Dragons of Dobromia Collection (Books 1 -4)

by Celeste Raye

Kavryiss

  I hated the D’Karr. I hated him for leaving our ruler and for killing the humans. I hated him for using Diana as a breeding ground and for disposing of people at his whim. I hated the blithesome way he ruled over Dobromia; the alliances we had failed to make because of his stubbornness.

  He'd drawn me to the end of my rope with his control, and now I was ready to strike back. The laser rifle sounded off beneath my legs, and I could hear Boradrith in the distance calling for me. I looked up at the sky, an endless blend of reds and orange and yellow that floated across the atmosphere like a fog.

  And then I heard a deep thunder, and I knew the second sun was destroyed. Diana was the first person to make me believe I was more than the D’Karr's servant. I could do more than just survive. She brought life back to Dobromia. No more scavenging for food or raiding planets.

  We were a warrior race, but it didn't have to be that way. If Tredorphen's summary of the Earth was any indication, there was so much more to see than just death and the struggle for power that we found here.

  The D’Karr killed Sillevia, the loyal ruler who our people loved. The people had begun to rebel against him as soon as he put his mate to death and now he would seek to take Diana from me as well.

  If he was going to take away my everything, then I would take everything away from him in return.

  The remaining sun crumbled wildly, exploding in a flurry of liquid and smoke. The sky began to dim with every star that slowly fell from the sun and hurtled down toward Dobromia. My wings whipped wildly behind me as I flew to him, carefully dodging the remnants of the remaining sun that crashed down like a fiery eruption. I knew shifters could take heat better than humans, but I had to take the risk.

  He watched me coming, the gold of his wings and the scales that crawled across his body shimmering against the firelight.

  He whipped Diana to the ground, and I let out a battle cry, fire sparking from the inside of my throat and stretching far into the air, exploding from my lips.

  Boradrith matched my squall and raced toward me.

  I whipped around him with nervous anticipation. His scales shone with gold and red, and he wore thick armor. I lunged at him, and he grabbed my arm, tossing me to the side and making me lose my balance.

  With a sharp flap of my thick wings, I maneuvered myself to the ground, stumbling to a halt and running up to Diana. I looked at her red eyes and the tear-stained skin beneath her lashes and felt a pang in my stomach. She looked helpless and beautiful, and it filled me with the need for vengeance.

  "Are you okay?" I asked and could feel her skin hot against my hand. I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her hungrily. I felt her warm mouth against mine and took just that second to lavish myself in her sticky lips and her sweet breath. I needed that: her. Even for a second.

  "I can't believe you're here,” she said, unbelieving.

  "What," I teased. "I couldn't leave you," I said quickly. A meteor of fire and gas vaulted toward us and I grabbed Diana, swerving from it with quick wings. I could see Vaikrand watching me not far off, raising his brows as if congratulating me for my swift movements. "I just found you," I quipped.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she cried, burying her face into my chest. "I should have listened."

  "That's the story of us," I said with a wink in my tone, breathing heavily. "You'll always do what you want, despite what others tell you." I looked at her seriously then. "And that's the beauty of you."

  "That would be a lot more romantic if we weren't on the brink of death," she chastised and smiled weakly at me.

  The air was still then: the fiery rains furiously beating down against us as though they were protesters to our actions. I felt Diana's long fingers grip against mine and I exhaled sharply. All at once, the stars stopped falling then, and Dobromia went black as night. It was gone. All the light was gone.

  The plains would have been cold, ice cold if it weren't for the pools of fire surrounding us. My eyes flicked around the field, but I couldn't catch sight of Boradrith. I pressed my eyes shut and tried to use my sensory perception to get a feel for him.

  Silence permeated the air so thickly, it was also like a scent. Then I could feel him. He darted behind me and used his claws against my wings, scraping them firmly and eliciting a grunt from my lips.

