Legends (Dragon Reign Book 3)

by Kit Bladegrave

  Legends

  Kate now knows what she is. She knows what she has to do. But she’s stuck between a Forrest, a dragon shifter prince and Craig, a half-demon bastard. And they’ve got a mystery to solve and a world to save.

  The problem is: emotions. There are too many of them and they are conflicting!

  Join Kate, Craig, and Forrest on their journey of adventures.

  Legends

  Dragon Reign

  Kit Bladegrave

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Afterword

  1

  Forrest

  “Leave us!” Kadin demanded of his guard.

  I stood perfectly still as the guards brushed past me, all of them eyeing me as if I’d gone completely mad, then stepped out of the clan leader’s private chambers.

  The doors closed with a resounding thud, and I was left alone with my father.

  Since being brought here, I begged him to release Craig and Kate, at least not have them chained to the floor, but he refused to hear me out. His hard-set face told me I had disappointed him in more ways than one. Letting myself be taken in by those two, and then claiming they were my friends was too much for him to handle.

  “You have to listen to me, please,” I tried again, not willing to give up on my friends, but he wasn’t having any of it.

  His hand shot up into the air, and I instantly fell silent. “You are unwell, my son, you have been bewitched by those who kidnapped you.”

  “I wasn’t kidnapped!” I growled for the tenth time. “Well, not technically.”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter, alright? I was with them because I wanted to be, needed to be.”

  Kadin sank into his hand-carved wooden chair by a roaring fire in the stone hearth. He motioned to the chair across from him. “Come and sit, and we will speak of what happened to you logically. I will not have you rambling madness here, Not here,” he said firmly.

  I knew exactly what he was thinking of and I swallowed hard, hating to do this to my father after all he’d suffered through. But I had suffered too, and I’d been able to see the truth of what was happening in our realms.

  My father was a highly logical man who believed in the facts presented to him. I would just have to find a way to make him understand that the two people currently chained up in the main hall were my allies, my friends, more than friends really, if I believed the past lives we were presented with. And it was impossible not to. The connection I felt to those two was starting to make sense, and I was not going to lose them now.

  I took my seat, wishing for a selfish moment I could have a shower and a hot meal, but Craig and Kate’s lives hung in the balance. They saved mine, now it was my turn to save them.

  Craig already thought I’d turned on them, not that I blamed him. Trust was a hard thing to have between a dragon and a demon.

  I sat down slowly and warmed my hands by the fire, mostly to waste time and give myself a few more seconds to think, logically, about how to explain the impossible to my father.

  “Now then,” Kadin started, “tell me what happened when you first found your target.”

  “Craig,” I corrected sharply, and his brow rose. “His name is Craig.”

  My father’s green eyes, so like my own, darkened in warning. “You found him and then?”

  I didn’t want to explain the fight at the house with Lucy in case he decided to send more men after her. There were kids in that house, innocents. They had nothing to do with our world.

  “We tracked him to a house where I found Kate.”

  “The Darrah,” he whispered, lip twitching in disgust.

  “She didn’t know what she was, father. She was forced to remain in human form all these years, and her memories had been muddied.”

  “By a witch?” Kadin’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair.

  “No, will you just stop for five seconds and let me speak!” I roared. “Lucy took care of Kate for years after her father was murdered! They would have killed her too if she had not escaped… and she believes it was because of you. Was it?”

  “Was it what?” he shot back.

  I wasn’t going to stand here and argue with him about Kate all night long. “I want you to free them both, now. We have to keep moving. If we don’t find the rest of the shield, we’re all going to die! Don’t you understand that? All of us! In all the realms!”

  I jumped to my feet, pacing angrily around his chambers. I was usually known as the cool-tempered prince, hard to anger, and I rarely lost control, but after experiencing Kate’s death, seeing how our previous lives had ended, a new anger rushed through my veins, raw emotions that wanted to lash out at anything that moved.

  And attacking my father right now would do nothing to help my cause.

  “You speak of the plague that the demon mentioned,” he finally said, after a long few moments of silence. “It is lies, all of it. Raghnall has assured me of this.”

  “No, it’s not! Why does no one remember what happened back then?”

  “You have been fed these false words, and I cannot believe you were gullible enough to believe them!” He was on his feet now, his hands firmly gripping my shoulders as if he could bring me back to his side by sheer will. “What have they done to you?”

  “I saw it,” I said slowly, emphasizing each word for him.

  “It’s not possible because it does not exist!”

  “It is, and it does. We went to the Burnt World, father. I saw the plagued there, saw the beasts created by it and being controlled by it.” I tugged myself out of his grasp and turned around, lifting my shirt to show him my scarred back. “I was nearly killed by it.”

