Stones of Dracontias

by N. D. Jones

  “I thought you said she wouldn’t be able to track your dragons back here.”

  “She shouldn’t have been able to.”

  “Well, the goddamn Bloodstone Dragon is here. You saw what she did to the tower house door. It’s in pieces.”

  The voices drew nearer.

  “It’s fine. She’s not down here, which means she still doesn’t know where to find her son.”

  A son? He and Kya had a son. Armstrong’s throat tightened at the news, and his heart raced with happiness and fury. These assholes had denied him and Kya their son, and their child the love of his parents. The bastards would pay. But not until they led them to his child.

  “Westmore and Cafferty are in the dungeon. Your fire forced the snakes from their hole. Keep up your attack. They should be sending the Kesins your way soon.”

  “I hope there’s enough of your monsters to stop the Bloodstone Dragon. We didn’t plan for this.”

  “I have enough of them, so stop worrying. They’ll bring her down, and we’ll capture her in dragon form this time. I won’t even have to break a saw on her thick skull. Once she sees I control the life of her son, she’ll cut the stone out herself and hand it over. As long as we have her hybrid, we control the Bloodstone Dragon.”

  The voices faded as the men walked away from Armstrong and down the hallway. He could still hear echoes of male voices as he rose from his hiding spot and followed the men.

  Armstrong prayed the Kesins’s senses weren’t as acute as Kya’s or that, if they smelled him, they’d lump his scent in with the last two members of the Circle of Drayke.

  Keys jangled and then he detected the sound of a heavy door.

  He kept to the shadows. Thankfully, the men were familiar with the dungeon, and few torches were lit to guide them.

  Pressing himself against a wall, Armstrong held his breath and didn’t move when a Kesin bolted past him. Claws scratched stones as the reptile ran past, headed in the direction of the stairs and the exit to the tower house.

  The creature roared as it ran farther down the hall and away from its prison.

  Armstrong didn’t dare move, but he did need air. He let out the breath he’d been holding.

  “The first Kesin is on its way.”

  “Good. I was beginning to bore of knocking down stones younger than my father. I was kind enough to wait until two humans, one male and one female, fled. Servants, I believe. I spared them. They smelled of fear but not of guilt. Ah, I see the Kesin. Yellow-and-red and flying at me.”

  More Kesins ran past him. He tried to count, but it was damn near impossible to make out one set of footsteps from another. If even one stopped, he would be done for. Luckily, their singular focus sent them down the hall and into the Bloodstone Dragon’s snare.

  Another time, another place, Kesins may have ruled the ground. But the sky belonged to Afiya dragons.

  “I counted fifteen.”

  “There are twenty, and not all can fly. Wait a few minutes more before pursuing the humans. I do not wish for you to meet one of these beasts in close quarters.”

  Neither did he.

  The sound of roaring, battling dragons shook the tower house above him. Kya said she would give him time, but with twenty dragons attacking her, the longer it took to kill them the more danger she put herself in. Hearing no more claws coming his way, Armstrong crept in the direction where the men had gone.

  He rounded a corner and stopped. This corridor was better lit. A row of doors was open. When he reached the first open door, he peered inside. It was as he expected. Empty. He didn’t bother inspecting the other cells as he jogged past them. He knew they’d reveal the same.

  They’d kept the Kesins in individual cells, which probably meant his son was in a cell, too. The bitter thought had Armstrong pulling the right gun from its holster.

  The next corridor, lit as brightly as the last, contained more cells with open doors. Slowing his pace, then stopping when he heard voices again, Armstrong peeked around the corner.

  Cafferty leaned against a wall opposite a cell. The door was closed, but it wouldn’t be for long. Westmore held a ring with keys in his right hand. He jammed a key into the lock and twisted. The door hissed open and in went the sadistic doctor.

  Hugh Cafferty, dressed in nightclothes, a robe and boots, crossed his arms over his chest and pouted like a spoiled brat. “Do you hear that? Her roars are loud and angry enough to topple this castle.”

  “Be quiet. I need to focus on the stone and the magic within. I’ve never tried to control this many of them at once, which is why I’m in here with the hybrid. Having him close to the stone makes my job easier.”

