Dragon Marked

Stonemore

An invigorating wind swept through the city streets, scraping crisp leaves to rustle against stone. The air whistled past Merrill to rasp against his face and ruffle his hair that brushed his shoulders. Most considered the fall season as one of death, with winter darkness to follow. But he always thought of autumn as a period of renewal. Something about the scent of fallen leaves, damp earth, and pine, with the vibrant carpet of gold, orange, and red beneath his feet was energizing.

At least he had felt that way on Earth. He was still struggling to find his way on Zora.

The palace balcony offered a scenic view of the Ferdon Woods before him. Rising on either side of him were the majestic Tunris Mountains, silent guardians watching all with disdain, their jagged peaks not yet dusted with snow. All around him, the land was draped in autumn’s warm, comforting hues. But the weather atop the mountain had a bitter bite, with plunging temperatures that chilled to the bone and hinted at the winter to come.

Not that it bothered him—hot, cold, wet, or dry. A Dragon King might feel the conditions, but he was never affected by them. Not like humans.

Not like most beings, actually.

Raucous noise rose up, battering the peace he sought. Merrill lowered his gaze to the city below him. It was in utter disarray. Order was gone, and chaos ensued. The other Dragon Kings had wiped their hands of Stonemore. He probably should, too. He wasn’t sure why he had returned. He wanted no part of the place.

He had called the city home for weeks, though he hadn’t walked the streets that switchbacked up the side of the mountain. He had been at the palace. With Villette.

Even now, thinking about her made him cringe.

The first time he had entered Stonemore was with Shaw. They had been sent to figure out who ruled the city in hopes of preventing more children with magic from being killed. Shaw had completed the mission. He, on the other hand, had been ripped apart.

He had been unprepared and completely caught off guard by the change that overcame him. All the anger, despair, and resentment he had carefully—and purposefully—locked away had found its way out, and he hadn’t been able to stop the emotions from flooding him.

And, once released, he hadn’t wanted to.

He had wanted to hurt others. Those who looked at him. People who crossed his path. Anyone.

Everyone.

The uncontrollable need to lash out and inflict as much misery as he had experienced seized him. And there was no turning back. Eons and eons worth of wrath had been unleashed. In the blink of an eye, he’d become someone else. Someone who didn’t care about others. Someone without restraint.

Merrill couldn’t return to the other Kings like that. They had dealt with their pain. He had helped them through those times. But they would see his. There was no way he could hide such rage, even if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure what he was capable of. Or what he might do to them.

So, Merrill had made a decision that day. He’d watched Shaw shift into his true form and fly away with Nia, and then Villette had found him. At first, he hadn’t known who she was, but he discerned that she was much more than she claimed. Her offer to remain at the palace had allowed him to put off deciding his next steps. Villette had been a distraction that’d lasted weeks.

All while his brethren fought against her and searched for him.

He had been unaware of it all. Villette’s power had prevented any dragon from reaching out to him telepathically, and he hadn’t sought out his kind, which allowed her deception to last even longer.

When he learned that Villette ruled Stonemore as The Divine, he didn’t leave. He remained when he discovered that she possessed magic that allowed her to roam galaxies at will with the power of gods. He didn’t fight her. He didn’t try to return to the dragons. Even when he realized other Star People were on the realm, he did nothing.

But he wasn’t exactly hers, either.

Merrill’s internal wrath prevented her from controlling him. It was a small saving grace. Because if Villette had been able to manipulate him as she wanted, he never would’ve met Derek. Discovering a Dragon King Merrill didn’t know changed everything.

Derek’s lack of knowledge about his heritage had spurred Merrill into action. Battle lines were drawn, sides chosen, and he once more joined his brethren. The Dragon Kings and their allies emerged victorious, but it came at a price. Villette was still out there somewhere. And Stonemore…

He studied the people below him. Someone needed to take charge of the city. There had already been a wealth gap, with the rich forcing the poor to live on the four lower levels while the affluent took the other three. The palace sat at the summit of the mountain. The divide had been easy to see and maintain.

The recent battle had forced guards stationed at each level from their posts, and the underprivileged now mingled with the prosperous. Most of the wealthy had barricaded themselves in their homes. It wasn’t just the lack of food and the disappearance of the guards that began the riots, though. It was the sight of Merrill and his kin in the skies.

For centuries, Villette had spewed propaganda about the dragons and magic, making everyone fear those with special abilities. Yet none of the residents of Stonemore had known they had a powerful being governing them.

