Last of the Temple Line Read online

  The Last of the Temple Line

  The Dragon Sydae Book One

  Nicole Bedford

  Copyright © 2021 Nicole Moore

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 9798725950342

  Cover design by: Author using Canva

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Warning:

  Prologue

  Mother

  The Whispering Falls

  Dalaric's Decision

  Mother's Wisdom

  A Mother's Love

  Bonded

  Mana Storm

  Aegwin

  Into The Woods

  Grief

  The Red Sorrel

  Beginnings

  Sisters

  Broken Rite

  Anchored

  The Blending of Essence

  He Regrets Nothing

  Never in Halves

  Mana is Not Just Mana

  Tasting

  The Fates

  Claiming His Sydae-Va

  Author’s Note

  Next Book in the series:The King of Dragons

  Cast of Characters (Updated Each Successive Book)

  Recommendations

  About The Author

  Warning:

  This serial includes sensual content. The Dragon Sydae includes scenes between males and also has secondary characters who are not cisgender. Please do not read this and become upset later. I am building the world I would wish to live in. All are welcome regardless of breed, creed, or birth.

  Prologue

  According to human legend, there was a terrible war between Akkadians and humans. As shifters capable of taking to the sky in the form of monstrous dragons, the Akkadians had decimated the once powerful human population. Only the intervention of their Mother, the Goddess of all life, had saved humanity. Striking the dragons down by cursing them through their bloodlines, She then gifted to her beloved witch daughters visions of the war so that they would never forget the pestilence Akkadians had been.

  Witch and sage, female and male masters of mana, the power of their Mother that lives in all things, serve the Mother by bringing love and law to Her people. Humans slowly recovered from their almost annihilation at the hands of their new overlords: Akkadian First Sons. Each continent is known by their cardinal direction and protected from rogue Akkadians by the First Sons. Many millennia after the war, sages have flourished under Akkadian protection and have built large cities of stone to enforce their lawful right to oversee humanity’s rebirth. Witches remain in the villages that dot the lands and nurture the people they live amongst.

  Akkadian First Sons, those who yet retain the ability to transform into their mighty dragon forms, hold the most power of their different breed lines. Assured of their right to rule the lands, they ignore the squabbling, petty affairs of humans. Their blood stripped of the ability to allow their young to Ascend into their true power, they search for their salvation: witches granted the mana Akkadian sons and daughters desperately need.

  In the heart of one young witch, Akkadians will find hope. They are not the only ones who will hunt her for the power she cannot control. The terrible darkness that had once feasted upon the world’s destruction will rise again. Truths will be revealed as lies. Ally will become enemy. Both races will be forced to take sides in the brewing war to end all wars.

  A new legend will be birthed when a human woman capable of loving more than the wickedest of beings can hate is guarded by the mightiest of Akkadian warriors. He will take to himself seconds to protect the gentle soul he finds in the most unlikely of places. Only her powerful dragon Sydae, a bonded clan of males to their female, can stand against the evil sweeping the land.

  The alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end. Their love will either save the world or damn them all. This is their story.

  Mother

  “Sons honor their mothers. For of their mother’s eggs, all life is hatched.”

  -Akkadians: Past, Present, Future -

  "Death is too good for them. They will suffer beautifully. They will beg for mercy and I shall give them a craving for more pain. Every mana-cursed morsel of their succulent souls will be gnawed away by my darkness, one mouthful at a time. What once was will be again. It has begun."

  Emersyn jerked awake in her pile of blankets. She clutched her chest. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. What was that? she asked herself. Where had that voice come from? Her visions had gotten worse, but never had she heard something so vile whisper as if in her ear!

  She looked over the small cottage she shared with Paelia, the older witch that was her mentor. The fire crackled merrily in the hearth. A pot of stew, leftover from the night before, still sent delicious scents wafting into the air from where it hung over the small fire. In the corner she had been given for her sleeping space, Emersyn wiped a curl off her forehead and grimaced when the cinnamon-blonde strands appeared darker when they clung wetly to her fingers. The cold of the stone floor climbed through the blankets and her thin night shift was soaked in sweat. The remaining bite of night air within the cottage further chilled her over-heated flesh.

