Dragon Master (Dragon Collector Book 2) Read online

  Dragon Master

  Dragon Collector Book 2

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  4. Diana

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  10. Diana

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  16. Diana

  17. Diana

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  21. Rebekah

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  24. Diana

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  29. Diana

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  35. Diana

  36. Diana

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  41. Diana

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Prologue

  Still half-asleep, I stretched and yawned, sadly disturbing the bodies next to me.

  “Five more minutes.” Bailey-Sue’s sleepy voice commanded, rolling over to bury her face in my chest.

  Chuckling, I ran my fingers through her emerald green hair.

  “Mmm.” I let my gaze roam over until they landed on Rebekah, who was curled up with Alona, their red and brown hair mixed together.

  “Come on, girls. It’s time to get up.” I gently shook Bailey-Sue and grabbed Alona’s glasses off the side table, handing them to her as she groaned, sitting up along with Rebekah.

  The door to our upstairs bedroom in the Rowdy Peacock Inn slammed open and the smell of fresh eggs and coffee floated in, causing Alona and Rebekah to immediately perk up.

  “Good morning you sleepyheads.” Diana chuckled, leaning against the doorway with a smirk on her face.

  Alona groaned, “How are you so awake? It’s too early to be this loud.”

  Diana laughed again, moving forward to kiss me before helping me up, “I would think Mr. King of Dragons here would be more tired than all of you considering I didn’t see Gina leave here until the sun had barely begun to rise.”

  I wrapped my arms around Diana, “Well, I couldn’t just leave my girls.”

  Bailey-Sue smacked my ass as she stood up, “Damn straight.”

  As we headed downstairs to the kitchen, Diana pulled me aside.

  “What is it, Diana?” I stared into her dark eyes.

  She leaned in close and whispered in my ear, making my body shiver, “Gina never left. Apparently, you promised her a story.”

  I grinned, “I did. Want to help me tell it?”

  A soft kiss gave me my answer and we walked out to the main area of the Rowdy Peacock Inn where my girls were already situated with food.

  Gina and her brother and their friends sitting on the floor, staring with wide eyes at…

  “Ffamran, how many times do I have to ask that you not eat on the couch. It’s hard to take the stains out.”

  The dragon hummed, and I laughed as he continued to eat.

  “So, you guys came back.” Rebekah sipped her coffee, looking over the people sitting before us.

  “Well… before…” Gina’s brother looked over at her, as Gina blushed a pretty pink and averted her gaze, “That, you were telling us the story about how you became the King of the Dragons and now that we know it’s you!” The others started to shift as they grew excited, “We want to hear the rest.”

  I laughed merrily, kissing Alona as she placed a cup of coffee into my hand before going to gather my other paintings to place in the main area of the Inn.

  “Okay, so where was I?”

  Bailey-Sue called out from where she had migrated to sit leaning against Ffamran’s couch, “The flight after you formed the Clan and made the agreements with King Atlus.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, you see, after that flight with the dragons, I had to attend a little girl’s birthday party.”

  1

  My hands were covered in white. It coated my fingers and dusted the top of my arms like lightly fallen snow. It was a sign of a job well done, albeit a messy job.

  I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. A smile burst from my lips as I stared at my creation. The cake wasn’t pretty. It slumped to one side and threatened to tumble over. It was sprinkled with sugar and a slippery icing that dripped off the edges. Baking without a standard oven was difficult, but luckily, I had Vanna to guide me through it.

  Vanna was a lanky woman with long black hair that reached the middle of her back. Unlike mine, there wasn’t a speck of sugar in it, and it retained its shape in the elaborate braid her daughter had done for her this morning. She returned my smile, though hers was less enthusiastic. More kind with a side of pity.

  “You did well,” Vanna said through tight teeth.

  “I think so,” I said with bright enthusiasm. “I’ve never made anything like this before, let alone in a stone oven. It’s less labor-intensive where I come from. I mean, depending on how elaborate you get.”

  I gazed again at the lumpy mess I’d managed to pull together, and my smile widened. A sense of pride swelled in my chest. It was an ugly little pastry, but it was my ugly little pastry.

  “It’s gotta taste good, right?” I asked, a little hesitantly. “That’s ultimately what matters.”

  “That and that you tried something new,” Vanna said as she gripped my shoulder. “You did good, Martin. Maji will love it… and if she does not, that is what mine is for.”

  I laughed and looked at the pristine cake Vanna had baked alongside mine. She taught me as we went, using churned butter and fresh eggs from a local chicken coop. It was a gorgeous thing and caused me to feel a twinge of jealousy. Then, I reminded myself that I’d only been in this world a couple of months and was still getting used to the lack of modern amenities. However, Vanna was a mother of four, cooked regularly, and had the patience of a saint.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said, looking at her. She was tall, so I could easily look her in the eye. She met my gaze and grinned back.

