Dragon 7 Chapter 22 (Patreon)

It was dark enough that without my dragon eyes, I wouldn’t see much more than a few feet in front of me. A flashlight whipped about the RV as someone moved about inside.

There was noise coming from the RV. It sounded like someone was throwing things about in a hurry. “Come on.” I whispered as I shifted my claws to ease myself down the steep hill.

Morgana was more graceful, leaping and catching a tree branch. She pulled off an acrobatic flip and somehow landed without a sound. It was like she’d somehow robbed the momentum from the landing.

“Keep watch.” I told her and the dragons as I approached the door to the RV. I got my hand quietly positioned on the handle before wrenching it backwards in one swift movement.

The place was messy, and time had certainly worn away at it here in the woods. There were enough food wrappers and cardboard boxes that I knew they’d been using this for at least a few days.

Carl jerked up from where it was digging through a cabinet. His eyes went wide and he drew a pistol from his hip in a practiced fashion, firing off three shots, center mass.

He’d clearly acted based on previous training.

But the bullets didn’t do anything to me; they simply hit my scales under my clothing.

“Now. That’s no way to greet a guest.” I taunted him as I stepped up and into his RV.

He unloaded the rest of his magazine into me as I made sure to block the entrance and any stray bullets from hitting the others. Staring at him in challenge, I shifted my face to full scales.

“Get back fanger.” Carl grabbed a shotgun like the one in the car from under a table and flipped it up, firing and pumping the shotgun before dumping its entire magazine into me.

My ears rang from the close quarters firing and my chest felt a little bruised.

I strode through the smoke that lingered between us, jerking the shotgun away and grabbing Carl before he could make it to a nearby window.

“Not so fast.” I threw him down onto the floor of the RV. “It’s time we had a little chat. I never quite liked being dumped into that prison.” I loomed over him, ready to grab him again.

But Carl wasn’t one to take things lying down.

His eyes smoked and his feet came up together, kicking me in the chest.

He was a lot stronger than the men who had attacked at the stadium. His kick hit me in the gut and managed to hurl me across the RV. My body smashed through the rusted wall.

I coughed as Sarisha came up to me. “Are you okay, my king?”

“Fine. I got him. Keep watch.” I grumbled, taking her hand and getting to my feet.

Carl was making a run for it, but it was time to show him I was so much more than just a fanger.

My clothes shredded themselves as I started after him, packing on serious mass.

He was fast enough to shame an Olympian athlete, but he wasn’t as fast as Morgana, certainly couldn’t outrun a full grown dragon.

My run shifted to a lope as I fell on all fours. I quickly passed the size of a bus, climbing to my full size. I grinned a dragon smile as I made two giant bounds, catching up to him and ensnaring him in my claws like a cage.

“Carl.” My deep voice made the leaves shake even as I tried to stay quiet. “Look at me.”

The agent rolled to his back under my claw and his eyes were wide as he took in my giant dragon face looming over him. “D-d-dragon. That’s fucking impossible. How-how could people not know?” The faint smell of piss entered the air.

“The dragon king.” I rumbled. “Not only am I a dragon, but should something happen to me, the entire dragon race would wreak havoc on this world. And if they didn’t tear it apart, my mates certainly would. I represent much more than a simple beast.” He needed to understand just what he was fucking with.

Carl tried to push my claw off of him, but even with Iepatus’s blessing, there was nothing he could do against my full dragon weight. “This can’t be.”

“‘Fangers’, as you call us, have a deep history in this world. We have been around and in the background for longer than humanity has organized into countries.” I laid it on thick. “You might have gone after some packs and vampires. But they are the fringes of our culture.”

“They fucking kill people.” Carl tried to put up more of a fight, but it was useless. “You all tried to kill the humans in Philly.”

I shook my head. “A rogue faction of vampires tried to invade the Faerie realm, using Philly as a staging ground to produce a horde of vampires. We do not condone such actions and those responsible were slaughtered.” I grinned. “I ate them.”

Carl looked like his head might explode as he tried to process what I was saying.

That was good. If I expected real answers from someone, they needed to understand the full picture.