  An explosion sounded in the distance. Without a thought to her appearance, Emersyn threw the blankets off her legs and jumped to her feet. She raced out of the cottage in nothing more than the old white shift that barely reached her knees and clung indecently to her lithe form.

  Once outside, she saw terrified faces peeking from behind barely parted doors as the sun rose in the distance. Gilvern was a booming town compared to her old home in Kildair, but she still knew many of the townsfolk. None dared run toward the danger as she was with bare feet already bleeding from the many stones she gracelessly stumbled overk kh.

  Just as she reached the market, a bellow rent the air. She easily recognized it as belonging to her sister’s husband, Bannon. Emersyn shot forward, arms pumping. Sarah!

  Upon reaching the commotion, she was greeted with the horrific decimation of her sister’s home. The stone cottage that had been quite large with three rooms and a tidy little eating area was reduced to rubble. The witch was relieved to see Sarah was safely in Bannon's arms.

  Berobed in an elaborately embroidered shift that had been a gift from Jaela and Emersyn to commemorate the birth of her daughter, Sarah’s completely bedraggled appearance was a shock to Emersyn. Sarah’s night shift had been a plain blue, but the threads that had come with it had been artfully arranged throughout the fabric by Sarah’s clever fingers until a motif of dancing flowers and butterflies spread across her ample bosom. The pristine azure hue that had once matched Sarah’s bright, laughing eyes while complimenting her honey-gold hair was now speckled in mud and torn in several places.

  Currently, Sarah’s hair was mussed and snarled while her cheeks her flushed in both fear and anger. Bannon, the half-human who had won Sarah’s heart, kept his wife’s lush form, rounded further by her recent pregnancy, pushed behind him with one hand. A dagger in his other hand was brandished in front of him. Midnight black hair and vivid green eyes that sparked with his fury were the only inheritance from his Akkadian father. His slight, lean build and moderate height betrayed his human heritage.

  As an Annunaki,
the rare mingling of Akkadian and human blood, would Bannon be able to defend his wife and daughter? Emersyn wondered.

  The wail of a baby drew Emersyn's eyes to the right.

  Standing regally amidst jagged pieces of broken wood and crushed stone was an Akkadian female. Slender and tall, her frame was draped in a red robe which was belted with a bejeweled silver chain to slither down her body to rest upon the ground. Each black-clawed finger was tipped in silver. The female's snow-white hair reflected the morning summer sun like a halo. Her features were stunningly similar to Bannon’s – a clear sign of their familial connection. Though, Emersyn absently noted, Bannon’s claws were not half so sharp nor was his hair white.

  The only other Akkadians Emersyn had ever seen in person were Bannon's uncle, Lord Dalaric, and his dark-haired son, Caelwin. The pair had come to Gilvern shortly after she and Sarah had arrived. Bannon had been called from the village by his uncle. He had returned shortly in a foul temper and she had never seen the lord or his son again.

  Gilvern rested firmly within Lord Dalaric's territory. Lord Dalaric was not just a dragon shifter. He was a warrior that even sages feared. The First Son of the North was unusual in that he allowed many Akkadians to thrive as nobles provided they acted as caretakers to his territory rather than forcing them to eke out a living on the outskirts as little more than peasants. Despite their lack of title in other lands, Akkadian peasants lived in opulent splendor in comparison to their human counterparts. Still, in her heart, Emersyn was grateful for the protection Lord Dalaric had granted to all who lived peacefully in his lands.

