Dragon Vanquished: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (Dragon Gladiators Book 4) Read online

  The crunch of a leather sandal against the sand sounded behind me and I turned around and came to face with the tallest woman I had ever seen. Not a muscular and tall dragoness but a beautiful curvaceous woman with bronze skin dusted in gold, ten feet tall, swathed in silks and golden thread. She would have been the most beautiful woman I had ever seen if not for her lion's head covered in curly hair.

  Maybe a few months ago, I would have jumped and maybe screamed and shocked but I was finding out every single day that I could be shocked less and less. She wasn't the dumb brute that the minotaur had been, she was beautiful and ethereal, backlit by the setting sun in a way that made her nearly glow a molten orange and dusky pink color. My eyes gazed over her, so beautiful and terrifying to behold.

  "Who are you?" I asked. Her ink-black curls rustled in the desert wind, uncovering a golden crown sitting atop her head.

  "This isn't the time you were born in Roman, this isn't the magically-scorched earth of your time, where theGodsare dying just like your planet, where magic is as extinct as an ancient creature, killed by humanity," She continued, ignoring my question. "The Concilium you escaped is a part of that. That terrible pact betweenGodsand Human, the Earth is tied to humans and gods, killing off all the magical creatures only spurs the dying of magic of the world."

  "I want to find my dragons and I plan to destroy the Concilium. Have you ever heard that quote, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I promise I'll leave as soon as I find Cobalt! I'll leave and never return," I continued. "Do you want me to get on my knees and beg you? Because I'm not ashamed to do so. I would do anything to have them back and I'll do anything to punish those godforsaken warlocks who stole ten years of time from us."

  I started to bend down ready to bow, grovel into the sand, but she put up a hand to stop me. I looked up at her with tears in my eyes, my activated card twitching in my palm.

  "Cocky Romans, or should I say the Greeks? Think they're the most powerful of pantheons. To see one such as you try to grovel at my feet, it is so very tragic but utterly delightful. You don't even know what you are, do you?" She told me, her cat's mouth curving up into a Cheshire grin, her black lips contrasting with her sharp white fangs.

  "No," I answered, about to ask what I was but she cut me and continued to speak.

  "You really love your four dragons, don't you? You happily wear those marks on your neck?"

  "Yes, yes, more than anything. They were my four closest friends my entire life. I lost them as a young woman and we spent ten years apart. I only recently got them back," I felt the tears spill out from my eyes, unsure why I was spilling my guts to a stranger, a lion-headed ten foot tall one at that. "I wasted so much time being worried about ruining our friendship, not wanting to complicate our situation, taking for granted that we would win and go back home and I would never have to part from them again. I thought everything would turn out okay but here I am, alone again and I hate myself for wasting what little time I had with them. That they held me in their arms only a few times before the flew away from me. I once thought I wouldn't be able to survive another separation from them but now I know. I know that the most terrible thing is that I will survive. That I can't die of a broken heart, I simply have to learn how to live with it. Everyone tells me that I'm stupid and foolish. That clinging to the hope of seeing them again will only make me suffer worse later. That I'm stuck in the denial stage of grief. That deep down in my heart, I have to know that I'll never see them again. But that's bullshit."

  I could feel my temper rise and I knew that I was supposed to keep talking and blabbering so this creature--goddess? thought I was weak and not a threat but as I spat out the words I realized the truth other them.

  "It's bullshit because as long as they're alive, I can't let them stay monsters. They would hate what they have become and if I can't bring them back to their senses and clear minds then I have to stop them from doing any further damage," I sighed and looked directly into the cat-headed woman's eyes, all slit pupils and darkness. It would have been impossible to gauge her reaction to my words if her black lips weren't frozen in a snarl that revealed sharp white fangs. I was used to causing that reaction in people, I always said what was on my mind and blabbered. I had long ago accepted that was my biggest flaw. Unfortunately, it was even worse than usual after a month of silence.

  "I admit it, I was scared. I chose to leave with Tartarus and took refuge in his prison dimension because I feared the powers of the Concilium. I chose to hide and was rewarded with being trapped, I wasted time trying to break out without hurting Tartarus because I think my friend has a crush on that bald-headed bastard. It would have been a lot simpler if I had fought the Concilium off and escaped on my own. I would have made it to Cobalt before he could ravage Alexandria. I was a coward but those mother fuckers should be afraid of me. My magic is stronger than there’s. I wield cards, dice, and coins. I broke through Tartarus, I fought evil titans and creatures to monstrous to ever be set free. I would like to correct my earlier statement. I'm no longer going to beg for permission to be here, to go see my own dragon."

  "Than what are you going to do?" The cat-headed woman asked. Her voice surprisingly neutral despite her facial expression.

  "I'm going to do you a favor and find my dragon, to save him or put him out of his misery," I shrugged, surprised at my own casualness, shocked at the steadiness of my voice and that I wasn't shaking in my proverbial boots any longer. "If you could capture him or kill him, you would have done it already. So save the intimidation, save the threats and let's be the intelligent women we truly are and work together."

