A Dragon's Rage Read online

  A Dragon’s Rage

  By Dahlia Rose

  Copyright © April 2013, Dahlia Rose

  Cover art by For the Muse Designs © April 2013

  Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  ISBN 978-1-939151-28-5

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Sugar and Spice Press

  North Carolina, USA

  www.sugarnspicepress.com

  Chapter One

  A celebration at the Paladin court was in progress which meant the entire town was in party mode. Orin and Valencia’s second child had been born and the king was given the honor of naming the baby boy. He chose the name Dammir Valiien—a combination of his name and the name of his wife who had been taken long ago to the realm of lost warriors and queens—for his new little prince. He’d lost her long before he took Lleau under his wing and yet he still longed for his lost love. The feasting began with a hint of sadness blended with their happiness. The baby wore a laurel of gold and blue flowers on his head. Decades from now, when he came of age and Orin had passed, those flowers would be replaced with a crown.

  “Your father will spoil him rotten, you know this?” Lleau said with a laugh. He took a long drink from his mug. “He already spoils your daughter.”

  Orin chuckled. “Anything to keep him happy. Lately he seems lost, strolling the halls of this place looking pensive. I know he’s thinking of my mother. He still longs for her. Sometimes I fear he’ll just let go and take the passing ritual just to go to her.”

  “Not with those children. He’ll protect them with his life.” Lleau punched him in the shoulder. “Hawke, Raul and Kalv should get to baby making. Look at them playing kissy face with their mates.”

  “Kissy face? Is that a new term?” Orin joked. “What about the lone and elusive Lleau? When will he find a mate? There are dragon shifters galore giving you the eye tonight.”

  Lleau looked around. “I may bed one or I may not, but I certainly am not actively looking for the matrimonial bliss that seems to have befallen all of you. Someone needs to keep out of the bedroom and on guard against the Shen.”

  “All has been quiet for the past few months. Maybe they’ve given up on their war cry.” Raul interjected and waved his hand around. “Look at all this. All the strength. They cannot win!”

  “From your lips to the gods’ ears,” Lleau murmured.

  “My king, my king,” a young man rushed into the great hall, “the Shen-Lung have crossed the forbidden lands into Paladin!” At his words, all music and festivities stopped.

  “It seems I spoke too soon.” Lleau drained his cup. “It’s time for battle.”

  King Valkir shouted orders. “Everyone, get to safety! Warriors, take your wives to the safe room of the castle. If the Shen breach the court, they can summon the portal there and travel to the human world. We are going to war. Tonight.”

  Lleau and Orin faced the king as Valencia lifted Dammir Valiien from his bassinet and Daisye held their daughter in her arms. “Father, you don’t mean to go with us, do you?” Orin asked.

  King Valkir looked at his son. “Paladin is under my rule. I will not hide with the women and children while they breach our lands. They want a war, we shall give them one. Get me my sword.”

  Lleau took the king’s sword from its sacred place on the wall behind the throne and handed it to his sire. He had been the first to have ever taken the oath to be a warrior. The king was a sign of strength and pride in Paladin and they could not deny him his right to fight.

  “My liege, your weapon.” He offered it to him.

  King Valkir took it and excitement twinkled in his eyes. “Let’s meet the abominations and show them our lands will not be taken.”

  With their wives and children safe in the secret room and Paladin locked down, the court of dragons led by their king went out to meet the Shen that dared to cross the badlands onto Paladin soil. The king took to the sky. The gold of the scales than ran from his neck and down his breastplate gleamed as brightly as the moonlight. Lleau looked up with pride at his king. Azure blue scales made up his body and his wings were wider than any other dragon.

  Lleau turned his attention to the Shen who were coming across the land in human and serpent form leaving trails of slime on the emerald green grass of Paladin—a desecration in itself. He raised his sword and with a cry of rage he ran into the mass of bodies cutting them down as easily as one would snap a stalk of wheat. The number of Shen was staggering which could only mean that the Shen had to have been amassing, once again, their forces in the human world. They had to be going through a portal and hiding themselves in the badlands.

