Talons of Love: The Dragon King Series, #3

By Debbie McQueen

Two hearts bound together, suddenly torn apart.

When Egan disappears, Prince Raiden will stop at nothing to find him. With his closest friends and an unexpected acquaintance, he leaves the Sixth Realm behind to track down the man he loves. What he sees along the way will stay with him forever.

Egan finds himself face to face with the man who has haunted his dreams since he was a child, only now he brings new nightmares. Egan's not the only one suffering at the monster's hand; there are others- others like him. He vows to do whatever he can to stop the monster and protect those around him.

Egan holds on to the hope that the love and connection he has with Raiden will reunite them once again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie McQueen
• Release date: Nov 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9798223948445

Debbie McQueen

Debbie McQueen has been married to her loving and supportive husband for eighteen years. They have two amazing kids that share her love of musicals, singing, fairies, dragons, and superheroes. Debbie is an avid reader and loves to read YA/NA, PNR, Urban Fantasy, Thrillers, LGBTQ stories, and more. Debbie is an affirming Christian who is proud to continue learning and serving as an LGBTQ+ ally and advocate. She has learned more about God’s love through the beauty of a diverse creation and strives to support her friends and loved ones, as well as the broader LGBTQ+ community. She proudly gives out Free Hugs at Pride events, and also works with a service organization that helps support LGBTQ youth in Southern California.

Book preview

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one

Egan

We were wrong. We were so wrong.

A throbbing pain in my head stirred me awake. Everything hurt. I couldn’t figure out where I was or what happened. The last thing I remembered was telling Raiden I had reached the border where the three realms met. He had stayed back at the castle, and I’d been testing how far our communication reached. Did I hear from him after that? Where was I?

I remembered getting hit with something while I was flying. I’d been hit, and entangled in...what? What grabbed me and pulled me out of the sky? I tried to call out to him, but my head started spinning with pain, I felt nauseous. My eyes were squeezed tight. I tried to force them open but with no luck. I could feel that I was in her form, but that was all the information I could piece together.

The ground beneath me was cold and hard, like a solid slab of rock or marble. The air felt heavy around me. Cold, everything felt cold. Normally, it wouldn’t bother me, I had enough internal heat from her fire within to keep me warm in the coldest of night skies. I inhaled to scent what I couldn’t see. As soon as the smell hit my nose, it broke through whatever force was keeping my eyes closed and they flew open. What I saw through her eyes...I shook my head in horror. I didn’t want to believe it was real. The overwhelming sorrow and anguish of it made my stomach churn. I felt her heave and shudder.

The smell was putrid, of waste and rot and something else that burned like acid in my nose. I had to try to close off her olfactory sense in order to keep from losing anything that might be in her stomach. I knew that was something I couldn’t afford, that I would need whatever strength I had. I forced myself to survey my surroundings, as I gazed between thick metal bars.

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two

Raiden

Idon’t know how long I sat with my arms wrapped around my knees, and my father’s arms around me as I rocked and sobbed. My father, King Rodick, held me, Prince Raiden, heir to the throne, victor in battle, as tears flowed endlessly. I couldn’t form the words to explain what happened, or even why I knew something had happened. Still, my father held me and stayed with me. He whispered reassurances that we would find Egan.

I had a vague recollection of yelling Egan’s name, which had brought both him and my brother, Kairn, into my room. I kept rubbing the tender scar over my heart that had been made as part of the ritual that bound myself to Egan. I screamed his name inside of my mind as well as out loud. Worry and fear filled Kairn’s face as he watched me break apart.

My father rubbed my back until I eventually ran out of tears. I was numb, I felt completely numb. Egan and I had just been communicating through our bond, we were able to speak to each other mentally when he was in his dragon form. Everything was fine one minute, then the next, he was gone. I thought about the pain that I had felt in my back and shoulders; it was his pain. What happened to him? Where did he go?

The connection was still there, it was faint, but it was there. Egan was still alive, he had to be. I remembered when he explained the bonding ceremony, he said if one of us were to die, it would feel as if half of the other’s heart was ripped out of their chest. I hadn’t felt anything that severe, I had to remind myself that was a good sign. It was the absence of his voice and the thread that was so faint I barely felt it, that had thrown me into deep and utter anguish. The relief that he was alive was short-lived as I wondered what had caused his pain and what kind of state he was in. Egan, the man I loved, he was my everything and I couldn’t handle the thought of something happening to him. My heart hurt in ways I had never felt, even more than when my mother passed away five years earlier.

