The Mates of Dragons

Two Halves of the Same Whole

'Well that was dramatic'. Zani said shaking himself off as the building was burning around them. Xerxes was looking around the room. There was one vampire left, and he was extremely strong. He'd attacked those under him to feed himself so he could defeat Xerxes and take his power. Hence why Xerxes did what he'd done with the explosion of fire.

Xerxes had killed all the rest, the heat was so intense and the blast powerful enough to incinerate them. However just this one had managed some kind of protective barrier at the last minute. He could see the spot on the floor where it was unburned. Xerxes raised an eyebrow, bet he didn't get away unscathed. There was the sound of movement behind him.

Xerxes turned and brought his hand up and it was a solid blow to the vampire's nose breaking it, blood gushed. To bad, he meant to get him in the neck, the vampire moved faster than he expected him to. The vampire rushed him and hit him hard around the center of his body. They flew out through the back wall and Xerxes hit the ground plowing into it.

He heard the crack and knew that his right arm broke hitting the ground at a bad angle. The vampire tore at his skin with talons. Xerxes reached up wrenching the things neck hard to the side. It didn't kill him but he howled in pain and fell off. The vampire kind of flopped oddly with the broken neck.

Xerxes stood nursing his broken arm for a moment. He moved it back into place and it healed nearly instantly. He could heal any wound, but if the bone was broken it was slow to heal having to naturally move back into place. If he aligned it then it healed instantly, kind of a handy thing in battle.

The vampire was driven to the ground by Zani who came from above and managed to snap his jaws around his arm. The vampire howled again and his arm was ripped off, but this one was resilient and unwilling to die. He was old and had amassed power over time.

"You will be a good one to add to my talents. You'd feed me for years." He said glancing at Zani who had eaten his right arm, retaliation for breaking Xerxes. Brave words for a creature that had met it's match.

"You have to kill me first. Last I checked I am still far better off than you." He said and the building was burning fast. The vampire looked at Zani and with his size now nearly twice the tiger sized he'd been before. He didn't have a hope of getting at him. He rushed Xerxes again but had to stop short as Zani's tail nearly impaled him, the large crossed spade at the end deadly.

"Appearances are deceiving." Wasn't that the fucking truth? Xerxes felt that something was off and was glancing around. Zani kept his eye on the vampire while Xerxes tried to find the other culprit.

'Zani, I think there is a demon here with this group.'

'Really, we haven't come across one of those in a while. A possessor?'

'No, feel it, I think this one has a body. There is evil here, it masks its presence from us.'

'Yes I feel it now.' Clearly evil working with evil. This group of vampires was not good. It would seem they were being aided by a demon. These wolves were lucky the two of them had come when they did.

The vampire leapt for Xerxes once more, but Zani got it right in the chest with his tail slamming it to the ground and his mouth opened dousing the vampire in a burst of blue flame. It was extremely hot and killed the vampire instantly. Movement caught Xerxes' eye.

'Zani!' Xerxes shouted but had already moved seeing the man-like figure step out with glowing eyes. It aimed something at Zani and Xerxes just had time to move. He didn't think just let instinct take him. There was a pop-like sound and pain like he'd never felt exploded in his chest.

Xerxes wouldn't have worried so much about the demon launching something at Zani as dragon scales were as hard as diamonds. Only a dragon could manage to rip through the scales on another. Unless you had a special weapon made with a dragon in mind. Or you got the lucky shot as a dragon under the front legs near the arm pit, there was soft skin there. Not protected by hard scales.