  “No, my dear, I do not believe you could have,” Vanna agreed.

  I pulled away from her and pretended to be offended, with an exaggerated gasp and a hand over my heart. She chuckled as she bent down and slipped two hands under the platter carrying her cake.

  “Come now,” she instructed. “We have a crowd to feed.”

  I mimicked her and stuck my own hands under my plate. Despite my nervous jitters, I managed to hold the cake steady and follow Vanna out of the house and into the woods.

  The edge of the Marked Woods came up to the back of the Dyers' house, so we didn’t have to walk that far to get to the clearing where the party was. Maji’s twelfth birthday party was quite the sight to behold. All her family members were there, including her three siblings who sat beside her, excited and eager. Her father, Styu, stood beside his daughter on her right-hand side. He had a hand on her shoulder and was looking proudly on as his children played a game of cards.

  Joining the children in their fun was Alona, caretaker for the palace Zoo and one of my dearest friends. She had trouble keeping up with the children’s speed. She constantly whipped her head bac
k and forth, trying to catch all their moves, and that caused her glasses to slip down the bridge of her nose. Alona had to keep pausing to push her glasses back up, which caused her to fall further behind.

  Next to her sat the other caretaker, Bailey-Sue. Her emerald hair danced in the sunlight as she laughed at Alona’s continued mistakes. She squeezed her white eyes shut, on the verge of tears from the humor of it all.

  The other humans at the party were Rebekah, captain of the king’s guard, whose red hair was blazing in the sun, looking almost like it was on fire, and Diana, the second in command of the king’s guard. Rebekah was sitting in a wooden chair off to the side, watching everything with a careful eye, while Diana, not actively involved in the card game, bounced on her toes at the end of the table, ready to jump in. There was a small twitch at the corner of her mouth that I just wanted to kiss away.

  A few weeks ago, Diana and I had shared an intimate kiss in a cave. There had been some confessions, but we’d been in the middle of an intense, life-threatening situation at the time. However, we had stolen more kisses since then, mostly during our daily morning training.

  So I watched her with a goofy smile on my face as we approached, a smile that Ffamran caught.

  “Do you want everyone to know you are snogging her in the weapons room every week?” the dragon said in my mind.

  Ffamran fon Desca of the Verio Clan lounged on the edge of the clearing. His large, soft purple form was spread out comfortably, wings relaxed and tail swaying with the breeze. He was the only dragon present at the party, but other creatures roamed about, like Sloan the sphinx, Altair the firebird, Harmony the flutterbird, Zander the bat, Fipmly the goat, along with a snake, another flutterbird, a goldfish, a chipmunk, and a black cat with violet eyes.

  But what made Ffamran truly special was that he was my Merkin. He and I were bonded together and thus shared a mental link where we could communicate with each other without anyone overhearing. It was useful on many occasions, like strategizing or warning one another. On occasions like these, when he just wanted to send sassy comments down the line, it was downright annoying.

  “Shut up,” I snapped back. I made sure to wipe the silly smile off my face for good measure.

  “I said nothing,” Ffamran countered. “I merely thought it.”

  “It’s the same thing, and you know it,” I said, not buying his semantics. “But, all the same, would it be a problem if people knew?”

  “I think it would be a problem if Alona or Rebekah knew,” Ffamran said, his tone a warning.

  I looked from Diana to Alona to Rebekah, and my heart thudded faster. While there was clear physical chemistry between Diana and me, talking was harder between the two of us. Sure, we had our moments, but it was nothing compared to the conversations Alona and I had. I enjoyed her company, which was good considering we worked together every day in the Zoo. Even after my status in the court increased, and I was no longer required to do so, I insisted on keeping my job there, if for no other reason than to see Alona and Bailey-Sue every day. And Diana was second in command to Rebekah, who I had gotten very intimate with within minutes of meeting her.

  Amid my thoughts about Alona, I forgot to pay attention to where I was walking and almost dropped the cake. I managed to right myself, but not before everyone in the group turned to look at me.

  I recovered and straightened myself. “Ta-da!” I said in an attempt to relieve the tension my body had just experienced.

  Little Miji began to clap, and soon the younger Dyers, Meeja, joined in. The card game halted momentarily as Vanna and I approached with Maji’s cakes.

  “Happy birthday!” the group chorused. We set the deserts down on the table, and Maji blushed, appreciatively.

  “Thank you,” the young girl said sheepishly. She wasn’t one who liked the spotlight. She was the quietest of the Dyers’ children and kept mostly to herself.

  Maji had the gift of foresight, able to know things that were to happen before they did. While her family encouraged the gift, Maji was often scared of it and didn’t vocalize all that she saw.

