name to trying to wield a sword with a greased hilt. He decided that a sledge hammer would have been a better metaphor. Gathering the power and unleashing it was easy. Directing it, not so much. As fast and agile as Demetrius was, Wilburn had yet to land a direct hit.
The duel had turned into a war of attrition. Frustrating as that was, it suited Wilburn just fine. He could burn things all day without any effort at all. Buzzing about like Demetrius was doing, however, had to be taking its toll, especially with how large Wilburn’s blasts were. It was only a matter of time before exhaustion overtook his opponent and Wilburn could either incinerate him or rip through his mental defenses. Honestly, savage as he was feeling, he wasn’t sure which he’d prefer.
~
“He’s going to kill him!” Demeter Ingram shrieked. Only her husband’s grip around her shoulders kept her from throwing herself into the cacophonous firestorm of her son and the Houseless bastard’s fight.
“We can’t interfere,” Lemuel said through clenched teeth.
Demeter gave a shriek as another of those ungodly huge blasts of flame nearly overtook her only son. Aside from her husband, he was the only thing in this world she loved more than her own power. She’d watched him grow into his abilities, proud of the confident young primus he’d become, wielding his power with complete assuredness. A true little alpha male.
And this freak of nature was not going to take him away from her!
She had poured her experiences into the Tower of Domination and opened many rooms within it, letting it guide her to more and more impressive abilities. The one which she prized above all others and which she kept secret from all save Lemuel, allowed her to push suggestions into imuses minds without ever uttering a word, issuing her commands through silent telepathy.
She drew on this ability now, sliding her power through the defenses of one of House Lyra’s servants. Against anyone else, such defenses might have proved impressive, but she was the queen of House Vespa. She knew how to slip unnoticed through defenses like these.
Her suggestion was given. Wouldn’t your master be pleased if you ended the houseless now? You want to kill him. He killed one of you all ready. Vengeance is your right. You want to kill him. You would be rewarded for killing him. You want to kill him….
The man went for his gun, drew it, and took aim—only to be dropped by three of his own companions an instant later, the gun going off harmlessly into the air. Maxwell glared at the man in fury, then his tiny, piecing gaze fell upon her.
“You do not interfere!” he demanded. That melodious voice of hers nearly slipped past her own mental defenses with his command.
Maternal fury burned it away more surely than the Houseless’s own fire. “I won’t let him kill my son!”
She tore herself free of her husband’s grip, throwing herself at one of the Delphinus men, along with a rush of mental energy that stunned him long enough for her to rip his gun free of its holster. She spun around wildly, gun extended in one hand, and aimed for the houseless bastard.
A flash of silver. A spray of red. Her hand went limp and the gun fell to the ground.
A crimson gash had appeared across her wrist, blood pouring out of it. She could see bone at the center and the ends of severed tendons. That was when the pain hit and she screamed.
Zuha Frost stood over her in her snow leopard guise, dressed only in tailored workout clothes and holding a curved scimitar almost casually in one hand. The apex of the blade’s curve dripped with Demeter’s blood.
The primuses all gaped at her. Even Demeter through the pain of her ruined wrist. “Where—how?”
“You never even sensed me,” the former psion of House Leo said with a smirk. “When my master claimed me, my power grew so much. Enough that I can hide even from the likes of you House Lords.”
She looked over at Maxwell Durand. “No one is to interfere with the duel.”
The man gave a slow nod, looking contemplatively at the wounded Demeter Ingram.
“No one interferes,” he agreed with his soft voice.
Chapter Sixteen
Gunshots drew Wilburn’s attention away from the fight. There was a gathering of people, all clustered around a fallen figure clutching her arm. Zuha stood over her with a curved sword, looking sexy and dangerous and very, very pleased with herself.
The distraction lasted only a few seconds. It was a few seconds he couldn’t afford.
Demetrius zoomed in and thrust with his sword. Wilburn rolled backward, drawing upon experiences and memories that should have been inaccessible to him, as well as his newly enhanced physique to keep from having his heart run through. The blade tore through his t-shirt and cut across his pectoral, spilling his blood.
