by Shannon West
“You came.”
Strange bodies came pouring out of the door behind him with flashlights blazing and the darkness beyond the porch slunk back, waiting. I could see that most of them were Spawn, and all pumped up and different looking, like those that attacked me back in the States. They were probably Artie’s gang, but with Artie himself notably absent. Their breath steamed in the cold night air and none of them said anything. This was Eldor’s show, and they waited for him to start it.
“You knew I’d come,” I answered him and he smiled.
“I hoped you would. Don’t fight me, Wyvern, and I’ll try to make this quick.”
“What about my friend? Will you give me your word you’ll let him go?”
“Of course,” he said and gave me an oily smile again, and I knew he was lying.
I growled at him and he raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to fight me, little dragonet? I assure you I’ll win, and you won’t get the easy death I promised you. I’ll rip through your chest with my claws and pull your still-beating heart out.”
“I hear a lot of talk but I haven’t seen anything yet.”
Some of his Spawn muttered restlessly and moved a few steps toward me, but he motioned them back. Then suddenly, out of the night sky, three Dragons dropped down beside me, golden and shining in the moonlight, their faces cold and cruel. The air shimmered beside them and Pendragon appeared, his expression terrible to behold, his arms outstretched as he muttered incantations.
Eldor gasped and took a step back as a lick of flames hit the wooden porch where he’d been standing. His eyes glowed and he shook himself, changing instantly into his Dragon. The porchlight over his head wavered and flickered. No one was moving, but still I sensed movement all around me.
With a final flicker, the lights all dimmed, and I could no longer see Eldor. A ladder of fire fell down in front of me leading up into the sky and blue flames shot out from my feet to reach the bottom rung, but the flames didn’t burn me. I could hear the scarlet thwack of wings beating overhead. I looked up, expecting to see another Dragon swooping down on its prey, but instead saw two winged red serpents, their scaly necks bent to the yoke, pulling a fiery chariot across the sky. A woman drove them across the lofty space and I heard a male voice cry, “Where thou ridest, there are no gods!” The woman was the witch Medea, granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, her wicked sword drenched in her own children’s blood. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder how I knew.
Unable to bear looking at her any longer, I turned my head and saw a Hunter’s moon, bigger than I’d ever seen any moon before or since. It leaned down out of the sky toward me and I heard the dripping of its heart’s blood onto the ground. Each drop was like acid, sizzling as it split the earth underneath.
A voice was shouting, high-pitched and monotonous, and each word shot through me like a knife, opening up my chest. Then the light went out altogether, and I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear my own voice, intoning these words.
“When the Spawn rises to rule the land,
a son of Dragon and child of man,
born of magic, blood and rage,
a son of a maiden and spawn of a mage,
will stride forward to meet the tide,
with the Seven by his side.
A trio of Dragons, noble and Gold.
A wizard, a Wyvern, and three heroes bold.
The last dragonet is the only chance,
to stem the tide and quell the advance.
Precious wealth he is, far greater than gold,
his heart is the hardest treasure to hold!”
The pain in my head was so bad I thought it might kill me this time. In front of me, I could see more visions of three Golden Dragons, their beautiful scales flashing in the sun and three human men, men I’d never seen before, but who stood with swords in their hands, beside my Dragons, guarding their flank. And Pen was there too, his hands outstretched as they were now, red flames shooting from his fingertips. The visions flashed and swirled around me, breaking over me one by one and then winking out, leaving only silence and darkness.
I came to slowly, feeling groggy as if waking from a dream or a nightmare, and I saw the Spawn cowering behind Eldor on the porch. Eldor roared and leaped toward me, but Dmitri surged forward and caught his body in mid-leap.
The Spawn spilled off the porch then and into the savage teeth and claws of Sebastien and Alexei. Pen came to stand beside me, and he glanced at me only once, but that glance held wonder and perhaps a tiny bit of fear. In the air in front of me, Eldor had torn himself away from Dmitri’s punishing grip and hurled his body toward us. Pen lifted his hands but mine were quicker. I could feel the blue fire within me, burning me from the inside and wanting to be free. I flung it outward toward him in a swirl of indigo and his wings burst into flames. He screamed and tried to beat at himself, but that only served to fan the blaze higher. He fell to the ground and the blue fire consumed him utterly, leaving only a pile of white ash where Eldor’s body had been.
