Shane: Dragon’s Savior – Ménage Erotic Fantasy (Dragon's Savior Book 4) (14 page)

She nodded and asked Kiaran if he was ready. When he nodded, she touched her fingers to his head. When she backed from him seconds later, he thought that something had gone wrong. But when Kiaran thanked her, he realized just how strong she was. In seconds, she’d done what Caroline said that she wasn’t able to.

“The man who shot my sister is Robert Herald. His real name is James, as I might have mentioned before, and while he doesn’t really believe in any of this, the magic and the dragons, he sees a way to profit by having men follow him. The dues paid to him, when they’re paid, go toward paying his mortgage as well as his cell phone bill. He hasn’t worked for months, and the little money that his wife managed to squirrel away is all gone by now as well. Robert is broke.” Asher asked about the money that he’d inherited from his first wife. “Gone too. He was living a lifestyle before she died that was well beyond what they could maintain. And once she was gone, he cashed in all her stocks, and there hasn’t been any more coming into those accounts. And a few months ago he lost his job, the insurance that went with it, as well as the few perks that he was allowed. His wife—and you should know that he plans to kill her as well—is starting to notice the lack of bills being paid.”

“He is now trying to convince someone to cater his party tonight.” Izic came into the room speaking and sat next to his mistress, Ariannona. “I was told to watch him, and today he made several calls to see about food being brought in. No one is willing to work with him. Apparently he has not paid any bills from before. I have also helped that along by messing up phone numbers that he is trying to call. A few footprints here and there and a five could be mistaken for an eight. A seven a fat zero.”

“Before? You said that he hadn’t paid bills from before.” Izic nodded at Shane. “You mean that he’s called a meeting before to kill someone? Do the police know this?”

“No one was killed, thankfully, at that meeting. Mostly they just sit around drinking and eating and talking about the supposed witches that they come across.” Lelani sat down beside him and Shane as she continued. “Tonight, however, there are bigger plans. And Roger has been watching them build a pyre. There are several cords of wood being brought in as well. I have no idea why they’d do this when someone will surely notice the enormous fire they will have. I wonder if they even realize that witches weren’t actually burned at the stake in this country.”

“It was the threat of it, I think.” Keion asked Caroline what she meant. “Women, sometimes even children, were said to have been tainted by black magic when a doctor, mostly a fool who was steady with a knife, couldn’t figure out what sort of disease a person might have. Or worse yet, something so common as freckles or red hair. Anything and everything that made them different, not
normal,
as they called it, were subject to tests to see if they were indeed witches. But the stake, or the threat of it, was never used all that often. What they did, however, was just as barbaric. They would hang them, even children, remove their heads, and then incinerate them. We did not live in a time of asylums or places that can care for people, so they would rid the world of them by simply calling them something that they weren’t, then killing them off.”

“But tonight, they’re planning this big party to kill off a few people that are in their way.” Lelani and Caroline both nodded at Keion. “Christ, this is worse than I thought it was going to be. They’ve taken something so horrific and turned it in to something they can profit from. How can we keep this from happening again down the road?”

“We can’t.” Keion thought that Lelani was kidding, but he realized that she was telling him a fact. “All we can do is slow them down a bit before it gets well out of control. People can and will murder for any kind of reason. How they do it, how they bring their own form of justice to someone, is never something you can count on. What you can count on, however, is that people will take something and twist it up into something so totally different than what it started out as and make it work for them. There were bad witches, there still are. And it might have started out with the Herald killing them off when they got out of control. But then people got it in their head that they could use it for their own sort of gain. Get rid of a mother-in-law that is living with an already too large family. A neighbor that is encroaching on their land at times by letting his sheep eat the grass they own. Even someone that has nothing more to do with them than they might have slighted them unknowingly. It’s one of the main reasons that I have stayed alone, kept away from people for so long.”

He could certainly understand that now. As the rest of them talked about the meeting tonight and the plans that they were making, he thought of the things he’d seen over his lifetime. And he realized that Lelani was right. People sucked. Well, not all of them, but the few who did sure made it terrible for the rest of the world.

They were going to meet at the field an hour before the men were to gather. The wives, girlfriends, and a few others that had been invited were coming an hour after the meeting started, they’d been told. Keion thought it was like bringing a last meal to those men who were to be killed. Or a better one would have been bringing lambs to the slaughter. As they prepared for the meeting, Lelani went to talk to the dragons with the help of Lindsey. He asked to talk to Asher.