  “It is mostly little things,” she once told me. We had been cleaning dishes after a family dinner that Styu had invited me to. While her siblings were playing, Maji and I were washing up.

  “Like when visitors come calling or when Miji is going to drop something. I try to warn them when it is important, but it happens so often that my warnings just become annoying.” She hung her head when she said this, a small blush of shame crawling up her neck.

  “But I’m learning,” Maji confessed. “Like when I saw you getting hurt, I knew I just had to tell someone. That it was too important to ignore.”

  I thought back to the time when I had used my gift to its capacity, and it had knocked me out for three days straight. I still argued it was for a good cause, cleansing a town of the corruption, but my friends made me swear I wouldn’t overuse my gift like that again. Diana later told me that Maji had warned her and Rebekah, the captain of the guard, of my impending injury. The young girl had rushed the palace gates to warn someone, anyone about my fate.

  Since hearing that story, Maji and I had grown closer. She had watched out for me when she didn’t have to. Maji had only met me once before that vision occurred. Yet, she still looked out for me, so the least I could do was return the favor.

  In the middle of drying a plate, I asked Maji about her power. It was a question that seemed delicate, almost forbidden, mainly because the answer could have dire consequences.

  “Maji,” I wondered cautiously, “have your visions ever been… wrong?”

  Maji sighed and carried a dish to its place on a shelf. She didn’t say anything as she moved back to my side at the counter. She strung out the wet rag, choking little droplets of water out of the fibers.

  “No,” she finally said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  A shiver ran up my spine and chilled my neck. There was such power in her statement. Such a proclamation had consequences if ever discovered by someone outside of those who loved her dearly, like her family and me.

  The smile that broke over Maji’s face over having two delicious sweets to eat snapped my thoughts back to the present. While it was a humble celebration overall, it obviously still brought joy to the young girl.

  It was the first birthday celebration I had attended in Insomier, and surprisingly, there wasn’t much difference between the parties here and the ones back on Earth. Gifts were usually exchanged, and sweets were consumed. It was me, though, who had insisted on a cake. Normally, smaller pastries like sweet rolls or beignet-like treats were made, but I wanted to learn how to bake in this medieval culture, so Vanna obliged.

  The one major difference, however, was the lack of birthday candles or wishes. When I first asked Vanna about it, she looked at me like I had three heads.

  “We do nothing like that here,” she said. “We sing and then eat. There is nothing for the guest of honor to do, really.”

  A weird sense of duty struck me, and I wanted more than anything to get some candles for Maji’s birthday cake. That moment before blowing out the candles had always been so important to me as a kid. It was a chance to wish for something different, something special for the next year. Granted, some of my wishes were superficial, like a new bike or a puppy, but as I grew older, I used those wishes as opportunities to wish for grander things. Happiness. Adventure. For my parents to come back.

  And, most recently, I had wished for a new place to live, love, and create.

  Hence, here I was, in Insomier.

  Needless to say, I was a firm believer in wishes and wanted to ensure that Maji and the rest of the Dryers kiddos had every opportunity to make wishes. To discover their hopes and pursue their dreams. I knew it was cheesy, but as someone who recently had a wish come true, it was powerful stuff that deserved to be shared.

  So a few days ago, I’d scoured the city of Insomier for the wax merchant and asked him to make me twelve small candles. When I eventually told
him what they were for, he’d laughed.

  “You are going to stick these in a cake?” he’d said through fits of laughter. “You know you cannot eat the wax, right?”

  Despite assuring him that I knew you couldn’t eat wax, he still continued to laugh at the idea. Nevertheless, he completed my order, and soon, I had twelve thin, white candles for Maji’s birthday cake.

  I pulled them out and set them on the table. Carefully, I unfolded them from their cloth covering and placed them, one by one, in the cake I baked. A curious silence fell over the group as they watched me stick one candle after the other around the edge of the cake.

  “So, this,” I began, “is something we do where I come from.”

  Maji watched transfixed as I straightened the candles. “Why?”

  “We put a candle for each year of your life in the cake,” I explained. “They represent you. Then we light them, and you get to make a wish. Once you’ve made your wish, you blow out the candles.”

  Mark, Maji’s younger brother, huffed from beside me. “I don’t want to eat a cake if it has Maji’s spittle all over it.”

  “You can have a piece of the other cake if you care that much,” his mother scolded. “Let Martin finish.”

  “You have to blow out all the candles, or the wish won’t come true,” I warned.

  Maji looked nervous then. She took this so seriously that it was strange to me. I was used to children taking their birthday wishes for granted, whereas Maji stared into my eyes with such sincere commitment. I softened my expression to reassure her.