THE DRAGON BLOOD SON-IN-LAW

CHAPTER 4

The doors exploded inward

Adrian hardly reacted in time to the gust of air that shoved him back, his shoulder slamming against the table.

"Adrian!" Seraphine was already up,

"Stay down."

Three men stepped through the smoke, their faces uncovered, revealing features that only furthered the tension thick in Adrian's throat. They moved in a careful practiced manner that marked them as something more than soldiers. Hunters.

The man in the front wore a black coat lined with silver, a red symbol stitched over his heart. Dragon sight flared in Adrian's vision, revealing the thread running through the fabric, pulsing with power. Contract magic, and a powerful bit of it at that.

The man's gaze swept over Adrian. "Here you are."

Adrian rolled his shoulder, pushing himself upright, wincing at the protest in his wounded muscle. "Who are you?"

The man peeled away a gloved hand, revealing a scarred and angular face. "Ravian Kross. Field Executor for the Ash Covenant."

Caedmon found his voice, "Why are you in our home?"

Ravian barely spared him a glance, his focus already shifting to Adrian.

"We aren't here for your home."

His thumb brushed the edge of the symbol on his chest. "We're here for him."

Adrian wiped a smudge of blood from his lip. "Aren't you supposed to knock?"

"Your bloodline has a very good sense of humor," Ravian said, his brow furrowing as he studied the marking over Adrian's heart. Threads of black energy traced from where the symbol should have been, disappearing into the floorboards, into the mansion walls, into the very center of the estate where Adrian's own magic pulsed in steady rhythm.

"That's a contract," Adrian said.

Ravian smiled, a quick movement of his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes. "And you can see contracts?"

His gaze flicked to the men at his back, "He's ahead of schedule."

"Report it?"

"No," Ravian said, eyes meeting Adrian's once more, "Take him."

The men were on him in the blink of an eye. Heat crawled up Adrian's arms, the System cutting in with a sharp jolt of pain, suppressing the surge of power he wanted to lash out with.

[bloodline stability: 11%]

Not enough.

Adrian twisted out of the way of the first hunter's strike, already reading Dragon sight as the man gathered power in his legs for a second blow.

He caught the hunter's arm, wrenching it away, spinning him into a palm strike to the chest. Nothing. The hunter laughed as he threw Adrian off him, his muscles tense with exertion.

"You don't even know how to use it."

The hunter was already swinging, but Adrian ducked low and a beam of white light shot past his head, knocking the man back against the far wall.

Adrian turned just in time to see a smug expression cross Seraphine's face as she lowered the device she had been using. He nearly chuckled at the look she wore, but it soon twisted into something darker.

"You had that?"

"My grandfather gave it to me,"

"You know how to use it?"

"No, I just shot him."

Despite the circumstances, despite the chaos, Adrian felt a hint of a smile tug at his lips. "Good strategy."

The second hunter lunged, but not fast enough. He turned on his heel, gripping the man's arm as he twisted the hunter's body backward, driving him into the dining table with a satisfying crack of wood.

"Adrian wait!" Caedmon exclaimed, "What the hell--"

"Move," Adrian ordered.

Caedmon did.

Ravian arched a single brow, "You're adapting very well."

Adrian shrugged. "I've had to."

Ravian's gaze swept over to Nyxara, "Nyxara Veyne."

She stepped forward, a deadly smile curving her lips as she raised her blade. "Ravian."

"Protecting him,"

"Yes."

"Then you would know the consequences if he should achieve full resonance."

Her grip tightened on the hilt of her sword, "Don't."

Ravian withdrew a small cylinder from his coat. A flash of black light crackled from the object, dancing around the room before settling over the mansion like a thin layer of frost.

"What is that," Seraphine asked.

"A key,"

Ravian set the cylinder down on the floor, the red marking flaring as the mansion trembled.

THUMP.

Adrian's hand flew to his chest, feeling the sharp pains as if his heart wanted to break free. [ANCIENT CORE RESONANCE INCREASING] [BLOODLINE STABILITY: 9%] "Not now," Adrian muttered.

Seraphine gripped his arm, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing,"You're a terrible liar."

Ravian narrowed his eyes. "The Sterling girl stabilizes him."

Nyxara shifted in front of Seraphine immediately. "Don't touch her."

"So you know?"

Seraphine's gaze narrowed, "Know what?"

No one answered her, just exchanged glances as she turned from Nyxara to Orren to Virelle, finally settling on Adrian.

