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  The Dragon King © March 2015 by Candace Blevins

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  The Dragon King

  Chattanooga Supernaturals

  Book One

  Candace Blevins

  Prologue

  Aaron

  Sophia is the most adorable two year old I’ve ever seen. Fluffy blonde hair, rosy chubby cheeks, and a laugh that makes my heart soar.

  I turned to her father, the Swan King, and chose my words carefully. “Raul, you’re sure this is the best course of action? I know you’re still grieving over Angelique’s death, but can you truly prepare Sophia for a life of leading your people if you keep her a prisoner in your home her entire life?”

  I could only get away with asking this question because I’d helped raise and train Raul, helped prepare him to take the crown when he beat his brothers and won the throne.

  “I did my best to protect my wife from supernaturals, and a damned human hunter took her out. Sophia won’t leave the walls of the castle until she marries, and hopefully whoever wins her will follow my lead and also keep her behind protective walls. She won’t see the same fate as Angelique.” His voice was firm, didn’t waver, and let me know further conversation on the matter would be met with hostility.

  Sophia is the first Swan Princess without at least one brother since before I was born, and by my best guess I’m around nine thousand years old. Give or take a thousand.

  Swan Princesses are usually given to other royalty as a way to unite families and sometimes species, but they never have a hope of the throne. Their brothers are required to fight each other for power, the strongest and most cunning winning the crown.

  Instead of finding another wife to give him sons, Raul is arranging for a contest between the other Swan royalty, with the strongest being allowed to care for her until she turns twenty five, and then marry her and eventually take the crown. Personally, I think Raul wants to step down and find a way to join his dead wife. The grief of her death still holds him.

  I’ve trained the past seven Swan Kings, including Sophia’s father, Raul. I know him well, and I know he loves his daughter. However, he still feels such pain over his wife’s slaughter, and I worry about the decisions he’s making.

  There is precedence amongst some other supernatural species for keeping Sophia in seclusion, finding a suitable King, and not giving her a choice in who she’ll marry. However, watching the toddler play and laugh and flirt, my heart hurts with the knowledge she’ll grow up with no control of her major life choices. Or, likely the minor ones, either.

  She’s such a happy baby, so full of life and adventure. I hope her life turns out better than most fairy tales.

  * * * *

  Ten years later, my heart aches as the court Herald announces me into the Swan King’s mansion for Sophia’s final unchaperoned lesson. I’ve been coming to the mansion once a week for a four hour session since she was six, but this must stop once she becomes a teenager, which in Swan lore makes her a woman.

  I’ll be allowed to come four times a year for an all-day review session, but will never again be alone with her. After today she’ll have a chaperone or minder with her anytime she’s with a man besides her father — or husband, once she’s married.

  I’m going to miss my time with her. In my busy life, my half-days with the Swan Princess have been the sunshine of my week. Sophia is a special child — so smart, so willing to learn, and a joy to be around. My heart is happy when I’m with her, and we most often go to our spot near a manmade waterfall on their property so we can talk without worrying so much about being overheard. Someone from the house can see us, but our words are drowned out. Sometimes, though, my favorite part of the day is her smile when I arrive and she skips to me for a hug. Today will be the last time she’ll be allowed to hug me for no reason, just because she’s happy I’ve arrived. My heart hurts as I wrap my arms around her and tell her I’m happy to see her.

  We walk to our spot, sit on our rock and I open a few books as I give her another to hold. The rushing waters may provide white noise to block our voices, but we still need to appear as if I’m teaching her.

  “You know this is the last time we’ll be alone, right, Soph?”

  Sophia looks down, takes a breath, and raises her gaze back to mine. “I know. I’ll miss my time with you.”

  “And I’ll miss you, but you’re a Princess and one day you’ll be Queen, so this is the way it has to be. I’ll be back to review the important stuff, but there are some things I’ve taught you that I won’t be able to review with you out loud. I’ll try to write it in a notebook and let you read it, so you’ll remember, but there is some danger in that so I won’t do it every time.”

  “Why take the risk? If I’ll never rule, never make a difference, why put yourself in danger?”

  “Because I’m grooming you for power, Princess. No one knows for sure what the future holds, and to fully do my job I can’t just teach you the palatable parts of your history. I understand your father wishes to shield you and protect you, but I can see the strength in you.”

  Sophia sighed. “I’ll still see you at social occasions? Not just the four times a year you’re allowed to come for review?”

  “Yes, and I may or may not be allowed a dance with you. I will certainly not be able to take you outside for a conversation.”

