THE DRAGON BLOOD SON-IN-LAW

CHAPTER 2

Your father is hunting you too.

The words evaporated from Adrian's vision, leaving the ruined dining hall and the scent of scorched marble behind it.

'Adrian?' Seraphine's fingers curled around his sleeve, 'what did she mean?'

He didn't answer, instead watching Nyxara as she hovered over the ruined palace floor.

Almost his height, the woman was kneeling in something close to reverence and that was unnerving him more than the rotting corpse that had just expired in the chamber beneath them.

'Stand,' he ordered.

The woman came up to her full impressive, dark eyes narrowing against the weak candlelight as if she could penetrate his bones.

'Don't call me Your Majesty.'

'I will if that is what you are.'

'I don't know what I am.'

'Then why are you here?'

'To find out.'

Adrian's jaw tightened. 'Start explaining.'

Nyxara glanced around broken dining hall. 'Not here.'

Caedmon laughed, something higher than he probably intended. 'Excuse me? A stranger walks into our house, kneels to that '

Nyxara turned her gaze to the man, as if bored by the conversation.

Caedmo n's mouth twitched shut immediately and the blood drained from is face until a strange recognition touched Adrian's core.

Nyxara turned away from him as if their exchange had taken anything from her. 'Your family has drawn enough attention for one night."

Orren stepped forwards. 'Who are you.'

'Someone who knows what's under your house.'

The room froze. Orren's face barely moved but the tension in his jaw, that half-second longer inhale, it was all recognition. Recognition and more than a small amount of fear.

Adrian crossed towards him. 'What's beneath this house?'

'Nothing you need concern yourself with.'

That response would, three years ago, have sealed Adrian's lip into the cold ground and tonight it burned at his throat, a fresh wound.

'I've been telling you that for three years.'

'And you have been listening for three years.'

'It's over.'

No one spoke. Even the air seemed held in place by the silence, or maybe the stares because Seraphine and Virelle were holding his gaze with an intensity Adrian hadn't felt since the morning after getting married.

A rush of warmth spread through his core - and then the marble under his boots rumbled. THUMP.

Everyone went still. A second heartbeat pounded beneath them, stronger, louder. THUM P.

Adrian turned his gaze downwards and the ground went translucent beneath his eyes - dragon sight, unwanted, uncalled for flooded his vision. Hidden beneath the mansion lay a chamber of intricate symbols carved into the walls, chains leading into the darkness along with a single black throne.

On it rested a golden heart, pulsating with every beat of his own. THUMP. Adrian's chest answered. THUMP. It pulsed from beneath the marble.

'The Core,' Nyxara whispered, almost to herself.

'You can see it?'

'No.'

'Then how do you know? '

'I've been looking for it for twenty years."

Adrian's pulse picked up at that. 'You shouldn't have brought him here.'

'I didn't,' Nyxara's gaze held his, 'what ever is down there wasn't waiting for me.'

Her eyes dropped to the golden light beneath his skin.

'Waited for you.'

A shiver ran down Adrian's back.

'Everyone leaves,' Virelle said, her tone icy.

'Seraphine , no.'

'Seraphine -'

'No. Three years you told me he was ordinary, What were you hiding from me?'

Virelle said nothing.

'From him?'

'No.'

'From who ?'

Adrian turned back to Orren. 'My marriage to Seraphine, it was decided by someone, wasn't it? Your instructions must have included convincing my grandpa to get us together."

Or ren shifted his gaze away. 'We were given instructions.'

'By who?'

'You weren't informed.'

'Didn't ask for your opinion. Did y ou follow their orders?"

Orren's eyes flickered to Virelle. 'It was thought to be necessary."

'Necessary for what? '

The silence stretched until the System text messages pushed through, lines of code swimming before Adrian's eyes.

[Bloodline Suppression Analysis: 31% complete.]

[Original suppression mechanism detected.]

[Warning: Suppression mechanism is not a Dragon technique.]

His heart hammering, Adrian forced his breathing to slow. Suppression magic, not of draconic design, had somehow sealed away a portion of his power.

