Shared By The Dragon Clan: Part Four (2 page)

CHAPTER SIX

“Would you like to marry my daughter,
Conrad?”

Conrad looked
at Stacey briefly. He seemed to be weighing up the matter.

“Well?”

“Like, my
brother,” Conrad said, “I also have conditions of my own.”

“And what are
they?”

“You won’t
instruct me to execute him now to start with.”

“Would you
prefer to take the fall yourself?”

“He won’t
kill me and I won’t kill him. You can either kill both of us, or spare both our
lives.”

Narses raised
his eyebrow, and then in a flash of bright red, the gold sword sliced into Conrad’s
chest and tore upward.

Zane jumped
to his feet in shock, but did nothing to prevent the death from playing out.

Narses ripped
the sword from Conrad’s throat and let him drop to the floor.

There were
brief flashes of Conrad’s dragon trying to get out.

Narses stood
over him, and cut off his head in a gigantic swoop.

He then
sheathed his sword. “So do you want to fight me, Zane? Or do you want to marry
my daughter?”

Zane’s eyes
trailed off. He looked at the ground. “Give me a moment.”

He then
walked over to where Stacey was. He took her hands.

There were
tears in his eyes.

“Would he
beat you?” Stacey asked. “If you fought him?”

Zane looked
over his shoulder. “I’ve never fought a Dragon Master before.”

“Then you
shouldn’t fight him.”

Zane seemed
satisfied with Stacey’s answer. He turned back to Nasres.

“This girl,
is not a whore,” he declared. “She was wrongfully convicted of a crime she was
innocent of and sent to us as punishment.”

“She’s human.
All humans are whores.”

“I will agree
to your terms but you have to make sure Stacey is released from her
imprisonment. You have to guarantee the humans will no longer want to arrest,
convict or pursue her for anything to do with her crime. She needs to be set
free.”

“Oh, Master,”
Stacey gushed in bewilderment.

Narses took a
step towards them. “And then you will marry Evelyn?”

Zane nodded.
“I will.”

“And you
won’t come running after this human again?”

“Correct.”

“Then we have
a deal. I will organize transportation off the Island for the human in the
morning. Until then, she will be isolated from you.”

“Absolutely
not. She stays with me until I see the paperwork regarding her release.”

“Very well.
Make sure you’re both at the Palace tomorrow morning. If you try and escape –
I’ll make sure you’re both hunted down and killed. So don’t try me.”

Seemingly
annoyed with the exchange, Narses gave a sharp boot to Conrad’s head and it
landed across the room with an unpleasant thud. He then turned and went through
the doors outside.

Stacey turned
to her beloved. “So what’s going to happen now, Master? Are we going to go
along with everything he said?”

“Which would
you prefer?” Zane shot back. “To be together with me, and be on the run? Or to
have your old life back where you’d know you’d be safe?”

Stacey
couldn’t answer right away.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“Master,” she said, “I’m not feeling
very well. Can we go outside for a bit?”

“In the
rain?” Zane replied. He then saw where her gaze was headed.

Conrad’s
corpse was making her queasy.

“Outside it
is then.”

Zane put his
arm round Stacey for comfort, and she nestled into his warmth, whilst bracing
for the harsh return of cold outside. They walked out the door together and
Zane closed it behind them.

The overhead
storm was thankfully beginning to clear. The rain was constant, but light.

“The truth is
I can’t leave this decision up to you,” Zane finally said. “I know what needs
to happen.”

“What?”
Stacey asked. “What needs to happen?”

“If we ran,
we’d be found. Because I know I wouldn’t stop searching for a way back into the
Clan. It’s my home. It’s where I belong. I can’t live without it. The problem
is that even if I were to expose the cover up with Horatio, it wouldn’t matter.
They’d still want us dead for trying to escape now.”

Stacey sat
down on the dirt. She realized she was crying. “But I don’t want to lose you.
You’re unlike any man I’ve ever met before.”

“That’s
because I’m not a man,” Zane said, sitting beside her.

“I don’t
know. Maybe if there’s some other way or… Unless you want to marry the
Princess…”

“What? No.
It’s just what Narses wants.”

“And you
trust him? After he killed Conrad right in front of you?”

“He’s a
Dragon Master. Trust isn’t what matters. I know if we try and escape now we’re
likely to fail. As it was – we couldn’t last more than a day before they found
us already.”

“I suppose
that’s true,” Stacey laughed.

“You don’t
need me in your life. You’ll meet someone you’ll like. Just you see.”

Stacey smiled
a little. “I’ll never forget you.”

“And I’ll
never forget you.”

Stacey stood
up and put her arms around him. And even though the cold of rain was brittle,
and the darkness of the night was impossibly sad, for Zane and Stacey in that
moment…

All they
could feel was each other.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

There was a portal to the otherworld
on Firebound Island. Neither Zane or Conrad had known about it – nor did the
true Horatio Horux or any of the Dragon Masters. It was built in secret by the
Human Mage, whose real name was Professor Patrick Hess. Hess had built it for a
specific dragon he was trying to summon, one who had died centuries ago, and
was considered to be the most feared and powerful dragon who had ever lived.

In recent
months, Hess had miraculously made contact with this dragon, or at least one
who claimed to be the infamous Quraal. Quraal had been the one who had
instructed him to bring King Horatio to this portal, where he was consumed by
its darkness and a new Horatio had returned in his place. One of Quraal’s
minion’s programmed to do whatever was required. Hess didn’t know what the end
to Quraal’s plan was, only that he had been promised to be greatly rewarded in
Quraal’s return to the human world.