“You still work outside the law.” He clung to his reasoning.

I deadpanned. “Are you really clinging to that after you tried to put me in a hole without any legality?” I let out a low rumbling laugh. “That’s a good one. Let me explain things to you. A titan, currently residing in Tartarus, gave you powers, but he’s a terrible schemer. And apparently a fae, who is a wonderful schemer, has gotten herself involved and is trying to twist this to her benefit. I guarantee she knows exactly who I am. I’m sort of famous, and I’m also married to a fae princess.”

“What?” Carl seemed to have short circuited. “Fae?”

“Yes, like the stories of tricksters. You think she’s an elf too?” I chuckled. “She’s not. They can change their appearance at will.”

He shook for a moment before his face grew more determined. He got his hands on a knife from somewhere on his body and stabbed into the webbing of my claws, before trying to tear a bigger hole in it.

I reared back and slapped my other hand down on him hard enough to crush him to the forest floor again.

Carl was winded, and Morgana took the moment to blur in, grab his knife and throttle him against a tree. “Don’t hurt my mate.” Morgana was rough with him as she knocked him against several trees before throwing him down where he’d been originally.

Then she came over to where my claw was bleeding and licked at it.

Her venom soothed any pain. It was healing on its own, but Morgana didn’t want to waste the blood. I didn’t want her to either; I was anxious to get more of my blood into her ever since I’d spoken to Elena.

Bloodlord Morgana would be a sight to behold.

Carl coughed several times, but he was clearly still alive.

“Iapetus gave you guys some serious blessings.” I rumbled. “But you made a careless decision to take it. What do you know about the fae, and what are you doing with Simon’s body?” If it was like what he gave Winter, it would cut their lives severely short in using it.

The FBI agent rolled over onto his back, trying to suck in air after Morgana’s thrashing.

“Fuck you.” He spat. “I want to see you die.”

“Because you believe it is a noble cause?” I shifted back down to my dragon knight form.

Carl clutched at his chest, trying to sit up and failing. “You funking fangers kill humans. When we tried to fight back, you brought the senators down on Norton. You could have told us, worked with us, but no. Now the gloves are off; he’s going to kill you.” His eyes were filled with his own sense of conviction. He might feel that he was right, but he knew too little to do any actual good.

Maybe part of what he said was correct. Most of it wasn’t.

“Unlikely.” I replied calmly. “There is little that could stop me.”

“Trust me. The woman has magic like you’ve never seen before.” Carl seemed to believe what he was saying. “Besides, Iapetus’s blessing for me is nothing compared to Norton. He’s going to kill you once she helps him get the weapon. Then Iapetus will win, even if she’s a trickster like you said.”

“Her magic?” I asked wanting more confirmation of who this fae was, but Carl suddenly got very calm.

Eerily calm.

Enough that Morgana blurred away just before Carl exploded. Blood went everywhere, but then the blood paused mid air and burned a gray fire before it sucked back together.

I frowned as a miniature Iapetus formed in the middle of the forest. The giant stony titan from Tartarus wasn’t likely to be something I forgot anytime soon.

Iapetus was vaguely human shaped, in the way that a cat was shaped like a dog. Something about it just seemed odd. His skin was gray stone, with smoke pouring out of his eyes.

He rumbled a few words that made no sense to me before the small titan moved.

I didn’t even have time to react before his palm slammed into my chest and I shot backwards.

Small trees snapped as I flew backwards, slowing my flight until I tumbled on the ground.

The avatar of Iapetus roared as a blue blur went at it. The two of them both moved quickly, shooting around and destroying the surrounding woods.

The woods became bright with blue light as lightning tore through the air, hitting Iapetus and flinging him against a tree as electricity coursed through him. Chloe was on the other end of the lightning, and Sarisha was following up sending a wave of acid over him.

I wasn’t about to be outdone by my dragonettes. I opened my mouth, adding more lightning to the attacks.

Morgana reappeared at my side, wiping blood from her face that was already bruising a dark purple. “Fuck, he hurts.”

The two dragon guards let their magic die down.

The Iapetus was slumped against the tree, tons of gray smoke pouring off of it as I approached.