  I expected her to launch herself at me in an attack, her sharp-nailed hands flexing her fingers. I hovered a hand over my deck holster. Her eyes lingered on my hand before returning to my face. I pictured the strength card. A card with a powerful women wrestling a lion, stretching it's sharp-fanged jaw wide, etched into the wood.

  "We may not be able to harm that terrible lizard but we can harm you. If the black and silver behemoth isn't defeated in one way or another by dawn's first light, your life is ours," She told me. It wasn't an agreement, it wasn't a suggestion, it was a truth.

  "Fair enough," I nodded. I looked to my side, at the city below, at the first lanterns of the night being lit. "Can anyone show me where he has been mostly fixating his attacks?"

  I turned back and they were gone. I hadn't heard them leave, not even the crunch of sand beneath a sandal or the rustle of the evening wind.

  I shrugged and sighed. I guess it was an agreement. Would I mercifully drop dead at dawn if I failed or would they make it excruciating? I was fairly certain I knew the answer.

  I had one task for tonight. Find and bring Cobalt back to himself. I sighed. At least if I failed, I wouldn't be wallowing in misery for very long.

  As I stared at the city, the wind started to pick up, dropping the temperature of the desert. I felt gypped, weren't deserts supposed to be warm. I hugged my thin clothing tightly to myself and shivered. I started walking back toward the city, my arms crossed and posture hunched. I was surprised there weren't more people outside of the town but I guessed that had a lot more to do with a dragon on the loose every night rather than

  I didn't have to wait very long to figure out what I was going to do.

  A loud roar rang out into the night air and a dark shadow barely discernable against the dark blue of the sky got closer and closer. My heart banged against my chest. Cobalt! I felt tears nearly spring into my eyes. I had missed him so much, even if he wasn't really himself right now. I ran toward the roar, sprinting as fast as my tired legs could take me. I really should have told them I would try tomorrow after a nap and a bath. I shook that selfish thought away. I had to keep Cobalt from killing anyone, hurting anyone. I sure hoped he hadn't been eating people. I winced at that terrible thought, I really hoped he wasn't eating people.

  I made it back to down to the city just as Cobalt began his flight over it. His massive wings, ebony and silver, str
etched out over town sending a gust of wind through the city that knocked both me and fleeing citizens to the ground. The large grained sand bit into my skin and I winced. My forearms and the fronts of my thighs were bleeding and scaped to hell. Screams and panic raged around me, people screaming in a language I didn't understand. I stumbled to my feet, breathing a shaky breath in and out. I had been through way worse than this, I could do this. I could do this. I repeated in my head like a mantra. Cobalt bayed again, his roar shaking the stone buildings of Alexandria, the terror of the people was palpable in the air, you feel the oppressing aura of fear weighing down on the city.

  The world around me went dark and silent as he flew overhead. Cobalt was so large that his form blocked out the light of the crescent moon. You could see the glimmer of his metallic scales and the slick sound of metal sliding against metal. A shiver ran through me. How tragic would it be if after so many years apart, reunited and then separated again only to have him kill me? If he came back to his right mind afterward he would hate himself, the rest of our family gone unfound and unchanged.

  I sighed and ran toward where he was flying. I pulled a card from my deck, willing the deck to help me choose my best course of action.

  I flipped the card over. A naked woman standing in front of an apple tree held her arms out to the heavens, next to her a naked man standing in front of a burning tree. Together they looked up toward the heavens at a red-winged angel with hair made of golden flames. A blazing sun shined behind the angel. The Lovers card. If my heart wasn't racing a mile a minute and dreading fighting a dragon on my own, I would laugh at the irony of my deck choosing The Lovers card for me to fight Cobalt.

  A large crash sounded in front of me, a large stone building hit by Cobalt's tail sent stone, wood, and plaster flying through the air and raining down on those of us in the streets. The screams of terrified citizens nearly drowned out the sound of my racing heart. No more time to waste. I twirled the Lovers card in my hands and felt the familiar flare of magic.

  Well here goes everything, I told myself.

  As soon as the card activated, a magnetic hum shot through my body and rang in my ears.

  "Fuck me," I cursed, realizing what was about to happen.

  The Lovers card was a powerful magnetic card and I would be drawn to the most metal thing around, dragon Cobalt.

  "Ahhhhh!" I screamed as the powerful magnetic force shot me off of the ground and sent me ricocheting toward the giant mindless monster destroying Alexandria.

  The card shot me directly into Cobalt's side, sticking me to his sharp scales like glue.

  The dragon stopped his assault on the city to turn his massive head back to look at me. Just like in his human form, he had that same large scar bisecting his eyebrow that sliced downward to his cheekbone. Was it still called a cheekbone on a dragon or was it more like a maw?

  His gigantic ruby eyes with slit black pupils drank me in, lingering on me with that same intense possessiveness that human-shaped Cobalt always did. My heart soared, did he recognize me?

  Instead, the dragon lifted his blackened lips to curl them into a snarl, showing me bright golden teeth. He had been on a steady diet of gold ore recently, all of his silveriness had been replaced by gold.