  I felt my father’s eyes on me, taking in the scars that ran down the length of it, my souvenir from the Burnt World.

  “They did this to you?”

  “What? No, not Craig or Kate. The plague, father, the plague that is real and it’s coming to destroy all of us.” I let my shirt drop as I turned to face him. There was no more time to be subtle. “I saw the moment the Darrahs were betrayed. Saw the plague come and saw the Vindicar sacrifice herself to save everyone… I saw it because I was there… in a past life.”

  His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed as he backed away from me. “No, that is not possible.”

  “Again, yes, it is. I never believed in past lives either, but I have one and he… he was the Darrah clan leader, Malcolm. Kate and Craig are connected to it as well, because of Kate, she’s the Vindicar.”

  He scoffed and backed away, shaking his head as if this was the most maddening thing he ever heard.

  I would not be deterred. “She’s the only one who can stop it! We have to find the pieces to the shield, so she can use it and defeat what’s coming! You have to believe me!”

  He slashed his hand through the air, furiously growling as he stalked away from me and to the doors of his chambers. He opened one, and whispered something I couldn’t hear to the guard, before closing it again.

  “You are not well,” he insisted, and I threw my hands up in the air. “You need rest, me
dicine—”

  “I need my father to stop being a blind fool and listen to his son!”

  “How dare you raise your voice to me?”

  “How dare I?” I couldn’t take it anymore, and at that moment, I understood how frustrated Craig must have been all these years trying to tell people the truth that would save them. and have no one believe him. “This plague is coming, and it won’t care about our armies. It will kill us all. It will turn our people into mindless killers! Our entire realm will be destroyed, is that what you want?”

  He stared at me blankly, and I lost him.

  “Father, for the love of our people, will you just listen to me? Send men back to the Darrah lands, you’ll see the proof! It’s there, buried all these centuries beneath the ground!”

  The doors to his rooms opened again and Magnus, our head healer, marched in with six guards behind him. “You sent for me, my lord?” he inquired, bowing his head.

  “What is this?” I demanded, but my father ignored me.

  “The prince is ill. Take him to the infirmary. I believe a witch has clouded his mind, planted fantasies,” Kadin informed him. “He has been deluded into seeing visions of the past, and I fear he will harm himself and possibly others.”

  “Nothing is wrong with me!” I backed away as Magnus motioned the guards forward. “No! Get your damned hands off me! I am your prince!”

  “Don’t fight, my son,” Father said loudly. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  “Make what worse? Why won’t you just believe me?”

  “Nothing you say makes sense! My Forrest, my only son, would not run off with a half-demon and a Darrah! You spout lies! I will not have you around the people, and you will never see these villains again! Take him and keep him there until he is himself again!”

  I kicked and punched, but there were too many. I hadn’t wanted it to go this way, and I felt my dragon rising up, ready to fight our way out to get to Craig and Kate, to save them before they were harmed, but then Magnus stood before me and pressed his palm to my forehead. I saw the rune on it the second before it hit my skin, and I cursed.

  “Sleep, my prince, sleep.”

  My limbs felt too heavy to hold myself up, but I snarled, trying to bite Magnus’ hand off at the wrist. He didn’t relent, and instead pressed his palmer harder into my skin.

  Warmth spread from his palm and the rune, rushing over my body like water. My knees gave out, and I would’ve fallen to the floor if not for the guards holding me up.

  “No,” I muttered as sleep fought to take hold in my mind. “Have… have to stop them… stop them all…” I scrunched my eyes shut ,then opened them wide.

  “All will be well, my prince,” Magnus said firmly. “Once you wake again.”

  “No.” I shook my head even as they carried me away from my father. My mind was a mess of memories that weren’t just mine. “Malcolm… he loved her,” I whispered, unsure of what I was saying or seeing anymore. “Celandine…”

  I saw her face before me and reached out as if to hold her cheek. But then it was Kate again, and I frowned.

  She was in trouble; I had to save them.

  New strength flooded me, and I roared, my dragon right at the surface, ready to take an army so I could get to her.

  I flipped out of the guards’ arms and sprinted for the corridor. They called me, but I was no longer myself. As if a feral beast had taken hold of me, I sniffed the air and whipped my head to the left toward the hall. She was there.

  “Kate.”

  I took off, readying to shift, but then guards tackled me from behind and we slid across the marble floor before crashing into another wall.

  They pinned me down as I snarled and snapped my jaws, a horrible growl escaping my mouth as my dragon pushed closer to the surface.

  But then Magnus was there again, and with both hands, he held my head. Words flowed out of his mouth and struck me like blows to the chest. With each one, I grunted in pain, but then my body went completely limp. I spied my father standing over me, but all I could do was stare. Whatever Magnus did to me, froze me completely.

