Adelio

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“Woah did someone piss in your breakfast this morning? If looks could kill, both I and the servants would be dead by now.” Milo my advisor and right-hand man said.

I rubbed my face and gave Milo the death stare. Why does he always have to point out the obvious?

“Aw, your majesty you’ll make me blush if you stare like that,” Milo said in a voice he thinks to be cute. “So tell me what has your panties in a twist?”

“What do you think?” I countered. “The thought of going to that human-infested land just irritates me.”

There was nothing good about the land of humans. It reeked of the smell of greed, depravity, ego, and just about anything you could think about.

Milo chuckled at my words, his silver eyes amused. “We have no choice but to go. It is the first time they open their gates in decades, no one would deny the chance to go there”

I sighed and slammed a bunch of paper on my office desk, and glanced at Milo “When do we depart?”

“Whenever your majesty decides to of course. I don’t think anyone would have enough guts to call out the dragon race for coming late” Milo said

Flipping a paper, I replied “Yes, true. However, missing out on the first days of the meeting would only give those old fossils the leisure of making stupid rules”

“You have a point” he agreed.

I returned my gaze to the page in front of me, ready to read it. However, Milo tossed a little letter right on top of it.

“And what is this?” I asked, glaring at the pink monstrosity he threw.

“What else would it be other than another letter from Lady Charlotte? I have to give it to her, the woman doesn’t know when to give up”

“And you don’t know when to stop accepting her letters,” I said.

“You can’t blame me. She’s quite good at roping me into her scheme. Besides, if she is courageous enough to persistently approach the Dragon Emperor, then I’d say take her as a mate. She’d make a bold queen.”

"MILO,”I said in a deep growl.

Now he was pushing it. To dare suggest to a dragon - the emperor no less - that he should take a woman that wasn’t his mate. He was seeking death.

We dragons are beasts by nature. We could be twice as ruthless as we could be merciful. It’s quite hard to reign in a beast that lives on chaos and rampage, our beasts are always restless, always ready to pounce and destroy anything deemed a hindrance on our path. It is one of the things that makes us the mightiest of all creatures.

Such a chaotic beast needs a calm to his raging storm, a person who brings comfort to his very soul. His other half whom he can take solitude in. His mate. His Malacia

So, suggesting I settle for a random woman just pissed my beast off. If he wasn’t my advisor, his head would be rolling on the floor by now.

Milo raised his hands in surrender, then stood up and headed to the door. On his way out, he said “I’ll have everything ready in two days, so we can depart” Then he walked away with a still amused smile on his face. He’s so insufferable.

As annoying as I deemed him to be, Milo was my right-hand man and someone I trusted a lot. He was one of the only people that gets me and my train of thought.

He wasn’t a dragon like me, so he doesn’t feel this constant urge to find his mate. He was a griffin, and griffins don’t do mates. They were fickle creatures at heart. So I don’t really blame him for suggesting I take Charlotte as my malacia.

“Not to be a stick in the mud your majesty but he does have a point” Arzhel, my second advisor said.

He had been in the room all this while but hadn’t said anything.

“You’re getting impatient by the day, your temper increasingly breaking bounds and even your subjects are wary of your presence.” He concluded.

Arzhel is a quiet man by nature, so quiet that he could be in a room for hours without being noticed. He hated anything noisy and would always keep to himself, but when he wanted to nag, he was noisier than a housewife.

“And don’t you have a mate to please this morning?” I bellowed.

“Pleased and satisfied she has been made, your majesty,” he responded.

“Now back to your having an empress-” he continued

Stolen novel; please report.

“Arzhel darling, I really want to give you grandkids, but I’m unable to until I find my Malacia. So please be patient with me hm?” I smirked cutting him off.

His elbow slipped in a comical manner, from the window sill on which he had been leaning.

I chuckled.

“Please don’t make jokes like that your majesty,” Arzhel said clearing his throat.

“Well you make yourself an easy target when you act like a mama bear,” I remarked.

He shook his head and said “I’m not saying settle for Lady Charlotte, that woman makes me lose brain cells. I’m just saying maybe you should look into other women, you are bound to find someone your beast finds tolerable”

“Arzhel, I’ve been through hoards of women and not one of them satiated me. Neither in bed nor in my heart. There is only one woman sculpted to match my soul, and no one could ever come close to that. So stop your nagging” I said, getting up from my chair.

“I’m going out to spar.”

“Very well,” he said in a defeated voice. “I won’t push the matter again”

***

“Ugh damn!” one of the warriors yelled as I slammed him to the floor.

“Who’s next?” I challenged.

“Your majesty, you are exceptionally fierce today,” Nathaniel, or Natty as we called him said

“Are you sure I’m fierce or are my warriors just getting weak? You aren’t slacking as a general are you natty?” I scoffed

“Well ouch. Your majesty. How about you leave the little guys alone and spa with me then”

“Game on”

Natty was fast, agile, and strong. He made for a good spar partner. When fighting him, I could always use about seventy percent of my strength. It was refreshing.

