“As I have said, I am the king of the underground. I have no stake in this feeding of the dragons. In my opinion, you should have thought of these things before you had them. Also, do not expect me to come to any more of these meetings.” He stood up, looking right at her. When it looked as if he was going to poke his finger into her chest, to make a point, she only smiled at him. His hand lowered to his side. “I have many things to do, so if you have no more for me—”

  “If you walk away now, the deal ends.” Devon spoke to the man, his voice hard with resolve. “There will be no magic coming to your earth. The grasses will benefit from them. Some of the trees. But the roots that are feeding your creatures, housing them, they will die.”

  “You cannot do that. The tree roots feed our people.” Devon only crossed his arms over his chest. “You would blackmail me into this? When I’ve told you that I wish nothing to do with this? What sort of kingdom are you working here, Lord Devon? One that someone has no say in?”

  “I wasn’t blackmailing you, sir. Only telling you what you should expect. Remember, this is a one-time deal, and if things do not turn out as you think that they will, such as your creatures have nothing to do with this, then you need to understand that this is it. I don’t care if you walk away or not. But I’m letting you know.” The man nodded and moved away, and Devon turned to her. “He’s going to be trouble. I’d like nothing more than to give him a glimpse of what might come to him for this decision, but he doesn’t deserve it.”

  “I have a couple of people I’m going to have watching over his wife. I have a rule in my head that says that if a king or queen—oh, and I’m glad to hear that at least your rules are for both parties. But if one or the other is abusing their mate or spouse, then they can be discharged of their duties. I think perhaps the wife will play in our outfield, if nothing else.”

  Devon laughed as they walked back toward the crowd. “I thought that Kelly had a way to turn a phrase, but I really think you have her beat in that.” She told him what Jackson had said about her making greeting cards. “Yes, between the three of you, including Bryce, I think you might just set the card industry on their heads. My grandma is much like that too.”

  They mingled with the rest of the people, finding that most of them were as excited to help as they were to reap the magic. The children of the people were brought in too, just to play with the little dragons. There was only one child that was hurt, but not seriously so. His mom, like she’d like to think she’d be someday, blamed it squarely on the kid.

  “You shouldn’t have been trying to feed him rocks, young man. What were you thinking with? Do I feed you stones when you are starving? Nay, I do not. I would have bitten you harder had I been him.” She picked the small dragon up that looked like he thought he was in trouble. “Poor little mite. You come to me when you wish a little treat. Perhaps I will give you him to play with as you learn to fly.”

  She was joking, of course. At least Nicole hoped so. But when the rest of the gathered crowd laughed, so did she. But Nicole was going to keep a close eye on her, just in case.

  Chapter 8

  Potter surveyed his lands. Things were working well for him, and he didn’t think that it would improve with the magic of the dragons.

  “Baah. What need do we have for dragons? They should be paying us to have them trample on our heads. They’re nothing but heavy burdens, and we might be better off if the lot of them did not live.” His mate sat there with her hands crossed on her lap, her mouth shut too. Just the way he wanted it. “You will learn when we are in public that you are to never speak to me like that again. Understand me?”

  “Yes, my lord.” He heard the tone, but was willing to ignore it for the moment. The nerve of those two thinking that he might need a lesson in how to raise his children or treat his mate. “I should like to be excused, please.”

  “No. You’ll sit there and listen to my word. It is your duty to do so, as I am lord.” He thought of the way that the big dragon had wrapped his arm around his wife. The way that they showed to all the world that they were a couple. “His father would never have been like that in public. Lord Wilkshire knew that to coddle a woman or child was the same as treating them with disrespect.”

  Only of late had he felt the need to defend the older king. Shaking his body from the sound his voice was making in his head, he tried to remember what he’d been like before. Before this sort of awakening. Frowning, Potter looked at his wife and wondered at her face. Who had hit her? Did he do it? Again?

