High House Draconis Box Set

by Riley Storm

  Galen opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off with a slice of her hand.

  “I don’t know what grand conspiracy you think I’m behind, but I swear to you there isn’t one. Nothing. Nada. I came here to find out why the shifters have allied, and in hopes of heading off a renewed war between us. You can choose to believe me or not. Frankly, at this point I don’t give a shit, but that is the truth.” She stood up straight, eyeing him defiantly. “Now which way to my damn room?”

  Wordlessly, Galen pointed to her left.

  Chapter 10

  She awoke to the sound of someone pounding at her door.

  Having anticipated a lack of privacy through the night, she’d slept in her clothes. Rolling onto her side, still bleary and somewhat sleep deprived, she concentrated on the door. A gentle burst of magic undid the lock on the inside. It immediately swung inward.

  “Good. You’re up,” Galen said, his large frame filling the doorway.

  Kyla quickly shut her brain off as it tried to force her eyes to run up and down his body. There wasn’t time for that. Nor was this the place. Whatever had happened the night before, it was over now that her dreams of it had faded. She swallowed, taking a calming breath to ease her body out of its dream state, and got to her feet.

  “Get your stuff,” the dragon king said gruffly, gesturing at her staff and coat. “It’s time.”

  She did as ordered and stepped out into the hallway.

  “Out the front door,” he growled. “No games, or you go back to the Guild in a body bag.”

  “Someone hasn’t had their coffee yet,” she muttered, following his pointed directions.

  Galen didn’t rise to the taunt, and they walked in silence through the Keep, and out the front door.

  Looking around, she noted that nobody else was there with her besides Galen. It was just the two of them.

  Screw it.

  She was going to be gone soon anyway. What harm could come from asking a few questions? May as well put them out there, and see what he had to say about them.

  “Those statues,” she began. “In the cavern. What were they, Galen? Why are there so many?”

  Galen snarled. “Why were you down there?” he asked angrily, completely ignoring her question. “What were you doing, if not going down there to destroy my brothers?”

  Kyla breathed out heavily, ready to fire back at him. She refrained, however, as the words sank in. Galen wasn’t accusing her of doing that. He was saying that’s what he thought she was doing, but he wanted to hear her answer. Her reasoning.

  “Sheer dumb luck,” she said, holding back her own anger at still not being believed. “I told you last night. I was in the hallway. I heard footsteps coming, so I ducked into the side corridor. I had no idea what it was. I sensed magic from the room at the end, so I went looking for it.”

  “Why?” Galen wanted to know.

  This time, Kyla responded with a question. “You believe me,” she said, surprised. “Don’t you?”

  Galen took some time to reply. “I fought you last night,” he said. “You are strong, incredibly strong. I know your power now. If you’d wanted to, you could have killed them all, destroyed the cavern, long before I responded to the alarm. You would have noticed the wards before crossing them if you knew what was down there.” He clenched his jaw tightly. “There are too many signs pointing toward you having found it by accident, and not on purpose.”

  He didn’t like to admit that. Kyla thought about rubbing it in, but strangely she didn’t feel that vindictive over everything.

  “Thank you,” she said instead. “To answer your question, I was looking for the other dragons.” She held up a hand to forestall his outburst. “I assumed you were lying about their whereabouts. That you had perhaps sent them off to attack the guild even now while I was staying at the Keep. That is what I feared, and why I tried to trace down the magic I was feeling. To figure out what your plan was to renew the war. To kill us all, and eliminate the mages once and for all.”

  Galen snorted, looking away from her, out over the lawns that covered the grounds of Drakon Keep, and beyond it the treeline that blocked anyone from seeing in.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I told you what the threat to my people is,” Galen told her. “Where our focus is. I explained all this to you, in plain, honest truth. Yet you refused to believe me. Your blind prejudice made you assume that I was lying to you.”

  Kyla gaped. “Who are you to speak of blind prejudice!” she cried. “Are you serious right now?”

  Galen stared back at her stonily, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Really? Really?” she shouted. “You found me in the cavern, and your first instinct, your first assumption, is that I am there to commit genocide. That I’m some sort of mass murderer trying to kill all of your sleeping brothers! You speak of prejudice as if you’re exempt from it, yet you’re so blind and assured of your own supposed goodness, you can’t recognize it in your own actions!”

  Galen’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t say anything, again looking away.

  She sighed heavily. “Maybe you’re right,” she said softly. “Maybe I did assume the worst in you. But let’s not pretend like you didn’t do the same to me.”

  The dragon nodded reluctantly. “There is much bad blood between our kinds,” he rumbled.

  “I’m tired of all these assumptions of evil,” she said. “I’m tired of arguing with you. We mages have no quarrel with the dragons anymore. There are rogue mages that crop up from time to time, but most of us despise them as much as you do. Yes, we don’t like having to abide by a century-old set of rules that forbids us to use our powers to their greatest, but we’d rather do that than start another war.”

