Cruel Daddy Dragon (Candara Dragon Ops #3)

Chapter 28 - Rufus

“Do you think he’s decided anything yet?” Milo asks me in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

We’re all clustered in the back: Milo, Orion, Evander, Kaius, and me. Julie and Sarah walk ahead of us, chatting with each other. Leading the procession is Cyrus and Lena.

“I’m sure the engravings will help convince him,” Milo says, but he doesn’t sound that sure.

“Or Lena,” Kaius adds, “She’s very persuasive.”

I chuckle weakly.

“Look, if Cyrus says we need to leave, then it’s not because he wants to spite all of us,” Evander says, “It’s because we’re all going to be killed if we stay here.”

We all sink after Evander speaks. He’s telling the truth, but…

We all plod forward in sullen silence for a second until Orion, of all of us, is the one to speak:

“I don’t want to go,” he grunts, “I like this place so much better than our old base.”

All heads turn to face him.

“If you guys won’t say it, I will,” Orion says, “Greyson Ridge is way better than where we’d set up before.”

“Wow,” Kaius chuckles, “Didn’t expect that from you, O. I thought our cool, stoic tracker would be fine anywhere.”

Orion shrugs.

“The location’s better, the humans around are great, and the beer is good,” he grunts, “What can I say?”

“Yeah,” Milo adds on, “Plus, I like my job at the school. I’ve never had a job like it, and it’d suck to lose that.”

Everyone murmurs in acknowledgment. Evander looks between Kaius and me.

“And I thought you fated mate lover boys would be the ones to throw the biggest fits over this,” he chuckles weakly.

“I’m fine wherever Julie is,” Kaius answers firmly.

I think for a second before I answer:

“Same here, but I know Sarah really doesn’t want to go,” I say.

“Yeah…” Kaius replies, “Same with Julie… it’d break her heart to have to give up the museum.”

We all walk in more sullen silence for a moment.

“Well, I’ll admit that I like it here too,” Evander says, “But if Cyrus decides we have to leave, I wouldn’t be surprised. We don’t just have ourselves and our own comfort to think about. We have to think about all of Soleilus.”

We all keep our silence; he’s right. We know he is.

“I’d expect the worst, everyone,” Evander states.

We tread along the rest of the path, arriving at the edge of the cave. I see Cyrus and Lena stop first, then Julie and Sarah, then the rest of us.

“Well… here we are,” Lena says.

Cyrus nods and then gives us all an ordering glance. We all shift at once, and those of us with mates go to their sides and pick them up. I go over to Sarah, and she smiles and loops her arm around my neck, knowing the deal by now.

I parachute down with my wings, and everyone lands at once. Lena takes Cyrus’s hand and leads him to one of the walls.

“So this is the carvings that we were talking about,” Lena says, “I’m fairly sure a lot of these are witchy sigils.”

Cyrus walks toward the witchy sigils on the walls. His eyes are wide. He treads as if sleepwalking toward the wall and places a hand on it.

“I’ve identified some of them in Gram’s old journals, but others, I can’t figure out,” Lena says.

“You won’t,” Cyrus answers, “Because some of these are ancient draconic symbols…”

“What?” Evander says first, voicing all our thoughts.

We all gather around Cyrus as he looks over the wall from top to bottom.

“They’re draconic?” Evander asks, “Are you sure? I don’t recognize anything here.”

“That’s because a lot of these symbols are very ancient and very powerful,” Cyrus replies, “It’s one of those secrets they only tell Alphas ascending the throne.”

I freeze for a moment. I can feel burning gazes and look over to see everyone swapping aghast looks.

“So… an ancient Alpha was part of this?!” Evander says.

“It must have been,” Cyrus answers, “But what’s even more bizarre is how they’re woven together.”

“The witch sigils and the draconic symbols, right?” Lena says, coming to Cyrus’s side.

“Right,” he says, “They’ve been blended together to make something even more powerful. This… is the most powerful spell I’ve ever seen. I haven’t even read about the magic of this power in our oldest texts.”

“Well,” Lena laughs, “that explains why I couldn’t find what some of these symbols meant.”

“What’s the spell meant to do?” Evander asks.

“From what I could tell,” Lena says, “it’s some kind of protection circle. One large enough to cover the entire town. I think it’s what’s been keeping our town safe over all these years.”

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like to me too,” Cyrus says, “I… just wonder what the hell was so powerful that both witches and dragons needed to pull out magic this strong…”

“Maybe you should have a look at these carvings,” Julie suggests, “These aren’t symbols, but they seem to be commemorative paintings, which might give us some answers.”

Cyrus looks over in her direction and approaches the drawings on the other side of the wall. He gives the same wide-eyed expression when he looks over them.

“Incredible,” he says, “I’ve seen paintings just like these back in our old base. The ones there had been carved out from the walls they’d been originally painted on and taken to our base—it was an important part of our history. They were lost in the attack recently…”

He looks down regretfully. There’s a murmuring of sorrow among the dragons in there, and I hear myself sigh. Sarah touches the back of my arm softly.

“Anyway,” Cyrus continues, “let’s see what these ones say…”

He walks closer and studies them. He grows silent. Lena crosses the room again and looks back at the witchy sigils. She seems to be drawing them down, annotating them as she goes. Sarah looks over at me.

“Do you think that any of this might convince Cyrus to let everyone stay?” she whispers.

I know he can probably hear us, but I still speak back in a low tone.

“I don’t know,” I murmur, “Evander says we need to prepare for the worst, and he’s probably right.”

