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Chapter 8

Aureus

My wings created gusts under me as I jumped to shift midair. I was so large that I couldn’t fit through the flight tunnel at the top left corner of the ceiling, being nearly 20 stories tall. It led to the garage, but I was headed higher than that. To take the shortcut, I gained enough speed that when I shifted back into a man, I rocketed out the other side. I erupted from the bottom of the building’s small emergency hole for smaller flying creatures like a bullet…. Only to shift again once I was outside the small tunnel… I needed air.

I flew around the building in a spiral, ascending with each flap and I landed on the roof. I could not fit on it either. I’d become accustomed to shifting midair to take off as well as land…. And when I did I screamed. I was so frustrated.

I was so fucking Stupid!

“I’m an Idiot!” I yelled at no one, not able to see where she’d gone…. I didn’t ask where she was staying…

I didn’t know where she was….

I didn’t take her and mark her…. She might begin to have doubts about my feelings.

She Will reject me now.

She will think I’m playing with her hormones…. I could smell them. She kept it together well… but I could smell it almost like she was in fucking heat… do wolves even have a breeding season? We do.

I didn’t ask!

“FUCK!” I didn’t get her number!

It was as if the gods were punishing me. How Dare I find some semblance of normalcy in my exile!

“Fuck!” I paced like a caged animal.

I had money.

I had power.

The only thing I didn’t have was a proper position, and she didn’t Care about it…

I had Everything I needed. I didn’t care about the dreams or the emptiness. That was a regular day for me… but I couldn’t Do that to another person…. 30 thousand people attended last nights fights, and over a thousand more were employed …. There was no way I would single out her scent, and if I did find her hotel, it would be off-putting to knock on her door like that.

But it would also be Rude to stand her up.

I could hear the damaged flaps of my second. I knew it was him by the hole in his left wing. He was louder than most because of it…. It was mending but wounds like that take a while… he landed, then shifted, fitting on the roof just fine… He bowed, passing me clothes from the closet bin we keep on the roof for flights near the emergency saddle rope…

“My Lord-” I cut Atlas off.

“I want her Found. If she comes back, send her Directly to Me. I don’t care what’s scheduled tomorrow; clear it.” I snarled, staying my distance from him. All the memories flooded my mind, and I had a lapse of judgment.

I could still see the horrid scene I ran from.

I saw my smashed eggs and the burned body of my flayed wife…. The HeadHunters killed her for her pelt, and tried to steal the eggs… but her tail was found across them… She was so mangled I didn’t know if she did it on accident from being skinned, or on purpose so our whelps wouldn’t be sold on the black market…

My past knocked at the proverbial door of all that could be with one the Goddess bonded to me…

I would correct this if she let me…

“I don’t know what the Fuck is going on, but I’ll be damned before I see a Wolf as my better.” Growled Ranjit, a brown scaled drake, landing and shifting as well. He was my third strongest, though that meant nothing to me at the moment. The way he barged into my personal space was Too bold, and close behind was Atlas to try and stop him. Akitori, a red drake landed and shifted. My Fourth also tried to stop him, but he’d already set his fate.

I slapped my third hard enough that he spit blood. He fell to the ground, though he still looked defiant. “She is Mine.” I snarled. I eyed him with a glare so fierce he submitted.

“She is Less.” Ranjit hissed quietly. “I do not mean this in a bad way, but my Lord, you Must see reason.” He pleaded.

I didn’t want to hear it.

“She’s more than You.” I snapped. “How long can You last in the Red Room below with Me?” I interrogated.

“… not even a few minutes sir.” My third said glaring at the concrete, unable to rise from my anger.

“Fucking Disrespectful Fool. Move Lord Atlas. Our High Lord does not need to stain his hands.” Growled Akitori, being blocked by Atlas. “Who are we to judge who the Fallen One breeds?” He sneered.

Akitori was also an old drake, one with a family that sided with the Tyrant King in the old days, though they are all dead except him. In the past, they tried assassinating my father, and he was the only one left to live as a messenger…. His loyalty came from me finding him here on this continent, and elevating his status of Rogue to a board member.

“Lord Aureus,” Said Atlas cautiously. He knew he treaded thin ice. “I am with you… you took in all of us, even though we are of low birth and hold no standing… our flock isn’t even officially registered…. Out there… We were vagabond slaves, Surfs!… But here I have a Home. Ranjit forgets that. You forget little brother how Long we ran from being servants with no rank…No rank meant we held No chance of freedom. No chance to marry with no money for food, yet alone a dowery… no chance to have a life… but Here you are Three.” He growled. “Here we even have our Own horde, not guarding someone else’s.”

