“Armor, cover my monster.” He watched his beast. The words transformed the tiger into a cat larger than his breed would have been. His armor, which had been strewn upon the ground, was now covering the beast’s front and hind legs, his belly, and back. Black was quite proud of himself and what he’d been able to do in such a short amount of time. Looking over at Bryce, he watched her as she stood there.
Imagining what might be going through her mind, he had a moment of pure happiness. He’d outdone the so-called grand witch. And there was nothing from her—not even that old and worn out cockatoo had risen up. Yes, Black thought to himself as he took a step forward, this could not have gone better.
“Come to me, my dragon.”
Black paused in mid step. His foot hovered above the ground for several seconds as he thought about what she might have said.
Dragon? There were no more dragons. And while he’d never had anything to do with the killing of them, he had been able to reap some of their amazing magic. Keeping an eye on his own beast, he kept waiting for the dragon, or whatever she’d said, to come forth as well. When nothing appeared, he figured, like most witches did when confronted with a bigger foe, that she’d lied.
The shadow across the lawn did nothing to make him believe. A cloud, he thought—the sun sliding behind a cloud to make everyone believe that she had a fucking all-powerful dragon. When his own tiger snarled at Bryce, showing more teeth than he thought he should have, he looked around and smiled at her.
“I see no beast, my dear. Perhaps this would be a good time for you to give up. I have pitied you long enough, and it is high time, well past time, for you to understand who is in—”
The great beast landed not four feet from him. He was monstrous, his body ten times the size of any car that he’d ever encountered. When he spread out his wings behind him, his tail became a mass of spikes that looked like he could fell an army. Then the thing roared out a flame of fire that looked like the earth was coming to an end. That the very idea of life after this was a pipe dream. After lying down, the great dragon beast allowed Bryce to put her hand on one of his spikes. The sound of his purring made the ground tremor and shake.
Regaining his balance, Black tried his best to think what he had to do next.
“Black, former member of the Witches’ Council, I hereby, as grand witch of all, sentence you to death. The murders you have committed have been named, in accordance with our laws. If you wish a copy of the list of those that you have been found to have murdered, you may request it.” She laughed a little. “However, as I said before, you will not be around long enough to use anything. Do you understand what you are being accused of?”
“I heard no names called.” Bea, grandmother to the grand witch, stepped forward with a scroll, too long for him to read, and handed it to him. “When did you call their names to me?”
“When you were screwing around with that monstrosity you have there for your animal to call. Poor thing. Why did you do that to that human?” He said that he needed his own beast. “Yes, well, fat lot of good it did you. And the names were called—I did so myself. I didn’t care if you heard them, so I started at the house. You wouldn’t know them even if they were standing here in front of you. So, yes, they’ve been called.”
“I beg mercy.” He knew that she could deny it to him. He had before for witches that hadn’t done anything more than to have been a witch. “I beg mercy from the grand witch to give me a stay of execution.”
“Nay. Dragon, kill him.”
Black opened his mouth, trying to stay what was about to happen to him. But he was mesmerized by the sight of the beautiful dragon when he rose up on his hind legs, his wings spread wider than before, and inhaled deeply. Black thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.
~*~
Noah didn’t say a word to anyone as he sat on the deck. The faeries were hard at work, trying to cover the burn mark that had been left by his dragon. He was also trying his best to get used to the separation of his dragon from him. In this, Noah thought, he was glad for it.
He’d seen dragons, of course. Not his own, but his parents’, as well as a few of his friends’. But to be witness to the one that had been his, that was still his, as he killed a man was so surreal that he wasn’t sure what to think.
Noah looked up when Devon came to sit beside him. He liked this man, a great deal. Devon didn’t need to fill silences. He was smart, articulate, and he had a good sense of humor. What he didn’t have was tolerance for stupidity or cruelty; nor did he suffer fools well. Black fell under the last category very well.
“The queen came to see me. She asked me if she could fix the grounds that had suffered this day. And she asked that I send your wife her love for ending the world of the monster.” Devon looked around. “Where is she, anyway? Bryce, I mean.”
“Did you know that when a witch is murdered and no one is caught for it—the person responsible isn’t held accountable for the crime—they don’t leave this earth until the murderer dies or is finally held up for his crimes?” Devon said that he hadn’t. “Bryce is with her grandmother, talking to the families of the victims. Another thing that I wasn’t aware of. Once the witch is freed from their bonds of death here, their family is given some kind of signal that tells them that things are all right now.”
Noah looked out at the field again—really a part of their back yard. It was the safest place they could be. The only place, really, that his dragon could have come out as a beast and not scared anyone that might be close by. He didn’t bother looking at his friend but talked like he wasn’t there at all.
“My dragon lives in me. He’s there should I need him. But the moment that Bryce needs him as her animal to call, he is no longer a part of me, but is a beast that is forever in his armor, and much larger and stronger than the one that I am.” Devon made no comment, for which Noah was grateful, so he continued. “He’s blood red. I don’t mean a really pretty shade of red, but like warm blood that has just left a body. His spikes—and he had a great many of them—are tipped in poison. And when he blows his fire, say over someone’s head as a warning, he doesn’t burn a thing. Not a tree, a bush, or even a blade of grass. It’s like he knows better or something. Like he needs to protect the earth from himself.”
