Dragon 3 Chapter 30 (Patreon)

As we headed out to fly back to the states, I started to get a state of what a mess my life had become.

As we’d made our way out of Jadelyn’s home, we were swarmed the second the cars made their way out of the gates. There was one point the bodies pressing up against it nearly tipped the car.

Luckily, Scarlett had protocols for everything. Men popped out of the two escort cars and pulled people away so we could exit. Once we made it past the mass of people, our driver floored it, getting us out of the chaos.

But as we neared the train platform, it wasn’t any better. Stepping out of the car, I had to shield my eyes from all the cameras flashing around us.

“How did they know we would be here?” I grumbled, trying not to go blind.

“Someone has probably been watching Jadelyn’s jet. This is the only way out of the city. Unless, of course, we want to fly Air Dragon, but that has its own problems.” Scarlett’s tails twirled and brought up an illusionary wall that lasted all of two seconds before someone poked it and popped her illusion.

Jadelyn put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t eat the reporters.” Her voice was like a calming balm. “We’ll get on the train and close the blinds.”

I grumbled. “Can’t I just use the fear aura again?”

“No.” Scarlett was quick to answer. “Please don’t. You are lucky you didn’t kill anyone the first time.”

We continued to push through the crowd, and I tried to keep my eyes on the train and not get lost in the flashes.

Pushing our way through, we finally made it to the train. But as I stepped on, I could see the reporters lining up to get on as well.

Moving quickly, I found a booth, and we all piled inside. I moved to close all the blinds before leaning back into the seat with a heavy sigh.

“Now that we have a moment alone, I have a gift for you.” Morgana pulled a jewelry box about the size of her hand out of her bra.

“You didn’t have to.” I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten her a gift.

“No, she did.” Jadelyn disagreed. “We all put something into this.”

Morgana smirked as she handed me the box, and I opened it up. She was feeling better, but still not quite back to normal. She still carried her tree, rooted in her arm.

Inside the jewelry box, set in black foam, was a bracer. It was similar to the one that Jadelyn had given me before my duel with Simon, but the design was slightly different. The one in the duel hadn’t been able to hold up to my dragon breath. Who knew what this one would surprise me with.

It was a dark gunmetal black bracer that radiated enchantments.

“What’s it do?” I asked, assuming it was like the other. But the moment it left my mouth, I realized it would be awkward if it was just decorative.

“I enchanted it to function like your lovely spatial artifact.” Morgana snickered.

Jadelyn bobbed her head excitedly. “We had one of the Highaen enchanters look at those manacles and copy the size-changing aspect of them. So it’ll shift with you.”

I looked at the bracelet in a new light.

“We also inscribed the inside.” Scarlett pointed at the inside of the bracelet. “But we left plenty of room for others.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“What? As your first mate, I understand there will be more. Making room for them is important, too.” Scarlett grinned. “We just have to make sure you slow down.”

I nodded, glad that she was becoming more comfortable.

“The metal is a tungsten carbide something something.” Kelly so aptly explained. “It’s supposedly just below diamond in hardness, super heat resistant, and now that you have green scales too, it is corrosive resistant.”

“If that isn’t enough, it is enchanted for durability against all the dragon breaths.” Jadelyn added.

“I don’t know what to say. This is amazing.” I slipped the bracer on, feeling stronger as I wore it. Not just because it was tough, but because it let me carry a piece of my mates with me. “Thank you so much.”

But now that it was brought up, I figured we should talk about what had happened in battle. “I was surprised when I was able to become a green dragon. I thought I might only be metallic; that was unexpected.”

“We’ll check my library when we get back.” Morgana said. “But I doubt I’ll have much in there to provide any information. Dragon history stretches far back, before man could write or even talk. This conclave could be a really good resource. You can rub elbows with the oldest dragons in existence. If they don’t know, then we’ll just figure it out through some experimentation. We are here for you, Zach.”

I looked around at my mates, who were all staring back at me. Caring love rested in their gazes. “Thanks. I love all of you, too.”