  "Hi?" I waved, looking into the dragon's eyes with a sheepish expression. "It's me, Octavia, you know, your mate? Childhood friend? Teammate? Any of this ringing any bells?"

  The growl in his throat deepened as he continued to watch me with his interested gaze. Did he want me? or did he want to eat me? From the way his forked tongue darted out to lick his lips, I was going to go with the latter.

  "You remember me don't you?" I pleaded. My Cobalt was still in there, I knew it! The man wasn't the only one in love with me, the beast was too. He had to remember me. I had to believe that.

  He growled again.

  "Well you've got the same shitty attitude that regular old Cobalt has, so that’s how I know you’re still my Cobalt," I scoffed, patting my arm on his scales and clenching my Lovers card tight in the other hand. "You put on a big front but you're a secret softie, aren't you? How about we fly away from here? Kind of made a deal to be out of here by dawn or some big bad cat ladies are coming after me. Not like ladies with a lot of cats but literally with cat heads. It was trippy."

  The sound of metal grinding near me jostled me out of my staring contest with Cobalt. A foot away from me upwards towards his gigantic back spikes, the silvery black flat scales were rustling, reforming as sharp blades and the wave of transformation was coming right towards me. I narrowed my eyes at him, kind of shocked at the betrayal.

  "Distracting me with your rude growls so you could stab me with your scales?" I snapped at him. "You're a very rude dragon."

  He couldn't shake me off because of the magnetic force and his draconic limbs and tail weren't as flexible as a human's limbs, he couldn't reach back and yank me off of him. So the giant asshat planned to impale me instead.

  Impale this, jerk, I thought to myself as the sharpened wave of scales just about made it to me.

  I had a split second to deactivate the Lovers card and pull out another and I knew just the card to use. Back in college, I had used the card to intimidate a guy who had tried to force himself on me. I had been in a very dark place, still reeling from the loss of my parents and realizing that I was alone in the world. Attacking that piece of crap had made me feel very guilty even though he had deserved it. It was the first time I realized how very powerful my magic was. Tarot cards weren't the random destruction of my Joker cards, each was specialized and extremely powerful. The Strength card had been the only tarot card I ever dared to use before locking them away and returning to my regular old playing cards.

  The Strength card had an angelic woman with a serene, peaceful smile prying open the mouth of a giant lion on it. I had fought off a man with the Strength card, could I fight off a dragon with it? This was my only chance to find out.

  Deactivating the magnet card sent me falling from Cobalt's side, his large tail, his spikes glinting gold in the moonlight, rose to knock into me.

  I spun the Strength card in my fingers and placed it between my teeth, tasting the pungent oaken wood and lacquer. I felt the strength enter my body like pure light was entering my body. When I had used to before, it had felt like darkness had seeped into me but now it was all light and goodness.

  "Guess who just leveled up?!" I yelled through my clenched teeth. I felt like Mario after he got the little mushrooms in the games, growing bigger and faster.

  Chapter10

  The Strength card coursed through my body like a crashing wave, the glowing power of light spreading through me. Cobalt’s tail swung and I grabbed onto it, barely avoiding stabbing myself on the giant spikes that lined the last two feet of his tail.

  I gripped my hands tight, letting my fingertips sink into the grooves between his scales. Would this work? Would I be strong enough? Only one way to find out.

  I yanked his tail the opposite way and kicked my leg forward, transferring all of my leverage the other way. Just like I hoped, Cobalt’s body left the ground, his claws losing footing as I slammed him down the other way, sending the metal dragon crashing through another building. He left out a pained screech.

  “Hulk smash.”

  I pulled the Strength card from my teeth as I darted down after him.

  Cobalt looked up at me with fury in his ruby eyes.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you deserved it, you rude lizard,” I met his glare with my own. “Wow, I took your ass out. Like I was Hulk and you were Loki. Puny God.”

  Cobalt’s tail swiped out, knocking my feet out from under me. I fell on my ass in the rubble.

  The sound of rubble shifting told me that Cobalt was getting back up.

  I scrambled back on my own feet and grabbed a large chunk of plaster and bashed it right onto Cobalt’s giant draconic face. The plaster crumbled against his metal scales and Cobalt growled at me again, exhaling out of his n
ostrils, hot air made my hair fly back away from my face with such force I almost fell over again.

  “Boy, am I glad you can’t breathe fire or lightning or ice,” I chuckled awkwardly. “At least with the others, I’ll have your help I hope. I mean if I don’t die or you don’t.”

  He let out a disbelieving small roar.

  “Hey it could happen, I’m like super powerful these days,” I wagged my finger at him.

  He gave me a gigantic grin, showing me rows and rows of sharp teeth. Up close I could see they weren’t actually completely composed of gold but white like ivory until the tips that were a brilliant sparkling gold.

  “Oh my grandma, what sharp teeth you have,” I chuckled nervously, trying to back away but Cobalt’s tail coiled behind me. His tail nudged me closer to him and snaked around me, trapping me in place.

  “Why am I saying such hilarious things when no one is around to appreciate them,” I sighed. “Would you let me go if I asked?”