  The king flew in from behind and used the heat of his dragon breath as well as flames to scorch a line through a swarm of serpents, charring the land and igniting trees in the process, but cutting the force of the Shen in half. Their inhuman shrieks as they burned gave Lleau a sense of pure pleasure as they fought.

  As for the Paladin dragons, at least half of the court was in dragon form. Aki was fighting with two swords and the blades woven into his long black braid were an added bonus that would catch a serpent off guard when swung at them. If Lleau wasn’t surrounded by serpents he would have stopped to watch Aki’s majestic martial arts dance, but he had his own battle to wage. But before he could do anything, he stopped cold as shock riveted through his system. From behind the large puffs of acrid smoke spiraling into the sky, the head of a beast rose. Lleau gulped as the size of this serpent was revealed. It wasn’t the Shen king, but, hell, it might as well have been. The scales on this beast were as black as tar. It gave chase and managed to catch the wing of King Valkir as he flew past, tearing his wing in half.

  “Father, no!”

  Lleau heard Orin shout the words as the king fell from the sky. Lleau knew that the venom alone from the bite would make the king have to return to his human form. A newfound anger enveloped Lleau and he began to fight through the serpents with such urgency that he was cutting them down three or four at a time, decapitating many or cutting them clean in half. Seeing their king fall from the sky sent a wave of emotion through the twelve dragons of the court and they rendered unimaginable carnage to reach their leader.

  As if sensing the tide was turning, the Shen began to flee. But that wasn’t any concern to the dragons of the court. They had killed more than half of the Shen before their king was injured.

  The beast—now in the guise of a man—that’d plucked their king from the sky was standing next to him. The man was huge. Lleau had never seen a Shen of this size; he had to be almost seven feet tall in his human form.

  “Call me Maion! Call me death, dragons!” he shouted.

  He looked down at King Valkir who lay bleeding on the ground, winked at the dragons and then ran. The man moved quickly, almost in a blur, and he knew then that this was a game changer. The Shen had something new and deadly. The realization of what the Shen wanted hit Lleau in full force. They wanted the king. This was a plot to get rid of him. And as the dragons of the court crowded around their leader with his silver hair dirty and strewn across the charred earth, they knew it was too late. They could literally see the poison working through his body from the massive bite on his shoulder and side.

  Orin fell to his knees and lifted his father into his arms. “Father, please, tell me what to do.”

  King Valkir slowly opened his eyes. “Be who you are, strong, a dragon and the new king of Paladin.”

  Orin shook his head. “You will be okay. We can get you back to the castle. The healers—”

  “Can do nothing for me. I can already feel t
he poison in my heart, in my blood.” King Valkir sighed. “She’s called to me for so long, your mother. Now I go and sit at the table with her and all who have gone before.”

  “Father…”

  King Valkir’s voice became strong. “You’ll have to pick a twelfth now that you are king. Men, kneel before your knew leader, let me hear you swear fealty to him before I pass from this life to the next.”

  Everyone fell to their knees. Lleau didn’t even feel the ground beneath him as they recited the words that bound their loyalty to Orin as their new king.

  “Go to my mother and drink well from the cup of our ancestors,” Orin said. His eyes were dry but grief was evident in his voice.

  “Thank you.” King Valkir sighed. “Tell the children stories of me.”

  Then, on one long drawn out breath, it was over. King Valkir was dead.

  “They will know you as I knew you, Father. The warrior who loved and sacrificed for his people and family,” Orin said softly. He looked up at the eleven men with him. “I’ll take the form of my dragon and take him home.”

  “We will follow,” Lleau said. “Raul, go back now and make it known that the king has fallen and the new king has taken his place. Ready the palace for his ceremony, his body will not last long. Have the tree of life bottles brought from the library of kings as well.”