“Even if you are some freakish alien dragon, we’ll still love you.” Kelly confirmed. “If you could have tentacles, that would be awesome, though.” She let out a soft sigh.

“Do you have a new fetish we need to be aware of?” Jadelyn laughed.

“No.” Kelly’s face turned red. She totally had some strange sexual ideas up in her head.

Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to explore them.

“I don’t think I’m some strange alien dragon, Kelly. So no tentacles, but we can play with my tail some if that would help satisfy an urge.”

“I said there wasn’t any weird fantasy.” She grumbled, crossing her arms and looking away. “But what do you think you are?”

Everything in Morgana’s books had described Pendragon as a type of chief of the dragon tribe.The Bronze King was definitely pushing me that way.

But the shifting scales and how the silver slave had instantly recognized me as more told me there was some bigger destiny riding before me.

“I’m not sure Kelly. But it’s big, bigger than I imagined. I just hope that the Bronze King will have some answers and be willing to share them.”

“We’ll shake him down for answers if we have to.” Morgana reassured me.

“Or buy them. I hear dragons like gold.” Jadelyn grinned, throwing her weight behind me.

“Holy crap.” Kelly was looking at her phone. “Look at this.” She held it up for me.

It was a paranormal app… about me. It had statistics on it like a baseball card. There was even a place to insert profiles to date me.

“What is that?”

“I have no idea, but it is hilarious.” Kelly pulled her phone back and Jadelyn leaned over to see it.

“We can get our lawyers to take that down. We can say they are impersonating you.” She shook her head, a distasteful frown on her lips.

Morgana was pulling out her phone and snickering. “It’s like a dating app, but it only has one male. And it’s already number three on free apps.”

I groaned, putting my head in my hands. “Of course it is.”

“Oh, this looks pretty nice.” Kelly said.

“Please tell me you didn’t download the app.” I glared at her.

When she didn’t respond, I knew she had and was using it.

“They have a lot of your pictures. This is like stalker level.” She murmured as she scrolled through the app. I didn’t want to know.

Gazing out the window, I watched the snowy landscape fly by, hoping that once we were out of the paranormal circle of influence, it would get better. They couldn’t swarm me so openly when there were normals around.

The platform at Lucerne was still chaos, but as I stepped into the normal part of the train station, it did calm down.

Letting out a heavy breath, I thanked my lucky stars.

“Scalewright?” a man in a suit asked our group as we walked out. He didn’t seem to need confirmation as he opened the door to the black SUV.

“License.” Kelly held out her hand, squaring up her shoulders almost like she was ready for a fight.

The man obliged, clearly ready for the check.

Kelly glanced at it, and at his face before handing it back. “He’s our driver. Pile in.”

We all got in, and I noticed the driver was staring at me through the rear-view mirror. “I can’t believe the gold dragon king is in my car.” He gushed.

I sighed hard.

“Yep. I’m married to him.” Jadelyn claimed me by wrapping her arms around me.

“I hear dragons have large harems. My daughter is quite fetching if you are looking for more.” The driver half joked, half offered his daughter up to me on a silver platter.

I didn’t respond, letting his offer elapse as politely as I could. It made the rest of the drive rather awkward. I wasn’t sure what to say to him after that.

He drove all the way out to the rented private hangar.

“Welcome back.” The pilot was out front to greet us. “I’m afraid we have a minor problem.”

“What now?” I growled.

The pilot shrank back and nervously itched at his arm. “You see, there’s a lady here that we can’t seem to get to leave. She says she was invited. She also caused a slight issue with the reporters that showed up.”

Sighing, I strode purposefully into the hangar to see Hestia waiting with an enormous suitcase, little stalks of herbs poking out of the zipper that looked like it was holding on for dear life. “Hi, I decided to take you up on your offer.”

I was relieved it wasn’t anything more. I turned back towards the pilot. “It’s okay. She’s with us. What happened to the reporters?”

The pilot pointed to a pile of people in the corner of the hangar. A dozen men and women were collapsed on each other, their cameras hanging around their necks.