Raiden, my boy, tell me what’s happened. He had been asking me for a while, but now that I was spent from the sobs and the terror, his pained words finally reached through the fog. I sniffed and breathed in deeply, trying to collect myself.

I...I don’t know exactly. My voice was hoarse and the words croaked out of me. I kept rubbing the scar above my heart. I could feel my father watching the movement, I hadn’t told him about the bonding, there was no way he could understand why I felt the loss of Egan’s presence bone-deep.

How do you know something happened? His words were soft and calm, I knew he was trying to keep me level, to keep me from falling over the edge again.

We...we’re connected, Egan and I. I tugged the collar of my shirt down to show the still red, puckered scar from where Egan had sliced my skin open with a talon. My father and Kairn both stared with wide eyes. It’s a dragon ritual that binds two hearts together. It lets us communicate when he’s in dragon form and it lets us feel what the other feels. I stopped and stared past my brother who sat by the foot of my bed. I stared through the open windows, out into the night sky, to the stars that had been our witnesses. It had only been a few days since we completed the ceremony, but already it felt as if he had always been a part of me. The quiet, the absence of any feeling from him, it felt like a hole deep within me, a void, a canyon cracked wide open.

They both sat and waited, I’m sure what I said left them with a plethora of questions, but they were waiting for me to continue. He went out flying, but I was too tired. I should have gone with him, I should be with him right now, wherever he was. We were talking through our connection, we’re able to hear each other speak in our minds. He was talking one minute, then something happened, and he was just...he was gone. I shuddered and closed my eyes as I said the words.

You don’t think he’s… I looked up at Kairn, he had tears welled up in his eyes, ready to burst free. He couldn’t bring himself to say the word we were all dreading.

I shook my head slowly. "No...I think he’s alive. No, he has to be alive. At first, I was so afraid I couldn’t even think. But, I would have felt it...I would know if…" I drew in a sharp breath. I couldn’t say it either.

We’ll find him, Raiden. Egan is family, and we’re not going to stop until he’s home. You hear me? I sniffed and leaned into my father. I nodded my thanks, not trusting myself to speak.

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three

Egan

Ilooked up, down, around, as far as I could maneuver. I was in a...cage. A rather large one, but a cage nonetheless. My stomach churned again, but I forced it down. I couldn’t let the fear choke me, I needed to keep my wits. Across from me, were four other cages. Three held dragons. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, right here before me, were others of my kind. I finally found others like me...and they were caged.

The dragons didn’t look well, though, they looked emaciated and ill. Each of their coloring appeared dull, far less brilliant than I imagined they were before whatever unthinkable things had happened to them. The one to my far left was smaller and had a deep blue and purple tone. She had two horns on top of her head. The female connected her gaze with mine, so much hurt and pain sat behind those yellow eyes. The middle one was far bigger than the purple one. He was light green with four horns, two on each side; the shorter horn in front of the longer horn. The third dragon was a deep blue, probably slightly smaller than my own dragon. He had two horns, but I think he must have had three originally, because there was one in the middle and one to the left side of his head. There was a spot where there should have been a third horn on the right side. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a horn, they were extremely sensitive, but also incredibly tough. The effort it would take to remove a horn while feeling every sensation...it made me shudder just thinking about it.

They watched me with equal parts curiosity and sadness. The same thing I saw in them, I felt. How did these dragons get here? Where were we? How long have they been kept? What’s been done to them? We couldn’t communicate, not like Raiden and I could. Only bonded dragons could speak in their minds to their mate. I remembered my father being able to talk to my mother through their bond, but I was never able to, not even in dragon form.

I heard shuffling on either side of my cage, which was embedded in a large rock or a wall. I couldn’t see them, but I knew there were two more dragons next to me. I looked back across from me and I realized the fourth cage wasn’t empty as I had first thought. What I saw was even more heart-breaking than the sight of the sickly dragons.