He rumbled more incoherent words, but I somehow knew they were a threat. His smoky eyes fixated on me before he crumbled to dust and floated away on the wind as gray smoke.

“Okay. So that was a titan?” Sarisha asked, carefully picking her way forward while looking around for another attack.

“No. Iapetus is much, much bigger. In my dragon form, I’m like a fly to him. That was just a piece of him that he gave Carl.” I stared at the spot where the FBI agent had been. “I don’t like that he can come here though, even if it’s only a small fraction of his power.”

I grabbed Morgana, feeling possessive after she was hurt, and pushed her to drink more of my blood.

“I’m fine.” She patted my neck. “Tempting as it may be, I’d like you to hold onto your strength. Carl made it sound like we’ll be dealing with more shortly.”

“What could she be using Simon’s body for?” I asked her. “It sounded like there was a plan.”

Morgana bit her lip. “I’m not sure. Elves hunted dragons quite heavily in the past, before we realized the effect a reduction in dragons had on magic. So, maybe there’s something? But I don’t know how Simon fits into it.” She shook her head. “I don’t know enough about Sebastian’s family.”

I groaned. “Let’s head back to the RV and see if there is anything else that could give us a clue. Then we’ll head back to the manor. It’s time we updated everyone on what we’ve found.”

***

The RV was another dead end. It has a stash of weapons and supplies, but nothing gave us any more information.

Unfortunately, Norton wasn’t an idiot.

By the time we got back to the manor, it was the dead of night. Chloe and Sarisha were yawning up a storm and left after I promised not to sneak out again.

The nap had done me some good, but my body was tired. I needed a rest myself.

Nymphs were moving around in nothing but their underwear when I stepped into the manor.

“What?” I raised an eyebrow as a nymph caught sight of me and winked before very purposefully sashaying away.

“Ignore the nymphs, my horny mate.” Morgana pulled me upstairs to the bedroom, peeking in the door.

The girls were all in their underwear with wine glasses strewn about the room and piled up together.

“They had fun.” I whispered. It looked like the result of a girls night. I wanted to let them all sleep, but there was one I needed to wake. Maeve.

Given the fae involvement I needed more information.

Looking through the various women, I couldn’t find her. But I did notice that Ikta was curled protectively around Jadelyn. Maybe the two of them were closer to being friends.

“Ikta.” I whispered, shaking one of her spider limbs.

It twitched and slapped my hand away as Ikta cracked an eye. As soon as she realized it was me, her eyes were wide open and awake.

I jerked my head and headed back out of the room.

She expertly extricated herself from the bed using her spider limbs to pick her body up and move off before retracting them and stepping out to join Morgana and I in the hall.

“Booty call at night?” Ikta asked, smiling at me and giving me an encouraging wink.

“Why were you in our bed?” Morgana scowled.

Ikta just tilted her head like she was confused. “Supporting Jadelyn. She had a big night tonight, but she did wonderfully. Did your boring mission go well?”

I ignored their bickering. “We made some progress on the bigger problem unexpectedly.” I admitted. “Carl, one of Norton’s men, is dead. We got some answers. There’s a fae working with them.”

Ikta tapped her lips. “Summer fae?”

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“Because fae tend to strike when we are strong. I doubt a winter fae would be pushing to take the dragon king off the board while they were weak.” She started walking down the hall, stretching.

I realized she was only wearing a few purple sheer strips that went around her neck and then wrapped around her waist, barely covering her nipples, before coming around the front and pooling between her thighs, as if it was hiding anything.

Ikta noticed me looking and smiled. “If you’d like a romp right now, we can do that.” She braced herself against the wall and stuck her rear out, inviting me to enjoy myself right there.

Morgana snapped a finger in front of Ikta’s face. “Focus. Fae, using an elf's corpse to do something to harm Zach. Iapetus working with a fae.”

Mentioning harm to me did seem to snap her back to the topic. “Well, if the fae is going to harm faerie in the process, of course Iapetus is going to be happy to go along with it.” Ikta waved her hand like it was a no brainer as she went down the steps to the kitchen and stared nosing around the pantry.