“They kept trying to take pictures of me, so I put them to sleep.” Hestia pulled out a small vial with a big smile on her face.

The pilot leaned over to whisper to me. “She threw one of those, and some gas came out and knocked them all out.”

“You know what, Hestia? I think I like you more already. Knock as many of them out as you want.” I walked over, grabbing her bags and bringing them over to the plane. Scarlett was busy running around the plane, completing all her security checks, while Jadelyn waited at the bottom of the stairs.

I moved past Jadelyn, starting to climb the stairs. She reached out and stopped me. “You have to wait for the check.”

I pointed to myself. “Dragon. I’m both fire and explosive resistant.”

Crossing her arms, Jadelyn looked at Scarlett, impatiently tapping her foot.

“Not yet, Jade. You can’t get on there until I’m finished, even if you have a gold dragon husband.” She didn’t even look up from the landing gear.

Jadelyn stomped her foot like a spoiled princess. “That’s not fair.”

“He’s the king of dragons, Jadelyn. He basically gets to make the rules.” Kelly reminded her and stepped up on the plane behind me.

“Not you too.”

“Maybe the dragons can get you some powerful enchantment so you can tag along with your mate.” Scarlett suggested, standing up and tugging at a cord before coming back to the gangway. “Please head on up.”

The rest of my mates joined me in the cabin as Hestia sat down in one of the egg-shaped swivel chairs, a little awe on her face. “This is… nice.” Jadelyn’s jet was nice, all suede leather, none of that fake stuff.

“Welcome to traveling with the Scalewrights.” Scarlett took her own seat casually. “There are some drinks in the cabinet there if flying makes you nervous.”

“Nah, I’m good. I have potions for that sort of thing.” Hestia pulled back her frilly skirt to show a bandolier of potions strapped to her thigh.

Morgana took her own seat. “Please, don’t use any potions in the cabin. This space is far too enclosed.”

“It was one time, Morgy. Are you ever going to let me live that down?” Hestia glared. “You’ve never trusted my potions since.”

“You made my skin green for a week, and I nearly went blind.”

“But it helped, really. Since you were blind, you couldn’t see all the people mocking your green skin.”

“Wait, blueberry was a green bean?” Kelly started laughing.

Morgana glared at Hestia. “You said that potion would help me get a date to the Tredelas party that year.”

“We were kids!” Hestia threw her hands up in the air. “I barely knew what I was doing.”

Morgana put a hand to her face. “I don’t think you know that much better now.”

Hestia let out an enormous sigh and looked at me. “Careful with that one. She’ll never let you live down an honest mistake.”

“Oh, I’m aware. I wrecked one of her cars, and she barely lets me drive anymore.” I replied, laughing.

“See, that one is completely understandable, though.” Hestia replied, siding with Morgana and giving me conversational whiplash.

The engines on the jet whirred up, and we all quieted down during takeoff.

As soon as the seatbelt light went out, Kelly was unbuckling herself.

“Sorry Hestia.” Then she turned to me. “I want my mile high badge. Come on back, big guy.” She undid my belt and pulled me back toward the bed.

“Wait, what’s happening?” Hestia looked back at the bed, and her eyes went wide. “I’m right here.”

Kelly grabbed the divider curtain and swung it closed with a metallic swish. “All better.”

“That does absolutely nothing.” Hestia complained from the other side of the curtain.

“Take one of your sleeping potions.” Morgana chuckled as she also walked around the curtain. “Because I’m about to be loud.”

“Gross. Is this payback for that one time?” Hestia complained.

Morgana paused halfway to the bed. “Yes, now that I think about it, this is payback. Now knock yourself out. Literally.”

***

Hestia was passed out, drooling on herself and had been since we got going on the bed.

We landed back in Philly, and I let out a sigh of relief as I ran my hands through my hair in an attempt to get the wet mop back into a presentable state.

I really needed a haircut, and I wasn’t going to T for it.

“You look fine.” Jadelyn replied. She looked immaculate as always, her hair and clothing perfectly charming.

