THE DRAGON BLOOD SON-IN-LAW

CHAPTER 5

The message was still glowing on the phone screen.

YOUR FATHER HAS JUST BEEN CAPTURED.

His thumb was poised over the glass when another line appeared, falling to the ground before he could process it.

THE PERSON WHO GAVE HIM TO THE ASH COVENANT IS STANDING BESIDE YOU

Adrian raised his eyes slowly.

Everyone was watching him now. Seraphine was closest, but Nyxara was leaning against the broken doorframe, favouring her shoulder. Virelle was rigid. Orren was carved from stone. Caedmon had placed a hand over his wounded arm for the first time in his life, saying nothing.

The phone buzzed.

DO NOT TRUST THE FIRST PERSON WHO CONFESSES

The screen went black.

"What did it say?" Seraphine asked.

Adrian pocketed it. "Someone gave my father to the Ash Covenant."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

A laugh came from the doorway. Ravian Kross stood amidst the wreckage, blood tricking from a gash on the side of his temple - looking far too pleased with himself.

"You still don't understand what you've woke up."

"Ravian." Nyxara's voice was level.

He raised one hand and figures rose up behind him out of the darkness - dozens of figures, dozens of agents in the black of the Covenant, filing in through the ruined hall.

Seraphine's eyes were wide. "How did they get inside?"

"We never left."

Clicks sounded beneath the floor and another. Adrian looked down as three black markings bloomed in between the marble tiles, and Dragon Sight peeled the world back around him - walls of glowing lattice, seals and sigils, and a mass of red thread snaking through the entire mansion like veins running through skin.

One thread connected to Ravian, another to Nyxara.

A third was buried into the chest of Orren, and his stomach twisted. "Orren."

The older man was watching him. "Adrian?"

"don't move."

Seraphine's gaze darted between them. "What's happening?"

Adrian moved forward and Virelle instantly moved to stop him. "Enough."

"Move."

"You've been mistreated in this house," Virelle said quietly. "I will not deny it. But you will not threaten my husband over an anonymous text."

"I haven't threatened him." Adrian's eyes were still locked on Orren. "yet."

Caedmon shifted. "Mom-"

"Stay out of this."

Adrian halted three paces in front of Orren. "Did you give them my father?"

There was a long pause before Orren's expression changed - not in fear, but in regret.

Seraphine caught it too. "Father?"

Orren closed his eyes. "Adrian, listen-"

"That's not an answer."

"No." he opened them again. "I did not hand over your father to the Covenant."

Adrian waited.

"But I know who did."

Ravian laughed. "There it is."

Orren turned on him. "You are the last person who should be talking about truth."

Ravian lifted the black cylinder and Dragon Sight responded instantly - the red threads beneath the mansion flaring, and Adrian's blood surged in answer, pain rocketing through his chest.

[DRAGON RESONANCE DETECTED.]

[EXTERNAL SYNCHRONIZATION ATTEMPT.]

[BLOODLINE STABILITY: 8%]

His knees nearly gave him away.

"Adrian!" Seraphine caught his wrist. "Don't do it."

"I'm fine."

"You can barely stand." Her voice sharpened. "If that thing is hurting you, standing closer to it is not a noble sacrifice."

She yanked the device from her coat.

Caedmon blinked. "You're arguing with him now?"

She completely ignored him and for a moment Adrian almost smiled - until the floor exploded.

The blast threw everyone backwards and Adrian landed on his knees beside a broken pillar, cracks spider-weaving through the stone behind him. Seraphine was sprawled on her back a few feet away, the marble floor cutting across her side.

He was at her side first, hauling her away from the wreckage as another section of flooring broke away into the darkness.

Someone climbed out of the gap. Not a monster, this time. A man, in a dark coat, silver mask, stepping onto the broken marble like it was his own.

Nyxara went utterly still.

Adrian watched. "You know him."

"No."

Too quick for it to be real.

The masked man peeled off one glove, revealing a black mark stretching across the palm of his hand - a dragon, split down the middle. His eyes locked on Adrian and he bowed. "Young Sovereign.

Adrian's jaw tightened. "Who sent you?"