Wilburn roared in pain, but instead of continuing the retreat, threw himself forward, inside the reach of Demetrius’s sword and swung a tight punch that connected with his opponent’s face. He felt chitin crack and pop beneath his knuckles and for a moment was filled with the utter satisfaction of having finally hurting him.
Demetrius ended that an instant later, bringing his own fist up to catch Wilburn below the ribs. Pain exploded through him and as Demetrius’s fist pulled back to deliver another blow, he saw why. The fucker had stingers on his fists!
The punch came again, the blow to tight and close to block. Pain.
Wilburn roared and called upon his fire. The flames leapt from him and fresh pain took him, killing the flames.
Wilburn wasn’t immune to his own fire.
This close up, the flames had started to cook him as well as Demetrius. Demetrius seemed to realize this too because he jabbed again and again with his stinger, even as he twisted his sword in an effort to direct the point at Wilburn’s core. It was all Wilburn could do to keep the lethal implement at bay.
That was when Demetrius’s true attack began.
A buzzing filled Wilburn’s head and in his mind’s eye he felt more than saw an army of wasps assaulting his mind palace. The first wave of them splattered against his walls. So did the second. They tried to fly higher, to simply go over the walls, but they were too high and it was all too easy to envision them all dying in a wave of fire. The wasps died in droves but they didn’t stop.
They simply changed tactics. Instead of trying to overcome the walls, they began burrowing into the cracks between the stones, worming their way through spaces too tight for any normal insect to get through. Many were crushed by their own determination, pressed into spaces too confined even for them. Had his walls been less thick, the swarm would have passed through them almost instantly. Wilburn didn’t know how to defend against this technique—his walls were as thick and tightly constructed as he could make them and judging by Demetrius’s contorted face, they were more than frustrating him.
The point of Demetrius’s sword bit into Wilburn’s shoulder. The pain loosened the masonry in his mental walls and he felt the wasps crawling into his brain. He cried out. Not in pain—he’d felt so much worse when he’d opened himself up to level up his mind palace—but in frustration. He was going to lose.
He couldn’t afford to lose. Belinda and Bernard deserved masters who actually cared about them. Buddy and Siobhan had never even stood a chance. He’d just made a real connection with Zuha and needed to explore what it really meant. And this fucker had kidnapped his cousin Stacy!
At the thought of her he drew upon his flames, not caring how badly they burned him so long as they burned his opponent worse. Even as he did so, and they both screamed in fresh fury and agony, the thought of his cousin brought an image to his mind. Their relationship had been established primarily through gaming, most of their conversations conducted through a headset while he looked at a screen. He saw a screen now, saw the username he had always used because he was too lazy to come up with another one. Even its creation had been simple, a joining of his fi
rst and last names and trimming away a few letters.
And he knew his name.
The flames around him and Demetrius rose higher and he drew upon everything his Tower of Might had bestowed upon him to keep the blade of Demetrius’s sword from burying itself in his chest. Above his mind palace, his constellation glowed, sending trickles of power into his Tower of Might. The voices had told him that it was one of the Towers the constellation of his unknown house enhanced.
He drew deeper upon that tower, his new name firmly in his mind, and for the first time, his abilities snapped into place, truly obeying him. He’d thought that he had been controlling them before. Now he knew otherwise. Before he had been like a first-time pet owner with an excited but untrained dog. It wanted to please him very badly but was so energetic and excitable that every command obeyed had seemed a triumph. Now…now he was partnered with a fully trained attack dog.
“My name,” he snarled through the fire at Demetrius. “Is Burngrave.”
The Tower of Might, lit by the constellation of his House, drove power through him. It flooded him and he felt his entire body change.
His clothing, what hadn’t been burned away all ready, tore as he expanded and rose, his body twisting. Enormous, bat-like wings exploded from his back, followed by a long, serpentine tail. Blue scales the color of the sea before a storm spread over his flesh like armor, claws sprouting from his twisting feet and hands. His head expanded, sprouting horns, his jaw becoming a maw filled with fangs and fire.