  She had never traveled outside Kildair or Gilvern. That did not mean she was completely ignorant of the goings on in the world. Even without information gleaned from Paelia’s coven and connections, enforcers from Wulfram and Loholme, the large sage cities of the North and East respectively, were common. Merchants, despite the dangers of the roads not yet cleared by sages for travel, also carried rumors more swiftly than Paelia’s messenger pigeons as they sought new trade routes to satisfy the burgeoning human population. While stories detailing the arrogance of Akkadian nobles were plentiful, none were ever reputed to be cruel or heartless in their dispensation of Lord Dalaric’s will. She could not say the same for the other continents.

  Armed with this knowledge, she also knew none were allowed to invade Gilvern. That meant the only Akkadian lady who would dare to attack the village had to be Meghara, Lord Dalaric's mother. Bannon's grandmother.

  "My baby! Bannon, get our baby!" Sarah's frightened scream broke the silence.

  Growling, Bannon pushed Sarah against the side of a cottage and ordered her to stay there. He leapt the distance between himself and the lady. "Put her down before I kill you!"

  The Akkadian quirked a brow at the male. "If you want it, come and get it," she sneered out.

  A humming grew in the air. A whisper of mana caught Emersyn's hair and brushed it across her wind-pebbled flesh. Paelia stepped next to her. Hunched with age, the elder witch's shoulders were barely level with Emersyn's elbow. Features well-wrinkled by the sun and the many years she had seen, Paelia’s power was stronger than any other witch Emersyn had known in her nineteen years.

  The vivid blue of Paelia's heavy robes that were stitched with silver threads glowed with mana. Head bowed, hands held in front of her with palms down, her lips were moving but Emersyn could not hear what was being said. In the space of seconds, a witch barrier came to life. A kaleidoscope of mana engulfed most of the village behind them.

  Alvin, the journeyman sage who had made Gilvern his temporary home, stood within the barrier in a low crouch that made a lie of his large frame. Blue tunic and cream-colored pants, the uniform of his calling, glowed garishly in the crimson spill of light that fell from the apple-sized mana gems he gripped in each beefy hand. The sapphire gems glowed fiercely with an inner fire and transformed his plain features into a fierce countenance. He was not a skilled fighter. His middle had even begun to expand with the middling years upon him and a lack of zest for physical exertion to match his excessive appetite for fine foods, but he would defend the village should Paelia's barrier fall.

  Courage bolstered by the appearance of elder witch and experienced sage, Bannon pulled another dagger from its sheath at his side. He snapped into a double-bladed fighting stance and snarled, "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

  Claws dug into the baby's sensitive flesh, and the Akkadian's eyes narrowed into thin slits. "You pretend to not know who I am? You are born of the same arrogance as your bitch mother."

  Bannon flew at her. Emersyn watched in horror when the Akkadian sidestepped the lunge and turned to face the raging Annunaki with a smirk. Emersyn felt her stomach churn. Quaking with fear, she swallowed her terror when Sarah cried out for her newborn.

  The young witch slid along the side of the cottages that had not been placed inside the barrier and came to a halt beside Sarah. Emersyn watched a shadow move across the stone and nodded at Jaela as her other sister slipped from the shadows to stand at their side. An inky smoke drifted from Jaela’s mahogany skin, accentuating her lean form in the black leathers she favored. Tight braids whispered against the fabric of Sarah’s shift when Jaela stepped behind the two women to place an hand on Sarah’s shoulder in support. A loud crash drew their attention back to the fight.

  Emersyn winced. Sarah's shaking hand crept into hers and Emersyn squeezed it just as Bannon was backhanded into a cottage wall across the narrow path. He stood on shaky legs and threw his daggers away from him. The metal sizzled and popped in a cloud of toxic Ki, Akkadian essence, on the ground. He roared and ran at Meghara. The female twirled in a cloud of red silk and jewels and avoided each swipe of his dull claws. A minute passed and Bannon's eyes glowed brighter and brighter and his movements became sloppier.

  "Jaela, can you all get away once you have the baby?" Emersyn whispered. A desperate plan was forming in her mind, but she could not do it alone.