"Your father's message."

"Where is he?"

The man's eyes turned to Orren. "Ask the Sterling patriarch."

Everyone in the room turned to look at his father. Orren went white.

"Father?" Seraphine's voice had gone very quiet.

"Twenty-six years ago," the masked man said, "Orren Sterling signed a protection covenant."

Adrian's pulse slowed to something cold and steady. "What covenant?"

His father said nothing, and it was the stranger who answered.

"The covenant that ensured a certain child remained hidden from every bloodline in Veyrith."

A strange shape formed in Adrian's mind. He looked at Orren. "You knew."

Orren's silence was confirmation.

"You knew about me. From the start."

"Yes." The word barely left his throat.

Something cracked open in Adrian's chest - three years of humiliation, three years of being treated like an embarrassment tolerated out of pity, three years of never understanding why they kept him around at all. Now he did.

Or thought he did.

"Why?"

"Knowing who you were would have placed a target on your back."

"That's not enough."

"No." Orren's voice dropped to almost nothing. "It isn't enough."

Seraphine advanced on her father. "What else did you promise?"

He said nothing.

"What is he talking about?" Adrian demanded.

Seraphine's face closed like a door. "Adrian-"

"The marriage."

She froze.

"What did he mean by that?"

Silence. Until Ravian filled it. "The marriage was never chosen at random."

Seraphine turned on him. "Shut up."

"Ask your father why he needed Adrian Vale inside this house."

"Shut up."

She raised the device and fired. The blast caught Ravian in the chest, throwing him into the wall.

Adrian stared at her. "You knew how to use that."

"My grandfather taught me."

"You never told me."

"You never asked."

He almost laughed. "Fair."

For once they'd found something to agree on.

Ravian dragged himself upright and wiped blood from his mouth. "Interesting." His eyes were on Seraphine. "The Stabilizer has finally picked a side."

"Stabilizer?" Adrian's voice was sharp.

Seraphine's face shut down completely. "Don't."

"What did he mean?"

"I don't know."

Ravian laughed. "That's the trouble with secrets. Eventually they get too heavy."

He tightened his grip on the cylinder and it cracked open. Energy flooded the mansion - and this time Adrian did not drop. Heat surged through his veins instead, Dragon Sight sharpening until the red threads resolved into something he could finally read - a source. A gate, buried far below the Core, ringed in words burned into ancient stone.

THE BLOOD OF DRAVARYN SHALL OPEN THE GATE.

Adrian stared, then turned to Ravian. "You don't want me dead."

Ravian said nothing.

"You need me alive."

Still nothing.

"So why attack the mansion at all?" Adrian took a step forward. "You're not trying to break in." He looked down at the cracked marble. "You're trying to force me to open what's under it."

The masked man drew back a pace. "Now you understand."

"Who are you?"

The stranger's fingers lifted towards the edge of his mask.

"Don't," Nyxara said sharply.

He ignored her. His fingers touched silver.

Then a roar tore through the foundation of the house and everyone froze. Dust fell from the ceiling. The gold light under the marble surged brighter, and Ravian's smile finally died on his face.

"No."

The masked man turned toward the floor. "Too late."

The mansion shook again. A crack tore through the marble directly beneath Adrian's feet. Light poured through it - not fire. Something older than fire.

[UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED.]

[WARNING.]

[THIS ENERGY DOES NOT BELONG TO THE DRAVARYN BLOODLINE.]

Adrian's breath caught in his throat. The room was suddenly very still.

Then something beneath Veyrith City beat once - a sound that rolled through the foundations and into every supernatural spine in the room.

Nyxara breathed one word. "Impossible."

A second beat followed. The windows blew outward in a single sheet of glass, and far past the mansion walls, every light in the city flickered at once.

Ravian looked out at the skyline. "What did you wake up?"

Adrian did not answer.

Something else had already.

A woman's voice rose up out of the dark beneath his feet - faint, distant, and unmistakably human.

"Adrian…"

His blood turned to ice. He knew that voice.

His mother's.

The floor gave way beneath him, and he was falling before he even understood he'd started to scream her name.