The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

BOOK: The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2)
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Y Ddraig Goch hatched just as they returned to the castle. The egg broke apart and a keening and crooning red-leather creature stretched his wings for the first time. He cried out for his mother, but found only a young king who stared at him as Merlin uttered spells over the both of them. He was a small beast at first, with wise yet confused eyes that soaked in his cold and human surroundings.

The Red Dragon grew quickly, eating whole chickens, then goats, cows, and horses. Arthur let his beast fly free, and he devastated the lands of subsistence farmers with fiery fly-overs. At first I did not understand why my brother would want a creature like him, but then came war. Always war, wherever kings and knights existed.

Y Ddraig Goch became both expert council and the ultimate weapon for Arthur. My brother went to the battlefields and won eleven battles straight with the dread Y Ddraig Goch in his service. Arthur rode across his newly conquered lands as his men raised their Red Dragon flag high. The true dragon flew high above them, keeping watch for any danger.

But then came the Battle of Camlann, full of smoke and fog, magic and death. And crows—so many of the death-eaters swirling through the gray sky. I had not meant to be there, not planned on it at all, but my sister was ill and my Aunt and I were stuck in Camlann with her, healing her in a small flea-ridden inn. The battle, a fight between Mordred and Arthur, erupted in the fields outside the small town. I crawled out the inn’s small window on the second floor and sat on the wet thatched roof and watched. It was a typical battle: a fight of men who were too proud to sit across the table and hammer out any sort of diplomacy, though I had no such thoughts like that back then. I knew nothing of those things in those days, either.

I watched men parry, joust, and fall, each of them disbelieving that they could die until they too lay on the ground gasping and bleeding. I watched in the center of the field where Arthur thrust toward Mordred, both of them slow-moving from the awkward weight of armor. Arthur clunked forward and sank the famed Excalibur through Mordred’s breastplate, and Mordred, in the throes of his own death, managed to throw a battle axe at my brother’s belly.

Arthur fell hard. A moment later, Y Ddraig Goch tumbled out of the sky and landed keening beside him, not visibly wounded, yet writhing in pain just as my brother did.

I jumped from the roof and ran to Arthur. Despite all of our tangled history, he was always and first my brother. When I got to him, Merlin stood over him with arms full of magic, throwing spell upon spell at Arthur, though none of them could reverse what was happening.

Merlin, still my mortal enemy back then, had turned to me, storm-eyed, and told me I must take Arthur to Avalon. My birthplace was an island full of light and healing. Half out of his mind, Merlin begged that I take Arthur there.

I had every reason to say no, for it was a fool’s mission, but he looked so broken, this man I had fought and would fight again. There must be some honor among mages.

“I doubt Arthur will survive the journey. And what of the dragon?” I asked.

“What of him? He was meant to protect Arthur. He failed,” Merlin said.

The beast lay in agony, murmuring the names of his ancestors and wishing he could have met some of his own kind.

“There is some magical connection between the Dragon and Arthur? Some spell that made Arthur strong through this creature?” I guessed.

Merlin gave me a haunted look. “Perhaps the spell can still save Arthur.”

“No. It is killing the Red Dragon. Let the creature go, and I will take Arthur to Avalon.”

Merlin sneered and muttered about the tender and foolish hearts of women, but he broke the spell between Arthur and the Dragon.

Y Ddraig Goch growled as he rose slowly up into the sky, like a balloon floating upward at first, but then his wings stretched wide and he flapped them a couple of times before moving swift and sure. He circled the battlefield before making a wild roar and flying away.

Soon thereafter, I left for the Isle of Apples with my sister, my Aunt, and my dying brother.

I came back to myself, back to this far away and modern moment, heaving and gasping on the cold, concrete floor of Morgan’s Ephemera. Lila and the dragon stood above me.


What ails the witch?” the dragon hissed.


Um, nothing at all wrong with Morgan,” Lila said as she chewed on her lip. She leaned down and whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

I got up and I walked over to the round card table in the back of the store. I sank into one of the folding chairs.

“I’m getting over the flu,” I told the dragon. Dark stars danced at the edge of my vision. Wetness trickled down my nose, and I wiped blood away with a handkerchief.

“The flu? You pulse with a pale magic that stinks of rosemary and remembrance,” the dragon said and raised one eyebrow. She sat down across from me.

“We can sit around discussing my health,” I snapped, “but I seem to recall that you need my help.”

She scowled and opened her mouth to speak, just as the door to my shop flew open.

I turned to yell that the store was closed, but it was Adam and Merlin. The wolf looked good in his rumpled “cute one in a boy band” way. Merlin looked wild and out of breath. His hair was an unruly mess and he held a white ball of magic in one hand.

“A dragon?” he said.

I turned and glared at Lila.

My shop-girl shrugged. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought I should text Adam and tell him things were getting weird here in case—”

“In case what?” I glared at everyone.

“In case you kept having seizures on the floor and weren’t okay,” she whispered miserably.

Merlin stalked toward our table, keeping hold of his magic. The dragon’s aura flared as he and the dragon studied each other. The air filled with the scent of smoke.

“To what pleasure do we owe your visit, dragon?” Merlin asked, outwardly calm.

“Who are these men, Morgan of the Fay? Send them away, or I will turn them into blackened sausages.”

“No one commands me in my own lair,” I said. “If either of you are thinking it would be acceptable to use magic against each other here, there will be consequences,” I warned. No dragon would respect me if I didn’t defend my turf.

Merlin sighed, dissolved his magic by making a fist, and sank down into the chair beside me. Our knees touched. “You should have called me the second
that
showed up.”

“Should I have?” I asked archly and rubbed my forehead where a splitting headache was emerging. “Because I have no idea how to take care of myself?”