  She nodded, and I carefully said, “Sophia, if ever you find yourself in need of a protector, get a message to me. Your father and Cyrano will look after you, but if you find yourself without their protection I hope you’ll feel comfortable letting me keep you safe.”

  Shaking her head, Sophia said, “Cyrano scares me. My latest governess tells me when I’m a woman I’ll appreciate him for his strength and resolve, and I must remain meek and quiet around him while I’m a child.”

  I wanted to wring Cyrano’s neck for frightening her, as well as the governess’s for giving crap advice, but I had to walk a fine line. “I’m sorry he scares you, Princess. I would advise you to speak to your father about it, see if he can intercede on your behalf.”

  “You always do that.”

  I tilted my head and let my eyebrows rise, and Sophia explained. “When we’re just talking, I’m Soph or Sophia, but when you’re thinking politically, you call me Princess.”

  “Yes, because this is t
he way an elder speaks to someone of royalty. I’m your teacher, I know more than you, but I must also show respect. It’s a balance, Sophia.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you are, and my father either doesn’t know or won’t tell me, but I’m positive you’re royalty, too. I’ve learned to tell the difference between someone with their own power who addresses me and my father as an equal while using all the right words, and someone with no power who addresses us with the same words but a completely different energy.”

  I hoped my smile showed how pleased I was with her insight. “You make me proud, Sophia. I hope you’ll keep your suppositions to yourself, though.”

  She nodded. “Of course, and I hope someday you’ll trust me enough to tell me what and who you really are.”

  I needed to be sure she understood my offer, so I repeated it. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Soph? If you ever need help, a protector, a friend, an advisor…If you’re ever in trouble I hope you’ll find a way to get a message to me.”

  Chapter One

  Sophia

  I’d been planning my escape for eleven years, and tonight I’d either fly to my freedom or die trying.

  I was to be married to Cyrano on my twenty-fifth birthday, in seventeen days. However, I was determined it was never going to happen.

  Tomorrow, my governess was meeting with people in Charleston on my behalf to assure the wedding would go off without a hitch. Since I was never allowed off my father’s property, if someone couldn’t come to me then I had to send my people to them, and the caterers had decided they couldn’t make yet another trip to go over last minute details.

  I knew they wouldn’t, it was part of my plan.

  I’d sent my governess away earlier this evening so she could stay in a hotel and be present for the seven o’clock meeting tomorrow morning, and then make surprise visits to check in with the florist and a few other vendors.

  I’d brought books up from the library to my bedroom, asked for my tea service a little early, and told everyone I wasn’t to be disturbed.

  I’d been nervous and anxious for months, so no one paid any attention to my scent anymore. I was perpetually on edge.

  It was eight fifteen, and I figured I’d have until the guard shift change at three in the morning before anyone realized I was gone. My current guard wasn’t likely to decide he needed to put eyeballs on me, but I knew they’d look in on me at shift change. They always did.

  Swan shifters need to change a minimum of four times a year, at both equinoxes and both solstices. However, since my father didn’t want me leaving the property, when I changed they immediately turned me back human. I’d never been allowed to even try to fly. The rest of the time I wore an anklet my father had brought someone in to create especially for me — it kept me from turning into a swan any other time of year.

  I’d spent years combing through the books in our extensive library, and was convinced I’d found a way to defeat the anklet. Years ago, I’d also learned from one of our servants that it was possible for a virgin to change without the normal flogging to rip enough skin away so we could shift into our swan form.

  She said one could use a knife to cut a seam from one foot, up the outside of the body, from armpit to fingers on the bottom of the arm, and then fingers to shoulder on the top of the arm, over the head and scalp, skip the right arm and go down the body to the right foot, and then as the left foot comes out and forms, use the claws to rip a seam in the skin from the right arm so it can pull free.

  I had a very sharp crafting knife and hoped it would do the job.

  Meanwhile, I’d long ago figured out how to defeat the alarm system at my window so I could at least open it and get fresh air. I used a screwdriver to carefully remove the contact from the window’s hardware, taped it to the stationary contact on the window frame, and then slowly opened the window, making sure everything stayed put.

  Taking a breath, I poured the hot water from my tea service into the plastic bin that normally held items in the storage area of my closet.

  It’d taken me years to assemble the herbs and roots without arousing anyone’s curiosity, and I now dumped them into the bin and stepped into the scalding water. Trusting the concoction would do its job, I bent with the knife, stuck it into my foot just under my ankle bone, and began the excruciating task of literally skinning myself.