Now he had
been dismissed by Narses however, Hess’s mission was in jeopardy. Having
already told Quraal that Zane was dead, as Quraal for some reason considered
Zane a threat, the anger from the underworld dragon was likely to be black and
harrowing. Still, Hess had nowhere else to turn, and as angry as he might be at
the bad news, Quraal still needed him. For the time being at least.

The portal
itself was located in a dark an isolated clearing in the deepest recesses of
the forest. While it would’ve taken many hours to reach there on foot, the Mage
was able to cast a teleportation spell to land him in the centre of it. Three
large, triangular stones, stood tall around the inner circle of the portal. As
Hess crouched in the centre of it, the stones began to flicker with fiery
light.

And now, he
could see the black dragon standing on the other side, its bright red eyes and
teeth sparkling at him from within the shadows.

“Hess. I
wasn’t expecting you,” Quraal murmured in a low voice.

“Master, I
have troubling news, I’m afraid.”

“Then speak,
and let me be the one to shoulder your fears.”

“Conrad
Hunter, brother of Zane, lied to me when he said he had killed Zane. Now Zane
is here with his human slave, and they are in conversation with Master Narses,
who wants to make one of them King. He has expelled me from the Clan. No reason
given.”

“That is
troubling news. But you should not fear my anger.”

“Thank you. I
… I tried my best for you…”

“And I am not
such a fool that I don’t believe you. Your loyalty has been deeply
appreciated.”

“Well, thank
you again. What can we do about this now?”

“I am not
ready to return yet. It is not the right time. Zane must be dead before then.
He is incredibly dangerous. Far more powerful than even he realizes.”

“So you want
me to try and kill Zane? Sneak into his sleeping quarters tonight and –”

“You would
fail should try.”

“I could cast
a paralysis spell on him. He wouldn’t even have to wake up.”

“This cannot
lead back to you, Mage. Not if you are to be King of this Island. No. Narses
will be the one to kill him. And it will happen tomorrow. If you do exactly as
I say.”

“Whatever you
wish, Master,” Hess said. “I will do anything you ask me to.”

“Tomorrow,
you will find Zane and Narses both at the Palace together. His slave as you
call it, will be of great use to us here…”

CHAPTER NINE

They flew above the warehouse
station. Beyond the KEEP OUT gates. Over the first outpost. Zane’s green tower
was right there in front of them. For Stacey looking at it now, she couldn’t
help but feel the sadness. This would be her last night in this magical place.
Her last night with the dragon she loved.

At least, for
now.

They landed
in the grass in front of it and they surveyed the exterior of it together. It
was so dark. So lonely. The day Stacey had come here seemed like a far away
dream. So much had changed for her since then.

Now that Zane
had shifted back to his human form, he approached the tower and opened the
door. He put his hand to the candle near the wall, and it burned up a green
glow brightly.

The place was
trashed. Ransacked. Various objects were smashed and scattered around every
part of the floor. Zane seemed deeply troubled by the loss of these artifacts.
Stacey put a hand to his shoulder.

“It’s okay,”
he said. “I never expected to have any of this stuff back anyway.”

The glass
door opposite them was partially smashed. Behind the door the sofa was turned
over and the marble table with the fruit split in two. Stacey looked through
the panels to the tower’s aviary, but there were no birds to be seen.

Zane moved
round to put the couch in an upright position. “Come sit with me, Blossom,” he
said.

She complied
and he cradled her.

“Perhaps I
should see if I can fetch a dress from upstairs,” Zane remarked. “You are so
cold.”

“Not when I
have you to warm me,” Stacey said.

He stroked
her head. “You know I’m going to really miss you.”

“I’ll miss
you too,” Stacey said. “But at least you’ll have your Princess.”

“I don’t know
her.”

“You haven’t
known me for very long either.”

“What happens
between us, Blossom, never happens to me.”

“And you
still can’t think of a way we can stay together?”

“If Narses
wants his daughter as the Queen here, there is nothing I can do.”

“What if … He
didn’t want that. Or maybe she didn’t want that. Maybe you could do something
really gross when you see her and it would turn her off. So you wouldn’t have
to go through with it.”

“Narses would
just find another man to marry her then. And probably come after my head.”

“Right…”

“You want
something to hope for, don’t you?”

“Yes. Of
course I do.”

Zane fell
silent a moment.

“If I were to
find the true Horatio Hurux, and brought him before the other Dragon Masters,
then I wouldn’t have to marry her because I wouldn’t be king. He would be.”

“Why don’t
you do that then? Go and find him.”

“Hmm…”

Zane stood
up. “I’d have to find the Mage. Get the truth from him.”

“Now you’re
thinking!”

Zane smiled
at little. “Come here, Blossom.”

She stood up
from the couch and he wrapped his thick arms around her.

“I think I
see a plan now for how this is going to work.”

“That’s
wonderful,” Stacey beamed.

“Of course
it’s very dangerous. I wonder if I might begin it after you are sent back home.
That way at least if it didn’t work then I’d know you were safe.”

Stacey
lowered her eyebrows. She was less enthused with that proposition.

“What?”

“I want to be
near you,” Stacey said. “That’s the only way I know that I’m truly safe.”

Zane blinked.
“We should wait till tomorrow at least. Try to get some sleep in while we still
can.”

“You see?”
Stacey said. “It would have been so silly for me to put on a new dress.”

“Why is
that?”

“Because I
can’t wear it when we fuck, can I?”

Zane lowered
his eyes seductively. “You really know how to sweep a dragon of his feet.”

They both
laughed at his joke.

Then it was
time for sex.