“Lass, you did ask me to stay in Seattle and watch out for you until

.” He glanced at the blue line on my wrist and said nothing more.

I’d asked him to stay here until my memory returned. I had practically begged him to watch over me while I was vulnerable. “You are right. I am sorry.”

Merlin mouth dropped open. So did Lila’s. And Adam’s.

“What now?” I asked.

Merlin grinned and patted my hand. “Not sure that such humble words have ever been uttered by you, fair witch.”

“Is it my fault that I’m rarely wrong?”

“And there’s the Morgan we know and love,” he said easily and gave me a playful wink.

Love
. I blushed stupidly and moved my knee away from his.

“So,” Adam said, grabbing a stool and sitting at the small table that was now crowded with legs and chairs. “You’re a dragon? Like, a were-dragon? I’m a werewolf. Are we distant cousins or something?”

She turned her burning, coal-dark eyes on him, her mouth a thin flat line. “No.”

“You come from a noble and entirely different stock, lad,” Merlin said, patting Adam’s shoulder.

“Dragons are dragons. We are not related to others. We do not interbreed.” The dragon looked like she wanted to murder someone. A lot of someones.

I spoke quickly, fending off more questions. “A dragon clutch has four eggs. Two look like the dragons from stories, and two look like humans. All of them are fully dragon.” I added, because I did not wish Lila or Adam to ask the next obvious question and draw the dragon’s ire, “To mate, they must have both kinds come together.”

“Kinky,” Lila said.

“I will eat your entrails with mint sauce,” the dragon said. Sparks fell from her mouth. They hissed and burned into the wood of the table.

“You need my help,” I reminded her.

“What kind of help?” Merlin asked calmly. He was the ocean pretending there weren’t leviathans beneath.

“My father has been kidnapped. You must save him.” She stared at me. “You are a friend of his, Morgan, and the Red Dragon needs your help.”

 

 

 

 

 

3

Hot Headed

“The Red Dragon?” Adam asked. “Who’s the Red Dragon?”

“The grandest dragon the world has ever known,” the girl said. “You ignorant dog.”

“Or not known,” I said. “Dragons disappeared long ago from the known world.”

“You mean the human world,” the girl said.

“And the under world,” Merlin added. “Most assumed you’d gone extinct.”

“How much abuse must a species suffer before they withdraw from the world that hunts and hurt them?” the dragon snapped.

Merlin sighed and nodded.

“So there’s a dragon island or something somewhere?” Adam said. “Cool.”

The girl hissed a warning at him.

Adam held up both hands. “No intention of going there. I’m down with separatist autonomous communities. I’m just impressed Google maps hasn’t found you.”

The waifish girl looked like she might bite his head off, which she was easily capable of.

“Dragons can do almost anything they set their minds to.” I gave Adam and Lila warning glances.

Lila blathered on, as though one of the most powerful creatures on the planet wasn’t sitting across from her. “So if you’re so separate from everybody, and so strong, how’d your dad get kidnapped?”

Thick sparks fell from the dragon’s mouth and burned into the table.

“Woah. I’m not asking because I don’t believe you about being powerful,” Lila said. “It just seems like we really need to know the answer to help you.”

The dragon turned her gaze to me. “I do not fully know. They took him somehow. Mesmerized him, perhaps, but how he does not break free is a mystery to me. They placed him on a cargo ship and told me I must follow and do whatever they ask, or he will be swiftly murdered. I need you, Morgan le Fay, grand witch and helper of dragons, to free him.”

“What can I do, that you cannot?” I asked.

Her orange aura flared wildly and she sat up straight. “When the cargo ship reached Seattle, the men parlayed with me and said I must find and bring them someone in this town. When I do, they say they will set my father free. They promise they will release the Red Dragon when I give them Merlin. He is your enemy too. It is good luck you are in town, and so easy to find. Help me find him.”

“Um

.” Lila said.

“Hold up. Can we just hold on for a second?” Adam added.

I glanced at Merlin. It was his move.

A look of resignation covered his face. “And here I am. It seems you have found Merlin.”

The dragon blinked slowly. Her lips pulled back in a reptilian grimace as she glanced at me for confirmation.

I cleared my throat. “Some things have changed since the ninth century. We used to be enemies. True. Later on

.” Well, I didn’t know the whole truth of later on, did I? I remembered a man who I could talk to for hours and never get tired of. I remembered a man who made me happy. But what had really happened between us? I didn’t know how to finish my sentence.

“You. You are Merlin Emrys? Merlin Ambrosius?” Her voice turned raspy and harsh as raw magic danced wildly around her small form.

“Yes, and I vow to help your father however I can, regardless of consequences.”

“Merlin the destroyer? Merlin the egg snatcher?” The dragon stood, kicking her chair behind her. She opened her mouth wider than any human could. A rage of fire and magic exploded out of her, aimed at Merlin.

His body lifted up into the air and smashed into the bookcase behind him. The air filled with heat and the smell of burning hair and cloth. My hands fluttered to my pockets. What spells did I have on hand? How could I stop her?

But this was Merlin. He needed no help.

The wizard raised no hand in his own defense. Though the hellish blaze burned around him, he stared at the dragon with a sad look. Protection spells he must have placed on himself long ago activated due to the attack. A shimmering white light coated his body and pushed against the fire. Silvery orbs fell off him and bounced like rubber balls toward her.

She paid no attention to them as she kept screaming and blasting him with fire and dragon-magic.

The first ball hit her in the knee. It splattered and spread what looked like paint across her pants. The silver moved down her calves and up her thighs. The next one hit her belly, and moved quickly upward.

BOOK: The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2)
11.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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