  I’d known it would hurt, but this was worse than the traditional flogging a virgin must undergo in order to change. I was more than determined, though, so I did it fast and didn’t make a sound, even though I wanted to scream and cry.

  Halfway through the process I knew I’d been wrong about having hours until my escape was discovered. They were used to smelling fear on me, but not pain, and certainly not blood. I was going to have to fly for my life and hope they couldn’t keep up. I cut faster, and my blood flowed into the hot water at my feet.

  As the knife finally reached the outer edge of my right foot, I stood and imagined myself a swan, thought of how it felt to change after I was flogged, and breathed in relief as I felt the transformation happening. The herbal concoction worked, and the anklet would end up in the water once I turned into a swan and it could come off my foot. As I changed, it only took a few slices with my claw to rip the skin on top of my right arm enough for it to come free of the skin and turn into a wing, thank goodness.

  I made it onto the window sill, looked out at the Waccamaw River, and knew if I couldn’t figure out how to fly within a few minutes, and the crash landing didn’t kill me, I needed to find an alligator and hope he was hungry. I was going to either escape or die — I couldn’t live the rest of my life trapped in this house, and being forced to marry Cyrano was the final straw. People might make fun of the Princess trapped in the mansion with anything her heart desired at her fingertips, but this Princess preferred freedom to riches.

  I jumped from the ledge, stretched my wings, and breathed in relief as the wind caught them and I soared instead of plummeting. I beat my unfamiliar wings, pointed my head the direction I wanted to go, and it just somehow worked.

  I’d spent years on borrowed tablets from various servants, looking through Google Earth so I could find my way to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the offices of Drake Security. I had no idea where Aaron Drake lived, but figured I could find him at work.

  I followed the coast to Savannah, Georgia, fighting the ocean breeze, and figuring out how this brain parceled the information I’d taken in with my other brain. I managed to access what I needed to make the journey, and I followed the coast as I learned to soar, turn, dive, and climb. The winds coming in off the ocean were brutal at times, fluffing my feathers the wrong way until I lost control and only regained it by luck. I soon discovered I needed to get higher to keep from being buffeted by the sea breeze, but going too high made it hard to see landforms well enough to navigate when there weren’t many lights.

  I didn’t know how much of a head start I had, so I kept moving even as I experimented, terrified they’d find me and haul me back to my father’s house.

  When I reached Savannah, I found what I was sure was the interstate and followed the line of lights north. I was exhausted when I reached what had to be Macon, and I continued north a little ways before making a right turn, hoping I could find the wildlife refuge and a relatively safe place to get some rest. I was so tired, and terribly uncomfortable in this body, but needed to stay a swan until I made it to Chattanooga. I wasn’t sure I could cut myself open again, and besides, I no longer had the knife.

  I only rested a short time in a tree top before I flew north, once again following the interstate. I was sure this wasn’t how swans normally navigated but it was the best I could manage. I breathed a little easier as I went over Atlanta, knowing my journey was close to an end. I often swam miles a day in either the lap pool or the endless pool, but I’d never been so tired in my life.

  When I made it to Chattanooga I headed towards the Tennessee River, followed it until I recognize
d their unique Aquarium building, and then followed the streets out of the downtown area to the old school building that housed the Drake Security offices. My landing was far from graceful, but I made it into the woods across the street, found a tree limb I hoped would be safe, and waited.

  Chapter Two

  Aaron

  My early morning visit from the third in command of the Eagles, and then subsequent telephone conversations with Sophia’s father, had me somewhere between hopeful and worried, but mostly worried.

  She’d never flown and never been off her father’s property, and now she was somewhere out there, likely alone and scared. The state of her human skin, left behind, had Raul convinced she’d cut it away herself, and I cringed at what had made Sophia take such drastic action.

  As worried about her as I was, if things were so bad then I wasn’t certain Raul dragging her back home was the best course of action. If she’d planned well then it was possible she was better off on her own, but I wished she’d been able to get a message to me.

  I hadn’t seen her since her father’s birthday party six months ago, and we’d barely had a chance to speak. I was no longer brought in for review sessions four times a year, those had stopped on her seventeenth birthday.

  Cyrano and Raul had an army of trained men looking for her, as well as hundreds of Swans and Eagles canvassing the area around her father’s compound.

  But I’d taught her, and had made sure she’d learned to play chess and a few other games of strategy. I hadn’t been able to teach her actual political and survival tactics, but she was smart and I knew she’d extrapolate as needed. If Sophia had escaped, she had a plan and was likely far from the South Carolina coastal region by now.