Shared By The Dragon Clan: Part Four Read Free

and cut off his head in a gigantic swoop.
    He then
sheathed his sword. “So do you want to fight me, Zane? Or do you want to marry
my daughter?”
    Zane’s eyes
trailed off. He looked at the ground. “Give me a moment.”
    He then
walked over to where Stacey was. He took her hands.
    There were
tears in his eyes.
    “Would he
beat you?” Stacey asked. “If you fought him?”
    Zane looked
over his shoulder. “I’ve never fought a Dragon Master before.”
    “Then you
shouldn’t fight him.”
    Zane seemed
satisfied with Stacey’s answer. He turned back to Nasres.
    “This girl,
is not a whore,” he declared. “She was wrongfully convicted of a crime she was
innocent of and sent to us as punishment.”
    “She’s human.
All humans are whores.”
    “I will agree
to your terms but you have to make sure Stacey is released from her
imprisonment. You have to guarantee the humans will no longer want to arrest,
convict or pursue her for anything to do with her crime. She needs to be set
free.”
    “Oh, Master,”
Stacey gushed in bewilderment.
    Narses took a
step towards them. “And then you will marry Evelyn?”
    Zane nodded.
“I will.”
    “And you
won’t come running after this human again?”
    “Correct.”
    “Then we have
a deal. I will organize transportation off the Island for the human in the
morning. Until then, she will be isolated from you.”
    “Absolutely
not. She stays with me until I see the paperwork regarding her release.”
    “Very well.
Make sure you’re both at the Palace tomorrow morning. If you try and escape –
I’ll make sure you’re both hunted down and killed. So don’t try me.”
    Seemingly
annoyed with the exchange, Narses gave a sharp boot to Conrad’s head and it
landed across the room with an unpleasant thud. He then turned and went through
the doors outside.
    Stacey turned
to her beloved. “So what’s going to happen now, Master? Are we going to go
along with everything he said?”
    “Which would
you prefer?” Zane shot back. “To be together with me, and be on the run? Or to
have your old life back where you’d know you’d be safe?”
    Stacey
couldn’t answer right away.

 
    CHAPTER
SEVEN
     
     
    “Master,” she said, “I’m not feeling
very well. Can we go outside for a bit?”
    “In the
rain?” Zane replied. He then saw where her gaze was headed.
    Conrad’s
corpse was making her queasy.
    “Outside it
is then.”
    Zane put his
arm round Stacey for comfort, and she nestled into his warmth, whilst bracing
for the harsh return of cold outside. They walked out the door together and
Zane closed it behind them.
    The overhead
storm was thankfully beginning to clear. The rain was constant, but light.
    “The truth is
I can’t leave this decision up to you,” Zane finally said. “I know what needs
to happen.”
    “What?”
Stacey asked. “What needs to happen?”
    “If we ran,
we’d be found. Because I know I wouldn’t stop searching for a way back into the
Clan. It’s my home. It’s where I belong. I can’t live without it. The problem
is that even if I were to expose the cover up with Horatio, it wouldn’t matter.
They’d still want us dead for trying to escape now.”
    Stacey sat
down on the dirt. She realized she was crying. “But I don’t want to lose you.
You’re unlike any man I’ve ever met before.”
    “That’s
because I’m not a man,” Zane said, sitting beside her.
    “I don’t
know. Maybe if there’s some other way or… Unless you want to marry the
Princess…”
    “What? No.
It’s just what Narses wants.”
    “And you
trust him? After he killed Conrad right in front of you?”
    “He’s a
Dragon Master. Trust isn’t what matters. I know if we try and escape now we’re
likely to fail. As it was – we couldn’t last more than a day before they found
us already.”
    “I suppose
that’s true,” Stacey laughed.
    “You don’t
need me in your life. You’ll meet someone you’ll like. Just you see.”
    Stacey smiled
a little.