Dragon's Heart

by Marly Mathews

  “Goodbye, William.” Shock lined his face. She pushed him into the vortex, waiting for it to close. Turning, she stood to finally face her destiny.

  Chapter Seventeen

  William rolled into Grania’s cottage. “I don’t believe this. Bloody hell! The nerve of that woman! Who does she think she is?”

  “What are you talking about?” Nicholas looked at him in stunned disbelief. “Where is Grania? What happened?”

  “She pushed me into the vortex. She told me she loved me, and now, she’s gone.”

  “She’s not gone.” Brianna stepped forward out of the shadows. “She’s still alive, only she’s back on Dragonia.”

  “Damn it. This is just the worst thing she’s done.” He stormed through the room, heading for the stairwell. “We have to get out there, and find Merdwyn.”

  “Lord Merdwyn?” Nicholas sounded dumbfounded again. “Man, you lose a few days here on Earth, and everything bloody well changes.”

  “It happened so fast I don’t even know what happened to me. One minute she was there, the next minute she was gone and I was here. Why would she do this?” William demanded angrily.

  “She’s gone to face her destiny.” Brianna gave him what seemed to be an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about her. If I know one thing I know that Grania can take care of herself. She’s the best we have. If someone can stop her father and break the hold he has on my mother it’s her.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you’re here, not in the line of fire.”

  “Fuck you, William.” Nicholas looked positively pissed.

  He grunted looking over at his friend. “I guess the two of you are going to have a cozy little shag and live happily ever after, eh?”

  Nicholas swung a punch at him and connected with his jaw. His head whipped back. He flexed his jaw line, rubbing it with his hand. “I would retaliate, but you aren’t exactly fit to fight someone like me.”

  “There you go again with your gargantuan ego! I swear I have no bloody idea how you got this far in life without getting yourself creamed into oblivion!”

  “I don’t think you deserve my cousin. You are not a very nice man. I thought Nicholas was an arsehole but you just took the cake. I’m going downstairs to see what Bronwyn is doing,” Brianna said.

  She left them alone.

  “I didn’t mean what I said. I know I sounded like a complete prick,” William said, trying his best to apologize.

  “Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, you always were a pratt of the highest order.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Listen, you don’t need to lose your head over this. I’m sure Grania knows what she’s doing.”

  “She intends to kill Draco.”

  “Well, jolly good for her. I wondered if she had it in her. She’s one plucky woman. I see that same trait in Brianna. I think they must get it from their mothers’ side.”

  “She’s not plucky, she’s just downright foolish. She doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into and now that she's walking her own path without me, she’s in danger every minute of the day. I have to go after her.”

  He walked to the stairwell, and stopped. A loud crash met their ears then, a short scream.

  “Brianna!” Nicholas plunged down the stops at a breakneck pace. Nicholas was bouncing back pretty quickly from his injuries worrying about Brianna was doing the trick better than any medicine. William followed him.

  “The cottage is protected, you can’t…” William started.

  Merdwyn stood over Bronwyn, Brianna stood to the side shaking. “Let her go, you foul man. You have bewitched her.”

  “She isn’t the one you seek.” Merdwyn’s voice remained calm, his composure seemed undisturbed.

  “What’s going on?” Nicholas had his arm raised in the sign of a coming attack.

  “I wouldn’t do that, lad,” Merdwyn advised calmly.

  William stepped in front of Nicholas to block anything that he might try to do. “You can’t attack Lord Merdwyn. I won’t allow you to attack him.”

  “You won’t allow me to? I want to know why he has immobilized Bronwyn.”

  “Not Bronwyn. This thing is a chameleon demon. A trickster of the foulest sort. As soon as she entered this cottage the white magic protecting it sensed her deceit. Where is the real Bronwyn?” Merdwyn had the creature by the throat, William’s eyes widened as the chameleon demon shape shifted back into her native form. He felt sick from the ugliness of the creature.

