First Look: #DragonSlayer

A first look at Sons of Rome book three, Dragon Slayer, due out this fall. (2,555 words). 

Dragon Slayer

Copyright © 2018 by Lauren Gilley

All Rights Reserved

Val couldn’t suppress a yawn as Mother tugged his nightshirt down over his head.

She chuckled. “My sleepy little prince tonight, hm? Too much fun today?” She smoothed his shoulder-length hair down with several long, gentle passes of her hand.

“Mama, it was amazing,” he declared, going limp and flopping backward on the bed. “They were so beautiful. And the way they moved.” He lifted a hand and swept it through the air in demonstration. “Can I be an acrobat?”

“Well.” She lifted his legs and tucked them beneath the covers, pulled the blankets up to his chin. “You’re already a prince, and I think that’s pretty special, don’t you?”

He made a face.

She smiled and perched on the side of the bed. “Think of it this way: a prince can hire acrobats to come entertain him whenever he wants.”

“Hmm.” Small consolation.

“Where is your brother?”

As if summoned, Vlad walked in, already dressed for bed. He went to the washstand in the corner of the room and scrubbed his face with the still-steaming water from the bowl. He came to bed pink-cheeked and heavy-eyed.

“Another sleepy son,” Eira said fondly, gathering him close for a moment, kissing his dark, silky hair.

“No I’m not,” he protested, and then yawned hugely.

“Of course not. Up you get. Go on.”

By the time they were settled, both of them beneath the covers and snuggled up shoulder-to-shoulder, Helga had arrived in the threshold, bearing a wooden tray.

“Ready, mistress?” she called.

“Yes, Helga, thank you,” Mother said, and took the two small gilt cups the female wolf offered her.

Helga tucked the empty tray beneath her arm and gave both boys a warm, motherly smile. “Enjoy, my lords. That’s fresh from my Fenny.”

“Thank you,” they chorused, dutifully, and Helga left, wide hips rolling like a ship at sea.

They sat up against the pillows and Mother handed them each a cup. The hot, salty scent of blood curled up from it, the metal warm in Val’s palms. A thirst he hadn’t felt before quickened; his mouth filled with saliva.

“Drink up,” Mother encouraged, and he buried his nose in the cup, opened his mouth and gulped it down like a savage. In all things he was delicate, nothing but a little bouquet, but the blood…the blood…

It hit his tongue like velvet, his belly like wine. It tasted of every wonderful thing, and also of home, and safety, and pack, their beloved wolf’s blood offered freely to nourish their bodies. It felt right.

Blood was a gift, mother always said. Not something to which they had a right. Being a vampire wasn’t a right. Her name meant merciful, and she was.

When the cup was empty, Val pulled off of it with a deep gasp. His chest pumped as he fought to catch his breath; he licked the last salty traces of blood off his lips and wished for more.

Beside him, he felt Vlad vibrating with the same craving, his shoulder quaking where it pressed against Val’s. “Mother–” His voice came out low, and hoarse, full of wanting.

“No, no,” she murmured, taking the cups from their lax fingers. “That was the perfect amount for two growing boys. Now it’s time to sleep.”

Vlad grumbled, but when Val slipped down to lie flat he followed suit.

Mother smoothed the blankets over their chests. “Now, are my little princes getting too old for bedtime stories?”

“No,” they chorused immediately, and she smiled.

“Alright, then, have I told you–” She cut off, head tilting, and Val heard the sound of rapid footfalls in the corridor.

Helga burst in a moment later, still carrying the tray, wild-eyed and breathless. Val could smell fear on her.

“My lady, it’s the prince, he–”

Father.

Eira stood, instantly tense. The usual softness of her posture melted into a straight-backed, alert stance, feet braced wide apart on the floor. “What is it? What’s happened?”

But Val could already feel a low thrum of panic in the palace, like the buzzing of insects, hopping from wolf to wolf, to Helga, to Mother, to his own suddenly-queasy stomach.

Helga braced her free hand against her side, as if she had a stitch. She huffed and puffed, but managed, “It’s his brother. His brother’s here.”

Vlad sat bolt upright in the bed. “Uncle Romulus?”

A low, angry growl pulsed through the room, and at first, Val didn’t realize the sound came from his mother. Then he saw her eyes flash, and her fangs slide down to peek from beneath her lip. “Where?” she asked, in a voice she never used with the two of them.

Val shrank sideways into Vlad, who put an arm around his shoulders.

Helga straightened, hand falling to her side. “In his grace’s study, my lady, but he doesn’t want–”

“I don’t care what he wants,” Eira said. “Not if he’s here. Go and fetch Fenrir, bring him to the study. Cicero is there already, I assume?”

