Page 12 of Brutal Dragon King

Bracing my human hands on the rail, my knuckles pale with how tight my grip is, the rush of blood through the veins in my arms feeling only mildly satisfying. It’s a good thing my senses are heightened as a dragon shifter. It’s bad that my fingers haven’t entirely forgotten what it felt like to have a human under them.

I haven’t been able to shake off the thought of the girl—the clumsy human one from the mortal village who crashed into me yesterday. Growing impatient by the second as I wait for the royal guard’s return to the palace, I feel almost desperate to complete the mating ritual with whichever human has been chosen in the reaping lottery to completely forget about that particular human.

I’m not usually fazed by humans. I couldn’t care to give them a second thought. Until now, when I officially walkedthe planet for three hundred years and duty forces me into producing an heir for the Kingdom of The Spine.

Humans are just measly peasants, after all. The only real use for them is carrying dragon cubs, and once that’s over and done with, they’re disposable.

I need this to be over and done with.

The sky amplifies my impatience when a golden thread of lightning signals the stirrings of the clouds. Pressing a finger to my temple only to soothe the throbbing of my head, I send out a mind link message to the royal secretary in charge of the reaping draw in the village.

“Aerwyna. Come in for your king.”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”comes her immediate reply, loud and clear even though she’s beyond the wall in the horizon that separates the mortal world from the palace grounds.

“Is the reaping done?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,”she repeats in response to my question. “Your child-bearer has been chosen.”

“Good,”I clear my throat physically. “Do not dispose of her if she resists. Bring her to the palace no matter what.”

“Yes, King Haidën. Understood,”Aerwyna concedes, and I’m left satisfied.

It’s been a longstanding tradition to dispose of any unwilling creatures of the mortal world if they object to the king’s decisions. Every time a child-bearer is picked as a child-bearer for one of my men, the rules remain the same.

Kill the human if she resists.

I am the king, and I can change the rules.

Truthfully, I just want this to be over, and killing the chosen one will mean that the reaping will be dragged out for another day. I don’t have another day to waste on this spectacle.

My agitation keeps me grounded on the balcony, unmoving as I glower at the sky that seems to mimic how I feel when a gray cloud bursts open and sends its wrath over the kingdom. The invisible gates of the protective dome that covers the kingdom parts, a dragon shifter’s bleating roar signals the arrival of the royal guard.

Aerwyna is the first dragon to fly forward, landing just in front of the palace entrance. I expect her to come to give me the routine update on the happenings of tonight’s events, and I’m about to turn back to the throne room when a squeaky cry rings out from below.

Frowning, I look down to see the royal guard marching in an organized formation just as they’ve been trained. But the squealing I heard was not a dragon’s. The source is the human, who’s dragged by two of my loyal dragon guards into the courtyard. Thanks to my heightened sense of hearing, it’s almost as if I feel the ground vibrate with her squeals, and I’m all the way on the peak of the palace.

It’s easy to distinguish the other guards’ landing from the sky, and I watch as they shift into their human, sword-wielding forms in a crescent circle around the human, blocking the path that leads to the wall.

She spins in a flash of dismal brown, sending droplets of rain skittering all around her before bolting forward as if she’s running to the palace entrance. My frown deepens, my curiosity piqued as Ryu, the head of the guard, takes two strides forward on long legs and grabs the human by the back of her neck.

“Ow! Let go of me!” she wails, her voice uncharacteristically booming for a human as her arms flail around. She tries fighting Ryu, but he grabs her firmly and pulls her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes from the market.

She’s a fighter, kicking her arms and pounding fists on Ryu’s back as he secures her with both hands on her waist and marches back to the entourage.

Another loud, roaring scream rings out, and that’s all it takes for curiosity to turn into irritation. Aggravated by her screams, I’m ready to go down there and slay her myself.

Unfortunately for her, I will not accept this kind of behavior. With each of her escalating cries and protests, my blood simmers.

I need to stop this, even if it means having to go through another round of the draw.

“Your Majesty…” comes Aerwyna’s voice from behind, but without passing her a glance, I lift my hand in the air to stop her.

“That’s the child-bearer?” I nod toward the courtyard.

“Yes, Your Majesty. She’s—”

Wasting no time, I mount the rail and throw myself off the balcony in human form. The clouds thunder and light up as if to announce my great shift into dragon form midair, and I flap my wings once for leverage. It makes the glide down to the courtyard effortless, and I land on webbed feet that cushion the impact for me, but shake the ground strongly so that my men turn to me.

---