  Brianna sunk to the ground. “I feel so weak. My head hurts!”

  “That would be her spell over you loosening. Hence, the reason why you were having such a difficult time healing Nicholas.” Merdwyn nodded his head knowingly. “She can’t keep hexing you when her own power is being sapped away by the white magic that inhabits this cottage.”

  “You have my sister. What did you do with her, you bitch?” Brianna regained some of her composure. Heat reverberated off her. She was getting vexed.

  “Lord Draco has her. She is his trump card against your family. They would not dare to attack him as long as he has her.”

  “I have to save Grania. She’s walking into a trap!” Rage, coupled with fear for Grania, coursed through William.

  “What if she was the one always setting the trap? She’d snare you, pretend to be your protector and then, lead you to your doom.” Nicholas’s voice was thoughtful.

  He wanted to smack Nicholas for that, and as it happened, Nicholas had it coming to him.

  “No more fighting!” Brianna trembled with outrage. “We have a duty to Grania, and my sister! Right now, she could be so scared. I can’t figure out why I’m not able to sense her. Get rid of the imposter, please! If you do, it might re-establish the link between me and my twin.”

  “It is done.” Merdwyn waved his hand. The demon blew up.

  “Impressive. Can you do that, William?” Nicholas asked.

  “Let’s not go into that territory, Nicholas. William is correct. Action is the key right now. Your mother needs us far more than your wife does at the moment. The second wave has entered London, and it does not bode well for our side.” Merdwyn’s eyes took on a glassy hue…he was seeing the scenes in his mind’s eye.

  “We need to get there right away. Nicholas, you stay here and heal. Keep Brianna safe.”

  “I want to go with you I want to be there when you go after Bronwyn.”

  “You will be safer here. Nicholas will make sure of that,” William said.

  “William is right. You and I need to stay put, besides, I have to rest a little longer before I’ll be able to keep up with you. You’re way too spry for me.” He winked at her. She huffed.

  “You can huff and puff, Brianna, but I assure you nothing will blow this house down,” William warned

  Transfixed, she walked over to the living room window. Her eyes widened. She stared back at William and Nicholas. “They are there, right under our noses! It would be so easy to just stand up and leave this cottage.”

  “No.” Nicholas crossed the distance and grabbed for her hand. “Don’t even think about it. You can’t leave me!”

  “I must go to help my sister.”

  “Grania is going to her. She must have suspected that you and Nicholas had been fooled by the trickster demon. That’s why she left, knowing that when we all returned to the cottage her true nature would be revealed for all to see and destroy.”

  “I will stay, for the moment. If Blaze calls me, or if I hear my sister calling to me, no one can stand in my way. I’m not powerless.”

  “You aren’t, not at all. You hold just as much power as Grania holds or more. How you use that power is your choice. Unless you have to fight, I don’t think your brother or your cousin would have you put yourself in harm’s way and I know that your mother would not want anything to happen to you. I’ve seen firsthand how closely knit a dragon shifter family is. Hold fast to that and realize that no matter what I will stand by you.” He’d never heard Nicholas li
ke this. The man was actually moved by his feelings for Brianna.

  “Some of our kind wanders aimlessly never to know the touch of their mate. I’ve found you almost too early and yet I am not afraid. I know that our world must enter the darkness in order to see the light again. I just don’t want the darkness to last forever. I want the light back.” Anxiety filled Brianna’s voice.

  William’s heart clenched. He had to turn away from listening to Brianna, she sounded too much like Grania.

  “William, we mustn’t tarry. Your mother and her forces are falling. We must go now. I suggest you get to work on that spell. If you don’t use it in the dark hours ahead, the light will never shine again for many years on Earth.”

  “I don’t understand. My mother’s forces are so mighty…”

  “No one is all powerful. There are always kinks in the armor, magical or otherwise.”