  Galen nodded, ingesting her words fully before speaking, the treeline growing larger as they walked. “And perhaps we automatically assume the worst in you, when we should believe that you are capable of change, that you aren’t always plotting against us the moment our backs are turned.”

  Kyla wasn’t sure either of them believed those statements to the core of their being, but it sure felt good to say it at least.

  “Why are the dragons turned to stone?” she asked quietly. “What happened? Why are there so few of you?”

  She expected to either be told to mind her own business, or some elaborate answer that left her befuddled and even more confused than before.

  Instead, she was greeted with silence. It wasn’t the silence of ignorance, however, but rather contemplative. Many times as they walked, Galen looked over at her, the deep royal blue of his eyes clouded with thought.

  He was trying to decide what to say, whether to tell her what was going on, or not. So she remained quiet as they walked, until they eventually reached the front gates. Just beyond them she would pass through the wards, and she would once again be able to open a portal, this time to back home.

  Galen turned to look at her, and she could see the troubled look on his face. The answer, it turned out, was much shorter than she’d ever imagined.

  When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper, and she had to strain to hear it. “We don’t know.”

  Chapter 11

  “You don’t know?”

  Galen bit his lip, shook his head. “No. I don’t know why I told you that either,” he said a little more gruffly than intended. “You should go now. Don’t want to spend too much time hanging around the front gates in full view of them.”

  Kyla looked out through the metal bars of the gate at the seemingly empty landscape beyond. “Full view of whom?”

  “The vampires,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “The vampires,” Kyla echoed slowly, looking left and right. Then she tilted her head up. “It’s daytime, Galen. Vampires can’t survive the sun’s light. Everyone knows that, it’s in all the history texts.”

  “Yes, they can,” he rumbled. “And they’re out there. They watch us, day in and day out.”

  “You t
alk like you’re under siege,” Kyla said with a bark of laughter.

  Galen just stared out through the gates, across the road and into the trees beyond. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. The shadows were too thick down there under the forest canopy. Vampires were out, and they were waiting to pounce.

  “Just open your portal and be quick about it,” he rumbled. “Trust me, you don’t want to encounter one of them. They’re wicked nasty.”

  Kyla finally turned to look him in the face. Galen wasn’t sure what she saw, but it seemed to take some of the humor out of her attitude.

  “You’re serious,” she said softly.

  “Of course, I’m serious,” he said hotly. “I have no reason to lie to you. I might not like who or what you are, but I’m trying to act like a King, and not let my personal prejudices interfere with proper diplomacy and all that.”

  “Why do you not like me?”

  Flashes of a short woman with thick hips, snow-white hair and a laugh that could make even the angriest man soften came to his mind. He could picture her now as well as the day she was taken from him, a beacon of innocence and emotion in a world increasingly stripped of it as the war between mages and shifters grew worse.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Galen said. “It’s time for you to go. You don’t want them to see you if at all possible. To identify your face.”

  “What does that matter?” Kyla asked, wisely not pushing him on the previous topic. “They’ll know I’m a mage the moment I open a portal.”

  “Maybe, but they don’t know you’re associated with the Guild, or a Council member. But if they find out…” he trailed off.

  Kyla frowned. “What? If they find out, what will happen?”

  “Do you really, truly think that if the vampires succeed and they defeat my brothers and me and the other shifters, that they will just leave humanity’s only other paranormal power in peace? Come on now, you’re smarter than that,” he explained, shaking his head. “Or will they come for you?”

  “That’s assuming they’re real,” Kyla countered. “You’ve given me no proof except your word.”

  “Look into my eyes if you want proof,” he said darkly, staring down at her. “Talk to any of my brothers who have fought them. Who have nearly died to them. They are real, and their threat is perhaps worse than it was before. They will come for the mages, and you will be the prime target if they realize who you are.”

  Kyla chewed on her lower lip, doing just as he’d challenged, staring him right in the eye. Galen looked back, trying not to let himself get dragged in too deep. The murky depths of her gray pupils threatened to suck him in like the abyss, never letting go.

  Galen couldn’t let himself be swayed. Not by her. His commitment was elsewhere, but he could appreciate her beauty from a distance.

  You aren’t that far away from her…

  He felt himself sway closer, saw Kyla’s mouth part in the tiniest of ‘O’s as they continued to look at one another, neither speaking.

  “I’m telling the truth,” Galen said abruptly, pulling himself upright, putting some distance between them. That had been close. Too close.

  What would your brothers think, if they saw you like this with a mage? What would Lana think? How dare you do that to her!

  Galen swallowed the lump in his throat. “The vampires remember the position the mages used to serve under them, I’m sure,” he said, getting the conversation back on topic. “The question is, do you and the rest of the Council remember?”

  Kyla’s face went dark, her eyelids closing to slits. “We were their slaves,” she said, biting the words off. “We don’t study the ancient texts much. Our lifespans are shorter. That was a long, long time ago for us.”

  “Not so long ago for us,” Galen rumbled. “Not so long ago.”

