All Chapters of The Alpha's Dragon: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The streets of Cumoreen were always wet. Wet with filth, with blood and with the glimmering venom that trickled from the slightly open mouths of the serpent guards. The air itself stank of fear, every window was bolted shut as if the houses themselves had been commanded to hold their breath. Slaves whimpered as chains dragged like bruised bells through the street; a soggy, metallic chorus tumbling along the gutters.But farther up the long misery way that slithered toward the palace, everything glittered. The palace of the Cumoreen Basilisk Clan rose from a bedrock of hammered black basalt, each block fitted like a jawbone into the next, as if the earth itself had been clenched.The palace was no simple fortress. It uncoiled like a sleeping leviathan, broad enough to blot out mountains, terraces piled like vertebrae, domes hewn from translucent green crystal that winked in the sunlight. The entry colonnades gleamed with deep lapis pillars, banded with spiraling runes that they swirled

The gates of Cumoreen opened with a hiss.Two great serpents carved from midnight stone peeled back from the gate like lids removed from an eye, their jeweled sockets glittering open as the boy approached. The air shimmered with venomous humidity, thick and heady as the visitor walked in. He moved with an old calm that denied his age of twelve years. Tall and lean, he carried the kind of stillness that made warriors glance twice.Ligon’s cloak was ash-grey, his stance proud though his boots were caked with road dust. The guards hissed warnings in the old serpent tongue as he threaded the aisle toward the council, yet he walked as if the warnings were only wind grazing his earlobe irritably. He only tilted his head slightly in their direction, emerald eyes cold as a forge as he barely acknowledged their presence or words. His confidence, a threat to the icy silence of the throne room.Glacy Vitro lingered in the shadows behind a marble colonnade, summoned there by Ul'ren himself. He h

The dungeon of Cumoreen reeked of rot. Water dripped through the ceiling in slow, cruel rhythms. Somewhere in the dark, chains rattled and someone groaned. A constant reminder that mercy did not exist here.Glacy’s bare feet made no sound on the stones as she descended the steps, a basket of food in one hand, a flask hidden beneath her rags in the other. Her tattered dress hung loose, torn at the seams, caked with grime. To the guards, she was a servant werewolf girl who cleaned up after the Basilisks’. No one paused to see the mischief that sat like a sharpened pebble in her pink eyes.She stopped before his cell.Ligon sat in the corner, half-shadowed, his wrists shackled, his silver hair matted with blood. The darkness clung to him like a living thing. His emerald eyes flicked toward her, steady, calculating.“You again,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Why do you risk coming here?”Glacy crouched, pressing her basket through the bars. “Because I believe you would survive and give me t

The rain stopped falling and the sun shone bright above the ruins of Cumoreen. The streets were soaked with the remnants of what had been. Scales glinting like broken glass, charred banners fluttering weakly in the heat of ruin. Amid it all, Ligon walked. Barefoot, shirt torn, he had let the wolf skin fall from him, now he stood more human, Glacy trailed beside him, a half-step behind, not out of submission, but reverence. Her skin was smudged with soot and and her gaze, though tired burned with quiet pride and awe. The Basilisk elders were gone. The proud, scaled monarchs of Cumoreen reduced to steam rising from torn flesh and jeweled plates slick with blood. But now, from among the trembling survivors, a new leader had emerged, a serpentine with white-gold hair who the survivors bowed to as Serathei.When Serathei stepped forward from the crowd, his movements were slow and deliberate, his hooded eyes never leaving Ligon.“You’ve made your point, wolf,” he said, voice a careful

The mist rolled in from the east like a living thing—soft at first, then dense enough to swallow torches whole.Ligon tightened his belt of his trouser, as his warriors mounted up. The encampment was tense with expectation; even the wind had quieted. Glacy’s words still echoed in his mind. The Sirens are near the Tungsten river bend, their illusions thin before dawn.“Form into three wings,” Ligon commanded, his tone a blade of calm steel slicing through the murmurs. “At the faintest hint of a song, you seal your ears and your hearts alike. No one speaks unless spoken to. We find the Sirens and silence them so completely that their throats will fear to dream of melody again.”Valia stood beside him, her hair coiled high like a crown of shadow, eyes glimmering in the torchlight with cool curiosity. “You place such faith in Glacy’s word?” she asked, no envy in her tone, only a keen interest.Ligon’s gaze flicked toward her. “I trust in results,” he said. “Glacy has never deceived me in