Secrets of the Moonscale Dragon Flight (Mori’s Mementos #10)

Chapter 1

Clarence Moonscale

Moonscale London Under the Reign of Roster and Ferrick Moonscale

The Crawling Lizard was empty except for me and the barkeep.

The old dragon shifter cleaned glasses while I nursed my bourbon.

It didn’t burn nearly enough going down but then again not much touched the blazing heat of dragon fire.

Mine was hot and roaring, threatening to scorch over my tongue and burn down several city blocks.

That might’ve been a moot action but if I was set to inherit them one day why shouldn’t I follow in my sire’s wingpath of destruction now?

My dragon said something, but I’d drank enough tonight that his speech was slurred and unreliable. That was just as well. There wasn’t much I could say to calm him down otherwise. Hell, I wasn’t sure that I was calm enough to leave the bar.

“How long do you plan on celebrating your heir coronation, Clary?” Hamgon called out from behind the bar. “Not that I’m one to rush my next future overlord but I’d like to get some shuteye sometime tonight. Come back on the ‘morrow and I’ll have you a bottle on the house.”

I downed the last of my bourbon and stood up. There wasn’t any reason to pass my troubles onto the only old dragon I didn’t wish would experience spontaneous combustion tonight. I set the glass on the bar and he nodded his thanks.

“Have a good rest of your night, Hamgon,” I patted the bar.

“Thank you, future overlord,” he laughed. “I’ll be looking forward to the tax break you’ll give me for all the broken glasses over the years.”

“You got it,” I pointed at him and grinned.

It was such an empty fucking gesture but how was Hamgon to know that the whole fucking world wasn’t what it seemed?

The old barkeep dragon walked through the same world I had up until about – I checked my watch.

It was shortly after three in the morning.

Up until about four hours ago Hamgon and I shared the same world as most of Moonscale London. Then my carrier had to open his mouth.

“I know you were willing to wait a few more years for your heir coronation. I thought you could. I didn’t know I missed smashing that bastard’s egg.

Pras’s egg. Your sire is way too fucking fond of him.

I know, I know. You are too. Did you know?

Do you know? Of course you don’t know, baby,” he slurred his words and patted my cheek haphazardly.

“You’re my baby. My only baby and this fucking line is mine.

I don’t put up with your panty waste of a bloody sire dicking down anything pretty who will stand still long enough for the heirship to be passed to fucking Pras Lavender.

OH, OH! You didn’t know!” he bit his lip or at least tried to.

He was too drunk to really bite it. So he just sort of sucked on his bottom lip for a second.

“I missed his egg. It was so stupid of me. I’m still not sure how it happened.

Of course he knew! All hatchlings know who their parents are!

They feel them when they’re around. Pras is lucky you like him or I’d fucking kill him tonight.

Could’ve ran his heart through as he stood there smiling so fucking smugly at you while you were recognized for your power and greatness.

He better keep that smile to himself. Fuck him and the whore he crawled out of.

Kill him where he-” my carrier hiccupped and belched.

“Kill that bastard where he fucking stands.”

I wasn’t drunk at that point. In fact, I was probably too sober for the news he delivered, sitting across the table from me in the dining hall. Up until a few minutes before that I sat with Pras and Delin, but they conveniently disappeared any time my carrier showed up.

“But I won’t. I’ll let him live for you as long as you stay my good boy.

You have no reason not to now. You know that, right?

” he asked, practically purring. “You’re going to be the next leader.

This is your flight. No matter what your sire does he can’t take that back.

Even if he dicks down every omega in the territory, none of their bastards matter.

I’ll keep killing them, of course. You’d think he’d stop---”

“Dear,” my sire appeared and it was about bloody time.

I’d been silently yanking on his tail over the family link for the last five minutes.

My carrier was whispering as best as he could, but dragons were starting to stare.

Plus, I needed him to tell me that my carrier was drunk off his tail and that I shouldn’t pay him any mind.

My carrier was prone to delusions of grandeur anyway.

