Page 130 of Courting the Dragon King

Wraith jumped directly in front of him and placed his hands on Gerard’s scaly chest. “No! You can’t attack the monks! Not whilst the contracts are intact. It will kill you. That’s how they died.” Wraith gestured to his dead siblings and the shadow king.

He knew he’d not explained everything properly, but he hoped it would be enough to at least stop Gerard from attacking the monks and causing his own death.

“Do not attack any monks, Gerard. You will die immediately! Do not fucking do it!” Konrad shouted at his brother as he climbed off the altar.

Gerard glanced between them and the monks.

Then the reanimated and dread knights ran at them.

“You can attack them though.” Konrad pointed.

Gerard turned towards the undead. He attacked them with claws, teeth, and tail. The necromancers controlling the reanimated stood to the left, on the opposite side of the crypt from the monks.

Then a dread knight got past Gerard and ran towards Wraith and Konrad, sword lifted.

Lightning struck. The dread knight shook, body lighting up as the sparks tore through it. The scent of burning flesh filled the air. The dread knight fell to the ground.

Elias ran towards Wraith and Konrad. They took cover behind the stone altar.

“Elias! Did you work out that the monks were behind all this?” Konrad asked.

“Not exactly. But Clara’s words didn’t sit right with me.” Elias scanned the room. “So I followed her. She went to a chamber in the East Tower. At first, it didn’t seem too suspicious. But then I saw the grand monk and grand shield, who were looking at all these scrolls lined up on one table in the centre of the room.”

Elias turned to Konrad. “But you were meant to be meeting the grand monk, so I knew Clara was lying.”

The dread knight Elias had struck began to rise.

“Fuck!” Elias yelled and zapped him again. The dread knight collapsed to the ground.

“Anyway, we followed them and they went to a room with all these warrior doves and monks,” Elias said. “They looked like they were preparing for a fight, so I knew something was going on.”

Gerard gripped a dread knight between his teeth and flung him against the wall.

“Then Gerard and I followed them to this crypt, where we last left you,” Elias said. “I’ve been looking into maps of the White Monastery since the attack on me and Gerard. I’d even come down here once. I remembered that the back of the crypt would be too small for a dragon to shift. Thankfully, I also knew this crypt had a giant window at the back that a dragon should be able to smash through.”

Although, at present, the other dragons couldn’t get past because the bone dragon was still defending it. They just darted forward and snapped, before flying away when King Alaric shot dragonfire.

Gerard stomped on a skeleton. Then he swung his tail, taking out several corpses and skeletons at once.

“But we thought we might need more people to fight,” Elias said. “So we ran to where Konrad arranged to meet the other rulers and our siblings. Most of the rulers had not arrived. But our siblings had turned up. Ash and Barrett too. So then we came back and launched an attack. Although, it looks like we need to destroy the— What the fuck is that thing?”

“He is a bone dragon,” Wraith answered as King Alaric spewed dragonfire.

“That is my father brought back against his will,” Konrad said, voice tense. “He is being controlled by the grand monk.”

Elias’s mouth fell open. Then his gaze turned to the monks. His fingers flexed. “I can take care of him.”

Wraith gripped his arm. “You can’t attack the monks. If you do, you’ll die. It’s in the contracts we signed.”

“What?” Elias blinked.

Konrad shook his head. “No time to explain. But no one can attack the monks or they die.”

Elias frowned. “Okay.”

“But … But I think I have a plan.” Wraith’s brows furrowed. “Do you think the scrolls you saw were the scrolls we signed? For the marriages and everything else?”

“I think it is likely,” Elias said. “But I can’t be sure. They had lots of warrior monks protecting them, so whatever it is, it must be important. Why do you ask?”