In an instant, the flames that had been engulfing them vanished and he towered over Demetrius. He ripped the sword free of his opponent’s grip and tossed it aside, grabbing both of his chitin covered forearms before he could get away. The natural armor cracked beneath his grip, spilling bloody ichor.
Wilburn bared his new fangs at the terrified Demetrius, fire licking through the gaps in his teeth as it issued up from his throat. “I am House Draco.”
With deliberate, concentrated force, Wilburn launched his mental assault upon Demetrius’s mind. Demetrius’s defenses were lowered, cracked wide by exhaustion, pain, and terror. Great as Wilburn’s power already was, concentrated and directed now that he had his name and a firm grip on its use, the force behind his assault increased exponentially. Demetrius’s defenses shattered like papier-mâché before a fire hose.
Demtrius screamed. Screamed the scream of a man whose entire mind was being scoured, burned away by something totally and completely beyond his power to control. For the first time in his life, Demetrius felt the fear of a lesser.
Wilburn found his light and claimed it. Claimed it like he had Zuha’s and Buddy’s and Siobhan’s. Saw the multitude of threads, almost like chains, connecting his light to a plethora of others. Wilburn yanked on those chains and claimed them too, adding them to his horde of treasures. They were his. They were all his.
He released his grip on Demetrius’s arms and allowed him to fall limply to the ground.
“No!”
The shriek drew Wilburn’s attention away from his fallen opponent. Demeter Ingram was on her feet, clutching her bleeding wrist in one hand, a cloth torn from her skirt stemming the flow of blood, as she staggered forward. “No! You can’t have him!”
Her husband glared at him with raw fury. “You can’t be House Draco! House Draco is dead—they’re all dead.”
“I am House Draco,” Wilburn bellowed, white flames frothing from his mouth with every word. “I am alive. And he and all that was his is mine.”
He could feel the power he’d gained from claiming him, the experiences and energy. His own power would grow as soon as he decided what to spend it on.
“Those were not the terms of the duel!” Demeter screamed. “You wagered your famulus and virga against your whore cousin!” She whirled upon Maxwell and Myrtle. “You are here to oversee things—do something!”
Myrtle looked torn between trying to be still enough to vanish completely and wanting to spit venom. Maxwell on the other hand, turned to coolly regard the Ingrams, eyes leaving them only briefly as they darted over to Wilburn’s new draconic form and the unconscious Demetrius at his taloned feet.
“He has broken no rules,” Maxwell said. “Victory was to be decided by wresting control of the targets from the opponent. Burngrave has succeeded in that. There was no rule that said he could not achieve that by claiming his opponent as well.”
“No. No-no-no—NO!” Demeter shrieked.
Lemuel’s hand came down on her shoulder and she fell quiet, looking up at him in frantic silence. His face was stoic, an emotionless mask, ruined only by the hard set of his jaw. “I will handle this.”
He pulled out his phone and spoke into it.
The doors to the house opened and Wilburn’s famulus came out, accompanied by three men in black suits, each with a gun trained on the group. Buddy and Bernard had pushed Belinda and Siobhan behind them, and the two women were holding a smaller, limp figure between them. It took Wilburn a moment to recognize the figure as Stacy—the slut-wear that was the standard uniform for Demetrius’s famulus had thrown him off.
“Yield,” Lemuel said. “Or they die.”
Zuha was the first to move, a silver and white blur as she struck for Lemuel’s throat—only for her blade to encounter another blade as Myrtle stepped into her path, weapon shimmering out of thing air, a nasty smirk curling her lips. “You’re not the only one who can obfuscate,” she snarled and counter attacked.