Villette’s hatred for the dragons and her campaign to wipe them out had started long, long ago when the Star People enslaved the dragons. Her brother had set Merrill’s ancestors free, creating Earth as their home, and that’s where the dragons lived for millennia—free and prosperous. Until Villette found Earth.

Everything that had happened to Merrill and his clan, family, and friends was because of her. And he had chosen her over his own. He hadn’t known about Villette’s involvement then, but that didn’t make his actions any less atrocious or shocking.

None of his brethren had said anything about it. But he knew the facts. He had lived them. Chosen them.

And those actions spoke loudly.

The problem was what to do now. Did he attempt to forget and go on as if he hadn’t let the demons of the past loose? It seemed the best option. It was certainly what his friends wished for him. But he couldn’t. Mainly because he hadn’t faced those demons as all the other Kings had, and he couldn’t rejoin everyone until he did. He was a powder keg waiting to detonate, and that was the last thing anyone needed.

Merrill clenched his hands, then spread his fingers. He’d always had his mountain in the Highlands of Scotland to escape to on Earth. Dreagan was where the Kings had hidden after the war with the humans. It was their home, their oasis. Their paradise.

They’d stayed hidden from mortals for thousands of years until dragons turned to myth and legend. Only then did the Kings emerge from their isolation and venture into the world. They took their skill of distilling to create Dreagan whiskey and become a multi-billion-dollar corporation. They lived in wealth right under humanity’s noses.

But they were caged. Waiting for storms to return to their true form and take to the skies. At least on Zora, within the borders of the land the dragons had claimed, he could shift at will. He could fly as far and as high as he wanted.

It had been glorious.

Yet it caused him to think of when he had roamed Earth. Free and powerful. Before the humans arrived. Before the war. He had shoved all those difficult emotions away, locking them down deep so they would never see the light of day.

He could never have known that coming to Zora and finding the dragons would cause the crack that broke the barrier in his mind where he had shut away all things he didn’t want to face. But it had. And there was no rewinding the clock, no ignoring things. The unruly demons had been sprung from their prison, and they were intent on destroying him.

Merrill turned and retraced his steps back inside the palace. It was all but abandoned now. Only a few servants remained. That wouldn’t last long. Someone, somewhere, would realize the opportunity and seize it. Maybe Constantine should. He was the King of Dragon Kings. Con had kept everyone in line during those first few centuries after the war on Earth. He would be an excellent ruler for Stonemore. But he wouldn’t take the job. The humans wouldn’t allow it.

Merrill’s heels thumped on the red sandstone floors as he strode to the stairs. The palace was vast and sprawling, but people had always moved about its many halls and stairways. Now, there was only the rare sighting of a servant going about their duties because they didn’t have anywhere else to go.

He made his way out of the palace, only to pause atop the steps to look out over the exquisite garden across the road. It had once been a place where the affluent would come and stroll, enjoying the beauty of the flowers while hoping to enter the palace. How long until the garden was filled with people forced to live in squalor for years? How long would it take those who had slept on the street to run the wealthy out of their homes?

He figured it would be a matter of hours, not days. The sound of the mob making their way up the mountain was growing louder. Merrill walked down the steps and out into the unusually empty street. A few guards remained at the gate leading into and out of the eighth level, but there weren’t nearly enough to keep out the coming crowd.

As Merrill approached the gate, he spotted the red-robed Priests of Innus who had joined the handful of Stonemore soldiers. Three of them wore armor. Merrill had a particular hatred for the religious sect established by Villette, mainly because the priests selected those who had magic—and carried out their death sentences.

On children.

Anger coiled within Merrill. Magic surged through him, waiting to be released—along with his wrath—upon the priests. They deserved it. They had taken countless innocents’ lives. All because Villette had deemed it so. And they wouldn’t stop. They would continue even now with the city in disarray.

He could stop them. Easily. No one would miss the murdering priests. But if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop with the three currently here. He would have to wipe them all out.

One of the armored priests noticed Merrill. He whispered something to the others, and they all turned toward him. He hadn’t been looking for a fight, and as tempting as it would be to give in to the mounting rage, it would lead him down a road he wasn’t sure he could come back from.

Tension was high as he neared the group. He took in the measure of each, noting who he’d need to strike first. Merrill wouldn’t have to shift into his dragon form to take out the group of ten staring at him. But as he reached them, the soldiers merely opened the gate and let him through.

Disappointment rubbed Merrill as he walked past. Maybe he did want a fight. Not that a human stood a chance against a dragon—especially not a Dragon King. Long-ago memories of the battle with the humans on Earth surfaced. It took everything he had to walk away and not rid this world of mortals.

