by Eric Vall
I was cut off by another roar as Valerra suddenly slashed at me with one of her clawed talons, and she growled ferociously as her claws cut across my scales.
“What the fuck!” I jumped back in surprise and pain and looked down at my injured foreleg. She hadn’t cut me deep, thankfully, and my magic healed me quickly. It seemed the wound was just to warn me to back off, but unfortunately for the crimson dragon, I didn’t give up so easily. We didn’t have much room around the entrance of the cave, but I was able to stay a safe distance away from her claws.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” I demanded as I narrowed my eyes at the crimson dragon.
Valerra paced in front of me with her teeth bared, and her massive size gave her an advantage over me, but I knew she would never seriously hurt me.
At least, I hoped she wouldn't. Something was different about her, though. I hadn’t seen her this aggressive since I first met her all those months ago and she tried to kill me.
I watched Valerra as she walked around me, and I noticed she was in a defensive position. She also never left the entrance to her cave, and I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. She had something valuable inside her lair, and she didn’t want me to find it for some reason.
My mate circled me for a second before her tail lashed out at my feet, and I jumped back to avoid her. Then she took advantage of my distraction and pinned me to the ground with one of her massive taloned paws.
“Get off, Valerra!” I ordered, and my tone rang with authority.
She growled in response, but then she slowly lifted her foot and let me up.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked as I heaved myself to my feet, and bitterness seeped into my words.
“I told you to get out,” she snarled viciously, and her golden eyes glinted with menace. “I don’t care what you have to say. No one is welcome here anymore.”
“What?” I asked as I stared at her in bewilderment. “Why? What happened?”
Valerra didn’t respond, she merely lunged out and snapped her fangs at me again.
“What the hell is going on with you?” I demanded as I stepped out of reach from her claws and teeth.
The crimson dragon was obviously pissed off about something, but I had no idea what had happened.
“It’s none of your concern,” she spat and glanced back into her cave.
Her face changed as she looked back into the darkness of the cave, but then she turned a vicious glare back to me.
Suddenly, I recognized the expression on her face. I’d only seen it twice before: once when she was struck with the death curse and was worried for her sister’s egg, and again when we were attacked by driders and she panicked that the egg could be a target.
A lightbulb abruptly went off in my head. She was worried about the egg again for some reason and had become overprotective.
“What happened to the egg?” I asked gently. “Is it alright? If something is wrong, I can see if my magic can help. Let me inside.”
Valerra gave me a surprised look before she snarled again and blocked the entrance to the cave with her large frame.
“Leave my cave this second, Evan,” the looming dragon warned. “This is my territory, and I will defend it against anyone, even you.”
“No,” I snapped back, “I’m your mate, you can’t keep me away from your cave, and if something is wrong with the egg, I need to help. Dragons are rare, Valerra, you told me that. If something happens to the egg, we could be the last dragons alive in all of Inati. Let me inside.”
The word ‘mate’ seemed to settle something in Valerra, and she relaxed her defensive pose. Then she let out a few short breaths before she seemed to reach some kind of realization.
“My sister’s egg is fine,” she replied, and her voice was no longer angry.
“Okay, then what the hell happened?” I asked and took a tentative step forward. “I know you like your privacy, but that was intense. You acted like you wanted to kill me.”
“I wanted to,” Valerra scoffed, “but I realized you’re right. Now … I have to show you something.”
She turned and slipped into the cave, and I trailed after her in confusion. Then we walked into her lair, and at first I didn’t notice anything too strange other than her treasures seemed to be in disarray. Her lair was, for lack of a better term, a mess. I couldn’t see any of the floor, since her hoard was spread around the room chaotically. Before, rich silks and other fabrics hung tastefully around the room, but now they were all gone.
“What happened in here?” I muttered as I looked to the nest, where her sister’s egg usually sat nestled in silks, but then I froze. The breath seemed to leave my lungs in a rush, and I numbly turned my head to Valerra, who continued forward to wrap her body around the nest.
Her sister’s egg sat in the nest upon a massive pile of fabric, that was nothing new, but next to the large red egg was a much smaller purple, black, and gold egg.
I gaped at the small egg and took a step forward. Valerra’s eyes narrowed, but she allowed me to come closer, so I shifted into my human body and reached a hand out. The egg was warm to the touch, and my magic could sense the dragon fetus inside. Then I let out a breath and smiled before I pulled my hand away.
“You said this was none of my concern,” I accused Valerra with narrowed eyes. “This is very much a concern of mine. We have an egg!”
Even though my mind was churning with a million chaotic thoughts, the realization that this was my offspring rang clear in my head. The coloring of the egg was reminiscent of my scales, and it wasn’t like Valerra was fucking any other dragons. I was her mate, and this … this was our child.
Valerra had the nerve to look ashamed, and she averted her golden eyes away from me.
“When?” I asked the crimson dragon, but my eyes never strayed from the egg.
