Dragon Heat (7 page)

Turning left on the top floor, he reached the chamber he was looking for.

The door was ajar, so Tardieh slowly pushed it open while checking for

any foreign sounds. The sight in front of him stole his breath. His father’s

headless body was hanging from the ceiling by its ankles. Small droplets

of blood dripped onto the floor beneath the body where a large red

puddle had formed. Tardieh’s head spun; his stomach convulsed

violently. He turned sharply away from the scene in a desperate attempt

to stop the heaves, but his eyes landed on the mantelpiece. His father’s

head had been carefully placed on top of it with the famous golden crown

as its base, holding it up, as if it were a souvenir. No, not a souvenir, a

statement. The king’s lifeless eyes stared straight at him. This time Tardieh

could not stop the gagging. Bending down, he emptied the contents of his

stomach onto the floor. After a few more of those, still quivering, he

remembered Zoricah’s words:
“If the circumstances were different, if your

father were…if he somehow let you make the choice, what would you do?”

Tardieh had vowed to try to convince his father to stop the attacks on the

draconian kingdom. What a fool he had been. Now Tardieh would not

have to convince his father of anything, would he? As Zoricah had

insightfully predicted, his father
had
let him make the choice by leaving

this life. Or should he say that the draconian demigoddess had made the

choice for him?

Closing his eyes, Tardieh forced the dark memories back to the

depths of his inimă and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes

again, his three friends and personal guards were watching him

apprehensively. His hatred might have shown a bit more than he had

expected. He raised his chin and stared back at them. ‚Let’s go.‛

The green sedan crossed the narrow wooden bridge toward the

farmhouse. Dawn was still a few hours away. A couple of minutes later,

he reached the main house, drove around it, and parked at the back

entrance located near the kitchen.

The house had been a great find. It had the necessary space for his

work—the nearest town was four miles away—and the previous owner

had suddenly suffered a horrifying car accident the previous year, at least

that was what the police records stated.

The back door opened, and two razbian guards stepped out onto

the back porch.

‚In the trunk,‛ he commanded.

Having done the drill more than a dozen times, the razbians took

the female vampire out of trunk, blocking her feeble attempts to escape.

While they carried her inside, he stayed behind to retrieve the box of

supplies he had brought; then he walked around the car and closed the

trunk. The smell of urine penetrated his nostrils. At first he thought it was

the new girl’s smell lingering, but no, this one was different. Slowly, he

turned around and scanned the area. There, behind a small poison ivy

bush. Two big brown scared eyes stared up at him. He recognized her at

once. She was the vampire he had picked up at a filthy underground bar

in Chicago a few months prior. He smiled back.

‚Well, well, well, my little kitten,‛ he said to the naked female.

‚How did you manage to get out?‛

In a rush of panic, the female ran toward the woods that permeated

the house. Despite her vampire speed, the little whore was not very

bright, and in no time, he'd managed to ambush her and capture the

fucking bitch. Twisting her arms around her back, he forced her down and

shoved her face on the dirt floor, effectively muffling her cries. The noise

must have alerted his razbian guards for they were on the porch again

when he arrived with the runaway female.

‚How the fuck did she manage to escape?‛ he barked

‚Hmm

Fucking razbians. He would deal with those two later. Now he had

a more important lesson to teach. He dragged the female back into the

house, crossed the kitchen, and threw her on the floor in the middle of the

living room.

It was an ample space, but it felt cramped with the several large

hospital beds lying around. Ten females—draconian, vampire, and

human—lay sleeping on them. His harem was full, all beds taken accept

one. The farthest bed on the left-hand corner near the staircase which led

to the second floor had its pillows organized in such way that pitifully

resembled a body lying underneath the covers.

‚You got to be fucking kidding me,‛ he said under his breath. His

little kitten had pulled off one of the oldest children’s tricks on his

mentally challenged and soon-to-be-dead guards. He felt his jaw tense in

rage.

He bent down and pulled the female vampire off the floor by her

naked shoulders. The first slap hit her on the right side of her face. It was

quickly followed by the second on the left, but they did very little to help

stop the screaming which seemed to have had increased.

He slowly reached for his back pocket and pulled out a small round

device that looked like a cigar cutter but it had a bigger opening and

sharper blades inside its aperture. ‚Let me make something very clear, my

dear. There will be no more escaping or kicking and certainly no more

screaming.‛

With his right hand, he easily forced her mouth open and pulled

her tongue out. Then effortlessly holding it there, he lifted the small

device. ‚I would like you to meet my new toy—the tighajra.‛

He shoved the round device into her mouth, capturing her tongue

in the aperture, then squeezed the gadget shut. The soft sound of her

tongue falling on the floor was muffled by her failed attempts to scream

while choking on her own blood. Holding her in place, he watched her

choke in panic and was amused by how resilient the vampire body could

be. It did not matter how much she sobbed and chocked, she would not

die by suffocation because she did not need to breathe to survive. The

only ways of killing a vampire were by decapitation or by the well-known

solar encounter. Another bout of chocking-sobbing-chocking woke him

from his fascinating assessment.

‚Tie her up on the operating table near the hallway,‛ he ordered

his guards. He would bring in more guards and reinforce the perimeter

just after he cut the hearts out of those two.

While the razbians followed his command, he went to check on his

newest rising star in another hospital bed near the kitchen. Bending over,

he delicately stroked the draconian’s long red curls, then her cheek. She

uttered a small distressed sound and tried to turn her head away, but it

barely moved. He smiled; the drugs were still working their magic. His

hand went even lower and caressed her naked breasts, then her

overextended belly. She was close, very close, he realized. ‚It is growing,

my dear. You will soon experience the joy that every female yearns for.‛