“These men, do you know what we’re going to say to them? How we’re going to take care that they stop?” Asher said that they’d try to talk, but he doubted that it would work. “I’m worried that they’ll hurt Lelani. She’s pretty powerful, and they’ll go after her first of all.”

“They’ll try.” Keion said he didn’t think that was a good thing. “No, not for them anyway. They’re going to come up.... Let me ask you something, Keion. Are you worried for her or for the men that are going to wish to Christ that they’d never heard of the Herald and the men who run that group? Because they’re not going to know what the fuck hit them when they try anything. Lelani alone can take them, of that I have no doubt. But with all of us there? And the dragons too? They are going to be so terrified that they’ll not even think about hurting her.”

He hoped so. But in his experience, and he’d been around as long as Asher, nothing was ever as easy or as simple as it looked. There was always that one fucking idiot that would do something so out of character for himself that people would die. Keion decided that whether or not it was part of the plan, he was going to be his dragon so he could get in, do some serious damage, then get her out. He told Shane his plan.

“I agree with you. We’ll stand beside her, but you are better equipped to keep her safe than I am.” He was so glad that Shane agreed with him that he let out the breath he’d been holding. He just knew he was going to tell him that she’d be fine too. “But you have to promise me that you’re going to be safe as well. I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to either of you.”

“I swear to you that I won’t try to get hurt.” Shane told him that wasn’t what he meant. “I know it’s not, but I’m not going to stand back and let any of us get hurt if I can help it. And if it means I get hurt, then so be it. Hurt can heal. Dead? There is no coming back from that.”

As they worked on the castle—very little had to be done right now as it was still moving into place—Keion wondered if other dragons were on their way. So far, at last count, there were over sixty of them. Then there were the brownies and faeries that seemed to come in daily. Just last week he’d been flying overhead on his way to the quarry when he saw a group of larger dragons playing in the fields. It was a sight that he thought not long ago that he’d ever see. And now, just because of his mom and dad making it possible, they were finding out that they weren’t the last of their kind. It was the most amazing thing.

Chapter 8

Everything was in place. Robert had had to call in a few favors, a lot of them actually, to have food brought in. And a few promises that he’d not been sure of at first, but was warming to the idea of killing someone off for the services he wanted. Right now he had three women, all of them chained up in the sublevels of the charter house they were using, ready to be slaughtered. His dick got hard just thinking about the three of them chained to the walls and naked. He wanted to go down there and take the one with the big tits again.

He’d gone down to check on them after the six men who had brought them in took them to the basement and tied them up. When it seemed to him that they were taking a very long time to do something so simple, he’d gone down to check on them. They were fucking the women while they were chained up, and Robert had nearly come in his pants when he watched one of the men slap the woman he’d been fucking.

Robert had never thought of himself as a sadist. But fuck, it was hot watching those women being held there, their arms and legs bolted to the walls and their pussies right where a man could fuck them. The men hadn’t even bothered to strip down, just pulled down their pants far enough to free their dicks and slam them into them.

“You want a try?” He looked at the man who was fisting his cock while he seemed to be waiting his turn. “I never done it like this before, but when those two did it first, I thought what the fuck. Ain’t even my wife that I’m fucking, either.”

He watched the men, three of them with their pants down around their asses, taking the women hard and fast. When one of them stumbled back, the man he’d been talking to moved in and starting fucking the woman. Robert moved closer, just close enough, he told himself, to make sure that they weren’t hurting them. But as soon as he saw the dick of the man closest to him going in and out of the woman, Robert felt his own dick fill up and hurt with need. Then he saw her.

The woman had the biggest tits he’d ever seen. Not only were they as big as cantaloupes, but her nipples looked to be about two inches long and as thick as his thumb and more. His mouth watered to suckle one of them into his mouth. Hell, he wanted to fuck them. When it was his turn with her, he pulled his pants down fast enough that he nearly took his dick off.

But instead of fucking her, he took her breast into his mouth and did just what he wanted, suckled at her. And when a ripe sweet taste filled his mouth, he looked up at her.

“Ever since I had me boobs, I’ve had me milk in them. You go on now and fill your belly with it. Mother’s milk is good for your cock.” He nodded and suckled at her again. “That’s it baby, momma is gonna feed her baby. You give me that cock of yours and we’ll see if we can have us a little fun.”

He wanted to take her down, to lay her out over the table and take her hard while she squirted her milk over him. When he slammed his cock into her, she cried out and he lifted her breast up for him to suck. But before he could do that, milk sprayed him in the face and on his chest.