“Let’s take you to bed,” my sire said, helping my carrier to stand up. “Don’t run off just yet,” he looked at me. “You and the boys can celebrate after we speak. Us old scales need some sleep anyway.”

Pras and Delin had reappeared when my parents left but I couldn’t remember what we talked about.

It wasn’t anything important. It couldn’t have been.

Maybe I just couldn’t focus on their words after what had been whispered in my ear.

I wasn’t under any illusions that my parents loved each other.

They were true-mates but not like most true-mates that I had met.

They practically hated each other. Still, my sire wasn’t really having that many affairs, was he?

He was and he wasn’t. The word affair implied that the other person was a willing participant in the erotic deception.

I left Pras and Delin at our table and walked with my father to his office.

The seams of my world were slowly unraveling, but Roster Moonscale hurried for no one.

With each sauntering step he took my carrier’s words sank a little deeper into my brain.

If I were in his shoes and accused of making eggs I knew my mate would smash I would stand up on a table in the dining hall and call him a bold faced liar and a bunch of other filthy names.

Only, my sire hadn’t denied a single accusation.

Inside his office, we sat in high-backed, black leather armchairs and lit cigars. I was only partially fond of them but the smoke was delightfully smooth on my tongue and down my throat as it traveled to my draconic fire.

“You know how it is,” he said, smoothing back his thick, dark hair. “He’s upset about things. He’ll calm down now that he knows I’m not going to name anyone else heir. Our dragons would never go for it anyway. You’re our hatchling. The leadership line runs straight through you.”

“So, he’s making up stories because he’s upset?” I focused on lightening my grip on the cigar, so I didn’t snap the tobacco-stuffed tube in two.

“More like ratting us both out because he’s upset,” he huffed and grinned at me as if I was in on the joke.

“He kills—” I started but my sire held up his non-cigar wielding hand.

“We don’t talk about it. It’s the way of the world, son. I take what I want. It is my right as an alpha and a leader. It’s all bloody mine, isn’t it? You know how it goes. Surely, with all your late nights out with Pras and Delin, you do some damage.”

“If this is about the glasses, I always pay for them. Maybe not the night it happens but I have an expense account with Hamgon. I won’t sully the family name and let people say that we don’t clean up after ourselves.”

He laughed. If that topic had been lighter, I might’ve said that it was a nice, hearty laugh. Only it wasn’t. He was clearly amused, but I wasn’t making a joke.

“I meant with the omegas or maybe the beta or alpha women or who knows – I don’t know who you take your pleasure with,” the older dragon smirked.

“Whoever it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s yours to take.

If you let Pras and Delin partake of your world too, who am I to say that it’s wrong?

The world belongs to the young who can seize and keep it, doesn’t it? ”

“I am not a rapist!” my dragon sounded off into my thoughts, but I clamped down on his words before they crossed over onto the family link.

I stopped his words not because they were untrue but just the opposite.

Every word that ran like honey off my sire’s tongue smelled like the truth.

He was speaking his mind. I was almost twenty-five and just crowned with some official heir title.

Now he thought it was safe to spill all the family secrets because surely, I had some of my own.

Sure, I did. One drunken night I let Delin give me head.

He had never sucked a dick before and wanted to try it out.

“Wait! Delin isn’t like Pras, is he?” I asked, unable to use the word brother.

“In which way? I don’t know either of them very well, son. You’d probably be more informed about that question – whatever it means – than I am.”

“Is Delin McCombs my brother?” I asked.

“No,” he laughed waving me off. “His parents moved here while you were in middle school. You remember that, right? If you want him to have some title, just give it to him. The world is yours for the taking.”

The world is yours for the taking.

Those were the words that swirled around my head as I left the Crawling Lizard and wandered the late-night streets of my youth. It was bloody mine for the taking, wasn’t it? It was mine and I had to take it from them. I had to take my world from Roster and Ferrick Moonscale.

“What about the eggs?” I asked him. “What about all those hatchlings?”

“It’s survival of the fittest, son. If their carriers were fit, they’d survive,” Roster shrugged.