A Dragon King didn’t murder. If he were still on Earth and had his clan, the magic would have replaced him as King of Oranges for even contemplating such an action.

The humans began the war. They killed and forced the Kings to send the dragons away. The mortals took everything.

Bloody hell. It would be so easy for him to give in. He hadn’t given in on Earth. But this wasn’t Earth. Merrill shook his head to clear it of those thoughts as he fought to temper his ire.

“Hold up!”

The voice cut through the noise rising from the lower levels. Merrill halted and inwardly smiled. Then, he slowly turned to face the group. A fight it was, then.

One of the soldiers asked, “When is The Divine going to put the city in order?”

Merrill almost laughed out loud. Through the battle that’d featured dragons and Star People, as well as Druids and a hellhound, none of the residents understood that Villette was The Divine. And he wasn’t going to tell them. They wouldn’t believe him anyway.

“I wouldna wait around for order if I were you,” Merrill replied.

His gaze lingered on the blond-haired, armored priest glaring at him. That one would be an issue that needed to be dealt with. That was if Merrill planned to remain in the city. This time, when he walked away, no one stopped him.

The streets on the seventh level were virtually deserted. It was the same on level six—no guards at the gates. When he reached the access to level five, he encountered a swarm of people. They didn’t pay him any heed as they ransacked businesses for food. Merrill almost felt sorry for those whose homes were being destroyed by the crowd. Almost. All of it could have been prevented. The residents now paid for the decisions they made—and the edicts they had followed.

As he approached the gate to level four, he looked toward the temple used by the priests. The top portion had been blown away, and not by any of his friends. No one seemed to know what’d happened. He wished he did so he could commend whoever had managed to desecrate the building.

Merrill didn’t hide his grin as he passed the temple and saw the priests murmuring in agitation as they shot worried glances at the ruins of their holy sanctuary. They were more concerned about the temple than the state of the city or its people. He wondered what they would do if he razed what was left of the temple to the ground. It wouldn’t stop them from killing innocents in the name of some made-up god.

Indignation gripped him, its fingers digging into his chest. The dragon within fought to get free, to show the priests just why they should fear those like him. Fire burned in his lungs, begging to be released. He could cleanse the city and remove any trace of the humans. And Villette.

The temptation was great. Merrill came to a halt and faced the priests. He wanted to see the looks on their faces. Just before he shifted, he sensed Druid magic. Its touch was supple and heady, yet also powerful and compelling. He had felt that particular magic before. Merrill quickly scanned the faces of those rushing about.

Then he saw her.

It wasn’t the first time he had laid eyes on the stunning Druid. And just like before, he was unable to look away from her incredible beauty. Unable and unwilling.

She leisurely walked up the incline of the street toward him while taking in everything going on around her. Hair as black as a raven’s wing hung down her back in soft, luxurious waves. The length was parted down the middle with the sides clasped loosely behind her head, a strand or two falling free to brush her cheeks.

Her elegant, heart-shaped face was mesmerizing. She had a sultry mouth with wide, full lips meant to be kissed—and often. High cheekbones and a delicate nose added to her appeal. Gently arching brows sat over large, stormy gray eyes.

A thin, gray blouse skimmed over her the swell of her breasts and tucked into a black, wide-legged split skirt that hung to her calves. A simple black belt wrapped around her waist, showing off her mouthwatering curves. Her feet were encased in black boots.

The Druid’s name was Katla. She had recently fought against Villette, though not in the same battle as Merrill. She was the same Druid who had been taken to the top of the tower. The one who might very well be responsible for demolishing the temple. For that alone, Merrill wanted to thank her.

Unable to look away, he followed her with his gaze. And he wasn’t the only one staring. A growl escaped when he noticed a priest watching her. They had hauled her to the tower to begin with. They’d had their chance with her.

He would make sure they didn’t get another.

Merrill stepped in front of the priest who’d started after Katla and met the man’s startled gaze. Villette was directly responsible for the deaths in Stonemore, but the priests were more than ready to kill for their false god. Outrage filled him. The fury from before returned with a vengeance. Everyone would be better off if no more of the red-robed men were walking around.

Is this who you’ve become?

Merrill didn’t like the question. And he didn’t like that he couldn’t come up with an answer even more. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He barely remembered who he had been. It was his dragon power, the same potency the magic on Earth had seen and used to appoint him King of the Oranges. That dragon wouldn’t take a life without cause. That dragon would never have considered killing so freely.

Merrill managed to gain control of his bloodthirsty ire. He stepped closer to the priest and dipped his voice low, making it menacing. “Doona even look at her.”