He took off his shirt, earning a cheer from the now-gathering crowd. The ladies were big fans of Natty, he was tall, sturdy, and had tattoos running up his arm. From servants to nobles, to female warriors, he had no shortage of love interests at his feet. However, like me, he chooses to wait for his mate.

Natty threw a kick at me, his long legs up high and I blocked it with my arm. Seeing that his first tactics have failed, he spun and threw his other legs at him and I blocked it still.

Then he retreated his legs and bent down to sweep my feet, but I blocked it with a sideways kick and pushed him away with my other leg.

Now it was my turn to attack. I threw a punch at Natty and to no surprise he dodged it and got behind me using his speed. He wrapped his hands around my neck and tried to put me in a chokehold, but I swung my hands back, grabbed him, and threw him over my shoulders.

Just as his back was about to meet the floor, Natty twisted out of my grip and jumped into the air, landing a distance from me.

The girls cheered. Half of the crowd was yelling “Your majesty!” and the other half yelled “General Nathaniel”

“Earned yourself quite the crowd yet again huh” I joked

“Please, your majesty, ninety percent of the women here are dying for your attention. Just a single glance from you and they’d all pass out”

I laughed at his words. I was certainly a looker, that much is true, but he was underestimating himself.

Natty raked his hand through his brunette hair and positioned himself in a fighting position again, just as he was about to lurch forward, a voice interrupted.

“Your majesty,” Arzhel’s quiet voice said.

“Hey, Arz. Are you here to join the spar?” Natty asked

“Dear lord, don’t involve me in your barbaric acts.” Arzheal groaned. “We have news from the outskirts”

We both stopped in our tracks and turned to him.

There has been something going on in the outskirts as of late, dragons and lower-ranking beasts have been going missing.

A few days ago some dragons had their mates taken from them, they went on a rampage and caused havoc in the small town. Lots of people got hurt, and the dragons had to be restrained.

“Let me hear it,” I said to Arzhel

“There has been another incident. Some female dragons failed to return to their residents last night, and their mates have lost control. They are currently trashing around at the moment.”

I straightened my body to my full height and asked “Where’s Milo?”

“Milo just departed for the outskirts not too long ago,” he answered.

“Good, meet me there,” I said, as I transformed and took off into the sky.

I am by far the largest Dragon in this empire, which meant my wings are just as equally large. This gave me the advantage of speed in the air. So I was able to arrive at the town in question after a short while.

The first thing I saw was a thread of smoke piercing the sky, and tracing down to a couple of houses below. They were on fire, the dragons must have done this.

“Where is my Dana?! Bring her out! I will murder whoever is hiding her” A black-colored dragon roared, swinging its tail in the direction of a small house.

However, just before it made contact, two brown claws grabbed it and slammed it to the floor. The claws belong to a griffin. It was Milo.

A loud screech bubbled up from his throat as he stepped on the dragon’s neck and pinned it to the floor.

Another dragon roared in the distance and stomped on a house. This one was dark brown in color and he was a little smaller than the average sized dragon.

Milo looked at the dragon underneath him and then cast a glance at the one currently crushing a house. He seemed to be weighing his decision of freeing the dragon currently in his clasp and going to tackle the other one, or keep restraining the one below him and let other houses be pummeled.

Seeming to come to no reliable solution, he threw me a look and said “Little help here your majesty?”

I could tell he was trying his hardest not to hurt the dragons, they weren’t at fault after all. Who could stand their once-in-a-lifetime mate going missing and being in possible danger?

I landed on the ground and let out a deafening roar. Everyone and everything came to a halt. The struggling dragons, the crying parents, the wailing children, the lamenting fathers, everyone went quiet.

Seeing who was in their midst, they all fell to their knees and bowed, showing their respect to me.

“I shot a look at the two dragons and said, “Stand down.”

They both cringed at my words then slowly transformed into their human form and lowered their heads once again. The dark brown dragon from earlier was stifling in a sob as he kept knocking his head into the ground.

Just as he was about to hit his head on the ground again, I put my tail between his head and the ground, letting it act as a cushion.

He threw his head up, shock written all over his face.

I may not be the most compassionate person out there, but these were my subjects and I won’t watch them get hurt.

I transformed back into my human form and Milo did the same. He then rushed to me while holding something in his arm. It was a piece of armor.

We dragons had no use for armor, our scales were stronger than rocks. If powerful enough, they were stronger than steel itself. So the fact that there was one here meant...

“Humans” Milo and I said in coordinated terms.

Just then Arzhel finally caught up.

“Your majesty, I’ve got intel from the scouts. It wasn’t really obvious, but there has been a subtle breach in the boundary on the northside,” he said as he transformed mid-air and landed next to me and Milo.

“Milo you said we were leaving in two days?” I asked

“Yes, your majesty,” he responded.

“Make it tomorrow.” I bellowed.