It was by far the most erotic thing he’d ever had done to him. Fucking her harder, her breast in his mouth again, he used his other hand to milk her. Christ, his body was soaked with her milk. And when he came, throwing back his head and fucking her deeper, she cried out as well and sprayed him all over his chest and face with both breasts.

Staggering away from her, his dick still semi hard, he watched as another man took her. Robert wanted to shove him out of the way and fuck her again and again. But before he could have another go at her, he was called away. Christ, he hated being in charge at times.

“Are you listening to me?” Robert looked at the man standing beside him and nodded. “You have not been listening to me. You look like you’ve been.... What the fuck is on you? You’re all sticky, like you’ve bathed in ice cream or something.”

“Or something.” He adjusted his cock. “What is it you brought me up here for? I’m assuming that everything is going as we planned.”

“Sort of. The stake isn’t working out the way we wanted it to. According to your notes, it’s supposed to be four feet in the ground with five cords of wood around it. Your ancestors, that’s the way they said it had to be, and were very specific about the rules for burning a witch and making sure that her magic didn’t harm those around them. But when we load it up that way, there isn’t any room for the witch.”

It was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen when he looked at it now. It looked like there was maybe a foot at the top of the stake, and there was so much wood around it that he was hard pressed to not laugh. He turned to Wilbur, the man who had been helping him prepare for this thing, and had to let out a long breath or two before he could speak.

“How tall did it say the stake had to be?” Wilbur scratched his head and said he’d not checked on that. “And I’m pretty sure that when it said five cords of wood, it meant that you put them there after the witch was on the stake. It might have been roomier for you had you done it that way.”

“Yeah, I can see where that might be helpful. I was really wondering how I was going to get my wife up there on that little bitty thing. She’s a larger woman.” Robert was still a bit squeamish about this whole thing. “I’ll get to that right now.”

He had fools working with him. And the worst part was, Wilbur was probably the smartest one in the whole group. Every time he had a chance to look around, the men were talking about what it was going to be like to be without their loved one. He wondered if a single one of them had given any thought to what it was going to be like to burn someone alive. His own plans were to simply kill his wife by breaking her fucking neck. He’d even watched videos on how to hold her to make it a clean break. Christ, he wondered what else he might find on the Internet, and decided to find out when this shit was done. But there wasn’t any way he was hanging around when the women were burned. Fucking some nice tits was what he was planning.

He’d been out cooking burgers for his wife and son yesterday when it hit him it would be like this. The sizzling sound, the way the meat burned up. He had to go to the bushes and throw up twice before he was able to take them off the grill and into the house. And Robert had not been able to eat a single bite of them. It was just too much. Yet here he was going along with this like he had not a single care in the world.

As he made his way to the building—he told himself it was to check on things—he felt the air get warmer around him. Turning to see if the fools had set the fire already, he fell back on his ass when a dragon—a real live, mother fucking giant dragon—landed on the ground in front of him. Two men—he didn’t even know their names—were crushed beneath the beast’s foot. And when the dragon turned and set fire to the stakes that had been set up, Robert watched them burn in abject horror.

“Hello, Robert. I told you I’d be back.” He looked at the woman in front of him, tearing his eyes away from the single stake that had not been scorched. Like it was there just for him. The others, the ones with all the wood stacked up around them, were burning out of control. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

“Dragon. He’s.... There’s fire.... There’s a dragon on the.... Did you see that?” She turned and looked, then looked back at him. “There is a dragon there.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of it. I rode in here on him. And I brought more. Would you like to see them as well?” He nodded, then shook his head. His entire body was hot now, the chill in the day completely gone now that the dragon had shown up. But before he could ask Lelani if she really had ridden in here on the back of a dragon, six more dragons, smaller but no less dangerous, landed near her. “This is my family, and you’ve fucked with the wrong group.”

“Family? You’re a witch
and
a dragon?” He started to stand but a long blade, like ones he’d seen in medieval movies, was put at his throat. Robert looked up at the man standing over him. It was as if he were in a surreal movie and he’d not gotten a script. “You’re wearing a crown.”

His mind, he thought, had simply shut off. A man in a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and a crown was holding a sword at his throat that looked to have more jewels on it than he’d seen in any shop. The crown was just as covered and beautiful. The need to touch the blade, even to see if it was as sharp as it looked, had him lifting his hand up.

“You touch that and he’ll be obligated to remove your empty head.” Robert snatched his hand back so quickly that he felt the bite of the blade cut into him. “Now, this is how this conversation is going to go. You’re going to disband this merry group of men, give me the book that you have been using, and free the women you have in the basement.”