  I allowed a small smirk to cross my face as I made for the D’Karr; first hitting him in the face with my coiled fist and dragging him down toward the waters. Boradrith let out a blast of fire and electricity.

  I dodged it quickly. From my peripheral, I could see Vaikrand fly in, just ghosting the surface before scooping Diana up into his arms. Good. She was safe now.

  Now I could really fight.

  “So you do have some fight in you,” I hissed.

  I charged toward him, slashing my claws from side to side, slicing easily through his human armor. The man hacked into his hands, causing blood to flow harder through his shirt before vainly cupping his wound with his hands.

  He looked up at me, incensed, before whipping his rocky tail in my direction. His scaled body was rocky and hard, making it nearly impossible to keep a grip on him for too long. It also made his tail feel like getting hit by a boulder.

  We grappled to the ground, and I managed to topple him, beating my fists down and crying out to the pitch blackness with an echoed roar. I wailed my bloody fists down on his stony face one after another until his breathing grew slow and ragged.

  I stepped off of him, flicking my tail behind me and wiping the spit from my mouth with my forearm.

  Then I heard him stand. I turned to look at him in the endless black night. The only way I could see him was by the fire’s reflection on his golden scales.

  “This is it then?” he asked numbly, and I just stared in return.

  He looked at me with hauntingly still movements, just the weak flap of his wings sounding out through the air. With that, I charged him, sending us both careening toward the blazing red waters below. I released him from my grasp, watching and waiting for him to fall to his fiery death below, but he clung to my body like a sticky ember.

  I passed my hands over his to throw him off of me and felt his claws digging deeply into my center, gripping me from within and clamping on unceasingly. I doubled over, my body aching in pain, feeling the blood coming cool onto my skin and sending a wave of light-headedness through my body. I gripped him with deep claws and felt the blood pouring out and cooling from my stomach.

  Roars and sharp cries echoed from my mouth without my consent: fire blistering and bubbling forth from my throat and exploding into ragged bursts of flame.

  I winced in pain and drew my tail forth, the unique spike on the end seeming all too convenient at the moment. I drew it forth and speared my leader with it, sending it through his core with as much force as I could muster. His eyes went wide, and I used the length of my tail to whip him off of me, finally casting him into the fiery deep.

  I watched as he disappeared behind the thick lava and couldn’t look anymore, falling down to the warm ground below and dragging myself to the nearest fields that I knew of. I fluttered my wings weakly to try and make haste.

  Once away from the lakes, all I could see was utter blackness. With the last of my strength, I shot fire to one of the Reduah trees, and it caught, lighting up the small area. I felt my legs tingle, and I collapsed onto the dewy ground below, relishing the cool moss underneath my skin.

  My only consolation was seeing her.

  And there she was.

  Running up to me with the yellow shifter in tow, Diana raced to my side and spread her hands along my body, trying to determine in the low light what was wrong.

  “You’re an idiot,” she flustered, feeling my wound and then leaning down and hitting my face with a barrage of kisses.

  “Is he gone?” Vaikrand asked stiffly, looking off into the distance.

  I nodded, unseen by my friends. “He’s gone.”

  “The people will be happy,” the yellow shift
er confirmed, and I offered a ragged laugh in return.

  “They’d better be,” I said and reached up to touch Diana’s face. “So should you.”

  “I am the happiest,” she said with a tear and leaned back in to kiss me once more. “Come on,” she cooed. “Let’s go home. Let’s rebuild.”

  Epilogue

  Diana

  “I hope you meant what you said,” my love said to me, coming out of a deep sleep.

  I looked down at Kavryiss: bandaged in a medical station back in Graynar, the only area left on Dobromia that was lit up. We descended down into the caves, which were now ice cold, by firelight alone.

  Days had passed since the fight, and we heard reports that the lava fields, now being the only light that illuminated the planet, were already beginning to die off. Water had returned to Dobromia and, while sight was limited, new growth had already formed.

