Alamosa Arena (American Dragons Book 9) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Summary

  Black Forge Books Mailing List

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

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  Books by Black Forge

  Books by Shadow Alley Press

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  Copyright

  About the Author

  Summary

  Come Into My Parlor Said The Spider To The Dragon.

  STEVEN DROKHARIS HAS unraveled the secrets of the Dragonknights, journeyed to strange worlds, and gathered an ancient race of warriors... all to face the Zothoric, and their mistress, the Horror Mother. Now, he waits for the final battle. Many have tried before and failed, including alternate versions of himself. Is this the culmination of his plans, or his last chance to run?

  And what about Tara Heridan? The half-turned Prosha hears the Utereich’s whispers in her dreams, and they feel darkly delicious. Will love bring her back, or will she betray Steven and embrace an eternity of hunger?

  With new allies and old enemies assembled, Steven can feel the end approaching. His own Morta core thrums with the dark queen’s approach. Who is he willing to sacrifice for victory? The power he needs to win may cost him everything.

  All of reality hangs in the balance in the final chapter of the Zothoric Wars.

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  Chapter One

  A SNORE LIKE A WORLD-rattling chain gun cut through the night, and Steven winced. He couldn’t sleep. His bed was full of women: Tessa, Zoey, Sabina, and Aria. Damn, Aria could snore, and she was doing well that night, even by her own standards. And there was the smell. Dragons and Dragonskins, their lesser cousins, all had a distinct scent, and Steven’s women all smelled good. It was like trying to take a nap in the middle of a pie shop with naked waitresses. He spent part every night half-cocked and hungry.

  But the women were only half the problem. What really kept him up was his father, well, not his father, but the Battle World’s version of him. His Stefan Drokharis had been killed on Gaia Alpha only a few months after Steven was born. In a dark Denver alley, Steven Drokharis became Steven Whipp, the son of a gambler and a good woman.

  That was a good eighteen years ago. Now, the night before, the Battle World’s Stefan Drokharis had appeared out of nowhere during dinner. Steven and his Escort had watched the bearded man come down the escalators in shock. This other version of Steven’s father had gotten to the bottom, looked them all up and down, and then collapsed, unconscious.

  Steven had been having visions of his father for a while, and at first, Steven had thought that was what it was—another vision. No, this was real. His Escort had moved the bearded man to a side office where they could keep an eye on him. The Battle World Stefan been asleep ever since.

  Steven had cast AnimusChain on the elder Drokharis and found nothing in his core, not Animus, not Morta. Nothing. What had happened to the Dragonlord was a mystery. In the end, Stefan was human again. That might be why he was still alive: the Zothoric on the Battle World had wiped out all the Dragonsouls and had taken the Dragonkind—Magicians, Morphlings, and Warlings—captive to make Hybriths out of them.

  Steven slipped out of the big bed. He went to one of the doors and touched the wood. Tara Heridan was on the other side, on her bed, cocooned in a shell of chitin. She’d made sure to tell him she hated him. He couldn’t take her words that seriously since there was so much conflict inside her. She wanted to join them against the Zothoric. In the same breath, she wanted the Horror Mother to devour her soul. To be so chosen by a goddess had to be quite the experience. Was that why Ven Dro had turned into such an asshole?

  Steven shook away the thoughts. He left the offices and walked out into the main terminal. They’d patched the roof with tent canvas to keep out the elements. It didn’t much help with keeping the place warm. He exhaled and saw his breath. He shook the bracelet on his right arm: it kept his Animus hidden from the Zothoric. A teardrop amulet around his neck allowed him to shift forms without worrying about clothes or small objects. Both were thanks to Enchantrix.

  They’d given a bracelet to the elf queen, Quinnestri. They also had offered her a room, but she’d refused. She’d said she couldn’t sleep, so she walked the airport, deep in thought—one more set of eyes to keep watch. Her people were back on Aqualyra, gathering their forces and getting ready for the final battle against the shadows of teeth and talon.

  Steven shifted into a Homo Draconis, unfurled his wings, and flew off the high walkway and out the south end of the terminal. Once outside, he flew around the east side, passing by the control tower where Uchiko and Nefrinasia would be sleeping with Blackfoot, their new pet wolf. The ninja and the Shadow Archer now could take turns watching over them.

  Steven landed on the tarmac near the A Gates. He exhaled a bit of fire from his nose. After feeling the vacuum of space, the chill air was easy to handle. Stars filled the sky from horizon to horizon; Denver didn’t have a single light that could compete. Dawn was just about to color the horizon, turning the black into a dark blue. He smelled the tarmac and the winter scent of dead sage. The Great Devouring had blasted the landscape; the Myriad had sucked away the energy of the world.

  Speaking of which, a cloud of Shaze swept through the night sky in the distance. Their distant whistles shrieked across the countryside before they whipped themselves away on the winds, probably to a Cruxis up north.

  He reached out with Enchantrix and felt the perimeter he’d set up with wards etched into silver dollars. If any demon breached the energy field, he, Tessa, and Sabina would feel it. In all her visions, Sabina had never seen the airport attacked. However, she’d known the elder Drokharis would find them. Steven should’ve asked about the “mysterious visitor” when she’d mentioned it. Damn.

