The King's Gamma (#Wattys2024)

Eighty Two

Another ran after, shouting at her as well to snap out of it. Both men had their very skin burning away as they reached out to her. 

"Kent! Kent, it's me!" Ora shouted as he fought against the forces that pushed back at them. 

Gaelik stood up, triumphantly. He held Marcenia to his chest, ensuring that as many pheromones as he could muster entered all her senses while he smiled over her head at the two burning humans.

"Macey, do you love me?" he asked loudly as her eyes continued to cloud over further. The once bright golden eyes were now almost completely black. 

She gave a slight nod as if to confirm that she did. 

"It's useless approaching my wife any further, Felix and Deimios. You have entertained her long enough with your insufferable and misguided flings."

Ora and Azrael glared at the man holding her. They knew they were powerless, but they still could not give up on the one they continued to exist for. 

The truth neither of them dared to utter had been that they had both felt a strange attraction to her since the first moment they saw her as a child. And the feeling only continued to increase as they grew older and watched her grow up before their eyes. When she left they could still feel her. They knew she was still alive. And so they prepared what they could to eventually be with her again.

"Flings?" Azrael ground out, surprising Ora somewhat. Azrael had never once raised his voice or lost his temper in the years they had spent together. "You are the misguided one. She is ours!"

Ora, pumped up at the ferocity his friend had shown, smirked wildly as he glared at the black dragon as well. 

"You're resorting to mind games and trickery to keep her. How does that make her yours?"

~~~

Present day

The silence had stretched for a while when Gem suddenly frowned. The truth was that he had always been one of many, and so was Gaelik. All created by the two men in this very room to sow their seed as far and wide as possible. Whether in the literal sense, or figurative. And right now, one of his 'sons' were relaying everything to him. That they had found Marcenia and his designated Gaelik had derailed literally. This was not the first time, and certainly would not be the last. 

Gem's expression became smooth again while he communicated with himself to determine the extent the bastard had gone to this time. After all, as a god himself he was tasked at keeping this beast under control. 

"Gaelik," he said as he eyed the dragon who seemed strangely pleased all of a sudden. It was then that he knew that the dragon had learned his little spell of self-communication between bodies, and that he had planned this. 

"I see. You have made your mind then." 

Of course, the crowd of onlookers seemed completely baffled at this sudden exchange, but what could they do? 

"You realize that you are not my only charge, Gaelik?" He smiled as he looked at the smirking beast who was too engrossed in his thoughts to realize what was being said to him. "I hereby charge you with the gross offence of forcing your will on a goddess. Your sentence will be death."

The dragon's head suddenly rolled off its shoulders, the eery smile remaining. 

Gem looked to two men in the crowd. "You want your Macey back? Step through this portal."

A large portal appeared behind him, instant and horrible heat poured into the room, burning everything around it. Felix and Deimios looked at each other for a mere moment before they forcefully stepped through the portal.

He looked to her parents who seemed ready to attack him as well.

"Go ahead."

---

On the open field, as the two young men ran towards where Gaelik was holding Marcenia to him, ensuring that she took in as much of his pheromones as she could, he smiled triumphantly at them.

"Kent, please," Ora begged as he ran, his skin showing very obvious signs of burns. 

While he continued to call out to her, Azrael cast several healing spells over himself and Ora over and over, barely keeping them from completely burning out. His focus was divided between their lives and the young man, now woman, he had grown to love deeply, he had no time to call out as well.

He moved between healing spells to cast a barrier between the black dragon and his beloved, but it did not take. He could feel the power drain from the spell the moment he uttered the first words of the incantation every time. His minute observations indicated that she was the one absorbing his power every time. 

His power was waning quickly. He had never had to use high-level magic in such quick succession over and over and over again, and though his reserves were considered large, he knew that he was no match for this. 

A sudden tear beside them appeared similar to the one that had appeared in his beloved's hands earlier. Momentarily surprised, he could feel the damage on his body intensifying sevenfold. He quickly cast a double spell when he felt a cloak come over him that he had not cast himself. Surprise clouded his face until he looked to his side and found a nearly identical man smiling broadly at him.

"Felix, concentrate on the baffoon in front as well." another shouted and Azrael was even more surprised to find a man with stark white hair that looked identical to Ora running through the tear and quickly hastening his pace at a speed that he could only describe to be unnatural.

He soon learned why as he watched the man suddenly shift into a large dragon as well, a large greyish-white dragon that was as large as the black dragon. 

Another, larger man, swiftly ran past them as well, his hair pitch black and his eyes like that of a beast folk, ready to tear into its prey. Another quickly followed. Then a woman with hair nearly as red as Kent came past him, her eyes equally gold. A smaller woman came huffing after, cursing with each step she took and another man strolled through leisurely. 

"Bellamy, you oaf! How dare you make me run while I'm pregnant!" the small woman screamed and the younger large man completely stalled, twisting back as he turned into a large beast of a wolf much larger than the wolf beast folk they had ever seen before. He quickly picked the small woman up and placed her on his back before he ran forward again. 

Ora and Azrael seemed to both come to a standstill compared to the speeds of the newcomers.

"Ah, the pest comes to claim what is not his again." the black dragon sneered as he watched the new dragon close the distance speedily. 

"Here." Azrael caught an item that the man that resembled him threw at him. "It will replenish you." he suddenly disappeared and reappeared right next to where the dragon landed. 

The newcomers, all except the slow-pacing man, were now in front of the black dragon and Kent. 

"I'm surprised... Did you bring the parents and brother with you? Planning on making this a family affair, Gemanthus?"