  Dismissing her because his body was beginning to shake again, he wanted it to shake hard enough to get rid of the images that were not his own. Death of women. Feeding poisons to his own mate. As he sat there, his body hard with the resolve to not follow in those footsteps, his faerie came to see him. Or was it someone else’s?

  “My lord. Are you not well?” Shaking his head, then feeling the power of the other taking him over, he told Blue to leave him alone to his tea. “You do not drink tea, my lord. Are you all right?”

  Swinging out at the little creature, he was both glad and sad that he’d missed it. Whatever was wrong with him, it was getting harder and harder for him to fight off. He thought again about the red dragon that had threatened him.

  Potter had wanted her to kill him. Not this thing he was becoming, but to kill him so that he’d not have the memories or the suffering that he was having now. Even his family, his son and wife, were suffering greatly for it. It was almost too much for him to bear most of the time. After hitting them, because he knew deep in his mind that he was, he hated himself more.

  “Blue, come to me.” The thing, this thing inside of him, was making it difficult for him to even reason things out. But there was someone that could help him, there had to be. She asked him again if he was all right. “Go and get the red queen. The dragon. Bring her here now. And tell her, please tell her what you have— Go, go now, before it’s too late.”

  As she left him, he felt his mind go blank. Not blank, he realized, because he could still see what he was doing. Going to the kitchen, he had to make himself not puke out the words that were there on the tip of his tongue to tell his new cook.

  “Poison her. And the boy.” She just stared at him. “Did you hear me? Poison them both. I want them dead by evening.”

  Staggering back to his rooms, he sat at the desk and tried to make his body do what he wanted it to do. Just as he was hunting for the blade that he had taken to his bedroom yesterday, the room filled with bright light. Whatever she’d been about to say, the red queen touched his face as soon as he looked at her.

  “What is it?” He sobbed, telling her that the boy and his wife must die. “Is this you talking or the monster inside of you?”

  “I don’t know. Help me. Help me before he kills me.” She nodded. After she spoke to someone in the room with them, he was lifted up from the chair then put down on the floor. “Hurt. I hurt so terribly bad.”

  “Striker, go and get Devon, as well as Bryce. He’s suffering here. Glow, find his wife and child. Take them to safety and keep them there. Do not return them here until I allow it.” Something moved by his face and he had to flinch from the pain of it. “You fucking moron. Why didn’t you tell someone sooner that you were infested with the monster of that asshat?”

  “I don’t know a Mr. Asshat, do I?” She laughed, but it was bitter sounding even to his ears. The monster in him rose up. “Get away from me, you bitch. I am the lord of this area, and I will not have you, a woman, dictating to me what I should do with dragons. They could all die, for all I care.”

  “His lady wife would like to help. She said that this is not the man she loves.” The queen told Glow that she would be safer away for right now. “They have both been harmed, my lady. I am seeing to their needs as well.”

  His body was moved again. Potter could see the man there, but his face was too close for him to make out. He thought it was the monster again, telling him to kill his family. Or this time to kill the queen, who was nothing to them. Potter tried to speak, but he wasn’t sure that he was making any sense to anyone but himself.

  “I must see you dead. Help me, my lady. I promise you all that I have if you only save me and my family.” The monster growled. “I shall see you in hell for what you’ve done to me. See if I don’t. No dragon will live, so far as I am concerned. They’re all monsters from hell. Save me, I beg of you. If not, then my lady wife and child.”

  “Just shut up a minute and let me think.” She looked like she was talking to herself, but his monster, the one that he was more terrified of than anything, kept talking. When the hot blade touched his mouth, he knew that if he didn’t keep his lips in front of his teeth, he was going to die. And that didn’t sound so bad right now.

  There was a flurry of activity around him. For the most part Potter tried to keep his eyes closed against the movement. It was making him ill to see the things blurring together, and he had to keep fighting the thing within him from lashing out again.

