Chapter 1
“The king must not know yet,” Majeer said.
As he placed his hands on the war table, looking at each and every high-ranking soldier. Some were leaning against the poles on the sides of the tent, while others sat beside the table, their faces full of grim expressions and disagreement.
“I think I speak for the rest when I say we disagree,” Shawn said.
The soldiers were murmuring in agreement.
Majeer scowled.
“If the king finds out our area is losing the most, we might end up stepping down from command, and I, for one, am not willing,” he stated to Shawn.
“We must eliminate the threat before it spreads to the North and East,” he continued.
Shawn snorted.
“And what do you propose we do to stop the poison from spreading among our men when even our war healers could not find a solution?” Shawn slammed his hands on the table.
Majeer was an ambitious and prideful man who had climbed the ranks a century ago. His sheer determination and brutality had won him his title as the General of the Western Troops.
Majeer ran a hand through his dark locks in frustration.
Everyone knew, even Majeer did, that he was desperate to keep it a secret.
That their men were being poisoned into turning into rampaging dragons.
Tearing everything—and even their own men—apart inside their base.
A scout no less than a century old had come back to report the location of the enemy’s base, but when morning came for him to fly out and show the location, the young lad had raged and managed to tear out a soldier’s throat in his dragon form. After that, everything fell apart as men started randomly becoming violent. No one knew why.
At first, they thought they were driven mad by war, but after seeing their eyes ooze what looked like a dark purple substance, they knew something was wrong.
“King Ladon needs to know our soldiers are being driven ma—”
“NO!” Majeer snarled at Shawn.
“Sir—” One of the troops tried to reason, her voice firm but cut short by Majeer’s glare.
“We just need to find those who are infected and isolate them before things get out of hand,” Majeer insisted.
“Are you daft, Majeer?!” Shawn snapped.
“We don’t even know the symptoms, if there are fucking any at all!” Shawn continued.
“For fuck’s sake, we don’t even know if it’s an infection, poison, or whatever this is. All we know is the West will crumble if we do not inform the king. We are not to be blamed for this. We don’t even know if it was the enemy’s doing or if this is some fucking plague!”
“For once, Majeer, think! Your position is useless if everyone is dead,” Shawn ended.
Majeer was shaking with rage.
If the king found him incompetent, all his hard work would have been for nothing.
The large tent’s entrance flapped open.
“M’Lord is here!” the messenger panted, her eyes filled with terror and panic.
“What?!” they both shouted as all the soldiers in the room stood up.
“One of the infected escaped and attacked him. It was another scout who came back from the expedition!” she rushed out.
“WHAT?!”
LADON
“M’Lord, are you alright?”
Tava asked.
As she waited for Ladon to shift into his human counterpart.
Her eyes lingered on the dead dragon beside them. The dragon was small and bore the crest of the Western Camp.
Ladon stood, his body covered in blood.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he strode toward the camp.
His irritation could be seen on his face.
“Tell the others to prepare my tent,” he said gruffly.
It was unexpected. He recognized the small dragon as a scout from the West as they glided through the sky. The young lad had come from below them when he attacked, lunging for his throat.
Ladon did not need another extra dragon head.
Two were already a headache in his dragon form.
Wiping the blood from his face, he looked at Tava.
His fiancée.
He grunted.
They had already bedded each other, and yet the restlessness had not left him in weeks.
The stress, rage, and urge to be possessive did not leave his body.
It irked him that neither Tava’s body nor company had done anything to soothe his agitation.
They had been together for almost two centuries, and Tava had proven herself worthy of the Queen’s throne through battle and strategy, and yet he woke up disgusted by her touch one evening.
It had come out of nowhere, surprising even the beast inside him.
He had admired Tava and praised her for being a warrior, never pushing for immediate marriage when she had proven herself through the Queen’s Battle. It was a massacre, one after the other, as every suitor he had defeated fell and their blood bathed Tava. She had claimed she wanted him and, second, the throne, and he respected that.
Coming from a pure bloodline himself.
As he approached the war tent, he could hear hushed voices.
Arguing, perhaps.
He scowled as he flipped open the tent flap.
“Explain.”