The visions returned as I stared down at what was left of him, and they fractured in the air in front of me and fell to the ground and shattered like shards of glass. The pain came rushing back and the light winked out. Insensible, I dropped to the ground beside the pieces of my visions.
Epilogue
I dreamed of battle. Maybe the events of the night were pressing on me, along with the weight of the sky and the coming dawn. But for whatever reason, I dreamed of three men, all human and each one beautiful and strong. They were coming, and along with my Dragons and my mage, we alone had the power to hold back the darkness. They drew closer and spoke to me, their voices like whispers in my head.
I woke up stretched out on the couch in Dmitri’s office, with my head in his lap. He was gently stroking my hair, while Sebastien and Alexei watched us with hooded gazes, and Pen paced up and down in front of Dmitri’s desk.
Dmitri saw me open my eyes and blink. His eyes lit up and he smiled down at me. “Welcome back, sweetheart.”
I sat up, moving cautiously to test my arms and legs as everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me. I rubbed my eyes and looked down at myself. Someone, probably Dmitri, had dressed me in a warm robe and covered me with a blanket. Sunlight was streaming in the windows.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, looking around at them.
Before Dmitri could say anything, Sebastien spoke up. “What happened? Your eyes rolled back in your head until only the white was showing and then you stood up there in front of that ugly mob of Spawn, raised your arms in the air and started prophesying, that’s what. Scared the shit out them and me too! You talked about how the Spawn will rise and a trio of Dragons and three men and a mage will save the day. Then you lit old Eldor up like a Christmas tree. It was fucking amazing!”
“Sebastien,” Dmitri said. “Don’t overwhelm him. Let him wake up a little.”
“I prophesied? Me? And what do you mean I lit him up?” I said, though an image—a memory—was forming in my head of me stretching out my arms like I’d seen Pen do and…fire shooting out of me and engulfing Eldor in blue flames.
“Oh my God,” I said softly, putting a hand to my head. Pen came over to kneel beside me. “You really don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “Not much. A little maybe. I-I don’t remember what I said though. To tell the truth, I thought maybe I was having a stroke. My head hurt so bad.” I touched my temple as the memory of pain came back to me, cleaving me open like the tip of a sword. Then it was gone and my head wasn’t hurting anymore. I didn’t think it ever would again.
“Why don’t I remember?”
“It’s not unusual,” Pen said. “It often happens that wizards don’t remember their own prophecies.”
I laughed a little. “I’m not a wizard.” But as I looked around the room, everyone seemed to get busy looking at something else and wouldn’t meet my gaze. Alexei had his hand down by his side, but I could see he was making a sign with his fing
ers. It was an ancient sign to ward off magic. Even Dmitri wouldn’t look directly at me. “I remember the Spawn. They were different—most of them were partially transformed.”
“Yes, that would be on me, I’m afraid,” Pen said and shrugged when we all turned to glare at him. “I was working for Eldor then, and he wanted them to be tougher. I put a spell on them.”
I tensed then and whirled to look at Dmitri. “Oh God, Mr. Alvarez! Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, Luca,” Dmitri said. “We brought him home and put him to bed upstairs. He’s banged up and had a bad shock, but he’ll be fine. Samboa must have kidnapped him and brought him here. We think by boat, because we found a record of Samboa and some of his men booking passage on a Russian trawler. They would have been able to keep him sedated in a cabin that way.”
“And Artie and his gang?”
“Some are dead. Some ran off after Eldor was killed, including Artie. We’ve been trying to track them down, but no luck so far.”
“So you think it’s over? But we still don’t know about my mother and why she left you? Eldor might have known.”
Pen stood up and sighed, resting his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have to find out about your mother from Auric, and I promise you I will. Knowing Rosamund, she left to keep one or both of us safe. As for all this being over, I doubt it. I think it might just be the beginning, Luca. If the prophesy you spoke is true, and your words certainly had a ring of truth.”
“A ring?’ Sebastien chimed in. “It echoed over the whole damn valley. That voice chilled me to the bone.”
“A slight exaggeration,” Dmitri said, probably trying to reassure me.
“But what did I say? And how did I… I mean, I never did anything like that before.”
