A Dragon's Tale Ch. 50

Alana gasped.

Rachel couldn't mean...

Could she...?

The redhead looked at the brunette and their eyes met for the longest moment. Slowly, Alana's lip pulled into one of the widest smiles she'd ever had on her face. In short order, her 'smile muscles' were almost protesting they were pulling her cheeks so wide.

"Do... do you want someone other than Ethan to give you a kiss goodnight?" The wood elf asked, scarcely daring to believe it.

Rachel's smile began to mirror Alana's as she nodded slowly.

"Did... did you have someone in mind?" The wood elf couldn't help but ask.

Rachel nodded again. "I was thinking... um, maybe my... my best friend?" Her voice had gotten quieter and squeakier at the end, but no one could've mistaken the look of hope in her eyes.

Alana was speechless for several moments.

Her jaw dropped, or at least it would've if her smile had allowed it to. "I... I would be honored."

Rachel hesitated a moment. "You don't mind?"

"Quite the opposite." Alana had to resist the impulse to kiss her right here and right now. Her smile was still ear-to-ear.

"Okay, so tonight then? Before bed?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Alana sighed.

Rachel looked like she was going to burst in happiness, so basically she looked exactly how Alana felt.

"Okay, after our husband is safe then." Rachel said, and her smile faltered a bit at the mention of Ethan's situation.

"Okay, I won't be able to sleep before then anyway." Alana nodded.

"Me either." Rachel couldn't stop smiling.

Neither could Alana.

* * *

Ethan slowly dragged his body back to the waking world despite it kicking and screaming the entire time. His limbs felt slightly like limp spaghetti and he had a slight headache, which he thought might be from lack of sleep. That didn't make a lot of sense since he was waking up from a nap.

*Why am I so tired?* He thought to his wives, more out of reflex than anything.

*I think a better question is: Why aren't you more tired?* Alana replied.

*My lord, you flew several hundred miles after leaving the Argo, didn't sleep well--"

*In a tree.* Taloni interjected.

*--Yes, in a tree.* The redhead agreed. *Then you fought some men in Talven's town, then traveled most of the day, then were woken up early after not sleeping well again, were super stressed all day, and you traveled the entire day with nary a break except for lunch.*

*Plus the stress of our ambush.* Alana added.

*Oh, right.* He made a half-hearted attempt to move, but he abandoned it pretty quickly. *That's why I feel like shit.*

*Can you stay the night Master?* Taloni asked.

He shook his head, not that he could see it. *I got the distinct impression that whatever is out there might not wait until morning. The last thing I want to do is harm this family again. Besides, if I stay here much longer I'm going to conk out. Damn, I feel more tired now than when I laid down.*

*Dominus, why don't you go take a look and see what's out there?*

He cocked his head to one side. *I only plan to leave this building once, and I'm going straight into flying.*

*Dominus, there's more than one way to look...*

*Oh.* He cocked his head to one side. *Good idea.*

A minute later, he sat up outside his body and looked at the purple hues of the Astral Plane. Around him, Talven's family had mostly disappeared, though the man's parents were still in the room with Ethan. He poked around the house just to make sure Talven, Salma, and the kids were okay and found them all flopped on a bed that wasn't even the size of a queen, except the toddler who was in a cradle.

They were all sleeping peacefully.

Serenely.

He watched them for a few moments, feeling somewhat better. He had caused their current hardship and he still felt bad about that, but he breathed a sigh of relief that they were okay now. He really hoped that they would be okay in the future. He hung his head slightly, sighed, and then turned back to the task at hand.

He took a deep breath and then walkedthrough the door.

Outside, the moon was as beautiful as it could be while being entirely purple. The same could be said of the area around them. The grain fields around the house were blowing gently in the breeze and it looked like a nice night for a moonlit stroll with his wives. You know, if there wasn't something out there making his skin crawl.