The longer I stared, the more I could see the differences between the two eggs besides size. The red egg was smooth, like an ordinary egg, but my egg looked as if it were already covered in dragon scales. The top of the egg was covered in dark purple, which slowly turned into a lighter shade of violet before it became a light golden color that gradually grew darker until the opposite end of the egg was dark enough that it was nearly pitch black. I could practically feel the magic that radiated from my egg, and I didn’t know if that was how all dragon eggs felt or because my kid would have magic like me. I knew magic could be inherited, though, since that’s how I got my fire magic once I was adopted by Ruslan.
“A few days ago,” Valerra finally answered as her gaze returned to me. “I would have told you, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it alone. The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to keep the egg all to myself. I guess I should apologize for my behavior. It is your egg too, after all.”
I smiled and couldn’t even find it in myself to reprimand her. My egg. I had an egg.
The old human in me was baffled by the realization, but the dragon in me preened. I’d figured one day Valerra and I could be responsible for the repopulation of our kind, but I didn’t realize how just close that day would be.
“Don’t,” I replied with my eyes still on my egg. “Don’t leave it alone, I mean. We need to keep it safe.”
“I know that,” Valerra snapped, “I’ve had my sister’s egg for thousands of years. I know how to care for an egg.”
I sent her a sharp look, and she huffed, but her words raised a question in my head.
“How long does it normally take dragon eggs to hatch? Like you said, your sister’s egg hasn’t hatched in over three thousand years. Is that normal?”
“I don’t know,” Valerra snorted. “I was the youngest hatchling in my family. I don’t know how old my older siblings were. I don’t even remember when my sister laid the egg. I don’t think it’s supposed to take this long, or else my siblings would have been my size when I hatched.”
“I’ll talk to Alyona,” I said. “I’m sure she can find something about dragon eggs in one of her books.”
Valerra let out a deep growl, and I looked up at her.
“What?” I asked with a frown.
Valerra’s tail weaved between me and our egg, and she wrapped it around her brood defensively. She didn’t say anything, but I understood the message regardless.
“Valerra, we have to tell them,” I argued, “we can’t keep this a secret forever. Not to mention, my parents will be ecstatic to learn they’ll be grandparents. Besides, maybe whatever Alyona finds can help your sister’s egg hatch, too. I think the baby’s been inside that egg long enough.”
“Perhaps that would be for the best,” Valerra looked down at the red egg and sighed in defeat, “but we only tell those who absolutely need to know. I don’t want word to reach far cities and have dragon slayers come for the eggs.”
“Valerra, I would never put our egg in danger,” I said and put emphasis on the word ‘our’, “but I promise, I’ll only tell the people I’m close to. No one else will know.”
Valerra nodded her massive head in silent acceptance. Then her tail fell away from the eggs, and I smiled at my offspring. I wondered how the color of the egg affected the color of the dragon. Since this egg was purple, black, and gold, would the baby look like that, too? Or was the shell nothing more than that, a shell?
I hoped the baby would share colors with the egg, though. The purple and gold signified it would be mine and Valerra’s, since it would be the color of our eyes.
“Wait,” I broke the silence as a thought came to me. “How long have you known you were going to lay an egg?”
I figured dragon gestation worked similarly to human pregnancy, so she would have known, not just randomly given birth to an egg one day.
Valerra tensed at the question and turned away. Then she mumbled a quiet response.
“What?” I asked, and I was confused by her sudden change in behavior. “I couldn’t hear you.”
The crimson dragon growled before she glared at me.
“I was impregnated the first time we were together,” she said quickly.
I blinked at her in shock before a grin spread over my face.
“The first time?” I clarified. “You mean months ago? The very first time I fucked you, you got pregnant? And you knew?”
Valerra looked awkward as she slowly nodded, and my grin spread even farther.
“So--” I started, but my mate cut me off.
“Evan,” Valerra warned. “Do not finish that sentence if you want to leave here alive.”
“You won’t hurt me, I’m your mate and the father of your future hatchling,” I reminded her with a cocky smirk. “But as I was saying, so all those other times we’ve had sex, where you begged me to come inside you and claimed the sex was just for you to continue the dragon species, all of that was a lie? You already knew you were pregnant, and you just wanted me to dominate, fuck you, and fill you with my seed because you enjoyed it. Is that what you’re trying not to tell me?”
“Get out of my lair,” she spat out, and her golden eyes narrowed in embarrassment
I laughed but didn’t move from my spot in front of our egg. Then I looked down and placed my hand on the top of the purple shell.
“Your mom is very stubborn, but don’t worry too much about it,” I whispered. “She loves us, even if she won’t admit it.”
“Stop that,” Valerra snapped, and she bared her fangs in annoyance. “It’s an egg. It can’t hear you, and even if it could, I don’t want you to tell it lies.”
I rolled my eyes at her attitude. “You love me, you can’t even deny it anymore.”
“Why did you come here?” Valerra huffed, and her irritation and embarrassment were clear. “You woke me when you arrived. Didn’t you have something to tell me? Spit it out so you can leave.”
My cocky attitude vanished in an instant along with my grin, and Valerra noticed the drastic change because she coiled herself around the two eggs protectively once more.
“Evan, what happened?” she asked again, and her voice grew tense with worry.