“I’ll tell you everything, including what you said in the prophesy after you’ve rested a bit. You were unconscious so long you scared me,” Dmitri said, his warm hand rubbing little circles on my back.
Pen spoke up again. “Personally, I think maybe you inherited it from my family. I come from a long line of wizards, mages and soothsayers. As to why it came out when it did, sometimes when we need something the most, the god will bring it to us.”
“The god?”
“The one who has loaned you his powers. Perhaps Helios, the sun god, who made the first Dragons, the winged Drakones.” He smiled at me and winked. “And even the dragonets, ‘precious wealth, far greater than gold.’”
“Well, I, for one, am glad he showed up when he did, whoever he is,” Sebastien said. “And right on time. Not that I was worried about those Spawn freaks.”
“All right, Bash, that’s enough for now,” Dmitri said, using Sebastien’s nickname. He rarely did that unless he was feeling particularly happy, and I turned to smile at him, so glad to be alive and safe in Dmitri’s arms again. “Alexei, and you too, Pen, would you mind excusing us? I know you were worried, but you can see he’s fine, and we need to have a little private time. I have some things I need to tell him.”
“I should think you do,” Pen said, with a long, measuring look, but he turned and walked toward the door. With some good natured jostling between Sebastien and Alexei, all three of them filed out of the room, with Pen at the last. But just before the door closed behind him, I called out to my newly found father. “Pen, don’t go too far, okay? Please? I have a lot of questions, and-and I’d really like to get to know you more.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, glancing over at Dmitri. “Your Dragon has given me a room and asked me to stay on to work for him. If you’re coming into your magic, you’ll need the training that only I can give you.” He nodded then and closed the door behind him.
“Arrogant ass,” Dmitri muttered.
“Takes one to know one, hmm?”
He glanced down at me sharply and then gave me the ghost of a smile, tightening his arms around me. “I was so worried about you. I woke up and found you gone and I knew right away where you had to be. I could hardly believe you’d be so foolish, but I knew.”
“And you came for me.”
“Because I love you. And I’ll always come for you, sweetheart.” He frowned a little and took my hand in his. “I was terrified I couldn’t get to you in time, and if anything had happened to you… Luca, about how I’ve been treating you... I know what you said was true. I have been acting like you’re an object—like a thing for me to possess. But my feelings are so much deeper than that. I love you. I know I have a long way to go yet, but if only you’ll give me a chance I can show you.”
“Somebody told me not too long ago that those two words were the saddest words in any language.”
He raised one eyebrow and peered down at me. “What? What two words?”
“If only.”
He furrowed his brow. “What does that mean? Are you saying I don’t have a chance with you anymore?”
I smiled and patted his chest. “Oh, you have a chance all right. Because I love you too, though I have to admit it’s still hard for me to believe that someone like you could really be in love with someone like me. But I’m willing to let you try to convince me.”
He growled and tackled me down to my back on the couch. “I’ll convince you,” he said. Then his tone got serious and he kissed me gently on the side of my face. “At least I’ll spend the rest of my life trying.”
I leaned up to bite his bottom lip. “Promises, promises,” I said, and proceeded to let him make a start.
The End
The story continues in Dragon Prophecies 2
About the Authors
Shannon West currently lives in the South with her husband and family. A lover and avid reader of M/M romances, she began writing them a few years ago and now has over fifty short stories, novellas, and novels to her credit. She was a finalist in the Rainbow Awards in 2013 and 2014, and very honored to be an All Romance Ebooks Top Ten Author for 2013 and 2014. She loves men and everything about them, and believes that love is love, no matter the gender. She mostly spends her days at the keyboard, trying to elude housework, which stalks her relentlessly.
Susan E Scott lives with her husband in a small town in north Georgia. Susan enjoys scrapbooking, traveling and reading and writing romance. Susan writes M/F and M/M erotic romance
Dark Hollows Press
Dark Hollows Press is a publisher of all genres of romantic expression.
We believe our authors are artists and their talent shouldn't be censored, so our authors present high quality stories full of romance, desire, and sometimes graphic moments that are both entertaining and erotic. We have an exclusive group of talented writers and we publish stories that range from historical to fantasy, sci-fi to contemporary.
We invite you to visit us at www.darkhollowspress.com.
