Elena~The view from outside my window was beautiful. Green rolling hills and bright blue skies, I was lucky to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the palace and kingdoms.I had enough to eat every day, and the best that life could have to offer. Life is beautiful and sweet and fulfilling.But it came at a cost. I felt my stomach twist nausea rolling waves through my body, I sat down on my bed, sinking into the soft, plush fabric.Every time I tried to distance myself from the upcoming horror I was sucked right back in. Every time I try to calm my racing heart, the steady beating rose again, threatening to consume me.I took a shuddering breath and felt it, blow out against my hands. I was painfully aware, in this moment of just how fragile I was.How easily broken.I shuddered and tried not to think about it too long or too hard, I still have preparation to make. I still had to get ready for my torturous journey.With trembling leg, I made my way to the bath chamber that was
Chapter 2Elena povCatherine's words sent a shiver down my spine, The Dragon Lord would not be merciful. I knew that much already. He was known all through the land for his cruelty and brutality towards anyone who crossed him.He wasn't someone to be trifled with. He doesn't play nice.And I was to go to his side, I was to leave my home, my kingdom and go to his castle and face whatever he had in store for me.Because if I refused, he will burn my Kingdom to ashes."Perhaps." I echoed, feeling the anxiety flow back into my chest.I have to be strong. Catherine lapsed into the silence and I stared into the distance till she finished doing my hair."Dragons." They are terrifying creatures with untold power.Most of them had gone extinct by now, fighting amongst themselves.But those who had survived this long were not only strong but smart too.They possessed a different kind of power and they possessed everything they needed to survive the unthinkable and prosper in this world.The
Chapter 3Elena pov"I turned away the heaviness in my chest, it was time to go and I needed to act now before I lose my nerves.Turning around slowly, I followed him out of the castle and into the cold air outside and that was how I wanted it.There will surely be a story about what happened to me, but it wouldn't be a true story. I don't want my people to feel uneasy. I don't want them to live in fear.I needed to keep everyone calm and safe. And also I walked out into the cold night on my own.The wind whipped at my cloak and I pulled it tighter around myself. I wondered what the weather will be like at the Dragon Lord castle.No one had ever visited and returned to tell the tales. I had only rumors to go on and I didn't know if they would be trusted.Every step I took dragged me further away from home, further away from the life I had lived for the past twenty years.It was crazy to think so much was going to change.It was crazy to think how quickly life had been rosy and sweet.
Chapter 4Elena POVThe carriage pulled up at the huge iron gate that surrounded the Dragon Lord's castle, I felt shivers move through my body, unbidden.I wanted to draw my knee up and pretended that this isn't happening. I wanted to take care of my people, but this cost felt too high now that I was here.I had to be brave in other to survive. I knew that I really did, but right now my hand wouldn't stop shaking, I pushed them between my knee and held them steady. It was okay. I just had to get through todayAnd then what? It's going to be the end.The carriage pulled up outside of the castle. It was huge, so towering, that I couldn't see the top of the tallest tower from the carriage window. It was gigantic, impressive, and imposing.He was the strongest of all Dragons after all.If this castle was anything to go by, he was certainly powerful. Money, influence, and the strength to take whatever he wanted.I would have admired such strength if he wasn't using it against me right now.
Chapter 5Elena povI took a step back, feeling the hairs at my back stand up.He was gorgeous. I have never expected a dragon to be so attractive. But that didn't make him less of a dragon, or less a danger. Somehow his good looks were even more terrifying.I felt my breath catch in my chest and I did my best to straighten my shoulder and stand my ground."Whatever you have in store for me, I'm prepared." I said, doing my best to keep my voice leveled and stable even though my hands were shaking."Just, please, honor our agreement and leave my kingdom alone."Every part of me was telling me to run. My mind was screaming at me to get out of there now, my hands were shaking as I stared at him down.But I had to stand my ground. I wasn't going to run away.Whatever happened, happened. I wasn't going to flee nor cry.The Dragon Lord looked at me with an expression full of surprise. He looked like he was analyzing me, trying to determine what made me tick.He hummed a soft sound that carr
Chapter 6ElenaThe door slammed behind me, echoing through the darkness of the castle. I reached forward, tugging at the handle, but it was locked from the outside.I had expected to be locked up, but the lack of light was confronting. I was never without light, never without something to guide my way.At home the moon will surely guide my way and shine through my windows, the lantern will burn in the garden. At home, I have the light from the scullery floating up the stairs, the warmth of the fire burning down the stairs.They had always been light in my life. Life and laughter and something to look forward to.But now, there is nothing but darkness, the cold echoing touch of the night. And wasn't that fitting? I was stuck in a world of darkness, after all. I was stuck in a hole where the light of hope no longer burned.I was stuck here with no hope of ever going home and no idea what was going to happen to me.The dread sink into my heart and I felt sick with it. Shuddering, I lean