  The guards hefted me into their arms, and I kept my gaze focused on Kadin as long as I could, pleading with him through my frozen gaze not to harm Kate.

  I would never forgive him for it. Not ever.

  “We will get your son back, sire,” Magnus told Kadin, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It may take time, but whatever spell he is under, we will break it. You have my word as a healer.” He left my father in the corridor and followed after the guards carrying me.

  We went up three flights of stairs, and they moved toward the infirmary in the west tower of the palace. I was laid out on a bed, and a curtain was drawn around me while Magnus lit two lamps at the bedside.

  “Now, I want you to sleep, Forrest. Sleep and try to remember who you truly are.”

  I wanted to throttle the healer, but my body refused to respond to any commands.

  All I could do was lay there and watch as his hand touched my forehead again and I was lost in the swirling darkness.

  2

  Kate

  Voices surrounded me, but I didn’t understand what they were saying. My body ached worse than it had the first time I changed. My ears were ringing, and as I tried to open my mouth to speak, my throat was raw and mouth dry. My voice came out in a croak, and I coughed violently, sitting up to try and get more air.

  Chains rattling caught my attention, and I managed to pry open my eyes.

  I wanted to scream and demand to know what was happening, but I still couldn’t get any words out.

  Panic rising, I watched as the people I now realized were dragons moved in closer. I was sitting on the floor in the middle of a room, chained to three metal loops embedded in the cold, marble slab. There were no familiar faces, and as they got closer, I instinctively pulled back, snarling at their approach.

  They kept getting closer and closer.

  I didn’t see Forrest or Craig. Were they dead?

  All I remembered was fighting off Allis, terrified and furious at the same time that he dared to appear before us, us! The original three who put him in the Burnt World.

  He’d come back to taunt us, as a warning that the end was near, that he… whoever he was… was coming back. And then… then there were dragons. These dragons.

  Smoke billowed out of my nose, and the dragons called out orders, but not in words my rattled mind could make sense of.

  They’d attacked us, gone after Craig.

  My dragon reared her head, furious as I recalled what finally brought me down. A net. The bastards had shot a net at me!

  Fury fueled me, and I strained against the chains, lunging at the closest guard. I didn’t care if he was armed to the teeth or not.

  I was going to rip his throat out. I was going to kill them all!

  The chains chaffed my wrists, cutting through skin, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop myself, and I couldn’t control the dragon. She wanted blood, and I was too weak to try and reign her back in.

  My friends, they had my friends. They tried to kill us.

  That was all I needed to know.

  The guards yelled, and I didn’t need to understand the words to know they were panicking.

  The chains might be holding me, but the metal loops in the floor were starting to give. They bent and twisted as I lashed out, swiping out with my hands—which were sprouting dragon claws as I started to shift—at any who came close enough for me to almost reach.

  The runes on my body glowed, filling the room with an eerie blue-green hue. I was going to get free… I was going to kill them all—

  A hand suddenly pressed against the back of my neck and my body went limp, but my eyes were wide open.

  Everything felt heavy, too heavy to move, and my dragon tried to fight, but the sensation of warm water rushed over me in waves, and as a man stared down at me with kind eyes I did not expect to see amongst my captors, I let myself slip away into that
darkness… until there was pain. So much pain!

  I screamed soundlessly as I felt my dragon being chained in my mind, bound and unable to move. She roared mournfully at being trapped, and there was nothing I could do… nothing, but watch…

  “Kate!”

  I shot up confused and stared around for the old man, but it hadn’t been his voice I heard.

  “Craig?”

  The floor beneath me was hard and cold… and filthy. I grimaced as I held up my hand trying to see in the little light I had. Torches flickered close by, right beyond a set of bars.

  “Craig?”

  For a horrible second, I thought I was alone and only imagined his voice, but then I heard a scuffling, and saw his figure emerge from the shadows of a cell across from mine.

  He gripped the bars harder when he saw me awake, cursing in relief.

  “Are you alright?” he asked quickly. “They brought you down, and you were unconscious and bloody. Did they hurt you?” He snarled, snapping his jaws at the air as he rattled the bars. “I’ll kill them if they harmed you.”

  I frowned. “Bloody?” I glanced down as the pain from my wrists and ankles bloomed. “Oh, right. No, I uh, I did that, trying to escape.”

  Craig’s eyes narrowed, and I expected another lecture, but he hung his head. His shoulders shook, and I worried he’d lost it.

  When he lifted his head, he was laughing quietly. “Leave it to you to try and escape when you’re surrounded by a palace full of dragon guards. How bad are your wounds?”

  “Just scrapes,” I replied without looking, smiling with him. But the smile didn’t last long. “What happened back at the ruins? I don’t remember too much except a net. A very large net, and you and Forrest yelling.”