Across the lawn, gunfire sounded and people screamed. But Wilburn’s famulus didn’t drop. Instead, the men who were holding them’s heads exploded in quick succession, leaving the tall brunette with the dragon tattoo on her arm standing in the doorway to the house, a smoking firearm in her hand, and a dull expression on her face. She looked back over her shoulder and screamed at someone to move, and the Korean girl and one of the blondes who had been with Demetrius on campus rushed out behind her.
They clearly didn’t know about the gun mounted turrets on top.
Wilburn had started to rush forward the second Zuha had moved, half flying half running as he raced across the blackened lawn. The machine guns on the roof took aim and started firing. He barreled into the group, throwing himself on top of them. Several shots tore through his wings, others bounced off his scales, and a few bit deep into muscle and flesh.
He found the brunette, Athena he thought her name was, and Stacy pinned next to his face. Stacy was screaming, not recognizing the monster on top of her as her cousin, let alone her rescuer, but Athena was silent. For the barest instant, the hardness in her eyes melted and she stared up at him in undiluted wonder. Then it was gone and she pulled up her gun, ready to return fire as soon as they were given the chance.
Wilburn couldn’t afford to wait. He lifted his head up and roared, letting fly a gout of white fire that engulfed the turret and gunner on the roof directly in front of him. The ammunition exploded, demolition that corner of the house completely.
Zuha had already been breaking through Myrtle’s defenses, quickly overwhelming her. Years being trapped in her bellua form and training her physique had made her far more dangerous than the other primus had suspected. Only Myrtle’s primus abilities had kept Zuha’s offense at bay and the explosion provided Zuha with the opening she needed. Her curved blade sliced across Myrtle’s face, knocking her to the ground.
She leapt over the fallen, screaming woman, and brought her sword to Lemuel’s throat. “Yield!”
The other gunners on the roof went up in flames. The rounds of ammunition linked to them went off an instant later, exploding in every direction with a series of cacophonous bangs that tore the roof apart. The house began to collapse and catch fire.
Zuha pressed the edge of her scimitar deeper into Lemuel’s throat, spilling a trickle of blood. “Yield!”
The man bared his teeth in anger but threw his hands up. Even as he quivered with rage, he said, “I surrender. Men, stand down!”
; The men in the yard lowered their weapons but the flames engulfing his house did not stop. He looked from Zuha to Wilburn.
“My men are surrendering! Call of your attack!”
Wilburn shook his head in stunned disbelief. “It’s not me!”
A shadow passed over the estate. Wilburn glanced up just in time to see twin streams of fire, each large enough to rival the explosions he’d been casually tossing around, erupt from above and engulf the armed men. A gale of wind drove everyone but Wilburn from their feet to their knees or even to the ground. All the while, the flames never let up. Wilburn stared in away at the infernos. He hadn’t been able to keep up his fiery attacks for more than a quick burst. Whoever was striking now, their fire seemed unending.
And then it was over. The yard was in ruins. Fires blossomed everywhere. The only ones outside who remained alive were Demetrius, Lemuel, Demeter, Myrtle, Maxwell, and Zuha. The betas were all dead. Wilburn felt a momentary stab of fear in his chest for his own, but their connection was still there, still strong. He could sense their fear, but they were alive.
The shadow passed over the estate again and a massive shape dropped onto the burning roof of the House Vespa mansion. It spoke in two voices that rolled over the destruction like the whisper of thunder.
“Burngrave is victorious,” they said, and despite their depth, those voices were intimately familiar. “You disgrace yourselves and now suffer the displeasure of House Draco.”
Wilburn, the only one still standing, stared in awe. Perched atop the wrecked house, flames licking its wings, its four wrathful eyes glaring down at them all, was an enormous, two-headed dragon.
Chapter Seventeen
Wilburn struggled to process what his brain told him was right in front him. Zuha had said there was no such thing as magic, that everything that the primus could do was simply a natural part of the universe, that they could simply access parts of their brain or energies and use them differently than other humans. Strange in the extreme, but easier to swallow than the sight before him.
Psychic Awakening: A Dragon Shifter LitRPG Harem Psychic Thriller (Primus Vitae Book 1) Page 11