He looked around but didn't see anything around the front of the house. He shrugged and started walking around it, thankful that no one could see him while he was on the Astral Plane. He made sure to give the house's corner a wide berth so he wouldn't be ambushed and walked until he could see around to the side of the house. It occurred to him that he needn't have worried about being ambushed on the Astral Plane, but that thought fled whenIt came into view.

It was looking at him.

Okay, 'it' wasn't the proper pronoun because it was definitely a man. However, he wasn't purple like everything else on the Astral Plane. Instead he was black like pitch. No, black wasn't right. It was like... like... it was like looking into a deep, dark hole. It was almost like the man -- or perhaps man/creature hybrid -- in front of him was actively sucking the light from around him. It was black, but black because it had no light...

...and it was looking at him.

It wasn't looking in his direction, and it wasn't looking through him at something behind him; it was lookingat him. It was looking into his eyes, which he could tell because the man wasn't completely black. It was almost similar to a lightsaber from Star Wars, where the man was well-defined like the core of a lightsaber, but around him was a dark, black aura that seemed to absorb all light. That aura seemed to prevent most of the light from reaching the man, but now that he was looking closely he could actually see the man at the center.

Then his mind and instincts caught up to what he was seeing.

Run.

Run. Right. Now.

Get. The Fuck. Out. Now!

His dragon instincts were screaming at him louder than they ever had before. The only time he could remember feeling his dragon instincts scream at him this strongly was--

Sarah.

Sarah the--

*Ladies, it's a demon.* He thought to all of them as his Astral Plane body froze.

*A demon Master?* Taloni thought back almost instantly.

*I mean, a demon-possessed man.* He corrected himself.

The demon-possessed man sneered at him and spoke in a wispy voice. "We know who you are, servant of Illuminar." His voice was dripping with cold fury and a level of disgust that one usually reserved for child molesters or other such degenerates.

Then it snarled.

It actually snarled.

It was a low, threatening sound that didn't seem to arise from an impulse of the moment. Rather, it seemed like a longer, slower burn. It seemed like -- and this sounded strange but perhaps possible for a demon-possessed man -- but he felt like this creature's anger arose from eons of loathing rather than the impulse of the moment. It felt like this fury and disgust had matured and festered for incomprehensibly long ages up to this point and would only grow in the future.

Confronted with this, Ethan reached for his dragon-steel sword.

But that's not what he felt.

His dragon-steel sword had a nearly twelve-inch hilt and side rings. However, the hilt he felt was sized for one hand.

Aharown.

It was the sword that Gabriella had given to Beth, who had then given it to him. More importantly, it was anangelic blade. If there was any weapon in the Ten Kingdoms that could help him now, this was it. He breathed a sigh of relief and grasped the hilt. The sword was the only thing other than the possessed man that had normal coloring on the Astral Plane.

The demon-possessed man's eyes flicked down to the sword's hilt. The look of disgust on his face deepened, but there was also a flicker of something that approached apprehension. Not fear perhaps, but there was a slight bit of hesitation.

Ethan began to draw.

The demon-possessed man moved.

He moved faster than anyone Ethan had ever seen except for Sarah and Kyrupto. However, he didn't move towards Ethan, nor did it look like he was trying to attack. He was moving towards the door of the house. Ethan had made sure to give the corner a wide berth to avoid being ambushed, and as a result, the possessed man was much closer to the door than he was. He could get to the house before Ethan did.

Ethan froze slightly, pausing the draw.

The demon-possessed man stopped.

Ethan drew the sword another inch.

The demon-possessed man moved another few feet and then stopped. Ethan considered; he could easily draw the angelic sword quickly enough to defend himself, but the possessed man wasn't heading for him. The possessed man could easily get inside the house to the unprotected family inside before Ethan could move to intercept him.

Curiously, it wasn't doing so.

"You don't want to kill them?" Ethan asked.

The demon glanced toward the house, then back at Ethan and snarled again. Suddenly, Ethan realized how incredibly wrong he was. This thing definitelydid want to kill them. That was written all over its face. The loathing, the hatred, the pure unadulterated malice rolling off this creature was enough to send shivers down his spine and make him want to hide under the nearest rock. This creature not only wanted them to die, but it also wanted them to die in the slowest, most excruciating and torturous way possible.