  “About what?” I asked with a smile. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and kissed, grazing his weak palm against my cheeks.

  It felt good to be at his side once more, to be filled by the warmth of him. I looked up into his deep blue eyes and smiled. Everything would be right now. We would make them right.

  Then I looked up.

  A never-ending darkness, incurred just to save me.

  I knew it would give everyone even more reason to hate me: something to blame me for. But I thought it was just about the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.

  “I hope you were serious about what you said; about giving up the leadership role to be with me,” he finished with a laugh.

  “I don’t think there’s much choice in that now,” I teased before leaning in to kiss him. “But I meant every word. This…” I stopped and thought on the matter. “This is real.” I paused, and with a wink in my tone, finished, “And much less deadly.”

  “Yeah, let’s stay away from that from now on, shall we?” he laughed and then his smile withered into a somber stare. “I’m sorry you won’t get your chance to rule, Diana.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” came Tredorphen’s chime.

  The handsome rose gold shifter walked in before us with Marina at his side, ever loyal. He looked like his father, Boradrith, and I couldn’t help but smile at his features. His strong face and cleft chin. Maybe he took all that was good left in Boradrith. He and my son, of course.

  “What’s that?” Kavryiss said tiredly.

  “About her giving up rulership,” the gold shifter repeated smugly.

  “Well, last I heard you were next in line,” Kavryiss said with an exhausted laugh, clutching at his middle and the wounds that still clung deeply to his chest. “So, unless you and Diana have something going on that I don’t know about…” He trailed off with a laugh.

  “Myself,” Tredorphen said with a smile. “And then Plovoeus is next in line to rule, but he’s just a dragonling.”

  “So?” I said curiously, my eyes creasing at the sides as I winced to catch his point.

  “So, I’m going back to the Earth, with Marina,” he said evenly. “Which puts Plovoeus as leader. And as his older brother, I’m assigning the two of you as his guardians.”

  Kavryiss breathed. “Which makes us…”

  “Looks like you got your wish,” Marina said to me in a congratulatory tone. “Until he’s old enough, Dobromia is left in your hands.”

  “But the people,” I protested, a flush coming to my face as the emotions welled up inside me. “They hate me.”

  “They love Plovoeus,” Tredorphen said. “And they will love you. You have ideas; you want to move Dobromia forward. You want to create an alliance with others to benefit our planet. Shifters aren’t stupid,” he said and then looked at Kavryiss with a laugh. “Well,” he shrugged. “Mostly.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked slowly, looking up at the golden shifter with no small amount of hesitation. “After… what happened to your father?”

  “My father killed my mother,” he said stoically. “There is no love lost from me. Besides, this one sung your praises well enough, as did my father. He may have had a sordid private life, but he knew rulership, and he obviously saw you fit to do the job.”

  My eyes filled with tears and I stood to embrace the shifter and his wife, taking them both gratefully into my arms as I cried and hugged them. “I don’t know what to say,” I cried, feeling humble for the first time in a long time.

  “Where will you go?” I asked them.

  “Back to Earth,” Marina said. “But we’ll be back soon. After all,” she pointed out the window at the pitch darkness outside and gave a bewildered smile, “We have to come back and help you fix… that.”

  “You really couldn’t have picked a better way of saving her, huh?” Tredorphen jeered, bumping my love with his arm before bursting into a smile.

  “Hey,” Kavryiss defended weakly. “I got her, didn’t I?”

  Tredorphen rolled his eyes and gave my love a salute. “We’ll bring supplies. We’ll consult everyone there about how to fix this, but we will fix it. I can’t say how long until we can return, but I trust that you’ll both be able to handle the job while I’m gone.”

  I knew. It would be one year, and that’s if they returned to Earth, stocked up on supplies, and came right back. Give or take. “Of course,” I said smugly.

  One year. What could happen in one year?

