Twin Dragons

by S. E. Smith

  Twin Dragons: Dragon Lords of Valdier Book 7

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  About S. E. Smith

  Twin Dragons:

  Dragon Lords of Valdier Book 7

  By S. E. Smith

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my husband Steve for believing in me and being proud enough of me to give me the courage to follow my dream. I would also like to give a special thank you to my sister and best friend Linda, who not only encouraged me to write, but who also read the manuscript. Also to my other friends who believe in me: Julie, Jackie, Lisa, Sally, Elizabeth (Beth) and Narelle. The girls that keep me going!

  —S. E. Smith

  IMPRINT: Science Fiction Romance

  Science Fiction Romance

  TWIN DRAGONS: DRAGON LORDS OF VALDIER BOOK 7

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by S. E. Smith

  First E-Book Published September 2014

  Cover Design by Melody Simmons

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission from the author.

  All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to actual persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations are strictly coincidental.

  Smashwords License Statement

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  Synopsis

  Melina Franklin was barely sixteen when she and her grandfather were kidnapped from their small farm in Georgia by an alien trader and sold to an Antrox mining asteroid in deep space. Mistaken for a young boy, she lives in fear of being found out and sold. Her only companionship for the next four years is her grandfather and the Pactors, the large creatures used for hauling the mining ore, that she takes care of. She dreams of the day when she and her grandfather will somehow escape and return home to the rolling green hills of their farm.

  Calo and Cree Aryeh have been secured as the personal guards for Creon Reykill’s mate, Carmen Walker. The twin brothers are a rare species of dragon known for their fierceness in battle. Born to the mystic dragon clan of the Northern Mountains, they have given their allegiance to the Dragon Lords vowing to serve and protect the royal family and their new true mates. The brothers know they will never be able to have a true mate of their own. Never in the history of their clan have twin dragons been able to find a mate capable of handling two male dragons. They can only hope that they die in battle so they are not destined to be caged when the loneliness eventually drives their dragons insane.

  The twin dragons are confused when two humans are discovered on an abandoned asteroid mine. The old man and his grandson appear normal enough, but their dragons and their symbiots are driving them crazy, insisting the boy is their true mate. Neither knows how to handle the other two parts of themselves or their need to remain close to the

  boy. On top of that, the young human male refuses to have anything to do with either of them. He hides and avoids them every time they get near him.

  Things become clearer when they discover Mel is really Melina. Unfortunately, finding out their true mate is really a woman does little to change her feelings toward them. She is even more determined to return to her world.

  When her wish comes true, the brothers know they have no choice but to kidnap her and hide her away. Can they convince her to give them a chance at happiness or will she seek protection from the royal family they have vowed to serve? If that is not bad enough, there is another who has his eye on their mate and will do whatever is necessary to keep her – including killing the twin dragons who have claimed her first.

  Chapter 1

  Centuries earlier:

  “Stay with your mother,” Creja instructed as he turned to his mate. “Don’t let them out.”

  “I won’t,” Lyla replied in a soft, concerned voice. “You will be careful?”

  Creja’s eyes softened and he reached out to run the back of his fingers along his mate’s soft cheek. His grim face spoke of the dangerous and difficult task ahead of him. He stepped back when he heard the sound of the horns again. His eyes swept to his two young sons. They watched him with eyes filled with wonder and excitement as their father’s symbiot began to dissolve and form a protective armor around him.

  “What is it, father?” Cree asked curiously. “Is the village under attack?”

  “We can help,” Calo said with a grin. “Cree and I are very fast.”

  “No,” Creja replied sharply as he opened the door to their small home. “Stay with your mother. I need you both to protect her.”

  Calo nodded in disappointment while Cree fingered the knife at his waist. Their father had given each of them a finely honed knife with a special forged blade and intricately carved bone handle with matching dragons wrapped around it for their twelfth year of life last month. He and Calo had been practicing with their father on how to use it. They would both protect their mother with their lives.

  “We will,” Calo said with a quick glance at his twin. “We won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Creja,” Lyla started to say before she reached up and brushed a quick kiss across his lips. “Come back to me.”

  “I will,” Creja promised as he stepped out of the cottage. “Keep the boys inside. I don’t want them to see this.”

  “I will,” Lyla whispered, watching as her mate shifted into his dragon form with a heavy heart.

  “Mother,” Cree called out from behind her in a low voice. “What is wrong? Why are the horns blowing? Is the village under attack?”

  Lyla turned to look at her oldest son by a mere minute. “Yes, it is under attack. Your father and the other males will take care of… the situation. Come, let us go back inside,” she said.

  “Who would attack us?” Calo asked, peering out the window. “Why would they?”