[Origin trace available.]

'Show me,' he said.

The world twisted and a vision bloomed into his mind: a pale hand gripping his arm, delicate fingers curled into a loose fist. A black ring, etched across with unfamiliar markings circled the knuckles.

Pain lanced at the back if his head and Adrian pitched forwards, catching himself on Seraphine.

' Adrian!'

For a moment the vision wavered; he had the strong impression of a burning hallway and a young woman cradling the baby in her arms.

His mother. Holding him.

A male voice somewhere at her back in the flames, 'If he wakes before the seal breaks, they'll find him.'

The vision shattered, a gasp forcing its way from Adrian as if he had been swimming from the bottom of the deep sea.

'Who was that?'

Nyxara had gone ashen. 'Your mother.'

'You knew her?'

'I did..'

'Then tell me what you know..'

'I will not.'

'Why?..'

'You are not ready..'

Adrian let out a bark of laughter.

'Again with the ready ,' Adrian said, his voice laced with false cheer as he turned to Virelle.

'You knew. You knew something was wrong with me.'

'So it would seem,' Virell e replied.

"Did you seal my power?"

'No.'

'You knew who did?'

Her silence was the only answer she woul d give tonight.

Adrian took another step closer to her. 'Who ? '

The whole house trem bl ed.

BOOM.

A hairline fracture split the floor, the gold light beneath the marble flaring in intensity.

Nyxara backed away quickly. 'Everyone away from him.'

Adrian focused down, at the Core, and its strange growing fissures. CRACK .

'What is happening?'

'Its the seal,' Nyxara responded, 'the one that's keeping whatever is down there asleep."

'The what seal?'

'The seal keeping it asleep."

Pain lances up his spine. 'You said the Core was waiting for me.'

'Apart from you, its waiting for no one else,' she replied.

The ground cracked open beneath where the Core floated, sending shockwaves outwards and, to Adrian's surprise, every supernatural in the room dropped to one knee, Nyxara, the guards and even Orren. Only he remained standing.

[Dragon Authority detected.]

[Environmental suppression resistance: successful.]

[Unknown entity beneath host detected.]

'Unknown e ntity? '

Nyxara took a step back. "Adrian. Don't look down."

Adrian looked anyway, down through to a chamber where the throne was no longer empty but occupied by an older, silver-haired man in a dark suit. One hand rested idly on the armrest while his eyes fixed on Adrian through the cracks in the floor.

'Twenty-six years,' the new voice rumbled, his words finding a path up through the stone to vibrate against Adrian's ribs. 'Twenty-six years, I was wondering when you were going to wake.'

Nyxara went completely still a t his side, a name escaping her lips, something that Adrian failed to catch over the beating of his heart.

'Mordren.'

Mordren smiled, and the heart above them cracked more, this time reaching deeper into its structure as a warning.

[WARNING.]

[UNKNOWN HIGH-LEVEL ENTITY HAS ESTABLISHED VISUAL CONTACT.]

Adrian didn't look away. 'You've been teaching m e the wrong things, boy.'

'Do you want me to kill you ?'

Mordren's smile widened. 'Nothing. I already have what I want.' His eyes tracked back upwards, past broken floorboards, past the chaos in this room, until it landed on Adrian, as if the distance didn't exist at all. 'All I wanted was this.'

The heart exploded and from underneath the Sterling mansion, something woke.

[EMERGENCY QUEST ACTIVATED.]

[PROTECT THE STERLING BLOODLINE.]

Adrian stared at these words. 'Why would I do that ?'

[Because if they die tonight, the city falls with them.]

This knowledge twisted his stomach. Whatever was beneath theSterling mansion wasn't simply interested in Adrian. His life had been the trigger, but theSterling house was now the safeguard.

[WARNING]

[ENEMY ENTITY DETECTED IN THE PREMISES]

'What is that?'

Adrian turned in the direction of new voices, his mind already calculating a fight plan when his gaze landed on the familiar, terrible eyes of the city watch standing in the front of the dining hall, their guns already tracking towards him.