“Yes, my lady, but–”

“Now, Helga. Please.”

The wolf muttered something distressed under her breath, but hastened to do as told.

When Mother turned back to the bed, her expression softened a fraction. “Go to sleep, the two of you. I’m going to help your father.”

Vlad pushed the blankets down, gathering himself to climb out of bed. “But, Mother–”

“You will stay here. Is that understood? Look out for your brother. Neither of you are to leave this room.” Her gaze was ferocious.

Vlad seemed to shrink down in his nightshirt a little. “Yes, Mama.”

She glanced between the two of them, expression stony, implacable. This was no gentle encouragement, nor a request. It was an order: stay put.

“Don’t leave the room,” she said again, and finally left them, shutting the door firmly in her wake.

They sat for a moment, pressed together, not breathing. The candle flame guttered, nearly went out, and recovered in the sudden flurry of wind current left by the slamming door. Its light licked up the walls, across the ceiling and the bed, unsteady flickers that seemed to echo Val’s erratic heartbeat.

Finally, Val said, “How did he find us?”

Vlad snorted – but it was a shaky snort, and his arm tightened around Val’s shoulders. Val could feel his fear, sense it, even if Vlad would never admit to being afraid. “Father’s a prince. He isn’t exactly hiding.”

No, he wasn’t, but it had been so long. And he went by Vlad Dracul now. Only the smallest handful of individuals knew that Father was also Remus, and even those only knew because Father had told them, not because they’d known him then, back when the first king of Rome tried to have him executed.

Val wanted to feign braveness, like his brother, but at the moment, cold terror washed through him, obliterating the chance. “Do you – do you think he’ll hurt Father?”

“Probably not. Why would he? That was centuries ago.” But there was doubt in his voice. Uncle Romulus had been a shadow lying over their lives, a faceless threat, the imagined monster under the bed. “And besides: Fenny and Cicero, and Caesar would never let anything happen to Papa.”

Very true.

“Damn it,” Vlad muttered. “I want to see what happens, though.”

An idea struck Val then. A brilliant one. “I could go.”

“What? No.” Vlad turned to him, frowning, his arm slipping off Val’s shoulders. “You saw her. She’ll box your ears if she catches you out of bed.” She’d never lifted a hand to them in anger, which was perhaps why her expression minutes before had rattled them so.

“But I won’t be out of bed.” He tapped a knuckle against his temple. “Only my mind will.”

Vlad looked interested. For a moment, and then he frowned again. “You can’t ever dream-walk when you want. And you can’t choose where you go. It’ll never work.”

“It might. I’ve been practicing.”

“You have? When?”

Val felt his face color. “At night. Just sometimes. When you’re asleep.”

Vlad’s frown twitched sideways, caught between pleased with the development, and sore for being left out, Val thought. “Can you do it?”

“I think so.” A few nights before, he’d gone to visit Constantine on purpose. He hadn’t been able to hold it long, but he’d set a destination and carried it out.

He wriggled down beneath the covers now, closing his eyes, willing his nerves to let go of his tightly clenched muscles. “If Mother comes, wake me up,” he said, and concentrated on his breathing. Vlad said something, but it was distant, and mumbled, and Val was already slipping away.

Dream-walking, he’d learned in his own self-directed experiments over the last few months, wasn’t a case of actually dreaming. Sometimes it happened when he was asleep, but falling asleep wasn’t the key. He had to go under instead, willingly climb onto the plane where his thoughts, and image could traverse beyond the physical. So in that sense, it was really like crossing over instead. He still wasn’t sure how the mechanics of it worked. All he knew was that a stillness came over him, frightening at first, and then he had the sense of falling; a flash of light, and then he was rising, wind in his hair, and then he was…

Standing in the corner of his father’s study, and there was the low, rolling sound of a half-dozen wolves growling.

Val pressed back into the shadows and tried to make himself even smaller than he was.

Vlad Dracul’s study was a large, airy room, prone to draftiness in the winter, its ceilings high enough that the two fireplaces were necessary to keep it warm. Tonight, summer cool as fresh melon, and almost as sweet, the shutters were thrown wide, letting the breeze in to play with the candle flames, the velvet sky beyond embroidered with stars. A fire burned on one of the hearths, adding to the glow of the candles, and in the diffuse, warm light, Val could see that every wolf of the household was present, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a wall between Father and the newcomer that Val couldn’t see yet. There was Cicero, and Caesar, their packmates Mihai, and Vasile. Fenrir, and his son, Vali. The wolf captain of the guard, Ioan. If the threat wasn’t clear in their growling – and it was – then it was in their posture: heads ducked, throats guarded, shoulders bunched and ready to pounce. Or to shift. They were all in human shape, now, but Val knew they would shift in a moment, ready to rend and tear with fangs and claws.