  Pink light flashed from the roadways above him, the arrival lanes of the main terminal. Tessa floated down using her magic. Her sweet cherry scent perfumed the air. She wore a thick down coat with a fur-lined collar, jeans, and boots. On her hips were the twin Peacekeepers, long archaic revolvers, full of magic bullets, encased in leather holsters tied to her thighs. Warm gloves covered her hands. It was near the end of October, almost Halloween, and the air was frigid.

  He wondered if it would snow, or if the clouds had been too poisoned. During the day, as often as not, the sky bled with a crimson light. The twins thought with the few remaining forests providing oxygen, they might only have a month or so before the Battle World became uninhabitable. Yet, Sabina sai
d they had far less time than that. Zothora was already on her way.

  Tessa frowned at him. “You, mister, need to be sleeping. You have to keep your strength up, or you’ll wind up liked Old Man Drokharis. I checked on him. Still sleeping.”

  “How’d you find me?” Steven asked, tucking his wings behind him and swishing the air with his tail.

  Tessa lifted her hand to show off her simple gold wedding band. “One of the benefits of being married. I can’t scry you using Magica Divinatio, because of the hurricane circle tattoo, but I can feel where you are. It’s less knowledge and more intuition. I figured you’d have a hard time sleeping.”

  “Hey, I did pretty well,” Steven growled. He pointed a claw at the eastern sky. “I made it most of the night.”

  “Talk to me,” Tessa said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Steven smelled cinnamon. A red-scaled Homo Draconis flew in and landed next to him and Tessa. Aria had come looking for him as well.

  Well, he didn’t ask her how she knew. She too had the wedding ring on her finger. “What are you two doing out here in the cold?” the Indian dragon asked in an English accent.

  Aria scooted herself up against Steven and put a wing around him. Their tails entwined.

  Tessa came forward and put out a hand. “Ah, dragon heat.” She answered Aria’s question. “Steven couldn’t sleep. He was just about to tell me why.”

  “His father, of course,” Aria said in a gruff voice. “Seeing his real father can’t be easy. I know if my own father appeared here, I wouldn’t be sleeping.”

  “Yeah, me either,” Tessa agreed. “For me, it would be a definite Hamlet experience.”

  Steven and Aria didn’t know how to respond.

  That made the barista laugh. “Sorry, it’s my morbid sense of humor at work. He died a long time ago, and it was hard, really hard. Sometimes laughing helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes I can almost hear him laughing along with me when I joke about it.”

  As for Aria, she’d had a troubled relationship with her father. He’d basically given her over to a marriage she never wanted for political reasons. And when she rebelled, he cut her off. When they’d been in India, he hadn’t reached out. Aria was dead to him.

  For Steven, it was different, for a variety of reasons. He wasn’t sure where to begin.

  “Do you blame him for failing?” Aria asked.

  Tessa nodded. “That would make sense. I mean, billions of people were killed here. Only, we might’ve made the same mistake if we hadn’t had help.”

  Steven thought about that. From the beginning, the Gaia Alpha Stefan Drokharis, his real father, had been guiding him with both visions and writings in the Drokharis grimoire. The plan had always been to come to the Battle World to face the Zothoric. The Gaia Beta Dragonlord hadn’t had that guidance.

  “No,” Steven said. “I don’t blame him for that. I do blame him for Ven Dro. He must’ve done some seriously bad parenting for that version of me to turn out like he did.”

  “I didn’t see that coming.” Tessa came and caressed the scales of his chest.

  Aria shrugged and moved closer to the barista. “We can’t know what it was like for that other Steven. This world isn’t ours. The rules are different. This Stefan Drokharis might have your father’s name, but he is not your father.”

  Steven had to keep reminding himself of that. It wasn’t easy. He’d dreamed of this moment, of meeting the man himself, in person.

  “Aria is right. We’re in the land of Taco Bangs. Which reminds me. I wonder if a Taco Bang has a dollar menu. That sounds dirty somehow.” Tessa laughed and nestled against his leg. “So, the Battle World is like the cover of your favorite song. It’s not the original. And damn, it is terrible. Like Five Finger Death Punch’s cover of ‘House of the Rising Sun.’”

  “Hey, I like that song.” Steven sighed out flame. “Ven Dro wasn’t the first version of me I’ve met. There was also Spider Finger. It’s kind of unnerving.”

  “At least your versions are alive,” Tessa said. “Ours are all dead.”

  Aria gripped Steven’s shoulder gently in a talon. “Perhaps, Steven, this isn’t about the elder Drokharis. Maybe this is more about Ven Dro. Seeing him couldn’t be easy.”

  “The dark-side version of me was fucked up,” Steven agreed.

  “It makes me think about the whole nature versus nurture debate.” Tessa patted him. “Does our identity come from our genetics? Or does it come from the environment in which we’re raised? Probably it’s both. Come on, Steven, you and VD are totally different. And yes, the twins told me about the nickname.”

  “VD.” Steven chuckled.