There was a bed on the floor at the back of the cage, on that bed sat a girl, a human girl. Well…she likely was a woman, perhaps even in her twenties, though she looked so small and scared next to the dragons beside her. My dragon bucked and bristled at the sight of her. Every movement my dragon made sent flares of pain through me. The woman wrapped her arms around her belly as she stared at me with wide eyes. My heart sank when I realized her belly was swollen. She was pregnant! What was happening here? Why was that poor girl trapped here with us? My dragon felt an instant surge of protection for her and the child she carried. I felt it too, I would do whatever I had to in order to get her out of here and see her safe.

I heard a clang and all of the dragons began shrinking to the back of their cages, trying to get as far away from the doors as possible. It was then I noticed their feet were bound with heavy chains, as well as a collar chained to their necks. I tried to move my own head around, and felt a burning sensation around her large neck and around her feet where the metal bit into her skin. I pulled and yanked and the pain increased and made me dizzy. While at the same time, it shook something free from the memory that alluded me from before I woke. I felt this same pain in my back and wings when I had been flying. A net...some kind of metal net had shot into the sky and wrapped around me.

Footsteps marched and echoed through whatever strange, big, cold room we were in. They were human footsteps, several of them. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but judging by the reactions of the dragons, it wasn’t good. A few people came into view, and stopped right in front of me. Suddenly, I was face to face with the man that had haunted my dreams for nearly my entire life; the man who killed my father. He sneered at me through the bars. I saw the scar on his face that my father had given him. He had black hair with one side of his head buzzed short to reveal a tattoo of a four-leaf clover. I snapped and pulled towards the bars trying to get to him, but instead stinging pain forced me back. Raith smiled at my torment.

How could we have been so wrong? How did we not see? After discovering the use of dragon’s fire in weapons that were being used by the Fifth Realm, we thought that Raith had dragons working with him. Looking around, seeing the beasts of legend that scurried in his presence, there was no way any of them were here voluntarily.

So, you remember me, I see? You want my blood? I growled and tugged forward once more, instantly regretting the movement that sent ice through my veins. He laughed as I gasped. It’s fine, you can keep trying, and I’ll enjoy every second of it.

Keep your wits, keep your mind, save your strength. I said these things as much for myself as for her. I stopped pulling and sat down on my haunches.

Ah, a quick learner, you are. The more you struggle, the more you hurt yourself. That metal that’s clasped around you was designed specifically for holding dragons. There’s a special ingredient that’s been forged into the metal. He tapped the tattoo on the side of his head. I squinted with confusion, not understanding his meaning. I didn’t know there was anything that could hold a dragon. But, my experience was limited to the short time I had had with my father, and being restrained wasn’t something that came up.

As soon as I saw you above the battlefields, I recognized your horns. The same as your father’s. Hatred danced in his eyes. His death was too swift for what he did to me and my men. I regret that I hadn’t taken more time with him.

I charged the metal bars that stood between him and me, only to end up on the floor wincing and gasping for breath at the pain that exploded through her body.

Of course, I didn’t know as much then as I do now, He continued on, while I writhed on the cold stone ground. I gritted my teeth and tried to restrain my reactions. I couldn’t let him have the satisfaction of seeing my pain. Or I might have realized that the dragon’s offspring had fire in them too. It would have been so much easier to kill that dragon’s whore of a wife, and yank that whimpering child from her dead arms. Interesting, though...I seem to recall you a young boy sniffling and crying for his father, yet a female dragon stands before me, seems there’s more for us to discover still. He watched and waited for a response from me. I refused to give in, no matter the hate that swirled within me for the awful things he said.

Raith arched a brow and shrugged his shoulders when he didn’t get the response he had been hoping for. Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about your kind. Your father was my first dragon. Unfortunately, since he was human when my sword tasted his blood, I didn’t get to study him. But we’ve adapted with each one since then, managed to kill a few in their beast forms and were able to dissect them. Bile rose in the back of her throat. I tried to soothe and calm her, even as I felt the nausea grow at the thought of Raith cutting open a dragon’s corpse.

There were a million things I wanted to say to him, if only I had a voice to give to those words. Instead, I merely growled and snarled. He seemed completely unaffected. I called on her fire, but it got lodged in her throat where the collar squeezed and icy pain closed off the blaze within. My gaze flicked over to the dragons across from me, their eyes full of sympathy and sorrow as they heard every word Raith spoke. The big green one, gave a slight shake of his head, telling me it was pointless to try to fight or use fire. My heart sank...surely these dragons have tried everything they could, only to be resigned to this despairing fate. Trapped...I was trapped. Panic tried to claw its way through me, but I forced it back down. I couldn’t break apart, not in front of Raith.