I waited outside, leaning on the wall. I was quickly running out of patience. “For those of us that aren’t ancient. What does Iapetus have against faerie?”

“Hmm?” Ikta had gotten distracted. “Oh. The Dreamer was one of the titans. Mnemosyne. She made the muses to try and inspire the gods and titans, inspire humanity too. But then the gods and titans grabbed them and put them in cages for entertainment. She grew frustrated and left the plane to make her own, so that the muses could flourish.” Ikta turned and smiled at me, coming out of the pantry with a bundle of goods.

“Wait. Fae are the muses?” I asked.

“Daughters of the muses, or muses 2.0.” Ikta corrected me. “That’s why we feel so much more strongly than humans. We are filled with more emotion, which inspires us to perform art.” She said loftily as she placed her ingredients down on the counter.

I was doing some mental gymnastics with the new piece of information. “That means The Dreamer is a titan. The only living titan?”

“Maybe.” Ikta shrugged. “I’ve been away a long time. Hell and Heaven were made by titans as well. Heaven’s titan was killed long ago. Hell’s may still be alive.” She started pouring flour into a large mixing bowl before going to the fridge and pulling out the milk and eggs.

It was kind of a wonder to watch as the spider limbs helped her multitask. Yet she was making a mess in my lovely kitchen.

“So, what killed the titans?” I asked.

“Lack of mana. It’s like putting a human in an environment with substantially less oxygen.”  She replied. “Thus why The Dreamer is so interested in you and your mother’s band of dragons. It’s self preservation. She needs dragons in Faerie to prevent the same thing that’s happening on earth with the decline of mana.”

Ikta paused and glared at me. “Once again, your life is in danger because you have yet to spread your seed far and wide. If you lay with me, there will be a boom of dragons so great that killing you no longer serves a purpose.” Ikta grinned wide.

“Are you making pancakes?” Morgana leaned on the counter watching Ikta.

“Yes. I hear they are the dragon king’s favorite.” She messily mixed her concoction in a bowl, spraying flour everywhere.

I checked the time. It was four am. Just seeing that time made me more weary. It had been a long day. “So. Killing me hurts The Dreamer, potentially sets her on a path towards decline. Iapetus wants to hurt the dreamer. That all makes sense. Why would a fae want to take down The Dreamer?”

“Nope.” Ikta licked up some of the batter and frowned at it before she shrugged and snapped a portal into existence, ushering two nymphs through and pointing at her failed batter. “Fix that. Make the dragon king sexy pancakes.”

Both of them giggled as they noticed me before getting to work.

Ikta rounded the counter and sat on it so that she was eye level with me. “It’s not which fae wants to hurt The Dreamer, but which one feels like they need to get rid of you.” Ikta pushed a finger into my chest. “When we looked through the false prophecies, there were more than a few that suggested that Summer, Winter, and I could join forces, become one and end the wars. Of course, you were the key. Some even suggested that we would be the last fae queens. I’m unsure if that means the queens are no longer needed, or that we’ll be immortal.”

I paused. “So. Who doesn’t want the queens to end?”

Ikta raised a manicured brow, clearly thinking that I could come to that answer on my own. But I was tired and frustrated.

Morgana jumped in, clearly sensing my grumpiness. “Probably someone who's been waiting a long time to become queen and thinks she never will. The Spring Lady fits. She’s strong enough, not particularly fond of you, and checks all the boxes.”

“Isn’t she busy with the fae war?” I asked.

Ikta tilted her head like a confused kitten. “No. Summy’s army is too strong for Winter to push forward right now. All they need is simple directions. She could very easily spend time right now running around behind everyone’s backs.”

Damnit. It would make sense. “Can you get me to Summer?”

“Pancakes first.” Ikta crossed her arms.

I glared at her, letting the exhaustion show on my face.

“Fine. Pancakes after. Ladies, I’ll summon you in ten minutes. Have enough pancakes for a hungry dragon.” Ikta glanced at Morgana. “Is she coming?”

I paused and nodded. If I ran off without anyone watching my back, Polydora would have my golden hide.