  Aria knocked him with her tail. “You will be able to discuss much of this when SD awakens.”

  “SD. Yeah, a nickname for this world’s Stefan Drokharis.” Steven nodded. “I like it. It puts some distance between who I think he is and who he really is. There really aren’t a lot of similarities.”

  “For all we know, he’s as different from your real father as VD is to you.” Tessa unzipped her coat. “Being between you two dragons has me sweating.”

  Aria took over. “I think the point is, Steven, that though these other men are you, they aren’t you.”

  He could see that, and yet, it still bothered him. “Spider Finger was smart, powerful, but overconfident. I can understand the things he did. But Ven Dro? He just wanted to win, and not for any kind of Escort. He wanted to win just to win. That’s not like me.”

  “It’s not,” Aria said. “You win so you can fulfill your destiny, to bring revolution and change to Dragonsouls everywhere.”

  “No.” Tessa’s voice was quiet. “That’s not why he does it. He wins to protect us. He fights to keep us safe.”

  She was right. However much Steven wanted to see the Dragonsouls freed and the Zothoric destroyed, he cared about his family more.

  The barista pointed. “Look.”

  The sun had painted the horizon crimson, made worse by the clouds of a destroyed land polluting the sky. The sunrise’s light would spill over at any minute.

  A figure walked toward them, tall and thin, covered in robes made of white and gray fur. Quinnestri. Her blonde hair fell back to reveal her pointed ears and intense blue eyes. Everything about her was so beautiful, including how red her nose was getting in the cold.

  Tessa sucked in a breath.

  “You three.” The elf queen sighed. “It seems you three started this little war, oh so long ago. You’re still children. How have you come so far?”

  “Coffee,” Tessa said nervously. “Sorry, that was a joke.”

  “Destiny.” Aria lifted her chin. “I’m not joking.”

  Steven split the difference. “A little luck. A little planning. But mostly coffee and destiny.”

  Quinnestri wasn’t impressed with the banter. “I grew weary of feeling this dead world from inside your little structure. I thought, perhaps, if I walked the grounds, I could sense more life. Yet, the opposite has happened. More than ever, I fear for the future of my lands. For when the Utereich finishes with Battle World, she will find mine.” She sniffed. “You three smell good at least.”

  Tessa tried to say something, but the normally calm and smooth seducer could only grunt. She blushed then buried her face into Steven’s body. He covered her with his arms, then his wings.

  A bored expression crept onto Quinnestri’s face. “Yes. I like the way you smell. That is of little importance. What is your next move?”

  “We have Icharaam’s Orb,” Steven said. “We have your army. We know Zothora has kept forests alive on this planet for a reason—she thinks to trap us here. She’s coming. She won’t be brewing up another Prosha. The Utereich is going to take charge of her armies herself.”

  “She thinks to trap us,” Quinnestri murmured. “We need to trap her. How?”

  Steven wasn’t sure, though he had some ideas. Their best resource, SD, lay unconscious. The Dragonlord had firsthand experience fighting
the Zothoric on a global scale. If anyone could help them lay a trap for the Zothoric, it would be his father. But when would he wake up?

  Quinnestri put out an elbow. “Obviously, you do not know. I would like to be escorted back into your port of the air. Can one of you be so kind?”

  Steven wasn’t sure what she meant for a minute. Port of the air? Oh, airport.

  Tessa didn’t have any trouble understanding her. “Me!” The barista stumbled forward into the elf queen. She nearly knocked them both to the ground. Quinnestri grabbed the barista to keep her from falling.

  Tessa tried to recover. “Yes, Quinn, can I call you Quinn? I know you don’t like Quinnie. And Quinnestri is kind of a mouthful. Not that I should be talking about my mouth. Or being full. Uh, yeah, I’m going to stop talking.”

  Steven had never seen Tessa so nervous. It was like she was a dorky middle school boy asking the prettiest girl to skate at the local rink.

  The elf queen didn’t smile. “Quinn is fine. You smell of cherries. This will be tolerable.”

  “Uh, yeah, cherries.” Tessa couldn’t stop blushing.

  The two left, leaving Aria and Steven alone.

  “Did you just see that?” he asked.

  Aria blew fire out of her nostrils. “Tessa being awkward? Yes. I find it enjoyable. As someone who’s not very social, I find it gratifying to see her stumble so.” The Indian dragon pulled him into an embrace. “While I like your scales, I want your skin.”

  She shifted human and stood, clinging to him in his partial form. Aria was naked. Her long dark hair fell across her dusty shoulders.

  Steven turned human as well, though he was clothed. He held her and kissed her. “Do you still believe in our destiny?” she asked him.

  “I do,” he answered. “But Tessa is right. I’m fighting to keep you safe. We can’t lose this war, but if I have to choose, I’ll choose your lives over the fate of the universe.”

  “You shouldn’t.” Aria’s green eyes were bright and alive in the dawn’s light. “This will be the final fight. If any of us falls in battle, we will be heroes. You, however, must live on. You are our Prime. You are Steven Drokharis, blessed to deliver us, to free us, to bring revolution.”