Moonstone Shifter (Demon Lord Book 8)

by Morgan Blayde

  I had a hunch who these two had to be. “Heading to the Mykonos Hotel? I can call you a limo.”

  The woman looked at her friend. “He smells…”

  “…Of dragon.” The man removed his glasses for a better look. “You would be?”

  “You know who I am: your true emperor and the officially licensed Lord High Executioner of the Throne World. Caine Deathwalker, at your service.”

  The woman paled at the news, actually taking a step back from me, as if the earth under her might suddenly lurch and break away, carrying her to her doom. The man’s face tightened with anger, lips pressing together, jaw muscles knotting. His washed-out blue eyes glinted like ice. His fingers flexed, as though dragon claws were coming out.

  Interesting effect I have on people.

  “We can manage our own ride, Lord High Executioner.”

  At the use of my dragon title, Leah and Jada both cast inquisitive glances at my face.

  I stayed focused on the silvers, absorbing what I could from their body language, and the smell of their emotions. The male had acknowledged my status as the Executioner, not as Emperor in Exile. This made his position very clear; I’d get only the respect he was forced to give.

  Since he pissed me off, I pushed a little. “You haven’t given me your names. Perhaps you’re ashamed of them.”

  The flush of red across the woman’s face told me she did not take well to being schooled on manners by one she considered beneath her. She stiffened as if acquiring an iron spine, or maybe a poker up the ass. “I am Talla, the official Eyes of the Dragon Court. My companion is Dhirrusses, Master Registrar, my escort and protector. I will be officiating at…Kinsey’s…marriage, and will later register the event in Imperial Court records.”

  She didn’t use Kinsey’s dragon name. Interesting. It’s as if she no longer considers Kinsey to be an heir to the throne, having defiled herself with demons. I wonder if the Traditionalist Party considers there to BE any true heir at all. If not, it would open the door for a Silver Clan claimant to the throne, upon Kur’s death.

  I saw why Kur had made me Royal Executioner. He’d finally realized that he was not going to be allowed to name our clan’s successor. A coup d'état had been building since my mother abandoned the throne. Kur wanted this political cancer excised. I was his scalpel. And probably expendable when done. I sensed I couldn’t let this matter ferment too long. After the wedding, I was going to have to prioritize a return to the Dragon World to do what I do best: leave behind a trail of broken bodies.

  I smiled at the silver dragons. “Do a good job for my Old Man and Kinsey, or I’ll rip out your silver hearts and eat them, warm and still beating.” I smiled at Jada beside me. “Silver magic is damn tasty.”

  Without waiting for a silver dragon response to my off-the-cuff threat, I walked on, heading for my Mustang, leaving everyone to wonder if I’d been joking. The last silver dragon I’d sent back to the Dragon World had been missing a heart. Rumors had to be flying fast and furiously about that.

  The Silver Clan could fight against my executions, appealing to Kur, but that wouldn’t work. By dragon law, once commissioned, I could not be recalled. My position existed outside dragon law and custom. I would either finish my task and retire, or a new executioner could be appointed to take me out.

  Probably what Kur intends. I’m not buying into this new, kinder-and-gentler grandfather he’s trying show me. He’s lived a thousand years. That’s enough time for his thought processes to get damn twisty.

  The girls and I reached the Mustang. Jada and Leah gave it a once-over, looking for sabotage, bombs, oil leaks, what have you. Jada nodded once. I got in the driver’s seat. They climbed in as I fired up the engine. With doors closed, and everyone buckled up, I sent the car rolling toward the street. I consulted my watch. Two hours until the wedding. The silver dragons were cutting it close.

  I guess they wanted to minimize their time enduring our company.

  I moved us south, toward downtown Las Vegas, taking the fast lane, keeping an eye out for anyone following the car. Of course, with the roof up, I couldn’t see the sky. That was where the real danger might come from. At this point, I imagined the two silver dragons were transformed, soaring high in the sky above the city. They’d be getting to the hotel under their own power.

  Too cheap to pay for a limo or taxis.