Father looked ready for bed, in a nightshirt and elaborate dressing gown; he’d tugged on boots, and pushed his hair back with his hands, though water droplets glimmered faintly at the dark ends. He’d just had a bath. His profile, clean and regal as ever, betrayed an expression Val had never seen on him before, the corners of his mouth turned down, the creases at the corners of his eyes more pronounced.

Father took a deep breath, chest lifting beneath the heavy brocade of the dressing gown. “It’s alright, boys,” he said, voice soothing. “Let him through.”

Cicero turned to regard him, brows knit together in clear question.

Father nodded, and then the wolves parted, like the Red Sea.

A man stepped forward, and Val remembered that Father was a twin.

Romulus, first king of Rome, looked alarmingly like his brother. But harsher, in Val’s estimation. Sharper, his angles more dramatic. He wore a long black cloak with the hood pushed back, and beneath it his clothes were dark and unremarkable.

Val shivered.

“Brother,” Romulus said, a smile twisting his mouth to a cruel angle. “It’s been a while.”

“Centuries, even,” Dracul said.

Romulus chuckled. A dry sound, like leave rustling. Like a man with a mouth full of grave dirt. “Come now, don’t look at me like that. You said yourself it’s been centuries – let’s let bygones be bygones. All our bad blood is in the past now.” He held out both arms. “I’ve come to congratulate my little brother on all his accomplishments, and his new title. The Dragon. I like that.” He grinned, fangs flashing.

He made to step forward, but Caesar barred his path, growling low in his throat.

“Caesar,” Father said, softly. “It’s alright.”

Another chuckle. “Caesar, eh? You haven’t gotten too far from your roots, have you?”

Father laid a hand on Caesar’s shoulder and urged him to the side, careful, kind. His brows knit, his face a portrait of concern, he said, “It’s good to see you, Romulus.”

The twins studied one another a long, fraught moment.

Then Romulus inhaled, nostrils flaring, and turned toward the far corner of the room, the chair where Val noticed his mother was seated, Helga standing behind her. “Ah,” he said. “I see your beloved is here. Or. Well.” He tipped his head. “I smell.”

Val bit back hard on the sound that rose in his throat, and watched his mother get slowly, gracefully to her feet, her head held aloft at a challenging angle.

“My lady,” Helga whispered, frightened, hands clenching into useless fists.

“My mate,” Father said. “Eira.”

“Mate,” Romulus said, and then turned to Father, grinning. “But not wife? Does the princess know she bore you only one son, or have you compelled her to think that the other two are hers as well?”

Growling filled the room.

Father looked as if he’d been struck.

Val felt as if he had been.

Only the family knew the real nature of the prince and princess’s relationship. Only the wolves, undyingly loyal, knew that Eira was mother to Vlad and Val.

“What, you thought I wouldn’t be able to tell? You’ve been away from our kind for too long, brother. There are four vampires under this roof, and one half-breed.”

“Perceptive as always,” Father said.

“It would seem so. I’ve also noticed that your youngest son is a dream-walker.”

Dracul frowned. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he’s standing right over there.” He nodded toward Val’s hiding place, and all eyes swept his direction.

Oh no.

“Valerian,” Mother gasped.

Father charged toward him in three long strides, expression thunderous. “Radu, what are you–”

A flash, a sense of falling, and Val opened his eyes to his bedchamber, Vlad propped on one arm and leaning over him, watching his face.

“Well?” he said immediately.

Val tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. His heart beat wildly against his ribs, and his palms prickled with fear sweat. “I got caught.”

Vlad sighed. “Stupid.”

“Uncle Romulus is…” He’d been smiling, and laughing, but.. “He’s wrong.”

Vlad’s dark brows knitted together. “What do you mean ‘wrong’? What did he say?”

“No, he just…” Val frowned to himself, frustrated with his inability to communicate. His uncle hadn’t done anything, or even really said anything, but he’d sensed a threat. Too obscure for his four-year-old mind to grasp properly, or to classify.

The quick rap of footfalls echoed out in the hallway, and Vlad’s eyes went comically wide. “Mother,” he whispered, and flopped down beside Val, closing his eyes and feigning sleep.

Val closed his eyes, too, and hoped he wasn’t in too much trouble.