"What are you all not telling me?"

Orren took a step forward, "Seraphine I want you to go upstairs."

"No,"

"Please."

Seraphine stared at him like he had grown a second head, "You've never said please to me in your life."

Orren could think of nothing to say.

Ravian focused back on Adrian, "The Core is reacting to your blood."

"What does it want?"

His smile faded, "Wrong question."

"Then what is the right question?"

"Why does it recognize you?"

The cylinder in his hand pulsed a deep red, the glow reflecting off the floor in scattered beams of warm light.

Adrian vision swam, going black and then-

Darkness. There was no mansion anymore. No Seraphine, no Nyxara, just a small ball of golden light hovering in front of him.

"Where am I?"

A familiar voice murmured, something far off, like the echoes trailing behind a dream, "Adrian."

Adrian took a step forward, "Mom?"

"I want you to listen to me," the light pulsed with every word she spoke, "Whatever they say to you about the Core, don't believe any of it."

"Why?"

A long pause filled the empty room before she answered, "They will tell you it belongs to you."

The ball of light split at its center, "It doesn't."

"Then whose is it,"

Her voice was growing distant,

"I took it from you."

The black darkness swallowed the golden light,

Adrian's eyes snapped open. Seraphine's hands gripped his shoulders.

"Adrian."

He inhaled sharply. The mansion swam into view, its features hazy, out of focus, as if he were seeing everything underwater. Ravian was watching him intently.

"What did you see,"

Adrian said nothing.

"You saw her," his gaze narrowed.

"Who,"

A strange smile curled on Ravian's lips, "Elysra." His mother's name tumbled from his lips, unfamiliar and yet still devastatingly, painfully real. The name didn't belong to him and yet here he was saying it to a man he barely knew. Anger boiled in Adrian's chest, "How do you know that name?"

Ravian said nothing

But Nyxara answered him, "He knew your mother's mother."

"Fall back," Ravian ordered, already turning away.

One of the hunters hesitated, "But the target--"

"We have enough,"

Ravian crushed the cylinder in his fist, and a thick black smoke billowed from the cracks. "Don't breath it," Nyxara warned, shoving Adrian aside as the cloud of smoke swallowed him whole.

Adrian tensed, waiting for the familiar tightness in his muscles, the pressure behind his eyes as the System prepared to fight, but it never came. His legs buckled beneath him and the world went black, the last thing he saw was Ravian standing amidst the smoke, watching him go down.

Adrian woke up on the floor of the dining room, the Ash Covenant long gone, but the smell of smoke still lingering in the air. Nyxara knelt at his side and he pushed himself upright.

"They're gone," she said.

"Why,"

"They got what they came for,"

"What does that mean,"

Nyxara said nothing, just pushed past him as Orren came to the shattered window. "They're retreating," Orren muttered.

"No," Nyxara said, plucking the broken cylinder from the floor and tracing the cracks with her fingertips. She turned back to face the horizon, the red symbols blooming all over Veyrith like sparks on dry tinder. "They're marking the district."

Adrian followed her line of sight, his pulse hammering in his throat as more and more of the marks flared to life, stretching out in long, twisting lines of fire and fury. "What does that mean?"

The look on Orren's face grew steadily more sickened as he stared at the skyline. "The old laws,"

"What old laws?"

"The Bloodline hunt," Orren answered slowly, carefully, "When a Dragon bloodline awakes, all the houses in the surrounding areas become eligible to claim the new heir."

"What does that mean,"

"It means," Orren's voice was thick with something dangerously close to hatred, "They want to claim you."

Nyxara said nothing, just turned away, her gaze lingering on the rising sun. A sharp buzzing sound cut through the room, and then another, and then another, until the entire mansion was deafened by the ringing of phones. Adrian fished his cell from his pocket and swore when he realized there was no name or number on the incoming call. He opened the window and an unknown sender had sent three texts, all flashing white letters against a black background.

UNKNOWN: RUN.

UNKNOWN: THE HUNT HAS BEGUN.

UNKNOWN: THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES COMING

His jaw tightened as a fourth message appeared, one that made his blood run cold.

UNKNOWN: ONE OF THE PEOPLE BESIDE YOU HAS ALREADY BETRAYED YOU.

Adrian glanced up slowly. Virelle. Orren. Caedmon. Nyxara. Selaphine. No one moved, no one spoke, and for the first time since the floorboards had opened beneath him, Adrian realized that maybe, just maybe, the true danger was the person he was with.