Chapter 7 Elena pov"Your whole life?" I asked.The hope that has started to rise inside me was falling fast. But Delaney looks happy as she nodded."Yes, of course. My mother was a refugee who fled in this land. I was born here in service." She smiled and I didn't know what to think."It not uncommon to be born into service, right?"She was right. That was a very normal thing to happen, even in my kingdom. If your mother was a maid, you were often a maid too, and so on.Despite that, there was still something about what she said that wasn't common, something I needed to elaborate further on."Yes, that's true. And your mother was a refugee? From where?"Who would possibly need to flee to a kingdom ruled by Dragon? Who would be so desperate, especially in our surrounding lands? My kingdom was flourishing, and many other kingdoms were too.Providing they didn't anger the Dragon Lord, of course. "A country far away from here. She didn't speak of it too much, but she said she had to tr
Chapter 8Dracul's povI leaned against my desk, feeling the smooth wood beneath my hands.The door shut behind me and I listen to the footsteps echo down the stairs. After a few minutes, the noise vanished.What am I doing?I felt the thick knot of tension at my back, between my shoulder blade and I rolled my shoulder to reduce the pain.I had been tense lately, more than normal.Running a kingdom and keeping my people safe for thousands of years had been no small feat and it had taken a lot of planning, strategy, and smarts.But more than anything, it had taken strength. When the mortal saw the slightest inkling of weakness, they pounced on it.But other dragons were the same. All hopping on weakness like it was a great big meal and they were famished.I hated it, I despised every part of this facade, this game, the terrible role that I took. But I did what I had to do. I would keep my people safe no matter what the cost is.I would keep them safe, the few of us the were left, and w
Chapter sixty sevenDraculI awoke with a feeling of intense foreboding, with my sharp ears I could hear the cries of war as it raged on not too far from me, why was I asleep, why was I not part of the fight, it didn't seem right that I wasn't part of it. Like a fog the veil was lifted and my memories fell like snow, blanketing all the crevices of my mind, Elena's scent, her voice and her tears, it seemed like she was here with me, but she wasn't, she was on her own in the battlefield, making the hardest and most terrible choice she could ever make, Elena was leaving me. The thoughts took a few seconds to settle in my head but when it did, a deadening roar escaped my lips and two leathery wings sprouted from my back, I took to the skies, angered and afraid, there was no way I'd let her do this at least not alone.The guards stationed to guard me seemed to have a field day bickering with one another, silently I unfurled my wings and took to sky burning a hole large enough for my esca
Chapter sixty sixDraculAt first I thought a sort of darkness had encroached the lands, but as we approached getting closer and closer, I realized that they were all men, dressed in armor, that resembled the very blackness of night on a closer look, with magical scouts and it was made known that the influence of Chaos had been far spread among them, drawing heavily on their very essence.The Shadow Army as I'd termed them had incited a deep fear in the once riotously psyched men and women and hushed montones and murmurings sifted it's way through the restless crowd, even the horses neighed in dismay and left to them, they'd have bolted out just like many of the faces."Sire," Alvarez's voice came through to me "They are rustlings in the group, how exactly do we win this war, we have planned but all in all this is not a man, neither is it a man's war, where exactly is Elena?"I stared on ahead, not meeting what I assume to be his heavy gaze, I could not tell him we were going to win,
chapter sixty fiveDraculaI burst out from the meeting hall, me alongside a dozen other men who were leaders in their own right. I bit back the order to send them back inside, but the chatter amidst them had already blossomed and the last thing I needed after that maddened announcement was to incite anger in our 'allies', I spotted Gulliver amidst the crowd and he clutched Elena tightly leading through the intent stares placed on her."What does the entity want with your wife?!" A loud prickly voice resonates through the fast growing crowd. The crowd seemed to part for her from her aged face, and dark eyes that glinted with a sense of maddened intelligence, the litter of her cane sent tremors through the crowd and that was what caused the parting, making way until I came eye to eye with the old crone. "Lady DaSilva of the Earthborns" She said curtsying really lowly and yet I could still sense the defiance rolling off of her "The enemy is upon us and war might begin in nothing short
Chapter sixty fourElenaMy body ached as I moved about, the castle had become more of a fortress with soldiers wide eyed and scary, and scared men alike roaming about, increasing chatters filled every nook and cranny, especially since the sky had taken on the reddish tinge and the wisps of Chaotic magic filled the air whispering and sowing vile seeds of fear in their hearts. I had enough weirdness going around from men gazing at me with reverence and communal, with a certain group of witches who seemed pretty intent on adding me into their coven.In the midst of this tumult and chaos, no pun intended, I'd barely been able to get a glimpse of Dracula, to even hope for some alone time with him was a dream I sparsely had enough time to think about it, Currently I sat listening to some sort of magical brigade intervention squad and even with the end of the world looking and everyone legitimately occupied, I'd just about had enough and I felt the insidious strain of a migraine coming on.
