Page 41 of The Dragon Warlord

Hang on a second. “River, how do I use dragon magic?” Can it be that easy?

River opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Lux’s uproarious laughter echoes off the jade-stone walls. “He won’t be able to tell you that. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself, Warlord.”

I slump against the wall, exhausted. My body still throbs with the reverberations of pain from my bout with the dragon lord. It wants to sleep, but my mind won’t allow it.C’mon, Tristan. This can’t be hard. Use your damn brain.

I consider what I’ve learned about Elven magic. Elven magic is from the Earth—Mother Earth. She lends us her energy and we use it to create and sometimes to destroy just like she does. For instance, a tidal wave is the most majestic of things when you’re watching it from a distance, but don’t be the boat caught under it.

“From the wreckage, beautiful things can be wrought, Tristan,” Zelphar had said. Yeah, Zelphar. My relationship with the Mortougian Warlord might be tumultuous, but he’s taught me a lot about Elven magic, hell-bent on making sure I could heal myself and wield my sword at the same time. That wasn’t all he taught me. Zelphar is a fine Warlord, far better than I could ever be.

No, I’ll never say that to his face. I sigh. I pray to the Gods I’ll get the opportunity to never say that to his face once more.

Time ticks by and I’ve still come up with nothing. I’m an utter failure. River deserves a better alpha. One who can actually use dragon magic.

What have you learned from this, Tristan?Father’s voice rings through my head. He believes that life is the ultimate teaching tool and that even the most awful of experiences can teach us. That we can’t move to the next step unless we got the lesson that life was trying to bludgeon through our thick skulls. If we don’t learn the first lesson, we can’t graduate, and that same child of trouble will return with more force than before.

That question used to annoy me to no end when I was younger, but I’ve seen the wisdom in it as I’ve matured.

If Father were here to ask me, I’d tell him that I’ve come to see the foolhardiness in not learning every skill available to me. Maybe getting this collar off is linked to knowing dragon magic. No, wait. I remember. His husbands remove it for him and put it back on. They aren’t dragons. It’s wizard magic that’s needed to remove the collar.

“Who put this collar on me?” I still blame the dragon lord, but he couldn’t have been the one to secure it to my neck as I’d assumed.

Lux’s genuine amusement bleeds off him. He leans back in his chair. “This time out is proving useful to you, Warlord. Look at all the information you can figure out for yourself when you’re not pouting.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Does it matter? We can all do it.”

I growl out my frustration. I’m going to be stuck here forever.

The door to this dark place opens and I perk up, hoping for the dragon lord. It’s not him, of course, it’s Phari and I can’t fucking believe that I hoped for the dragon lord.

“Looks like my shift is over, Warlord. I look forward to making your acquaintance at a better time.”

“I’m sure,” I say without making my sarcasm a secret.

Phari’s laugh is husky and pleasant. “Looks like I’m in for some fun.”

Lux smirks and plants a kiss on Phari’s lips before he glides out of the room. That answers another curiosity I had. I wondered if they were all together or if they were simply Tristan’s companions. Now I know that at least two of them have relations.

Ugh, and now I’m thinking about it. Even without being in the mood for sex, my male anatomy perks up just a little. I haven’t had any action in some time, and I’m continuously edged by my fascination with River thanks to the bond. Something I will never act upon.

Great, now I want to see the dragon lord’s husbands get it on.

Phari is less uptight than Lux, closer to Rayne, but with less sharp edges. He seems like the sort of guy I could find in the pub playing darts and drinking too many pints of mead, but also the kind of guy you don’t want to cross swords with. His irises are a deep orange. I’ve never seen that before. Do all wizards have strange eyes?

He takes a seat at the table in front of the same book Lux had been writing in. He’s not using a quill like a Markaytian would, it’s a long stick that seems to have ink inside of it. “Question for me, Warlord?”

“Yes. Don’t you care that River is suffering?”

“I do.” He gazes toward River who is supposedly one of his sons. “We have strict laws for a reason and River knows that. He attempted to attack the dragon lord and it’s unfortunate, but he must be punished.”

River did that? I’m fucking impressed. I wish I could have seen him go feral. I bet he was dangerously beautiful.

“And River has an alpha. I’m responsible for punishing him if he’s broken the law.”

“This is an exception.”

Argh.I abandon that line of reasoning since it only goes around in circles. Both wizards have seemed open to conversation so I continue to prod, hoping to find a piece of information that could give me a clue. From beside me, River’s careful breathing pokes at my nervous system, jarring it, and preventing me from following my thoughts from start to finish.