“I have some bad news,” I said as I looked at the small egg. “Well, it was bad news before I knew about our egg, but now it’s a lot worse.”
“What happened? Just spit it out already!”
“The story you told me,” I started, and she calmed, “the one about your family and how a strange mage taught humans how to slay dragons?”
Valerra nodded slowly, and her body was tight with suspicion. “What does my past have to do with anything today?”
“I found the mage,” I said, and Valerra’s face ran through several different emotions: pain, terror, anger, sadness, rage, before she settled on a clear, neutral expression.
“That’s impossible,” she argued, “the only being able to live as long as a dragon is King Rodion. The mage is long dead.”
“He’s not,” I confirmed, “I’ve met him. A powerful mage with a grudge against dragons. He even wore a green cloak. He’s not just a mage, either, at least not anymore. He’s a necromancer, and he has used dark magic to alter his life span. I have no idea how long he could possibly live for. It would be impossible to tell.”
“He’s dead now, right?” Valerra’s face twisted in rage as she spoke. “Tell me you didn’t let that monster live after everything he’s done.”
“Valerra,” I began hesitantly, but she interrupted me with an enraged roar.
“He’s still alive? You found the man who slaughtered my family, and you let him live!”
“He escaped!” I defended myself. “I had a choice to make, and I chose to save a life. It couldn’t be changed. But I will find him again, I promise, and when I do, we can destroy him together. You can get your revenge for your family that way.”
The words seemed to appease her for now, and she relaxed. Then her golden eyes met mine.
“You will send word when you find him,” she confirmed, and her eyes burned with determination.
“I promise I will. It won’t be too much longer, and I’ll keep an eye out for any signs of him while I’m gone. Then we can kill him together.”
She nodded once and then finally broke our eye contact. “Then perhaps your failure to kill him isn’t such a failure at all. Perhaps it was fate, so I could finally have my vengeance. I can’t wait until the day arrives when I can finally sink my claws into the mage’s flesh and rip him apart. My sister’s egg and our child will not live in the same fear as I have for the past three thousand years. They will know peace.”
“I agree with you,” I told her with a savage grin, “I want both of them to grow up in a world where they are safe. Which is why I want to show you something, but it’s in Hatra.”
“What is it?” Valerra asked and cocked her head to the side.
“You’ll see,” I grinned mischievously, “but you have to come with me. We can keep the eggs stored away in my spatial storage, nothing can hurt them in there. You can bring them back with you later.”
Valerra hesitated, but I reached out for her sister’s egg, and she let me take it and store it away. She growled when I reached for our egg, since her motherly instincts refused to let anyone else close to her child, but she finally relented and allowed me to store it away as well.
“This had better be worth it,” she mumbled as she followed me from the lair and out of the cave. “We’re putting our child at risk. I hope you know that.
“It will be,” I told her as I shifted forms, “you’ll like it. And the eggs are both fine. They are stored away, and no one can access the space but me. There aren’t a lot of places safer than this. I promise they’ll always be safe with me.”
Valerra nodded once before she took off, and she made sure to fly behind me so she could keep me in her sight at all times.
I coughed to hide a laugh at her overprotective nature. I knew she was protective of her sister’s egg, but this was a whole new level. This was paranoid Valerra. She didn’t want anyone or anything near her egg. She was so scared for our child, and I was sure I made it worse with
my news.
The rest of the flight back to Hatra was silent, but it only took us a few minutes before we landed outside the gates and shifted into our human bodies. Valerra made sure to wear a long crimson dress to cover her body, too, which I was grateful for. Men had a tendency to stare at her if she walked around naked like she preferred to do. Then we quickly made our way through the gates and inside the city. I led her toward the Lunar Palace, and she paused once it came into view. It towered over the city, and the golden domed roof shone brightly in the sunlight.
“I didn’t realize you had finished the palace,” Valerra commented, “I suppose it looks alright.”
“If you ever came around, you’d know these things,” I rolled my eyes, “I can’t always be the one to visit you. You are welcome inside the city whenever you’d like to visit.”
“No,” she replied coolly, and I bit back a laugh but didn’t bother to press the issue.
I led us through the gates of the palace and inside the front doors, and then we turned to the left and up the stairs toward the bedrooms. We passed by the doors for my other women and stopped at the last door along the hall.
“Here we are!” I twisted the handle and swung the door open. Then I followed behind Valerra inside.
“What is this?” she asked as she looked around the room. “I don’t understand. Why are we in someone’s bedchambers?”
“It’s yours, if you want it,” I answered with a grin. “I had this room built for you.”
“Why?” Valerra turned and narrowed her golden eyes to me. “What need do I have for a room like this?”
“Can’t you just be grateful?” I teased, and she gave me a very unimpressed look. “Fine, I built it because I wanted you closer to me. That’s it.”
“I have my cave,” she replied and sniffed haughtily. “You could have just come to live with me.”
“I’m the lord of Hatra, I can’t live in a cave with you,” I reasoned. “I need to live here, in the Lunar Palace, surrounded by my people. I can’t just ignore them.”