I returned my attention to him. His sleeves were rolled up and I could make out a raised scar on his upper left arm reminding me of a brand, like one that would be done to mark cattle. I couldn’t make out what it was from the angle of his arm. Raith noticed me staring. He smiled widely as he pushed the sleeve up higher and turned his arm to show me. It was a brand, a mark that had been burned into his skin. The welted image on his arm was that of a sword through the head of a dragon.

What do you think? It’s a beauty isn’t it? My dragon bared her teeth at the image. It’s a symbol of the Brothers of Yorick. Do you know the story of Saint Yorick? I didn’t give him any response, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered either way; he seemed to like to hear himself talk. "Saint Yorick lived a few hundred years ago, at the time, dragons were more prevalent. The prophets of old worshipped the beasts, and forgave them of all their wrong-doings, but Yorick saw them for what they really were. When he declared the danger they presented, powerful beings left unchecked, he was banished for speaking out against the church, even though he spoke for the protection and safety of the people. They were blinded by their awe of the creatures and fed with words of peace and unity from the ministers and prophets.

Yorick took it upon himself to reveal the true nature of the beasts. He was able to show the havoc they could wreak and the lives they endangered. It wasn’t long before his followers grew and the Brothers of Yorick formed. The Brothers worked to rid the world of the dragon scourge. The eyes of the people were opened, and the prophets’ words fell on deaf ears.

Raiden told me about a book he had read on the opposing views within religious history, but I knew he held something back when he mentioned it. He said that the Brothers of Yorick were likely the cause of the dragon population disappearing through the last few centuries. I could picture his expression, scrunched up with the weight of the knowledge.

When his face floated across my mind, my heart clenched. I missed him so much. Raiden must have been out of his mind with worry, not being able to communicate with me. I couldn’t feel him either. Wherever I was being held, was much too far away from the Sixth Realm for our connection to work. One slight benefit was the fact that he wasn’t feeling the pain I’ve felt each time the strange metal sent shards of agony through me.

The Brothers of days past, they believed that the only good dragon was a dead one. I don’t disagree, however, I’ve come to find that there are some...advantages in keeping you alive. He nodded to the two men that were with them. One unlocked the door to my cage. My eyes widened, were they going to come in here? Maybe I would get the chance to overtake them and figure out how to get out. Before that thought got too far, I felt an impact into the side of her neck. One of the men with Raith had pulled out a small mechanized bow, one that could be held and shot with one hand.

I had been hit with a broad arrow, so big it felt like a large metal bolt. It must have been laced with something because ice spread from her neck through her whole body, engulfing me, her body seized in torment. I was on the ground before I knew it, paralyzed in pain, unable to move or react as the three men walked into the cage that held me. I heard the growls and cries of the other dragons. They were helpless as they watched whatever was being done to me. I felt Raith’s boot pressing in on her snout, showing his dominance over me, as I lay powerless on the cold floor.

I wanted to close my eyes, I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. I had to know what they were doing. How could I fight it, if I didn’t know what to fight? The dragons’ bellows of anger at what they were watching mixed with cries of pain as they pulled and tugged against their chains. They fought for me, as much as they could within their confines, even as the consequences of their actions caused them discomfort.

When I first saw the dragons duck back from the doors when Raith and his men appeared, it felt like they were thoroughly defeated. But, now they fought through their own misery for me. It gave me hope, they still had strength. These dragons I didn’t know, who had been through untold horrors, still had fight in them and they protested on my behalf. If they could hold on to that strength, I could too. I would. I would do whatever it took to get out of here and back to my prince. Whatever was to happen, I would endure it and bide my time until I could figure out how to get myself free, and free those around me.

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four

Raiden

Imust have fully exhausted myself from crying. I woke in the early hours of dawn, still held by my father, with my brother Kairn snuggled up against me. They stayed with me...all night. My family stayed at my side in my bed as I slept through the complete heart and soul deep weariness. The last time we had all stayed together like this was when my mother passed. We were both younger and couldn’t bear to leave Father’s side as