  “We must get a move on, then.” His stomach sunk. His eyes swept over the lands surrounding the idyllic cottage. Merdwyn was right. The landscape had turned a gloomy grey, neither dark nor sunny. “The world is morphing into something I don’t want to see for our future generations.”

  “Dark magic is flowing through everything. Either twisting it to its will or killing it. Albion’s land oozes with good magic, but it is being smothered right now. We must release it from Draco’s hold.”

  “I can do this,” William said, confidence filled his voice, despite the wavering in his heart.

  “You will be doing the right thing by finally using the spell, tweak it if you think you are able. Perhaps you will be able to narrow its catastrophic effect.”

  “If I unleash the spell there’s no telling if I will unintentionally kill innocent dragon shifters.”

  “We will cross that bridge when we come to it, my boy.”

  William nodded his head. “Would you like to do the honours of opening up a transportation portal, or shall I?”

  Merdwyn flexed his fingers. “I think I should like to do the honours. I’ve been idle for so long that it feels good to be back in the thick of action.”

  “You couldn’t possibly ask for more action than what we will be getting in a few seconds.”

  Merdwyn raised his arms, light cascaded through the room, enveloping them and transporting them to London.

  Fire lit up the sky. The heat was almost unbearable. The Elizabeth Tower or as most knew it, Big Ben was on fire, and witches were desperately trying to put the flames out. The statue of Boedicia had a harpy sitting on it, and the Houses of Parliament looked like they were at risk of being destroyed as well.

  St. Margaret’s Church had a magical force field shimmering around it telling him that some of their forces had taken refuge there. On Westminster Bridge were the Menopian Trolls and a small band of warlocks and witches who were valiantly trying to keep them on it. If they got across they would destroy the buildings on Parliament Square for sure. The fighting witches and warlocks had to be magically reinforcing the strength of the bridge because he would have thought that the combined weight of the Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridge. They too looked as if they were under siege.

  He levitated himself so he could look at the destruction from a better viewpoint. He licked his lips, scanning the sky for the rest of the damage.

  William looked to where several Trolls appeared out of one of Merdwyn’s portals. The haunting sound of the bagpipes playing rent the night air, accompanied by the sound of the drums. They were obviously Scottish for they had giant kilts covering their giant behinds. They held clubs, axes, maces and swords, and looked as if they were ready to do a lot of damage.

  “Well, all right laddies, if they take England, they’ll move to our beloved Scotland next! Let us give these Foreign Trolls a licking they won’t forget! You wee lasses and laddies fall back to the Parliament Buildings, we will take care of the Menopian Trolls,” the leader of the Scottish Trolls said. The witches and warlocks complied, and some summoned their broomsticks they hopped on them and flew out of the way. Those who weren’t traveling by broomstick just used their magic to pop themselves to their next location.

  The London Eye had been destroyed. He sighed. The Menopian Trolls must have crushed it, or one of the fully transformed dragons had done it.

  “I haven’t seen anything quite like this in my lifetime,” William whispered, fear in his voice. Merdwyn had joined him in the air.

  “Not in your lifetime, but I have in mine.” Grimness stole into Merdwyn’s voice, he sounded ready to exact his revenge against Draco’s minions.

  “We need to get to the Parliament Buildings. They look like they are suffering the brunt of the attack. My mother is in that building masquerading as the Prime Minister.”

  “I’m sure that won’t go over too well with Draco’s forces, he no doubt knows the true identity of the mortal Prime Minister.”

  “I can only imagine how the chaos is spreading through the world. It’s like something out of a computer game that the mortals play.”

  Merdwyn shook his head. “I don’t follow that train of thought, but it looks as if I need to go and help the witches, warlocks and wizards that are trying to save Big Ben, you get to your mother.” If the bookish wizards had joined the fight, things were dire indeed.