“Are you afraid of him?” Was he? Yes. Yes, he decided, he was very much afraid of him. But he also knew that he’d never harm him and said that to Devon. “When he’s not a part of you, do you feel lost? Like you’ve lost a great part of you?”
“No. It’s like I can still feel him inside of my body. Know that if he needed me, for any reason, I could shift and be some help. He’s me—mine, I guess you could say. Without me, there would be no him, and the other way around if it came to that.” The faeries seemed to have finished up their work and were all gone but a few. And by few, he meant that there were only about five dozen rather than several thousand. “I’m Bryce’s animal to call. I have all this magic that I didn’t before. And I just, as the beast, murdered someone.”
“Did he deserve it?” He looked at Devon and asked him what he’d said. “This man that you supposedly murdered, did he deserve it? Or did you just kill him because you could? Valid question. What’s your answer?”
“Yes. He’d killed—murdered—several hundred people over his lifetime. Even before he worked his way up into being the head council member. Some of them humans, most other witches. Did he deserve to be killed with a dragon though? That’s the question that keeps going round and round in my head.” The pop to his head was hard, pushing his forehead so far that he hit the table in front of him. He looked at Lady Susanna when she joined them. “What was that for?”
“Are you finished feeling sorry for yourself, Noah?” He said that he wasn’t. “Weren’t you? Where is your wife right now? Your mate? Is she here wallowing in self-doubt? Is she sitting here with her whiny mate, feeling sorry for herself because she ordered the death of a man that didn’t deserv
e to be breathing in the first place? No. She’s out there, telling mother, father, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, that their child has peace. That the bastard that killed them, simply because he had the power to do so, is dead. Yes, I can see where you’d be so pitiful that you’d have to call on your best friend to come here and hear your woes. Poor Noah. His beast did just what he needed to do, and—”
“That’s not fair. She—” Susanna stood up, her stature looking twice that of herself, her anger palpable. And it was directed right at him.
“You do not get to interrupt me when I’m having a conversation with a child. And that’s exactly what you are acting like, Noah Farley. My goodness. Why don’t you wait here, Noah, so that I can run to the store and pick you up a binky and a diaper so that you might take a nap?” She smacked him again, this time on the cheek. “Get ahold of yourself and find that mate of yours and help her, before I take it upon myself to help you along. And let me tell you buster, if I have to help you along, it’s going to be a long time before that beast of yours feels comfortable enough around me that he’ll even peek his head out. Get up off your ass and get to helping Bryce. Or so help me, young man, I will—”
He cut her off with a kiss to her cheek. After telling her how much he loved her, how he was glad that she’d not taken his shit, he left both Devon and her sitting on his deck. Their laughter followed him all the way to the open field and beyond, him shifting and taking to the skies.
He felt better than he had before sitting down with Devon. Noah thought he felt better than he had in decades. Flying over the town, where she was going to start her trek, he found her sitting in a small children’s park that was in just as much disrepair as he’d ever seen.
Making sure that she was alone and that there were no children around, he shifted back about two feet from the ground and made his way to her. Bryce smiled at him when he sat on the sagging broken bench.
“We need to get this repaired. I’d be terrified to send one of our children here, and they’ll be immortal.” He told her that it needed to be dozed over and started new. “Yes, I guess we have plenty of funds for that. And children to come here and play.”
They’d not spoken of the stash of funds, gems, jewels and other things, nor of the eggs. She freaked out about it every time he tried to talk about it. But now, she seemed as ready as she’d ever be, and he opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted to do when she started talking.
“I talked to Snow. She’s very knowledgeable, by the way. She said that we only need to bring out one or two of the eggs at a time to hatch. They’d be called hatchlings. I guess you’d know that. And since we’re going to be raising them as our own, all we need to do is tell William what we wish to call them, and he’ll take care of the paperwork.” He asked her what else she wanted to know. “I’m taking this as I can handle it. I mean, I’m overwhelmed, but not like I was when I counted them. And before I forget, Susanna said that she knew some people that would help us convert the stuff in the cave into ready cash and teach us how to use it. I don’t know really why we’d need help with that, other than having it fenced.”
She leaned back on his shoulder when he put his arm around her. “They’re not called fences when they’re helping a dragon. I don’t know if you’re aware, but we can really make tears when we need to. To be honest with you, I just never thought of it as being a way to make me rich. Susanna told me a few hours before Black showed up that most of what was in the cave was from all the other dragons that my parents were able to help by taking their children. Not stealing, she assured me, but hiding it so humans would not find it and take it apart.”
“And we’ll make sure that it’s used for other children as well.” She handed him a drawing. It was crude and not to scale. “I was given that when I sat down, by a little boy who said that someone told him to come to me. I’m assuming that it wasn’t a faerie?”
“It more than likely was. Children can see what adult humans cannot. And when they see these little people, as the faeries enjoy being called, parents think that the children have imaginary friends.” She nodded, and he looked over the picture. “I guess he wants a new playground set. It’s actually a very good drawing.”