  Tree of life, Lleau repeated the words in his head. He was almost nine hundred and fifty years old and he’d seen a tree of life bottle only once around his father’s neck on a silver chain. When dragons died, a part of their essence was placed in each bottle and given to the warriors of the Paladin court. King Valkir was over two thousand in dragon years and took rule when he was younger than Orin. The number of years that had passed since showed how long the tree of life bottles sat in the library in the chest that held them.

  Raul swallowed, nodded and changed to his dragon before taking to the air. The others waited while Orin changed and gently picked up his father’s body and watched him fly off before they followed in a somber line. Things happened quickly when a dragon fell and the entire town of Paladin knew it. As they reached the palace, they could see that the funeral pyre stood outside the palace in front of the massive doors. The entire town was already assembled and grief hung heavy in the air and it choked Lleau as they landed. Orin placed his father’s body on the pyre covered in dark red velvet before changing to human form. As they all changed, someone was there to hand them robes to cover their nakedness.

  Lleau watched as Valencia ran to Orin, tears streaming down her cheeks. Hawke had his arms around Daisye, Kalv had his Ginna, and Raul had his Raven. His sister, Larissa, clung to Mursi and he was glad someone was there to comfort her. He knew that together they would face their grief and find happiness in each other. No words were needed; it was not their way.

  The town stood in reverence until the change that was usual for a fallen dragon began to take place. The king’s body morphed from human to dragon and then began to fall away scale by scale, disintegrating into what could only be described as gold dust. As the wind took it to the sky and spread it across Paladin, everyone knew he was now with his love in the place where warriors walked with honor and pride. The remnants left behind were collected from where Kind Valkir had lay and placed in the twelve bottles. Orin handed one to each of the warriors and kept one for himself. While they placed them around their neck, Orin put his bottle around the neck of his son.

  Everyone disbanded without words, walking away steeped in their own grief and the knowledge that everything had changed. One leader had fallen and another had taken the throne. The Shen had taken away someone they all loved, but instead of giving into his grief as most people do, Lleau locked it away and began plotting his revenge. The big one, the Shen serpent who had given King Valkir the death bite, was imprinted into his memory. That man, that abomination, he would kill and enjoy it. That night, instead of sadness, Lleau lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. Inside him was nothing but turmoil and pure unadulterated rage.

  Chapter Two

  “I need you to go through the portal,” Orin said.

  Orin was seated on the throne looking very uncomfortable. More than once, Lleau saw him fidget in the seat as if it felt wrong to him. Lleau had no doubt that Orin would be an exceptional king, he just had to get used to the idea and to the loss of his father.

  “Hawke ordered that I’m supposed to be at your side at all times,” Lleau said. “They tried to take one king. They may try to take another.”

  With Orin as king, a new head of the dragon court had to be appointed. He had seniority but Lleau didn’t want the job. It would hamper the new mission he had firmly imprinted in his mind. Hawke was the most logical choice anyway. He ran everything financial on the earth side of the portal.

  Orin shook his head. “No, they did what they wanted to do. We took their king in the last war and they took ours in a fucked up chess game. They thought it would put a chink in our armor but all it did was make us stronger. We don’t fall apart like the Shen.”

  “Still, Hawke—”

  Orin sat forward and cut him off. “You know full well that the big bastard who killed my father is no longer in the forbidden lands. We’ve searched and killed anything crawling through those rocks and caves. He’s not there. I can see it in your eye, Lleau, you want him as much as I do. I’m king now, and I can’t go hunt down the bastard myself. I dream about killing him. Valencia looks at me with fear in her eyes because she’s afraid I’m going to go crazy and run off for revenge and get myself killed.”

  “You won’t,” Lleau said firmly.

  “No, I won’t because I know that I need to put my people before myself,” Orin replied. “That fucker is earth side now. He needs to be hunted down and killed.”

  “You’re asking me to go rogue?” Lleau asked. “Because I can do that.”