  My love of Mustangs was well known. If they saw me down here, and thought they could get away with it, they’d solar-blast my vehicle right off the road, into molten sludge. I didn’t consider it likely. Solar breath attacks would implicate the Silver Clan. These two silver dragons could later be disavowed as rebels, but I didn’t have the feeling they were here on a suicide mission. Offended honor alone would compel my clan to avenge me even though they mostly hated my guts.

  The girls were quiet. Too quiet. “What’s the problem?”

  Jada sat beside me, Leah in back. Neither gave any sign they were eager to answer.

  “Jada,” my voice crackled with authority, “talk to me.”

  “Those two back there…”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re dragons, like you.”

  “Not like me. I’m half Villager. My shift to full dragon form takes a while, and is painfully messy. My dragon form is also smaller than average. Using magic, they can go to full dragon form in a heartbeat. If you ever feel that’s about to happen, and that we’re all about to die, don’t hesitate. Attack at once, or run like hell—getting me clear, of course. With enough time, I can change and kick their asses as a golden Imperial dragon. They know that, though, so they will do their best not to give me any time—when they get serious.”

  I slanted Jada a searching stare. “Anything else you want to know?”

  Jada said nothing else.

  Leah cleared her throat in the back seat. “If they had suddenly changed and started breathing fire, I’m not sure if we could have protected you.”

  Ah, now we’re getting to it. They feel inadequate due to the power of my enemies.

  We caught a red light, stopping behind a delivery truck. “There’s one thing you’re forgetting,” I said. “I’m impossibly powerful all on my own. I usually have allies fighting at my side, so I don’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting, but I can if I need to. That’s not just arrogance. You may remember that I recently killed two silver dragons in this city. Also, you are mine. Your job is to protect me, but as Clan Lord, it’s my job not to throw your lives away for nothing. If it came down to facing a silver dragon’s solar-breath attack, my mystic barrier would protect us all. I’d save your lovely asses just because they belong to me, as your lord. And I may one day want to have a threesome.”

  “You can fight dragons in human form, and win?” Leah asked.

  “Does the devil cheat at cards?”

  The light went green. I sent the Mustang on across the intersection. The silence returned, but this time, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. I realized I still had the shadow spell tatt formed for my barrier. Golden dragon magic made it tingle, a warm patch waiting to be triggered. I was about to power-down the spell when the road ahead of me turned into slag, hit by a stream of raw, searing plasma. A wall of solar flame swept over the car as I slammed the defensive tatt with more golden energy.

  Jada screamed.

  Leah joined in at a slightly higher pitch.

  The Mustang blew away from us, leaving only the seats, flooring under us, some siding, and part of the convertible top. My red shell of force had enclosed us and taken a bite out of the vehicle to seal us in, keeping the sounds of destruction far away. The force sphere dropped and jounced, but didn’t start rolling. Beyond the red shell, the whole world was gone, replaced by a universe of yellow-white solar prominence.

  As shock set in, the girl’s stopped shrieking.

  My poor ears…

  “What? Didn’t believe me. I told you I’d save you.” I kept all doubt and question out of my voice; the better to project godlike omnipotence.


  Jada’s voice was weak and squeaky. “Yeah, boss, you did.”

  Leah said, “Thanks, sugar. But what do we do now?”

  “That’s easy. Dragons have to take regular breathes. We wait for the attack to lull, then we kick ass. I recommend you call Imari. The First Sword will want to hear about this as soon as possible.”

  “On it,” Leah said.

  The attack on the red sphere fell away, but it took a few moments for the plasma to swirl away and give me a visual. The shield sat at the bottom of a crater. A chunk of street had been explosively super-hated from solid, directly to gas, bypassing the melty liquid phase. The drain on my golden dragon magic had been heavy. There were no cars around us. They’d been blasted away, the drivers incinerated, bones pulverized and scattered.

  Leah reported to Imari in a few terse, sentences, wasting no words. She ended by saying, “Gotta go and get the boss to cover.”

