Free Waking the Dragon by Juliette Cross

didn’t know you were sufficiently protected.” Her tone fell to a somber note before she drained the rest of her mimosa.
    “This has something to do with Lorian’s outburst the other night.”
    She stared off across the city, the sun kissing the top of skyscrapers in the distance. “So perceptive. You always were, even as a little girl.”
    She pulled a silk wrap around her shoulders. The cool air, a whisper of winter, blew across the open terrace, brushing her reddish locks against her neck. Tucking my hands into my coat pockets, I waited as she poured another drink. Liquid courage for whatever she was about to tell me.
    “Five years ago, when Lorian and I first started dating, I was abducted by a Morgon blood cult.”
    I sucked in a tight breath, holding it in my chest.
    “Yes. I know.” She took another sip. “It started with these anonymous gifts bearing a symbol on each card. The symbol was a sign of the Larkosians, an ancient cult that sacrificed human women to honor their god, Larkos.”
    I wiped my mouth with a napkin and folded it on my plate. “As in the child of legendary King Radomis and Queen Morga.”
    “The exact one.”
    My major was journalism, but my minor was multicultural studies, including the elaborate history of Morgonkind. I’d done countless research, finding what information I could, though much of it was still barred from human eyes.
    “Most of my information comes from old fairy tales and legends about the early Morgons. But I know the story of Larkos Nightwing killing his own father, along with annihilating the entire dragon race.”
    “Not just a story, Moira. It’s fact.”
    My heart pounded a frantic beat, my palms sweaty in the cool morning air. I stayed still and waited, refusing to probe for answers. I instinctually knew when someone wanted to tell their story. The smartest thing was to be patient, wait, and listen.
    Soon enough, she inhaled a deep breath and continued. “My knight in shining armor came to the rescue.” She shifted, wrapping herself tighter. “Actually, he was more like a demon from hell to be honest. A marvelous demon.” One side of her mouth quirked up as she remembered, her eyes seeing something in the distant past. “I wasn’t kept long in captivity, just a few hours before they started the ritual.”
    I listened in complete thrall, taking mental notes of the differences in the recent killings.
    “The ceremony involved the rape of a blood bride, then the spilling of her blood to honor Larkos. They thought it gave them some sort of mystical power or something. Thankfully, they didn’t get to do either parts of the ritual.”
    “So you agree with me. You think the Devlin Butchers are actually part of this blood cult.”
    “No,” came a deep voice from the archway leading into the house. Lorian walked toward us, controlled and steady—the opposite of what he was the other night. He leaned against one of the stone pillars. “We killed them all.”
    “But the similarities. Surely, one of them survived.”
    Lorian’s eyes appeared even wilder in the morning sun. “None survived that night. I can promise you that.”
    I slumped back into my chair.
    “However, the bastard who took Sorcha said something before I destroyed him into nonexistence.”
    I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t mean a metaphorical destruction. Lorian had surely slaughtered the Morgon, then burned him into ash. My limited education on Morgon history listed countless executions of criminals, ending with burning them to cinders, erasing every part of them from this world as final punishment.
    “What did he say?” I couldn’t help but ask.
    “He said ‘the Larkosians are rising.’ And they ‘pave the way for him.’ Sorcha would’ve been their first victim.”
    “But I wasn’t.” Sorcha reached out and gave her man’s hand a squeeze. The memory had Lorian’s eyes burning fire-bright. The strained muscles at his throat eased with her touch.
    “If this