  “The gods save us all if I tell you to go rogue. I heard about the last time that happened. But no, I’ll tell Hawke and the others what you are doing. When you find him, you do not go into a nest without backup,” Orin ordered. “Understood?”

  “Crystal clear,” Lleau murmured. Thinking of the excitement and exhilaration that went along with the hunt made his heart beat faster.

  “Lleau, I can see it in your eyes. Don’t give in to the anger,” Orin said. “Please, you’re like a brother to me. I asked you to do this because I know you can, but when you find him call in the warriors.”

  “I understood you the first time,” Lleau said. “I’ll have the palace guards on high alert. The new line of defense at the border will not let anyone through. Five warriors will be there at all times—”

  “Lleau I know all this,” Orin said with a hint of humor. “Go through the portal and be careful. Hunt well.”

  “Thank you, my king.” Lleau hesitated. “Feels strange saying that.”

  “From this end too,” Orin said. “This chair feels too damn big and I really don’t want to be in it.”

  “We’ll all get accustomed to the new roles we have to play,” Lleau said. “You are an excellent king, like your father was and his father before him.”

  “Your role hasn’t changed, Lleau. You’ve walked that tight rope between that inner anger you carry and the happy-go-lucky guy you portray.” Orin stood and walked toward his friend and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re hurting, I know. I’m his son but you’ve been around even before me, so it’s like you’ve lost a father as well. I don’t want to lose someone that’s like my brother, my blood. I don’t want you to face this alone and let revenge consume you. I asked you to do this because I know you can find him better than any of the others. I asked you because the death blow to that abomination will be yours.”

  Lleau felt the impact of Orin’s words, but it did little to assuage the fire that was burning inside him. He only nodded, unable to put words to what he was feeling inside. As he walked away, he knew it was time for the hunt, time to weed out the menace and time to rip things apart. H
e was going to relish the entire process, and the climax would be the killing of Maion. The serpent thought himself the bringer of death; unfortunately, it would be his own.

  * * * *

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” the instructor yelled above the noise of the airplane engine.

  Of course. Why would I be up here if I didn’t? Shanna thought with mild irritation. The evening jump was one of her favorites. You could see the sun setting and the amazing orange-red hues over the rocks and desert sands of Arizona. She’d been skydiving for years and loved it. Yet, because she was considered petite because of her five foot and three inch height and slim build, the instructors always asked her the same thing. He should be worried about the two first time jumpers in the seat across from me, she thought. The woman was grinning from ear to ear but her smile seemed forced. Her husband was making strange faces that made him look like he had just peed in his pants.

  Instead of giving the biting remark that was on her lips, she just nodded and gave the instructor a thumbs-up. She loved the feeling of flying for those few seconds of hurtling through the sky before she pulled the cord to her parachute. Then she floated gently to the ground. Shanna had to admit that she was an adrenaline junkie, no doubt about it.

  Being brought up in a rigid Catholic home with a mother who ruled with an iron fist carrying a rosary, she was left wanting more out of life, and to see it all. She knew that in such a large world she had to have been missing out on something. Hell, nothing really out of the ordinary ever happened in Michigan, so as soon as she could move out, which was the ripe age of eighteen, she left to travel the world. She ended up settling in Arizona because she never wanted to feel the bone-chilling cold of her hometown again. But unless she saw a UFO or met Bigfoot, her excitement would always come from jumping out of planes.

  The light finally went green telling her she was at optimal jumping altitude. With a thumbs-up from the instructor and one last glance at the scared first time jumpers, Shanna threw herself out of the plane with wild abandon and let the wind take her. She screamed in joy as the wind buffeted past her and she streaked through the sky diagonally. She could have pushed the envelope and waited ten seconds longer to pull her chute, but she was a hot shot, not stupid, so when the time was right, she pulled the ripcord. Her chute didn’t deploy. Shit! she thought and felt around frantically for the cord to her emergency chute. She pulled once, then twice and when nothing happened, Shana knew she was in serious trouble. Both of her parachutes were inactive and she wondered how that could even be possible.