Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 65310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
I shrugged. “It’s a little low key for what I’m used to, but I think I can grow to like it.”
He studied his hands. “There’s about to be a lot more use for it, once we go to war.”
I turned to him suddenly.
“I’ve not heard anything about war!” I insisted.
He shrugged. “That’s what this is all about. During the day, we go hunting to find those Purists intent on destroying our cause.”
“And how exactly do you find them?” I questioned.
“That’s what we’ve been doing in the first part of the days. We locate them and then pay them a little visit. If we don’t like how those men and women conduct themselves, or if they try to explain away what they’ve been doing to plot against us, we take care of them,” he said simply.
I was a little taken aback.
“So what…you kill them?” I asked in alarm.
He shot me a reproving look. “You damn well know I don’t just kill them.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “But you have to do something with them.”
My observation fell on deaf ears when I walked around the corner of the hospital.
I’d never ventured that far.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe a sense of self-preservation. I couldn’t really tell you why, only that I just never did.
And now, with my eyes on the big purple behemoth in front of me, I knew why.
Chapter 16
There be dragons.
-T-shirt
Blythe
“He’s beautiful,” I breathed, eyes wide in wonder as I got my first good look at the old dragon.
Keifer nodded. “He is.”
His scales were the deepest hue of purple, edged with an iridescent silver, but when he took a breath, his scales would shimmer, and varying shades of purple would be revealed, nearly blinding you with their beauty.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked quietly.
Keifer shrugged. “He lost a wing, and after that, he kind of decided he no longer wanted to participate in life.”
When I made to take a step forward, he caught my wrist and stilled me.
“How horrible. How does he live?” I gasped in outrage.
“He’s able to live just fine. He just can’t fly. At least not for the time being,” he explained. “Dragons can grow missing body parts back. It just takes a very, very long time. Years, sometimes decades. He’s also cantankerous,” Keifer continued. “Let him be. I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“I won’t get too close,” I ignored him and kept walking, Keifer at my back.
I came to a stop underneath a tree, gazing down on the massive beast who was dozing just down the hill, only feet away from the large pond that I’d only heard about, but had yet to find.
“Is he the reason no one will tell me where the pond is?” I asked with a smile.
Keifer came up to stand beside me, his shoulder brushing mine.
“Yeah, he’s it,” he confirmed. “He’s old, irritable and doesn’t like people much. He was my father’s bonded dragon, and he hasn’t been the same since my father was killed.”
“He’s heartbroken,” I murmured, tears threatening to spill.
Keifer shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? He doesn’t talk to any of us either. The younger dragons,” he indicated a few of the dragons that were flying over our heads. “They bring him food so he doesn’t have to move. I don’t know if they do that to be nice, or because he makes them. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t have much reason to move.”
“Where does he poop?” I asked.
Keifer huffed out an amused snort of laughter. “I don’t know. I don’t really care as long as it’s not in the middle of the road where we have to walk.”
Such a man, not caring what happens as long as it doesn’t affect him.
“What makes him so dangerous?” I questioned.
Keifer slung his arm around my shoulder.
“He bit a man’s leg off a couple of years ago,” he expounded. “He was only walking down to the pond to fish, but Angus counts the fish as his friends and took offense to him trying to catch them.”
I laughed. “You’re lying. I saw the one-legged man at the hospital. It happened because he was beating a woman and some dragon took offense.”
He was trying to scare me off from the wounded soul down below, but I wouldn’t be.
The dragon, Angus, needed a friend, and I’d be just the one to offer him one.
“So why are you showing me Angus?” I asked softly.
I knew he had something on his mind.
He wouldn’t have brought me here if he hadn’t had something to say.
“When I become King…there will be new duties. I’ll be away more, expected to travel. I’ll have to give up the club, because there are those of us that don’t like the fact that the Dragon’s Warriors MC is so hardcore looking,” he sighed. “Which means I’ll have to become someone who isn’t, well, me.”
“That’s why you didn’t want to be King. You don’t want to be, period. You want to live your life, not have how you live your life dictated to you by others and their expectations,” I surmised, awareness of the situation dawning.