  I leaned in and kissed the man who saved my life. Now I had a plan again, a plan to love and to save Dobromia. My two favorite things. The outline may have gotten darker and more difficult to maneuver, but I knew with Kavryiss at my side, we would be able to do absolutely anything.

  Gandadirth

  Gandadirth

  “You ready?”

  My eyes skimmed around the former plains of my planet in disgust. Dobromia was a ruin of its former self. A planet of Weredragons that was once revered for its warriors, like myself, was now shattered in complete darkness, still unable to grow food.

  Our leader had overthrown our D’Karr and brought his human mistress up as our… what did she call it? Queen. The thought of being half under human rule made me feel queasy.

  “Hey, Ganda, you ready?” came the deep tones of Tesyduss, my good friend and fellow rebel against Dobromian rule.

  “Ecstatically waiting. Suspense is brimming in my veins,” I said easily, my tone rivers of flowing words that bordered somewhere between playful and bored as I raised my wrist to him. “See it?” I teased. “See the brimming?”

  Tesyduss raised a brow, and I watched triumphantly as a small smirk crept up the side of his dark lips.

  “Oh, you’re funny,” he said.

  I grinned but said nothing more, watching him grab a small cloth satchel and pitch it over his arm before leaving the room. We were leaving Dobromia today. The last crew to arrive on the Earth. The last crew that would signal to the rest of the team that we were ready to destroy it.

  A good rebellion didn’t happen overnight. It took full cycles upon cycles to plan. Careful outlines of dedicated shifters who were sick of living under the dual ruling of a human female and our dimwitted D'Karr. In truth, I was surprised he expected as much loyalty from us as he did.

  We were promised a new ruler since our previous leader was murdered. Yet, we were still here on Dobromia. Dying. Except now we got to starve to death in the pitch blackness that took the place of the sun.

  “How many groups have been sent down so far?” I asked and fluttered past Tesyduss just to bother him.

  “Ten,” he said quickly. “We’ve got rebel bases all around the west, ready to go as soon as we get there.”

  I grinned. “Then we’d better get there soon.”

  There was a change in the red shifter’s demeanor suddenly: his fingers flocking through his wild red hair and attempting to push the long mane out of his eyes.

  “What is it?” I asked, tense. “I’m fresh out of jokes, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

  “I find that har
d to believe,” Tesyduss said nervously. “Vesuviun isn’t coming,” he said finally, speaking of my brother.

  “See!” I chided. “I knew it was something. It's always something when you give me that look. Why not? What’s his excuse this time?”

  He stared at me gravely then, a look unbecoming for the half dragon. I blinked suddenly, and a terrible sinking feeling flooded down my spine and tingled its way through the boning in my wings, making them feel like they were vibrating.

  The dark-skinned shifter let out a throaty breath that was long and loud: a protesting sigh that told me he’d lost some kind of bet and had been designated the one to reveal this information to me.

  “He died today,” he said quickly.

  “Ah,” I said with a click of my tongue. “Well… that’s a damn good excuse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tesyduss offered quietly: dignified.

  I swallowed and felt something in me shatter, like a scream that echoed through my insides but refused to come out.

  “That’s why we’re doing all this in the first place, right?” I said with a low sigh.

  I didn’t know if I was more devastated by the loss of my brother or by another defeat at the hands of our destroyed planet.

  In truth, death was becoming easier and easier to swallow these days. Must have been the defeat then.

  There had been seventy-five Weredragon deaths since the new D’Karr had taken over. Not one human death—oh no! And no one had successfully managed to infiltrate their planet. This Earth everyone seemed so bent out of shape about.

  The women had taken over.

  Our new D'Karr was even worse than the one before. Boradrith, our golden-scaled leader who had been overthrown some full cycles ago now, may have been a hard-ass, but at least he wasn't weak. Now we were under rule from the humans, from the wretched Diana to what used to be a great warrior, Kavryiss. Not to mention their spawned half-breed.

  “We heard there’s a representative coming from the Earth, some girl–”