“It is. And I’m going to be working with Kelly on the same kind of projects she’s working on in their town. We’re going to be putting in an after-school place for kids to go when they have working parents. Also, bringing jobs here.” He kissed the top of her head, telling her too that he loved those ideas. “Noah, do you think that we should wait on our first egg? Or should we just do it now? Either way, I don’t know what to do. I want a child, lots of children, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to raise a dragon.”
“When hatched, they’re dragons—smaller versions of me. But once they reach about one or so, not too much past two, they can become human. It helps with their upbringing to be able to interact with humans, these humans nowadays, as much as possible.” She said she could see that, but how did she feed them? “Well, they eat on our legs and arms, whatever we can spare at the time. Then when they get a real taste for meat, we let them feast on an— Ouch, that hurt.”
She had pinched him, hard, on the leg. Noah couldn’t help it, he was still laughing as they made their way back to the castle. Bryce said that she’d put out there that if anyone needed to speak to her, to contact her. She would come to them or vise versa. They entered the quiet house and made their way to the living room. It had been a long day, and they were both exhausted.
Chapter 11
The meeting was finally here. Bryce was getting highly pissed off every time the guy in charge, Mayor Fuzzy Head, told her to sit down. That wasn’t his real name, of course, and she cautioned herself, once again, not to call him that out loud. Mayor Harold Fritzburg was a fuzzy headed ass, and she was going to zap him if he didn’t let her speak this time. Standing up, she waited for him to call on her or to tell her again to sit. This time she wasn’t going to put up with it.
“Mrs. Farley, we have gone over this again and again with you. There is an order to meetings, and you just have to wait your turn.” She just stood there, counting to one hundred so she’d not lose her temper. Again. “Now sit down, honey, and when—”
“I do not shit honey out of my ass. Your Honor.” She paused just long enough for him to realize she hadn’t forgotten his title but didn’t care. “I am here to talk to the townspeople about getting a—”
“I’ve had about enough of you and your interruptions, miss. And if you do that again, I’m going to have you arrested.” She pulled out the town’s committee book, one that Susanna had given her. When Noah touched her back, she felt his reassurance, and that was all she needed.
“I have been to four of your so-called meetings, Mr. Mayor, and the children of this town aren’t going to be any safer when they go out to play.” He opened his mouth and she glared. “Say one word and I will not be responsible for what might befall you. The children in this town deserve a better playground. Better equipment to play on. Certainly safer for them. My husband and I would like to start up a fund to make it happen.”
“Good for you. And if you threaten me again, you will be thrown out of these proceedings and barred from ever coming here again.” She told him that he couldn’t do that. “Can’t I? Well, since I’m the one in charge, then it stands to reason that I can make the rules. Especially ones regarding you. Now sit down and—”
“I, for one, would like to hear what she has to say.” Devon stood up. He was technically not a part of this community; his town was just one over. But he carried a great deal of weight all over the world. “What is it you’d like to propose for the children, Lady Farley?”
“Thank you, Marquess Wakefield.” The room began to softly mummer, and she turned her back to the mayor and began her spiel. “The equipment at the field is rusty. The swings have large places in them that could seriously injure a child. And since this is the county’s grounds, then they’d be the ones footing the bil
ls for the child. Also, the other equipment is of ill repair. There is only one way in which to fix it so that they’d have a good place to go, and that is to take it all down and begin anew. My husband and I will pay for the funding for the equipment, as I’ve tried to say several times over the last month. But the townspeople would have to help in having it put in.”
“My daughter was there just last month with her two little ones. My grandson, he got himself a nasty cut on the slide. I swear, it took it nearly a month for it to heal. And he still has some trouble with that.” The man looked at the mayor. “When I proposed to you that there was new playground equipment needed, you told me that the only way to do that was for me to pay for it. Then you wouldn’t even see to it that his bills were taken care of. I, for one, would be glad to help put the equipment up and get it running.”
The room erupted in horror stories about one cut or another. One child had broken his arm when the swing he was on had broken. The gavel that was on the dais kept pounding and pounding, but no one paid it any mind. And almost every person that had a story to tell volunteered to help with the construction of the equipment. There were other things on her list, a great many of them as a matter of fact. But she’d take this one victory and let the others go for now. Bryce had a feeling that she’d not be dismissed so easily from now on.
Mr. Phillips, the first man who had stood up after Devon, came to see her after the meeting. Mayor Fuzzy Head had left about half way through the meeting in disgust. She shook his hand and introduced him to Noah.
“I’ve been thinking on that playground equipment that you wanted to donate. That’s very good of you, but there are other things that this city could use. I don’t mean for you to donate it all; no, that’s not what I’m saying. But there is something that you can help us with.” She asked him what it was. “The high school kids had this thing they used to do when I was going to school here. They’d go out to the elderly home and do crafts with them once a week. The money ran out for that about five years ago, and I’m thinking that the kids and the elderly sure miss it.”
Noah: House of Wilkshire ― Erotic Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance Page 13