  William stared up at the sky once again. Wizards and Dragon Shifters were locked in mortal combat, while Harpies swarmed around them causing as much grief as they possibly could. Menopian Trolls and Scottish Trolls thundered across the ground, making the Earth shake. He fired a bolt of energy at one harpy that was trying to take a chunk out of a witch. The witch smiled at him. It was Kayla. She looked like she was fading away. The toll of the battle was wearing hard on her.

  “Grania, be safe my love,” William prayed.

  *****

  Grania stood in her father’s fortress, Wyvern Castle back on Dragonia. Any of her mother’s soft touches to the formidable castle had been removed over the years. It was no wonder considering how bloodthirsty her father had become. It puzzled her as to why he had not relocated to the Palace for his base of operations, and why had he returned to Dragonia?

  She supposed he wanted his war generals to do the work he used to do so he could finally play the role of absolute monarch. The atmosphere had been transformed. It now seemed forbidding and ugly.

  “Your father will reward me greatly for taking you prisoner you ungrateful whelp.”

  “I already told you, you haven’t taken me prisoner. I willingly went along with you, Widow Mooney when I could have followed my husband back to Earth. Perhaps in lieu of the Widow Mooney name I should call you the Black Widow. You killed your husband. That was an unspeakable sin. You will burn for that crime.”

  “Not in the way you think. Lord Draco has promised to allow me to bathe in his fire. I will be so glad to bask under his power. Your father is the greatest dragon shifter to ever have lived. He has such vision—he will take our race into a time of greatness.”

  “We are not a separate race. We are still humans that have been enchanted by magic.”

  “I am a dragon shifter there is nothing human about that.”

  “Keep shape shifting like I suspect you are and you will no longer be able to think straight. Your animalistic desires will control you and eventually it will consume you. You are on a path of ruin.”

  “I am not on a path of ruin. That will be you, my dear. You have deeply disturbed your father with your constant betrayal.”

  “Grania, my daughter, how nice it is to see you again.” His powerful voice made her a shiver run up and down her spine. She swallowed, hard.

  She looked to where the Great Hall had been transformed into a throne-like room for him. Shivers ran up and down her spine once more, as she met his gaze.

  “Lord Draco.”

  He chuckled. The chilling sound seeped through her making her shudder.

  “You can’t even acknowledge me as your sire. How sad for you, Grania. You have turned away from the true path. I am deeply disappointed that
you gave yourself to that filthy wizard.”

  “He actually has better body hygiene than you do.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “Your quips are unusually weak. Hanging around the magic kind and the other humans have made you weak.”

  “They are making me strong. I will continue to fight you.” She shrugged off the Widow. “Or, I could rejoin you.”

  He inclined his head to the side. “Have you gone daft, Grania?”

  She sighed. “I’ve only been biding my time. I have William’s full trust. It would be so easy for me to lure him into your clutches.”

  *****

  “Ah, now that would be fortuitous for me but then they always say what is too good to be true—usually is.” He studied her intently. “Many years I have hoped that you would finally see the error of your ways. I wish I could believe you.”

  “You’ve never believed in me, so I wouldn’t expect you to start now, Father.” She spat the last word out. His eyebrows rose, while he leaned forward in his chair.

  “I respect your fiery nature, daughter. When you were small, I could already see the powerful fire building inside of you. I so wanted to spare you from the awful future the seers had predicted for you.”

  “You killed my mother. How could I not hate you?”

  He leaned back casually in his chair. “Your mother did not share the same unique vision as me. She still loved her precious wizard. I could never totally erase him from her heart. I knew that. I knew that with every year we were together, she mourned him and regretting choosing me over him. I was her mate and yet, she could not love me the way you no doubt love your wizard. Do not deny it, I can see it burning in your eyes. It literally snaps off you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, please, Grania. Do not take me for an idiot. I am much more broad-minded than you think. I know what you’ve done with your wizard, and I know that you fully enjoyed every single second of it.”

  “You are vulgar.”

  “I am a great many things, my dear. I will win this war. You can’t stop me and neither can your wizard. Even now, London falls beneath the terrible might of my forces.”