  Potter heard the king of dragons speaking, but not who he was talking to. There were other voices too, some in his head, others that he knew or hoped were in the room with him. Something about a demon. A monster was growing. There was talk about a spell and a mixture. But it was too much for him. The thing, the probable demon, was rearing up his head again. This time Potter saw him.

  “You will do as you’re told or I shall have you slain. You will know that I am telling you no falsehood. You will know that I am the king and the lord of all magic.” Potter tried to shy away from the heat of his words. They were like hot spittle, much like the hot rocks within his area that kept the trees warm in the winter months. “You will kill that boy and his evil mate. Then you will kill all dragons, do you hear me? Do it now.”

  The blade was in his hand before he could remember that he’d had it all along. Then when he lifted it up, to plunge it into the heart of the woman next to him, his hand was grabbed and lifted high over his head. The demon was right there, floating in front of him instead of tormenting his poor mind.

  “Hello, fucktard.” The red queen was looking at the monster, like she saw it too. “And here I thought that I’d made such a good impression on you before this that you’d leave my friends alone. You are going to have to be dealt with this time. You are not going to shit in my oatmeal anymore, you fucking prick.”

  “You will leave me to my work. I am king.” She laughed, and Potter thought her insane. Who laughed at a demon? As surely as he watched the two of them, he knew the thing that had been inside of him was indeed a demon. “I will have you killed. Put in irons and killed, you’ll see. I am a great king, and that is why I will rule—”

  “Great king, were you? And you will notice that I used the past tense of that. You weren’t anyway, so that’s a moot point. You were a fool. Everything that you ever could have wanted was right there, and you had to go and fuck it up.” The former king...he knew something about him, but Potter couldn’t remember what it was. The red queen spoke again. “Look. I don’t have time for your bullshit, so here is what I’m going to do. Kill you first of all, then I’m going to go about my day as if nothing like you fucked it up. Oh, by the way, you’ve been taken from Lord Potter now, and he will rest a bit.”

  She looked at him, right into his eyes. Potter could see her there. Her dragon was ready to do battle. Her armor covered her from head to toe, and it was one of the greatest sights he’d ever witnessed. Reaching out his hand, he wanted to see if she felt as cool as she looked. But his arms were so weak that he could only lay there while being spoken to. It took his befuddled mind a bit longer to realize that something was being said over him—a spell of some sort. Before he could fight it off, even if he thought to try, his body was growing weaker, his mind was closing down.

  Potter knew that he’d died. His body was light to him, lifting up so high that he was sure that if he were to drop from this height that he’d damage his realm so badly that there wouldn’t be enough magic to fix it. As it became apparent to him that he wasn’t going to live to see his son grow into a man, Potter let go.

  ~*~

  Bryce was impressed. Not only was Nicole working her magic to save the man that had taunted her, but she was actually doing it. Glancing up at Jackson as he worked beside her, Bryce knew that this couple would be able to accomplish anything they tried.

  The demon was Devon’s sire. No one was to call him his father, and for good reason. The man had been a bastard. And even though he’d been dead for a very long time, longer than either her or her grandmother had been alive, he was still raining terror over those around him.

  Devon was taking this the hardest. His sire or father, he had killed a great many innocent people with his power. And now the fucking little shit was back again, this time in the form of a demon. Noah, her mate and her animal to call as his dragon, spoke to her as they poured all the mixtures into one pot to use.

  I found her. Christ, I don’t know what that thing did to Potter, but you can bet that this witch is regretting getting involved with the old king. She asked him if she was still alive. Yes, but not from lack of trying to kill herself off. She’s in a bad way, Bryce. I don’t think I can bring her to you and have her live.

  I don’t care if she lives or not. This is her fault. Ask her how she did this and what was her payment. Bryce hadn’t realized that whatever they were paid, having a witch for their services was just as important as the spell itself. Sometimes a grander witch, herself included, only needed to take the payment and hand it over to the one that received the goods. It could be anything from a day of labor, which wasn’t as easy to return as one might think, to a simple glass of water. I swear to you, Noah, I don’t like people anymore.