  Good idea. The surviving piece of Mustang was too much a hindrance. “Leah, Jada, keep hold of me, and move as I do.” Clicking off my seatbelt, I rocked off the seat, crouching, kicking the fallen steering wheel with one foot.

  Releasing her belt, Jada had a hand on my right arm. Leah came over the backseat, one hand reaching through the illusion of the red tux I wore to grip the underlying reality, a weapon harness holding my personal arsenal. Once over the seat, her hands skimmed my body. “What are you wearing?”

  Jada too explored what she couldn’t see.

  I said, “Tools of the trade. I’m a Deathwalker. Do you think I just pulled that name out of a hat?”

  Well, actually, I had.

  My inner dragon said: Pulled it out of your ass, actually.

  As we moved, the red shell stayed with us. Responding to my will, it gave up the bitten off Mustang. After a few feet, we stood inside the shell, free of debris. As the barrier rolled under our feet, it protected us from the bubbly, steaming ground.

  I looked up into the sky for a silver dragon. One of the two should be starting another strafing run. What? There were three dragons in the air. Two fought in unison, taking on the third.

  And here I thought Talla and Dhirrusses didn’t like me.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “Necessity creates interesting fuck toys.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  The shattered street looked monochromatically red from within my shell. I led the girls over the broken ground, walking on my energy barrier like a hamster inside his ball. I placed my feet carefully. If the terrain wasn’t so super-heated, I’d have just dropped the shell and leaped up out of the crater with dragon strength, but I had the girls to consider.

  Jada said, “I can help.”

  “Do it,” I said.

  Leah pressed up against me from behind. Jada crouched, letting go of me but staying close as well. She held out her hands, palms down. A swirl of metallic lights—bronze, gold, and silver—flowed over her hands as she closed her eyes to focus.

  Earth magic.

  Nothing happened for a minute, then the sphere shuddered, hit from underneath. Pulled from deep underground, a fresh spray of earth lifted the sphere into the air and sent it into a slow diagonal fall, an experience not unlike riding a giant snake. We were carried from the attack zone, over to a line of fire-damaged vehicles, and set down. With the spewed earth insulating us from the heated ground, I had no problem dropping the barrier.

  Sound returned. Distant car alarms were crying along with human survivors. Surrounding buildings were damaged, scorched, windows cracked, some of them broken. The burnt stench was bad. I coughed violently. My lungs burned. My eyes watered. In the distance, I heard fire trucks and police sirens.

  Damn.

  “C’mon on. Let’s get out of here.” I herded the girls ahead of me, heading for more intact terrain. We ran to where normalcy returned, to where people survived. They looked back the way we’d come, watching the smoke pillaring ever higher. I paused to look up. There was no sign of the silver dragons, the two that had run interference for us, or the one that had tried to assassinate me. While I felt mild gratitude to Talla and Dhirrusses for their likely fear-inspired support, there were a lot of answers I needed from them. If nothing else, they could identify the responsible silver dragon.

  Or else.

  I leaned toward humanity becoming knowledgeable of the supernatural world, but not this way. Too great a threat by paranormals would unify the human world and its resources, bringing on a new dark age of fear that would in turn interfere with my financial investments. Civil unrest, I could live with. Species war would prove too inconvenient.

  My phone played Asia’s Heat of the Moment, Imari’s ringtone. I made the connection. Her voice spiked into my ear. “Caine, are you all right?”

  “Sure, but my Mustang needs last rites. Got a priest handy?”

  “What? This is no time to joke.”

  “Good to know. Are you sending a car for me?”

  There was a spill of red-copper light, a swirl of energy that became an open portal with a dark heart. Inside, Colt stood, trembling, eyes huge. “Dad!”

  “Never mind,” I told Imari. “Colt’s here. I’ll see you soon.” I killed the connection and put my phone away, returning my son’s earnest stare. “I’m fine.”

  I dragged Jada and Leah with me into the portal. Its maw closed behind them. There was a wrench. It felt like we were riding a giant snake again. A moment later, the red-copper light vanished and we were in the Old Man’s suite. He handed me a rum and coke, medicinal, honest. I threw it back and handed him the empty glass. “Thanks. Plasma storms are hard on the throat.”