She sighs lightly. She folds her arms, and I sling my arm over her shoulders.

“Julie?” Cyrus calls suddenly, “Can I ask you something about these?”

“Yes?” she says, padding over.

Cyrus has slowly traversed from one side of the wall to the other, reaching the corners of the mural carved into the wall. He’s crouched down by the corner, where it seems to have suffered the most over time. Julie reaches the corner.

“Are these crests based on something in Greyson Ridge’s history, as far as you know?” Cyrus asks Julie.

Julie leans down, squinting at it. She adjusts her glasses when she stands up before she answers.

“It’s a little hard to tell because it’s rubbed off, but I don’t think so,” she says.

“They’re not familiar to you?” Cyrus asks, “At all?”

Julie shakes her head, and Cyrus nods in return.

“I see,” he mutters.

“What do you think it is?” Evander asks.

“I mean, I can’t be sure, ” Cyrus says, “but this looks like it could be the icon of the Naga.”

A rolling gasp moved over all of us.

“Wait!” Lena says, turning around, “What? There’s an icon for the Naga there?! So Creepy Tom wasn’t the only one?!”

Kaius starts snickering. Everyone gathers around the engraving and peers closer.

“Oh, my god,” Milo says, “It does look like it could be!”

I lean down and frown at the lines. I didn’t notice it before because more than half of it is missing—a large chunk of rock has been broken off, but the loops that are left do seem familiar.

“So what does this mean?” Lena says, “If this is the icon for the Naga?”

“Well… obviously, I can’t be sure—” Cyrus begins, but Lena cuts him off:

“Just tell me Greyson Ridge wasn’t Naga-ville back in the day!” she snaps, “I can’t be doing with more than one Creepy Tom!”

I snort. Kaius starts snickering harder. Everyone else has a better time hiding their laughter, but I see some smiles twisting as they hold it back. Even Cyrus breaks out in a smile:

“I can’t be sure,” he says again, “but it looks more like the protection circle might have been cast to prevent Greyson Ridge from becoming “Naga-ville”. ” His smile drifts as he adds, “But it looks like there was more than one Naga. There was enough that they had to be locked away.”

Cyrus walks back to the middle of the wall, looking over it.

“This engraving is littered with hidden symbols,” Cyrus says, “There are hundreds tucked away inside the other drawings—it tells a far different story when you know what they mean. I suppose that was to keep them secret in case a casual observer wandered in.”

“Oh, please tell us what they mean!” Julie says eagerly.

Cyrus smiles lightly and then announces it to all of us.

“From what I can see from these engravings, it looks like both dragons and witches were the founders of this town. I can see a list of names,” he says, “It looks like the dragons held the keys, and the witches were relic-holders.”

There’s another rolling gasp.

“How many of each?” Evander asks.

“I can’t tell how many relics; the carving’s eroded too much. But I can tell there are ten keys,” Cyrus answers, “and the names of the key guards…”

He looks at us all surprised.

“It looks like it’s the ancestors of the dragon clans.”

“Soleilus?” Evander asks.

“All of them.”

Everyone pauses.

“All of them?!” Kaius says, “Are you serious? All the clan leaders were here?!”

“That’s what it says,” Cyrus answers.

“Even Eclipse?” Evander asks.

“Yes. I recognize the name.”

Everyone looks at each other again.

“What the hell happened?” Kaius asks, “I thought all the dragon clans have been at each other’s throats as long as anyone can remember?”

“That’s what we thought,” Cyrus says, “But this says that they were here. They each held a key to keep the Naga locked away, but they had to leave… for some reason.”

He kneels down and looks down at the bottom of the carvings. Toward the bottom of the cave, there’s more erosion, and after running his hand over them, Cyrus sighs.

“I don’t know why. Half of the history’s gone from how it’s crumbling away,” he growls in light frustration for a moment before he sucks in a breath, “Well, I suppose it’s surprising it survived at all, let alone so well.”

Lena walks forward and looks at Cyrus.

“But this is what Sarah was talking about—this place isn’t just our home. It’s yours too. All of you dragons. Fleeing Greyson Ridge because of this threat from Eclipse… it’s not just about how embarrassing or shameful it would be to leave; it’s about everything we’d be losing.” Lena looks at Julie as she says, “All this history.” She then glances at Sarah: “As well as what we’ve all built here nowadays.”

Sarah nods next to me.

Cyrus sighs. He walks away, arms folded.

“If we fight for Greyson Ridge,” he says, “it’s not going to be easy. In fact, I don’t even know if we could win as we are.”

“But,” Sarah says, “you’ve said yourself that there are so many more keys than we’ve found. How many do we have, two? And you said there were ten . That’s not even to mention how many more relics there might be—or how many residents here secretly have powers like Lena’s that can help us. To be honest, it would definitely be a worse move to leave.”

Cyrus nods. He looks from Lena to Julie to Sarah. Then, he expands his gaze beyond them and opens the floor with: “And what about the rest of you? Would you be willing to stay and fight?”

“Yes,” I answer before I can even think.

“I will,” Kaius answers nearly as quickly.

“I think we should,” Orion says.

“Yes, I will,” Milo says.

Evander looks among the rest of us and then nods at Cyrus. Our Alpha nods back at us all.

“All right,” he says, “If you’re all willing to lay down your lives like that, then I won’t force you all to leave.”

His gaze darkens.

“But in that case, we need to prepare ourselves for the fight,” he growls, “This is not going to be easy. One wrong move, and we’re all going to be killed.”