But despite the creature's craving to kill them, it wasn't doing it. Ethan wasn't sure why, but that was a problem for another time. Right now, drawing Aharown seemed like a bad idea. He sheathed the sword and the demon growled low in its throat, but didn't move.

Ethan took a step towards the house, getting the distinct impression that the longer he prolonged this engagement, the less he was likely to come out of it alive. He slowly circle away from the creature and then walked through its walls and touched his body. Moments later, he woke up in his body and his eyes snapped open as he jumped up.

"Whoa!" Talven's father jumped at his sudden movement.

"Sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to leave. Now." Ethan nodded toward the room that Talven and Salma were in. "Take care of them, and tell them that I'm sorry."

The man opened his mouth to respond, but Ethan was already moving. He had just the presence of mind to un-bar the door and not break down it as he barreled through it as fast as he possibly could, taking a great flying leap into the air the moment his front half had left the building. Fueled by adrenaline, his strength-enhancing armor, and the near-overwhelming sense of blind panic that was sending cold shivers through his body, he leaped higher into the air than ever before.

He flapped harder than he ever had before, with the possible exception of when his wives had been ambushed at Dotmier. His wing muscles were protesting loudly as he worked them as hard as he possibly could, trying to gain enough altitude fast enough to escape that thing. He well remembered that Sarah had thrown a rockthrough his wing and he couldn't afford that now.

He had thought that the feeling of foreboding would disappear once he had put some distance between himself and the demon-possessed man.

It didn't.

He looked down and back to see the man running swiftly along the ground under him. There was no doubt that it was a man now either. Ethan couldn't see the dark arua outside of the Astral Plane, but he could almost sense its presence on this demon-possessed man.

He was running after him.

He was running so fast that it would take a good few hours for Ethan to put enough distance between them to feel safe stopping to rest.

But he didn't have hours.

He couldn't fly at this breakneck speed for hours.

He turned and headed towards a large patch of trees, hoping that the possessed man needing to dodge the trees and run through the underbrush would slow his pursuer down.

It didn't.

Frankly, that didn't seem to slow him down much at all.

He looked around for other terrain obstacles but didn't see any. No cliffs, no ravines, and no other terrain obstacles he could take advantage of either.

Ethan grimaced as he realize how precarious his situation was. Sarah -- the only other demon-possessed person he'd ever met -- had been virtually impervious to harm. Further, the claw that he had enchanted to be beyond razor sharp to cut Rachel's mage-binder collar off while they had been imprisoned had barely scratched the innkeeper's daughter.

True, Ethan had his dragon-steel sword and dagger/javelin now and he hadn't had those during his fight with Sarah. However, he wasn't sure how much difference they would make. He wasn't sure it would make any difference at all. Sarah had moved so fast that she was almost impossible to block and she had caved in his chest armor with a single punch.

To make matters worse, he was all alone and there wasn't anyone to help him or shelter him for hundreds of miles. And the cherry on top of this terrible situation was that he didn't have a way to regenerate any mana that he used. He wouldn't die for lack of mana because he had the gold in his crop, but he couldn't replenish his mana without his wives or a lot of gold around...

...and a demon-possessed man was chasing him.

*Ladies, I think I'm in trouble.*

TO BE CONTINUED...

Note: This chapter began and ended on day 97 of Ethan's life in the Ten Kingdoms. I submit new chapters on the last Wednesday of every month, and they usually drop after the 2-3 days review process. Thus I'll submit the next chapter on October 25th, and it'll probably drop on October 27th or 28th.

I'd like to extend a very special thanks to two of my readers, one of whom didn't want to be credited by name. So "Anonymous" and Joseph: thank you so much for your support. I really appreciate it.

STORY TAGS: dragon, magic, medieval, elf, teen, romance, virgin, harem, cuckquean