Chapter Sixty threeMiranda My hands shook with fears and madness, I couldn't move, a golden framework of spells netted me down, with the last of his life force Taisfet had cast two spells, One to send the wretched traitor Elena away and the other to tie me down to this damned place. Several days seemed to have passed by and the only sustenance I could get was from feeding Chaos into my body.The tree had wilted and crumbled around me and the last days of Order were wilting away, fading off and with each passing second Taisfet's spell waned off and I drowned in Chaos magic, my pale skin and blackened hands and pale almost white skin were proof of it's infestation, as I fed off it, the veins blackened and my thoughts loosened."Yes child!" Chaos Howled with glee "Embrace it! embrace the darkness, together we'll corrupt this mad world!"The golden binds flickered, I sneered at Taisfet's decomposing form, If only he'd just helped, things wouldn't have come to this, maybe Chaos was righ
chapter sixty twoGulliverThe clouds had darkened above the kingdom, between an oncoming war and a maddened unfit king, I pretty much had my hands filled up, although the straw that broke the camel's back would be Elena's sudden and abrupt disappearance with nothing but a note left behind in her stead, even as I read it over and over again, I could not get any proper emotion save for the intense burning rage that threatened to burn through me, How could she leave at a time like this?Every able bodied shifter folk had been stationed from the castle to the very border of the kingdom and yet a deep sense of foreboding filled me, almost as if I knew that she'd slip out, This was pure madness I wasn't cut out for this I wasn't-. "You know arching your back when doing the walk of intense thinking and also sitting down on that hard throne all day is bound to give you a hunch back." A voice said interrupting my spiralling train of thoughts."Whoever you are get the fuck-"The rest of the w
Chapter sixty oneElenaLeaving was the easy part, with the Chaos threat at hand, father and Gulliver were much too ingrained in their plots and defense mechanism to notice me slip out, after all they didn't see me recovering anytime soon and none of them were seemingly aware of the mystical powers that had been gifted to me by the little one growing inside of me.The hard part itself was the journey, the land had begun to heal, but not quickly enough, one false step would lead to an endless abysmal fall, Not to mention, guards were stationed everywhere even though I'd been explicit in the letter I'd left that I was not to be searched for, Gulliver the stubborn headed goat.There was a strange feeling I had, although the journey was presumably treacherous, it always did feel like I was protected from the brunt of it, like some invisible kind of shield or halo of grace that kept the most ferocious of monsters away, nevertheless I was covered up in scrapes and bruises until I reached th
Chapter SixtyMirandaThe wind howled with a ferocity as I made my way through the woods, the landscape had slowly begun to change from the lush forests to a cold and a harsh rocky terrain, the elements themselves seem to be well against me, pretty hell bent on getting me farther and farther away from him.The wind howled with a ferocity, but even with it's harshness the voice of the entity seemingly stuck in my head yelled out even harsher in my head, it was a miracle that I managed to even move given the burden that weighed down on me.I'd just made camp for the night and from the distance I could hear the faint howling of the wolves, for safety I cast another layer of protection around my tent, maybe such a huge one had been a mistake but it'd been deemed necessary along with two other guards who'd been quickly dispatched off by the teeming monsters in the woods of Valor.It was all the same to me though, I could finally drop the glamour and travel freely across the woods, not to m
Chapter fifty-NineElenaThe guards flew like they were made from putty, each hitting the hard stone walks with resounding thuds followed by the snapping of bones and pained yells, in the end, it had taken over fifteen guards to subdue Dracul enough to let us perform a higher grade ritual on him, even then he struggled madly against the luminescent chains keeping him bound and the guards had quite a problem keeping up.'Now my lady," the captain yells at me. “We cannot hold on much longer.”I glanced at Gulliver who gave a nod and together we proceeded with the spell."Zeruko.. kateak moisten dizugu zoramena lotzeko!" We chanted in unison.The words flowed out of our mouths repetitively and despite the immense drain from my still depleted sources I could see the faint inklings of the spell coming to life around him, my consciousness wavered but I needed to keep going, at least for Dracul's sake."Zeruko kateak otoizten dizugu zoramena lotzeko!" The words flowed faster and I leaned int