  “Move away from the window, Calo,” Lyla instructed. “Come, help me clean the kitchen.”

  “That’s women’s work,” Calo groaned. “We should be helping father and the others protect the village.”

  Lyla turned and scowled down at her youngest son. Placing her hands on her hips, she stared at him until he shifted from one foot to the other. Her lips were tightly pressed
together in disapproval.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Calo muttered, bowing his head. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Cleaning and cooking are skills that are just as important as knowing how to fight,” Lyla admonished in a soft, but stern voice. “You will be living your daily life more than you will be fighting if the Goddess blesses you. Your father would be disappointed to hear you say such a thing.”

  “I said I was sorry,” Calo protested, glancing at Cree for support.

  “We’ll clean up,” Cree volunteered. “Come on, Calo.”

  Calo opened his mouth to complain, but nodded when he caught the calculating look in his brother’s eyes. He glanced at his mother and gave her an easy, lopsided grin. It was the one that always made her smile.

  “If you are sure,” Lyla replied, looking at the two boys with a slightly suspicious stare. “I have some mending to do. You two are rough on your clothes.”

  “We’ll clean it up in no time,” Calo promised.

  “Very well, if you are sure,” Lyla replied. “Thank you.”

  Cree and Calo watched as their mother walked out of the room and up the polished wooden steps that curved upward to the second floor. Cree grabbed Calo’s arm and pulled him into the kitchen. Once he was sure they were alone, he turned to his twin.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” he muttered.

  “Why? And why did you say we would clean? You know I hate cleaning,” Calo grumbled, kicking one of the chairs. “What do you think is going on? Why would anyone attack our village?”

  “I told her we would clean the kitchen to save your butt from getting chewed out by Father,” Cree pointed out as he grabbed the empty plates off the table.

  “I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Calo muttered defensively.

  They worked in silence for the next hour, cleaning the kitchen until it sparkled. Their eyes kept moving to the window where large, black billows of smoke rose above the trees and mist. The village was several kilometers away from their cottage, yet the plates rattled from the explosions that shook the ground. While the horns that had sounded the alarm earlier were now silent, the roars of dragons fighting could be heard through the closed windows.

  Calo had started to sing one of the warriors fighting songs to help cover his nervousness. He broke off when a loud explosion shook the ground. This one was more powerful than any of the others. His eyes widened for a moment before he rushed to the window.

  “What was that?” He asked, looking over his shoulder at Cree.

  “I don’t know,” Cree responded, pushing Calo to the side so he could look out as well.

  Both of them turned when they heard a low sound behind them. Their mother stood in the doorway, her face taut and pale. Her hand trembled as she pushed a stray strand of black hair back. One of Calo’s shirts hung limply from her other hand.

  “You must both stay here,” she whispered.

  “Mother, what is it?” Calo asked hesitantly.

  “Your father.... I must go to your father,” Lyla responded in a dazed voice.

  “Father,” Cree started to say, but their mother had already turned back toward the front door. “Mother…”

  “Protect each other,” their mother whispered, before she opened the door and transformed into a soft lavender scaled dragon.

  “Cree,” Calo growled in frustration. “Do you think something happened to Father?”

  Cree looked at his twin with dark, gold eyes filled with worry. Calo’s eyes reflected the same emotion. Both of their symbiots, not yet full grown, came to stand next to them.

  With a silent nod, they both turned and hurried out the door. Within seconds, identical topaz and black dragons covered in gold armor lifted off the ground. The dragons moved as one as they flashed through the thick mist-covered forest along the base of the Great Northern Mountains heading toward the sounds of battle.

  *.*.*

  Creja twisted as the thick, jagged claws of the dragon he was locked in battle with tried to rip his stomach open. He already had a long, deep cut along his left thigh that was soaking the ground with blood. His symbiot was working to stop the flow.

  He grunted as the huge dragon swung his tail around and wrapped it around his ankle. A curse exploded from him as he felt his body lifting off the ground. His body slammed into a large tree, stunning him. Shaking his head, he snarled as eight other dragons fought to contain the deranged green and white dragon. Shifting, he roared out for more men to come to their aid.

  “Bring the chains,” Creja ordered. “Make sure their symbiots are contained.”

  The green and white dragon blew a molten stream of fire toward three men trying to get around him. The net they had finally thrown over him was holding, but it wouldn’t stop the outraged dragon for long. Creja’s eyes glanced over to the other green and white dragon that lay lifeless in the ruins of the smoldering cottage. A gaping wound across its neck and three long, broken shafts from spears protruded from its chest.

  “Creja, we have their symbiots contained. We need to move them,” Bane called from the other side.

