Chapter Fifteen #3
“So I’ve been told. You fought for us?” Was that admiration in Griff…no, Daire’s voice?
“Yes. Alphas fought against you.” Hard to keep the bitterness from his tone. “Alphas with no honor.”
“I know. Found out a bit late, though.” Daire stared out at nothing.
“You.”
Daire glanced back around. “Me what?”
“I saw an alpha flame a beta. You guided the injured dragon to the water.”
Daire shuddered. “For all the good it did him.” He studied Jimryr for a moment, eyes widening. “You were the big brute of a dragon who tried to help me.”
Jimryr nodded. “Yes. I got caught in a mage’s portal.”
“What did you do? You didn’t settle around here, or I’d have known.”
Jimryr shook his head slowly back and forth, failing to hold back a snicker. “Even though we came through the same portal, I think the mage sent me someplace else. Can you believe a gang of biker dragons found me? Took me in?”
Daire laughed. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. The DeKalb County Dragons.”
Daire gave a feeble smirk, one side of his lip puckering from one of his scars. “What do y’all do? Terrorize locals?”
“Ride, drink beer, practice fighting, and get tattoos, mostly.” Jimryr laughed at the image many held of bikers. “Actually, the mage told me to build an army, and one day we’d return to our homeland to fight.”
Daire sobered. “Sakaris? Army?”
“Yes, I’ve been traveling the United States, along with others, seeking candidates. I’d heard a rumor of a dragon being sighted in these parts, so I came to investigate.”
Daire pulled back, eyes narrowed. “Me? Since you didn’t recruit me, you must’ve found me lacking. Didn’t want the scarred-as-hell dragon? Was I a pity fuck, too?”
“No.” Jimryr kept his voice calm. Daire had been anything but a pity fuck.
He’d never wanted someone so badly in his life.
“Since you isolated yourself, I believed you didn’t want to be part of the dragon world anymore.
And I didn’t know who you were. I suspected you might’ve been the dragon I tried to help the night I came here but didn’t know for sure.
If true, though, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting anything to do with our realm, or any other dragon.
In fact, you surprised me by not kicking me out or running to avoid attention. ”
Daire rolled his beer bottle between his palms, voice quiet. “I don’t know if I can fight. I don’t know if I can even fly.”
Not a won’t. “Have you tried? I know a place where we can get away from humans and be dragons for a while. I’ll make arrangements, if you’d like. Until then, how are you at other methods of fighting?”
Daire smiled, repeating Jimryr’s words: “I’ll show you. I know a place.”
Jimryr’s practice sword went flying for the umpteenth time.
“That’s three out of four.” Daire no longer tried to hide his smugness.
Perhaps in the beginning he’d let Daire win to build his confidence, but not now.
Jimryr couldn’t compete, either with a sword or in hand-to-hand combat.
“Any guy with a metal building three times the size of the cabin, solely for practice, ought to be good.” Might as well give some well-deserved credit. “You’re really skilled with a sword.”
“Thanks. The best teachers, lots of practice, and a whole hell of a lot of bruises.” Daire lost some self-consciousness during their sparring, whipping his shirt over his head to wipe his sweaty face, possibly as a challenge to gauge Jimryr’s reaction.
Jimryr didn’t flinch. He’d felt the scars with his fingertips and glimpsed them before.
Now came a visual to confirm what he’d felt.
Those scars weren’t ugly; they were badges of honor, won while trying to save another.
He also didn’t ask Jimryr to remove the glove, though he had to have noticed the fingers not fitting as they should.
If they’d been fighting in the flesh instead of scales, the night Daire got flamed, the asshole alpha likely wouldn’t have stood a chance.
An idea took form in Jimryr’s mind. “Other courts I’ve heard of focus on airborne fighting.
They’d be at a disadvantage in human form.
” In his next call to Zorah, Jimryr would recommend sorting out some of their fighters.
He’d heard a couple of dragons say they boxed, wrestled, or did other physical forms of combat.
He’d also revise their battle strategy. Of course, the moment they arrived in Adrakus, all could fall to chance. They couldn't know who they would fight, how prepared their allies would be, or who remained on their side.
Please let Daire’s brothers be alive. If Elouan Thorne was anything like his brother and father, he’d be a good ruler and help repair centuries of damage. Would the Goddess bless them with young again, or doom dragonkind for having been dicks for so long?
Jimryr refused to believe his species would die out. Not as long as dragons would gladly give their lives to protect their courts.
Hell, he’d gladly give his own life, even without a court to defend. “How would you feel about teaching others to fight like you do?”