  “Plasma storms!” The words came from across the room. They drew my attention to Uncle Drake coming in off the balcony, through the French doors. He hurried closer. His short, steel gray hair made it look like he wore a battle helmet. The color was lighter than his charcoal suit. He wore a pale blue shirt and a matte black tie. His eyes were the same gold jewel tone as Kinsey’s and the rest of the Imperial dragon family—except for me and Colt.

  Colt established preeminence by pushing Leah away and hugged me from the side. Absently, I patted his back, providing comfort. His voice emerged weak and whispery. “I didn’t know. Mom didn’t tell me. You almost died!”

  I said, “She probably knew I wouldn’t, and that this event needed to happen for the sake of the future.” I kept my voice mild, unconcerned. I felt a tremble from adrenaline leaving my system. “Colt, I need a candy bar.”

  He looked up at me, his face confused. His thoughts brushed mine without leaving any words behind, a simple search. He said, “Ah, right, sugar to balance out the biochemical reaction.”

  “Talk like a nine-year old,” I told him. “Stay a kid as long as possible.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.” He reached into the front of his hoodie and pulled out a paper-wrapped strip of dark chocolate. “Here.”

  I took and tore it open as I glanced at Jada and Leah. “You girls are off the clock. Go get some down time; you deserve it. No matter how many silver dragons attack, this wedding is going on.”

  The girls left.

  Colt walked me to the couch where I flopped down. He sat beside me, pressed in close, as if looking away would cause the Grim Reaper to pop up. The Old Man took the armchair, waiting, giving me time to tell the story my way.

  Impatient, Drake stood over me, then seated himself on the coffee table, putting us more eye-to-eye. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “Turn on a TV. There’s probably news of a terrorist attack hitting the downtown area. Hopefully, no one has any phone shots of the silver dragon that tried to assassinate me.”

  “Solar breath,” Drake said. “Massive human casualties, I suppose?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I took a bite of chocolate, crunching it happily, thinking of vengeance to come.

  “We need to finesse this,” Drake said. “Starting a war with Silver Clan rebels won’t help things on the Dragon World.”

  I stared at him. “Rebel
s? No, this is the Silver Clan making their move on the royal heirs. The disregard of impact on the human world is a callousness than comes down from high places. If I were you, I’d stay close to Kinsey until after the wedding and reception. The silver got away. He could come back.”

  The Old Man’s voice boomed. “What about the silvers doing the ceremony? Dare we let them?”

  “Talla and Dhirrusses? I met them. They actually helped me, driving off the silver assassin. I think they were sent here in ignorance of deeper plans. I need to interrogate them and get what I can on the attacker.”

  “Maybe I should talk to them,” Drake said.

  “Maybe you should fuck off and let me do my job.” I glared.

  Drake’s face flushed with anger. He stood. “I’ll be with Kinsey, Lord High Executioner, if you need me for anything.”

  I nodded, bit off another hunk of chocolate, and waved him away.

  The Old Man smiled. “You have such a winning way with people.”

  Drake wasn’t out of the room yet, but I had no problem with him hearing my opinion. “He’s had all my life to accept me and prove helpful, but missed all my birthdays, and has never made up for it. I don’t need his guidance now.”

  The door opened. I sensed Drake on the threshold, debating with himself on answering. He went without a word, closing the door behind him.

  The Old Man sighed. “Still, he’s an ally. With Kinsey entering our clan, he’s committed to us.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.” I took out my phone and called Imari. Briefly, I recounted my meeting with the silver dragons and went on to describe the attack. “Talla and Dhirrusses will probably be landing on the roof soon. You’ll want to put an armed escort on them, and they need to be debriefed. Selene will be glad to help you with that if you want to get physical.”

  A crimson light flared behind the couch. I smelled blood-based perfume. Selene slid her arms down over my torso, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss me.

  Colt looked up past my face. “Mom!”