Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(20)
After centuries of trying to procreate with human women, learning how to modify and mask their dragon forms in order to mate with another species, they had almost given up: Their seed rarely planted successfully; the few pregnancies that resulted usually failed; and the handful of infants who were actually born died shortly after birth.
They simply could not procreate with human women.
And so they had called upon their collective magic, and their boundless powers, to approach the matter from a different tack: to clone their own ancient reptilian DNA in shells, like eggs, and see if the vessels would hatch in the temple, to add human DNA to the specimens to see if their offspring might, at last, possess the ability to propagate…for them.
The experiment had worked to a degree.
The lords had successfully created over a thousand eggs, but only forty-nine had hatched: seven from each of the aboriginal gods, representing each of the sacred stones and each of the consecrated lairs. And of that subset—over time, many pagan battles, and natural attrition—only seven of the original hatchlings remained: Blaise Amarkyus, Brass Cytarius, Ghost Dragos, Jagyr Ethyron, Nuri Onyhanzian, Ty Topenzi, and their own lair-mate, Zane Saphyrius. All original sons—made, not born—of the dragon lords.
All one thousand years old.
Luckily for the dragons, each of the forty-nine hatchlings had contributed to The Pantheon before the unfortunate forty-two had passed away—they had done their duty and propagated the race—although it soon became clear that this first generation could only produce sons, and their fertility extended to only one offspring, born of a chosen dragyra: a human female chosen by the gods at a time and place of the dragon lords’ assignment.
Axeviathon sighed.
He knew the heavy weight the Genesis carried, and that Zane would gladly relinquish the privilege if he could. They were bound more tightly to the dragon lords, as the gods often saw them as appendages of themselves—hell, Ghostaniaz Dragos had been named “Ghost” because the darkest of the seven lords, Lord Dragos, considered the male a mere phantom of himself—and their continued existence was as vital to the gods as breathing. Each one was the last remaining progeny of their virginal DNA, like some sick, egocentric extension of their minds, their self-images projected in flesh and blood, scales and fire, power and fangs.
In fact, over time, the patriarchal competition had gotten so out of hand that the wiser, more noble gods, like Lord Topenzi and Lord Cytarius, had acted to rein it in. On a male’s eighteenth birthday, he left his father’s lair and was consecrated to one of the alternate seven’s—he became an abiding, lifelong member of another god’s den and the eternal responsibility of another deity. His irises changed color; his permanent amulet was affixed; and he would forever pledge his fealty to the lord of his lair; thus, ending any chance that the Dragyr would be divided, or conflicted, by genealogy.
Yet and still, there was one glaring exception to this rule: the original, genesis seven. Each of the embryonic sons still belonged to his maker’s lair, and that included Zane…
Axe rocked forward onto the pads of his feet, stepped toward the dual front doors, and tugged on a thick, heavy panel, holding it open for Levi to enter. “Brains before beauty,” he grunted, waiting as his lair-mate stepped inside. “You should put that missive on the refrigerator door, make damn sure Zane sees it when he gets in.”
Levi nodded as he sidled past Axe into the elaborate foyer. “And if Zane’s not back by then?”
Axe shook his head. The poor male was probably somewhere he didn’t want to be; sweating like a pig, to put it in human terms; trying to cajole his dragyra, who was probably shocked and scared out of her wits, into giving him a chance. “Well, if he’s not back by tomorrow afternoon, then we intervene, give him a mental nudge.”
“Yeah,” Levi said, already heading in the direction of the kitchen. “When the lords call…”
“We jump,” Axe supplied.
f
Drakkar Hades, king of the pagans, sat back in his opulent throne in the pagan underworld and sneered at his chief counselor and principal sycophant, Killian Kross. “Tell me this again: You got what information from the beetle?”
Killian Kross, a full-blooded shade—or shadow-walker, if one preferred the term—flicked a piece of lint off his black satin jacket and stepped closer to the dark lord’s throne. “The Dragyr murdered three pagans in the yard of a human, earlier this night, two demons and a shade: Rafael, Malandrix, and Alexian. But before Rafael died, he dispatched a thousand beetles, and while the three dragyri thought they’d killed them all, they were sadly mistaken.”
Drakkar drew in a deep, ragged breath, trying to marshal his patience as he stared at his long, pointed fingernails and tried not to twitch. Killian had a never-ending flair for the dramatic; he tended to talk in circles, all the while evading the main, essential subject; and he was loath to ever get to the point. Drakkar gritted his teeth and forced a smile. “Sounds like a lovely evening was had by all, but now that we have the numbers—and the names—do get to the point. Tell me what you learned from the beetle. Please.”
Killian sat on the arm of the throne, leaned in, and took one good look at Drakkar’s scowl, then quickly stood back up, smoothing out the velvet arm in apology. “A-hem.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, the Dragyr extinguished all the beetles, save one, and the creature was crawling in the bushes, unseen, as the warriors talked. As programmed, the insect recorded what he heard and broadcast it back to the castle.”