  “Easier?” Cafferty huffed. “He’s whining like he’s never done before and if he keeps yanking on his shackle, he’ll either break his damn neck or pull the chain from the wall. Either result will end with us dead.”

  No, Kya or his son wouldn’t kill them. Armstrong stepped around the corner, raised his gun hand and waited for Cafferty to sense his presence. It didn’t take long. The bastard’s arms fell to his sides when he spotted him.

  Armstrong grinned, showing lots of white teeth. Then shot the bastard in his left shoulder, spinning him around. A bullet to his back. Armstrong closed in on the downed Cafferty. He could’ve killed him with the first shot. But he wanted the asshole to suffer if only for a few minutes.

  A bullet to each leg. No one held his son in shackles as if he were a goddamn slave. Well, if they wanted to treat his son as a slave, then this was a slave uprising.

  Armstrong waited for Westmore to come running out of the cell. The man didn’t disappoint. He dropped to the ground next to Cafferty, his hands searching for a pulse.

  “He’s not dead.” Westmore, dressed in black slacks and a gray button-down sweater, swung his gaze to Armstrong. “Yet. I’ll let him bleed out slowly.”

  A desperate little roar came from the cell, which had Armstrong clutching his gun and pointing it at the doctor.

  “Get your sorry ass up.”

  Hands covered in Cafferty’s blood, Westmore pushed to his feet.

  The sound came again. Armstrong wondered if Kya could hear their son’s cries. If she could, Cafferty and Westmore would die like Rudolph.

  Armstrong walked closer to the men, his body now parallel to the cell. He didn’t want to look inside, although he knew he had no other choice if he were to get Kya her visual and help emancipate their son.

  “Move.” He waved the gun in the direction of the cell.

  “Listen, I—”

  “Shut the hell up and get your ass in the cell.”

  Armstrong followed the doctor into the stone prison. The chilly room, about two hundred fifty feet, was bare except for matted hay in a corner. A ring with a thick chain hung from the back wall. At the other end of the chain was a seething red dragon. The end of his tail looked as if it had been dipped in gold.

  Metallic gold, like the Bloodstone Dragon.

  As wide as a Mastiff but not as thick as one, he weighed about seventy-five pounds and stood twenty-eight inches at the shoulder. The scales at his neck had been rubbed raw from the thick shackle confining him.

  He’d wanted answers from Westmore, such as how he’d made the fake Kesins, were there more of them and did anyone else know. Now, he only wanted the cruel doctor dead.

  “Where’s the stone you stole from my son?”

  Westmore dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a red oval-shaped gemstone. He tossed it to Armstrong, who caught the precious jewel and stowed it in his back pocket.

  “I found our son.”

  For long seconds, the sound of battle intensified before silence befell the cold night.

  “Do the humans still live?”

  “Not for long.” For the first time, Armstrong feared the Bloodstone Dragon’s wrath. But he had to tell her. “He’s scared, hurt, and chained to a wall. I’m afraid what he’ll do if I shoot the chains and free him.”

  “He’ll attack. Do not
hing. I’m on my way.”

  Kya always spoke with a relaxed, confident cadence, her voice rarely betraying her emotions. It didn’t now. But her voice had taken on an extra stillness that didn’t bode well for Westmore.

  As much as Armstrong itched to put a bullet through the man’s nonexistent heart, he would do nothing to deny Kya her revenge.

  Armstrong snatched the key ring from Westmore’s hip. “Where’s your office and which key will let me in?”

  “The next to the largest key and the last cell at the end of the hall.”

  He shot Westmore in the kneecap before taking off and smiled when the man screamed. He wouldn’t be going anywhere, and the scent of blood would lead Kya straight to the bastard.

  Finding the cell, Armstrong let himself inside. This cell was furnished like a doctor’s office on one side and a biomedical lab on the other.

  Not having time to go through the files and find what he wanted, Armstrong dumped out the contents of a brown moving box and filled it with anything that looked important. Folders. Pictures. Syringes and vials. Medical reports.