  Jaela cut her golden gaze to her for a moment before nodding slowly. The tall woman quietly unsheathed her dagger, Wraith, and stepped back so that Sarah could wrap her arms around her waist. A faint shadow deepened and moved over both women.

  “Be swift, Emersyn,” Jaela ordered, voice hard. “The babe is too small to suffer such abuse for long.” The warrior woman hugged Sarah closer when the soft-skinned female sobbed quietly into her hands at the reminder of the danger her baby was in.

  Emersyn said a quick prayer and, before she could second-guess herself, forced mana to the fore of her being and weaved it into a sloppy but strong net around Bannon. He froze instantly in his tracks, unable to move in the tight confines. Meghara turned toward her and, before the lady could act, Emersyn cast a rope of mana to snare the baby. She quickly yanked upon the mana cord and Sarah's baby flew through the air with a loud wail to land in Emersyn's arms. Jaela snatched the infant to her chest with her free hand. A flash of inky black smoke and the women and the baby disappeared.

  Howling in outrage, the Akkadian turned a furious glare upon Emersyn while Bannon fought her mana in the background.

  "You interfere, Witch," Meghara snarled. The sleeve of her robe smoked where the weaving had not been perfectly aimed and had contacted the fine Ki-bespelled silk. The lady looked her up and down, taking in Emersyn's sweaty skin and white, threadbare shift. A clear signal of Emersyn's lack of status. She laughed in wicked delight. "Oh, this is precious. A weak little witchling came to save the half-spawn of my son's loins."

  Emersyn shivered as the full weight of the female's gaze came to rest upon her. It was true. She was weak. She could not weave mana with the finesse girls half her age had mastered. That did not mean she would not do everything she could to help her family!

  Meghara clucked her tongue, tilting her chin to the air to regard Emersyn with one delicate brow arched in disdain. “Are you presenting yourself to me in place of the insipid bitch who ran before facing the one she has wronged?”

  "You should not be
here," Emersyn said, proud her voice only held a small tremor. "Lord Dalaric has given Gilvern and Bannon his protection. What will he do once he knows you broke his word?"

  Snarling, the Akkadian charged forward too quick for her eyes to follow. At the last moment, Emersyn threw up her arms and instinctively erected a solid wall of blue, pulsating mana. The female slammed into it with bone-jarring force and the barrier flared bright and angry. The air crackled when furious Ki sparked against mana. Tossed away from the surprised witch, Meghara landed on all fours. A brief flash of pearlescent scales lining her legs showed in a parting of the crimson robe’s folds before the lady righted herself.

  Wiping the bangs from her eyes furiously, the Akkadian revealed narrowed green pupils rimmed black with rage. "You will pay for your disrespect," she hissed out around elongated fangs that pressed against her thinned lips.

  "Please just go!" Emersyn begged, "I don't want to hurt you."

  Meghara slowly righted her robes with a nonchalant brush of claws, eyes never leaving Emersyn’s wide gaze. "Hurt me?" she repeated. “You honestly believe yourself a match for the ancient blood which flows in these veins?” Meghara disappeared only to reappear behind Emersyn.

  Emersyn swallowed painfully when clawed fingers tangled in her hair to snatch her head to the side, exposing her throat to the lady. She met the Akkadian’s gaze but the female’s eyes only widened in shock.

  Meghara whispered so low Emersyn almost did not hear her words. "It can't be."

  Gaze once more green, the lady’s breath caught. Meghara swiftly stepped away from the frozen witch. The oppressive Ki that had inundated the air faded and the lady rapidly backtracked to the edge of the wood that lined the village near Sarah’s cottage.

  “You are a marked one!” Meghara breathed out. She met Emersyn’s confused gaze then, without saying another word, gathered a burst of Ki and leaped into the air. Red robes and jewels were visible against the blue sky during Meghara’s swift retreat. Within seconds she was gone from sight completely.