“I didn’t fuck them.” He snapped his mouth closed when he realized what he’d said. The man and Lelani laughed. “What I meant to say was, I didn’t bring them here.”

“But you did intend to burn them, didn’t you? By the way, I’d like you to meet my brother-in-law, Asher, king of the dragons. You can’t lie to him. So when he asks you a question, you’ll tell him the truth. The reason that I’m making sure you understand that is because there is someone else here I’d like for you to meet. But then, I’m pretty sure you know him as well. Agent Dominic Fitzpatrick. He’s the man in charge of investigating the death of Beth Herald and Peter Winebarger. You remember them, don’t you?”

“I want you to stop this right now.” She laughed again. “I swear to you, on my son’s heart, that I will cease this right now and you’ll never be bothered by me and my group again. You can even have my book. It’s in the basement in the safe. But you have to send him away and leave me in peace. I’ve decided that this is not what I set out for.” He gave her the combination and she turned and nodded to another man, who left them.

Asher, the huge king, pulled out a sheet of paper. It was almost comical to see him dressed as he was when the man next to him was in a suit and tie. When a dragon about the size of a tall man came to stand next to Lelani, he wondered if he was going to get a break and the dragon would eat her. Instead of something going his way, the dragon put his great head on her shoulder and purred.

“This is my husband, Keion. My other husband is coming now with your book. I told you before that you were messing with the wrong family here. And I’m going to be thrilled to death to know that I, a mere woman and witch, was able to bring you down.”

It occurred to him then, something that Cybil had told him not long ago. “You’re the daughter. The daughter of Mary Wayne and one of my relatives. Your mother really was a witch? And you have a fucking dragon as a mate? Christ, my family will never believe this.” She told him no one would. “What do you mean? You’re right there. And Fitzpatrick there, he can see them.”

“See what? The only thing I’ve seen, Herald, is a man that is about to confess to a lot of crimes on my books. Now then, Asher, if you’d be so—”

“Wait a minute. You have to see them. There are….” He looked around the people and counted. “There are eight dragons here. Eight of them. And one of them is as big as a house. You cannot expect me to believe that you can’t see them. They’re right fucking there.”

Instead of looking around, the man only cleared his throat. This was ridiculous, Robert thought, there wasn’t any way that they couldn’t see them. Christ, the one that Lelani had claimed to have ridden upon was laying down with his eyes closed. Like it was fucking boring to him to be here.

“Robert James Herald, did you kill Bethany Winebarger Herald?” He tried to keep his tongue between his teeth by biting it. But it did no good when Asher asked him again. “Did you kill Peter Winebarger, father to Bethany, your wife?”

“Yes. Fuck yes. They were going to throw me out of my own home.” Asher asked him if Beth had asked him for a divorce. “No, she flat out told me that she was filing. I thought for sure that she had, but nothing ever came of it.”

“And Lynne Hardgrave Herald, were you planning to kill her as well?” Robert told him that he was. It really was as if he couldn’t lie to him. “What of your son? Was he on your list as well?”

“My son? No, why would he have to die? He is my heir. And someone who is going to carry on the Herald works. Did you know that my father never did a thing about this?” He laughed, feeling his head spin around at what he was seeing with his own eyes. “If he was here now, do you have any idea what he’d think? Hell, I’d bet you a buck that he’d piss his pants.”

“Did you kill Erin, my sister?” Robert looked at Lelani and nodded, and felt his mind simply snap when he watched the great dragon lick her neck. He wondered again if he was going to eat her, but knew that he couldn’t be so lucky. “I should just let him kill you.”

“The cop, the king, or the dragon?” Robert let the burble of laughter escape from his mouth. “Sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn’t it? The cop, the king, and the dragon went to town. The townspeople were so afraid. Do you think he might eat us asked the townspeople? I don’t know, said the man, we’ll have to wait and see.”

He was still going on about his town and the dragon when he was shoved toward a car. Robert knew that he was going to prison, for a great many years. But he’d tell his story, let everyone he knew know about the dragons and witches he’d seen this day.

“Robert?” He turned and looked at the woman standing next to him. She was gorgeous, and it took him several seconds to realize it was his wife, Lynne. She had gotten dressed up, her hair done. When he asked her how she had afforded that, she smiled at him and he thought of the dragon with the sharp horn on his head. The way his tale had swung around, taking down the burning stakes. “You’re not going to say a word about the dragons and witches here today. Do you want to know why?”