  Box in hand, he ran back the way he came. Halfway there, the stone ceiling was replaced with crisp night air and the stench of burning bodies. Glancing up, Armstrong watched the entire tower house swirl in a mist of red dragon magic. The structure whipped around like a house caught in a fierce tornado. With each rotation, the tower house crushed in on itself, a rapidly decreasing ball of crumpled stone.

  Within mere seconds, little of the huge building remained.

  Clutching the box, Armstrong rushed to where he’d left his son and a bleeding Westmore.

  Damn, he’d thought Kya would shift and enter the underground tunnel the way he had. How many times did she have to remind him? Kya was the Bloodstone Dragon, and it was the proud, lethal Dracontias who’d laid waste to twenty bloodthirsty Kesins and decimated a centuries-old tower house with jaw-dropping ease.

  He knew she would kill Westmore, but the sight of the Bloodstone Dragon hovering over a ceiling-less dungeon, her armored tail through Westmore’s open chest, his bloody heart out of his body and impaled on the tip of Kya’s gold tail, was enough to have him dropping the box and stumbling inside the cell.

  Unlike the first time he’d been in there, his son wild with fright and anger, the red dragon stared in silence at his victorious mother, who gazed upon her baby dragon with awe, relief and love.

  Westmore’s body and heart slid from Kya’s tail, a soft thud on the prison floor.

  With a wisp of magic, the shackle around their son’s neck snapped and fell. Stained with Westmore’s blood, Kya lowered her tail to the baby dragon, encircling his small body. Releasing a heart aching wail, their son collapsed onto Kya’s tail.

  He’s so small and weak. If I could kill the doctor again, I would. Gather whatever you have in that box of yours and meet me where the tower house used to be.

  For a minute, he failed to respond. Their dragon had endured much. No child should live as he had. Another year, maybe six months, he would’ve likely died from malnutrition or a broken neck.

  But he hadn’t, Armstrong was forced to remind himself when Kya lifted their child’s listless form from the cell and to her. She cradled him with a tenderness typical of the Dracontias.

  By the time Armstrong climbed the stairs with the brown box and made it to Kya’s side, she lay with their son on the grass. Dead Kesins littered the ground, and Cafferty Castle burned in the background.

  “He’s safe.”

  Kya nudged him with her snout until she had Armstrong wrapped in her tail beside their sleeping dragon. When she blew on them, Bloodstone magic forming a thick fog, Armstrong knew he wouldn’t be riding on Kya’s back or taking an international flight home.

  Our son is safe because you are a true diata.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED, daughter.”

  “Yes, thank you for your kindness toward the Knight family.”

  From the sky, Kya and her father watched the Knights on the beach below. The Southern Coast of Buto was breathtaking from the sky and on the ground. In the Indian Ocean and southeast of Africa, Buto, home to the Dracontias, boasted the best beaches in the world, crystal clear blue waters and white sands. Until six months ago, no human had laid eyes on the Ekon Shore.

  “We’re all family, Kya. The Knights and the Dracontias.”

  “You’ve changed.”

  The Aragonite Star Dragon’s tail came up to circle Kya and pull her close.

  “An old dragon I may be but a blind fool I am not. Your diata loves you and your Kesin. Have you told him dragons mate for life?”

  “I have not.”

  She also hadn’t told Armstrong he was her mate. That, when she’d lain with him and accepted the human inside her untouched body, he’d became her kendi. The Bloodstone Dragon’s forever love.

  “He’s come to me. As the oldest Dracontias and your father, Armstrong Knight has asked for a wish.”

  “He had no right.”

  “He has every right. Armstrong’s a father who doesn’t want to lose his son again. He’s also a man who wishes to forge a family from the charred horrors of the past.”

  “The sacrifice is too great. The danger even more so.”

  Shifting, Kya ran the side of her face over her father’s. As she continued to grow into a mature dragon, she would inherit more of her father’s powers. She would never match the Aragonite Star Dragon’s size, but she would duplicate his all-gold form.

  For the Dracontias, only one pure gold dragon could exist at a time. That dragon would rule the Dracontias and Buto.

  “With Armstrong Knight the human, you can only produce more Kesins. Yet, if he survived the shift, as an Afiya, the gold Dracontias bloodline would not end with you.”