  “Get them out of here,” Creja ordered, unable to look at the anguish tearing his friend apart. He did not want Bane to witness the death of his other son. “Have your symbiots return them to the Priestess. Only Lady Morian, or the Goddess herself, can control them now.”

  “You heard him, get them out of here,” Bane yelled hoarsely. His eyes glancing briefly at his oldest son before moving to his twin brother. “Goddess, forgive them and take them into your care.” Shifting, he focused on preventing any more deaths from occurring.

  Creja spared a brief glance at the cluster of symbiots locked together in an effort to contain the two symbiots fighting to get back to their Twin Dragons. His eyes shifted back in time to see Barrack swing out in a deadly arc toward one of the men trying to hold him down.

  Creja surged forward to push the man to the side. The move saved the other warrior’s life, but Creja’s wounded cry echoed over the village as the spikes on the dragon’s tail sliced through the tendons and muscles along his side. He knew that his symbiot was already weakened from the battle and from being divided. He had left half of it to protect his mate and sons.

  “Creja!” Mata shouted hoarsely.

  Creja rolled onto his back and stared up at the hazy, smoke filled sky. He could feel his life force slowly draining away as his blood soaked the ground. A low cry echoed through his mind. Warmth surrounded him as Lyla reached out for him.

  It is too dangerous for you to come to me, he whispered. Cree and Calo…

  Need both of us, Lyla insisted. Without you, I cannot survive. They would be lost before they are grown.

  Creja’s head turned so that he was staring into the dark, crazed eyes of Barrack. Barrack had shifted back into his two-legged form. His loud cry for his dead twin sent chills down Creja’s spine.

  “This is what you have to look forward to, Creja,” Barrack yelled as a brief moment of sanity broke through his grief and madness. “Your sons will end up like Brogan and I. Have mercy on them, kill them now. Kill Cree and Calo before their minds are eaten up with the pain, the anguish, the eternal darkness that sucks the life from their bodies,” Barrack’s voice broke as he turned his gaze from his dead brother back to where Creja lay. “Neither our symbiots nor we could control it. The constant ache of loneliness destroys the soul of the dragon. It needs its mate. Never has there been a true mate for a set of Twin Dragons. We live only to fight, and pray to die in battle before the darkness swallows us. You’ve denied my brother and me that. Do not deny your sons. If you do, you have cursed them to the same madness. Twin dragons are destined to die a violent death. Have mercy and spare them, Creja. Slay Cree and Calo now before you have to do it later. Do what our father could not do.”

  “Put him out of his misery,” Creja ordered weakly, turning to stare back up at the darkening sky.

  Barrack’s loud roar was cut short. Creja blinked several times to push back
the burning in his eyes. He knew deep down that Barrack was telling him the truth. He knew the future his own two sons faced. He also knew that one day, he might have to give the same order to end their lives.

  But not yet, Lyla’s soft voice whispered as she knelt by his side. The Goddess might have mercy on them and gift them with a true mate.

  Creja sighed and turned his cheek into the palm of his beautiful mate’s hand. The symbiot, reunited with its other half, settled over the devastating wound to his side and leg and began healing him. He could feel the warmth and energy flowing through him. He could also feel his mate’s essence wrapped around his own to hold him to this world until his body healed.

  “Cree, Calo?” Creja asked in a husky voice.

  “Cleaning the kitchen,” Lyla whispered as she leaned over her mate and tenderly stroked his brow. “Calo is learning that cleaning is not women’s work.”

  Creja grimaced as a brief chuckle escaped him. He had once told his mate the same thing, right before she set him straight on the matter. His eyes softened as he breathed deeply. Even after their many years together, he still felt the pull of his true mate. It pained him to think his sons would never know the feeling of being whole.

  “We don’t know that,” Lyla whispered.

  “You saw…,” Creja started to say before stopping as Lyla laid her fingers gently against his lips.

  “I know deep in my heart that they will find their true mate,” Lyla insisted.

  “I hope you are right.”

  Creja relaxed back against the ground and allowed the warmth of Lyla and his symbiot’s touch to work on saving his life. He was weak, and if his mate and symbiot had not arrived when they did, he would have been dead.

  His mind drifted to the twin brothers that lay lifeless just feet from him. They were only a few centuries old. He had been there with Bane the night they were born. He had also promised that if it became necessary, he would stand in Bane’s place should something like this happen.

  Bane had made the same promise when his own twin sons were born. Both of them feared they would not have the strength to order the death of their own younglings. Now, Barrack’s words haunted him. Twin Dragons were almost unstoppable in battle. The destruction the two had wrought against the village warriors was testament to that. They had been vastly outnumbered. Even so, it had taken all of the men of fighting age in the village to finally stop them.