  Well, you’re not going to like this any better, I’m afraid. He told her what the payment was. She said that she’s already used all the parts of the body that were useable. If you don’t care right now, I’m going to kill her as soon as we get the spell. She had a baby given to her to use as she saw fit. Christ, I hate people too.

  Given the spell, she told Noah to do what he pleased with the witch. There would not be enough suffering for what this woman had done. Nor was there enough payment around for her to help the helpless child she’d killed.

  Bryce repeated the spell to Nicole and watched as her mind worked it out. Bryce didn’t have the wherewithal to do what Nicole was doing. Reversing a spell was hard enough, but what Nicole was doing was amazing. Finding a comparable spell that used the same ingredients as the first one to make a different spell would have taken Bryce months, if not forever, to find. But in a few minutes Nicole had it, and was having her workers find what she was missing.

  The demon was trapped now, something else that Bryce hadn’t known about. The simplest and the most perfect way to hold a demon that a witch created was to put it under a glass with a lump of sugar. The thing didn’t eat the sugar, but it acted like some kind of doping medication that put the sucker to sleep. There were other ways, Nicole told her, and if she ever needed to know how to do it, just let her know. Hundreds of different ways to do it, she was told.

  After an hour they were ready to deal with the demon. But before they were to banish it forever, Devon wanted to talk to him. Bryce wasn’t sure what he’d say to him, but Devon seemed very relaxed about it. Like he did this sort of thing daily, talking to his long dead father.

  Making up the elixir to feed to the thing, Nicole held it in her hand while Bryce fed it the mixture by a long tube. When Nicole said that it looked as if it were full, though how she could tell that was beyond Bryce, she shook him hard enough to put more into him. The thing was nothing more than a specter, something like a curl of black smoke that would form a face sometimes when it was strong enough.

  “Here he comes.” Nicole let go of the thing and it manifested into a man. It had legs and arms as well as a face, but it was still swirling around like it had no control over its form. But because of the way that Nicole’s knife blade held him in place, stabbed through what had looked to her like the tail, Bryce knew that it wasn’t going anywhere. Devon sat down across from the thing and smiled.

  “Father.” Devon just clicked the knife with his finger to grab the man’s attention. “I cannot believe that I was so afraid of you, for all my life. I hated you as well, but my fear of you kept me from ending your life sooner.”

  “You should never have survived my poisoning of your mother. You must have clung to her pussy like a tick, boy. I wanted you dead when she told me that you would be all that she was.” Devon asked him why he had seemed so surprised when he changed into his dragon. “Because you hadn’t shown yourself as being one, and I thought I was lucky man. You were nothing but a cur, and your mother nothing but a monster in a woman’s body.”

  “Perhaps. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I just wanted you to know a few things that I’ve been doing. First and foremost, I still live in my family castle. And Grandmother lives there with me as well. We’re very happy with you dead.” The monster said that he’d take care of her soon enough too. “Doubtful. I have a child on the way, a dragon. Also, and this will make you piss yourself, I’ve been hanging out with the townspeople and making friends. Why, without your influence, the town is thriving again. There is laughing in the streets, and we are doing well.”

  “You think that’s what you’re supposed to be doing with all my riches? Had I lived, had you not killed me when you did, I would have beaten into you what your job was to be. Not coddling a bunch of people that should have been wiped from your boots.” The monster looked at the rest of them. “What is this? Are they here to protect you? My baby boy, afraid of his big father.”

  “No, they’re here to destroy you. I just wanted to take this time to tell you that I don’t think about you all that often. And with my mother’s dragon in my wife, things could not be better. Also, and this is something that I wish I had told you many years ago, you have no faerie garden, and once you are dead this time, you will never rise again.” Devon stood up and looked at Nicole. “End his miserable life.”

 

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