  She nodded, looking out the front gate again. Galen let her have her thoughts, wondering if he’d managed to convince her of the magnitude of the threat. The mages would be better off going to ground, scattering and blending in with the rest of humanity. That way, they would stand a chance of surviving.

  It’s our fault they aren’t strong enough to fight back either, he thought. Our fault they’re limited in their powers and knowledge.

  After the final battle of the shifter-mage war in 1912, the two sides had signed the Novarupta Accords. It detailed the mages’ surrender and the destruction of all texts that taught the most powerful spells, the deadly blue magic.

  Some would have survived, the dragons weren’t stupid. But they had included a provision in the accords that said casting blue magic was a death sentence. Each shifter House had spent the following years creating and training an anti-mage squad, whose members would go out and hunt rogue mages who defied the Accords.

  They were very, very good at their jobs.

  Now few of the mages alive today would know how to cast such spells. Spells that would be necessary if the mages were to have any chance to hold off the vampires. And it was the fault of the dragons that they didn’t have them.

  “Assuming I believe you,” Kyla said. “Which I sort of do. Despite your complete and total lack of evidence, the picture you paint is bleak.”

  He nodded. She wasn’t wrong.

  “Do you and your brothers have any hope of beating the vampires? What are the odds you can win? Because, based on what you’ve told me, it doesn’t seem like you have much of a chance.” Kyla winced as she spoke, but followed it up with a shrug. She wasn’t taunting him, but speaking what she felt was the truth.

  “No,” Galen answered, the weight of his answer resting heavily on his shoulders.

  His brothers had used the magic to awaken him, hoping that he would be the leader they needed to win the coming battle. To help them and their species survive the rule of the dragons. Yet here he was, admitting to a mage he barely knew, that he expected them all to die.

  “Still,” he said, anger at himself and at the hopelessness of the situation bleeding through. “We can’t stand around and do nothing. We have to make a stand. To fight.”

  “You might die,” Kyla pointed out carefully.

  “And so we might,” he growled. “But better to die fighting for freedom, than to bow down to the likes of them.”

  Kyla took a step back, lifting her eyebrows. “So you won’t bow down to the vampires, but you have no problem making others bow down to you? That seems a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

  Galen blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “The other shifter Houses,” she said. “The reason I came here. You’ve forced them under your heel, making them come fight for you.”

  Staring incredulously, Galen searched for his voice, too stunned by the accusation to immediately respond.

  Kyla expelled some air through her nose loudly. “Unbelievable.”

  “Is that what you’ve heard?” he finally managed to say. “That we’ve heavy-handedly forced the other Houses to come to our aid? Are you serious?”

  “What then, if not that?” she challenged.

  “An alliance. Of equals,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “We are, all of us, threatened by the vampires. They attacked the Shifter Court,” he explained. “Or did your “intelligence” fail to notify you of that? The dragons are the focus for the moment, because we are the strongest. But the others know that if we fall, so do they. And none of us will willingly submit. So we work together. As partners.”

  Kyla looked down in what he hoped was shame, for believing such nonsense.

  Galen rolled his eyes. “Now go,” he said darkly. “The five of us have much work to do before the attack comes.”

  He spun and headed back to the Keep. Turning his back on the mage was a calculated risk, but one that he was willing to take. The faster Kyla was gone, the faster he could be rid of a reminder of his moment of weakness.

  He already had the memory of kissing her, of the heat he’d felt from her body as she ground her hips against him, and the way he’d responded. Th
at was enough to plague him with guilt. Keeping her around, where it was a constant fight to focus his eyes on her body and not the rest of her, was more than he felt like enduring.

  Things were already dark enough. He didn’t need Kyla adding to his grief.

  Chapter 12

  Kyla watched the proud dragon walk away, her eyes darting between him and the path back to the Keep, and the gates and the way back to the Guild.

  Though he had shown her no evidence, and she still retained some doubt over the truth of his statements, she no longer feared that the dragons were trying to come after her people. That just wasn’t Galen, and those weren’t the actions he would take as King.

  Which likely means that he’s telling the truth about the vampires, though I don’t know if the threat is as big as he presents. He could be exaggerating.

  Yet he’d told her himself, the magic wasn’t working to awaken the rest of his brothers.

  Magic.

  She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. What she was thinking…if the Council found out, she would be in a lot of shit. A lot. Stripped of her position at a minimum, most likely. Possibly worse.

  Yet if Galen was telling the truth, if the vampires really were such a huge threat, then could she just stand idly by?

  The Archmage and the Council would say yes. Let the dragons handle their own problems. The Mages will be fine, they would say, she was sure of it. The threat isn’t that big. We don’t need to help our enemies grow stronger, is what they’d tell her, just before they likely executed her.

  So why the heck are you considering helping them out anyway?

  “Do your duty,” the Archmage had said to her. “As you best see fit.”

  She pondered this for a moment. If the vampires were real, then she could say that, by offering her help, she was ensuring the dragons would deal with the threat and take the brunt of the fight, instead of the mages. So she’d done it to further insulate the Guild from threat. It was a flimsy defense, but she could justify it. Hopefully.