  One gold hatchling. Out of eight baby dragons between the Aragonite Star Dragon and the Bluestone Dragon, only one had been born with the definable gold scales of Akata, the dragon who would bring strength to the Stones of Dracontias. When the balance of her scales turned gold, her father would cease to exist and Kya, the Bloodstone Dragon, would ascend to Akata, ruler of the Dracontias.

  She barely had any green scales left.

  Kya buried her face in her father’s neck, a childish display not befitting her status or age.

  “I’m still Akata, daughter. I am here. Let me gift you with an Afiya who can rule by your side. A kendi worthy of your love and trust.”

  “Allow me to speak with Armstrong first.”

  “As you wish, Bloodstone Dragon. Are you ready to name your Kesin and introduce him to the Dracontias?”

  After the rescue, she’d transported her baby dragon and Armstrong to his DC home. When she’d arrived and shifted into her human form, Armstrong had already carried their Kesin upstairs and into the nursery he’d decorated years before. A human child’s bed replaced the crib she’d last seen in the room, but most everything else remained the same.

  Kya hadn’t been able to speak when she saw Armstrong curled around their sleeping child, unafraid he would awaken, startled and attack. He’d whispered apologies into their Kesin’s ear and stroked his soft baby dragon skin the way Kya’s father did to his hatchlings.

  The next morning, Armstrong had awoken to a human child in his arms. Their son was short and thin with a heart-tightening resemblance to his father.

  Her diata had wept.

  So had Kya, who’d watched over them the entire night.

  An hour later, he’d shifted back into his dragon form. A week after that, she’d returned home with her Kesin and Armstrong Knight. He’d pled his case, asking to stay on Buto for a few months to get to know his son. She couldn’t deny him his request, no matter how painful she knew the eventual parting would be for them all.

  Half a year later, their Kesin healthy and happy, the time for the naming and Armstrong’s return to the land of the humans was upon them.

  Kya flew away from her father and toward the beach below.
As she did so, the bright sky darkened with the appearance of every Dracontias on Buto. The few Kesins born to an Afiya and human, over the centuries, were also in the morning sky. Dracontias magic held them aloft. Their lack of a healing stone made them no less a Dracontias and beloved dragon of Buto.

  The Knights reclined on the chairs and under a wooden cabana with flowing white curtains on the top and sides that rustled in the wind and shielded them from the rays of the sun. Kya’s siblings had assigned themselves the task of making the Knights stay on Buto as comfortable as possible for the humans. They’d begun with Armstrong, who wanted for nothing during the six months of his stay. He didn’t seem to miss the creature comforts that came with living in a home with electricity, and he appreciated the cabin Gasira and Ledisi gifted to him.

  Kya had no idea where her siblings retrieved the wooden structure from, but it had a fireplace, which warmed Armstrong on cool Buto nights. The spacious, one-level cabin’s open floor plan reduced their Kesin’s anxiety of closed-in places when he stayed with his father instead of sleeping under the stars and curled in the circle of Kya’s body. Most nights, however, Armstrong would toss his double sleeping bag beside Kya, slip inside and then wait for their baby dragon to make himself comfortable on the rest of the bag.

  On some of those nights, Kya and Armstrong would awaken to ten wiggling toes and two playful hands. The transformation never lasted long, an hour or two at most. Unsurprisingly, Armstrong treated and loved their Kesin the same no matter his form.

  Kya landed next to Armstrong, quite handsome in a black suit and tie and white dress shirt he’d insisted on wearing for the occasion. Dark, bare feet peeked out from under black dress pants, and he laughed every time their son tickled his toes with his wet tongue.

  Glancing from father to son, Kya worried their Kesin would retreat into his shell after Armstrong departed for the land of humans. They’d bonded in a way Kya hoped but didn’t think possible between a Kesin and their human parent. Perhaps Armstrong could reach their son because he’d spent so much time around the Bloodstone Dragon. More likely, Kya reasoned, sitting on her haunches and using her tail to pull her son to rest under her front legs, the Dracontias’s fear of their secret being revealed prevented many a human parent from having the opportunity to develop a relationship with their Kesin.