“… you’re Right… forgive me my lord. I just find it… lowering to one so grand that you take such an inferior concubine… You are stronger than Saiyatok, a drake that does not deserve to be King…. We could go out and purchase one who will give you Eggs.” He said silently. “Would that appease your wrath?” He asked.

I almost slapped him a second time, but his cowering flinch made me stop. Concubines were how most dragon lords bred. Dragon men were whores… women, even their flames meant nothing to the more modern drakes who flapped about, sticking their dicks in anything that moved, then denying the hybrids they make….and the women of high stature cheat so much if it wasn’t for DNA testing nowadays, there would be no lordly legitimized lines…. but that would not be with me.

I still believed in the old way of bonding with my female and making her my flame proper…. I wasn’t actually a lord after all…. I think that was why I became blessed with losing my old title… I didn’t want it anyway… I wouldn’t be my father. I wouldn’t be a whore, having so many bastards it makes one hesitate to marry… She would be my One if she would have me.

Even the ‘if’ in my thoughts gave me pain…

I wanted her to Love me… not just be my mate…. I would do this Right…. I would swear it to the gods themselves on my blood and soul…. Even if I was like Them, like other drakes, … I would be a Fool’s Arse to reject a mate…

This was something so rare that no amount of money, offering, or sacrifice can give… it wasn’t something earned either… it was a gift from the Moon Goddess….

Why did she smile on me?

What did she see in me for her to give me such an honor…her Literal grandchild…?

I was not worthy of such a thing… not after what happened…

“If I Wanted a concubine, I would have gotten one Myself.” I hissed. “Mates are Rare…you only get ONE! I’m finding her, and when I do, I’m proposing.” I said firmly.

“But my lord, I can’t distinguish her scent among so many…,” Said Atlas. “She is Gone.”

“I know…. I know I saw it with my own fucking eyes… but coming in the night would make me look vulgar, well day… You Know What I Mean… Just Find out if she’s still checked in a hotel, and give me the address. I will talk to her at a more respectable time and place.…

“What about the second-place winner? He argues since the jackpot was raised, he should get more as well.” Atlas asked.

“Give whoever won 15 million to leave me the Fuck Alone right now.” I said pacing like a caged animal.

“I have her registration information sir. We can contact her kin, possibly give a good dowery as is custom.”

“They would take that dowery and shove it up our carrier’s ass. They are Old Blood…. The Wolf King’s almost the same age as Me.” I said shaking my head. I was only about 2 decades younger. That didn’t mean much to someone who was thousands….

There was a silence to my truthful words. Neither of us said anything, because I was Right.

Every supernatural creature who knew of the tournament was either Here or Watching. I disrespected her…. At least for a drake courtship it was… it was too open ended. There was no time and date… there was no contacts exchanged or formal talking to her parents…. It didn’t matter that me leaving wasn’t shown on air, and most couldn’t see… People Talk… If she even Wants to talk to me… wolves and dragons were very different, but the one thing we shared was Pride….

I was given my phone, since I’d forgotten it. It was 6am… Sunrise. That was fair…

I needed to Fix this. I needed my mate to be alright after my blunder.

“Ah, I have the royal directory sir… her Uncle is the Master.” Said Atlas.

How the Fuck could I forget about that??!

“He’ll have her number…” Akitori said sheepishly, regretting his words. He caught onto her lineage Now After he opened his big mouth.

“…. The Realm King is the LAST person we’ll call… if he doesn’t know already, better that I get to know her before he beheads me.” I half joked.

I defied him in my younger years, though it could not be denied the absolute destruction he wrought…. And I would not obey his command to kill the innocent… so many died… there was so much death before he was tricked to sleep that scavengers gorged on corpses for years… The mass graves were covered up by my people and the vampires to ensure humans never know the secret of this world…. That since we existed out of spite, they were cattle.

We were literally made as pawns, and he got angry when I didn’t want to play his game… It is why the Horned One nor the God of Judgment have any temples… Most thought it was because the Church of the Light’s countermeasures by making worship of them punishable by being burned upon the Ring of the Sun. Their attempt to weaken the King of Hell, the Eternal Night Father and his first son was their goal…But Who would erect them, when they both killed all but their demons? Who was Left to build?

No one.

Unless you counted the waves of mindless undead he created.

The same amount of people that would be left on this planet if I broke her heart.

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