“Yeah, but I’m coming home a very different person than I left.” I replied. “And apparently my every move is now going to be documented.”

As the cabin door opened, I took a deep breath and walked out.

Cameras flashed in the distance, but thankfully, they were held back by Scalewright's security.

I froze at our welcome party. The paranormal council was arrayed out before me in their entirety. Even the Summer Queen was in attendance. And next to her was a pale blue skinned younger Fae wrapped in furs that accentuated rather than hid her curves. She stood near enough to the Summer Queen that they might have been talking, but far enough away that she clearly was separate.

“Lady of Fall.” Jadelyn commented.

The Lady was beautiful, like the other noble fae I’d seen. It was an eerie sort of beauty; it was hypnotic, but it also gave me pause. Like something about it just wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Son!” Rupert shouted, coming up and grabbing my arm, wrapping one of his arms around my shoulders as he turned with me to the council. “Welcome home. Everyone, I know most of you know him, but let me introduce Zach Pendragon, the gold dragon, and my son-in-law.”

He was so boisterous and excited to show me off.

“This is unnecessary.” I squirmed under his arm.

“Nonsense, son. You’ll need to put on a show for all of them, make yourself known. I know! Come golfing with me tomorrow.” He said it so casually, it almost seemed like he’d just thought of it, but something told me that wasn’t the case.

He squeezed my shoulders for a moment before letting me go and introducing me to the council once again.

When I got to Sebastian, he narrowed his eyes only for a moment before sighing. “Welcome. You’ve been named an ally of the elves. The Highaen have insured that no elf will bother you. If only you had made yourself known when you first came to town, things might have been different.”

He only seemed slightly bitter that I had killed his nephew, which was progress. A resigned sigh was the best he could give me. He was smarter than to continue a vendetta against a gold dragon that had friends within the elves.

The Highaen’s attitude towards me was another layer of protection he hadn’t been expecting. But I wasn’t about to feel any sympathy. His nephew had come after me, and he’d encouraged it. But in doing so, they’d bought off more than they could handle.

Moving down the line, I met some of the less important members and ended up at the Fae.

“Pleasure to meet you again.” The Summer Queen stared at me with her entrancing golden eyes. “The power I felt from you now makes sense. And it has blossomed even further.” She made a small bow of her head. “My offer of a lovely retreat in the summer realm is still open to you and your mates.”

There was something about the Fae that was intoxicating. Every move and every word was filled with subtle temptations.

“I believe a gold dragon would enjoy the beauty of a brisk fall day just as much.” The Fall Lady stepped forward.

The Fall Lady had cool silver eyes and skin so pale it was slightly blue. And that blue was accented by the blue makeup she wore and the frosty hint in her hair. The furs were wrapped perfectly around her body to accentuate her curves.

“Pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your mother’s help with Nat’alet.”

Fall smirked. “When she discovered what you are, she was furious that she had been barred from watching. What a sight it must have been to see the two of you battle.”

“Not as impressive as you might think.” I grinned, trying to downplay it. A power had come out of me during that battle that I didn’t want anyone knowing about.

“My mother sends her most sincere apologies that she didn’t do more to assist you during that conflict.”

It was everything I could do not to snort in her face. Her mother had done very little but recover a piece of her power and walk away.

“All is well that ends well.” Jadelyn gripped my arm tightly, no doubt sensing my annoyance.

But I didn’t growl or eat her, so I was clapping myself on the back in my head. I was making progress.

However, my annoyance must have been clear, because the Summer Queen smirked in victory over the Fall Lady.

Jadelyn pulled me past all of them to the crowd that waited beyond. A caravan of black SUV’s waited, and the middle one had its doors opened as we approached. My mates and I piled into it.

“Where to?” The driver asked.

I looked at Morgana, who was currently wearing a big coat that was far too much for the new climate, but kept the roots wrapped around her arm hidden. “Let’s get you to the atrium.” I said to her, before turning to the driver. “Bumps in the Night. Do you know the club?”

“Of course. I go there often enough.” The driver put the SUV into gear and pulled away from the airport.